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I'm not sure I'd say it's the 2nd-largest. Second-most articles, yes, which is a different metric. Total size of an encyclopedia has to include not only the num

I'm not sure I'd say it's the 2nd-largest. Second-most articles, yes, which is a different metric. Total size of an encyclopedia has to include not only the number of headings, but how much text is under them! For traditional paper encyclopedias, something like word-count is typically used, though that is tricky to use across languages, since languages have different notions of what constitutes a word (and different information rates, if you want to get into that). Something like "compressed size of the database" might be an approximation for encyclopedia size that normalizes for different languages' use of words & UTF-8 bytes.

fiskpinne 12y ago
I agree, I'm a swede myself but almost always use the English version because the Swedish articles usually contains very little information.
- chton 12y ago
  It's exactly the same thing for me in Dutch. There are a lot of articles, sure, but the content is woeful. And there aren't even bots that artificially inflate the numbers there.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    I agree for general articles, but for an article that has regional specificity, I'll look up the article in the local language and use an online translator.
    - _delirium 12y ago
      Yeah, I do that with French and German especially. For very well-known people and places, the English article is usually good, but if you want something only moderately known, like a French writer who is historically important, but not Voltaire-level famous, there's a good chance the other (in this case French) article will be more complete. Also true for Japanese Wikipedia articles on Japanese people and places. But Google-translated Japanese->English is hard to read, so I unfortunately rarely consult those. On the other hand, some of the smaller-language Wikipedias can be quite one-sided and nationalist when it comes to local topics, especially disputed history.
    - chton 12y ago
      I do the same, but for most subjects the english article is enough. I rarely need more detailed information than that, but if I do, and I need it, I will use a translator too.
jcampbell1 12y ago
Good point. From an analysis of parallel UN documents, it seems that character counts are about 10% higher in Spanish/French/Russian than English. The same documents are translated to Chinese with about 1/4 the total characters. My instinct is that character count is a pretty good approximation of size for European languages, but a big adjustment would need to be made for some Asian languages where a character is more like a syllable in european languages. http://www.uncorpora.org/Rafalovitch_Dale_MT_Summit_2009.pdf http://www.uncorpora.org/Rafalovitch_Dale_MT_Summit_2009.pdf

fiskpinne 12y ago

I agree, I'm a swede myself but almost always use the English version because the Swedish articles usually contains very little information.

chton 12y ago
It's exactly the same thing for me in Dutch. There are a lot of articles, sure, but the content is woeful. And there aren't even bots that artificially inflate the numbers there.
- kalleboo 12y ago
  I agree for general articles, but for an article that has regional specificity, I'll look up the article in the local language and use an online translator.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    Yeah, I do that with French and German especially. For very well-known people and places, the English article is usually good, but if you want something only moderately known, like a French writer who is historically important, but not Voltaire-level famous, there's a good chance the other (in this case French) article will be more complete. Also true for Japanese Wikipedia articles on Japanese people and places. But Google-translated Japanese->English is hard to read, so I unfortunately rarely consult those. On the other hand, some of the smaller-language Wikipedias can be quite one-sided and nationalist when it comes to local topics, especially disputed history.
  - chton 12y ago
    I do the same, but for most subjects the english article is enough. I rarely need more detailed information than that, but if I do, and I need it, I will use a translator too.

jcampbell1 12y ago

Good point. From an analysis of parallel UN documents, it seems that character counts are about 10% higher in Spanish/French/Russian than English. The same documents are translated to Chinese with about 1/4 the total characters. My instinct is that character count is a pretty good approximation of size for European languages, but a big adjustment would need to be made for some Asian languages where a character is more like a syllable in european languages. http://www.uncorpora.org/Rafalovitch_Dale_MT_Summit_2009.pdf http://www.uncorpora.org/Rafalovitch_Dale_MT_Summit_2009.pdf