Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 10

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Glad about something

I am glad that if you type Wikipedia: List of Wikipedians by edit count you get redirected here. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Size/server?

Apologies if I've missed a similar discussion, but considering that people are talking about shaving a few characters off each entry to save server load, are the links to user pages really necessary? I know in wiki markup it's not a huge number of extra characters, but the actual html that has to be generated and served by the server is much bigger. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits#Further_expansion was the discussion, plus some talk on MZM's page. Having usernames of active editors clickable was something of a compromise, it gives the information as to who is still active as well as making some of them clickable. I was one of those who was unenthusiastic about that change, but I've started to use it to look at editors who have high edit counts but no userrights, I've already appointed one rollbacker and I suspect a trawl would find many more overlooked vandalfighters. So I think it serves some purpose, if people want to change it my preference would be to go from 1 edit in the last 30 days to something less active such as 10 edits in the last 7 days, and/or to remove the piping. But I'm very much on the side of preferring a longer if plainer list. ϢereSpielChequers 13:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Ah, thanks, I'll go read that. My feelings are similar - I'd much rather see a 10,000 list with fewer links than a 6,000 list with more, as I think we should be aiming to make this as inclusive as possible in order to provide as much incentive as we can to relative newcomers -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
What about a 5,000 list with both? 7,000 just seems odd. Lugnuts (talk) 14:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Well it was 4,000 for a long time which is just as arbitrary. I'm hoping that we can extend this further, either by abbreviation or by the general increase in IT capacity. One option we have is to abbreviate the userrights to 2 digit codes and add a key as a separate section. Does anyone have strong objections to that? ϢereSpielChequers 14:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, we should be aiming to make it as long as possible. Having read the discussion above, I think showing userrights is more valuable than having user page links, so I'd rather compromise on the latter than the former if we have to. I also like the idea of a 2-digit code with a key. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:32, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Apparently there were unrelated IT problems on the site at the time when we briefly tried taking the list to 10,000 editors. I still think we shouldn't go to 10,000 without compressing the files somewhat, as we would probably create one of the largest pages on the pedia - it certainly takes time to load on a fast UK home broadband. But I'm no longer worrying that we might have caused some of those server problems last week. ϢereSpielChequers 21:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
I've now abbreviated the codes and extended this to 8,000 for about the same number of bytes. ϢereSpielChequers 21:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The list is too long. I know credit where credit is due and all, but perhaps we could do one page with 1 - 5000 and another page with 5001-10,000 (or 1 - 4K and 4K+1 - 8K) and then have them link from one to another. This will reduce loading time and make it so that the nav bar for the page is more than a speck. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Any reason we haven't done this yet? SellymeTalk 13:12, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
Well mainly that no one else supported the change, though since Sven's comment I haven't extended the list further. Personally I don't have a problem with the idea that this would be one of our slower pages to load, it is mainly of interest to the more active editors who are or hope to be on the list and they will usually have reasonably quick connections. But if people are concerned I'd suggest waiting till the Virginia data centre is live, that centre is designed to be closer to an Internet hub and hopefully we will see a lot of things get faster. ϢereSpielChequers 07:06, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
It's not due to bandwidth issues, it's RAM problems. 5,000 seems like a reasonable page size, and having a 5,001-10,000 secondary page would expand the list to what we did have at one stage, with none of the page-load issues. SellymeTalk 13:14, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
Sorry you lost me on the RAM issues bit, can you give me an explanation as to how that limits things? I understand how larger pages take longer to download based on the speed of your Internet connection - but I've no concept of the implications of Random Access Memory on pageloading (and I have read the article and think I understand large parts of it). ϢereSpielChequers 06:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
About 80% of computers today run a 32-bit Operating System, meaning they can only run 2.9GB of RAM. A lot of computers such as those in schools still use only 1GB, at best. RAM allows a computer to store something locally, for instance a Word document you're in the middle of typing, or an webpage you loaded. At any one time, simple background tasks use over 600MB of RAM, and a browser such as IE8 (The most common browser) uses 300MB with just one google tab open. This means that if any user on a computer with 1GB RAM opened a large page or file, the computer would crash. For instance, to show this has nothing to do with an internet connection, save this page to a USB and run it on an old computer. Chances are it'll take a minute or more to open, even though there's actually a physical copy.


Splitting this page up into two pages of 5,000 users would be far better than having one page of 10,000. SellymeTalk 07:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
The page is currently 22k, with all the transclusions it gets to half a mb, but from the sound of how you describe RAM we could move from 8,000 users to 80,000 without using even 10mb or 1% of a basic PCs RAM (though for bandwidth reasons I'd suggest keeping this well below 1mb). Or does page display user more RAM than the filesize? In any event I'd be reluctant to go for some sort of first and second division system. But if people want a faster to load version we could have a shortlist for those on dialup or other slow connections and a full list for the rest. ϢereSpielChequers 08:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, page display does use more RAM than you'd expect. 1GB of RAM doesn't mean the computer could hold 1GB of text. In reality, the amount of RAM required for this page alone is closer to 95MB, according to tests I did in Chrome, which is a very light-weight browser. In Firefox it's about 115MB, and I bet it'd be near 150MB in IE8. I'm not suggesting more than two pages, as beyond that increases will be mostly unneeded, and when we reach the point where it is needed, hardware will have vastly improved. Two pages with 5k users for now is what I believe is optimal, and possibly bumping up to 6k each in the future, as needed, instead of creating more and more pages. SellymeTalk 09:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Could someone update this page, please? --Meno25 (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Updating

How often does the list update? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cherryguy93 (talkcontribs) 17:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Every week, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AList_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits%2FAge&action=history. 117Avenue (talk) 22:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Forced apology and associated items

Regarding the edit war that seems to be spawning, see this thread for an explanation of why I am allowed (or supposed) to manually edit the list. Trust me, I hate it. I wish my edit count could be correctly updated by other users. You think I think this is fun? That I think it’s vandalism? I don’t think vandalism’s fun. I’m not a flippin vandal. I’m just an idiot who ran into some problems during a username change, okay? At the end of the thread I made a statement: I see how complicated and demanding this fix would be; I'm not an admin or a "super-contributing" user in any way so I'll just stick with inserting my username. It isn't too much work, and I'll refrain from commenting out curse words.No one objected. I figured they agreed, right? And the users that chatted with me about that a few months ago were certainly more accomodating and courteous than the bureaucrats I’m dealing with right now (attempting to maintain civility, no names mentioned, though if they got any sense they’re gonna have to reply. So I’ve been doing that for a while, and nobody’s been reverting my edits – SUPPOSEDLY because there’s been an explanation why. Since manually editing results in discrepancies, e.g. removing the goddamn User:Shannon1 (usurped3) which doesn’t exist, creates a missing space. In addition, the recent addition of users ranked lower than 5000 also added a faulty edit count for me to the page, which was the final straw that pissed me off. As if I didn’t have enough to maintain already. Figuring that, I decided to add a less than flamboyant note to the top of the page. Go ahead, block me for 3RR. I might have reached the limit. But just so you admins and bureaucrats know, please don’t block me for too long cause I have an active FAC going on, and I don’t want to fail it again. Shannon+º! 06:43, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

So your count comes out wrong in the list - but who cares? It's just there for a bit of fun and encouragement and is no big deal at all, and it really doesn't matter if some come out wrong. So why not simply forget it and just get on with all the good article work you do? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:56, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, of course the wall of text rule. I totally forgot. The problem here is that since the count is split between myself (about 30%), the usurped3 account (~65-70%) and probably at least one other temporary account created as a result of the usurpation, who knows if there's other technical problems associated with my account, it seriously worries me. Besides whenever I go to preferences I'm reminded of the sordid fact that I'm credited with a third the edits I have. I mean, if I only had 500 edits that'd be fine, but I have 18,000. And that was a lot of work I done. I think. Additionally being continually reverted makes me feel like a vandal which I'm completely not. I really wish this problem could be fixed but considering it can't may I at least be allowed to fill in my edit count on the list each Wednesday? Shannon+º! 07:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Sure, if you think your edit count in a list that's just for a bit of fun is important, that's fine - I'm just suggesting that it really isn't important for most people. The vast majority of editors never look at the list and really don't care what it says, and there's no "official credit" aspect to it at all. In any situation where your edit count is important - eg if you should run for admin - all you'd have to do is explain that it's split across two. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:15, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Please stop This page explains how the list is generated—if you edit it by hand, you defeat the purpose. —Justin (koavf)TCM☯ 07:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, seriously, did you not see what I quoted above? It explains why I can manually update this. All you’re trying to do is ignore the damn problem while the easiest solution is just to let me tweak the 3 spots on this table of 8000 editors to avoid a bit of chagrin. Hey, I’m not getting paid here, and I’m not asking for a pay raise. I’m not asking anything except to manually update this list, which you explicitly said is not important, and thus the shifts of large amounts of rankings caused by that would naturally require some fine print on the top to explain, just in case someone does scroll down and see places where the ranking skips or where something is inserted. As you said, this list is not very important to most users. So why is it so important to you that a user with 18748 edits that is credited with 5960 edits shouldn’t be allowed to edit the page? How do you know I’m the only one? Gosh. And by the way, thanks a lot for not undoing my last edit to the list. Shannon+º! 16:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Hey, I was just trying to offer a few friendly thoughts of my own - you know, in a "chat" kind of way - and suggesting why *I* don't think the list is very important. I never said a word about whether or not you can edit it, and I really don't care whether you do or not, so I really don't understand why you're getting so angry with me. I have never reverted any edits to the list and have no intention of doing so - are you possibly confusing me with someone else, perhaps? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I can see why we don't want people coming here and changing their numbers. Not just forgery, or even changed accounts, but what about all the edits people make while unknowingly logged out? That used to happen to me all the time, and would require checkuser to verify (unless they've moved, as I have, in which case you'd have to take their word for it). But in this case we have a user who's not being given credit due to as easily verified technical malfunction. There can't be many cases like it. If s/he wants to correct the page manually, I don't have an objection, though IMO we don't need a warning in the lede. Maybe just placeholders noting they've been combined into a name above? — kwami (talk) 16:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection to manual updates in cases like this either - though I agree we don't need an explanation in the lead. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
@User:Kwamikagami: Yeah, that's what I did. I input a 4 colspan row in both the User:Shannon1 (usurped3) and the row giving the incorrect edit count for my username mentioning that those have been manually combined into a placeholder above. But in addition to the edits I made to the lead (which I understand might have been a bit extreme) they also got reverted. Shannon+º! 17:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
@User:Boing! said Zebedee: Sorry about that misunderstanding – you were right, I wasn’t getting angry at you, I was unhappy with the people who reverted my edits. (Again and again. Anyone remember 3RR in here?) I still won't name names. Shannon+º! 17:13, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
No worries :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree that the explanation of the bug impacting Shannon is not appropriate for the lede. How about adding it in the Caveats section instead? GoingBatty (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I think it's in there. Though I really think it should be slightly modified. "Not always reliable" doesn't sound accurate enough. Shannon+º! 01:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Updated counts?

I'm curious to see what the latest counts look like. I suspect we may have a bot account with over five million edits now, though I have no way to be sure. --Cyde Weys 14:44, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Wait two days and you'll know. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:21, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
No, he wants the list of bots, a separate article. SellymeTalk 00:43, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but he's asking here because Wikipedia talk:List of bots by number of edits redirects to this talk page. Jenks24 (talk) 00:51, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:List of bots by number of edits states "List generated from data from February 19, 2009." Is it really going to be updated in two days? Also is Wikipedia:List of bots by number of edits/latest a current list, or a list from 20 January 2008? GoingBatty (talk) 00:56, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia:List of bots by number of edits will not be updated in two days and, no, Wikipedia:List of bots by number of edits/latest is not current (it has Smackbot at a little over 1,000,000 edits when it actually has >3,000,000). To answer Cyde's original question, the current bot count (updated yesterday) can be seen at meta:User:Emijrp/List of Wikimedians by number of edits (bots included) (and, no, there are no bots over five million). Jenks24 (talk) 01:08, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
That list doesn't appear to include enwiki data. --Closedmouth (talk) 08:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
You are correct. For some reason en.wiki bots were removed from the list today, shortly after I posted the link to it. See this revision (from yesterday) which does show en.wiki bots. Jenks24 (talk) 08:20, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the links everyone. That is what I was looking for. So we don't even have a bot past the 4 million barrier, let alone the 5 million barrier. Cydebot is going to keep cruising along doing the same things he's always done, but barring some massive new tasks, even 4 million is going to take a long time. My bet is on SmackBot. --Cyde Weys 01:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll take your bet, and I believe that I'll win - SmackBot (talk · contribs) is no longer active. Rich is now using Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs) instead (there was just three minutes between the final SmackBot edit and the first Helpful Pixie Bot edit). --Redrose64 (talk) 12:42, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Why does this list say "Ad" behind my name? I am User:Debresser,# 365 in this list as of today. But I am no admin. Would like to be one, though. Debresser (talk) 17:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I see it saying "AP, Rv, Ro" next to your name for Autopatrolled, Reviewer, and Rollbacker, but I don't see "Ad". Jenks24 (talk) 18:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
The key is at the top of the list, but I don't see "Ad" either. 117Avenue (talk) 23:05, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

"deleted edits have been included in recent versions"

This doesn't appear to be true. Marcus Qwertyus 02:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)##

Only six changes since July 8

It appears that there have only been eight changes to this list since July 8. Surely, the list will have changed more frequently than that since then? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean... it's updated weekly, at least the portion covering positions 1-1000 (the one upon which I appear) is, see here. I expect the other blocks of 1000 are also updated weekly too. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion at User_talk:MZMcBride#Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits.2F1.E2.80.931000 seems to explain why the list isn't being updated lately. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Can some one please explain a comment on this page?

Can some one please explain why this list has a heading stating that this list should be taking with a large grain of salt? I found that rather imprecise, and would appreciate an explanation explaining why this comment should be taken with a large grain of salt. Thank you in advance for any feedback here, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

It's saying that you shouldn't measure a Wikipedian's contribution to the project by the number of edits they have made. So let's look at two extreme examples:
  1. An editor may start a new article as a document on his machine offline, using a word processor. Let's say it takes him ten hours before he's happy with it before he pastes the whole thing into Wikipedia. It has taken him ten hours to do ONE edit.
  2. Meanwhile another user has spent ten hours using Wikipedia:Twinkle to welcome new users. In ten hours he welcomes FIVE HUNDRED new users.
Is it fair to say that user 2 has been 500 times more productive than user 1? No. And that is why a pinch of salt is needed. --bodnotbod (talk) 11:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I'd say that's an abuse of the Twinkle tool too... Lugnuts (talk) 11:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it an abuse of Twinkle. That is kind of what it's meant for. SellymeTalk 00:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
I would agree that its what its for but it seems like it would be more efficient to simply let a bot do the general canned greeting and let the humans do the more intellectual work. That's just my opinion though as someone who also scores very high on the edits list. BTW I think most of the top 20 or so use AWB along with or instead of twinkle. The gist of the discussion is on point though and that is that you cannot base a users status solely on volume of edits. It takes a lot longer to write an article than to edit one with twinkle or AWB and there are a lot of users who do things with Article reviews, image restoration, administrative tasks, etc that take a long time to do one edit. This is a metric but its not the only one. --Kumioko (talk) 00:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


Having done an edit count quite often for my own edits, I can really see now why this has to be taken with a large pinch of salt. I have long had "48" as the number of my deleted edits, but I am quite sure that the number of my deleted edits is somewhat more than that, especially as I have had couple of my edits deleted today (Wednesday 14 December 2011) yet I am still getting that number! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

According to Special:DeletedContributions/ACEOREVIVED, it's still 48. The deleted edit count is not edits that were reverted (those remain in your live edits), but edits that you made to pages which are themselves now deleted. The most recent of these are two that you made to Category:Simply Red Members on 16 August 2011; this page was deleted on 18 August 2011. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:47, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians or list of English language Wikipedians...

Does this list list all Wikipedians, irrespective of project, or does it only list those on this project? I don't really care if my name is on the list..just asking to satisfy my own curiosity. On en: I have made almost 6,000 edits. On gv: I have made over 23,000 edits. On ga: I have made over 1,300 edits. All in all, I have made over 30,000 edits, and yet am not on the list. Perhaps, if it is for en: only editors this should be specified? Mac Tíre Cowag 19:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

As the introduction states, "This is a list of Wikipedians ordered by number of edits in the English language Wikipedia.", i.e. it counts your contributions listed at en:Special:Contributions/MacTire02. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I never said all 30,000+ edits were smart ones....No idea how I didn't see that! Mac Tíre Cowag 19:54, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
There is a list on meta at meta:User:Emijrp/List of Wikimedians by number of edits but it doesn't combine counts made on different projects. ϢereSpielChequers 11:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

List of Bots by Number of Edits

I have a question regarding the Wikipedia:List of bots by number of edits, whose Discussion page redirects to here. It appears that link are missing to many of the bots in the list, so I'm just wondering why, and if this is something I can help with. I am currently reading through as much "bot" stuff on Wikipedia as I can, including learning about the history and function of different bots (it's my dissertation topic). I can't seem to determine who generally maintains this list of bots by edit, so any info would be great (it also appears that Wikipedia:Bots/Status does not have some of the historical bots from back in 2004, which I'd like to help with as well). Thanks in advance. UOJComm (talk) 04:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I would expect that, as with Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, the ones with links to the user page are the ones listed at Special:ActiveUsers; on that list the cutoff is 30 days. For example, SmackBot (talk · contribs) hasn't edited since 14:02, 12 July 2011 (its duties having been taken over by Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs) whose first edit was 14:05, 12 July 2011, i.e. just three minutes later), so SmackBot is shown in black.
This was discussed at Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 9#Active or not, Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 9#Further expansion, Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 9#The Thing That Should Not Be. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:57, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


How often this is updated

Am I still in the top 600? OMG! I really thought I had started to taper off a few years ago. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It is updated weekly by a bot. I suspect you need about a 100 edits a week to keep your position in 546th place. ϢereSpielChequers 21:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Normally weekly, but occasionally a week is skipped (e.g. 23 Nov 2011, 7 Dec 2011). --Redrose64 (talk) 17:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Counting edits

This list credits me with 541 edits in the last 7 days, but looking at my contributions history I count only 353, a discrepancy of 188 edits. Also, the entry on this list used to match "preferences" count of edits, but today it's 188 higher than my preferences showed first thing this morning. Has the list found a horde of edits from long ago that I'm suddenly credited with, or is this a discrepancy? --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

  • I have the same problem, about 200 extra edits. It must be malfunctioning.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Ditto. I'm credited with 161 more edits than I ought to have according to X!'s Edit Counter. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Edit count according to X!'s counter as of 04:52 UTC, 01 Feb 2012 (live edits): 48,490; (incl. deleted): 48,866; according to Special:Preferences: 48,539; report figure: 48,846. They've never tallied, as far as I recall. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Second week in a row now that I have in the neighborhood of 160 extra edits here beyond my 5400 or so—before then, the totals were closely matched, and the differences could be accounted for by the evening's edits. (Preferences are only six fewer than X!'s incl. deleted for me, and my account is less than a year old.) BlueMoonset (talk) 06:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
This week NOE still gave me 188 more edits in total than preferences. NOE shows 246 edits for the week and this included deleted edits - contributions shows 241 and I tagged some pages for speedy, so that's consistent. It doesn't appear to be an increasing discrepancy, so far. I'd be more concerned if the difference continued to incrase with time, as long as the incremental changes are consistent, the exact number isn't critical. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Just out of curiousity, how does this page work? Does it self-update from time to time or are editors applying a method to induce modifications? The history gives no indication of the latter but I am interested because I only recently encountered this page and it is useful since the personal Edit Count option seems to have been removed (I know the information is in Preferences but that does not give you everything the Edit Count did). Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 04:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

User:BernsteinBot updates Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000 and similar pages on a weekly basis. GoingBatty (talk) 06:00, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
And the Edit Count page is available once again; it's being hosted by another account at toolserver. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Great. Thank you both of you. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 19:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Third week with an extra 161 or so edits credited. It takes me most of a week to catch up to the list, and then it raises the bar again... BlueMoonset (talk) 05:00, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

So? Lugnuts (talk) 08:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Maybe someone will be able to fix this? The cause might be a problem with the database, which could have less benign effects elsewhere... BlueMoonset (talk) 09:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Guys, don't take it so heavy! See it as a game... Night of the Big Wind talk 15:19, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

A game for which there is a WP:HIGHSCORE to be pursued... --Redrose64 (talk) 18:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I have the same questions as the other editors above. This list gives me credit for 69,401, while my preferences only has 69,124 right now, considerably after this list was done. Perhaps I should not be concerned, but I do post the number of edits, and my standing on this list, on my user page. --DThomsen8 (talk) 22:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
The number differences you are seeing are because the data is coming from 2 different places. Both numbers are correct but are different points in time. Think of it as one being the live number and the other is more of a snapshot number. When the snapshot gets updated, the numbers may change. Its not a big worry though.--Kumioko (talk) 00:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
With all due respect, I don't see how that's possible. The numbers were consistent between My Preferences, the X! edit count, and this list up until the beginning of February, at which point a discrepancy was introduced, and that discrepancy has remained in effect for four lists: the lists are giving a consistent extra number of edits for a user over the other two (real-time) counts. You're right, though: it's not a big worry if this list is giving inflated counts, since it's consistent in doing so. The data for this list may well have some duplicates that aren't getting weeded out. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
+1 Lugnuts (talk) 10:47, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Fans of the X! edit counter (now at [1] may already have noticed it hasn't been updated for several days this week. It could be many more days yet, according to the discussion at the Village Pump [2]. Doing anything 500 million times takes a long time. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Associated with that is the message at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#A little chronic, which mentions a data corruption a few weeks ago. This suggests to me that there really was a fault either in this report, in X!'s edit counter, or both. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:55, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing this issue was fixed, as my number of edits went down. GoingBatty (talk) 17:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily; the report was run from old data - that is, although Toolserver was finally being updated, the updating hadn't yet caught up with the real world. This morning's run was published at 04:54 UTC, at a time when the replag was still at around the 200,000 second mark (approx 2 days 7 hours 30 min). So, the edit counts published today are really those from evening of Sunday 1 April (UTC). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:21, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
However, since what X!'s counter was showing me last night was remarkably close to the edit counts posted by the bot run last night. I think there's a pretty good chance that the discrepancy introduced at the beginning of February has been fixed by the recent replication. We'll know for sure next week. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:49, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
And now what the NOE list says for me for April 2 matches what I wrote down from "Preferences" that morning - no more 188 count difference. Who knew we were going to see 2-week replags shortly afterward? --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:56, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks to whoever did the fix. ϢereSpielChequers 22:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Slight problem

I recently passed 7,000 edits, both according to X! and according to my preferences. But as far as I can see, my name is not there on the list (not of top 5,000 obviously but I'm talking about top 7,000 editors). To save some time, according to X! I have 7,284 edits (including deleted ones) and according to my preferences I have 7,260 edits. By that I should either be 7,001 or 7,018. Am I missing something? Or do I have to wait a while? Regards, ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 16:07, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

You're in a secondary list, Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/6001–7000, at pos. 6972. You need to climb above pos. 5001 to get into the main list; this means another 3000 edits or so. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Oh, okay thanks. Didn't see that because I thought I had lesser number of edits. Strange. Anyways thanks a lot :). ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 16:48, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggest explaining what it means to have a user name in black /linkless

(Unless I missed it?) Suggest explaining what it means to have a user name in black /linkless. I tried figuring it out....seems that they are a mix of current and retired editors. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

It's "editors with more than 30 days since the last edit" and if you were as obsessed with editcountitis as I am, you'd have worked this out a while ago. Always fun to check out these user IDs and try to figure out if they got banned, or just got bored; sometimes there's some visible drawh-ma associated with their last edits, and sometimes the trail just peters out with no explanation. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Well, in the first 500 I see 69 inactive users, and if somebody would investigate if there are obvious reasons they are not active (I see for instance that at least one of them is community banned), it could become a useful essay from which we could learn someting about editor retention. Another interesting question is what percentage of the edits is in the article space, and how it evolves with time.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:50, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I put that info on the project page. North8000 (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Editor retention is one of the favorite items for omphaloskepsis here but I imagine the leaders of the project are much more concerned with retaining the single-digit-count editors than those with tens of thousands of edits; after a certain point, you've learned all you're going to learn, and you find something else to spend your free time on. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:41, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
This, or a very similar question, has been asked before - see #List of Bots by Number of Edits above for example (and the archive threads linked from that) - if the user is listed at Special:ActiveUsers they're linked, otherwise not. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:07, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Strange figure of 8, 000

It seems somewhat strange to stop this at 8, 000 - would it not be a more neat figure to go on to the top 10,000? All right, I know that as I have currently made 3, 707 live edits to Wikipedia (3, 755 if you count deleted ones) it might be a while before I reach the current list, but I might or might just about make it to the Top 10, 000! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:03, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#List - the next two thousands are available at 9,000 and 10,000. I seem to recall a previous discussion on this matter (not necessarily on this talk page) where it was determined that their inclusion would cause the page to take inordinately long to render and load. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
If I recall it use to be only 4000. Then it was 5000. Now 8000. Al because people keep coming and asking to keep extending. Really I don't care, but there has to be a cut off somewhere.--JOJ Hutton 17:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
That, at least, is confirmed by the archives, see Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 9#5,000?. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
The page takes a long time to load now, because its so long. In my opinion, it should go back to 5000. People with slower servers may not be able to handle a page so long.--JOJ Hutton 17:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree that the page takes too long to load. How about we split the list into two pages? This page can go to 5,000 and Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits (part II) can have 5,000 to 10,000. I know we don't normally split up pages, but this isn't in articles space so I don't think it matters. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, 5,000 should be the cut-off. Lugnuts (talk) 18:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Split sounds like the solution although I do enjoy the 5 minute power naps while waiting for the page to load.Buster Seven Talk 20:12, 17 November 2011 (UTC)


Thank you for that - yes, 5,000 does sound a more round figure than 8, 000. I do recall that this article was at one time shorter than it is now - if one clicked on the history, one could find out when it first got extended to 8,000. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:39, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

So, I would still have to reach 4,500 edits before I get into the Top 10, 000! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

It was extended to 6,000 on 20 April 2011, 7,000 on 26 April 2011, and 8,000 on 4 May 2011, all by WereSpielChequers. I too think 5,000 is an acceptable cutoff. But I don't think more subpages need to be created, the existing ones can be linked in the #List lead, like they are now. 117Avenue (talk) 23:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
WP:HIGHSCORE --Redrose64 (talk) 09:39, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I think we should limit it to 5000 as well, as it's a nice round number (and not because I would be safe at number 3370...)--Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I think I will start a riot here. Some evil person kicked my out of the list. Why 5000, as 5923 was much better? To be true, where can I find numbers 5001-10.000? Night of the Big Wind talk 13:03, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

You're listed on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/5001–6000. GoingBatty (talk) 15:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! I have link the top 5000 to this article. Night of the Big Wind talk 15:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I've reverted you, because the edit that removed 5001-8000 from the main list also added suitable links at the top of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#List (see also my first comment in this thread). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:06, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
And I have resored the link. Only when you said where I could find it, I did find the link. It was rather hidden. I left it that way. For the easy of use and "customer friendliness" I have replace the link in the "see also section". Night of the Big Wind talk 19:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Ow, oops! I was mislead by the answer on my question and I did not read good enough. I expected an overview of the numbers 5001 to 10.000 but only got 5001-6000. My mistake. Hmmmm, would merging those ones in a single article not be a good idea? Night of the Big Wind talk 19:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
We already have the ten subpages, would another one be the solution? 117Avenue (talk) 02:48, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
When merged you have less articles. And it is easier for the users of the pages. Two, four or five articles instead of ten, could be useful options. Night of the Big Wind talk 23:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I suppose, if a user doesn't know which thousand the person they are looking for is in, it would only be one click, rather than five. 117Avenue (talk) 05:43, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
The reason for extending the list to as many as could reasonably be loaded was that the minimum number of edits needed to get on the list had become out of reach for many wikipedians. Extending the list to 8,000 restored the minimum edits needed to get on the list to the level it was at a few years earlier. There was a fair bit of discussion here about the relative merits of making the list clickable and adding information such as userrights and alternatively extending the list so that newish editors and editors who don't use tools had a chance of getting on the list. The 8,000 limit was something of a compromise, but it did make the list more inclusive, reducing it to 5,000 editors is in my view a retrograde step and puts the list out of reach for many wikipedians. If we go back to 8,000 and increase by a 1,000 every year or two in line with improving computer power then we can keep the entry point roughly stable and a realistic aspiration for newish editors who find their way here. ϢereSpielChequers 08:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that'll encourage new editors to make multiple edits of little or no value in an attempt to get on the list. It shouldn't be a target to get on the list. Lugnuts (talk) 08:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Multiple edits of no value will get people blocked and multiple edits of little individual value can easily get you near the top of the list. The person who convinced me that it was a good idea to extend it so that he had a chance of getting on the list has probably done as much in his purely manual editing as I've done with all my tens of thousands thousands of hotcat edits and typo fixing. ϢereSpielChequers 13:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
If I read the discussion correctly, the consensus was to expand it to 5,000, or around 10,000 edits. You expanded it further, and no one really argued, until now. I question too, what is the definition of obtainable? In 2007 the list ended at 3% of the edits of the number one user, now the 5,000th user has 1% of the number one user. 117Avenue (talk) 03:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion cutting the list to 5000 would be fine. The point isn't to list every editor with the number of edits but to show the editors who have the most edits. --Kumioko (talk) 03:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
@117Avenue. What I mean as obtainable is the number of edits needed to get on the list, unless we continue to extend the list it will become out of reach for new users unless they make extensive use of tools. In September 2007 the list included everyone with 5,001 edits. Today the minimum number of edits even in the top 8,000 is 6,048. ϢereSpielChequers 13:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I looked this morning (Wednesday 16 May 2012) and now see that I am at 9910 - so many thanks for telling me where I could get access to Numbers 9000 - 10000! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 08:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

missing lists

On this page there are links to 3001-4000, 4001-5000, and 9001-1000, but the ranges from 5001-9000 are not there, although they do exist. Can they be added here? To be clear, I am talking about the last line here: Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits#Past_versions. BollyJeff | talk 17:24, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Links to lists for all these thousands are given at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#List, last sentence of the first paragraph. Adding these to the main list has been discussed several times, most recently at #Strange figure of 8, 000 above. When the figure is increased, the page load time increases correspondingly. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:05, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Got it, thank you. I did not mean to add them all here, just that some links were missing in the 'Past versions' table. At least you pointed me to the current versions. BollyJeff | talk 19:42, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Suggest gender

How about adding another column that displays the user's gender (M/F) if they identify it in their preferences? -- œ 17:58, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Why is that necessary? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:00, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
It's just additional detail. For information's sake. -- œ 17:23, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
This page is very big and takes a time to load. If we were to add any information I would like to add more people and extend the list, adding more detail on the existing people on the list means we increase the load time or reduce the length of the list. To me the gender field is less important than the length of the list, especially as many don't bother to set it on EN wiki (it's really of value in those languages where the userinterface involves male and female words for "user" etc. ϢereSpielChequers 08:42, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Failure to view the edit count of the top 5 contributers

When on a user's contribution page, at the bottom of it is a list of other pages. One of them is "edit count", with the pie chart and what-not. I can't view that page of the top 5 editors. I don't know if it is just me, but maybe it can be fixed on my end or Wikipedia's. Acoma Magic (talk) 04:39, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The tool concerned - known as X!'s Edit Counter - sometimes times out if the report query takes too long to execute. If this happens you get a blank screen. Clearly, such a process will take longer if there is more data to gather; the top 5 editors each have more than half a million edits. It's not a bug as such, just that the resources available on Toolserver are limited. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Why no movement

It seems like weeks since the list has been updated. Is there a problem? ```Buster Seven Talk 13:11, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

It's normally updated weekly, on Wednesday mornings (British time) or Tuesday nights (USA time). Last update was on 4 July at about 04:50 UTC so the next is due in about 12 hours time. You can check the update history at these links: 1-1000; 1001-2000; 2001-3000; 3001-4000; 4001-5000; 5001-6000; 6001-7000; 7001-8000; 8001-9000; 9001-10000. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. ```Buster Seven Talk 21:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Updates...

...seem not to be working. The main agglomerated page is being inched forward at a rate of three days every week, and has just updated to 23 July; looking at my own activity, I'd believe those figures are correct for that date. The individual "batch of a thousand" updates have exactly the same figures but are claimed to be the usual Wednesday morning updates, so the same 23 July figures from the main page appear there as 8 August, which isn't (in my case at least) correct. Johnlp (talk) 08:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

They used to be in sync, and they run at the same time. I suspect this could relate to the toolserver problem or some other IT issue - my own edit count is a couple of weeks adrift. I'd be inclined to assume that the date on the main page is of the version of the database that was used to generate the statistics, and the date on the individual files is when they were run. ϢereSpielChequers 09:10, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that makes sense. It'd be nice to get them back in sync at some point. Johnlp (talk) 10:52, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
The toolserver is a little more than two weeks behind right, because of a major update that has been ongoing for about a month now. My understanding is that the update will be done some time this month, at which point all the toolserver stuff will catch up. It's been a major problem with all the WikiProject assessment tables as well. —Torchiest talkedits 17:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
There have been threads like this raised at all sorts of pages over the last few weeks. See, for example, WP:VPT#Toolserver replag; Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index#Statistics template / bot for WikiProject Indigenous languages of California et seq; User talk:BernsteinBot#List of Wikipedians by number of edits; etc. etc. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:53, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

two pies no pot

Oh please can we make the two pie-charts sensible? No color-section link (say color X in legend = letter A in the pie), no explanation. I am an experienced editor, but after minutes of looking researching, I still do not get the graphs. -DePiep (talk) 23:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Try zooming on them a bit, the information is actually there. ϢereSpielChequers 00:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
I did (though zooming twice should not be needed right). The colors still were not recognisable. And no title or caption to lead me into understanding. WP:access. -DePiep (talk) 00:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
The first chart is called "The Top 10,000 Compared to the Rest of the Community". The first item in the legend is "1-1000 edits" with a dark blue box. This corresponds to the dark blue wedge of the pie that says "66,318,640 14%". As you go down the items in the legend, the color boxes correspond to the pie wedges in clockwise order. Same format for the second pie chart.
I think the chart can be improved, as I'm presuming "1-1000 edits" means the users ranked #1-#1000 on the list of Wikipedians by number of edits, as opposed to those users who have between one and one thousand edits. Also, the charts are now 11 months old. GoingBatty (talk) 02:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
I made the same assumption. I doubt the patterns have changed much, but someone could ask the author if he is willing to update them after a year. ϢereSpielChequers 17:35, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

When I look at the text "1-1000 edits" I assume it means "1 edits to 1000 edits", not users ranked #1 to #1000. Though knowing the context clearly shows the latter it is. But it surely isn't right, since it is far too easy to misunderstand. 85.217.15.248 (talk) 05:04, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of having charts in the article, but having looked at the pie in this article I really don't understand what I am being shown. I am not a mathematician or a statistician, but I shouldn't have to be. I think the chart just needs a better explanation/legend.key.  Tigerboy1966  06:58, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I've rewritten the captions for the two pie charts, does that make things clearer? ϢereSpielChequers 11:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
The captions are an improvement, but the legend still should be changed from "1-1000 edits" to something like "#1-#1000". Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
They should be a little bigger as well, to give a better sample of the color for each slice. I mean legend on the picture itself, not the caption. BollyJeff | talk 16:22, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
You mean the texts below the pictures in the article? If so, that doesn't change much. 85.217.15.248 (talk) 20:18, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Well I think that "Pie chart of all edits to the English Wikipedia, with a slice for each thousand of the 10,000 most active Wikipedians, and everyone else in light blue (as of August 10, 2011)" is clear and unambiguous. Do you have any specific suggestions to change it? ϢereSpielChequers 11:22, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Count is off

I've been cutting back since being desysop'd, and made less than a thousand edits this past week. Yet in today's update I jumped from #25 at 247k edits to #23 at 255k. Either the count's off this week, or it's been off for some time and has just been fixed. — kwami (talk) 05:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It has been off for some time due to the toolserver issues; see above thread. --Rschen7754 06:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I should be dropping down the ranks, though, which means that the glitch isn't affecting everyone equally. I'm curious where I was before. Any way to know? — kwami (talk) 06:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
The toolserver was behind a couple weeks, so if you'd still been making multiple thousands of edits in the two weeks before the last, then you would still jump. Basically, you had your last three weeks of edits added all at once. —Torchiest talkedits 12:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Mine is now showing hundreds more edits than what shows on the "My Prefrences" page. How do you explain that? Which is correct? BollyJeff | talk 13:01, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
The total on your preferences page is incorrect, due to various problems in the way it gets its count. If you click your contributions link at the top, then click edit count at the bottom of that page, that is the most accurate number available. —Torchiest talkedits 14:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
That one (11,849) is very similar to the preferences one (11,838), but both are still several hundred lower than the new numbers on this page (12,266), so maybe this one still has issues. BollyJeff | talk 14:14, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Now that is odd. I've never seen that before. Mine is correct, with the number on this list less than the one in the edit count link. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can explain why your numbers seem backwards. —Torchiest talkedits 14:19, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Same "problem" here. My preferences and My contributions#edit count both give me around 40.3k, but the list has me on 41.9k. That's quite a difference. Of course it's all a bit of fun, and no-one really cares. It's not like I've been hitting "save page" after every sentence and checking the list five times a day for the last month to see if I'd broken into the top thousand...is it?  Tigerboy1966  14:36, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Ha Ha. Well it could make a difference as to which Wikipedia:Service awards you are allowed to display. BollyJeff | talk 15:30, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I think something happened that affected the database: there was a rebuild and I think it has some duplicates being counted. Last week, while the database was still about 8 days behind, it was over 500 too low vs. My Preferences. This week, it's over 400 too high, and shows an actual increase of 1261. My Preferences and the X! numbers both increased by about 300 over the past week, which accurately reflects my edits for the period. With any luck, they'll eventually get this sorted out. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:05, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I've just checked my progress over the last three months at the page history. I've risen from pos. 545 on this list (16 May 2012, 55327 edits) to pos. 499 (15 May 2012, 59795 edits). That's an average climb of 3.5 places per week, and an average count of 344 edits per week. But this week I've leapt to pos. 473 (22 May 2012, 62545 edits) - a climb of 26 places, 2750 edits. For comparison, Preferences shows 61,408 and X!'s Edit Counter shows 61,348 (or 61,897 including deleted). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I made about 2,500 edits over the last three weeks, so that's not enough to account for the 8,000-edit difference in the counts.

I tried the 'edit count' button at the bottom of my contrib page, like you suggested, and it's 281,736 live edits, 22k higher than this page and 30k higher than this page last week. — kwami (talk) 22:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Mine was fairly accurate at 200 off.. but yeah, go figure I'm still at 104,000 so an error of under 1% is something not too bad... as long as it isn't compounded. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I've been following my NOE for two months, and this one was convincingly close to my My Preferences-number. But this last update has a jump (+700). Whatever the way of counting, it should not change (lightly). -DePiep (talk) 18:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, yes, there is enough evidence of a problem now. Whoever controls the tools that generate all these numbers should be made aware. BollyJeff | talk 18:46, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, at 1% I wouldn't bother to say anything, but a 10% diff remaining *after* the correction? — kwami (talk) 20:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, yes, there is enough evidence of a problem now. Whoever controls the tools ...' says BollyJeff. Well they botmasters should have been here already. -DePiep (talk) 23:17, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Additional lists

How about options to show the list for edits (a) over the past year (b) over the past month. --Iantresman (talk) 08:24, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

We do >cough< have the latter ... but it's not been updated for well over a year. Seems that updating it is a manual task, but those who want it either don't know how or don't have the necessary access rights, and those that do know how and do have the necessary rights can't be bothered to do it.
A few weeks ago I put it up for deletion beacuse it was so hopelessly out of date with little prospect of being fixed. It survived the deletion request, but nobody who wanted it kept has yet done anything about fixing it. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Found it "Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of recent edits". I better get reading. --Iantresman (talk) 13:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Expand to 6K?

So does the combination of the fact that the 10K edit point is some where in the 5xxx range for number of edits, Moore's law and the fact that this hasn't been discussed this year justify expanding the page to the top 6K editors?--Peter cohen (talk) 14:09, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

  • I think the problem is that it is already difficult to load even with an excellent internet connection.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Counterproposal: limit it to the top 10 which will always be bots or borgs, so the rest of us can stop obsessing about editcounts. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:27, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

color code

May I suggest that "[Placeholder]" be in some color other than black since, "user name[s] in black (unlinked) ha[ve] not been used for editing in the last 30 days." — Robert Greer (talk) 18:37, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

[Placeholder] is in black but is not a username. It indicates editors who have opted out of having their usernames included in this process. ϢereSpielChequers 07:08, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Well of course User:Placeholder is a unsername created fo just such a purpose. Rich Farmbrough, 05:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC).
05:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Issue with Education Program rights

Is there any way that the bot could be fixed to show the rights of those in the Education Program? Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 07:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Is this list totally accurate?

I am in the list of 9, 000 to 10,000, but I am sure that I have been exaggerated there - I do not think I have over 5, 600 edits, as this implies, but 5, 551. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:17, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The last time I looked it was 5, 567 - and this edit will make it 5, 568. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 14:30, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

If you read the section above, others are experiencing the same. BollyJeff | talk 14:35, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
Stupid Wikipedia that cannot count my edits. -DePiep (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
No, it isn't accurate. My editcount's off by -57%. Shannºn 16:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you - I can see that some error must have got into the process. My actual count (not including the edits I made today, Tuesday) is 5,587, but this list has my count down at 5, 711. It is reassuring to know that other Wikipedians are experiencing a similar problem. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 13:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh no! Lugnuts And the horse 13:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
I, for one, believe there are many people who should be here and are not. I myself have 23,558 (not counting this one) edits, and have never been included. I'm sure there are many others like me, who have silently edited the encyclopedia, but have stuck to encyclopedic content and almost totally out of namespace, and so are not really well-known in the community, and a lot of names that should be here aren't here.--RM (Be my friend) 06:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
But you are there at No 2128. Johnlp (talk) 07:53, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


It has my count at at 5, 800, but when I go to "My contributions" and then do "Count", it should be 5, 6700. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

For the record, my count is and has always been, accurate. Lova Falk talk 18:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, lucky you then! At last this is approximately what my edit count is - my edit count is 6, 114, and this has my figure at 6, 116, which is only two more than my actual figure. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Still a couple hundred high for me here. BollyJeff | talk 19:29, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Could it be that this problem is caused by the three different edit counts we get? There is one in Preferences (that's the one that for me is the same as here), and two in User contributions -> Edit count: "Live edits" "Total edits"? Lova Falk talk 08:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Let me explain the three sources:
  • Preferences:
  • user_editcount from the database (this is known to be wrong for some users or a variety of reasons)
  • Live edits:
  • a count of all non-deleted edits in the revision table (excludes deleted edits and a few other fringe cases)
  • Total edits:
  • Depending on the tool it can get this information one of two ways: from user_editcount, or combining totals from the revision table and the archive table. Again due to some inconsistencies over time and database structure the count may cause some variances.
Werieth (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

So does this make sense?

    • From Pref: 15,041
    • From toolserv (user edit count)
    • Live: 15,015
    • Total: 15,057
    • From this list: 15,416
    • They are pretty close except for here. BollyJeff | talk 19:40, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
      • There have been several reports of corrupted information in the toolserver copy of our database, it looks like you are one of the use case examples. The toolserver two toolserver tools are not using user_editcount from the database but rather counting revisions. Which is what causes the the count to be close. It looks like the user_editcount field is hosed on the toolserver. Werieth (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I think you are saying that this one (15,416) is the correct number, right? If so, is there an effort underway to correct the others? BollyJeff | talk 20:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Depends on exactly how you count edits, and what you consider an edit. 15,416 (from this list is wrong). Wikipedia thinks you have 15,041 edits (15,015 Live edits and 26 deleted edits) data from user_editcount. However if you look at the database and count the edits that are not deleted (from the revision table see mw:Database layout) you get 15,015. And if you look at the deleted edits you get 42 (see the archive table). I would put your actual edit count somewhere between 15,041 and 15,057 (like I said there are things that can mess up these counts) Werieth (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Oh well, my edits here are 1000 more then my Preferences shows. If it matters. Mugginsx (talk) 17:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
This list includes deleted edits (I believe). The list shows more than my preferences as well.  — Statυs (talk, contribs) 01:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Problem with Edit distribution graph

Shouldn't the Edit distribution graph look more like the letter "L", with #1 showing 1.2 million edits, while #10,000 has only a few thousand edits? I think the current graph is backwards. Is there someone who could fix this? GoingBatty (talk) 03:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

No, because it is meant to show that the lowest editors have zero, and we're including the top 10,000. The other way would be a tad odd, because it woudl look like we were counting backwards. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 07:22, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
It's clear that the y-axis is the number of edits. I don't understand why the x-axis is numbered the opposite of the list numbering. Shouldn't 1 on the x-axis correspond with #1 on the list of Wikipedians by edits? If not, what is the proper label for the x-axis? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes the data should be flipped. The labels are okay, because you want 1 on the left. But person #1 should have > 1.2M edits, not person #10,000. Is there is a link to the raw data? Anyone could make a new plot, I would volunteer if someone has the data. I'd be curious to see a plot with log(edit) on the Y anyway, even if it was too geeky to post widely. Silas Ropac (talk) 21:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I understand what you mean. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do it, I'll flip it during the next update. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:32, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what software you are using so I can't make any useful suggestions. But generically what you wants is to plot (X, E[X]) for X=1:10000 where E is an array of edit counts, where E[1] is largest number and E[10000] is the smallest number. Silas Ropac (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Technical question about wikitable column widths

{{help}}

This is a question about table column widths, not about the data in the tables.

In the Past versions section, the table has 9 columns - viz:

Versions #1 #200 #500 #1000 #4000 #5000 #10,000 Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Here is a copy of the first two and last two rows of the table:

1 2 3 4 5
Versions #1 #200 #500 Notes
September 18, 2002 12995 104

gap

January 2, 2013 1,261,125 101,814 63,657 41,033 14,186 11,423 5,235 List ends at 10,000 with 5,235 edits.
Versions #1 #200 #500 #1000 #4000 #5000 #10,000 Notes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Note that columns 2-8 are the same width as the widest piece of data displayed in them.

However, in the table in the Past versions section, if I roll the page down to the bottom of that section (i.e. to just before the "Userboxes" section), I see that columns 2, 3, 4 and 5 are the same width as the data within them, but columns 6, 7 and 8, are wider than the widest piece of data within them. I see the same thing in both Firefox and I.E. (Is anybody not seeing this?)

Can anyone explain why this is happening? Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 07:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

P.S. (Note that in the "Past versions" section, although the 5th column at the top of the table is very wide, at the bottom of the table it is only as wide as the data, whereas the 6th column is wider than the data. Pdfpdf (talk) 07:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC))
Hi Pdfpdf! Normally I don't see what you're seeing. However, when I make my browser window bigger than the table itself, I can replicate what you see. It seems that column 6 ends in exactly the same place as the "Only main namespace edits" notes from the March-April 2004 rows, and that column 8 ends in exactly the same place as the "List ends at 4000 with xx,xxx edits." from the notes in the rows above. Maybe something about how the "colspan" functionality works? GoingBatty (talk) 17:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
After a few minutes of checking this out, I'm stumped. Everything appears to be good in terms of table parameters; for some reason, one of the earlier entries is making everything stretched out. Chalk it up to code magic! m.o.p 20:41, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Sure, I cut down the table until it stopped happening. It turns out that the key cell is the one containing "This links only to the list, which has been transcluded in this page since December 2006. List goes up to #2483 at 4588 edits". This is long enough to, at most window widths, wrap, and when there's more room available for the table than is strictly necessary otherwise, the several-colspan cell and it's correpsonding rows are expanded equally to match. The rows that get the unusual enlargement are precisely those underneath this cell. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:24, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Of course, if you fixed that one cell, cells like "the one two above it would also cause trouble. So long as the width of that larger cell is linked to the sum of the four lower rows, you're going to get that sort of problem. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:26, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
This is more clear if you look at this, and expand your window width (and decrease your text zoom factor!) to the point where the cell in question stops wrapping and beyond. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:28, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! (I guess MoP's "code magic" was closer than I thought; there does feel like there's an element of "slight of hand" involved.) I assume I've never noticed it before because such a situation rarely occurs? Again, thank you. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 23:48, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

My pleasure. Things get weird around complex tables using colspan, it's easy to get surprised. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk 23:55, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this list?

What are these statistics useful for? Why was the list created as a public page? 82.113.133.21 (talk) 15:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Because humans are curious about numbers. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 19:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Because humans are curious about humans. Silas Ropac (talk) 20:09, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Because humans are curious about how they compare. ```Buster Seven Talk 22:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
Because Wikipedians are interested in how they compare to other humans. -DePiep (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2013 (UTC) #950
Because it is fun to know that I belong to the 3394 3349 people in the whole world who have made most edits in Wikipedia! Lova Falk talk 20:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Because there are people out there uber-obsessed with numbers. Wikipedia is full of people/creatures with high-functioning autism and things like it (but let's not generalize!). Because there are Wikipedians who make nonsense, useless, successive (and etc) edits every freaking single day, and they live in the illusion that they are doing something useful for the mankind. --HighFunctioningAutismIsVeryCreepy (talk) 20:43, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
As a braind-damaged oldtimer, I can attest it was not always so. See my sob story below. - Altenmann >t 22:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Before the advent of autoediting tools, this was a reasonable measure of devotion to the project. In my early days I became an opponent of his list. It happened when at a Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco 2 a colleague wekipedian told me "I know you: you are #6 in WP:NOE" He probably thought it was a compliment, but I suddenly felt a sharp pain of the feeling of the low intrinsic value of my contribution to human knowledge, since it was appreciated only in terms of the number of mouse clicks. Therefore I left the meetup shortly after and never 'meetupped' again. Now I understand it was part of my growing mental problems, but my opinion about this rat race did not change.
Nevertheless, in these olden days when looking at the "Top 100" contributors, I could personally attest they were indeed top content contributors. The Top 100 landscape dramatically changed with the advent of autowikibrowsers and stuff, so today, looking at the "Top 100" I cannot get rid of an image of a lab rat with the pleasure center of its brain wired, incessantly pressing a lever (and wikipedia lacks this picture). - Altenmann >t 21:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
It's wonderful there is some kind of psychological reward though, even for small changes. The project would not get far otherwise. Whether we should or should not have a list of highest edit counts is moot, the information is public it would be compiled by someone and published anyway. It's a direct byproduct of the decision to have open article histories, something that I'm sure no one wants to see changed. Silas Ropac (talk) 02:58, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Yep, "someone" is the keyword. And how is that this 'someone' must be no other than a highly skilled wikipedian, prodded to do it again and again, contributing to vanity instead of knowledge? (Oh yes, I'v forgotten. This page is kinda knowledge, right?)- Altenmann >t 04:57, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Yeah I can see that stance: the list is frivolous and misleading, so if someone offsite wants to compile it offsite we can't stop them, but let's not encourage it by hosting the page in Wikipedia proper. It's reasonable, but do enough people agree with you? I personally think it's harmless but midly interesting trivia and should stay. But I don't care too much, I certainly wouldn't put up a fight to keep it. The only time I ever really "used" the list was when I first started, I glanced through a bunch of the user pages of "top editors", that was kind of interesting, to see what very experienced people had done. I wonder what other sort of list could be put together, not strictly number of edits, that would be interesting. Silas Ropac (talk) 12:59, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
This used to be quite a contentious list, but nowadays it has an opt out mechanism, so people who don't want to be on it are free to opt themselves out. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits (fourth nomination) was a very long time ago, but before making a fifth nomination I'd suggest that you read the last debate and see if you can find more convincing arguments. Remembering that last time one of the arguments was that in those days it wasn't being updated, last time the result was snow keep, and one of the arguments for deletion has since gone away. As for uses, I've trawled it in the past looking for editors who might have been overlooked for admin etc, but its main purpose is the interest of those who are interested in the position that they come in this list. And if some of our volunteers are partly motivated by this list to do useful edits such as fixing typos or reverting vandalism then this list serves a purpose. Remember there are many different motivations that lead to people voluntarily editing here, and providing the results are goodfaith one should not denigrate someone else's motivation just because it differs from your own. ϢereSpielChequers 17:27, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
Sure. Editcount is new IQ. And WP:NOE is new mensa. - Altenmann >t 19:29, 12 March 2013 (UTC)