User:Visviva/Dumpster dive
Data on user and article stratification over time, gleaned from the 2022-07-01 stub-meta-history dump of EN wiki.
General numbers
[edit]As of the 2022-07-01 stub-meta-history dump:
- Total pages in mainspace: 16666393
- Total users who have contributed at least one non-deleted revision of a page currently in mainspace: 8783518
- Total edits associated with a mainspace page: 722794550
- Total edits to a mainspace page that are associated with a user: 722772635
- Difference (revisions with attribution removed): 21915 (0.003%)
General annual stats
[edit]Mainspace only. Excludes bots. Excludes redirects from page count but not from edit count.
Users editing | IPs editing | Pages edited | Redirects edited | User user-page-months | IP user-page-months | User edits | IP edits | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | 1030 | 0 | 16978 | 4014 | 41942 | 0 | 60063 | 0 |
2002 | 1966 | 16719 | 94827 | 25016 | 246124 | 76337 | 350699 | 112424 |
2003 | 8370 | 59245 | 140200 | 64335 | 613261 | 183868 | 974004 | 278521 |
2004 | 37611 | 283366 | 397122 | 228745 | 2505890 | 750262 | 3896678 | 1159237 |
2005 | 148756 | 1228808 | 781322 | 479689 | 5973071 | 3090879 | 9785081 | 5069111 |
2006 | 630074 | 3387078 | 1344460 | 881178 | 14135037 | 7947191 | 25470891 | 13089251 |
2007 | 943270 | 5001864 | 1816777 | 927456 | 16704193 | 10607947 | 30968390 | 17149981 |
2008 | 894634 | 5039842 | 2216398 | 884882 | 16230635 | 10067050 | 29698093 | 16166731 |
2009 | 864149 | 4650723 | 2526614 | 827129 | 15439551 | 9147470 | 28343089 | 14739273 |
2010 | 804968 | 4378615 | 2705234 | 738706 | 14718878 | 8497908 | 26904279 | 13705928 |
2011 | 808259 | 3698374 | 2830528 | 678752 | 13560671 | 7088552 | 25165253 | 11381104 |
2012 | 714093 | 3395254 | 3032412 | 712226 | 13594185 | 6535885 | 24787710 | 10606703 |
2013 | 713666 | 3115733 | 3068502 | 651053 | 13095303 | 5998229 | 23904628 | 9767365 |
2014 | 772545 | 2613881 | 3174919 | 620310 | 12544149 | 5248935 | 23151748 | 8678007 |
2015 | 743490 | 2797009 | 3369813 | 676210 | 13550707 | 5590961 | 25206383 | 9474953 |
2016 | 701861 | 2976090 | 3652241 | 690914 | 14474956 | 5838372 | 26209753 | 9772962 |
2017 | 716793 | 2919222 | 3670051 | 957042 | 14583807 | 5651626 | 26787421 | 9382811 |
2018 | 715240 | 2887622 | 3982402 | 706172 | 15269394 | 5463227 | 27342221 | 8932214 |
2019 | 712830 | 2892729 | 3945903 | 619308 | 15012268 | 5423885 | 27307812 | 8839292 |
2020 | 723696 | 2923310 | 4383098 | 630292 | 16818593 | 5283565 | 30382208 | 8669883 |
2021 | 667693 | 2805778 | 4423475 | 752503 | 17040539 | 5190295 | 30952958 | 8565447 |
2022 | 376831 | 1261679 | 3372516 | 354829 | 8780589 | 2342456 | 15443283 | 3863418 |
User classes
[edit]By first-year edits
[edit]Cf. m:Research:Editor classes (which uses all-namespace edits). Does not currently exclude bots. Note that 2021 and 2022 will be substantially incomplete (since 12 months from first edit will not be up until December 2022 for some 2021 starters, and not until December 2023 for some 2022 starters).
Year | 1-9 edits | 10-99 edits | 100-999 edits | 1,000-9,999 edits | 10,000+ edits |
2001 | 638 | 262 | 108 | 21 | 1 |
2002 | 862 | 541 | 239 | 98 | 6 |
2003 | 4012 | 2438 | 837 | 244 | 15 |
2004 | 18779 | 10974 | 3288 | 876 | 47 |
2005 | 81921 | 37028 | 9446 | 2167 | 90 |
2006 | 419673 | 119473 | 17932 | 2887 | 136 |
2007 | 615165 | 117128 | 11870 | 1620 | 75 |
2008 | 549136 | 93138 | 8932 | 1199 | 78 |
2009 | 515956 | 83819 | 7904 | 951 | 39 |
2010 | 467135 | 72950 | 6397 | 732 | 40 |
2011 | 469750 | 71285 | 6119 | 597 | 27 |
2012 | 398055 | 61711 | 5561 | 567 | 32 |
2013 | 404025 | 58992 | 5207 | 521 | 21 |
2014 | 474520 | 62189 | 5338 | 522 | 19 |
2015 | 447422 | 59536 | 5268 | 502 | 24 |
2016 | 412834 | 53837 | 4853 | 493 | 28 |
2017 | 422156 | 54903 | 5225 | 538 | 23 |
2018 | 411455 | 51961 | 4911 | 544 | 25 |
2019 | 402849 | 51623 | 4709 | 527 | 19 |
2020 | 403141 | 54231 | 6206 | 812 | 42 |
2021 | 359627 | 48528 | 5731 | 655 | 27 |
2022 | 172752 | 19372 | 1670 | 94 | 4 |
2021 edits by first-year edits
[edit]Excludes editors joining during or after 2021. See results for other calendar years.
0 edits in 2021 | 1-9 edits in 2021 | 10-99 edits in 2021 | 100-999 edits in 2021 | 1000-9999 edits in 2021 | >10000 edits in 2021 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1-9 edits in first twelve months | 6803879 users making 0 edits |
104437 users making 246702 edits |
9823 users making 241260 edits |
1101 users making 320931 edits |
227 users making 612468 edits |
17 users making 515636 edits |
10-99 edits in first twelve months | 1015159 users making 0 edits |
67421 users making 222303 edits |
30589 users making 847559 edits |
4008 users making 1131624 edits |
767 users making 2084765 edits |
75 users making 1808294 edits |
100-999 edits in first twelve months | 92432 users making 0 edits |
10251 users making 35925 edits |
9696 users making 375262 edits |
6689 users making 2106689 edits |
1210 users making 3123022 edits |
72 users making 1611375 edits |
1000-9999 edits in first twelve months | 9917 users making 0 edits |
1346 users making 4893 edits |
1579 users making 61548 edits |
1704 users making 708459 edits |
1735 users making 5307778 edits |
137 users making 3322450 edits |
>10000 edits in first twelve months | 465 users making 0 edits |
25 users making 63 edits |
39 users making 1565 edits |
55 users making 25170 edits |
108 users making 422066 edits |
95 users making 14477369 edits |
By calendar-year edits
[edit]Excludes bots. Counts edits to pages currently in mainspace only. IP edits not included in percentages.
Year | 1-9 edits | 10-99 edits | 100-999 edits | 1,000-9,999 edits | 10,000+ edits | Percent of all registered users who edited |
Percent of all edits by registered users | ||||||||||
2001 | 712 users making 1,737 edits |
231 users making 7,504 edits |
80 users making 25,659 edits |
6 users making 7,178 edits |
1 users making 17,985 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2002 | 1,099 users making 3,420 edits |
567 users making 18,306 edits |
225 users making 73,009 edits |
72 users making 189,605 edits |
3 users making 66,359 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2003 | 5,123 users making 15,557 edits |
2,278 users making 70,530 edits |
759 users making 251,240 edits |
203 users making 541,206 edits |
7 users making 95,471 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2004 | 24,247 users making 73,647 edits |
9,735 users making 298,831 edits |
2,846 users making 900,517 edits |
742 users making 1,986,752 edits |
41 users making 636,931 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2005 | 105,299 users making 302,441 edits |
33,308 users making 982,479 edits |
8,208 users making 2,508,261 edits |
1,868 users making 4,899,268 edits |
73 users making 1,092,632 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2006 | 489,102 users making 1,346,667 edits |
114,389 users making 3,180,812 edits |
21,925 users making 6,573,454 edits |
4,473 users making 11,468,829 edits |
185 users making 2,901,129 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2007 | 760,679 users making 2,062,123 edits |
151,941 users making 4,061,977 edits |
25,222 users making 7,474,362 edits |
5,205 users making 13,689,563 edits |
223 users making 3,680,365 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2008 | 732,358 users making 1,944,517 edits |
135,927 users making 3,610,477 edits |
21,349 users making 6,352,150 edits |
4,721 users making 12,682,818 edits |
279 users making 5,108,131 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2009 | 710,794 users making 1,851,915 edits |
128,672 users making 3,430,016 edits |
20,069 users making 5,939,928 edits |
4,346 users making 11,698,674 edits |
268 users making 5,422,556 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2010 | 664,656 users making 1,713,515 edits |
117,970 users making 3,144,345 edits |
18,060 users making 5,342,525 edits |
4,011 users making 10,889,394 edits |
271 users making 5,814,500 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2011 | 670,802 users making 1,710,238 edits |
116,187 users making 3,080,457 edits |
17,315 users making 5,071,698 edits |
3,713 users making 10,149,978 edits |
242 users making 5,152,882 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2012 | 588,452 users making 1,510,922 edits |
105,459 users making 2,823,823 edits |
16,337 users making 4,798,596 edits |
3,583 users making 9,943,818 edits |
262 users making 5,710,551 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2013 | 593,126 users making 1,482,624 edits |
101,504 users making 2,702,400 edits |
15,346 users making 4,482,689 edits |
3,453 users making 9,656,836 edits |
237 users making 5,580,079 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2014 | 653,790 users making 1,607,790 edits |
100,378 users making 2,645,121 edits |
14,852 users making 4,359,655 edits |
3,268 users making 9,020,907 edits |
257 users making 5,518,275 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2015 | 625,241 users making 1,541,063 edits |
98,985 users making 2,641,990 edits |
15,432 users making 4,545,125 edits |
3,535 users making 9,986,211 edits |
297 users making 6,491,994 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2016 | 589,695 users making 1,441,458 edits |
93,127 users making 2,485,653 edits |
15,170 users making 4,536,748 edits |
3,543 users making 9,911,871 edits |
326 users making 7,834,023 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2017 | 601,956 users making 1,484,765 edits |
95,183 users making 2,541,815 edits |
15,657 users making 4,701,863 edits |
3,659 users making 10,329,867 edits |
338 users making 7,729,111 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2018 | 603,053 users making 1,469,945 edits |
92,544 users making 2,461,278 edits |
15,588 users making 4,700,190 edits |
3,739 users making 10,586,953 edits |
316 users making 8,123,855 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2019 | 599,171 users making 1,466,828 edits |
93,747 users making 2,481,285 edits |
15,787 users making 4,755,638 edits |
3,808 users making 10,891,659 edits |
317 users making 7,712,402 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2020 | 603,208 users making 1,476,476 edits |
98,287 users making 2,639,933 edits |
17,606 users making 5,301,178 edits |
4,233 users making 12,007,682 edits |
362 users making 8,956,939 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2021 | 548,897 users making 1,362,124 edits |
95,849 users making 2,620,663 edits |
18,132 users making 5,507,660 edits |
4,439 users making 12,381,620 edits |
376 users making 9,080,891 edits |
|
| ||||||||||
2022 | 308,580 users making 761,495 edits |
54,294 users making 1,491,894 edits |
11,348 users making 3,514,367 edits |
2,488 users making 6,292,318 edits |
121 users making 3,383,209 edits |
|
|
Reflections
[edit]Comparing the above to my priors, two things are apparent: (1) I did not express my expectations with sufficient precision, but also (2) while the general trend toward stratification of the editor community is apparent, when the data is sliced as above, the trend is neither as pronounced nor as consistent as I expected. Since I phrased my predictions in "prove me wrong" terms, it seems fair to say that the data has proven me at least partially wrong. (But not as wrong as I would have liked to be.)
That said, there is an unmistakable upward trend in the proportion of edits made by users with 1000 or more mainspace edits per year, from 55.4% in 2006 to 60.8% in 2011 to 69.3% in 2021, albeit with various hiccups on the year-to-year level. And if we include IP edits in the denominator (which seems reasonable since anons are Wikipedians too), the trend becomes much more pronounced, and almost consistent with what I expected to see -- although there is one year in this period in which stratification fell by 0.1%:
|
|
(Limited to 16 years by template constraints -- 2007 represented a historic low in stratification by this metric, so this may misrepresent the overall historical picture.)
Of course, including IPs in this way is as problematic as excluding them: many IP edits are actually by logged-out registered users (although notably this would suggest that stratification is under-counted), and some individual IP users may actually make more than 1000 edits per year (which might be distributed among multiple IPs or combined with other users of a shared IP). It will be instructive to see if, as per my expectations, the above trend holds when using this metric of (edits by bands 4 and 5) / (edits by all bands and all IPs) against different ways of slicing the data, such as looking at edits across all namespaces.
It will also be interesting to see if the seeming sharp reduction in stratification in the first half of 2022 holds true for the year as a whole. It seems likely to be a seasonal artifact of some kind, or simply an effect of the year being only half complete. But it is also possible that the uptick in stratification in 2020-2021 was related to the pandemic, in which case a drop would not be entirely unexpected.
Article classes
[edit]Mainspace only, including IPs, excluding bots and redirects.
Year | 0 edits | 1-9 edits | 10-99 edits | 100-999 edits | 1,000-9,999 edits | 10,000+ edits | Percent of all extant pages then existing |
Percent of all edits | |||||||||||
2001 | 0 pages receiving 0 edits |
16,277 pages receiving 40,062 edits |
700 pages receiving 10,923 edits |
1 pages receiving 125 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2002 | 1,515 pages receiving 0 edits |
84,742 pages receiving 212,827 edits |
10,013 pages receiving 187,215 edits |
72 pages receiving 10,934 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2003 | 41,308 pages receiving 0 edits |
110,676 pages receiving 386,833 edits |
28,909 pages receiving 619,202 edits |
614 pages receiving 100,047 edits |
1 pages receiving 2,072 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2004 | 18,408 pages receiving 0 edits |
282,862 pages receiving 1,105,895 edits |
109,810 pages receiving 2,483,135 edits |
4,412 pages receiving 843,112 edits |
38 pages receiving 58,745 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2005 | 38,282 pages receiving 0 edits |
490,510 pages receiving 2,093,430 edits |
272,202 pages receiving 6,555,451 edits |
18,192 pages receiving 3,977,780 edits |
417 pages receiving 721,682 edits |
1 pages receiving 20,875 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2006 | 57,995 pages receiving 0 edits |
737,463 pages receiving 3,202,151 edits |
549,315 pages receiving 14,474,110 edits |
55,407 pages receiving 13,155,672 edits |
2,272 pages receiving 4,116,034 edits |
3 pages receiving 39,844 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2007 | 134,523 pages receiving 0 edits |
1,081,657 pages receiving 4,395,826 edits |
658,753 pages receiving 17,582,512 edits |
73,512 pages receiving 17,635,961 edits |
2,855 pages receiving 4,644,323 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2008 | 246,515 pages receiving 0 edits |
1,469,786 pages receiving 5,517,195 edits |
674,533 pages receiving 17,852,482 edits |
70,064 pages receiving 16,500,974 edits |
2,014 pages receiving 3,106,795 edits |
1 pages receiving 10,639 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2009 | 382,030 pages receiving 0 edits |
1,783,144 pages receiving 6,322,674 edits |
678,320 pages receiving 17,728,746 edits |
63,812 pages receiving 14,557,327 edits |
1,337 pages receiving 2,024,791 edits |
1 pages receiving 10,480 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2010 | 587,045 pages receiving 0 edits |
1,976,355 pages receiving 6,728,986 edits |
669,051 pages receiving 17,322,497 edits |
58,891 pages receiving 13,121,826 edits |
937 pages receiving 1,400,110 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2011 | 803,286 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,148,713 pages receiving 7,003,212 edits |
631,295 pages receiving 16,195,378 edits |
49,838 pages receiving 10,588,358 edits |
682 pages receiving 1,059,748 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2012 | 935,465 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,363,481 pages receiving 7,414,668 edits |
622,177 pages receiving 15,855,405 edits |
46,152 pages receiving 9,612,009 edits |
602 pages receiving 939,281 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2013 | 1,204,533 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,410,426 pages receiving 7,445,397 edits |
615,280 pages receiving 15,537,302 edits |
42,345 pages receiving 8,608,469 edits |
451 pages receiving 679,450 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2014 | 1,399,920 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,550,167 pages receiving 7,588,228 edits |
586,887 pages receiving 14,689,787 edits |
37,452 pages receiving 7,593,405 edits |
412 pages receiving 682,692 edits |
1 pages receiving 10,114 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2015 | 1,496,269 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,690,202 pages receiving 8,081,362 edits |
637,381 pages receiving 15,958,026 edits |
41,725 pages receiving 8,527,608 edits |
505 pages receiving 788,437 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2016 | 1,497,344 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,951,877 pages receiving 8,871,883 edits |
658,044 pages receiving 16,361,438 edits |
41,801 pages receiving 8,511,744 edits |
518 pages receiving 840,940 edits |
1 pages receiving 19,276 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2017 | 1,739,794 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,966,260 pages receiving 8,734,177 edits |
661,123 pages receiving 16,522,235 edits |
42,185 pages receiving 8,587,348 edits |
483 pages receiving 793,090 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2018 | 1,681,862 pages receiving 0 edits |
3,276,174 pages receiving 9,543,707 edits |
664,689 pages receiving 16,456,293 edits |
41,067 pages receiving 8,315,816 edits |
472 pages receiving 742,264 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2019 | 1,958,489 pages receiving 0 edits |
3,232,419 pages receiving 9,313,981 edits |
671,530 pages receiving 16,703,349 edits |
41,483 pages receiving 8,332,984 edits |
471 pages receiving 758,188 edits |
0 pages receiving 0 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2020 | 1,776,752 pages receiving 0 edits |
3,607,917 pages receiving 10,589,176 edits |
732,262 pages receiving 17,942,472 edits |
42,376 pages receiving 8,454,616 edits |
540 pages receiving 942,328 edits |
3 pages receiving 44,565 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2021 | 1,984,936 pages receiving 0 edits |
3,644,001 pages receiving 10,603,555 edits |
735,291 pages receiving 18,072,335 edits |
43,589 pages receiving 8,776,762 edits |
593 pages receiving 909,618 edits |
1 pages receiving 10,066 edits |
|
| |||||||||||
2022 | 3,135,960 pages receiving 0 edits |
2,999,590 pages receiving 7,351,937 edits |
357,852 pages receiving 8,309,494 edits |
14,888 pages receiving 2,865,400 edits |
184 pages receiving 278,994 edits |
2 pages receiving 23,992 edits |
|
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Editor age
[edit]Excludes bots. Mainspace only.
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | 1030 | |||||||||||||||||||||
2002 | 1743 | 223 | ||||||||||||||||||||
2003 | 7542 | 665 | 163 | |||||||||||||||||||
2004 | 33947 | 2905 | 584 | 175 | ||||||||||||||||||
2005 | 130601 | 14821 | 2578 | 571 | 185 | |||||||||||||||||
2006 | 559985 | 53085 | 13554 | 2625 | 609 | 216 | ||||||||||||||||
2007 | 745714 | 142554 | 40167 | 11694 | 2389 | 543 | 209 | |||||||||||||||
2008 | 652347 | 112089 | 87477 | 30524 | 9526 | 2002 | 487 | 182 | ||||||||||||||
2009 | 608580 | 83616 | 69358 | 66078 | 25585 | 8372 | 1912 | 476 | 172 | |||||||||||||
2010 | 547202 | 73431 | 50475 | 50993 | 52093 | 21294 | 7243 | 1660 | 430 | 147 | ||||||||||||
2011 | 547727 | 62932 | 45410 | 38455 | 41816 | 44652 | 18620 | 6594 | 1504 | 405 | 144 | |||||||||||
2012 | 465884 | 57317 | 36424 | 32532 | 29280 | 32718 | 36426 | 15895 | 5750 | 1368 | 377 | 122 | ||||||||||
2013 | 468746 | 50742 | 34313 | 27464 | 26336 | 24444 | 28284 | 31779 | 14480 | 5268 | 1324 | 360 | 126 | |||||||||
2014 | 542580 | 45463 | 27533 | 24591 | 21314 | 20928 | 19953 | 23853 | 27231 | 12698 | 4747 | 1195 | 337 | 122 | ||||||||
2015 | 512738 | 48477 | 27050 | 20670 | 19708 | 17620 | 17812 | 17217 | 20765 | 24076 | 11487 | 4332 | 1113 | 310 | 115 | |||||||
2016 | 472028 | 46796 | 27685 | 20351 | 16830 | 16358 | 15218 | 15512 | 15200 | 18288 | 21630 | 10483 | 4036 | 1038 | 304 | 104 | ||||||
2017 | 482831 | 46135 | 27994 | 20832 | 17080 | 14405 | 14307 | 13598 | 13937 | 13860 | 16578 | 20219 | 9848 | 3822 | 973 | 271 | 103 | |||||
2018 | 468882 | 48686 | 27852 | 22180 | 17841 | 15061 | 13051 | 13174 | 12569 | 13180 | 13067 | 15814 | 19374 | 9489 | 3712 | 963 | 248 | 97 | ||||
2019 | 459712 | 49065 | 29427 | 21436 | 18301 | 15324 | 13115 | 11534 | 12128 | 11488 | 12226 | 12082 | 14965 | 18271 | 8954 | 3531 | 924 | 251 | 96 | |||
2020 | 464423 | 48877 | 29084 | 22405 | 17600 | 15891 | 13281 | 11780 | 10567 | 11169 | 10594 | 11483 | 11505 | 14088 | 17568 | 8669 | 3454 | 903 | 253 | 102 | ||
2021 | 414560 | 51496 | 27027 | 20775 | 17034 | 14014 | 13065 | 11065 | 10082 | 8927 | 9654 | 9221 | 9943 | 10081 | 12406 | 15839 | 8055 | 3258 | 867 | 235 | 89 | |
2022 | 193889 | 38184 | 22115 | 14597 | 11829 | 10090 | 8356 | 7883 | 6822 | 6002 | 5542 | 5943 | 5766 | 6215 | 6413 | 7880 | 10461 | 5608 | 2313 | 671 | 186 | 66 |
Reflections on editor age and retention
[edit]The above table likely undercounts first-year repulsion, since it goes by calendar years rather than editor years. Yet even by this metric, editor repulsion after the first year has exceeded 90% every year since 2012. Even as recently as 2020, a higher proportion of editors who joined in 2001 were still active on the project than those who joined in 2019.
Of course, editor numbers don't tell us much about edit numbers. Maybe the older editors are just kibitzers who come back to fix a typo once in a while. One simple metric for evaluating this would be the average age of editors weighted by number of edits. That is, for any given edit, how old is the editor making it likely to be?
In the steady-state case, this weighted average editor age would be constant over time. In the case of a small core of editors aging in place with nobody leaving or joining, it would grow at one year per calendar year.
The growth in weighted editor age was comparatively flat in the project's early years (likely due to the project's explosive growth in that period). But since 2006, weighted editor age has grown at a grimly consistent pace of approximately six months per year:
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
This is not as bad as it could be, but is definitely not the mark of a healthy community. Interestingly, 2021 showed the lowest absolute increase in weighted editor age of any year since 2006, going from just 7.62 to 7.77 years. This seems likely to be a pandemic anomaly; I hereby predict that 2022 will return to trend and will be the first year in Wikipedia history in which the weighted editor age exceeds 8 years.
It is perhaps noteworthy that from 2015 to 2017 the increase was reduced to approximately 4 months per year, before skyrocketing to more than 8 months in 2018. The cause of that shift would be interesting to know -- was it due to improved new-editor retention, or were older editors editing less?
Using the metric of two-year retention (i.e. those editors who first made a mainspace edit in 2001 who also made a mainspace edit in 2003, et seq.), retention appears to have been uniformly terrible throughout the 2010s:
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Accordingly, it seems fair to say that the 2015-2017 editor age anomaly was not due to improved retention, but to some other shift in community composition.
Turning back to the overall trend, the simplest explanation for the decline is that the community became much more hostile in the mid-to-late 2000s and has stayed that way ever since, with the "new normal" of hostility becoming self-perpetuating once it was established.
But the trend could also be explained by the community becoming better at filtering out bad or uncommitted users more quickly. In that case, we would expect that the five-year and ten-year retention rates would have improved, or would at least have become closer to the two-year retention rate: we would lose more users up front, but the ones we don't lose would stick around longer. Unfortunately, this expectation is not borne out:
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Apart from some anomalies in the earliest years, retention has consistently dropped by roughly half from two years to five years, and again from five years to ten years. It appears that if someone is still around after two calendar years, changes in the Wikipedia environment no longer have much effect on whether they will stick around longer; the odds will be about 50/50 at year 5, and for those still around at year 5, they will be about 50/50 at year 10.
In view of that pattern, it appears that we are not actually doing a better job of finding dedicated Wikipedians. We are simply doing a more effective job of driving them away.
As a member of the anomalous entering class of 2004, I am tempted to take this a little further. Perhaps an editor's formative on-wiki experiences shape the editor's overall attitude toward the project so that editors who have had positive early experiences will not only be less likely to attrit in Y2, but also -- if they are still around in Y2 -- less likely to attrit in Y5 and Y10, even if the wiki has become a less friendly place in the meantime. Given that Wikipedia was a vastly friendlier place in its early years than it is today, this would at least partially account for the early anomalies. It would also suggest that the experience of the entering class of 2012 was uniquely bad even by 2010s standards. Of course, this is merely a hypothesis, but it appears plausible based on the data above.
In voice-exit-loyalty terms, this would mean the quality of a user's experiences during the formative period determines the user's degree of loyalty to the project going forward, i.e. how likely the user is to stick with the project when the going gets rough. Put that way, this result is scarcely surprising. But it also suggests a more damning inference: since Wikipedia is almost completely insensitive to the signal from users choosing to exit, it is precisely those users who had the best experience joining Wikipedia who have had the greatest voice in causing that experience to be so much worse for subsequent Wikipedians. We have, in essence, pulled the ladder up behind us.
This is not what good project stewardship looks like.
Age and edit band
[edit]The weighted age metric gives us only a crude idea of who is doing what. What if we break down the edit bands by age?
1-9 edits | 10-99 edits | 100-999 edits | 1,000-9,999 edits | 10,000+ edits | Proportions | ||||||||||||||||||||
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0-1 years | 401,865 users making 957,784 edits |
55,825 users making 1,439,751 edits |
7,329 users making 2,067,013 edits |
993 users making 2,376,542 edits |
44 users making 942,858 edits |
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2-5 years | 57,709 users making 159,853 edits |
16,034 users making 469,209 edits |
4,037 users making 1,240,170 edits |
1,011 users making 2,720,709 edits |
59 users making 1,019,100 edits |
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6-9 years | 31,568 users making 86,530 edits |
8,481 users making 250,121 edits |
2,338 users making 750,366 edits |
686 users making 1,983,298 edits |
66 users making 1,290,609 edits |
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10+ years | 57,755 users making 157,957 edits |
15,509 users making 461,582 edits |
4,428 users making 1,450,111 edits |
1,749 users making 5,301,071 edits |
207 users making 5,828,324 edits |
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Proportions |
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One thing that stands out here is that the bulk of activity from the oldest editors comes from a small number of power users, while the newest editors are responsible for most of the edits by long-tail users. Put differently, among the oldest users it is the smallest number who make the greatest number of edits, while among the youngest users it is the greatest number who make the greatest number of edits. It also stands out that there is no editor stratum in which either of the middle-aged bands predominates. (But perhaps this just reflects a poor choice of age bands.) What did these patterns look like in 2015?
1-9 edits | 10-99 edits | 100-999 edits | 1,000-9,999 edits | 10,000+ edits | Proportions | ||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 492,363 users making 1,166,400 edits |
61,951 users making 1,567,228 edits |
6,168 users making 1,594,808 edits |
710 users making 1,699,879 edits |
23 users making 352,431 edits |
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5 | 62,262 users making 177,658 edits |
17,672 users making 509,505 edits |
4,040 users making 1,254,419 edits |
1,002 users making 2,796,180 edits |
72 users making 1,324,040 edits |
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9 | 58,951 users making 163,393 edits |
15,566 users making 451,378 edits |
3,898 users making 1,259,424 edits |
1,306 users making 3,848,324 edits |
149 users making 3,416,726 edits |
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None | 11,665 users making 33,612 edits |
3,796 users making 113,879 edits |
1,326 users making 436,474 edits |
517 users making 1,641,828 edits |
53 users making 1,398,797 edits |
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Proportions |
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That's somewhat different, but what's really happening here? Is this just the effect of the especially prolific class of 2006 not having reached year 10 yet?
1-9 edits | 10-99 edits | 100-999 edits | 1,000-9,999 edits | 10,000+ edits | Proportions | ||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 456,936 users making 1,068,354 edits |
55,632 users making 1,393,194 edits |
5,603 users making 1,495,013 edits |
627 users making 1,437,463 edits |
26 users making 437,214 edits |
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5 | 58,947 users making 167,516 edits |
17,194 users making 494,281 edits |
3,995 users making 1,237,916 edits |
1,007 users making 2,755,429 edits |
81 users making 1,390,411 edits |
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9 | 47,543 users making 130,765 edits |
12,449 users making 362,950 edits |
3,121 users making 994,648 edits |
994 users making 2,913,532 edits |
111 users making 2,641,997 edits |
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None | 26,269 users making 74,823 edits |
7,852 users making 235,228 edits |
2,451 users making 809,171 edits |
915 users making 2,805,447 edits |
108 users making 3,364,401 edits |
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Proportions |
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On first look, at least, that seems to be the case.
How about the First Pandemic Year of 2020?
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | None | Proportions | ||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 448,575 users making 1,051,682 edits |
57,213 users making 1,440,988 edits |
6,667 users making 1,834,137 edits |
820 users making 2,034,892 edits |
25 users making 461,391 edits |
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5 | 62,798 users making 173,932 edits |
16,990 users making 490,990 edits |
4,135 users making 1,249,222 edits |
1,002 users making 2,706,929 edits |
55 users making 1,040,255 edits |
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9 | 34,685 users making 94,590 edits |
8,944 users making 261,693 edits |
2,389 users making 744,768 edits |
713 users making 2,035,233 edits |
66 users making 1,296,354 edits |
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None | 57,150 users making 156,272 edits |
15,140 users making 446,262 edits |
4,415 users making 1,473,051 edits |
1,698 users making 5,230,628 edits |
216 users making 6,158,939 edits |
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Proportions |
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There are some mildly interesting changes here, but overall I suppose the most striking thing is how even that surge in newcomer activity changed very little in the overall power structure, being largely swamped by increased editing by older editors.
Project space stratification by mainspace band
[edit]Prior to processing any data, I expected that edits in project space (which for practical purposes I define as both namespaces 4 and 5, since their purposes are seldom clearly distinguished) would show a greater level of stratification than mainspace, and that this trend would have steadily increased over time.
0 | 1-9 | 10-99 | 100-999 | 1000-9999 | 10000+ | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2001 | 28 users making 36 edits (1.4%) |
27 users making 70 edits (2.72%) |
72 users making 266 edits (10.33%) |
69 users making 1383 edits (53.73%) |
6 users making 181 edits (7.03%) |
1 users making 638 edits (24.79%) |
2002 | 36 users making 57 edits (0.33%) |
81 users making 140 edits (0.82%) |
199 users making 649 edits (3.81%) |
191 users making 3382 edits (19.86%) |
72 users making 9916 edits (58.24%) |
3 users making 2883 edits (16.93%) |
2003 | 168 users making 306 edits (0.37%) |
271 users making 646 edits (0.78%) |
649 users making 3188 edits (3.85%) |
629 users making 20162 edits (24.38%) |
201 users making 53593 edits (64.8%) |
7 users making 4810 edits (5.82%) |
2004 | 2474 users making 5231 edits (1.12%) |
2080 users making 5934 edits (1.27%) |
3327 users making 22063 edits (4.71%) |
2288 users making 110833 edits (23.68%) |
724 users making 283701 edits (60.62%) |
41 users making 40211 edits (8.59%) |
2005 | 9114 users making 23637 edits (1.69%) |
8116 users making 24772 edits (1.77%) |
10175 users making 78016 edits (5.58%) |
6321 users making 344536 edits (24.66%) |
1819 users making 814004 edits (58.26%) |
73 users making 112182 edits (8.03%) |
2006 | 31015 users making 67021 edits (2.23%) |
25443 users making 77863 edits (2.6%) |
25935 users making 184709 edits (6.16%) |
15007 users making 763089 edits (25.43%) |
4269 users making 1694246 edits (56.47%) |
183 users making 213409 edits (7.11%) |
2007 | 47217 users making 90400 edits (2.64%) |
31217 users making 86712 edits (2.54%) |
28082 users making 198747 edits (5.81%) |
16109 users making 864486 edits (25.28%) |
4890 users making 1928978 edits (56.41%) |
220 users making 250537 edits (7.33%) |
2008 | 41124 users making 85444 edits (2.78%) |
26910 users making 77934 edits (2.54%) |
22399 users making 169918 edits (5.53%) |
12698 users making 703062 edits (22.88%) |
4370 users making 1721587 edits (56.03%) |
275 users making 314907 edits (10.25%) |
2009 | 33231 users making 63032 edits (2.3%) |
21674 users making 83791 edits (3.06%) |
19153 users making 152704 edits (5.58%) |
11117 users making 660807 edits (24.14%) |
3949 users making 1457203 edits (53.23%) |
267 users making 319771 edits (11.68%) |
2010 | 27528 users making 55031 edits (2.26%) |
17987 users making 80944 edits (3.32%) |
17053 users making 143971 edits (5.9%) |
9564 users making 568827 edits (23.31%) |
3584 users making 1307295 edits (53.58%) |
266 users making 283824 edits (11.63%) |
2011 | 26247 users making 78695 edits (3.63%) |
18667 users making 60964 edits (2.81%) |
17329 users making 142611 edits (6.57%) |
9039 users making 537031 edits (24.76%) |
3237 users making 1121091 edits (51.68%) |
238 users making 228743 edits (10.55%) |
2012 | 21779 users making 48373 edits (2.42%) |
15426 users making 77620 edits (3.88%) |
15215 users making 133889 edits (6.69%) |
8266 users making 540901 edits (27.03%) |
3075 users making 954113 edits (47.69%) |
255 users making 245906 edits (12.29%) |
2013 | 16774 users making 36933 edits (2.03%) |
13184 users making 63802 edits (3.51%) |
14012 users making 136147 edits (7.5%) |
7541 users making 446579 edits (24.6%) |
2951 users making 898063 edits (49.47%) |
233 users making 233799 edits (12.88%) |
2014 | 17561 users making 56300 edits (3.35%) |
13326 users making 46690 edits (2.78%) |
13086 users making 122034 edits (7.26%) |
7114 users making 392267 edits (23.33%) |
2735 users making 833614 edits (49.57%) |
250 users making 230817 edits (13.73%) |
2015 | 17611 users making 51446 edits (2.86%) |
14099 users making 49303 edits (2.74%) |
13258 users making 116993 edits (6.5%) |
7055 users making 390100 edits (21.67%) |
2922 users making 921999 edits (51.22%) |
291 users making 270215 edits (15.01%) |
2016 | 18836 users making 54501 edits (3.21%) |
16130 users making 54209 edits (3.19%) |
12987 users making 106616 edits (6.27%) |
6636 users making 356859 edits (21.0%) |
2853 users making 842966 edits (49.6%) |
311 users making 284496 edits (16.74%) |
2017 | 18722 users making 43477 edits (2.6%) |
18177 users making 75620 edits (4.52%) |
13429 users making 100569 edits (6.01%) |
6717 users making 339560 edits (20.29%) |
2917 users making 826762 edits (49.4%) |
321 users making 287525 edits (17.18%) |
2018 | 18361 users making 50492 edits (3.15%) |
18338 users making 61843 edits (3.86%) |
13047 users making 94324 edits (5.89%) |
6546 users making 325424 edits (20.33%) |
2931 users making 799370 edits (49.95%) |
301 users making 268939 edits (16.8%) |
2019 | 20166 users making 52110 edits (3.18%) |
18463 users making 60447 edits (3.69%) |
13464 users making 99192 edits (6.05%) |
6520 users making 357440 edits (21.81%) |
2965 users making 723550 edits (44.16%) |
303 users making 345884 edits (21.11%) |
2020 | 21416 users making 47991 edits (2.61%) |
17772 users making 63290 edits (3.44%) |
14076 users making 102390 edits (5.56%) |
7642 users making 378537 edits (20.57%) |
3374 users making 900923 edits (48.95%) |
340 users making 347212 edits (18.87%) |
2021 | 16768 users making 40128 edits (2.26%) |
15775 users making 56390 edits (3.17%) |
13538 users making 105782 edits (5.94%) |
7667 users making 395867 edits (22.25%) |
3395 users making 874523 edits (49.14%) |
349 users making 306793 edits (17.24%) |
2022 | 8308 users making 23657 edits (2.88%) |
8811 users making 31179 edits (3.79%) |
7218 users making 79813 edits (9.7%) |
4889 users making 241522 edits (29.36%) |
1868 users making 372815 edits (45.33%) |
110 users making 73531 edits (8.94%) |
Reflections on project space stratification
[edit]After running these initial numbers, although there is a noticeable upward trend in the percentage of project-space edits made by editors in the mainspace five-digit band, the overall degree of stratification seems to be somewhat less (or at any rate not significantly greater) than in article space. I have once again been proven at least partially wrong. Hooray!
But the biggest takeaway for me is that there's more going on in project space than I would have anticipated (1.7 million edits a year?!). I suspect that a meaningful analysis of trends in project space would have to be more granular -- trends in participation on noticeboards, wikiprojects, policy pages, and the deletion zone may all be quite different.
How about editor age? If we run the same weighted-age metric on edits to namespaces 4 and 5 that we ran above for mainspace, we get a familiar but somewhat less regular trend:
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
The weighted average age for editors in project space rose by about 8 months a year from 2007 to 2019, jumped by 1.1 years to 9.1 in 2020, and rose even further to a staggering 9.3 in 2021. (While the number itself is alarming, it is perhaps noteworthy that this reflects the same, possibly pandemic-related flattening in 2021 that we saw in mainspace.)
I am not quite sure what to make of the apparent drop in weighted age in 2022. It seems like the weighted age should be overstated at the middle of the year -- but if that is the case in 2022, then when the year is complete, this will be the first year in all of Wikipedia history when the weighted age of participants in project space fell from the previous year (and perhaps by as much as two years).
Again, a more granular analysis of exactly what is going on in various sub-areas of project space would probably be necessary to make sense of these numbers.
Priors
[edit]Before processing any data, I anticipate the following results:
- User stratification, operationalized as the percentage of non-bot edits made by very active editors, will have become considerably more pronounced than in 2011.
- This will be true regardless of whether the edit count is limited to mainspace, or whether users are grouped by their highest level of monthly activity, overall mean level of monthly activity since first edit, or in-year level of monthly activity.
- Indeed, there will be no year since 2006 in which user stratification did not increase.
- As above, this will be true regardless of how the data is sliced.
- Article stratification, operationalized as the percentage of non-bot mainspace edits made to very active articles, will also have consistently increased year-on-year since at least 2006.
- As above, this will be true regardless of how the data is sliced (in-year level of monthly activity, overall mean level of monthly activity since creation, or in-year level of monthly activity).
Code
[edit]The current rough code can be found here.
Data
[edit]CSV datasets generated by the above code, in the form of 22 annual user-page-month CSV files and one CSV file each of user and page definitions, can be found here.