26 November 2009

Wikipedia`s spiral of death?

Dear All
Yet again, the doctorate has taken over my whole life leaving with not much time to blog anymore!! However, now that things have slightly calmed down, I will try to blog more frequently. The operative word being try!!

An interesting research has been carried out by Ortega on the fall of the number of editors of Wikipedia and the reasons for such fall. He also predicts that this worrying trend is likely to continue. The Times also reports some infighting between Wikipedia writers which may also explain the downward spiral in the number of editors (alongside lack of time and reaching saturation point in terms of articles). It will be interesting to see how Wikipedia fares for the next year and the implications if the downward trend continues. It could also be that this research provides an added bonus for either more volunteer editors or for existing ones to contribute more if the main reason for the downward spiral is lack of time.