Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 12

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 5Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12Archive 13

Can a list be created of only active users? [additional comments]

Over a year ago, on August 19, 2014, I posted here (Can a list be created of only active users?), suggesting the creation of an associated list with a nearly-same title, except for one word, "active", Wikipedia:List of active Wikipedians by number of edits. Two of the responses addressed the matter, with the first one, on the same day, positing that "the simplest answer would seem to be for the bot that creates this list to add another numeric column, skipping inactive users in the count", while the final one among the responses, six days later, on August 25, also stated that "[T]o create Wikipedia:List of active Wikipedians by number of edits you need to filter out inactive Wikipedians".
While examining an unrelated count of other individuals, I was reminded of that earlier exchange and decided on a 1000-entry sampling, taken today, September 9, 2015, from the middle (4501–5500) of this existing list (1–10,000). Here is the result:

  • 4501–4600 (51 inactive users, plus 1 [Placeholder])
  • 4601–4700 (58 inactive users, plus 2 [Placeholder]s)
  • 4701–4800 (47 inactive users, plus 1 [Placeholder])
  • 4801–4900 (43 inactive users)
  • 4901–5000 (44 inactive users)
  • 5001–5100 (46 inactive users)
  • 5101–5200 (54 inactive users)
  • 5201–5300 (59 inactive users)
  • 5301–5400 (52 inactive users)
  • 5401–5500 (50 inactive users, plus 1 [Placeholder])

Thus, at the 1000 midpoint of 10,000 users with highest edit counts, just over half (504) are inactive. If we extrapolate this count for the entire list, then about 5040 Wikipedians out of the top 10,000 are inactive. Sampling the "User contributions" of a handful of the inactive ones from the entire list of 10,000, I found a number who were very active on a daily basis in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, but have not made a single edit since then. Some of the very active early ones have not contributed for nearly 10 years, since 2006.
The suggestion of an alternative numbering column which would be "skipping inactive users in the count" is a good one but, in the end, it would still leave a count of the same 10,000 we have now. A separate Wikipedia:List of active Wikipedians by number of edits, however, would bring in an additional 5040 [more or less] Wikipedians who have not accumulated enough edits to appear on the current list. We would thus give a nod of appreciation to those hard-typing future top editors, without excluding inactive past contributors who would still appear on this current list (until, of course, they ultimately drop off by natural progression). —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 21:28, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

How about these "hard-typing" editors type faster? It seems this hall of glory is indeed for fast-typers, not for content creators. So I say let's not make their life easier and let this rat race progress in its natural way. - üser:Altenmann >t 22:44, 9 September 2015 (UTC) If you really want to make some meaningful distinction, why don't one create Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of non-automated edits. - üser:Altenmann >t 22:45, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Those who care to revisit last year's referenced section header will see that we've already had a version of this exchange. Suffice it to say, the exclusion of unflagged bots has been a major step, but such features as AutoWikiBrowser or Twinkle, which I never use, should not be begrudged, since these perform substantial, but tedious, minor (or not) tasks towards which no one would wish to devote time. On the other hand, those who have no interest in such matters and disdain edit counts, automated or otherwise, are not likely to bother with visiting this talk page or its associated project page. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 23:13, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
Those of us who disdain the current implementation of indiscriminate edit counts still bother to lurk into this talk page to see whether the attitudes are changing. No one questions the importance of these jobs, but assign their count to twinkle. I find it extremely worrying that a person who did 1 million mouse-clicks gets a world media buzz, but a person who wrote 300 Featured Article does not. One may repeat that my (or not my) suggestion is not feasible, until the maybe day come when someone gets an insight now to do it, so I will just keep reminding to new generations who don't "care to revisit last year's referenced section header". - üser:Altenmann >t 01:02, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
While it was never my intention to downplay or trivialize these caveats, which I perceive may be shared by a good number, if not a majority, of Wikipedians, the existence of this project page, akin to the work performed with the use of AutoWikiBrowser or Twinkle, should also not be begrudged. Just as we reward ourselves with Barnstars or mark our time on Wikipedia with service awards such as "Senior Editor" and "Master Editor", or join the Ten Year Society, or issue our own weekly newsletter, this project page is also a form of reward for those Wikipedians who devote years of work, energy and, of course, time, whether measured in years or number of edits. However those edits are achieved is not as important as the personal sense of accomplishment that those who find themselves on this list derive from their placement on it. Such lists are not commonplace: in addition to this one, there is only one other, the recently reactivated Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count, which would be the well-positioned venue to list "a person who wrote 300 Featured Article" if, of course, such a person desires to be so listed. My suggestion of a new list is more akin to "A" and "B" versions of the same list with about 50% more members. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 02:34, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that the proportion of inactives is inversely related to the edit count, so the increase may be different than predicted. But the 10,000 currently active editors with highest edit counts would be a much easier list for a new editor to get onto, and I see that as a good thing as far too many aspects of this community seem out of reach to newbies. Whether you can find someone willing to run it is the more awkward question, the loss of toolserver and the labs problems have left us rather short of bot operators. ϢereSpielChequers 12:13, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
On January 1, or earlier, I will post similar samplings for the top (1–1000) and bottom (9000–10,000) of this list to test such inverse relationship. However, even if an additional 35% or 40% (rather than the predicted 50%) user names appear on the new list, it would still be a positive reinforcement for many new editors, as you rightly point out. The code for the proposed new list may only require a slight tweak from the existing one, but as for asking someone to run it on a daily (or even weekly) basis, alongside this list as well as Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count… one can only hope. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 15:55, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
On March 1, 2016, two months later than planned, these are today's samplings for the top and bottom of this list, as well as a second sampling from the middle of the list in order to compare the difference between today's sampling and the sampling [above] from September 2015.

The results confirm WereSpielChequers' supposition above that "that the proportion of inactives is inversely related to the edit count". Among users whose edit count is from 1 to 1000, there are 191 inactives [with 14 Placeholders], while among those whose count is from 9001 to 10000, there are 601 inactives [with 1 Placeholder]. As for the second sampling taken from the middle of the list (4501 to 5500), the result indicates the same total of inactives (504) as the count from nearly six months ago (September 9, 2015, as shown above). Nine of the March 1, 2016 hundred-number counts in the middle list differ from the ones in the September 9, 2015 count, with one count (4801 to 4900) showing the same number of inactives [43], except that in 2015 the 4801–4900 count had no Placeholders, while in 2016 that count has 1 Placeholder.

Thus, in extrapolating the total number of inactives in the same manner as in September 2015, we appear to end up with approximately the same results. The middle portion is exactly the same, while the top and bottom balance out. It still appears likely that if a slightly tweaked copy of this 1–10000 list, with one extra word in the title, Wikipedia:List of (active) Wikipedians by number of edits were to come into being, we would most likely see about 5000 new names on it. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 10:31, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

@Roman Spinner: Dear Roman Spinner,
Thank you very much for your most excellent work in providing the above evidence. I would certainly agree with the idea of enabling an extra 5,000 editors to have their contributions recognized by inclusion into the proposed list of active editors. I would wholeheartedly support such a move if it were formally proposed to the community of editors.
In any case, thank you once again for all your efforts.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 16:01, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I am grateful for your kind words, Patrick and appreciate your support. I might also add that if under the present limited circumstances described above (in November 2015) by WereSpielChequers, we are fortunate to have even one list up and running, the proposed new list with 50% additional editors would probably provide greater value. No one would be excluded — all returning editors would reappear on the list as they reappear among active editors, while the memory of the permanently inactive editors would remain in the inactive original list through its retention as a historical record. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 16:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Hopefully both lists will run and, if not, I'd say the list with inactive users should be the official list. To put all of the editors who've greatly contributed to Wikipedia but who have retired or died into an historic record would do a disservice to their memories and to the project. But, hopefully, this won't even have to be considered, as both lists (all time and presently active) really should be used and updated daily. The new list seems a great idea, and a nice incentive to many users (in a perfect world there would also be a list of non-tool users). A historical record that's a snapshot of one random day, but in reality is constantly changing, probably can't be called a historical record. Both very good and very active lists seems the best option. If the problem is finding people to run it, can't the Foundation give a paid staffer the charge of updating? Randy Kryn 12:36, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
I wouldn't suggest that either claim to be an "official list". If you want to persuade a bot operator to run such a list then I'd suggest asking at WP:Bot requests or Wikipedia talk:Database reports, and coming up with more reasons as to why it would be a good thing, remembering you are competing with many other requests. Bypassing that process and asking the Foundation to have a staffer do this should be a steeper test. The Foundation doesn't have resources to fix all the important bugs in mediawiki so in asking for resources there you are competing with things like halving the number of edit conflicts........ ϢereSpielChequers 13:31, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Then again, after thinking of it, keeping the all-time list active would gradually lose the names of inactive editors, or make it appear that they did not do as much as they did in comparison with those "climbing the board" and exceeding their present positions. So I can see points for both options. As long as the 'historical list' is well-dated, well explained, and linked in the lead, it has a place in the record. Sometimes it takes writing something out to see another point of view, so my feelings within the comment above have shifted a bit. Getting more editors some exposure in such a list will encourage them, and they can compare their edit count against the all-time if they choose. Not a win-win option, that would be providing a snapshot of the list at something like once a year intervals, which would be useful for future researchers at things like a 50 year mark. Bottom line, good ideas all around. Randy Kryn 13:45, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

how does it work?

Hi! I'm trying to make a similar page in Bengali Wikipedia. I just had some questions.

  1. How do I collect the information about top 1000 contributors? Is there any tools that displays the same chart or do I have to do it manually?
  2. How do I update the page? Do I need to make a bot to do the updating?

Any help will be appreciated.Thanks.--Sajid Reza Karim 07:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

A bot does both. In our case, it's BernsteinBot (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 16:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

What is the new notation?

The box to the right of my name has always been blank (empty). Today, I see that it says "extended confirmed". What does that mean? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:22, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

@Joseph A. Spadaro: You have automatically been granted a new user right - see WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:21, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Never heard of this before now. Thank you. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
With any luck they'll come up with a two-character abbreviation for it now that they've rolled it out to all and sundry; it takes up too much space written out like that. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:05, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: I hope my edit to Template:Abbreviated user group has fixed that; we'll find out when the page is next updated. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:40, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
John of Reading, it turns out the "epcampus" was already "EC"; while Bilorv subsequently changed epcampus to "EPC", I thought it was better to leave it at "EC" and start "extendedconfirmed" as "ECo", since "confirmed" is "Co". (I preferred "ECo" to "ExC", another possibility, because of the similarity to "Co".) BlueMoonset (talk) 15:14, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I think it should probably not be listed here at all since it is automatically granted via its granting criteria. I mean, if we list "extendedconfirmed" here, we might as well start listing "autoconfirmed" as well. Steel1943 (talk) 15:59, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Agreed. We know everyone on this list is going to meet the edit count sides of both criteria. In practice everyone will also meet both the ten and thirty day criteria, so there is no point listing either of them. ϢereSpielChequers 17:05, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
It has the inconsequential side effect of showing who's been active since 6 April 2016. Within a couple of weeks, as WSC points out, it'll be almost entirely useless. Bazj (talk) 09:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

New user group abbreviation

The Page mover / extendedmover user right needs an abbreviation.Godsy(TALKCONT) 06:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

I've added it as "EM". -- John of Reading (talk) 07:17, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for this edit. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:49, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Can this list be enlarged to 15,000 or 20,000?

There was discussion here awhile ago about how to get more users names onto the 1-10,000 list. Wondering if it would be easy or extremely hard to expand the code to include another page or two, upping the list to 15,000 or 20,000. What I know about deep-coding could fill the period at the end of this sentence, so tossing this out there as a possibility. Randy Kryn 23:37, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi Randy Kryn. Yes, this list could be expanded. A limit of 10,000 already seems pretty high, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:48, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks MZMcBride. Only reason I'm asking this is that there is discussion on this page of how to get more people on the list, with the idea of freezing this list and having a list with only active users, which seems unfair and unhistoric (although a 'freeze' of the list stored somewhere, maybe once or twice a year, for historic purposes, could be useful). 15,000 may be a good compromise if that proposal gathers steam, and would allow inactive users on the list to retain their participation in it. I understand you created the bot which creates and updates the list, nice work and thank you for a fun and educational tool. Randy Kryn 17:55, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Careful, [[u|MZMcBride]] is not the same as {{u|MZMcBride}}. The former does not result in a ping, of course. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
I seriously didn't know that, or let it set-in-stone in my Wikipedia consciousness. Thanks, MZMcBride. That explains why some of my pings never got pung. Randy Kryn 3:06, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Number discrepancy

As of the latest count, my preferences page says I have 9 more edits than I have been given credit for by the ranking system. It's been that way for about a week. Why is that & how can it be fixed?Stereorock (talk) 04:52, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Noticed the same, from about a week ago. Previously both always matched. Jevansen (talk) 07:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Please see the very first paragraph at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. My two figures have been different for as long as I can recall (5+ years), my discrepancy is currently 36. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:27, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Sure, it's just strange that until a week ago both figures were always the same (for me at least), now there's suddenly 80 difference. I only mentioned it because it seems be have occurred at the same time that User:Stereorock noticed the discrepancy between his or her figures. If it's just the bug doing it's thing then so be it. Jevansen (talk) 12:04, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
If there is a bug, it's not in this report - in the 24 hours to 04:10 (UTC) today, I made 26 edits which have not been deleted and 3 edits since deleted for a total of 29 - and my edit count increased by 29 both according to here and at Template:Adminstats/Redrose64. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:44, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Just checked and mine is down by around 80 from my preferences-credited number. Had checked a couple of weeks ago and both were the same at that point, so it does looks like a site-wide hiccup occurred somewhere in there. A computer code malfunction, I've never heard of such a thing! Thought they were all-knowing, so my illusions are shattered. Randy Kryn 16:55, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Mine started about the same time as user:Jevansen's numbers started fluctuating.Stereorock (talk) 22:56, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

The count used in this report currently should always match what's displayed at Special:Preferences. Both sources are reading the same database field. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: Could replication lag affect the report? Are both sources using the same copy of the database? -- John of Reading (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi John of Reading. Yes, replication lag and data integrity issues could both affect the report. This report is generated using the MySQL (MariaDB) replication databases on Wikimedia Labs Tool Labs. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:23, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Can a list be created of only active users? [cont'd]

Dear Roman Spinner,
I am creating this section to enable our earlier discussion to continue here, if anyone is interested.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 07:33, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

This isn't the Wikipedia High Score Table, and I don't see how intentionally making the list inaccurate by excluding people who fail to meet some arbitrary criterion is serving any kind of useful purpose. What useful purpose do you think doing this would serve (hint: "allow us to include more people" is not an answer that will convince anyone to write a bot for you)? ‑ Iridescent 07:49, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
I've used this list in the past to trawl for candidates for userrights. A list of currently active editors by editcount that showed userrights could serve such a purpose. For example if we were to introduce flagged revisions or something similar then a list of currently active editors who didn't have reviewer rights would be useful. There are people quietly building obscure parts of the pedia and I think it is helpful to pay them a visit and if appropriate give them userrights that they may not know exist but could make good use of. ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, such a list could be created. I'm not sure what value it would provide, though. We currently have or previously had:

And probably others. So many lists! --MZMcBride (talk) 17:54, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

A few thoughts on the above comments: regarding "So many lists!" — in a WikiUniverse of unlimited resources, there would be nothing inappropriate about each group having its own list. Taking into account comments in one of our previous discussions (15:38, 20 August 2014), "Next thing and one starts demanding List of LGBT editors by number of edits or, better, as the recent fad goes, List of female wikipedians by number of edits", such lists may, indeed, encourage those individually-specific Wikipedians who, upon seeing themselves on specialized/personalized lists, might feel that their presence here is counted and valued to a more-personal degree.
Another constructive suggestion (22:45, 9 September 2015) for a creation of Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of non-automated edits, seconded at (12:36, 2 March 2016), "(in a perfect world there would also be a list of non-tool users)", would put into perspective the balance between those users whose high counts are achieved by AWB, TW, etc, and those who only perform manual edits.
Mention needs to be made of argument that the proposed list of active Wikipedians would be "intentionally making the list inaccurate by excluding people who fail to meet some arbitrary criterion". The list, as presently constituted, makes only a single distinction — between actives (names linked) and inactives (names unlinked). Unlike other proposed lists which may focus upon specific groups or characteristics, the active–inactive dichotomy is the only one which is not arbitrary, but built into the list as it currently exists.
Since the actives are the ones who are building/expanding Wikipedia, it would seem that if we can afford only a single updated list, one composed solely of actives would provide a greater direct value than an all-inclusive list of actives and inactives, which should, of course, remain as (an annually updated, if possible) historical reference. As of this writing, one needs nearly 7000 edits (6883, to be exact) to even appear on this list at number 10,000. On an all-actives list, "only" about 4000 edits would suffice to make it to number 10,000.
Finally, an acknowledgment of those [Placeholder]s who feel that counting edits only distracts from Wikipedia's true encyclopedic purpose and mission. Supporters can always point to the fact that this list and potential other ones of related nature only exist as long as there is consensus for their existence, but since such arguments are not at issue in the present discussion, leaving them for another time may seem best. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 21:43, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Roman Spinner. You seem to talk a big game. :-) So, uhh, what's stopping you from making a few lists and showing us all how it's done? If you want a "List of female Wikipedians by number of edits" list, be bold, eh. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:05, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi MZMcBride. To quote a line from the old Outer Limits, "In dreams some of us walk the stars…" but, when awake, those of us who can, do, and those who can't, talk a big game. Since this WikiUniverse is not one of unlimited resources, recognition needs to be given where it is due and your effort as well as dedication is much appreciated. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 06:07, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. I was curious enough that I ran the female and male queries: Special:Permalink/724971743. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:33, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
Helpful Pixie Bot (talk · contribs) isn't female, they're a bot and therefore neuter; the bot-op is (or was) Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 19:41, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
These types of queries cannot—and do not attempt to—answer whether a particular user is female. The queries are simply reporting what the database records contain. In the case of Helpful Pixie Bot, perhaps that user is not female, but their gender is currently internally noted as such: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=users&ususers=Helpful_Pixie_Bot&usprop=gender>. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
Possibly Helpful Pixie Bot considers themself female. I haven't asked. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:59, 12 June 2016 (UTC).

Question

I don't know how easy or how complicated it is to gather the data used for the list on this page. I assume it's all done by computer and, as such, it is not particularly difficult for any one specific editor. So I have a question and/or suggestion. Is it possible to add another column (or two) that indicates an editor's rank/standing now; and the previous rank/standing; and perhaps the difference? Is that feasible or no? For example, the list would say, in various columns: User Name = John Smith; Number of Edits = 43,987; Rank = 732; Previous Rank = 740; Change = +8 (or similar). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

I think that the standard wikipedia answer, as it always is, is, no problem, especially when it is " not particularly difficult," DO IT. Carptrash (talk) 18:14, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
Huh? I didn't understand a word you said. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:48, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Generating this report for other Wikimedia wikis

I got asked about generating this report for/on another Wikimedia wiki, specifically the Bengali Wikipedia. I ended up writing a reply with pretty specific instructions that others may find useful or interesting. A slightly cleaned up version of this reply is pasted below. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:49, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

The code lives at <https://github.com/mzmcbride/database-reports>, sort of.

For that particular report, the code actually lives here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits/Configuration>.

Do you have a shell user account on Wikimedia Tool Labs? You can create a text file on Wikimedia Tool Labs and then run "python your_file_name.py" to generate the report. If you encounter errors, just paste the error text in this e-mail thread or in a pastebin and I can look and we can figure out what went wrong.

It looks like the version of wikitools globally installed on Wikimedia Tool Labs doesn't work well with bn.wikipedia.org/w/api.php, so you'll need to locally install wikitools. And because you'll then be using a virtual environment version of Python, you'll also need to install MySQLdb locally.

Try this:

username = 'bot name goes here'
password = 'password goes here'
editsumm = 'Bot: Updated page.'
dbname = 'bnwiki_p'
host = 'bnwiki.labsdb'
rootpage = 'Wikipedia:Database reports/'
apiurl = 'https://bn.wikipedia.org/w/api.php'
  • Then run this command: chmod 600 settings.py
  • Then run this command: git clone "https://github.com/alexz-enwp/wikitools.git" wikitools
  • Then run this command: virtualenv venv
  • Then run this command: source venv/bin/activate
  • Then run this command: cd wikitools
  • Then run this command: python setup.py install
  • Then run this command: pip install "MySQL-python"
  • Then run this command: cd ..

Now you should be in a directory with settings.py, editcount.py, a wikitools directory, and a venv directory; if you run the "ls" command you should now see:

(venv)tools.mzmcbride@tools-bastion-03:~/scripts/bnwiki$ ls
editcount.py  settings.py  venv  wikitools

You can verify that you have installed the correct versions of wikitools and MySQLdb by running these commands:

(venv)tools.mzmcbride@tools-bastion-03:~/scripts/bnwiki$ python -c 'import MySQLdb; print(MySQLdb.__version__)'
1.2.5

and...

(venv)tools.mzmcbride@tools-bastion-03:~/scripts/bnwiki$ python -c 'import wikitools; print(wikitools.VERSION)'
1.4
  • Finally, run this command: python editcount.py

That should do it. I followed these steps and began creating a report on bn.wikipedia.org: <https://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B7:Contributions/BernsteinBot>.

I hit two issues. I don't have a bot account on bn.wikipedia.org, so I hit edit rate limits. And there's no "Template:aug" on bn.wikipedia.org, so the user group abbreviations don't work properly.

Bot to update did not run for 22 November 2016 yet

Right now, the page indicates "This is a list of Wikipedians sorted by edit count as of 04:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)." It is now after 16:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC). The bot that creates this list seems to be running intermittently rather than daily. Who needs to address this? Peaceray (talk) 16:11, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

@Peaceray: First check how the page is built - it's transcluded from Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000, Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1001–2000 etc. Then look at the revision history for any of those (e.g. this one), you'll see that it's updated by BernsteinBot (talk · contribs). Click one of the talk page links, and you'll see that there is already a thread on this matter. If you check the user page, you'll see that it's a bot operated by MZMcBride (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Hi Peaceray. Is there some reason you're particularly interested in daily updates of this report? If the bot misses a day or two, does it matter to you? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:23, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
This was consistently running as a daily report, so I am wondering why this changed. I work in IT, & am always curious about any change that affects the running of a batch job that I use to monitor things. Oh, & you may call it vanity, but I do follow it daily. Peaceray (talk) 22:28, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
If you work in IT, I would think that you would know how finicky computers can be! Tool Labs isn't the most stable platform. I looked at the logs and don't see a reason that the report failed to update on November 22, 2016. Perhaps the report will update again in a few hours. We'll see. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:37, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Somewhat bizarrely, it appears the report is updating, but the Age page sometimes isn't. A look at the bot's recent edits confirms this. Weird. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:38, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

List of Wikipedians by number of non-automated edits

It recently came to my attention that there is a possibility to count non-automated edits separately:

Is it relatively easy to generate the NoAuto edit list? IMO it will be a better indicator of content creation activity as compared to mopping up. Not that I disrespect the mop; I am doing my share of mopping, but I kinda feel uneasy this list dominated by "maintenance editors". Can someone to do an experimental NoAuto list, to see how it looks like? I am asking this because I cannot check by myself online for top 100 (see 'Koavf' above). Staszek Lem (talk) 19:32, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Staszek Lem. I guess it depends on your definition of relatively easy. :-) You'd need to go through the contributions of every user, count the automated edits, count the non-automated edits, and then generate a report based on that. It's a somewhat straightforward task, but you're talking about sorting and counting about 860 million edits, according to Special:Statistics currently. That's a lot of data! Plus, and perhaps most importantly, you'd need to define what an automated edit is. The tool you're using has done this in some way, but it's almost certainly based on inspecting edit summaries and guessing based on the presence of certain strings. This is suboptimal, but at least with clear criteria, your request becomes even more straightforward to implement/generate. It's just a lot of scanning and processing. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:28, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
But you are already counting every user and every edit. Or not? Staszek Lem (talk) 03:30, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
Well I'm certainly not! The bot uses a stored/precomputed edit count value that's available in the user table. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:56, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

When two people have an equal number of edits ...

When two people have an equal number of edits, why can't they be listed as equal in rank? I am quite sure the computer program (or whatever it is) can handle this simple math calculation. No? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:10, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Anyone? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:32, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Pinging MZMcBride, the operator of the bot that updates the lists. SiBr4 (talk) 11:32, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:15, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Joseph A. Spadaro. The numbering is simple enumeration, not a ranking. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
@MZMcBride: Hi. Thanks. Of course, it's a ranking. If it is indeed simply an enumeration, what order is the list in? Is it in alphabetical order? If it were simply an enumeration, the list would have all 5,000 people in alphabetical order with an indication of how many edits they have. Then, the number would be an enumeration of the people in the list. This list is ranked from Person #1 down to Person #5,000. And the highest person is ranked (not enumerated) as #1 and the 5000th person is ranked (not enumerated) as #5000. Or are you saying that it's a huge coincidence that the listing of how many edits a user has is listed in decreasing order? That's just a simple coincidence, that they are enumerated that way? And if the list is called "Top 5,000 Editors", we know that the enumeration is 5,000. Why would we need it enumerated at all, in that case? All in all, your reply does not make any sense at all. And you are using semantics. We all know it's a rank, not an enumeration. If indeed it were an enumeration, there would be no need for the number (since we know the list is a list of 5,000 people). What part am I missing? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:25, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi Joseph A. Spadaro. I suppose the part you're missing is the emoticon (;-)). My reply was only half-serious.
This list contains 10,000 users, not 5,000. It's possible (and perhaps even common!) to have both ordering/sorting and simple enumeration. Have you used spreadsheet software? Imagine you took a list of numbers in a spreadsheet and sorted them by value. You'd still have simple enumeration of the cells, even with an ordered/sorted list. I can provide a screenshot if you'd like. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:33, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
@MZMcBride: Thanks. But I have no idea what you are talking about. First, when I look at the article, my computer screen shows 5,000 editor names. Not 10,000. I don't know why you are saying 10,000? Second, yes, I missed the emoticon. Third, yes, I am very familiar with Excel spreadsheets and the sort function. Fourth, I don't want to engage in semantics of "enumerating" versus "ranking". It is clear that this list ranks the editors from highest count to lowest count. The list is not simply "enumerating" or counting them. We already know that there are 5,000. So, there is no point in enumerating (counting) them. Either way, we are getting off topic. My question is about listing "equal" ranks when the edit counts are the same. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:56, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
Hi Joseph A. Spadaro. When you visit Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, there are not 5,000 editor names. Some of them (about 50) have been replaced by the text "[Placeholder]", so it's a bit under 5,000. The list itself is made up of ten subpages, each with 1,000 entries. "Page 2" of the list is available at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/5001–10000. I feel like we used to make this clearer. It's mentioned a couple of times at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, but this continuation of the report should probably have its own subsection so that it's less likely to be overlooked.
While it may be clear to you that this list is a ranking, it's less clear to me. In the same way that Excel would refer to duplicate or triplicate values in a sorted list as having different cell enumerations, this list similarly does not mark entries where the alleged edit count value is the same for more than one user. It wouldn't be particularly difficult to change the simple enumeration to be more like a ranking, but I'm not sure doing so would be a good idea. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:54, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
Ok. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:39, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) The "5001–10000" section heading was removed in this edit from February 2016.

As mentioned at the top of this talk page, the script used to generate this report is available at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Configuration. In thinking about this discussion a bit more, perhaps removing the numbering altogether would be best. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:16, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

IIRC the page did list 7,000 or perhaps 8,000 at one time (it never showed the full 10,000) - it maxed out somewhere around the 8,000 level, and since it was taking far too long to render, some years ago we agreed to cut it back to 5,000. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:19, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Comparable lists for other Wikipedias

Are there comparable lists in other Wikipedias, e.g., Simple English? Kdammers (talk) 07:02, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

What is the purpose of that "Search Box" that says: "Search and find yourself!"? I did so, and the results are incomprehensible. It does not allow a user to "find himself" on the list on this page (as one would expect it to do). So, what is that box supposed to do, exactly? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

It may not be that user-friendly but it's not incomprehensible. I just tried and it brings up my username in bold, with my place in the table before it and the number of edits after it. It brings up three of the nearest editors to me as well and it's all in one big long line, but whatever. Probably easier just to do CTRL F.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 19:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
This is what I get:
Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000
65,325 868 Tom Morris 65,311 Ad 869 Chensiyuan 65,104 AP, ECo 870 Joseph A.
Spadaro 65,100 ECo 871 Doniago 65,067 ECo, Rv, Ro 872 Jack1956 65,067 AP,
56 KB (0 words) - 00:04, May 6, 2017
Not user-friendly at all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I just tried to use Search and Find yourself, and got this:
Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/5001–10000
Shortcut: WP:TOP10000 This is the second page of a list of Wikipedians ordered by number of edits in the English language Wikipedia.
Edits in all namespaces
4 KB (171 words) - 12:03, March 11, 2017
Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/9001–10000
44 KB (0 words) - 00:05, July 24, 2017
Huh? RobP (talk) 02:25, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
@Rp2006: it's the standard results list for a Wikipedia search. Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/5001–10000 and Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/9001–10000 are links; click either one, and you will find that you're listed in both of those pages.
@Joseph A. Spadaro: same thing. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:00, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
How odd. I accessed both of those links, then did a search (using *F) in the browser for Rp2006, and came up empty. (Just verified this.) The search works, as I can look for other text I see on the pages, but does not come up with anything if I search rp2006! RobP (talk) 15:39, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
I must have looked at the wrong name. Anyway, I see from this edit that you are claiming 2,500 edits - but the row at position 10000 is presently Reubenbarton with 7,450 edits. You have some way to go yet. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:02, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Sorry... I totally misunderstood the categories. For some reason I thought the numbers (...by number of edits/9001–10000) were the number of edits, rather than the ranking due to the number of edits. LOL. Have a LONG way to go is right. I do have another somewhat related question: From poking around at the various tools that give edit counts, it appears that if you edit in a named sandbox which is subsequently deleted, the edits made there are no longer counted. (I presume that would go for a main-space pages as well.) Is that the case? I ask because another editor I know who has been editing for year, mostly using the named sandbox method, has a much lower edit count than I would expect compared to mine. If this hypothesis is correct, it would explain it. Else I am at a loss. RobP (talk) 01:33, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
Deleted edits are counted in this report. If you can name that other person, I may be able to work out why a discrepancy exists. One reason might be that they have moved a number of pages: page moves are not counted in this report, even though they will show in their contributions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:15, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
The most accessible method of checking the total of one's own edits is, of course, through clicking preferences and then glancing at Basic information where the 4th item specifies Number of edits: 123,456. If one further wishes to discover how that number stands in relation to one's position on the list, then a glance at the list would indicate that if one existed as an editor and had 123,456 edits, then, as of today, one would occupy #312, below editor #311 who has 123,850 edits, and push editor #312 who has 123,440 down to #313, thus pushing all subsequent editors down by one number and pushing editor #10000 to position #10001, beyond the list's scope, as happens almost every day to names (mostly inactive and, as a result, unlinked) at the bottom of the list. It should be noted, however, that because preferences is updated on a continual basis, while this list is updated once in 24 hours, the most recent number of edits indicated in preferences is not immediately reflected on the list. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 14:50, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Mention of limited mobile editing

Hi everyone,

Is it worth mentioning that editing through the mobile view only allows editing per section? I've noticed that my edit count has gone through the roof (see edit counter). In the last 365 days, I've made almost 7,000 edits. I've just passed the 28,000 edits mark, which means that 1/4th has been from the past 365 days. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 10:03, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

congratulations at mastering editing on a mobile device, few of us do that to any great extent - my thumbs are far too big to edit on a smartphone. I'm inclined to think that any extra edit count from the compulsory section editing is more than offset by the lack of a keyboard. As for section editing, isn't it simply good practice as it reduces the risk of edit conflicts to you and to others? ϢereSpielChequers 15:56, 25 July 2017 (UTC)
Hello... a related question regarding your comment "...isn't it simply good practice as it reduces the risk of edit conflicts to you and to others?" A conflict only happened to me once and threw me. But I did the wrong thing and lost all my work. So here is the question... Is there a "ticket" in (or whatever it would be called within WP) to modify the system so that if an article (or section) is open for editing, that it gets locked for everyone else? If not, why not? Every other program and file system on shared networks I have used works that way. RobP (talk) 01:38, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
This is not related to the report Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits, it is much more of a WP:VPT matter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:06, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
I thought that editing only by section was an additional safe measure for mobile vandalism, as it makes editing (and vandalising!) on the go much easier. I like editing mobile, while I'm on the bus or watching a dumb TV show. It just looks like I'm a very active editor all of a sudden, while I'm doing pretty much the same thing. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 13:44, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Problems of ranking Wikipedians by number of edits

Is there a problem of ranking Wikipedians by number of edits, insofar as an individual Wikipedian might start to make errors deliberately so that s/he can go back and correct the number of edits, so as to gain a higher place in the rankings? Vorbee (talk) 11:02, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits#Caveat_lector - hopefully most editors don't take the list too seriously. But multiple small edits would probably be a better strategy than deliberately making mistakes, which would just lose the editor credibility and probably end up with them being blocked. Greenman (talk) 12:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
In my experience the only editors who deliberately introduce small errors and then fix them later are those who stress-test wikipedia with the purpose of analyzing its reliability in order to write up some kind of "analysis" . Oh how I HATE THEM!!!!Staszek Lem (talk) 01:42, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
See WP:BREACH. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC).
It is possible, but there's no shortage of things that need fixing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC).

Abbreviations

The lists (at least the last one) has all sorts of abbreviations for groups, but no key that I could find. This is very user-unfriendly. Can't a key be added at the top or bottom of the list(s)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kdammers (talkcontribs) 01:22, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

The key is at WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#Key. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Edit discrepancy

This morning's (September 13th) tally for me has a 19-edit discrepancy (17,484-reported vs. 17,503-actual). Yesterday's tally was spot on. I wanted to make you aware of this in case other editors are seeing similar discrepancies. Thanks, Stereorock (talk) 20:37, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

@Stereorock: It must have something to do with me. The last two times I had enough edits to advance to a different group (first with 4001–5000, & now 3001–4000), the page seems to stop updating. Peaceray (talk) 04:43, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Calculating the Rank

I think, the previous method of calculating the rank Wikipedia_talk:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits/Archive_8#Calculating_your_rank in (2008) should be revised to:

  FOR USERS WITH EDITS > 6000: RANK = √(EDITS^2 + 150000000) - (EDITS^2) / 15000
  FOR USERS WITH EDITS > 4000: RANK = √(EDITS^2 + 170000000) - (EDITS^2) / 17000
  FOR USERS WITH EDITS > 2000: RANK = √(EDITS^2 + 200000000) - (EDITS^2) / 20000

This equation gives a better approximation of ranking. However it shouldn't be used for wikipedians that have a rank of less than 5000, nor for those who have edits less than 2000.

2008 Method:

            Rank=10,000| No. of edits = 7,748| Rank using 2008 method = 13,650. Difference = 3650
            Rank=8,000|  No. of edits = 10,118| Rank using 2008 method = 12,816. Difference = 4816
            Rank=6000|  No. of edits = 13,730| Rank using 2008 method = 10,887. Difference = 4887

This (2018) Revised Method:

            Rank=10,000| No. of edits = 7,748| Rank using 2018 method = 10,490. Difference = 490
            Rank=8,000|  No. of edits = 10,118| Rank using 2018 method = 9,061. Difference = 1,061
            Rank=6000|  No. of edits = 13,730| Rank using 2018 method = 5,831. Difference = 169

 M A A Z   T A L K  09:31, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

@Ma'az: The "rank" isn't calculated that way - or even calculated at all. The number of edits that each registered user has made is determined. These users are then listed in reverse order of the number of edits that they have made; in building that list, the first user added to the list - i.e. the one with the most edits - is assigned to no. 1; the next one added to the list is no. 2; and so on. That's all there is to it. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:00, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
I don’t think this is about the generation of the list itself, but about estimating where a given edit count will fall without actually looking it up (or where it‘s lower than the extent of the list).—Odysseus1479 00:13, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
@Redrose64: Yes. User:Odysseus1479 is correct. This is just an estimate for users who do not fall in the 1-5000 list nor in the 5001-10000 list but just an approximation of rank for those who do not fall in this category. Thank you for your comments :)  M A A Z   T A L K  14:26, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

A long time gone

Since Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Anonymous redirects here, it might be worth noting that of the 76 user names listed, as of this writing, at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Anonymous, a considerable number are either blocked, have retired or have simply stopped editing — some have not edited since 2006 or 2007. Taking into account that one of the disclaimers under Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#List of Wikipedians by number of edits explains, "A user name in black (unlinked) has not been used for editing in the last 30 days", consideration could be given to also unlinking those among the 76 names which have not been used for editing in the last 30 days. Anonymity would continue to function in the same manner as it currently functions, except that we would have a clearer idea, for those who have an interest in such matters, as to the separate number of inactive as well as of active users whose user names appear as "[Placeholder]".

Also, while on the subject of active and inactive editors, it might be also worth noting that the userbox

1,234As of last count, this user is #1234 of active Wikipedians.

has a link within the words "active Wikipedians" that flows directly to Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. However, as has already been discussed in the past, such as at Can a list be created of only active users?, we do not have a list of only active users and this list contains all users, both active and inactive. Therefore, the appropriate text for this userbox would be, "As of last count, this user is #1234 of all Wikipedians." or "As of last count, this user is #1234 of Wikipedians, both active and inactive." or some other text to the same effect. The link to the project page from the userbox may be also modified or more specific userboxes could be created.    Roman Spinner (talkcontribs) 23:19, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Thumbs

I was unaware that I had made this entirely unintentional edit and, from the time it was made, it was presumably the result of fat thumbs on a mobile device. Mutt Lunker (talk) 18:20, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. I was initially rather indignant, but it later occurred to me that it may have been an accidental rollback. I apologize for my irritated edit summary. Lepricavark (talk) 17:13, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
No problem. Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:17, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Why I am not in this list?

At this very moment, I have more than 508,000 editions, mostly in the Portuguese Wikipedia. Why my name is not in the list? Yanguas (talk) 17:03, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

My mistake: I have just read that the list is for English Wikipedia. Sorry. Yanguas (talk) 17:05, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

This user's got us there. The page name is "List of Wikipedians...", not "List of English-language Wikipedians". Can this list be made global with a twist or two of code, with subpages for individual Wikipedia? This points out that many in our English Wikipedia think of the English-language project as 'Wikipedia', and I am as uninnocent of that as anyone. Is an RM in order? Randy Kryn (talk) 17:07, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

I would say yes, a RM is in order.--Ymblanter (talk) 02:25, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
This is a bot-built report, so before starting a WP:RM, please ensure that the botop is not only aware of the proposal, but is willing to recode the bot so that it writes to the new page name. Otherwise, I foresee that the RM concludes as "rename", somebody moves the page, then on the next run the bot overwrites the redirect with the latest edition of the report. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:20, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
Very good point, and probably a reason an RM shouldn't be started until the coders are aware of the idea and agree that it is workable and could be efficiently accomplished. This shouldn't be hurried, and more discussion on this page before moving forward seems the best route. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:31, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone have a technical answer if this is easily and smoothly done, or will a name change create a problem? Can someone please alert one or some of the editors who work with the code for this page (I'm so far from knowing about coding that I'd sink the ship the first time I had the controls), thanks. The name change itself could easily be an uncontroversial move, but it should probably be an RM, so editors can talk about the concept and why we all missed it. For example, I never thought of it before, not until Yanguas asked "Why I am not in this list?" (a perfect name for this section). Then it was instantly obvious that the fair choice was to add 'English-language' to the title of this page while, at the same time, endeavor to create a world wide list under the current name. Is that even technically possible? Randy Kryn (talk) 18:40, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

We are on the English language Wikipedia and the first line of the report says "This is a list of Wikipedians ordered by number of edits in the English-language Wikipedia". There is or used to be a list on meta that ran across all Wikipedias, that would be the logical place for such a list. So I see no need for change. But if others have consensus for change be bold and change it, the bot updates a bunch of subpages that are transcluded here. if you don't move the subpages but do move this page it should still work. Provided you make the necessary changes to expand transclusions such as {{/1–1000}} {{/1001–2000}} {{/2001–3000}} ϢereSpielChequers 07:59, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

How?

The person top of this list has been editing for 13 years and 1 months and has made 2,960,000 edits. That's 156 months. 2,960,000/156 = 18,974 edits per month. Divide that by 31, the longest month is 612 edits per day or 25 per hour. This just isn't realistic but presumably it's true? How? Cls14 (talk) 12:58, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

WP:AWB -- Cabayi (talk) 13:06, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Cls14 (talk) 14:22, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

5001-10000

The list of 5001-10000 edit users is on a separate page. Why not just make it link to that page?At the moment it links to an anchor on the main page and you have to jump down and click again. I'll admit to the vanity of checking that page now and then! This is not urgent, although that said, it would save me a click. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 02:17, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

All of the lists are on separate pages (see WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1001–2000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/2001–3000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/3001–4000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/4001–5000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/5001–6000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/6001–7000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/7001–8000; WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/8001–9000; and WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/9001–10000), 1000 entries for each one. There have been several threads (now all in the acrchves) as to why it was done in the way that it is. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
The page is very very big, the decision to structure it this way was made to help people with bandwidth issues. That was quite a few years ago, and it is possible that the calculations might have changed. But with the rise of mobile as an important medium, if badly underrepresented amongst our editors, means that the decision to split this at 5,000 might still be sensible. A few years ago I was one of the people on a relatively slow connection who appreciated that the majority agreed to not make a change that would have been difficult for me. Now I'm on a very fast broadband, but I hope we can agree to care about those of our colleagues who pay for mobile data. ϢereSpielChequers 14:37, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Catfurball

This user is listed 57 times on this list, which shouldn't be. Only #32 should be kept all other numbers should be dropped.Catfurball (talk) 22:59, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@Catfurball: "Placeholder" is not a real user, see Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#Opting out. Also, this edit was futile, since the bot that builds the page daily will merely overwrite your changes in about five hours time. They're not linked because they've not been active recently, see Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#List of Wikipedians by number of edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:13, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
Some of these details were also mentioned in the above comment (23:19, 1 April 2018), not yet archived, under section header "A long time gone". —Roman Spinner (talkcontribs) 04:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Not active

To me it makes no sense that users who are inactive are on this list, by my point of view they should be removed. This list would be more accurate if only active editors would be on this list.Catfurball (talk) 22:35, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

It's a list of Wikipedians by number of edits: removing anyone would make it less accurate, not more. Feel free to create Wikipedia:List of active Wikipedians by number of edits if you'd like. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 22:37, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
A few comments were exchanged regarding this topic in 2014 (Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 11#Can a list be created of only active users?), in 2015 (Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 12#Can a list be created of only active users? additional comments) and in 2016 (Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Archive 12#Can a list be created of only active users? cont'd). —Roman Spinner (talkcontribs) 04:37, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Wrong edit number

The list has me at 19,270 edits, which is wrong. Yesterday I finished editing at 19,304 edits. I don't understand why the bot didn't update my edit number.Catfurball (talk) 18:54, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Catfurball, I've noticed that, too. It seems that the bot uses the number of edits as of a specific time, updating the page some hours later. It may still be a bit off, similar to my recently receiving the automated "Thanks for making your 10,000th edit!" notice when the edit counter said it was my 10,017th or so. (addition) I see now from the page history that the bot hasn't updated the page today; that happens occasionally. It should be back and updated tomorrow. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 21:14, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
There are often discrepancies. These can be attributed to a number of causes, for instance logged actions which do not alter the page content (such as page moves and protections) are counted under some schemes but not others. Then there are deletions: assume that a given page (for example, List of Seventh-Day Adventist churches in Jamaica) has been edited by you twice - now assume that this page gets deleted. Some methods of counting will still count those two edits, but some will not. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Still wrong edit number

I still don't understand why I'm still at 19,270 edits, it makes no sense. I created a new section for Seventh-day Adventists in Nigeria yesterday. And also yesterday I added many Did You Knows to Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church. I even helped to replace a selected article in the portal yesterday. Is this bot being lazy or what.Catfurball (talk) 16:24, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

The bot has stopped updating the page for some reason. Let's ping the bot operator, MZMcBride (talk · contribs). -- John of Reading (talk) 16:59, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Now fixed. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:04, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:26, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: Your bot stopped updating peoples edits on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits.Catfurball (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi Catfurball. You seem pretty eager to get involved in this report. The relevant script is at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Configuration or it could be rewritten in a programming language of your choosing. Do you have any interest in taking over the indefinite maintenance of this report?
In the case of the most recent breakage, it was related to wikitech:News/Actor storage changes on the Wiki Replicas. --MZMcBride (talk) 09:28, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
A suggestion: Perhaps at the top of this report there could be a time stamp, as in "last generated on _____" plus a statement on how it is typically updated every 24 hours or whatever it is. The recent angst over the multi-day lapse may have been caused by an inaccurate assumption that the report is updated in real time. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 22:53, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Hi Doomsdayer520. The current version of this report already contains the following sentences:
"This list is normally updated daily."
"This is a list of Wikipedians sorted by edit count as of 02:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)."
"This list is normally updated daily by a bot."
The middle sentence uses a dynamic timestamp that's updated via the Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/Age page. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:36, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
MZMcBride - Thanks, it is absolutely my fault for not seeing those. To prevent future angst of the type seen earlier in this thread, perhaps all those statements could be more prominent and consolidated near the top of the page. That's a low-priority suggestion. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 17:52, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Wrong edit number again

@MZMcBride: It seems your bot is being lazy again with updating the edits for List of Wikipedians by number of edits. The list has me at 19,680, when I ended yesterday at 19,759.Catfurball (talk) 15:40, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Heavens. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
An edit count is not a worthwhile measure of an editor, and you're being rather rude to someone who runs these bots apparently without much gratitude. Stop obsessing over your edit count. –xenotalk 17:41, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Catfurball, I mean it in the nicest possible way when I say that nobody except you gives a shit what your edit count is, and you can get your own edit count here any time you like without whining at other people for spending their time doing something actually useful rather than being at your immediate beck and call. Besides, everyone knows that all the cool kids add themselves to the anonymizing list. ‑ Iridescent 17:43, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Attempting to preempt the inevitable inquiries, there's currently high database replication lag for "s1", the cluster where the "enwiki_p" database replica lives: <https://tools.wmflabs.org/replag/>. The bot is continuing to operate daily as expected: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits/Age&action=history>. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:24, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Time machine?

Yesterday's report ended with editor 10,000 having 8,391 edits. Today's ends at 6,415. What happened? Was the server farm moved to a conveniently parked DeLorean? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 03:45, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

@BlackcurrantTea: See Special:Diff/893660012 by Zeeyanwiki - I undid it, but have no idea why they made that change --DannyS712 (talk) 03:59, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
How strange. Thanks for catching and reverting that, DannyS712. It didn't occur to me to look at the history for that page separately after checking the first page's revision history. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 04:10, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Just checked, I am not sure who did that. Maybe someone else, Changing password.---zeeyanwiki discutez 16:11, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Where can one find old data?

I can look up my (or anyone else's) ranking and number of edits, for the current / given day. Is there any way to look at "old copies" of this list ... so that I can look up my (or anyone else's) ranking and number of edits, for a different day? Let's just say that I want to see data from a week ago, or a month ago, or a year ago, or five years ago, etc. Is that possible? I looked at the "view history" tab for this article page. It shows the status of the article, itself, on any given day in history. But -- within that article -- it seems like the list itself is stagnant and "frozen" to reflect the current day's list (i.e., the most recent "bot" update). So, for example ... say that I look at an "old version" of this article from, say, 2015 (by using the "view history" tab). In that old 2015 article, it will still say: This is a list of Wikipedians sorted by edit count as of 04:00, 19 October 2019 (UTC). What gives? Any thoughts or ideas? Can one view old data and/or old copies of this list? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 08:42, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Joseph A. Spadaro: I've expanded the "related pages" box at the top of this talk page to show the names of the bot-updated pages; it's those subpages which have the old data in their history. It's not possible to show an old version of the complete list. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:09, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
@John of Reading: Thanks. I'm sorry ... I did not understand your reply. Can you please re-phrase it? Thanks. When I read your reply, what I got out of it was: "The old data is available, but the old data is not available." Sorry. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 09:28, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
@Joseph A. Spadaro: OK, I'll try again! You are currently at position 808 in the list, so your data is in the subpage named Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits/1–1000. That is one of the pages that the bot updates every 24 hours or so. If you look at through the history of that page you can find yourself in old copies of the list: for example on 1 September 2019, this old version says your edit count was 79,041. In that sense, all the old data is available. However, it's not possible to display old versions of the whole of the list all at once, all 5,000 or 10,000 editors. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
@John of Reading: Great. Thanks. Now, I understand. Thanks a lot. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
The details broadly related to this discussion have also been mentioned four months ago at Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by number of edits#5001-10000, not-yet-archived, above. —Roman Spinner (talkcontribs) 17:05, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

How...

...this ranking updates. -- Viquitòls (talk) 18:59, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Per the project page: "This list is normally updated daily by a bot. " Mindmatrix 19:29, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Actually i thought that updates of this page (and also the Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by article count) were stopped long ago, with intent by some to combat editors simply trying to raise their edit/article counts. When you look at "View history" it does not show any recent updates. In fact to see history of revisions you need to check on history of separate subpages where the data is actually updated. So I just changed the text in the intro to clarify about that:

This list is normally updated daily by bot which updates the separate tables located elsewhere but displayed below (see revision history for one of these tables).

I think/hope this is better. --Doncram (talk) 19:26, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia is approaching its billionth edit!

I'm not sure where to post this for sure, but this seems like a reasonable place. I keep noticing that some of the ID numbers for edits are getting higher (i.e. my most recent edit being marked as 924932129). It appears to mean that we're getting closer and closer to that Billion mark, which will be a significant community accomplishment. Does Wikipedia have an commemoration plans in this regard? Mungo Kitsch (talk) 22:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

We are probably still over a year away, you might want to look at Wikipedia_talk:Time_Between_Edits#False_prediction ϢereSpielChequers 01:01, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: Add the account creation date alongside the number of edits a user has made

I would like to add the account date to get an idea how old an account is without having to go in each individual account to determine that. Interstellarity (talk) 21:12, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

If the user names were all linked, as suggested above, then the usual WP:POPUPS gadget would display the account age, and a lot else, just by hovering over the link. -- John of Reading (talk) 22:08, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Open source

Mention the source code: how you made the list. On a standard MediaWiki installation Special:ListUsers does not have such detail.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec doesn't do it. Jidanni (talk) 06:10, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Jidanni. Did you see the sentence "Information about the script used to generate this report: Configuration" at the top of this page? :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 19:40, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
@MZMcBride: Who would have guessed it was on the talk page?! Jidanni (talk) 03:22, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Wild. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)