[Wikipedia-l] Re: Breadth test

[Michael R. Irwin]

Hi all, sorry if this does not thread properly, already erased orginal
message.  Oops!  Sorry about the duplicate to list-admin.

I think I sort of inverted Jimbo's methodology and took 10 random pages 
from Wikipedia and then compared to the search results in the 
encyclopedia category at xrefer.org, if no hits were found there then 
I searched all categories.   In some cases I searched for closely
related 
links accessible links in stubs.

results (my tally at the bottom):

1.  Montgomery

Wikipedia   
 OUCH! Disambiguation page.  Mainly on named locations, 86 U.S. 
locations, 18 counties, a couple of history facts about people 
places are named after.

xrefer.org over 50 hits mostly on:

a.  Montgomery, Bernard Law 1rst yada yada WWII General of Eighth Army
       1 paragraph "The Oxford Paperback" (top)
       6 concise paragraph biosketch - The Macmillan Encyclopedia (tmme)
       1 page biograhy - Who's Who in the Twentieth Century: 
                         Oxford University Press (wwtc)

    Wikipedia
       6 short paragraphs, about the same as (tmme)

       Wikipedia in the low middle of the pack.

b.  Montgomery, Alabama - Confederacy capital, first capital of Alabama,
civil rights incidents
    
    xrefer.org 
    1 concise paragraph - Oxford Paperback Edition (ope) 
                          Oxford University Press

    1 concise paragraph - (tmme)
    slightly different facts

    No hits on counties or cities other than Montgomery, Alabama.

    Wikipedia
    Bunch of County and City Stubs ranging from 500 bytes to 2500 bytes,
    most need work.

    Wikipedia wins on breadth but needs work in all articles.

c.  Montgomery, Lucy Maud  Poet
    
    xrefer.org
        Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Woman (pbdw)
        One paragraph citing several works

    Wikipedia
        One concise paragraph followed by list of all works.

    Wikipedia has more information.

Call this article a tie with Wikipedia in the lower middle
of the pack.  Started with one apple and ended up comparing
three oranges and grapefruit.

2.  choir

    Wikipedia
      Excellent article.  A candidate soon for brilliant prose.
      Has some hooks for further information.
      Excellent work lately by Koyannis Quatsi and Tbackstr

    xrefer.org
      (tmme) one paragraph stub
      (others) one line definitions

Wikipedia wins this one, hands down.

3.  substantia nigra

    Wikipedia

       Technical definition stub, links to slightly 
       better stub dopamine.

    xrefer.org
       No hits on substantia nigra
       12 hits on middle brain, nothing directly equivalent

Wikipedia scores on breadth, still needs work to be
an adequate technical medical dictionary or encyclpedia.    
Unless, of course, nothing is known of midbrain, which
I doubt.

4.  Seamus Heaney

   Wikipedia
      3 short (1-2 sentence) paragraphs, sketchy bio.

   xrefer.org
      1 paragraph Oxford English Reference Dictionary (oerd)
      1 paragraph (ope)
      1 paragraph (tmme)
      2 long paragraphs (wwtc)

xrefer - My impresssion was that two xrefer.org were 
at least slightly better and a couple were
better than Wikipedia.

5.  Netherlands Cabinet Balkenende-1

   Wikipedia
      This crashed my Win98/Nav 4.7 3 times, once
      after reboot.

      In mozilla, it is an excellent informatative
      article providing lots of information.  Recently
      relocated from Politics of Netherlands it appears
      to be election and subsequent organization results
      of the Netherlands governing bodies.  Excellent
      supporting article for Politics of Netherlands.

   xrefer.org
      No hits on Netherlands Cabinet Balkenendre-1
      6 hits on Netherlands Politics, all historical figures
      7 hits on Netherlands Elections, 15th-18th century

Wikipedia scores, at least against the search engine at xrefer.

6.  1058
   
    Wikipedia 2 events, 2 deaths, (priests and kings)
    
        Looked sketchy till I played with the links, Very nice!
        Not quite a time machine but quick temporal browing! 8)

    xrefer.org
      (tmme) and (ope) have several kings, priests 
       and/or poets in one liners that Wikipedia does not.
       I have notes and this shall be easily rectified,
       until then however ....

xrefer.org scores, Wikipedia lacking some detail, at least
      under the date index .... I did not search for the
      information direct.  Still, the links are missing if
      the info is not, legitimate hit.

7.  Free Convection

     Wikipedia
        Stubby definition with link to a fair one page 
        article on convection.

     xrefer.org
        Not hits on "free convection"
        Convection yields two one paragraph definitions
        in dictionaries.

Wikipedia, say one half point?

8.  Kamov

     Wikipedia
        Stubby definiton of a company with links to
        good helicopter and aircraft articles.
        External link to russian company web site
        available in English yields yummy photos and
        specifications.
    
     xrefer.org
        No hits on Kamov

        3 hits on "Russian Helicopters" All on
        Russian born American helicopter designer
        Sikorsky.

        No hits on "russian helicopter manufacturer"

Wikiipedia scores on breadth.  Unless someone deletes
this stub before it fleshes out.  Notice one link
adjacency to good portal articles .... spare this
meagre beginning fellow sages, I beseech thee.

Sorry, back to work.
     
9.  Margaret II of Denmark
 
   Wikipedia
      Very poor stub, birth and ascension of currently
      reigning monarch.

   xrefer.org  "Margrethe II" comes up from search
      Penguin Biographical Dictionary provides 3 paragraph
      biographical sketch.  Concise but many particulars.

      The Mcmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
      1 long paragraph, better than Wikipedia's stub.

Wikipedia takes a hit on depth and detail.
     
10.  Illyrian
     
   Wikipedia

     Stubby technical definition linked back to Illyria
     which is 7 paragraph, 10-12 sentences total history stub 
     with many links.  Pretty good factual presentation but
     looks and feels sketchy.  Also has links to modern
     Albania and Bosnia.

   xrefer.org

      One paragraph, about same quantity of information as
      Wikipedia.  No internal links.  Oxford English Reference
Dictionary

      2 ext links
         Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia  2 sentence stub
         (tmme)  6 sentence stub.     

I give the edge to Wikipedia.


Tally ho!

Wikipedia has articles as good or better than xrefer.org
resources .....  7.5/12

xrefer is as good or better 
than wikipedia.org  .... 7/12

Of course we scored a few cheap ones outside of xrefer.org's
stated scope.   Still, not bad for a project in progress.
Results similar to Jimbo's but letting Wikipedia pick the 
topics switched the edge.  I look foward to seeing
other peoples' homework.  8)

Regards,
Mike Irwin

P.S.  I shall of course be doing some fact checking, 
entering and editing with the careful notes resulting
from this exercise.   A quantum here, and an essay
there, it all adds up.