Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits

Visitors to this page may well ask themselves, "Why does this list exist? What is the value of organizing editors by number of edits (especially in light of the Caveat lector section below)? Are all editors not considered equal in the eyes of Wikipedia regardless of how many edits they may have made? Does having a record of a large number of edits entitle a person to some special rights or privileges? Does not appearing anywhere on this list mean that my own contributions aren't valuable or important? Should it be the goal of any individual editor to accrue as many of these counted edits as possible in hopes of making it onto or increasing their ranking on the list?"

These are all fair questions. Having a user account with a large number of edits implies that the user is knowledgeable, experienced, knows what they are doing, is familiar with Wikipedia policies and procedures, has a handle on most of Wikipedia's acronyms and abbreviations, understands the difference between things like a template and a tag, a meatpuppet and a sockpuppet, can direct other editors on the correct format and venues to express their concerns or problems, and understands helpful editing tools. New articles created by high-edit-count editors may not face the same scrutiny or be as likely to be nominated for deletion as those created by newcomers. None of this is because of the edit counts themselves, but because a high edit count is a reasonable indicator of higher experience.

Should it become your goal to get your own account on this list, or to increase your ranking on it? If that means you are willing to contribute your time and energy to creating a better online encyclopedia, then absolutely! But Wikipedia is not a game and few people who are serious about editing are focused on how many "experience points" they are accruing along the way. Even editors whose high edit counts are partly the result of a series of automated edits had to learn how to perform that automation. We all learn as we go, and, if we are here for the right reasons, our edit counts are only interesting commentary on the quantity of our participation—not on the quality or value of it! This is not a race, this is a collaborative project, and it can always use more level-headed collaborators willing to learn how it all works.

Let the reader beware: this list is a reference summary only. It should be taken with a large grain of salt and not viewed as a definitive measure of any individual editor's worth. There are many reasons why a total number of edits usually does not indicate quality of work, quality of an editor, or significance of contributions. Here are some of the most obvious:

1. Due to a bug, the edit counts reported by Wikipedia are not always reliable for editors with high edit counts and may show extreme discrepancies in some cases.
2. Some editors have chosen to take advantage of some of Wikipedia's automated tools (e.g., bots and assisted systems) which are capable of fixing many simple errors per minute (spelling, links, etc.), or that place many informational and other notices on a series of articles or talk pages in a short time, while other editors work on tasks where such tools are not useful such as content creation and reworking, manual copyright review, and editorial dispute resolution. A simple edit count does not differentiate between these types of edits.
3. Some "bot" users (users who have created or edited or take advantage of some of Wikipedia's automated "robot" tasks) route their bot edits through separate bot accounts while others include them in their own edits. This means that some editors may appear to have comparatively low edit counts in multiple accounts, but would be able to show a much higher overall edit count if the edits from all the accounts were to be included. The following table does not differentiate between these types of accounts, and this fact should be kept in mind when viewing them. If you wish to find out more information about an editor's contribution history, you need only click on the "History" tab of any article or talk page to which they have made a contribution and then click on the "contribs" link that appears in blue font next to that person's username to see a full list of every contribution that editor has ever made, back to the very first one (likewise, other editors may always view your own edit history the same way).
4. Others may use one or more alternative accounts to segregate their contributions for various legitimate reasons. Again, the edit counter will record edits from these as separate accounts, which may then appear to be misleadingly low.
5. Many editors who are high on the list perform routine tasks that require less time per edit such as reverting vandalism, requesting article protection, warning users, or removing spam; conversely, users who create a number of long new pages or make major additions might easily spend a week or more undertaking research before editing, and appear much lower on the list, if at all. This is another reason why the edit counts may not reflect actual experience or degree of contribution of a given editor.
6. Some editors use the Show preview button until they are satisfied with a particular (possibly very long) edit, while others will habitually save a succession of small changes as they go; a third class may combine these editing styles. All other things equal, the second group will ultimately accrue the highest formal edit count, even though the end result of these edits may be more or less the same for all three groups.
7. Earlier versions of the list listed contributions to the article space separately. The current list counts the total number of edits, including to talk pages and project pages. This is only important to take into consideration if a person wishes to distinguish types of edit versus total edit count.
8. Many people edit without logging in at all, and many anonymous non-logged in editors regularly make valuable and well-established edits.
9. Some Wikipedians work in areas where edits are less prominent, for example, email-mediated matters such as arbcom-en, mediation, unblock-l, or services such as checkuser.
10. Editors who have become VRT volunteers have the responsibility of regularly interacting with the general public over sometimes highly complex, difficult, and protracted issues related to Wikipedia; few of these interactions are counted towards the following edit counts on these tables because those interactions are not (and should not be) considered "edits" to Wikipedia (though they often result in some). Nevertheless, VRT volunteers—whose work is critical to the existence of our freely licensed material—are frequently very familiar with Wikipedia policy and procedure in ways that are seldom evaluated or itemized in terms of things such as edit counts.
11. The edit count you see below does not include any edits that an editor may have done to Wikimedia Commons, which is another very important part of the Wikimedia movement. Commons editors are assigned separate edit counts on the Commons website, though many of these edits are also critical to the operation of the English language Wikipedia. A global "edit count" of all contributors to Wikimedia projects might include edits to the Wikipedias of other languages as well as any edits or uploads to Wikimedia Commons; however, the count below does not include these things.

In light of all of that, we encourage you to consider that edit count alone does not correlate with the effort put into improving Wikipedia, nor does it, in isolation, reflect actual competence, knowledge, or authority.

We encourage as many people as possible (including you!) to get involved, including those whose only edit may be to fix a simple typo. Everyone's contributions are equally welcome! Contributors not on this list provide the clear majority of edits on Wikipedia. When the total number of edits on this list reached 132,000,986 in 2011, it included roughly 29% of all edits to this project at the time.^[a] The following charts therefore reflect only one measure of participation, that of edit counts, information which should be understood in context.

The charts are periodically updated, and are not as up to date as the lists.

This chart describes anyone who has registered for an account. To read the chart listing Wikipedians (those who have made one or more edits) click on "Table 2" just below it.