Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/AprilMay2023 archive

• See Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/2007 archive, Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/March2012 archive, Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/August2012 archive, Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/April2013 archive, Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/April2014 archive and Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/April2015 archive for past competitions.

The contest has generally been run over four weeks. Generally editors nominate the articles they intend working on beforehand as it might help folks to reserve an article so they can prepare by gathering some book/paper sources, however nominating material after this period ends is okay too—editors can still submit material they improved during the period. When the four-week editing period ends, the judges will review the submissions and announce the winners within two weeks. Other editors are welcome to comment on the entries.

The potential article pool includes vital and core articles. Editors are also welcome to improve and nominate an improvement to a broad or important article not on the two lists if they explain why their article should be considered.

When you submit an article you improved for the contest, please list a specific revision that you're happy with, as well as a link to the revision on which you built your improvements. For example, this would show improvements made to the article Lebensraum. Only edits made during the contest period may be included in the diff link.

List of contest entries

List here articles submitted, and the diffs showing the improvement. Multiple segments are allowed to clarify the diffs submitted by a particular editor in a busy article. Co-submissions are allowed. Judges will comment on entries immediately below them, clarify benefits gained and offer feedback on what else needs to be done. Within two weeks of the conclusion, prizewinners will be announced. An example of how to lay out a sample entry as follows.

Western Jackdaw (Sample Entry)

• Nominator - Casliber (talk · contribs)
• Improvements, see here, here and here
• Comments (anything you think is relevant - what problems the article had and what you've done to make them better)

Comments by judges

• Superlative work!!! just kidding (chuckle) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• Other editors are most welcome to offer input on the merits of the improvement and what else needs doing etc.Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Furniture

• Nominator - Amakuru (talk · contribs)
• Improvements
• Comments

Comments by judges

Extremely broad and "core" candidate article. Less than 10kb prose size so could be massively expanded and still fit. Article contains some potted material and I suspect could contain alot more important historical material. Also lacks a summary of types of furniture and much more could be added about material and design. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:22, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

This seems a good candidate for an overhaul. I can't promise anything, it depends on my time availability, but unless anyone objects I'd like to have a go.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

• Plenty to do! Lots and lots of links to add for a start. 543 views per day (last 30), so about 130K pa. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Definitely one of those really general ones which tend to get neglected.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:25, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Architecture

• Nominator - Johnbod (talk · contribs)
• Improvements, see
• Comments: Meaty target, over 2,000 views a day, 500K+ pa. C-class (rather optimistically?), level 2 vital and core. Now under 35K bytes, but rather a lot of padding.Johnbod (talk) 13:50, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments by judges

• Big, broad topic. Plenty of room for expansion. long list of See also topics that can either be incorporated or removed. Lots of reffing needed. Lots of choppy paras need melding. Appears to have a western/modern focus as well (but am not an expert on the topic..) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:54, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• Would be fantastic to see this taken on. Given the current state, it would be starting basically from scratch. Ceoil (talk) 07:03, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Intelligence quotient

• Nominator - WeijiBaikeBianji (talk · contribs)
• Improvements, see
• Comments This article has been under ArbCom discretionary sanctions since the end of 2010. It has long needed a lot of fixing up. By unhappy coincidence, a lot of my research and writing off-wiki is about the topic of this article, and has been since the early 1990s, long before Wikipedia was founded. I've dreaded wading in to do a full fix, but maybe now is the time. I had a good experience a year ago (2015) with collaborative editing of English language as part of this same Core Contest. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 16:36, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments by judges

As we know, the core/vital criteria have been considered arbitrary by some, and really broad/important stuff sometimes gets missed...and this (I feel) is one of those topics. Kudos for picking it up - great choice. The article is already pretty hefty so it'll be a case of pruning and reorganising as much as anything else, though I think some credit could be given for sorting out any daughter articles. Bibliography section needs looking at and trimming definitely, either they should be used as sources or removed, or an explanation given as to why any book there does not fit in one of those two cats. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:48, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• Other editors are most welcome to offer input on the merits of the improvement and what else needs doing etc. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 16:36, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
• Doesn't seem to be listed as vital or core, but gets over 4,000 views per day, well over a million per year. B-class, and looks good to a non-specialist, though no doubt there are rocks below the surface. At 142K crude bytes, it is presumably well over the recommended length at WP:TOOLONG already. Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the comment about page length. Yes, my idea of improving that particular article would actually be to shorten it by writing more in summary style and moving some points of discussion to the wikilinked subarticles. I recall a discussion among the expanded Core editors (the 10,000 level of articles) that identified that article as worthy of consideration at that level, and it is routinely a top-3000 article by page views year after year after year. High-priority for WikiProject Psychology and I think other WikiProjects. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 16:54, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Ancient Greek art

• Nominator - Johnbod (talk · contribs)
• Improvements, see
• Comments: Former FA (promoted and demoted in 2004!). About 500 views pd. Content seems mainly ok, but image layout terrible, and only 1 ref in the whole article. Johnbod (talk) 14:10, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by judges

Impressive. It has exactly 0 (zero) inline references....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:18, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

Wonderful article choice John.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

History of the Republic of India

• Nominator - Indopug (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:

• Initial state, 18:33, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

• Comments: A level-4 vital article that seems okay with 40+ references and a reasonably structured appearance. But really it needs a thorough rewrite; all the information here has been added in bits and pieces, making the prose clunky and the balance non-existent (recentism abounds and social, cultural and economic histories are minimal). Also, the sources are exclusively newspaper articles, not scholarly books. I aim to bring this article (or at least the 1947–91 portion of it) to a GA standard within the Contest's time period.—indopug (talk) 09:52, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by judges

Great choice. Needs alot of referencing, tidying up paras, and converting later history from a series of isolated statements of events into some sort of narrative. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:02, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• 7.6K views last 30 days. As the nom says, though the more recent periods seem the worst. Johnbod (talk) 13:17, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• That's in 20 days; for 30 days the number is 11.4k.—indopug (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, they have once again fiddled with the tool without telling anyone. How tiresome. Other stats I have given on this page may bwe affected. Johnbod (talk) 13:34, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Guitar

• Nominator - Laser brain (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: A meandering article of very broad scope. Needs tightening and better sourcing/inline citations. I already have several books. --Laser brain (talk) 11:37, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by judges

Great choice - has 56 kb of prose so some relegation of material to daughter articles might be needed. Also raises issue of how to incorporate discussion of bass guitars into it. I am not knowledgeable on th topic. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• 55K views in last 20 days. Not many refs, and probably fat too many sections. Johnbod (talk) 13:14, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Excellent choice Laserbrain. I've long intended to write it myself as I know a lot about them!♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:26, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: Great! So I can count on you for sanity checks and editing. :) --Laser brain (talk) 21:58, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I'll watch over it and see how you're doing. Look forward to seeing it improved!♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Habitat

• Nominator - Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: This is not on the core list and I could choose another subject if you did not approve it. At the moment, the article is nearly non-existent, and I think I can usefully expand it considerably. Some of the other language versions, such as French, are much more comprehensive.

Comments by judges

Interesting choice - it gets around 1000 views a day, which strikes me as pretty vital. Its in a rudimentary state. I am happy to include as pretty core-ish....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:08, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

This should definitely be on the core list IMO.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:23, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

• Certainly deserves expansion. Johnbod (talk) 13:37, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Danish language

• Nominator - Maunus (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: This is a lvl 4 vital article. I've written a good deal of the article already, focusing on the history and dialectology sections. The grammar section however is still almost entirely missing. It gets about 1000 views per day.

Comments by judges

Go for it. I'd say something clever in Danish...but that's no feat given the availability of google translate....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:41, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Tyco Brahe

• Nominator - Maunus (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: This is a lvl 4 vital article and on the core list. The current article is a mish mash of odd factoids with an entire section on his pet elk, and hardly anything not enough about his discoveries or their impact, or the details of his life and work. It gets about 1100 views per day.

Comments by judges

• At first glance looks in better condition than many articles, but could benefit greatly from a cleanup and emphasis on the science. has 34 kb prose so room for expansion. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:48, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• Looking at the article, the content was a good deal better than I expected from reading the proposal, and seemed mostly written by specialists. But no doubt it can be improved. Johnbod (talk) 13:42, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I remembered it worse than it was - there is coverage of his main work. But it still needs a lot of sourcing and coherence. And the biography part is bad.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:53, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Division (mathematics)

• Nominator: Esquivalience (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: Fundamental to arithmetic and a level 3 vital article; however lacks information and has only two sources, which is an embarrassment to the 750 or so readers who read this article every weekday.

Comments by judges

• Lacks a lead, lacks history.....agree - plenty to improve. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:49, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Trial

• Nominator: Notecardforfree (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: This is a level-four vital article, but the content needs a lot of work. I'll try to tackle this over the next two weeks.

Comments by judges

Wow, great scope for improvement (one inline ref and no history at all!) and very broad/worthwhile article to improve. Something I'd never thought of. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:11, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by others

• 368 views p.d. History certainly needed - a big topic. Johnbod (talk) 16:54, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Classics

• Nominator: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: unaccountably neither a vital article nor a core article(!), I believe that as a subject-area which covers many topics which are themselves vital articles (Ancient history, Latin, Ancient Greek philosophy), it ought to be counted. (Also note that many other similarly broad subject areas, including Geography, History, Mathematics, Philosophy, and Science are all included as vital articles). This article has been on my mental to-do list for ages, and with only 8 inline refs and 2k words of prose, there's plenty of scope for making it not as bad. The article averages around 550 page views per day.

Comments by judges

• Agreed - a great choice of article. And lots to improve - lacks a lead. lacks a history of study. lacks alot of references. Has only 13 kB of prose, and each subsection could be fleshed out. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Legal history

• Nominator - ONUnicorn (talk · contribs)
• Improvements: initial state
• Comments: Level 4 vital article. An important and neglected article. Right now it neglects huge and important developments in law in almost every legal system that it covers, as well as not covering at all the development of English Common Law except to note that the legal system of the United States is based on it. The paragraph on Islamic law does not talk about what Islamic law actually is. The section on Eastern Asia provides a link to the main article on Traditional Chinese Law but doesn't discuss it at all, simply talking about the recent modernization attempts. Even in the section on European law the process by which modern civil law developed from Roman law is glossed over. I'm hesitant to sign up for this because I'm beginning to study for the bar exam and don't know how much time I'll have to work on it, but I'd like to work on it. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 14:37, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Skeleton

• Nominator: Mccullermi (talk · contribs)
• Improvements:
• Comments: Level 3 vital article that receives ~700 views a day. In its current state it includes only the bare minimum of information even on human skeletons and coverage regarding other skeleton types and animals that use skeletons is severely lacking. Needs so much work and I'd like to take a crack at it!