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Meet the Man Behind a Third of What's On Wikipedia (cbsnews.com)
Thelasko shares a report from CBS News: Steven Pruitt has made nearly 3 million edits on Wikipedia and written 35,000 original articles. It's earned him not only accolades but almost legendary status on the internet. The online encyclopedia now boasts more than 5.7 million articles in English and millions more translated into other languages -- all written by online volunteers. Pruitt was named one of the most influential people on the internet by Time magazine in part because one-third of all English language articles on Wikipedia have been edited by Steven. An incredible feat, ignited by a fascination with his own history.
How much money does he make from his work? None. "The idea of making it all free fascinates me. My mother grew up in the Soviet Union ... So I'm very conscious of what, what it can mean to make knowledge free, to make information free," he said. Pulling from books, academic journals and other sources, he spends more than three hours a day researching, editing and writing. Even his day job is research, working in records and information at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He joked that his colleagues probably think he's nuts. To put in to perspective what it took for Pruitt to become the top editor, he's been dedicating his free time to the site for 13 years. The second-place editor is roughly 900,000 edits behind him, so his first place status seems safe, for now.
How much money does he make from his work? None. "The idea of making it all free fascinates me. My mother grew up in the Soviet Union ... So I'm very conscious of what, what it can mean to make knowledge free, to make information free," he said. Pulling from books, academic journals and other sources, he spends more than three hours a day researching, editing and writing. Even his day job is research, working in records and information at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He joked that his colleagues probably think he's nuts. To put in to perspective what it took for Pruitt to become the top editor, he's been dedicating his free time to the site for 13 years. The second-place editor is roughly 900,000 edits behind him, so his first place status seems safe, for now.
Pakistan does/did. Was news back in early '00s.
India doesn't have the information ON the passport but it is/was required in the forms when getting them.
"The online encyclopedia now boasts more than 5.7 million articles in English and millions more translated into other languages"
Sorry to break your english-centric point of view, but a good part of the non English articles of Wikipedia are not just translations of existing English articles, but original articles directly written in "foreign" languages.
Whinging bastard.
They didn't have an article on Donna Strickland because she wasn't notable UNTIL SHE WON THE PRIZE. She was the 2013 president of the Optical Society, whoop-de-do. Her predecessor, Mark Heinz, doesn't have an article either. It's not about men-vs-women, stop stirring shit up.
Someone added her article in 2014 but fucked up because they just copy-pasted someone else's article about her, so it was immediately deleted for copyright violation. They couldn't be bothered to try again and write even one original sentence about her.
They didn't have Bowsette or Instagram egg articles either "until the media pointed it out", i.e. THEY BECAME NOTABLE TOPICS.
They don't censor schools, there's just fuck-all to say about PRIMARY/ELEMENTARY schools because there are millions of them, and very few of them have anything distinguishing about them. Almost every SECONDARY/HIGH school, and university/college/polytechnic has a Wikipedia article, and they don't get deleted unless they don't exist.
They delete WANNABE cryptocurrency articles because they're scams hoping to get famous quick and find suckers to invest in them. They want to hijack Wikipedia's influence, trust and SEO power for their private gain. The rule is simple - first become notable WITHOUT Wikipedia's help. Then, ONCE you're notable, you can have a Wikipedia article.
You sound like a butthurt loser with an overly high estimation of your own importance. I also have thousands of edits, and over the years I've seen Wikipedia evolve and get better at reining in the deletionists' whims, while also putting in the necessary deletions and bans to stop the place becoming nothing but spam.
You could just look at his edit history if you want to see what those 3 million edits consist of. It appears that many of the edits are very small, and so far today he mostly added and edited categories on a few dozen articles. For instance he edited four soccer game articles and changed the category from "August 19xx sports events" to "August 19xx sports event in Europe". That consisted of 6 edits in 6 articles within 2 minutes. Another half dozen edits were editing dashes on various articles he had previously edited using a script (changing "1911-12" to "1911–12").
I have only looked at 20 of his edits which mostly took place in a 10 minute period, but it at least shows how his total edit count can get so high after only 13 years. He made 15 edits in a 6 minute period earlier this morning.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
As someone who had an article about me deleted from Wikipedia I can say that they are thorough in their review. An article was written about me by a colleague, along with a number of other people in my field. It was marked for deletion almost immediately on notability grounds, which I would not dispute. I am not very well known outside my own field. The deletion was disputed (not by me.) It went to review and after a reasonable and fact based discussion the deletion was upheld.
I have no problem with it and am glad to know that should I win the Nobel prize it will be revived ;)
Most of his edits are very minor, like updating "1911-12" to "1911–12" (notice the difference?). He made 16 edits in a 2 minute period earlier this morning mostly with a script updating dashes and changing article categories from "Sports Events" to "Sports Events in Europe".
I have no idea how impactful his bigger edits are, and TFA and other articles written recently have shown pages he did considerable work on, but I would assume the vast majority (99%+ possibly) are very minor edits. Granted even minor changes can be helpful; perhaps it will be easier to search for those soccer games now that they are labelled as occurring in Europe (I doubt it, but I don't know for sure).
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke