[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: change in article edits after visual editor roll-out (was Re: Feedback for the Wikimedia Foundation)

[James Salsman]

Oliver Keyes wrote:
>
> "active editors" == "editors with > [5/10/depending on standard] edits a
> month". It's pretty impossible, at our end, for us to identify one person
> between multiple IPs or one person between multiple IPs.

Why can't you use behavioral and expertise characteristics to measure
the proportion of anonymous IP editors who edit with the same
distinguishing attributed and skill as active long term editors, as
below, in order to estimate their active proportion? The assertion
that you can't is like saying you can't count black swans unless you
can get their feathers in a centrifuge to check the pigment chemically
simply because it's dark at nighttime.

I hope that this question will not go unanswered, but my experience
(being told that explaining multivariate analysis during Office Hours
is inappropriate because executives can't possibly be expected to
understand it) is not encouraging.


> Nathan wrote:
>>...
>> Because they are measuring different things? The first refers
>> to newly registered editors, which the second (judging by
>> your summary) does not.
>
> You are absolutely right. This gives us a silver lining insight that about
> 80% of anonymous IP editors have the editing experience of
> non-new registered editors. Therefore most of them should be added to the
> number of long term active editors, and even by a conservative estimate
> that means that the Foundation has finally reached the elusive long term
> strategic goal in growth of active editors.  Congratulations!
>
> Always look on the bright side!
>
> Robert Rohde wrote:
>>...
>> early evidence that VE makes new users less likely to edit [2][3]
>>...
>> [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/Results
>> [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback&oldid=565381622#Some_performance_notes
>>...
>
> [2] states: "Newcomers with the VisualEditor were ~43% less likely to
> save a single edit than editors with the wikitext editor (x^2=279.4,
> p<0.001), meaning that Visual Editor presented nearly a 2:1 increase
> in editing difficulty."
>
> [3] states:
>
>> Change in total (daily) article edits since before VE became default on
>> 1 July (comparison: 18-30 June): -4.5%
>> Change in registered user article edits since before VE became default: -2.2%
>> Change in anon article edits since before VE became default: -8.6%
>
> Both of those statistics are terrible and would strongly support
> shutting the visual editor off except for opt-ins until all open bugs
> including browser and mobile device coverage are addressed before
> trying again.
>
> But why are those statistics so different?