< Wikimania.org

Notes from "Where have all the writers gone" edit

• Who writes Wikipedia? 1-2K editors as per Wales in 2005
• Outsiders provide nearly all of the content, insiders tweak and reformat - Aaron Shwartz 2006

• Not all edits are equal
  • Negative value / vandalism, trolling, disruptive
  • Positive value
    • Adding content
    • Tweaking
  • Possible Value
    • Administration / Bureaucracy
    • Discussion / Dispute resolution

• sample of 250 edits (english wikipedia 2007)
  • Outside article namespace 28%
  • article talk namespace 10%
  • article namespace 62%

• • vandalism 5%
  • tweaking / minor changes 45%
  • content addition 12%
  • article creation 2%

• who made high content edits
  • 0 made by admins
  • 69% by registered users
  • 52% have a user page (wikipedia identity)
  • median date of first edit ~4 months
  • median number of edits ~200

• content creators vs. admins
  • avg# of edits, creators: 1700 (avg) 105 median vs. admins: 12,900 avg, 11303 med
  • edits/day creators: 5.23, admins 16.6
  • content creators edits more in article namespace and less often

• anons
  • 24% of content edits are from accounts:
    • half are first edits
    • half never edit after the first day
    • half are anon users; others have no userpage
    • are they one time editors or forgot to login?

• dabblers
  • 28 of content edits are from accounts:
    • fewer than 150 edits
    • editing more than 1 month
    • avg <1 edit / day
    • 80% have edited within the last month

• Wikipedians
  • 48% of content edits ar from accounts:
    • most have edited within the last week
    • class includes most of the new article creators
    • tend to have a "focus" area
    • total wikipedia career genearlly includes >500 edits
      • and edit counts 300 - 30,000
    • members (or future members) of the gang of 1000?

• Admins A and B:
  • Admins A: 20-60% in article space (70%) (professional bureaucrats)
  • Admins B: 60-90% in article space (30%)
    • similar to "classic editors"

• editors / 4 categories
  • anon / drive by editors
  • dabblers
  • subject area editors
  • professional bureaucrats

• 50% of high content edits come from outside "the community"

External links edit

• Presentation slides (Wikimania website)