[WikiEN-l] Scale of online resources, was Re: Rating the English wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

On 07/27/11 2:42 AM, Charles Matthews wrote:
> On 27/07/2011 08:49, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> On 07/26/11 3:13 AM, Charles Matthews wrote:
>>> On 20/07/2011 10:17, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>>> I missed reading this thread when it was active, but my own estimate of
>>>> what still needs to be done in historical biographies alone is quite
>>>> high.
>>> Yes, that is one area where the material seems available to do much
>>> more.
>>>
>>>> An estimate of 20,000,000 English
>>>> Wikipedia articles seems increasingly conservative.  The amount of work
>>>> to be done is enormous even without having to fight with the notability
>>>> police.
>>> On the other hand, the number of active Wikipedians who know where their
>>> next 1000 articles are coming from is quite small, IMX. The emphasis on
>>> enWP is hardly on being prolific: quality is more highly rated than
>>> quantity. That may not be wrong, of course, but to some extent these
>>> things are a matter of personal taste, and should remain so. We could do
>>> with better support of the "good stub" concept, I think: probably an
>>> example of "tacit knowledge" about the site, in that editors who have
>>> been around for a while know what that means, while the manual pages
>>> have a different slant.
>>>
>>> All discussions of the "notability" concept we use seem to end up with
>>> the generally broken nature of the thing. It is just that there is no
>>> snappy replacement. WP:GNG is a bit objectionable in the insistence on
>>> "secondary sources"; it is not completely silly but is not that helpful
>>> either when you start pushing the limits.
>> Perhaps this requires a clearer description of what is essential to a
>> good stub.
> I think a discussion of the nature of "good stubs", in relation though
> to what we know (or rather guess) about the "long tail" of reference
> material that is "out there" in some form, sounds like an interesting
> one to have, and not one I recall having before. Basically there are
> things that (a) people could want to look up, (b) for which
> "footnote"-style answers exist and are verifiable, and (c) could appear
> at that sort of length in WP, where they would be an asset rather than
> an embarrassment. And we still don't know that much about the whole
> population of such things.

In the shorter obituary notices of Gentleman's  Magazine the information 
often follows a predictable pattern.  To the extent that it is within 
predefined parameters it could fit well in a "List of ..." article.  If 
a particular entry goes beyond that there is a strong argument that it 
warrants a stub article of its own.  The notion that a second source be 
provided is often unsound. While there is always the possibility of hoax 
entries in these old magazines, such entries would still be a tiny 
segment of the overall content. The majority of contributors, then as 
now, do so in good faith. A stub from one of these broadly based 
national publications, will often only be mirrored in a local history 
that had a very small circulation.  Those who complain about these 
stubs, are often unwilling to track down even relatively common references.

>> The WP:GNG is opaque and bureaucratic. It is not suitable to much of
>> the 19th century material that I have.  "Notes and Queries is a
>> fascinating publication where the readership answered questions posed
>> by others. Providing other sources for this could be extremely
>> difficult, and none of it comes close to being subject to BLP
>> requirements
>
Ec