User blog comment:Dopp/New Profile Design Now Live Across All Wikis/@comment-242973-20110820172805/@comment-3388044-20110822175101

Some would argue that Wikipedia is hurting for editors because older contributors are being driven away by the tyranny of the younger contributors. Also, its byzantine labyrinth of bureaucratic red-tape means that articles are reduced to something less than mediocrity as contributors with expertise in a given field are effectively prevented from improving them by those who hold such articles captive to their ideological and/or intellectual positions.

Point is, WP's problems have little to do with its lack of social networking not attracting a younger demographic. The site is overrun with school-age contributors! The problem is that the continual conflict between older contributors with formal expertise in an area, and younger editors who simply “know” or intuit the subject matter, has led to a serious degradation of the quality of the project in certain subject areas. Of course, the more obscure, esoteric subject areas of the wiki, because of the lack of interest they hold for any outside the given subject areas, continue to thrive with good quality articles.

Point is: Wikipedia’s lack of social networking is not at the source of its problems. Nor is adding a profile masthead to Wikia going to spell the demise of good contribution here. It might even foster it.