Here’s a challenge if you’re looking to kill some time. Look up a topic on Google — any topic — and see if Wikipedia doesn’t make the front page. This isn’t exactly an impossible mission, but by and large, Wikipedia makes its presence known nearly every time we search for something, which is partially the result of an army of volunteers adding and editing content on everything under the sun. But what would happen to Wikipedia if it was suddenly starved for writers?

The open online encyclopedia hopes to never find out, however Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales recently lamented to The Associated Press his site is losing contributors.

“We are not replenishing our ranks. It is not a crisis, but I consider it to be important,” Wales told AP.

In an effort to retain members, Wales said he hopes to make the process of submitting and maintaining content easier than it is, which he admits is “convoluted” in its current state. The other problem, as Wales sees it, is that there are simply less new topics to write about than there were 10 years ago when the site went live. Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, says there’s an effort to get universities more involved through a program that would have professors hand out Wikipedia writing assignments to students.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

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Wikipedia’s Contributors Diminishing in Number