Wikipedia:Stub Contest
The Stub Contest, an incarnation of which was organised by Danny (talk · contribs) in 2004, was revived in November/December 2013. A short intensive contest, the idea is to focus on expanding as many of Wikipedia's stub articles as possible, particularly the most linked or viewed, and see what the community can do at chiselling away at the huge backlog of articles needing expansion to some significant coverage. Also note that the article should already be in existence at the beginning of the contest – the spirit of the contest is the expansion of existing stubs, not creation of still more (which is going on anyway...). It will run again from 1-30 September 2014, with prizes (Amazon vouchers) awarded a few weeks afterwards.
Background
As Wikipedia has evolved and produced more and more articles, so there is an increasing pool of stubs. What to do? I have always preferred carrots to sticks,[1] and so thought of reviving this competition. The idea of walking in the footsteps of Stub Making editors, picking up the baton and expanding to highlight the true spirit of collaborative editing.
Rules
The aim of the contest is to encourage a short, sharp burst of activity, with each entrant selecting a bunch of interesting, wacky or highly needed stubs to expand. The only prerequisite is that an article has a stub tag at the beginning and looks like a stub. Ask us if you're not sure. Also, take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ#Quality scale for some clarification about article ratings.
- The contest takes place over one month from September 1st to 30th, during which time an editor or editors knuckle down and improve as many articles as possible, and submit diffs of their work at Wikipedia:Stub Contest/Entries.
- Any stub can be expanded. Prizes will be awarded to entrants who have expanded highly viewed ones, funny ones, highly linked ones, or just a huge number of them. It might be hard to compare apples with oranges but we'll try. Also, please ensure all expanded material is referenced with inline footnotes.
Panel of judges
- Casliber (talk · contribs)
- Mitchazenia (talk · contribs)
- Andrew Gray (talk · contribs)
Scoring and prizes
Points will be awarded as follows:
- 10 points for expanding a stub to a minimum of 1500 b "readable prose size" (ignoring infoboxes, categories, references, lists, and tables etc.) The number of characters may be measured using this script (most accurate) or this one or this tool. Furthermore, the expansion is expected to be referenced with inline referencing. At a minimum this should include the main points in the article, and anything that might be disputed. There should be no entirely unsourced paragraphs. This can also include articles from Category:Disambiguation pages to be converted to broad concept articles.
- Bonus points
- +10 points for a stub with a score over 1200 on Wikipedia Release Version Tool
- +10 points if the stub was created before 1 September 2004
- +5 points if rated as top or high importance by any WikiProject.
- +5 points if reaches 4500 b "readable prose size".
Defining stubs
- For the purposes of the competition, a stub will be shorter than 150 words or 4 sentences. If the stub has zero inline references, then this can be doubled (300 words and/or 8 sentences).
- Articles are only eligible if they were below this size before expansion, whether or not they had a stub tag
- Given the aim is the improvement of existing stubs, not adding more, only stubs created before 1st August 2014 are eligible for expansion.
Prizes
- The prizes will be a 100 Euro voucher for Amazon for first place, €50 for 2nd place, €25 for 3rd and 4th place, with €25 special prizes for the editor who de-stubs the oldest stub (dated from first day of creation) and €25 special prize for the editor who de-stubs the stub that received the highest number of page views on September 1st 2014 (i.e. the first day of the competition).
Scoreboard
A scoreboard for the Stub Contest with everyone's points exists. It will be updated with everyone's points by the judges every so often.
Past competitions
- Danny's contest (2nd incarnation), held in November/December 2004 and awarded in January 2005, was a precursor to the Stub Contest. A total of $170 of Amazon vouchers were awarded to three editors. The first focussed on new articles while the third looked at building core content. The current incarnation was first run December 1–31 2013, with €250 of Amazon vouchers awarded to six editors.
See also
- Wikipedia:Weekly contest/Growing 41 Stubs – an attempt at a similar contest in 2009 that was never run.
- WikiCup competition run over the course of a year tallying up improvements across the wiki, run every year since 2007.
- "Stub" section of the Editor's Index to Wikipedia
- Other cash lures
- Wikipedia:Stub for a definition of stub pages