Texas An increase in active Wikipedia editors: Does the data mean good news for the encyclopedia?← Back to ContentsView Latest Issue26 August 2015
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The Meme of decline
Edits per article, Wikipedians per article
A nice piece: the downward trend had been showing signs of reversing for a while.
One thing to bear in mind though is that the number of edits per article has clearly declined. In March 2007 there were 4.8 million edits spread across 1.6 million articles (about 3 edits per article). In March 2015, there were 3.1 million edits spread across 4.8 million articles (about 0.6 edits per article).
So articles as a whole are stabilising. In some cases, this may be because they have matured and become really good (I believe featured articles for example generally see fewer edits) or "good enough", in other cases it may just be a question of fatigue on the part of editors who used to fight over content – then you get articles that look like abandoned battlefields (I can think of a few).
In addition, new articles added see fewer edits than they used to in the past – possibly because they are in niche topics, with shorter content and fewer people interested in them.
What has also sharply declined, of course, is the number of highly active Wikipedians per article. This has potential implications for quality control. For example, hundreds of thousands of articles are on no active editor's watchlist. Andreas JN466 14:32, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Something that brought me back
I had really slowed down my content editing up until about 1 month ago, largely because I am working for the Foundation on WP:TWL, but also burnout. I know the meta:100wikidays challenge has helped me feel more tied to coming back to contributing (and contributing content). I have noticed an increase in the number of similar collegial activities in the last couple years: whereas when I really burnt out and backed off in 2012/13, those were nearly as accessable. I wonder if we should be encouraging more editing contests, to keep people engaged (there is even a tool kit for running such events being worked on, based on community learnings). On English we don't have as many of these kinds of spaces as we could (geographically focused language communities tend to do it better), Sadads (talk) 17:03, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wikiprojects are ghost towns
I quit editing a while back, maybe 5 years. Trying to make Abe Lincoln an FA broke my will to edit. I've been checking my watchlist daily for the a last few weeks now, though. I see some of the same people around still active, like Black Kite and BOZ. I miss the editors from the old inclusionist/deletionist wars we used to have who aren't around anymore, like Ned Scott and Matthew. Win or lose, I don't think WP has ever had anything as addictive as that particular fight. Now it's over.
Anyways, I still have a bunch of wikiproject pages on my watchlist, but they barely ever come up anymore. WProject comics used to have maybe 10 comments a day. Now it's a few a week. Same with the rest. Things are way less active than they used to be. But, I'm back, doing a little bit here and there, though. Maybe we hit rock bottom and will start moving up. I think wikinews never came back, though, as an example, so who knows. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The trend continues for August
August stats are in and the trend continues. I'm starting to monitor this at User:WereSpielChequers/100+ editors ϢereSpielChequers 17:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wishful thinking
We have years of decline, then one indicator goes contrary. If it is reflective of anything it is the bad actors beginning their steady march. As another editor mentions above WikiProjects have mostly failed. Barnstars and WikiLove are nice and all but they have nothing to do with the integrity of the project. - Shiftchange (talk) 07:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]