Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest

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The contest department of the Military history WikiProject aims to motivate increased quality in military history articles by offering a form of friendly competition for project members making improvements to them. The primary contest available is a simple rolling competition that awards points for improving articles, as originally developed by the LGBT studies WikiProject.

General contest

How it works

Instructions for contestants

The contest is simple in structure and administered by the project coordinators. The following instructions apply:

1. The contest runs from the first to last day of each month. At the start of the month, editors may pre-emptively nominate the articles they intend on improving (and then have until the end of the month to make the improvements), or they may simply list the articles that they have worked on at the end of the month.
2. Points are awarded based on an article progressing up the assessment scale. To be eligible, articles should be re-assessed within the scoring period.
3. The claiming editor must have made a meaningful change to an aspect of the article that leads directly to an increase in its assessment rating. Such improvements can be focused on one or more aspects of the B-class criteria. For instance, adding references, improving structure or grammar, adding images, or expanding content; these changes should be significant and incidental changes should not be claimed. The claiming editor will be the main contributor (or co-contributor) to the article for the month.
4. As articles are improved throughout the month, contestants should list their articles at WP:MHA for independent re-assessment, although it is acceptable to self-assess up to C-class.
5. Once an article has been re-assessed, contestants are expected to update the entries subpage with the improved assessment class and the claimed points, based on the points table (see below).
6. At the end of the month, no new entries should be added to the entries subpage until it has been reset by a project coordinator as part of the closing process (detailed separately in the instructions to coordinators).

Instructions for coordinators

Detailed instructions for coordinators can be found here.

Prizes

1. Each month, the participant with the highest number of points will be awarded the WikiChevrons, while the second place-getter will be awarded the Writer's Barnstar.
2. The editor who has the highest accumulated total of points over the course of the entire year of contests (January to December inclusive) will be awarded the Military History Writers' Contest Cup.

Points table

		Ending class
		Start /List	C/ CL	B/ BL	GA	A/ AL	FA/ FL
Beginning class	None/Stub	+1	+3	+6	+11	+21	+26
	Start/List		+2	+5	+10	+20	+25
	C/CL			+3	+8	+18	+23
	B/BL				+5	+15	+20
	GA					+10	+15
	A/AL						+5

Contest entries

The beginning class of the article is the classification at the beginning of the month. Please add entries in alphabetical order by user name in the following form:

| [[User:Username|Username]] || [[Talk:Article name]] || Entry class || End class || Points || Checked
|-

Nominees should track their own entries, updating the table with the new classes and points claimed/earned as articles are reclassified (to avoid month-end congestion). This is self-scoring (but not self-assessing) so requests for assessments should be made through the normal channels (i.e. at WP:MHAR up to and including B-Class), although nominees may self-assess articles up to C-class at discretion. Experienced members may check entries for the significance of a nominees contribution and the points they have claimed; if they are satisfied they should sign the "checked" box. Entries may be progressively checked through the scoring period. If a "checked" nomination is upgraded, the nominator must remove a notation that the nomination has been checked. At month end, the closing coordinator will check the total points claimed and update the yearly scoreboard.

Cumulative scoreboard: Military History Writers' Contest Cup 2026

• Note: Entrants should not update this during the contest scoring periods. The co-ordinator who closes the contest will update the scoreboard at the end of each month once entries have been verified.
• Cumulative scoreboard for 2026: Cumulative scoreboard entries through July 2026

Contestant	Articles	Points
A.Cython	56	308
Djmaschek	14	71
Hog Farm	11	72
simongraham	2	11
Sturmvogel 66	38	188
Zawed	28	134

For the scoring period ending 31 August 2026

Contestant	Articles	Points
A.Cython	1	5
simongraham	1	5
Sturmvogel_66	3	13
Zawed	1	6

Nominee	Article	Entry class	End class	Points	Checked
A.Cython	Talk:Gelimer	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 09:13, 12 August 2026 (UTC)
simongraham	HMS Sardonyx	A	FA	5	Donner60 (talk) 11:02, 9 August 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Windsor Castle (1858)	C	B	3	Donner60 (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Trafalgar (1841)	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Royal Albert	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 07:55, 15 August 2026 (UTC)
Zawed	Talk:Archibald Richardson (Royal Navy officer)	none	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 07:24, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

For the scoring period ending 31 July 2026

Contestant	Articles	Points
A.Cython	10	65
Djmaschek	2	12
Simongraham	1	5
Sturmvogel_66	11	56
Zawed	4	23

Nominee	Article	Entry class	End class	Points	Checked
A.Cython	Talk:Uraias	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 07:03, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Battle of Tricamarum	Start	GA	10	Donner60 (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Ildibad	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Battle of the Volturnus	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Siege of Carthage (536)	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 04:28, 12 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Theudebert I	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 02:27, 14 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Battle of Dara	Start	GA	10	Donner60 (talk) 09:13, 20 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Noemvriana	A	FA	5	Donner60 (talk) 10:40, 23 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Battle of Ad Decimum	Start	GA	10	Donner60 (talk) 10:40, 23 July 2026 (UTC)
A.Cython	Talk:Gelimer	Start	B	5	Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 10:50, 31 July 2026 (UTC)
Djmaschek	Talk:6-pounder smoothbore cannon	stub	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 06:08, 16 July 2026 (UTC)
Djmaschek	Talk:François Frézeau de La Frézelière	none	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 07:03, 5 July 2026 (UTC)
simongraham	Soviet frigate Doblestnyy	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 01:13, 1 August 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Neptune (1832)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 23:21, 12 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Royal George (1827)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS London (1840)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Trafalgar (1841)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 02:27, 14 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS St George (1840)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 06:09, 16 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Sans Pareil (1851)	B	GA	5	Donner60 (talk) 08:26, 18 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Waterloo (1833)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 10:40, 23 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Donegal (1858)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 07:53, 27 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Nelson (1814)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 09:22, 29 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:HMS Conqueror (1855)	start	B	5	Donner60 (talk) 09:23, 29 July 2026 (UTC)
Sturmvogel_66	Talk:Victoria-class ship of the line	none	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 10:20, 31 July 2026 (UTC)
Zawed	Talk:James Bazin	none	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 02:27, 14 July 2026 (UTC)
Zawed	Talk:John Simpson (flying ace)	none	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 22:57, 18 July 2026 (UTC)
Zawed	Talk:John Ross (RNZN officer)	B	GA	5	Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2026 (UTC)
Zawed	Talk:Philip Ensor	none	B	6	Donner60 (talk) 15:52, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Past contests

Older logs (April 2007–August 2009) may be viewed here. Other logs, featuring the new scoring system (September 2009 to 2016), are located here (2009-2016), here (2017-2022) and here (2023-2025). The latest log (2026) is here.

• 2012 Cleanup Campaign