The Unreferenced Contest is a short intensive contest focusing on referencing as many of Wikipedia's unreferenced articles as possible, particularly those which have remained unreferenced the longest, and see what the community can do at chiselling away at the huge backlog of articles needing sources. Note that the article should already be in existence at the beginning of the contest.
Category:Articles lacking sources contains over 200,000 articles which are tagged as not citing even a single source. Over 3,000 of them have been tagged since 2006. This is a serious breach of Wikipedia's core content policies, especially verifiability. Many of them are stubs, and some are not notable or have other problems. Focusing on these articles for improvement will greatly help Wikipedia's reputation for accuracy.
The aim of the contest is to encourage a short, sharp burst of activity, with each entrant selecting a bunch of pre-existing unreferenced articles to improve. The only prerequisite is that an article has either a Template:Unreferenced or Template:Verifiability tag at the beginning. 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 editors knuckle down and improve as many articles as possible, and submit diffs of their work at Wikipedia:Unreferenced Contest/Entries.
The deadline for referencing articles 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.
If there are AFDs open when the contest ends, judging will not take place until all contest-related AFDs are closed. Points will be awarded for any contest-related AFD articles that are sourced and/or expanded during this time.
Circular referencing is NOT ALLOWED! Look for at least one source that pre-dates the creation date of the article, and check and double check to make sure you are not citing a Wikipedia mirror or book.
Expanding articles is encouraged. Bonus points will be awarded for expanding stubs.
Points will be awarded for deletion nominations only if the nominator made a good-faith effort to source the article before nominating for deletion.
Searching for and adding at least one source that is not a Wikipedia mirror, but is more recent than the article - 5 points
Searching for and adding at least one source that pre-dates the creation date of the article - 15 points
Searching for and adding at least 5 sources, 2 of which pre-date the creation of the article - 50 points
Fully referencing the article, removing any statements of fact for which no references can be found, ensuring that every sentence is supported by sources and every paragraph contains at least one valid, in-line reference - 100 points plus size bonus
Fully referencing (as above) and considerably expanding the article such that it meets at least B article criteria - 200 points plus size bonus
Size bonus
If original article was 1500 b "readable prose size" or less before being fully referenced, and has not been expanded, no bonus
If original article was 1500-4500 b "readable prose size" before being fully referenced, and has not been expanded - 25 points bonus
If original article was 4500-7500 b "readable prose size" before being fully referenced, and has not been expanded - 50 points bonus
If original article was 7500+ b "readable prose size" before being fully referenced, and has not been expanded - 100 points bonus
If original article was less than 1500 b "readable prose size" and has been fully referenced and expanded to greater than 1500 b "readable prose size" - 25 points bonus
If original article was greater than 1500 b "readable prose size" and has been fully referenced and doubled in size - 50 points bonus
If original article was greater than 1500 b "readable prose size" and has been fully referenced and 5X expanded - 100 bonus points
Deletion related points
Determining that no sources can be found for an unsourced article and nominating it for deletion - 5 points for the nomination, 10 points if it is actually deleted. (for potentially 15 total points)
Finding sources for an unsourced article nominated for deletion under the prior criteria and incorporating them in the article, thereby saving it from deletion - 20 points + points for number, quality, and age of sources as described above.
Discovering that an article is, in whole or part, a copyvio and taking appropriate action - 50 points
Penalties
Using a Wikipedia mirror to source an article - Lose points for the article in question
Each citation added that fails verification checks by judges - Lose points for the article in question
Creating a copyvio in an article - Disqualification from the competition
Bonuses
Points shall be doubled if the article has been tagged since at least 2010, 2.5X points if the article has been tagged since 2006.
Oldest article sourced by this competition: 500 points (going by creation date of the article).
Most articles handled by a single person: 500 points
The editor with the most points will receive a £50 voucher for Amazon. Second prize will get a £25 voucher. The remaining seven £25 vouchers up for grabs will be in a "lucky dip/raffle". Each article handled during the competition counts as one 'ticket' for this. Seven winning entries will be drawn at random from the total number of entries (i.e. articles sourced or otherwise handled). Hence the more articles you source the better your chance of winning.
