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Wikipedia Reaches 100,000th Article

Posted by timothy on Wed Jan 22, 2003 01:57 AM
from the cdrom-size-archives-would-be-nice dept.
The Media
An anonymous reader writes "'Wikipedia, a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development. In addition, the project itself has celebrated its two-year anniversary on January 15. But not just the English version has grown impressively: More than 37,000 articles are now being worked on in the non-English editions of Wikipedia.' Read the press release for more information or visit the website to enlighten yourself! It's great to see that this interactive project works; at least I don't have to boot into Windows to use Encarta anymore!"
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  • A Great Collaborative Success Story (Score:5, Informative)

    by philovivero (321158) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:05AM (#5133337) Homepage Journal
    For any doubters you know that say collaboration can't generate something awesome, Wikipedia is a gigantic, glowing, neon proof that it can, indeed.

    I've spent hours browsing topics on that site, and remain constantly amazed at the depth and breadth of knowledge on it.

    For amusement, look up "slashdot [wikipedia.org]" on it. You will find more history and amusement than you remembered ever living through yourself.

    It even covers the troll era, with entries on Natalie Portman, grits, whatnot (I dare not type too many examples lest I be lameness filtered).

    • Re:A Great Collaborative Success Story (Score:5, Informative)

      by philovivero (321158) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:19AM (#5133386) Homepage Journal
      Sorry for a second post, but another awesome wiki with a more technical bent is at c2 dot com [c2.com] (I linked you to starting points). Another place where I've spent hours and hours and... aaah. Collaboration rocks.
    • For any doubters you know that say collaboration can't generate something awesome, Wikipedia is a gigantic, glowing, neon proof that it can, indeed
      For another great success story, but one that does not (IMHO, YMMV) seem to have the depth of knowledge that Wikipedia.org has is Everything2 [everything2.com].

      While I'm not sure if either of these would qualify under an "open source movement," they seem to uphold many of those ideals (both are made by countless numbers of people, both revolve around things that cover broad topic material, both are freely editable and upgradable by anyone/everyone, both are free (as in beer)). Perhaps people can start to see just how powerful an Open Source movement can be, and begin to use other great tools developed by like-minded people (GPG, *nix, just to name a few!), if they're introduced to wonderful success stories like these.

      Spread the word about great sites and projects like this to your non-Open-Source-knowledgable people. Explain to them in plain terms that they can understand ("it's an online encyclopedia, like WorldBook or Encarta, but it's free"), and we can really see this movement take flight.

    • Re:A Great Collaborative Success Story (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And an even greater success story - so much so that it was listed in the Sunday Times' Top 50 Websites of 2002 - is h2g2 [h2g2.com], the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, as inspired by Douglas Adams' series of the same name.

      It has a nice collection of entries and the community feeling there is wonderful. You should check it out!
    • For amusement, look up "slashdot [wikipedia.org]" on it. You will find more history and amusement than you remembered ever living through yourself.

      Cool. I can relive the /. effect as a chronic hysteresis. Super. Just great. What are we supposed to do now?

      Would you happen to have a key?

      -B

    • I was looking at a couple of entries (Kevlar, AK-47) that I had contributed to in the past (hint, I added Twaron as one of the alternate trade names). One thing that struck me was that I expected them to have added pictures by now. For example, showing the AK-47, with maybe an exploded view and some close-ups, would have been helpful, as would maybe a picture of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor.
    • User-driven volunteer-maintained projects on such a large scale tend to be more unreliable than the alternatives. Just look at DMOZ. Self-interested individuals allowed to run unchecked can ruin the experience.
    • The name was chosen for its humorous URL, "http://slashdot.org" (or "http-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-org").

      : O

      No way!? Damn. I never heard the history of the name, but I always assumed /. was intended to mean vaguely "the root directory" based on the UNIX filesystem. (ie. "cd /." I had kind of had a fanciful more philosophical meaning in my head like that. You know, a kind of "where it all starts", "top of the pile", thing. I guess I read too much into it. :(

  • Am I the only one who is just hearing about this? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by saitoh (589746) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:07AM (#5133342) Homepage
    One would think that educational institutions would snatch something like this up in a heartbeat (same goes for the GPL version of education documents and reference material). Or is it that the maturity of the project isnt near what standard university requirements yet is the hold up?

    • Re:Am I the only one who is just hearing about thi (Score:4, Informative)

      by scrote-ma-hote (547370) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:18AM (#5133382)
      The big problem with this is it's best feature. Accuarcy. I was just browsing the site for something that I know in a reasoable amount of depth, and came across the entry for heart attack [wikipedia.org].

      It states things like "Infarct refers to the artery being plugged or clogged up", where it actually is the death of tissue cause by a lack of oxygen. Things like that restrict it's use severly. I think I'll stick with peer reviewed articles for the moment. Universities tend to have libraries full of them.

    • I don't think you can speak that generally of Wikipedia -- the quality of articles ranges dramatically, but tends to improve with time (even then rather dramatically).

      I've written a few articles, contributed to others, and even replace one. One I'm very impressed with is the Vietnam War article. It has had contributions from many people with many different perspectives and experiences with that war -- veterans and peace activists and others. Emotions have run high in the /talk page more than once, but the product has been more balanced and inclusive than anything I've seen on the subject.

      But there are lots of annoying little problems -- duplicate articles that need to be merged, different models of organizing and presenting the same information that are going to be a bear to reconcile.

      Vandalism is a problem, but not as much as you might thing. I contributed to the "polyhedron" article by resurrecting it (somebody had replaced the text with "concave lenses are cool"). While I had it in front of me, I created a html table for presenting some of the data there.

      This is not a project for those with overly huge egos -- at least, not if they're going to try to do much outside the project -- because, over time, others will come by and change your articles, whether a little or a lot.

      For those looking for peer-review, keep in mind that there are connections between Wikipedia (which is rather wide open) and Nupedia (which is peer reviewed) in both directions.

      I would recommend that everybody look it over and contribute whatever they want to to make it better. But don't expect it to make any other encyclopedia obsolete -- at least, not quite yet.
  • Thank God for free online reference.

    If you've ever priced a full set of encyclopedia... whew... it's around 1200$

    100,000 articles is great... The more the merrier.

    • Re:Free is good (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SN74S181 (581549) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:41AM (#5133444)
      I got my set of Britannicas for fourty cents per volume at a thrift store.

      People are throwing out their classic paper encyclopedias.

      And lets face it: for many topics, i.e. mathematics, history, etc. an old edition of Britannica is damned fine.

      People go out and buy a CDROM version of Britannica and say 'why do we need these books.'

      Ten years from now I will still have my Britannica set. Their CD-ROM won't access in whatever is the latest-greatest-shiney OS.

      Sorry for being a curmudgeon, but it's things like traditional books in traditional libraries that are the basis of our cuture, that got us to the Moon.

  • Everything2 (Score:4, Informative)

    by mr100percent (57156) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:09AM (#5133348) Homepage Journal
    I'm a bigger fan of Everything2.com [everything2.com]. Currently at 479,928 writeups.

      • I just wrote a comment on How and Why E2 works [slashdot.org]. You would do well to read it, because your objections to the fact that users actually own their own content (which is good for the site, and good for the users) are unfounded.

        There's no useful criteria for what is acceptable content and what is not.

        The reason E2 has a graded level system which takes more effort to progress as you go on is that you can learn from higher-level users, and as you gain an understanding of what is and is not popular, your progress is displayed so others can learn from you. In that sense it is MORE collaborative than Wiki.

        The number of votes for an article is often completely irrelevant for whether it is deleted or not -- I've had write-ups with over 25 votes deleted because another write-up in the same node was considered spam. Uh, yeah.

        This does happen. Editors have the final say. It's unfortunate that your WU was blown away but it probably was insufficient to the task of adequately explaining the title of the node. I've had nodes deleted which were factual but an editor found offensive. That's unfortunate, but them's the breaks. I *am* really annoyed that a comment is not required when a node is deleted, but anonymous is okay; we don't need pogroms against editors on E2.

        Discussions are basically impossible because write-ups are supposed to stand on their own.

        You don't want a discussion in a node which should stand on its own. If you have a brilliant discussion with someone on a topic, node the discussion separately and quit whining.

        The fact that WUs should stand on their own is also the reason for no web links. If you have to link to a website to explain something, you haven't explained it. I do list the URLs of my references (when they are websites, as they usually are) so that people can find them for more information. This is the way it is done in professional literature; This is the way it was meant to be done on E2. This is why the bibliography was invented.

        And then the links. On E2, you are almost required to link every third word in an article -- it's about "everything", after all. But there's no distinction made between pages that exist and those that do not. On Wikipedia, links to non-existent pages are red, normal links are blue. On E2, all you can do is guess.

        The lack of a different link color for those links which go somewhere annoys the piss out of me but it's also a blessing. I have been known to click on a link, get frustrated that it doesn't go anywhere, and construct a writeup so that it does.

        E2 is interesting because of its experience system which makes it somewhat addictive. But that very same system rewards quantity, not quality. Gaining experience points is trivial, but to advance to the next level (yes, they actually use RPG-like levels) you have to create lots and lots of write-ups. So many people do, and the result is crap, crap, crap. There may be brilliant prose on Everything2, but it's hard to find. Much of it is like Slashdot at 0/1. Other annoyances: no images, web-links largely prohibited.

        On the other hand, if your writeups are too crappy, then they get nuked, and/or you lose experience due to downvoting. While it IS trivial to gain experience, writing COMPLETE crap will cause you to lose it. Writing crappy writeups and setting them hidden will cause them to get nuked later, with the corresponding drop in level since you need so many WUs and so much XP to stay there. I've lost a level before, though I did get it back five minutes later.

        The experience system does two really major things; it prevents new users from voting, and prevents relatively new users from doing much damage by voting. It DOES also make it addictive (though my interest has somewhat tapered off, and I only need like 20 more WUs to hit level 5, I do a node every two weeks or so lately) which can help produce more content.

        Even a mediocre writeup which provides some content is useful. As per the comment I link above, when it has been superseded, it can be deleted. I have personally superseded a fair number of writeups which were more than a couple paragraphs.

  • answer to my own question... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ack_OZ (64662) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:11AM (#5133355)
    Does anyone know how they make sure all the submissions are accurate?

    from their FAQs ...

    Since anyone can edit any page, why would I give any credence to anything I read here?

    We operate on the idea that many eyeballs make all errors shallow. Wikipedia is, self-consciously, an experiment in public collaboration quite unlike any print or online encyclopedia, and therefore it will be difficult to project the results, in terms of their credibility, until the project is farther along. But even then, you'll have to judge the results based on the articles themselves, rather than the credentials of their writers (which is itself often an unreliable way to determine credibility).

    Some people think Wikipedia will give Britannica a run for its money. m:Making fun of Britannica.

    Some people have plans for peer review or article certification systems to work on top of Wikipedia. We'll be sure to point them out if and when any get up and running.

    • Ermm, forgot to add my own comments to that...

      Personally I think think they should get some sort of moderation system up ASAP ... there are a lot of people out there who just like to break things for the fun of it.

      • Re:answer to my own question... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        That's just hilarious! No self-respecting professor would accept this open-source trash as a reference source. EVER. You need something accreditied. I mean, you could write your own article and submit it, then use yourself as a source! What kind of shit is that?!?
        • That's just hilarious! No self-respecting professor would accept any self published trash as a reference source. EVER. You need something accreditied. I mean, you could write your own book and publish it, then use yourself as a source! What kind of shit is that?!?
        • Nupedia [nupedia.com] is also o free collaborative encyclopedia, but uses rigourous peer review. Comparing Wikipedia and Nupedia, one can see that Wikipedia has articles on much more topics, while the quality is certainly comparable.

      • Re:answer to my own question... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Billly Gates (198444) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:36AM (#5133430) Homepage Journal
        Agreed.

        I am amazed at it and I believe this project may have potential. The problem with a moderation system is how do you prove the accuracy of all the subjects? With over 100,000 articles this could be a problem. What would be nice in addition to a moderation system would be a bio from the author or place where the article originated. If a dispute ever comes by someone with a stronger background could rewrite the article and put his/her bio on it. For example if I want to search for information on aspergers syndrome, I would want an article written by a researcher or phsycology professor and not some mom with a son with the condition.

        If I write a paper with a reference to the page I can also include the bio to prove to my professor that the source is reliable or at the individual is. I do agree if I was a professor I would worry about the quality of the data being published and would only take papers with bibs to the site with a grain of salt. But the bio and the ban on anyone editing anything unless he/she can prove that they are more knowledgeable in the subject then the previous author might make this project work.

        I do think there should be some paid volunteers and experts in particular subjects to check the authenticity of the work. Professors or researchers would be nice. A company sponser would also help since they can pay people to do this. I would think Yahoo for example would love to fund this so they can compete with AOL and Microsoft. They already have the most popular portal on the web.

        I hate the idea of anyone just editing the content. Bad bad bad! Beyond bad. This could kill it.

      • OK, there is some aspect of "moderation" that already exist. The regular contributors to the site, many of whom are rather clueful people and with a variety of political axes to grind, spend a fair bit of time reading other people's edits, and then taking action from a) doing nothing and leaving the new version as is, b) requesting references for the new facts cited, c) modifying the article further, or sometimes d) reverting the edit entirely.

        What the Wikipedia doesn't have is an approval process, where credentialled people can approve a version of the article. There have been some proposals to add such a feature, but nobody's got around to coding one yet. If anybody knows PHP, a little SQL, and is prepared to help add such a thing I'm sure most of the developers and contributors would be delighted. I certainly would.

        As for the actual quality of the Wikipedia, try a random article in an area you're reasonably knowledgable in, and see. And while you're there, fix anything that's wrong :)

  • Quality? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jason1729 (561790) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:14AM (#5133368)
    Is the quality as high as when they started? I went there when they were first mentioned on slashdot. The quality control process they described was very impressive but also daunting for anyone wanting to contribute. If they've reached the 100k article threshold with the same quality control it is world-class resource.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

  • Pretty good breadth (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bigberk (547360) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:24AM (#5133399)
    I've used wikipedia on several occasions and have even contributed a few articles relating to my university, city, and province. What an excellent project!

    The breadth is pretty good. I've looked up things from world history to technical (modern day). I'd have to say the technical entries are stronger than the historical ones.

    I worry a bit about historical inaccuracies, political leanings, bias etc. but then again all that stuff exists in any other published work out there. Maybe this thing we create together, with peer review and editing is no worse (bias-wise) than a collection of documents from a publisher?

  • Wiki for documentation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DrEspenA (517292) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:32AM (#5133424) Homepage
    I recently did some consulting for a large, public organization, and suggested they do their in-house documentation Wiki style. This organization has a huge body of mostly textual documentation for technical equipment - and letting everybody update it seemed to me to be a great idea. You need a couple of organizational safeguards, of course, such as version tracking and rewards for people who do a lot of editing and write well. And you definitely need to assign some people of moderator quality to hammer out a culture of neutral point of view, attention to detail and frequent cross-checking of each others material.

    But the sheer simplicity of this solution, especially if you are starting from available documentation, should, as I have long advocated, make it useful for a lot more than a GPL Encyclopedia.

    • Wiki needs is a phrase or one-liner that helps people visualize what it is/does/and what benefits it has, so that they just get it.

      How about "It's what the web should have been like, in a perfect world."

  • from the Wikipedia page on "Slashdotting" (Score:5, Funny)

    by imag0 (605684) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:34AM (#5133427) Homepage
    Wikipedia has been "slashdotted", July 26, 2001. [wikipedia.org]

    Oops, looks like that one will have to get updated.

  • Duplication of effort (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hcdejong (561314) <acme AT xmsnet DOT nl> on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:41AM (#5133445)

    25 posts, and already 4 alternative online encyclopedias have been mentioned. Isn't this a gigantic waste of effort?

    • Re:Duplication of effort (Score:5, Informative)

      by brion (1316) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @03:37AM (#5133589) Homepage
      H2G2 and everything2 are copyright-encumbered, making it impossible to create derivative works (ie, republishing a culled 'good parts' version, hardcover or CD-ROM editions, or continuing the whole project if the current sponsor drops it) without explicitly licensing content from the BBC or the individual authors.

      Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License [wikipedia.org], making it proof against the current network provider going out of business or losing interest, and opening its content up to reuse and repurposing. This in itself is, I think, worthwhile; what GNU and Linux provide to the world of operating systems, Wikipedia hopes to provide for the encyclopedia: something that's good enough and not subject to draconian use prevention.

      Wikipedia is also a multilingual project [wikipedia.org], with another 37,000 or so entries in the younger sister projects. I believe this is fairly unique among the field of competitors.

      (If you want to talk about duplication of effort, though, see the Enciclopedia Libre [enciclopedia.us.es], a fork of the Spanish section of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] which split last year in protest over a since-repudiated proposal to include optional banner ads on the English section of Wikipedia to help offset the costs of operation.)

  • rap and scratching would go nowhere?

    wiki wiki wiki!
  • apparently the wikipedia is a reference source no slashdotter [wikipedia.org] should be [wikipedia.org] without [wikipedia.org].

  • Amazingly fast updating (Score:5, Funny)

    by csnydermvpsoft (596111) <csnyder@mvpsoft.com> on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:52AM (#5133477) Homepage
    Their page on slashdotting already includes the following: [wikipedia.org]

    Wikipedia has been "slashdotted" on July 26, 2001 and January 22, 2003.

    Talk about timely information!

  • so what about slashdot on internationalization? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lingqi (577227) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @04:07AM (#5133660) Journal
    But not just the English version has grown impressively: More than 37,000 articles are now being worked on in the non-English editions of Wikipedia.

    I don't know - I am not completely certain that slashdot editors actually care about this: I mean, action speaks louder than words.

    • while posting unicode / asian characters in comments used to be possible, now it is not
    • Slashdot *still* does not declare a default character set (UTF-8 would be nice)
    • lameness-filter has bugs when it comes to international characters (especially "non-breaking" ones like chinese, korean, and japanese), but it was decided "not going to fix"

    Now, I have to admit, maybe they are making progress on it and it's just not public yet... but disabling asian character posting (i was encoding in UTF-8, btw) in comments seem like a backward thing if it was going the "internationalizing" direction.

    I sincerely hope that slashdot will be completely UTF-8 someday (it's not that hard, really)... Here's to hoping...

  • Neato concept.
    How feasable would you think it be to burn the site to cd and offer it for sale? I think not only would it make an exellent research tool, but it would be a way to give money to the people who put it on as well.
    For me it would be pretty cool to have a permanent copy if I made a contribution to the site, a nice way to brag about open software and online collaboration as well. Even if you have to bundle it with a tiny httpd server for windows users, it would still rock. That would be something I would happily throw a chunk of change at.

  • Not a troll, but a grouse. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anthony Boyd (242971) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @04:37AM (#5133716) Homepage
    It's great to see that this interactive project works

    Except that it doesn't. Aside from the dozen+ comments here already speculating about the trustworthiness of the write ups, and aside from their own FAQ sort-of disclaiming any level of accuracy, they lose a lot of backend stuff. For example, I contributed a number of write ups. Good luck trying to find my name on any of them. The revision histories got wiped out at some point. My entries have also been wiped out by random strangers, and even reverting the data back isn't much of an option (the last time I tried this, I couldn't revert either because I needed admin authority, or because it no longer showed me as the original author -- whatever the case, I got tired of pasting in my originals, and losing any GOOD edits that qualified people had made).

    I hope it's different now. I gave up on it shortly after the previous slashdot story attracted a ton of people who wanted to screw with the system. I gave up on it because it didn't seem to work well at all. They desperately need moderation systems, the ability to cut off random changes to articles that are verified accurate, the ability to certify people as experts, and so on. All of that could be automated with voting systems. But the people behind the system will need to stop thinking in terms of quantity, and start thinking in terms of quality.

    • For example, I contributed a number of write ups. Good luck trying to find my name on any of them. The revision histories got wiped out at some point.

      The old UseModWiki [usemod.com] software (which was used to run Wikipedia until January 2002) automatically deleted old entries after a couple of weeks. Our newer software keeps track of every edit in every page's history (unless the page is completely deleted, but even then an admin can restore it), but the ones that vanished back then are simply lost to the ages. Other pages had their histories broken by careless rape-and-paste renaming, though this can be corrected manually with some massaging of the database.

      They desperately need moderation systems, the ability to cut off random changes to articles that are verified accurate, the ability to certify people as experts, and so on.

      Of course, no one can agree on the best way to set up moderation! If you really want a moderated Wikipedia, you can do it right now as a secondary project which imports articles and certifies them as 'known good'.

    • This represents one of the classic false truisms (Falsisms?) of the dot com era. Editors are unnecessary. People will have access to all data. But you know, access to a mountain of junk with a few diamonds in it is fine for professional diamond miners. It's a pain the arse for everyone else.

      As for a voting system! In the twenties, the state legislature of Mississippi(?) voted to make pi = 3. Voting doesn't make nonsense true.

      Four or five years ago NPR did an article on how students were using the web. One 16 year old was waxing poetic on how it made his research on Malcolm X so much more efficient. He found one site with everything he needed, well laid out and beautifully organized. What did the site say about the evidence supporting the theory that the Nation of Islam assasinated Malcom? Silence. Whose site was it? The Nation of Islam site.

    • Re:Encarta... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:20AM (#5133390)
      Hmmm. I spent quite a few years working on Encarta. Try looking up some typical 8th grade subjects like Walt Whitman.

      Here's Encarta's article:
      http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/R efArticle. aspx?refid=761570898

      vs. the Wikipedia article: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman%2C_Walt

      You decide what you want your 8th grader to use as a reference.
      • So what? Encarta has been around a lot longer than Wikipedia and has spent many tens of millions of dollars on development. Linux hasn't so hot either at 2 years old - but look at it now. Many Wikipedia articles, in fact, are already about as good or better than their M$ counterparts. One
        example:

        Encarta: [msn.com]
        Lithium

        Wikipedia: Lithium [wikipedia.org]

        It was already demonstrated with your above post that the Wikipedia article was fixed quickly. Just like free software: Many eyes and enough time makes all bugs shallow.

        And when was the last time you were able to fix an error or add to an article in any encyclopedia? Wikipedia gives the power to the users instead of keeping all the power in the hands of a select few. Knowledge of the by the people and for the people.

        --mav
    • Well, it's chock full of the kind of people who think 'Metaphysics' is a bookshelf full of crappy paperbacks from Llewllyn Publishing.

      So yes, it's sort of 'alternative' and all that, and bound to be crowded with cranks. It's sort of like 'The People's Almanac' from back in the 70s that way.

    • Re:Correctness (Score:5, Insightful)

      by brion (1316) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @02:48AM (#5133458) Homepage
      You should always consult multiple sources of information if you're concerned about bias and correctness. That goes for your Brittanica or Microsoft encyclopedia, too.

      The thing that makes Wikipedia a little different is that, once you've consulted other sources and come to your own balanced conclusions, you can edit the article to bring it more in line with accuracy and the project's Neutral Point of View [wikipedia.org] goal/policy.

      A malicious or unthinking person could skew it away, but so can you put it back on track.

      In addition, as the 'pedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, you're welcome to republish a culled version that includes only 'known good' revisions of articles. There has been some talk of a semi-official project along these lines run by Wikipedia's former editor, Larry Sanger, but it hasn't been put into place yet.

      Remember, Wikipedia is still very much under construction; it's only two years old and just getting the hang of walking around. There's no need to rush into driving yet. ;)

    • Re:comparison (Score:4, Informative)

      by brion (1316) on Wednesday January 22 2003, @03:01AM (#5133497) Homepage
      You'll find some vague comparisons to paper encyclopedias at Wikipedia:Size comparisons [wikipedia.org]. It's hard to compare directly, though; Wikipedia tends to divide up large subjects into a number of separate entries, and includes quite a few entries on subjects that aren't likely to be in traditional encyclopedias (imported US Census data on 30,000 communities, including one-horse towns in the midwest somewhere of little historical importance; culturally significant films, games, internet culture phenomena, yadda yadda).

      If you're interested in publishing a dead-tree edition, we'd love to hear from you [wikipedia.org]. ;)

    • Re:Proof that Wiki doesn't suck (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22 2003, @05:51AM (#5133929)
      OK that entry was created only last week. Give the process some time will ya?

      What you read was only the 4th or 5th draft. If you see the edit history you will find that another contributor (not the original author) removed the less than neutral prose. But the original author put it back in only /hours/ before you read it. The second user hasn't seen the changes yet but other users are discussing the article on the talk page trying to work out the neutrality issue.

      In the meantime I have edited the article for neutrality - it still in unbalanced by the fact that most of the entry is about the current alcohol issue, but that will change in time.

      You too can edit the article to add other aspects of this man's life.

      But to dismiss a whole 2 year old project over a week old article is rather simplistic.

      --mav
    • Since you know about the subject, why didn't you take 5 minutes to fix at least the more obvious errors?

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