QUOTE(MBisanz @ Wed 25th November 2009, 2:15pm)
One of the outcomes I can think of Somey is that of the wounded animal. If editors leave in droves, but because of pagerank, namebrand, etc, people keep using WP, then the BLP and POV situations will only worsen as WP descends into an Myspace-like existence, only with more dangerous credibility than Myspace could ever hope for.
Well, exactly. Trying to guess the likely endgame for WP, both in the medium and long terms, is one of my own chief interests here, and that has always struck me as a highly likely scenario. However, it will probably be accompanied by a move towards a lockdown/stabilization strategy, which is also how the public will probably see it. (And how did we get so off-topic? It's Everyking's fault again, isn't it? (IMG:
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Eventually an alternative to WP might come along, prior to which there would be a period of fits-and-starts as competitors start up and mostly fail, due to the financial problems inherent in any business model that involves providing a free online information reference... Meanwhile, the idea of an international government-subsidized reference site (whether or not based on WP content) seems almost inconceivable now, but in ten years, who knows? Weirder things have been suggested. They might even continue to allow open/anonymous editing, in some form or other.
Either way, I do believe the trend towards editor non-retention is real (though maybe not as pronounced as the WSJ says it is), and I don't think there's any way to really stop it, aside from deleting numerous articles on major topics relating to popular culture, and/or dropping "notability" standards drastically in the short term. I hope they don't do either of those things, but once panic sets in, unpredictability is usually not far behind. (IMG:
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