I'm convinced of it from what I've read here, but can someone give the link to the study about it, along with other material? This issue has been sinking in with me, and I find it shocking. Not scandalous per se, but very surprising. I strongly doubt that the wider world is aware of this, and I think it could be a potent weapon against Wikipedia: Kids + Administrative Anarchy = The Lord of the Flies.

I'm not aware of there being a study on it. Some administrators give nothing away.

You can find a list of all wikipedia administrators here, although note there is a bias towards the more mature ones revealing their ages (and facts about themselves).

Daniel Brandt's "Hivemind" page contains a (somewhat outdated) list of administrators, many with a "Baby on Board" warning.

Information about the demographics of the English WP can be found here.
and more specifically here, this second link being much more serious.

It would seem that the average age range is between 18-49, but it's mainly white, techie, males from the Northern Hemisphere...take that as you will....the word "nerd" being probably operative here....

UV is essentially correct - you can't really make a legitimate study without verifiable info, and these folks are generally not ones to provide that about themselves.

However...

This subject, generally speaking, has been previously discussed in these threads:

Wikipedia age limits

Should a six-year-old be allowed to edit?

Problem: The age of Wikipedia "editors"

Honest Admins

That last link points to a particular post (by Nobs of all people!) on the subject of trying to extrapolate the typical age of a WP admin from the ones whose ages we knew, most of which Daniel Brandt had collected. Of course, this is 2007, so quite a few teens who passed their RfA's (or whatever) back in 2003 or 2004 are now over 21. But my guess, which is really based mostly on observation and anecdotal evidence, is that at least a third of them are still under 21, and probably at least a fifth of them are under 18.

As for the upper end of the scale, I'd have to say the over-40 admins are a very small minority - less than 10 percent, definitely. I'd put it closer to 5 percent, myself.

It's nearly impossible to determine if the average age of new admins is trending upwards or downwards - you'd think it would be upwards, but based on what I've seen, I doubt there's been much shift in either direction since the site started to really take off in late 2005.

I seem to recall being told when I first started posting that most of the admins were minors, and that there had been a study of it. I'll have to go back and check the threads.


An age range of 18-49 says nothing. It's too wide to be meaningful.

I think the page in question actually said "15" to 49, but of course, that only makes it even less meaningful!

And of course, I myself would dispute the numbers themselves. I'd put it at between 14 and 35, which is to say that between 80 and 90 percent of the admins fall into that range.

However, it may also be safe to say that a somewhat disproportionate number of the more influential and "powerful" types, such as Fred Bauder, JP Gordon, SlimVirgin, etc., are over 40.

Okay, I went and did a search and found what I had been thinking of. Someone had written that Wikipedia's editors and administrators were primarily teenagers. I questioned it, and asked for evidence. I was answered in Posts #47, #48, #56, and #58 in the same thread.

To be concise, the specific links are:

Los Angeles Chronicle

Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) Free Press

In Post #56, Disillusioned Lackey wrote, "There was a study done in 2003, Wales has quoted the age factor in many interviews, and I just posted you a few sections above." But I didn't see any links to the study itself, or to any articles where Wales has quoted the age factor. So you know, the reason I am asking is because I'd like to write a post for the "Editorials" section of this site focusing on that issue. It would help if anyone here who has links could point me to them before I write that essay.

Folks, the fact that this has been mentioned here and there doesn't mean people know about it. I sure as hell didn't know about it, and there has been little mention of the age issue in the general media. I think it's about time this got a little more attention, and the only way it'll happen is to focus attention on it. Yeah, I can do all the research myself, but it'd be easier if I didn't have to reinvent the wheel. I could use a little help.

There are mechanisms to disseminate this information to the media, but first it's got to be organized in one place. I honestly think that broad knowledge of the youth of Wikipedia's editors and administrators wouldn't just be a nail in their coffin, but would be a goddamn railroad spike in their coffin. Wikipedia might not give a rat's ass about facts, but there are enough people in the rest of the media who do.

The older admins tend to drift off in disgust, like Jmabel.

Jmabel's still popping in, but his activities are limited. He probably remains the best ever editor on WP, the number one allrounder on the site. But his disillusionment with the place was a big sign that WP had become a failure. Jmabel represents a more innocent time, when people thought WP was a bit of fun, a novelty, writing some harmless stuff on the internet, trusting others and so on.

As wikipedia expanded, it became apparent to Jmabel that despite being a supreme judge of complex issues, an excellent and knowledgeable writer on all sorts of subjects, and having worked his back off for der Jimbo's grand folly, it meant nothing "when the appallingly uncollegial notion that some tribe in which 60,000 or so edits apparently do not gain me membership has spoken" (his own words).

I'll do what I can... though I still think there's precious little data to work with out there.

You're right about the lack-of-perception problem. To some extent we're just so accustomed to the idea of teenage admins now that we don't really see it as an issue... and to be fair, people under 21 actually are the preferred-source "experts" for the articles on Pokemon and obscure emo bands and such. So the typical rejoinder from WP is likely to be that "topics are self-selecting," and that it therefore "isn't really a problem." Well, poo on them!

Most of us also don't want to be seen as being too "ageist," but if there's a misperception that WR members are mostly in the same age-range as most Wikipedians, that's something I'd be in favor of correcting. I think we tend to be a little older, maybe not by all that much, but at least 5-10 years or so. (Not that I have anything against younger folks, of course! As long as they turn off their cell phones in movie theaters, I'm just fine with 'em.)

There's a wonderful quote on that thread linked by Lackey, straight from the beaksox of Squeakbox himself. (©Jonny Cache)

Here's another quote from the same thread, this time from the eminent Dragon Flight

This is what we're dealing with here.

Yes, if the children stayed in the play area it would be fine. But Ryan Jordan didn't do that, did he? Yes, he was 24 years old, but I think if the public were to know that most of Wikipedia's key people were under the age of 25 there'd also be a reaction. Moreover, the child administrators are instrumental in not just individual articles but in setting the tone and culture of the whole shootin' match. So it's not just a matter of articles about Pokemon and emo bands. Wikipedia's editors and administrators do a whole lot more than that.

The bottom line is this: We have a bunch of people who are untrained, immature, and inexperienced, and making decisions that, given Wikipedia's prominence of late, just might have some real consequences. And they're doing it in an organization that tells them facts mean less than agreement. It's a little bit like allowing one of those "model legislatures" full of kids to actually make binding laws. Not only that but imagine if the "model legislators" had no adult advisors and were told that all that mattered was agreement among themselves.

Say what you will about our precocious and charming young achievers, but that one's not going to fly, nor should it. Neither should this little Wikipedia experiment in rule-by-teenager.


If we were to learn that Encyclopedia Britannica or The New York Times were written, edited, and managed by 16-year-olds or 18-year-olds, or 24-year-olds, something tells me that those enterprises would suffer quite a bit in the eyes of the public. Fact is that Wikipedia is being treated as if it's on a par with established sources, so it's not only fair but necessary that it be judged by the same yardstick. It would be "age-ist" not to do so. I think the time has come to turn on the lights in mom's basement and see what little Johnny's been doing on his computer down there. Oh, and one other thing: what about the child labor laws?

Yeah. Oh, and don't forget "geek".

Extremely incomplete, but better than nothing:

Birthday without year: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_by_birthday

Year without birthday: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_by_age

Some ages and birthdays are also at: http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html

Best admin list is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ysop&limit=5000

Most of the younger admins are vandal fighters, most of the current articles that are not pure cruft are written by people 21 and older.

Going through the As on the big administrator list:

- 83% of the profiles don't list an age.

Of those that gave an age:

- 67% were 25 or younger. Half of that group consisted of teenagers.

I don't consider this reliable, given that there's no way to verify anything (recall Ryan Jordan, who flatly lied about his biography and made himself appear much older than he is) and most administrators don't give an age on their profile.

Getting adminship is based on how you behave. If you behave maturely, you can get adminship no matter how young you are, and if you behave immaturely, you can be denied it no matter how old you are. This is exactly the way it should be. Wikipedia does not look at age, just as it doesn't look at degrees; it looks at performance. And practically speaking, even if this wasn't a good thing per se, there'd be no other way to manage things; a meaningful age verification system for adminship noms would be extremely difficult and would turn most people off from the process, either because of the trouble involved, because of the feeling of privacy invasion, or because they actually are underage.

Looking at the Wikimedia list:

- 54% are 25 years or younger

- 28% are teenagers


As opposed to looking at facts, ethics, training, or labor standards.


Yes, if Wikipedia required real credentials and training, and applied consistent standards, then it might have to pay people for their labor. This would leave less money for various spinoffs to siphon off the free (and shoddy) labor of children.

I just realized that I spend a bunch of time getting an age breakdown on a Wikimedia list. Can someone explain the difference between Wikimedia and Wikipedia? Are they separate groups? Daniel Brandt, please tell me that there's a substantial overlap between the two.

Wikipedia is part of Wikimedia. Most people involved in Wikimedia edit en-wikipedia, as well as/or else their own language Wikipedia or the relevant Wiktionary, Wikiquote, etc.

Most of the people on that list seem to use en-wp for their userpage, but it's such a small sample out of literally thousands and thousands of people (especially as it's self-selecting; barely anyone edits meta) who edit en-wp that it's not very useful for statistical purposes.

It all depends on whether the cohort of 624 people listed is different from the larger group. In any case, I'm really interested in this, so if anyone can cough up that 2003 study or some quotes from Jimmy Wales on the issue, I'd appreciate it.

Incidentally, I did some reading and saw that Wikimedia includes software development, which might account for a relatively larger share of them being between 25 and 34 than the (extremely limited) sample of Wikipedia administrators.

I'd guess that people on Meta are if anything older than average. They're there to do serious things, not just write fancruft. Just my guess, though.

The list used to be on en.wikipedia.org but there are few from other language wikipedias on the list so they moved it to wikimedia.org on the theory that wikimedia is a more logical place for it. The list is still over 95 percent from en.wikipedia.org. Just mouse over a user name and look at the URL in your status bar, and you can see which wiki the user is from. Wikimedia is more generic than en.wikipedia.org, but it is still overwhelmingly dominated by English speakers.

In this thread, in Post #8, I quoted Disillusioned Lackey's comment in a different thread about there supposedly having been a study in 2003 that showed a lot of children in administrative positions in Wikipedia. Supposedly, he's given interviews to that effect, as well. Daniel, do you know anything about that? I wish Disillusioned Lackey would supply the information he cited, but I'd welcome it from any other source. I'll be looking on my own, too.

Sorry, I know of no such study. My impression is that the age of most admins is unknown because they choose not to reveal it. Some admins may mention it on their user page. Sometimes when they're up for RfA they're asked how old they are. But apart from that there is no incentive to reveal their age. Higher carbon-based life forms on Wikipedia, such as stewards, trustee candidates, checkuser, arbcom, etc. now have to reveal their real name to the Foundation (but not publicly), and show that they're at least 18. This started about a year ago when Brad Patrick, then the general counsel, felt that Wikimedia Foundation needed as least this much to be better protected under Florida law. But that has never applied to plain carbon-based admins.

Then you have bots with admin privileges, and I don't know how one determines how grown-up they are. Maybe by counting ones and zeros?

Can anyone tell me why it really matters what your age is? Just so long as your contributions are terrific, why would it matter if you were a college professor or a 16-year-old Dungeons and Dragons geek? If you know how to act on Wikipedia, and know guidelines and policies, it doesn't matter.

Much of WP is not very good. Many Wikipedian can't tell the difference. WP processes
are not capable of settling these matters in a satisfactory manner.

So in a reasonable world credentials matter. Even threshold credentials like minimum age barriers.

O ye child of such innocence, Rochelle.

Here's one reason:

JzG, Kelly Martin, Tony Sidaway, Jayjg and countless others essentially went mad whilst editing wikipedia. They became so addicted and obsessed by that damn site it led them to lose all sense of perspective and reality. Now wondering in a haze of flashbacks, muttering to themselves on some corner of the web.

These people were grown adults. Teenagers are way more vulnerable.

Just as I wouldn't wish a teenager to get involved in drugs, I wince when I see teenagers get involved in the cesspit that is Der Jimbo's grand folly. At least taking drugs can be a social activity. The poor souls that have been sold into Jimbo's slavery don't even have that benefit.

I'd assume the people were already mad to begin with.


I also like how I made the Der Jimbo meme popular with my thread.

Most people aren't going to regard children and young adults as reliable, authoritative sources of infornmation, because they don't have the judgment, experience, or knowledge base that inspire confidence in what they might offer. If a kid writes an article about video games, fine. But if a kid is overseeing articles about subjects that matter to me, not so fine. I know this will bother some of the kids out there, but that's life.

That said, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the public at large would accept The Children's Encyclopedia as an authoritatve source of information. At this point, I'm seeking data on the ratio of children to adults at Wikipedia. I'll report, and the public can decide. I think I know what the public will decide, but maybe I'm wrong. Let's put the facts out there and see what happens. Would you agree that people should have the facts so they can make their own decisions?

Bless the beasts and the children?

Age is important? Yes. Wisdom comes from time learning from the people that have lived before us and the people that have spent lifetimes making mistakes and learning from same. I find very little evidence of wisdom at Wikipedia, ergo, I suspect it is run by children. On balance, children cannot be very wise. They are quite simply, too young.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia is run by children from a world with less than a 30 second attention span.
A place run by kids that believe learning to play "guitar hero" is more important than actually learning how to play a guitar.

Wikipedia represents a world without patience or wisdom, and it is also lacking leaders that are elected so as to make meaningful decisions for all of us. Such a place is a world turned toward chaos and immorality. The Wikipedia world will create a new "truth" every 30 seconds, even if it isn't the truth at all. Whatever is decided by a handful of kids to be the truth, can be put into place via "consensus." That, is the painful reality facing the "founders" of Wikipedia.

I do not blame anyone for not wanting their family or friends to be part of the largest MySpace on earth, which is essentially what Wikipedia has become. The difference between MySpace and Wikipedia is: at least MySpace has a corporate governing body that can and does have a final say in what happens to the site.

Wikipedia is not a source of reliable information in our schools, and for that, I am grateful.
Peace.

Sorry, but credentials DO matter. And so does experience. There are some very wise 15-year-olds out there, but they'll be much wiser after they live for about thirty years or so and learn about life.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing does count. Like it or not. And Wikipedia refuses to take it into account.

Let me give you an example.

Have a look at this talk page for an Opera called "La Juive" ("The Jewess")under "comings and goings" .

GretaB removed references to a fellow named Karl Leich-Gelland. His editon of "La Juive" was published by the "editions Lucie Gelland" (Lucie happens to be his daughter). GretaB called this "self-publishing and Moreschi backed her up.

that's all very fine and well, except when you happen to know that Karl Leich-Gelland is the World's expert on Halévy. His performance edition is based on the manuscript at the Paris Opera (I know, I saw him there doing the work) and is currently responsible for all of the renewed interested in this very interesting work.

The typical WP reaction is "he's self-published, he's trying to gain fame by using the opera to promote himself".

The seasoned academic knows how difficult it is to publish something, how many years of study went into this and how serious this work is. Who cares if it's his daughter who published this; this took years to do. And it's solid academic work.

However, you can only know this when you've lived through this yourself. Most 15 year olds, no matter how bright, haven't had the time to spend 20 years reconstructing a lost opera score.

So, yes, it does count. Deal with it.

Surely it would be possible to get a respectable reference to say that this edition was reliable and important.

A very quick Google search (note that it's Galland) finds plenty of evidence that the chap is a serious scholar

Of course it's possible, but the WP administration has already called this "self-publishing" and any references that would consider this important would probably be placed in the rapidly growing category of "fringe theories". Mr. Leich-Galland probably doesn't carewhat WP thinks anyway and every scholar that I know of that would have the sources to change this has been chased away.

It's hopeless. There's no point in even trying to fix this.

It sounds terrible, but I completely agree! Getting involved in drugs as a teenager teaches you a lot of things, such as business skills, business ethics, and how to look a person in the eye and lie to them. All of those things are essential life lessons.

Ok, That was a lame attempt at a joke, but honestly I do agree. Come to think of it, I can think of few readily available illegal drugs that are more reality twisting than the community of Wikipedia.

This is probably when someone replies and tells me that their 2nd cousin once took an obscure psychedelic South American root which caused him to believe he is a glass of orange juice, and therefore the said South American root is more reality twisting. But I think the analogy of Wikipedia being a dangerous reality twisting drug holds up. There needs to be some investigation into how the lives of people changed once they started heavily editing Wikipedia. Unless of course the majority of these folks just replaced one anti-social habit with another, in which case no drastic change took place. This seems likely.

WR should make some public service announcements to inform parents about the ills their child can encounter by becoming a "Wikipediaholic". The idea of a teenager wrapping him or herself up in WP saddens me. Oh well, nevermind that, time for some Jimson weed.

I'll state that I am almost 19, and started back when I was 17. But I've has so few recent contributions now that I am not sure whether I consider myself an active contributing editor. Oh, but I'm not an admin, but I have thought of running on RFA.

If you are thinking in terms of authoritative authors, then you just don't understand Wikipedia at all. Please, as a Wikipedian, I beg you: have no faith in anything we Wikipedians write just because it's sitting in an article. Look at the sources and then make an evaluation of the information. Nobody is going to tell you to have faith in the "children". Wikipedia uses a model based on references.

Reference this. On the site for four hours.

Then please tell UK minister for education Alan Johnson how people should use wikipedia. The message doesn't seem to be getting through.

Yes, but you need to know a bit about the subject to know what's a good reference, as the discussion about opera on another thread shows. I can list plenty of cases where there is incorrect information on WP with a source; the source is unreliable.

Even more than that the processes that WP uses to determine what references are appropriate and who has authority to enforce these decisions are subject to the distortions of a dysfunctional social networking environment.

WP is about saying OUR references are right; YOUR references are wrong. Even if said refernces are by established World experts, if WP hasn't heard of them, they're put into "fringe theory" and thrown out the window.

I've seen this happen over and over again...My example is only one out of many...