I remember using Wikipedia for the first time in eighth grade, and I’ve used it ever since --not as key research, but to get a little bit of information when I just need to get an idea about a subject. This site has become “the fifth-most-popular website in the world”. Within the last twelve months, the number of web visitors grew 20%.
While popularity with viewers grows, the number of volunteer editor plummets. Volunteer editors and moderators are what keep the site safe and usable. They not only write entries for the website, they also go through and edit the miscellaneous and incorrect edits added to post.
Wikipedia lost 49,000 editors in the first three months of 2009. There is no telling what will happen if more editors leave the website, because people are leaving faster than people are joining. Will the site have to start hiring people to post, and if they do will they have to charge -- going against their goal to provide the world free access to “the sum of all human knowledge”. Seems like a sticky situation, but with its constant popularity, Wikipedia should be able to pull through.
Maybe in this economy, people just don’t have time to volunteer. If Wikipedia added some advertisements saying that they are looking for more volunteers, things may turn up. If not, I wonder what new site will attempt to steal its place.
(Via: Wall Street Journal)
Previously:
It's been 40 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon -- the "giant leap for mankind" that has set the standard for all the scientific breakthroughs that have followed it. (As in, "We put a man on the moon, but Apple can't make a laptop battery that doesn't overheat?!")
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