Steven Pruitt: The 'Number 1 Editor' of Wikipedia

Chances are you've come across one of his articles without realizing it. In fact, going unnoticed is often the ultimate proof for an editor that they've done things right on Wikipedia. But Steven Pruitt's case is very special. Time magazine placed him on its Top 25 of the most influential people on the web in 2017, and for good reason: Pruitt is "the" Wikipedia editor par excellence. He has been collaborating on the encyclopedia for 13 years, written nearly 31,000 articles, and made over three million edits, ranging from simple typos and broken links to high-profile changes.

His username on Wikipedia is "Ser Amantio di Nicolao", one of the characters from the comic opera Gianni Schicchi composed by Giacomo Puccini. Ser Amantio appears in the work as a notary, lawyer, and baritone, but the man behind the account is none of those things. In fact, he lives in Virginia (although he was born in San Antonio, Texas), and his 'real' job is at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office. Obsessed with local history, he found in the Wikipedia project an ideal medium to display and develop his interests while contributing to the platform. Thirteen years later, he is undoubtedly its star editor. What's his name? Steven Pruitt.

On average, Pruitt spends about three hours a day researching, editing, and writing articles. Now, how does he do it? 31,000 articles and over three million edits are staggering numbers for any human. One of his main allies is AutoWikiBrowser, a MediaWiki-compatible editor that simplifies and automates the most tedious and repetitive parts of editing. In 2015, he received administrator privileges, and he participates in several special projects, most notably "Women in Red", which aims to expand biographical information about women in the encyclopedia and thereby eliminate the red links that indicate missing data.

Pruitt's stance on Wikipedia is more inclusive than that of other contributors, and he admits to being against anything "that could lead to a conflict of interest," because he believes life is too short to end up entangled in an edit war (and there have been many). His dedication to Wikipedia is so extensive that he even used vacation time to obtain additional photographic material from the regions he visited. He is definitely the best Wikipedia editor, and if there's any doubt, it's enough to check the numbers: the next closest editor is 900,000 edits behind.

Source: CBS News.