Wikipedia Showing Slower Growth? So What?

In the past couple of days, TechCrunch’s Eric Schonfeld and Duncan Riley have posted information and thoughts on Wikimedia Foundation’s announced relocation, with Eric publishing the facts and Duncan later postulating the reasons behind those facts. Or something to that effect.

Mr Riley asserts the possibility that the move may have something to do with Wikipedia’s noticeable slowdown “after years of astronomical growth,” and that the West Coast might somehow be a better setting to proceed with the project at this stage of its life. Riley considers the ability for Wikimedia, for a long while based in Florida, to “tap into the superior developer community” in and around San Francisco to be a move needed to invigorate the operation.

I won’t dispute TechCrunch’s findings concerning Wikipedia’s current and past figures. They’re likely spot on. What I’d like to question is why a slow-down in the land of seven-million-plus articles (spread across 200+ languages) is necessarily a bad thing. That it’s something which should be reversed. I mean, it can’t possibly have continued on such a stellar trajectory well into ’08, ’09, and the next decade. So what’s the problem with smaller results?

Most figures (as authored by Robert Rohde at Wikimedia.org) at Wikipedia as compared to those recorded at the start of the year are down.

• General editing is down 17%.

• New account registrations have dropped 25%.

• 30% fewer blocks have been placed on users (concurrently, 30% fewer protections have been placed on articles throughout the site).

• And uploads are down 10%, as are outright deletions (down 25%).

My conclusion to the most recent findings is, quite simply, that a “tapering-off” is to be expected. It’s hardly unlikely that Wikipedia, though the immensely powerful effort that it is, is not going to see things level off - considerably more so than has already happened over the past half-year or so, in fact. As I see it, that’s just the way things go.

There’s absolutely no need to think of Wikipedia is losing its luster, or edge, or whatever else one might consider a crucial element to the project’s continued success. The largest collection of wikis on the Web is going to continue to push on, and it’s going to be a stalwart of the world of reference material for many, many years to come. No need to give it a jolt or extra juice. It’s doing well as it is.

Wikimedia Foundation’s move to San Fran, when all’s said and done, just makes good sense. It oversees a family of ventures, and a well-functioning family at that. Correct me if I’m wrong, but does not such a family prefer to stick close together?