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The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia

Authors:

Gregorio Convertino,

Peter PirolliAuthors Info & Claims

WikiSym '09: Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

Article No.: 8, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/1641309.1641322

Published: 25 October 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Prior research on Wikipedia has characterized the growth in content and editors as being fundamentally exponential in nature, extrapolating current trends into the future. We show that recent editing activity suggests that Wikipedia growth has slowed, and perhaps plateaued, indicating that it may have come against its limits to growth. We measure growth, population shifts, and patterns of editor and administrator activities, contrasting these against past results where possible. Both the rate of page growth and editor growth has declined. As growth has declined, there are indicators of increased coordination and overhead costs, exclusion of newcomers, and resistance to new edits. We discuss some possible explanations for these new developments in Wikipedia including decreased opportunities for sharing existing knowledge and increased bureaucratic stress on the socio-technical system itself.

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Cited By

Yin YGuo LThebault-Spieker J(2024)Productivity or Equity? Tradeoffs in Volunteer Microtasking in Humanitarian OpenStreetMapProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373908:CSCW1(1-34)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637390
Baker MDétienne F(2024)Arguing across spaces in an online epistemic communityJournal of Argumentation in Context10.1075/jaic.00023.bak13:1(1-48)Online publication date: 17-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00023.bak
Ren YZhang HKraut R(2023)How Did They Build the Free Encyclopedia? A Literature Review of Collaboration and Coordination among Wikipedia EditorsACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/361736931:1(1-48)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3617369
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Index Terms

The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing design and evaluation methods
    2. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction paradigms
      1. Web-based interaction
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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cover image ACM Other conferences

WikiSym '09: Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration

October 2009

200 pages

ISBN:9781605587301

DOI:10.1145/1641309

General Chair:
Dirk Riehle
SAP Labs LLC
,
Program Chair:
Amy Bruckman
Georgia Institute of Technology

Copyright © 2009 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 25 October 2009

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WikiSym '09: 2009 International Symposium on Wikis

October 25 - 27, 2009

Florida, Orlando

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WikiSym '09 Paper Acceptance Rate 16 of 45 submissions, 36%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 69 of 145 submissions, 48%

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Cited By

Yin YGuo LThebault-Spieker J(2024)Productivity or Equity? Tradeoffs in Volunteer Microtasking in Humanitarian OpenStreetMapProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373908:CSCW1(1-34)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637390
Baker MDétienne F(2024)Arguing across spaces in an online epistemic communityJournal of Argumentation in Context10.1075/jaic.00023.bak13:1(1-48)Online publication date: 17-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.00023.bak
Ren YZhang HKraut R(2023)How Did They Build the Free Encyclopedia? A Literature Review of Collaboration and Coordination among Wikipedia EditorsACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/361736931:1(1-48)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3617369
Miquel-Ribé MConsonni CLaniado D(2022)Community Vital Signs: Measuring Wikipedia Communities’ Sustainable Growth and RenewalSustainability10.3390/su1408470514:8(4705)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084705
Tran CChampion KHill BGreenstadt R(2022)The Risks, Benefits, and Consequences of Prepublication Moderation: Evidence from 17 Wikipedia Language EditionsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35552256:CSCW2(1-25)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
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Mohammed Ali AAlwan HAl-Shakarchy N(2022)A Survey on Detecting Vandalism in Crowdsourcing Models2022 International Conference on Data Science and Intelligent Computing (ICDSIC)10.1109/ICDSIC56987.2022.10076011(25-30)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2022
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Miquel Ribé MLaniado DKaltenbrunner A(2021)The Role of Local Content in Wikipedia: A Study on Reader and Editor EngagementÁrea Abierta10.5209/arab.7280121:2(123-151)Online publication date: 17-May-2021
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KIKKAWA JTAKAKU MYOSHIKANE F(2021)Time-series Analyses of the Editors and Their Edits for Adding Bibliographic References on WikipediaWikipedia上の学術文献の参照記述の追加に関する時系列分析Joho Chishiki Gakkaishi10.2964/jsik_2020_037Online publication date: 2021
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MacKenzie CHott J(2021)Extracting and Visualizing User Engagement on Wikipedia Talk PagesProceedings of the 17th International Symposium on Open Collaboration10.1145/3479986.3479995(1-12)Online publication date: 15-Sep-2021
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