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Wikipedia:Wikipedians#User permissions

{{Short description|People who have edited Wikipedia}}{{pp-semi-indef}}{{pp-move-indef}}

{{redirect-multi|3|WP:Users|WP:Community|WP:Editor|other uses or related pages|Special:ListUsers|and|WP:User pages|and|WP:Username policy|and|WP:Why create an account?|and|WP:Wikipedia is a community|and|WP:Community portal|and|Wikipedia community|and|WP:Who writes Wikipedia?|and|Help:Editing|and|WP:Editor's index to Wikipedia}}

{{Information page|shortcut=WP:EDITORS |shortcut2=WP:USERS}}

{{nutshell|Anyone can edit Wikipedia and become a Wikipedian!
There are currently {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} Wikipedia accounts, of which {{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}} have made at least one edit during the last month.}}

File:10 sharing book cover background.jpg

{{Human administration}}

Wikipedians are volunteers who contribute to Wikipedia by editing its pages, unlike readers who simply read the articles. Anyone—including you—can become a Wikipedian by boldly making changes when they find something that can be added or improved. To learn more about how to do this, you can check out the basic editing tutorial or the more detailed manual.

Wikipedians do a wide variety of tasks, from fixing typos and removing vandalism to resolving disputes and perfecting content, but are united in a desire to make human knowledge available to every person on the planet.

Number of editors

{{Wikipedia editor graph}}

The English Wikipedia currently has {{NUMBEROFUSERS}}This number is dynamically updated with the magic word NUMBEROFUSERS users who have registered a username, but only about 30% of those have ever edited Wikipedia (about {{#expr: {{formatnum:{{NUMBEROFUSERS}}|R}} * .30 / 1e6 round 0}} million). Only a minority of users contribute regularly ({{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}}This number is dynamically updated with the magic word NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS have edited in the last 30 days), and only a minority of those contributors participate in community discussions.

In 2023, 812,635 registered editors made at least one edit;https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/80211 about half of these were new accounts making their first (and often only) edit.https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/80159 In a given month, more than 5,000 editors make at least 100 edits each.[https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/editors/normal%7Cline%7Call%7Cactivity_level~5..24-edits*25..99-edits*100..-edits%7Cmonthly Editors graph] at stats.wikimedia.org

An unknown but relatively large number of unregistered Wikipedians also contribute to the site. As of 2012, most logged-in editors had edited as unregistered Wikipedians before registering their accounts.{{Cite web |last=Pande |first=Mani |date=2012-05-10 |title=59 percent of logged-in Wikipedians started as anonymous editors |url=https://diff.wikimedia.org/2012/05/10/59-percent-wikipedians-started-anonymous/ |access-date=2022-09-01 |website=Diff |language=en-US}}{{Update inline|date=August 2024}}

As of February 2015, when about 12,000 editors were eligible to vote in the Wikimedia Stewards Elections, their eligibility was based on their English Wikipedia edit count. It applied to those who had an edit count of at least 600 overall and 50 since August 2014. This was about one-quarter of the number of Wikipedians who had 600 edits overall. (See the Talk page for details.){{Update inline|date=August 2024}}

=User permissions=

{{see also|Wikipedia:Administration#Human and legal administration}}

Some accounts have special permissions, including:These numbers are dynamically updated with the magic word NUMBERINGROUP:groupname

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Some user groups (such as stewards) act globally, and thus they do not get local flags and local rights.

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{{Registered editors by edit count}}

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Demographics

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{{Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Demographics}}

UNU-Merit (United Nations University-Merit) completed the 2010 :meta:Research:UNU-MERIT Wikipedia survey of Wikipedia users, including both contributors (registered and unregistered) and readers.{{cite web |last1=Glott |first1=Ruediger |last2=Schmidt |first2=Phillipp |last3= Ghosh |first3=Rishab |date=March 2010 |title=Wikipedia Survey—Overview of Results |url=http://www.wikipediastudy.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf |url-status=usurped |work=Wikipedia Study |publisher=UNU-MERIT |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728182835/http://www.wikipediastudy.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf |archive-date=28 July 2011}} 176,192 people chose to participate, approximately 58,000 of whom were contributors to Wikipedia. Many of the findings were reported as an aggregate and were not separated by user type. Only the statistics relevant to Wikipedians are presented. In 2011, the WMF (Wikimedia Foundation) presented a questionnaire to logged-in Wikipedia editors (does not include unregistered Wikipedians) to gain a better understanding of the demographics, perceptions and motivations of Wikipedians.{{cite web|title=Wikipedia Editor Study: Results From the Editor Survey, April 2011|url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf|website=Wikimedia|publisher=Wikimedia Foundation|access-date=9 January 2021}} Over 5,000 people responded to the survey. Here are the results of both surveys:

class="wikitable"

|+ Editors by age

! scope="col" | Age group

! scope="col" | WMF (%)

12–1713 percent
18–2114 percent
22–2926 percent
30–3919 percent
40+28 percent

UNU-Merit reported the average age of contributors at 26.14 years, but did not provide a greater breakdown of age by user type.

class="wikitable"

|+ Editors by education completed

! scope="col" | Education level completed

! scope="col" | WMF (%)

! scope="col" | UNU-Merit (%)

Primary911
Secondary3034
Undergraduate3526
Masters1818
PhD84
OtherNR6

WMF reported 43% of respondents are currently enrolled in school or post-secondary education.

According to the WMF findings, the top three countries where Wikipedia contributors reside are the United States (20%), Germany (12%), and Russia (7%). The primary language of Wikipedia contributors is English (52%) followed by German (18%) with Russian and Spanish coming in third at 10% each. The UNU-Merit study did not breakdown language and country of residence in terms of type of participation with Wikipedia.

According to UNU-Merit, 87 percent of Wikipedians are men and 13 percent are women.

According to the 2011 WMF survey, although the percentage of female editors continues to increase, ninety percent of Wikipedians are male, nine percent female, and one percent transgender/transsexual.

Experienced female editors can be very successful—they are more likely to become administrators than men—but as new editors, their good-faith contributions are more likely to be reverted than good-faith contributions by a man.{{cite conference |last1=Lam |first1=S. K. |last2=Uduwage |first2=A. |last3=Dong |first3=Z. |last4=Sen |first4=S. |last5=Musicant |first5=D. R. |last6=Terveen |first6=L. |last7=Riedl |first7=J. |date=October 2011 |url=http://www.grouplens.org/node/466 |title=WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia's Gender Imbalance |book-title=WikiSym |publisher=ACM |doi=10.1145/2038558.2038560 |pages=1–10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726121710/http://www.grouplens.org/node/466 |archive-date=26 July 2011}}

More information regarding the gender gap can be found at Gender gap.

In an October 2023 representative survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, YouGov found that 7% had ever edited Wikipedia, that 20% had ever considered doing so who had not, that 55% had never done so and had never considered doing so, and that 17% had never used Wikipedia.{{cite web|title=YouGov Survey: Wikipedia|publisher=YouGov|url=https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Wikipedia_poll_results.pdf|access-date=January 26, 2024}}

class="wikitable"

|+

colspan="3" | October 2023 YouGov survey on U.S. editors
Demographic% of demographic
respondents		Demographic
sample size
colspan="3" | Gender
Male9%416
Female5%582
colspan="3" | Age
18–29 years14%122
30–44 years12%206
45–64 years3%394
65 years or older1%276
colspan="3" | Race
White6%611
Black5%119
Hispanic13%155
Other10%113
colspan="3" | Party ID
Democratic12%362
Independent5%371
Republican4%265
colspan="3" | 2020 vote
Biden11%367
Trump4%338
colspan="3" | Family income
Less than $50,0006%423
$50,000 to $100,0008%277
$100,000 or more11%209
colspan="3" | Region
Northeast6%164
Midwestern6%217
Southern5%393
Western13%224

Personality

Researchers have begun to identify key personality traits in Wikipedians. According to a study published in 2008, Wikipedia members are more likely than non-members to locate their "real me" online—that is, to feel more comfortable expressing their "real" selves online than offline.{{cite journal |last1=Amichai-Hamburger |first1=Y. |first2=Naama |last2=Lamdan |first3=Rinat |last3=Madiel |first4=Tsahi |last4=Hayat |date=November 2008 |title=Personality Characteristics of Wikipedia Members |journal=CyberPsychology & Behavior |volume=11 |number=6 |pages=679–81 |pmid=18954273 |doi=10.1089/cpb.2007.0225}} This corresponds with more general findings that Internet communities tend to attract users who are introverted offline but more able to open up and feel empowered on the Web.{{cite journal |last1=Amichai-Hamburger |first1=Y. |last2=Wainapel |first2=G. |last3=Fox |first3=S. |date=May 2002 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11346051 |title=On the Internet no one knows I'm an introvert: extroversion, neuroticism and Internet interaction |journal=CyberPsychology & Behavior |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=125–128 |doi=10.1089/109493102753770507 |pmid=12025878}}{{cite journal |last1=Amichai-Hamburger |first1=Y. |last2=McKenna |first2=K. |last3=Tal |first3=S. |date=September 2008 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222367002 |title=E-empowerment: Empowerment by the Internet |journal=Computers in Human Behavior |volume=24 |issue=5 |pages=1776–1789 |doi=10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.002}} A gender difference was found in terms of extroversion: whereas female Wikipedia members were on average more introverted than female non-members, male members were just as extroverted as males in the control group.

Motivations for contributing

{{main|Motivations of Wikipedia contributors}}

{{Further|Wikipedia:Purpose}}

In November 2007, the most commonly indicated motives were "fun", "ideology", and "values", whereas the least frequently indicated motives were "career", "social", and "protective" (as in "reducing guilt over personal privilege").{{cite journal |last=Nov |first=Oded |date=November 2007 |url=http://faculty.poly.edu/~onov/Nov_Wikipedia_motivations.pdf |url-status=live |title=What Motivates Wikipedians? |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=50 |issue=11 |pages=60–64 |doi=10.1145/1297797.1297798 |s2cid=16517355 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120423151707/http://faculty.poly.edu/~onov/Nov_Wikipedia_motivations.pdf |archive-date=23 April 2012}}

Nomenclature

One could argue that "Wikipedist" would be a more appropriate name, as an encyclopedist is someone who contributes to an encyclopedia. Wikipedian, though, suggests being part of a group, community or demonym (a resident of a locality). So in this sense, Wikipedians are people who form the Wikipedia Community. The term "Wikimedian" is also widely used to include contributors to all the projects supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.

==Contribution styles==

{{See also|Wikipedia:Wikipediholic|label 1=Wikipediholic|m:Conflicting_Wikipedia_philosophies|label 2=Conflicting philosophies}}

Some Wikipedians welcome newcomers; some Wikipedians award those whom they feel deserve awards. Some upload images or help others do so; some work on history articles; some clean up grammar; and still others work on reverting vandalism. Many take on all these tasks; some, of course, take on none. Whatever one decides to do, every Wikipedian is a valuable member of the community.

Wikipedians who contribute mainly by writing and editing the contents of Wikipedia, without interacting much on Talk or administrative pages, are sometimes called exopedians, whereas those who spend significant time on such community interactions are contrasted as metapedians. A multitude of views and other contribution characteristics are represented well by common Wikipedia-related userboxes: Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia.

See also

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References

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External links

{{Commons category|Wikipedians}}

{{Wikipedia community|state=collapsed}}