Measuring popularity by Wikipedia entry length

I wonder if there's a correspondence of Wikipedia entry length to the interest that an average geek would have in the subject.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Alan Francis is perhaps the most dominant athlete in any sport in the country, having won the world championship 14 out of the past 17 years. He also has no Wikipedia entry. (The only Alan Francis in Wikipedia is a Scottish comedian.)

In fact, the sport that Francis dominates, which has been played nationwide for decades, has a relatively small Wikipedia entry. It's horseshoes.

The game of horseshoes has a Wikipedia entry of less than 1,000 words. By comparison, the entry for roller derby is almost 4,000 words and Ultimate Frisbee's entry is almost 7,000 words. Even cornhole gets a longer entry, at almost 2,000 words.

Is this because horseshoe players haven't put much effort into expanding their community's knowledge base on Wikipedia, or because the typical Wikipedia contributor/editor doesn't have much interest in the sport?

(And could someone create Alan Francis a page already?)

• Jul 23, 2010
• # (trackback)