There's no evidence behind the majority of policies of any Wikimedia project, so I don't think that's really an expectation.
As to enwiki, it appears that the 4-day threshold was in place well before 2008, but the 10-edit threshold was added in 2008: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed_Proposal/Poll The related "bugzilla" (now phabricator) ticket is here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T16191 It was pretty clearly the position of Brion, the lead developer at the time, that even making the change from 0 to 10 edits would be essentially inconsequential; however, he did make that change. (Most of that ticket is an argument that the Enwiki community wanted a 7 day/20 edit threshold, and complaining that it wasn't applied.) My sense is that adding the edit requirements actually did make a difference, although not really because it resulted in vandalism/trolling accounts being left unused. It made them easier to spot. I believe they also reduced the move vandalism that we were experiencing at a ridiculous rate at the time. I'm sure you'd be able to find similar discussions at other projects; I just remember this one because I participated in it. Risker/Anne On Mon, 4 Oct 2021 at 06:19, Amir E. Aharoni <amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote: > I've been involved in this lengthy circular debate: What should be the > autoconfirmed age and article count in the Hebrew Wikipedia? See > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T243076 if you curious about this > particular one, but I'd love to ask a more global question: > > How were these numbers calculated originally? > > For the account age, the default is four days, or five or seven days for a > few wikis. > > For the edit count, the default is zero, but several wikis have 5, 10, 25, > or 50. > > (See > https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php > and search for "wgAutoConfirmAge" and "wgAutoConfirmCount".) > > Some wikis have groups, usually called "extended confirmed", and with > higher counts; for example, 500 edits in English and some other languages > (search for wmgAutopromoteOnceonEdit on the same page). > > So, how did the people arrive at these numbers? Why is it four days by > default? Is it all just intuition and guesses, or was there any research > behind it? > > Is it *good* that four days is the default for everyone, until someone > bothers to update it (most wikis don't)? Or is it just a coincidence that > was defined for a certain wiki and applied elsewhere? And when it's > updated, why is it updated to one number and not some other? > > While I am an ardent supporter of the "anyone can edit" principle, it > makes general sense to have some restrictions based on edit count, account > age, and perhaps other parameters. But HOW are they calculated? Would it > make sense to anyone to start making some calculations around it and > optimize the number for wikis of different sizes? > > I'd imagine that there could be a calculation that says "in a given wiki, > the chance of being reverted or blocked goes down after X days and X > edits", and this number is probably different for every wiki (maybe there > already is such a calculation somewhere). This could possibly be a starting > point for a good calculation of a threshold; it wouldn't be perfect, > because in some wikis it can perpetuate community practices which may be > biased against new editors, but at least it's based on data and not on > guesses. > > In the English Wikipedia 2016 discussion[1] about adding the "extended > confirmed" group, I found one comment, by User:Opabinia regalis, which > corresponds to my thinking on the topic: "The thresholds being used for > these restrictions are essentially arbitrary, and we don't have a strong > evidence base yet that they are well-chosen." > > Perhaps after twenty years we could start actually calculating these > thresholds, and not just come up with arbitrary numbers? Or is there really > no demand for smart and research-based decisions about these thresholds? > > [1] > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_129#New_usergroup_with_autopromotion_to_implement_arbitration_%2230-500%22_bans_as_a_page_protection > > -- > Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי > http://aharoni.wordpress.com > “We're living in pieces, > I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ONYNFNACK34LQLTBRHI6M56LBJHFBSKW/ > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org
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