Andrew Lih and Andrew Brown both maintain editing Wikipedia with smartphones is difficult and discourages new potential contributors.[1][2] Lih alleges there is serious disagreement among existing contributors on how to resolve this. In 2015 Lih feared for Wikipedia's long-term future while Brown feared problems with Wikipedia would remain and rival encyclopedias would not replace it.[1][2]
Viewers and funds
As of 2015, there had been a marked decline in persons who viewed Wikipedia from their computers, and according to The Washington Post "on their phones...[people are] far less likely to donate".[3] At the time, the Wikimedia Foundation reported reserves equivalent to one year's budgeted expenditures. On the other hand, the number of paid staff had ballooned, so those expenses increased.[3]
In 2021, Andreas Kolbe, a former co-editor-in-chief of The Signpost, wrote that the Wikimedia Foundation was reaching its 10-year goal of a US$100 million endowment, five years earlier than planned, which may surprise donors and users around the world who regularly see Wikipedia fundraising banners. He also said accounting methods disguise the size of operating surpluses, top managers earn $300,000 – 400,000 a year, and over 40 people work exclusively on fundraising.[4]
Timeline of predictions
In the fall of 2020, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia, associate professor of the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University Joseph Reagle conducted a retrospective study of numerous "predictions of the ends of Wikipedia" that took place in these 20 years.
He divided the waves of predictions into periods: "Early growth (2001–2002)", "Nascent identity (2001–2005)", "Production model (2005–2010)", "Contributor attrition (2009–2017)" and the current period "(2020–)". Each of these periods brought its distinctive fatal predictions, which never came true. As a result, Reagle became firmly convinced that Wikipedia was not in danger.[5]
In 2023, concern grew that the ubiquity and proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) may affect Wikipedia adversely. As AI keeps improving and is used more, some predict it may make Wikipedia obsolete, or at least make it less important.[6] A 2023 academic research found out that AI, when applied to Wikipedia, works most efficiently when it is used for corrections of errors while Wikipedia is still remaining to be written by humans.[7]
See also
References
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
Lih-nyt
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
guardian-brown
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Dewey, Caitlin (December 2, 2015). "Internet Culture: Wikipedia has a ton of money. So why is it begging you to donate yours?". Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 10, 2018. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
- ^ Kolbe, Andreas (2021-05-24). "Wikipedia is swimming in money—why is it begging people to donate?". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
- ^ Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-11-01/In focus
- ^ Gertner, Jon (2023-07-18). "Wikipedia's Moment of Truth". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-08-13.
- ^ Petroni, Fabio; Broscheit, Samuel; Piktus, Aleksandra; Lewis, Patrick; Izacard, Gautier; Hosseini, Lucas; Dwivedi-Yu, Jane; Lomeli, Maria; Schick, Timo; Bevilacqua, Michele; Mazaré, Pierre-Emmanuel; Joulin, Armand; Grave, Edouard; Riedel, Sebastian (October 2023). "Improving Wikipedia verifiability with AI". Nature Machine Intelligence. 5 (10): 1142–1148. arXiv:2207.06220. doi:10.1038/s42256-023-00726-1. S2CID 250491944.
Further reading
- Gertner, Jon. (2023) "Wikipedia's Moment of Truth: Can the online encyclopedia help teach A.I. chatbots to get their facts right — without destroying itself in the process?" New York Times Magazine (July 18, 2023) online
- Reagle, Joseph (15 October 2020). "The Many (Reported) Deaths of Wikipedia". In Jackie, Koerner (ed.). Wikipedia @ 20. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780262538176. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
- Solorio, Thamar; Hasan, Ragib; Mizan, Mainul. A Case Study of Sockpuppet Detection in Wikipedia (PDF). The University of Alabama at Birmingham.