This is toolkit to custom design a contest based on the very successful November 2017 Women in Red World Contest which produced nearly 2900 new women article biographies. The toolkit may be used by Women in Red to create new contests or be used by other wikiprojects as a template to reduce the time it takes to set up a contest from scratch based on a model which has proved its value, and potentially used by other wikipedias too. I strongly believe that Wikipedia will massively benefit from contests like the one run in every subject, so if you're active in a particular WikiProject, please consider using this as a model and alert User:Dr. Blofeld when you use it ot need assistance.
Designing and setting up a contest will be laid in the following stages. Simply follow the process to custom design your contest. After reading the instructions below, there is the outline of a contest drawn up at Wikipedia:Contests/Toolkit/Template which you can copy and modify for your own purposes to save time in setting up your contest.
- Decide what contest you want to run and where you're hosting it. If it is a Women in Red contest fill in the xxx below.
- Example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The American Women Contest
If it is a contest for another Wikiproject:
- Example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military History/The Women in Aviation Contest
The following can be used at the top of your contest page (remove the nowiki markers) and fill out and adjust as required:
<div style="background-color: #FF003F; color: white; margin: 0 -1em; padding: 0;"> <div style="padding: 0.3em 2em; font-size: 220%; letter-spacing: 0.1em; line-height: 1.2em; text-align: center;"> <p style="margin: 0; padding: 0;"><span style="font-size: 140%;">Your contest name goes here</span><br><span style="font-size: 60%;"> ''a contest/editathon<br>for month/year of contest here''...</span></p> </div> </div> <div class="plainlinks" style="margin: 0 -1em -1em;"> {| cellspacing="8" cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%; margin: 0; background-color: #800020; border: 0; height: 1%;" | style="background-color: White; border: 1px solid #800020; border-right-width: 2px; border-bottom-width: 2px; padding: 1em 2em 0.5em;" |
To change the background color of the header change #FF003F to the colour of your choice. To change the color of the border change background color:#800020 to one of your choice.
Underneath the contest header, briefly describe the contest that you're running. In 1-3 paragraphs. Include the following:
- The month that the contest will be held.
- The scale and specific focus of the contest. Is it a regional contest, a national one, or one for a specific subject.
- What must the contestant do to generate content and win the contest?
- What prizes are offered?
- If it's a Women in Red contest state what the current percentage of women biographies there are and ideally set an article target for creation during the contest.
The rules on the sub page may be copied or modified to custom fit your contest. It is important to be clear on what the requirements are for articles in terms of length, quality standards, submission dates and that the articles submitted meet notability guidelines and use reliable sources.
If Women in Red are running another contest, the Missing article lists by country will prove most useful. If it is a regional contest, for instance Latin America, then simply copy and paste the Latin American list and either link it or paste the list into a Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/xxxx Contest/Missing articles list page. If it is another project setting up a contest, you will need to compile your own list of missing articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject xxxx/xxxx Contest/Missing articles page and link it in a section on the main contest page. Make sure the lists are neatly organized by subtopic or country etc to make it easy for editors to find and submit for the contest.
You can copy the template layout at Template:The Women in Red World Contest and create your own template based on the existing model.
The Wikimedia Foundation offers Rapid Grants of up to $2000 for contests. They are relatively simple to apply for and are usually approved within a month. Larger grants can be applied for in excess of $2000 but they take months and sometimes may not be granted. Grant applicants must be over 18 years of age and have a bank account and offer personal identification to receive grant funds. Read details on the Metawiki site for applying for a grant.
It is important to note that where the potential grantee lives (e.g. Mexico, India, Egypt) can impact on whether they can receive a grant. Some countries such as China are ineligible the receive grants. Before applying for a grant, if you are unsure of your eligibility to receive grants ask a coordinator at Grants on Metawiki. If your contest is small in scope or projected to produce minimal impact sometimes it may also pose a problem in applying for higher end grants. In some cases if the project is small it may be worth checking with your local or regional Wikimedia chapters and seeing what they are able to provide for grants to support your contest. In some cases it may be possible to apply for funding from both Wikimedia Foundation and your local chapter if the proposed contest is seen as a valuable one.
Running large contests can be time consuming, particularly if many of the edits required to vet the contest are repetitive and excessive. In such cases it is advised that the contest applicant has a bot coded to ease the time it takes to run the contest. You can apply for a bot at Wikipedia:Bot requests or ask User:Emirjp assistance for coding a bot to patrol your contest. Caution should be taken with using a bot. While there are very effective at repetitive checks like article length and referencing errors, sometimes they are may irritate editors if the bot is too strict. The bot should therefore be used as a supplement to judging the contest and not be entirely relied upon to judge entries. Offering a prize for judging the contest and random checking entries in addition to have a bot coded is advisable.
Depending on what grant you are given, anything up to $2000, it is important to distribute the prize fund in a way which maximizes the yield of the contest. Before you launch the contest, write down what the primary goals are of the contest, and decide what you want to coax editors into doing the most. Sometimes a larger prize for most articles or most improved articles etc will be attractive to editors, but experience from running previous contests has told me that if you try to offer even a smaller prize for a range of subtopics or doing certain tasks you are more likely to produce greater diversity and make for a more interesting contest.
Amazon vouchers are often the ideal choice for prizes as they avoid giving direct cash and avoid " paid editing". Buying Amazon vouchers are extremely easy and quick to buy and can be bought and distributed to contest winners within minutes. They also allow editors to buy books of their own choice independently. Note though that where the contest winners live make a difference on what type of prize they are able to receive. Many countries still do not accept Amazon goods so the contest hoster must come to a solution after the contest is over on how to pay editors in countries which can't receive them and arrange something by email.
Aim to start publicising your contest at least a month in advance. Make sure that all of the relevant WikiProjects and potentially interested people are notified. If it is a contest in which you a larger number of people could potentially participate, request a central notice to be put up about a month before the contest begins and run for a minimum of 2 weeks. Read about the central notice system here. As an example, if you're planning a contest in October, make the request for a central notice at the beginning of September and for it to run from at least September 15th to the start of the contest.
This is toolkit to custom design a contest based on the very successful November 2017 Women in Red World Contest which produced nearly 2900 new women article biographies. The toolkit may be used by Women in Red to create new contests or be used by other wikiprojects as a template to reduce the time it takes to set up a contest from scratch based on a model which has proved its value, and potentially used by other wikipedias too. I strongly believe that Wikipedia will massively benefit from contests like the one run in every subject, so if you're active in a particular WikiProject, please consider using this as a model and alert User:Dr. Blofeld when you use it ot need assistance.
Designing and setting up a contest will be laid in the following stages. Simply follow the process to custom design your contest. After reading the instructions below, there is the outline of a contest drawn up at Wikipedia:Contests/Toolkit/Template which you can copy and modify for your own purposes to save time in setting up your contest.
- Decide what contest you want to run and where you're hosting it. If it is a Women in Red contest fill in the xxx below.
- Example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The American Women Contest
If it is a contest for another Wikiproject:
- Example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military History/The Women in Aviation Contest
The following can be used at the top of your contest page (remove the nowiki markers) and fill out and adjust as required:
<div style="background-color: #FF003F; color: white; margin: 0 -1em; padding: 0;"> <div style="padding: 0.3em 2em; font-size: 220%; letter-spacing: 0.1em; line-height: 1.2em; text-align: center;"> <p style="margin: 0; padding: 0;"><span style="font-size: 140%;">Your contest name goes here</span><br><span style="font-size: 60%;"> ''a contest/editathon<br>for month/year of contest here''...</span></p> </div> </div> <div class="plainlinks" style="margin: 0 -1em -1em;"> {| cellspacing="8" cellpadding="0" style="width: 100%; margin: 0; background-color: #800020; border: 0; height: 1%;" | style="background-color: White; border: 1px solid #800020; border-right-width: 2px; border-bottom-width: 2px; padding: 1em 2em 0.5em;" |
To change the background color of the header change #FF003F to the colour of your choice. To change the color of the border change background color:#800020 to one of your choice.
Underneath the contest header, briefly describe the contest that you're running. In 1-3 paragraphs. Include the following:
- The month that the contest will be held.
- The scale and specific focus of the contest. Is it a regional contest, a national one, or one for a specific subject.
- What must the contestant do to generate content and win the contest?
- What prizes are offered?
- If it's a Women in Red contest state what the current percentage of women biographies there are and ideally set an article target for creation during the contest.
The rules on the sub page may be copied or modified to custom fit your contest. It is important to be clear on what the requirements are for articles in terms of length, quality standards, submission dates and that the articles submitted meet notability guidelines and use reliable sources.
If Women in Red are running another contest, the Missing article lists by country will prove most useful. If it is a regional contest, for instance Latin America, then simply copy and paste the Latin American list and either link it or paste the list into a Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/xxxx Contest/Missing articles list page. If it is another project setting up a contest, you will need to compile your own list of missing articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject xxxx/xxxx Contest/Missing articles page and link it in a section on the main contest page. Make sure the lists are neatly organized by subtopic or country etc to make it easy for editors to find and submit for the contest.
You can copy the template layout at Template:The Women in Red World Contest and create your own template based on the existing model.
The Wikimedia Foundation offers Rapid Grants of up to $2000 for contests. They are relatively simple to apply for and are usually approved within a month. Larger grants can be applied for in excess of $2000 but they take months and sometimes may not be granted. Grant applicants must be over 18 years of age and have a bank account and offer personal identification to receive grant funds. Read details on the Metawiki site for applying for a grant.
It is important to note that where the potential grantee lives (e.g. Mexico, India, Egypt) can impact on whether they can receive a grant. Some countries such as China are ineligible the receive grants. Before applying for a grant, if you are unsure of your eligibility to receive grants ask a coordinator at Grants on Metawiki. If your contest is small in scope or projected to produce minimal impact sometimes it may also pose a problem in applying for higher end grants. In some cases if the project is small it may be worth checking with your local or regional Wikimedia chapters and seeing what they are able to provide for grants to support your contest. In some cases it may be possible to apply for funding from both Wikimedia Foundation and your local chapter if the proposed contest is seen as a valuable one.
Running large contests can be time consuming, particularly if many of the edits required to vet the contest are repetitive and excessive. In such cases it is advised that the contest applicant has a bot coded to ease the time it takes to run the contest. You can apply for a bot at Wikipedia:Bot requests or ask User:Emirjp assistance for coding a bot to patrol your contest. Caution should be taken with using a bot. While there are very effective at repetitive checks like article length and referencing errors, sometimes they are may irritate editors if the bot is too strict. The bot should therefore be used as a supplement to judging the contest and not be entirely relied upon to judge entries. Offering a prize for judging the contest and random checking entries in addition to have a bot coded is advisable.
Depending on what grant you are given, anything up to $2000, it is important to distribute the prize fund in a way which maximizes the yield of the contest. Before you launch the contest, write down what the primary goals are of the contest, and decide what you want to coax editors into doing the most. Sometimes a larger prize for most articles or most improved articles etc will be attractive to editors, but experience from running previous contests has told me that if you try to offer even a smaller prize for a range of subtopics or doing certain tasks you are more likely to produce greater diversity and make for a more interesting contest.
Amazon vouchers are often the ideal choice for prizes as they avoid giving direct cash and avoid " paid editing". Buying Amazon vouchers are extremely easy and quick to buy and can be bought and distributed to contest winners within minutes. They also allow editors to buy books of their own choice independently. Note though that where the contest winners live make a difference on what type of prize they are able to receive. Many countries still do not accept Amazon goods so the contest hoster must come to a solution after the contest is over on how to pay editors in countries which can't receive them and arrange something by email.
Aim to start publicising your contest at least a month in advance. Make sure that all of the relevant WikiProjects and potentially interested people are notified. If it is a contest in which you a larger number of people could potentially participate, request a central notice to be put up about a month before the contest begins and run for a minimum of 2 weeks. Read about the central notice system here. As an example, if you're planning a contest in October, make the request for a central notice at the beginning of September and for it to run from at least September 15th to the start of the contest.