Hi

This is my first message to this list but I would like to add that it should be worth exploring and implementing new ways of incentivizing people to edit Wikipedia. Currently people are too accustomed to be rewarded on social media by likes and reposts. Unfortunately these behaviours have been proven problematic for example in the face of disinformation and self-reinforcing beliefs and prejudices. Because Wikipedia is much better than the corporate social media platforms it should propose a better way of contributing to information on the internet where people's time is rewarded with mechanisms that avoid perverse incentives and prevent abusive and distorted social interactions. I know this may sound difficult but who else in the internet if not the Wikimedia Movement can do something like this? After all, it has already done it in the past.

Best,

On Sat, Oct 5, 2024 at 6:07 AM wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

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1. Re: Trend of number of active editor (Thad Guidry)

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Thad Guidry thadmguidry@outlook.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Bcc: Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2024 05:42:21 +0000 Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Trend of number of active editor 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