[Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: "Big data" benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 4:58 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki at gmail.com>wrote:

> Andreas Kolbe, 10/01/2013 17:24:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 6:41 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
>>
>>  The main pattern, ie a turning point in 2007, is the same in all
>>> projects,
>>> and almost in all language versions of them: [...]
>>>
>>
>> Actually, Nemo, I don't think that is right at all. If you look at the
>> German, Spanish or French Wikipedia, for example, the German and Spanish
>> are totally stable, with no decline at all discernible around 2007, while
>> editor numbers for the French Wikipedia are actually growing:
>>
>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/**TablesWikipediaFR.htm<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaFR.htm>
>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/**TablesWikipediaDE.htm<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm>
>> http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/**TablesWikipediaES.htm<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaES.htm>
>>
>
> I said "a turning point", i.e. a singularity; mainly, from positive to
> non-positive derivative, whether negative or not. Of course, it's easier to
> see in a graph than in a table.
> I don't see French growing: except an outlier in November 2012 for active
> editors, which is not reflected in the very active editors count, in the
> last few months it's at the same level as in January-March 2008, 4800-5000
> active editors.
> It's the same in Italian, growth till January-March 2008 and then
> oscillation/stagnation: http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/**
> TablesWikipediaIT.htm<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaIT.htm>
> Anecdotally in WMIT, we've been repeating "it.wiki has 500 very active
> editors" for a while, and we've stopped updating this figure a long time
> ago. :-)
>
> Of course I'm only playing the stats dilettante here.
>



Here are the French charts:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaFR.htm
Here are the English ones:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaFR.htm

Compare the third and fourth charts (for editors making more than 5 and
more than 100 edits per month respectively). The height of the bars in the
French charts is still rising. It's a continuous upward trend. In the
English charts, it has been falling since 2007.

Andreas