Wikipedia's Administrator crisis closer than you might think

[CrowsNest]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=prev&oldid=870149907

Apparently, Wikipedia only has 288 Administrators who have at least one logged Admin action in the last 12 months. That seems a reasonable cut off to define how many Administrators Wikipedia has in totality, and it is quite different from the current official figure for how many they have, namely 1,200.

We can combine this with what we know about how fast they are losing Administrators (net), which is currently averaging 40.7 a year, based on the current figures for 2012 to 2018 (49+20+42+39+58+34+43). As they only need to lose two more by year's end for it to be true, we can basically round this up to 41.

That basically means Wikipedia completely runs out of Administrators in seven years. It seems reasonable to assume catastrophe occurs some years before that happens. We can only guess at the minimum number required to keep their heads above water in certain critical functions, the obvious one being keeping vandals at bay, but what we do know is that the words "backlog" and "please help clear it" are frequently seen at the Administrators noticeboard.

What seems clear, is disaster is looming way sooner than most Wikipedians seem to think. I wager they are going off the 1,200 figure to gauge how long they have at the current, and remarkably stable, rate of attrition.

It may well be true that in that 1,200 there are plenty of Administrators who are prepared to step up and start logging Admin actions if they start to genuinely believe Wikipedia is facing certain doom, perhaps tipped off by the raging fires and crumbling masonry all around them. Then again, it seems they haven't responded to a single request for help in clearing backlogs in the last twelve months, so I wouldn't count on any of them being that bothered.

Even if they did, there's the issue of whether they would even know what to do, which buttons to press. If we know anything about Wikipedia governance, we know that there is nothing more damaging than Administrators who are out of practice or whose policy knowledge isn't current. Wikipedia could end up being in an even worse position, their last few Administrators bogged down in non-critical activity, precisely because someone pulled the fire alarm.

Obviously there are things the Wikipedians could do to prevent this disaster. But it is worth noting that in all these years, there hasn't been a single significant change that might affect the rate of attrition. The process for promoting editors to Administrator, nor their basic tasks, nor their working environment. And it hasn't been for want of trying.

People say necessity is the mother of invention, and other sayings which imply problems don't get solved until they really need to get solved. Well, Wikipedia is a case study in now literally thousands of people can sit around with their thumbs up their asses, surrounded by pressing problems that really needed a solution yesterday. There's no reason to think they could come up with a suitable workaround to this problem once they are in doomsday conditions. Indeed there's every reason to believe they're going to put it off, pretend there is no issue, until it is literally too late.

Why am I alerting them to the danger? Well, this is now confident I am that they are incapable of averting disaster. If Wikipedia worked, well, it would work. As much as they would like to wish it were the case, there's nothing special about this issue that makes it impossible to fix using the methods the theory of Wikipedia has given them.

Nothing illustrates the fact that Wikipedia only works in theory, never in practice, than the reason why this long standing problem seems destined only to end in disaster. Whatever emerges from the flames, if anything at all, is unlikely to resemble Wikipedia as we know it. Which will be a good thing.

HTD.

[CrowsNest]

Promotions this year so far? 1 a month. (5)

Desysoppings so far this year? 7 a month. (35)

Forecast net loss for 2019: 72 (35/5*12)

With talk of them having completely exhausted the well of reluctant but could be persuaded candidates, it seems reasonable to halve the previous estimate of seven years until zero active Administrators.

Even the net gains are not painting a pretty picture, activity wise. One of those five is RexxS. Not exactly ripping up trees in the unselfish community servant stakes. But promoted anyway, at great cost to what little trust people had left in RfA or the Bureaucrats.

HTD.

[The End]

There used to be considerable talk on Requests for Adminship (RfA) about the impending doom of Wikipedia if they didn't get enough people applying for adminships. They were always seen as hysteric alarmists. But it's true that no one wants to go through the Hell of an RfA, let alone dealing with a dysfunctional community. In time, it should have been expected that the administrator corps would decline. There's no incentive to become one.

[CrowsNest]

The theoretical incentive being of course, you get to play a significant role in moving Wikipedia in the right direction, protecting it from harm and ensuring its lifeblood, the community, is healthy and happy.

Not enough apparently.

It cuts to the heart of the failure of Jimmy's vision. All he wanted was for Administrator to be seen as a relatively insignificant janitorial role, easy come easy go, but at the same time with an expectation that when in that role, they would hold themselves to a higher standard and be their own worst critic. The two requirements were crucial, neither achieving much without the other.

RexxS is a perfect example of what has gone wrong. Quite rightly, anyone who puts their hat into the ring now after that debacle, is going to get their head stomped hard......

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... =19&t=1173

The only people willing to undergo that enhanced Trial By Fire, will be people who have entirely the wrong incentive to apply. Perfect candidates will still sail through it, but then perfect candidates have always sailed through it, the issue there has always been how unattractive Wikipedia as a whole is to perfect candidates. RexxS was not a perfect candidate, he just had lots of friends (literal real world friends) who wrongly assumed he was, and so approached RfA as if everyone else was an idiot whose idiocy (or bad faith or incompetence or conspiracy) needed only to be alleged for him to be rightly rewarded with the honor and prestige of the role they think he simply deserved for his long service. And now the damage is done. We may already be seeing the result with this halved estimated of ZERO DAY.

Good times.

[Carrite]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=prev&oldid=870149907
Apparently, Wikipedia only has 288 Administrators who have at least one logged Admin action in the last 12 months. That seems a reasonable cut off to define how many Administrators Wikipedia has in totality, and it is quite different from the current official figure for how many they have, namely 1,200.

We can combine this with what we know about how fast they are losing Administrators (net), which is currently averaging 40.7 a year, based on the current figures for 2012 to 2018 (49+20+42+39+58+34+43). As they only need to lose two more by year's end for it to be true, we can basically round this up to 41.

That basically means Wikipedia completely runs out of Administrators in seven years. It seems reasonable to assume catastrophe occurs some years before that happens. We can only guess at the minimum number required to keep their heads above water in certain critical functions, the obvious one being keeping vandals at bay, but what we do know is that the words "backlog" and "please help clear it" are frequently seen at the Administrators noticeboard.

What seems clear, is disaster is looming way sooner than most Wikipedians seem to think. I wager they are going off the 1,200 figure to gauge how long they have at the current, and remarkably stable, rate of attrition.

You are at last touching upon an authentic and possibly existential problem with Wikipedia. There is no really good series for the number of administrators with at least one logged action in the previous 12 months -- or better yet, one month -- so it is hard to see the evolution of the problem over time, but the number of active administrators is certainly in a long period of steady decline.

Of course, they can always loosen up the administrative approval process to reduce the pace of attrition; or require registration+login to edit, which would reduce the demand upon administrators' time and thereby help "economize" the current crop; or both of these things.

But still: there is an ongoing decline and there will come a day when that becomes a real problem.

RfB

[Graaf Statler]

Katherine posted this video on her twitter:

https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/ ... 6200335360

That police officer must be a wikipedia sysop or a Arb, wonder what his wiki username is.
Vigiliant maybe after he had find a other job after his computer engineering debacle?

[Graaf Statler]

What also is interesting is this student should in Holland not be considered as a coloured person. Because of the colonies and because of the fact Holland was always a maritime nation are the gens so mixed here that it is hard to find the typical white race. He has the middel of the road skin colour of the advanced Dutchman, nobody would even think about it to call him coloured here.

I was really surprised when the racial argument came up. For us is a coloured person someone with really a black skin, but that is also not a big deal, it is like having red hair, black people are no underclass in Holland. But there is for sure a form of bulling, discrimination but it is most times mild. And absolute unwanted.
The underclass are the immigrants and for sure not all, because the third generation immigrants from North Africa is now doing remarkable well. The woman ever better than the man but that is the general pickture in Holland, it is the age of the woman here.

[sashi]

Forecast net loss for 2019: 72 84 (35/5*12)

quibbling. I love the style guide GD posted. I had missed the waterpipe episode. ^^

[CrowsNest]

Probably not the only math error in this post. I am thinking that the underlying assumption of losing 40 active Administrators a year is no longer the case, if it ever was, certainly not now inactive Admins are being removed by rule. I only realized that when Carrite praised it (and even more so after GD called it useful). Definitely made me think I must have fucked up somewhere.

[Carrite]

Probably not the only math error in this post. I am thinking that the underlying assumption of losing 40 active Administrators a year is no longer the case, if it ever was, certainly not now inactive Admins are being removed by rule. I only realized that when Carrite praised it (and even more so after GD called it useful). Definitely made me think I must have fucked up somewhere.

On behalf of Wikipedia, thank you for calling attention to this ongoing issue of great importance.

RfB


See, I know how to turn the knife with the best of them.