Wikipedia:Joseph Effect
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Template:Featured essay
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This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia is on a slow downslide to uselessness. As more people find Wikipedia, more vandals will created, and the vandal/productive user ratio will increase. As more vandals terrorize, contributors will leave. Some contributors will become more dedicated. Some vandals will give up, but about 2% more than the editors who stayed will stay. This will slowly lead to the destruction of Wikipedia. |
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[edit] Namesake
The tale of Joseph, the biblical character, is wrought with twists. From his beginnings as a not-so-important favorite of his father (Nupedia days), he fell into slavery of the Ishmaelites (Brilliant prose days). He rose from slavery to become the head of Potifar's household (about the 600,000 article time). Joseph was then accused of rape and was imprisoned (John Seigenthaler, Sr. Scandal). Joseph rose from the prison to become visier of Egypt (current, Wikipedia is just about the 5th most visited website).
Here you can see the similarities.
[edit] Mathematical Representation
[edit] Full Hypothesis
In the beginning, Wikipedia was a small collection of relatively high-class articles. As more people found out about Wikipedia, more articles were created. The average quality of an article fell drastically. As the first users put forth their best effort (1) to revive the dying encyclopedia, they quickly brought it back up to a good standard. As Wikipedia's popularity grew, more vandals attacked the site. Quality soon plummeted. Some founding users left, angry that their brainchild was soon becoming a vandal's plaything. Users flocked to the site, eager to help the encyclopedia's void of contributors. The average quality of articles rose again, but just short of the previous revival's standard. More articles were created, and the quality of articles continued to decrease. Vandals, who knew that Wikipedia was in decay, struck viciously. Even more contributors left, angry and frustrated that their work was being destroyed. But the vandals' actions convinced some editors to become even more dedicated. Slowly this spiral ended up with a group of 10-20 addicts who preserved the site from about 20,000 vandal IP's. Wikipedia closed about a month later.
