Service awards are a simple way of acknowledging an editor's level of contribution based on two specific benchmarks: the number of contributions that the editor has made to Wikipedia and the length of time registered. One academic has described Wikipedia's service award schema as a way to award the self.[1] One may also think of them as auto-attained milestones.
This award is unlike other awards given from one editor to another in a show of appreciation; it is intended to be given to yourself, although it can also be given by a second party. It is achieved by a strictly mechanical count of time registered and number of edits. There is no process for receiving these awards; you just determine the grade to which you are entitled, then display it on your user page. Typically, both the time and edit-count requirements are met before considering oneself eligible for each award level.
Please remember that neither the number of edits nor the length of time from when an account was created is a good indicator of the quality of an editor's contributions or diplomatic ability. Hence, service awards do not indicate any level of authority whatsoever; "master" editors are not bestowed with more authority through this award than "novice" editors.
There are currently 23 award levels. The first level serves as a base level. The "Signator-to-Ephoros" track is a humorous alternative for those who find the more formal titles too staid.
For the first five levels, there are also incremental service awards to use between the major service awards. There are 20 incremental service awards, with four levels of incremental service award for each of the first five service awards.
For the sake of variety, three badge variants are provided for each level: a medal, a book, and a ribbon (thanks to Wikipedia: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, click Preferences where this information will appear under View global account info. A more detailed edit counter is the User Analysis Tool (a replacement for 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.
The following table lists the requirements for each award level. Both the length of service and total number of edits must be met for each award level.
How to count your edits is up to you. It is generally assumed that all edits, even including edits by bots and deleted edits, are okay to count. If you want to count edits on other Wikimedia projects, that is okay too. If you began as an anonymous IP editor and want to count from the time of your first IP edit, that is also okay. If you run or ran more than one account, you may choose to include the edits for your other user accounts as well. If you are or were an administrator, you can count your administrative actions as edits if you want. You may also begin counting the amount of time you have been an editor from an older account or IP address of yours. It is all based 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 the time for a given level are required to achieve that level.
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 do not 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.
You can place the {{Service awards}} template on your user page to show the image, userbox, or top icon most appropriate for your time of service and edit count. For it to calculate the time you have been registered with Wikipedia, you must give it |year=, |month= and |day= parameters specifying your registration date. You must also give your edit count using an |edits= parameter, and update this each time your edits pass one of the service award levels. The |format= parameter can be used to specify the display format. See the template's documentation for details.
The {{Service award progress}} template can show your progress towards the next service award. Like {{Service awards}}, it also requires |year=, |month=, |day= and |edits= parameters to specify when you registered and how many edits you have made.
Alternatively, you can pick an award template from the following table: