Wikipedia Approaches Its Limits

Reservoir Hill writes "The Guardian reports that a study by Ed H Chi demonstrates that the character of Wikipedia has changed significantly since Wikipedia's first burst of activity between 2004 and 2007. While the encyclopedia is still growing overall, the number of articles being added has reduced from an average of 2,200 a day in July 2007 to around 1,300 today while at the same time, the base of highly active editors has remained more or less static. Chi's team discovered that the way the site operates had changed significantly from the early days, when it ran an open-door policy that allowed in anyone with the time and energy to dedicate to the project. Today, they discovered, a stable group of high-level editors has become increasingly responsible for controlling the encyclopedia, while casual contributors and editors are falling away. 'We found that if you were an elite editor, the chance of your edit being reverted was something in the order of 1% — and that's been very consistent over time from around 2003 or 2004,' says Chi. 'For editors that make between two and nine edits a month, the percentage of their edits being reverted had gone from 5% in 2004 all the way up to about 15% by October 2008. And the 'onesies' — people who only make one edit a month — their edits are now being reverted at a 25% rate.' While Chi points out that this does not necessarily imply causation, he suggests it is concrete evidence to back up what many people have been saying: that it is increasingly difficult to enjoy contributing to Wikipedia unless you are part of the site's inner core of editors. Wikipedia's growth pattern suggests that it is becoming like a community where resources have started to run out. 'As you run out of food, people start competing for that food, and that results in a slowdown in population growth and means that the stronger, more well-adapted part of the population starts to have more power.'"

Comments

oblig.

[Anonymusing]

I, for one, welcome our Wikipedia Information Nazi overlords.

Re:It's their own fault

[damburger]

Why wouldn't an Objectivist have a low tolerance for criticism? Objectivism is the view that there is a single, objective, unquestionable reality - with the implication that the Objectivist him or herself perceives this reality. If you hold such a view, those that disagree with you must seem like dangerous lunatics or liars. It isn't a philosophy that tolerates criticism, as its founder repeatedly demonstrated during her lifetime.

This kind of reality control, and us-and-them mentality, was not invented by Ayn Rand though. Its the common M.O. of most cults.

Science is not for pussies!

[xkcdFan1011011101111]

http://threepanelsoul.com/view.php?date=2007-09-03

Re:Amen to that

[mewsenews]

Protest all you want, reason all you want, the simple truth is that that's how it is.

Your ideas about communities making up their own reality are preposterous and furt--oh, a 3 digit userid, are there any trolls I could handle for you, sir? A warm bath, perhaps?