I'm curious if you've thought much about why Geography articles have lower starting quality than the other categories. I remember reading about rambot. Any idea what categories have the most bot-created stubs? -- Evoapps ( talk) 21:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
In short, geographical articles are amazingly easy to start, but too often amazingly difficult to develop beyond a Stub class. -- llywrch ( talk) 23:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
The second way to determine if an article is incomplete is to ask, "Does this article provide the information that a reader would reasonably expect to be there?" (This is my admittedly subjective method of determining the difference between a stub article & a start class article.) Consider geographical articles: a reader of Wikipedia who looks for an article on a settlement would reasonably expect to be told where that settlement is. That reader would also expect to find some other information -- the population, details of the history of the settlement, details of the people, what can be found there, etc. -- to varying degrees. For example, one would expect to find a mention of Tammany Hall in the Wikipedia article on New York City, but a 5,000 word discussion of local politics in an article about an African village would be surprising & excessive. But even an article about an African village would be improved if it contained something about what is there -- e.g., does it have a church? A mosque? A mission? A traditional shrine? And to repeat my earlier comment, it can be difficult from several thousand miles away to state what is there. FWIW, I remember reading an article in an academic journal lamenting that there is no public list of all religious missions in any African country, let alone all of Africa. Wikipedia can only report what has been published, & unfortunately only experience can determine what has been published on different topics. -- llywrch ( talk) 17:16, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
@ Llywrch and Evoapps: So sorry that I missed this conversation earlier. I think the explanation below is consistent with Llywrch, but adds a bit.
Notice that there are 3.8 times more GEO, Eastern Hemisphere than GEO, Western Hemisphere articles. The sample used here reflects that (see the data table at the bottom of the user page). GEO,E articles are much worse than GEO, W on average. This is probably because of bots being used to start articles, but also because there are more regular editors living in the US and Canada than almost anywhere in the East. UK GEO articles are more like GEO, W articles. South American GEO articles are more like GEO, E articles. The anglophone countries simply have more editors interested in them and more info in their own language, plus, as pointed out above, better internet access. I've thought of testing the "more editors interested" hypothesis by comparing community population vs. article size in the US, but people would probably think it is too obvious - bigger towns get bigger articles. So I couldn't really get at "towns with more interested English language editors get bigger articles."
Maybe the takeaway here is that we should ask Poles to translate their articles on Polish towns to English, Russians to translate their articles on Russian places to English, etc. Smallbones( smalltalk) 01:24, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
As for importing articles from other Wikipedias, I would hope that would work, but I'm honestly surprised how often Wikipedias in languages where there are better sources than in English -- e.g., French & German for ancient Egypt & ancient Greece & Rome -- are translations of English Wikipedia articles. I guess for some people it's easier to translate from English than it is to research in their native tongue. :-/ llywrch ( talk) 22:14, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm curious if you've thought much about why Geography articles have lower starting quality than the other categories. I remember reading about rambot. Any idea what categories have the most bot-created stubs? -- Evoapps ( talk) 21:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
In short, geographical articles are amazingly easy to start, but too often amazingly difficult to develop beyond a Stub class. -- llywrch ( talk) 23:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
The second way to determine if an article is incomplete is to ask, "Does this article provide the information that a reader would reasonably expect to be there?" (This is my admittedly subjective method of determining the difference between a stub article & a start class article.) Consider geographical articles: a reader of Wikipedia who looks for an article on a settlement would reasonably expect to be told where that settlement is. That reader would also expect to find some other information -- the population, details of the history of the settlement, details of the people, what can be found there, etc. -- to varying degrees. For example, one would expect to find a mention of Tammany Hall in the Wikipedia article on New York City, but a 5,000 word discussion of local politics in an article about an African village would be surprising & excessive. But even an article about an African village would be improved if it contained something about what is there -- e.g., does it have a church? A mosque? A mission? A traditional shrine? And to repeat my earlier comment, it can be difficult from several thousand miles away to state what is there. FWIW, I remember reading an article in an academic journal lamenting that there is no public list of all religious missions in any African country, let alone all of Africa. Wikipedia can only report what has been published, & unfortunately only experience can determine what has been published on different topics. -- llywrch ( talk) 17:16, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
@ Llywrch and Evoapps: So sorry that I missed this conversation earlier. I think the explanation below is consistent with Llywrch, but adds a bit.
Notice that there are 3.8 times more GEO, Eastern Hemisphere than GEO, Western Hemisphere articles. The sample used here reflects that (see the data table at the bottom of the user page). GEO,E articles are much worse than GEO, W on average. This is probably because of bots being used to start articles, but also because there are more regular editors living in the US and Canada than almost anywhere in the East. UK GEO articles are more like GEO, W articles. South American GEO articles are more like GEO, E articles. The anglophone countries simply have more editors interested in them and more info in their own language, plus, as pointed out above, better internet access. I've thought of testing the "more editors interested" hypothesis by comparing community population vs. article size in the US, but people would probably think it is too obvious - bigger towns get bigger articles. So I couldn't really get at "towns with more interested English language editors get bigger articles."
Maybe the takeaway here is that we should ask Poles to translate their articles on Polish towns to English, Russians to translate their articles on Russian places to English, etc. Smallbones( smalltalk) 01:24, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
As for importing articles from other Wikipedias, I would hope that would work, but I'm honestly surprised how often Wikipedias in languages where there are better sources than in English -- e.g., French & German for ancient Egypt & ancient Greece & Rome -- are translations of English Wikipedia articles. I guess for some people it's easier to translate from English than it is to research in their native tongue. :-/ llywrch ( talk) 22:14, 22 April 2016 (UTC)