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RfA drought worsens in 2010—wikigeneration gulf emerging

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By WereSpielChequers
WereSpielChequers is an editor on the English Wikipedia, the Strategy Process, and occasionally various other projects. He has been active at RfA for more than two years, and has researched its history back into the first year of Wikipedia.

The drought in RfA (Requests for Adminship) has now run for 28 months and is worsening. The number of admins promoted in 2009 was very low compared to previous years, and each of the past six months since has seen even fewer successful RfAs than the same month in 2009. The number of active admins has fallen from the peak of 1,021 in February 2009 to 802 on August 1, 2010.

Requirements have been increasing at RfA in various ways, and since the unbundling of rollback in early 2008 (see Signpost coverage) it has been difficult for candidates to succeed simply as "good vandal fighters". One result of this is that there is now a gulf growing between admins and non admins in terms of "Wiki generations". Over 90% of our admins first edited more than three and a half years ago. It is probably no surprise that there are no admins who first edited in 2010, but only nine started editing in 2009 and thirty-eight in 2008. Even the Wikipedians who joined us in 2007 are still under-represented in the admin cadre.

Successful requests for adminship on the English Wikipedia
Month\Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Totals
January 2 13 14 44 23 36 6 6
February 2 14 9 28 35 27 9 7
March 8 31 16 34 31 22 13 2
April 6 20 25 36 30 12 14 8
May 10 23 17 30 54 16 12 8
June [1] 24 13 28 28 35 18 12 6
July 3 11 17 31 26 31 16 10 7
August 4 9 12 39 26 18 12 11
September 0 17 29 32 22 34 6 8
October 0 10 16 67 27 27 16 7
November 3 9 27 41 33 56 11 13
December 1 15 24 68 19 34 9 6
Total promoted
n/a
44
123
239
387
353
408
201
121
44
1920
Total unsuccessful
n/a
n/a
n/a
63
213
543
512
392
234
99
2056 [2]
Total RfAs including by email
n/a
44
123
302
600
896
920
593
355
143
3976 [3]
Percentage promoted n/a n/a n/a 79.1% 64.5% 39.4% 44.3% 33.9% 34.1% 30.8% 44.1%[4]
Admins by wikigeneration
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Totals
Year admins started editing[5]
32
109
223
404
481
328
107
38
9
0
1731
Year active admins started editing[6]
14
34
71
163
221
183
69
29
9
0
793
Admins still active %
43.8%
31.2%
31.8%
40.3%
45.9%
55.8%
64.5%
76.3%
100%
45.8%
Active Admins
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Today
Active admins at end of year [7]
n/a
n/a
143
360
722
979
1,005
943
870
 802
Inactive or desysopped (net)
n/a
n/a
24[8]
22
25
96
382
263
194
Inactive or desysopped (net)%
n/a
n/a
14%<ref>Over three years not one
6%
3%
9%
28%
22%
18%
  1. ^ 33 had been appointed in 2001 and early 2002
  2. ^ 2004–2010
  3. ^ unsuccessful 2003 are n/a; the earliest phase was done by email and there is no record of the people who were turned down
  4. ^ This percentage represents all years from 2004 onwards.
  5. ^ last calculated Aug 2010 – this only includes current accounts of people who are still admins, but includes inactives.
  6. ^ User CBM
  7. ^ active admins peaked at 1021 on 28/2/2009
  8. ^ Over three years not one
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