In 2025, a major German newspaper determined that 40% of Wikipedia’s German entries contained errors or outdated information. For its investigation, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reviewed more than 1,000 articles. Not only individuals frequently use the platform as a source. Other web-based services like Google and ChatGPT do as well. But Wikipedia is written entirely by volunteer contributors, and their numbers are declining as the volume of information continues to grow. We asked the Wikipedians themselves about the state of authorship on the platform —and whether paid contributors could be a solution.