Editcountitis or obsessive edit-counting disorder (OECD) is a serious condition consisting of an unhealthy obsession with the number of edits one has made to Wikipedia or another online resource. Luckily, no fatalities or serious injuries have been recorded so far. Furthermore, if caught early, resumption of normal life activities may be possible. Sequelae may persist.

Symptoms

Classic symptoms:

If you find yourself exhibiting at least one of these symptoms, consider seeking professional help. Remember:

Seriously, though...

Editcountitis is used humorously to suggest a belief that a Wikipedian's overall contribution level can be measured solely by their edit count. This is a phenomenon which some think may be harmful to processes such as requests for adminship, as well as to the Wikipedia community in itself. The problems with using edit counts to measure relative level of experience are that it does not take into account that users could have an extensive edit history prior to registering an account (posting anonymously), and that major and minor edits are counted equally, regardless of whether the edit is a typo fix, or the creation of a full article.

Furthermore, edit counts do not judge the quality of the edits, as insightful comments on talk pages and acts of vandalism are counted equally. Hence, it is not always a reliable way of telling how experienced or worthy a user truly is. Nevertheless, using the edit count tool is often useful for obtaining a very rough idea of how the editor interacts with Wikipedia and how much experience they have, and tools which allow a breakdown of an edit count by month can give a good impression of how consistent an editor's activity has been over the years.

All edits are perfectly welcome, including wikignomish edits like fixing typos. However, please do not edit in a manner intended to increase your edit count artificially, such as never using preview; remember what we are all doing here is building an encyclopedia, not competing to see who makes the most edits.

Editing tools

"Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!"

Editing tools such as Twinkle and Huggle inflate edit counts, and because many people think that some use these tools solely to inflate edit count, some have opposed the adminship of candidates who heavily use such tools, as judged by relative edit counts. This is a more subtle form of editcountitis. A narrow focus of any sort for a prospective admin is surely a concern, but discouraging people from constructively using the tools available to them is a concern as well. The irony is that this logic is likely a misguided response meant to discourage editcountitis, to discourage those who would inflate their edit counts with "easy" edits to gain credibility.

Forced to make many edits

Not everyone with a high edit-count is actually a sloppy editor, with change a phrase & save, change a phrase & save, etc. They might have tried to keep their edit-count below 40,000. However, some people, in their daily roles are, more or less, forced to make many minor edits, such as reverting a whole collection of random articles that a vandal has quickly trashed. Presto: 30 edits (for "nothing"). Many major articles are edit-protected from public enemy #1 (the "anonymous IP vandals"). However, vast numbers of articles are not, due to bizarre vandalism ideas: a vandal finds article titles with letters "boo" to become "boob" (or such), in an endless universe of puns. Even privileged users must increment their edit-counters for undoing bad edits or fixing categories (etc.), as part of their daily tasks. Those people shouldn't be condemned for having a high edit-count.

See also

Edit count
Others
Identification
Analysis and
symptoms
Fighting
Wikipediholism
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