Page:Community Vital Signs Research Paper - Miquel Laniado Consonni.pdf/32

Table 1. A summary of RQ1 through RQ4 together with the Vital Signs we have proposed: Retention, Stability, Balance, and Special Functions. The table reports the definition of each indicator, together with a summary of the main finding from the eight communities we considered and the target values we propose to maintain a healthy community.

Research Question	Vital Sign	Indicator	Summary of Findings	Target
How do Wikipedia communities retain new members over time?	Retention	Retention rate: percentage of new editors who edit at least once 60 days after their first edit.	The retention rate is declining in every community considered, regardless of size or growth pattern.	[T1]—Retention rate: at least 3% to ensure renewal among editors; desirable to reach 5–7%.
How stable is the composition of Wikipedia communities over time?	Stability	Stability: number of active editors by the number of months they have been active in a row.	More established communities are able to engage a larger share of their editors for a long period of time (one year or more), while smaller communities show more volatility.	[T2]—Fresh editors: 30–40% of editors who where not active in the previous month. [T3]—Long-time editors: 33% of long-time editors (>12 months).
How balanced are Wikipedia communities in terms of including new members over time and maintaining the old ones?	Balance	Balance: number and percentage of very active editors by year and by generation (lustrum of the first edit).	General tendency to create an established group of very active editors from older generations of editors, that leaves more or less space to newer generations in different language editions.	[T4]—Last generation: A growing share of the last generation until occupying between 30–40% at the end of a lustrum. [T5]—First generation: At least 5–15% from the first generation (typically 2001-2005).
How are Wikipedia communities renewing their technical editors and project specialists?	Special functions	Technical editors: number of very active editors in technical namespaces (i.e., editors who performed more than 100 edits in one month in namespaces Mediawiki and Templates), broken down by year and by generation. Coordinators: number of very active editors in coordination namespaces (i.e., editors who performed more than 100 edits in one month in namespaces Wikipedia and Help), broken down by year and by generation.	General prominence of older generations, particularly the second generation (editors registered in 2006-2010). A community should not over-rely on older editors, and should attract technical editors from the younger generations. Like for very active technical editors, remarkable dominance of older generations for this kind of specialized profile.	[T6]—Very active technical editors: at least 20 users as a minimum number of very active technical editors. [T7]–Very active technical editors from the last generation: at least 30% very active technical editors from the last generation. [T8]—Very active coordinators: The group of very active coordinators should always be larger than the number of very active technical editors. [T9]—Very active coordinators proportion: there should be a minimum of 5-15% of the very active editors to guarantee there are common initiatives that involve everyone.