Rui Correia wrote:
... tell me whether we are bleeding new or old members.
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Trends_Study/Results
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Editor_lifecycle
and
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Editor_classes
agree: we lose experienced editors at about the same rate we always have, but what plummeted after 2007 is the rate at which we attract new editors. That's why there was so much enthusiasm for the Visual Editor, but it was misplaced because being able to figure out wikitext is an excellent attribute in new editors (analogously, being able to figure out that wikitext has ambiguities equivalent to the halting problem would have been an excellent attribute in VE architects....) None of the other technical solutions (Huggle, Wikilove, two click thanking, etc.) have made a dent in the numbers, so it is time to consider this the social problem that it is, and not just some technical problem that can be coded around with a fancy new feature, fewer bots, or addressed with nicer template warnings. Since the typical editing tasks continue to transition from creating new articles to maintaining the accuracy of old articles, that is even more reason to want to attract highly educated editors who will be able to overcome technical learning curves and social hurdles with their own minds, not a Mediawiki extension.
Consider the supply and demand of both editors and their leisure time by educational attainment:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/cognitive-surplus-visualized/
There is no shortage of new editors to attract. But how much free time do those potential new editors have? For the typical highly educated potential male editor, or the potential female editor of any educational attainment level in the vast majority of the English-speaking world, things have been getting a lot worse:
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Screen%20Shot%202013-05...
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Screen%20Shot%202013-05...
(from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/how-did-work-life-balanc... in case those URLs expire)
These are all pertinent to whether strategic priorities should include direct action to improve the extent of leisure time among highly educated people in the developed world. Do that, and there will be plenty of new Mediawiki and Wikidata extensions to choose from as potential symbiotic solutions to both editor recruitment and the transition from creation to maintenance. If I had more free time, I would do this one:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Develop_systems_for_accuracy_rev...
That is on topic, because if we had that feature, maintaining accuracy would be a lot easier in that it would take less volunteer time. But I don't think for a minute that any of the external strategic priorities I've listed would do less if they came to fruition.
Best regards, James Salsman