Will Wikipedia end before long?
There is hardly anyone among internet users who is yet to know of Wikipedia. It is basically a free, web-based and collaborative multilingual encyclopedia, born in the project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. As per records, Wikipedia's 13 million articles (2.9 million in English) have been written by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website. It was introduced in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, witnessed a steady growth in the previous years, is on the wane now and can come to an end, if the present situation continues.
Shocked? If you are one of the users who make use of Wikipedia at times, this is indeed dreadful. Well, you are not the only one who is aggrieved, your mindset is shared by others as well.
A number of recently conducted studies do indicate the growth of Wikipedia is sloping off. What can be the basic reason then? As per experts, the rot stems from the bizarre actions of some of its editors. Well this is not unfounded since the INQ, for years, has been stating emphatically, that within Wikipedia there is a closed circle of editors with constrained worldviews and these people are basically culpable for killing off real information.
The same fact has also been corroborated by editor Chi and colleagues. Speaking on this at the Palo Alto Research Center in California, they have said that the number of articles added per month flattened out at 60,000 in 2006 and has since declined by around a third. As indicated by them, 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.
They have stated that the faction within Wikipedia is keeping off casual contributors who make occasional changes by means of insistently hacking entries so that they fit their own view of the universe.
But our question when these rogues will be kicked out. We are waiting for that day or else the end of Wikipedia will occur before long.
Please help spread the word by sharing this article with your friends.
