The good news is that after dipping below the 1720 peak, admin numbers are on the rise again and we currently have what I believe is a new record of 1724 admins. However if one were to exclude adminbots then I think we are still below peak levels, and even if we are now appointing admins faster than they are resigning, the key metric is the number of active admins, and that is currently about 170 below peak levels, as less than half our admins are now active.
Apart from admin bots we only have 24 admins who created their accounts in the last 24 months, and at least a couple of them were new accounts for returning admins. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&dir=prev&group=sysop&creationSort=1 What few RFAs we have are largely mopping up stragglers from years back, so wikipedia may still be getting lots of new editors, but very few are becoming admins We had a step change after rollback was unbundled in early 2008, and there was a big fall in RFAs, Things have since deteriorated further, there were fewer successful RFAs in 2009 than 2008, and the 2010 results so far are continuing the trend. It used to provoke comment whenever there were no RFAs on the board, now such events have become normal. My fear is that if these trends http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_by_month continue, we will have a growing gulf between admins and non-admins, as the defacto requirements for RFA are becoming out of reach for most editors. We may still have enough admins to do the urgent admin tasks for quite some time to come; But I can see us becoming more dependant on the occasional admin who can clear a 100 article backlog at CSD in an hour or two, and I fear a growing divide between admins and others. WereSpielChequers > Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 17:02:06 -0700 > From: Howie Fung <hf...@wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: <4bfdb67e.4000...@wikimedia.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Here are some numbers I pulled a few months ago regarding the number of > admin requests over time: > > > successful unsuccessful total requests % successful > 2004 177 63 240 74% > 2005 387 213 600 65% > 2006 353 543 896 39% > 2007 408 512 920 44% > 2008 201 392 593 34% > 2009 121 234 355 34% > > > I can't comment on the reasons, but I thought I'd share the data in case > people are interested. > > Howie > > Source: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Successful_requests_for_adminship > and related pages. > Note: 2004 is incomplete as unsuccessful candidacies were tracked > starting April 2005 > > On 5/26/10 3:51 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote: >> Pretty much. That's more or less why I quit the project. >> >> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:51 PM, The Cunctator<cuncta...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >>> By all measures, en.wiki has been in decline for years as an active >>> project. >>> It's just the typical death by bureaucracy that most projects like this >>> undergo. >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Kwan Ting Chan<k...@ktchan.info> wrote: >>> >>> >>>> WereSpielChequers wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> What are the likely results of a dwindling number of admins, and a >>>>> growing wikigeneration gap between admins and other editors? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> Well, they're not dwindling since admin rights don't get taken away on >>>> inactivity. ;-) But to the general question, because the standard >>>> >>> expected >>> >>>> of a candidate for RfA has gone up over the years? >>>> >>>> KTC >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Experience is a good school but the fees are high. >>>> - Heinrich Heine >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>>> WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>> WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 19:03:40 -0500 > From: MuZemike <muzem...@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] declining numbers of EN wiki admins > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > Message-ID: <4bfdb6dc.6020...@gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > We need to remember that correlation does not imply causation here, > which I think is what David is slightly hinting at. There are probably > many other factors in admin decline as well, including increased > popularity of Wikipedia (which leads and has led to a lot more problems, > good and bad), increased questioning of literally every decision made, > increased criticism (general and specific) of adminship and > administrators, higher RfA standards, etc. The list goes on. > > -MuZemike > > On 5/26/2010 6:34 PM, David Goodman wrote: >> Are you saying that a _declining_ number of administrators means a >> _growth_ in bureaucracy? It would normally mean the opposite, either >> a loss of control, or that the ordinary members were taking the >> function upon themselves. What I see is a greater degree of control >> and uniformity, not driven by those in formal positions of authority. >> >> On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Ryan Delaney<ryan.dela...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Pretty much. That's more or less why I quit the project. >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 1:51 PM, The Cunctator<cuncta...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>>> By all measures, en.wiki has been in decline for years as an active >>>> project. >>>> It's just the typical death by bureaucracy that most projects like this >>>> undergo. >>>> >>>> On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Kwan Ting Chan<k...@ktchan.info> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> WereSpielChequers wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> What are the likely results of a dwindling number of admins, and a >>>>>> growing wikigeneration gap between admins and other editors? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> Well, they're not dwindling since admin rights don't get taken away on >>>>> inactivity. ;-) But to the general question, because the standard >>>>> >>>> expected >>>> >>>>> of a candidate for RfA has gone up over the years? >>>>> >>>>> KTC >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Experience is a good school but the fees are high. >>>>> - Heinrich Heine >>>>> _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
