The biggest and the most prolific of all online encyclopedias, Wikipedia might soon lose its reputation as the one stop resource for any and all information for just about anything, as the knowledge treasure chest has reportedly lost 49,000 contributors in the first three months of 2009. The loss has largely been in the English language edition of the website.

Wikipedia is an open for all information website, that utilizes the talents of individual contributors to for fact and proof checking, so as to make its articles 100% accurate and completely error free. Wikipedia is known to receive 325 million visits a month and allows for open editing and addition of material to existing articles. The organization was founded in the year 2001 by Jimmy Wales and since its inception, Wikipedia has reached the reputable title of being the fifth most popular website currently online.

One of the primary reason for the detachment of 49,000 editors from Wikipedia, could be the lack of security provided to articles, where recently, abuses and obscenities have taken a huge leap. Especially, in the case of an article that was published for the French soccer team captain, Thierry Henry, where the article suffered a spate of abuses and obscene language for Henry’s mediated foul a World Cup play-off against Ireland.

According to Felipe Ortega (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid),

“If you don’t have enough people to take care of the project it could vanish quickly. We’re not in that situation yet. But eventually, if the negative trends follow, we could be in that situation. The articles are very tightly controlled by others now, and that makes it hard to jump in and contribute.”

Via Mail Online.