Internet's 'janitor' whose fingerprints are all over Wikipedia

How often do you use Wikipedia? The answer is probably not as much as Mr Robert Sim, 37, who spends around 10 hours a week contributing to the volunteer-run online encyclopaedia.

- Teo Kai Xiang

Much of this time is dedicated to what many would consider thankless work: updating Wikipedia articles, correcting errors, and performing the mundane administration that keeps the world’s largest encyclopaedia running smoothly.

In August, this earned the digital analytics consultant by day one of Wikipedia’s highest honours. Mr Sim was presented the Wikimedian of the Year award by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales in Nairobi, Kenya, at the annual Wikimania conference.

Since he first accessed the online encyclopaedia as a 15-year-old, Mr Sim has made over 79,000 edits to the platform. He became one of English-language Wikipedia’s 829 administrators in 2024.

His key contributions include doing outreach for the local Wikipedia movement, most visibly by helping to organise Wikimania 2023 in Singapore. He also maintains the “Index of Singapore-related articles”, an attempt at cataloguing the nation’s presence on Wikipedia.

Pages he has created span everything from the 2024 Southeast Asia heatwave to a timeline of Singapore’s Covid-19 measures, from controversial Singapore-raised stand-up comic Jocelyn Chia to former Monetary Authority of Singapore managing director Ravi Menon and those of newly elected MPs.

Mr Sim is a finalist for The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year award, which is organised by The Straits Times, and presented by UBS Singapore.