Wikipedia:Draft presentation for admin reform

Trend Analyses on the decline in active admin
Numerical data from the server logs show the number of active admins has been declining since January 2008. Root cause analyses suggests the decline is primarily driven by a sharp reduction in the number of successful candidates being promoted at RfA, with a rise in the number of admins becoming inactive a secondary factor.



Why the decline is a problem
During the last decade world population  has grown by over 600 million souls and hundreds of millions more have been elevated to close to first world conditions, with the worlds total number of internet   users rocketing from  362 million in 2001 to about 1,669 million today,  a growth of over 362 %.

This adds up to a vast increase in amount of readily accessible notable knowledge being generated, and in the number of potential  editors. Growth rates appear to have levelled of in recent years, but the last 18 months have still seen the number of internet users rise by about 15%, while our active admin corps has declined by  close to 12%.

To a degree the decline in admin numbers is offset by improvements in technology and process. Yet strong evidence remains that the admin shortage is hurting the project:


 * large backlogs exist due to lack of admin attention with  queues such as  CAT:TEMP requiring 30,000 pages reviewed by admins for deletion and New histmerge list in need of 20,000 history merge fixes.


 * some of the urgent admin queues are almost always backlogged such as SD, where blatant attack pages are sometimes visible for hours with possible legal consequences.


 * Lack of administrative time to mediate the many less than clear cut disputes is possibly one of the factors relating to our poor retention rate for new editors.

While many vital admin queues are kept clear enough so the mainspace is rarely effected, this is in part only achieved by the exceptional hard work from our inner core of highly active admins. The longer the community delays in acting to relief there work load the higher the risk of further retirements. Taken together these findings suggest the need for moderate reform of the RfA process, to help  the community  replenish the ranks of our active admin corps.

Suggested Solution
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