User:Z Luna Skye/MicroWikiholicism

MicroWikiholicism
Math textbook of a person suffering from MicroWikiholicism
Other names	MicroWiki addiction, MicroWiki disorder
Symptoms	Editing MicroWiki for extended periods of time, sleep deprivation, usage resulting in problems, social withdrawal, using wikitext in text messages and e-mail, mistakingly ending those texts and e-mails with "~~~~", Tetris syndrome
Complications	Eye strain, sleep deprivation, eating disorders, social withdrawal, carpal tunnel syndrome
Causes	MicroWiki
Risk factors	Anyone with a MicroWiki account, easy access, boredom, younger people, men
Frequency	0.75–1.80% (Zed) 0.5% / 120 (Stats)

A MicroWikiholic (also called a wikiholic, Microholic, MicroWiki addict and sometimes abbreviated MWH or MH), is, broadly speaking, someone who is obsessed (or in extreme cases addicted) to spending time on, or editing MicroWiki. The disorder is called "MicroWikiholicism" or MicroWiki addiction.

A MicroWikiholic may spend large quantities of their daily life thinking about MicroWiki, making large amount of edits by commonly spamming "random article" to copyedit articles, repeatedly doing robotic tasks (like adding categories or templates), refreshing recent changes four times per second, creating useless sandbox pages just for fun, excessively using the talk pages, and holding hours-long edit-a-thons; absorbing their personal life, education, career, relationships, physical and mental health, which often leads to negative health effects, such as impaired socialising skills, sleep deprivation, weakened emotional judgement, apathy, depression and sexual abstinence. Common symptoms include only talking about wiki issues, using wikitext in text messages and e-mail, mistakingly ending those texts and e-mails with "~~~~", removing curly apostrophes in everyday life, adding {{citation needed}} to the margin of any book, using neutral language, procrastinating important events to edit, getting into a relationship with your sock puppet, and adhering to copyright laws. Extreme symptoms include donating their life savings to MicroWiki, attempting to edit magazines and books, accidentally referring to other people as "users", seeing wikitext when one closes their eyes, known as the Tetris effect, and obeying MicroWiki as a religion.

This can lead to social rejection, and an increased risk of weakened memory, obesity–or another eating disorder–eye strain–such as blurry vision, retina damage and dry eyes–social withdrawal, carpal tunnel syndrome, urinary tract infection (from holding urine for excessive amounts of time), and in rare cases hallucinations (such as hearing voices commanding you to edit), slurred speech and disorganised thinking. Many people who suffer from MicroWikiholicism have other mental and neurological disorders, which often includes an anxiety disorder, such as social anxiety and major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, insomnia and w:neurological disorders on the autistic spectrum, such as Asperger syndrome.

The number of MicroWikiholics is hard to define. Zed estimates the number affected is around 0.75%–1.80%, most commonly affecting the 13-16 (72.4%) and 17–21 (17.2%) age groups, while only a few users have developed extreme symptoms of MicroWikiholicism, such as the various past record holders of the highest edit count. Geographically, it is least common in Africa (possibly as low as 0%), and most common in the United States and United Kingdom (75–90%), and also notably prevalent in other parts of Europe, South America and the Anglophone (8–20%). Nearly 120 users have over 1,000 edits (0.5%), 63 of which have over 2,000 (0.26%), 37 have over 3,000 (0.15%), 28 have over 4,000 (0.11%), 22 have over 5,000 (0.09%), and 8 users have hit the 10,000 edit mark (0.03%). A common derogatory saying for a MicroWikiholic is to ask them to "go outside".

Risk factors

Those who are the most at risk are those who have already created an account on MicroWiki, have access to a computer (or mobile device) constantly and consistently, and who like the idea of a wiki or micronations. Generally, most MicroWikiholics cite "boredom" as an initial reason to start editing. Those with Editcountitis may have elevated risk factors, as do hackers, Linux users, and Firefox enthusiasts (because of their exposure to open source technology).

Epidemiology

The number of MicroWikiholics and location is hard to define. Zed estimates the number affected is around 0.75%–1.80%, most commonly affecting the 13-16 (72.4%) and 17–21 (17.2%) age groups, while only a few users have developed extreme symptoms of MicroWikiholicism. They are most commonly located in the United States (15 cases), and the United Kingdom (7) and Czech Republic (5), closely followed by Canada with 3, than Brazil, Indonesia and Italy with 2. There was one diagnosed MicroWikiholic each in Andorra (making it the highest per capita at 0.129 PPM), Argentina, Australia, Germany, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia. Africa possibly has as low as zero, making it the least affected continent. Europe has the most with 20, just ahead of North America with 19.

Continent	Affected	Most affected country
Europe	20	United Kingdom 7
North America	19	United States 15
Asia	3	Indonesia 2
South America	3	Brazil 2
Oceania	1	Australia 1

Great MicroWikiholics

In a class of their own (>10,000 edits)

• User:Austenasia
• User:B_Chkaya
• User:EmperorAdamI (also deleted 1,000 articles in a single day)
• User:KingdomOfBaustralia (held the highest edit count between 15 April–7 November 2019)
• User:Luxor
• User:Mikejones (held the highest edit count between 10 May 2017–15 April 2019)
• User:MissEDconexion
• User:Z Luna Skye (has held the highest edit count since 7 November 2019)

Honourable mentions

• User:AtomCZ (made the largest number of edits in a single day, 1,215 edits on 13 November 2020)
• User:Ives Blackwood (made the largest single contributing edit, adding +218,988 bytes on 10 April 2020)

Undiagnosed

Some suffers go undiagnosed, like User:Swena, who has over 10,000 edits, however edits predating MicroWiki's move to micronations.wiki (including microwiki.org.uk and the original MicroWiki) are not automatically counted, thus giving an improper diagnosis.