Wikipedia talk:Largest encyclopedia

Special:Statistics

Should information on this page be merged onto the Special:Statistics page? The Special:Statistics page is currently linked to in the main page intro text under the article count: "6,904,636."

Linked to directly from the main page intro?

On this topic on the main page discussion page I wrote:

The article count [on the main page]... ties in to one of the central definitions of the Wikipedia project: in terms of article topics, Wikipedia is a far more comprehensive encyclopedia than there has ever been. [...]

For many readers, Wikipedia's unmatched article breadth will be as valuable as that it's free. Even the university librarians I've talked with admire Wikipedia's article breadth. IMO, "6,904,636" [on the main page] should link to largest encyclopedia, which explains what this enormous article count means in relation to other encyclopedias, as well as the limitations of what it means, which is also very important. --Nectarflowed 12:47, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This was followed by a support from User:Randy Johnston

I later wrote:

Intro: 'Is Wikipedia valuable?'

IMHO, in the intro line and the linked intro pages, just as important as conveying that 'anyone can edit,' is that Wikipedia is valuable, not just a strange knowledge project in which 'anyone can mess with pages.' We have to remember that many visitors may be initially skeptical of the idea.

I think the easiest way to work toward this is to (1) link 6,904,636 to largest encyclopedia, or to (2) merge some of the points discussed on largest encyclopedia into Special:Statistics. The general public only minimally cares how Wikipedia collects its statistics, which is what the Special:Statistics link covers at the time of this writing. What is relevant about the statistics is how they compare with other encyclopedias.

An early criticism of Wikipedia thought Wikipedia's ambitions of reaching 50,000 articles were laughably ambitious. However, most readers will not realize what 6,904,636 articles means unless we tell them. --Nectarflowed 00:11, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

--Nectarflowed 02:42, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just thought I'd mention that according to Guiness World Records 2005, the largest encyclopedia has 168,000 pages, and is in 200 volumes. If Wikipedia was a book, would it be that big? Oh, in case you were wondering, the encyclopedia is Arabic, and contains legislative documents. 168.170.46.5 20:19, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is now larger than ESPASA

The Encyclopdia ESPASA, in Spanish has, acording to the Spanish Wikipedia, 117 Volumes, 175,000 pages, 200 million words, 197,.000 ilustrations in black and white, 4,500 ilustrations in color, 5 million bibliographic references and 100,000 biographies.--tequendamia 13:16, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is Wikipedia the largest encyclopedia currently?

As of 9th June 2006, has Wikipedia reached the official status as the the largest encyclopedia ever created? --S iva1979^{Talk to me} 20:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move this somewhere?

This page doesn't seem to stand on its own very well - could it be merged into one of the related pages like Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia or Wikipedia:Size comparisons? Richard001 03:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]