[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is forever.

Sat Jul 15 21:08:52 UTC 2006

On 7/15/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> Barring a total catastropic collapse of civilization (and possibly
> even then), it's likely that some copy of some portion of some
> version of Wikipedia will survive somewhere, given its wide
> dissemination.  Such a thing will likely be an imporant resource for
> future historians / archeologists / anthropologists / etc.
> researching human culture of the early 21st century.
>
> However, in such a scenario, the surviving Wikipedia would be merely
> a "dead" historical document, albeit a massive one with many
> alternative versions.
>
> Or, is it the belief here that a "living" Wikipedia, still being
> actively updated and open to such updates from the general public,
> will continue to exist for centuries to come?

Since you asked. I think Wikipedia will continue to exist in pretty
much its current form for 5 years. It will continue to be useful and
referred to for ~10 years. 20 years from now, it will have been
totally superseded and no one will give a shit - it will not interest
future historians, archeologists or anthropologists, any more than
archives of usenet from the early 1990s interest today's historians,
archeologists or anthropologists.

I'm ok with that.

Steve