Is Wikipedia dying?
The world's fifth-most-popular website relies almost entirely on volunteer labor — and the volunteers are quitting
Wikipedia's volunteer editors are giving up on the project in droves. In the first three months of 2009, the Wall Street Journal reports, the crowd-sourced encyclopedia, which draws 325 million visitors per month, lost 49,000 of the volunteers who create and maintain its articles (compared to roughly 5000 defecters in the same period in 2008). In theory, fewer editors could mean more errors and fewer new entries. Is it curtains for Wikipedia?
Not at all – less is more: Why should we assume that Wikipedia’s loss of volunteers is “automatically a bad thing,” asks Adam Theirer at Technology Liberation Front. Yes, a large part of the encyclopedia’s appeal “lies in the sheer diversity” of available articles, which will surely be affected. But the Wikipedia Foundation has also issued more rigorous guidelines, a promising sign that they are taking “quality control seriously."
"Is Wikipedia dying or just maturing?"
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Is there anything left to write about? This is a sad day, indeed, says Tim Worstall in Examiner. if you think the site needs "millions more" pages to become adequately comprehensive. But considering the fact that even "your humble author" has a Wikipedia page, it doesn't seem as though there's "much more to do."
Die, Wikipedia! Die!: Wikipedia's death "cannot happen too soon," says Oliver Kamm in the Times Online. The site’s "corrosive" policy of letting the "loudest" and "most obsessive" contributors become arbiters of truth is an affront to "intellectual inquiry" and an outlet for "vainglorious amateurism." It can't atrophy too soon.
"Wikipedia: an anti-intellectual venture to its core"
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
An ingredient in Coca-Cola may be funding Sudan's war
Under the Radar Global trade in gum arabic centres on the African nation – and proceeds bankroll conflict between the army and paramilitary rebels
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Homes for multi-generational families
Feature Featuring a 1900 Jacobean-style mansion in Massachusetts and a 22.5-acre compound in California
By The Week US Published
-
The Week contest: Foot PSA
Puzzles and Quizzes
By The Week US Published