User:Wiki-Pharaoh/Page protection research


 * Consensus at a discussion reflects the need for research to be conducted and be used as evidence to support or oppose a proposition for a change of Policy or Guideline. This page documents that research.

Title

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Abstract/Summery
The English Wikipedia has 29,072 active editors (5+ edits per month) of which there are 1,275 administrators. This means that 4.3% of the total active editors on Wikipedia are privileged with the ability to protect pages. Those in the auto-confirmed user group on Wikipedia can bypass the most basic levels of page protection. Of the 29,072 active editors, 3,040 are in the auto-confirmed user group translating to 10.4% of Wikipedia’s active editors being able to edit pages that receive the most basic level of protection. The significance of this research is that it is to discover if there are systemic practices of enforcing page protection without merit which can, at its most basic level, prevent 89.6% of active Wikipedia Editors from editing pages. The English Wikipedia’s slogan is “The encyclopaedia anyone can edit” however, if a systemic practice of protecting pages without merit is occurring it directly impedes this goal and thus it is essential that as part of a system of checks and balances, research is conducted as to what percent of total page protection is unnecessarily removing most editors’ ability to edit content. The major objective of this research is to establish if or not page protection is being used without merit and if so what percentile of Wikipedia articles and editors does it effect. The research will follow a qualitative approach, that is it will evaluate the quality of page protection requests which are granted against an objective measure of quality; That is, “does the content need to be protected to keep it safe.” The potential impact of this work is multifaceted, it can be used to inform Wikipedia policy decisions and form a part of a checks system to validate any issue of if the current protection policy is practically working or not.

Background and rationale
The research will take place on the English Wikipedia (referred to as “Wikipedia” herein), an encyclopaedia which is collaboratively edited by 26,332 active editors (excluding core editors) who contribute at least 5 edits but no more than 100 edits every month and 3,400 core editors who edit at least 100 times every month. Keeping the ship afloat are 1,276 administrators who constitute 38% of the core editors. The age demographics of Wikipedia can be categorised into five distinctive groups 17&under, 18-21 year olds, 22-29 year olds, 30-39 year olds and 40+. Per a survey by the Wikimedia foundation in 2011 13% of editors are 17&under, 14% are between 18-21, 26% 22-29, 19% 30-39 and 28% are over 40. This translates to the clear majority of Wikipedia editors being 29 and over. [to be continued…]