[Foundation-l] So, scientists tell us what do we know for some time...

[John at Darkstar]

It ssems like the a mouth of vandalism has changed and that this could
be the main reason why the a mouth of reverts has gone up. Previously
there was also a larger a mouth of smaller articles and then any edit is
a valid contribution. Now there is a larger number of bigger articles
and not every edit fit in. In addition newer tools makes it easier to
spot errors and this leads to a situation whereby a few script operators
do a larger part of the reverts, while previously much more was done by
random readers finding an error.

John

Milos Rancic wrote:
>>From Slashdot article [1]:
> 
> "The Guardian reports that a study by Ed H Chi demonstrates that the
> character of Wikipedia has changed significantly since Wikipedia's
> first burst of activity between 2004 and 2007. While the encyclopedia
> is still growing overall, the number of articles being added has
> reduced from an average of 2,200 a day in July 2007 to around 1,300
> today while at the same time, the base of highly active editors has
> remained more or less static. Chi's team discovered that the way the
> site operates had changed significantly from the early days, when it
> ran an open-door policy that allowed in anyone with the time and
> energy to dedicate to the project. Today, they discovered, a stable
> group of high-level editors has become increasingly responsible for
> controlling the encyclopedia, while casual contributors and editors
> are falling away. 'We found that if you were an elite editor, the
> chance of your edit being reverted was something in the order of 1% —
> and that's been very consistent over time from around 2003 or 2004,'
> says Chi. 'For editors that make between two and nine edits a month,
> the percentage of their edits being reverted had gone from 5% in 2004
> all the way up to about 15% by October 2008. And the 'onesies' —
> people who only make one edit a month — their edits are now being
> reverted at a 25% rate.' While Chi points out that this does not
> necessarily imply causation, he suggests it is concrete evidence to
> back up what many people have been saying: that it is increasingly
> difficult to enjoy contributing to Wikipedia unless you are part of
> the site's inner core of editors. Wikipedia's growth pattern suggests
> that it is becoming like a community where resources have started to
> run out. 'As you run out of food, people start competing for that
> food, and that results in a slowdown in population growth and means
> that the stronger, more well-adapted part of the population starts to
> have more power.'"
> 
> I think that this analysis has point and that we should think about
> consequences. Today WM RS had meeting in Novi Sad and we talked about
> this issue, too: How to attract new contributors to stay at Wikipedia.
> 
> [1] - http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/13/1310228/Wikipedia-Approaches-Its-Limits?from=rss
> 
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