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Jan-Feb 2014; prep for Feb-March contest

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Ok...so we're running this again. Anyone wanna help judge? Anyone wanna help spread the word? All input welcomed - this is a team thingy...I just gave it a shove. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:20, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested in participating :) And I see you already have 3 judges, are more needed? -Newyorkadam (talk) 00:13, 26 January 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam[reply]
Hmmm, let me think. I emailed a couple of other people who judged before so we'll see (I think they are too busy). Four judges is ok - more I think might be unwieldy. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Five judges it is. Let's see how this goes. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:54, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Cas, do you think I'm needed? I've never participated in the contest; so I think it'd be better to have more experienced judges. I think four judges is enough anyway. I was just saying that if another judge is needed I'd be glad to help. -Newyorkadam (talk) 22:43, 5 February 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam[reply]
I just finished a private discussion with Newyorkadam who pinged me in IRC. He was a bit surprised with the sudden decision and decided to step aside from judging duties in order to be a contestant. I have replaced him with Coren (talk · contribs) as the fifth judge. Just a heads up. Secret account 23:07, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Cool! I was starting to get worried we'd have more judges than contestants.. :P ...and gotta keep the ex-arbs busy now don't we (chuckle) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:12, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see this as a fine opportunity to give a hand on the content side, for a change. I'm not much of an editor, but I am quite the reader.  :-) — Coren (talk) 00:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Cas, can you quickly summarize where you have publicized this? Johnbod (talk) 18:34, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Literature (currently marked as C class) is in dire need of help

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Hello there participants. I noticed that the article Literature, which is a level 2 vital article, is in dire need of work. Among its issues are:

  • A lack of sourcing: large chunks of the article are devoid of inline citations
  • A lack of clarity as to what is and is not literature (esp. for things like academic writing and drama/opera)
  • Sparse sections on essays, oral literature (which ties into bullet 2), and other narrative forms (again, ties into bullet 2)
  • Did I mention that there's a lack of sourcing? Because there's a lack of sourcing.

I would be very appreciative if someone took this on as part of the contest. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:07, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I considered taking this on before, so I am happy to this time around. Do we list our entries at /Entries before the competition begins? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:10, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps 900K views pa. To be honest I think clear distinctions between imaginative literature and other kinds in a lead para would largely sort #2 above, but the rest looks like a classic case of "too big a subject to do properly", which is exactly what this contest exists to help with. It's usual to list entries once you start work, if only to stop others also working on them at the same time. Are joint enties (2+ editors) allowed? I can't remember. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Joint entries are fine. FOlks can nominate and enter articles beforehand or after. Most folks have added them before. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clear something up, in case it becomes a problem later: I made this suggestion when I had no intention to participate in this contest, either as a competitor (after spending the better part of a year working on rewriting on Liao Dynasty, I decided that I wasn't going tackle an article that large again), or as a judge. I only became a judge because one of the other judges approached me and asked. My stance on this thread now is this: I would still very much like to see the article Literature improved, but no more or less so than any other comparatively troubled, comparatively well read article. I pointed this out because I was working on a project and noticed the issue; this article doesn't hold any specific place in my heart. As such, I don't see a conflict of interest in judging this. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Government procurement in the United States - Another very important article in dire need of help!

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The Government procurement in the United States article is a total mess. Could we please recruit editors to work on this, as a public service? Djembayz (talk) 18:04, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Under 60k views pa, and not exactly a global topic. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article view statistics as a gauge of "importance"

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I am not sure what this initiative uses to to gauge "importance" or "vitality", but it seems like article popularity is certainly a viable one. To that end, my chart at User:West.andrew.g/2013_popular_pages might prove helpful. Best of luck! West.andrew.g (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Err, takes a bit of time to load that one. Thing is, lots of popular culture pages come up as major search targets. I was trying with this contest to boost some core portfolio material as it were. I have another idea about topics that feature on this list which I will maybe run a different type of contest. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:09, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Personal criteria from one of the judges

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I've been thinking about this competition, and about judging it, for a little while. Perhaps my biggest worry about it is that the judging criteria are rather open-ended. Considering the range of possible articles and possible improvements, this is probably necessary. I would like, however, to make public what I personally am looking at. Note that I am not speaking for the judges as a whole, only for myself.


Article selection: In terms of "coreness", I personally do not see a difference between the value of an article that is vital level 1 and one that is vital level 2. At that point, what does and does not make the cut to be vital level 1 is highly debatable. Why Earth and not Geography? Why Philosophy and not Society? Ultimately, every entry on vital level 2 is a major concept that is of high importance regardless of a person's geographical, social, or cultural background.

I do, however, see a significant difference between vital level 2 and vital level 3. At vital level 3, there are lots of entries that are not of universal significance, but only of significance to a specific geographical, cultural, or academic group. Obviously these are still important, but I put them on a level below those articles that are of universal significance. I personally see vital level 4 as deeply flawed, and would advise avoiding it.

If you have an article that you feel is of high importance regardless of a person's geographical, social, or cultural background (i.e. equally important were I to select absolutely any human being on the planet), but isn't in vital level 1 or 2, feel free to tackle it. Meeting that criteria is more important than which vital list it appears in.


Improvement to articles: In my mind, there are four major types of improvements one can make to articles. These are improvement to utility, to completeness, to accessibility, and to quality. Below I am defining them in what I consider order of importance. All other things being equal, I would rank an improvement to an article's completeness over an improvement to an article's accessibility, for example.

  • Utility: Fixing an article that does not provide at least basic coverage of each of the main aspects of its subject, does not clearly define the boundaries as to what is, or is not, a part of that subject, or otherwise leaves readers with an inaccurate idea about what the subject is, so that it no longer has these issues. In short, making sure that an article provides, at least at a basic level, all of the information needed to understand the subject.
  • Completeness: Taking an article that provides only a conceptual skeleton of information about a subject and flushing it out with prose so that readers come away with a more comprehensive understanding of the subject. An article can be of basic use (utility) without coverage of all of the major facts and details, but it is not complete without them.
  • Accessibility: Taking an article that explains concepts in highly technical terms, using terminology or formulas that are not widely known outside of a specific discourse community, and adding or editing prose so that the average ninth grader (14/15 year-old) would be able to understand it. There is room for the more precise, field specific jargon in specialized articles, but core articles should be understandable to everyone.
  • Quality: In this case, quality means "polish". An article may contain complete coverage of a subject, but still be poorly written. Grammatical cleanup, re-arrangement of prose, addition of images, and other changes that improve an article without adding in new information or making it more accessible to a general audience fall under this category.

Miscellaneous/Other:

  • I do not care about viewership numbers, and will not be using them in my judging in any way.
  • I personally am of the belief that articles without sources should be deleted immediately, regardless of subject, and that subsections of articles without sources should be removed, immediately, regardless of how that would effect the articles that they are in. For that reason, I would view providing sources for articles that have very few or no sources as a change in utility, rather than completeness.

If I think of anything else, I will post it here. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:04, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well done! I agree that Level 1 & 2 are the same effective value. I would like to emphasize that an article's utility can (and should) be enhanced by paring down unnecessary detail, sidebars, tangents, etc. The reduction of poor text has always been one of the difficulties facing judges, since it is very difficult to quantify. Binksternet (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where I'd place that in my hierarchy of ways to improve articles, but it probably be completeness, rather than utility. For me, improvements to utility refers only to changes that take an article from being wholly or partially unusable to being at least somewhat useful. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:29, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, thanks for posting. Would also be intrigued to know other judges' criteria, but no doubt they would be roughly comparable. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 22:58, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Having experience in the Vital project I would just like to note that there are effectively no standardized criteria for adding vital articles or for ascribing a level, it depends entirely on the personal tastes and interests of the people who happen to be around to vote on a given addition. I wouldnt give much notice the vital ranking except to note that some random group of editors found it to be a more important topic than most non-vital articles. Frankly I thikn view count is a more accurate guide to what is truly important (with important caveats regarding pop culture).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:45, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To play devil's advocate, why exclude pop culture if we go on pageviews? My original idea for reviving this was really just to get some of the big meatier broader articles buffed. Agree it is hard to define and am glad so far folks have been pretty good-natured about this whole issue. This is one of the reasons I've been happier with having several prize-winners and a relatively small prize amount. It is extremely hard to compare apples with oranges. One of the interesting things so far in each time we've run this is how similar judges' views have been on the best improvements. Anyway, I am thinking of setting up a Popularity Contest based primarily on pageviews to see what happens there. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:02, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well for me "vitality" is something different from popularity in that it isn't supposed to be temporal. I also dont say we should exclude popculture, just that we might have in mind that popculture topics pageviews are skewed by a particular systemic bias, that doesn't necessarily reflect long term encyclopedic importance. Imo doesn't matter how many 12 year olds search for a specific pokemon, or how many searches for a specific porn star, such interest is fleeting. Vitality for an encyclopedia I think should be based on long term popularity. This is of course often a game of making predictions about the future, that are bound to be inaccurate - who knows maybe pikachu will be something people search for in wikipedia a hundred years from now. But popculture interest changes notoriously quicker than popularity in many other areas of coverage, and also count for a disproportionate among of traffic due to certain systemic biases regarding who have access to internet and time to spend. I think that perhaps popularity it could be argued is as important for the core project as vitality, but for me vitality has to be based on a guess about long term encyclopedic importance.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
NB: Regarding Sven's original comments on judging - regarding improvement - I pretty much agree - I revived this competition with that in mind - pushing for some core articles with gaping holes in content and/or big ugly (but necessary) templates as the prime targets for improvement. Regarding article choice, yes getting any article from Vital lists 1 and 2 is terrific and anyone getting stuck into them deserves kudos +++. Articles from below this can trump them but only if they are developed pretty mightily (i.e. from mess to near-FA) and are clearly broad/biggish type articles Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:12, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum - regarding thoughts on unsourced material - I suppose my view is not delete immediately, but I am surprised at when I do go hunting refs for unsourced material how often it needs to be tweaked/corrected (i.e. much more than one would think...) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for Core Contest articles

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In case entrants are having trouble finding a suitable article, I figured it would be nice to get together a bit of a list of great picks for the competition.--Coin945 (talk) 01:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review?

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I noticed that last year a peer review of each nominated article was part of the contest. Is that still the case for 2014? Is that something the nominators should initiate? Thanks! -Hugetim (talk) 16:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Damn - I completely forgot! Look, I am not sure if automatic peer review a good thing, especially as there is a backlog there, but am happy if folks list articles there and then do more article work based on the feedback they receive...as we are supposed to be encouraging collaborative editing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When does the contest end?

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Please could you clarify the end time for this competition. The blurb states "The next running will be from 0.00 hrs UTC February 10 to 0.00 hrs UTC March 9 2014.", but that means a competition length of 27 days rather than four weeks. Is that correct? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:50, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aaargh - bloody February. Given this is the date and time stated, then I think it has to be...unless everyone is assuming 0.00 hrs UTC March 10 2014. If everyone comments here that they are then we can set that, so can folks comment on what they interpreted it as? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:28, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The 10th is better IMO; 4 complete weeks.—John Cline (talk) 19:38, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you have a day of grace and close the competition at 11.59 pm on 9th March so that anyone who may have been confused is not disadvantaged. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the end of 9 March should be the close. Binksternet (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The page clearly says it ends at 0.00 hrs UTC March 9 2014 so I was "assuming" it would end then. If you really want to make it exactly 28 days (or 30 days) why not move the start date back rather than the end time forward? Besides, while the time period is stated as "four weeks" on the entries page, the main page says "thirty-day contest." If someone noticed this three weeks ago, I would say, "Fine, change the end date." But changing the end date on the last day is absurd from the perspective of a contest. (That said, I guess if it leads to improvements to the encyclopedia, why not?) -hugeTim (talk) 20:18, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm the only one who disagrees, I really don't want to block consensus. Another day is really fine. -hugeTim (talk) 05:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Core Contest Winners

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Sorry for the delay, a message from Casliber (talk · contribs) will be on shortly. Here are the winners of the this year core contest. We appreciate all the work that was done over the course of the month.

We want to thank everyone for participating in this year's core contest and we hope to see everyone again next year. From the judges panel.

Nor me. Mind you WMUK usually take their time, & half of them were in Berlin for the big conference. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 13 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nor me. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just stumbled onto this thread. Contact re. prizes really only works if it's the other way round. Since WMUK is not running the competition, I have no idea when it ends and the winners announced. Once you have the winners, you get in contact with me to give you the prize not wait for me to stumbled on the competition page to see that winners have been determined. Johnbod, Cwmhiraeth, MasterOfHisOwnDomain & Worm That Turned, please email me with the email address you would like the prize to be sent to, and which Amazon site you want the prize from to claim your prize. Regards -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 13:41, 28 April 2014 (UTC) EDIT Hugetim as well. -- 13:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've had mine now, thanks Katie! Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have also received mine. Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Presentation on most vital articles

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Hello! A few years ago someone made a very detailed set of presentation slides talking about how some less accessed articles on Wikipedia might be heavily developed, while some very popular articles may not get much attention from editors. I am not sure if this was made by the WMF or a community member. I thought it was uploaded somewhere and I could search more for it, but I thought someone here might know it immediately because it relates to the Core Contest.

Does this immediately come to mind? It would also be useful if anyone said that this does not come to mind - maybe I am asking in the wrong place. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:54, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The user was TCO (talk · contribs) and the presentation is in their userspace: User:TCO/Improving_Wikipedia's_important_articles. Their concept of vitality is basically just pageviews. That would create a quite odd kind of encyclopedia if implemented I think.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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