Submissions/How to get a half a million edits (and is it worth it?)

From Wikimania 2014 • London, United Kingdom

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 1047
Title of the submission
How to get a half a million edits (and is it worth it?)
Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)

Presentation.

Author of the submission
bd2412 T
E-mail address
bd2412@hotmail.com
Username
bd2412 T
Country of origin
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
Personal homepage or blog
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Since I made my first edit in 2005, I have topped 700,000 edits across 137 Wikimedia projects (including over 500,000 on English Wikipedia, over 100,000 on English Wiktionary, over 70,000 on English Wikiquote, and over 12,000 on French language projects, plus another 1,500 on Commons). I'd love to talk about the tools, techniques, and time that I used to reach these milestones, and what I might have done differently.

The key elements to this would be to find what you love and write about many different aspects of it, while at the same time finding large scale wikignoming opportunities and diving into them with tools like AWB. If you don't know how to generate volumes of common errors to be fixed (there are many technical aspects of doing this that I have never learned) then collaborate with those who know how to kick these kinds of projects into high gear. Wikimedia projects are communities, and you can always find editors in the community who have skill sets that complement your own.

I would also caution that numbers are no measure of the quality of contributions. An editor could make half a million edits to their own user page, and contribute nothing to the quantum of human knowledge. To paraphrase a wise editor, every edit we make should be a step towards the improvement of our projects for the benefit of the reader. There are doubtless a handful of discussions and diversions which I would avoid, if I had it to do over again.

Track
one of:
  • WikiCulture & Community
  • Technology, Interface & Infrastructure


Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 Minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Yes!
Slides or further information (optional)
I will undoubtedly have slides.
Special requests
None. Note, however, that I have made three proposals, and would likely only be able to present one (whichever one has the most support).


Interested attendees

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  1. WereSpielChequers (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Geraldshields11 (talk) 22:04, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. --Another Believer (talk) 01:58, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. seav (talk) 00:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Slashme (talk) 09:03, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Enock4seth (talk) 11:36, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Dthomsen8 (talk) 19:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Mere 154,000 edits.[reply]
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