Editing Wikipedia (section)

=== Launch and growth ===
The [[domain name|domain]]s ''wikipedia.com'' (later redirecting to ''wikipedia.org'') and ''wikipedia.org'' were registered on January 12, 2001<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=wikipedia.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927193149/https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=wikipedia.com|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 27, 2007|title=WHOIS domain registration information results for wikipedia.com from Network Solutions|date=September 27, 2007|access-date=August 31, 2018}}</ref> and January 13, 2001<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=wikipedia.org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927194913/https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=wikipedia.org|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 27, 2007|title=WHOIS domain registration information results for wikipedia.org from Network Solutions|date=September 27, 2007|access-date=August 31, 2018}}</ref> respectively, and Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001<ref name="KockJungSyn2016" /> as a single English-language edition at www.wikipedia.com,<ref name="WikipediaHome" /> and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.<ref name="SangerMemoir" /> Its integral policy of "neutral point-of-view"<ref name="NPOV" /> was codified in its first few months. Otherwise, there were initially relatively few rules, and it operated independently of Nupedia.<ref name="SangerMemoir" /> Bomis originally intended it as a business for profit.<ref name="Seth-Finkelstein">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/25/wikipedia.internet |title = Read me first: Wikipedia isn't about human potential, whatever Wales says |author = Finkelstein, Seth |work = [[The Guardian]] |date = September 25, 2008 |location = London}}</ref>

[[File: English Wikipedia HomePage 2001-12-20.png|thumb|The Wikipedia home page on December 20, 2001]]

{{Wikipedia editor graph}}
{{Wikipedia article graph|caption=Number of English Wikipedia articles}}
Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, [[Slashdot]] postings, and web [[search engine]] indexing. Language editions were created beginning in March 2003, with a total of 161 in use by the end of 2004.<ref>{{Cite mailing list|url=https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-March/000048.html| title=Alternative language wikipedias |date=16 March 2001 |mailing-list=Wikipedia-L |last=Wales |first=Jimmy |access-date=January 16, 2022}}</ref><ref name="WP early language stats 1">{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_statistics |title = Multilingual statistics |website = Wikipedia |date = March 30, 2005 |access-date = December 26, 2008}}</ref> Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the former's servers were taken down permanently in 2003, and its text was incorporated into Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia passed the mark of two million articles on September 9, 2007, making it the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, surpassing the ''[[Yongle Encyclopedia]]'' made during the [[Ming Dynasty]] in 1408, which had held the record for almost 600&nbsp;years.<ref name="EB_encyclopedia" />

Citing fears of commercial [[advertising]] and lack of control, users of the [[Spanish Wikipedia]] [[fork (software development)|fork]]ed from Wikipedia to create [[Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español|Enciclopedia Libre]] in February 2002.<ref name="EL fears and start 1">{{cite web |title = [long] Enciclopedia Libre: msg#00008 |url=https://osdir.com/ml/science.linguistics.wikipedia.international/2003-03/msg00008.html |website = Osdir |access-date = December 26, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006065927/https://osdir.com/ml/science.linguistics.wikipedia.international/2003-03/msg00008.html |archive-date = October 6, 2008 |df = mdy-all}}</ref> Wales then announced that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and changed Wikipedia's domain from ''wikipedia.com'' to ''wikipedia.org''.<ref name="Shirky" /><ref>{{cite web|last=Vibber|first=Brion|date=August 16, 2002|title=Brion VIBBER at pobox.com|url=https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/003982.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620071550/https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-August/003982.html|archive-date=June 20, 2014|access-date=December 8, 2020|website=[[Wikimedia]]}}</ref>

Though the English Wikipedia reached three million articles in August 2009, the growth of the edition, in terms of the numbers of new articles and of editors, appears to have peaked around early 2007.<ref name="guardian WP user peak 1">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/aug/12/wikipedia-deletionist-inclusionist |title = Wikipedia approaches its limits |first = Bobbie |last = Johnson |work = The Guardian |location = London |date = August 12, 2009 |access-date = March 31, 2010}}</ref> Around 1,800 articles were added daily to the encyclopedia in 2006; by 2013 that average was roughly 800.<ref name="WP growth modelling 1">{{srlink|Wikipedia:Modelling Wikipedia extended growth}}</ref> A team at the [[Palo Alto Research Center]] attributed this slowing of growth to the project's increasing exclusivity and resistance to change.<ref name="wikisym slowing growth 1">{{cite conference |url=https://www.wikisym.org/ws2009/procfiles/p108-suh.pdf |title = The Singularity is Not Near: Slowing Growth of Wikipedia |year = 2009 |location = Orlando, FL|conference = The International Symposium on Wikis |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511110022/https://www.wikisym.org/ws2009/procfiles/p108-suh.pdf |archive-date = May 11, 2011}}</ref><!-- ''Hidden while in discussion on the talk page'': New or occasional editors have significantly higher rates of their edits reverted (removed) than an elite group of regular editors, colloquially known as "the [[cabal]]". This could make it more difficult for the project to recruit and retain new contributors over the long term, resulting in stagnation in article creation. --> Others suggest that the growth is flattening naturally because articles that could be called "[[wikt:low-hanging fruit|low-hanging fruit]]"—topics that clearly merit an article—have already been created and built up extensively.<ref name="bostonreview the end of WP 1">{{cite magazine |url=https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/edit-page-wikipedia-evgeny-morozov |title = Edit This Page; Is it the end of Wikipedia |magazine = Boston Review |first = Evgeny |last = Morozov |date = November–December 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191211050926/https://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/edit-page-wikipedia-evgeny-morozov|archive-date=December 11, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last = Cohen |first = Noam |author-link=Noam Cohen |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/weekinreview/29cohen.html |title = Wikipedia&nbsp;– Exploring Fact City |work = The New York Times |date = March 28, 2009 |access-date = April 19, 2011}}</ref><ref name="stanford WP lack of future growth 1">{{cite journal |first1=Austin |last1=Gibbons |first2=David |last2=Vetrano |first3=Susan |last3=Biancani |year=2012 |url=https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs341-2012/reports/09-GibbonsVetranoBiancaniCS341.pdf |title=Wikipedia: Nowhere to grow |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140718091331/https://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs341-2012/reports/09-GibbonsVetranoBiancaniCS341.pdf |archive-date=July 18, 2014 |url-status=live }} {{open access}}</ref>

{{anchor|Decline in participation since 2009}}
In November 2009, a researcher at the [[Rey Juan Carlos University]] in [[Madrid]] found that the English Wikipedia had lost 49,000 editors during the first three months of 2009; in comparison, it lost only 4,900 editors during the same period in 2008.<ref name="guardian editors leaving 1">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/nov/26/wikipedia-losing-disgruntled-editors |title = Wikipedia falling victim to a war of words |work = The Guardian |location = London |first = Jenny |last = Kleeman |date = November 26, 2009 |access-date = March 31, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=https://libresoft.es/publications/thesis-jfelipe |title = Wikipedia: A quantitative analysis |website=Libresoft |format = PDF |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403172516/https://libresoft.es/publications/thesis-jfelipe |archive-date = April 3, 2012}}</ref> ''The Wall Street Journal'' cited the array of rules applied to editing and disputes related to such content among the reasons for this trend.<ref name="WSJ WP losing editors 1">Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages, The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2009.</ref> Wales disputed these claims in 2009, denying the decline and questioning the study's methodology.<ref name="telegraph Wales WP not losing editors 1">{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6660646/Wikipedias-Jimmy-Wales-denies-site-is-losing-thousands-of-volunteer-editors.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6660646/Wikipedias-Jimmy-Wales-denies-site-is-losing-thousands-of-volunteer-editors.html |archive-date=2022-01-10 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title = Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales denies site is 'losing' thousands of volunteer editors |first = Emma |last = Barnett |work = The Daily Telegraph |location = London |date = November 26, 2009 |access-date = March 31, 2010}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Two years later, in 2011, he acknowledged a slight decline, noting a decrease from "a little more than 36,000 writers" in June 2010 to 35,800 in June 2011. In the same interview, he also claimed the number of editors was "stable and sustainable".<ref name="wiki-women" /> A 2013 ''[[MIT Technology Review]]'' article, "The Decline of Wikipedia", questioned this claim, revealing that since 2007, Wikipedia had lost a third of its volunteer editors, and that those remaining had focused increasingly on minutiae.<ref name="Simonite-2013">{{cite journal |last = Simonite |first = Tom |url=https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/10/22/175674/the-decline-of-wikipedia/ |title = The Decline of Wikipedia |date = October 22, 2013 |journal = [[MIT Technology Review]] |access-date = November 30, 2013}}</ref> In July 2012, ''[[The Atlantic]]'' reported that the number of administrators was also in decline.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/3-charts-that-show-how-wikipedia-is-running-out-of-admins/259829 |title = 3 Charts That Show How Wikipedia Is Running Out of Admins |work = The Atlantic |date = July 16, 2012}}</ref> In the November 25, 2013, issue of ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'' magazine, Katherine Ward stated, "Wikipedia, the sixth-most-used website, is facing an internal crisis."<ref>Ward, Katherine. ''New York'' Magazine, issue of November 25, 2013, p. 18.</ref>

The number of active English Wikipedia editors has since remained steady after a long period of decline.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2013-05-05|title=Who really runs Wikipedia?|newspaper=The Economist|url=https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2013/05/05/who-really-runs-wikipedia|access-date=2021-11-26|issn=0013-0613}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Mandiberg|first=Michael|date=2020-02-23|title=Mapping Wikipedia|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/where-wikipedias-editors-are-where-they-arent-and-why/605023/|access-date=2021-11-26|website=The Atlantic|language=en}}</ref>