W14. Can Wikipedia disappear?

 As we have learned in class, Wikipedia has the idea about ‘free knowledge for everyone’. Most Wikipedians like this idea so they have enjoyed their edits. But the principle that anyone can edit contents makes Wikipedia unreliable and uninformative, and also this can lead to decrease of Wikipedia users. Editors on Wikipedia actually have decreased for few years.

 Wikipedia has own grammars and rules. They make writing articles easier, but they also does not. It can be time-consuming to make more constructive and better edits. Some information does not follow Wiki grammars and rules, and they finally will be deleted by other wikipedians. It is valuable to make many well-structured articles, but we have to spend a lot of time on that. I am not sure that how many people are willing to invest their time into trying to make better edits.

 There are more problems about poor quality of writing, vandalism, neutral point of view, and copyright law and so on. Some people look these situations as a crisis of Wikipedia and I agree with that opinion. However, I don’t think that Wikipedia disappears because it relates to other social movements like free culture movement. I think these social movements are natural trends. I cannot conclude that they are right or wrong, but I think these trends will lead way of enjoying all contents. So Wikipedia may not disappear but will change their methods of running easier and improve problems.