from 2005 but quite relevant to current flagged-revs discussions about loosening restrictions on who can edit what.
This is a very preliminary collection of data and partial results; from a test that does not cover a carefully-selected cross-section of edits or times; with significant periodic variances that have yet to be factored out. It is slightly, but not much, better than hearsay. However, I include the raw data used wherever possible so you can decide for yourself how far to trust the interpretations; and can formulate your own vague-but-true statements based on same. If you'd like to split up a larger data-analysis along these lines, write me about it.
Data scour'd from checks through the last few thousand creations / deletions, as of 09:15 to 09:20, 5 December 2005.
Good or bad?
Hypothesis : Not counting speedy deletions,
Forcing users to create accounts / log in before creating pages has
Test : Look at 500 new pages, starting on 01:15, 3 December 2005. The first 100 created by anons are listed below. See how many were anon-created, how many survived / were merged / got cleanup tags of var kinds / were deleted.
Anon page creation was turned off at 14:00 EST, Monday 5 Dec. Comparing rates for the same time-frames before and after the switch, on Sunday and on Monday, we find the following very approximate estimates (noting that Sun/Mon edit patterns are not generally identical, and waiting on better stats from Monday 12 Dec):
summary of short-term changes:
data Page Creation[1] 14:00 - 24:00, 4 December 2005 : 1060 pages (106/hr). 45% created by IPs. 14:00 - 24:00, 5 December 2005 : 777 pages (78/hr). 0% created by IPs. Page Deletion (Article namespace only) 20:00 - 10:00, 4-5 December 2005 : 759 deletions, and 14 hrs, between them; 54/hr 20:00 - 10:00, 5-6 December 2005 : 409 deletions, and 14 hrs, between them; 30/hr User Creation 15:37, 5 December 2005 - 11:29, 6 December 2005 : 5000 users (20 hours; 250/hr), 142 blue-linked as of 11:30. 04:00, 2 December 2005 - 02:49, 4 December 2005 : 5000 users (46.8 hrs; 110/hr)
[1] 4 days out (discounting anything speedied in the intervening 4 days), around 45% of new articles were created by anons. Of these, around 80% are usable articles (the other 20% end up being deleted or merged). Most are stubs, and most do not know/conform to style guidelines.
Totals: 11 d, 7 merges, 65 other stubs (with ~15 cleanup/wikif/unsourced notices).
Anon page creation was turned off at 14:00 EST, 5 Dec. Let's see how that affected other core Wikipedia processes! All dates/times below are EST.
Very approximate estimates:
Of the last 5000 deletion-log entries (23:21, 3 December 2005 - 11:52, 6 December 2005),
Removing restores and associated deleted pairs, we have 4908 entries. The non-article deletes break down as follows:
Image: 1695 Category: 181 Template: 208 Talk: 131 User: 84 Wikipedia: 27 Image talk: 24 Category talk: 11 User talk: 10 Wikipedia talk: 1 Template talk: 3
This leaves 2500 log entries for article-namespace deletions. Let's leave two hours lag time after the switch, which both changed community dynamics/expectations, and saw a slight rise in site-visits due to the CNN spot at 15:15.
An extra 24 deletions/hr when anon could make new articles. Makes sense; they are being discouraged from adding both good and bad articles.
Finally: Investigate 100 deletions from before and after the change. Break down their origins into Anon/redshirt/blueshirt/collab.
Before the change : 14:00 back to 13:32 for 50; unusual activity (avg: 54/hr).
1-10:
Rosa Parks Peace Prize - ? - nons - 1 anon Genetically_identical - 4m+ - redir - 2 blue The_Jimmy_Timmy_Power_Hour_3 - 8x in 3 weeks - no-content about possible future episode - 4 anons & 2 blue Susannah_Wine - :30 - nons/gay - 1 anon The_drogs - 3:14 - sports/gay - 1 anon What is chromatography? - 15d - redir - 2 blue Egg (zoology) - 40d - redir - 1 anon RCAF_Statio_Mont-Joli - 15d - redir - 1 blue, (self-nom for del) Arun_venkatadri - :45 - nn bio - 1 anon Ass (disgambiguation) - 40d - redir - 1 anon, rfd Grass (disgambiguation) - 40d - redir - 1 anon, rfd
2-20:
Quigo, Inc - :25 - promo/cv - 1 anon Hippolatry - 20d - neologism - 1 blue (self-nom) Steak_Nuggets - :03 - vandalism - 1 anon Angzehornbroals - 1d - wrong name - 1 blue VENTROMEDIAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX - :05 - test - 1 anon The mycenean temple of kadmos - :09 - test - 1 anon Jeremy potter - :01/:22/:05 - vanity; 3x recreated - 1 anon Albert_Ferrer_Florit - 4d - vanity - 3 anons Kelsey is weird - :06 - gay - 1 anon Adeline dozois - 5:00 - vanity - 1 anon, 1x recreated
3-30:
Arnold Renz - :06 - joke - 1 anon List of Halloween costumes - 3m - stub-list - 1 anon Jonathan Yee - :05 - test - 1 anon Pubing - 1:50 - nonsense - 1 red Profidex - 6:30 - ad - 1 anon Nathan stradeski - :04 - nonsense - 1 anon Ijuki - 4:00 - test - 1 anon Ignition Cloth - 4:50 - nn - 1 anon Brent holmes - 3:15 - gay - 1 anon, re-creation Joel Merrick - 1:50 - test - 1 anon
4-40:
Colling, Michigan - :10 - test, blanked by creator - 1 anon Current events-preview-wikipedia,freeencyclopedia - 3:10 - test - 1 anon Manoil - :07 - gay - 1 anon American Religious Identity Survey - :05 - test - 1 anon WWCL - 3:25 - "this is a test please don't ban me :(" - 1 red Shoutwire - 0:04 - attack - 1 anon; converted by 1 blue into real art Emilíana Torrini - ? - move - 2 blue Va senators and house of representatives - 2:25 - test - 1 anon Scott matekaitis - 1:45 - vanity - 1 anon Robert Cooper (Software Engineer) - :01/:24 - vanity - 1 red, 1 anon
5-50:
Sean stevens - :01 - vanity - 1 anon Hindsight(Lad) - 50d - dup - 2 blue Quinlivitarianism - :22/1d - vanity - 2 anons, afd Ador Welding Limited - 5:36 - ad - 1 anon Murray 1 - :00 - nonsenes - 1 anon SCinet - :01/:01 - company spam? - now an art Garden Gnomes Of Doom - :12 - nn band - red Forum 168 - :10/1:20 - nn - 2 anons; now 3 anons + 1 red, on afd Spanish herbs - :12 - zealous stub-deletion - 1 anon Esher college - :04 - overzealous stub-deletion - now a redir to Esher College (stub)
These rates don't quite match the Zachte statistics; likely an indication that the sample size is too small (doesn't cover an entire day, in many cases; certainly not an entire week-cycle).
This is painful for new users; you lose your place and have to pass through many different pages... much more than a 15-second patch on the previous anon-page-creation process.
Or, at step 3 above, go to Wikipedia:Articles for creation, which has received around 3-4 requests an hour since it was set up. Compare to