The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
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The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
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Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#2Honestly they could never add another page or edit and I'd still be going there for the next decade.
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#3Eh, it went from a interesting novelty, to a incredible community, to a petty bureaucracy.
My personal experience is that under the crowdsourcing model the well meaning non experts outnumber the real experts and it's hard to police them while treating all as equals. In short, democracy brought content toward mediocrity.
Now it's dangerous to use it but for a cursory introduction to any in depth content, while non factual content is polarised toward whatever the bureaucrats decide it's a neutral tone, which may or may not work.
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#4Abstract
Open collaboration systems like Wikipedia need to maintain a pool of volunteer contributors in order to remain relevant. Wikipedia was created through a tremendous number of contributions by millions of contributors. However, recent research has shown that the number of active contributors in Wikipedia has been declining steadily for years, and suggests that a sharp decline in the retention of newcomers is the cause. This paper presents data that show that several changes the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have ironically crippled the very growth they were designed to manage. Specifically, the restrictiveness of the encyclopedia’s primary quality control mechanism and the algorithmic tools used to reject contributions are implicated as key causes of decreased newcomer retention. Further, the community’s formal mechanisms for norm articulation are shown to have calcified against changes – especially changes proposed by newer editors.
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#5Wikipedia has problems, but I think it's worth noting that Wikipedia has enough content to fill 2,200x volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica[1], or, a small library.
I don't think it's necessarily an existential problem that the public image of Wikipedia's relevance is reaching a sort of "trough of disillusionment" due to some of its governance issues. It has simply reached a scale where it faces a new set or hurdles to overcome.
Personally, I've learned more from Wikipedia than I did in high school and college combined, and considering that, despite all of Wikipedia's problems, the content therein is more accurate and verifiable than the corrupted corpus whence our primary and secondary educations are derived, I really appreciate its existence.
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#6Wikipedia has problems, but I think it's worth noting that Wikipedia has enough content to fill 2,200x volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica[1], or, a small library. I don't think it's necessarily an existential problem that the public image of Wikipedia's relevance is reaching a sort of "trough of disillusionment" due to some of its governance issues. It has simply reached a scale where it faces a new set or hurdles to…
How is this related to the article? You seem to be talking about public perception of wikipedia while the article mainly focuses on the falling number of active editors.
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#7Wikipedia has problems, but I think it's worth noting that Wikipedia has enough content to fill 2,200x volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica[1], or, a small library. I don't think it's necessarily an existential problem that the public image of Wikipedia's relevance is reaching a sort of "trough of disillusionment" due to some of its governance issues. It has simply reached a scale where it faces a new set or hurdles to…
How is this related to the article? You seem to be talking about public perception of wikipedia while the article mainly focuses on the falling number of active editors.
I'm suggesting that there hasn't been as much of a decline in community as there has been a decline in the available encyclopedia-relevant information left in the world that isn't already published on Wikipedia.
Also, the public perception is related to the drop of users and vice versa. There has been a lot of negative press lately, specifically related to problems in the community.
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#8Wikipedia has problems, but I think it's worth noting that Wikipedia has enough content to fill 2,200x volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica[1], or, a small library. I don't think it's necessarily an existential problem that the public image of Wikipedia's relevance is reaching a sort of "trough of disillusionment" due to some of its governance issues. It has simply reached a scale where it faces a new set or hurdles to…
How is this related to the article? You seem to be talking about public perception of wikipedia while the article mainly focuses on the falling number of active editors.
[deleted]
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#9Wikipedia has problems, but I think it's worth noting that Wikipedia has enough content to fill 2,200x volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica[1], or, a small library. I don't think it's necessarily an existential problem that the public image of Wikipedia's relevance is reaching a sort of "trough of disillusionment" due to some of its governance issues. It has simply reached a scale where it faces a new set or hurdles to…
How is this related to the article? You seem to be talking about public perception of wikipedia while the article mainly focuses on the falling number of active editors.
I read it as a criticism of the title - Wikipedia facing governance issues doesn't amount to a "fall".
Re: The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf]
#10I think Wikipedia will become the best case study in how bureaucracy cripples a working society. 80% of the effort of creating new content is following byzantine processes and procedures.
While I admit that these processes work for consistency of content, I cannot in the least observe any noticeable quality improvements, and the reason is that valuable contributors with deep domain knowledge will not invest the time to satisfy the OCD of some arbitrary editor suffering from Asperger.