Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20170102/Feature

Feature: High Scores - A New Article Leaderboard

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Submitted by Thibbs

This quarter the WP:VG Newsletter looks at a select number of our most prolific content creators - the article-makers. Each article is of course written by teams of editors and the bulk of the work required to guide the article from Stub to Start to Good or Featured class may come years after the article is originally created. But the original act of article creation does mark a tangible point of origin and represents a public declaration of the notability and encyclopedia-worthiness of each topic. Not all of these public declarations are borne out in time, and many articles listed at WP:VG/NAA are today redlinks again, but in this feature we celebrate simply the boldness required to start a new article - a small step more intimidating than even that initial and primal barrier - clicking the edit tab on an existing article for the first time.

WP:VG's first New Article Announcement (NAA) was made in August 2006. NAAs first began to be published in the Newsletter in May 2008, and specific monthly NAA charts first began to appear in the third quarter of 2009... But this only represents a part of the story. WP:VG predates the earliest NAA by 30 months, and it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to learn that video-game-related articles (i.e. articles that today fall within WP:VG's remit) have been created since nearly the dawn of Wikipedia. Wikipedia was founded on 15 January 2001, and its oldest known article dates to the 16th. This last December, a brief investigation into WP:VG's oldest articles was conducted with the kind advice and assistance of local Wikipedian historian, Graham87, and it now seems clear that the WP:VG's earliest articles date back to March 2001. Details of which exact article is the oldest (as well as details regarding the first video game articles nominated for AfD) can be read here. A new historical "2005-2001" section has been added to WP:VG/NAA with full coverage of video game articles published during Wikipedia's first year (2001) and with hopes of expanding retroactive announcements for video game topics falling within the 55-month period from January 2002 through July 2006 (and representing more than 25% of Wikipedia's history of publishing video game articles).

Despite the incompleteness of the record, the Newsletter has undertaken this quarter to present readers with a partial leaderboard. In the chart below we are publishing the usernames of those among us who have created the greatest number of new articles so far (usernames are only published for 10 or more newly created articles). This chart contains WP:VG members and non-members alike. It covers 7205 unique editors and includes everyone from the early IP editors (from the period when IP editors were allowed to create articles) to regular longterm editors, from blocked and banned accounts to current and former ArbCom members, and all the way up the chain to one of the co-founders of Wikipedia. If and when historical data from January 2002 through July 2006 can be examined and published at WP:VG/NAA, those results will be included in the newsletter either as an update to this feature or as a stand-alone feature.

NOTE: An attempt was made to merge article counts for users with alternate names (e.g. the contributions of User:Salvidrim and User:Salvidrim!), but not all such accounts may have been merged. Please leave a comment at the bottom if any username totals may need to be increased due to the use of alternate accounts.

Leaderboard
Rank
Article Creator Articles
Created
#1 GVnayR (t c) 377
#2 Coin945 (t c) 360
#3 New Age Retro Hippie (t c) 221
#4 Czar (t c)
Hydao (t c)
163
#5 Timkovski (t c) 137
#6 SharkD (t c) 118
#7 BOZ (t c) 110
#8 Masem (t c) 105
#9 SkyWalker (t c) 101
#10 Parrothead1983 (t c) 99
#11 2fort5r (t c) 92
#12 ADeveria (t c) 88
#13 Bedivere.cs (t c) 86
#14 Nomader (t c) 82
#15 Sergecross73 (t c) 72
#16 Bovineboy2008 (t c)
Niemti/AggressiveNavel/302ET/SNAAAAKE!! (t c)
71
#17 KiasuKiasiMan (t c) 70
#18 TMC1982 (t c) 65
#19 Marasmusine (t c) 60
#20 The Editor 155 (t c) 58
#21 Misterkillboy (t c) 54
#22 CaseyPenk (t c) 53
#23 Dwanyewest (t c) 52
#24 JohnnyMrNinja (t c)
Odie5533 (t c)
Wonchop (t c)
51
#25 CyberSkull (t c)
Prisencolin (t c)
49
#26 Cydebot (t c)
TubularWorld (t c)
Wikinium (t c)
48
#27 Aozz101x (t c)
JenniBees (t c)
47
#28 Jzcool (t c) 46
#29 Mairebleu (t c) 44
#30 Benlisquare (t c)
Ismashed (t c)
43
#31 NoJoker (t c) 42
#32 Mephistophelian (t c)
Sandman30s (t c)
40
#33 Cattus (t c)
Maplestrip (t c)
38
#34 Anarchyte (t c)
Huwmanbeing (t c)
Thibbs (t c)
37
#35 El Pantera (t c) 36
#36 Banej (t c)
Ringbang (t c)
Salavat (t c)
35
#37 Juhachi (t c) 34
#38 Evaunit666 (t c)
SeanMooney (t c)
33
#39 Brianreading (t c)
The1337gamer (t c)
32
#40 Victory93 (t c)
ViperSnake151 (t c)
Zxcvbnm (t c)
31
#41 Cheetah255 (t c)
DrRockso87 (t c)
Hippo99 (t c)
Someone another (t c)
30
#42 AdrianGamer (t c)
AeronPeryton (t c)
ProtoDrake (t c)
Satellizer (t c)
29
#43 Deltasim (t c)
Neverrainy (t c)
Op47 (t c)
Teancum (t c)
28
#44 Black Squirrel 2 (t c)
Blubbermarble (t c)
Kbdankbot (t c)
27
#45 Cube b3 (t c)
Dgpop (t c)
Gary King (t c)
Inclusivedisjunction (t c)
McDoobAU93 (t c)
26
#46 JAF1970 (t c)
MigrantP (t c)
MrStalker (t c)
Phediuk (t c)
Samwalton9 (t c)
Tochni (t c)
25
#47 Chargh (t c)
GIR556 (t c)
PresN (t c)
24
#48 Blackgaia02 (t c)
Jacob Poon (t c)
Megata Sanshiro (t c)
Rhain (t c)
Tezero (t c)
23
#49 IDV (t c)
Mcjakeqcool (t c)
Sandstein (t c)
22
#50 Axem Titanium (t c)
Hibana (t c)
LonerXL (t c)
SCB '92 (t c)
21
#51 Bloodios (t c)
Hahnchen (t c)
JDC808 (t c)
Rcjsuen (t c)
20
#52 Dalbster (t c)
Forbidding (t c)
FullMetal Falcon (t c)
LKAvn (t c)
MBlairMartin (t c)
Nall (t c)
Sm8900 (t c)
19
#53 BKidd (t c)
Falcon9x5 (t c)
Hahc21 (t c)
Jaguar (t c)
Judgesurreal777 (t c)
Salvidrim!/Salvidrim (t c)
Schmeater (t c)
Xezbeth (t c)
18
#54 Kariteh (t c)
Maury Markowitz (t c)
Tokyogirl79 (t c)
17
#55 Andre666 (t c)
BlitzGreg (t c)
Canand1 (t c)
Pikamander2 (t c)
Retro junkie (t c)
16
#56 Chaos5023 (t c)
Cliché Online (t c)
Commdor (t c)
Dawynn (t c)
Frecklefoot (t c)
JimmyBlackwing (t c)
Mika1h (t c)
Mishae (t c)
Neptune's Trident (t c)
Obi-WanKenobi-2005 (t c)
Richmond96 (t c)
15
#57 28bytes (t c)
Froman1 (t c)
Gaming&Computing (t c)
GuillaumeL75 (t c)
Hakken (t c)
Hellknowz (t c)
Niwi3 (t c)
Xeno (t c)
14
#58 AJFU (t c)
CCSchott (t c)
Drakgamer (t c)
GroundZ3R0 002 (t c)
MuZemike (t c)
Spilia4 (t c)
Videogamer2000 (t c)
13
#59 Audun sorlie (t c)
Captain Assassin! (t c)
Condemned2EthanThomas (t c)
Damnedfan1234 (t c)
Flaviohmg (t c)
GamerPro64 (t c)
Ham Pastrami (t c)
jtalledo (t c)
MatthewHoobin (t c)
Nanoforge (t c)
Neelix (t c)
Resoru (t c)
SolanSarr (t c)
Tripple-ddd (t c)
ZappaOMati (t c)
12
#60 Arkhandar (t c)
Autospark (t c)
Beem2 (t c)
Billybobjoe997 (t c)
Coasttocoast (t c)
CoolingGibbon (t c)
Darkness2005 (t c)
Frmorrison (t c)
GameLegend (t c)
HarkenSlash (t c)
Postmechanical (t c)
Sarujo (t c)
Simfish (t c)
SlimGoodbody (t c)
SuperSherbet (t c)
TheLoverofLove (t c)
Thue (t c)
TimShell (t c)
Wgungfu (t c)
WikiTryHardDieHard (t c)
11
#61 AnddoX (t c)
Aylesburyape (t c)
Dissident93 (t c)
Fluffystar (t c)
Green Lane (t c)
Hello32020 (t c)
Hero of legend (t c)
Hervegirod (t c)
Jabberwocky7297 (t c)
JediLofty (t c)
JIP (t c)
Jonny2x4 (t c)
Kasaider (t c)
Lordtobi (t c)
Randomran (t c)
Scapler (t c)
Soulbust (t c)
Stormwatch (t c)
SynergyBlades (t c)
Thornstrom (t c)
Tintor2 (t c)
WikiEditor44 (t c)
WikipedianMarlith (t c)
X201 (t c)
10
#62 22 different editors 9
#63 27 different editors 8
#64 38 different editors 7
#65 53 different editors 6
#66 83 different editors 5
#67 161 different editors 4
#68 269 different editors 3
#69 773 different editors 2
#70 5563 different editors 1

And finally just for the sake of amusement, let us spotlight a few of the contributions made by prominent Wikipedians who may not normally be associated with WP:VG. The following short table lists articles contributed by a variety of Wikipedia's Arbitrators, WMF Board members, and Wikipedians in Residence. It is very encouraging to recognize that those who enforce our policies and establish our principles have been down in the trenches going through the same editorial processes and have shown an interest in the topic area in which most WP:VG editors have chosen to edit. It would be nice to see more of this in the future!

Article Creator Position WP:VG Article(s)
Bluerasberry (t c) Wikipedian in Residence Lady Popular (game)
Ryan Morrison
Casliber (t c) Arbitrator (Current) Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake
Alphabear
David Fuchs (t c) Arbitrator (01/11-12/14) Overworld
Factions of Halo
Characters of Myst
Stephen Rippy
Category:Bungie
Luke Smith (writer)
Halo: Spartan Strike
David Gerard (t c) Arbitrator (01/05-01/06) Space Invaders (Player One song)
Deskana (t c) Arbitrator (01/08-12/08) Robert Clotworthy
DGG (t c) Arbitrator (Current) Ken Eklund
Second Life research
Drmies (t c) Arbitrator (Current) Roland (game character)
Ass Hunter
Amber Dalton (gamer)
Fred Bauder (t c) Arbitrator (01/04-12/07) LegendMUD
Larry Sanger (t c) Co-founder of Wikipedia Worms
Lysator
LFaraone (t c) Arbitrator (01/14-12/15) gbrainy
SarahStierch (t c) Wikipedian in Residence Erin Robinson
SilkTork (t c) Arbitrator (01/12-12/13) Fragger
The Epopt (t c) Arbitrator (01/04-12/06) Zorkmid
TimShell (t c) WMF Board of Trustees Maniac Mansion
Xeno (t c) Arbitrator (01/11-12/12) FaceBreaker
Highlander: The Game
Kingdom Under Fire II
Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets
Afro Samurai (video game)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Marketing for Grand Theft Auto IV
Pure (video game)
Smith & Tinker
Texas Hold 'em (video game)
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X
List of video games exclusives (seventh generation)
List of Xbox 360 games compatible with Xbox One
YellowMonkey (t c) Arbitrator (01/07-12/08) Vietnam War in games
+ Add a commentDiscuss this story
  • I can appreciate the amount of work that went into compiling this but wanted to make a quick comment on the problems with this metric. "Articles created" perhaps worked when our task was to expand the encyclopedia, include more concepts, create stubs for others to expand, and that gold rush mentality could be seen as beneficial for the encyclopedia. But apart from new events and the stuff that has been buried in undigitized books, we've outgrown the rush and have a greater need for quality content. There is a wide rift between unsourced, fancruft-filled articles and those with even minimal breadth and referencing ("good articles"). Undiscriminating readers look at the former and see, rightly, an untrustworthy encyclopedia. If we want this to change, we need to avoid creating these endless cruft magnets when the sourcing doesn't exist for us to do justice to a topic. To wit, look at the "high scorers" of this list. I have redirected dozens of GVnayR articles, and if the still-incomplete copyright investigation into his uploads is an indication, there are plenty more left. The articles are predominantly about Japanese games pulled from unreliable lists without any hope of sourcing, many without a single extant review. Coin has had similar issues mass-creating articles on shovelware smartphone and edutainment games. Admins, including myself, went through his contributions removing Reception sections that were direct copyvio of the Metacritic blurbs without discrimination to the encyclopedic purpose of the articles. Many of his original articles are yet to be cleaned up. (Look for instance at the many individual Disney's Animated Storybook articles, most of each directly copy each other, are sourced to press releases, and cite unreliable review sources: They should be merged. Many articles adding to top "counts" here should be merged.) And so I'm on this list too and I'm not beyond reproach, but I traffic more in redirects. Sometimes I'll throw up a new article with a sentence or two of description and several bare URLs for content verification, but that is because there is some acceptance of Wikipedia, in its barest form, as a bibliography that points readers to read more about a topic, especially when it would be difficult or impossible for lay searchers to find those sources on their own. But I don't prize articles created or edit count as a valid metric of contribution, as it more often is an indication of cleanup work generated for others. On the whole, I consider my work to be of a fairly high quality... I ask of each of my edits what would be best for the encyclopedia, specifically its readers. Would I rather read through a page of unsourced garbage, or would I rather have seen a sourced sentence in a well-written article? (The answer is not always so clear, but trends towards the latter.) The academic literature on editor motivation says that most editors are animated by altruism—the idea that they're helping. If we need a measure, let's use one that considers how much editor efforts actually help the project's aims. czar 01:24, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Czar's just jelly that he's only tied for #4 instead of #1 :P But no, really, I completely agree. It's interesting to see who's created the most articles (though I'm shocked I'm even as high as I am at #47, and almost all of those are the result of merging stubs together), but it shouldn't be taken as a one-to-one correlation with producing valuable content. Writing 1-paragraph stubs is easy; rewriting a whole article to take it to GA is hard. We need both, of course, but I'd like to see more celebration of the GA+ content creators, or the Stub -> C article improvers. (Full disclosure: as of a year ago I was, like #1 in GAs and #2 in FAs in the project, so I'm not exactly unbiased here). --PresN 03:09, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A bigger issue to me is the fact that the leaderboard may misleadingly suggest that it represents article-creation stats for all WP:VG articles. There are prolific content editors like User:Frecklefoot whose article creation stats are found primarily in the 2002-2008 period during which time no WP:VG/NAA reports were made. Frecklefoot currently appears as #56 on the list whereas a true measure of his total article creations would place him much higher. As far as the weakness of "article creation" as a metric, I'm not sure I completely agree. Article creation is a growth metric, not a quality metric. Setting aside the concern that a false equivalence might be made between creation and quality content, I think the stats paint a fairly accurate picture of which of the NAA-listed editors have been primarily responsible for affirmative notability determinations. The other side of the story—a deletion leaderboard, for example—would be fascinating in its own right as an equally bold/intimidating but necessary kind of engagement with the encyclopedia and as a negative growth metric (as long as the false equivalence is not made between deletion and harm). -Thibbs (talk) 21:30, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nice work! Re Larry Sanger, I was very surprised to see him come up as I imagine you were, even though most of the articles he's actually written from scratch (as far as I know) have been about philosophy. I guess I'll give you his creation of the Worms series article, even though he did just split it off the "Worms" page. But the Lysator credit is not due at all. According to the relevant database dump, the page was written by Pinkunicorn, a member of the club. Graham87 09:24, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Very interesting. I was relying heavily on NostalgiaWiki for the earliest dates, but the Aug 2001 backup diff log you linked shows 8 earlier edits going back to 10 May 2001. I wonder why that data is missing from NostalgiaWiki. I'll have to re-check all of the 2001 NAAs up through August in light of this. Good thing there's only 50 of them. I guess the next 144 (Sept-Dec 2001) would be checked against the Jan 2002 backup. Thanks again for your help, Graham87! -Thibbs (talk) 15:12, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • No worries. Those edits aren't in the Nostalgia Wikipedia because UseModWiki, the software that Wikipedia used back then, deleted old edits when a new one was made. The August 2001 dump that I linked was uncovered after a lot of digging around, and is just a copy of UseModWiki's log files. The January 2002 database dump is just a copy of the Nostalgia Wikipedia dump in UseModWiki's format, which isn't useful for our purposes. While I have your attention, could you tell me which articles were created by Conversion script or [User:0|]] on your list? I'd like to see if I could uncover the original first edit (especially for Conversion script entries) through the Nostalgia Wikipedia or otherwise. Graham87 10:39, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ah, that explains why everything matches so nicely between the Jan 2002 dump and NostalgiaWiki :) . I sort of got that impression as well in looking over the files, but I was hoping something could be gleaned about the origins of the articles by comparing the "keep" files (.kp) with the "page" files (.db). Do you know what the difference is between them? -Thibbs (talk) 14:00, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • Regarding which articles were created by Conversion script in my list, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. At the first NAA page I have listed here, I'm announcing 10 articles with 4 different usernames (none of them being "User:Conversion script"). And if you look at the article histories of these 10 articles (while allowing the redirects to do their work) then you find that Wikipedia assigns a new set of "first edit" usernames (none of them being "User:Conversion script"). But if you look at the non-redirected versions of those articles (i.e. the non-redirected links I've made from the NAA list) then you do find some examples like this where Wikipedia attributes the first edit to "User:Conversion script". In the NAA list I give credit to User:Neeklamy; in the redirected version ("Mr. Driller" with a period) credit is given to User:Takosuke~enwiki; and in the non-redirected version ("Mr Driller" without a period) credit is given to User:Conversion script. Are you looking for examples like that? I'll draw up a table later today that shows all mismatches between the original editors I've found in the dump and the original editors as listed by Wikipedia. Any help restoring the article histories to their proper origins would be very much appreciated!! -Thibbs (talk) 14:00, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also, you might find the history of Wikipedia:New topics interesting. Graham87 10:49, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'd run across that in the past, but haven't made much use of it yet. I started a list of 2002 edits from a different direction, but then the number of new articles and the responsibilities of real life overwhelmed me. I'll have to tackle the 2002-2006 period at a more measured pace, but thanks for reminding me about that page! -Thibbs (talk) 14:00, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Table of article history mismatches

edit
Article name Wikipedia's earliest attribution Earliest attribution according to the logs
Computer games Neeklamy Josh Grosse
Continuous game 198.207.223.xxx 212.1.128.xxx
First person shooter LA2 Hugh
Zork Bryan Derksen Pinkunicorn
Game Boy line Sandos Neeklamy
Nintendo 64 198.133.22.xxx Neeklamy
Nintendo Stevebrowne Neeklamy
StarCraft (video game) KoyaanisQatsi Josh Grosse
Conway's Game of Life Carey Evans 129.116.226.xxx
Lionhead Studios Conversion script Neeklamy
Sega Paul Drye Neeklamy
Day of the Tentacle 63.89.178.xxx 172.177.101.xxx
Lysator Larry_Sanger Pinkunicorn
Microsoft 203.37.81.xxx 130.236.221.xxx
The Legend of Zelda 194.222.115.xxx 195.92.194.xxx
Id Software 61.9.128.xxx 198.92.68.xxx
Infocom Bryan Derksen 24.109.73.xxx
Interactive Fiction Carbon 24.109.73.xxx
Text adventure games Zundark 24.109.73.xxx
Diablo (video game) Gameman~enwiki Paralogical
Doom (1993 video game) 4.41.174.xxx Uwe Girlich
Gradius (video game) 195.92.194.xxx 208.136.138.xxx
Half-life WojPob Uwe Girlich
Heretic II Conversion script Uwe Girlich
Machinima Conversion script Uwe Girlich
Monkey Island (series) 195.92.67.xxx Paralogical
MUD Travist 208.219.64.xxx
NetHack Robbe Drj
Non-player character AdamJ 208.160.249.xxx
Quake (video game) 208.164.148.xxx 193.100.254.xxx
Tetris Robbe 151.189.153.xxx
Wolfenstein 3D 137.112.81.xxx 193.100.254.xxx
Final Fantasy 66.92.77.xxx 207.53.152.xxx
Pokémon Damian Yerrick 207.53.152.xxx
Team17 81.154.27.1 JamieTheFoool
Tetromino 63.192.137.xxx Gerald Squelart
Worms (series) Larry_Sanger TimShell