Wikipedia editors leave in droves

Wikipedia apparently had 49,000 editors leave their site in the first three months of 2009, compared with just 4,900 in the same period a year earlier.

While people sill always come and go from such voluntary roles on the web, the figures make stark reading and leads to questions being asked as to why there has been such an exodus.

One editor and an author about a book on the site Andrew Dalby believes it's reached critical mass. Dalby says:

"One question is, is there any new stuff to do on the site? When Wikipedia reaches 3 million articles, how many new articles can there be?"

The Wikimedia Foundation (which runs Wikipedia) has previously recognised the fall in volunteers but did not comment when asked about the research.