Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-07-22/Essay

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Essay

Reflections on editing and obsession

This draft, including the opening note about it sitting around unpublished for two years, was from 2011, meaning that as of now it's a whopping fifteen years old. Nonetheless, it sat around for quite some time, and was only found during recent attempts to reorganize the plethora of strange abandoned pages in the annals of the Signpost. But cobwebs aside: it is true now, as it was true then, and we hope that you may find it enlightening.


Resident Mario is an editor of volcanism and occasional writer for the Signpost. In this piece he shares his reflections on becoming a registered user, on editing, and on Wikimedians' obsession with collecting achievements and accolades.
The views expressed are those of the author only. Responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds. If you have one in mind, please leave a message at the opinion desk.

The original version of this essay was finished just under 2 years ago. A lot of time has passed since its writing, and in adapting it for this publication I have come to the realization that I was terribly naive when I first joined the project. Still, I hope this essay will provide an interesting view to our readers, who might just be dogs.