Re: Wikipedia at 25: A Wake-Up Call (essay)

Anders, you're right that these aren't figures of an organization in
collapse. But they are end of the funnel figures, meaning that when those
are going down by 20% YoY we're going to be in very deep troubles.

But I'd push back on one thing: "we have to learn how to adjust" and "this
is not a crisis" are in tension. A 20% readership drop should be the
signal *telling
us* the adjustment is urgent. If we wait until edits and new pages start
declining to act, we'll be reacting to a problem that started years earlier
and would become a very nefarious spiral.

Because the day that happens, we, as communities, will not be able to keep
content up to date (and this is considering we only have to keep up to date
and that all linguistic versions are "complete" which they are not).

The metrics you cite are reassuring about the "present" (and I could
challenge that) but I'm very concerned about the trajectory those different
signals I've been sharing are painting.

An analogy that may be telling is the newspapers industry, ad revenues
started to fall years before layoff and closure started. Because Ads is a
top of the funnel metric that was easily discarded with "it's seasonal",
"it won't last", "People won't trust content on the Internet", "Local news
can't go anywhere people care about it". But when the layoff started, it
was a downward spiral and it was too late and in so many countries
newspapers didn't have a fighting chance, because when they started to
fight it was already too late. I would prefer that we fight while we still
can.


--
Christophe


On Wed, 29 Apr 2026 at 19:13, Anders Wennersten via Wikimedia-l <
[email protected]> wrote:

> Facts states (worldwide figures):
>
> *Donation is up
>
> *Number of new pages is up [1]
>
> *number of edits från users is up [2}
>
> That is not figures of a crises
>
> The 20% decrease represent a different way of accessing info. we have to
> learn how to adjust to these changes but is is NOT a general crises,
>
> Anders
>
> [1]
> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contributing/new-pages/normal|bar|2-year|page_type~content|monthly
>
> [2]
> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contributing/edits/normal|bar|2-year|editor_type~user+(page_type)~content|monthly
> <https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-wikipedia-projects/contributing/edits/normal%7Cbar%7C2-year%7Ceditor_type~user+(page_type)~content%7Cmonthly>
> Den 2026-04-28 kl. 17:31, skrev Christophe Henner via Wikimedia-l:
>
> Hi,
>
> 3 months later, a new statistic: mobile page views dropped by 19% in one
> year.
>
> We are back to the mobile traffic levels of 2018.
>
> https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2016-01-01~2026-04-28|(access)~mobile-app*mobile-web+agent~user|monthly
> <https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal%7Cbar%7C2016-01-01~2026-04-28%7C(access)~mobile-app*mobile-web+agent~user%7Cmonthly>
>
> At this rate, our mobile traffic in 2026 will be at the levels of
> pre-2013. 2013...
>
> In the meantime, Ericsson is reporting a global mobile usage growth of
> over 20%
>
> https://www.ericsson.com/en/reports-and-papers/mobility-report/dataforecasts/mobile-traffic-update
>
> When I published my essay, I mostly received gentle to aggressive push
> back. Back then I was displaying a 8% drop. Now a 20% year over year.
>
> Why did I pick mobile traffic? Because historically bots are less using
> desktop browser UAs which makes the data a bit more reliable for trends.
>
> 3 months ago I said we had 24 months ahead of us before irrelevancy. Well
> at this rate, in two years we will have lost half of our traffic. And the
> sad part is that those downhill trends tend not to slow down.
>
> And what now? Well being very blunt, there's only one body in our movement
> that can muster leadership, energy and resources to tackle this topic head
> on, that's the board of trustees.
>
> And if 20% doesn't trigger fast and real actions, I have no idea what
> would.
>
> PS: yes this email is written with a lot of emotion, but minus 20% YoY
> should trigger that reaction in everyone.
>
> --
> Christophe
>
>
> On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 at 00:40, Christophe Henner <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hey everyone,
>>
>> I struggled with the object, the most honest one would be "Last exit
>> before irrelevance" but that would be a bit violent.
>>
>> So, Wikipedia turns 25 next week. I've been here for over twenty of those
>> years, including stints chairing Wikimedia France and the Foundation Board.
>> And honestly? I'm worried. Scared to be honnest.
>>
>> Over the last years, I've been regularly crunching data and sharing on
>> different channels my worries. But in the last few weeks I decided to make
>> a much more structured "essay" of my findings
>>
>> Since 2016, the internet nearly doubled in size.
>>
>> Our page views? Down. New editor sign-ups? Down 36%.
>>
>> The people keeping this thing running are working harder than ever, but
>> there are fewer of them every year.
>>
>> I wrote it all up: the numbers, what I think went wrong, what I think we
>> need to do about it. Fair warning: it's long, it's opinionated, and some of
>> it will probably make you mad.
>>
>> *Here it is: *https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Schiste/what-now
>>
>> I'm not trying to be doom and gloom for the sake of it. I genuinely
>> believe we have maybe two years to make some hard calls about AI, about
>> money, about who we're actually serving. After that, the window closes and
>> we become irrelevant.
>>
>> Could be wrong. Hope I am. But I'd rather we have this argument now than
>> wish we had later. Well I'd rather we had this argument two or four years
>> ago, but now we will make do.
>>
>> Read it, tell me where I'm off base. Let's argue and debate. That's what
>> talk pages are for, right?
>>
>> PS: Foundation board mailing list is bcc'ed, change cannot happen without
>> their commitment. And fast.
>>
>> --
>> Christophe
>>
>
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