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What's the obsession with constant growth? Why does wikipedia need to keep growing? It's not going to disappear if its user base stops growing. People will sti
by fnid 17y ago
What's the obsession with constant growth? Why does wikipedia need to keep growing? It's not going to disappear if its user base stops growing. People will still edit. People will still read it. It'll probably get better if it slows down a bit and starts to get real.
- duskwuff 17y agoIndeed. And, even if Wikipedia can't sustain infinite exponential growth, that hardly means that it's failed.
- darien 17y agoCertainly, information isn't necessarily governed by Moore's law, it's information processing that is! Exponential information creation would require an exponential rise in population, and that's just not the case - thankfully.
- duskwuff 17y agoThat, and Wikipedia has been growing far more quickly than the world's population, or even Moore's Law, can account for. At a certain point, a carrying capacity is bound to be reached.
- netsp 17y agoAt some point, the main job of Wikipedia editors will be to update the encyclopedia in response to new information.
- Ras_ 17y ago...and translate it to other languages, like they did in the Library of Alexandria... I can't even imagine how long it would take to translate the contents of en.wiki to 240 languages (current active editions).
- netsp 17y agoThat point I was talking about comes after the point you were talking about.
- bkovitz 17y agoIndeed, growth is not the point. The point is to have a great encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. Wikipedia has succeeded. I think the main reason for the slowdown in editing is obvious: the mission is basically accomplished.