Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a video game

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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While we may joke about it sometimes, Wikipedia is not a video game or any other kind of game. We are not here to score points, beat bad guys, or rank up. We are here to build an encyclopedia.

Sometimes in a discussion of an editor's conduct—often an enthusiastic newer editor—someone will say "Wikipedia is not a game" or "Wikipedia is not a video game" or "User is trying to get a high score". What this means is that they perceive the editor as not taking Wikipedia's purpose seriously, and instead being too focused on trivial trappings that don't actually help advance that purpose.

Signs that someone may be treating Wikipedia as a video game

Excessive focus on gaining new user rights.
Bragging about their edit count.
Displaying a battleground mentality in disputes or toward fellow editors.
Acting in a particularly self-congratulatory matter regarding users they've gotten blocked, articles they've gotten deleted, etc. (Rarely, this can also apply to content creations, but is usually less of an issue in that realm.^[1])
Excessive use of police and military imagery and terminology regarding counter-vandalism work. (This can't be entirely avoided because, for some baffling reason, the totally-not-named-after-CTU Counter-Vandalism Unit and (to a lesser extent) Twinkle^[2] both insist on branding themselves that way. But don't be a part of the problem.)

Some of these can be difficult lines to draw. There is a time and place to celebrate users' prolificity, their work defending Wikipedia, and so on. Such celebration can become excessive if it seems that a user is seeing it as an end in itself (often at the expense of quality) or expressing superiority based on these accomplishments.

References

^ For one such rare example, an editor who frequently bragged of their 200+ good articles eventually saw them delisted en masse when a review found that their focus on quantity had come at the expense of meeting minimum quality standards.
^ See logo.

[1] For one such rare example, an editor who frequently bragged of their 200+ good articles eventually saw them delisted en masse when a review found that their focus on quantity had come at the expense of meeting minimum quality standards.

[2] See logo.

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