Allan asked:

"I have to admit almost total ignorance of Wikipedia.
Are those the stats for Connolley?"

I presume that you are talking the "William Connolley"
found at [en.wikipedia.org] .

If you want to verify whatever stats have been attributed
to him, you go to his "User contributions" web page at
[en.wikipedia.org] At the very bottom of it, there are a
series of links in very fine print, including "edit count"
and "Articles created". The "edit count" link will take you
to the page that has his stats at [toolserver.org] . By the
way, his user page is at [en.wikipedia.org] .

Allen asked:

"How would I go about finding that information for some
other author of Wiki articles?"

First, you will need to find out the person's "username" /
identity. After you have found out that, you can find his
user page. Once on his user page, you then look at the
lefthand side of his or her user page. The bottom of two
sideboxes, which is labeled "toolbox", along this page's
lefthand margin contains a number of links including one that
is "User contributions". You click the "User contributions"
page, which takes you to his or her "User contributions" web
page. At the very bottom of that web page is a series of links
in very fine print. Among these links is one called "edit count".
If you click on this link, it will take you to a "General user
info" web page, which has all sorts of stats and diagrams about
what that specific editor has been up to for the past several
years. The "Article created" link will provide the names of
the article that a person has created. It should be remembered
that after a person creates a web page for Wikipedia, he or
she immediately loses control over how other people modify
and revise it as editors themselves.

Some important Wikipedia web pages to look at are:

1. Wikipedia:User page - [en.wikipedia.org]

2. Changelog / Page History - [age_history" rel="nofollow">en.wikipedia.org] and [en.wikipedia.org]
Just about every web page in Wikipedia has a Changelog (Revision
History) page". This page records the edit history, of the specific
web page with which it is associated. Each edit is recorded,
including an edit summary and links to the user and contribution
web pages of then person making an edit. In order to find this
web page, look for the "history" link at the top of either the
Wikipedia article, user, or other page in which you are interested
in examining the editing history. Using this page, a person can
find the nature of specific edits made to an article. An example
of the record for one specific edit can be found at [en.wikipedia.org] .

3. Help:Edit summary - [en.wikipedia.org]

4. Discussion / talk page - [en.wikipedia.org]
Each Wikipedia article typically has a "talk page" where edits to
Wikipedia articles are discussed. The link to this page is the
"discussion" link at the top of the page of a Wikipedia article.

5. Wikipedia:About - [en.wikipedia.org]

6. Wikipedia:Five pillars - [en.wikipedia.org]

7. Help Pages - [en.wikipedia.org]

Yours,

Paul h.


"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
William Faulkner, Act 1, Scene III, Requiem for a Nun (1951)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2009 12:21AM by Paul H..