Wikipedia:Stub Contest

The Stub Contest is a short intensive contest focusing on de-stubbing and expanding as many of Wikipedia's stub articles as possible. It has been run three times: first in November/December 2004, then 1–31 December 2013 (Nine years is a long time between drinks!), 1–30 September 2014 and 1–31 August 2015. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:48, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

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 was recently run again from August 1-31, 2015, with (Amazon vouchers) as prizes to be 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, 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 pre-existing 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, 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.
• The deadline for expanding stubs is midnight UTC on the last day, and all entries have to be submitted to the contest by midnight UTC three days later to be included in the final count.
• Any stub can be expanded. Please ensure all expanded material is referenced with inline footnotes.

Panel of judges

• Casliber (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 reaches 4500 b "readable prose size".
• +10 points if the stub was created before 1 October 2006
• +5 points if rated as top or high importance by any WikiProject.
• +1 point if an editor discovers an article tagged as a stub that is over 1500 b "readable prose size" and has inline citations, and removes the tag (this assists the project in getting a better idea of how many stubs are left to expand!)

Defining stubs

• For the purposes of the competition, a stub will be shorter than 200 words or 6 sentences. If the stub has zero inline references, then this can be doubled (400 words or 12 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 September 2016 are eligible for expansion.

Prizes

• The prizes will be slightly differently organized this time round. The editor with the most points will receive a £50 voucher for Amazon, editor who expands the oldest stub will get a £25 voucher. The remaining seven £25 vouchers up for grabs will be in a "lucky dip/raffle". Each successful stub expanded counts as one 'ticket' for this. Seven winning entries will be drawn at random from the total number or 'entries' (i.e. stubs expanded). Hence the more stubs you expand the better chance of winning but it's by no means a certainty. Once someone has won a prize via 'ticket', they are ineligible to win a second one.

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.

The December 2013 running was a combined stub-expanding and rerating contest. 40 editors entered, which led to 656 stubs expanded and 11,051 stubs re-rated . Starting off with the >1200 on the Wikipedia Release Tool, Cwmhiraeth won the €25 bonus with Mouth, which got 1,554 on the tool. The €25 prize for oldest stub expanded was William Alston by HueSatLum, which was created on January 16, 2001 (the day after Wikipedia was founded!). €25 prize for fourth place went to Schwede66 for expanding 116 articles with a main focus in the New Zealand electorate. He also re-rated an almost equal 115 stubs. Third place and €25 goes to WikiCup veteran Sasata, who scored 1,822 points, expanding 43 stubs and re-rated 1,602 articles that were incorrectly marked. Cwmhiraeth won a €50 voucher for second place for a total of 3,055 points from 300 stub expansions and 35 re-rates. Snowmanradio won the contest and €100 voucher by using AutoWikiBrowser and a special script to post his diffs and worked to find stubs mis-marked everywhere. While he did not expand any stubs, he re-rated a grand total of 6,492 stubs, meaning he earned 6,492 points.

The September 2014 running was made exclusively a stub-expanding contest. 51 editors signed up, of which 28 successfully submitted de-stubbed articles. 362 stubs were expanded. Of these, 2 had been created in 2001, 14 in 2002, 2 in 2003, 43 in 2004, 27 in 2005, 32 in 2006, 128 in 2007, 31 in 2008, 16 in 2009, 16 in 2010, 19 in 2011, 12 in 2012, 16 in 2013, and 17 in 2014. A variety of articles were expanded. 73 were rated as high- or top-importance in a wikiproject. 22 were expanded significantly – to over 4500 b prose size. The winner was Dr. Blofeld with 1105 points, Skr15081997 second with 1090 points, Cwmhiraeth third with 855 points, and Wizardman fourth with 400 points. Dr. Blofeld wins a prize for de-stubbing the oldest stub, and for expanded stub with highest page views on September 1 2014.

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
  • Meta — Philip Greenspun illustration project
  • Wikipedia:Reward board
• Wikipedia:Stub for a definition of stub pages

Notes