Caulde: Yet another admin retirement Options

[Willking1979]

Another day, another admin retirement: Caulde has retired. Here is the Spanish-language message:

"Diría adiós por ahora - podría volver en el futuro. Con la mayor consideración, Caulde."

Here is an English translation:

"I'm going to say goodbye for now, but may return in the future. With the most consideration, Caulde."

Based on a discussion on IRC, this makes the 10th time Caulde's retired. Interestingly, this entry appears in the block log:

11:39, March 8, 2009 Caulde (talk | contribs) blocked Caulde (talk | contribs) (cannot edit own talk page) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (To prevent myself from doing something I shouldn't do.)

Your thoughts???

[seicer]

Someone might find these useful. I'm still learning the Google Charts API, and I'd like to see these in other formats eventually.

New Administrators and Resignation Graphs

Some notes:
1. Resignations spiked at 8 in September 2006, 16 in December 2008 and 12 in January 2009.
2. The number of new administrators peaked in October and December 2005 at 72. The number of new administrators through 2008 declined steadily, from a high of 36 to a low of 6. For 2009, the trend points downward or steady.
3. The number of resignations over new administrators first occurred in December 2008, and occurred again in January and March 2009. This excludes data prior to 2007.

The last graph has a detailed view of the last six months.

So...
1. The RFA process has become more difficult, which can explain some of the new administrator drops from 2005 onward. However, this does not explain the entire situation, as the number of new administrator applications has also dropped (graph coming tomorrow).
2. The number of resignations has increased dramatically over the past 15 months, and the trend points upward. Burnout, fatigue, and discontent seem to be the predominant rationales.

For a long time, we counted on a healthy count of administrators to serve Wikipedia. I haven't even begun to go through the inactive list. At a brief glance, many who became administrators from 2004 to 2006 are either inactive or have diminished quantities of edits. This either indicates burnout, fatigue, time constraints, and so on. If the trend continues, then the replenishment rate will continue to be negative, but I do not suspect that it will affect Wikipedia's performance for at least another year.

This post has been edited by seicer:

[EricBarbour]

The way this wiki-madhouse is set up, without admins to fix endless questionable changes,
it would turn into a shredded pile of graffiti-crap within a few weeks. It's already starting.

New Administrators and Resignation Graphs

Thanks Seicer, good work!

You realize that if Wikipedia were a stock-issuing, for-profit corporation, this
would probably be covered up, because it would cause their stock price to
drop like a stone? Jim Cramer would be on his show, screaming "Sell sell sell".

[Malleus]

The way this wiki-madhouse is set up, without admins to fix endless questionable changes,
it would turn into a shredded pile of graffiti-crap within a few weeks. It's already starting.

It isn't admins who fix most of the crap, or even very much of the crap; it's the regular editors who do that. As I said, admins are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The fewer the better.

Why this emphasis on administrators? At best they're simply there to hold back the tide of vanadlism, and there are better and more efficient ways of doing that; at worst ... well add your own expletives. So they can guard whatever wikipeda currently contains, but that will get easier as the content providers and subject experts also desert the project. So no problem at all really, they can be just like the knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail, protecting a wooden cup. Except in their case the wooden cup really is just a wooden cup. Administrators are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The fewer of them the better.

I think you're thinking of the Indiana Jones holy grail. The one with the majick peroxide in it.

Castle Anthrax had only a grail light in Python. Which they kept leaving on. Requiring punishment for the naughty!
(IMG:http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll191/Shrlocc/spank.gif)

I was, yes, you're quite right. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)

[Alex]

It isn't admins who fix most of the crap, or even very much of the crap; it's the regular editors who do that. As I said, admins are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The fewer the better.

Where is your evidence for this?

[Malleus]

It isn't admins who fix most of the crap, or even very much of the crap; it's the regular editors who do that. As I said, admins are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The fewer the better.

Where is your evidence for this?

For which part of this?

Uh, scrub that, I see it's you Majorly. Not interested in your games either here or elsewhere.

This post has been edited by Malleus:

[Alex]

It isn't admins who fix most of the crap, or even very much of the crap; it's the regular editors who do that. As I said, admins are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The fewer the better.

Where is your evidence for this?

For which part of this?

Uh, scrub that, I see it's you Majorly. Not interested in your games either here or elsewhere.

And you're Malleus Fatuorum? Nice to meet you.

Still, I really would like to know who and how someone came up with the idea admins actually cause damage to the encyclopedia. Sure, they may damage certain people's egos, but aside from maybe a handful of rogue admins, all desysopped, all care much about the encyclopedia and do their best to maintain its upkeep. There are of course normal editors that damage the encyclopedia on a daily basis - through vandalism, original research, NPOV statements, libel, copyvios etc. An admin caught doing that would most likely be desysopped (I say most likely because someone is bound to find an example of one that wasn't). They may not all write all the time, but they help out in tons of other ways. It's an insult to those administrators who dedicate hundreds thousands of hours to Wikipedia, writing tons of excellent articles, and improving lots more - as well as lots of maintenance admin work. I'm surprised you'd make a sweeping statement "admins are part of the problem" (well actually I'm not but whatever). You mean people like Iridescent, Jennavecia, Casliber, Rlevse, Jbmurray, Nev1, Ddstretch etc are all part of the problem? It's funny, there's always talk about this sort of thing, but no real evidence. No examples, no nothing. Just somebody's say-so. It was probably a little too much to ask you where you get this idea from, still it would be interesting to know all the same.

[Malleus]

... aside from maybe a handful of rogue admins, all desysopped ...

You're one of those, aren't you?

[Alex]

... aside from maybe a handful of rogue admins, all desysopped ...

You're one of those, aren't you?

Try again.