A higher level Strunk & White badge? 1000 edits or such

Question

I recently picked up a Strunk & White badge, which I am damn pleased with. It is a somewhat exclusive club with 354 badges thus far bestowed.

It was earned mostly by cleaning up horribly formatted code blocks (no code block, using a quote block instead, evil fracking tabs, poor indentation consistency, etc.) and questions from struggling ESL folks who need bit of help. That, and I've got some badge whore tendencies.

So, now that the S&W is in the bag, beyond being a good little SOpedian, what are my motives? I still clean up questions, but not as much as before.

Am I the only one? Would a higher level S&W badge motivate SOpedians to continue S&W cleanups of SO?

I'm all for any idea that retroactively awards me a gold badge; I'm pretty sure I'm well past 1000 edits. :D — mmyers, Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 16:21
Good on you, mmyers. For now, you'll have only our silent thanks. — Stu Thompson, Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 16:22
If I could edit here, I'd change "please with" to "pleased with". — user1228, Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 17:21
We could take a cue from Final Fantasy and call it "Strunk & Whitaga". =) — gnostradamus, Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 18:50
If I could edit here, I'd change "please with" to "pleased with", "club at with" to "club with", "be cleaning" to "by cleaning", "struggeling" to "struggling", "tenancies" to "tendencies", and "Questions" to "questions". — mmyers, Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 19:50
I didn't even know SO awarded badgers! I'd like a wolverine too, please. Seriously though, I think the 1000 mark as a gold badge would be an excellent idea. Complete the editor trio. — Quinn Taylor, Commented Jul 7, 2009 at 4:03
@Quinn: If you think that is the only error in the above post, then you need to look again ;) So far, only mmyers is up to the task.... — Stu Thompson, Commented Jul 7, 2009 at 5:08
Tabs are lovely, dark and deep... spaces are teh evil, codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001310.html — beggs, Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 7:08
@mmyers: Yeah! I see you finally have edit privs on MSO. (And you have my SO mod vote.) — Stu Thompson, Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 19:30
Well, I see status-completed, but no new badges.. any word on what its going to be? — user50049, Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 9:31

Stu Thompson · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-15 15:58:44Z

64

Yes, brilliant idea Stu! A Copy Editor badge, awarded at 1000 edits, is what we should do.

edited Jan 15, 2010 at 15:58

answered Jul 1, 2009 at 16:20

Stu Thompson

12.1k6 gold badges39 silver badges66 bronze badges

4

"Copy Editor", eh? What a good name... ++ for you AND the OP!
– Shog9
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 16:25
1

Be forewarned that if you can win multiple of this badge, they'll have to implement the numerical shorthand just for RichB, like rep for Jon Skeet.
– Rob Allen
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 17:01
16

@gnovice: You're onto something there. How about a Narcissist badge for someone who answers 50 of their own questions with at least 3 upvotes each?
– Jeff Yates
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 17:55
5

Editerminator !
– Sampson
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 19:49
5

FWIW... Editing is one of the indicators I'm looking for when voting on a candidate for moderator: a badge specifically for editing other people's posts would provide a nice way to check for this.
– Shog9
Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 17:36
4

I'd like to see the badge earnable repeatedly - per 1,000 edits or so. Or a badge at 1,000 edits, and another at 5,000 and repeating. Or thereabouts.
– Jonathan Leffler
Commented Feb 15, 2010 at 6:50
According to the Help Center, Copy Editor is awarded at 500 edits.
– DavidRR
Commented Jul 12, 2014 at 16:34
1

@DavidRR The badge didn't exist when I asked this question some five years ago.
– Stu Thompson
Commented Jul 15, 2014 at 1:36

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CDR · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-24 00:00:04Z

23

Status completed:

https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/badges/65/copy-editor

New gold badge for people who edit more than 500 entries.

edited Mar 24, 2023 at 0:00

CDR

8,8664 gold badges19 silver badges57 bronze badges

answered Jul 9, 2010 at 9:20

waffles

108k37 gold badges350 silver badges510 bronze badges

Are all edits counted or are some like tag-only-edits excluded? Just wondering as i thought i'd have that many edits on SO.
– Georg Fritzsche
Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 10:13
its the same as strunk and white ... will have to digg up the conditions
– waffles
Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 10:33
2

Found them. Well, it seems like i have a lot more tag edits than most of the people in Jons list :)
– Georg Fritzsche
Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 11:10
Is it a bad sign that this rewards criteria that only two people have met, when one of them is Rich B?
– Kip
Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 13:31
2

Sweet. Though I still think it should have been 1000 edits. ;)
– mmyers Mod
Commented Jul 9, 2010 at 14:40
3

The query to get your count is here: odata.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/qt/5157/…
– Ether
Commented Jul 12, 2010 at 4:00
@Ether Nice; I tried to do this once and wrongly concluded edit information wasn't available in the dump
– Michael Mrozek
Commented Jul 13, 2010 at 19:49
The link is to the Talkative badge you know
– Anthony Pham
Commented Feb 14, 2015 at 16:50

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Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-20 10:31:46Z

11

Senior Janitor?

edited Mar 20, 2017 at 10:31

CommunityBot

1

answered Nov 12, 2009 at 6:53

Ether

31.4k5 gold badges55 silver badges110 bronze badges

2

Oh...I like where you are going with that. How about "Grammar & Spelling Engineer"?
– Stu Thompson
Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 9:58
...or if you are Spanish, Señor Janitor. :)
– Ether
Commented Mar 9, 2011 at 22:54

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jjnguy · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-12 05:47:21Z

9

I'm hoping to revive this idea. We have no official word from The Powers That Be about this.

Editing is very important on the sites, and those that do it often should be rewarded

Name proposed:

Editor in Chief

Also, I think 1000 is a good number for the award.

answered Nov 12, 2009 at 5:47

jjnguy

34.1k21 gold badges104 silver badges160 bronze badges

J. Jonah or Perry?
– random
Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 5:55
1

J. Jonah - Spiderman Rocks
– jjnguy
Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 5:58
Spider-Man comes with a hyphen.
– random
Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 6:00
1

Why don't you edit my comment? :P
– jjnguy
Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 6:03
J. Jonah - Spider-man Rocks!
– jjnguy
Commented Nov 12, 2009 at 6:03
6

"Editor in Chief" has connotations of official authority that don't apply.
– Gnome
Commented May 15, 2010 at 21:02

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Kyle Cronin · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-01 16:25:25Z

6

This sounds like a pretty good idea, but I think that we should limit it to edits to the content or title only, not to your own posts, and only edits that haven't been rolled back. I think after 1000 of those you deserve a gold badge.

answered Jul 1, 2009 at 16:25

Kyle CroninMod

37.9k10 gold badges89 silver badges152 bronze badges

Edits to your own posts don't contribute to Strunk & White anyway. But I think edits to tags do.
– ChrisF Mod
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 16:29
4

I do believe that is the way the S&W already is. Edits to tags and your own posts do not count.
– Stu Thompson
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 16:30
You're right. I was going to simply say "rolled back edits don't count", but for clarity I also included the requirements for S&W.
– Kyle Cronin Mod
Commented Jul 1, 2009 at 16:35

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This_is_NOT_a_forum · Accepted Answer · 2010-02-14 01:23:43Z

Not really an answer, but below is the edit statistics for Stack Overflow from the beginning to 2009-10-31 (corresponding to that Data Dump), top 20 + Jon Skeet.

Update 1: note that only the last edit for a question or an answer is counted (undercounting) and retagging is counted (overcounting wrt. the badge). This is a consequence of how the Data Dump is organised.

It does not include edits to the users own questions and answers. It is in a form where it can be directly copy-pasted into a Windows command-line window and the user pages will open in the default browser (e.g. Firefox or Opera). The full list is available (494 KB, 5023 users with 1 or more edits), but please only paste a small subset of that file... (all disclaimers apply)

rem 1th place. Editor with ID 5640 did 3315 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/5640

rem 2th place. Editor with ID 8817 did 1951 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/8817

rem 3th place. Editor with ID 63550 did 1695 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/63550

rem 4th place. Editor with ID 3043 did 1672 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/3043

rem 5th place. Editor with ID 76337 did 1576 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/76337

rem 6th place. Editor with ID 15168 did 1509 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/15168

rem 7th place. Editor with ID 21234 did 1302 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/21234

rem 8th place. Editor with ID 135152 did 1176 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/135152

rem 9th place. Editor with ID 14444 did 906 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/14444

rem 10th place. Editor with ID 16587 did 878 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/16587

rem 11th place. Editor with ID 1288 did 849 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/1288

rem 12th place. Editor with ID 13531 did 815 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/13531

rem 13th place. Editor with ID 12855 did 815 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/12855

rem 14th place. Editor with ID 31615 did 804 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/31615

rem 15th place. Editor with ID 49246 did 763 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/49246

rem 16th place. Editor with ID 1450 did 745 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/1450

rem 17th place. Editor with ID 56338 did 716 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/56338

rem 18th place. Editor with ID 100754 did 693 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/100754

rem 19th place. Editor with ID 811 did 688 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/811

rem 20th place. Editor with ID 1 did 684 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/1



rem 51th place. Editor with ID 22656 did 322 edits...
start http://stackoverflow.com/users/22656

Ok, I guess 1000 is a fairly reasonable level then. If even Rich B doesn't have 5000 edits... — mmyers, Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 0:53
And I guess I don't edit as often as I thought. But what would the numbers be in the December dump? — mmyers, Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 0:54
How exactly are you extracting this? The only thing I see in the data dump that could quantify edits is post.xml's LastEditorUserId, which only shows the most recent editor of a post. Using only this will under count edits. — Stu Thompson, Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 7:57
@Stu Thompson: see comments to Svante's answer (to this question), meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1524/… — This_is_NOT_a_forum, Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 14:21
@Stu Thompson: yes, I linked to a place inside this question, Svante's answer. — This_is_NOT_a_forum, Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 17:17
I'm pretty sure that's a fairly radical undercount of edits made by me (15168) on SO. Even assuming you disallow edits to my own answers and questions, I'd be rather surprised to find that my total edits was as low as that. 'Last person to edit' - maybe. ISTR asking for an advanced or repeating editors badge - per 1000 edits or thereabouts. At 5-10 edits per day over 18 months (500 days, say)...I'd expect to be in the multiple-thousands range in total. — Jonathan Leffler, Commented Feb 15, 2010 at 6:48
@Jonathan Leffler: thanks for the input. I will review the process that was used to extract this information. I could have made a mistake. — This_is_NOT_a_forum, Commented Feb 15, 2010 at 20:16
Hubris precedeth nemesis, of course. The difference between about 3 edits per day over 500 days and the claimed 5-10 edits per day probably isn't as radical as I'd like to think. I think I do a lot of editing - often just simple typo fixing or cleaning up a question with a tag such as "Improve 'Use of English'". But in the cold light of the next day (OK - not much light - it is 20 to midnight here), maybe I am over-stating what I've done. I'll be interested to see the checked result. What was the site used before meta.stackoverflow.com? I think that was where I requested a super-S&W badge. — Jonathan Leffler, Commented Feb 16, 2010 at 7:41

Jon Seigel · Accepted Answer · 2010-07-08 05:12:44Z

Okay, here is an updated query I just made for the Data Explorer format. (Note: this is a very heavy query, so please have mercy on the server if you plan to edit and execute.)

Since the data dump does not contain revision history, the following applies:

The query only counts edits where the last editor is the user in question (this could hide one or more edits on a post)
The query does not account for edits that were rolled back
I'm pretty sure the QuestionEdits number does include retags, not only qualifying edits; the AnswerEdits number should be pure, though

Here are the top 25 ~~usual suspects~~ results for data to the end of June 2010:

User Name         QuestionEdits AnswerEdits TotalEdits 
----------------- ------------- ----------- ---------- 
skaffman          6598          41          6639       
Peter Mortensen   2624          3136        5760       
Jon Seigel        4520          10          4530       
John Saunders     3585          285         3870       
brian d foy       2384          660         3044       
Geoffrey Chetwood 2045          661         2706       
OMG Ponies        2300          49          2349       
marc_s            2273          68          2341       
Joel Coehoorn     1840          201         2041       
Jonathan Leffler  1331          659         1990       
Bill the Lizard   1560          165         1725       
SilentGhost       1533          148         1681       
BalusC            1562          102         1664       
sth               645           742         1387       
John Topley       937           375         1312       
starblue          1171          21          1192       
Pascal Thivent    1111          54          1165       
Sinan Ünür        565           486         1051       
George Stocker    906           124         1030       
Peter Hosey       965           56          1021       
mmyers            795           224         1019       
Georg Fritzsche   936           67          1003       
AnthonyWJones     972           21          993        
Svante            625           299         924        
Roger Pate        713           130         843

also note, the query we run is somewhat different as we have full access to post history which is missing from the data dump , so the usual suspects are somewhat different, eg shog9 is in the list ... the data dump only catches the last edit — waffles, Commented Jul 8, 2010 at 5:22
@waffles: Yeah, I put a few caveats in my post there on query execution and what's actually included/not included in the results. Although I'm #3 in this list, I'm curious how many of the question edits are actual edits and not just retags. — Jon Seigel, Commented Jul 8, 2010 at 5:29

Shog9 · Accepted Answer · 2010-02-13 21:03:59Z

2

I still think this would be a nice badge, and would like to suggest Galley Slave as an alternate name...

answered Feb 13, 2010 at 21:03

Shog9

454k203 gold badges1.3k silver badges1.9k bronze badges

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GnomeGnome · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-15 21:09:06Z

1

The badge name could be Gnome:

A gnome works behind the scenes to tie up little loose ends, adding ISBNs of books that people mention, tracking down the authorship of "someone once said" quotes, correcting broken links, fixing formatting, and fixing misspellings. ^{[paraphrased]}

answered May 15, 2010 at 21:09

Gnome

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bananakata · Accepted Answer · 2009-07-01 19:46:59Z

0

I propose "Hart Rules Your Head"

answered Jul 1, 2009 at 19:46

bananakata

2,79817 silver badges23 bronze badges

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Svante · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-15 17:36:12Z

0

I like the idea too, although 1000 seems a bit low to me.

answered Jan 15, 2010 at 17:36

Svante

7515 silver badges10 bronze badges

Perhaps. 5000 seems too high, though, and there aren't any nice round numbers between them. Is edit information available in the data dump? If so, someone could check how many people would get the badge and any given level.
– mmyers Mod
Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 17:43
I've been over the public data dump more than once, and can't fathom how someone could pull a user edit count out of it.
– Stu Thompson
Commented Jan 15, 2010 at 19:33
@Stu Thompson: it is not a problem. Use field 'LastEditorUserId'. If the count is not to include a user's edit to his/her own questions and answers then check that the value is different from OwnerUserId.
– This_is_NOT_a_forum
Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 0:04
3

@Peter Mortensen: That will surly undercount edits. Many, many posts have more than one editor.
– Stu Thompson
Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 7:58
Also, it is not clear to me if this value is set when tags are edited (which does not count towards a S&W badge, but does show up on the question/answer as the last editor.)
– Stu Thompson
Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 8:01
@Stu Thompson: yes, you are right about undercounting the edits because of more than one editor. Only the last editor is in the Data Dump. It would be interesting to known the distribution of the number of edits. E.g. what percentage has only one edit? Regarding retagging: I have checked now and the retaggings are in the dump as edits so overcounting happens wrt. the badge.
– This_is_NOT_a_forum
Commented Jan 16, 2010 at 14:09
6

@mmyers: are you really serious that "there aren't any nice round numbers" between 1000 and 5000? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three such numbers. (1024, 2048, 4096.)
– ЯegDwight
Commented Feb 13, 2010 at 20:39
@RegDwight: Yes, but they don't have all those zeroes after them. ...Man, I think I just lost a lot of my geek points there.
– mmyers Mod
Commented Feb 13, 2010 at 21:36
@mmyers - they all end with zeroes in binary. or hex. or octal. ...now turn in your geek card and write out every odd number between 0x3E8 and 0x1388 a hundred times on the blackboard.
– quack quixote
Commented Feb 15, 2010 at 7:58
@~quack: Ok, I did it in C. Do I get my card back yet?
– mmyers Mod
Commented Feb 15, 2010 at 21:13
@mmyers: depends. did you use arithmatic or bitwise operators?
– quack quixote
Commented Feb 16, 2010 at 4:04
@~quack: They optimize to the same machine code, so I wouldn't worry about it.
– mmyers Mod
Commented Feb 16, 2010 at 4:15

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