Tech | November 25, 2009 | 2 comments

Wikipedia volunteers quit in mass exodus

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richjm
Wikipedia, the fifth most popular website in the world, has seen a staggering 49,000 volunteers, the people who write, edit and police it, quit in the beginning of 2009 according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the same period a year before, only 4,900 left.

The exodus has raised concern among the online community that the quality and reliability of the site will deteriorate when these seasoned editors leave.

It's not clear why so many people are leaving but theories range from suggestions that the site has gone too mainstream and "lost its early innocence" to editors being put off by the increasing number of rules imposed on content creators. Other people postulate that posters have simply run out of topics to cover and moved on.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125893981183759969.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStori...

Image: http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/wiki-funny.png
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