On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
Mark Nilrad wrote:
> I'm curious, as the growth in Wikipedia has slowed, has the numbers of ACTIVE
users slowed as well?
If you're talking about the demographics of
editors - I think it is now
more three years since WP attracted a very large group of people,
arriving over a few months only, who created a "boom" in article
production (quantity not quality). Many of those will have left by now -
others have become some of our most productive editors. This can only
happen once: WP became a Net phenomenon at some point in 2005, and that
was because all of a sudden many people heard of it who hadn't before,
or who had ignored it. I would say the growth in editors was "over
trend" at that point. We are seeing more like a sustainable rate now,
and probably (who knows?) a higher proportion of "encyclopedist" types.
The short answer is yes, the number of active editors has declined.
See [[Wikipedia:Editing frequency]] and [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia
Signpost/2009-01-03/Editing stats]]. For the most part, I agree with
Charles Matthews's hopeful interpretation that Wikipedia is entering a
stable, sustainable phase, although others see more dire futures based
on the demographic trends. I think a different sort of person may be
attracted to the project now.
Note, however, that although new users peaked in early 2007 (the same
time community size peaked, and about six months after creation rate
peaked), the rate of new accounts has actually been moderately stable,
varying only about 50% since about 2006. Also, some published and
unpublished studies suggest that the the editor turnover rate is
considerably higher than MeatballWiki would have us believe, although
I'm not yet clear how much that applies to the very, very active core
of editors.
Obviously, as
you can read in the Slashdot comments (and many other places), this is not Wikipedia's
strength, at all.
One thing that is not at all obvious to me is that there is any really
really credible reporting on this or other aspects of Wikipedia. It's
anecdotal at best - one or two incidents taken to stand for the site as
a whole, and its complexities. Plus people writing ignorant and
inaccurate stuff, of course.
Indeed. So much stuff goes on, and no one has really dared to dive in
deep enough in a systematic way to produce convincing stories about
the social dynamics of the project.
I was thinking about this, and it might be nice to do some experiments
to find out what kinds of experiences make new users become regular
editors. Similar to what happened with the fundraiser banner
messages, as a start maybe we could design several different new users
greetings to replace standard template greetings, and randomly sort
which message is given to any particular new users. Each message
would emphasize something different about Wikipedia, e.g., community,
needed new articles, citations and improving existing articles, having
fun, doing something good for the world, etc. Then weeks, months, and
a year later we can find out whether the initial frame of the project
has a significant impact, and possibly tailor the way we treat newbies
to better pull them into the community.
-Sage (User:Ragesoss)