Wikipedia talk:Service awards/Archive 7

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Archive 7

Tutnam image and caption

Small thing, but why is there mention of a cigarette burn on the image of Tutnam? We should all be anti-smoking here, and it's annoying to see smoking acknowledged as part of being a veteran editor. The caption would be adequate if it just said: "This editor is a Tutnum of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to display this Book of Knowledge." --Zefr (talk) 21:30, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh, for GOD'S SAKE! EEng 23:50, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

@Zefr: You aren't required to display any specific image, so if it offends you, then don't display it. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 09:57, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

How about "This editor is a Tutnum of the Encyclopedia and is entitled." --Jameboy (talk) 00:59, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

@Zefr: I agree that the cigarette burn is objectionable. I use the alternative awards. I am less than halfway to {{Tutnum III}} and have been quietly hoping that the cigarette burn will be removed from that award through to {{Labutnum III}} inclusive, before I accrue enough edits to encounter the dilemma of whether or not to keep using that award series. If anybody reading this has the time and inclination to substitute the cigarette burn with something more justifiable ("dog-eared cover"? "'overdue' notice from library"?), I would greatly appreciate it. Zazpot (talk) 00:29, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Keeping library books past their due date is highly objectionable and I don't think we should be normalizing it. EEng 01:25, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

"We should all be anti-smoking here."^{[who?][original research?][neutrality is disputed][attribution needed][opinion][editor needs IPA][excessive citations]}Herostratus (talk) 05:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Health effects of tobacco#References? Oh, and this sort of thing? Zazpot (talk) 08:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Do any of the awards have diamonds? I ask because they might be blood diamonds. The parchment scrolls -- are they cruelty-free? One award has a coffee-cup stain -- is it fair-trade coffee? Can't something just be fun without everything being so goddam deadly serious all the time? EEng 10:53, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

The tobacco industry isn't "fun". That is the point being made in this section of the talk page. Zazpot (talk) 23:10, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

(To answer your questions: the page indicates no diamonds or parchment, and the coffee would surely depend upon the editor. To answer your possible next question: yes, I am aware that these are just graphics on a screen, not real items; but they exist in order to represent, to some degree, the editors who choose to use them. A chewed pencil or a bookmark, I can "get behind"; a coffee stain, meh; but the cigarette burns would seriously misrepresent me, and presumably Zefr too. Don't get me wrong: I am on the whole glad that the alternative awards exist, and grateful to whoever created them. (Herostratus, maybe?) Zazpot (talk) 23:12, 18 September 2018 (UTC) )

This isn't "the tobacco industry" -- it's some made-up stuff in cyberspace. Get some perspective. It occurs to me that the chewed pencil could be a choking hazard for younger editors, and the sticky notes contribute to the solid waste crisis and overflowing landfills. I see that as an alternative for Senior Editor II, we offer the Rhodium Editor Star, but rhodium is highly toxic. It's terrible that we make editors choose between a viscous vice like smoking and a toxic metal medal. Oh wait, I forgot -- this is just some made-up stuff in cyberspace, not real life. EEng 15:50, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I refer you to my previous comment. (Also: people incapable of being trusted with a pencil should not be entrusted with editing an encyclopaedia; sticky paper notes are compostable; the Rhodium Editor Star is the award for Senior Editors, it is not part of the Alternative Awards series; and finally, unlike cigarettes, rhodium is not known to be toxic.) Zazpot (talk) 22:30, 19 September 2018 (UTC); edited 07:58, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

• Do not alter your posts after others have responded [1]. WP:TPG violations have gotten you in trouble before, so you should know better.
• You need to lighten up. Really.

EEng 11:11, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

• Per WP:REDACT, it seems to be OK to edit one's comments after others have responded, as long as the edits do not "deprive any replies of their original context". (My edit above did not do so, so does not seem to be a WP:TPG breach.) However, ideally, any such edits should be formatted in a specific way. I have now applied this formatting to my comment above.
• Per WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL, spare me your personal remarks. Zazpot (talk) 01:02, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

• It's not for you to judge whether a silent change to your post "deprives any replies of their original context". All but trivial changes need to be marked.
• Please stop trying to interpret behavioral guidelines to other editors. If you don't like that advice you can always open an ANI thread and see what happens.

EEng 03:00, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

All but trivial changes need to be marked. ⊂ All heresy must be hunted down and stamped out!. We can do without this, EEng. First of all, it's off-topic. Secondly, your interjections in this discussion are not swaying me to your views about the awards, nor to your approach to conversation; and this seems to be reciprocated. You and I will not achieve consensus between us, and our conversation has become circular. As our views on the awards are now clear enough for others to judge them, I suggest we disengage and await others' contributions. There is WP:NOHURRY. Zazpot (talk) 11:40, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Inscrutable faux set theory. Whatever next? Since it apparently needs to be said: I held out no hope of swaying you. EEng 19:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

@Zazpot: May I refer you to my comment of 17 November last year? You yourself said the awards "represent, to some degree, the editors who choose to use them." If a particular depiction of an award offends you, then choose to use a different one. There are plenty of other options. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 02:26, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Unacceptable! All heresy must be hunted down and stamped out! EEng 03:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: thanks for your comment. You say, There are plenty of other options. However, within the "Alternative Award" series, there are no other options. As for the alternatives to the Alternatives: the "Award" series has not yet held any appeal for me (it is much too militaristic); and the options at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia/Personal statistics, besides not being part of the series that does (other than the cigarette burn) appeal to me, are either not part of a series or are neither humorous nor bookish. So, by far the most preferable solution, from my perspective at least, would be for the cigarette burn to be replaced with something not obviously objectionable, as I suggested above. Zazpot (talk) 06:43, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@Zazpot: It seems clear to me that there is consensus. Looking at the timestamps throughout this thread, a complaint was raised and answered within approximately 12 hours last November, then a solitary snarky comment was made in February. Then, seven months later, you performed some sort of necromancy on this thread and got it going again. This was a WP:DEADHORSE even before you commented last week. No one, besides yourself, is forcing you to display service awards, so if you are offended by it, then don't display it. You are also free to design an alternative image and present it here for discussion. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 06:05, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

But OTOH let's have a little Wikilove for the original poster. I mean there are always a lot of things that are in transition at any time, in society. Have had discussions here over whether it's still OK to refer to ships as "she" rather than "it", and so on and so forth for many terms. Redskins -> Indians -> Native Americans -> First Nations, and etc etc.

Smoking cigarettes is one of those of those. I mean 50 years ago everyone smoked. Smoked indoors too -- you'd go in somebody's house, ashtrays. Over time we've been moving away from that and there may indeed come a time when smoking becomes anethema to use is this context. Are we there yet? I don't know -- not in my opinion. But things in transition are fraught issues, and people have have strong feelings on both sides of the issue, often. So TBH eye-rolling is not really sufficient as a response. So here's my more detailed counter-argument:

• I made the graphic and it's my baby and I think it's cute. TBH about myself as a human, this is the real reason I object to changing it.
• Smoking is hella fun. It's delicious! Have you tried it? Second hand smoke is unpleasant tho.
• Smoking is a net benefit to society, because typically long term smokers start dying off right about retirement age. They pay into their pensions (Social security or private pensions) but don't live to take much out, which makes those pensions more sustainable. Yeah there's end-of-life medical care needed, but lung cancer is fairly aggressive, and it's a lot cheaper if a person dies at 65 from lung cancer then at 95, having been treated for various diseases probably. I realize that this sounds cold-blooded, but I mean it is true.
• People smoke more in like Europe and elsewhere. Let's not be overly American-centric.
• Working class people smoke more. As someone who's spend a lot of his career on the factory floor, I note that class discrimination here is egregious. It's assumed you're middle class and college educated. Let's not be class biased here. Also old people smoke more. Let's not be age biased here. Native Americans smoke at a higher rate than then white people (altho, granted, other races and ethnicities don't), source.
• Even if smoking was dying out, so? People don't much chew tobacco anymore, and it is objectively disgusting, but if I had "tobacco spit stain" instead of cigarette burn, it wouldn't bother me. Think of it as a historical reference if you will.
• And speaking of historical reference, we are editors. Historically editors are associated with smoking. J. Jonah Jameson smokes (or smoked) cigars, Perry White also I think. Your Maxwell Perkins tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches types smoked pipes. Your The Front Page honey-get-me-rewrite beat reporter types chain smoked cigarettes.

So "We should all be anti-smoking here" just kind of doesn't resonate with me. As I said, in particular it is assuming you're a middle class American person of middle age or younger. There's hella people here, so for almost any issue, it shouldn't be assumed that we "all" are against anything, except Wikipedia-related things like POV and so forth. Herostratus (talk) 08:48, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

50 years ago everyone smoked. Smoked indoors too... Over time we've been moving away from that and there may indeed come a time when smoking becomes anethema to use is this context. Are we there yet? Yes.

Smoking is hella fun. Er, no.

TBH eye-rolling is not really sufficient as a response. Agreed. Thank you sincerely for acknowledging this.

I made the graphic ... this is the real reason I object to changing it. Thank you for clearing that up. (And thank you, on a different note, for creating the Alternative Award series.)

Smoking is a net benefit to society... I don't buy this argument at all. How many people do you know who genuinely think, for example, "I'm glad that the emphysema prevented mum from doing the things she enjoyed, and that after she stopped being able to eat properly and the tumours spread from her jaw, she died painfully at 65 and never got to know her grandkids. That sure spared her the possibility of a dignified and healthful old age working part-time and bringing joy to the people she loved!"

Let's not be overly American- [or middle class, or youth]-centric. Please don't make such assumptions about the people who have objected to the cigarette burn graphic. Thanks.

Historically editors are associated with smoking. No more than people in other professions, AFAICT. Zazpot (talk) 00:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

OK, we can agree to disagree about that stuff, but speaking for myself I'm not opposed to an alternative image. Why not? It's always good to give people alternatives, within reason. How it should be presented on the page, not sure, but with a link or something ("for an non-tobacco alternative, click here" or whatever), or some other way,

I long ago lost the original Photoshop file with the layers, so anybody is able to do it as me -- probably better, because my graphics skills such as they were are pretty rusty now. You'll have to work from the JPEG. and the problem with that is you have to do the next three levels also... altho I guess you could shift the graphics down a level... but still... without the Photoshop original, it's tricky. I mean a total redo of those levels from scratch could be done, and also improve/update/sharpen the image. Don't look to me to do it, tho.

If it is done, what should replace the cigarette burn, not sure... overdue library notice sounds good to me. Little locket with Denise Diderot silhouette maybe... inkstain might be good... other things. Herostratus (talk) 22:38, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Huh, looking at the page, it seems the one truly potentially offensive image is the Little Red Book, which is based on the original Little Red Book, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, which... I mean he did kill 45 million people, allegedly. So... Herostratus (talk) 22:49, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I had some misgivings about this, too (which, admittedly, I did not voice). My most generous interpretation was that it was a very dark-humoured way of satirising the zealotry that might be displayed by editors with the corresponding level of experience. I used it on that understanding. Doing so made me somewhat uncomfortable, in case my use of it were construed as though I condoned Mao's tragic policies. I don't wish to delve any deeper into my own psyche here, but perhaps that experience was one of the factors that nudged me towards speaking up about the cigarette burn. (I'm pretty sure that the tobacco industry has more blood on its hands than Mao and, unlike Mao, it continues to abuse people.) Zazpot (talk) 04:54, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your openness about the potential for alternatives to the Alternatives. Your points about the Photoshop files are well taken. Now that we have your approval to create derivative works (not that we needed it, because of the licensing, but still...), I hope that someone else will beat me to making them. Failing that, perhaps I will find time eventually. Thanks again, Zazpot (talk) 04:58, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

How is this Modern Style Alternative?

I Just Loved the Look, How about you all?-- Stalin Sunny ^Talk2Me 04:11, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

This editor is a
Vanguard Editor
and is entitled to display this
Unobtainium
Editor Star
with the
Neutronium Superstar hologram.

This editor is a
Apprentice Editor
and is entitled to display this Service Badge.

This editor is a
Journeyman Editor
and is entitled to display this Service Badge.

I like it! I think the templates, at least the Vanguard example, are markedly different size from the existing ones... those should be scaled down somewhat I think, they're already prominent enough at their current size and we don't want to overly break people's formatting. Other than that, I'm good with it, but let's see what others say. Herostratus (talk) 02:19, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Incremental service awards (Ribbons)

Can more incremental service award ribbons please be added for the higer levels? Thank you in advance!!! SportsFan007 (talk) 02:50, 24 October 2018 (UTC)SportsFan007

Service awards topicons

Can Service award topicons please be added? Thank you in advance!!! SportsFan007 (talk) 03:21, 24 October 2018 (UTC)SportsFan007

@SportsFan007: {{Service awards}} has an option for |format=topicon. If you go to my talk page, you can see it in my topicons. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 03:55, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: Thank you so much!!! SportsFan007 (talk) 04:03, 24 October 2018 (UTC)SportsFan007

@SportsFan007: See also {{SA user topicon}}. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:29, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

The meaning

Does this mean: a) You must do a number of edits in a period of time; or, b) You must do a number of edits and wait for a period of time (or vice versa) AAnnoonnyymous (talk) 14:39, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Necessary but not sufficient. Honor system. Both requirements must be met, according to the rules, but don't overthink it. I'm going on 8 years, but only qualify as a beginner. Who cares?! Have fun with it or don't play. Life is short. rags (talk) 09:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

AAnnoonnyymous, Just fill out the Template:Service awards and let the script handle it for you. basically both edit count and duration of service should be met. --DBigXrayᗙ 14:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

18 years now

Is there's not a need for the next step? Wikipedia now exists 18 years. Marcus Cyron (talk) 00:48, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@Marcus Cyron: See "The 18th founding anniversary is coming up—time for a new level of award?" above for how far the proposal has gotten. :-/ —DocWatson42 (talk) 06:32, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

According to which counter? ;-)

Greetings! I know this site is rather an inoffical one, but... According to which counter the number of edits should be counted? ;-)

For example, my Global account information gives me a total of 11 249 edits; XTools give me 10 376 edits (how stingy!); and finally, Wikiscan yields with 11 937 edits (that's what I call generous!).

This is not a laughing matter, though. My wife is waiting for my wiki-promotion eagerly, and if I won't get one soon, I'll sure be sleeping on the sofa until I do. :-( Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 18:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I assume that Global account information would be more accurate than the others as it is built into the system. I check my edit count by using the counter at Special:Preferences. - ZLEA _T\^C 11:30, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Jayaguru-Shishya Actually, I read somewhere that Global account information has a bug and does not count some deleted contributions. I would use XTools for now. - ZLEA _T\^C 18:40, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

ZLEA Thanks! :-) Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 09:37, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

WT:SA

Since WP:SA redirects to Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries, does anyone have an objection if I change WT:SA to point to Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries? Just to make them consistent. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 18:18, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

My mistake, WP:SA is a disambiguation page. —howcheng {chat} 03:09, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrative service awards

I got tired of waiting and created Wikipedia:Administrative service awards. Changing of the names might be a worthy point of discussion. Someone else will have to come up with badges, ribbons, userboxes, etc. bd2412 T 23:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

BD2412 I would give them janitor-themed alternative names, such as "Student Janitor", "Intern Janitor", "Full Janitor", etc. I will think of more names later and photoshop some badges when I have time. - ZLEA _T\^C 00:25, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not terribly attached to any set of names, though I like having a variety of janitor/custodian-related themes. bd2412 T 00:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412 and ZLEA: I can help design ribbons for the administrator levels as well. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 03:30, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

That would be great! We have some discussion of award designs going on at Wikipedia talk:Administrative service awards, and ZLEA has put together some ideas in a sandbox in his userspace. bd2412 T 03:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

"I got tired of waiting and created..." That's exactly the problem, isn't it? I genuinely pity editors driven in this manner. It must be hard to manage. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:02, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Why comment on it, even? bd2412 T 22:12, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I suppose he was just having a bad day; maybe he found a cat to kick or something and now feels better. =/

On the procedural merits, "I got tired of waiting and created..." is how hella good stuff gets done in this world. It's how these Service Awards came about. There were various discussions about them, and various ideas kicked around, and fine, but it's clear that getting things done here by getting most everyone to agree on it first is some heavy lifting indeed. It's a lot easier to ask for pardon than permission, so I just made them. And some people didn't like them, and still don't, and they were nominated for deletion twice but they weren't deleted. Because the act of creation puts the shoe on the other foot: now it's your job to get people to collectively agree to forbid doing something. And it worked out fine, since people who don't care for this sort of thing still have available their correct and proper response: ignore it altogether.

On the general merits, well as Napoleon said "A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." Napoleon, nobody's fool, was just noting was has been known for millennia: you can motivate people do prodigious things for sheer pride, and the attention and respect of their peers, that you will never get them do for money. Some people find that outrageous, unnatural, contrary to a strictly capitalist teheory social relations, or whatever, it appears. 'Tis nonetheless true, and no amount of people's stamping their little feet can change that, really. Herostratus (talk) 02:35, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

A suggestion: One local college calls its janitors "maintainers", so that could be on the list. —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:34, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

"Maintainer" is not listed in Janitor as another name for "janitor". We should probably stick to names that are easily recognizable as janitor names. - ZLEA _T\^C 10:30, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Edits to ribbons?

I've made an edited version of one of the ribbons at User:Vashti/sandbox/Journeyman lv3 Ribbon, so that I could alter its size and superimpose it on my service badge. It seems harmless but I'm a little shy of editing a template. Should I? Vashti (talk) 09:44, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't see the utility of altering size; please explain. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:35, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

It's a large image, which I wanted to scale down and superimpose on top of my service badge userbox. Vashti (talk) 11:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

You can alter the size of the image with a simple file call. For example, [[File:Journeyman Editor lv3.svg|30px]] produces: . There's no need to alter any of the existing templates if you just want to superimpose the ribbon. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 22:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Gosh, TIL. Thank you. :D Vashti (talk) 03:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

... oh, but if I do that I don't get the text when I mouse over it. Vashti (talk) 03:54, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Vashti: Try [[File:Journeyman Editor lv3.svg|30px|The Journeyman lv 3, Awarded for being a Registered Editor for 8 months and completion of 3,000 edits]] to get . — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 04:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Do minor edits count?

Brevity is the soul of wit, do minor edits count? Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes! You can even count edits on other wikis or deleted edits, or whatever you want. Vashti (talk) 20:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

+1 Minor edits are still contributions to the wiki. I, myself, include my edits on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, as I don't have as separate service award there. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Vashti and Chris troutman! But do the various ***edit counters*** include the minor edits or not? Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Both Special:CentralAuth and xtools count minor edits. Anything found at Category:Wikipedia editing-related user templates draw from one of these sources or let you plug the number in, yourself. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:32, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

How about edits where someone asks which edits count as edits? SlightSmile 16:37, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I dunno, Slightsmile. But does your edit count as edit as well? Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Or how about if someone reverts themselves because of a mistake would the original edit and also the revert count as two edits. And fixing one's own typos. What actually does happen sometimes is a vandal doing quick repeated vandalising edits on the same article and I revert them as fast as they make them. I never kept count so I don't know if it's a hundred or a few hundred of my twenty thousand edits that are from quick reverts like that. SlightSmile 22:54, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

If an edit counter counts it, it counts. An edit could be vandalism and it would still count (not that I support vandalism as a method for increasing edit counts). - ZLEA _T\^C 00:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed: every editor who reaches one million good edits should receive a prize of $1,000,000 from the Foundation

Just leaving this here as food for thought. Maybe $1,000,000 is a bit much; perhaps $100,000 would be more reasonable. BD2412 T 22:13, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, but I believe there may be better uses for such monies. Food for some, for example. Non-monetary recognition, fine. Errantius (talk) 22:43, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Believe me, $100,000 could buy that worthy editor a lot of food. BD2412 T 00:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, you’re timewasting. I’m inclined to remove this episode. Errantius (talk) 08:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

BD2412, They could at least give editors an in-kind charitable tax receipt for the free labour provided. ;) Doug Mehus T·C 03:29, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Seeking consensus to waive the edit requirement to bestow the Veteran Editor II service award on myself

Hi Everyone,

I've been a Wikipedia user for more than 16 years, so I'd meet the length of service requirement for the Vanguard Editor service award. I won't go that far and request exceptional approval to bestow that award on myself, but I would permission to bestow the Veteran Editor II service award upon myself. Given my length of service and rapidly increasing edits, it seems reasonable. And, at the end of the day, Wikipedia has no rules.

Cheers,
--Doug Mehus T·C 03:28, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Why not just make the edits needed to meet the requirement? There are plenty of edits to be made. BD2412 T 03:46, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@Dmehus: I find your request disgraceful. If you don't want to build this encyclopedia, then the awards we have shouldn't matter that much to you. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Chris troutman, Fine. I guess there's no requirement for Main: namespace edits for these service awards, so I'll continue working in the Wikipedia: namespace to achieve that designation. For clarity, I just wanted the purple and gold pips. ;) Doug Mehus T·C 17:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Inclusivity? (or, Gender-Neutral Service Award Titles)

As a longtime but occasional contributor to the magic that is Wikipedia, I hadn't stumbled across these service awards until just recently, but I love the idea. Even more, I love the recognition that some people (like me) just like to be silly and call themselves a Signator or Burba or whatever instead of Registered Editor or Novice Editor, etc.! At an average rate of 1.7 edits per month over the last decade-plus, it's unlikely I'll ever accumulate 96,000 or more edits but, as an editor/aspiring gnome of the female persuasion, I know I wouldn't want to be called Lord of anything if I did get there. Which got me wondering...could we offer alternatives to the alternative titles?

One route might be to offer a choice, including Lx as a riff on Mr/Ms/Mx

• Lord/Lady/Lx High Togneme Vicarus
• Lord/Lady/Lx High Togneme Laureate
• Lord/Lady/Lx Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia

Another option might be to riff further on Lx...it's neutral, yes, but also conveniently recalls "Lux," the Latin word for light (or, metaphorically, knowledge). Could we simply replace Lord with Lux in these exalted titles to create ones that are consistent yet all-inclusive?

• Lux High Togneme Vicarus
• Lux High Togneme Laureate
• Lux Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia

As one more possibility, how about replacing Lord with something else entirely?

• Extreme High Togneme Vicarus or Galactic High Togneme Vicarus
• Extreme High Togneme Laureate or Galactic High Togneme Laureate
• Extreme Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia or Galactic Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia

All objectiveness aside, "Galactic Gom" is my personal favorite! Thoughts? Alsd2 (talk) 04:36, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Well we thank you for your kind words!

I definitely see where you're coming from. But hmmm, I dunno. For one thing various terms are being de-genderized nowadays, and (for better or worse), the formerly masculine word is used when "person" (e.g. "chairperson") won't do: "actor", for instance, replacing "actress".

Is not "Lord" like that, signifying a non-gender-designated mastery of whatever domain is in question?" Especially since "Lady" can, besides signifying a distaff version of that, also designate a generally a female person not necessarily possessing any power, or a mere auxiliary of a lord, the several meanings this being confusing.

Suppose, for instance, that you were to suddenly be made dictator of the Universe. Would you choose the name "Zhan-Tor, Lord of the Universe" or "Zhan-Tor, Lady of the Universe?" (That's assuming that your name is Zhan-Tor of course.) "Lady of the Universe" seems like it could have a meaning similar to "Man of the world".

Lux or Extreme would be OK tho. I kind of like Lord tho. At any rate, the floor is open for discussion.

As to Galactic Gom, my opinion is that is exactly the ideal term that we have been seeking. I'm going to second that.

Thank you for your contributions and avowal of future ones. I believe that there is a template somewhere that, if you put your start date in your code page, will display your service time ("The person has been a Wikipedian for 2 years and 18 days" for instance). I'm not sure where that is tho. Anyone? Herostratus (talk) 09:23, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Well I'm chuffed that "Galactic Gom" is pleasing, tho how did you know that Zhan-Tor was I?! Personally, I'd probably go with "Zhan-Tor, Dictator of the Universe" before calling myself Lord but I do see your point about the potential for "Lady" to be perceived as something lesser--which it would certainly be preferable to avoid.

As for time-in-service templates, there may be more generic ones, but I did find fancy userboxes for contributors who wish to declare membership in the Ten Year Society or Fifteen Year Society, with variants that can calculate your individual length of service! Alsd2 (talk) 17:04, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

I also like the idea of "Galactic Gom." The alliteration just feels right.

As far as "Lord," I know that there is real-world precedent for women to use the title "Lord" if it is part of the official title of the office they hold, e.g. Dame Fiona Woolf was the second female Lord Mayor of London. However, I would not oppose a change to the title if that is the decision here. "Lux" has a nice ring to it, in addition to meaning "light." — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:41, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Good point Jkudlick, but these usages of "Lord" by women are fairly unusual; IMHO, the title is still likely to be interpreted as male outside that fairly narrow context.

One other option just occurred, if there's interest: "majestic." This retains the regal qualities of "Lord" without gender connotations, and the -ic ending provides a sense of continuity with Galactic if we were to go with that for the GomHTE:

• Majestic High Togneme Vicarus
• Majestic High Togneme Laureate
• Majestic (or Galactic) Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia

Alsd2 (talk) 23:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@Alsd2: I like "Majestic" in place of "Lord" for the High Togneme ranks, but I still like the alliteration of "Galactic Gom." — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 20:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I concur on both counts. "Majestic" is the best so far IMO. Herostratus (talk) 23:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

These alternative titles are supposed to be fun and light-hearted banter. If people feel "Lord" is not inclusive or misrepresenting gender, I'm sure we can find something more appropriate. Some of the suggestions seem OK, others are strange in my options.

Replacing the current noun "Lord" with any adjective (e.g. majestic, extreme, etc.) leads to an unusual grammatical construction of two adjectives. I feel we can do better than this. Lord High is an eloquent way of saying a high(er) Lord. The proposal of Lux High and Lady High follows exactly this logic. I personal really like Lux High because it avoids wordiness (Remember the MOS? ;-)) and above all it takes the banter to a new level.

One final point, I very much hope that the existing logic of "Lord Gom" will not be broken; there is a deliberate link to the previous high lords. In a humble way s/he is merely "Lord" and not "High Lord" Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia, because such an editor transcends beyond fancy title and is an encompassing Gom whom other people respectfully can call Lord... or Lux... That at least was my reasoning when I created those Lord titles in conversation together with other editors.

In sum, I would be delighted with:

• Lux High, Togneme Vicarus
• Lux High, Togneme Laureate
• Lux Gom, The Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia.

Mootros (talk) 16:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

May I contribute another suggestion: replace "Lord" with "Grand".

• Grand High Togneme Vicarus
• Grand High Togneme Laureate
• Grand Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia

My thoughts:

• Doubled adjectives aren't unusual in royal and noble styles e.g. "Most High", "Most Noble"
• Keeps the same number of syllables, "Majestic" just feels a bit long. Save the syllables for the more fun made-up words :)
• Gets the alliteration with Gom

Bikeshedding aside, I strongly support any shift away from "Lord" to make these more inclusive. the wub "?!" 00:20, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The most in "most high" is actually a noun [2], I'd say. Mootros (talk) 05:40, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Though I might mourn the demise of Galactic Gom slightly, I actually like "Grand" very much for all the reasons the wub lists... Alsd2 (talk) 21:58, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Alsd2 regarding some sadness at the loss of "Galactic Gom," I also concur that "Grand High..." and "Grand Gom" work very well. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 02:34, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

"of the Encyclopedia" has usually been reserved for the fourth level. Since we need to add a new level anyway, why not just "Grand Gom, Highest Togneme", reserving "Grand Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia" for the new 18-year level? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:53, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

It seems the wub may have homed in on a broadly acceptable solution so, being new to this type of wiki-action, I'll ask the next question: how does a topic like this typically move from debate to decision? Alsd2 (talk) 04:49, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

It usually happens when someone decides that the decision has been decided and takes action. There are a few templates that would also need editing, so I can take care of this later when I have time to make sure everything is done correctly. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 08:03, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Alsd2, The wub, Mootros, and Herostratus: I believe I have updated all the necessary pages and templates, but I would not mind if someone could double-check. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 01:09, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks, User:Jkudlick. This page itself needs to be updated, does it not, both text and links? Herostratus (talk) 02:19, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

@Herostratus: Thanks for pointing that out. That's why multiple sets of eyes are useful for things like this. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 03:02, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure, User:Jkudlick. Nice job well done, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 10:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks Jkudlick, and thanks Alsd2 for spotting the problem and kicking off the discussion. Now I need to get busy making ~17,000 more edits so that I can make use of the new titles! the wub "?!" 15:05, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Super cool and kinda fun...thanks to all for the discussion, solution, and execution! I feel like we have made Wikipedia a tiny bit better place than it already was. Nice way to start the New Year... Alsd2 (talk) 22:23, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

A clarification of these awards "These awards are unofficial – displaying the wrong one carries no penalty" Is this true?

In the top section of this page, the description states the following: "These awards are unofficial – displaying the wrong one carries no penalty ".

Is this statement true? Lets say that someone wants to put these awards on their userpage, because they like how they look. Is this allowed, according to the rules of the page?

Due to continued confusion about this statement, and whether or not there is or is not a penalty to post the "wrong" template on their userpage, I suggest that this page should be clarified, so that there is no confusion as to what the actual page is saying. Or at least clarified in the talk page here.

Bryan.Wade (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bryan.Wade: It is as the statement says; there is no penalty for displaying a service award to which one is not entitled. For example, I could display the award for Vanguard Editor with no fear of official repercussions even though I do not meet the requirements as laid out, though other editors might snicker behind my back. These are awards one gives to oneself and are not barnstars or other official Wikipedia awards. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 02:02, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Bryan.Wade, There is no outright penalty. If you would like to show something on your userpage, you may, with the general caveats. If you like the look of something, you could also just include its image and change the caption. Or if you're on the edge of earning an award and want to give it to yourself, no biggie. However, if you are trying to use an award to mislead the community, you may end up annoying the community and having them suspect ill-intent. If for instance you outright say "I have 100,000 edits and am an admin" when you don't, well...thats going to be seen as bad faith by the community. There is a grey area in-between where no official guidance exists, and would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, as I see is happening in your case. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:24, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Hey, CaptainEek thanks for your response. I was curious as to your opinion on the matter. Let's say that I put the service award on my user page, but included a very clear message that said that the template was satire, which is purely included to make fun of these awards, and that I am not claiming them to be true. In your opinion, would clearly defining this service award, as some sort of satire award, make it ok to display it this way? Bryan.Wade (talk) 02:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Bryan.Wade, Clarity is ideal yes. You may wish to use Template:Humour, as well as having a pretty clear statement that you haven't actually earned said awards, as well as perhaps include a funny note on why you have them there. However, whether you can actually do that will depend on the outcome of the deletion discussion for you page. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

" whether you can actually do that", ok, but I was asking what your your actual opinion is, on what the rules are. I am doing so for the benefit of other people, and gathering consensus, and clarifying the situation, regarding the actual rules, of service awards. So, in your opinion, do you believe, or not believe that it is OK for someone to post a humor template, along with the awards, on their user page? Bryan.Wade (talk) 02:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek imagine Bryan.Wade going through all that stress to do non imperative relatively counter productive actions which could have been better spent in actually doing something pivotal & salient. Sigh.Celestina007 (talk) 02:53, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you please stop assuming bad faith here? I truly believe that there is a large miscommunication as to how these service awards work. If it is not allowed, for people to post awards on their page, then it should be established as such. If it IS allowed, for people to post these awards, then it is important that people are aware of this, so that others stop vandalizing and blanking people's user pages, who did not break any rules. I believe that there is a large matter of confusion here, and that it is important to clear up this confusion. Bryan.Wade (talk) 02:57, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Celestina007, Well...he already did go through all that stress and now his user page is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bryan.Wade, and editors are calling for him to be hauled to ANI for being a single purpose account. So I'm trying to provide some guidance and help in a rough spot.

Bryan.Wade If you want my actual opinion: don't have them on your userpage. Its clearly causing you trouble, and I'm not sure what the benefit is. My advice (not based in policy, but in common sense): Remove them, and focus on building the encyclopedia. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:02, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal for official names for service awards: Level number

One suggestion. the official format for the full name for service awards that have numbered levels should be indicated to be, for example.: "Master Editor Level Four."

The reason for this is that some people may wonder IV signifies a class or a level. In most rankings, such as for example Chief Petty Officer First Class, the lower number indicates a higher class. so therefore, I suggest we make it clear that the official format for fully stating these awards would be as follows: "Master Editor Level Four."

I know all of this is totally not official, and also rather whimsical, but this is simply my own suggestion to heighten everyone's enjoyment of these. thanks!!! --Sm8900 (talk) 18:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Image pop-up captions don't agree with service periods

Hi, just a heads-up that the pop-up caption service periods for {{Registered Editor lv4 Ribbon}}, {{Journeyman lv3 Ribbon}}, and {{Journeyman lv4 Ribbon}} don't agree with values in the tables. (I don't know how to correct the captions.)  ~ RLO1729^💬 08:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@RLO1729: Thanks for the heads-up. They've been fixed. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 15:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Requirements

Is the "number of edits" requirement based on edits on a single Wiki (EN-Wiki) or on multiple Wiki's (e.g. EN-Wiki + DE-Wiki + RU-Wiki + .....)? --Sb008 (talk) 09:06, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sb008: That is actually up to the individual user. Some use only one wiki, while others (myself included) use all wikis combined. One could also use the combined total of all legitimate alternative accounts (for example, I have a rarely used account for when I'm on a public computer or unsecured WiFi), or count each account separately. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:10, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: Thx for the reply, maybe it would be wise to add this info on the page. --Sb008 (talk) 00:19, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

It's there, but it's kind of buried in a short bit of prose right after that first table. I definitely understand how easy it is to miss it. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The 18th founding anniversary is coming up—time for a new level of award?

The current spacing of the upper level awards is two years, and is limited to 16(-plus) years. Given that the eighteenth anniversary is little more than two months away, perhaps it's time to create a level above Vanguard Editor/Lord Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia. What say you? (Disclaimer: I'm still working toward the level below that, so this will not directly affect me.) —DocWatson42 (talk) 02:38, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for the "million edits" award to come around. The rest is a matter of time. We already have 336 editors who have over 132,000 edits even if they never click "save" again. bd2412 T 02:45, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm a fan of making an award for 150k, there are 275 editors with at least that many edits. I see someone has already added the box for 150k/18years, its just all redlinked. Any clever ideas as to what the star could be made of, what the special display item could be, etc.? Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} 07:27, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I have hidden the 150k edits award section until the award is created. SportsFan007 (talk) 06:41, 25 February 2019 (UTC)SportsFan007

What 150k edits award section?

Yeah. IIRC, there used to be levels for 18 and 20 years, but this was objected to on grounds that that currently unachievable levels should not exist. IMO this is nonsense and it'd be good to create a new level 22 (20 years) as well a new level 21. The people who objected are probably long gone.

Somebody with the skills would need to make the make the images tho.

We're running out of exotic material. Let's see... we've gone thru Bufonite, Lapis Philosophorum, Orichalcum, Neutronium, Mithril, and Neutronium Hologram (used twice). We could keep using Neutronium Hologram forever... some other materials might be Plutonium, plasma, quark matter, strange matter, Francium (the element with the shortest half-life, 22 minutes)... there're a bunch of other candidates. Oobleck... Starlite... we never did use gemstones, such as diamond.

It'd be OK to move names/symbols up a couple of levels. For instance, level 20 is "Highest Togneme" and "Vanguard" this could be moved up to the new level 22, and levels 19 and 20 changed to Grandmaster Editor with Oak Leaves or whatever, This is OK IMO since very few people are at these high levels and they can be individually contacted re the change.

However, it's fine to keep 20 as a "Highest Togneme" and the new levels 21 and 22 could be "Beyond Highest" or "Uppermost" or whatever. Beyond "Vanguard" I dunno... could be Vanguard with Oak Leaves or whatever. Herostratus (talk) 11:22, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Possibly adamant? And "Senior Vanguard Editor"? —DocWatson42 (talk) 17:15, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I have devised a new metal called "Metallum", but there is no article for it. bd2412 T 17:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Herostratus: Personally I prefer "quarkium" over "quark matter". —DocWatson42 (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, the element with the shortest half-life that we know of currently is the heaviest of them all, oganesson, with a half-life of 0.69 milliseconds for the only confirmed isotope ²⁹⁴Og. We could certainly use that: despite being in the noble-gas column it is expected to be a solid semiconductor at standard conditions. Double sharp (talk) 07:03, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, if Oganesson is solid, albeit briefly, I guess we could theoretically make a medal of it. It seems like an expensive way to make helium, and I hope that the donors never find out. Is it possible to work out what colour it would be other than its radioactive glow? ϢereSpielChequers 09:57, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers: Oganesson is likely a semiconductor at room temperature (doi:10.1002/anie.201908327), with chemistry not much like that of helium, but more related to silicon and tin. So I guess going for a silvery metallic substance glowing with a blinding light, just like the really old plutonium star picture, would actually do fine!

Although maybe we should not waste all the superheavy elements, since there are a lot of them now. Especially darmstadtium and roentgenium as the heavy homologues of platinum and gold could be snuck in there somewhere in the march to more and more exotic substances. Double sharp (talk) 13:26, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Since the 18th birthday has come and gone, I've gone ahead and mocked up some images for the level 21 (which I am currently calling Senior Vanguard Editor at DocWatson42's suggestion, to be followed by Master Vanguard Editor at level 22 for 20 years/168,000 edits). Mootros could probably do better, since he has access to the source images.

• 
  This editor is a
  Senior Vanguard Editor
  and is entitled to display this
  Unobtainium Editor Star with
  the Neutronium Superstar
  hologram.
• 
  This editor is Lord High Gom, the Most Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep the floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias and its cardboard carrying tube.
• 
  Senior Vanguard Editor

Ideally, although it would require a much larger consensus, would be to sort-of fit the existing pattern and rename 19 and 20 as "Grandmaster Editor II" and "Grandmaster Editor III" and call level 21 "Grandmaster Editor IV" (and similarly rename 20 to "Lord Gom, Highest Togneme" and have 21 be the "Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia"). "Vanguard Editor" could start at 22, when we get there. Thoughts? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 21:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

@Mootros and Ahecht: I'm okay with either set of titles, though (tangent) I now support an award for one million edits. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:47, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@Mootros, Ahecht, and DocWatson42: I like the idea of adding levels, and these titles (EDIT: the Grandmaster I-IV titles) seem appropriate. I know the idea was brought up before and was kicked down the road; we are now down the road, so the time is right to act. I like what Ahecht did with the ribbon for Grandmaster IV (or whatever we end up calling it), and I can kick around a few ideas for future ribbons since there's no room for any more ship's wheels. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 08:36, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:41, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Herostratus, et al.: "The Elements, Expanded," Marian Call's witty take on a Tom Lehrer classic, is a fabulous (as in fable, natch) reference list of unreal materials that might be considered for fabrication of the 18-year and future awards. Wonderflonium, anyone? Pizzazium?!! Alsd2 (talk) 22:52, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Ooh, there are so many! I like Kryptonite best. But the mockups and names above are all OK with me too. As a personal suggestion for my part I prefer "Extreme Vanguard" to "Senior Vanguard", since "vanguard" is the guard of the "van", the front point of an attacking force. And "extreme" even more so I guess. Herostratus (talk) 02:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Mootros, Ahecht, DocWatson42, Herostratus, BD2412, CaptainEek, and SportsFan007: I've gone ahead and created ribbons for three additional service award levels. Taking the current top 3, adding the one designed by Ahecht and the three new ones I designed, and altering the names a bit to fit the Veteran, Senior, and Master Editor series, we could have:

Title	Ribbon	Years	Edits
Grandmaster Editor		12	96,000
Grandmaster Editor II		14	114,000
Grandmaster Editor III		16	132,000
Grandmaster Editor IV		18	150,000
Vanguard Editor		20	175,000
Vanguard Editor II		22	200,000
Vanguard Editor III		24	225,000

Obviously, the requirements for Grandmaster IV and the new Vanguard ranks can be altered, but I like where Grandmaster IV is. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 09:33, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: My only concern is that the above changes the requirements for Vanguard Editor, which is an extant rank. Implementing the above would mean that current Vanguard Editors would have to change their titles, and that case we should notify them of that fact. —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@DocWatson42: I understand your concern. My table is, of course, mere suggestion based upon earlier discussion. I do note, however, that all previous "sets" of awards, e.g. the "Veteran Editor" awards, all maintain a semblance of design similarity in the ribbons; that was "broken" with Vanguard getting three ship's wheels after the Grandmasters received one and two. Perhaps referring to the 18-year award as "Senior Vanguard," and coming up with new names for the later awards? For example:

Title	Ribbon	Years	Edits
Grandmaster Editor		12	96,000
Grandmaster Editor First-Class		14	114,000
Vanguard Editor		16	132,000
Senior Vanguard Editor		18	150,000
TBD Editor		20	175,000
TBD Editor II		22	200,000
TBD Editor III		24	225,000

— Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 05:14, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: Sure—that sounds fine. The potential for disruption was my only worry. —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:23, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: I actually prefer the previous proposal. I never liked that the use of Roman numerals was suddenly scrapped for "Grandmaster Editor First-Class", to be honest. Also, there are probably not many Vanguard Editors, so I wouldn't rule out a change of the meaning of that rank: it shouldn't be too hard to inform them all. Double sharp (talk) 03:24, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

• I agree that a new level would be timely, and I like the idea of adding a cardboard carry tube. I like the idea of designing a new level every couple of years. If we don't have anything more inspiring, we could always just supplement the previous book with a post it note from Jimbo, or maybe the WMF. As for the future, But I do question the increased rate of editing required, not an issue for me personally as on my current edit count I could go on racking up awards for a decade with just an annual edit to accept my award. But for long standing editors in general, the longer people have been around, the more likely they are to have a steady level of editing. If we require 96,000 edits for the first 12 years of activity we should logically require less than 192,000 for 24 years, not 225,000. I suggest we cap the edit requirement at 8,000 per annum - 96,000 for 12 years. ϢereSpielChequers 13:57, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @WereSpielChequers: I'd like to note that were an editor to follow the edit/tenure path exactly as laid out in this table, they would require 4,000 edits/year for each of the first two years, 8,000 edits/year for each of the next two years, and 9,000 edits/year thereafter; it is not a linear progression. If we continue to average 9,000 edits/year after 18 years, then the table would appear as:

Title	Ribbon	Years	Edits
Grandmaster Editor		12	96,000
Grandmaster Editor First-Class		14	114,000
Vanguard Editor		16	132,000
Senior Vanguard Editor		18	150,000
TBD Editor		20	168,000
TBD Editor II		22	186,000
TBD Editor III		24	204,000

We could also raise to require an average of 10,000 edits/year for each of the TBD awards, so that would be:

Title	Ribbon	Years	Edits
TBD Editor		20	170,000
TBD Editor II		22	190,000
TBD Editor III		24	210,000

Would that be more acceptable? — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 09:29, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I prefer that, but it still misses the point that the editors who around for a very long time are likely to be the ones with a healthy balance between editing Wikipedia and other parts of their lives. 10,000 edits per annum is easily achieved if like me, you use tools to make lots of minor edits. But for people who only save every ten minutes it is unsustainable. ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I feel the current edit counts required are too high on the high side already (though the boat has sailed for all but the highest current levels), so I would prefer to pick lower figures (maybe making 192,000 for the 24 year level as WSC suggests, though I can see an argument for a round 200,000). Double sharp (talk) 13:31, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Revisiting this topic after a respite to think on it, I have an idea for the names of the 20, 22, and 24-year awards:

Title	Ribbon	Years	Edits
Avant-Garde Editor Niveau I		20	168,000
Avant-Garde Editor Niveau II		22	186,000
Avant-Garde Editor Niveau III		24	204,000

To be "avant-garde" is to be on the cutting edge, and any editor who qualifies for those awards has certainly been on the cutting edge of Wikipedia. Thoughts? — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• Just a thought that our Vanguards can be pushed one farther than Senior into the Ultimate to give us a five wheel award, continuing the pattern of the five star series at the Veteran-Master editor levels (Edit, just realized that was the original designs, and it's different now). But we went three bars, four stars, so five wheels would still be a proper progression. And frankly, I'm not sold on the "jewel" awards" yet. They seem kind of tacky, like we've gone from admiral's collars to an heiress's costume jewelry. I would also like to hit 12,500 edits/year at this step, and then jump up again to 15,000/year at least to year 25, to be at a quarter million edits at the quarter century mark. Anyway, here's the Grandmaster and Vanguard series with an Ultimate Vanguard at 20 years and 175,000:

Title	Ribbon	Years	Edits
Grandmaster Editor		12	96,000
Grandmaster Editor First-Class		14	114,000
Vanguard Editor		16	132,000
Senior Vanguard Editor		18	150,000
Ultimate Vanguard Editor		20	175,000
next step	-Insert image here-	22	205,000
second step	-Insert image here-	24	235,000
special 25 year step	-Insert image here-	25	250,000

VanIsaac_WS^cont 00:03, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

For the book equivalents, could we reprise an earlier phase and have with coffee cup stain pencil stub and sticky note from Jimbo? ϢereSpielChequers 13:00, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Building a level 21 service award

Okay, it looks like there was already some commented code on the main page for the level 21 service award. I've mucked about with the wording, and used the "Senior Vanguard Editor" phrasing for this new setup. I figure once we have all of these templates and images created, we'll be good to roll this out. VanIsaac_WS^cont 07:49, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I would like to get a new medal image. The image by User:Ahecht above is just the Vanguard Editor ribbon with a whole pile of stars added on, and the description isn't even changed from the Vanguard Editor. Maybe going back to solid-color ribbons, but keep up with the fancy medallions would be a good place to start. If anyone has the image editing skills to try building one (I certainly don't) would be greatly appreciated. VanIsaac_WS^cont 08:14, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I took it upon myself to try to build a new medal. I ended up just adjusting the hue (basically orange->green, turquoist->purple), saturation (a bit more color) and brightness (a bit less) on File:Editor - lapis matter iii.jpg,2.jpg and then copied the inner superstar hologram directly. This gave us a green/purple striped ribbon with a cobalt grey star. Feel free to try yourself - I'll give this a couple days before implementing on the front page, but I'm happy with it right now. I just wish I could track down the original ribbon image to try to build one of these from the ground-up. I'd like to get a solid color ribbon without any stars for level 22. VanIsaac_WS^cont 00:34, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Senior Vanguard Editor (or Supreme Gom, the Most Exalted Togneme of the Encyclopedia)
This editor is a Senior Vanguard Editor and is entitled to display this Duranium Editor Star with the Neutronium Superstar hologram. {{Senior Vanguard Editor}}	This editor is Supreme Gom, the Most Exalted Togneme of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep the floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias, including its cardboard carrying tube. {{Supreme Gom}}	This editor is a Senior Vanguard Editor and is entitled to display this Duranium Editor Star with the Neutronium Superstar hologram. {{Senior Vanguard Editor Userbox}} This editor is Supreme Gom, the Most Exalted Togneme of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep the floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias, including its cardboard carrying tube. {{Supreme Gom Userbox}} Senior Vanguard Editor {{Senior Vanguard Editor Ribbon}} [[File:Editorrib21.svg]] {{Senior Vanguard Editor topicon}}	Requirements: 150,000 edits and 18 years of service

Okay, hearing no objection.  Done VanIsaac_WS^cont 23:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I have updated Template:Service Awards and its subtemplates and the associated documentation to include the Senior Vanguard Editor. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 23:06, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

And I just got template:Service award progress. Thanks for making me aware of those templates.VanIsaac_WS^cont 01:52, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Nice work all around, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 15:37, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Vanguard editor

It appears I am entitled to use this decoration! So I have added the ribbon to my user page. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 20:22, 11 May 2020 (UTC).

Banzai! \^_^/ —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:07, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Time and Edits

Counting my edits, 10,000+, I am eligible for Veteran editor badge. Asking that is it necessary to wait for months more in time as well? Because, timely I've just finished my first year, and not two years. I would wish if it is not based on "time". Thanks - Aaqib Anjum Aafī (^talk) 13:25, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

@AaqibAnjum: Yes, it is necessary to fulfill both requirements. Please do not develop edit-count-itis; instead, spend time here on Wikipedia as part of the editing community. The years go by, I promise. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Future changes

Hassium looks like a very appropriate material for one of these medals, maybe replacing one of the Rhodium or Platinum ones. Better still why not go for a logical sequence - go through the more interesting end of the periodic table in order of decreasing length of half life. Afterall this is an educational project, and the less time someone has been here the longer their service award might need to last for. Some of the earliest medals don't yet have a specified material, perhaps we could start with metallic tritium, skip the next one as it may not be practical to freeze it solid enough to make a metal and increase from there, leaving out ones like lead that are a bit boring in colour. ϢereSpielChequers 15:03, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure there's a metaphor here about our most experienced editors having the shortest half-life, and being the most radioactive... VanIsaac_WS^cont 22:13, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Really don't like the change from "Lord…" to "Grand…"; my mind goes right to the "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan

While updating my userboxes, I noticed for the first time that in the 2019 service awards adjustments, "Lord" was changed to "Grand" in "Lord High Togneme Vicarus", "Lord High Togneme Laureate", and "Lord Gom". I am very uncomfortable with using a title starting with "Grand". I realize there's nothing inherently wrong with using that word, especially from a francophone perspective, but the only title I've ever heard starting with "Grand" is the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and my mind goes immediately to that.

Sure, evoking feudal lords could be considered offensive as well, but the KKK is still very much with us and actively spreading evil. I really hope this naming change will be reconsidered. In the meantime I'm going to continue using the original "Lord…" rather than "Grand…" in my userbox. --Dan Harkless (talk) 18:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

The KKK does not own the word 'Grand'. The word Togneme, on the other hand, is on the other hand. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I know they don't, as I thought I made clear. I'm just saying what association such a title immediately brings to mind for me as an American. I did just think of one other title starting with Grand that I'm familiar with, The Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Also not a good association. I should also clarify that compound words starting with grand like Grandmaster don't have that association for me, and don't bother me in titles.

If the original titles can't be restored for some reason (I don't really understand why they were changed in the first place; if it was for "naming logic", aren't these supposed to be the fun versions of the titles?), what about some alternative like "Most High Togneme Vicarus/Laureate"?

P.S. I don't understand what you're getting at w.r.t. "togneme"; I didn't find any negative associations with it when I first came across the word and Googled it. --Dan Harkless (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

There are also little negative associations with the common word 'Grand' (KKK affiliated landmark). Randy Kryn (talk) 19:42, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Once again, you seem to be deliberately ignoring the fact that I'm speaking specifically within the context of "highfalutin' titles" like these. --Dan Harkless (talk) 19:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

'pologies. Partly playing and partly a response to the cancel culture which seems to be trying to stretch many words into the 'bad' (not to say you're a part of it, but it is contagious). To be serious, there is about as much wrong with the word 'grand' as there is with the word 'togneme', which is the point I was trying to make above. I'll leave this to others to comment, for tis a grand day outside and am just about to go out and enjoy it. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

OK, I can understand that objection, which I tried to address in my original comment by admitting that even the original "lord" is probably offensive to some people. Firefox just renamed its "Master Password" system to "Primary Password" to avoid offending, and my first reaction was, "That's stupid and unnecessary." However, my second take was, "OK, I can see why slavery-derived terms could be ultra-offensive to many... I'm cool with this change." The negative associations with personal titles starting with "Lord" are just nowhere near as specific or serious as "Grand Wizard" (or "Grand Inquisitor"), IMHO.

If you think my problem is with the word "grand", as you again imply in your sentence about "togneme", either you're still missing my point, or you're still playing strawman. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, and hope you have a grand old time outside. --Dan Harkless (talk) 20:09, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, the word "grand" evokes "grand duke/duchess" to me. With the kkk, it's "wizard" that seems much more salient. I wonder if there's a regional component to the association with "grand"? VanIsaac_WS^cont 20:51, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

British here, and I mostly think of Grandmasters, of the chess or Flash variety. @Dan Harkless: the objections to "Lord" weren't because of any feudal associations, but because it is almost always a masculine title and these awards should be usable for all genders. Original discussion here. the wub "?!" 23:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, as I said, compound-word titles starting with "grand" like "grandmaster" or "grandmarshal[l]" don't have any bad associations for me. @The wub: Thanks for the background; that does make sense, and I'll read through the full original discussion when I have a chance.

@Vanisaac: Yes, I do think this is a somewhat of a regional issue, given that the KKK doesn't really exist outside the U.S. Also, I think "grand" as a non-compound is used much more commonly in modern British English than modern U.S. English (obviously barring old place names like Randy Kryn's example of the Grand Canyon), so "Grand Wizard" and "Grand Inquisitor" would be a lot less likely to be the immediate mental association upon seeing a rank/title starting with the word.

Given all this, my suggestion would still be to make it "Most High Togneme Vicarus/Laureate", which avoids both the sexism issue and the evoking-horrible-evildoers issue. --Dan Harkless (talk) 00:05, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

"Most High" might have its own connotation problems (for some). Randy Kryn (talk) 03:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that did occur to me, but I think it's a minor issue by comparison. "Most High" was just the first honorific title nomenclature that sprung to mind, though. I'd take just about anything over an evocation of Grand Wizard and Grand Inquisitor. --Dan Harkless (talk) 17:08, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I should also acknowledge the Grand Tutnum level, which existed before the 2019 change of "Lord" to "Grand" (and was cited as a naming-logic reason to use that word for the non-gender-specific revision of those). Two reasons that one didn't immediately draw my mind to Grand Wizard and Grand Inquisitor. The main one is that I've never been at that level, nor was I acknowledging my time-requirement milestones when I hit Grand Tutnum's.

I did look at it in the context of my above suggestions, though, and it still didn't give me that horrible association. I think the reason is that my eye gets immediately drawn to the weird and cool word "Tutnum", and then "Grand" simply acts as a modifier, as it's meant to.

With Grand High Togneme Vicarus and Grand High Togneme Laureate, the insertion of "High" seems to give my brain time to go to Grand Wizard and Grand Inquisitor before it hits the interesting / distracting words that follow. "Grand Gom" is somewhere in between, for me — "Gom" is such a short and simple word that its "distraction power" is weaker, I think.

My argument may not sound convincing to y'all, but it's how my brain works when I read these. Given the lack of support so far, it would seem my take may be unusual. And "Most High Tutnum" would certainly be a non-ideal name to follow "Tutnum" and precede "Most Perfect Tutnum". A lot of good suggestions in the original discussion, though (@The wub: thanks again for the proper link).

I'd be happy with any of the non-Grand suggestions, but I guess my favorite would be "Majestic" (which was also popular in the original discussion), but replacing not just "Lord", as suggested originally, but replacing "Lord High", so:

• Majestic Togneme Vicarus
• Majestic Togneme Laureate

which addresses the original "too many syllables" thing that was mentioned as a potential objection.

The progression:

• Tutnum
• Majestic Tutnum
• Most Perfect Tutnum

also feels right.

For Gom, I, too, like "Galactic Gom" as was the original favorite for that level. "Majestic Gom" would also work, but I think "Galactic" works better with the phrase that follows, and has good possibilities for a future progression:

• Galactic Gom, the Highest Togneme of the Encyclopedia
• Universal…
• Multiversal…
• Omniversal…

--Dan Harkless (talk) 20:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

If there's no interest in my above proposal, would anyone object to me putting a footnote on «Grand High Togneme Vicarus» and «Grand High Togneme Laureate» in the Wikipedia:Service awards § Requirements table saying something to the effect of: «Before 2020, these Alternative Awards were known as "Lord High Togneme Vicarus" and "Lord High Togneme Laureate", and uses of the original terms are still seen in the wild."? --Dan Harkless (talk) 05:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Dan Harkless: I'm not particularly opposed to your proposed note, but I fail to see what value it would add. It seems to me that your issue with the use of the word "grand" is quite isolated, especially since it is literally just a synonym for "great" or "big." In fact, the words "grand," "grande," and other spellings thereof literally translate to "large" in many Romance languages. I hadn't responded before since the conversation seemed to have been finished, but honestly this now really feels like a WP:DEADHORSE. You are free to display the images by themselves or to create your own custom format with {{Service Awards}} and eliminate all use of the word "grand" on your own userpage if it really bothers you that much. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 05:35, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Jkudlick: I already acknowledged all those points about the word "grand" itself in my initial posts, and if you think I want to «eliminate all use of the word "grand"» anywhere, you apparently didn't actually read what I wrote. I suspect having fancy titles like these starting with "Grand" remind one of Grand Wizard and/or Grand Inquisitor is not "quite isolated" to only my brain. It's kind of messed up to change the titles people have bestowed upon themselves behind their backs, without at least having someone write a script to notify everyone using the old terminology.

That's in part why I plan to write that proposed footnote (not that being irritated about that will figure into the wording!), assuming there are no further objections. The other reason is simply that there are no doubt other people besides me who didn't get the memo, and so the old terminology will still be seen out there, thus it's worth noting what it corresponds to, for those coming across it and wondering. Thanks—wasn't trying to beat any equines, but I did feel a need to address those points. --Dan Harkless (talk) 05:52, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Dan Harkless: As I said, I'm not opposed to the note – if you add it, I won't remove it – but I fail to see the added value it would provide, so neither am I in favor of its addition. Yours is, however, the first complaint I recall seeing regarding the change (which was undertaken in the context of removing possible systemic bias), and certainly the most drastic in its logic if others had been lodged. If the word "Grand" in a humorous title that means literally nothing outside of the English Wikipedia leads you directly to images of the KKK, I can't help you with that. I would like to note, however, that were this a court of law your petition would be thrown out for lack of standing since you yourself do not qualify for any of the affected titles. Since this is Wikipedia, you are free to try to gain consensus to make changes, but I don't necessarily see that consensus has been gained here; lack of vocal opposition is not the same as approval. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 07:14, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Dan Harkless: I do think a footnote about the previous names is fair for clarity, and have gone ahead and added one including a link to the discussion about renaming. Honestly I feel it's a good thing to be open about, and a cautionary reminder that systemic bias can easily go under the radar for a long time. the wub "?!" 15:52, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Addition of the incremental service awards to Template:Service awards

I was wondering if the incremental service ribbons should be added to {{Service awards}} so that if anyone is using the ribbons/topicon they will display the different stages of the ribbon rather than just the levels themselves. I have managed to do this in the sandbox and proposed it on the templates talk page here. Thanks, Terasail^[Talk] 13:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Change of incremental ribbons

I am proposing that the incremental service ribbons for Registered Editor and Novice Editor are updated as shown in the table below.

Award	Level	Current	Proposed
Registered Editor	Level 2		Replaced
	Level 3		Replaced
	Level 4		Replaced
Novice Editor	Level 2		Replaced
	Level 3		Replaced
	Level 4		Replaced

This makes the level much easier to see for the novice editor and would be simple to implement of higher incremental awards. And to keep it consistent I added the same design to the registered editor ribbon. Terasail^[Talk] 18:26, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea, since those small diagonals are kind of hard to see well, but I propose using the same bronze/gold for the vertical lines on the Registered and Novice ribbons, and purple for the Apprentice, Journeyman, and Yeoman ribbons.

Award	Level	Current	Proposed
Registered Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Novice Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Apprentice Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Journeyman Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Yeoman Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4

I can make the same changes to the small ribbons for whatever is approved. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 03:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Support: They look good and I think that using the purple & yellow marks is better than the colors I proposed. Terasail^[Talk] 16:12, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Oppose: I do appreciate the work you are putting into this project and you're proposed new Awards, but I prefer that subtlety of the existing ones. I wouldn't mind having incremental Awards for higher levels, although I suspect the reason they don't exist is that by the time one reaches veteran status, one doesn't care all that much :-)--Neopeius (talk) 16:51, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Neopeius: It would be easy enough to add the Experience editor with ribbons, However do you not think that even if not this design, a new design which displays the incremental level clearly would improve the awards? Since it can be hard to distinguish them currently especially if in the topicon format. Terasail^[Talk] 17:33, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the old designs are fine. The Alternate designs below are better for Journeyman and up than the first suggested alternatives, not so much for Novato through Apprentice. The colors are rather ghastly. Just please don't get rid of the old ones so we have a choice. :) --Neopeius (talk) 21:11, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the new designs are fine. The alternates below are fine too. And the old ones are fine too. It's alright to redesign things every now and then, keeps things fresh. The editor has taken the trouble to design and create an upgrade, which is at least no worse than the current ones and possible better (it's a matter of subjective judgment). Thus, give her her head and let her implement the change, I say. Herostratus (talk) 00:22, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Alternate design proposal 2

Award	Level	Current	Proposed
Registered Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Novice Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Apprentice Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Journeyman Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Yeoman Editor	Level 2
	Level 3
	Level 4
Experienced Editor	Level 2	N/A
	Level 3	N/A
	Level 4	N/A

This is a slightly altered proposal for a set of ribbons with the Experienced editor ribbons wich would have the same incremental edits & period as the Yeoman increments. Terasail^[Talk] 18:19, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I like these designs, but I kind of prefer using the darker purple for the Novice ranks. I do like the red for the Apprentice and higher levels. Overall, very good. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 01:47, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Getting ahead of the game on level 22 service award

Okay, we finally got level 21 out of the door a year and a half late, so I thought I'd be on the ball and get us started on level 22, the 20 year service award, in time to actually get it pushed out by the 20th anniversary. To start with, I have some images as an idea:

• 
  floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias, signed by Jimbo with a silver marker, and including its cardboard carrying tube.
• 
  Ultimate Vanguard Editor Ribbon
• 
  Small Ultimate Vanguard Editor Ribbon
• 
  Orichalcum Editor Star with Neutronium Superstar hologram

As I said above, I'd like to go to 12,500 per year for this service award, and then bump up to 15,000/year after this so we can have the 25 year award at 250,000. And if anyone knows where the source images for the medals can be found, I still would like to be able to start from scratch for this one. VanIsaac_WS^cont 11:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Building the level 22 service award

Please edit

Ultimate Vanguard Editor (or Cardinal Gom, the August Togneme of the Encyclopedia)
This editor is an Ultimate Vanguard Editor and is entitled to display this Meitnerium Editor Star with the Neutronium Superstar hologram. {{Ultimate Vanguard Editor}}	This editor is Cardinal Gom, the August Togneme of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep the floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias, signed by Jimbo with a silver marker, and including its cardboard carrying tube. {{Cardinal Gom}}	This editor is an Ultimate Vanguard Editor and is entitled to display this Meitnerium Editor Star with the Neutronium Superstar hologram. {{Ultimate Vanguard Editor Userbox}} This editor is Cardinal Gom, the August Togneme of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep the floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias, signed by Jimbo with a silver marker, and including its cardboard carrying tube. {{Cardinal Gom Userbox}} Ultimate Vanguard Editor {{Ultimate Vanguard Editor Ribbon}} [[File:Editorrib22.svg]] {{Ultimate Vanguard Editor topicon}}	Requirements: 175,000 edits and 20 years of service

I like it, but didn't we already use orichalcum? Double sharp (talk) 07:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep, looks like Master Editor IV already took it. Dang, I thought it was perfect for the color the medal ended up. VanIsaac_WS^cont 17:47, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Just my personal beef, but I never liked how the little stars disappeared past Grandmaster Editor from the medals. Double sharp (talk) 07:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Most of the individual templates are presently complete. Have we any ideas for the metal to use for the medal since orichalcum was already done? Vibranium or Adamantium, perhaps? I will build the templates for the standard and userbox medal templates, and they can be edited later to correct the metal type. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 23:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I pulled Orichalcum (and Duranium for level 21) from the List of fictional metals page. I feel like anything with a blue link there is probably appropriate. I'm going to go to that page and try linking all the metals to see which ones might have a link but are currently unlinked. My ethic was to try to expose people to a fictional world they may not have heard of before, which is why I shied away from things like Vibranium and Adamantium, but that says more about me than it does about anything else. VanIsaac_WS^cont 10:47, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I suggest going for the real superheavies next time (mumble mumble island of stability). I would quite like a nice silvery darmstadtium (eka-platinum) or roentgenium (eka-gold) award. ^_^ Alas, this one's the wrong colour for either. Hmm... Double sharp (talk) 14:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Meitnerium is named for a female physicist, so a bit of representation might be nice as well. VanIsaac_WS^cont 23:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Also works, being eka-iridium and hence another plausible precious metal. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 02:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea of meitnerium. If there are no objections over the weekend, I will update the templates to correct the wording and update {{Service awards}} and {{Service award progress}}. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 04:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure the colour is right, though. I guess no one has predicted it, but mostly the platinum group metals are whitish, with some blue tinge for osmium, yellow for iridium. Or we could just handwave and say it's some sort of superheavy alloy... Double sharp (talk) 04:42, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I have edited the metal on the medal awards and updated the coding in {{Service awards}}. I think I updated {{Service award progress}} properly, but I'd appreciate additional eyes to look at my work. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 01:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It all looks good to me, thanks for taking this on. If nobody wants to make any more changes, I guess we can roll this out.  On hold until 15 January, 2021 VanIsaac_WS^cont 07:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi guys, I'm new to Wikipedia and thinking about these service awards. (Right now, I'm just a very new user with a record of being a Registered Editor Level 4.) It seems like Wikipedians have already defined such an Ultimate Vanguard Editor, although it has not been uncovered on the official page of it yet. What I mean by my statement is that people have already been defining the next Wikipedia service award. I think this specification is a good one. I'm just giving a review about this "Ultimate Vanguard Editor" service award. Friend505 18:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that this award, Ultimate Vanguard Editor can be launched on January 15, 2021. Friend505 18:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• How about changing the cardboard carrying tube in the 18 and 20 years images to some kind of metal tubing, made from the golden center of a collapsed star or something. It just seems unreasonable that someone who has earned the floor plan of the Great Library of Alecyclopedias (which is portrayed as a pretty important place) would be careless enough to keep it laying around in susceptible-to-the-elements cardboard tubing. I can see the irony of "it's cool to have this but I know its worthless proper place in the general scheme of things" but, naw, this seems to cheapen the achievement a little bit too much. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:54, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

• Change of heart, the cardboard is fine and humourous (just don't get it wet). But how about... adding Jimbo's signature to the 18 year image instead and then...since this will be the 20th and take us back to the start...include both Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger's signature on the 20th! (or at least provide two options?) Just throwing out an idea. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Rolled out

As we are already in the 20th year of Wikipedia, I have rolled out the level 22 service award. MarioJump83! 03:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Clarification of Requirements Table

The table with the number of edits and "time" contradicts the text later on in the page indicating that the "time" is account age. I think that most people would read the table as X number of edits in Y timespan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scuba Penguin (talk • contribs) 09:19, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Scuba Penguin: This is a fair point of view, and I've made a change that I hope clarifies that it's not "x edits in y time" but rather "at least x edits and at least y time." — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Large gap between first paragraph and TOC

Am I the only one who sees a big gap between the first paragraph(s) of the article and the table of contents? DaveRainbowin (talk) 23:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It seems to be pushed down by the "Service Awards" list box template thingy. DaveRainbowin (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@DaveRainbowin: The use of {{TOC left}} seems to have conflicted with {{clear left}}. Most of the tinkering I've done is much further down the page, so I didn't even notice how it appeared. Thanks for the notice. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:24, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Is there anybody that owns the Ultimate Vanguard Editor service award?

I must know, as if there is only one, maybe they can be put as the sole...? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xdude gamer (talk • contribs)

The idea is to be ahead of the game, so with Wikipedia just over 20 years old we need a service award system that allows for the possibility of people having been here for twenty years. In ten years time we will likely be looking at thirty year awards, and will probably have a number of editors who have been here much more than twenty years. Mind you it should be possible to start a table of people who first validly claimed various awards - though this could get contentious if people are counting more than one account in their qualification. ϢereSpielChequers 18:20, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh, sounds like a good plan. I was thinking it would be something like that, but I was not necessarily sure.

Thanks! xdude (talk) 11:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

To add a bit, I did some research (by sorting Special:ListUsers by creation date), and assuming we don't count multiple accounts, by far, the closest user to earning this award is User:The Anome. (Not linked on purpose) More than enough edits but unfortunately their account doesn't turn 20 years old until November. All other accounts that are 20 years old or semi close to it don't have nearly enough edits. However, this does not include the time before the software update that deleted everything at that time, but there also isn't really a reliable way to count this. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 12:35, 19 April 2021 (UTC), edited 12:39, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Automatic edit count input switch

I don't suppose that in {{service awards |year= |month= |day= |edits=}}, a switch exists for the |edit= parameter so that it automatically pulls my edit count from the XTools Edit counter, rather than requiring a hard figure be inputted by the user (e.g. |edit=auto or |edit=5116)? I'm assuming probably not at this time, but I'd like to suggest it for a future update. — CJDOS, Sheridan, OR (talk) 04:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

"Master Editor Level Four" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Master Editor Level Four. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 29#Master Editor Level Four until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Gonnym (talk) 22:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

"Senior Editor Level Three" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Senior Editor Level Three. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 29#Senior Editor Level Three until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Gonnym (talk) 22:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

"Master Editor Level Four Service Award" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Master Editor Level Four Service Award. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 29#Master Editor Level Four Service Award until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Gonnym (talk) 22:45, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

How about some post-nominal letters?

How about some official post-nominal letters? Obviously a Most Pluperfect Labutnum can call themselves SomeEditorName, MPL, but we could formalise that. I draw my inspiration from someone who decided to use post-nominals "RSSA" in correspondence; if challenged—it rarely was—this expanded to "Regular Subscriber to Scientific American". Best wishes, Pol098, RSNS (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support this frivolous nonsense. BD2412 T 23:59, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I also support this frivolity, and have placed it into practice in my own signature block. — Jkudlick EE(GM) ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 01:22, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

What kind of a monster would devise such a thing? I am totally on board, as my new signature will attest: VanIsaac, MPLL _WS^cont 06:30, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

A serious comment: I don't think it's a good idea to add it to one's Wikipedia signature, either as part of the signature or typed in manually; it makes a distinction between the perceived authority of editors—all should be equal. I wasn't thinking of uses when I made the suggestion; maybe I'd add letters after my name when writing to government departments or companies, or maybe non-WP forums? Best wishes Pol098 (talk) 15:55, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

And you could add this to your userpage: "As a mark of near-saintly forbearance, this Wikipedan has chosen to refrain from including his Service Award level in his signature."

I think it's a bad idea. It's not really what the Service Awards are for: they are a reward, and they are something for you user page for people who are looking at your use page, which is usually when they engaged in some kind of enterprise with you (dispute, cooperative project, whatever) and they want to see who they're dealing with -- a Service Award on a userpage provides one part of the user's self-descriptiojn, along with perhaps userboxes or a brief autobio or articles written or statement of interests or whatever. It's not a key part of your identity to be held out every time you make a comment. Why not instead show your languages (JoeSmith EN1 ES2), that'd be as useful. Or admin status (JoeSmith, admin), that's key to know, or project memberships (JoeSmith WWIIProjMem) or so forth. Geographical location. Age, gender. How much milk you drink daily (JoeSmith, .75l mlk), hairstyle, golf handicap. JoeSmith DIW for Delightfully Insouciant Wikipedian. JoeSmith STY for Smarter Than You. There's a plethora of MBE type stuff you could use instead! Herostratus (talk) 22:16, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I think any inclusion of a Service Award anywhere is a form of self-deprecation (some of my wife's relatives just found out how much WP editing I have done and now they always look at me as if I'm some sort of peculiar exhibit in a Wunderkammer). But I am proud of being self-deprecating, so I am not sure what it all means.  Mr.choppers | ✎  10:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep the rank as a pre-nominal style, and use post-nominal letters to denote membership of user groups (AC, Eco, Rv and so on). Robin S. Taylor (talk) 23:37, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Number of edits vs Number of significant contributions

Dear all, I hesitate to ask this because I would be surprised if I was the first one to raise this question. So please let me know if this has already been deliberated.

I wonder if the eligibility criteria for these Service Awards could be expanded: while keeping the option of counting the total number edits, also allowing for a different metric: a (smaller) number of edits that are either the creation of new articles, or the significant improvement of articles. This could be made objective by defining "significant" as any edit over 1,000 characters (for example). This way gnomes as well as other kinds editors can both feel a bit more rewarded for their contributions.

Along the lines of Wikipedia:Pruning article revisions, I try when I can to reduce the number of edits I make in articles, by doing as much drafting as possible on the side before publishing. Even though I am a 10+ year Wikipedian and I feel quite involved and invested in the project, by raw number of edits I will never reach the stats as listed here. In the bigger picture of things this is a small matter, but I thought I'd ask. Thanks. Al83tito (talk) 02:48, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

To be more precise in my proposal, I'd suggest taking the total number of edits, and dividing them by a hundred, to set the threshhold on the number of "large edits". For example:

Senior Editor III (or Labutnum of the Encyclopedia) would have these requirements:

• 33,000 edits or 330 large edits, and
• 5 years of service

XTools Edit Counter makes it easy to count large edits defined as those with >1,000 bytes. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 11:21, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

It would make the rubric more subtle, but also more complicated, so I wouldn't favor this. It needs to be as simple as possible. There have been a number of proposals over the years to add various kinds of complexities, but it's better to just leave it I think. It is what it is; nobody is saying it means anything besides what it is. Overall, crude as it is, it works OK.

And I think any complexity has the danger of impinging on the idea that as a purely mechanical and simple rubric, it's free of politics. Valorizing particular kinds of edits opens up a can of worms -- maybe edits to featured articles should count more, or edits to core articles, or only article edits (rather than talk pages etc), or number of edits to more articles (rather than like 30 edits to one article), or what have you... nah.

I too write articles and publish them with one edit. My edit count lags well behind my service time. Oh well, it's not worth worrying about. Herostratus (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

"Conferred by founder Jimmy Wales"

What are the thoughts on changing that to "Conferred by co-founder Jimmy Wales"? I am sure that has been discussed before, but was just curious on the thoughts of the community. Is Wales generally referred to as a founder, or co-founder? I know there was that falling out with Sanger dating back to the very, very beginning or something. And I know Sanger left super early. Please do not WP:BITE in your responses! I am genuinely curious. Thanks! Th78blue (They/Them/Theirs • talk) 20:29, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

@Th78blue: If you are referring to the language in the infobox on this page, the correct place to ask that would be Template talk:Wikipedia Awards, or possibly at WP:VPM with a reference back to {{Wikipedia Awards}}. That infobox is used on multiple awards-related pages, so the template is used to allow any changes to be made in a single location. The service awards we maintain here are not awarded or conferred by anyone except oneself. I hope I was helpful. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Is there an "easy" way to just "move" my question there? Th78blue (They/Them/Theirs • talk) 20:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo is just a figurehead :P - FlightTime (open channel) 20:06, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

@Th78blue: Unfortunately, there isn't an "easy" way to move your question. You'll just have to start a new section like you did here. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 20:40, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

25 year award

I appreciate we won't be awarding this for a while, but I think I've found the right image commons:File:Polulonia_25_asses_74000022_front.jpg to put in the centre of the 25 year service award. 2300 years old and I can read it as 25.... Obviously we need it cast in Dubnium or similar. ϢereSpielChequers 11:11, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Dubnium would give an excuse for fancy colours, because its congeners niobium and tantalum can be coloured with anodisation. :) Double sharp (talk) 15:24, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Either of these is fine. We have List of fictional elements, materials, isotopes and subatomic particles if we want to use an exotic or fiction metal (as we have). Let's see... we've used Bufonite, Orichalcum, Philosopher's stone, Mithril... Unobtainium, Neutronium... but the most recent one is real: Meitnerium. Hmm Wonder Woman's Feminum brings in something for the ladies, the Black Panther's Vibranium... Dilithium or Verterium Cortenide from Star Trek... Kryptonite... Octiron from Discworld... Redstone from Minecraft... Transformium, for which Transformers are made... and there's also Starlite and we have List of discredited substances... we'd never run out.

However, you guys suggested the Polulonia_25_asses, and Dubnium first, and those are fine. We could have a discussion, or the first person who wants to do the actual work can choose. It's all good. Herostratus (talk) 20:45, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

"2.0" versions

I have noticed that most of the service award badges have modern "2.0" files that are at a much better resolution than the originals. Why don't the badge templates use those images instead? Philosophy2 (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I was also wondering this. ~BappleBusiness^[talk] 23:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Re-adding the other incremental service awards and making them official

Should we say Etruscan Numerals rather than Roman numerals?

I suggested adding other incremental service awards for the other ranks, but I just discovered they were all deleted for some reason. I do not understand why they were deleted. So I recommend re-adding them. I also recommend we make them more official by creating separate templates and userboxes for each one. We also need to add incremental service rankings for the last three rankings. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 15:50, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Blubabluba9990: A little over 6 years ago, a single editor added incremental service awards for all levels against consensus. That was reverted after discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Incremental service awards (Ribbons). Consensus remains that the current scheme of incremental awards for the earlier levels is sufficient, and that the addition of more userboxes or templates is unnecessary. I understand you are attempting to seek a change in that consensus, so I will state that I oppose your suggestion and maintain that there is no need for additional incremental service awards or for templates and userboxes for extant incremental service awards. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 04:32, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Ok. It is just that the editor never checked for consensus first, not necessarily that there was consensus against such a decision. Also, that was 6 years ago, users have come and gone, so that consensus will probably change. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 14:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Having just made veteran (yay, me!) I am for more incremental ribbons! Where do I go to say this? --Neopeius (talk) 04:00, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I see no point against making more incremental service awards. I would vote for support in this case. MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 16:08, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Manual edits v minor and automated ones

A recurring theme of suggestions at this page is that we are treating automated and minor edits like mine in the same way as we treat manual and far from minor edits. If I'm fixing a typo across Wikipedia I can make a lot of edits in an hour, another editor might make just one for the same amount of editing time. One way round this would be to have two ways of counting the edits for these awards. So the time requirement would be the same, but you could meet the edit requirement either with a total edits figure on the current scale, or by meeting a much lower number on a "Manual edits" scale. This would use your edit count, minus any automated or semi automated edits or any edits you had marked as minor. ϢereSpielChequers 10:35, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Reduce the edits per day increases and broaden what counts as an edit

Wikipedia:Service awards currently require incrementally more edits per day to meet: first 11 edits, then 22, 24 and finally 35 edits per day. This incremental raising of the time commitment editors are expected to have to wikipedia is in tension with WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and feeds into WP:BURNOUT of editors at all rights-levels. There are so many gallows-humour essays on burnout and spending too much time on wikipedia that there's a template to navigate them all: Template:Wikipediholism. The service awards should not be a tool that normalises overwork and burnout.

I propose to reduce the edits per day increases and broaden what counts as an edit. The new rationale would be:

• Levels 2 though 7 levels, which cover the first two years of one's editing career, would require a rate of 4,000 edits per year on the English-language Wikipedia

• Levels 8 through 22, require a rate of 5,000 edits per year, of which 1,000 can be on other WMF services.

'Other WMF services' include non-English Wikipedia, Wikidata, Quarry, WMF bug trackers and version control systems, commons, meta.wiki, Wikinews, Wikibooks, etc; the goal is to encourage broad engagement with the wiki project. The goal of 'Other WMF services' is to encourage a broad view of what an editor is and to encourage editors to experiment and find their 'thing.' I'm believe we should be de-emphasising 'edits per day' as in discussion on the page, since this implies that editors should be editing everyday. Edits per year says the same thing without the implication. Stuartyeates (talk) 05:27, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

I am all for any suggestion that gets people more involved. Good luck in this endeavor! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 21:33, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Edit count AND/OR years of service

Hello!

It was recently pointed out to me that the "service award" has a "years of service" component in addition to edit count. I was familiar with the edit count component, and I have been steadily advancing on that front as a busy WikiGnome. However, I would like to request that the "years of service part be an or, not an and. For newer editors, this can be highly encouraging, and I know the encyclopedia is struggling with gaining new quality editors/contributors. I think this would be a small thing we could do to help with that.

Alternatively, I'd request that all "years of service" requirements be halved, but I would suggest no change at all to the edit count "requirements" in any event.

Maybe we set this up as a RfC if need be. Thoughts? ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 02:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

The whole thing is really just for amusement, and it probably isn't worth worrying too much about the details. However, I don't see any reason at all why your suggested changes would improve anything. It's been in its present form for goodness how many years, and there isn't any obvious reason why it shouldn't continue as it is. JBW (talk) 20:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea. Whatever gets new editors excited about the project and if "advancing through the ranks" makes them more productive, I'm all for it. I remember when I was new in the project (almost 15 years ago), I always looked forward to being able to show my progress through the little barnstar medals and whatnot. I think a good place to start would be WP:VPP. Good luck! It's me...Sallicio!^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 21:12, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it's a horrible idea. We already have means of advertising how many edits one has committed. The point of service award is that you've accomplished both. If it takes that much encouragement to get you to edit, maybe you shouldn't be editing this wiki. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

You're more of a the-beatings-will-continue-until-morale-improves kinda person, huh? (relax, I'm just kidding) It's me...Sallicio!^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 12:49, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

As the project ages so we need longer service awards. Currently it goes up to 20 which makes sense for an organisation that is about 21 years old. But in decades to come we will need to add more levels or stretch things out. We aren't the only voluntary organisation with service awards, and those that have been around longer have an award system that fits the profile of their volunteer base. In twentyyears time ifwe have a large group of editors who have been around for over 35 years it will look odd if the service award scheme only goes to twenty, and very odd if it only went to ten years. ϢereSpielChequers 21:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

And just to add on a bit to this point, but keeping up with those awards as they age is the primary reason why this board exists and has a consistent base of users monitoring it. I've taken part in getting both the 18 and 20 year service awards created, and it really only takes a few people paying attention every couple years to maintain something like this. But as to the original point, we already have both a simple service time recognition system (e.g. WP:Ten Year Society), as well as templates for advertising edit counts, page creations, time of service, etc.

These Service Awards are about consistent contribution to the project, and I think it's good to have multiple criteria. In point of fact, if I were building this from the ground up, I probably would set it up to have new requirements along the way, such as: 50 edits in all three of Template/Module, Wikipedia/Wikipedia Talk, and Category namespaces starting at level 5, Yeoman Editor, plus another 25 for each subsequent level; 100 large edits + 50 per level starting at level 7, Veteran editor (that requirement would actually drop me down two levels); active membership (at least 100 edits to articles or project talk page) in 2 WikiProjects + 1 per two levels starting at level 11; and 50 non-stub article creations + 10 per level starting at level 14, Master editor. Some other options could be file/media uploads (including commons), participation at admin noticeboards, major contributions to GA articles or Main page content (Did You Know, Featured Picture/Article, etc.) VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 23:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

That sounds complicated. This reminds me of the admin coaching era, when people were encouraged to dabble in a number of areas to become a wellrounded candidate. But what was perceived to happen was that people did a bunch of edits to tick some boxes,not because they really thought them useful. Worse, it implies that someone who has never touched a particular area is somehow a lesser member of the community. That would be antithetical to the idea of a service award that was open to all. As it happens I've done a bit in category space (I've done a lot of categorisation) and also started some new articles. But I wouldn't want to create a system that rejected people who never touch category space, or those who only improve existing articles but never start new ones. ϢereSpielChequers 09:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't think about adding categories to pages as not actually being an edit in the category namespace when I was writing this, so that one is kind of out there as written. But I still think the idea of engagement in several areas as being important to people for whom service is a driving force. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 23:13, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I would be rather surprised to find someone who'd clocked up over a 100,000 edits and been here many years, but didn't have quite a bit of diversity in the areas where they edit. I think that "engagement in several areas" is more relevant as an RFA test - I'm sure I've seen it in at least one person's RFA criteria. But must have passed these six tests is way more specific than "engagement in several areas" how about something along the lines of Shown engagement in several areas - at least three of the following six: ϢereSpielChequers 22:56, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Well that is the last time I make a suggestion like this ! Sorry everyone for pestering! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 14:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Don't be so hard on yourself, it has been an amicable discussion and one should be willing to review these things from time to time. Incidentally we do have userboxes for high volume editors like you and I. ϢereSpielChequers 17:41, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the rate of edits per year needed for perfect synchrony with the service award scheme goes up as one ascends through the ladder. In my opinion, it starts too low and ends too high. Looking at the first seven levels, I can well understand such complaints. On the other hand I'm now consistently behind the rate needed for the higher levels. But the lower levels have been around for so long that this is essentially unfixable. Double sharp (talk) 09:32, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

As I suggested, more levels are needed, but I also think that it would be an EASY (and most welcome for new editors) thing to do would be to just HALVE the time thresholds needed, and keep the edit count requirements the same... This seems to be far more controversial though for some reason than I possibly could have imagined, so I will leave it be... ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 15:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Some new ideas

I agree that the numerical standards are too high. also the different levels of "Master Editor" need to be more elaborate. "Master Editor I, II, III" simply doesn't say anything. we should follow the model of "Grandmaster" levels, such as: "Ultimate," "First Class," etc. Pinging @Th78blue:, to get their input at least. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:40, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I actually think the numerical levels (number of edits) is just fine, but I would HALVE the time it takes to reach each level. Given that this is a "just for fun", I am surprised at how little interest there seems to be in inserting more "fun" into it. It seems to be more like a vaunted and protected Masonic ritual at this point than a fun prize token for constructive contributors to the encyclopedia... ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 16:42, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps those of us who have spent years on Wikipedia with the current system only see changes as a detriment. A new editor who hasn't earned anything sees little problem in "fixing" something that isn't broken. I would suggest you find motivation to write an encyclopedia, not wrack up edits for edits' sake. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Chris troutman "...only see changes as a detriment"? So are no changes beneficial? Any exceptions? And are you implying that my motivation is other than to "write an encyclopedia"? Because that would be really hurtful and not appreciated. I gladly donate copious amounts of my time to try and help in whatever small ways that I can (reverting vandalism, making copy edits, etc.), to contribute to this wonderful project. I am sure you do the same, and I would not state, nor imply, that your edits are ever to the contrary, as I have come across your edits before, and they have always been professional and helpful...even when they might be reverts of my own work (which I have learned and once gave you WikiLove Tea as "thanks"). I hadn't yet heard from Sm8900, I suppose I was frustrated. What if you work REALLY HARD over a shorter period of time? Are you still expected to simply "gain seniority"? That just felt wrong to me in some way, but if I am truly in the minority on that, then so be it, it is a project of the community and built on consensus. Thank you. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 01:41, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Unless you are just self-reverting yourself over and over again or something dumb like that, anything small, even a minor contribution still helps Wikipedia. Perhaps this gives people the idea that they can progress through the ranks and after a long while, they begin to realize that it's not about the edits, and now they just edit wikipedia. Perhaps MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 15:13, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, that is my thinking exactly. Glad to know that there are editors like you out there! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 13:39, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that suggesting changes to this is fine. And also, since one whole point is to motivate and encourage greater participation, it seems fine to suggest specific things that might make the editing process seem more inviting to newer editors who might not have as much time spent editing here as others might have. Sm8900 (talk) 04:11, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

And thanks for your comment too! I really appreciate interacting with positive people/editors. I think the encyclopedia is a wonderful thing, and I'm just always trying to put on my thinking cap as to how to improve it, but I understand that sometimes things might be just fine the way they are too! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 13:40, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

The biggest problem we have with the service awards is that the project is barely 21 years old. In another forty years or so we will need a very different system that works for everyone from near newbie to the person who has been here for half a century or more. ϢereSpielChequers 15:06, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

"Need"? To me the "Service awards" were a somewhat tongue-in-cheek aspect of adding some fun into the work we all contribute to the encyclopedia. Anyway, the above conversation I found to be so depressing that I removed any mention of a service award on my page, and any user box along with that. Hopefully someone else has a suggestion that is more well received than mine. Or we can just change nothing, that is always a great plan too! ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 21:37, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Don't change the rulebook in the middle of the stream, and dance with the horse that brung you. Nothing is broken here (except that cardboard tube at a high level, can't it be dipped in holograph juice or something). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Huh? ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 21:38, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

How seriously should we take these awards?

How serious are we supposed to take these "awards"? That is a serious question by the way. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 21:40, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Obviously not very seriously at one end of the scale and fairly seriously at another. But that's a very different question than I was addressing so I'll give it its own thread. ϢereSpielChequers 11:16, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Abolish Service Awards

At first I thought that we might be able to help improve the system of "Service awards", and I was of the opinion that such "awards" were a fun way to "reward" one's self as a result of serious contributions that have greatly aided the quality of the encyclopedia. I am somewhat less optimistic now that these awards serve a neutral purpose though. In the description for Wikipedia:Service awards, it says in the third paragraph, Please remember that neither the number of edits nor the length of time from when an account was created is a good indicator of the quality of an editor's contributions or diplomatic ability. Hence, service awards do not indicate any level of authority whatsoever; "master" editors are not bestowed with more authority through this award than "novice" editors., but I am coming around to believing that this aspect of the "awards" is not entirely true, or is at least not honored in a de facto sense if it is still somehow "true" otherwise

What do I mean by this? I mean that though the service awards are meant not to convey, "...any level of authority whatsoever", the fact that any change to the system is defended against so seriously, indicates to me that in fact manner "authority" is indeed signaled to other editors by those holding such Service Awards proudly on their User Pages. Furthermore, at least in my own experience—I would imagine that this might be true in other editors experiences too—that the service awards do seem to be wielded in such a manner as that they convey at least some element of serving as tokens of respect or seniority. Again, I would caution that such "respect or seniority" seems to me to be dangerously close to "authority" in a real sense, even if there isn't any granted "de jure" power from these service awards, there is I believe a de facto authority, even if very minor.

What is to be done? If my thinking above is correct, and we can certainly debate whether or not it is. I initially thought that it might be best to try and change aspects of the system—and I am still open to that possibility—but I think that there might be another path. A path that helps lessen any tendencies in any of us towards editcountitis, and that is, to abolish the service awards entirely.

While many of us have worked hard to collectively come together and build the encyclopedia, we should frankly gain satisfaction from the constructive adds (or subtractions) that we have made to it in the first place, independent of any external "reward". Any additional merit award, trophy, or symbol, serves purposes that I am beginning to feel might not be entirely beneficial to the health of the wikipedia community as a whole.

Well these were just some of my own thoughts. Perhaps my thinking is in the minority, but I tend to believe that if something serves to divide the community, or even if it simply doesn't have concrete, tangible, measurable benefits, then it ought to be considered for abolition, or at minimum considered for reform.

Thanks for reading my comments. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 21:59, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Service Awards embody a representation of who we (as editors) think are are and what we aspire to be. As such they are useful in reflecting and maintaining collective norms within the community. I believe they're useful, but would 100% be open to renaming some awards to remove implications of real authority. 121.99.219.62 (talk) 00:11, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I think that is a good idea too. I'd be open to suggestions. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 11:44, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

@Th78blue: So if you can't have an award, it should be abolished? Why don't you go write an article? Chris Troutman (talk) 01:54, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I am "entitled" to display an "award", I choose not to display one—see reasons listed above—feel free to respond to any. Thank you.♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 11:46, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Service awards are a tried and tested tool for volunteer organisations as diverse as blood donors and disability charities. We are currently only twenty one years old as an organisation, our service award system is bound to look very different in thirty or forty years time. But the time to decide that we don't need to encourage editor retention through such tools is going to be after we have the data to say how they influence editor motivation over periods of half a century or more. I think we should think about how service awards are measured when people have gaps of a year or a decade in their contributions. But it would be odd to have a largescale volunteer organisation where service awards were counter productive. ϢereSpielChequers 11:07, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

It would be odd indeed, and so it is. 21+ years is not exactly a spring chicken either for a website such as this . ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 11:47, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I feel that service awards should be retained. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:25, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Addressing some of OPs points:

• Regarding "Please remember that... "master" editors are not bestowed with more authority through this award than "novice" editors", OP suspecting that that's that not actually true. Well of course its not true, not for a lot of people. It's fine to say it; we should say it; it's good politics to say it; and it's not devoid of truth to a degree. Doesn't make it generally true. Doesn't mean there's no such thing as moral authority in life or here (especially as we lack formal leadership). We are busy here and a quick look that someone has been a regular contributor for 15 years is one data point in sussing if an editor can be assumed likely to have commitment, understanding of how things are done here, the ability that long practice tends to bring, and so on, compared to a neophyte, which can certainly matter at various times. Editors are free to think that moral authority is not a thing, but for my part I have a limited patience for hearing... that sort of thing.

• Regarding "editcountitis" (a pejorative term for taking pride in one's long and valuable service, which you actually don't hear much anymore, thank goodness), how many editors deliberately inflate their edit count by, let's say, making lots of edits on purpose to accomplish some task when many fewer edits would do? Very very few I would say, I have been here 15+ years and I have not seen a clear case of it. I have seen editors who make 10 or 15 small edits in a row to an article, but I think that is mostly just their style. Some editors want to make an edit, publish, look at the result, and continue to the next fix. Most editors just use preview and make all their fixes at once, but do we really want to straitjacket everyone into doing it that way if it doesn't suit them?

If it's a matter of someone making many minor editors, typo fixes and so on, is that a bad thing? Should the small subset of editors who enjoy contributing that way be discouraged from doing so? Of course not. For those very few editors who spend energy on inflating their edit counts on purpose, so what? It's not a significant detriment to the project. Who cares.

Having a lot of edits here is not a bad thing nor is taking pride in it. Editors are free to think that it is, but for my part I have a limited patience for hearing... that sort of thing.

• Re "we should frankly gain satisfaction from the constructive adds (or subtractions) that we have made to it in the first place, independent of any external 'reward'", I personally have found "not telling other people how to feel" is a good policy. Works for me anyway. Re "Any additional merit award, trophy, or symbol, serves purposes that I am beginning to feel might not be entirely beneficial to the health of the wikipedia community as a whole" . For this I'd want some kind of explanation based on some kind of understanding of human nature rather than what is maybe an uninformed emotion.

• I like to believe that figuring out how to keep a volunteer organization is not something you can figure out very quickly or that everyone has a talent for or is necessarily all that easy. We can't give raises. We can't give promotions. We don't have leaders so its up to the community to do this. It's part of our job (not everyone's, but those who care to) along with writing material and engaging in discussions and so forth. Pats on the back and so on are part of that; so are the Service Awards.

(We also have barnstars (a fading practice I think), but one's likeability and political savvy and predeliction for working with other editors rather than solo -- and also luck -- partly determines that, and they're usually given (by those who like to, many editors don't) for some particular bit of work. Barnstars are fine, but they are just different.)

• I think that community in general has voted with their feet that the Service Awards are OK, based on the number of editors who display them (and ranging across the personality spectrum from cheerful group member types to embittered misanthropes, in my experience). Anyone is welcome to nominate them a fourth time for deletion, and good luck with that. For my part I'd consider that annoying priggery, as I consider many attempts to tell other people what to do, particularly when it doesn't affect article content, but that's just me, and it's a free project.

• "It is amazing what a man will do for a piece of colored ribbon" said Napoleon, who was nobody's fool. His organization was pretty successful for quite a while. "What's so bad about feeling good?" asked George Seaton. "Against gay marriage? Don't have one" says the bumper sticker (I think you can see how that applies to displaying a service award). IMO these are fair points.

Alright, end of rant. Sorry to be so oppositional, but false and inflammatory stuff like "serves to divide the community" doesn't put me in the best mood, which I would hope you would have expected. Herostratus (talk) 17:22, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

No opinion either way, but I'm just chiming in to say I've been in my share of disputes and have never once seen an editor hold their service awards as a mark of status over another. People here have been for the most part pretty restrained from referencing any badge of authority (such as real-life qualifications and experience), other than admins when necessary. More friction seems to come from typical human foibles such as self-righteousness, differing force of personalities, and persistence to argue over edits. Perhaps what Th78blue has perceived as awards causing self-entitlement is just people who act self-entitled in general? SamuelRiv (talk) 18:06, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

@SamuelRiv, well said. Sm8900 (talk) 15:02, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

@Herostratus:, I think Barn Stars are actually better, since you are given them by OTHER editors. Also, I have no argument with the above on edit style or quantity of edits, I took issue mostly with the quantity of time that was arbitrarily determined to make it to each service award level. I have argued for halving those times for each and every award. I'm all for a resurgence of the use of barn stars! And I believe they would be far preferable to the self given service awards. As for @SamuelRiv:, I've been in my share of disputes and have never once seen an editor hold their service awards as a mark of status over another. People here have been for the most part pretty restrained from referencing any badge of authority..., I might agree there, but then again, they don't seem to have to. The mere fact of its prominent display is enough, no need to mention the badge as a cop, you just have the badge... "It is amazing what a man will do for a piece of colored ribbon" said Napoleon... is an exact example of why we wouldn't want one. See the excellent book War Is a Racket by Smedley Butler to see how problematic that thinking of Napoleon's was. In short, it made the world more violent, because war became less expensive. Instead of needing to pay soldiers as high as possible, or rather to allow them the spoils of war and to keep some loot and treasure, you'd give them a ribbon, and they would feel patriotic pride. Devilish Napoleon...but it sure helped bring about the modern military complex in some way by cheapening the cost of infantry, and enabling more spend on other military equipment. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 04:31, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

OK. Herostratus (talk) 05:00, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Idea for new titles

I think that reaching 60,000 edits should qualify an editor for an entirely new title, not simply yet another level within "Master Editor." So what should come right before "Grandmaster Editor"? I'm open to ideas. Maybe "Sage Editor"? I'm just thinking off the top of my head. Please feel free to add any ideas.

(and by the way, no this is not for me; yes, I am a Master Editor, but I'm not very close to 60,000 edits yet. and I have been here a long time, longer than some other editors who have already far exceeded that quantitiy of edits! ) thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:01, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

If we must have service awards. I do not know if more is better. Maybe it is, I am going to need to think on that one some more. Interested to read other editors thoughts though. ♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 04:32, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

• Well, I am at the 60k mark, so I'm a bit biased, but I was thinking "Venerable Editor" and "Most Right Venerable Editor" could be good insertions to break up the Master levels. Don't know about logistics on changing those after the fact, but my thought is that it's really just changing the name at a couple templates and keeping Master III and Master IV as alternate names in a couple of the templates. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 05:16, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Signator Ribbon Design

I thought it was interesting that, for the Signator's incremental service awards, the devices on the ribbon are subtracted, instead of added, as seniority increases. What inspired this? Does the quadruple squiggly on the ribbon bear any connection to the way one signs their name on Wikipedia? Are there any other examples of devices being removed from a ribbon with increasing seniority? ERBuermann (talk) 15:36, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the "~~~~" on the Signator ribbon replicates the shortcut to add one's full signature. The only reason I can think that they were subtracted in the incremental awards is to drop the last one when reaching the Burba level and its ribbon. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 21:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Cool! Thank you! ERBuermann (talk) 19:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Grandmaster Medal Description

The description of the Grandmaster Editor award medal describes the center as having a "neutronium superstar". However, how is it a superstar (a 3D object) if it is 2D? The following awards all have "neutronium superstar holograms", which makes more sense, as holograms are 3D images on a 2D surface, but the Grandmaster medal lacks this. Is there a reason for this? ERBuermann (talk) 14:38, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It's an image of a superstar, not an actual superstar. Although you could in theory attach a small 3D one to the award, I guess. —ME_isSCAMMER (scam) 21:46, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

I Am A Registered Editor Currently

you don't need to sign in to be a registered editor :) but I don't have a user page yet 88.110.37.135 (talk) 14:33, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't seem possible to display these awards if you have a global user page

Hi all

Like many other people who contribute quite a lot to several Wikimedia projects I have a Wikipedia:Global user page. I was thinking about displaying a service award on my user page (I think I'm Veteran III), however I'm not able to do it as my user page is technically hosted on Meta and then transcluded onto Wikipedia. Can anyone suggest a way to fix this? I know that creating all the templates on Meta would work but I'm wondering if there's some easier workaround? I'm assuming this effects a fairly large number of editors overall so it would be nice find a solution and provide a few sentences of guidance on the service awards page on how to do it.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 17:15, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

• You will need to get them to enable $wgEnableScaryTranscluding=true and iw_trans=1 in the interwiki table at meta. Then you should be able to use something like {{wiki:en:template:Veteran Editor II}} to transclude your service award. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 17:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  These were made a while ago before we had such fancyness. I think I have the original COBOL source code around here somewhere if that'd help. Sounds like the best path is to copy it all to Meta, cos we can't expect people to know this. In the meantime a section on the main page explaining how to do this I guess — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs) 17:54, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  Scary transcluding is very unlikely to ever happen on Wikimedia projects. Global templates are frequently talked about, but not coming any time soon. Just copying the templates to Meta would be the best bet. the wub "?!" 20:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  But the problem with a copy rather than a move is that now you have to make sure any changes are made in both places. But a move is out of the question as it gives control to whoever runs Meta. So copy it is I guess? Herostratus (talk) 08:04, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Ooh COBOL, I don't think I've done any Coding with that since the 80s. One point though, these are EN wiki service awards, if we were to enable them for global userpages do we need to do some globalisation? At least to specify that any Wikimedia edits and tenure qualify. ϢereSpielChequers 20:37, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

The page says you can count edits on other wikis if you like.Herostratus (talk) 03:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

request: add thumb size to award displays

I found a larger version of the cover of The Complete Compendium of Universal Knowledge but now the WP: page has an overlarge thumb. Arlo James Barnes 06:01, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Nevermind, thanks to WomenArtistUpdates the file has been reverted. Arlo James Barnes 15:33, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi Arlo James Barnes, Would you please revert File:Book of Knowledge2.jpg back to its original size? Thanks! --WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 16:48, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

It seems ZandDev has taken care of that one. Arlo James Barnes 17:58, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Brainstorm a new object for the Sagacious?

Despite changing its base name, background color and stuff, Sagacious still extends the floor plan from the last tier! IMO, this is quite lazy (no offense). Any ideas for a new object to replace it?

Personally, I'd go for a cool name for a wand that summons knowledge with the next tier gaining a preference cogwheel for it, but maybe that hits a bit too close to ChatGPT.
If we continue with the "medium of knowledge" theme, maybe a "cluedo set" (idk, this is supposed to be analogous) for the grand mansion of knowledge?? With the next tier gaining the keys to the entrance.
Or maybe a transport map for a (rapid?) rail transport network between knowledge, with labeled stops being in the next tier?
Or maybe replace that with roads since roads came before rail, and save rail for the next time we switch backgrounds? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:34, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Well my intention, at least, was to either build the Sagacious one more level to something like "Most Sagacious" at 24 years, 235k edits, and we'd build a new set at 25 years, 250k, and do five year intervals from there. Or, we'd build this set to 25 years and call that a completion of the Service Awards series. I guess we're going to need to have that conversation in the next year, because it will impact our approach to the build of the level 24 award.

Time/edits

The time necessary to get these awards is highly unproportional to the number of edits. The expected rate of edits is way to low. We must change something immediately 14 novembre (talk) 15:20, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to make any suggestions you may have. Simply saying We must change something immediately without offering anything is likely to be ignored. This is a system that has been in place for years, so your reasoning for any changes has to be extremely compelling. It's also just for fun, so... — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 15:29, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Building a level 23 service award

Okay, it's getting to be that time again. The service time for the level 23 service award (22 years) is coming up in less than 6 months, so we should start getting on this. As always, please feel free to start building templates, adding images, and proposing any updates or changes in the discussion below.

Sagacious Editor (or Ephoros of the Encyclopedia)
This editor is a Sagacious Editor and is entitled to display this Carbonadium Editor Star with the Strangelet Superstar. {{Sagacious Editor}}	This editor is Ephoros of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep this floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias with magnifying glass, signed by Jimbo with a silver marker, and including its cardboard carrying tube. {{Ephoros}}	This editor is a Sagacious Editor and is entitled to display this Carbonadium Editor Star with the Strangelet Superstar. {{Sagacious Editor Userbox}} This editor is Ephoros of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to keep this floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias with magnifying glass, signed by Jimbo with a silver marker, and including its cardboard carrying tube. {{Ephoros Userbox}} Sagacious Editor {{Sagacious Editor Ribbon}} [[File:Editorrib23.svg]] {{Sagacious Editor topicon}}	Requirements: 205,000 edits and 22 years of service

We were running out of room for a sixth ship's wheel on our purple ribbon, so I thought a move to acorns on a green ribbon would be an interesting development to tide us over for the next decade or so of ribbons. I adaptated User:Sm8900's suggestion above for the name of "Sagacious Editor" on this new level. For the alternate name, "Ephoros" is ancient Greek for "overseer", and was an office in Spartan society, and "Overseer of the Encyclopedia" seemed like an appropriate appellation.

As always, looking forward to seeing what others come up with for some of these other awards. Some resources for the Sagacious Editor template are the List of fictional elements, materials, isotopes and subatomic particles, category:Exotic matter, and real chemical elements, as we did with the Meitnerium star on level 22. I don't know if we want to keep the library map/QR code for the Ephoros level, but I'm sure someone will do it justice. I have started the 15k edits/year rate to build us up to 250,000 at 25 years for a special level 25 award in three years. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 06:01, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

hi there. I'm so glad that my idea was above was useful. thanks for your note! I like your ribbon above as an initial design. in my opinion, it needs more insignia for higher rank. the abstract design is very elegant, but I think that what we want here is something that conveys high and prominent rank more clearly

I would suggest that we use the usual symbols that are generally used to indicate higher rank, in relevant fields. So therefore we could perhaps adapt insignia of high rank that are already regularly used by uniformed services. I would suggest, we look at possible options, such as laurel wreaths, or stars, or ceremonial bars, or crossed maces, or anything that is conventionally used to denote higher rank. I appreciate your great idea in initiating this topic. thanks! ---Sm8900 (talk) 14:27, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

• I actually think this would be a good to to start going from 2 year incriments to 5 year incriments and not have another service award until we reach year 25. -- Dolotta (talk) 14:37, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

My only issue is that these awards aren't really for any individual editors that might achieve them. It's such a rarefied group of editors who can make it to this sort of edit count. It really is more a celebration of Wikipedia that we would continue making these awards at this level, so why limit ourselves? VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 20:21, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Keys of knowledge version of Sagacious Editor ribbon

• The acorn was intended as a direct parallel to the plant parts (leaves, lotus flowers, etc.) used across the world around the O-4 / O-5 rank. Stars and bars were both used at lower levels in the service awards, so those would be too confusing to go back to. But I'll take a look at laurel wreath and mace SVGs, and see if I can't find an appropriate one to mock up to see how they look at ribbon size. The "crossed maces" made me think about the keys on the Vatican coat of arms, so I think keys of knowledge might be a really good symbolism to try out as well. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 20:21, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

• @Vanisaac: I like the idea of using acorns, as it can more easily be replicated across the ribbon as the levels increase. With my greatly limited artistic ability, I already added keys to the Level 18+ Administrative Service Awards, so using keys for editor service awards could introduce some level of confusion. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 15:56, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

If we are keeping these awards, then yes, I think that this acorn design is a nice one.♥Th78blue (talk)♥ 04:35, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I like the acorn too, and the colors. Thanks for the work. The names are OK too, probably there's nothing a whole lot BETTER anyway. Someone would have to make the graphic eventually, the current level of quality is beyond my skill. As to the metal, sheesh... really anything would be OK. Dilithium would be good IMO. Kryptonite I like also. Femium would be a nod to the ladies. Really there's lots of good choices. Herostratus (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

• I now have images for all of the awards, but I am certainly not wedded to them.

I made the medal from scratch, using the File:Barnstar of Diligence Hires.svg and then fiddling around in Inkscape until I ended up with something that looked like embossed red leather. The Wikimedia SVG rendering engine didn't handle the layers appropriately (it's a known issue I've run into before), so I just uploaded a PNG rendering. I'd be happy to share the SVG file if anyone wants to work on improving that image any, but I think I finally have a pretty good stellated dodecahedron for the middle now.

The Ephoros award is still using the library map/QR code. I added a magnifying glass and enlarged the map and cardboard tube inside the rim. Please please please make a new image and update the template if you have an idea for something else for this award. I feel like my heart really isn't in it trying to make something worthy. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 01:42, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Very nice, as Borat would say. I mentally took out the word "Editor" in its second use when it confused me as to what the editor is named and which element is which star, but a slight edit would solve that. This seems good so far, and the magnifying glass seems a perfect addition because its symbolism can be experienced quite a few ways. Nice touch. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:06, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

This is fine work. For my part, I'd recommend that you go ahead and publish it. Or you can wait for more input -- no hurry. Herostratus (talk) 02:21, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@Vanisaac: Inkscape is known to produce suboptimal SVG code, and different browsers may not render an SVG the same way (I'm looking at you, Microsoft). I usually just use a text editor when I work on SVGs. If you want to email the SVG code to me, I'll see what I can do. I concur with Herostratus that you can publish what you have now. I'll work on updating {{Service Awards}} and associated templates when they are live. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 02:37, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I've done a lot of text editor SVG code as well (see all the small file sizes at commons:category:Japanese braille for example). I ran into the same masking issue when I was working on a javascript tartan generator. But yeah, I'm well aware of the cruft that comes with Inkscape SVG code, although this complex an image definitely falls well outside my ability to hand craft. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 02:46, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

At this rate, we should just go ahead and start planning for an award for editors who have 410,000 edits and 44 years of service. BD2412 T 02:47, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, 22 years of Wikipedia is coming up in January. So that's kind of the natural cap on these... VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 02:57, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

At a new benchmark of 15,000 a year, for at least five years in a row - but is that the limit in order to get to 250,000 at the 25-year mark or will it continue? - the 44 year mark would be 580,000 unless it cuts back to 10,000 a year after the 10,000 a year average is reached at 25. When the new award is published expect some blowback on the great increase in expected service, but you don't want to make it too easy to climb Everest as it gets steeper and harder the higher you get. On this new one, I'm really liking the choice of descriptive words. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:39, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, you know what? We could just stop raising the edit counts. I mean if you've got 132,000 edits, you've earned a rest I think.

I originally made the edit count requirements too high I think. If you're doing machine edits, it doesn't matter, but if you're doing manual edits... man, that is a lot of editing, constant editing.

We did have a reform a few years back where we dropped the edit requirements for the very highest levels. It only affected like IDK 20-30 people, who got bumped up a level. I went to each one and updated their status and explained the deal, which was a few hours work I guess. It's way way too late to reform any levels below the very few highest, you'd be dealing with hundreds of people and bothering and confusing them over what after all is a toy.

However, for the new level, and possibly the top level or top two levels below that... we are a wiki, we can do what we want, do whatever best serves the project. So, currently, we have these top levels:

1. Vanguard, 132,000 edits, 16 years
2. Senior Vanguard, 150,000 edits, 18 years
3. Ultimate Vanguard, 175,000 edits, 20 years
4. [New Level], ? edits, 22 years

But how about this instead:

1. Vanguard, 132,000 edits, 16 years
2. Senior Vanguard, 132,000 edits, 18 years
3. Ultimate Vanguard, 132,000 edits, 20 years
4. [New Level], 132,000 edits, 22 years

I mean sheesh, you've made 132,000 edits. 22 years, if you started when you were 50 you're 72 now. I think you've earned the right to drift forward with just the passage of time at this point. I mean we are not taskmasters here. We don't need an 80 year old editor being like "fuck, I need 10,000 more to get the next level." (Yeah I know, but some people are obsessive, after all.) In other fields old distinguished persons collect honorary degrees and Medals of Freedom and Nobel Prizes etc even if they're not contributing anymore.

If for some reason we wanted a progression of edits, we could tune it way down:

1. Vanguard, 132,000 edits, 16 years
2. Senior Vanguard, 136,000 edits, 18 years
3. Ultimate Vanguard, 140,000 edits, 20 years
4. [New Level], 144,000 edits, 22 years

(Incidentally, off topic fun fact, did you know that the Service Awards take no account any end time and in fact you can progress even if you're dead. I recently went to a deceased editors talk page, noted his current level, and what his new levels will be as the years progress (he had like 200,000 edits). Why not?)

Thoughts? Herostratus (talk) 02:12, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Ageist comment alert above, boo, a very very tiny trout for Herostratus (or not, had a minnow sized trout but threw it back in). People 80 and above who edit have a great hobby and, more importantly, a long view and memories of the "good ole days" when record players and dial phones played a huge part in advancing society. Better to give them a 10,000 more edit goal at 80 than not. May I present the great and esteemed BeenAroundAWhile who died recently at 90, started editing when he was 73, and was well over 100,000 edits. He loved Wikipedia, and loved to edit it. There are probably thousands of potentially really good editors living in nursing homes and old age trailer parks who would love to have their attention turned to Wikipedia and how to do it. I'd suggested to Jimmy Wales that the Foundation should fund Wikipedians-in-residence for, say, two or three months at places like The Villages in Florida in the U.S. I met someone, a revered retired professor in his subject at a local university, and he went on and on about his specialty, teaching me about it. I was in a little hurry at the time, so I want to go back when I'm in his neighborhood and have a Wikipedia talk. This got long, but that's okay this time. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Right, those are good ideas @Randy Kryn:. Retired people generally would make excellent editors I think because 1) they are more likely to have the time, 2) are probably experienced and knowledgeable and have perspective about many things by now, and 3) are not jejune and are less likely to get into stupid snark wars with other editors etc, I suppose. A lot of people in their seventies and up are still working, but, say one of the law partners is 82, you're going to allow for her to have a smaller case load and shorter hours and other accommodations if she wants them. Some people at 82 have much vigor an stamina, but a lot are getting a little bit tired. I don't know as its really ageist to recognize that, but I could be wrong, and if so, sorry. (If you're 82 and you're working at Walmart so you won't starve, because capitalism, then no they won't cut you any slack. But we don't want to be like that!). I think having a presence and outreach in retirement communities is an excellent idea and would be a win-win too (stuff like editing Wikipedia is a good way to keep sharp I would think). I'm not the person to follow up on that but if you or anyone else wants to suggest it to the big boo-hoos, I'm all for that. Herostratus (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Herostratus, and hopefully readers know I was kidding about the ageist comment above. Yes, retirees and their communities seem among the most untapped areas for Wikipedia editors, especially the retired professionals and teachers in their chosen fields of endeavor. A fellow I met long ago at an event in a retirement hotel who led up a team that created much of the Apollo Lunar Module comes to mind - he and other NASA workers and contractors could probably give a good read to Wikipedia's unprecedented collection of spaceflight pages (those alone should be given some kind of award and feted at a NASA event). I noticed I mispinged Jimbo Wales above, who may have some good thoughts on these subjects (and if Jimbo does come by and doesn't know it, Herostratus is the creator and initiator of the well-used and interesting Wikipedian awards and badges, so he deserves a gold-plated mounted trout). As for someone 80 being driven mad by having to complete another 10,000 edits, more power to them! A mind and its experiences and knowledge base exist as ageless in terms of human achievement (just get the body hydrated and Vitamin C'd to rev it up a notch), and the human urge to share with others, a driving force for editing Wikipedia, focuses the intent regardless of age. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:18, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not opposed at all to the idea of allowing for a break at the higher levels and setting a cap to the number of required edits. Set Senior Vanguard at 141,000 and Ultimate Vanguard (and all future levels) at 150,000? — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 03:01, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to retroactively change awards that have already been set. But we have almost 5 months until anyone could qualify for level 23 on the basis of service time, so if we wanted to start a conversation about edits, I'd suggest doing a proper, new, full on discussion - maybe even an RfC - to see if the large community would like to change this aspect of service awards. Just an FYI, but repeating the 12,500/year from level 22 would set the level 23 award at 200,000 - a nice round number if we wanted to stop advancing edit count requirements. It definitely would have a bit of a "congratulations, you've won Wikipedia" feel if we stopped requiring any extra edits. We could also go with the plan through level 25 and stop additional edit requirements at a quarter million. So definitely some options if we wanted to do this. BTW, I'm not necessarily taking a position on any of these (aside from changing already set awards), just trying to hash out what all the options are. VanIsaac, MPLL ^cont_WpWS 04:11, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

As I've said before on this page, I think the problem is that the rate of edits per year needed for perfect synchrony with the service award scheme goes up as one ascends through the ladder. In my opinion, it starts too low and ends too high. Looking at the first seven levels, I can well understand such complaints. On the other hand I'm now consistently behind the rate needed for the higher levels. But the lower levels have been around for so long that this is essentially unfixable. So Jkudlick's proposal that starts lowering the edit rate for the top two levels gets my support. If we really can't even change levels 21 and 22, then at least we could start lowering the 12,500/year rate from level 23 onwards. Double sharp (talk) 06:22, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Just saw that this discussion has continued. I'm also an "oppose" to any change in the existing numbers - they are now at 175 thousand for 20 years and that, and the others, should stay as posted and not be retroactively demoted. That's about 9,000 a year, which was the range at several other levels. Maybe cut that in half for newer levels and ease off the jumps of 30,000 (yikes). So, 22 years would be 184,000 edits, 24 at 193,000, and then maybe a 25-year level with its own special nice round-number "200,000" badge or stick or "the, you know, the thing". Randy Kryn (talk) 17:16, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

p.s. and, as some suggest, stop at some point (even the military does that), 200,000 for 25 years sounds just about right and comes out to 8,000 edits a year (achievable, although the botters can rack that up in a week or less). That would be jumps to 184,000 at 22, 193,000 at 24, and topped off by 200,000 for 25 (like a good wine tasting). Randy Kryn (talk) 17:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Is it just me or does the acorn look like a thick moustached man's mouth with tongue sticking out? Would support replacing it with something else. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 17:47, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

•  Implemented VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 00:16, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

  Vanisaac, so the number of requested edits is actually increasing the longer someone is here, from 9,000 a year to 15,000 a year? A big jump. Will the rate keep increasing at 15,000 a year or is this a one-time thing? Will someone at thirty years of service be expected to maintain a rate coming in at 325,000 edits? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:57, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

The idea was to hit 250,000 edits for the special 25 years award. This was part of the discussion back at building I think level 22 when it jumped to 12.5k per year. There has been discussion, but no decision on having the service awards possibly top out at a 1⁄4 million edits and just recognize advancements in tenure from that point on. My suggestion to continue the same idea of advancing years and edits in tandem has been to permanently set it at 10k per year after the 25 year award, as that will be the average rate over the entire first 25 levels, and gives you nice looking numbers - 300,000 edits at 30 years, etc. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 02:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

You're a tough taskmaster, will give you that. As discussed above, giving editors an easier time after, say, 20 years, is another option, topping out at 200,000 at 25 years (a respectable 8,000 a year). Randy Kryn (talk) 02:34, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm about 50,000 edits behind my length of tenure, and that's only because I count commons and other language projects... oh, and over half my edits are from two mass WP:AWB projects undertaken since the pandemic. VanIsaac, GHTV ^cont_WpWS 07:47, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Nah, just saying that a 15,000 a year jump seems unfair. Once someone gets to 175,000, the 20-year requested number, then continuing the 9,000 a year increment would seem the fairest way to go. That would get someone to 193,000 at 22, 211,000 at 24, and maybe top off at 25 with 225,000 (which could be the number to "win Wikipedia" as someone above put it, at 9,000 average yearly edits/25 years). Putting the burden of a jump from 9,000 to 15,000 a year after someone puts in 20 years and looks forward to setting down in the Wikipedia Retirement Village in Florida (run and subsidized by our friends at WikiMedia) they suddenly have to face the shock of nearly doubling their output for the next few years in order to reserve a townhouse, well, the humanity. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:14, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry to be a tad late to the party, but can I make a counter suggestion for the metal? Seaborgium has its own article and unlike some of our newer isotopes is expected to be solid, and given its half life should be nice and bright regardless of lighting conditions. It also has the advantage that we could be the first actual users of this element. ϢereSpielChequers 21:31, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

At some point we'd probably use up all the superheavies anyway, so it doesn't matter much to me which one is picked. That said, maybe roentgenium (eka-gold) ought to be reserved for a particularly special number of years. Double sharp (talk) 16:15, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Who has time to write 5 articles a day??? It has taken me hours, even days to edit single paragraphs when there is a need to verify multiple sources, some of which which require repeated literature searches, tracking down a copy of the publication, and then reading the papers. 2601:447:CD7E:7CF0:0:0:0:56AE (talk) 06:35, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Where is level 24 The most sagacious editor less than 6 months to go get ready