Active admins at ALL-TIME LOW

[ericbarbour]

I bet they are starting to regret letting Andreas Kolbe run the Signpost. Not that any of the insider-assholes would care about it anyway--"it's too much WORK and I'd rather have fun banning people and reverting things I don't like etc.".

Yesterday the Signpost reported a pile of pathetic Jimbo-begs for more money. Followed by really bad news: the number of active administrators was at an all-time low of 449 in April. I warned this would happen TEN YEARS AGO and no one believed me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _and_notes

Administrators up, no down, wait what?

In a Special report almost exactly three years ago, we reported on how a then-new active admin low count of 500 was of concern. Since then, the English Wikipedia community has hit significantly lower counts of active administrators in a calendar year, shown here:

In 2019, 493 active administrators on 10 December
In 2020, 493 active administrators again on 25 October
In 2021, 460 active on 5 December[a]
In 2022 so far, 449 active on 4 April, an all-time low

When the active count recently fell again to 452 on 13 August, it looked like we were close to hitting another all-time low. However, since then, the active count has rebounded somewhat, and there has been a nearly simultaneous recent run of successful Requests for adminship. 2022 is already up by two from last year's all-time low of just seven successful RfAs in a calendar year. So, is it good that we're not at all-time lows for the admin corps? Or is it bad that we are close? Are we on an improving trajectory yet? Or are we seeing admins "walk away in silence" as it was put by an Administrators' noticeboard commenter on an action by Arbcom this March? Only time will tell. – B

That is REALLY bad news. I know they will try to jack it up by forcing more RFA starts---but the "precious community" is so damned paranoid and contentious, passing an RFA is like winning an Academy Award. No, wait; it's MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than winning an Oscar. The AMPAS gives out far more Oscars than en-WP gives out adminships. Anyone nominated for it is put thru a month-long wringer. It's a SICK little community.

[Criminal Minds]

Well, you were right again.

It's honestly hilarious how difficult it is to become an admin on Wikipedia, compared to how easy it is to become a destroyer.


Why is it that every other website (Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, etc) requires a cell phone number to join, making life much harder for anti-social dipshits who want to fuck around on those platforms repeatedly? Wikipedia could probably be managed by 500 admins if they would enact the minimum standards set by the other big names 10 years ago. Instead Wikipdia is like a living time capsule of the year 2002.

Are they really willing to set the bar this low just so homeless people can edit from the public library they're burglarizing?

[Kumioko]

With so few active admins and less as time goes on its only a matter of time until there aren't enough to prevent the vandals, spammers and trolls. I would argue there arent enough now.

This of course is mostly due tp the toxic and hostile atmosphere of wikipedia. Hasten the day!

[ericbarbour]

Also remember this list. There was no "official process" until 2011, when they realized admins were "walking away in silence" in great numbers--249 in that year alone. Many were NOT listed in the "offical list of inactives" either. Wikipedia keeps terrible records--of things that embarrass them.

Hundreds more admins had cut back to the bare minimum of activity to keep their "mops". They are NOT listed anywhere. For years afterward, inactives exceeded replacements.

And despite REPEATED begging to these inactive admins to return to work, most end up desysopped anyway. Very few seem to become active again (there is NO list of those!). Note that SB Johnny, a former Wikipediocracy regular and critic of WP's "process" (ha ha ha), worked very hard to pass RFA back in 2007, after a previous RFA that failed. They have him on warning--no response, meaning that he will probably be desysopped in another month. So far this year, two of Wikipedia's worst administrators of all time, Nyttend and Ryan Postlethwaite (they have book-wiki articles), have been desysopped for inactivity.

This is how "great empires" often collapse. Slowly and from within.