On 26 November it was reported that ten times more editors had left Wikipedia in early 2009 than during the same period in 2008, according to BBC News.

The group overseeing the reference work said the claims on losses were not accurate, blaming a difference in what counts as an "editor".

By contrast, it said, the numbers of people editing Wikipedia were stable.

In a blog post the Wikimedia Foundation responded to the publication of a report by researcher Dr Felipe Ortega which said that 49,000 editors had departed Wikipedia in the first three months of 2009.

Dr Ortega’s comparisons suggest that only about 4,900 left the site in the first few months of 2008.