Wikipedia Administrative Pages Analytics/Research Questions

We understand that Wikipedia requires a certain amount of administration and governance in order to further the project's goals. To achieve Wikipedia's purpose, a wide range of administrative pages are made available in various namespaces which enumerate the various protocols and conventions created and implemented by community consensus. But, can we reach a systematic understanding of these admin pages?

We propose selecting them in order to study them. To do so, we start by identifying the characteristics that qualify them in order to reach a typology of admin pages. Admin pages are messy, but why? These aret he research questions we find useful to study the admin. pages.

Selection of Admin Pages (Types of)

1. What are the main types of admin pages?
2. What are the Wikipedia data structures and qualifiers used for administrative purposes?
3. What are the most usual Wikipedia categories / Wikidata properties employed to qualify admin pages?
4. What are the most common types of admin pages across Wikipedia language editions?
5. What is the extent of admin pages in the state of maintenance or deletion?

Once the admin pages are selected, we are able to answer a series of valuable research questions on them both at the page level (browsing the specific pages through lists and looking at their characteristics) and the Wikipedia level (looking at the general distributions of articles and basic statistics). The measurements are accessible for each Wikipedia, which allows us to compare them.

We believe that the study or the examination of Administrative Pages (admin pages) should be done and disseminated across the Wikipedia language communities with two main purposes we want to make explicit.

• Firstly, to understand the level of completeness, relevance, and popularity of these pages in the topics they deal with and in their characteristics and content gaps, and figure out the actions required to improve on them.
• Secondly, to understand the level of editing participation on these pages along with the qualities of engagement, inclusion, regularity, and recency in order to figure out which may require further processes or campaigns to encourage them.

We assume that these purposes are helpful for thriving communities and projects and that the measurement of admin pages allows us to know how to manage and improve on them. * *"To understand is to know what to do," Ludwig Wittgenstein

"To understand is to know what to do," Ludwig Wittgenstein

"You can't manage, what you can't measure," Peter Drucker We want the “Wikipedia Administrative Pages Analytics” to answer the following questions across Wikipedia language editions:

We want the “Wikipedia Administrative Pages Analytics” to answer the following questions across Wikipedia language editions:

Extent of Admin Pages

1. What is the extent (the number of articles and their percentage) of each type of admin page?
2. What is the extent (in the number of pages and percentage) of the admin pages shared across language editions, and of those specific and unique to each Wikipedia language edition?
3. What is the extent of admin pages according to the Wikipedia language edition in which they were first created?
4. What is the extent of the admin pages being orphans, i.e., they have no link coming from other pages?
5. What is the extent of each type of admin page in the number of pageviews they receive?
6. What is the extent of each type of admin page in the number of edits made on their talk pages?
7. What is the extent of each type of admin page in the number of reverts made on them?

Admin Pages (Creation and Edition) Over Time

1. Which are the types of admin pages that are created and edited over the years?
2. What is the level of discussion and disagreement (as the edits in talk pages and reverts) over time?
3. How different is the creation of a specific type of admin page (e.g., Help pages) from the edition (which includes maintenance) over the years?
4. What is the relationship between the edition/creation of Admin pages and the activity in the entire Wikipedia?
   • Is there a decline in the edition of admin pages preceding a decline in the general edition of articles?

Admin Pages (Participation and Inclusion) Over Time

1. What is the participation of the different types of editors* in the edition of admin pages and their types?
   • Is there inclusion of newcomers and diversity of editors in the edition of admin pages?
2. Is there a considerable imbalance between the number of editors and different types participating in the entire Wikipedia and in the admin pages, or in one type of them?
3. More generally, how different are the creation/edition and engagement/inclusion in admin pages in different Wikipedia language editions according to their characteristics of size (articles), the number of active editors, and geographical context?
   • Is the continued edition of help pages related to growth in other aspects (number of active editors, number of articles, etc.)?

* We divide editors into different categories:

• registered and non-registered.
• newcomers according to the time of the first edit (last 90 days, last year, last 5 years).
• admin and non-admin
• registered editor according to the year of the first edit in lustrums (2000-2005, 2006-2010, 2011-2015, 2016-2020, 2021-2025), i.e., their generation.

Page Characteristics

1. How much do admin pages (and each type) differ in terms of their state of being recently edited? (e.g., the time since the last 50, 5, or 1 edit)?
2. How much do admin pages (and each type) differ in terms of the number of edits made last month and by different types of editors?
3. How much do admin pages (and each type) differ in terms of the number of months (in a row and in total) they have been edited and non-edited?
4. How much do admin pages (and each type) differ in terms of the number and percentage of days they have been edited since they were created?
5. How much do admin pages (and each type) differ in terms of the number of reverts and edits on the talk page?
6. How much do admin pages (and each type) differ in terms of the dimensions of completeness, relevance, and popularity?*

The following are some useful metrics to explain these dimensions: completeness (number of Bytes, number of outlinks), relevance (number of inlinks, number of interwiki links, number of pages in sister projects across languages), popularity (number of pageviews).

Admin Pages Gaps and Completeness

• Which are the "top pages" according to one dimension (e.g., completeness, relevance, popularity, activity, inclusion, etc.) and of one specific admin page type (e.g., Policy Pages, Help Pages, etc.) that exist in a Wikipedia language edition (e.g., English) but do not exist in another one (e.g., French Wikipedia), thus creating a gap?
• Which admin pages do exist in one Wikipedia language edition (e.g., Italian) but are more complete in another language?

Participation and Completeness Red Flags

• Which are the admin pages that present one or more "red flags"* and thus require editors' attention/maintenance?

* We define a "Red Flag” in an admin page when a page has a value for a ratio that is much higher or lower than the other pages and thus calls for editor attention. We compute ratios between the different dimensions and their metrics. For example: completeness-popularity (number of Bytes/number of pageviews in the last month), activity-relevance (number of edits last month/number of inlinks), activity-disagreement (number of edits/number of reverts), or recency-popularity (number of days since the last 5 edits were made/number of pageviews in the last month).

Real-Time

• Which are the admin pages that are being edited (recent changes) in the last 24 hours and of which type?

Research Questions (Summary)

1. What are the main types of admin pages?
2. How have the admin pages been created and edited over time?
3. How has the edition of the admin pages engaged and included different types of editors to participate?
4. How much do admin pages different in terms of completeness, relevance, popularity, editing regularity, editing conflict, and recency?
5. Which are the most valuable admin pages that exist in one Wikipedia but do not exist in another one, thus creating a gap?
6. Which are the admin pages that exist in one Wikipedia but are more complete in another?
7. Which are the admin pages that present one or more “red flags”, and thus require editors’ attention/maintenance?
8. Which are the admin pages that are being edited (recent changes) in the last 24 hours and of which type?