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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.
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.
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.
I'd be shocked if was even as many as 1%. First, they admit openly that there are a huge number of unregistered editors... I know that I've made plenty of edits and new pages there without ever thinking to register. Who wants to deal with yet another set of login info?
Second, the numbers are not showing that there is a group of editors, and 1% of that group is making nearly all of Wikipedia. In the article they even admit that who is in this "1%" is changing over time (whoever came up with this whole 99/1 percent recurring theme is an annoying idiot).
For those that are unaware, this is what's called a "push piece", where the point of view (the importance of a dedicated leadership) is determined in advance and then numbers are chosen to make it seem like it's the only valid one.
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.
What more amazing about that is that these 1% people do have a broad range of knowledge!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
It's an open secret the site is run by little dictators.
The solution to all of this is rather simple, time delays.
No, the solution is to have Wikipedia content managed by Wikipedia employees who are held accountable, just like the employees of any company.
Wikipedia currently has approximately 300 employees, NONE of whom are involved in creating or editing content. That is done entirely by unpaid volunteers.
Wikipedia currently has annual revenue of approximately $80 Million. About $3 Million is spent on the actual expense of webhosting and maintaining servers. NONE of the remaining $77 Million is spent on creating/maintaining content on Wikipedia.
But they did spend £1,335 on business cards one year for the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. And €18,000 in Germany to send people to pop concerts as "accredited photographers". And €81,000 to people paid to photograph politicians. And €81,720 paid to a researcher to study... editing. And lots of fancy, expensive office space in major cities around the world.
And so on . . . . .
According to wikipedia stats, I had over 4500 edits on more than 500 pages in a little over 5 years. Rather large edits, with an average of >300 bytes per edit. I completely gave up editing when the main subject I was interested in (History of Romania and the Republic of Moldova) was hijacked by what I believe are institutional accounts with multiple editors, which enforced the presentation of only the official government view (and trust me, I do understand WP:POV). At the time I was pretty bitter about it, but then I came to believe that this outcome was predictable. However, the overall result was that I no longer edit.