Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin stats

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RfA drought worsens in 2010—wikigeneration gulf emerging

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WereSpielChequers is an editor on the English Wikipedia, the Strategy Process, and occasionally various other projects. He has been active at RfA for more than two years, and has researched its history back into the first year of Wikipedia.

The drought in RfA (Requests for Adminship) has now run for 28 months and is worsening. The number of admins promoted in 2009 was very low compared to previous years, and each of the past six months since has seen even fewer successful RfAs than the same month in 2009. The number of active admins has fallen from the peak of 1,021 in February 2009 to 802 on August 1, 2010.

Requirements have been increasing at RfA in various ways, and since the unbundling of rollback in early 2008 (see Signpost coverage) it has been difficult for candidates to succeed simply as "good vandal fighters". One result of this is that there is now a gulf growing between admins and non admins in terms of "Wiki generations". Over 90% of our admins first edited more than three and a half years ago. It is probably no surprise that there are no admins who first edited in 2010, but only nine started editing in 2009 and thirty-eight in 2008. Even the Wikipedians who joined us in 2007 are still under-represented in the admin cadre.

Successful requests for adminship on the English Wikipedia
Month\Year	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Totals
January			2	13	14	44	23	36	6	6
February			2	14	9	28	35	27	9	7
March			8	31	16	34	31	22	13	2
April			6	20	25	36	30	12	14	8
May			10	23	17	30	54	16	12	8
June		^[1]	24	13	28	28	35	18	12	6
July		3	11	17	31	26	31	16	10	7
August		4	9	12	39	26	18	12	11
September		0	17	29	32	22	34	6	8
October		0	10	16	67	27	27	16	7
November		3	9	27	41	33	56	11	13
December		1	15	24	68	19	34	9	6
Total promoted	n/a	44	123	239	387	353	408	201	121	44	1920
Total unsuccessful	n/a	n/a	n/a	63	213	543	512	392	234	99	2056 ^[2]
Total RfAs including by email	n/a	44	123	302	600	896	920	593	355	143	3976 ^[3]
Percentage promoted	n/a	n/a	n/a	79.1%	64.5%	39.4%	44.3%	33.9%	34.1%	30.8%	44.1%^[4]

Admins by wikigeneration
Year	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Totals
Year admins started editing^[5]	32	109	223	404	481	328	107	38	9	0	1731
Year active admins started editing^[6]	14	34	71	163	221	183	69	29	9	0	793
Admins still active %	43.8%	31.2%	31.8%	40.3%	45.9%	55.8%	64.5%	76.3%	100%		45.8%

Active Admins
Year	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	Today
Active admins at end of year ^[7]	n/a	n/a	143	360	722	979	1,005	943	870	802
Inactive or desysopped (net)	n/a	n/a	24^[8]	22	25	96	382	263	194
Inactive or desysopped (net)%	n/a	n/a	14%<ref>Over three years not one	6%	3%	9%	28%	22%	18%

^ 33 had been appointed in 2001 and early 2002
^ 2004–2010
^ unsuccessful 2003 are n/a; the earliest phase was done by email and there is no record of the people who were turned down
^ This percentage represents all years from 2004 onwards.
^ last calculated Aug 2010 – this only includes current accounts of people who are still admins, but includes inactives.
^ User CBM
^ active admins peaked at 1021 on 28/2/2009
^ Over three years not one

[1] 33 had been appointed in 2001 and early 2002

[2] 2004–2010

[3] unsuccessful 2003 are n/a; the earliest phase was done by email and there is no record of the people who were turned down

[4] This percentage represents all years from 2004 onwards.

[5] st calculated Aug 2010 – this only includes current accounts of people who are still admins, but includes inactives.

[6] User CBM

[7] tive admins peaked at 1021 on 28/2/2009

[8] Over three years not one

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