What happened in May 2007?

I'm coming to the conclusion that the change in April 2007 was about a change in the way that new editors were treated. It may have been a change in the registration procedure or in how their first edits were treated as many others have suggested in other threads.

Looking at the study, one change is that 57 new admins were appointed in March 2007. This is the highest number in a single month apart from the period March-May 2005 when a total of 175 were appointed. Both of those periods have been highlighted as significant in the study. It might be worth looking more closely at the way this cohort was instructed and what they did in their initial period. It could be either that their actions scared off many potential new editors or that they were appointed because of some other perceived threat, which had a side effect. I'm not even sure these figures apply to the English Wiki.

March 2007 only had 31 successful RFAs, which was a fractionally below average month for RFA as far as 2007 was concerned. Also it came soon after a slight lull in December 2006 and January 2007. There were a couple of spikes in May and November, but neither was as much as double the trend for that year. en:User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_by_month