Wikipedia:Factors that influence article size
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Many factors influence the size of articles, and we allow all sizes from stubs to huge articles that, without splitting, could be the size of paper encyclopedias. The factors involved in their size should be considered when judging whether an article is too small or too large. In fact, thinking about size is the wrong question. Size matters...and doesn't. Do not keep Wikipedia and its articles bound by limited "paper" thinking, but do remember readers have limited time |
What are the factors influencing the size of articles? When one looks at the topic, we must realize that guidelines are rubbery on purpose. They are not absolutes, and each article's size will fall on a bell curve where some articles are much smaller than average and some much larger. That's okay. Do not try to force large articles toward the middle of the bell curve. Maybe they should be very large. This will naturally result in a larger lead.
The following does not apply to lists, tables, and other material that is already in summary form. This is not about the number of bytes or words but about significant prose and thematic content.
Articles become very long because their topics are extremely notable, widely covered, popular, very controversial, and very significant using many different parameters and metrics.
Here are some factors:
- Accessibility of sources (digital versus analog)
- Number of sources (language makes a difference)
- Noteworthy
- Newsworthy
- Interesting
- Popular
- Controversial
- Complex
- Content-rich
- Significant
- Influential
- Long-term historical interest
- Status and position
- Famously good people
- Infamously evil people
- Successful self-promoters with high status (like Donald Trump)
- WP editors understandably wanting to be comprehensive
- Summarising is challenging
Some topics score low by these factors and have a short life in the public sphere. They end up being stubs and short articles with little added to them at later times. We document history, and they made a noteworthy blip for a while. We never delete them. We are not in the business of memory holing and historical revisionism. We don't need to delete content to make room for other content.
Other topics are always interesting, right from their birth. Every type of source mentions them. They are popular; constantly being researched; controversial; and complex. They appeal to many different minds and simply demand constant attention. Their main "parent" articles will be huge and may give birth to many "child" sub-articles.
Fortunately, with very large topics, such as War, we can split off huge amounts of content, but we must leave a section for each split according to summary style. This means the parent article will still be large, but far smaller than the topic warrants. That's okay.
So we end up with a spread of stubs, very short articles, average-size articles, and very long articles that, without splitting, could be the size of paper encyclopedias. All have their place. A stub may have no lead, while some leads will just be a few sentences. Other leads will be several short paragraphs, and others many long paragraphs. All have their place.
Judge each article and its lead by the type of subject and its coverage. Think of the factors listed above. Size matters... and doesn't matter. Some topics are growers and others are showers. 
Some provide short-term satisfaction, while others provide long-term enjoyment. Size matters for paper media, but is rather irrelevant for digital media. With digital media, the search function is a great aid for finding content. Reading every word is often no longer necessary or even a goal. Most readers stop after reading the lead.
We are supposed to document the "sum of all human knowledge" as found in reliable sources, so the spread from small stubs to huge articles is enormous, and that's alright. Wikipedia is NOT PAPER. Those of us born in the age of paper must let our minds fight their way out of the wet paper bag thinking of our youths and begin to infinitely expand in this digital age.
Do not keep Wikipedia and its articles bound by limited "paper" thinking, but do remember that readers, all of us, have limited time.