[WikiEN-l] The Statistical Decline of the English Wikipedia Community

[Sheldon Rampton]

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:
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|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
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