Pros And Cons To Convection O

The purpose of Wikipedia (III)

The number of new contributors today decreases sharply, while that of regular contributors stagnates. Overall, the number of contributors has followed the following form (called logistic ): exponential growth, then brake harder and harder thereof, to a maximum level.

However, contributors to Wikipedia are to write articles. So one might think that the number of articles follows a similar growth as the number contributors: an exponential growth first, then smaller and smaller, until it becomes zero. It would reach the maximum number of possible items, the sum of knowledge that can write to the world as part of the French Wikipedia.

This growth is the product of three mechanisms:

1) The more articles, most coming from new contributors. The more contributors, the more new items, etc.. This mechanism is responsible for exponential growth.

2) But the more contributors, the fewer new people available to contribute to Wikipedia under the conditions that sets the encyclopedia.

3) And the fewer potential new items to be created, and the less changeable content, since the knowledge of contributors who are willing to contribute to Wikipedia are limited, as are the human knowledge. These last two mechanisms inhibit the growth of the number of items to a maximum.

Now as you can see, this is not what happened.

The item number has followed a logistic curve most of the existence of Wikipedia, but from the end of 2007, growth in the number of articles has certainly decreased, but less quickly than the logistic model would imply.

We understand better what happened, if we look at the number of new articles per month:

As you can see, this number follows fairly closely that predicted by the logistic model up 'in 2007. Then, instead of continuing to decline, the number of new items is stagnating at a relatively close to the historic summit.

is exactly the same thing that occurred to the number of edits per month on the encyclopedia, according to a temporality same:


Therefore, braking mechanisms have not played in full. What happened?

First, it is true that the number of new contributors decline sharply, the number of regular contributors it stagnates, arrivals offset the departures. So there is a fairly constant number of contributors to Wikipedia. The number of editions has therefore certainly no reason to increase, but it did not decline. It stagnates, as the number of contributors.

Second, these contributors continue broadly to create a nearly constant amount of content, even if you press down slightly.

This example shows that the number of edits per month depending on the number of active publishers. Why? Because, despite its nearly one million articles, Wikipedia is far from French toured the whole of human knowledge, as demonstrated elsewhere that the English version has three times as many articles.

But mostly because content knowledge is not fixed: as limited as are the skills of Wikipedia contributors, there will always be enough for the new encyclopedia that grows. As noted by Max Weber ¹ ,

There are sciences which has been given to remain forever young. This is true of all historical disciplines, from all those who ever changing flow of civilization brings new problems incessantly.

From this point of view, it was given to Wikipedia remain forever young. We can therefore predict a gradual decrease in the number of new articles and editing and as exhausted as the subjects may treat Wikipedia contributors, and because the arrival of new contributors, many smaller, not compensate more departures. But this level will never be zero, since the extremely broad range of subjects dealt Wikipedia, some of which are the "flow eternally moving" evoked Weber.

The fact remains that Wikipedia is in the process of beginning to end: the encyclopedia is facing new challenges. The world of exponential growth is completed. It is more an encyclopedia structure experiencing a rapid expansion of its content and its players. Instead, it is likely to limit the decrease in the future the number of regular contributors, and to ensure as much maintenance as content development.

____________________________

1. In the first of its Essays on the Theory of Science available here , page 153 of the PDF.