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

Hoi,
Apparently the tough nut question is "When are we going to recognise that
we have a multi dimensional, multi lingual freely licensed wiki content
environment that has so far only focussed on text?"
Thanks,
       GerardM

On Thu, 30 Apr 2026 at 07:08, Luis Villa via Wikimedia-l <
[email protected]> wrote:

> The fundraising team would be the first to say that revenue is the means,
> not the end. They can tweak the numbers by running more/different banners,
> but that does not mean the project is healthy.
>
> Bigger picture point: at WikiCredCon, it was suggested that this year's
> strategic discussions would focus on last year's 6-8% decline.
>
> I would go a much different direction. After the 1st quarter, *our
> strategic process has to start by asking the hardest possible question:
> what if "reading an encyclopedia" is mostly over, like reading a print
> newspaper?* In other words, what if our long-term on-wiki readership
> graph looks like this one?
> https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/
>
> *So, for purposes of strategic discussion: assume that within 2-3 years
> our on-wiki readership will be at 5% of peak. Or even braver: assume that
> on-wiki readership goes to essentially zero, with only editors reading it. *I'm
> not saying this is the most likely outcome, just that approaching the
> question from that frame is much more likely to generate interesting and
> important ideas than trying to slowly tweak our decline.
>
> What then?
>
> "zero on-wiki readers" wouldn't mean our mission is over: there are many
> ways (including many new and fun and productive ways!) to collaborate on
> open knowledge, many partners we could co-create with, and many channels to
> distribute that knowledge. And despite the general downturn, at least some
> outlets adjacent to us are thriving right now:
> https://lu.is/2026/04/web-collaboration-five-graphs/ So I'm not saying
> "all is doomed".
>
> But approaching our mission *without* assuming the magnetic force of the
> wiki would force us to be creative--to start experimenting widely and
> boldly. I think we need to place 1,000 bets with 10,000 motivated
> volunteers, sooner rather than later.
>
> This is not going to be easy. Among other things:
> - lots of old habits to unlearn. (I admit my own first public experiment
> is on... en-wiki. Hopefully #2 will be on wikidata, at least! And I've
> finally bought a .wiki domain for #3...)
> - if those 10,000 volunteers have to do this entirely on their own time
> (and own GPUs) then we'll again be building a movement by and for the
> (relatively) wealthy. Hopefully we can find many funders, not just WMF, so
> that we have a diversity of approaches and risk-tolerances.
> - lots of those experiments are going to fail, and we're going to have to
> pick ourselves up and try again anyway. (Shades of Mako's paper:
> https://mako.cc/academic/hill-almost_wikipedia-DRAFT.pdf)
> - we're going to have to find new signs of success. It might be readers,
> but it might not, or it might be different kinds of readers, or it might
> more explicitly be GLAMs, or... we don't know yet. But the One Big Number
> of readership likely will never be The Thing again.
>
> Anyway, I'm mostly going to go back to experimenting (and hopefully
> sharing more about that experimentation). But had to get that off my chest.
> Hope it spurs others to plant some seeds and run some experiments!
>
> Trying to be Bold-
> Luis
>
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2026 at 6:30 PM 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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