Press Coverage

The results and conclusions in my PhD. dissertation have deserve the attention of several mass-media, worldwide (including The Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Nikkei, El País, BBC News, or The Standaard).

First Wave

On July, 2009, URJC Press Office published and official press release (in Spanish), summarizing featured conclusions from the manuscript.

Eventually, headlines highlighted the results showing a change in the past growing trend of key parameters in the top 10 Wikipedias (like monthly number of active editors and monthly number of active articles). From 2007 onwards, they entered a new steady-state in all language editions under analysis. The story was covered mainly by Spanish mass-media, not only in Spain but also in Latin America. Some featured examples are:

Press

• Article in "El Mundo" (Spanish)
• Article in "El País" (Spanish)
• Article in "ABC" (Spanish)
• Article in "Cinco Días" (Spanish), top business newspaper (printed version of July 10, 2009 included a full page article and interview)

Radio interviews

• Cadena SER (Spanish), in "Hora 25" (prime-time news magazine, national coverage).
• Onda Madrid (mp3 audio, Spanish)
• Cadena COPE (Madrid area)

Second Wave

On November 23, 2009 The Wall Street Journal published an article that featured the results of an alternative analysis to study the evolution of the Wikipedia community.

This analysis studies the individual editing history of each volunteer, determining her "date of birth" (when she joined the project for the first time) and (with a certain, but low, margin of error) her "date of death" (the date from which no further edits have been received from that editor). Following this approach,results concluded that there exist a negative trend in the number of staying editors (births minus deaths), in the first quarter of 2009, for the English Wikipedia. Similar results can be found for other versions (except for the Japanese Wikipedia).

Again, the story got the attention of many different media, but this time in many languages and many different countries (at some point, I was told that the story got +1.000 different versions in Google News, accounting the whole follow-up around the world).

On Nov. 26, 2009, Wikimedia Foundation published an official response on their blog, commenting on this issue, admitting the analysis, and pointing out to the stability in the number of active editors (already highlighted in my thesis and covered in the first wave by mass-media) to minimize the alarmist comments by some media about the immediate future of Wikipedia.

As well, Jimmy Wales (co-founder of Wikipedia) was reported on this issue by The Telegraph:
Interview with Jimmy Wales on The Telegraph

Some feature examples of articles covering the story are:

Press

• The Wall Street Journal (2-page, printed versions were published on Nov. 23, USA edition, and Nov. 24, Europe edition)
• The Times
• BBC News
• Slashdot
• El País (Spanish)
• El Periódico de Catalunya (Spanish)
• The Standaard (Belgian)