The Decline of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites globally, yet it operates unlike other top-ranking platforms. Instead of being managed by a major corporation, it is maintained by a group of volunteers who work under assumed names and frequently debate one another. The site rarely experiments with new features to attract users and has remained unchanged for years. Despite this, the English-language version alone sees around 10 billion page views monthly. When significant events occur, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, detailed entries sourced from multiple references appear quickly and continue to evolve. Because there are no comparable free resources, many digital services depend on Wikipedia. Search for something on Google or ask Siri a question and much of the information provided comes straight from Wikipedia’s pages.

However, Wikipedia and its mission to document “the sum of all human knowledge” face difficulties. The group of volunteers responsible for maintaining and protecting the English-language Wikipedia has been shrinking since 2007, with more than a third of its contributors leaving the project – those who remain struggling to resolve issues that prevent the platform from reaching higher quality standards. A major challenge is its uneven content coverage. At the same time, subjects like Pokémon and female adult film stars have extensive detail, and topics such as female authors and locations in sub-Saharan Africa lack depth. Many key entries also lack credibility. Most of the 1,000 articles the platform’s volunteers consider essential for a well-rounded encyclopedia fail to meet even mid-level quality ratings by Wikipedia’s standards.

The root of these problems is clear. Wikipedia’s core editing community, which is estimated to be about 90 percent male, has developed a rigid set of rules and processes. This structured system, combined with a sometimes unwelcoming culture, discourages newcomers who might otherwise contribute and help balance the platform’s content.

Ironically, the same decentralized collaboration that made Wikipedia successful has also led to the decline in participation that now threatens its future.

To address these concerns, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit responsible for Wikipedia’s legal and technical infrastructure, has initiated an initiative to guide the platform sustainably. Since the foundation cannot directly change how volunteers manage Wikipedia, it adjusts the site’s design and software to encourage a healthier environment for contributors.

These efforts mark the most significant updates Wikipedia has seen in years. While other websites have evolved with modern internet trends, Wikipedia has mainly remained the same, with an interface reminiscent of the early days of the web. “Everything about Wikipedia made sense in 2001, but it has become outdated over time,” says Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, whose office occupies two modest floors of a San Francisco building with a frequently malfunctioning elevator. “This is our attempt to catch up.” Gardner and Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, believe attracting new contributors is key to improving the platform. “The biggest challenge is increasing the diversity of editors,” Wales explains. He hopes to see growth in contributions across underrepresented topics.

Whether this approach will work depends on whether people still value the idea of collaborative knowledge-sharing – a principle that Wikipedia was built on. However, the effort is essential. Wikipedia’s influence extends far beyond its editors and students who rely on it for last-minute research. More people than ever depend on the information it provides, whether directly or through other services. At the same time, Wikipedia has eliminated or overshadowed many alternatives. In 2009, Microsoft shut down Encarta, which had drawn from established encyclopedias. Encyclopaedia Britannica, which charges $70 per year for access to its 120,000 articles, now only offers a limited number of free entries, many of which are cluttered with advertisements.

Newcomers Struggle to Contribute

Wikipedia was never meant to stand alone as an information source. When it launched in 2001, its creators, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger envisioned it as a way to generate content for Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia written by experts. However, after a year, Nupedia had only 13 articles covering topics like Virgil and the Donegal fiddle tradition. Wikipedia, which allowed anyone to contribute, was meant to speed up the process.

When they realized how quickly Wikipedia grew, Wales and Sanger shifted their focus entirely. By the end of its first year, the site had over 20,000 articles in 18 languages. In 2003, Wales established the Wikimedia Foundation to maintain its infrastructure and fundraising while content control remained in the hands of dedicated contributors. This group, known as Wikipedians, built the largest encyclopedia ever compiled without formal leadership. They introduced workflows and guidelines to keep the content accurate, with a select group of “administrators” managing deletions and enforcing rules. Today, the English Wikipedia has 635 active administrators.

Many doubted Wikipedia’s approach. Traditional encyclopedias were curated by experts and followed structured editorial processes. On the other hand, Wikipedia had no central planning, discouraged traditional expertise, and relied on the idea that if enough people contributed, it would eventually cover all knowledge. The project grew rapidly. By 2005, the English-language Wikipedia had 750,000 articles, and media coverage helped it become widely accepted.

As Wikipedia’s visibility increased, so did the volume of valuable and disruptive contributions. More people meant more vandalism, and in 2006, long-time editors started to feel overwhelmed. The growing number of edits made it challenging to maintain quality, and high-profile incidents, such as a false biography that defamed journalist John Seigenthaler, raised concerns about accuracy.

Wikipedia’s response was a mix of discussion, debate, and action. Veteran editors introduced stricter editing tools and review processes. They developed software that let contributors quickly assess and remove problematic edits while issuing warnings to offenders. Automated "bots" were deployed to reverse vandalism and fix formatting errors instantly.

These changes worked – Wikipedia became more reliable, and significant scandals became rare. As the encyclopedia expanded, it became an essential online resource. Today, the English Wikipedia alone has 4.4 million articles, with millions more across 286 languages. However, these stricter controls had an unintended effect: they made Wikipedia less welcoming to new contributors.

For newcomers making their first edits, Wikipedia had become an impersonal, rule-heavy environment. Mistakes were quickly erased by automated tools, often without explanation. Many first-time contributors found the experience discouraging and chose not to return. The number of active editors peaked in 2007 at over 51,000. Since then, participation has steadily declined, with only 31,000 active editors as of last summer.

Aaron Halfaker, a University of Minnesota researcher who has worked with the Wikimedia Foundation, describes this shift as Wikipedia’s "decline phase." His study, conducted with researchers from Berkeley and the University of Washington, found that as Wikipedia’s automated editing tools became more aggressive, the chances of a newcomer’s contribution being immediately deleted increased. Those who had their work removed were far less likely to continue contributing.

Because Wikipedia struggles to attract new editors, its content remains skewed toward subjects favored by long-time contributors – primarily technical, Western, and male-dominated topics. A 2011 University of Minnesota study found that entries on subjects of interest to female editors were significantly shorter than those on topics with more male contributors. That same year, a University of Oxford study found that 84 percent of location-based Wikipedia articles covered Europe or North America. Antarctica had more entries than any country in Africa or South America.

Halfaker and his team suggested updating Wikipedia’s slogan, which currently reads: “The encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Their revision reflects newcomers' challenges: “The encyclopedia that anyone who understands the norms, socializes themselves, dodges the impersonal wall of semi-automated rejection, and still wants to contribute their time and energy can edit.”

Changes and Resistance

Sue Gardner acknowledges the drop in editors but frames it as a precaution rather than a crisis. Still, her concern is evident. Comparing Wikipedia to a newsroom, she notes that while experienced editors are plentiful, there aren’t enough eager newcomers to sustain the project.

To address this, she launched two teams, Growth, and Core Features, tasked with making Wikipedia more welcoming. One result was the “Thank” button, which allows editors to acknowledge good contributions, a small step toward fostering positivity. Another idea being tested suggests easy editing tasks for new users, helping them gain confidence before encountering Wikipedia’s rigid rules.

Some changes, however, have met fierce resistance. Editing has long required wikitext, a markup language unfamiliar to most users. To simplify the process, the Wikimedia Foundation introduced Visual Editor, a tool that allows direct text editing without code. Initially rolled out in July, it was meant to become a permanent feature.

However, many veteran editors saw the update as unnecessary and disruptive. Complaints about software bugs poured in, and in September, a community vote pushed to make Visual Editor optional rather than the default. The foundation initially resisted but eventually conceded, making the tool available only to those who actively enable it in their settings.

Not all editors believe easier editing will solve Wikipedia’s problems. Longtime contributor Oliver Moran argues that wikitext isn’t a real barrier, comparing it to Twitter’s hashtags and mentions, which users pick up quickly. Many critics also feel the foundation imposes changes without consulting the site's volunteers.

Moran sees bureaucracy, not Wikipedia, as the real obstacle to attracting new contributors. Wikipedia’s policies have grown increasingly complex, with rules like “Neutral Point of View” spanning thousands of words. Engaging in lengthy policy debates has become more common than discussing actual content.

Some Wikipedians agree that the site needs to be more welcoming. A grassroots effort, WikiProject Editor Retention, was created in 2012 to brainstorm ways to improve newcomer experiences. However, the project’s discussion page quickly became filled with complaints about administrator abuse, arguments over Wikipedia’s culture, and accusations of bad faith.

Even well-intended efforts to fix Wikipedia seem lost in internal disputes, leaving its future uncertain.

Public Good

Despite a decline in active editors, Wikipedia’s content continues to expand. This growth places a heavier workload on the remaining contributors. Sue Gardner notes that many editors feel overburdened, a sentiment backed by a 2011 Wikimedia Foundation survey. Of 5,200 editors across various language editions, half spent over an hour per day editing, while 20 percent contributed three or more hours daily. Researcher Aaron Halfaker believes Wikipedia’s anti-vandalism tools are practical, but maintaining and improving articles becomes more difficult with fewer editors. Fewer contributors mean less progress on expanding and refining content.

Wikipedia is often described as a work in progress, but that label carries little weight when its content is widely used as an authoritative source. Google pulls information directly from Wikipedia for fact boxes, and Apple’s Siri relies on it to answer user queries. These platforms present Wikipedia’s content as factual, yet reporting errors is not straightforward. Google offers an option to submit feedback, but it is not prominently displayed, and any reports go to Google rather than Wikipedia itself.

Jimmy Wales, still an influential voice in the Wikipedia community, dismisses concerns about the project’s decline. However, he acknowledges that real improvement requires a more diverse group of contributors. He points out that while highly technical topics are well-documented, other subjects—such as sociology or Elizabethan poetry—are underdeveloped. He hopes Visual Editor will encourage participation from people with broader interests beyond the site’s traditionally tech-focused community. At the same time, he worries that simplifying Wikipedia’s editing process might not be enough to draw in those outside its usual demographic.

Shifting digital habits may also make it harder to bring in new contributors. NYU professor Clay Shirky, an advocate for online collaboration, notes that the internet has moved away from open, community-driven projects like Wikipedia. Instead, platforms like Facebook and Twitter now dominate, with users engaging through curated feeds rather than collaborative efforts. Unlike the era of digital communities, today’s online spaces prioritize personal interaction over collective knowledge-building. Shirky suggests that people accustomed to this model may struggle to see the value in contributing to Wikipedia.

Gardner shares this concern, likening the modern internet to a city that has lost its public gathering places. In her view, the rise of massive corporate platforms has reduced opportunities for open collaboration. As her time at the Wikimedia Foundation ends, her focus shifts to initiatives to preserve public digital spaces. Despite Wikipedia’s struggles, she remains confident it is one of the few remaining online spaces dedicated to the public good.

Wikipedia is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Under Gardner’s leadership, the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual funding has grown from $4 million to $45 million. With little competition, Wikipedia remains the go-to source for online information, integrated into search engines and digital assistants. However, the encyclopedia may never fully realize its ambitious goal of compiling all human knowledge. At the same time, its decentralized model disrupted traditional encyclopedias and created obstacles that discouraged new contributors. Perhaps expecting a crowd of internet users to democratize knowledge entirely was always unrealistic. Given its current limitations, Wikipedia may already be as complete as ever.