Is Wikipedia culture dead? Wikipedia is a ghost town.

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ylevental
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Is Wikipedia culture dead? Wikipedia is a ghost town.

Post by ylevental » Mon Jan 20, 2025 9:49 pm

I remember the days when many accounts had fun userboxes and would often get into edit wars over various topics. Nowadays, I just see routine admin work. Wikipedia is a ghost town. That's what happens when anyone with a different opinion gets driven away.

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ericbarbour
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Re: Is Wikipedia culture dead? Wikipedia is a ghost town.

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Jan 21, 2025 4:49 am

Well, as you probably know, I did an analysis of edit patterns, and found that WP editing peaked in total quantitites in 2009. Despite repeated attempts to trick people with bot edits and incessant begging for money, total edit counts are unquestionably well down from the golden era of the late 2000s.

Not only that, the nerds are winning. This is what the front page looks like right now. Mark my warning; it is only a matter of time before the "general reference work" pretense is dropped, and it will turn into just another Fandom.com. There are millions of informative articles they could put on the front page, but instead we get a video-game character.
frontpage12025.jpg
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Last edited by ericbarbour on Tue Jan 21, 2025 4:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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journo
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Re: Is Wikipedia culture dead? Wikipedia is a ghost town.

Post by journo » Fri Jan 31, 2025 10:41 am

As an "encyclopedia" the site is basically inactive outside obscure topics and fandom.com type articles

The core articles are a wasteland, partially cuz they keep locking them
look, even spoon is locked lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon
chair is locked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chair
ball is locked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball
electric light is locked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_light

and

hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand
gravity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
atom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom
water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound
brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain
dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat
fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish
tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree
rock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock
river https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River
language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language
music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music
dance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance
religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance
circle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle
square https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square
country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country
triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle
law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law
paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper
car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car
fork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork
broom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap
bicycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap
train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train
hat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat
shirt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirt
rose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose
cactus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus
grass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae
rain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain
snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow
gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold
iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron
light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light
sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound
energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy
computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
smartphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone
technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology
dance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance

and on and on

It's more a question of what core articles aren't locked to the public at this point

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