Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Winners

Herewith is Aza24 (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the April/May 2024 Core Contest

First place (and a prize of £100) goes to Rjjiii (talk · contribs) for a complete rewrite of Night. Tackling such broad articles can be challenging, but Rjjiii approached this head on, with a vast reworking of sourcing and prose. In particular, we commend its readability and global perspective.
A second place (and a prize of £80) goes to Phlsph7 (talk · contribs) for improving both Mind and Human history. The former received a complete rewrite with monumental reworking of both sources and coverage. The latter gained a series of crucial sourcing and prose improvements, which have pushed this Vital level-1 article to GA-Standard.
A tie for third place (and a prize of £35) goes to DanCherek (talk · contribs) for improving Wang Xizhi. What was once a C-class article is now among the most outstanding Chinese biographies on Wikipedia.
A tie for third place (and a prize of £35) goes to SheriffIsInTown for improving Pakistan. The Vital level-3 article has seen crucial sourcing advances, major updating and reorganization, as well as a heavy trim of extraneous information.

The panel of judges was Femke (talk · contribs), Aza24 (talk · contribs) and Casliber (talk · contribs)

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to all of the participants! WMUK will reach out shortly. – Aza24 (talk) 23:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Femke (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the April/May 2023 Core Contest

First place (and a cash prize of £100) goes to Buidhe (talk · contribs) for improving The Holocaust; very core, highly relevant; their work on bringing geographical balance to the article puts the topic in a whole different light. We also commend improvements to sourcing and prose
A close second place (and a prize of £80) goes to Phlsph7 (talk · contribs) for improving Education from an unstructured jumble into a well-sourced piece of instruction.
Third prize goes (and a prize of £50) goes to Johnbod (talk · contribs) for improving Donatello, a near five-fold expansion with great sourcing and fantastic imagery
A tie for fourth place (and a prize of £35) goes to Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) for improving Crime, for a strong improvement in sourcing.
A tie for fourth place (and a prize of £35) goes to Sammielh for International law, improved by converting contextless listicles into a proper sourced prose.

The panel of judges was Femke (talk · contribs), Aza24 (talk · contribs) and Casliber (talk · contribs)

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the April/May 2022 Core Contest

First place (and an Amazon voucher for £100) goes to Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) for improving Ancient History; about as core an article as one could get; great job of tightening the lead, and improving the prose and references. A pleasure to read.
A tie for second place (and a voucher for £50) goes to Artem.G (talk · contribs) for improving Asteroid, reworked nicely with a nice lead
A tie for second place (and a voucher for £50) goes to Johnbod (talk · contribs) for improving Italian Renaissance sculpture, a comprehensive article on a broad subject….from nothing.
A tie for second place (and a voucher for £50) goes to Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) for improving East Timor, recognising the difficulty in collating diverse sources and building a cohesive solid article.
Finally a shout out to Vami_IV for buffing Simón Bolívar. Nice work but we ran out of prize slots. Anyway, well done all!

The panel of judges was Femkemilene (talk · contribs), buidhe (talk · contribs) and Casliber (talk · contribs)

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:33, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Femkemilene (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the June/July 2021 Core Contest

First place (and a cash prize of £100) goes to Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) for his massive expansion of Prehistoric religion
A tie for second place (and £50) goes to Amakuru (talk · contribs) for expanding Lusaka and ImaginesTigers (talk · contribs) for their great effort in Dracula
A tie for third place (and £25) goes to Aza24 (talk · contribs) for improving History of music, and Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) for expanding Dili

The panel of judges was Casliber (talk · contribs), Femkemilene (talk · contribs) and Johnbod (talk · contribs)

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly. FemkeMilene (talk) 11:01, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the May/June 2017 Core Contest

First place (and an Amazon voucher for £105) goes to Maunus (talk · contribs) for improving Aztec
Second place (and a voucher for £85) goes to Johnbod (talk · contribs) for improving Sandro Botticelli
Third place (and a voucher for £60) goes to Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) for improving Anthozoa

The panel of judges was Casliber (talk · contribs), Megalibrarygirl (talk · contribs) and Rodw (talk · contribs)

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the May/June 2016 Core Contest

First place (and an Amazon voucher for £80) goes to Johnbod (talk · contribs) for his major expansion and tidying of Ancient Greek art
A tie for second place (and a voucher for £60) goes to Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) for his massive cleanup of Classics and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) for their great effort in Habitat
A tie for fourth place (and a voucher for £25) goes to Amakuru (talk · contribs) for improving Furniture, and Maunus (talk · contribs) for improving Danish language..

The panel of judge was Casliber (talk · contribs)

Congratulations to all the winners, I will be in touch to sort out prizes. Karla Marte(WMUK) 13:20, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the March/April 2015 Core Contest

First place (and an Amazon voucher for £85) goes to groupuscule (talk · contribs) for his major expansion of News
A tie for second place (and a voucher for £65) goes to Simon Burchell (talk · contribs) for his massive work in Maya civilization and Maunus (talk · contribs) & Erutuon (talk · contribs) & WeijiBaikeBianji (talk · contribs) for their great effort in English language
Fourth place (and a voucher for £35) goes to Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) for expanding the core article Vegetable.

The panel of judges (four this time) were Casliber (talk · contribs), Binksternet (talk · contribs), Steven Walling (talk · contribs), Coren (talk · contribs)

Herewith is Secret (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the March/April 2014 Core Contest

First place goes to Johnbod (talk · contribs) for his major expansion in Ottonian art
A tie for second place goes to Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) for her wonderful work in Poultry and Hugetim (talk · contribs) for his massive cleanup effort in Philosophy of science
Fourth place goes to MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk · contribs) for expanding the core article Literature.
Fifth place goes to Worm That Turned (talk · contribs) for his work on Drink.

The panel of judges (five this time) were Casliber (talk · contribs), Binksternet (talk · contribs), Secret (talk · contribs), Sven Manguard (talk · contribs), Coren (talk · contribs)

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the April 2013 Core Contest

Many apologies about the delay everyone,
but herewith we announce the winners of the April 2013 Core Contest. Before we go on, our heartfelt appreciation (again) to everyone who rolled up their wiki-sleeves and got stuck into some core contentwork. We're sorry we couldn't award prizes to more folks.

First place and a voucher for £125 goes to share between Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) and Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) for performing an absolutely massive job on Sea

Second place and a voucher for £75 goes to MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk · contribs) for buffing up the classical work Metamorphoses

Third place and a voucher for £55 goes to Diannaa (talk · contribs) for really tightening up and buffing Nazi Germany

Cheers all! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the August 2012 Core Contest

Many apologies about the delay everyone,
but herewith we announce the winners of the August 2012 Core Contest. Before we go on, our heartfelt appreciation to everyone who rolled up their wiki-sleeves and got stuck into some core contentwork. We're sorry we couldn't award prizes to more folks.

First place and a voucher for £75 goes to Truthkeeper88 (talk · contribs) for polishing up The Alps

Second place and a voucher for £55 goes to PumpkinSky (talk · contribs) and Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs) for Franz Kafka

Equal third places/honourable mentions (and vouchers for £30) go to Maunus (talk · contribs) for language, Maxim (talk · contribs) for mineral, Epipelagic (talk · contribs) for shrimp, and Diannaa (talk · contribs) for Bob Hope

Finally a special mention goes to Johnbod (talk · contribs) for a Herculean effort on sculpture...however as a WMUK trustee he is (sadly) ineligible for a prize (John we'll try and get a different sponsor next time maybe!)

Cheers all! Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Casliber (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the March 2012 Core Contest

~~Right, here will be a placeholder for the 2012 winners...watch this space...sometime in the future. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)~~[reply]

Okay folks, apologies after a longer than expected delay—congratulations to all entrants for switching tack and chiselling away at some of our core content, an area underrepresented in our Good and Featured Article lists. As with 2007, the rankings are an amalgam of the three judges' views, ranked on the judging criteria, namely the improvement of the article combined with its "core-ness" to come up with a "best additive encyclopedic value" to wikipedia, with precedence for improvements to lower overall quality articles at the outset (i.e. improving articles in most desperate need of maintenance). And warm heartfelt thanks go to Wikimedia UK for stumping up the readies to make this competition possible :)

First Prize (by a hair's breadth) goes to Guettarda (talk · contribs) for his work on greatly tidying up and buffing Ecosystem....which will see a £75 voucher coming his way.
Second Prize goes to Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) for a mammoth effort on Middle Ages....which will see a £55 voucher coming her way.
There are four Honorable Mentions (or Equal Third Prizes if you wish)....each of which can look forward to a £30 voucher – sugar by Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), romanticism by Johnbod (talk · contribs), Brothers Grimm by Truthkeeper88 (talk · contribs) and lettuce by Dana boomer (talk · contribs) (had to digest something healthy after all that sugar....)

Anyway, wikimedia UK will be in touch with the prizewinners by email for the prizes (buy something nice folks!) – and again, congrats to all for participating! Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Danny (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the 2007 Core Contest

Exactly a year ago, I began a contest with a promise of financial rewards for people who most improved core articles on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties on my end, I was unable to award the winners in a timely manner. I sincerely regret this. I am grateful, however, that several generous individuals have come together in support of this effort, believing as I do in the value that this adds to Wikipedia's content. It is because of their generosity and determination that we are able to award the authors of seven important articles which have improved the level of Wikipedia's content significantly. I am especially glad that contributors can be rewarded for their work, because, after all, it is their efforts, more than anything else, that make Wikipedia a valuable resource.

The original judges of the Core Contest scored the articles independently and assessed them by various measures, such as difficulty, the amount of new material written, and of course, its quality, the number and quality of new references, illustrations, etc. Each judge then ranked the articles in the order of their assessment. The final ranking of the articles was determined by adding the judges' ranks together, and ordering the articles according to that sum.

The judges are pleased to announce their choices for the winning articles:

5^th place (tie). Emily Dickinson by Yllosubmarine
5^th place (tie). Electricity by BillC
4^th place. Raphael by Johnbod
3^rd place. Reproductive system by Earthdirt
2^nd place (tie). Willem Barentsz by Sherurcij
2^nd place (tie). Domestic sheep by VanTucky (now known as Steven Walling)

and the best-improved article by a single author:

1^st place. Deforestation in Brazil Blofeld of SPECTRE (now known as User:Dr. Blofeld)

However, the list of winners is not complete! The combined ranking of the judges identified the article Jane Austen by Simmaren and Awadewit as the single most improved article. However, as the combined work of two significant authors, it was placed in a category by itself.

These winning articles are indeed in a class by themselves, with many adding over 30 kB of beautifully written, richly illustrated, and heavily referenced new prose. The top article, Deforestation in Brazil did not exist on Wikipedia prior to the contest and highlights a critical problem facing our planet. Domestic sheep and Emily Dickinson have become Featured Articles, while Electricity quickly became a Good Article.

All the participants of this contest can be proud of their accomplishments; the judges found the entries to be stellar. The contest focused an incredible outpouring of energy into the most fundamental articles needed by an encyclopedia: articles that are too often ignored. As one judge noted, the core articles of Wikipedia improved more in this two-week contest than in a whole year of Article Improvement Drives. Congratulations to everyone on a job well done; we're all winners for each other's work.

If anyone has outstanding questions about the contest, you are kindly directed to ask them on the talk page of Proteins or to me personally via email, and not here. Thank you and congratulations once again!

Once again, I am especially grateful to those people who believed in the contest and made sure that it was carried through to completion. Danny (talk) 00:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Herewith is Danny (talk · contribs)'s announcement for the third incarnation of his 2006 Danny's Contest (direct precursor to and in essence analogue of Core Contest)

The judges did a great job, but there were so many great entries that I have decided to expand the awards.

Runner up (and a $35 gift certificate from Amazon) -- Theramenes (Robth)
Runner up (and a $35 gift certificate from Amazon) -- Battle of Ceresole (Kirill Lokshin)
First place (and a $100 gift certificate from Amazon) -- Crawford expedition (Kevin Myers)

Please contact me privately with your contact information to receive your awards. Thank you to all the contestants, who did a great job expanding and improving articles, and to the judges who accepted the challenge. Stay tuned for news of my next contest. Danny 00:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]