Studies

A 2007 study by researchers from Dartmouth College found that "anonymous and infrequent

contributors to Wikipedia ... are as reliable a source of knowledge as those contributors who
register with the site".[121] Jimmy Wales stated in 2009 that "[I]t turns out over 50% of all the
edits are done by just .7% of the users ... 524 people ... And in fact, the most active 2%, which
is 1400 people, have done 73.4% of all the edits."[116] However, Business Insider editor and
journalist Henry Blodget showed in 2009 that in a random sample of articles, most Wikipedia
content (measured by the amount of contributed text that survives to the latest sampled edit) is
created by "outsiders", while most editing and formatting is done by "insiders". [116]
A 2008 study found that Wikipedians were less agreeable, open, and conscientious than
others,[122][123] although a later commentary pointed out serious flaws, including that the data
showed higher openness and that the differences with the control group and the samples were
small.[124] According to a 2009 study, there is "evidence of growing resistance from the
Wikipedia community to new content". [125]

Diversity
Several studies have shown that most of the Wikipedia contributors are male. Notably, the
results of a Wikimedia Foundation survey in 2008 showed that only 13 percent of Wikipedia
editors were female.[126] Because of this, universities throughout the United States tried to
encourage women to become Wikipedia contributors. Similarly, many of these universities,
including Yale and Brown, gave college credit to students who create or edit an article relating
to women in science or technology.[127] Andrew Lih, a professor and scientist, wrote in The New
York Times that the reason he thought the number of male contributors outnumbered the
number of females so greatly was because identifying as a woman may expose oneself to
"ugly, intimidating behavior". [128] Data has shown that Africans are underrepresented among
Wikipedia editors.[129]