[WikiEN-l] AfD Threshold being Revised Downward Again?

Tue Sep 20 20:11:44 UTC 2005

Folks,

There is no potential tipping point that I can see for information being
added to the system other than the capacity of the system to organise and
retrieve information.

The reason I say this is that we see:

   - at least one national, provincial or even municipal election held a
   week on average with new people being elected;
    - albums, movies and books being released each week;
   - musicians, actors, directors and authors becoming notable as a
   result of above regularly;
   - launch of notable new companies and businesses through IPOs and
   other processes;
   - a steady flow of scientific discoveries ;
   - notable national disasters occurring regularly (we have had two very
   significant ones occur within twelve months in the Indian Ocean tsunami and
   Hurricane Katrina); and
    - regular launch of notable new products.

The only potential limit is the capacity of the system to organise and
retrieve such information.

Keith
aka Capitalistroadster

On 9/21/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> > A couple of days ago I was on the verge of taking this matter very
> > seriously.
> >
> > Then I looked at the net growth rate of the Wikipedia page count. Around
> > 1500 new pages per day remaining undeleted after seven days. I compared
> it
> > to the sclerotic maximum capacity of Articles for Deletion (AfD)
> (average of
> > 112 listings per day early June to early September) and the fact that
> AfD
> > participants complain bitterly about their inability to keep up with AfD
> at
> > present.
> >
> Tony's observation reminds me of a question I've pondered off & on over
> the last couple of months, which I'm adding to the mail list on the off
> chance someone may want to study it.
>
> Simply put: is there a point in Wikipedia's size where it's current growth
> will taper off or stop? I don't mean to repeat the old chestnut that
> knowledge is somehow finite: put in different words, is there a certain
> point where contributors will find it far easier to work on existing
> articles than to contribute new ones?
>
> (This is a problem that I doubt we'll encounter until Wikipedia reaches
> somewhere between 5 & 10 million articles, but I think it is a potential
> problem.)
>
> > Bottom line: AfD doesn't scale. Whatever problems may exist with AfD's
> > tendency to randomly delete a selection of perfectly reasonable
> articles,
> > and VFU's growing unwillingness to rectify this, the problem will
> decrease
> > in significance in the long term as page creation rates accelerate
> > inexorably beyond the reach of AfD, and possibly even any defensible
> > extension of speedy deletion.
>
> If there is such a tipping point, we may find that AfD (in whatever form
> it has at the time) not only will be able to keep up with the flow, but
> may actually reduce the size of Wikipedia!
>
> Nevertheless, I admit Tony addresses a problem that will likely be seen
> far sooner than mine.
>
> Geoff
>
>
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