I think Charles is right about this. There is a common conception, or misconception, that stubship or start-class-ship is just a way station on the way to articlehood. But some articles are probably destined to remain short, or at least, can remain short without their shortness reflecting poorly on the project. I don't know if there are any statistics, but I am sure that the Britannica (for example) has at least as many one- or two- or three-paragraph articles as lengthier ones.
It may be that the wording of the stub template fosters this reading. "This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it." Often, of course, but perhaps not always. Newyorkbrad On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:23 AM, Charles Matthews < [email protected]> wrote: > On 14/02/2011 03:35, Ian Woollard wrote: > > I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of > > the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted, > > whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to. > While this discussion is worth having, I wish to record a view, now long > held, by means of a metaphor. Wikipedia is an omelette, not scrambled > eggs. Because of the intrinsic use of of hypertext, taking WP to be (in > the large) a collection of articles is always a distortion. If the "few > people" who go to a stub are just those who would refer to a > corresponding footnote in a book, the system as a whole is functioning > as it should. > > Charles > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
