Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries/AprilMay2024 archive

• See archives of past competition for inspiration: 2007, 2012a, 2012b, 2013, 2014, 2015 , 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023.

The contest lasts for six weeks. Editors usually nominate the articles they plan to work on at the start. This helps others know which articles are being worked on and allows editors time to gather sources like books or papers. However, it's also okay to nominate articles after the contest starts. Editors can submit improved articles anytime during the contest. After the six weeks, judges will review the entries and announce the winners within two or three weeks. Other editors can also comment on the entries.

The potential article pool includes vital and other core articles. Editors are welcome to improve and nominate any broad or important article not on the list if they explain why their article should be considered.

When you submit an article you improved for the contest, please list a specific revision that you're happy with, as well as a link to the revision on which you built your improvements. For example, this diff would show improvements made to the article Lebensraum, and this shows the initial state. Only edits made during the contest period may be included in the diff link.

List of contest entries

List here articles submitted, and the diffs showing the improvement. Multiple segments are allowed to clarify the diffs submitted by a particular editor in a busy article. Co-submissions are allowed. Judges will comment on entries immediately below them, clarify benefits gained and offer feedback on what else needs to be done. Within two weeks of the conclusion, prizewinners will be announced. An example of how to lay out a sample entry as follows.

A very core example

• Nominator:
• Improvements: (improvement diff + start state)
• Comments:

Classical Chinese

• Nominator: Remsense
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital level-4; C-class. The hierarchy of articles is a bit of an issue here, since there are a number of highly important articles (e.g. Chinese classics) that overlap in scope, but I will try to propagate improvements here when necessary. Presently unillustrated, and very short and undigested for what is conservatively the second-most ramified written language in human history. Of course, this means I have to get serious about comfort reading Chinese sources—both Literary and vernacular—but I'm excited by the challenge. Props to Generalissima for specifically pointing out this article's need for improvement to me a few months ago.

Comments by judges

Definitely a relatively ignored article, somewhat surprising considering that topics such as Classical Chinese grammar and others (albeit mainly due to Kanguole) are in decent shape. The Nomenclature section is perhaps overly long, and the section order in general is a bit bizarre (both usage sections should presumably end the article). Glad to see you working on this—should be something of a culmination of your improvements on Chinese characters. Aza24 (talk) 01:04, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Monarchy

• Nominator: Thebiguglyalien
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital 3, 164 language links, 468,583 views in 2023, tagged as confusing and OR since 2018, mostly unsourced, arbitrary in what aspects it covers.

Comments by judges

This should be a fine (and important) addition to your work on Dictatorship and Autocracy. Given its gloabl usage, the only thing I can advise is to be weary of Occident-bias. The Current monarchies section is interesting, but perhaps excessively detailed. The current images may also need further consideration. Good luck! Aza24 (talk) 01:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Turkey

• Nominator: Bogazicili (talk) 19:01, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• Improvements: (my start + improvement diff (ignoring some early April edit war))
• Comments: This might be cheating a bit since I've been improving the article since February. I did several sections and rewrote the last paragraph in the lead already (early February version). The goal would be to make this article ready for GAR or close to it. This is a Level 3 vital article, currently B class. It has more than 6 million annual pageviews. There is also a review from 2020, which is helpful. I am going to add a paragraph about earthquakes into Geography section and will expand the paragraph I started about climate change [1] in Climate section. Except those, the length of the article should end up being considerably smaller.

Comments by others

Great choice. I wonder whether it it would be useful for @SheriffIsInTown: to take a fresh view of this article and yourself of Pakistan mentioned below. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:13, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Wang Xizhi

• Nominator: DanCherek (talk · contribs)
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital-4 biography of an important non-Western historical figure. There's a huge disparity between the amount of scholarly literature and the current article's sourcing. Noting that I intend to focus on primarily using English-language sources at this point, but even so there's a lot of improvements that can be made!

  I undertook a major rewrite/expansion of the article. There is a detailed biography section, along with an explanation of the major historical sources and their limitations. Then a calligraphy section, describing the complicated history of his pieces, an analysis of his style, a list of representative works, and debates about authenticity; and finally a legacy section. Lots of images added to the article, including some new images of his calligraphy, and the lead has been reworked to properly summarize the rest of the article. DanCherek (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Comments by judges

• Awesome choice! If you're only using English-language sources, it may be tricky to find detailed commentary on his calligraphy (an artform is which is typically de-vauled in the West), but hopefully his exceptional fame will help; most encyclopedias would also cover him (I see some are already cited). Generally, a good English-source that relies on Chinese sources is Chinaknowledge (see here), which can give you some ideas on what to include. Lead could use a lot of reworking, would love to see an emphasis on what exactly his works are and how they survive in copies and not originals. Aza24 (talk) 02:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments by others

• Oh, this is exciting—I myself thought how important this article is. Great pick! Remsense诉 17:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Renewable energy

• Nominator: Tserton (talk · contribs)
• Improvements: (start diff + improvement diff)
• Comments: Definitely needs to be updated (parts of it are from 15 years ago, which with a topic like this one is ancient history), better cited in some parts and trimmed in others, especially as there's quite a bit of WP:CRYSTALBALL and POV in there. The article is full of non-sequiturs that would benefit from context, expansion or deletion. Background and history, currently scattered throughout the article, would probably also benefit from bring grouped or summarized in dedicated sections. And I would give more relative weight to the "big three" (hydropower, solar and wind).

Comments by judges

• I've done some work on this article in the past I believe. The first sentence is incorrect (low-carbon energy is something else). The rest of the lead is a tough read, with slightly too many statistics, in-line attributed sentences (to IEA). There is some overlap with sustainable energy, a FA I co-wrote, so you may get some inspiration there, even though we tried to focus much more on social and energy access issues there. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Federal Republic of Central America

• Nominator: PizzaKing13 (talk · contribs)
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Level 5 vital article of a former country which has continued to influence Central American politics even after its collapse almost 200 years ago. Labeled as a C-class, though it reads/is structured like a start. Tagged as needing additional citations since October 2016; much of the article is unsourced. History section is extremely brief and excludes several events relevant to the country's history. Entirely unsourced section which lists attempts to restore the country which does not elaborate on the idea of Central America reunification in relation to the federal republic. I think I'd be rewriting the article entirely.

Comments by others

Interesting - I'd never heard of it, but it averaged over 600 views pd last year. Lots to do, I'm sure. Johnbod (talk) 02:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Edward Oliver LeBlanc

• Nominator: Sammielh (talk · contribs)
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: This is a level 5 vital article of a a former premier of Dominica which is very accurately currently rated as a stub, with 4 references and 250 words. I will be out of the country for most of the contest period so I'm hoping with a fairly straightforward article like this, I should still be able to make some good progress.
  • Unfortunately the biography I orderered never arrived (!) but I have still managed to add over 2500 words, 64 citations and 5 images. I would like to bring it up to GA if I'm able to track down an affordable copy of his biography but at the very least, it's certainly not a stub anymore. Sammielh (talk) 20:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Independent music

• Nominator: — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c)
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: This is a L5 vital but that understates its importance. It's the high-level topic article for probably... hundreds of thousands of articles? Currently C and 3 orange tags from 2009, 16, and 18. No idea if I can do well with this one but gonna give it a shot. Question for the judges: if I begin improvement now, do those contributions count or no? Thanks — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 21:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments by judges

• John is quite right below. My recommendation in the meantime: gather sources; finish up any other projects that might distract you. Cool topic choice! A bit heavy on news sources at the moment. Although I can understand academic sources may be difficult to find, music scholarship has really expanded out in these past two decades, so you may be surprised. Aza24 (talk) 23:21, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments by others

No, you have to wait for the start date. Johnbod (talk) 03:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Pakistan

• Nominator: SheriffIsInTown
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
• Improvements (standard format): start diff, improvement diff
• Initial comment: A level 3, previously recognized as a featured article but now rated as class B. While it's not in a critical condition, its main issue is its excessive length, currently standing at over 15,000 words of readable prose. My immediate aim is to trim down the article's size, aiming for a reduction to around 10,000 words, although any size reduction would be better. In the long run, I aspire to restore it to its former status as a featured article. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 21:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
• Post improvement comment: The article was tagged for overly lengthy prose for a long time. First, I reduced its length from over 16,000 words to just over 10,000 words through copyediting, without removing any major content—an arduous task. Then, I worked on verifying existing sources, replacing them with better ones, reducing source clutter by moving references to the bibliography, adding short footnotes, and sourcing any unsourced content. I have so far worked on 208 sources, although a few were bundled by another editor; let’s say around 200 were worked on solely by me. I plan to resume working on the remaining sources starting in July.

Explanatory Note about Improvement Diffs

It was hard to avoid edits by other users during the month-and-a-half period.

1. I did not exclude minor edits by other editors and bots from the improvement diffs, but there are only a few.
2. I did not exclude edits by other editors that were reverted by me.
3. Major edits by other editors are excluded from these improvement diffs.
4. Since we can only list up to 500 edits per page, the improvement diffs are missing the improvements in the first edit on every page (two edits in total). Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 02:13, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Comments by judges

• User:SheriffIsInTown. Very important article! You may want to post in advance on talk for feedback on your planned rewrite. It's a contentious topic, which means people will appreciate a heads-up. Despite its length, key information on climate change is missing. this World Bank report may be a good addition. Good luck. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments by others

Great choice. Perhaps a little more on how you guys are improving earthquake and other disaster resilience (or not) - see Turkey above Chidgk1 (talk) 08:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Voltairine de Cleyre

• Nominator: Grnrchst
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: A level-5 vital article about a central figure of anarchism, feminism and individualism in the United States. It currently has a problem with an over-reliance on primary sources and inclusion of some questionable sources, while it never once cites some of the most major scholarly works about De Cleyre (notably Avrich 1978). It also hyper-focuses on certain aspects of her career and philosophy, while completely neglecting others. My aim is a bottom-up rewrite and expansion of the article, based on more clearly reliable sources, with the intention of eventually bringing it to good article status. --Grnrchst (talk) 13:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

• Well, I got as far as I could in the allotted time. Unfortunately my laptop took physical damage that put it out of commission for a couple weeks, so I had to get it repaired and wasn't able to use it to improve this article during that period. This means the article isn't as far along as I would have liked and it still has some problems that need looking at. I think I need to add more to the political thought and legacy sections still, and once done I will need to do some very liberal trimming in order to cut this down to a more manageable size and rewrite the lead a bit. But I got most of what I wanted done and I'm overall quite happy with the progress made. I'll just need to continue working on it after the core contest is done. Thanks for the encouragement to work on this article! I have found it a fascinating and enjoyable experience (except for the unfortunate laptop damage). --Grnrchst (talk) 15:43, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Comments by judges

• 🥳 Let's see if we can make sure we get a 12-year steak with women from now on (this is the first one since 2012). Interesting article! I imagine readers may be unfamiliar with many of the key moments of the labour and anarchist movement in the US. For instance, I had never heard of the Haymarket affair. As a level-5 vital article, more progress is needed to compete for the prizes. Also note that improvements before the 15th don't count. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 06:52, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Love

• Nominator: The Blue Rider
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: "What is love?" you may ask. Love can be many things, depending on who you ask. It is a topic of extreme importance to society, with countless pop songs revolving around love or the lack thereof. Love is everywhere, and one cannot hide from it. This is why I will embrace my love for Wikipedia; otherwise, I don't know if I would have the strength to work on this poorly referenced, lengthy, and complex article.

Comments by judges

• That's a core as they come. I love your choice here. The lead is written for an audience of polyglots. I imagine our typical reader isn't interested in ancient Greek, portuguese, french and whatever the other languages are. WP:EXPLAINLEAD will be key to getting a better article. A tremendous challenge. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:17, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments by others

It's not vandalism if you replace the whole article with a link to this, btw. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:34, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, the classic interwiki soft redirect to YouTube. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 18:02, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, it is the most comprehensive, in-depth, understandable, and important discussion of the topic that has ever been made, so I think we can look past WP:YT here. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:49, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Mind

• Nominator: Phlsph7
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: A level 2 vital article with on average 25000 monthly page views. I count 28 unreferenced paragraphs in the body of the article with 5x More citations needed tags, 1x need quotation to verify tag, and 2x citation needed tags. It has some WP:DUEWEIGHT issues, like having 7 paragraphs on Buddhism while a single paragraph is used to cover all the remaining religions together. I'm not particularly happy with how the topics are divided into sections and there seem to be many overlaps but I'll have to do some more in-depth research to see how that could be addressed.

  For a more detailed explanation of the changes, see Talk:Mind#Changes_to_the_article and the corresponding edit summaries.

Comments by judges

• You do love to challenge yourself! Amazing to have a level-2 article in the competition. A curious emphasis on pseudoscience already in the lead image, and an entire section on parasychology... structure can definitely be improved. Surprisingly, the first paragraph is not awful. I'm looking forward to seeing what this article will transform into! —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:22, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Night

• Nominator: Rjjⁱⁱⁱ
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital Level 4, 146 languages, and C-class. Someone added "get some references" to the talk page todo list back in 2007. Some parts of the article do have sources, and I worked on one section earlier this year, but most of the article remains uncited.

A few notes on my experience doing the Core Contest for the first time:

• I had initially intended to preserve a lot of the writing, but many passages had errors, obtuse language, or both. I kept isolated words and phrases (below the horizon, sunset, noctilucent clouds, etc.).
• Major cultural history articles don't exist yet. For example, we have History of the firearm but no History of sleep. That came as a surprise when I was hunting for articles to link.
• For a high-level topic, there's ample quality media on commons. When writing niche articles, I've extracted public domain images, taken photographs, and composed infographics. For "Night", many high-quality images and videos were already on the commons. I only had to crop a single image.
• I intend a final section on painting. There are three high-level articles on Wikipedia about paintings of the night: Night in paintings (Eastern art), Night in paintings (Western art), and Nocturne (painting). I have some notes still left to convert into prose. Then, I'll likely nominate for GA.

Comments by others

I've always wanting to improve this one for a while, although I've found the research process difficult; it's a very broad, general thing to write about. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Performing Arts

• Nominator: Librarian of Sand
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital Level 2, C-class, ~20,000 views a month, large swaths unsourced, some sections over-reliant on a single source, many sections underdeveloped, there's a whole lot here I plan to rework. I know this is a big swing in comparison to the small amounts of editing I've done so far, but I'm confident in my ability to track down sources for much of the existing material (adding & subtracting where necessary), and then to just improve the article section by section from there. Ultimately hoping to add some broader reflections and sociological perspective/connections. I think for a topic this broad with so much history and cultural importance, this article has a great deal of potential.

Human history

• Nominator: Phlsph7
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: A level 1 vital article with on average 45000 monthly page views. I added a section on "Academic research" to it but most of the other changes will probably be smaller since I'm not aware of any glaring issues. Cerebellum and I hope to get it to GA status but they won't be available for editing until after the end of the core contest. For a discussion of some changes, see User_talk:Cerebellum#Human_history. Any additional improvement ideas are welcome.

Update: Most of the other changes involved copyedits for style, clarity, and concision, fixing a few factual errors, adding some sources, removing or summarizing overly detailed descriptions of minor events, mentioning some topics that were missing, and implementing a consistent reference style using short footnote citations.

Withdrawn entries

Call of Duty

• Nominator: λ NegativeMP1
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: A level 5 vital article for one of the most influential, important video game franchises of all time. It's in a fairly dire state, serving as mostly unsourced summaries of each game in the series, some Esports stuff, and a few controversies. It fails to address any influence of the franchise, the influence of its games, the gameplay of the series, or the history of its development. A complete rewrite is basically required. Improving this article will be fairly big venture, and a GAN might not be possible during the contest, but I'm going to try nonetheless. Specific note: If I am one of the main winners, I request that I be given no payout and instead the prize for everyone else be increased. I'm doing this for fun and to improve an article that seriously needs improvement. λ NegativeMP1 17:01, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Comments by judges

• Lovely choice. It may only be level 5, but it likely makes up for that in coreness with readership. As you say, the article has potential to become more broad focussing less on game summaries. The second and third paragraph are good to read if you want to fall asleep. Best of luck. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:31, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

History of North America

• Nominator: Generalissima
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Level 3 Vital article, currently C-Class (although this may be over-grading it's current state.) Absurdly poorly referenced; most of the article has zero citations, including all history after the late 1700s. Basically no higher-level coverage of trends or geopolitical developments at all; article is more of an unreferenced timeline of various events, and takes a distinct focus on things like US involvement in wars outside of North America and individual elections. Also has a distinct Anglo-American bias. Currently just under 4000 words. The Pre-Columbian section, while needing work, is basically the only thing salvageable from this; for the rest, I will need to do a full re-write.

Comments by judges

• Great choice, and you're quite right about the article's dire state. As you say, you'll definitely need large cuts of the existing material. Some of the large surveys in the Further reading section will be crucial here; focusing on combining multiple region-specific survey sis probably easier, but verging on WP:SYNTH. In anycase, as with all large-scope history articles, do your best to remember that political history is not the end all be all :) The arts, sciences, exploration, sports, culture etc. are equally as historically relevant. Aza24 (talk) 00:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Moscow

• Nominator: That Tired Tarantula
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: This is a level 3 vital article currently rated as C-class. There is a significant amount of unsourced content (particularly in the History, Cityscape, Sports, Authorities, and Education sections) as well as a problem with the length; right now, there are 15,538 words. There is also some non-neutral wording. I will work on finding sources and decreasing the length; I will also work on copy editing.

Nursing

• Nominator: Draken Bowser
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: I think there are issues both with respect to comprehensiveness and presentation. I especially don't like handling global perspective in this way, listing individual countries all over the world (ain't enough room to do all ~200). Rather, summary style and wikilinks should be used to facilitate conciseness, and help the reader navigate their way to whatever regional article piques their interest. I've also considered doing the cell, but I don't feel strongly about it. Maybe I'll take a stab unless it gets claimed below.

Comments by judges

• The very first sentence has ample opportunity for improvement. Sometimes I wish we gave editors warnings when they write overly long sentences. Fantastic choice. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Modern philosophy

• Nominator: Dilettante
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Several issues: level 4 start class; 21,677 bytes; 5,499 views in past month; article and wikidata entry are extremely eurocentric; severe gaps; largely unsourced and possible OR; 1,778 words according to xtools; no edits since July.

Comments by judges

• A poor article in pretty much everyway. The coverage on non-Western philosophies is particulalry dissapointing; although the current list can get you started, also consider Ethiopian philosophy and the work of Swami Vivekananda in India. As for the existing Western content, I see nothing on ethics, while the Analytical section would probably do better as combined section with Continental philosophy, to explain the difference. The actual content of either tradition probably belongs in the respective thematic sections. Good luck! Aza24 (talk) 01:18, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Mongol invasions and conquests

• Nominator: AirshipJungleman29
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital Level 4; C-class (start-class for MILHIST). Poorly organised (geographical instead of chronological), only 1503 words, haphazardly referenced. A number of recent publications mean I can revamp this, and other similar articles, before the big one itself. I hope to balance work on this with the ongoing Byzantine Empire FAR.

Comments by judges

• Glad to see you taking this on, clearly your track record proves you more than qualified. I completely agree with your choice of chronological over the current geographical style. Although I would be careful to not to over do it on that front; this isn't a timeline or list article after all. As I'm sure you realize, it would greatly benefit from some overview on general trends and motivations (I'm almost thinking of the crusading movement article): i.e. why were the Mongols acting as such. Iirc, they frequently offered self-governing vassalships to states, and invaded when rejected. Things like that should be said. Tying in the Franco-Mongol alliance may also be helpful. Best of luck! Aza24 (talk) 22:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Antioch

• Nominator:AirshipJungleman29
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Vital-4, C-class, 600k views/year. Antioch is one of the greatest cities in world history, dominating a region for close to a millennium and being the place where Christians were first called such, but the article does not match this importance. Referencing is very poor, with a reliance on ancient/medieval writers, and many modern sources are out of date; weighting is similarly out of whack. A recent full-length treatment of the city's history should be a significant help. This is my second entry of the year.

Comments by judges

• Another one where a single edit to the first sentence can make a huge difference. It'll likely scare anyone away not trained in those classical languages. As you say, the article is quite the mess with many overly long or overly short paragraphs. The article already has quite good imagery, so that'll be difficult to improve. I think this brings us over 25 million total views! —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:35, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Library of Congress

• Nominator: Generalissima
• Improvements: (start + improvement diff)
• Comments: Inspired by Airship, I decided I should also enter a smaller-scale side project for the contest. Vital-4, B-class (although this may be an overestimation), ~400,000 pageviews per year. The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world, and it is certainly quite storied. The article does have a number of unsourced statements throughout, but the bigger problem in my estimation is the sheer lack of academic sourcing. Current sources include multiple cites for the LibraryThing category on Jefferson's personal library, a tweet, its own various annual reports dating back to the 19th century, and (encompassing the vast majority of sourcing) the LOC's website and haphazard news coverage. I plan to expand the history and bring in a variety of academic publication and studies of the library to hopefully bring this thing up to the standard it should be.