Wikipedia talk:Wikipedians
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[edit] Good and bad?
Can someone explain this line to me: "The number of Wikipedians (both good and bad) has grown to over 5 million" I'm curious as to why Wikipedians can be good and bad. I know users can have an agenda, but this just seems poorly worded. That'd be like saying "America has 300 million people, (both English speaking and non)." --Ilstuguy 15:00, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
- Removed. Richard001 09:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
- Productive and malignant wikipedians. It's emotive and effecient. --No Brainer 07:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why do you contribute?
I am just asking any user of wikipedia why you contribute? If you are an avid contributor, what motivates you to be a volunteer to wikipedia?129.89.107.135 19:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)english student
- Hi. I'm not sure this is the right place, but I'll reply anyway. I joined Wikipedia in October of 2006. Why I contribute starts with how I discovered Wikipedia. I was searching for lots of stuff on the Internet, back in the times when I was wanting to find a place with as much info as I need. Now, sometimes searching from a web engine didn't really help. I really needed a place where I can find all the info in one place, in one site. Now, a long time ago, I really wanted to know what E=MC2 meant, and most of all, in unit-specific terms. I tried searching for weeks, even months on the Internet, but for some reason I didn't find the answer I wanted. Now, a lot of the people I had on MSN had this robot called SmarterChild in their contact list. So, I searched for it on Ask.com, my favorite search engine at the time, and bingo — the link at the very top of the page was Wikipedia. As I explored it further, I realised that Wikipedia knew everything. I looked for E=MC2, and I found what I'd been looking for all that time, a unit specific measurement! As I searched for more and more stuff, I instantly became interested. Now, I knew I could edit, but I didn't want to yet. The first time I tried to edit, it warned that my IP adress would be shown. I looked into this problem further, on Wikipedia of course, and even wrote a short article about Wikipedia on my computer. Then, after months of searching, I decided that I might create an account after all. One of the articles I wanted to contribute to when I finally created an account, was "list of meteor showers". I discovered that redlinks meant that there was no article, and I think more of the articles needed to be made. However, who otehr than me would make them? I started taking the Wikiholic test, and I nearly got to a thousand points even before I created an account. I was worried that making an account would expose my IP adress to the developers, but then I decided: Someone told me that all websites collect your IP adress anyway, there are already so many contributors, and the small number of developers and checkusers that can see my IP adress is so small. So, I finally decided to get an account. Since I wanted to choose my name carefully, it took me around half an hour to choose my username and password. Then, I got to the editting. Finally, after a week or two, someone actually welcomed me. I mean, you get to collaborate with others about articles, and improve the most-visited web encyclopedia on the planet, what better (and more relatively useful, both for yourself and others) site is there? There have been a few mishaps and perhaps even stresful moments, but it's all worth it in the long run. So, a year later, here I am, with more than 2000 edits and over 10000 points on the Wikiholic test. I recently joined a few related sites, like interwikis and sister projects. I find that there isn't always much to do, but at least there's a place where I can spend my time (and not just waste it) when there is not much else to do. Make sure you understand that too much computer time can cause health issues, though. So, if you can join and make constructive edits, Wikipedia welcomes you. Help us build the greatest encyclopedia ever attempted! Hope this answers most of your question. Thanks. ~AH1(TCU) 20:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] How many of us are there?
Special:Statistics says there are 5,773,899 account holders. We would be wasting our time trying to count the IPs, but I'd like to know roughly how many reasonably active users currently exist. There will of course be sock puppets, second accounts, one edit accounts, those that have been blocked, and numerous account holders that don't edit anymore and haven't done so for months or even years. But it would be good to have an estimate of how many real Wikipedians there are out there. Any suggestions for getting such information, or trying to make an estimate? Richard001 07:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, here's an idea: Go to Special:Listusers, which lists all account holders, then try to take a reasonably large sample. The problem is getting a random sample: it needs to be representative, and at the beginning we clearly have those who simply want to be at the start of the list. The same problem might occur at A, B etc, so start somewhere arbitrary is probably the best method. Then one would have to define what one meant by a genuine user, which is somewhat subjective. Say at least five edits and active in the last 2 months, for example. Finally, one would go through and check each user. If only a small fraction meet the criteria, however, there is a larger chance of random error, so a bigger sample size would be needed. Should be possible, though I haven't got time to do it myself now, and I have no idea what criteria I would use. Might be an interesting exercise though, and I'm sure people would be interested in the results. Richard001 07:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
- Ah, I seemed to miss this link: [1]. It's a bit out of date, but there seem to be about 40,000 active active users on en. in any given month, and about 4000 users who are making several edits each day. Hard to tell how many of the 40k are non-vandals, but it gives a reasonably good overview. Richard001 20:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Retiring a user name
Is it acceptable to "retire" a user name if one is upfront about it? What is the etiquette for doing so? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muckblogger (talk • contribs) 14:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
- The best way is to have your account name changed at Wikipedia:Changing username. This will also preserve your edit history. Feezo (Talk) 11:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Question re corporate rather than individual user accounts
What is the policy about organisations having accounts? I had understood accounts were for individuals. Paul foord (talk) 10:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Usernames#Sharing accounts is prohibited. More details at m:Role accounts and Wikipedia:BFAQ#Can my company have an account?. Feezo (Talk) 11:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] How do you become a Wikipedian?
[edit] Become a Wikipedian
Hi. I was just wondering, how do you become a Wikipedian? The page doesn't explain, and also, what exactly does a Wikipedian do? Thanks for replying! --Wiki: wikiPEDIA rules! 23:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
- By helping to write and edit Wikipedia! That's what we're here for. There's no offical "Wikipedian" designation. Some suggestions on ways you can help: Wikipedia:Community Portal#Todo. You might also want to take a look at our welcome page for newcomers — and by the way, you can auto-sign your talk page posts with four tildes, like this: ~~~~. Feezo (Talk) 04:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Groups of Wikipedians in other Social Networks
Hi fellow Wikipedians! I created a group for people like y'all on LinkedIn
Everybody who is there yet or plans to be in forementioned social network is invited to join
Perhaps we can make a category here (and/or @ meta) as well if we have a substantial number of followers.
Needless to say that LinkedIn is just an example. The same counts or will count for Twitter, Facebook et al.
Patio (talk) 06:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
