According to one measure Wikipedia is failing.
Whether it's a good measure of how Wikipedia is doing or a bad one is a little more difficult to determine, but there are concerns that the Wikipedia model might not be sustainable.
Fears are increasing, though, that the Wikipedia project could be starting to stall. Research reveals that the volunteers who create the pages, check facts and adapt the site are abandoning the site in unprecedented numbers.
Every month tens of thousands of Wikipedia’s editors are going “dead” — no longer actively contributing and updating the site — without a similar number of new contributors taking their place.
Some argue that Wikipedia’s troubles represent a new phase for the internet. Maybe, as some believe, the website has become part of the establishment that it was supposed to change.
The research found that in the first three months of this year the English-language version of the site suffered a net loss of 49,000 contributors, compared with a loss of about 4,900 during the same period last year. Many experts believe that the trend could threaten Wikipedia’s future.
The question thus becomes, is this a good measure of how well Wikipedia will do in the future? That really depends on how well you think it's done so far. If you think that there are tens of millions more pages that are needed, then this losing of volunteers is of course a blow to that ambition. But if you think that most of the hard work has already been done and what is now needed is rather more care and maintenance, then this losing of volunteers isn't really all that important.
But how to judge which is which? Are there millions of needed pages as yet unwritten? I would go by one single data point here (one datum, to be precise). Your humble author has a Wikipedia page (no, not set up by me!) and if the site is down to detailing trivia like that then there's not much more to do, is there?
Comments
I am one of those who quit posting/editting at Wikipedia. I became fed up with the liberal bias there that ignored (read: "deleted") some news that didn't favor their worldview -- I'm not talking about anonymous pinheaded schoolboys pranking articles, but the so-called management. I'm done with them.
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