User:Eugene van der Pijll/random pages

Procedure: take 20 random pages from the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica; find the corresponding Wikipedia article.

Normal random pages tests emphasize the long tail of minor articles and stubs, and then often conclude that Wikipedia is doing badly. However, these articles are still better than what you would find in paper encyclopedias, simply because those don't have articles on those subjects at all.

My test looks at the articles that also exist in EB. This makes a level playing field.

September 2006
I have just noted the wordcount of both articles; it is clear that Wikipedia wins on most subjects, at least in quantity. My impression of all of the pages listed here, is that the Wikipedia articles also are at least of equal quality as the EB ones.

November/December 2005
Result: 30% good, 35% OK, 15% stubs, 15% substubs. Not bad!