We reached our target of 1000 destubs on 31 March 2020!!! Congratulations to everybody who participated it's been an amazing thing! The
Wikipedia:The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge is now open for a long term global-scale challenge. Long term I hope to run more like this and fuel this larger challenge goal involving a lot more people from different regions of the world. It will provide a framework for running future contests and allow anybody to freely contribute when contests aren't being held. Hopefully we can set a good example to a larger mass of people to focus on improving our stubs long term and work together to achieve something even greater than this.†
Encyclopædius16:13, 31 March 2020 (UTC)reply
A March 2020 contest/editathon for stub improvement.
The Great Britain/Ireland
De-stub-athon is an edit-a-thon contest that aims to eliminate as many of our 44,000-odd stubs as possible, and to see content improved for every single county of the UK and Ireland as evenly as possible. It covers all 48 counties of England (as well as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), 32 in Scotland, 32 in Ireland and N Ireland, and 22 of Wales, 134 counties in total plus 3 extra for Isle of Man and the Bailwicks of Guernsey and Jersey.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to browse a Google map of the UK and Ireland and to read a consistently good quality article for every village and monument you zoom in on? That's the primary goal we have in mind long term here!
The overall Winners of the contest will be decided by most counties covered in total. A reward of £75 (nearly $100) is offered to anybody who can cover all 137 (achievable with an average of 4–5 destubs a day, and to be shared if more than one editor succeeds). If nobody reaches that, the reward will be split between the top three finishers, with £50 top prize. The winners will be decided by whoever destubs the most articles for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Northern Ireland respectively
Contents
Goals
Set a minimum target of destubbing 1000 stubs by expanding. Roughly 32 to 33 articles needed every day to reach it.
Set a minimum target of 3 articles destubbed for every county of the UK and Ireland to ensure relative evenness of development.
Set strong focus on improving towns and villages, geo features such as mountains, rivers, lakes, nature and specially designated areas, roads, and landmark/architecture/listed building articles while warmly welcoming improved articles on biographies and on all topics .
Ensure that the content in larger articles is verifiable and all fully sourced, to include "de-bloating", cleanup and rewriting. It is strongly encouraged that if an article is largely unsourced that you restart it in your own words and source it as you go along, rather than trying to find a few sources and leaving some unverified information.
Reduce the number of "perma sub stubs" by fleshing out one line/unsourced stubs. In some cases, such as small hamlets and townlands etc only 500 bytes to 1.2 kb readable prose may be possible. Those expansions are acceptable but are eligible only for one award given on settlements. If even 500 bytes can't be met, consider merging into relevant related articles.
Rules
All articles submitted for the main prizes must be a minimum of 1.2 kb (1200 bytes) of readable prose. This is the bare minimum to accommodate for the fact that a lot of smaller localities and landmarks are difficult to write fuller articles on but are very worthy of including and having a reasonable basic entry on in their own right. Always aim for at least 1.5 kb (1500 bytes) of readable prose unless you're genuinely struggling to find enough to reach it.
As one of the goals of the contest is to particularly target short stubs on small settlements, if you start expanding them and find you can only find between 500 bytes and 1.2 kb of readable prose, don't let that put you off expanding it.
Kinlochard is an example of a minimally useful stub just over 500 bytes of readable prose. While the entries won't count towards the main prizes, keep a list of the ones which come short, as the effort will count toward the prize for settlements.
All articles must be improved in the mainspace between 0:00 UTC March 1 and 23:59 UTC (0:59
BST/
IST) March 31 2020.
All paragraphs must be fully sourced, with appropriate title, publisher, author, date information where relevant, no bare urls or poorly formatted sources which include publisher and title etc in one link etc. Be consistent in the sourcing and formatting and be careful of sourcing claims lower down in paragraphs and ensure that the sources verify all of the information given above.
All content submitted must have been checked and verified. If there are claims which are not verifiable in an existing stub or article, delete those claims before submitting.
If contestants encounter start/C class even B class articles which are in such an atrocious state, largely unsourced or just badly in need of nuking and restarting as a start class article, contestants are permitted to restart them, providing they have written or rewritten at least 1.2 kb of readable prose themselves, enough to claim that they recreated it. All claims in such articles must be verified, it is not acceptable to quickly add text around an existing article and submit it without checking.
The subjects of biographies submitted must have been born in a locality which corresponds to the current county it is in—as an example, the singer
Tom Jones was born in
Treforest, which in 1940 was in the County of Glamorgan. Treforest is now in
Rhondda Cynon Taf, so he'd be listed under that. Alternatively, the subject must be particularly associated with the area it is submitted for in some way by residing or working there. If you're not competing in the contest it doesn't matter, add whatever biography you improve to the main list.
All articles are expected to be free of copyright issues and plagiarism, multiple articles found with problems may result in being disqualified from the contest.
All talk page tags are expected to be updated from being classed as stubs.
If you come across articles which are clearly no longer stubs and don't need much or any sourcing work or expansion, kindly remove the stub tag and update the tags on the talk page to reclassify it.
To be eligible to win prizes, participants must demonstrate that they've destubbed articles from a minimum of 5 counties in the entity they're claiming the prize for and a minimum of one article improved on at least three different topics. 48 destubs on villages, one on a monument and one on writer would be acceptable for instance as an extreme—participants are welcome to pick one topic to largely focus on providing there is as least some minimal variation.
Measuring tool
You can check your entries using this tool before submitting here. The article readable prose, excluding sources and lists will have to be strictly minimum 1200 bytes (1.2 KB) to comply with the contest.
What would make it easier on this is if everybody programs their common.js in their preferences to contain:
Go into your preferences, click on the "Appearances" tab
Where it says "Shared CSS/JavaScript for all skins:", click "custom javascript
Paste the command given above into that and save.
Now approach an article and look in the tools section on the left. You should see "Page size". Click that for each article and you'll quickly get a reading without having to paste text all of the time and look externally.
Look out for where it says, for example: "Prose size (text only): 1310 B (xxx words) "readable prose size" ". That's what we're looking for on this, that has to read over 1200 B when finished.
Prizes
Wikimedia UK have kindly approved a £250 (c.$330) grant for prizes in the form of Amazon vouchers or books purchased upon request. The idea is that you use the vouchers to buy books you need to further invest into developing the encyclopedia. Prizes offered:
£100 (c. $130) - Improving articles from all counties of the 137. A reward of £75 (nearly $100) for the editor who manages all 137, £15, £10, and £5 for second, third and fourth. If nobody manages it, it will be £50 for first, £25 second, £15 third and £10 fourth. If more than one person reaches it the reward will be evenly split. The winner will then be decided by whoever has expanded the most stubs overall.
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for England (includes the Channel Islands and Isle of Man)
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for Scotland
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for Wales
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for Ireland and Northern Ireland
Ser Amantio di Nicolao has generously boosted the prize fund with the following Amazon voucher prizes:
£50 (c. $66) - towards the top prize for 138 counties
£50 (c.$66) - articles destubbed and improved on British and Irish towns, villages, hamlets, civil parishes, historical hundreds and townlands - for this reward we will also accept efforts to expand very short "sub stubs" on small settlements which are difficult to fully expand even if the end result is only between 500 bytes and 1.2 kb of readable prose. Keep in mind though that the award isn't purely based on article count, it will be rewarded to the editor who makes the biggest effort overall to consistently improve quality and flesh out poor stubs on settlements.
If anybody is interested in further contributing to the prize fund and putting up a reward for quality work or a particular area of interest they want to see improved email Dr. Blofeld.
Participants
Sign up here if interested in contributing or at least support the concept:
♦ Unlike the Africa one, I don't think I stand any chance of winning prizes here... I wasn't even on the list of those pinged about it, but count me in anyway! —
Amakuru (
talk)
15:41, 2 February 2020 (UTC)reply
♦ I probably won't be "contesting" for anything, but I will write about women during women's month and can surely improve some articles in line with your goals.
SusunW (
talk)
15:44, 2 February 2020 (UTC)reply
♦ Good idea, and I will try to help out but I have another volunteer commitment in March that will consume most of my free time-energy continuum.
Derek Andrews (
talk)
21:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)reply
♦ Having just moved to a different county this may be a good way of getting to know some of the articles near to my new home.—
Rodtalk14:50, 17 February 2020 (UTC) Not eligable for any prizesreply
Google Books - for a lot of smaller localities and some older biographies snippets can be gleaned most productively at times and can be used to produce a start class article and defy the odds.
Google Maps (54°N4°W / 54°N 4°W / 54; -4) - may prove to be your best friend when in comes to fleshing out borderline stubs on settlements and using observations to describe them and expand what can be found in written sources.
British History Online - an invaluable resource for localities and their history and local buildings.
Pevsner Architectural Guides - limited pages can be found in Google Books. Very comprehensive books on buildings in different counties, consider investing in some books for the contest and you may get a reward for it! Remember that you can
apply for book grants at Wikimedia UK.
Townland.ie - a comprehensive resource of all divisions of Ireland, with basic location and area data on settlements
Nomis for UK census data and the {{NOMIS2011}} template to use for it
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Kent –
Strood Academy (2024 B), destubbed by ClemRutter can you fill out ref 5
ClemRutter. Be careful with allowing pre existing material to remain, it's often better to just rewrite the whole thing.♦
Encyclopædius 11:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC). Done, the bot missed that one. I am coming round to your way of thinking.
ClemRutter (
talk)
12:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Greater and City of London –
Ariel 1, 2.8kb (majority of experiments made by University College London. Also, was not a stub (in terms of length), but was mostly unreferenced, see
before version) (plus, who doesn't want to read about the time the US accidentally nuked a British satellite they helped launch?)8Y
Greater and City of London –
Ariel 4, 1.9kb (BAC headquartered in London)8Y
West Midlands –
Ariel 3, 3.1kb (the real first British satellite. An experiment was designed by
University of Birmingham hence my choice on location; very arbitrary)8Y
Oulfis
Hertfordshire –
Heartwood Forest (3,788 to 6,376), improved by
~ oulfis 🌸(
talk) 03:16, 13 March 2020 (UTC) (though maybe it was not a stub to begin with?) @
Oulfis:Y Great to see you! It was 1367 bytes, under 1.5 so it's fine. Good job, don't forget to also list articles at the bottom of the page, thanks, hope to see more destubs from you!♦
Encyclopædius20:30, 13 March 2020 (UTC)reply
PamD
East Sussex –
Jennifer Durrant (599b to 1758b), destubbed by PamDY
Greater London –
Rosalind Dallas (972b to 1782b), destubbed by PamDY
Suffolk –
Fornham St Genevieve – needs a LOT more expansion to be able to get "Did you know .... that there is a roundabout in Fornham St Genevieve where every road is the B1106?" on the front page :-/Y
Northumberland –
Embleton Hall (361b to 1511b) destubbed by RodwY One of the best things about this Rod is getting to see so many interesting and beautiful places throughout the country! ♦
Encyclopædius 12:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC) Who knows I might get one in each English county by the end of the month.—
Rodtalk12:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Amakuru
County Antrim –
Gemma Garrett (1180b to 2505b), destubbing by Amakuru
County Donegal –
Donegal Abbey (4078b), destubbing by AmakuruY
County Down –
Gores Island, destubbing by AmakuruY
County Antrim –
Eileen Pollock (1036b to 2414b), destubbed by PamD @
PamD: needs a few citations to be ticked, thanks.♦
Encyclopædius 10:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC) Tweaked it a bit, dropped some of the previous unsourceable content, found another good source.
PamD22:49, 20 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Penny Richards
County Tyrone –
Sara Anne McLagan (991b to 3349b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
Dublin –
May Cluskey (661b to 1918b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
Dublin –
Bairbre Dowling (1013b to 2228b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Kilkenny –
Kathleen Marescaux (407b to 1669b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Louth –
Selina Bunbury (256b to 1658b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Donegal –
Helen O'Clery (841b to 2120b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Offaly —
Maura Murphy (657b to 1571b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Waterford —
Julia Crottie (809b to 1549b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Cork —
Una Troy (2011b to 2448b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Armagh —
Rosa D'Erina (1230b to 1830b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County LeitrimLough Boderg (1.7kb)@
Quetzal1964: Check refs 5, 7 and 8.♦
Encyclopædius 14:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC) @
Dr Blofeld: They seem fine to me. I have replaced 7 & 8 anyway, 5 is an Irish government resource so should be okay, at the very botton of the page it says "Supported by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government."
Quetzal1964 (
talk)
15:21, 28 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Amakuru
ClackmannanshireClackmannan Tower (292b to 2005b) – destubbing by Amakuru Y
East RenfrewshireLevern Water (820b to 2070b), destubbing by Amakuru Y
East LothianWallyford (1.7kb), destubbing by Quetzal1964 Y
East LothianGarleton Hills (1.7kb),destubbing by Quetzal1964 – Y remember to keep the dates consistently formatted and update the tally above too, thanks.
West DunbartonshireHMS Rocket (1894) (1.9kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66Y
West DunbartonshireHMS Shark (1894) (2.1kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66Y
West DunbartonshireDunglass Castle (1.7kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66 Y
West LothianOchiltree Castle (1.8kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66 Y
Victuallers
Scottish Borders –
Jed Water (777b to 1,743b), destubbed by Victuallers. I'm fine, but not in Derbyshire. This is my local river now Dr B
Victuallers (
talk) 11:33, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Y Great. Remember
Victuallers to add all of your entries to the bottom list too, I use that for patrolling the entries. I've added all your ones to date.♦
Encyclopædius12:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Blaenau Gwent –
Rassa Railroad (0.8 kb to 1.6 kb), destubbed by SeoRY
Monmouthshire –
Wolvesnewton (2.3 kb), destubbed by SeoR Y
Tony Holkham
Pembrokeshire –
Hasguard (1,142 to 3,246b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
Pembrokeshire –
Jeffreyston (2,857 to 5,647b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
Pembrokeshire –
Reynalton (1,943 to 3,854b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
Pembrokeshire –
Walwyn's Castle (2,167 to 3,917b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
United Kingdom (non country-specific)
Stub lists
Note that many of these stubs will be country- or county-specific. In some cases (eg "UK archaeology stubs", or the "UK trails stub" subcategory of "UK geography stubs"/"UK roads stubs") there is no narrower category in the stub hierarchy, although most articles have a precise geographical focus. In other cases stubs have not been optimally stub-sorted. Destubbings should be listed under the relevant county or country if any but the few exceptions which can't be sorted list here.
Book of Aneirin (909b to 2385b), destubbing by
Deb (
talk) 15:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC). I can't pin this down to a county or even a country, since Aneirin himself is thought to have lived in Edinburgh but the manuscript is believed to have been written somewhere in Wales!
Deb (
talk)
09:11, 22 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Can contestants maintain this and check it is up to date once the articles have been ticked?
Final standings
Quetzal1964 – 137 out of 137 counties covered – Overall WINNER with all counties covered
Cwmhiraeth – 112 out of 137 counties covered – 2nd place
The C of E, – 77 out of 137 counties covered. – 3rd place
WTT/ Staceydolxx – 57 out of 137 counties covered. – 4th place
Rodw – 50 out of 137 counties covered. – 5th place
Penny Richards – 39 out of 137 counties covered. – 6th place
ClemRutter, – 31 out of 137 counties covered. – 7th place
Sturmvogel, Kosack – 30 out of 137 counties covered. – 8th place
SeoR,- 26 out of 137 counties covered. – 9th place
Ritchie333 – 25 out of 137 counties covered. – 10th place
Amakuru – 23 out of 137 counties covered. – 11th place
The joy of all things – 17 out of 137 counties covered. – 12th place
Deb – 13 out of 137 counties covered. – 13th place
Franko2nd – 11 out of 137 counties covered – 14th place
Gasheadsteve and Kees08 – 9 out of 137 counties covered – 15th place
RLO1729, 7 out of 137 counties covered. – 16th place
PamD, HickoryOughtShirt?4, 4 out of 137 counties covered. – 17th place
Hassocks5489 – 3 out of 137 counties covered. – 18th place
Most articles improved in total
Can editors please monitor this and keep it updated.
Quetzal1964 – 165 articles
Cwmhiraeth – 146 articles
WTT/ Staceydolxx – 86 articles
The C of E – 69 articles
Rodw – 65 articles
Penny Richards – 55 articles
ClemRutter – 48 articles
Ritchie333 47 articles
Kosack – 45 articles
Sturmvogel – 37 articles
SeoR – 31 articles
Amakuru – 25 articles
Joy of all things – 22 articles
Deb – 17 articles
Leaders by entity
Can editors please monitor how many articles have been approved and maintain this once the articles have been ticked? Remember that there's no second place consolation prize, the winners of each take home the full £50.
England
WTT/ Staceydolxx – 80 articles (not eligible for prize)
Cwmhiraeth – 70 articles
Rodw – 65 articles (not eligible for prize)
Quetzal1964 – 50 articles
ClemRutter, – 46 articles
Ritchie333 – 41 articles
The C of E – 36 articles
Penny Richards – 25 articles
Joy of all things – 20 articles
Amakuru – 11 articles
Espresso Addict- 9 articles
Kees08 – 8 articles
Gasheadsteve – 6 articles
SeoR, Hassocks5489 – 4 articles
RLO1729, PamD – 3 articles
Victuallers – 2 articles
HickoryOughtShirt?4- 1 article
Ireland and Northern Ireland
Cwmhiraeth – 65 articles
The C of E – 33 articles
Quetzal1964 – 32 articles
SeoR – 23 articles
Penny Richards – 10 articles
Kees08 – 5 articles
Johnannes Schade, Gasheadsteve – 4 articles
Amakuru – 4 articles
HickoryOughtShirt?4- 2 articles
WTT and Staceydolxx – 1 article
Scotland
Quetzal1964 – 61 articles
Sturmvogel_66 – 37 articles
Cwmhiraeth – 15 articles
Franko2nd – 13 articles
Penny Richards – 10 articles
Amakuru – 6 articles
WTT and Staceydolxx – 5 articles
Griceylipper – 4 articles
Victuallers, The C of E – 3 articles
SeoR, Johnannes Schade, GasheadSteve – 2 articles
Joy of all things, PamD – 1 article
Wales
Kosack – 45 articles
Quetzal1964 – 22 articles
Deb – 17 articles
Penny Richards – 10 articles
Cwmhiraeth – 9 articles
RLO1729 – 5 articles
Tony Holkham, Amakuru, Ritchie333 – 4 articles
HickoryOughtShirt?4 , FruitMonkey – 3 articles
SeoR, The C of E,- 2 articles
MrLinkinPark333 – 1 article
All entries
All entries submitted for the contest or done in the editathon should be listed here. If competing in the contest also list your entry in one of the above entities. People contributing independently to this as an editathon and not competing for prizes only need to list articles once here. We will need an average of 32 -33 articles every day to reach the target of 1000 entries. Try to add the county and flag of the entity it is in for every entry unless it really isn't applicable.
Claims for articles destubbed and improved on British and Irish towns and villages
A £50 (c.$66) reward is offered to the editor who puts in the biggest effort to flesh out short stubs and improve articles on towns, villages, hamlets, civil parishes, historical hundreds and townlands. For this award we will accept 500 b -1.2 kb prose for very small settlements in cases where it is difficult to get them beyond 1.2 kb. Keep in mind though that the award will not be given purely based on number of articles, but will go to the editor who makes the biggest effort overall to improve quality, both quality and quantity across a range of articles.
Gasheadsteve
County Durham -
Cornriggs (125b to 1052b), very short stub expanded by Gasheadsteve Y
Gloucestershire -
Duckhole (210b to 619b), tiny sub-stub re-written and expanded (but still a stub) by Gasheadsteve Y
Powys -
Red Lion Hill (203b to 573b), managed to expand slightly, also added infobox, map, photo & references Y
We reached our target of 1000 destubs on 31 March 2020!!! Congratulations to everybody who participated it's been an amazing thing! The
Wikipedia:The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge is now open for a long term global-scale challenge. Long term I hope to run more like this and fuel this larger challenge goal involving a lot more people from different regions of the world. It will provide a framework for running future contests and allow anybody to freely contribute when contests aren't being held. Hopefully we can set a good example to a larger mass of people to focus on improving our stubs long term and work together to achieve something even greater than this.†
Encyclopædius16:13, 31 March 2020 (UTC)reply
A March 2020 contest/editathon for stub improvement.
The Great Britain/Ireland
De-stub-athon is an edit-a-thon contest that aims to eliminate as many of our 44,000-odd stubs as possible, and to see content improved for every single county of the UK and Ireland as evenly as possible. It covers all 48 counties of England (as well as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), 32 in Scotland, 32 in Ireland and N Ireland, and 22 of Wales, 134 counties in total plus 3 extra for Isle of Man and the Bailwicks of Guernsey and Jersey.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to browse a Google map of the UK and Ireland and to read a consistently good quality article for every village and monument you zoom in on? That's the primary goal we have in mind long term here!
The overall Winners of the contest will be decided by most counties covered in total. A reward of £75 (nearly $100) is offered to anybody who can cover all 137 (achievable with an average of 4–5 destubs a day, and to be shared if more than one editor succeeds). If nobody reaches that, the reward will be split between the top three finishers, with £50 top prize. The winners will be decided by whoever destubs the most articles for England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Northern Ireland respectively
Contents
Goals
Set a minimum target of destubbing 1000 stubs by expanding. Roughly 32 to 33 articles needed every day to reach it.
Set a minimum target of 3 articles destubbed for every county of the UK and Ireland to ensure relative evenness of development.
Set strong focus on improving towns and villages, geo features such as mountains, rivers, lakes, nature and specially designated areas, roads, and landmark/architecture/listed building articles while warmly welcoming improved articles on biographies and on all topics .
Ensure that the content in larger articles is verifiable and all fully sourced, to include "de-bloating", cleanup and rewriting. It is strongly encouraged that if an article is largely unsourced that you restart it in your own words and source it as you go along, rather than trying to find a few sources and leaving some unverified information.
Reduce the number of "perma sub stubs" by fleshing out one line/unsourced stubs. In some cases, such as small hamlets and townlands etc only 500 bytes to 1.2 kb readable prose may be possible. Those expansions are acceptable but are eligible only for one award given on settlements. If even 500 bytes can't be met, consider merging into relevant related articles.
Rules
All articles submitted for the main prizes must be a minimum of 1.2 kb (1200 bytes) of readable prose. This is the bare minimum to accommodate for the fact that a lot of smaller localities and landmarks are difficult to write fuller articles on but are very worthy of including and having a reasonable basic entry on in their own right. Always aim for at least 1.5 kb (1500 bytes) of readable prose unless you're genuinely struggling to find enough to reach it.
As one of the goals of the contest is to particularly target short stubs on small settlements, if you start expanding them and find you can only find between 500 bytes and 1.2 kb of readable prose, don't let that put you off expanding it.
Kinlochard is an example of a minimally useful stub just over 500 bytes of readable prose. While the entries won't count towards the main prizes, keep a list of the ones which come short, as the effort will count toward the prize for settlements.
All articles must be improved in the mainspace between 0:00 UTC March 1 and 23:59 UTC (0:59
BST/
IST) March 31 2020.
All paragraphs must be fully sourced, with appropriate title, publisher, author, date information where relevant, no bare urls or poorly formatted sources which include publisher and title etc in one link etc. Be consistent in the sourcing and formatting and be careful of sourcing claims lower down in paragraphs and ensure that the sources verify all of the information given above.
All content submitted must have been checked and verified. If there are claims which are not verifiable in an existing stub or article, delete those claims before submitting.
If contestants encounter start/C class even B class articles which are in such an atrocious state, largely unsourced or just badly in need of nuking and restarting as a start class article, contestants are permitted to restart them, providing they have written or rewritten at least 1.2 kb of readable prose themselves, enough to claim that they recreated it. All claims in such articles must be verified, it is not acceptable to quickly add text around an existing article and submit it without checking.
The subjects of biographies submitted must have been born in a locality which corresponds to the current county it is in—as an example, the singer
Tom Jones was born in
Treforest, which in 1940 was in the County of Glamorgan. Treforest is now in
Rhondda Cynon Taf, so he'd be listed under that. Alternatively, the subject must be particularly associated with the area it is submitted for in some way by residing or working there. If you're not competing in the contest it doesn't matter, add whatever biography you improve to the main list.
All articles are expected to be free of copyright issues and plagiarism, multiple articles found with problems may result in being disqualified from the contest.
All talk page tags are expected to be updated from being classed as stubs.
If you come across articles which are clearly no longer stubs and don't need much or any sourcing work or expansion, kindly remove the stub tag and update the tags on the talk page to reclassify it.
To be eligible to win prizes, participants must demonstrate that they've destubbed articles from a minimum of 5 counties in the entity they're claiming the prize for and a minimum of one article improved on at least three different topics. 48 destubs on villages, one on a monument and one on writer would be acceptable for instance as an extreme—participants are welcome to pick one topic to largely focus on providing there is as least some minimal variation.
Measuring tool
You can check your entries using this tool before submitting here. The article readable prose, excluding sources and lists will have to be strictly minimum 1200 bytes (1.2 KB) to comply with the contest.
What would make it easier on this is if everybody programs their common.js in their preferences to contain:
Go into your preferences, click on the "Appearances" tab
Where it says "Shared CSS/JavaScript for all skins:", click "custom javascript
Paste the command given above into that and save.
Now approach an article and look in the tools section on the left. You should see "Page size". Click that for each article and you'll quickly get a reading without having to paste text all of the time and look externally.
Look out for where it says, for example: "Prose size (text only): 1310 B (xxx words) "readable prose size" ". That's what we're looking for on this, that has to read over 1200 B when finished.
Prizes
Wikimedia UK have kindly approved a £250 (c.$330) grant for prizes in the form of Amazon vouchers or books purchased upon request. The idea is that you use the vouchers to buy books you need to further invest into developing the encyclopedia. Prizes offered:
£100 (c. $130) - Improving articles from all counties of the 137. A reward of £75 (nearly $100) for the editor who manages all 137, £15, £10, and £5 for second, third and fourth. If nobody manages it, it will be £50 for first, £25 second, £15 third and £10 fourth. If more than one person reaches it the reward will be evenly split. The winner will then be decided by whoever has expanded the most stubs overall.
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for England (includes the Channel Islands and Isle of Man)
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for Scotland
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for Wales
£50 (c.$66) - Most articles destubbed for Ireland and Northern Ireland
Ser Amantio di Nicolao has generously boosted the prize fund with the following Amazon voucher prizes:
£50 (c. $66) - towards the top prize for 138 counties
£50 (c.$66) - articles destubbed and improved on British and Irish towns, villages, hamlets, civil parishes, historical hundreds and townlands - for this reward we will also accept efforts to expand very short "sub stubs" on small settlements which are difficult to fully expand even if the end result is only between 500 bytes and 1.2 kb of readable prose. Keep in mind though that the award isn't purely based on article count, it will be rewarded to the editor who makes the biggest effort overall to consistently improve quality and flesh out poor stubs on settlements.
If anybody is interested in further contributing to the prize fund and putting up a reward for quality work or a particular area of interest they want to see improved email Dr. Blofeld.
Participants
Sign up here if interested in contributing or at least support the concept:
♦ Unlike the Africa one, I don't think I stand any chance of winning prizes here... I wasn't even on the list of those pinged about it, but count me in anyway! —
Amakuru (
talk)
15:41, 2 February 2020 (UTC)reply
♦ I probably won't be "contesting" for anything, but I will write about women during women's month and can surely improve some articles in line with your goals.
SusunW (
talk)
15:44, 2 February 2020 (UTC)reply
♦ Good idea, and I will try to help out but I have another volunteer commitment in March that will consume most of my free time-energy continuum.
Derek Andrews (
talk)
21:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)reply
♦ Having just moved to a different county this may be a good way of getting to know some of the articles near to my new home.—
Rodtalk14:50, 17 February 2020 (UTC) Not eligable for any prizesreply
Google Books - for a lot of smaller localities and some older biographies snippets can be gleaned most productively at times and can be used to produce a start class article and defy the odds.
Google Maps (54°N4°W / 54°N 4°W / 54; -4) - may prove to be your best friend when in comes to fleshing out borderline stubs on settlements and using observations to describe them and expand what can be found in written sources.
British History Online - an invaluable resource for localities and their history and local buildings.
Pevsner Architectural Guides - limited pages can be found in Google Books. Very comprehensive books on buildings in different counties, consider investing in some books for the contest and you may get a reward for it! Remember that you can
apply for book grants at Wikimedia UK.
Townland.ie - a comprehensive resource of all divisions of Ireland, with basic location and area data on settlements
Nomis for UK census data and the {{NOMIS2011}} template to use for it
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Kent –
Strood Academy (2024 B), destubbed by ClemRutter can you fill out ref 5
ClemRutter. Be careful with allowing pre existing material to remain, it's often better to just rewrite the whole thing.♦
Encyclopædius 11:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC). Done, the bot missed that one. I am coming round to your way of thinking.
ClemRutter (
talk)
12:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Greater and City of London –
Ariel 1, 2.8kb (majority of experiments made by University College London. Also, was not a stub (in terms of length), but was mostly unreferenced, see
before version) (plus, who doesn't want to read about the time the US accidentally nuked a British satellite they helped launch?)8Y
Greater and City of London –
Ariel 4, 1.9kb (BAC headquartered in London)8Y
West Midlands –
Ariel 3, 3.1kb (the real first British satellite. An experiment was designed by
University of Birmingham hence my choice on location; very arbitrary)8Y
Oulfis
Hertfordshire –
Heartwood Forest (3,788 to 6,376), improved by
~ oulfis 🌸(
talk) 03:16, 13 March 2020 (UTC) (though maybe it was not a stub to begin with?) @
Oulfis:Y Great to see you! It was 1367 bytes, under 1.5 so it's fine. Good job, don't forget to also list articles at the bottom of the page, thanks, hope to see more destubs from you!♦
Encyclopædius20:30, 13 March 2020 (UTC)reply
PamD
East Sussex –
Jennifer Durrant (599b to 1758b), destubbed by PamDY
Greater London –
Rosalind Dallas (972b to 1782b), destubbed by PamDY
Suffolk –
Fornham St Genevieve – needs a LOT more expansion to be able to get "Did you know .... that there is a roundabout in Fornham St Genevieve where every road is the B1106?" on the front page :-/Y
Northumberland –
Embleton Hall (361b to 1511b) destubbed by RodwY One of the best things about this Rod is getting to see so many interesting and beautiful places throughout the country! ♦
Encyclopædius 12:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC) Who knows I might get one in each English county by the end of the month.—
Rodtalk12:47, 19 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Amakuru
County Antrim –
Gemma Garrett (1180b to 2505b), destubbing by Amakuru
County Donegal –
Donegal Abbey (4078b), destubbing by AmakuruY
County Down –
Gores Island, destubbing by AmakuruY
County Antrim –
Eileen Pollock (1036b to 2414b), destubbed by PamD @
PamD: needs a few citations to be ticked, thanks.♦
Encyclopædius 10:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC) Tweaked it a bit, dropped some of the previous unsourceable content, found another good source.
PamD22:49, 20 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Penny Richards
County Tyrone –
Sara Anne McLagan (991b to 3349b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
Dublin –
May Cluskey (661b to 1918b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
Dublin –
Bairbre Dowling (1013b to 2228b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Kilkenny –
Kathleen Marescaux (407b to 1669b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Louth –
Selina Bunbury (256b to 1658b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Donegal –
Helen O'Clery (841b to 2120b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Offaly —
Maura Murphy (657b to 1571b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Waterford —
Julia Crottie (809b to 1549b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Cork —
Una Troy (2011b to 2448b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County Armagh —
Rosa D'Erina (1230b to 1830b), destubbed by Penny RichardsY
County LeitrimLough Boderg (1.7kb)@
Quetzal1964: Check refs 5, 7 and 8.♦
Encyclopædius 14:41, 28 March 2020 (UTC) @
Dr Blofeld: They seem fine to me. I have replaced 7 & 8 anyway, 5 is an Irish government resource so should be okay, at the very botton of the page it says "Supported by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government."
Quetzal1964 (
talk)
15:21, 28 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Amakuru
ClackmannanshireClackmannan Tower (292b to 2005b) – destubbing by Amakuru Y
East RenfrewshireLevern Water (820b to 2070b), destubbing by Amakuru Y
East LothianWallyford (1.7kb), destubbing by Quetzal1964 Y
East LothianGarleton Hills (1.7kb),destubbing by Quetzal1964 – Y remember to keep the dates consistently formatted and update the tally above too, thanks.
West DunbartonshireHMS Rocket (1894) (1.9kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66Y
West DunbartonshireHMS Shark (1894) (2.1kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66Y
West DunbartonshireDunglass Castle (1.7kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66 Y
West LothianOchiltree Castle (1.8kb), destubbed by Sturmvogel_66 Y
Victuallers
Scottish Borders –
Jed Water (777b to 1,743b), destubbed by Victuallers. I'm fine, but not in Derbyshire. This is my local river now Dr B
Victuallers (
talk) 11:33, 24 March 2020 (UTC)Y Great. Remember
Victuallers to add all of your entries to the bottom list too, I use that for patrolling the entries. I've added all your ones to date.♦
Encyclopædius12:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)reply
Submit articles here: #The county (place in alphabetical order) – the article (number of kb of readable prose), destubbing by (your name) and update the above tally to keep a record of how many articles done for each county.
Blaenau Gwent –
Rassa Railroad (0.8 kb to 1.6 kb), destubbed by SeoRY
Monmouthshire –
Wolvesnewton (2.3 kb), destubbed by SeoR Y
Tony Holkham
Pembrokeshire –
Hasguard (1,142 to 3,246b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
Pembrokeshire –
Jeffreyston (2,857 to 5,647b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
Pembrokeshire –
Reynalton (1,943 to 3,854b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
Pembrokeshire –
Walwyn's Castle (2,167 to 3,917b), destubbed by Tony HolkhamY
United Kingdom (non country-specific)
Stub lists
Note that many of these stubs will be country- or county-specific. In some cases (eg "UK archaeology stubs", or the "UK trails stub" subcategory of "UK geography stubs"/"UK roads stubs") there is no narrower category in the stub hierarchy, although most articles have a precise geographical focus. In other cases stubs have not been optimally stub-sorted. Destubbings should be listed under the relevant county or country if any but the few exceptions which can't be sorted list here.
Book of Aneirin (909b to 2385b), destubbing by
Deb (
talk) 15:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC). I can't pin this down to a county or even a country, since Aneirin himself is thought to have lived in Edinburgh but the manuscript is believed to have been written somewhere in Wales!
Deb (
talk)
09:11, 22 March 2020 (UTC)Yreply
Can contestants maintain this and check it is up to date once the articles have been ticked?
Final standings
Quetzal1964 – 137 out of 137 counties covered – Overall WINNER with all counties covered
Cwmhiraeth – 112 out of 137 counties covered – 2nd place
The C of E, – 77 out of 137 counties covered. – 3rd place
WTT/ Staceydolxx – 57 out of 137 counties covered. – 4th place
Rodw – 50 out of 137 counties covered. – 5th place
Penny Richards – 39 out of 137 counties covered. – 6th place
ClemRutter, – 31 out of 137 counties covered. – 7th place
Sturmvogel, Kosack – 30 out of 137 counties covered. – 8th place
SeoR,- 26 out of 137 counties covered. – 9th place
Ritchie333 – 25 out of 137 counties covered. – 10th place
Amakuru – 23 out of 137 counties covered. – 11th place
The joy of all things – 17 out of 137 counties covered. – 12th place
Deb – 13 out of 137 counties covered. – 13th place
Franko2nd – 11 out of 137 counties covered – 14th place
Gasheadsteve and Kees08 – 9 out of 137 counties covered – 15th place
RLO1729, 7 out of 137 counties covered. – 16th place
PamD, HickoryOughtShirt?4, 4 out of 137 counties covered. – 17th place
Hassocks5489 – 3 out of 137 counties covered. – 18th place
Most articles improved in total
Can editors please monitor this and keep it updated.
Quetzal1964 – 165 articles
Cwmhiraeth – 146 articles
WTT/ Staceydolxx – 86 articles
The C of E – 69 articles
Rodw – 65 articles
Penny Richards – 55 articles
ClemRutter – 48 articles
Ritchie333 47 articles
Kosack – 45 articles
Sturmvogel – 37 articles
SeoR – 31 articles
Amakuru – 25 articles
Joy of all things – 22 articles
Deb – 17 articles
Leaders by entity
Can editors please monitor how many articles have been approved and maintain this once the articles have been ticked? Remember that there's no second place consolation prize, the winners of each take home the full £50.
England
WTT/ Staceydolxx – 80 articles (not eligible for prize)
Cwmhiraeth – 70 articles
Rodw – 65 articles (not eligible for prize)
Quetzal1964 – 50 articles
ClemRutter, – 46 articles
Ritchie333 – 41 articles
The C of E – 36 articles
Penny Richards – 25 articles
Joy of all things – 20 articles
Amakuru – 11 articles
Espresso Addict- 9 articles
Kees08 – 8 articles
Gasheadsteve – 6 articles
SeoR, Hassocks5489 – 4 articles
RLO1729, PamD – 3 articles
Victuallers – 2 articles
HickoryOughtShirt?4- 1 article
Ireland and Northern Ireland
Cwmhiraeth – 65 articles
The C of E – 33 articles
Quetzal1964 – 32 articles
SeoR – 23 articles
Penny Richards – 10 articles
Kees08 – 5 articles
Johnannes Schade, Gasheadsteve – 4 articles
Amakuru – 4 articles
HickoryOughtShirt?4- 2 articles
WTT and Staceydolxx – 1 article
Scotland
Quetzal1964 – 61 articles
Sturmvogel_66 – 37 articles
Cwmhiraeth – 15 articles
Franko2nd – 13 articles
Penny Richards – 10 articles
Amakuru – 6 articles
WTT and Staceydolxx – 5 articles
Griceylipper – 4 articles
Victuallers, The C of E – 3 articles
SeoR, Johnannes Schade, GasheadSteve – 2 articles
Joy of all things, PamD – 1 article
Wales
Kosack – 45 articles
Quetzal1964 – 22 articles
Deb – 17 articles
Penny Richards – 10 articles
Cwmhiraeth – 9 articles
RLO1729 – 5 articles
Tony Holkham, Amakuru, Ritchie333 – 4 articles
HickoryOughtShirt?4 , FruitMonkey – 3 articles
SeoR, The C of E,- 2 articles
MrLinkinPark333 – 1 article
All entries
All entries submitted for the contest or done in the editathon should be listed here. If competing in the contest also list your entry in one of the above entities. People contributing independently to this as an editathon and not competing for prizes only need to list articles once here. We will need an average of 32 -33 articles every day to reach the target of 1000 entries. Try to add the county and flag of the entity it is in for every entry unless it really isn't applicable.
Claims for articles destubbed and improved on British and Irish towns and villages
A £50 (c.$66) reward is offered to the editor who puts in the biggest effort to flesh out short stubs and improve articles on towns, villages, hamlets, civil parishes, historical hundreds and townlands. For this award we will accept 500 b -1.2 kb prose for very small settlements in cases where it is difficult to get them beyond 1.2 kb. Keep in mind though that the award will not be given purely based on number of articles, but will go to the editor who makes the biggest effort overall to improve quality, both quality and quantity across a range of articles.
Gasheadsteve
County Durham -
Cornriggs (125b to 1052b), very short stub expanded by Gasheadsteve Y
Gloucestershire -
Duckhole (210b to 619b), tiny sub-stub re-written and expanded (but still a stub) by Gasheadsteve Y
Powys -
Red Lion Hill (203b to 573b), managed to expand slightly, also added infobox, map, photo & references Y