User:Cool3/RfA and FAs

I present the following analysis of the success of FA writers at RfA over since September 2008. I did this study by hand, so I've only used six months of data (plus this month so far). The data below shows, in my analysis, that contributions to Featured Articles are not actually highly valued by the RfA community, as only 20.2% of candidates promoted had contributed to one or more FA, and 51.6% of candidates who had written one or more FA were unsuccessful.

When NOTNOW and SNOW RfAs are excluded from the data set, the success rate of contributors who have written featured articles (48.4%) and those who have not (45.9%) is negligible.

Caveat: Please note that the number of FAs cited for each editor refers to the number as of now, not the time of his/her RfA (since the data only goes back 6 months, I imagine this would be the same in most cases). FA data refers specifically to FA nominations (which generally are representative of principle contributor, but may not always be so).

Analysis
Over the period studied, 79 out of 230 RfAs were successful (34.3%). 16 out of 33 RfAs involving an editor with at least one Featured Article were successful (48.4%). In other words, RfA authors are more likely than the average candidate to succeed at RfA, but only slightly.

Subtracting the 58 RfAs closed per WP:SNOW or WP:NOTNOW (nominations with no chance of success), leaves 172 "reasonable" nominations. Thus 79 out of 172 reasonable nominations were successful (45.9%). Thus the difference between FA contributors (48.4%) and other reasonable nominees (45.9%) is negligible.

Of the 79 administrators promoted, only 16 had contributed to an FA (20.2%) showing that contribution to featured articles is certainly not considered a requirement for adminship by the RfA community. 17 out of 151 unsuccessful candidates (11.2%) had contributed to an FA, showing a relatively high quality of unsuccessful candidate.

Data Sources
Data on RfAs taken from Successful requests for adminship/2008, Successful requests for adminship, and Unsuccessful adminship candidacies (Chronological). Data on Featured Article contributions taken from List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations. Cross-checked by hand, so mistakes are possible. Raw data available by request.

FA contributor candidates by month
U= Unsuccessful

S = Successful

April 2009
 * User:Kww: 1 article (u)
 * User:Cyclonebiskit: 2 articles (u)
 * User:Ottava Rima: 2 articles (u)

March 2009
 * User:Al Ameer son: 1 article (s)
 * User:Cool3: 1 article (u)
 * User:Ironholds: 1 article (u)
 * User:Ceranthor: 2 articles (u)
 * User:Cryptic C62:2 articles (u)

February 2009
 * User:Rootology: 1 article (s)
 * User:Backslash Forwardslash: 1 article (u)
 * User:iMatthew: 1 article (u)

January 2009
 * User:PeterSymonds: 4 articles (s)
 * User:Climie.ca: 3 articles (s)
 * User:The ed17: 2 articles (u)
 * User:Mr Tan: 1 article (u)

December 2008
 * User:GrahamColm: 4 articles (s)
 * User:Wehwalt: 6 articles (s)
 * User:Sgeureka: 3 articles (s)
 * User:Dank55: 2 articles (s)
 * User:Realist2: 2 articles (u)

November 2008
 * User:Ruslik0: 12 articles (s)
 * User:Efe: 3 articles (s)
 * User:Berig: 1 article (s)

October 2008
 * User:Lazulilasher: 1 article (s)
 * User:Thingg: 1 article (s)
 * User:Buckshot06: 2 articles (s)
 * User:Ironholds: 1 article (u)
 * User:Kww: 1 article (u)
 * User:iMatthew: 1 article (u)

September 2008:
 * User:Juliancolton: 19 articles (s)
 * User:Cirt: 2 articles (s)
 * User:Editorofthewiki: 2 articles (u)
 * User:Plasticup: 5 articles (u)
 * User:Everyking: 1 article (u)