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Wikipedia:RFA study

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This page aims to list not just every RFA that happened this year so far or the four years before, but also lots of characteristics about them and the candidates therein, to try to see if there are patterns that predict whether the RFA will be successful or not.

[edit]

These trends are based on data from 2004 to 2018*, taken from WP:SRFA and WP:RFAU. In total, there have been 4,418 RFAs during this time period.

The annual number of total RFAs here on en.wiki peaked in 2007 at 920; the lowest number of RFAs in a given year thus far was 36 in 2016. Currently there have only been 13 RFAs this year, suggesting that this year will probably have the fewest RFAs of any year in en.wiki's history (barring a remarkably rapid blitz of RFAs in the last four months of the year).

The highest success rate for RFAs was in 2004, the first year for which data exists; that year, 79% of RFAs were successful. By contrast, the lowest success rate was in 2012, when only 29% of RFAs were successful. The most recent success rate, for 2018 so far, is a somewhat-less-discouraging 46%. Interestingly, the average success rate for RFAs over all years is 45%.

From these statistics two things are obvious, as many others have already pointed out:

  1. There are now way fewer RFAs than there were in the (relatively) distant past, and
  2. RFAs are now much less likely to succeed than they were in the past.

*This is based on all RFAs that have closed so far this year.

Accounting for deleted RFAs

[edit]

One significant limitation to accurately estimating the number of RFAs in a given year is that for the past few years or so, admins have frequently deleted RFAs that were created by very-new users in clear violation of WP:NOTNOW. As noted on the page WP:RFA by month, "By 2015 admins had started deleting "NotNow" RFAs which artificially reduces the unsuccessful figure." So this means that for at least the past 3 or 4 years, the success rate of RFAs based only on the data below will be higher than the real success rate, since this page currently excludes RFAs that were unsuccessful if they were deleted, as such RFAs aren't preserved at WP:RFAU.

The most logical way to try to solve this problem (at least for non-admins) seems to be to look at the history of the page WP:RFA to see when someone edits it to add an RFA that has since been deleted. Then you can count up all the instances when new users do this, only to be reverted quickly by more experienced users. Doing so reveals, first, that new users adding (or at least trying to add) their newly created RFAs to WP:RFA became much less common right after Mz7 indefinitely extended-confirmed protected the page in November 2017, ending a more than 5-year period of continuous semi-protection. By looking at the WP:RFA page history in this way, I have estimated that there were 4 failed deleted RFAs (FDRFAs) this year so far, and that there were 19 FDRFAs in 2017. Adding the 19 FDRFAs to the total number of RFAs for 2017 lowers the success rate from 21/40 = 53% to 21/59 = 36%. I have also identified 13 FDRFAs in 2016; adding them to the total RFA count for 2016 lowers the success rate for that year from 44% to 33%.

However, this approach involves yet another questionable assumption: that all of the users who tried to add an RFA for themselves genuinely wanted to become an admin, and made their edits to the page in good faith. But this assumption seems to be false pretty frequently: of the 36 users who attempted to add their now-deleted RFA to the main page in 2016, 2017, or (so far) 2018, 22 of them (61%) have since been blocked indefinitely. (Note: this is only based on the ones I included in the above counts; it doesn't include obvious trolling or vandalism, just edits that were clearly attempts to create RFAs.)

2018

[edit]
Candidate name Edit count (total, incl. deleted) Years editing First RFA? Self-nomination? Successful? Years since last block Content contributions
Justlettersandnumbers 59227 7.81 Yes No Yes "...a bunch of DYKs" according to co-nominator Amorymeltzer, but very little experience with the GA/FA process.
L235 16675 5.14 Yes No Yes "...a Good Article and half a dozen DYKs." -Nominator statement by MelanieN
Philafrenzy 179908 8.02 Yes No No >300 DYKs and 2 GAs (albeit no FAs)
Jbhunley 21797 7.24 Yes No No One DYK and a lengthy draft in his userspace}}
Sro23 45069 3.12 Yes Yes Yes Most of the articles they created were stubs/start-class; user stated "I think my most valuable contributions are my removals of BLP-violating content, which left alone could have the potential to cause real life harm."
TheSandDoctor 23445 1.41 Yes No Yes "5 GAs under his belt" (according to co-nominator)
Pbsouthwood 43739 8.81 Yes Yes Yes "one FA and a few GAs" on scuba diving-related articles, as Pbsouthwood pointed out himself in answering question #2
The Diaz 1426 1.92 Yes Yes No None, really; when describing his proudest contributions, candidate cited "all the vandalism reverts that went unnoticed, as well as blatant violations of obvious rules on high-viewed pages."
GreenMeansGo 45465 9.8 Yes Yes No Candidate stated, "I've gotten content on the front page a few times, but mostly I just whittle away in the background." According to HJ Mitchell, candidate wrote a featured article (apparently this article is Baltimore railroad strike of 1877).
Hoppyh 20183 7.8 Yes Yes No Significantly contributed to 19 FAs and 5 GAs
Cordless Larry 41859 12.27 Yes No Yes According to co-nominator, "He's got a fine corpus of articles he's worked on, including the featured article Gateway Protection Programme, and is a major contributor to Somalis in the United Kingdom where's he's kept a cool head despite numerous discussions and disagreements over the content. He's created some perfectly serviceable short biographies from scratch too, including Susan Baker, Susan Hanson (geographer) and Fiona Macpherson, and I fully trust him to know exactly what it takes to put things in mainspace."
331dot 68457 5.8 Yes No Yes According to co-nominator, "His content creation is respectable though it's fair to say that he has been more involved in the behind the scenes work."
Lourdes 17942 2.22 No (2nd) No Yes 1 FA, 2 FLs, 3 GAs, 7 DYKs
Uebelhoer 562 3.87 Yes Yes No 0.60 very few: 11 pages created in mainspace not yet deleted, and when RFA was started had only created 4 of these
Cameron11598 10074 7.51 Yes No No Significant number of GA credits: as nominator states, Cameron11598 has "...brought Djibouti at the Olympics to good topic status by bringing all every appearance of that country at the Olympics to GA status, and working on bringing three other countries Olympic articles to good topics." Co-nominator claims that Cameron has "...countless contributions to our content under his belt - articles such as those mentioned above (and a fair few more) which he has helped bring to GA, along with those he improves ad-hoc."

2017

[edit]
Candidate name Edit count (total, incl. deleted) Years editing First RFA? Self-nomination? Successful? Years since last block Content contributions
Muboshgu 201663 10.77 Yes Yes Yes 8.8 (24-hour block for edit warring) One FA (Derek Jeter), one FP, many GAs and FLs, and a whopping 358 DYKs(!)
Power~enwiki 11375 14 Yes Yes No According to the candidate, "Some of the "vital" articles I feel I have improved include Newspaper, Atlas, and Engineering; I've also been very present at the most contentious AP2 articles; Roy Moore and Donald Trump. Some less-prominent changes include tracking down what a Lerotse is, and adding references to pages like Fergana or Kielce Synagogue."
Joe Roe 15317 12.66 Yes No Yes One GA and many other articles created; also helped the article creator expand Barbara Robb to B-class and get it posted as a DYK. In answering question 2, candidate also noted, "...last year I started a task force for improving our coverage of women in archaeology, which we've been making steady progress on."
TonyBallioni 22618 10.01 Yes No Yes "Credited with seven good articles and 15 DYKs, TonyBallioni has a lot of experience with content building..." --MusikAnimal's co-nominator statement
Rickyc123 1000 (approx.) 0.87 Yes Yes No Created a few UFC-related articles (no GAs or FAs or anything like that, though)
Megalibrarygirl 33013 6.42 Yes No Yes 349 total articles created at time of RFA. With respect to article quality, candidate stated, "I do have a few Good Articles here [removed link to deleted section on her userpage] that I worked on with other editors. I don't have any FA, though I did have several go to DYK." Candidate also emphasized her work rescuing articles at AFD in her answer to question 2, rather than her content creation.
Headbomb 4 196622 11.39 No (4th) No No Candidate stated he is proudest of the FA Quark and the FL List of baryons.
Kostas20142 6800 (approx.) 1.15 Yes Yes No According to candidate, "In terms of content creation, I have contributed to black-necked grebe, mainly by adding the status. I have also reviewed some GA nominations."
Crboyer 17028 11.83 Yes Yes No Not very much; candidate pointed to their contribs reporting vandals at AIV.
Paul2520 7747 4.25 Yes No No Not very much; candidate responded to question #2 by stating, "I have started 29 articles so far, one of which was deleted due to notability."
Ansh666 13205 10.01 Yes No Yes Not very much (no GAs or FAs).
Robert McClenon 2 77057 12.16 No (2nd) No No Not much. As nominator himself (Alex Shih) put it, "Robert is not the strongest editor in content creation, his record as a copyeditor is more than solid."
Cullen328 47499 8.05 Yes No Yes Made "major contributions" (as he puts it) to 6 GAs
GeneralizationsAreBad 2 39134† 2.4 No (2nd) No Yes One FA and 2 GAs (the FA apparently took an especially large amount of effort).
Anarchyte 2 25584† 2.24 No (2nd) No Yes According to user themselves, "...I've written (or helped write) eight GAs, one FA, and I have 14 DYKs (though one was not nominated by me)."
Pvmoutside 95206† 10.74 Yes Yes No Over 3,600 articles created
Dane 13063*** 10.63 Yes No No As Dane himself put it in his RFA, "In terms of content work, I have created 7 articles and i'm very proud of my contributions to the Shooting of Philando Castile article..."
GoldenRing 2400 12.66 Yes Yes Yes Not much, by his own admission.
CaroleHenson 75000 6.09 Yes No No "She has created nearly 500 pages, including multiple GAs and DYKs, and has improved innumerable articles along the way." -MelanieN in co-nomination statement. Note that CaroleHenson has brought 10 articles to GA status, and created one of them (Mary Brewster Hazelton) from scratch.
SuperCarnivore591 2273 1.72 Yes Yes No 1.21 Created multiple articles, none of which were GAs or FAs; said he was proudest of creating Mario Merola (lawyer)
Amortias 27268 2.8 Yes No Yes Not much; user says his best WP contribs were anti-vandal work. Also said, during RFA, "...I have recently been advised that there is a distinct lack of articles on Suffolk Churches (an area I am familiar with geographically and ecumenically through volunteer work) and have started on a mini-spree of creation..."
Dodger67 2 78746 9.59 No (2nd) No Yes 6 (though this block seems to have been a mistake as it was undone soon afterward) A couple GA credits, active in multiple WikiProjects, and founded one (WikiProject Disability).
Primefac 2 62639 6.27 No (2nd) No Yes Not much; candidate himself says that " My best contributions to Wikipedia come from AFC and TFD."
FriyMan 1108 0.11 Yes Yes No Improved the article Kubinka
Mz7 34571 6.82 Yes No Yes According to candidate himself, "While I’m certainly not a prolific content creator, I do enjoy writing and improving articles about any topic that happens to catch my interest." He has, however, written two GAs mostly or entirely from scratch.
Cyberpower678 2 20502 5.53 No (2nd) No Yes 5.11 (not counting accidental block) Not much; one supporter said in his support statement, "The lack of content work is a concern, but I trust that Cyberpower knows what they don't know, and will act appropriately."
Ferret 21729 8.15 Yes No Yes Has brought 2 articles to GA status, rewritten parts of Edge Games, helped another editor with another article
Ealdgyth 95466*** 9.58 Yes No Yes "...this editor has a phenomenal track record with over 50 featured articles and 100 good articles..." -co-nominator statement
K6ka 81151 6.85 Yes No Yes Not many; by candidate's own admission, "I will admit that I do not have much content creation tucked under my belt."
Schwede66 104177 7.25 Yes No Yes 5 GAs, lots of DYK article creations and reviews
NinjaRobotPirate 30257 9.82 Yes No Yes "... more than 250 article creations and three Good Articles..." -Nominator statement
Onel5969 114251 7.16 Yes No No As co-nominator put it, "Onel is an accomplished content creator, with somewhere in the region of 800 article creations, including a number of Good Articles."
Mike1901 10588 11 Yes No No Only blocked once, for having a compromised account, unblocked soon afterward Created 7 articles (one of which was deleted, and another of which was a disambig), helped create Workington North railway station, working on getting Marylebone station to GA status
TheMagnificentist 4756 0.96 Yes Yes No 0.19 38 articles (C-class to disambigs)

***This is a bit too high as it includes all the edits made in the month in which they were nominated.

  • †This is a bit too low as it doesn't include any of the edits in the month in which they were nominated.

2016

[edit]
Candidate name Edit count (total, incl. deleted) Years editing First RFA? Self-nomination? Successful? Years since last block Content contributions
Ivanvector 16254 7.2 Yes No Yes 18 articles, incl. stubs/disambigs
Ad Orientem 12935 6.173 Yes No Yes 9 articles
Boson 16455 13.48 Yes No Yes 60 articles
YborCityJohn 3524 5.737 Yes Yes No 7 articles
Paul Benjamin Austin 16048 14.39 No Yes No 66 articles
Yash! 17200 (est.) 4.581 Yes No No 11 GAs, 14 DYKs, 88 articles total
Godsy 15890 (est.) 2.016 Yes Yes No 7 articles
Samtar 18250 (est.) 8.345 Yes No Yes Not much
RickinBaltimore 41307 10.44 Yes No Yes Not much
Rehman 4 18100 (est.) 8.386 No No Yes 170+ articles
Vanamonde93 24434 3.71 Yes No Yes 2.56 years (1 24-hour block for edit warring) 6 GAs, 27 DYKs
Oshwah 136849 9.63 No (2nd) No Yes Not much--one supporter said that "I'm not concerned about lack of significant content creation as there are many roles in building a free online encyclopedia."
RegistryKey 2 4174 1.87 No (2nd) No No 4 articles; 3 stubs, 1 deleted
Steel1943 74457 4.72 Yes No No Disambigs mostly
BU Rob13 47680 1 Yes No Yes 3 GAs, 39 DYKs
Jo-Jo Eumerus 17199 3.81 Yes No Yes 3 GAs, many DYKs
Checkingfax 25769 6.33 Yes No No "He works on a wide variety of articles, mainly fixing small errors and problems, but also improving prose, organization, and sourcing. ...He helped her [User:Natalie.Desautels] get the article on Michael Laucke through the GA review until it was approved, and helped her get the DYK approved. See his many comments here and Talk:Michael Laucke/GA1."
Anarchyte 14305 1.17 Yes No No According to nom statement, "Anarchyte is more of a wikignome than a heavy content contributor. Nevertheless, he has done some respectable content work, which you can see linked from his user page. In particular, he has put a lot of work into Rust (video game), and has ambitions to get it to Good Article status."
FAMASFREENODE 200 0.01 Yes Yes No Very little
Tavix 32125 9.25 Yes No Yes "Good quality article content and a few DYKs"
AustralianRupert 63321 7.33 Yes No Yes 4 FAs, 19 A-class, 57 GAs
Maile66 53877 9.33 Yes No Yes 3 FAs, 4 FLs, 4 GAs
Amakuru 28000 10.17 Yes No Yes Got Rwanda and Paul Kagame to FA status
Zppix 3000 1.58 Yes Yes No 1 major article (most of rest was reverting vandalism)
Xx Cool Guy7202 xX 195 0.01 Yes Yes No — (until after RFA) Very few
Midas02 33581 5.92 Yes No No Not very much
Widr 12764 5.08 Yes No Yes Has created some relatively short articles on Finnish people, but as he put it, his "...contributions tend to be gnome-like fixes here and there."
GeneralizationsAreBad 16000 1.00 Yes No No "...has been significantly involved in the GA-promotion of four articles..." --Nominator
NeatCoronet458 137 0.25 Yes Yes No Very few
Wikimayor 1172 6.92 Yes Yes No 15 or so articles created, also says he is proud of contributions to "Occupy Nigeria and The Future Awards".
Josef9 77 2.92 Yes Yes No Few, some articles that have been converted to redirects
Brianhe 57399 11.58 Yes No No 2 GAs and more than a dozen DYKs. Summarized here.
Peacemaker67 42856 4.25 Yes No Yes 14 months (blocked twice, most recent of which was 14 months ago). 15 featured articles and, as candidate put it, "I’ve helped to promote over a dozen Featured Articles/Lists, 40-odd Good Articles and a Good Topic, but I’m most proud of the half-dozen or so articles and lists I have created from scratch and developed to FA/FL, and those that have been TFA/TFL."
Hawkeye7 62711 10.58 No (2nd) No No According to nom statement, "he is responsible for 46 featured articles, over 200 good articles, and even more DYKs."
Pablothepenguin 409 1.67 Yes Yes No abt. 8 months (since unblocked, indef block originally imposed abt. 6 months earlier [1]) Very few, if any.

2015

[edit]
Candidate name Edit count (total, incl. deleted) Time editing* First RFA? Self-nomination? Successful? Years since last block Content contributions
78.26 34,918 6, 8 Yes No Yes Never blocked According to co-nominator, "He got Elmo Tanner to GA status, and he has created an impressive 133 articles, 37 of which have been featured at DYK. (He has 44 DYKs in total.)"
BethNaught 24,579 1, 10 Yes No Yes Never blocked Quote from candidate: "In terms of content my best work is definitely Jessie Bonstelle, which I created and brought to GA status myself. (Thanks go, of course, to the GA reviewer and to those who pointed out typos.) In addition, I have eight other DYKs, concerning either British MPs or female scientists."
Supdiop 2 <8K 8 months No Yes No about 5 weeks 19 articles created
Vanjagenije >50k 9, 5 Yes No Yes Never blocked No good or featured articles, but >190 articles created
Biblioworm 8,786 1, 3 Yes No Yes Never blocked "...I've created three GAs; I think my latest one, William G. Farrow, is the best example. It passed its GA review quickly with very few issues. I'm currently working to bring Battle of Brunanburh (a very important but, surprisingly, relatively unknown battle of Anglo-Saxon England) to GA status. I also have nine DYKs, with one currently pending at review (at the time of writing)." -Candidate
Yamaguchi先生 40000 10 years Yes Yes Yes Never blocked "I consider most of my work to fall under the category of WikiGnome, in that much of my work is not particularly characteristic or immediately visible as my time is largely spent making grammatical improvements and corrections, the removal of vandalism, and identifying WP:BLP concerns." -Candidate
Wikicology 6300 1, 5 Yes No No Never blocked 6 DYKs
Freghttrain <61 <1 month Yes Yes No Never blocked until after RFA closed Essentially none
Thine Antique Pen 61000 5, 4 Yes No No 3.5 (Once, indefinitely, unblocked 4 hours later, see answer to 3rd question [2]) "...I have brought...18 articles to Good Article status, a few list articles to Featured List status, and am still working on achieving my potential first Featured Article." (also nominated 27 articles for DYK successfully in one hook. [3])
nms642 145 <0.01 month Yes Yes No Never blocked Essentially none
Ian.thomson 37,432 9, 8 Yes No Yes One 24-hour block in 2011 for violating 3RR According to candidate, "I've either created, recreated, or almost completely rewritten Arbatel de magia veterum, Debtera, Idealism (Christian eschatology), Lesser Key of Solomon, Liber Officium Spirituum, Livre des Esperitz, Magical Treatise of Solomon, Reuben Swinburne Clymer, Shemhamphorash, and this article about some conspiracy theorist garbage."
Paine Ellsworth 88039 6, 7 Yes No No Never blocked 51 articles created (16 deleted)
Supdiop 6000+ 6 months Yes Yes No Never blocked (at the time) According to candidate, "I created a few articles, mostly geography related," also apparently has at least 1 DYK credit.
Montanabw 75000+ 9, 6 Yes No No Never blocked According to candidate, "I have created over 200 articles, have been a significant contributor to 20 featured articles, a couple dozen additional GA-class articles and recently reached the 50 DYK mark."
APerson 17000 3, 6 Yes No No Never blocked Some, but according to nominator, "...none of their articles have been through GA/FA..."
Oshwah 24000 7 Yes No No Never blocked Not very much
Happy Attack Dog 1500 1.5 Yes Yes No Never blocked Not very much
APerson 17266 2.5 Yes No No Never blocked Quote from nominator statement: "APerson is also a content contributor, albeit none of their articles have been through GA/FA..."
Wbm0158 45043 4 Yes Yes Yes Never blocked No GAs or FAs (according to WereSpielChequers)
Doniago 54000 7 Yes No No Never blocked Quote from candidate: "my best contributions have been the "little things"."
Ceradon 9912 4 No (2nd), but 1st was successful Yes No Never blocked 5 GAs, two articles at FAC (at time of RFA)
Nrwairport 680 0 Yes Yes No Blocked only after RFA closed Negligible
Cyclonebiskit 41044 7.5 No (2nd) Yes Yes Never blocked 23 FAs/FLs, 157 GAs
Liz 45809 8 Yes No Yes Never blocked Quote from candidate: "I focused on organization, that is, categories, and small editing fixes rather than content creation."
Primefac 13677 5 Yes No No Never blocked Negligible
Hexatekin 8494 2.33 Yes Yes No Never blocked Negligible
Cyphoidbomb 45554 7 No (2nd) No Yes Never blocked Negligible
Dovikap 619.5** 1 Yes Yes No Never blocked Negligible
GamerPro64 15544** 7 No (2nd) No No Never blocked 6 GAs, one FA (although some RFA !voters say he didn't write this article)
Ceradon 7276 4 Yes No Yes Never blocked 5 GAs
Cyberpower678 15262 4 Yes No No 3 years, 7 months (indef block, unblocked 3 days later) Negligible
GottaGoFast 2813 0 Yes Yes No Never blocked Negligible
Rich Farmbrough 985001** 11.33 No (2nd) No No 2 years, 3 months (1 year block)
Mdann52 26563 3.5 No (3rd) No No Never blocked Negligible with the possible exception of GA work on Oblivion (roller coaster)
Ser Amantio di Nicolao 1140141 9.5 Yes No Yes Never blocked Negligible
Voidxor 9412 10 Yes No No Never blocked
As11ley 516** 2.25 Yes Yes No Never blocked Negligible
NeilN 80657 9.75 Yes No Yes Two blocks, both accidental Described by co-nom as having a "relative lack of content contributions"
Weegeerunner 3077** 0 Yes Yes No Self-requested block No articles created
Jacob Lott 8 61 0 Yes Yes No Never blocked
TheGRVOfLightning 3387 2 Yes Yes No Never blocked
Abecedare 23025 8.5 No (2nd), but 1st was successful No Yes Accidental block Quote from candidate: "...most of my content contributions involve improving content and sourcing of articles on a more piecemeal basis, say, a few sentences, paragraphs, or a section..."
Ritchie333 32522 9.4 Yes No Yes Never blocked 41 GAs
Opabinia regalis 7164 9 No (2nd), but 1st was successful Yes Yes Never blocked
Everymorning 50899 2.25 No (2nd) Yes No Self-requested block 2 GAs
Wackslas 547 6 Yes Yes No 1 year, 3 months
Panewithholder 24 0 Yes Yes No Blocked only after RFA closed
Moosehadley 2628 7 Yes Yes No Accidental block
Jakec 16123** 2.583 No (2nd) Yes Yes Never blocked
Buggie111 10401.5** 3.3 No (2nd) No No Never blocked
Koavf 1449617** 10 No (2nd) No No 4 years, 11 months (48 hour block for edit warring)
EuroCarGT 23846 3 Yes No No Accidental block
Fenix down 22267** 5.58 Yes No Yes Never blocked
SarekOfVulcan 44510.5** 11 No (4th) Yes Yes 3 years, 2 months (21 day block for edit warring)
Cadillac000 1449** 2.33 Yes Yes No Never blocked
MelanieN 31357.5** 8.5 Yes No Yes Never blocked
Titodutta 67719 3.75 Yes No Yes Never blocked
Heythereboy 175 0 Yes Yes No Blocked only after RFA closed
Ethically Yours 4126 1.17 Yes Yes No Never blocked
RegistryKey 807.5** 0 Yes Yes No Never blocked

2014

[edit]
Candidate name Edit count Years editing* First RFA? Self-nomination? Successful?
Rcsprinter123 47000** 4 No (3rd) Yes No
Jkokavec 400 0 Yes Yes No
Sarahj2107 12800 8 Yes No Yes
Czar 32900** 9 Yes No Yes
Samwalton9 8400 3 Yes No Yes
Northamerica1000 252000 3 No (2nd) No Yes
Thomas.W 24000 8 Yes No No
I JethroBT 17500 8 Yes No Yes
Jackmcbarn 20700** 1.5 Yes No Yes
GamerPro64 13000** 6 Yes No No
Vladimirrizov2 13 0 Yes Yes No
Jacobfeliciano1 60 0 Yes Yes No
Dodger67 44900 7 Yes No No
Philg88 21500 8 Yes No Yes
Mkativerata 27500 7 No (2nd) Yes No
Armbrust 212000 6 No (3rd) No No
Solarra 25600 4.5 Yes No No
AlanM1 7900 6.5 Yes No No
Arumpostasest 200 0 Yes Yes No
StringTheory11 10600 4 Yes No Yes
A.Minkowiski 1892 0 Yes No No
Deor 74600 7.5 Yes No Yes
Grfr12345 250 0 Yes Yes No
Go Phightins! 17000 3 Yes No Yes
Picapicacuckoo 250 0 Yes Yes No
Koavf 1287900** 9 Yes No No
AbigailAbernathy 7000** 5 Yes No No
JohnSmith5000100 260** 0 Yes Yes No
Anne Delong 44000 1.5 Yes No Yes
MusikAnimal 37700 4 Yes No Yes
Randykitty 30000 1.5 Yes No Yes
Little Mountain 5 20000+ 6 Yes No Yes
harrybrowne1986 approx. 100 6 Yes Yes No

Methods

[edit]

I determined the amount of time a user had been on Wikipedia at the time of their RFA based on the date of their first edit (as determined from this tool) and the date in the signature in the nominator statement. In the case of Jakec, he was active under the account King jakob c before switching to his current account. Similarly, Liz used the account Nwjerseyliz before switching to her current account. If the nomination was accepted (which defines the start of an RFA) at least a few days closer to the end of a month than to the beginning I included that month's edit count, but if the acceptance occurred at least a few days closer to the beginning, I did not include that month's edits. Edit counts, like the date of first edits, were determined using the Edit Counter tool on XTools.

Time editing was calculated using this tool and the dates described above. The number of days was then divided by 365.25 to get the number of years.

*Time is listed in years, months, unless less than 1 year, in which case, months. Also, if # of months in addition to years is <1, only years will be included.

**These edit counts were estimated by averaging out the difference between edit counts not counting the month of the RFA and counting the month of the RFA, because the RFA did not occur very close to the end or beginning of a month and, in some cases, there was no talk page edit stats summary available.

†This user had admitted to engaging in sockpuppetry, which was why he resigned his position as an admin.

Results from 2015

[edit]
  • 59 total RFAs in 2015.
  • Overall, 21 (36%) were successful and 38 (64%) were not.
  • 22 self-nominations, 20 nominated by other users.
  • Of the self-nominations, only 5 (23%) were successful. In contrast, of the 20 RFAs in which the candidate was nominated by another user, 10 (50%) were successful.
  • 30 RFAs were first-time nominations, 12 were not.
  • Of the 12 non-first-time nominations, four (SarekOfVulcan, Abecedare, Rich Farmbrough, and Opabinia regalis) had passed RFA before. However, Rich Farmbrough (unlike the other three) was desysopped by ArbCom in 2012. [4] Of the other three, two (Abecedare and Opabinia regalis) lost their adminship status due to inactivity, while the other (SarekOfVulcan) resigned as an admin in 2013. The remaining eight had never been administrators before.
  • Also, of these 12, half were successful and half were not. The proportion of the remaining 28 that were successful was very similar (15/28 = about 54%).
  • In 2015, so far, there have been 5 users who have run for adminship who had previously been blocked (not counting self-requested or accidental blocks). Of these only 1 (SarekofVulcan) was successful.

Edit counts

[edit]
  • The average edit count of the 15 successful RFAs this year so far is just above 110,000. However, this is skewed considerably by Ser Amantio di Nicolao's edit count of over 1 million edits. Excluding his edit count, the average drops to about 36,000 edits.
  • The standard deviation of edit count among successful candidacies in 2015 is over 285,000 when including Ser Amantio di Nicolao and about 21,000 when excluding him.
  • Overall, including both 2014 and 2015 data, the mean edit count of successful RFAs is about 78,000, and the standard deviation is about 209,000.
  • The mean edit count of unsuccessful RFAs in these two years was higher than that for successful RFAs: about 96,000. The standard deviation was about 312,000.
  • Excluding Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the average edit count of successful RFAs is much lower: about 40,000.
  • With respect to the unsuccessful adminship candidacies, there were three outliers: both of Koavf's RFAs and that of Rich Farmbrough. At the time of his RFA, Rich Farmbrough had nearly a million edits, and Koavf had over a million at the time of both of his. Excluding them, the average for unsuccessful RFAs drops even more, to about 16,000.
  • With respect to median edit counts, the median edit count for successful RFAs in 2014-2015 was about 31,000, and that for unsuccessful ones during the same time period was about 6,000.

Results from 2016

[edit]
  • Avg. EC for successful RFAs: 36400
  • For unsuccessful ones that number is 18224
  • 9/19 of unsuccessful RFAs were self-noms as compared with none of the successful ones.
  • All 9 self-noms were unsuccessful compared with 16/26 of non-self-noms.
  • Three RFA candidates had been previously blocked; two of their RFAs were successful.
  • 16/19 (84%) of unsuccessful RFAs were the candidate's first, as were 14/16 (88%) of successful ones.
  • Of the 30 first-time RFAs, 14 (47%) were successful; whereas of the 5 non-first-time RFAs, 2 (40%) were successful.
  • Avg. # of years editing for successful RFAs: 7.35
  • For unsuccessful RFAs this figure was 4.38

Results from 2017

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  • Average EC for successful RFAs: 50365
  • For unsuccessful RFAs that number is 42258
  • Average # years editing for successful RFAs: 7.8
  • For unsuccessful RFAs that number is 6.9
  • Of the 21 successful RFAs in 2017, we again see a clear pattern: only 2 of them (10%) were self-noms. In contrast, 8 of the 19 unsuccessful RFAs in 2017 (42%) were self-noms.
  • Looking at this issue the other way, of the 10 self-noms, only 2 (20%; and yes, these are the same 2 as above) were successful. In contrast, of the 30 non-self-nom RFAs, 17 (57%) were successful.
  • 14 out of the 33 (42%) first-time RFAs were successful, compared with 5/7 (71%) of the RFAs by candidates who had done one before.

See also

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