[Wikipedia-l] Re: Death to the comma count!

[Daniel Mayer]

On Sunday 09 March 2003 04:00 am, Brion Vibber wrote:
> For months and months we've talked about revamping the article count
> system, but nothing's changed. The article count is still an extension
> of the "comma count" used to filter out empty articles in a search back
> in the UseMod days.
>
> Currently, a page is counted as an "article" for "we have X articles"
> purposes if it is:
>   * in the article namespace (so excludes talk pages, user
>     pages, Wikipedia: help and utility pages)
>   * not a redirect
>   * contains a comma (!)

This is true.

> Now, we are well aware that page-count fever has gripped Wikipedia for
> some time. The obsession with breaking the 100,000-page barrier on the
> English stifled any implementation of reforms for fear of reducing the
> count. Concerns about languages which don't use the ASCII comma
> character have been shrugged off. Well, today I've seen enough.

What? Why are you blaming the English Wikipedia for this? If anything *AT ALL* 
people on en.wiki wanted a much more conservative count in order to put-off 
hitting 100,000 articles. There was general agreement on that point. But the 
agreement stopped there and different people had different ideas on just what 
to do and no consensus emerged. I and several others wanted to have the 
article count to only count pages in the article namespace that were more 
than 500 bytes. However, if this were implemented now, it would reduce 
en.wiki's count to below the 100,000 mark and most other wikis would have 
their counts cut in half or worse though. 

We could have a separate count that has the more conservative definition 
(perhaps with a threshold that could be set per wiki). Call it 
{{HEADLINEARTICLECOUNT}} maybe. But the {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} count should be 
the same for all wikis for comparison purposes (threshold=50 or 100 bytes 
perhaps - or we could simply keep the comma count for {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}).

I think this method would be able to satisfy the huge en.wiki that is mildly 
embarrassed of its inflated count and many of the other wikis that are vying 
for second place.   

> While the English wiki has galumphed along for ages, secure in its place
> as The World's Largest Damn Wiki, the smaller languages are in intense
> (though friendly) competition with one another for runner-up positions.
> "In real life," Youssefsan tells me, "people look for economic growth;
> here for page growth. Both use 'creative accounting.'"
>
> On the francophone Wikipedia, we have been exposed as the slaves to the
> comma count that we all are but are ashamed to admit. See:
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=3DCULTe&action=3Dedit&oldid=3D33
>= 814

So you want to inflate the count then by removing the comma requirement? I 
don't think that's such a good idea for en.wiki since it further weakens our 
already weak article definition.  

> (Those who have trouble with my PGP-signed mail, go to fr.wikipedia.org,
> look up article 'CULTe', and hit 'Modifier cette page'.)
>
> Yes that's right, people have started adding commas as hidden comments
> just to increase the stupid comma count. NO MORE, I say! Ils ne
> passeront pas!

That's not a good thing - esp for small articles. The whole point of the comma 
count is to exclude small articles so adding commas in HTML comments is 
cheating for any language that uses ASCII commas as often as English does. 
Other languages don't use ASCII commas much if at all so the count is 
worthless for them. 

> Unless a better count system is proposed, I will replace the comma check
> with a greater-than-zero-size check within twelve hours.

And what about the people who get the digest after your 12 hour deadline? How 
about the other people who only check or respond to Wikipedia posts during 
the week? Shouldn't they have a say in this? 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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