[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikipedia at 25: A Wake-Up Call (essay)

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 04:30:06 -0800

Thanks, Christophe, for your in-deep analysis. 

The argumentation is compelling and the data analysis is strong. And I think you are right: this is a leadership problem. We had a direction, a vision and a strategy, but the WMF decided (?) not to implement it. Now, we are suffering the consequences of a failed governance.

However, I would like to aknowledge that Anders is also right in some aspects. The big picture is that we are declining, but there are lots of small pictures that tell another story.

I know if from our first hand experience at the Basque Wikipedia. We built a children Encyclopedia which creates new audiences and is thriving. We have a multimedia project getting budget every year for free pedagogic video creation, with more than 200 high quality videos (even award winning series) published. We have public institutions asking us to host 3d objects (which we have to reject, because our platform is failing). We have students writing Wikipedia: 13% of the content at euwiki has been writing within our Education Program. At least, one in every 100 Basque language speakers have contributed to Wikipedia, maybe more. And we have done eveything with an annual budget smaller than our CEO's annual pay.

Every year I meet people from around the world doing great things with very few resources. We have thousands of new young editors in the Global South. We have brilliant software solutions presented by volunteers. We have ideas that could get millions in donations, if just implemented (texturized 3D views, video embedding, children oriented content, an ad-free knolewde podcast platform, a functional graphing software... To name a few urgent ideas). 

What we don't have is a leadership wanting to improve or just try, as we can survive with the same amount of money every year, without any new project being done.

The data is there. The community is there. We need leadership willing to get out from the confort zone.

Happy birthday.

Galder

2026(e)ko urt. 10(a) 10:41 erabiltzaileak hau idatzi du (Christophe Henner <[email protected]>):
Cherry picking? Both our stats and external stats are saying readership is decreasing. 

If you still did not read it please let me paste it here: “According to global data from Similarweb, as recently as March 2022, Wikipedia averaged more than 165 million visits per day to its primary “.org” domain.

Just three years later, in March 2025, Similarweb’s data shows that Wikipedia’s traffic had fallen below 128 million average daily visits.

Relatively speaking, these figures point to a decline of 23 percent in total site traffic over the past three years.” 

And if you read my essay you would know hat I too think it’s great access to knowledge diversifies. But it’s a double edged sword, it also means less people editing our projects.

And my feeling is that we are not addressing the topic. 

Heck, I have to debate why steep decline, visible in our data and external data, is a threat to our revenue model and to our editor recruitment pipeline…



--
Christophe


On Sat, Jan 10, 2026 at 10:27 AM Anders Wennersten <[email protected]> wrote:

When google shows our data directly it is not a decrease of readers, but of users accessing our interface, (the same with AIbots), and I perceive it as all OK,,it is use of our data that is important not our interface

And look a bit closer of accesses last half year, and of different language versions, it is not a clearcut decrease.

 And I believe that your cherry picking of negative data is dangerous for us all, We should use the opportunity we have just now of all fake data among us to be prouder and more visible, and not be pessimistic and defensive

Anders



Den 2026-01-10 kl. 09:31, skrev Christophe Henner:
Anders please read my essay, readership numbers are in huge decline and it’s accelerating.

Ironically, I agree with things you say here, but not for “no cause for alarm”. When readership is over two digits decrease while Reddit is growing and AI chats product are booming, it’s alarming.

Top that with the fact that this is a trend that started almost 10 years ago and is accelerating is even worse.

And perhaps you are right, every tu ing will be fine, but data is not pointing in that direction at all.

--
Christophe


On Sat, Jan 10, 2026 at 9:24 AM Anders Wennersten <[email protected]> wrote:

As i stated in an earlier thread, i see our situation very different, We are in  this strange world we are in, a winner and important holder of true fact amid all fake-news and censured channels.

The donation grew by 12,5% 2024-2025 indicating the very strong support we have amid internet readers, and at least in en wp we see a growth in new users. Number of readers is about stable the last couple of years at the same time we see Google, now show  WP article directly bypassing WP interface, and AI bot is more and more heavily relying on the content of Wikipedia. I see nu cause for alarm at all, on the contrary

Instead of being pessimistic as you indicate I suggest us being optimistic and  use our opportunity to be a more estabished leader in giving true facts

Anders



Den 2026-01-10 kl. 00:40, skrev Christophe Henner:

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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