Tighter control over additions to the online encyclopedia leads to stagnating growth
Within the next few weeks, Wikipedia is expected to reach a significant milestone when it hits the three-million mark for the number of English articles it features. But despite being one of the world’s biggest open knowledge banks, according to researchers, the site has become “a most exclusive place.” Though it is still growing, the number of articles being added daily is down to 1,300 a day from an average of 2,200 a day in July, 2007. Further analysis by scientists at the Palo Alto Research Center in California shows that casual editors to the site are much more likely to have their changes reverted than they were in the past. Increasingly, it seems, control over the content resides in the hands of an inner core of editors.