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This is wrong. Low view articles cost essentially nothing to host. The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage.

This is wrong. Low view articles cost essentially nothing to host. The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage. Also rejected articles don't get deleted from the system they just get moved to the draft section which is hidden from search results.

ardy42 8y ago
> This is wrong. Low view articles cost essentially nothing to host. The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage. Also rejected articles don't get deleted from the system they just get moved to the draft section which is hidden from search results. That's wrong. Low view articles still cost volunteer time to maintain, otherwise many would become home to malicious edits. That's a kind of hosting cost. Also, deleted articles on Wikipedia are removed such that only admins can see them. I don't think it's common to remove them to the drafts area unless they're under construction and have some hope of meeting standards.
- scrollaway 8y ago
  Malicious edits don't scale with the number of articles, they scale with the number of edits and users. If all of a sudden Wikipedia gained 10 million more articles, there would not be more malicious edits per day than there are now without the amount of malicious users increasing.
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > Malicious edits don't scale with the number of articles, they scale with the number of edits and users. If all of a sudden Wikipedia gained 10 million more articles, there would not be more malicious edits per day than there are now without the amount of malicious users increasing. But some fraction of malicious edits aren't caught as they are made, and those will remain until they're accidentally noticed by someone and fixed. That's also true about honest errors and mistakes. If you add 10 million more articles, they'll either distract "accidental" QA from more popular articles, or (more likely) not receive an adequate amount of accidental QA at all.
beaconstudios 8y ago
> The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage Where can you store that amount of data for so cheap? Of course I'm assuming that you're including images in the size and not just raw text.

ardy42 8y ago

> This is wrong. Low view articles cost essentially nothing to host. The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage. Also rejected articles don't get deleted from the system they just get moved to the draft section which is hidden from search results. That's wrong. Low view articles still cost volunteer time to maintain, otherwise many would become home to malicious edits. That's a kind of hosting cost. Also, deleted articles on Wikipedia are removed such that only admins can see them. I don't think it's common to remove them to the drafts area unless they're under construction and have some hope of meeting standards.

scrollaway 8y ago
Malicious edits don't scale with the number of articles, they scale with the number of edits and users. If all of a sudden Wikipedia gained 10 million more articles, there would not be more malicious edits per day than there are now without the amount of malicious users increasing.
- ardy42 8y ago
  > Malicious edits don't scale with the number of articles, they scale with the number of edits and users. If all of a sudden Wikipedia gained 10 million more articles, there would not be more malicious edits per day than there are now without the amount of malicious users increasing. But some fraction of malicious edits aren't caught as they are made, and those will remain until they're accidentally noticed by someone and fixed. That's also true about honest errors and mistakes. If you add 10 million more articles, they'll either distract "accidental" QA from more popular articles, or (more likely) not receive an adequate amount of accidental QA at all.

beaconstudios 8y ago

> The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage Where can you store that amount of data for so cheap? Of course I'm assuming that you're including images in the size and not just raw text.