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I think one of the lessons of Wikipedia, is the more you link out the more they come back. People come to your site because it is useful. They are perfectly ca

I think one of the lessons of Wikipedia, is the more you link out the more they come back. People come to your site because it is useful. They are perfectly capable of leaving by themselves. They don't need a link to do so. Having links to relavent information that attracts readers back is well worth the cost of people following links out of your site.

travoc 1y ago
Wikipedia eventually failed.
- kelvinjps10 1y ago
  What do you mean? It's one of the most popular sites
  - tyingq 1y ago
    I won't call it dead, but it is declining. Their various sources of traffic are now regurgitating Wikipedia Content (and other 3rd party sources) via uncited/unlinked AI "blurbs"...instead of presenting snippets of Wikipedia contents with links to Wikipedia to read more. It's not the only reason their traffic is declining, but it seems like a big one.
    - WD-42 1y ago
      Who cares if the traffic is declining? I don’t find Wikipedia useful because it gets lots of visits, I find it useful for the information it contains.
      - jowea 1y ago
        The problem has more to do with editors. The theory is that less visits leads to less editors in the long run.
        WD-42 1y ago
        I may be wrong, but I don’t think the people that edit Wikipedia are the same people that are content with half truths from LLMs and thus no longer visiting the site. So I kinda doubt it matters much.
        baq 1y ago
        That’s certainly true for stack overflow, but in their case the moderators were very active in getting the negative feedback loop going.
        reddalo 1y ago
        Also, Stack Overflow is a commercial website, while Wikipedia is a free (as in freedom) project. Editing Wikipedia feels like you're contributing towards "an ideal", that you're giving back something to humanity, instead of just helping somebody else getting richer.
      - tyingq 1y ago
        Visits drive revenue. Declining traffic is declining revenue. Not an issue yet, but eventually...
        Ray20 1y ago
        I saw statistics somewhere that Wikipedia ALREADY has enough money for centuries of work (if it stops spending them on promoting wokeism).
    - falcor84 1y ago
      That's just plain old citogenesis[0][1], and has been in play for at least two decades, so I don't think it's any evidence of decline. [0] https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_...
    - bawolff 1y ago
      People have been talking about wikipedia's decline since like 2008. It seems fine.
- AlienRobot 1y ago
  It's still working for me?
tyingq 1y ago
Interesting example, as Google used to link to Wikipedia much more prominently, then stopped doing that, which dropped Wikipedia's visitor counts a lot. A very large percentage of Wikipedia's visits are Google referrals. Google shifted views that used to go to Wikipedia first to their in-house knowledge graph (high percentages of which are just Wikipedia content), then to the AI produced snippets. All to say, yes...Wikipedia's generosity with outbound links is part of the popularity. But they still get hit by this "engagement" mentality from their traffic sources.
- VoidWhisperer 1y ago
  I would argue that this is less an example of why linking out may be bad for engagement and more an example of google abusing its intermediary/market position to keep users on their own pages longer
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
    I'd argue that a user not having to click through is clearly a better result for the user, and that alone would be sufficient motivation to do it. In terms of a single search, I don't think Google really benefits from preventing a click-through - the journey is over once the user has their information. If anything, making them click through to an ad-infested page would probably get a few fractions of a cent extra given how deeply Google is embedded in the ads ecosystem. But giving the user the result faster means they're more likely to come back when they need the next piece of information, and give them more time to search for the next information. That benefits Google, but only because it benefits the user.
    - kataklasm 1y ago
      That's the kind if short-sighted view that's the root issue in a ton of enshittification happening around: the belief that short-term gains or benefits are all it's about. It's not sustainable to leech off of wikipedia content to fuel your own (ad in Google's) knowledge pop-ups, even if it benefits the user in that they save a single click, because that means long-term wikipedia will die out because users no longer associate the knowledge gained with wikipedia but with Google even though they had nothing to do with it apart from "stealing it".

travoc 1y ago

Wikipedia eventually failed.

kelvinjps10 1y ago
What do you mean? It's one of the most popular sites
- tyingq 1y ago
  I won't call it dead, but it is declining. Their various sources of traffic are now regurgitating Wikipedia Content (and other 3rd party sources) via uncited/unlinked AI "blurbs"...instead of presenting snippets of Wikipedia contents with links to Wikipedia to read more. It's not the only reason their traffic is declining, but it seems like a big one.
  - WD-42 1y ago
    Who cares if the traffic is declining? I don’t find Wikipedia useful because it gets lots of visits, I find it useful for the information it contains.
    - jowea 1y ago
      The problem has more to do with editors. The theory is that less visits leads to less editors in the long run.
      - WD-42 1y ago
        I may be wrong, but I don’t think the people that edit Wikipedia are the same people that are content with half truths from LLMs and thus no longer visiting the site. So I kinda doubt it matters much.
      - baq 1y ago
        That’s certainly true for stack overflow, but in their case the moderators were very active in getting the negative feedback loop going.
        reddalo 1y ago
        Also, Stack Overflow is a commercial website, while Wikipedia is a free (as in freedom) project. Editing Wikipedia feels like you're contributing towards "an ideal", that you're giving back something to humanity, instead of just helping somebody else getting richer.
    - tyingq 1y ago
      Visits drive revenue. Declining traffic is declining revenue. Not an issue yet, but eventually...
      - Ray20 1y ago
        I saw statistics somewhere that Wikipedia ALREADY has enough money for centuries of work (if it stops spending them on promoting wokeism).
  - falcor84 1y ago
    That's just plain old citogenesis[0][1], and has been in play for at least two decades, so I don't think it's any evidence of decline. [0] https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_...
  - bawolff 1y ago
    People have been talking about wikipedia's decline since like 2008. It seems fine.
AlienRobot 1y ago
It's still working for me?

tyingq 1y ago

Interesting example, as Google used to link to Wikipedia much more prominently, then stopped doing that, which dropped Wikipedia's visitor counts a lot. A very large percentage of Wikipedia's visits are Google referrals. Google shifted views that used to go to Wikipedia first to their in-house knowledge graph (high percentages of which are just Wikipedia content), then to the AI produced snippets. All to say, yes...Wikipedia's generosity with outbound links is part of the popularity. But they still get hit by this "engagement" mentality from their traffic sources.

VoidWhisperer 1y ago
I would argue that this is less an example of why linking out may be bad for engagement and more an example of google abusing its intermediary/market position to keep users on their own pages longer
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  I'd argue that a user not having to click through is clearly a better result for the user, and that alone would be sufficient motivation to do it. In terms of a single search, I don't think Google really benefits from preventing a click-through - the journey is over once the user has their information. If anything, making them click through to an ad-infested page would probably get a few fractions of a cent extra given how deeply Google is embedded in the ads ecosystem. But giving the user the result faster means they're more likely to come back when they need the next piece of information, and give them more time to search for the next information. That benefits Google, but only because it benefits the user.
  - kataklasm 1y ago
    That's the kind if short-sighted view that's the root issue in a ton of enshittification happening around: the belief that short-term gains or benefits are all it's about. It's not sustainable to leech off of wikipedia content to fuel your own (ad in Google's) knowledge pop-ups, even if it benefits the user in that they save a single click, because that means long-term wikipedia will die out because users no longer associate the knowledge gained with wikipedia but with Google even though they had nothing to do with it apart from "stealing it".