MyWiki:WikiProject Reforming Wikipedia/Administrators' noticeboard reform
Wikipedia's problem with retaining editors is well-known and easily demonstrable though statistics. Consider, for instance, the fact that of all users who have edited Wikipedia, about 80% failed to reach even 10 edits, and 97% failed to reach 100. The official active count reveals that Wikipedia's survival is, in fact, mostly dependent on a small group of about 3,000 editors. Even more disturbingly, the page clearly shows that, even though Wikipedia's popularity has greatly increased over the past several years (it is currently 7th in the world popularity rankings), the number of active editors has mostly stagnated and has even decreased at times. The trend should be more editors with increased popularity, not less editors with increased popularity.
But why do editors leave Wikipedia? The answers can largely be found in this survey, where we can see that the three top reasons for "hating to contribute" involve perceived hostility of some sort. In addition, WikiProject Editor Retention compiled a page full of "reasons given for leaving Wikipedia", and a large majority of the statement included complaints of hostility. If Wikipedia is to survive and improve, it must increase its number of active editors. Many of the editors that Wikipedia depends on today are from the early period of Wikipedia's existence, and in a few years these users are bound to retire. What will happen if we do not adequately replace these users?
Although far from being the only cause of the problem, we can begin making the editing environment more friendly by reforming the adminstrators' noticeboards. The "reasons for hating to contribute survey" showed that a healthy one-third of respondents were discouraged from editing because of noticeboard arguments. AN/ANI is widely acknowledged to be a breeding ground for hostility and incivility; it is frequently ridiculed as a kangaroo court, the home of the "lynching mob", etc. Many humorously titled pages have been redirected to it. But although many realize the problem, no one has, as of yet, made any serious attempts to solve it.