Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-15/Special report

Special report

Thirteen years later, why are most administrators still from 2005?

Thirteen years ago today, I wrote a Signpost article, which among other things lamented that a Wikigeneration gap was emerging. At that time, over 90% of our administrators had made their first edit more than three and a half years earlier.

Things have not gotten better over time. Actually, they have gotten worse! In 2010, 90% of admins had made their first edit more than three and a half years prior. In 2023, 99% of our admins made their first edits over four and a half years ago. As for that 90% threshold I used in 2010? Over 90% of current admins made their first edit before I wrote that article. As an editor who started in 2007, I'm still relatively new compared to most of our admins — a majority of whom joined the project in 2005 or earlier.

In thirteen years, the Wikigeneration gap has widened by twelve years.

Admins by year they started editing, comparing 2010 with 2023
Year	Year that Aug 2010 admins started editing (as of 2010)	Year that Aug 2023 admins started editing (as of 2023)	Ratio, 2023 vs. 2010
2001	32	8	25%
2002	109	38	35%
2003	223	75	34%
2004	404	168	42%
2005	481	198	41%
2006	326	184	56%
2007	115	63	55%
2008	43	43	100%
2009	13	27	208%
2010	0	14
2011		12
2012		10
2013		6
2014		5
2015		9
2016		2
2017		5
2018		7
2019		4
2020		2
2021		2
2022		0
2023		0
Total	1746	881

This is a comparison of the admins of August 2010 versus the admins of August 2023, by the year they created their account on the English Wikipedia. Note that in some cases (many in more recent years) it won't be the same editors — this is when people started editing, not when they became admins. The 2010–11 study is here.

Admins by year started editing. As at Aug 2023

2001 (1%)

2002 (4%)

2003 (9%)

2004 (19%)

2005 (22%)

2006 (21%)

2007 (7%)

2008 (5%)

2009 (3%)

2010 (2%)

2011 (1%)

2012/21 (6%)

I can understand why we don't yet have any admins who started editing in 2022 or 2023: few candidates now succeed without two years' experience in the community, and candidates with only one year of experience are very rare indeed. But I'm surprised at how few admins we have who joined the community in the entire decade of the 2010s, and especially with the class of 2016. Why do we only have two admins who started editing in that year?

This study looks at admins not by when they became admins, but by when they joined the community. If this inspires someone to go off and analyse things by when people became admins, then I'd be interested to see the result; I think both approaches are potentially interesting (to be honest, I suspect that I used account creation date for the 2010 study because it was easier for me to get that data). As for the 2023 study, there is an advantage in repeating the same analysis (on the same benchmark) thirteen years later. But the results are starker, as many of the three hundred new admins we've had since I published that article thirteen years ago were already editing at that point.

On the flip side, I doubt if anyone imagined thirteen years ago that so many of us would still be adminning on this site thirteen years later. My hope is that we can persuade some Wikipedians who joined the community in the 2010s to become admins; I'm sure there are many of you who would pass easily. But given the fact that we have kept Wikipedia supplied with admins through the last decade, less by recruiting more of them than by retaining the ones we had, I'm confident that if Wikipedia is still here in 2036, many of our current admins will still be around.

I just hope they are outnumbered by new recruits.

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"Joined the community"

@WereSpielChequers, is measuring from first edit maybe a little misleading as a way to assign a "class" or generation? Look at the editing history of FireFangledFeathers, a brand-new admin. They created an account in 2009, but it wasn't until 2021 that they made their 100th logged-in edit. So are they the class of 2009, or the class of 2021? I'd say 2021, myself. Is there a way to capture what year people actually started actively editing?

I also wonder if we can even assign any meaning to length of time (whether between first edit and RfA or between "becoming active" and RfA) because of course the average time is going to be longer in year 22 than it was in year 5. In year 5 it couldn't have been more than four years. Valereee (talk) 10:18, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Valereee, yes there are people who create an account several years before becoming active with that same account. I think they are rare, but yes they exist, and if someone comes up with a way to start the clock at when people become very active rather than first edit, then their study will likely be better than mine. Also I accept that we are now almost a 22 year old organisation rather nearly nine. So averages would be expected to stretch, but that isn't my focus. I'm looking at the gap between when we recruited our admins and people are joining the community. Of course to make that clearer it would make sense if we had the same data on currently very active editors, and compared it to currently very active admins. It is possible that the real problem is that we aren't recruiting new editors, and the very few we recruit are mostly becoming admins, I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but I haven't currently got the data to rule that out. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:55, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Highly subjective

"Things have not got better over time, actually they have got worse. Instead of 90% of admins having made their first edit more than three and a half years ago, we now have 99% of our admins having made their first edit over four and a half years ago." Lots of us would not consider that any kind of problem, as we expect admin candidates to have several years of experience, and of showing constructive work here. The fact that zero of our current admins first started editing as recently as 2022–2023 is perfectly fine by me (nor am alone in feeling that way about it). The majority of our admin corps being people with deep institutional memory is a good thing. "Over 90% of all our current admins made their first edit before I wrote that article [13 years ago]": Well, we retain admins as active editors (and as admins) at a higher rate than we retain editors in general, so this makes sense. Yhere has been an uptick in requests for adminship in the last maybe two years, after a several-year slump, and most of these requests have been successful The real problem with RfA is that it is legendarily a nightmare to go through, so there is little incentive for people to do it, especially as we don't seem to have a "we're running out of admins" emergency. I think the years-long RfA slump we had (largely because of how awful RfA was getting) is the answer to your "surprised at how few admins we have who joined the community in the decade of the 2010s" wonder. (As for 2016 in particular, it's just a statistical blip in a small sample size.) Another factor is that many formerly-admin tools have been unbundled from the admin bit (page-mover, file-mover, template-editor, etc.), thus fewer people actually need the admin bit. Is there really a pressing need for a bunch more people running around with the ban-hammer? As you say yourself: "three hundred new admins we have had since I published that [2010] article". That's an awful lot of admins. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As I said "I can understand why we don't yet have any admins who started editing in 2022 or 2023: few candidates now succeed without two years' experience in the community, and candidates with only one year of experience are very rare indeed". So that bit is fine by both of us. My concern in this article is about the Wikigeneration gap between the admins and the current community. Yes we expect experience at RFA, but in 2023 people argue whether new admins need one, two or three years experience, it is now 2023, there aren't many members of the community who would baulk at an admin who started editing in 2019, letalone 2010. Hence my question, why don't we have more admins who stated in the 2010s. As for the idea that there has been an uptick in RFAs in the last two years after a several year slump; 2021 had 7 successful RFAs and 2022 14. Looking at Wikipedia:RFA by month the last three years were three of the five lowest years ever for new admins, and this year is looking similar. I'm seeing a downtick, but I ignored that in the article as possibly COVID related and maybe not statistically meaningful. Ϣere SpielChequers 06:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Misc. post-publication comments

The answer is that becoming an admin is stressful and difficult, and even those with good credentials are unlikely to succeed. For example, I'd love to become an admin one day, but I don't think I have a chance with my current editing credentials. In 2005, my credentials would have let me glide by. (Well, I've been an editor for 16 years, so ignoring that Wikipedia hadn't been around that long...) -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 14:22, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rockstone35, if you had become an admin last week, you would still appear in the statistic as "2007". Perhaps the time needed between starting editing and becoming an admin has increased significantly, and faster than the years have progressed. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:41, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Expectations did rise around 2008, and the average tenure of successful RFA candidates has increased dramatically. But I'm fairly sure someone with 12 months active editing could pass if they were otherwise fully qualified, and I would be surprised to see an oppose based on lack of tenure if someone had 24 months active editing. It isn't the average that an RFA candidate need worry about, it is the threshold, the minimum that the community expects. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:25, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I know that, for me, adminship came at a time when I had finished high school and college, and I wanted to play a more dedicated role behind the scenes (while still contributing content). As for joining in 2005... well, it was the wild days of old Wikipedia when growth was exponential and notability was... if not looser, than more broadly construed. As such, it was perfect for a high school nerd to write about things that are now hosted by Wikia.

I also seem to remember (I'm sure we have stats somewhere) that that was around the time when editorship was also growing rapidly as Wikipedia became more mainstream. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:38, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

this shows an exponential growth until 2007. then decline from 2007 to 2014, and then the 2015 rally, which since we are now in 2023 we should accept as more than a blip. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:19, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. It's a shame that this data only starts in 2006, as the rise in active editors was quite precipitous. And it does make sense that a lot of the early adopters - maybe not ground floor, but close to it - would be more committed to the long-term success of the project. Not to use cliches, but there are a lot of "true believers" in that crop. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:39, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not surprised that so many of the people who started editing in the early years are still around. I'm just surprised at how few of our newer members have become admins. I'm pretty sure we have a lot of active editors who started in the 2010s. Ϣere SpielChequers 21:01, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was easy and painless back then. Now it's painful and difficult. And the best and most experienced candidates have the hardest time. The best criteria now for an "easy in" is lack of experience/ exposure in contentious areas/situations. North8000 (talk) 16:41, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This reminds me of companies with a flagship product that appeal to an aging population. A Reuters article about Harley-Davidson says "the company began an effort to attract buyers born after 1964"... with mixed success; their "average rider age was rising steadily at a rate of about 6 months every year since at least 1999". Innovate and recruit new buyers, or the company only lasts as long as the youngest of the cohort. Unfortunate but a fact of life. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:00, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are a long way from a Harley Davidson situation. What I should have put in the article is that we are still recruiting new editors. Though one echo of Harley Davidson is that I suspect many of our recent recruits are of retirement age, while some of the class of 2005 were teenagers. However we are still recruiting a few teenagers, and some of those run at RFA. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:19, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That "class of 2005 [as] teenagers" bit reminds me: I actually started out on WP as a Dominica State College student, aged 18. (Might as well declare a COI here, meaning that I'm de facto prohibited from editing that institution's article.) --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 03:33, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as a member of the "Class of 2005", I had my first RfA fail 6 months after my account was created and my second one succeeded 4 months later. I think that current standards are entirely too restrictive, and we need more administrators. --rogerd (talk) 20:56, 15 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are multiple complex reasons, most of which are not about RfA, and the ones that are about RfA are mostly about things more complex than a simple "RfA was good, then it got bad". One I don't see people talking about a lot is that many editors these days became active quite a few years after they made their account (Barkeep has talked about this, as a 2005 registration who became active in the late 2010s). This decreases the number of adminabiles relative to the number of active editors, and produces strange outcomes when trying to track editor tenure by either registration date or date of active editing (because neither are quite right). The questions raised here are "why do so many editors take years to become active Wikipedians?", and tie in with other forms of adminship weirdness like the incredibly shifting, mirage-y "tenure standards". (COI lol statement: 2016 reg, started editing in 2021.) Vaticidalprophet 00:19, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Foundation has strange ways of telling its administrators how important they are and how much they truly care about their contributions. We really feel blessed and appreciated. We hear them telling us how things like making millions of trivial edits or editing for over a decade straight without ever even taking a single day off are more important than the boring and complex administration of the content. – wbm1058 (talk) 01:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As a "rookie" on this platform (I signed up in April 2022 after years of editing as an unregistered IP user), I wonder if the lack of new admins might also be influenced by the fact that new faces are, in a certain sense, "lonelier" than users who have been around here for a longer time. Let me explain: so far, I've come to love the large amount of guidelines, resources and services, such as the Teahouse and the help desk, available to anyone of us who takes Wikipedia seriously and wants to develop his skills as an editor/contributor. However, I've found myself struggling to build consistent connections with other people who could "mentor" me, mainly because of factors like real-life tasks or GMT differences: that's a shame for me, because I'm always trying to get as much constructive feedback as possible in order to keep making progress. Considering that admins are "expected to have the trust and confidence of the community", and need to go through a community-led process in order to get promoted, I fear the sense of isolation some newcomers feel might hold them back from even considering a role like this. These are just my very humble two cents, though, so let me know if I'm missing something bigger! Oltrepier (talk) 10:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's an interesting perspective. Most of the collaborative areas of Wikipedia have gone into decline, but you might try reviewing articles at WP:FAC, I've always found that a very cooperative area, especially for reviewers who pitch in and fix things as opposed to just criticising. And of course the Signpost. More generally trust for adminship is often earned by correct reports of vandals at WP:AIV and clueful participation in the deletion process. But the interaction may not feel so obvious there. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@WereSpielChequers: My bad, I forgot to mention that I've already tried my hand at contributing to various areas, including AfC, Good Articles, Did you know, AfD and In the news. If I had to rank them all, I'd say DYKs and GAs left by far the best impression on me, since I've found a lot of hard-working people curating the whole process over there: plus, the feedback has usually been positive and helpful, either when I nominated the article or I was the one reviewing it. ITN looks a bit intimidating at times, but it's still useful and lively enough; on the other hand, I didn't get much direct interaction at AfC and AfD, unfortunately...

Actually, I'd love to contribute to the Signpost in some capacity in the future! But first, I need to find time and something interesting to write about... Oltrepier (talk) 14:57, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I was involved in this year's WikiCup, too! I didn't get as much interaction as I would like there, but it was still a fun experience: plus, it made me get involved at GA and DYK in the first place! Oltrepier (talk) 15:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who started editing in 2021, I can say that I personally had no trouble finding "friends". I don't think that's the norm, though. casualdejekyll 20:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Casualdejekyll: I guess it also depends from our own personality and how quickly we adapt to the giant environment this platform provides. Oltrepier (talk) 08:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have found much more success with finding people in WikiProjects. Everyone in a WikiProject wants to improve their project's articles, which leads to collaboration and kinds of friendship. Outside of that I find that WP:DISCORD was the way to go.

(sorry for late response) JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 15:42, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are unique factors in adminship that prevent promotion of new candidates (e.g. RfA is too much scrutiny on one individual). There is also a long-term volunteer recruitment and retention crisis. Many areas of the site, both admin tasks and non-admin tasks, are non-functional. Many more have a limited volunteer pool with a small bus factor. Meanwhile, the vast majority of readers have no idea that Wikipedia is written by unpaid volunteers (and they could be one of them). — Bilorv (talk) 11:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've beaten this horse to the point where hungry coyotes started hanging around, but the problem isn't RFA, it's Arbcom. It's not giving the mop, but taking it away, which has become such a thoroughly bureaucratic process that it takes hundreds of contributor hours. So we started with a process that's fairly routine, evolved into admission to a peerage, and then became more treacherous than admission to sainthood. The community is extremely wary, as well they probably should be, because the decision has been rendered nearly irreversible, and even when it is reversed, the process is so opaque that it's open to a very small group that understands how ArbCom works. GMG ^talk 11:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And yet those few candidates who run often pass by acclamation. I'm aware of the theory that our problem is a very picky electorate, with various reasons for that electorate being picky. But if that was the issue we'd have more candidates, most of the passes would be marginal and the last one over 90% would be years ago. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The problem 10 years ago was that the electorate was far too picky and rejected candidates who should have been promoted. Today, every potential candidate knows this and self-selects themselves out of standing. There aren't enough outliers who do stand to make much statistical conclusion from there.
On "marginal passes", votes at an RfA aren't given by a Binomial distribution, where each vote is independent. Instead, there are only a few possible outcomes : "near-universal support", ..., "crat chat", ..., "near-universal oppose" (plus a couple in between). Groupthink is determinate and to some degree inevitable in a vote with no criteria. The current RfA is thankfully a "near-universal support" case, but if we were to somehow go back to Day 1 and conspire with five other experienced volunteers to craft carefully written oppose votes then I promise you there would be dozens more piling on from the same people that have piled on as supporters. — Bilorv (talk) 12:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think what we really need is more GoldenRings, but the problem is that the overlap of "users who want to be an admin" and "users who should be an admin" is very, very small. I think the project would be a much better place if we went back to things being WP:NOBIGDEAL. casualdejekyll 20:31, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This was meant to be a reply to WereSpielChequers, I just put it in the wrong spot - oops! casualdejekyll 20:32, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Bilorv: Actually, complaints that the Admin process was "far too picky" started longer ago than that: IIRC, people were comparing it to running a gauntlet as early as 2006. I have my own theories why it became a rite of hazing instead of a reasonable evaluation of suitability, & some of the motivations were obviously not to help the wiki or encyclopedia. -- llywrch (talk) 22:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, the last one went to a crat chat.

Just to use myself as...obviously the example I'm most familiar with, I'm an admin on two other projects and a crat on one. I don't want to touch en.wp RFA with a ten-foot pole. I tried once, and was basically called a Nazi, for espousing essentially the same principle others, including functionaries have expressed, that WP is agnostic to people as long as they edit in a way that is civil and neutral. I can think of at least one other editor with whom I share adminship and is also an admin on data, and they were similarly dragged through the mud, with editors combing through a decade of activity to find something that was objectionable. We both know how the tools work. We've both used them for a long time. We both don't want to subject ourselves to whatever that is.

The relevant metric is less RFAs that failed, but rather RFAs that never happened, because folks don't want to be forced to defend that one comment they made in like 2015 in front of two hundred people. GMG ^talk 12:57, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenMeansGo: You abandoned your RfA after it had run for 4 days and 14 hours and the count was running at 73.8% (169/60/8). An RfA just passed this month with a unanimous bureaucrat consensus after the count was only 73.3% (195/71/9). The community voted to lower the bar so that more candidates would pass, and then you went and denied us that by self-selecting yourself out? I'm glad you self-nominated, because if you had done that after I nominated you, I would not have been happy. Not one little bit. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:06, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was going to go to a crat chat at best, and I was going to drag the community through a lengthy and difficult process, instead of writing an encyclopedia. I take that mission seriously. GMG ^talk 14:24, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No...I think...I think I want to revisit this comment, because this is emblematic of the hazing mentality behind the process. I'm supposed to be ashamed that I didn't want to endure another three days of public flogging, so that I can do what? Volunteer for extra work. There is absolutely a lack of humanity and charity there that forgets there is someone behind the screen. There is a person who has a job, and has kids, and has things to do other than Wikipedia, and we don't value that. We're supposed to be inclusive and we're frankly not. I wasn't required to undergo a hazing when I stood for OTRS, or stood for the mop on Commons or Quote. I'm sure as heck not going to stand for a hazing here when I could be reading to my kiddo, and there are a lot of people on that train with me. GMG ^talk 19:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
GMG, no, I don't think you needed to "endure another three days of public flogging". After four days, all the important questions have been asked. I'd be in favor of disallowing new questions after four days. You could have just logged out of Wikipedia for the last three days and spent them with your kids while resting your back. Then log back in sometime the next week to find out the outcome. If you had a nominator, then let them act as your lawyer/campaign manager taking on the job of calling out the out-of-bounds oppose statements. Some candidates want to advocate for themselves and can handle that pressure, but others are better off just delegating that. This is how democracy dies. People fold when bullies start breaking glass. You have to stand up to them, to preserve the system and not allow them to turn Wikipedia into an authoritarian system that they control. – wbm1058 (talk) 09:29, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Wbm1058: I'm not sure the "preserve the system" bit necessarily follows if the point is that there are systemic problems. The system here on en.wp is just kindof strange. It's not used by most projects, and is kindof a historical relic. I've demopped a few admins. In fact, I've nominated one admin I highly respect for demopping because they were embroiled in a controversy with another that involved use of the tools. I was confident, and ultimately correct, that the community would resoundingly support one, while stripping the tools from the other.

There's been a thousand attempts to reform RFA, and I've said it a thousand times: If you want to reform RFA on en.wp, reform the "taking away" part. Adopt the same system we use on Commons. A demopping generally follows a community discussion, is proposed, is seconded, and we have an up-or-down !vote as assessed by the crats. It's hardly anarchy, and we generally have a !vote to determine whether we have a !vote. And the process on Commons is so much harder because it's multilingual. You can have a discussion that is littered with German, Russian, and Italian, and we have to keep a list of what language each admin speaks so we can translate. But ultimately the community giveth and the community taketh away. Except here they can't take, and so the process continually drifts toward a beatification. As indicated in the original post, the corps continues to drift away from the community. I don't think that's healthy for a project I'm very committed to, and I don't think it's healthy for global access to free knowledge, because like or not, en.wp is the flagship that moves this fleet forward. GMG ^talk 11:41, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You need to be dead to be admitted to be a saint, which makes the process significantly less stressful than RfA. casualdejekyll 20:28, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not totally true. Last I checked Elijah is supposed to still technically be alive. GMG ^talk 22:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not this is an issue can't be evaluated without knowing the wikiage distribution of the editor population at large. If, say, most editors are also from pre-2010 and the admin wikiage distribution looks like the editor wikiage distribution shifted by a year or two, the issue is less likely to be the editor-to-admin step rather than the reader-to-editor step. Polyphemus Goode (talk) 13:39, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it becomes an issue when there are a lot of admins who's Wikipedia accounts are older than the real life age of other admins. Which is true now. casualdejekyll 20:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I take that as a good sign. My concern is how few the new admins are, not that we have some admins who started editing in the 2001-2006 era and others who were born in those years. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was more worried about the ratios - the "generational gap" as you describe probably applies just as much to actual real-life ages as it does WikiAges, I think, there's just no data to back that assertion up. casualdejekyll 13:53, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair point. I took it as read that we have a lot of contributors who started in the last decade, how else could editing levels have increased since the late 2014 minima? But without some figures on that it could lead people to wonder if this is just a failure to recruit new editors and the whole community is withering away. It would be odd though to have total edits increasing, a steady trickle of established editors leaving and no new members. Ϣere SpielChequers 10:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion at Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37155329 ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:24, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
TonyBallioni made a fascinating comment on the interplay of de-facto tenure requirements for adminship with how long a typical user stays active at Wikipedia. Something that Tony didn't quite go into detail about—and perhaps something that resonates with me in particular—is how much free time one needs to pass RfA. (That many edits feels like overkill to me but that's been the rough minimum this year; last year there were a few candidates in the 10–15k range) If we look at successful RfAs from 2023 so far, we're looking along the lines of 20,000 edits over 24 months as a minimum, spread out reasonably consistently in that span. That's over 800 edits per month and about 25–30 edits per day. That's a very substantial time commitment, and unless one uses various tools to inflate edit count (which is eventually unfavourable at RfA), it would seem easy enough to end up with a 20+ hour per week commitment to a hobby, which selects out a lot of admin hopefuls who can't sustain that kind of commitment over 24 months (and that's without going into the fact that a lot of people simply don't have 20 hours to devote to a hobby in a week in the first place) . The major reason I've been fairly inactive since leaving ArbCom is because I was generally devoting in the range of 15–20 hours per week over 36 months (mostly behind-the-scenes), and I've wanted to do more things that aren't Wikipedia with my spare time. So, we can get back to the five-year number from the diff at the beginning: the time commitment becomes unsustainable over some time, whether, for example, through having done too much Wikipedia in the first place, wanting to do other things with one's spare time, or experiencing life changes. Contrast the current state of affairs with the fact that until (roughly) the end of 2007, a few months and a few thousand edits was the bar for RfA, which doesn't filter out nearly so many admin hopefuls. Maxim (talk) 13:10, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When it comes to both tenure and edit count we need to beware of both outliers in terms of standards and the use of averages. One year of active editing used to be the de-facto minimum, and it still may be so, though there will be a few opposes who expect two years. I'm not sure when we last had a successful RFA for someone with less than 4,000 edits, but if those edits were manual and high quality then I wouldn't be surprised if someone could pass now. though I don't fancy the chances of someone who is close to the minimum on both criteria. As for discussing averages rather than minima, there is an obvious risk of a ratchet effect whereby averages become minima by the process of people publicising an average and then others opposing candidates for not achieving it. Looking at things such as RFA criteria by active RFA voters, I suspect 10,000 edits is still an outlier. I'm sure an RFA could still succeed with far less than 10,000 edits, but there would be some opposes. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:34, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this. I wonder what role technical development has played in sysop recruitment? My intuition is that most editors today have access to tools that rival those handed out to sysops in the project's first decade. Simply put, for a lot of tasks, you don't need sysop to accomplish them these days. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but speaking for myself, I didn't see the sysop tools as particularly necessary for the kinds of work I wanted to do. If it weren't for some pressure from friends, I probably would have been content without the block-protect-delete buttons. With all that in mind, I would argue that the nature of the position has changed. Previously, sysop was a natural request because it provided tools that most power users would want to do their job (complex moves, editing what are now template-protected pages, etc). But most tools are available through permissions or scripts without needing +sysop. So why request it? Well, block-protect-delete, but those aren't that useful for content work especially since modern interpretation of INVOLVED basically prohibits using them in areas where you engage as a content editor. So unless an editor wants to block vandals, protect pages, or patrol AFD/CSD queues, there's not much reason to request sysop. Rather than signing up for additional tools, you're essentially asking to do a different kind of work. It's not at all what Maxim or TonyBallioni meant by "tenure requirements", but it made me think of this analogy: the modern admin role is like getting academic tenure so you can become department chair or dean. You take on a service role so that everyone else can get on with their research and writing. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing (lots of areas of the encyclopedia have become specialized), but I think it helps explain why there are fewer requests (and with my arb hat on, I think this change in expectation might help explain some of the recent "legacy admin" cases). The workload has become more specialized, and there are just fewer people interested in doing the more specialized "administrative" (clerical?) tasks now that most of the peripheral tools have been spun out for those doing the work that needs them.
This isn't to say that the limited recruitment is not a problem---I agree that we should be promoting more---but I'm wondering if maybe there's a root cause to the "problems" or "causes" we've been pointing out over the years. I don't think requirements are increasing randomly, especially since it's something we all seem well aware of. The role is changing (e.g., the NOBIGDEAL discourse), we all seem to be coordinating on expectations for that new role (e.g., 2 years & 10k edits), and we seem pretty willing to hand it out (e.g. rise of the "not a jerk has a clue" rationale and glut of obvious passes), but what's not clear to me is a consensus on what the job description is. Is it really just a few extra tools for editors with clue? We don't seem to behave like it---not just in our voting patterns but even in how we distribute tools with nearly every permission besides block-protect-delete being unbundled to some non-sysop group. I don't have any answers or solutions right now. This is just where my head's at after looking through your interesting data here. I feel like we all have evidence that can be synthesized into something, but the synthesis remains elusive. — Wug·a·po·des 07:21, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"class" year

This is something WSC and I discussed a bit at the previous location's talk, but just as a for instance, I opened my account in 2006 but didn't make my 200th logged-in edit until 2014. So are we counting me as class of 2006? FireFangledFeathers' editing history is even more stark; if we're counting them as class of 2009, I'd argue they should be counted as class of 2021 as that's when they actually started actively editing. I don't know how we get at this data.

And for many of us there are multiple reasons we might see such a pattern. In 2006, when I created my account, I had a 13-yo and a 10-yo. I was flipping busy. I created the account for a single purpose: to create a missing article for a prominent author of lesbian pulp fiction. Then I went back to spending my time and energy on real life. It wasn't really until my youngest went off to college that I started becoming active. Valereee (talk) 15:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that that would be a better way to do things, but these are the stats I could create. If someone else can do the same thing but count from the first month that someone made 50 edits in that month then I suspect the figures will be a bit different, One excuse for my doing things this way is that I started by doing the same sort of study as I did thirteen years ago and then compared them. My belief is that many years ago accounts where people had made the odd edit or two and then become more active after many years were relatively rare. Now it is common. If someone were to analyse things that way then the more recent classes would be larger - but I'm confident they would still show a wikigeneration gap between our admins and our active editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WereSpielChequers (talk • contribs) 20:32, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating discussion, all! I've taken the liberty of history-merging in the old discussion to here (so the Signpost article and talk page histories are in the same place) and pasting the old comments to the top of this page. Graham87 08:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't count in the above table, I'm sure, but my account was created 2017 and I consider myself "class of 2020". (Although really, using the high school metaphor, I'd be class of 2023 and my freshman year was 2020.) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:16, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, the data was drawn before your RFA completed. Hopefully if I rerun this in another thirteen years (or maybe less) you'll be in then. I agree that it would be better to treat class as the time you became active rather than first edit. But there are advantages to using the same criteria as before when you make historic comparisons, and sometimes you have to work with the data you can access - my rusty IT skills weren't up to doing this the way that many people would prefer. Perhaps someone else will? Ϣere SpielChequers 06:06, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One could use median age of edits. Thus, an account that was sleepy in its first few years would be aged from the much more recent time it got fire in the belly. Not that this is would be a commonly found pattern. Jim.henderson (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And an editor who starts using AWB would suddenly become more "recent". I used the term class because of the connotation of a group of people who started out at about the same time, and my concern at the gap between when most of the admins started and much of the current community. Perhaps a better way to do it would be to measure from the hundredth or even the thousandth edit. But I don't have an efficient way to do that, also I can see it becoming contentious if people start saying that their first x years and y edits in the community are being ignored. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:37, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship as "no big deal"

The main cause of all of this is the fantastically over-complex and excessively rigorous RfA process. Back in the day, adminship was said to be "no big deal"; admins were editors like any other only with a few more powers than others, and the requirement to use those powers only according to the site's rules (with a bit of occasional WP:IAR where absolutely necessary). They were basically janitors, not demigods.

My solution for this is to go back to something closer to the previous state of affairs. Adminship should be far more easily granted to any well-behaved well-established editor who shows the willingness to do so, with a probationary period of say six months during which new admins have their admin bit put on hold, or removed entirely if they misuse their powers, based on something as simple as consensus in a discussion on WP:ANI. After that, they can keep adminship indefinitely unless they misbehave, with a somewhat higher burden of proof required for de-adminiship. A list of well-behaved productive editors could quite easily be maintained by a bot. — The Anome (talk) 15:53, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've long thought we need some form of assistant/junior/apprentice Adminship. Application would be based on fixed criteria, e.g. experience in multiple areas, lack of bad behavior, etc. Powers would be limited, e.g. no more than 24 hour blocs. A full admin would be assigned to mentor. Terms would be limited, with renewal based on performance in the role. Promotion to full admin would be based on their record. We need to open the process up.--agr (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has been repeatedly proposed, and repeatedly rejected. And I certainly don't want a bot deciding what counts as a "well-behaved productive editor!" There's a famous story on how statistics can be misleading: often times senior doctors at a hospital have worse casualty rates from operations than junior doctors. Are they senile / out-of-touch? No, the very best doctors also take the hardest cases, while the trainee still in residence is given the easy cases. Basically, if an admin wades into a radioactively controversial area - which are often exactly the areas that *need* admin action the most - they're much more likely to do something that will be considered "misbehavior", or to make "enemies", or whatever. The bot wouldn't realize this and would think an incompetent admin in a low-stress area is better than a very good admin in a high-stress area. It's much better for admins to be admins, and not have any special probationary period where they have to worry about taking action in controversial areas.

Now, that said, Arbcom should be a little freer on pressing the de-admin button for admins who have proven just to not be very good at the job, or have become detached from the community. But that's a different solution than two tiers of adminship. (And we'd need that ability even if we did decide to have two tiers - the admin who just did non-controversial janitorial stuff during their junior adminship and then starts going rogue after getting a full adminship.) SnowFire (talk) 05:26, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Several years ago I did a trawl of the admins who had had the bit removed "for cause". Instead of a bunch of newbie admins screwing up in ways that a probationary system might have helped, what I saw was a bunch of longserving admins who after three years or more had drifted away from community norms. I think that the admin newsletter was set up in response to concerns about longterm admins and community norms drifting apart. We could do more along those lines, including periodic retraining. I'm not convinced that we have an unresolved problem with new admins screwing up, or that when it happens we don't notice it or get new admins to learn from it. But we do have issues with longstanding admins and it would be good to either retrain or get them to arbcom earlier. Ϣere SpielChequers 05:51, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WSC, did your research seem to show any patterns about admins who've been desysopped for cause for reasons that are temperament-related vs. operating outside current community norms? (Wow, which brings us right back to the idea of "not a jerk, has a clue"!) Valereee (talk) 15:48, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Valereee, I'm not sure where I documented that trawl, but the one thing I remember is that three year peak. My suspicion is that part of our "temperament" problem is that people who learn to communicate with problem editors by dealing with and blocking vandals don't sufficiently up their empathy level when they move to dealing with edit warring and articles on insufficiently notable people. But I haven't done the work to test that theory or quantify it; however it does fit with the phenomenon that it is the experienced admins that get desysopped, not the new ones. Ϣere SpielChequers 11:34, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Following User:Maxim/ArbCom and desysops, in the past several years, the typical admin who gets mixed up in an arbitration case has been around for a solid decade or more and has been an admin most of that time. The major exception in that list is RexxS, and he lasted almost two years as an admin. I think it's tough to paint a picture of an "average" admin who ends up at ArbCom, but it's reasonably clear to me that it's not a newbie admin. Maxim (talk) 13:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There was a point a couple of years ago when we had lost three of my fellow Brits in a row, all slightly older than me, and all people I had met multiple times in real life. Looking at the rest of that list I suspect that there is a bit of an Atlantic skew in there. There are four other former British admins who I have met in real life on that list, and those seven are definitely not the only non Americans on the list. True I have met a lot of current and former admins in real life, and most of those I've met are my fellow Brits. But it is chastening to go through that list and see the names I recognise and can put a face to. I don't know whether there are some norms of American culture that have become unwritten rules for adminship as enforced by Arbcom, or whether we Brits are more likely to have the free time to become just a bit too active on this site. Or its just that give us Brits a bit of power and eventually it goes to our heads. But I'm seeing a bit of a pattern in that list of desysops and it feels quite personal. Ϣere SpielChequers 15:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think wiki had a bad reputation for a while, like 2008ish, when it was still seen as non-reliable. The 2010s were getting better, but it likely didn't improve notability-wise until about 2020. Just my memories, no proof to back it up. Oaktree b (talk) 21:27, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A positive sign or collusion?

That many admins have stayed with the project could also be viewed as a positive, unless they have been secretly conspiring to keep out as many newer candidates as possible, although I don't see a clear indication of that in the numbers provided! CurryCity (talk) 19:22, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If there is one clear sign from the figures it is that most admins don't take part in the typical RFA. I suspect that most admins haven't !voted in an RFA for more than a year. There are nearly 900 admins, nearly 500 active admins, and the most recent RFA is only the fourth ever to get over 300 supports (many, perhaps most of which will not have been admins). Ϣere SpielChequers 19:40, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This should be straightforward to check if one of the bot owners would agree to help. Ymblanter (talk) 02:50, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have just gone again through the oppose section of the RFA from the beginning of this month. I counted 14 admins and 57 non admins in the oppose section, of course that one passed and it is possible that there are others where admins are piling into the oppose section. But somehow I doubt it. My impression is that the people in the oppose section are usually not admins. Ϣere SpielChequers 12:39, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I opposed two or three candidates in my entire life. Usually if I am not sure I prefer not to vote. Ymblanter (talk) 18:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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