Tech | August 07, 2009 | 14 comments

Is Wikipedia Taking A Downturn?

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17554-after-the-boom-is-wikipedia-heading-for-bust.htm...

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"Wikipedia has rapidly become one of the most used reference sources in the world, but a new study shows that the website's explosive growth is tailing off and also suggests the community-created encyclopaedia has become less welcoming to new contributors.

Ed Chi and colleagues at the Palo Alto Research Center in California warn that the changes could compromise the encyclopaedia's quality in the long term.

"It's easy to say that Wikipedia will always be here," says Chi, a computer scientist. "This research shows that is not a given."

Launched in 2001, the English language Wikipedia grew rapidly to its current size of almost 3 million articles. However, when the Palo Alto team analysed a downloaded version of the encyclopaedia they found its growth has peaked.

The number of articles added per month flattened out at 60,000 in 2006 and has since declined by around a third. They also found that the number of edits made every month and the number of active editors both stopped growing the following year, flattening out at around 5.5 million and 750,000 respectively.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit company that operates Wikipedia, has noted these changes and last month launched a strategic review of Wikipedia in an effort to understand them.

But one of the experts leading that review, Eugene Eric Kim of Blue Oxen Associates in San Francisco says that Chi's arguments are only one of several possible explanations for the changes seen in Wikipedia. The high number of reverts, for example, may be due to the increasing use of spam software that inserts promotional text, such as links to company websites, into articles.

Kim says the review will report this time next year and that any Wikipedia editor can contribute to the process.

The Palo Alto team will present their analysis at the International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration in Orlando, Florida this October. A blog post by Chi summarises the study."
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14 comments // Is Wikipedia Taking A Downturn?

  • Egnatius212
    • 0
      Egnatius212  

    • I use wikipedia more as a source for more in depth information. Even if you hate the articles, you have to admit there are often many useful links to more credited information at the bottom of the article.

    • 2 years ago
  • Timewellwasted
    • 0
      Timewellwasted  

    • Yes more and more schools will continue to ban it's use as it is not monitored like some believe it is. ACTUALLY someone has to literally find the error or lack of citation it is not automatic! As I mentioned earlier I'm not going to do your research for you, if you want to blindly believe Wikipedia is all it is cracked up to be.... there is a sucker born every minute as the saying goes.
      But there are even games surrounding the horrendously inaccurate entries, people also have made large sums of money betting on how long it takes for a top 100 rated Wikipedia entry to be discovered once vandalized. As I mentioned before some have made it over a year! Some make it only minutes, some only hours, but most often it is weeks before it is discovered.

      And again, citations can be faked easier than vandalizing! So please don't try to tell those of us that have banned Wikipedia from our school how accurate it "can" be. Until it is accurate over 85% of the time, (which even Wikipedia does not claim) it will just be a gimmick with a lot of good information hodge podged with flat out disinformation.

    • 2 years ago
  • kitteneater
    • 0
      kitteneater  
    • Timewellwasted:

      I never said wiki was god. I just think it's stupid to ban a student from deciding what would be considered inaccurate. You're cheating a student from learning "why." You're only teaching them "what."Again, it defeats the purpose of research. Most scholarly "legitimate" sources are inaccurate or biased in one way or another. Students need to learn to look at many sources and judge for themselves.

    • 2 years ago
  • couldntfindausername
    • 0
      couldntfindausername  
    • Timewellwasted:

      "So please don't try to tell those of us that have banned Wikipedia from our school how accurate it "can" be."

      If your school's teaching methods are so weak that students trust a single source - *any* single source - for material then that is not Wikipedia's failing.

      Currently I have wikipedia and three textbooks on the go for a single topic spanning several scientific areas. Wikipedia is serving as something of a 'master index', integrating the parts of each area relevant to the topic. That saves pointless trawling hundreds of pages of irrelevant material. It's also throwing up overlaps and linkages to other areas, none of which are explored properly in an individual textbook.

      Any disagreement I've ever found between Wikipedia and "proper" sources has been caused by either a) blatant vandalism recognisable by sentence structure, change in style, citation of poor quality external sources, frank logical fallacy etc. readily noticed by anyone with a triple digit IQ and reasonable critical thinking skills, or b) by the Wikipedia page being more up to date than the textbook [confirmed with a check of the primary literature].

      The problem with Wikipedia as a source isn't that it is fallible [it is] or that it has the inherent weakness of not being constant across time. Rather, the problem is that too many people blame the weakness in critical thinking and research skills on the sources used rather than on poor teaching and instruction.

      Using a motor racing analogy - if someone is taught how to drive poorly, it doesn't matter what car you put them in; teach them to drive properly and they'll make the best of any old rust bucket right up to its limits.

    • 2 years ago
  • kitteneater
    • 0
      kitteneater  

    • My school forbids me to use Wiki as well, but I hate the rule. It's illogical and it defeats the purpose of doing research. Besides,an author must reference everything he or she writes on Wikipedia, otherwise, the page will say "This page may not be up to site standards" or "Info not cited."

      Yeah, some shit can be can be made up, but Wiki points out all incorrect information. Every topic is sorted by accuracy...so they obviously go over each page daily. Wikimedia probably got tired of reading stupid incorrect stuff all the time. Good for them.

    • 2 years ago
  • Drach
    • 0
      Drach  

    • Most classes I take at my Art school forbids me from using Wikipedia for reference. Some of it can be altered to be untrue and or made up.

    • 2 years ago
  • TheJerryMadden
  • ayashe
    • 0
      ayashe  

    • Well you can't just go in and add things. Wikipedia has rules and you have to follow those rules when updating or adding information. It's nothing new.

    • 2 years ago
  • Timewellwasted
    • 0
      Timewellwasted  
    • ayashe:

      Ufda, that is just plain not true. There are very few Wikipedia articles that cannot be changed by any tom dick or Mary. I'm not going to site a bunch of examples because it is a very well known fact people vandalize or "correct" information constantly! Do a bing or google for famous Wikipedia vandalism. For over a year according to a Wikipedia article on Jack Ruby, a well known reporter was said to have had a hand in the Jack Ruby killing of Lee Harvey Oswald unfortunately the well known reporter was not born until 12 years after Lee Oswald was dead... No one noticed until the vandalizer himself came forth to discredit Wikipedia articles and gave his own vandalizing as proof.
      Believe me, I have vandalized many Wikipedia articles myself in telling students why our school district will not accept any homework with Wikipedia as the reference material. Many people think Wikipedia is the best thing since sliced bread, many others think (myself included) it was a well conceived idea, but human nature is so terrifyingly immature when we think we are anonymous that it has turned into a place where people take turns vandalizing and arguing about the correct version of this or that and they site other Wikipedia articles as their reference material!!
      But I am rambling a bit here, I have no idea what article or articles you or anyone are referring to but it is literally impossible to get banned for vandalizing a Wikipedia article the first time, yes perhaps if you are a repeat offender on the same article you may be banned, but a first time offense?? Not on your life!

      And to TheJerryMadden: You are very correct! I have found articles so far from accurate that I only bother with Wikipedia as a source of amusement as one never knows who has fiddled with the answers.

      As a prime example of my statements please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby and read the article on Mr. Ruby, it has been butchered so many times by so many people it is rarely corrected anymore! The fun begins with a famous Dave of barbecue fame making a comment on the sandwich industry.....

      Personally I will be quite happy to see Wiki-everything disappear!

    • 2 years ago
  • cikesef
    • 0
      cikesef  

    • Wikipedia, even though all of the knowledge is human-generated, feels like a Sci-Fi sentient robot. It's reached that stage where it decides that it's learned everything that it needs to and everything else is irrelevant. Only one more year until the Wikipedia mods declare humanity obsolete.

    • 2 years ago
  • couldntfindausername
    • 0
      couldntfindausername  

    • Pah, Wikipedia [or some alternative iteration if the current foundation gets bored or abducted by aliens] will continue to grow until it contains everything in the universe and then some.

      Its role may well change, with the more 'social' side becoming less important as morons get bored vandalising the place with opinions but its fact-base will grow stronger unless replaced by a faster/prettier version of the same thing. Oftentimes there is simply no other resource that comes close to integrating the sort of fragmented information Wikipedia throws up with a couple of mouseclicks.

      Looking at something from Current today as a prime example - a study on the potential use of drug eluting nanodiamonds in wound healing. Wikipedia will give an overall snapshot of the relevant scientific/technological principles involved faster and probably more efficiently than any other resource in the world. Sure each individual area will be covered much better in primary journals, textbooks and what have you but that means looking up a massive range of sources which for most purposes is either impractical or unnecessary overkill.

      The method of creation and maintenance may change [perhaps some level of automation by collaboration with journal publishers, or some form of AI, or cloudsourcing it to the pigeons that Google uses to rank pages] but the joined up collection of all the knowledge in Stephen Fry's brain will certainly continue.

    • 2 years ago
  • JClem
    • 0
      JClem  

    • I think the main problem of it is the validity of the information posted. I remember being at university and most lecturers would not accept Wikipedia references and even those that did wanted you to heavily critisise the source.

      I think its heyday might be over, however it is still useful for things like pub facts

    • 2 years ago
  • Nixie77
    • 0
      Nixie77  

    • They are so mean on that site! I've tried to update things and have been banned. I'm just a user - I didn't know I was doing anything wrong. It's like their a little online cult.

    • 2 years ago
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