Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has suffered a significant drop in the number of active contributors over the past 12 months, forcing the Wikimedia Foundation to scale back some of its future growth targets.
According to H Online, the number of active Wikipedia contributors actively editing five or more times a month fell from 85,000 in March to just 79,000 in July.
The falls come despite an active plan by Wikimedia to increase the number of contributors to 200,000 by 2015.
Wikimedia hopes the declines can be slowed or stopped with the rollout of an easier to use Visual Editor, as well as an expansion in its global education program (from 79 to 150 classes per year, with at least half of all participants female) leading to an increase in contributions.
Despite the fall in contributions, Wikimedia Foundation plans to grow from 119 to 174 employees over the coming year.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
