On Oct 10, 2007, at 11:45 AM, Robert Rohde wrote:

Given Wikipedia's long history of nearly exponential growth, any decline in our editing rate is surprising, but I also find the sharpness of the turn-around to be remarkable. Though it may merely be coincidence, the timing of the change is near the breaking of the Essjay story in the news.

It's not clear what this trend means, but I'm personally skeptical that the Essjay story had much impact.

Of course, Wikipedia's overall growth in terms of readership (not editing) seemed more or less plateaued during the first half of 2007 (although the last 2-3 months have seen growth again):

http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=wikipedia.org

Of course, hitting a plateau as one of the top ten most popular websites in existence is pretty good. If indeed Wikipedia's growth is leveling off, that was bound to happen at some point. One of the certainties about exponential growth of any kind is that sooner or later it comes up against some limiting factor.

If there is a decline in editing, it could result from the leveling off of readership. Maybe there's an attrition factor, with new editors who edit enthusiastically for awhile and then lose interest. In the past, attrition might have been masked by the larger trend of user growth, but now things are settling into an long-term equilibrium where the ratio of users to editors is higher than appeared to be the case during the exponential growth phase.

Another possibility is that Wikipedia participation is moving away from the English Wikipedia and into other languages. Does Robert's analysis allow for this possibility?

Another possibility is that Wikipedia has somehow become less hospitable to editing. Maybe it is more bureaucratic. (Or maybe it has gotten better at nipping vandals and spammers in the bud.)

Yet another possibility is that Wikipedia has ceased to be a novelty. Instead of being a cool new idea that everyone is trying out, it's becoming yesterday's fashion, and people in general are less excited about editing.

These are all speculative hypotheses, of course. I'm sure other people can offer theories of their own.

-------------------------------- | Sheldon Rampton | Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org) | Author of books including: | Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities | Toxic Sludge Is Good For You | Mad Cow USA | Trust Us, We're Experts | Weapons of Mass Deception | Banana Republicans | The Best War Ever -------------------------------- | Subscribe to our free weekly list serve by visiting: | http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe_sotd.html | | Donate now to support independent, public interest reporting: | http://www.prwatch.org/donate --------------------------------