I am interested in "cheap", quantitative analysis with just a couple of notes about the structure. So, nothing should be based on qualitative analysis of the content.
My premises are: * Special permissions (even "rollback" permission) motivate editors. * Loosing special permissions demotivates editors. (I am here particularly interested in temporary admins of smaller wikis who didn't show up the second time to ask for temp adminship again.) * Users with special permissions influence workflow on projects. * Thus: ** As there are more active editors with special permissions "per capita", as more work has been done. ** During the periods of losing significant number of editors special permissions, projects have decreased
To do so, we should answer on a number of questions, like: * The first one is pre-question: It is possible to create classification of the projects based on their phase. Projects with significant number of editors are easy to classify. Smaller ones are harder to define, but I think it is possible. * Is retention of editors with special permissions higher than retention of other editors? * Is their activity higher after getting permissions? * Is there relation between the period of time of getting two permissions (rollbacker, then admin; admin, then bureaucrat) and their activity? In other words, do editors need to get special permissions from time to time to stay active? (If that's true, then granulating permissions should be general suggestion. For example, making blocks different permission from regular adminship. That has Portuguese Wikipedia, by the way; but that's the result the internal problems of their community.) * Do Wikimedians with special permissions influence development of wiki and how? (That's not the qualitative question, but quantitative, as well. Do we have more edits per editor or more editors or similar on projects with more editors with special permissions?) * What is correlation from project to project between the project phase and other parameters? Is it possible to make project subgroups based on that correlation? * What is the impact of flagged revisions and their localizations (en.wp has different implementation than de.wp) and other parameters? * What is the impact of introducing auto-confirmed users and other parameters? * .. Are there some other correlations?
The most complex question, but in some cases not so complex (small projects are under general policies) is: * Did some policies have impact on behavior of those users; if so, which?
If some of all premisses are true, then we should: * Educate communities, Meta community and stewards about the conclusions. Give advices to the communities how to avoid problem based on their phase. * suggest particular policies for particular time of development; * install permanent watch all over Wikimedia projects.
On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 21:04, Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.org wrote:
This is the kind of thing the summer researchers in the Community Dept. might be able to whip up pretty easily. Are you interested in all special permissions, or just certain ones?
I am interested in all special permissions.
Getting different rates of retention for these permissions groups is relatively easy. Answering "do Wikimedians with special permissions influence development of wiki and how" is more qualitative and would take time to do comprehensively, though I think we know the answer is that admins in particular have an enormous impact on retention of other groups. As for groups like rollbacker, I would think that they have a slight but perhaps still measurably different impact, primarily because getting reverted with an impersonal explanation has a distinctly negative impact on whether people stick around or not. My theories aside, different permissions require their own individual analysis.
About the question "do Wikimedians ... and how?" -- as I said, I am interested just in quantitative answers at this moment of time. My premise is that more admins per capita anyway positively influence projects. And if true, that should be quantitatively visible.
We should add other premises, including your own, as well and test them.
I agree that working with a smaller wiki (and thus a smaller dataset) would be a good place to start, not least of which because it's likely that if there is a disproportionate impact from people with special userrights, the effect would be amplified on a smaller project.
We need anyway large communities to detect phases and to compare smaller communities with them. Statistical behavior of smaller communities is more hectic. For example, there are a lot of influences of founder(s). But, it could be about ~10 important editors who create specific dynamics.
We currently have one researcher tasked with starting analysis of Portuguese Wikipedia, which though it's quite old/mature has only 30ish admins. I think I'll ask him to work on this kind of analysis soon...
Let's do the next: Goran will do that with my suggestions or "mentoring". We will inform RCom and community from time to time; and Goran will cooperate with the researcher of Portuguese Wikipedia about common issues.