Steve Bennett wrote:
These are reasonable questions. Jimbo implies that if P(t) is the number of protected articles at time t, and S(t) is the proportion of semi-protected articles, then: P(now) << P(a year ago) That is, that full protection on the whole has greatly decreased. But also that: P(now) + S(now) <= P(a year ago) That is, that the total amount of articles off-limits to newbies has not increased.
I think that the first is true, and if not we should seriously look at why not. I think that there is no reason for the second to be true.
I also think that a serious analysis should not look at the raw number of articles (the site is a lot bigger than a year ago, so there should be a lot more of everything) but both percentages of articles, and also percentages of articles weighted by pageviews and/or edit frequency.