The declining number of edits isn't the biggest problem, but rather the declining number of intelligent edits. Intelligent people flock to whatever the most interesting thing going on is. In ancient Greece, intelligent people flocked to philosophy. In the renaissance, it was art and humanities. In early US history it was politics.
The problem is that people get bored and move on. The most intelligent people in society are no longer interested in politics. Which is why politicians today suck.
The most interesting thing going on today is tech, and within tech for a couple years it was Wikipedia. A couple years ago if you went into the Wikimedia IRC channels it was a mix of famous VCs, bestselling authors, and 14-year-old kids who spoke a dozen languages. Today it's just a bunch of bored librarians. The core community is off starting companies and writing books and whatnot.
It wouldn't surprise me if a sizable chunk of former core Wikipedians were now reading this site instead of making edits.
Intelligent people didn't just flock to art and the humanities in the Renaissance. They also flocked to math and engineering and finance. The reason we now think of Renaissance people doing art is that their art is better than ours and is still the big draw in museums, whereas they don't have anything to teach us about engineering.
Excellent point. Do you think the basic premise, that intelligent people flock to intellectually interesting things (but that those things change over time) is reasonable?
It seems to me that when our system of government was new it really was the most interesting thing going on so it attracted a lot of super smart people. Now, not so much. Of course part of it is that politicians have figured out it's easier to get elected if you pander to the lowest common denominator, but that still doesn't explain why a good percentage of them don't know how to use email.
The problem is that people get bored and move on. The most intelligent people in society are no longer interested in politics. Which is why politicians today suck.
The most interesting thing going on today is tech, and within tech for a couple years it was Wikipedia. A couple years ago if you went into the Wikimedia IRC channels it was a mix of famous VCs, bestselling authors, and 14-year-old kids who spoke a dozen languages. Today it's just a bunch of bored librarians. The core community is off starting companies and writing books and whatnot.
It wouldn't surprise me if a sizable chunk of former core Wikipedians were now reading this site instead of making edits.