Nearly All of Wikipedia Is Written By Just 1 Percent of Its Editors (vice.com)

From a report on Motherboard: According to the results of a recent study that looked at the 250 million edits made on Wikipedia during its first ten years, only about 1 percent of Wikipedia's editors have generated 77 percent of the site's content. "Wikipedia is both an organization and a social movement," Sorin Matei, the director of the Purdue University Data Storytelling Network and lead author of the study, told me on the phone. "The assumption is that it's a creation of the crowd, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Wikipedia wouldn't have been possible without a dedicated leadership." At the time of writing, there are roughly 132,000 registered editors who have been active on Wikipedia in the last month (there are also an unknown number of unregistered Wikipedians who contribute to the site). So statistically speaking, only about 1,300 people are creating over three-quarters of the 600 new articles posted to Wikipedia every day.

Comments

So... when does it get moved to fiction?

[TimothyHollins]

So what you're saying is that the main premise of Wikipedia is false.

It is not a crowd-sourced documentation of knowledge. It is the exact same encyclopaedia, written by a few experts, that Wikipedia was supposed to supplant.
Oh, except that instead of having verified and accountable experts like we had in the old format, we now have unverifiable non-experts that aren't accountable, and may put whatever biased crap they want in there.
If it's all the same to you, I'll stick with the merit-based format.

Somehow, I don't think this what founder Jimmy Wales envisioned.

I'm not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a Wikipedia clique that won't accept any additions or changes by anyone who isn't in on it. I have tried to contribute to Wikipedia in the past and have had every single edit reverted. It wasn't because I was breaking rules or adding unsourced data, it was because it conflicted with what the self-appointed arbiters of the articles in question believed or wanted readers to believe.

Because of this, I have given up on Wikipedia completely. I have seen incorrect information and outright vandalism, but I won't lift a finger to help because it will probably get reverted without even being checked.

Re:I'm not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Different AC, similar experience. Any time I tried to make corrections (with well regarded sources to back them up) or additions, everything I did was instantly reverted.

It is NOT a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, it belongs to the people whose lives let them camp on it and treat it as "theirs".

Re:I'm not surprised

[Quinn_Inuit]

Just what I was coming here to say. I'd contribute more if that 1% of editors would let me. After having one too many articles (about historical events, I might add) I'd put real time into researching get deleted for not being notable, I gave up.

Re:1%

[Chrisq]

That's probably because:

1% signed up with an honest intent to be an editor and with knowledge to back it up. 4% signed up as a lark and to see what it was all about. 5% signed up with good intentions but don't have any knowledge to create pages with.

The other 90% are trolls that signed up to graffiti pages of politicians they don't like, or to edit Taylor Swift's page to talk about how she really has a penis.

You forgot those who signed up with good intentions and the knowledge but gave up in frustration because all of their edits are reverted by trolls or people with an agenda.