Thousands of editors desert a troubled Wikipedia

Felipe Ortega, whose computer program analyzes editing history on Wikipedia says the staggering loss of editors could cause the project to "vanish quickly." But Wikimedia strongly disagrees.
11/27/2009 6:00:00 AM By: Megan Burger and Jeremy Kirk

Research has shown that nearly 50,000 editors left online encyclopedia Wikipedia in the first quarter of this year - 10 times the number who deserted the site in the same period of 2008.

The staggering loss of editors from the user-generated site was reported by Felipe Ortega from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid.

Ortega built and used a computer program to analyze editing history on Wikipedia.

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Speaking to The Times UK, he said: "If you don't have enough people to take care of the project it could vanish quickly. We're not in that situation yet. But eventually, if the negative trends follow, we could be in that situation."

In response, Wikimedia UK's Michael Peel told the Press Association that Wikipedia is in good shape. The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation runs the Wikipedia site.

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