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AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

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Re: AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think GP is agreeing with it, or that it requires "humble self reflection": the Twitter thing made Reddit's front page (which is seen by many more people than the CBS and HN combined, and is incidentally where I first heard about it as well). You can step off that high horse now.

Leave out that last sentence and you’re making a cogent, convincing argument; the insult adds nothing and takes something away.

Agreed. Might have upvoted, instead downvoted.

Re: AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

#32
post #30

Turns out the guy who wrote Baba Yetu (civilization 4 theme song which won grammy) is in the comments too, thanking Steven https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/au2rjb/i_am_steven_pr... . What a small world we live in.

Funny! I met Christopher Tin once, and got to sing his music, on a choir tour in Turkey. It was during the mass protests in 2013.

Re: AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Like I said, "not trying to diminish his work". But it also gives the wrong impression of what editing Wikipedia entails. Anyone can edit, and even a single edit adds utility. One doesn't need to devote as much time has Pruitt has, or have reference books, or make as much edits. My point was that the commenters seem to have a misconception about who writes Wikipedia. It's not just Pruitt, it's people like…

I'd imagine there's a pareto distribution of edits amongst users, and so it might not be so unreasonable to think that a handful of people have written a significant percentage of what's there.

Hmm, there's lots of ways you might go about measuring who has "written significant portion of what's there" and this "number of edits" is a poor one indeed.

But the nature of Wikipedia means that entropy/rust/rot is a very really thing - and the wikignomes that tirelessly keep articles together in the face of endless silly vandals and clueless people "just trying to set the record straight" are big part of that. Internally there is some recognition in the relatively new "Thanks" feature - and the "barnstar" business. However, just as with Steveen Pruitt, I suspect that the main driver for editors is being able each day to make the world a slightly better place.

Re: AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

#34

I'm pretty sure Steven Pruitt read the Asimov trilogy cover to cover and loved it!

> the Asimov trilogy

Just for clarity, I think you meant the Foundation trilogy. Asimov wrote an awful lot of books, and more than just the one trilogy. (Also, there are more than three books in the Foundation series, but that's a separate point.)

Re: AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

#36
post #5
post #2

Apparently, higher-up, editors get tools that let them make modifications to multiple threads simultaneously. [1] And , Wikipedia happens to count those edits separately even if the editor applies the fix to multiple articles at once as a single action. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/au2rjb/i_am_steven_pr...

Wikipedia (or, rather, MediaWiki, the wiki engine powering it) has a comprehensive API (see e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox ), allowing all kinds of automated tasks. You do not need any special permission to use it, however, you are rate-limited, unless you get an exemption. And, there are many ready-made tools utilizing the API for common tasks. Either local tools like Pywikibot or hosted onli…

He says in the AMA the tool he uses is invite-only after you have over 500ish edits.

Re: AMA: Steven Pruitt, a Wikipedian with 3M edits

#37
post #2

Apparently, higher-up, editors get tools that let them make modifications to multiple threads simultaneously. [1] And , Wikipedia happens to count those edits separately even if the editor applies the fix to multiple articles at once as a single action. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/au2rjb/i_am_steven_pr...

The tool is called AWB, [0] and a better way to explain it would be that it lets you work on lists of articles, applying the same change to each, but each edit still has to be approved one-by-one. It's only bots that are normally allowed to just fire away edits and those have to be granted permission beforehand. [1] Pruitt does not have any special bot exemption, [2] and those running bots are usually expected to cre…

He did say he hasn't written original content in quite a while, and most of his changes are edits.
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