Wikipedia's future in doubt? 49,000 volunteers leave site

Posted by Daniel Bennett on Wed 25 Nov 2009

Is Wikipedia's reign coming to an end?

Wikipedia’s future has been put in doubt as 49,000 volunteer editors left the site in the space of three months. By comparison, only 4,900 volunteers left the site last year in the same period of time.

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The online encyclopaedia is the fifth most visited site in the world, and is maintained on the backs of volunteers that write and edit the site every day.

Filipe Ortega, a researcher that compiled this data at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, believes that the mass exodus is a result of the increased bureaucracy put in place to avoid errors.

Ortega told The Times that the current situation isn’t fatal, but if it continues unchecked it could spell the end for Wikipedia. “If you don’t have enough people to take care of the project it could vanish quickly.

“We’re not in that situation yet. But eventually, if the negative trends follow, we could be in that situation.”

The barriers imposed by Wikipedia mean that it has become harder and harder to instantly contribute, which some feel has spoiled the beauty of the project. However, they don’t seem to have had much impact on people who intend to deface the site.

For instance, thousands of angry Ireland fans attacked Thierry Henry’s Wikipedia entry immediately after his handball last week, and left it filled with obscenities and one joke suggesting he had recently accepted sponsorship from a hands-free kit manufacturer.

Meanwhile, Andrew Dalby, author of The World and Wikipedia: How We Are Editing Reality, warned that the new rules detracted from the ideals that drew so many to the site. “Wikipedia grew because of the lack of rules. That has been forgotten. The rules are regarded as irritating and useless by many contributors.”

Link: Wikipedia (via The Times)