"Our growth rate continues to be staggering"
About this Quote
"Our growth rate continues to be staggering" mixes delight with a measure of unease. Coming from Jimmy Wales, cofounder of Wikipedia, it captures the breakneck acceleration of an experiment that outpaced almost every expectation. A free, collaboratively written encyclopedia did not just add pages; it accumulated people, languages, habits, and norms, each reinforcing the others. Every new article drew readers who might become editors; every edit signaled to more readers that something big, and participatory, was happening. That is the logic of network effects, and it looks staggering from the inside.
Staggering also hints at imbalance. Traditional encyclopedias grew by curated increments, bound by editorial cycles and printing. Wikipedia expanded as fast as bandwidth, interest, and volunteer energy allowed. Servers had to be added, policies refined, tools built to detect vandalism and automate routine tasks. Concepts like Neutral Point of View and verifiability evolved not as abstract ideals, but as responses to problems thrown up by scale. A community that could suddenly reach the world in hundreds of languages needed governance that could keep up.
The remark sits within a broader moment in internet culture when participation and openness produced compounding returns. It celebrates a democratizing impulse: knowledge made by and for the public. Yet it also acknowledges a burden. Growth magnifies flaws as well as strengths, raising questions about reliability, bias, and the sustainability of volunteer labor. The sheer speed forces stewards to become institution builders, not just enthusiasts.
Over time, raw growth inevitably slows, and attention shifts from counting articles to deepening quality and ensuring resilience. But the sense captured here endures: momentum has its own kind of authority, and with it a responsibility to guide rather than simply marvel. Wales’s words distill both the improbable success of a collaborative knowledge project and the perpetual challenge of scaling trust.
Staggering also hints at imbalance. Traditional encyclopedias grew by curated increments, bound by editorial cycles and printing. Wikipedia expanded as fast as bandwidth, interest, and volunteer energy allowed. Servers had to be added, policies refined, tools built to detect vandalism and automate routine tasks. Concepts like Neutral Point of View and verifiability evolved not as abstract ideals, but as responses to problems thrown up by scale. A community that could suddenly reach the world in hundreds of languages needed governance that could keep up.
The remark sits within a broader moment in internet culture when participation and openness produced compounding returns. It celebrates a democratizing impulse: knowledge made by and for the public. Yet it also acknowledges a burden. Growth magnifies flaws as well as strengths, raising questions about reliability, bias, and the sustainability of volunteer labor. The sheer speed forces stewards to become institution builders, not just enthusiasts.
Over time, raw growth inevitably slows, and attention shifts from counting articles to deepening quality and ensuring resilience. But the sense captured here endures: momentum has its own kind of authority, and with it a responsibility to guide rather than simply marvel. Wales’s words distill both the improbable success of a collaborative knowledge project and the perpetual challenge of scaling trust.
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| Topic | Startup |
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