Pine wrote:
>
> I agree that the shift to mobile is a big deal;

I do not agree: Active editor attrition began on its present trend in
2007, far before any mobile use was significant.

> I remain concerned that tech-centric approaches
> to editor engagement like VE and Flow, while
> perhaps having a modest positive impact, do little
> to fix the incivility problem that is so frequently
> cited as a reason for people to leave.

I agree that VE has already proven that it is ineffective in
significantly increasing editor engagement. And I agree that Flow has
no hope of achieving any substantial improvements. There are good
reasons to believe that Flow will make things worse. For example,
using wikitext on talk pages acts as a pervasive sandbox substitute
for practicing the use of wikitext in article editing.

And I do not agree that civility issues have any substantial
correlation with editor attrition. There have been huge civility
problems affecting most editors on controversial subjects since 2002,
and I do not see any evidence that they have become any worse or
better on a per-editor basis since.

My opinion is that the transition from the need to create new articles
to maintaining the accuracy and quality of existing articles has been
the primary cause of editor attrition, and my studies of Short Popular
Vital Articles (WP:SPVA) have supported this hypothesis.

Therefore, I strongly urge implementation of accuracy review systems:
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Develop_systems_for_accuracy_review

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