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

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

Mathematical argument

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

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Shushugah	13 August 2022	54.55%	56.19%^[c]	+1.64%	Unsuccessful	Withdrawn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

Footnotes

^ Measured by ${\frac {S}{S+O}}$ where S is the number of support votes and O is the number of oppose votes.
^ 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).
^ ^a ^b ^c This RfA ended before seven days had passed.

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "earlyclose48" is not used in the content (see the help page).

References

^ Wikipedia:Requests for adminship § Discussion, decision, and closing procedures

[1] Measured by ${\frac {S}{S+O}}$ where S is the number of support votes and O is the number of oppose votes.

[3] 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).

[earlyclose7-4] This RfA ended before seven days had passed.

[2] Wikipedia:Requests for adminship § Discussion, decision, and closing procedures

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