User:Figureskatingfan/sandbox

In early 2007, I made my very first edit on Wikipedia. In the next 7-8 years, I became a prolific and experienced editor, with almost two dozen FAs to my credit. I’m very proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish on Wikipedia. However, in the last two years, I’ve discovered a more effective way to significantly contribute to Wikipedia— the GA Cup.

I can’t tell you how I came up with the idea, but I can tell you when and where I was when it happened. I was in Washington, D.C., at the Wikipedia Workshop Facilitator Training in late August 2014, run by Emily Temple-Wood, this year’s co-recipient of Wikipedian of the Year. As participants, we were being trained to set up projects and run edit-athons to recruit and encourage editors, but the main outcome for me coming out of the weekend was the GA Cup.

While I was there, I was communicating, though Messenger, with another editor, Dom497. Dom, who was at the time a high-school student from Ontario, and I had worked on articles together previously, mostly in the form of my GA reviews of his articles about roller coasters. We were discussing a long-standing challenge for WikiProject Good Articles—the traditionally long queue at GAN. As an editor, waiting up to six months to get my articles reviewed so that I could move forward to get them reviewed and passed as FAs, was frustrating. Although it’s not a requirement, it’s implicit at FAC that articles should be GAs before they’re submitted, and I agree with it. Sure, I had learned how to get around it, and that it was appropriate to ask other reviewers to look at articles I wanted promoted, but for me, it was apparent that the long queue at GAN was hampering the improvement of articles, something that I was personally invested in as a Wikipedia editor.

Dom was a long-time member of the GA Wikiproject. This impressive young man created several projects to encourage the reviewing of GAs, most of which I supported and participated in, but they all failed. I shared this dilemma with some of my fellow participants at the training, and in the course of the discussion, it occurred to me: Why not follow the example of the wildly successful and popular WikiCup, and create a tournament-based competition encouraging the review of GAs, but on a smaller scale, at least to start?

I was literally on the way to the airport on my way home, discussing the logistics of setting up such a competition with Dom. By the time I got home, we had set up a preliminary scoring system and Dom had created the pages necessary. We brought up our idea at the WikiProject, and most expressed their enthusiastic support. We recruited two more judges, and conducted our first competition beginning in October 2014.

We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve learned a lot and personally, I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished. The response from some competitors has been almost inspiring. We just finished our third competition, and the results speak for themselves. The GA Cup, in the past two years, is responsible for the improvement and promotion of ??? articles. Of those, ??? have gone on to become FAs. The GAN queue, in the course of all three competitions, has been cut in half, from six months to a little over three months, which motivates editors to improve more articles and submit them to GAN, and ultimately, to FAC.

It’s one thing to be responsible for dozens of FAs, a significant achievement, but it’s quite another to be indirectly responsible for the improvement of hundreds of articles. Unlike my early days of editing, my lifestyle no longer supports the writing, research, and improvement of individual articles. Unfortunately, RL busyness has really gotten in the way. Although for me, editing is the nitty-gritty of being a Wikipedian and is my true passion, I’ve discovered that co-founding, running, and judging the GA Cup has represented my most significant contribution to Wikipedia. I wish I had the time to edit articles like I used to, but it’s gratifying to know that I can still make an impact, though the GA Cup.

Moving forward, we want to conduct more competitions and continue to make Wikipedia better. We plan on applying for a Wikimedia grant to provide monetary incentives and prizes to our competitors. Someday, I’d like to see us become as big as the WikiCup, and I think that’s a real possibility. In the meantime, we’re proud of our positive impact on Wikipedia.