Hey folks,

This is long over due. I did a presentation[1,2] at the research showcase more than a year ago (January 2016) that showed some fascinating productivity dynamics using content persistence measures[3]. Well, I've finally taken the material and fleshed out the report on Meta.

Full report: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Measuring_edit_productivity

Here's some highlights:

Anonymous editors contribute substantially to overall productivity (15-25%); however, their proportion of overall contribution proportion has been steadily declining since the beginning of 2006
As Wikipedia declined in number of editors, efficiency increased at a rate that was proportional -- enough to maintain a nearly consistent overall level of productivity. This means that Wikipedia has been getting more efficient
Tools and bots don't explain the increase in overall efficiency, but tool-assisted productive contributions are certainly on the rise.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRpUby3MoqU#t=0m49s

2. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Anon_productivity_and_productive_efficiency_in_English_Wikipedia_(Showcase,_Jan._2016).pdf

3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Content_persistence

Enjoy!

-Aaron