Is Wikipedia Cooling Off?
posted by Dave Hoffman
This newsgroup post, and its accompanying graphical material, makes the surprising claim that the Wikipedia community is less healthy than it used to be:
Since early this year, and for the first extended period in Wikipedia’s history, the activity rate of the Wikipedia community has been declining. This can be seen in the rate of editing articles (-17%), the rate of new account registration (-25%), blocks (-30%), protections (-30%), uploads (-10%), article deletions (-25%), etc. Some exceptions are the article creation rate (+25%) and image deletions (+80%), but overall the community appears to be doing less now than it was 6 months ago.
If these data are reliable, you’ve got to wonder what happened. Is it the Essjay-related credibility problem, as the author of the post suggests, or is it a breakdown of Wikipedia’s dispute resolution system? I’m tempted toward the latter explanation as at least a contributing factor, not least because it fits part of the story I’m writing in a jointly authored article about Wikipedia’s dispute resolution process. (Previewed in this blog post.) In particular, the number of “reverts” is on the rise, reducing the value of thoughtful editing and community involvement. Revert wars, as a form of unproductive low-level conflict between users, are just what the dispute resolution system was designed to ameliorate.
Update: For more evidence of the thesis, check out this post from later in the same thread (emphasis added):
Personally, I would suggest that Wikipedia has indeed become more bureaucratic, and it will progress little further until a rethink of the core ideology is considered, particularly wrt. to how to derive/amend policy, core policy issues, handling bias or concepts of truth, dispute resolution and what to do when there isn’t consensus (i.e. no consensus for the status quo, no consensus for proposed or active changes). The whole idea that Wikipedia acts by consensus is a sham. It’s not a democracy of course either, it’s not even anarchy, or specifically authority-driven(dictatorial). In individual cases it’s whatever people can get away with. That’s not a good concept of consensus (i.e. “what sticks is there by tacit agreement”); it ignores the fact that rational people will eventually give up rather than deal with bullies and morons.
October 11, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Posted in: Wiki
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Responses (1)
mmmbeer - October 11, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Why I stopped: it’s just not all that worth it.
First, I think that wikipedia is great. It has very current, relevant information. It also is a great jumping off point for lots of information.
Second, however, when you think about it, the value of wikipedia to most users isn’t the part that’s calculated by those “active” statistics that show a decline. I wager that the value to most of being an active editing member goes down once the novelty wears off.
And, instead, the “passive” value most people, like myself, get from wikipedia is gotten by free-riding off the work of others who feel some gain from contributing.
Further, it does take some amount of effort to even make minor changes. My wife is a good example. She came across a minor error in wikipedia, and when I said, “well, fix it,” she said, “nah, someone else will.”
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