Wikipedia:Edit count

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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This page in a nutshell: Edit counters are a useful tool, but remember that it's the quality of edits that counts, not the quantity.

Edit counts are a quick and crude aid when trying to measure a Wikipedian's experience in the Wikipedia community.

As a small protection against sock puppetry, certain community opinion processes—such as Articles for deletion—may discount comments made by extremely new users (those with very few edits or those accounts that were made very recently). However, Wikipedia tries not to base decisions on votes, but on consensus; decisions based on discussion and reasoning, so even very new editors who give good reasons for their stance can sway others to their side.

Some users partially base their Request for adminship votes on the edit counts of the candidates. Reasons for this may include protection against sock puppetry, and the fact that active admins are needed to help with admin backlogs.