The decline of the WP "Community", Light at the end of this dark tunnel? Options

[Kato]

Back in December, we briefly touched upon some statistics which showed a decline in the number of new Wikipedia users, and a tailing off of editors with all number of edits -- basically, a decline in the community across the board.

http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=21890

It was hard to know how seriously to take these statistics, but the other other day, I listened to a broadcast of Wikipedia Weekly (Andrew Lih's well produced but difficult to stomach pro-Wikipedia radio show). Lih and his on-air "zoo" of cohorts, high on Jimbo-Juice, discuss the findings at some length.

Their comments make quite interesting listening. Through the wailing and gnashing of teeth, it is clear that they are concerned by this drop off. One Wiki-pundit asserts that if the community fails, the project dies. Lih himself compares WP to a shark that needs to keep moving, or it will die. Another pro-WP voice bemoans the statistics as "the most depressing thing I've read in all my time at WP" (which, given the hurtful strife and multi-layered defamation WP has unleashed on the world is galling in itself).

Interestingly, it is agreed that February-March 2007 was the peak of WP, and it has been downhill ever since. The statistical figures back that up, and this ties in with anecdotal evidence from pretty much all Wiki-watchers.

Lih noted that activity on all WP fronts declined from that time, including on mailing lists and so on. At the Review, we can confirm that the community began to eat itself around that time, and a third phase of unending internal conflict had replaced the peak era (which was 2005-2007). Somey here has talked long and hard of the "Maintenance Phase", the inevitable period when new articles are hard to find, and where Wikipedios spend their time chasing their tails in an ever more meaningless tasks.

As noted by Greg Kohs and others here, February-March 2007 also coincides with the Essjay scandal. Greg wrote:

The Essjay incident appeared to have an adverse impact on daily financial donations to the Wikimedia Foundation. The downward slide closely mirrored a number of ethically questionable decisions by key administrators of Wikipedia.

In 2007, the wool was removed from the eyes of some of the media, and it seems now that even the most pro-Wikipedia pieces are laced with negatives. And the public at large are much more skeptical of the site than they were 2 years ago.

So, we've discussed the demise of WP many times before here, but now, Wiki-evangelists and Cultists like those on Wikipedia Weekly are beginning to take the decline seriously.

Is this it?

[Jon Awbrey]

People who focus on the content of Wikipedia are like people who focus on the shells of a shell game.

The real product of Wikipedia is the character of the people who are trained to operate within the system.

Wikipediots and Teapediots are a lot alike — they are basically people who have asked for everything that will happen to them, and I wouldn't care a whit about them if it weren't for the fact that The Rest Of Us will have to suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

In itself, the content of Wikipedia is like all the other bits on the Web — like all the stuff that Teapediot twits are no doubt happily twitting to each other somewhere or other in UseNewt 2.0 even as I write — that I couldn't care less about looking up and no one forces me to look at.

Ay, there's the rub —

None of that would be a problem if it were, like the rest of the Web, take it or leave it. You could just leave it, like you leave all the rest where it lies. It wouldn't even matter that Wikipediots pretend Wikipedia is something it's not — who would care what they say?

But no.

Google decided to shove the whole mess in the face of folks who know better, and Wikipediots are bound and determined to keep folks who know better from fixing it.

But there's more.

There is the massive investment in false advertising and just plan lies that its Real Funders use to maintain the pretense that it's something it's not.

A society can inculcate stupidity in its people just so long before it … well … withers away.

Jon (IMG:http://wikipediareview.com/stimg9x0b4fsr2/1/folder_post_icons/icon9.gif)

[powercorrupts]

People who focus on the content of Wikipedia are like people who focus on the shells of a shell game.

The real product of Wikipedia is the character of the people who are trained to operate within the system.

Wikipediots and Teapediots are a lot alike — they are basically people who have asked for everything that will happen to them, and I wouldn't care a whit about them if it weren't for the fact that The Rest Of Us will have to suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

In itself, the content of Wikipedia is like all the other bits on the Web — like all the stuff that Teapediot twits are no doubt happily twitting to each other somewhere or other in UseNewt 2.0 even as I write — that I couldn't care less about looking up and no one forces me to look at.

Ay, there's the rub —

None of that would be a problem if it were, like the rest of the Web, take it or leave it. You could just leave it, like you leave all the rest where it lies. It wouldn't even matter that Wikipediots pretend Wikipedia is something it's not — who would care what they say?

But no.

Google decided to shove the whole mess in the face of folks who know better, and Wikipediots are bound and determined to keep folks who know better from fixing it.

But there's more.

There is the massive investment in false advertising and just plan lies that its Real Funders use to maintain the pretense that it's something it's not.

A society can inculcate stupidity in its people just so long before it, well, withers away.

Jon (IMG:http://wikipediareview.com/stimg9x0b4fsr2/1/folder_post_icons/icon9.gif)

"Google decided to shove the whole mess in the face of folks who know better, and Wikipediots are bound and determined to keep folks who know better from fixing it. - But there's more. - There is the massive investment in false advertising and just plan lies that its Real Funders use to maintain the pretense that it's something it's not."

You got a touch of the abd'ees for minute there, but A-star for that.

I would add that Wikimedia's prime concern isn't its encyclopedia at all (which they just want to keep relatively-balanced in that controllable area of POPULAR, NEEDY and INCOMPLETE) - their principle objective to find ways of expanding into territories where they can generate enough legal income (not-for-profit of course) to become financially self-reliant, and not almost completely reliant on Google - or more specifically, the donations from people that are more based-on the 'convenience-factor' supplied by Google, than on Wikipedia content itself. Down the road, Wikipedia is popular enough to rely on its internal search engine (and internal links of course), but without the millions of 'donation dollars' that are based-upon the Google-centred “convenience factor” (many of them possibly repeat donations), their finances will struggle to sustain them.

Chapters are Wikimedia's biggest long-term threat in my opinion: people get budgets to start them up, can profit in the usual non-explicit ways, and are not even expected to be WP contributors - ie they can be proven dodgy Wikipedians, but as long as they are willing to do the Chapter-creation groundwork, and bow down to The Project, then it's all roses. It's the physical land-based element that really makes me shudder.

This post has been edited by powercorrupts: