Wikipedia:Wikipedia is being flooded
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
Wikipedia is being flooded with new articles every day. Wikipedia currently has over 2.1 million articles; however, this is increasing at an alarming and uncontrolled rate. The rate at which Wikipedia's existing articles are improving to GA or FA status is far lower than the rate at which new articles are being created.
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[edit] The problem
Wikipedia:Announcements shows that the total number of articles increased by 100,000 between March 22 and May 25 alone[1]. Last year Wikipedia increased by an average of 1822 articles a day, and so far it has increased by 1670 a day in 2007[2]. This would be fine if these articles were of good quality. We are, after all, trying to spread knowledge for everyone. But the main problem with these new articles is that, almost 100% of the time, they are Stub- or Start-class articles with little or no quality to them. They almost always lack any references, pictures, or general content.
If you have browsed through Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not failing, you may have noticed that it mentions Wikipedia's sheer size compared to other encyclopedias. This size is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you can argue that Wikipedia offers 1.8 million articles for anyone with an internet connection to access, and you'd be right, because it does. However, this huge size means it is that much more difficult to manage its growth. Regardless of how biased Wikipedia may or may not be, it is undoubtedly very editable. Wikipedia attracts new editors, both registered and anonymous, every day. Some come to vandalise; most come to contribute positively. As well as having an obvious benefit, this also has a downside. Generally, as the number of Wikipedians increases, the number of articles will increase. Many articles have been created by new or relatively new members, only to be abandoned by virtually everyone else in Wikipedia. This is so apparent, that a Wikiproject was even set up to help counter it.
[edit] A statistical analysis
Of the 1.86 million articles on Wikipedia (as of 1 July 2007), less than 4000 have been listed as Good or Featured Articles. So, while 0.21% of Wikipedia is of GA or FA status, Wikipedia’s total number of articles increased by 5.3% in little over a month. The number of Good Articles has increased by 6.4 articles a day since May 29. That means that, on average this year, for every article that is promoted to GA status, another 261 new articles are being created. The number of Featured Articles has increased by 57 in the same period, so based on the same statistics, around 1000 new articles are created for every article that is being promoted to FA status. Now, many people will say that Wikipedia is just a work in progress and that, eventually, every article will reach at least GA status. But, how could this possibly happen? At the moment, the improvement of articles to GA status will have to become 261 times faster than current rates, and 1000 times faster for FA promotion. This is not possible, and so the current amount of new articles being created on Wikipedia is simply getting out of control. In fact, it has probably been out of control for some time.
Wikipedia has many vital articles, which should (ideally) be of the highest quality. Instead, only 74 are – that’s only two more than when Wikipedia is failing was written in February 2007. WP:FAIL also tells us that, based on the rate of FA promotion in in 2006, it would take 37 years to get all of these vital articles to Featured Article quality. Approximately 140 of these vital articles are Good Articles, which would lead us to believe that "other encyclopedias could do a better job", according to Template:Grading scheme.
[edit] A solution?
Wikipedia needs to counter the evidently very open floodgates. We need to start improving what we already have before increasing the number of articles at such a rate. Even efforts such as Collaborations of the Month, Assessment Drives, and Backlog Eliminations (although useful) are not improving Wikipedia fast enough. The rate at which articles are being improved and promoted to GA or FA status is far slower than the rate of increase in the number of Wikipedia’s articles.
At the moment, I know of no single project or drive that is aiming to improve Wikipedia at a faster rate than that of its increase in size. Wikipedia:Gnome Week is probably the closest thing to such an attempt, but this is limited to just two weeks a year. The true solution is to gain more members who want to truly improve Wikipedia, not vandalise it or join and forget about it. As mentioned in Trends on Wikipedia and where we are heading, Wikipedia needs real editors, not casual contributors.
