“The encyclopedia” Wikipedia has almost become an icon of the Internet during its 20 years of existence. According to statistics, this website currently has about 55 million articles in over 300 different languages. Each month, up to 1.5 billion devices access Wikipedia, and 280,000 “editors” contribute content to the site.
Among the contributors to Wikipedia, perhaps Steven Pruitt is the most famous with nearly 3 million edits and 35,000 original articles. This has made him almost a legend. Meanwhile, the editor in second place lags behind Steven by about 900,000 edits.
Wikipedia has over 5.7 million articles in English, all written by “editors” online for free. In 2017, Steven was honored by TIME magazine as one of the most influential people on the Internet due to his editing of millions of English articles on Wikipedia – an incredible feat driven by his family’s passion for history.
Steven is deeply obsessed with history, and his love for opera has inspired the name he uses on Wikipedia: Ser Amantio Di Nicolao, his favorite opera character.
Steven shared in an interview: “My first article was about Peter Francisco, my great-great-great-grandfather. He was a soldier and a member of the Virginia Senate.”
Currently, this young man is living with his parents in the house from his childhood. Steven says he has always lived true to his interests even though his parents expressed concern about the “job” he was doing with Wikipedia. They thought he was “crazy” for spending about 3 hours each day over the past 13 years editing content on it.
However, perhaps their thoughts have changed when Steven was honored by TIME magazine alongside other famous figures like President Trump, author J.K. Rowling, and Kim Kardashian West.
Despite editing and writing extensively, Steven has not earned a single penny from this work. And he doesn’t really care because he is doing what he loves. He said: “The thought of making knowledge free attracted me. I edit and write articles sourced from books, academic journals, and many other reputable sources.”
Steven’s real-life job also relates to research. He works with records and information at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. He jokes that his colleagues think he is “crazy” for spending so much time on Wikipedia.
The journalist and Vice President of Communications for Wikipedia, Kui Kinyanjui, remarked: “Wikipedia would not exist without the dedication of volunteer editors. It is one of the five most visited websites in the world, alongside other tech giants like Google, YouTube, and Facebook.
People like Steven play an extremely important role for platforms like Wikipedia. Their dedication has helped create useful knowledge for everyone. There are 6,000 people around the world accessing Wikipedia every second. This makes editors feel more responsible for contributing accurate and diverse content. Wikipedia has undertaken a project writing about women, and Steven will assist us in this process.”
Source: CBS