[WikiEN-l] Blocking anon page creation was an experiment, wasn't it?

[Bryan Derksen]

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
> On 8/21/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This was way back in 5 Dec 2005. Has the experiment run long enough?
>> What sort of experiment varies the independent variable only one way?
>>
>> Let's turn page creation back on for anons. We turned it off, so let's
>> see what happens when we turn it back on; otherwise we're simply
>> running on sheer blind inertia and unthinking myopia.
> 
> We don't need to. We saw what happened in the 4 years before it was turned
> off.

But how can we tell what changed in the year after it was turned off
relative to those four years? Other than purely anecdotal reports, which
are effectively useless for a system the size and complexity of
Wikipedia, what analysis has been done?

> Take a look at the monumental failure that is AFC sometime, which turning
>> off page
>> creation has forced on us. Valid, good articles are being entombed
>> there.
> 
> And look at how many nonsense creations are being stopped there too.

The question isn't simply whether nonsense creations have been stopped.
If that was the only goal, then the perfect solution is obvious; disable
new article creation entirely.

We need to see some sort of rigorous statistical analysis of article
creation patterns before and after the anon-disabling, producing
objective results rather than subjective opinions. I've long been
annoyed that this experiment was apparently set off without any plans
for this. It's fortunate (though less than ideal) that Wikipedia's
database retains enough information to still do some analysis after the
fact.

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