WIKIPEDIA鈥橲 explosive growth seems to be tailing off and new contributors are finding it hard to edit existing articles. This could lead to a decline in the quality of the encyclopedia.
So says .
The English language Wikipedia has grown to almost 3 million articles since it was launched in 2001, but the number of new articles added every month peaked at 60,000 in 2006 and has declined by about a third since then. The number of edits made every month and the number of active editors both stopped growing the following year, flattening out at around 5.5 million and 750,000, respectively.
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These changes might be due to a worrying change in the culture of Wikipedia, says team member . The team has found that occasional editors, those who make just a single edit a month, are finding it harder to shape articles. One in four of their changes is undone. In 2003, the 鈥渞evert鈥� rate was 1 in 10. The revert rate for editors who make between two and nine changes a month has grown from 5 per cent in 2003 to 15 per cent today. This is evidence of growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content.
Fewer new editors mean that fewer eyes are available to spot and correct vandalism, a constant threat to Wikipedia. 鈥淥ver time the quality may degrade,鈥� warns Chi.
鈥淔ewer new Wikipedia editors mean that fewer eyes are available to spot and correct vandalism鈥�
