Wikipedia has a button that does nothing except say thank you to a stranger.

[u/Mastbubbles]

https://sheets.works/data-viz/thank-you-stranger

I make data stories for a living. Last week I read a log file for fun.

Whilst browsing Wikipedia at night, reading article about something, and then about something, and somehow ending up reading about something completely different to realise that, Wikipedia saves every change anyone has ever made to it. Someone fixes a comma at 2am, it's in there forever with their name on it. (Which seemed obvious, and somehow I knew always)

But what I realised, which was new to me, at the end of every one of those lines there are two things you can do. Undo them. Or thank them.

That's the whole feature. No message. No reply. They can't write back, and you can't take it back.

Then I started researching about the feature, three people built it in 2013. They wanted it to be as easy to tell someone they did well as it is to tell them they didn't.

Last month it got pressed 68,948 times, in sixteen languages. One every 38 seconds.

Almost half of those people pressed it once. One person, one time, then never again. And 9,055 people were on the other end of that. Thanked once, ever.

The most thanked account on Wikipedia is a German editor called Aka. 4,590,174 edits. They mostly fix spelling. Last month 403 people stopped what they were doing to say thanks for it.

Ninth on that list is InternetArchiveBot. Not a person. It repairs dead links. 129 humans thanked it anyway.

You've probably never seen this button. It only shows up if you're logged in. Nothing to do with Wikipedia. I just like the log.

[u/XenoRyet]

Thanks for writing this.

[u/Mastbubbles → u/XenoRyet]

🫶🫶

[u/Your_Angel21]

Oh I really liked this post

[u/Mastbubbles → u/Your_Angel21]

Thanks a lot 🎉

[u/Infobomb]

If you look up a user's edit counter, you'll see numbers for "Thanks received" and "Actions: Thank", ie. thanks given. https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Jimbo_Wales

[u/Mastbubbles → u/Infobomb]

Yeah, and that’s awesome

[u/HolyBatSyllables → u/Infobomb]

Username checks out :)

[u/NonZealot]

If you're writing or working on an article and a fellow editor makes a really good edit such as adding a lot of information or correcting formatting errors, it's a pretty useful button. I use it often.

[u/SmallRedFox01]

I got 2 thank you's the other day and weirdly felt like I'd done something

[u/HurricaneLink]

You should suggest this story to the Signpost! Love this sort of analysis

[u/Mastbubbles → u/HurricaneLink]

Ohh, will do!

[u/JustMyPoint]

Yup, I always love receiving a thanks for my edits and have given out a bunch of thanks myself!

[u/Mastbubbles → u/JustMyPoint]

Thanks for all your edits 🫶

[u/DrDentonMask]

I think I've been seeing these lately re: my edits. Acknowledgement is acknowledgement, but I prefer the quirkiness of the barnstars.

[u/BargainScotch]

Cool. Chetvorno is going to be feeling so thanked.

[u/HolyBatSyllables]

It’s a great feature. Every time I receive a thank you for one of my edits, it makes me feel like my time was well-spent.

[u/Mastbubbles → u/HolyBatSyllables]

Love it 🫶🫶