New Article in The Economist Looks at the Future of Wikipedia

Note: These two recent infoDOCKET posts, “Research Report Looks at Wikipedia Article Creation Trends”  and Recently Released: 2013 Wikimedia Traffic Trends Report might also be of interest.
From The Economist:

“Our job is to provide the sum of all knowledge,” says Erik Möller, the foundation’s deputy director. But like an entry in a fast-changing field, Wikipedia itself is due an update. After a year-long search, the foundation is expected to name a new boss in March.
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Wikipedia’s most pressing difficulty is finding and keeping contributors, says Phoebe Ayers, who sits on the foundation’s board. The number of editors for the English-language version has fallen by a third in seven years.
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Today’s bunch [of editors] are 90% male and mostly from rich countries. One consequence is coverage that is comprehensive on science and technology, but patchy on poorer regions and social issues. A recent analysis found that only 2.6% of its “geo-tagged” articles are about Africa, which accounts for 14% of the world’s population.

Read the Complete Article
See Also: UC Berkeley hires Wikipedian-in-residence to help publish students research (via Daily Californian)

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