Feature request to allow better tracking of page count milestones, such as the recent 6 millionth article on ENWP.
As part of the group that recently determined what the 6 millionth article was, we felt stymied by software limitations. While we could use the stat tracking page's report of how many articles there were, we had no software based way of knowing exactly what that page was. Our stopgap method was to watch the page counter, note roughly when it ticked over, and then use the new page feed to try to figure it out more precisely. Still, we were only able to get it down to the minute, and there were 15 pages created within that minute. In the end, the 6M page was chosen by community consensus of what we thought the best page created in that moment was, not what the actual 6M page was, as we have no way of knowing exactly what it was. Many editors accused this process of being unfair, rigged, or a sham, and were dissapointed to hear that there was no software way to know for sure.
As other page milestones approach on ENWP (chiefly 50 million total pages, ~6 months out), it would be useful to have some sort of tool that accurately tracks page milestones. The billionth edit milestone is also fast approaching (~1 month out), and a similar concern exists that we have no software based way to determine exactly what that edit will be.