When Wikipedia first emerged in 2001, it was still a time when most had to be patient for information — waiting for the high-pitched scree and its answering cry as the computer connected, painstakingly, to the internet via dial-up.
And the idea of an open source encyclopedia that could be updated by anyone in real time — or its equivalent in those pre-fibre-optic days — sparked questions and plenty of criticism about how accurate that information could be.
Fast-forward 25 years and Wikipedia is now the ninth most visited site on the internet, with nearly 15 billion visitors each month, searching and editing its more than 65 million articles.
But despite its speedy ascent in the early years and steady growth thereafter, Wikipedia isn’t as visible as it used to be. Now, when you Google a question, the top search result will likely be a Wiki link, but its AI will also handily synthesize the answer for you above it. And ChatGPT? That cuts Wikipedia out altogether.
Now, human visitors to the site are on the decline, dropping by roughly eight per cent in parts of 2025, while large language models (LLMs) — chatbots or other forms of AI that can condense words and information — are hammering Wikipedia’s servers and using it as a training ground.
If these trends continue, alongside the decline in local news outlets that are Wikipedia’s main sources, the future is “more dire than you think,” says Zachary McDowell, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago and the author of Wikipedia and the Representation of Reality.
Even on my personal level I started to use Wikipedia much less. The reason is peculiar though: too much data while too little data. What does that even mean? Wikipedia articles don’t have complete data that is enough for practical use, so I still need to look for information in more specialized sources. And in the cases when I just want a 1-sentence answer on what-the-fuck-this-thing-is question, Wikipedia gives me a few pages of data I don’t need or want. In both cases I am left dissatisfied. So I use Wiki less and less.
In that situation it would be a kindness for you to take the specialized sources you’ve found and add them to articles, to save the next person a little trouble
Nope. Then I got banned. So I’m not finding it sad to see Wikipedia disappearing
Oh interesting, may I ask how specialized those sources were? The first scenario that comes to mind is that perhaps they were known to be less than reputable, which could lead to a ban
Somebody else was agreeing with me, so didn’t agree with the moderator either. But the moderator thought that this was an alt account of mine (which it wasn’t, it was not me). And then I the mod banned me from the platform. My account a 15 years account old. You can look it up, it’s under my real full name.
But ow well. I don’t mind anymore like I said. I hope there will be more Wikipedia alternatives.
Oh wow, yeah that sounds like some crazy mod abuse. Nothing beats volunteer contributors when it comes to drama haha
Wikipedia is getting the same faith as stackoverflow now.
I’m actually more in favor of more specialized wikis instead today. Like arch Linux wiki. Which I also contribute to. Or wine wiki etc.
Did you… not follow the guidelines?
Well. Maybe. But it’s more complicated than that. The moderator was aiming for me it seemed. I never had such a bad experience online.
I’m not interested anymore in Wikipedia either; they can just figure it out. I’m never, ever contributing a single word to Wikipedia again.