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Addressing the shortage of qualified Wikipedia editors for mathematics

Determine effective approaches to alleviate the shortage of qualified contributors to mathematics articles on Wikipedia, so that the editorial workload is more evenly shared and on-wiki feedback becomes more available and timely.

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Background

In the subsection “Where do editors come from?”, the authors highlight a persistent issue: there is a vast amount of mathematical content to cover on Wikipedia, but too few editors with the requisite expertise to write and maintain these articles. They describe the resulting strain on contributors, difficulties in obtaining on-wiki feedback, and the sense of a never-ending task as problems that arise from this imbalance.

They further note structural disincentives that may limit participation, such as challenges for early-career mathematicians in receiving professional credit for Wikipedia work and the mixed experience of editing under real names versus pseudonyms. Despite discussing potential contexts (e.g., emeritus mathematicians), they explicitly state that they do not have a solution to this shortage.

References

Aside from frustration over on-Wikipedia arguments, another problem is that it can feel like there is too much work to be done in writing an encyclopedia. There is a lot of mathematics, and not enough people to write about it! The authors do not have a solution.

— Princ-wiki-a Mathematica: Wikipedia editing and mathematics (2412.20419 - Eppstein et al., 29 Dec 2024) in Subsection “Where do editors come from?”, Section “The community of Wikipedia”