Hong Kong is struggling to keep up with developments on Wikipedia as the world's biggest and most popular internet reference site becomes more sophisticated.
That is the view of Charles Mok, the chairman of the Hong Kong Internet Society, who fears that the growth of Chinese content on Wikipedia may be limited by a lack of experienced writers and editors.
The problem is that since 2006 the number of contributors in the city and on the mainland has dropped because all that can be added to a subject these days is very specific details that only a few people in a particular field would know - more general information has already been gathered.
As the need for highly specialised information grows, those managing the sites are increasingly less experienced. In Hong Kong and on the mainland, Wikipedia editors are mostly teenagers and undergraduates, who have a lot of spare time to manage the site.
Mok said: 'I don't think it is a problem as far as inaccurate content is concerned, but it does limit the growth of Chinese Wikipedia content if the profile of the editors and writers is not diverse enough.
'The impact on the scope and variety of the pages created will be more severe than the worry of inaccurate content, as there are still editors all over the world who can come in and correct things when there are errors made.'
