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User:Mz7/48-hour hypothesis

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The 48-hour hypothesis is the proposition that only the first 48 hours of a request for adminship (RfA) are significant enough to affect the final outcome. This idea was first proposed by Bradv on IRC around 2019–2020.

Background

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On the English Wikipedia, request for adminship discussions typically last for seven days before a bureaucrat closes them. During this time, participants can vote "support", "oppose", or "neutral". If an RfA has greater than 75% support at the end of seven days,[a] then the discussion is typically closed as "successful", and if an RfA has less than 65% support, then the discussion is typically closed as "unsuccessful". RfAs with a support percentage between 65% and 75% are said to be in a "discretionary zone", where bureaucrats may determine the final outcome at their discretion, usually following a discussion called a "crat chat". A candidate may withdraw their request for adminship at any time before its conclusion.[1]

Possible explanations

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Mathematical argument

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The more participants that have already voted in an RfA, the less impact that new votes have on the support percentage. Mathematically, the second person who votes at an RfA has the ability to change the support percentage by a maximum of 50% (if there was previously 0 supports and 1 oppose, then a support vote would change the percentage from 0% to 50%). On the other hand, the hundredth voter will have much less impact: they can only move the support percentage by a maximum of 1% (and this would only happen if they opposed when there were 99 supports and 0 opposes, or supported when there were 0 supports and 99 opposes).

Analysis of past discussions

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Candidate Date of close Percentage at 48 hours Percentage at end Difference Likely result after 48 hours[b] Actual result
Whpq 2 October 2022 98.53% 95.95% -2.58% Successful Successful
ScottishFinnishRadish 21 September 2022 74.17% 71.78% -2.39% Discretionary Successful
Z1720 29 August 2022 100.00% 100.00% 0% Successful Successful
Femke 18 August 2022 98.58% 99.01% +0.43% Successful Successful
DatGuy 15 August 2022 89.47% 90.80% +1.33% Successful Successful
Shushugah 13 August 2022 54.55% 56.19%[c] +1.64% Unsuccessful Withdrawn
DanCherek 9 August 2022 100.00% 100.00% 0% Successful Successful
Tamzin 3 May 2022 98.58% 75.22% -23.36% Successful Successful
Colin M 9 April 2022 100.00% 100.00% 0% Successful Successful
Sdrqaz 25 March 2022 99.15% 97.58% -1.57% Successful Successful
Firefly 11 March 2022 100.00% 100.00% 0% Successful Successful
Modussiccandi 1 February 2022 100.00% 100.00% 0% Successful Successful
Eostrix 20 October 2021 98.99% 99.19%[c] +0.20% Successful Unsuccessful
Blablubbs 11 September 2021 98.56% 98.29% -0.27% Successful Successful
BusterD2 9 July 2021 98.21% 98.95% +0.74% Successful Successful
Trialpears 12 June 2021 100.00% 100.00% 0% Successful Successful
Vami IV 8 June 2021 87.83% 69.51%[c] -18.32% Successful Withdrawn

Notes

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Footnotes
  1. ^ Measured by where S is the number of support votes and O is the number of oppose votes.
  2. ^ This is based solely on the support percentage (i.e. >75.5% means successful; 64.5–75.5% is the discretionary zone; <64.5% means unsuccessful).
  3. ^ a b c This RfA ended before seven days had passed.
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References