Wikipedia talk:The 20,000 Challenge

Welcome!

Where to put it?

To editor Dr. Blofeld: I have just de-stubbed an article (Moylgrove). Do I list it just here, or Awaken the Dragon, too? Cheers, Tony Holkham (Talk) 22:40, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Depends how many articles you intend writing Tony Holkham! If just one or two then listing it in both places is fine. But when we do another Dragon we'll just copy over a big list again.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:00, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

@Tagishsimon:,@Tony Holkham:, @Robevans123:, I don't want to offend the football stub creator but I'm not sure we can really call those articles an improvement. Writtern stubs with some flesh on them are OK but the drilled stubs with generic text I don't think we can really include. Shall we remove them from the list and keep this purely improvements/valuable creations? Obviously they'll still count towards Dragon though. if you're OK with them though I'll leave it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:50, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: The intro to the 10,000 challenge says improvements/creations, but now you've added the word "valuable", which I guess needs defining! Tony Holkham (Talk) 12:01, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: Perhaps an impetuous answer above, but there should be a definition. Maybe minimum start class, whether from destubbing or from scratch? Tony Holkham (Talk) 12:31, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I think a fleshy stub, like some of the ones which were created for Dragon with a few facts and sources is fine and definitely acceptable. Like some of the ones which were created by some of us for Dragon.. But the auto generated stubs with the generic text I'm not to keen on.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:36, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes - they are not a great contribution. Maybe we should slip one off the list whenever anyone adds three or four "proper jobs"?! Maybe splitting the list from the start of the 10,000 challenge and arranging the previous pages alphabetically would make them a bit less prominent?! Sorry - half jokey solutions but we should certainly avoid having a mass of similar pages created during the 10,000 challenge.

I think that many of the fleshy stubs created could often have been classed as starts but for the 1.5 kB text requirement. The description for start articles is:

• An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete. It might or might not cite adequate reliable sources.

• More detailed criteria: The article has a usable amount of good content but is weak in many areas. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent. The article should satisfy fundamental content policies, such as BLP. Frequently, the referencing is inadequate, although enough sources are usually provided to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.

Most of the fleshy stubs had reasonable quality prose, a fair amount of MoS compliance, and a few key references. It is useful to have a size guideline, and that, with adequate referencing, provides a quick way of checking, but maybe the text limit could be lowered a bit?

As Tony Holkham suggested, it would be great if the challenge aimed to not create any new stubs, just de-stub some old ones.

BTW - we now have 20 contributors signed up - so that's only 421 articles each to improve or create. Easy! Robevans123 (talk) 13:16, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

How far back in time are we adding articles from? If I created an article last month, could that be added? Joseph2302 14:29, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

You can add any created/improved this year, though try to avoid shorter stubs.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:31, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Your football, etc, but I suggest since start April 2016 - i.e. start of the Dragon competition. Thus we retrospectively make it so that there was a UK 10,000 challenge which started with Dragon, went on to Cornwall &c, and nationwide with this umbrella? --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:03, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Articles

Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs), I searched in the articles I created and added the gymnastics articles I created recently. Since Awaken the Dragon (Wales). I don't know if you want is this way, otherwise you can revert it. Will work on more British/Irish sportspeople and will add them :) Sander.v.Ginkel ^(Talk) 15:22, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Please no generic sportspeople stubs for this. The focus is mainly on article improvements and new articles rather than stubs, though fleshy handwritten ones are appreciated.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:30, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

May I suggest that we list new stubs separately from the main 10,000? The 10,000 Challenge is very much about getting us away from stubs, for which reason new stubs cause Blowers much pain (and will certainly follow him to his grave). Equally the creation of new stubs is more generally welcome and I would not wish Sander.v.Ginkel's work to go unrecognised. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:36, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

And this I have now done. If I've put any in short stubs which are more than minimal formulaic stubs then they should be moved back up to the main list. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:07, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Start-class articles that reached DYK are okay in the main 10,000, right? Joseph2302 17:06, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:10, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

If you can flesh out the lower list stubs then OK they can join the main list. I'd rather just have one list and not a stub section though. The main focus on this is really what Gerda calls "Quality improvement" though, not new stubs, though there are of course many missing articles. We need to sort out the mess first, then create new ones.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:20, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

10,000 naming

OK, given the level of support and how much work we need doing for Africa and its sheer size I've developed the Africa contests into Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge (Africa) with the long term goal of reaching 10,000 article improvements. It's optimistic for Africa, but I can see that there is already an emerging editor base who want to make a difference in Africa and in the next five to ten years more Africans will be coming online. So those regional contests will hopefully go towards that. Now most of us here of course will be working on the UK, not Africa as well ;-), but I know that this is also supported in the US so at some point we may have to fork the naming anyway, so I was wondering what people would like to move this to. Would Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge (British Isles) be acceptable to people here? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:16, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge (UK) might be better, unless Ireland articles are in scope; but I'm not much fussed. Whilst on renaming, I'd suggest (for no good reason) we use 'Harrying of the North' rather than 'War of the Roses' for the northern England event. Much of the WotR was a southern sorts of a thing. St. Albans seems to feature in it iirc. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Ireland is intended to be within the scope. I've done some work on Ireland and as I'm sure Aymatth2 will agree on, needs a heck of a lot of work, and it's certainly a challenge editing while The Banner is around ;-). As we'd be doing NI anyway may as well.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:40, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Excellent. British Isles it is. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

As I don't intend creating any more challenges yet we can leave it as it is for the time being. But when one for the US and possibly India Titodutta (interested?) later in the year we can move it to that page then.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:29, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject England/The South East England Challenge

Hi, I don't know if anybody here might want to contribute to the next one to boost this, but November is possible, though I'd have to drop one contest planned/get somebody else to do it so I'm not doing 2 oe 3 back to back!. I think we should try to get another region done by the end of the year. Plenty of time to sign up anyway.. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Scope

I think we need 8 or 9 main regional contests to cover the whole British Isles. If this was structured in a way that you had two-three week contests with a break in the middle and then a break for a few weeks before the next one you could probably run them in annual rota, so there would be an annual contest for each area each year, and there would be time to recover and not suffer from burnout. Some people though might want a month or two off in between so perhaps it could be spaced out over 18 months. I notice HJ Mitchell commenting about "needing to work" to buy books, but the idea with this sort of thing is if we could secure enough funding you could allocate tasks with rewards independently of the contests. Like £25 Amazon voucher for whoever promotes 5 war memorials to GA status etc. If you need the books, through this you'd work for what you want and the site benefits. Tasks could be designed to suit different editors and what they might want in terms of books. I think we're onto a great thing with this anyway, but we really need much greater funding if this is to reach its potential. We want the cover the whole British Isles and have editors consistently working on each area and contributing. So we need to find a way to bring in new contributors and get more editors here seeing the potential in this. There's a lot of egos on here who think themselves above this sort of thing!♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Isle of Man?

Does this contest include the Isle of Man or not? As the IoM is within the British Isles but is not in the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland. Ditto for the Channel Islands. Joseph2302 19:15, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes & yes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:16, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

In which case, should their flags be added to the top of the page, as the current flags don't represent them? Joseph2302 20:31, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but I thought Isle of Man was part of England? Channel Islands too?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:59, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

They are crown dependencies, not part of the UK, but I think we should include them. Tony Holkham (Talk) 16:03, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Done. I don't want to include dependencies in Atlantic and elsewhere though, British Isles and islands only.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:05, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

A Thought for Prizes

Since the British Newspaper Archive is no longer giving out free accounts through WP:Library (a fact I only found out after my existing account lapsed a month or so ago), a subscription might be a good prize for one of the upcoming challenges related to the 10K work. From experience, the BNA is a quality archive and I for one am going to miss using it for this sort of work. Miyagawa (talk) 14:55, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

@Miyagawa: Great idea, how much is a subscription? About £80 for a year? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:00, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Yep, I think it's like a penny or five under that. Miyagawa (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm hoping to get more funding for the British contests in the new year, and if there are editors who want access for that we can try to fit that in. I'm afraid that we may have to put the South East England challenge back to January as I think this African Destubathon is something which has long been coming and it's too late now to do that in October as planned. What we could do though is run a smaller contest sometime before the end of the year with a challenge to win two subscriptions and ask for £160 or something? Perhaps whoever destubs/cleanups the most London stubs or something in a few weeks?♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:38, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

January/February is always a good time for an expansion contest - you'll get the main people from the WikiCup involved since they'll figure that they can double dip the same articles for both. So as long as you don't mind that, then it'll be good. Miyagawa (talk) 18:58, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

If we could get say double the funding for the British contests I think the SouthEast Challenge would better run in the new year. I would like to do a smaller scale fun one in December sometime though, depending on when the African one ends. If you or anybody here have any ideas for a fun challenge to be run for a few weeks in December then answers on a postcard ;-). Seriously though, what would people find really enjoyable to do?♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:12, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

@Miyagawa: If you can find some more people who want BNA subscriptions what we could do is set a challenge for the remainder of the year and hand out a few to whoever destubs the most British or Irish articles. The top three contributors then get the subscription they want, something like that. But I would need some help from somebody here with vetting it as want to focus on this Africa one mainly for the autumn.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:15, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Probably better off not spreading the editors too thinly (you too!) and risk burnout prior to a full contest early next year. Although as for the fun one - I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Perhaps something subject related to the UK articles rather than something geographic? Miyagawa (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I think Africa badly needs to attract more editors at the moment. It has 37,000 stubs. I think the remainder of the year effort really needs to go into that as it's really the poorest overall on the site. Hopefully we can get nearer £500 per British contest in the new year, so the South East England one might attract more people with a bit more at stake. I don't know, perhaps it would be good to do something for London around Christmas time. Something which is just a bit of fun. Like improving articles on anything London-related to spell out words of London landmarks, Ritchie333? The two people who spell out the most landmarks by the end win a 2017 subscription to BNA Miyagawa. Ideas are welcome. With this Africa Destubathon though I'm not sure when it would end, I think it needs to be longer than a month, but given that there's 53 countries it should be easy to win a prize for at leats one country on that without too much of an effort!♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:54, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Flags

The flag shown to represent the North of Ireland is not only wrong but offensive to some users. The flag shown is the pre-1972 Stormont government flag, known as the Ulster Banner, and not only has zero official status in the province, but is considered by members of the Irish nationalist community to be offensive due to its use by the unionist community. The only official flag to be flown in the North of Ireland by law is the Union Flag, which is equally offensive, but at least correct! Including this symbol next to the Irish tricolour is more appropriate than the Ulster Banner, which if continues will only cause more offence!

Another point I'd like to make is, why isn't there a Saint Piran? Is Cornwall excluded from this project?

Uamaol (talk) 14:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

@Uamaol: I've removed the NI flag, but I would rather we kept politics and history out of this. The focus is on Britain and Ireland, to bring about some large scale changes, particularly geography and buildings. You're welcome to be involved in it. Cornwall is in England, so is included in that. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:06, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. :) If Cornwall is in England, which country is Berwick in? Berwickers are neither English nor Scottish. Uamaol (talk) 15:46, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Just call them Singlish ;-)♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:56, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: Singlish is actually Singapore English... OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:22, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Irish inclusion

Hi all, I just got invited to this challenge on my talk page, but I'm a little confused about its remit. Does this cover the Republic of Ireland, or just Northern Ireland? If so, I would recommend not referring to it as covering the "British Isles" or to the content as "British" as that would not be very amenable to Irish contributors. If you want to include Ireland, I would recommend British Isles and Ireland, as suggested on the British Isles article page. I'm a member of Wikimedia Community Ireland, so I would love to get more involved, as this is the first I've heard about it! Thanks! Smirkybec (talk) 20:35, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh good. Political sensibilities versus "nonetheless, British Isles is still the most widely accepted term for the archipelago". --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not bring it up to be political, it just heavily implies that ROI is not included, and I wanted to see if I could clear up any confusion. Thanks. Smirkybec (talk) 21:34, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

ROI is included - see the map on the project page (and add the Channel Islands). Tony Holkham (Talk) 21:40, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

ROI is in the British Isles. And there's been at least a few ROI articles. Joseph2302 18:08, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

The terminology is never used in ROI, and most would see it as exclusionary (as I did, the page is rather ambiguous on the matter). In particular referring to "British" content would suggest the exclusion of ROI. Wikimedia Community Ireland is currently running a writing competition about Irish National Monuments if anyone is looking for inspiration! Smirkybec (talk) 21:09, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

UK and Ireland is the focus...♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:45, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Personlly I wouldn't care less if we called it the Irish Isles!♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:30, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

The term "British Isles" is controversial and as a result, many organisations which represent both countries have switched from the former to "Britain and Ireland" or similar due to it being less political and more geographic. As I previously mentioned above regarding the flag issue, it would be much more pleasing to all side to use the term "Britain and Ireland" and it is representative and correct at the same time. The term "British" in "British Isles" is usually interpreted in the political sense instead o the geographical one, which is shame. As a result, the term could be seen as staking a claim on to Ireland as being British, which is very choppy seas indeed! Uamaol (talk) 00:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Mini challenges

Wondered if anybody would support some mini challenges here amid contests. It could be a 10 or 50 article improvement/creation focus for any one area of the UK. it could be Portsmouth for two weeks, a few weeks break then Pembrokeshire for two weeks, then Landmarks of Cumbria for two weeks etc. Or just a minor challenge for each week to try to get ten article improvements for one area. Something which might make this a bit more productive outside of main contests and any one contributor here can elect an area of the UK or topic they'd like to see a mini challenge for the two weeks etc. Now I'm running the Africa contest from October 15th, but we could certainly run a mini challenge for Portsmouth area over the next ten days if anybody is interested? Jaguar Hassocks5489, Peter I. Vardy, Tony Holkham, Robevans123 etc? Naturally not everybody will want to contribute and just continue doing their own thing but I think it might be a good way to see decent improvements in any area. If we set the notch at 10 major article improvements for Portsmouth over the next 10 days is that worth doing? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:58, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

To editor Dr. Blofeld: I'm all for mini challenges, but concentrating on one city might be a bit difficult with edit conflicts. But challenges are a good way to concentrate the mind, although I'm personally not able to do much sustained editing at the moment. I'd welcome a mini challenge on Pembrokeshire, though, as I'm working through the stubs (very slowly!). Tony Holkham (Talk) 20:26, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes - it might be fun to have a little virtual holiday away from Wales. And from previous visits to Portsmouth there are a few areas that need cleaning up! No offence to Pompey - applies to any port... Robevans123 (talk) 20:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

I mean topics related to Portsmouth area Tony, not the main article, from Clarence Pier, Kingston Cemetery to Gosport etc. Sturmvogel 66 might be interested in cleaning up some like HMS Vernon (shore establishment) etc.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:39, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Portsmouth was a huge task for me. Any help in the main article itself would be greatly appreciated! I'm surprised that Old Portsmouth is only a few lines long as I could easily write paragraphs of it from my books. What about ships related to Portsmouth like HMS Victory etc? JAGUAR  21:26, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

yes, all good ideas. OK I'm going to put up a 10 article mini improvement challenge for Portsmouth area for the next week. Will try to contribute myself.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:31, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the mention, but I am personally not keen on challenges, and would prefer just to keep plodding on with what I am doing. Too much to do there, anyway. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:07, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes of course, the fun of this is the diversity coming in I guess. People doing their own thing is vital towards that. You've really got your work cut out with these listing building lists! Perhaps I'll just work on a few Portsmouth ones myself this week.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:16, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Portsmouth isn't somewhere I know much about, so I'll continue contributing my usual random collection of stuff instead. Joseph2302 11:25, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, let's just keep it open and free and not have any added pressures of things like that.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Requests for Images

Please post your requests for images below. I can help source images on the commons and add them to articles if required. Uamaol (talk) 00:49, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Many of the wikiprojects have categories of requested images eg Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Somerset & more widely at Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in England.— Rod ^talk 06:48, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

14 Oct 2016

I created these 5 Ireland related articles over the last 2 days - don't know where to put them on the lists 2017 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship 2017 Connacht Senior Football Championship 2017 Leinster Senior Football Championship 2017 Munster Senior Football Championship 2017 Ulster Senior Football Championship XyzSpaniel Talk Page 23:00, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@Xyzspaniel: Very nice, thanks, put all entries at the bottom of the list, I'll add those for you on this though!♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Actually as they're incomplete at the moment, probably better to add them when the time comes!♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:28, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

project userbox

Hi, wheres the cool userbox we can add to our userpage? ... just wondering. Coolabahapple (talk) 07:03, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Feel free to create one. I don't use them myself! I did suggest we set one of these up for Australia too Coolabahapple, but not many people seemed interested.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:26, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

damn, if only i was that creative....Coolabahapple (talk) 02:17, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Age of articles

I started creating a lot of articles earlier this year - do I add them here where appropriate or is that too long ago? ☕ Antiqueight ^haver 23:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The Dr's prescription, above, was "you can add any created/improved this year, though try to avoid shorter stubs.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:31, 1 September 2016 (UTC)". So that's a yes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:21, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Tagishsimon- I missed that wording on several readthroughs. I guess I was going blind! You're a star. ☕ Antiqueight ^haver 00:13, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Since February is OK as that was when Dragon started which forms the earliest work gone into this.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Clarification request on Criteria

Hi, think this is a great idea and have just signed up. Would like to check though, and sorry if I've missed something already answered, is there a minimum criteria for improvement? Also, do articles improved as part of another project count? Looking forward to contributing --CSJJ104 (talk) 13:10, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi CSJJ! Try to avoid short stubs, unreferenced material or articles needing cleanup still with ugly tags on them CSJJ104. The key is clean, sourced material. Stubs with some sourced facts which are well sourced are fine, though ideally start class if possible. Given how many existing articles are stale and need work, there is a good focus on that here, but you'll find you need to run contests to get people to really work on the stale old material in bulk. Welcome aboard! We badly need editors working on Scotland here, so if you can get some people in Scotland doing it too I'd be very grateful. We'll get around to doing a contest for Scotland sometime in the new year I hope. I did Template:Whalsay topics a few years back and it was some of the most enjoyable work I've done here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:21, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Feel this is more appropriate here than starting a new section - How do we feel adding outlines to the list? These tend to be less sourced, as there is less material needing sourced - perhaps contradicting the stated aims of this project, but in my opinion they do provide value to users. --CSJJ104 (talk) 18:11, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Agriculture in the United Kingdom

I think it wouldn't take too much more to push this up to GA standard.—S Marshall T/C 18:50, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Talk page box

I made a template for a talk page box like the Europe one has. You can add {{WPUKIR10k}} to the top of any talk page for this message:

Would appreciate some input on categories for this template - ie is this part of the Category:WikiProject Europe 10,000 Challenge? When you add this template, it automatically puts the article in this challenge category (see bottom of page for how that works). —Мандичка^YO 😜 03:07, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

@Wikimandia: but it didn't start on 20 August 2016, it started earlier in the year with the Drgaon contest and has evolved! I appreciate the thought, but it's a a bit of a redundant template if I'm honest as there's many articles here which were added outside of it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld: It's easily edited - you can tweak the template to change the date, or have no date. I really like it - I wanted it because adding the template to the Euro10k was the best part of finishing an article for the challenge! It leaves a little legacy. —Мандичка^YO 😜 23:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Grant proposal

Hi. I'm planning on making a new grant proposal later this month which will greatly impact upon UK/Ireland content. At the core of it will be a 44,000 destubbing project launch which aims to eliminate as many UK and Ireland stubs as possible long term. If we can get the higher level financing and support to run several contests a year it's possible this could be scaled to a 50,000 Challenge. Emphasis on destubbing but contests can cover all of UK and Ireland at the same time and not just destubs. I think that would be more productive than regional challenges. But we'll see how it goes. Obviously the regulars not interested in contests can continue as before. It would be worth seeing though how one or two contests would do first before scaling anything of course. We could keep it at 10,000 and then aim for 50,000 when we pass that. That will only happen though if the contests are regular and involving many more editors.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:35, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

School boards in Scotland

Unclear about the procedure for adding or removing articles from the recommended articles list on the project page, but I believe this article can now be removed, or at least it no longer has no references. --CSJJ104 (talk) 17:45, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Good work! I'd suggest just striking it off as done, with your sig. BTW, could you also have a look at School boards in England and Wales, which is presently a stub? 103.6.159.80 (talk) 08:04, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Red links in achievements

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I noticed there is a number of red links at the end of Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge/1-1000 and the start of Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge/1001-2000. Presumably these are articles that have been created but were then deleted for whatever reason? A quick look suggests most have been moved to draft space in accordance with User:Aymatth2/SvG clean-up/Guidelines. I felt as these are relevant to this project I should point this out, to allow discussion on what to do with them. --CSJJ104 (talk) 15:52, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes it's unfortunate, the Africa Destubathon suffered from it too. Feel free to remove the red links and re-set this, but articles will have to be moved over from lists.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:39, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Done - 75 total pages removed from lists --CSJJ104 (talk) 17:47, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

A query on the "rules"

@Dr. Blofeld: I have been working on taking mostly start class UK themed articles to FA and have done so with 14 over the past 11 months. With regards to adding them to the list: would this be welcomed or should I only add articles which are promoted from today on? Thanks.

Another thought: many are battles or similar in which British or English forces constituted one side. However, most did not take place within the UK. Eg, Battle of Crécy. Would these fall within the ambit of the Challenge? Thanks again. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Gog the Mild and Dr. Blofeld: From the challenge page, anything which can be added whenever is appreciated. Any article improvements accomplished since the challenge began in August 2016 should be eligible (until the list accumulates 10,000 entries). Featured expansions should absolutely count. The scope of the challenge – any article on the UK and Ireland ... anything related to the British Isles – sounds a little geographically-centred, though I feel if the armies represented Britain and were not simply British mercenaries serving in foreign armies, that these should count. I would similarly consider Great Britain at the 1996 Summer Olympics to qualify, even though this took place in the US. – Reidgreg (talk) 14:29, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Excellent work!

There's a range of really good articles and interesting topics coming in on this. Thankyou to everybody involved!♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:39, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Outlines and Lists

Hi, Just recently getting back into this. How do we feel about adding Outlines or Lists as part of this challenge? The details provided seem to specify articles, but I do feel there is potential and usefulness these other types of pages being developed. CSJJ104 (talk) 19:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I have been adding lists for a long time and no one has grumbled - yet. Cheers. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Photos

Thoughts on including an image of every tenth subject (or whichever one closest to it that has an image) to break up the wall of text and make it a more interesting read-through? Just for the current list and the couple to come. Seasider53 (talk) 14:30, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Great progress!

Excellent work everybody, nearly 3/4 the way there! ₪ Encyclopædius 12:23, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Parishes project

I have started a project for CPs in England, see User:Crouch, Swale/Missing parishes. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:26, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Having trouble adding new articles

I am having trouble adding a new article, and I have three new articles to contribute. There is no response or a delayed response when I try to type in my entry. It feels like a technical problem. I tried a few times this weekend, with no luck. I have not had a problem entering articles on this page previously and am having no trouble editing or publishing anything else on Wikipedia (including this post). I'm not sure where to go next to get this problem resolved. MauraWen (talk) 12:55, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

That's odd, try pasting it into User:MauraWen/Draft and then moving it into the mainspace.₪ Encyclopædius 13:09, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

@Encyclopædius: Thx! That worked. But it took many seconds for the page to refresh when I pasted the items and almost 30 seconds after I hit "publish changes" for the saved items to appear. Something is not working, possibly at the server level. I'm posting from the U.S., but I would not think that would make a difference with the Wikipedia servers. MauraWen (talk) 15:04, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Retrospective additions

I've retrospectively added my creations for the last year or so; is it OK if I work backwards to when this initiative started, in 2016? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:28, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Apologies that nobody replied to you Andy. Thanks for contributing. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:26, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Is that an OK on the retrospective thing? If so, I can contribute about 400 articles......The joy of all things (talk) 10:54, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes The joy of all things, anything done since it started since 2016, as long as the articles aren't short stubs or only tiny improvements.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:39, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I've put the first 50 up, I will append more later. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 16:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually more like 200, rather than 400, when you weed out the stubs, the ones non-UK and those out of scope of the timeframe. Still - it's gone up by 2%! Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 20:50, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Lovely articles

Very pleased to see there's a number of different contributors consistently producing good content here. I can't believe six years have passed since we started! Makes me wonder if we're due another GB Destubathon or a contest for Country houses and monuments or something for this autumn! I salute everybody who has contributed to this, you rock!♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:21, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Butterflies & moths

@Dr. Blofeld: I am destubbing some high-importance Lepidoptera articles. If they fit geographically, do they count here? Best wishes, T. Tony Holkham (Talk) 14:12, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi Tony Holkham, hope you're well! Sure, add anything which is relevant to the UK!♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:33, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

When we reach 10,000

Making great progress I see, less than 600 to go. Everybody OK with moving this to the 25,000 challenge when this is finished? It's a great thing and would be a shame to end it, I just wish I had the time to run regular contests for the UK to reinforce this! I may consider doing one for the UK running up to Christmas, we'll see. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:05, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Considering it's taken 7+ years to get this far, maybe 25,000's too ambitious? Best wishes Doc. Tony. Tony Holkham (Talk) 10:51, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Yep, increments of 5,000 would be more attainable. Seasider53 (talk) 10:58, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. What about 20,000? "15,000 Challenge" doesn't sound right! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:48, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

It's an option; I just think we'd like to see the goal reached in our lifetimes, but I'm happy to sacrifice that for future generations! Seasider53 (talk) 10:13, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd be up for a marathon either before Christmas or in the New Year to finish off the first 10k. I'd suggest continuing thereafter, as I think it is a valuable spur for improving articles – but perhaps refocusing to concentrate more on improving articles, and especially geographical entities, including improving sourcing? I am finding the growing move to delete (not even redirect) geographic entities allegedly lacking "sig cov" extremely worrying. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:26, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

So close!

Only 57 left! It is a wonderful world (talk) 09:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Almost there! :-) So 20,000 the new target after this?. I don't think 15,000 sounds right! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, let's go for 20k. Or even 25. Maybe publicise it a bit more and see if we can run some themed competitions to move the bar a bit? Also agree with Espresso Addict that a focus on quality as well as quantity and on improving existing articles (could tie-in with referencing backlog drive) would be good. The UK is not exactly under-represented on enwiki but there are many crap articlespotential FAs and GAs. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:02, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe, to start with we could cover a few more to replace the redlinks and merged pages in the first 10,000 ..? Bogger (talk) 18:33, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I really like this idea. It is a wonderful world (talk) 19:40, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I’d be okay with a focus on creating as many pages on the listed buildings pages that Peter has been adding in droves. Seasider53 (talk) 20:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Congratulations everyone on finishing the list! A 20,000 challenge might work. I've been writing lots of articles on listed buildings recently, there are many more potential articles on them, but it's not everyone's area of interest. Warofdreams talk 23:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Excellent work everybody on reaching the 10,000! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

As long as we focus on quality as well as quantity. If there are multiple very similar listed buildings (for example) on the same street, it might be better to cover them in one article if there isn't much that's different to say about them. And it would be nice to improve some poor-quality articles and not just focus on creating new ones. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:56, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

That was the idea when this started, but without a contest it's tough to get people to focus on expanding existing articles!! I'll move to 20,000 then. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:35, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I may see about running another contest this year. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:43, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

1000 UK and Ireland Improvement Challenge

I propose in light of User:HJ Mitchell's recent comment on improving the focus on existing articles that we create an ongoing sub challenge of this to destub or/and significantly improve existing 1000 articles. Entries can be submitted for both the main list of over 10,000 and the challenge below it. Destubbed articles can also be submitted in Wikipedia:The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge.

What I propose is to apply for a grant from Wikimedia UK for £250. We award a £50 Amazon voucher or a Pevsner book of choice to the editor who improves the most UK and Ireland articles or produces the best content each month. Something that isn't a full blown contest and time consuming to judge but will create a mechanism to improve existing articles. Ideally we could have one grant for destubs and another one for quality improvements each month. But it has to be done in a way which isn't time consuming to judge and with set rules to avoid squabbles over who wins. I think it would work best if we had a £50 voucher prize or Pevsner book of choice and I simply choose an Editor of the Month each month who I think most deserves it. Books in turn can be used to further produce content for this challenge. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth, Sturmvogel 66, Penny Richards, Rodw, KJP1 any thoughts? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:19, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I could be inveigled into switching my focus this year to doing more British articles, although my focus will be more at the higher levels as I want to get to a thousand GAs before the end of the year.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Ideally it would be good to have funding going into Wikipedia:The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge too so anybody contributing to destubs and improvements globally can be eligible for prizes. But WMUK and this particular challenge are of course Britain and Ireland oriented. It depends what WMUK are willing to offer in term of grants. £250 is the maximum for each, the question is whether they'd support a few projects at the same time. In the past they have supported my more global projects on condition that there is something in it for the UK. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Always happy to work on a destub challenge. Count me in. Penny Richards (talk) 02:33, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps Ipigott and Rosiestep and others who work on women articles would appreciate this more for women bios or something. I could request a grant for the main Destubbing challenge, and open it for all articles globally and we could have a prize for most women articles expanded and most UK and Ireland stubs expanded. Doesn't look like we'll have the interest from the regular participants here, but perhaps it's bad timing given that we've just reached 10,000 and people want a break! I thought a monthly book prize was a nice idea.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:12, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't typically work on destubbing, but it might be fun to do so once in a while. What I do like to do is to find biographies that are templated as stubs but aren't stubs anymore, and then de-stub-ify them. So maybe I would loiter around the edges. --Rosiestep (talk) 18:37, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, naturally Women in Red is aiming to ramp up the percentage of women bios by mass creating new articles. But there's a lot of older articles which are a mess and would be easier to delete and restart from scratch. Part of the problem is partly unsourced articles and chasing up references. Few people want to do it. It's a lot easier to create a fresh new article and ignore the mess, I do it myself! But we have 3.7 million stubs, over 50% of all articles. There ought to be a big incentive on here for editors to work on them but to make it enjoyable and not feel like a "chore". ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

First of all, Dr. Blofeld, I welcome your return to more active involvement on Wikipedia. Any initiative to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles is certainly to be welcomed but I am mainly interested in articles about women from the non English-speaking countries. I am, however, always happy to offer assistance to any editors experiencing difficulties and could help out in that capacity. Like Rosie, I could no doubt also help with re-assessing antiquated stub ratings. I see from Category:Stub-Class Ireland articles that there are some 24,800 Ireland-related stubs. It is more difficult to see how many there are for the UK. Category:Stub-Class United Kingdom articles lists almost 1,000, Category:Stub-Class England-related articles: 21,700, Category:Stub-Class Scotland articles: 12,440, and Category:Stub-Class Wales articles: 7,290. So there's obviously plenty of room for improvement.--Ipigott (talk) 07:17, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

A Wikipedia:The Great Britain and Ireland Destubathon Round 2? Count me in. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 18:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

New template

Just wondering, are we still to use the {{WPUKIR10k}} template or can someone create a new one? Sorry, I do not have the skills to upgrade it to say 20,000. Thanks. The joy of all things (talk) 22:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the text and have moved the template to {{WPUKIR20k}} - the old version is a redirect and will continue to work, but should no longer be applied. Warofdreams talk 23:02, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

warofdreams Thank you!. Regards. The joy of all things (talk) 06:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)