Editing Encyclopedia:Wikipedians

<noinclude>{{Short description|People who have edited Wikipedia}}{{pp-semi-indef}}{{pp-move-indef}}</noinclude>
{{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!<br/>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|300px|thumb|right|Wikipedia is in the palm of your hand—all you need to do is edit an article.]]
{{Human administration}}

'''Wikipedians''' are [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a volunteer service|volunteers]] who contribute to [[Wikipedia]] by [[Help:Editing|editing]] its pages, unlike [[WP:Reader|readers]] who simply read the [[Wikipedia:What is an article?|articles]]. Anyone—including you—can become a Wikipedian by [[Wikipedia:Be bold|boldly]] [[Wikipedia:Editing policy|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 [[Help:Introduction|editing tutorial]] or the more detailed [[Help: Wikipedia: The Missing Manual|manual]].

Wikipedians do a wide variety of tasks, from [[Wikipedia:Typo Team|fixing typos]] and removing [[Wikipedia:Vandalism|vandalism]] to [[Wikipedia:Dispute resolution|resolving disputes]] and [[Wikipedia:Featured content|perfecting content]], but are united in a [[Wikipedia:Prime objective|desire to make human knowledge available to every person on the planet]].

==Number of editors==
{{Wikipedia editor graph}}
The English Wikipedia currently has [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFUSERS}}]]<ref>This number is dynamically updated with the [[WP:MAGIC|magic word]] NUMBEROFUSERS</ref> [[Wikipedia:Why create an account?|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 ([[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}}]]<ref>This number is dynamically updated with the [[WP:MAGIC|magic word]] NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS</ref> have edited in the last 30 days), and only a minority of those contributors participate in [[Wikipedia:Dashboard|community discussions]]. 
In 2023, 812,635 registered editors made at least one edit;<ref>https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/80211</ref> about half of these were new accounts making their first (and often only) edit.<ref>https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/80159</ref>  In a given month, more than 5,000 editors make at least 100 edits each.<ref>[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 </ref>

An unknown but relatively large number of [[Wikipedia:IPs are human too|unregistered Wikipedians]] also contribute to the site.  As of 2012, most logged-in editors had edited as unregistered Wikipedians before registering their accounts.<ref>{{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}}</ref>{{Update inline|date=August 2024}}

As of February 2015, when about 12,000 editors were eligible to vote in the [[:meta:Stewards/Elections 2015|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 [[Wikipedia talk:Wikipedians|Talk]] page for details.){{Update inline|date=August 2024}}

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

Some accounts have special [[Wikipedia:User rights|permissions]], including:<ref>These numbers are dynamically updated with the [[WP:MAGIC|magic word]] NUMBERINGROUP:groupname</ref>
<!--Add user groups only where there is at least one of that group; should be in alphabetical order with internal name.-->
{{div col |colwidth=20em}}
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:accountcreator}} [[Wikipedia:Account creator|account creators]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:sysop}} [[Wikipedia:Administrators|administrators]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:autoreviewer}} [[Wikipedia:Autopatrolled|autopatrollers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:bot}} [[Wikipedia:Bots|bots]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:bureaucrat}} [[Wikipedia:Bureaucrats|bureaucrats]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:checkuser}} [[Wikipedia:CheckUser|checkusers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:confirmed}} [[Wikipedia:confirmed|confirmed users]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:abusefilter}} [[ Wikipedia:Edit filter|edit filter managers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:eventcoordinator}} [[Wikipedia:Event coordinator|event coordinators]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:extendedconfirmed}} [[Wikipedia:User access levels#Extended confirmed users|extended confirmed users]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:filemover}} [[Wikipedia:File mover|file movers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:founder}} [[Wikipedia:Founder|founder]]<ref>Although there are two [[Founder of Wikipedia|co-founders]], [[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] is the only member of this group, as he is the only one of the two who still contributes to Wikipedia.</ref>
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:import}} [[wp:Importers|importers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:ipblock-exempt}} [[Wikipedia:User access levels#IP block exemption|IP block exempt users]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:massmessage-sender}} [[Wikipedia:Mass message senders|mass message senders]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:patroller}} [[Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Reviewers|new page reviewers]] (new page patrollers)
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:suppress}} [[Wikipedia:Oversight|oversighters]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:extendedmover}} [[Wikipedia:Page mover|page movers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:reviewer}} [[Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes|pending changes reviewers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:researcher}} [[WP:RESEARCHER|researchers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:rollbacker}} [[Wikipedia:Rollback|rollbackers]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:templateeditor}} [[Wikipedia:User access levels#Template editor|template editors]]
* {{NUMBERINGROUP:copyviobot}} [[Wikipedia:Copyviobot|copyright violation bots]]
Some user groups (such as stewards) act globally, and thus they do not get local flags and local rights.
{{div col end}}

{{Registered editors by edit count}}
{{clear}}

==Demographics==
{{Update-section}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Demographics}}

[[United Nations University|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.<ref name="UNU-M">{{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}}</ref> 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.<ref name="2011 WMF Survey">{{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}}</ref> Over 5,000 people responded to the survey. Here are the results of both surveys:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Editors by age<ref name="2011 WMF Survey"/>
! scope="col" | Age group
! scope="col" | WMF (%)
|-
|12–17||13 percent
|-
|18–21||14 percent
|-
|22–29||26 percent
|-
|30–39||19 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.<ref name=UNU-M/>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Editors by education completed
! scope="col" | Education level completed
! scope="col" | WMF (%)
! scope="col" | UNU-Merit (%)
|-
|Primary||9||11
|-
|Secondary||30||34
|-
|Undergraduate||35||26
|-
|Masters||18||18
|-
|PhD||8||4
|-
|Other||NR||6
|}

WMF reported 43% of respondents are currently enrolled in school or post-secondary education.<ref name="2011 WMF Survey"/>

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.<ref name=UNU-M/>

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.<ref name="2011 WMF Survey"/>

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.<ref>{{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}}</ref>

More information regarding the gender gap can be found at [[meta:Gender gap|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.<ref>{{cite web|title=YouGov Survey: Wikipedia|publisher=YouGov|url=https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Wikipedia_poll_results.pdf|access-date=January 26, 2024}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ 
|-
! colspan="3" | October 2023 YouGov survey on U.S. editors
|-
! Demographic !! % of demographic<br>respondents !! Demographic<br>sample size
|-
! colspan="3" | Gender
|-
| Male || 9% || 416
|-
| Female || 5% || 582
|-
! colspan="3" | Age
|-
| 18–29 years || 14% || 122
|-
| 30–44 years || 12% || 206
|-
| 45–64 years || 3% || 394
|-
| 65 years or older || 1% || 276
|-
! colspan="3" | [[Race and ethnicity in the United States|Race]]
|-
| [[White Americans|White]] || 6% || 611
|-
| [[African Americans|Black]] || 5% || 119
|-
| [[Hispanic and Latino Americans|Hispanic]] || 13% || 155
|-
| Other || 10% || 113
|-
! colspan="3" | [[Political parties in the United States|Party ID]]
|-
| [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] || 12% || 362
|-
| [[Independent voter|Independent]] || 5% || 371
|-
| [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] || 4% || 265
|-
! colspan="3" | [[2020 United States presidential election|2020 vote]]
|-
| [[Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign|Biden]] || 11% || 367
|-
| [[Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign|Trump]] || 4% || 338
|-
! colspan="3" | [[Household income in the United States|Family income]]
|-
| Less than $50,000 || 6% || 423
|-
| $50,000 to $100,000 || 8% || 277
|-
| $100,000 or more || 11% || 209
|-
! colspan="3" | [[List of regions of the United States|Region]]
|-
| [[Northeastern United States|Northeast]] || 6% || 164
|-
| [[Midwestern United States|Midwestern]] || 6% || 217
|-
| [[Southern United States|Southern]] || 5% || 393
|-
| [[Western United States|Western]] || 13% || 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.<ref name=Amichai2008a>{{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}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{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}}</ref><ref>{{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}}</ref> 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").<ref name=Nov>{{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}}</ref>

==Nomenclature==
One could argue that "Wikipedist" would be a more appropriate name, as an [[wikt:encyclopedist|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 portal|Wikipedia Community]]. The term "Wikimedian" is also widely used to include contributors to all the projects supported by the [[Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation|Wikimedia Foundation]].

==Contribution styles==<!--Wikipedia: Doers and discussers redirects here-->
{{See also|Wikipedia:Wikipediholic|label 1=Wikipediholic|m:Conflicting_Wikipedia_philosophies|label 2=Conflicting philosophies}}

Some Wikipedians [[WP:WC|welcome newcomers]]; some Wikipedians [[WP:KC|award those whom they feel deserve awards]]. Some upload images or [[WP:FFU|help others do so]]; some work on history articles; some [[WP:TYPO|clean up grammar]]; and still others [[WP:HG|work]] on [[WP:TW|reverting]] [[WP:VAN|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 [[Help:Using talk pages|Talk]] or [[Wikipedia:Administration|administrative]] pages, are sometimes called [[Meta:Exopedianism|exopedians]], whereas those who spend significant time on such community interactions are contrasted as [[Meta:Metapedianism|metapedians]]. A multitude of views and other contribution characteristics are represented well by common Wikipedia-related [[Wikipedia:Userboxes|userboxes]]: [[Wikipedia:Userboxes/Wikipedia]].

==See also==
{{div col |colwidth=20em}}
* [[English Wikipedia]]
* [[Wikipedia community]]
* [[:Category:WikiFauna]]
* [[:Category:Wikipedians]]
* [[Wikipedia:Anti-Wikipedian]]
* [[Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians]]
* [[Wikipedia:Editor's index to Wikipedia]]
* [[Wikipedia:Essay directory]]
* [[Wikipedia:Facebook directory]]
* [[Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians]]
* [[Wikipedia:Notable people who have edited Wikipedia]]
* [[Wikipedia:Statistics]]
* [[Wikipedia:User categories]]
* [[Wikipedia:Who writes Wikipedia?]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Wikipedians}}
* [https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm Wikipedia statistics English]
* [[m:Community Insights/Reports|Community Insights reports]]
* [[:meta:Chapters Dialogue/Insights/Motivation|Motivation of Wikimedians]]
* [[Meta:Wikipedian|Wikipedian]]
* [[Meta:Communication Projects Group/Projects/Success stories - how has Wikimedia changed your life?|Wikipedian success stories]]
* [[Meta:Editor Survey 2011|Editor Survey 2011]]
{{Wikipedia community|state=collapsed}}
[[Category:Wikipedians| ]]