On a recent thread, someone said something about DYK that triggered an idea (emphasis not in original):
That, right there, is how to get more editors on WP. In today's Facebook culture, people are more narcissistic than ever. Many people want to see their name on the internet and desire to be micro-celebrities. Somewhere on the article (like right below the title or at the very bottom, but on the article itself) the top contributors get their names listed, linked to their userpage. Yes, there would be arguments about how to determine who should be listed (number of edits, DYK, etc), but when aren't there arguments on WP?

I'm sure there would be much wiki-lawyering and game-playing on high-profile articles, but perhaps if it was done on "featured" or "good" articles only, the more crafty recognition-seeking editors would latch onto lesser articles and improve them for the credit.

This is at WR why?

Because I don't have a blog?

WR has a blog.

Suggestions for improvements to Wikipedia are legitimate thread topics here, even if they're good suggestions.

As for something like this, I dunno - obviously personal recognition (even under a screen name) is a motivator, and to be fair, if someone is motivated by that it doesn't necessarily imply actual narcissism - many people are just lonely/bored/depressed, and of course there is a difference between being attention-starved and being an attention "whore," even if it's hard to tell that difference in an anonymous online environment.

I remember on Uncyclopedia (and I vaguely recall WP trying this too, many years ago) they had - still have, in fact - "User of the Month" votes, so you could be Writer of the Month, Photoshopper of the Month, N00b of the Month, and a few other variations. It sounds corny because it is, but it really did motivate people. Of course, in a very real sense it motivated them to allow themselves to be further exploited, but it depends on how you look at it, in their case. Uncyclopedia was (is?) more of an artistic/creative endeavor than Wikipedia, which by contrast is mostly scut-work punctuated by unpleasant bickering.

Ultimately, though, something like this idea for DYKs would be heavily gamed - for example, it would encourage people to make large numbers of really minor edits, rather than one or two extensive ones, because the people deciding who the "major contributors" are in any given case wouldn't want to actually go through the diffs and figure out who really contributed, they'd just look at the statistics. I specifically mention this because it's a pet peeve of mine - people who create 30 revisions in a row when they could easily post just one are very annoying when you're going through diffs to try and get a "feel" for how an article has developed over time. (Not hang-'em-by-the-yardarm annoying, but still annoying.)

DYK's are the post-effluent spurts of vomit on the GAFA-soiled bogfloor that is Wikipedia.

And what kind of masochist would go to Wikipedia to float an improvement?

The idea (good or not) would be immediately flattened by a couple of Jimpage cockbobbing cumdrips - though you'd be faintly patronised for your effort by a kinder soul, but only while your subject is taken rudely off-course by a short discussion involving passers-by on something loosely related that has happened several hundred times before. You'd be scrolled-up, auto-archived and probably, for good measure, threatened with a cock block (for some obscure reason - why not?).

You'd be profoundly disheartended, and immediately give up.

After all guys, "if it ain't broke don't fix it!" (as the 'wise' *insert link to the admin/adenoid you wish to wank over's comment here* once said when contributing to the.. blah blah blah.)