Aaron Halfaker, 16/10/2014 19:40:
I'd argue that the continued persistence of the problems surrounding the impersonal & negative reception of newcomers is the result of a lack of adaptability. Policy calcification (if that's an appropriate term for the observed trends) is one bit of evidence of decreased capacity for adaptation.
As a reminder (we already discussed this http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/63580 ), it wasn't proved that policies are now harder to change; only that less new policy pages are being created. And only on en.wiki.
Are there other bits of clear evidence for or against this hypothesis that I'm missing?
An easy counterexample would be finding at least one wiki showing a different pattern in policymaking but equal patterns in everything else.
Nemo
If I'm right, then it is important that we experiment with strategies for reinforcing/jump-starting Wikipedia's adaptive systems. One way to do that is to make it easier for editors to reflect on current trends. I'd like to think that integrating research practice into wiki culture (what I've been trying to do with all my work) is one way to do that. But it would be better if people don't need wait on me and other WMF researchers to finish a study. We'd all fare better if access to research materials was democratized. That's the reason I am really excited about projects like quarry.wmflabs.org http://quarry.wmflabs.org (run SQL against Wikipedia's DBs from your browser).
-Aaron