Why is it so difficult to get a new article on Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is facing an editorial crisis: The online encyclopedia has grown to more than 6.7 million articles and continues to expand—even as the number of active editors overseeing that content continues to decline. It seems hard to believe, but there is only one Wikipedia editor for every 166 Wikipedia articles. Imagine trying to keep that much content up-to-date and accurate! For comparison, Encyclopedia Britannica has one editor for every 29 articles, along with 100+ staffers who continually update articles.
Because of this limited oversight capacity, Wikipedia's volunteer editor community has made the creation of new articles increasingly difficult. Drafts submitted through the Articles for Creation process are overwhelmingly declined, and the standard for "notability" has become increasingly rigid. Existing brand articles, meanwhile, are often ghost towns of outdated information and limited editor engagement.
Lumino's new white paper explains how Wikipedia stumbled into this crisis and why it has pivoted towards a "deletionist mode" to address it. This shift has clear implications for brand presence on the site, and the paper explains how representatives can most effectively engage with the site's community of editors to update existing articles and submit new ones.
The white paper is organized as follows:
Section One: Why Wikipedia matters
This introductory section briefly explains why Wikipedia is such an important source of information about brands, organizations, and prominent individuals.
Section Two: A brief history of Wikipedia's editorial guidelines
This historical section covers the site's evolution from expansionist mode (when the focus was rapid growth) towards its current deletionist mode (representing a pivot to quality over quantity). This context helps explain the current guidelines surrounding conflict-of-interest editing, reliable sourcing, and new article creation.
Section Three: Wikipedia and brand engagement
This final section explains how brand representatives can most effectively engage with the site's community of editors to update existing articles or draft and submit new ones.