This is a really interesting discussion, and most of the reasons explained here are plausible. From my experience with students, the idea we of Internet we had 20 years ago it's gone. The idea of "do it yourself" (learn how to use the computers, make your own webs/blogs, build your own castle) is something that doesn't fit in their current world. Sometimes I talk about Matrix (the film) with students trying to explain them what Internet was when we started with Wikipedia. They just don't get it.

Instead, the world is like in Matrix Resurrections: there are big companies, things are done and provided by someone else, there's no scape from that. They fully understand that Google/FB/whoever is using them and their private data to make money, but the only alternative is to live in a cave. There's no way to just build your own app, to make something alternative. Everything is done, the world is given, and if there's an error or gap in Wikipedia, someone should come and solve that, because they don't think they could be editing it (if not for vandalizing).

That's what "future audiences" are, and that's what we are losing. However, it may be true that active editors are declining on English Wikipedia, because we are aging and because we are losing people in the way, but it is interesting that the same is not happening in other languages. There are new language projects born and some are growing. So, the overall number of editors may be going down, young audiences might be not interested or with a mindset that makes them think that there's nothing that can be done... but there may be other communities and projects blooming. Researching that could be a really interesting thing.

Have a good weekend

Galder
From: Peter Southwood <peter.southwood@telkomsa.net>
Sent: Friday, October 4, 2024 8:22 PM
To: 'Wikimedia Mailing List' <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Trend of number of active editor
 

All of the above/below

Cheers, Peter

 

From: Todd Allen [mailto:toddmallen@gmail.com]
Sent: 04 October 2024 20:04
To: Wikimedia Mailing List
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Trend of number of active editor

 

I think it's even more simple than that.

 

There are a limited number of people who would say "You know what I'd really like to do in my free time? I want to work on an encyclopedia." That's just not something that would be, or ever will be, appealing to everyone.

 

And by now, well, the vast majority of them have at least heard of Wikipedia. Maybe some haven't tried it and caught "the bug", but a lot of people would try it out and say "Nah, this isn't my thing."

 

Todd

 

On Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 11:38 AM Neurodivergent Netizen <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com> wrote:

I think the reasons for less active editors is primarily because a large part of common knowledge is already now created and being held in Wikipedia, unlike at the start and first few years of it's existence.

 

No, I think the problem is the impenetrable thicket of jargon and bureaucracy and the bias for deletionism.

 

Can’t it be both?

 

Because the more general areas of knowledge is covered, we’re less inclined to be understandable towards newer editors and more inclined to delete.

 

The problem I think we have now is trying to attract subject matter experts, possibly along with their students/proteges, who can contribute reliable sources to Wikipedia.

 

From,

I dream of horses

She/her

 

 

 



On Oct 4, 2024, at 9:57 AM, The Cunctator <cunctator@gmail.com> wrote:

 

No, I think the problem is the impenetrable thicket of jargon and bureaucracy and the bias for deletionism.

 

On Fri, Oct 4, 2024, 10:22 AM Thad Guidry <thadmguidry@outlook.com> wrote:

I think the reasons for less active editors is primarily because a large part of common knowledge is already now created and being held in Wikipedia, unlike at the start and first few years of it's existence.

I think generally that as any knowledge base grows, such as Wikimedia, that edits tend to be fewer as general knowledge articles are set in place, and thus remains creating only articles that cover the long tail of remaining knowledge.  Hence, we are in a position in many of the larger language Wikipedia's having less of a need for general article authorship, and instead a need for creating articles that cover the long tails of knowledge with domain experts.

-Thad

From: Anders Wennersten <mail@anderswennersten.se>
Sent: Thursday, October 3, 2024 8:52 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Trend of number of active editor

 

We have often discussed the trend of fewer active editors, and some of
us have just  discussed this at nowp and swwp and one of my fellow
wikiedian has made a very interesting comparison graph where the numbers
are normalized according to number of speakers, https://puu.sh/Kg6xQ.png

As can be seen av very positive trend on frwp and plwp and reassuring
one on enwp. Do we others have important lessons to be learnt from pl
and frwp?

Anders


_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/Y6WFUJNFNN63QGUDXVJKDK4EMU2GFUDQ/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/MTN6RCBQKX2QF5MMSCSTTECE4BG4MSVB/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/2FISWVQY326DTAO45RCZV5C6BCA5Z7PD/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

 

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/MI467VD2FRSN2YOBXN3P2MGRLAEWE5ZO/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

 

Virus-free.www.avg.com