Incremental service awards are a simple way of acknowledging an editor's level of contribution based on two specific benchmarks: the number of contributions the editor made to Wikipedia and the length of time they have been registered. Academic interlocutors have described Wikipedia's service award schema as a way to award the self. The incremental service awards extend that tenet.
This page in a nutshell: Some editors choose to acknowledge their service to Wikipedia by displaying a service award, which denotes time served and number of edits made. These awards are unofficial – displaying the wrong one carries no penalty (except possible disapproval from other editors), and displaying the right one does not indicate authority or competence (except possible respect from other editors).
Unlike the Standard Unofficial Service Awards these awards are used to allow the users to have awards in-between the Major service awards.
Please remember that time spent with and number of edits to Wikipedia are not indicative of the quality of an editor's contributions, or of their diplomatic ability. Service awards also do not indicate any level of authority; "veteran" editors have no more authority than "novice" editors.
Levels
Currently there are 20 incremental service awards, four levels each for the first five service awards. The images for further incremental service awards still exist (although the templates are not available)—check this page history for their use.
To keep the validity and status of the major service awards, a ribbon is the only variant of the incremental service award.
List of requirements for incremental service awards
