Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-08-29/News and notes

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The nomination period for the Movement Charter Drafting Committee has been extended until the 14th. MER-C 19:52, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - changed it now. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:57, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's really difficult to try and analyse RfA by numbers. For example: Look at the most active admins this year, then look at the most active four years ago, in 2017. Most of these very active admins were elected a long time ago, and many of the same names appear in both lists. The admin corps (which, contrary to the bot metric, I'd imagine numbers less than 200 that actively make significant or large-volume admin actions) seems a rather steady figure. In fact, monthly admin actions have more or less been the same since 2009 (~100,000 monthly), which really casts doubt upon the graphs that show a supposed decline in active admin corps.
    But arguably actions by volume is a poor measure regardless. Some actions create a lot of log entries with little benefit, and others do the converse. Also, I think the the 15-25 admins annually churned out by post-2012 RfA is just statistically insignificant, given that much the currently active admin corps were elected prior. Finally, we have to consider the usage of bots and abuse filters. Disallow filters reduce the need for blocks. User:ST47ProxyBot, which has recently started blocking more types of proxies, has made almost one million blocks in under a month of operation. These blocks will probably decrease the number of blocks made by human admins.
    All this is to say, these methods to try and assess whether the current levels of RfA output is a problem have some methodological issues. As does analysis on the basis of File:Wp.en.admin-active-recent.svg, if that graph is being used to imply that enwiki is slowly becoming like Commons' Deletion Discussions with six month backlogs. I think we do have a problem at RfA, but the problem isn't that we're slowly moving towards losing our admin corps. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you saying we aren't slowly losing our admin corps? It's pretty clear to me that is exactly what is happening. If that curve doesn’t bend back up, what happens to enwp is as inevitable as death and taxes – it just isn’t a healthy, self sustaining org. Bots will just postpone the crash. Automated tools still need people, and people’s judgment is foundational for good stewardship and regulation of the project. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I just watched 2 people give up on the pipe-line to becoming contributing editors in an area they care about, because some deletionist felt their hobby of "delete don't fix" was legitimate. You've got a troll problem where it takes only 1 person with a desire to destroy other's work a day to destroy a hundred people's days of work. Fix that, the deletionist problem and you'll be fine; otherwise you'll cast people out before they even come close to entering the pipeline. 76.115.28.15 (talk) 07:54, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • It doesn't even take malice. At AFC, no-one who created an account just to submit a draft is hanging around for more than a week to reply to feedback unless they've got a COI. By having a queue length longer than a week, we put off many of the people who could become good editors. We wiped the backlog, great, but now it's up to several weeks again: we need people on a day-to-day basis wiping the "6 days old" category, backlog drive or no backlog drive. To be honest, it would only take a couple more regulars than AFC already has. It would also help if we could find a way to communicate just how hard it is to create an article as your first contribution, to reduce the amount of time wasted and make sure people's first edits give them a sense of reward. — Bilorv (talk) 09:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • If we aren't replacing old admins with new ones then, even if every old admin stays just as active (or even picks up more slack to account for people who do leave), the bus factor increases. We've seen at least two cases of this so far in 2021: someone is no longer able to contribute and it causes huge disruption as other editors have to quickly adjust to learning complex skills in time-sensitive processes that really affect our reputation. — Bilorv (talk) 09:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Until about 18 months ago, I kept an extremely close eye on all things RfA for well over a decade. Nowadays I’m not concerned whether or not en.Wiki will end up with too few ‘’truly active’’ admins to accomplish all tasks for which the tools and responsibilities are needed. I will however repeat this comment of mine from exactly two years ago: There is 'badgering' (to harass or annoy persistently – Merriam Webster), and genuine expression of concern that a vote might not conform to our Wikisocial norms. Practicing questionably high criteria or posing trick or irrelevant questions are issues that could be perhaps better addressed on the voter's own talk page where the editor is made to look and feel a fool slightly less publicly. Purely disingenuous, disruptive, or false voting probably ought to be responded to directly on the RfA.
In any case, the number of mini threaded discussions being moved to the RfA's talk page is becoming very much more frequent. This is not due to more consistent clerking, but is a result of the steady degradation of the environment of the process, the doubling of participation since the December 2015 reforms, and the classical propensity at Internet forums for everyone to add their two pence.
Anyone who does not read this and follow all its links before running for adminship only has themself to blame if their RfA turned out to be a bad trip whether it passed or not.
The data is only held for 5 years but at nearly 20,000 views in that period alone would appear to demonstrate that most candidates have been reading it. Interestingly, a logarithmic graph would probably reveal that the page views are concomittant with a growing lack of interest in becoming an admin. Hardly surprising in today's climate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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