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    Next: The Future of Wikipedia

    Wikipedia has hit middle age, it would seem.

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    The crowd-sourced encyclopedia, started in 2001, had 50,000 active editors per month by 2007, but has since dwindled to around 30,000. Some of this was to be expected: like many other phenomena, continued exponential growth was probably a fantasy. But Wikipedia’s decline in activity over the last decade has led some to wonder if it will even be around in another 10 years. Critics point to the fact that Wikipedia was designed assuming editors were using PCs; today’s users are more likely to be using mobile devices, and Wikipedia is not at present equipped to be easily edited on a mobile device.

    Another scenario for Wikipedia’s future is that it has instead reached a kind of equilibrium or steady state. After seven years of skyrocketing growth, the number of articles and edits has leveled off, matured, we might say. Thus, in 10 years, Wikipedia might still be the world’s most frequently consulted encyclopedia, it just won’t be updated anymore.

    While the number of English-language editors has declined, the number of non-English editors has remained steady, and indeed represents the larger number of monthly editors. It is possible that Wikipedia’s future will appear more global and non-Western, that its growth will be in the scores of languages that are not English. Wikipedia might look more and more like a truly global text.

    It is also possible that Wikipedia will morph into a very different kind of enterprise. Known largely as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia entries have also included breaking events as they happen. Hours after Dylan Roof murdered nine people in a Charleston church, a Wikipedia entry had been created, and has since been fashioned into a narrative of the event. Wikipedia might transform into a repository of as-it-happens accounts, accounts that we might refer to as the new “newspaper of record.”

    Wikipedia represents the most successful case of what been termed “commons based peer production.” This is the activity whereby many people volunteer a small portion of their time and labor on a common task. Computer coders were one such group who volunteered to develop Linux code; the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project similarly brought together scores of volunteers to each listen into a small part of the heavens. Collectively, with their contribution to the larger project, a large group of enthusiasts achieves the same results as a small number of experts. Business gurus predicted that such large-scale volunteerism would transform whole industries.

    Wikipedia’s relative decline suggests that volunteerism and peer-production might also be on the decline. Indeed, commons-based peer production has yet to radically transform industries beyond the encyclopedia business.

    Wikipedia was built by enthusiastic amateurs. Indeed, one of the notable differences between Wikipedia and better-established brands such as Britannica was that the latter was built by experts in their respective fields. An entry on “Botany,” for example, will be written by a leading figure. With Wikipedia, that entry might be cobbled together and edited by thousands of enthusiasts, none of whom were necessarily credentialed experts. The decline of Wikipedia might signal a “hunger for expertise” as users seek a return to what they believe to be more reliable information.

    Wikipedia is an expression of “participatory media.” The emergence of Web 2.0 — the “editable web” — meant that anyone could post content and broadcast to the world, that anyone could be a broadcaster. You Tube, Facebook and Twitter were born in the era of Web 2.0, but Wikipedia was the first and most influential example. Over the next 10 years, it seems unlikely that the editable web will dissipate, even if Wikipedia is no longer the dominant example.

    My own prediction is that we will still be consulting Wikipedia ten years from now. Its articles might look different, and how you access and edit it will have changed. But one thing’s for sure: there will still be curmudgeonly teachers banning it from their classes.

    David Staley is president of Columbus Futurists and a professor of history and design at The Ohio State University. You have also seen him co-hosting TEDxColumbus.

    The next Columbus Futurists monthly forum will be Thursday July 23 at 6:30 PM at the Panera Bread community room (875 Bethel Rd.)  Our topic for the evening will be “The Future of Wikipedia”.

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    David Staley
    David Staley
    David Staley is president of Columbus Futurists and a professor of history, design and educational studies at The Ohio State University. He is the host of CreativeMornings Columbus.
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