Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Reasons editors leave

Reasons editors leave

Not all reasons that editors leave can be "fixed", as many simply move onto other interests or have lifestyle changes that limit their participation. This list focuses on the reasons that can be addressed at Wikipedia. These problems, in no particular order, are within the scope of this project. Feel free to modify.

Negative behavior of other editors

• Interaction with biased, reckless editors with POV issues
• Ownership of articles by one or more editors
• Uninformed but relentless 'Randy in Boise'-type editing, with WP:OWN regularly cited to justify it, leaving editors to watch their work deteriorate
• Civil point of view promotion
• Tendentious editing. For articles that lack a significant following, it is difficult to find enough editors (particularly in a way that avoids accusations of canvassing) to establish a consensus. If a problematic editor does not respond to reasoned argument, time can be wasted trying to build a greater understanding but with no net result. Tendentious editors can ignore Wikipedia's bold, revert, discuss cycle and re-introduce their problematic edits; in cases where they are not amenable to dispute resolution mechanisms, there is no clear way to resolve the content dispute, and their edits become fixed in place.
• Sockpuppeting causing insurmountable obstacles to editing enjoyment
• Edit warring from other editors
• Personal attacks, accusations, incivility, and wikihounding, with the targets often discouraged from speaking out in case they are blamed
• Outing of personal, off-site information
• Perceptions of an anti-social atmosphere within a clique
• Regular templating of user talk pages

Negative pressures from the wider community

• Deletion, threatened deletion, and the ubiquitous tagging of articles ("nag tags")
• Frustration caused by the plethora of policies and guidelines
• Poor dispute-resolution processes
• Too many editors who focus on dispute-resolution discussions (AN/I, RfC, RfAr), as opposed to content creation; their involvement can cause requests for dispute resolution to become bogged-down and protracted
• Experience of peer review processes as confrontational and hierarchical rather than collaborative
• Claims that long-term editors are "vested contributors" in a negative sense, which suggests that the project has no respect for experienced volunteers
• Lack of a supportive community
• Creating an account only results in negative feedback, easier to edit without an account

Pressures related to admins or admin actions

• Frustration caused by bad blocks, threats of blocks, or other administrative actions, particularly against long-term editors
• Regular attacks on administrators both as individuals and as a group, leaving them unwilling to deal with anything contentious, which in turn leaves editors to cope with disruption without support
• Permanence and indelibility of the block record. Admins make bad blocks. Once an editor has a block record s/he is obliged to sport it in perpetuity. Blocks do not expire from the record, and they cannot be removed from it.

Entropy

• Failure to defend high-quality work, leaving it to deteriorate over time
• Difficulty attracting or retaining expertise
• Experienced editors leave because others do, leading to a deterioration in the quality of discourse, which in turn dissuades potentially serious editors from joining.

Personal feelings

• Boredom
• Exhaustion of patience
• Lack of recognition of contributions, or negative feedback for time spent editing in good faith
• Attempts to fight an addiction to editing

Wider perceptions

• Perception that Wikipedia has been used for political or monetary gain (e.g. the SOPA initiative, Russian trolls, and the paid editing/advocacy/COI debates)
• Perception that the Wikimedia Foundation focuses more on bringing in new editors, than on finding ways to encourage experienced editors
• Perception that involvement in Wikipedia is pointless: a bottomless pit
• Frustration that poor BLP editing continues to cause problems for living people

More data on this issue is available from the Former Contributors Survey Results.

Some information can be gleaned by looking in the retired editors list at the final edit summaries retired users left