[Wikipedia-l] Big ... bigger ... the biggest ... encyclopaedic articles ... (was quantity vs. quality)

[Sabine Cretella]

Just forwarding you what I wrote on my blog about this theme ...

Ciao, Sabine


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I already wrote about this some time ago ... it is the never ending 
struggle and fight between two worlds:

- any length is fine, also just one sentence because this sentence gives 
basic information
- only long articles are good

Uhmmm ... well: I would like to invite you to come into a book store 
<http://amazon.com/Encyclopedias-Reference-Books/b/ref=amb_link_10/002-9514074-9703228?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=11713&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=browse&pf_rd_r=1E27CQ6C07SCH79YGR99&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=236728501&pf_rd_i=21> 
... wow ... more than 29000 entries there. You find anything there ... 
general encyclopaedias in just one volume and many of the entries have a 
lengths of just one sentence (like: Maiori is a city in the South of 
Italy, on the Amalfi Coast, in the province of Salerno, region 
Campania). There are specialised encyclopaedias with very specific 
articles let's take an example, maybe about biology. There are the 
really big ones like the Britannica. Now each of them has a certain kind 
of target audience.

What is Wikipedia's audience? The general reader that could be happy 
enough with knowing that Maiori is a town in Italy, the highly 
specialised one that want to know all about a specific animal we maybe 
don't all know or those who want to read those huge articles? Who is our 
audience? All of them or just the "elite" of encyclopaedia readers that 
would say that one sentence about a town somewhere in the world is not 
enough? Uhmmm ... but what is Wikipedia's basic scope: "Provision of 
information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge via the 
Internet." (I am quoting from the article about Wikipedia 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia> on the English wikipedia).

Reading that and considering what a wiki is: all discussions about what 
is better, best, worse, worst etc. don't need to be discussed. If we are 
NPOV all of these versions are equally valuable and Wikipedia having its 
unique goal and being a wiki can combine all three of them in one. Isn't 
that incredible? So why limit what can be added? Even a small sentence 
can be of value ... and even a town or place that seems to be irrelevant 
to one can be relevant to somebody else. Who are we to say (just as an 
example): this city or river may not go into wikipedia as a stub since 
it is not relevant enough ... who tells us what is relevant or not? 
Wouldn't it be against the NPOV policy?

Oh yes, now I hear some shouting: but there are then 5000 articles about 
cities that are just stubs and the wikipedia seems to be bigger as it is 
... well: go to the library, take one of those general encyclopaedias 
and look into it ... remember: for a kid one sentence telling where a 
city is often is enough - if there is more: even better, but that 
sentence can be a huge help when they study.

Imagine one thing, at the moment I am writing I don't have a clue on how 
many articles there are on nap.wikipedia ... I never really cared about 
numbers ... you don't believe it? Ask people who know me ... I simply 
don't look at that stuff. I contribute to wikis because I like to do it 
- it is irrellevant where and what and when. It is irrelevant how many 
edits I do ... I don't know how many there are around of mine. What 
counts is that we do what we do because we love to do it.

I repeat: each article, even of only one sentence can be of high value 
for somebody searching for information ... don't exclude the small ones, 
please and stop counting numbers ... it will help you a lot. We are not 
in competition - we are co-operating projects, that's all there is to it.

--
Posted By Sabine Cretella to words & more 
<http://sabinecretella.blogspot.com/2007/05/big-bigger-biggest-encyclopaedic.html> 
at 5/03/2007 10:06:00 PM