

Number of Wikipedia editors steadily declining - sabon
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125893981183759969.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLESecondNews

======
jacquesm
There are a number of valid reasons for this, and a number of not-so-valid
ones:

The valid reasons mostly center on the fact that 'mining history' at some
point comes to a halt, there are only so many relevant subjects from the past
that warrant inclusion.

At some point it gets harder to find stuff that you can include on pages about
historical events, objects and people.

This will lead to a reduction of work and like any company that would work on
a job that has 'an end' (the documentation of history would be that job) that
when the job is done the people end up without work.

The other reasons are less nice and do not stem from accomplishment but from
the power that a relatively small group of experienced users wields.

Wikipedia is full of politics and infighting. The atmosphere, especially for
new people joining up is full of venom. New editors have their content (their
work!) deleted, often without cause, get bombarded with messages with lots of
wikipedia specific jargon and feel in general seriously intimidated.

Of course this nicely serves the purpose of those that have hijacked wikipedia
from being a public project to one that they use as their personal fiefdom.

There are 'factions' amongst the editors that seem to be aware of this problem
and there are those that seem to be it's main creators. I hope that in the
long run the first group will get the upper hand but judging by the various
wars on 'talk' pages it might be that it is the former group that is now
giving up and leaving.

I predict that wikipedia will sooner or later be 'forked' by a group of the
former, with stricter guidelines in place for moderators and that the 'old'
wikipedia will be abandoned to the inmates that want to run the asylum.

~~~
chaosprophet
Well let's hope the forking happens sooner than later. I still can't believe I
was told stating that a cat was an animal would require citation.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> I still can't believe I was told stating that a cat was an animal would
> require citation.

[citation needed]

~~~
chaosprophet
I've had my wikipedia account purged and renamed so I can't provide the exact
talk page link. However I did happen to talk to another editor who actually
had the exact same thing said to him.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Grimjaw>

Apparently he has since quit Wikipedia too. My guess is we were both arguing
with the same mod. And the cat being an animal argument was a metaphorical
argument we were having while discussing an edit.

------
ZeroGravitas
I simply can't take any Wikipedia criticism seriously.

The mainstream media isn't going to publish anything about Wikipedia unless
it's got a hook. "Online Encyclopedia Still Surprisingly Useful" just isn't
catchy enough.

For non-mainstream criticism, it generally seems to be, well lets say,
"kooks". I actually seek out new criticism in the hope that it may be
enlightening. Most recently I saw a blog comment from someone who wrote a
column in the Guardian newspaper about Wikipedia's problems and how it is a
cult. I literally just remembered this, and Google'd for it and found this:

"I'm on Wikipedia, get me out of here" : an article complaining about his own
Wikipedia article.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/28/wikipedia.w...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/sep/28/wikipedia.web20)

Which has a link to all his articles (which seem overwhelmingly to be
Wikipedia criticism):

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/sethfinkelstein>

And a couple of results down a story about his conflict of interest in this
particular story:

"Seth Finkelstein, The Guardian and Wikipedia"

[http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/04/20/seth-finkelstein-the-
gu...](http://blog.shankbone.org/2009/04/20/seth-finkelstein-the-guardian-and-
wikipedia/)

You really couldn't make it up. I'd love to read some actual thoughful
criticisms but just can't seem to find them. Links are appreciated if you're
aware of any.

------
olegk
No surprise here. I tried editing 3 or 4 articles, and every single time my
additions were reverted, even if they were valid. There are too many power-
tripping people on wikipedia.

~~~
tptacek
The nice thing about WP is that there's no place to hide on it. Give us an
example of an article where this happened, and the rough time it occurred, and
let's find it and talk about it. Maybe there's a good reason you got RV'd, or
maybe there's a great example of something pathological about WP editing that
we can add to the discussion.

------
sdfx
While it is probably true that a more hostile environment is to blame for a
big portion of the decline, the maturity of the articles might also be a
factor.

Maybe the articles people care most about are sufficiently well written. Many
people can't add much valuable information to a lot of the topics and so they
don't feel the need to participate. Without this first quick win, there is
little incentive to keep editing.

~~~
Silhouette
In my experience, it is more likely to be the immaturity of the articles that
is putting people off.

I have contributed a few edits to Wikipedia over the years. Why not, if I can
usefully fill in a blank and it costs me mere seconds to help?

More recently, though, I've been finding subjects where the entire article was
so hopelessly wrong that I wouldn't know where to begin fixing it, other than
deleting it completely and starting over. I looked for an appropriate marker
in one case that would at least suggest that the article as a whole did not
represent a neutral point of view or was completely unsupported by any factual
evidence, but after a few minutes trying to navigate Wikipedia's absurdly
overcomplicated self-documentation and finding nothing but reasons I wasn't
allowed to fix anything or contribute, I gave up and found something else to
do with my time.

I wonder whether the neutral point of view principle isn't a significant part
of the problem. Many of the pages I find most misleading are deadlocked,
because no-one can agree on what a neutral point of view is.

Under those circumstances, perhaps it would be more helpful to do what
civilised discussion has done since forever: present two articles (or sections
in an article) that, by construction and intent, take opposing viewpoints. Let
the reader see both sides of the debate, making the best case they can and
with the best sources they can find to support their point of view, and let
the reader decide. As long as it is very clear when there is a single article
trying to present a subject neutrally and when the adversarial system is in
use, I don't see why this would cause a problem, and it would break a lot of
the deadlocks I've seen and get constructive editing going again.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_I wonder whether the neutral point of view principle isn't a significant part
of the problem._

I've long contended, in discussion about the media, that it's absolutely
impossible to have a completely neutral presentation.

Since this is true, it seems better to me to stop pretending to be neutral,
and instead to acknowledge the ways in which there may be bias.

~~~
Silhouette
I think the problem comes when you start to stray from objective facts, which
really are inherently neutral, and get into more subjective evaluations of
those facts or outright personal opinion.

On the tricky pages I encountered, often the problem was that the material was
presented as a description of something, followed by advantages and
disadvantages sections, and while the description may have been factual,
that's where the objectivity ended. Perhaps from Wikipedia's point of view
that means the pros and cons simply shouldn't be featured.

Realistically, however, someone researching a new field will probably be
interested in such information, and many pages on Wikipedia do have this
structure. Rather than trying to push water uphill, it might be a smarter move
to adapt to the reality and do it properly.

~~~
tptacek
There is a process of nearly mechanical editing you can do to fix subjective
"Criticisms" or "Controversy" sections in WP articles: you replace naked
opinions with overt citations, like, "In 2007, David Broder remarked in the
New York Times that...".

There is also a fairly straightforward process of assessing the weight that a
"Controversies" section gives to a POV by repeatedly citing similar or related
sources, and a set of editing tactics that can be used to collapse them into a
summary graf.

------
w1ntermute
I was only able to see the first paragraph of the article. If anyone else has
this problem, you can see the full article by accessing it via Google:
[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&oi=news_re...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&oi=news_result&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAcQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB125893981183759969.html%3Fmod%3Drss_Todays_Most_Popular&ei=VEgNS-
GDApDhnAen-5TJAw&usg=AFQjCNG-
Fx4utnuk5DEi021kMY9oQXwsLA&sig2=sFqhNK_3vJJ5MiW8ryVSbg)

~~~
gvb
That is part of the Rupert Murdoch controversy: many (all?) of the News Corp.
properties are behind a paywall, but the paywall has a hole in it the size of
Google. ;-) Google pays them (but not enough to stop them from complaining)
and indexes their sites. They _intentionally_ allow users coming from a Google
search to enter their fiefdom, but throw up a paywall for direct links.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=rupert+murdoch+paywall+google...](http://www.google.com/search?q=rupert+murdoch+paywall+google+hole)

They have a serious conundrum: they want to be indexed by Google so that they
can attract visitors, but they want to be paid by subscriptions (paywall),
which is more lucrative than advertisements (assuming they can convert
visitors into subscribers).

Even if they closed the "referred by Google" hole, they would still have to
allow the googlebot unfettered access in order to index their site. This would
make the hole slightly more obscure, but it would not close it.

------
mjs
"The foundation also invested $890,000 in a new design for the site ..." Yow!
I'm sure that's wrong/misleading in some way, but what does this figure
actually include?

~~~
rufo
I'm guessing some of that is wrapped up in here - they seem to be doing much
more than just a simple redesign:
<http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>

EDIT: Just noticed you can actually turn on their improvements by clicking the
"Try Beta" link in the upper-right corner of the page. Seems really nice,
actually.

~~~
mjs
Well, that page says "The Wikipedia Usability Initiative is realized by a
grant from the U.S.-based Stanton Foundation." So I'm not entirely sure if
this explains it. (Nearly a million dollars seems a lot of money for a
redesign + usability study, as well.)

------
dsplittgerber
What will editors do after they leave? There is an enormous amount of
available time and attention span that could be spent on other valuable
projects for mankind.

~~~
sdfx
Thought about that too. I think <http://www.openstreetmap.org/> is similar
enough in at least one respect: You describe the part of the world that you
understand and know best. But maybe contributors concentrate their effords on
their own pet project or spend their time on twitter.

~~~
DrJokepu
I wonder if history will repeat itself and lesser geographic locations (like
narrow alleys or something) will get deleted from openstreetmap because
they're not deemed important enough by the ruling elite.

