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An odd thought, but perhaps the decline in editor numbers also has something to do with an increase in the number of wikis in general, mostly aimed at specific
by CM30 11y ago
An odd thought, but perhaps the decline in editor numbers also has something to do with an increase in the number of wikis in general, mostly aimed at specific audiences and about specific subjects. Back in the early/mid 00s, Wikipedia was the site you'd contribute to if you wanted to write general encyclopedia entries about something that's now seen as fairly niche (like say, a certain TV show, film series, game franchise, etc), and from there you might become interested in editing other pages on less specialised subjects.
But now, thousands of wikis exist, about every subject under the sun. Many of those are very popular, have more welcoming communities, etc. So people don't join the general site any more. If they care for say, Star Wars, they join Wookiepedia. If they care for Pokemon, it'd be Bulbapedia. Or one of the many others listed here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWikiRule http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWikiRule
- Animats 11y agoThat's helped take some of the load off Wikipedia, and may be responsible for some of the decline in number of editors. Wikipedia used to have a big problem with fancruft - vast amounts of detail about some popular culture icon. There's an article for every Pokemon. There have been attempts to create articles for every episode of popular shows, and every minor One Piece character. There's pushback on that, and general agreement now on how much is too much. The fanatical fans now go to to Wikia or TVTropes, where they can write endlessly on their pet subjects without having to cite reliable third party sources. That's a good thing. You don't need the heavy scrutiny of Wikipedia on those subject.