User:Ramesh Ramaiah/Service awards

Service awards are a simple way of acknowledging an editor's level of contribution based on two specific benchmarks: the number of contributions the editor made to Wikipedia and the length of time they have been registered. Academic interlocutors have described Wikipedia's service award schema as a way to award the self.

Unlike other awards given through a process or from one editor to another in a show of appreciation, this is one award that is intended to be given to yourself, although it can also be given by a second party. It is achieved strictly by a mechanical count of time registered and number of edits. There is no process for receiving these awards; you just judge for yourself which one you are eligible for and place the badge on your user page. These can be thought of as automatically assigned, much like (for example) badges that are affixed onto Scouts' uniforms for participation for a certain period of time.

The service awards template can automatically track your time of service up to the level of Grandmaster Editor (a.k.a. Most Imposing Togneme). It does not yet handle the top two awards –, no one is eligible for them anyway. For it to calculate how long you have been registered with Wikipedia, you must give it year, month and day parameters specifying when you registered. You must also give it your edit count using the edits parameter, and update this each time your edits pass one of the service award levels.

Please remember that time spent with and number of edits to Wikipedia are not indicative of the quality of an editor's contributions, or of their diplomatic ability. Service awards also do not indicate any level of authority; "veteran" editors have no more authority than "novice" editors.

Levels
There are currently 19 award levels and one base level. The "Signator-to-Lord High Togneme" track is a humorous alternative for those who find the more formal titles too stuffy.


 * "Signator" is from the Latin signātōrius, which means someone who has made a mark.
 * Burba means "recruit" in Venetian.
 * Novato is Spanish and Portuguese for "beginner".
 * Grognard (French for "grumbler") was Napoleon's pet name for his Old Guard.
 * "Tutnum", "Labutnum", "Looshpah", and "Togneme" are made-up words that are intended to sound impressive.

For the first four levels, there are also incremental service awards. Unlike the Standard Unofficial Service Awards these awards allow users to have awards in-between the major service awards. There are 16 incremental service awards, with four levels of incremental service award for each of the first four service awards.

For the sake of variety, three badge variants are provided for each level: a medal, a book, and a ribbon (thanks to Ribbons). To keep the validity and status of the major service awards, a ribbon is the only variant for incremental service awards. Editors may display the badge of their preference, a combination of badges, or none at all.

To learn your edit count and the date of your first logged edit, you can click My Preferences, where this information will appear. A more detailed edit counter is X!'s Edit Counter; there are also other edit counters and analysis tools. These tools do not always provide equal numbers because they rely on different methods of calculation.

What is counted?
How to count your edits is up to you. It's generally assumed that all edits, including bot edits and deleted edits, are OK to count. If you want to count edits on other Wikimedia projects, that's OK too. If you began as an anonymous IP editor and want to count from the time of your first IP edit, that's OK too. If you run or ran more than one account and want to combine their edit counts, that's OK too. It's all on the honor system, so do what you think gives you the most fair and accurate award level.

To clarify, though: both the edit count and time in harness for a given level are required to achieve that level.

Rationale for the requirements
The edit count requirements for the levels are based on what, in the opinion of the editors who formulated the requirements, could be achieved by a human editor working with considerable regularity and diligence using the default tools and a fairly typical editing pattern. The awards for the first two years require a considerably lower edit rate than those for the later years.

Bots and editors using certain tools or editing patterns may achieve higher rates, while editors using certain editing patterns (such as mainly posting completed articles with a single edit and so forth) may have lower rates, and of course editors who don't edit regularly may have lower rates.

Thus not all editors will see a good match between service time and edit counts (some editors may be eligible for a high level by service time but not by edit count, while other editors may be eligible for a high level by edit count but not by service time). This is an imperfection which is an inherent consequence of the decision to use an uncomplicated system for determining eligibility for each award.


 * The first seven levels (up to Veteran Editor or Tutnum), which cover the first two years of one's editing career, would require a rate of 4,000 edits per year if one were to advance levels with edit counts and service time in perfect synchronization (except that the very first level, Novice Editor or Burba, requires only 200 edits rather than 333).
 * Levels 8 through 11 (up to Senior Editor or Labutnum), which cover the next two years of one's editing career, would require a rate of 8,000 edits per year if one were to advance levels with edit counts and service time in perfect synchronization.
 * Levels 12 and up would require a rate of 9,000 edits per year if one were to advance levels with edit counts and service time in perfect synchronization.