Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Contest

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Contest name

Just off the top of my head, "Biotrophy" might be good.--Father Goose (talk) 09:32, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like Biology to me. How about BLPcup or BLPtrophy? I think we can safely assume that most of the people who might get involved are familiar with that particular acronym. ϢereSpielChequers 09:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, taking a silly-yet-serious tack, how about the "Livie" (after the Grammy, Emmy, Tony, etc.)--Father Goose (talk) 10:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Biotrophy is the best suggestion yet, but I agree with WereSpiel, sounds like a biology project. :/ Here are some biography synonyms, which are not that helpful... Okip (formerly Ikip) 10:31, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Or the "BLimPie"?--Father Goose (talk) 06:31, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

"unknown editor" the trophy being a paper sack over the head,the unknown editor or "BLimPie". Pohick2 (talk) 02:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Upon further reflection if you can call it that, I think I prefer "The Blippy".--Father Goose (talk) 06:33, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Contestants

Still trying to figure out how WP:Wikicup does it. Okip (formerly Ikip) 10:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

whyn't you ask User talk:IMatthew - Pohick2 (talk) 02:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

need to invite Jogurney 600er Pohick2 (talk) 00:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Prizes

Trophy for Durova from wikicup

Prizes?

Some special barnstar? :) Theleftorium 19:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

would you like to request of design one? There is a special page where you can request one.

I am willing to pay $20 via paypal or a gift card to the winner. A kind of Wikipedia:Reward boardOkip ^{BLP Contest} 19:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll give 10 bucks to second via paypal. Are we allowed to give money in contests, though. The only thing I've seen before is donations to WP in the persons name. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:07, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

If they have a Wikipedia:Reward board board, and wp:Wikicup was going to get sponsorships, I think it is okay, just not done. I am a little concerned that editors will use this idea as a way to criticize this contest. We will see. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 20:13, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's rescind our offers for now to avoid criticism, and restate them if their is consensus later that it's OK. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:17, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I figure some editors will find someway to criticize this regardless, but rescinding now is smart and safe, no need to paint the target. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 21:00, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I am wondering if there is any precedence for this. Wikipedia:Reward board would be the place to start looking. Can you imagine if the pot were to get to $200 to $300, that is real money, that would be such an added intensive, doing what you love in your free time, and the chance to get paid for it. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 21:06, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I would strongly advise against anything but something shiny to display on your userpage. Not only will it lead to criticism but will encourage folks to go for quantity over quality and cause all kinds of drama over the judging. This should be a fun little incentive to get the work done. J04n(talk page) 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

If and when the prize matter is decided in favor of awarding some, I'm willing to stump up for some sort of prize. Not sure what exactly yet, it depends on the rules... ++Lar: t/c 22:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

i will buy the winner a beer, if they come to a DC meetup. Pohick2 (talk) 22:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

or if Jogurney beats us all, i'll buy him a beer at a DC United game. the unknown editor Pohick2 (talk) 12:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Inspiring boxes, and templates

Inspiring boxes, and templates
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Okip (formerly Ikip) 08:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Helping out

What needs to be done with the flags? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 18:03, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The project just needs two or three editors to monitor the 2010 Signups page, and add the new contestants to the Flags template.

We need judges too. Wikicup had four. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 19:08, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Are judges still needed? The revised contest seems to allude to not needing them per my read. Judging is an area where maybe I could help out if needed. ++Lar: t/c 03:47, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for offering, I really hope that the honor system will preclude the need for judges. J04n(talk page) 14:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Flag thing is confusing?

Someone signed up and use the USA flag, which was already taken. I also had trouble finding what flags were available. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:33, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I got it to work for me, but I'm worried others may have problems. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:03, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I was concerned about this too, good points all. Maybe we can add a link to a category? Peregrine Fisher, as mentioned above, would you like to take over monitoring the flags page and giving editors the welcome banner? Okip ^{BLP Contest} 03:16, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

One way to find a {{flagicon}} is to pick a country at Category:Country data templates and look at the flag info in the country data for that country. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

suggestions:

1. The goal is not just adding references, but saving articles--adding sufficient good references to keep the article in Wikipedia. The points, or most of them, should really be for an article put into a defensible condition, which may take more than adding a reference.

2. The actual goal is not just saving articles, but saving those articles that should be saved, and removing the others. Making a proper try at sourcing an article, concluding it can not be sourced, and proposing for deletion, is just as important. It is not helpful if we try indiscriminately to keep everything. It is to not helpful to keep articles that are sourced, but hopelessly promotional. It is not helpful to keep sourced articles on things that aren't appropriate for articles. This should be a project that BLP deletionists and inclusions should all be able to work on. ` DGG ( talk ) 03:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

What I've been doing is adding two non-trivial refs to each article. I haven't changed the article text at all, mostly. I just back up whichever sentence the ref is appropriate for, usually with not much more than just a bare URL. If anyone ever cares, though, the refs are there to write most of a short article. I've never done BLP stuff before, and it's amazing how easy it is to find refs compared to the fictional topics I'm used to. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree fully, I have PRODed at least two articles which were non-notable.

Any suggestions on how to change the format or tone? Okip ^{BLP Contest} 06:21, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Having an article deleted or merged/redirected to a more appropriate article is a big part of correcting the unreferenced BLP situation. Also, stubifying an article, leaving only sourced material, is a step in getting this backlog cleared up. Poorly sourced articles are as much of a problem as unsourced articles. This contest should advocate and encourage all of these things. That said, judging will be extremely difficult. I could see myself working on five articles per day, if we had 64 folks doing the same we would have 320 articles to assess to see if the right thing was done. With the suggested 4 judge format, each would have to judge 80 articles daily. I assume that these judges would be normally productive Wikipedians who would now be spending all of their editing time judging. I like the idea of a fun competition to attack a problem, but caution should be exercised that this doesn't become too big and unmanageable. Perhaps it should start as simply awarding shiny things for reaching milestones (this user sourced x unreferenced BLPS, this user merged x BLPs to appropriate articles, this user nominated x non-notable BLPs for deletion) and even have a BLP triple crown for x number of all three. I think that this would help to achieve the goals of this project without some of the negatives. Just food for thought, but please think on it. BTW, I don't have the know-how, patience, or inclination to create the shiny things. J04n(talk page) 13:06, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The shiny things can be assigned later to Wikipedia:GL/I which, for example, quickly created File:Hatching barnstar.png for me for the WP:Article Incubator. That is not the main issue now, nor in the future, the main issue is radically changing the contest to address the problems which J04n so wisely suggests. J04n, can you please, please rewrite the main page and Scoring page to help remedy your concerns? Don't worry about formatting, grammar, etc, it can be made to look pretty later. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 15:13, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll take a crack at it. J04n(talk page) 16:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

J04N makes a good point that judging takes away from otherwise "productive" time, the temporary effort to edit BLP's with fun, will be useful to demonstrate that article improvement is possible. however, the "taggers" need to also understand, that editors don't necessarily care about their artificial counts of tags. the deletionist using a ticking time bomb, BLP Prod, will not be interested in this contest. the problem with games of number counts, is that the numbers will be gamed, not all references are equal, but in the meantime let's have some fun. Pohick2 (talk) 04:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Award points for nominating articles for deletion, for prodding articles, for articles that actually get PROD deleted, and for articles that actually get AFD deleted (no arguing for deletion after the initial nomination, perhaps?) Require a minimum score in each type so that you are not rewarding those who ONLY delete or ONLY add (shoddy?) references... Subtract points for references that don't pass (some sort of) quality test. The goal here is fixing the problem, not saving the max number. ++Lar: t/c 22:40, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe people could have subpages where they list the articles, plus a diff or link to the AfD. Then, a certain amount of points for each type of thing done, based on difficulty. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 23:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I am thinking of a penalty for a prod or an AFD that does not result in a deletion. Also a ref that does not support the statements it is attached to should get a penalty! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Such as disqualification. If people are cheating, I'm not sure why they'd even want to compete.--Father Goose (talk) 11:34, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: Perhaps the flagicon thing might be changed to use icons identified by usernames in the form of something like [[File:Wikipedia-logo.png|link=User:Wtmitchell|28x28px]] (rendering — hover the mouse over that icon), sizes to be 30px max (I got this from Wikipedia:WikiCup/History/2010/Poster/Flags). I don't see the point of the requirement that icons be unique. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

it's the vestigial olympic spirit of nationalism, you could pick any flag with a WP image like ; i.e. make your own colors to fight for. Pohick2 (talk) 03:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Scoring and submissions

Scoring

Scoring categories in Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Contest/Scoring are:

Add a reference to the article (10 points)

• I take this to be the adding of a Notes or References section containing one or more initial references
• I'm suggesting that scoring be changed to 8 points + 2 points per reference added

Fix existing references (2 points)

• I'm suggesting that this should be Fix/tag existing references (2 points)
• I'm suggesting that this would include

• Repairing a broken ref (e.g., a dead link)
• Tagging a broken but unrepaired ref ({{dead link}}, {{citation broken}}, {{failed verification}}, etc.)
• Fleshing out a naked link

Add an additional ref (2 points)

Retag improperly tagged article article from {{BLPunsourced}} {{refimproveBLP}} (1 point)

Submissions

How are submissions and scoring to be done? Some variant on Wikipedia:WikiCup, I imagine. I'm guessing that contest administrators will create submissions/username subpages and seed them with something like the following:

Add ref section and initial ref (8 points + 2 points/ref)

Fix/tag existing ref (1 point)

Add additional refs (2 points/ref)

Retag improperly tagged article (1 point)

and that contestants will submit edits by adding under each heading one entry per edit consisting of a * followed by a wikilink to the article, followed by a boxed link to the edit diff, followed by (if applicable) a count of the refs added/fixed/tagged, followed by optional remarks. Contest admins wold need to audit submitted edits, tag audited edits {{done}}, score them, and upddate a scoring table on the main contest page.

Is that in the ballpark? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

A revised version of the contest

A revised version of the contest can be found at User:J04n/WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Contest. This version is quite a bit different than the original plan but I think it better represents the spirit of this endeavor, if you all disagree I will take no offense. Please feel free to comment, change, amend, or criticize any part of the proposal. I look forward to hearing what you think. J04n(talk page) 02:50, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. A /Scoring subpage might be useful, with IDs of contestants heading contestant-updated sections naming edited articles, linking individual article edits and giving points claimed per edit and running totals— perhaps in a four-column wikitable. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Any other comments on changing the version of the contest? I think that if we try to put something together on too large a scale we will be doomed for failure. I've proposed a series of monthly contests [[here that will allow us to help meet the goal of reducing the backlog of unreferenced BLPs plus stir our competitive juices a bit. I would like to move my proposal over to here but would like to make sure that you all agree. Thank J04n(talk page) 11:50, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Monthly contests sounds like a very good idea, given that we're looking for a sustained effort, not a one-shot all-out effort.--Father Goose (talk) 22:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well done.

One quibble -- For stubbifying, you might encourage people to make a note on the talk page if they do so. That would make it easier for later editors, who would only need to do sourcing and not start almost from scratch. Maurreen (talk) 11:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

i take if, if there are less than eight entrants, that there will be one round. Pohick2 (talk) 23:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What I'm thinking is, instead of rounds to have a new contest every month. This way we can always bring in new folks and if someone falls way behind for some reason they have a shot the next month. We are going to need a sustained effort to get 40K+ articles sourced in a year, this could be a fun way to get that done. J04n(talk page) 23:59, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Maurreen -- that's exactly what I created {{BLP unverified}} for.--Father Goose (talk) 02:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Good work. You're ahead of me. Maurreen (talk) 06:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Since no one is objecting I'm going to move the monthly version over tonight. I would like to kick it off for March. All input is greatly welcome, everyone should feel free to contribute to this to get the bugs out. J04n(talk page) 13:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, good work. I like the revisions very much.Less work with the mechanics means more work with the articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Are the flags still valid?

The original plan for this contest was for it to resemble the Wikicup. We seem to have moved away from that so I am wondering if the flags should still be used. They seem like more bother that what they're worth. J04n(talk page) 13:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, they're just weird.--Father Goose (talk) 00:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

i dunno that Aerica flag File:Aericaflag.jpg is growing on me Pohick2 (talk) 03:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

ok, i changed the flags template using wiki globes for the new people, can change to flags of people want. Pohick2 (talk) 00:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we gave up on the flags...J04n(talk page) 02:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Points

How about points per ref added? I'm not sure what "Fully sourcing an article" means, but that sounds like a five hour job. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So are you say to change the first category to 1 point per ref? J04n(talk page) 03:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

if you could clarify "fully referenced", i'm just putting in those refs, that i can find with a quick and dirty google sweep, which may or may not cover every statement in the article. do you want me to do a quality assessment? (herein lies the dilemma: tag and improve with body count numbers, as opposed to the subjective quality "fully") Pohick2 (talk) 03:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would say that fully means fully, leaving no unreferenced material in place. Otherwise {{refimproveBLP}} should be added (1 point) or the unreferenced material removed (2 points if reduced to a stub). What do you think? Is the 1 point not enough? J04n(talk page) 03:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, one article that had the unrefed tag was Stanislau Shushkevich (it's since been removed). It's about a head of state, so it shouldn't really be stubified in my opinion. Fully reffing it would take probably 5-10 hours. So, there isn't really any way to work on articles like that and remain competitive with someone scoring points on the deletion side. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:44, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

So you think points per ref would be more fair? J04n(talk page) 03:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I was a little surprised to see 25 points for one particular kind of deletion, that seems high, somehow. ++Lar: t/c 03:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

My thinking with that is that if someone is removing an attack page it goes right to the heart of why looking at these BLPs is so important. It is unlikely that there are many pages eligible for g10 hanging around out there. J04n(talk page) 03:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that one. This is the most seriously harmful type of article that can be found at Wikipedia. I certainly hope there won;t be many, but if anybody can spot one, they deserve the points. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

(redent) I was surprised by that because I didn't know what kind of speedy it was, but after looking at it, I think it's kinda cool to give it a large point value. I also think maybe 1 point per ref. This will encourage adding more than one ref to an article. I think there should also be a large point total for fully reffing an article, where the resulting article has say 10+ refs. Maybe 25 for that too. Then maybe 1 point per ref. Figuring out the points is hard, but I'd like it be roughly equal to the amount of time spent, whichever way you improve the encyc. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

On reflection, yes. Let's hope we don't award many of those. Finding one is a matter of luck, at least in part, but on the other hand someone who knows where to look for these sorts of things can maybe do very well indeed.

How about 1 point per ref up to a max of 10 and 25 for expanding the article to a point that it is eligible for WP:DYK (expanded fivefold and contains a minimum of 1,500 characters of prose)? J04n(talk page) 04:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I adjusted some points for a misnomination for speedy; if it ends with the article being deleted, just not by speedy, shouldn't deserve a full 5 point subtraction, because sometime the difference can be technical--it's nowhere as bad as trying to speedy an article that should be actually kept.

I also added a small penalty for nominating for prod or AfD articles that do not get deleted. anyone who disagrees is welcome to alter them. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I like the bonus for a DYK idea. Again 25 may be a bit much but sure. 50 for GA and 100 for FA ? :) ++Lar: t/c 06:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It may slow things down if we make it too much like the wikicup, and it's high goals. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Consider your goal: "This contest's goal is to provide motivation to tackle the problem of a backlog of unreferenced biographies of living people on Wikipedia."

If you keep that as the goal, is there any reason to give points for anything that does not remove an article from the backlog?

If the contest is to have a different goal, then that's another matter. Maurreen (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

btw, it's easier to paste the links to a spreadsheet, fill the needed "|"'s, and concatenate the code in a single cell, then paste back in the table. Pohick2 (talk) 21:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

On stubbing

I'd be wary of including "stubbing" as a points-generating activity. It does not seem that the community supports removing information from articles (BLPs or otherwise) solely on the basis that it is unreferenced. It's commendable to remove information after you've made a good-faith effort to find sources (and failed), but there's no way to ensure that contestants will not rip info out of articles left and right, earning 2 points a pop. Such behavior has proven to be controversial.

Removing information that can't be verified is good practice, but it should really be part of the "fully sourcing an article" category. So I'd like to recommend "Fully sourcing an article" be expanded to "Fully sourcing an article (hard-to-verify information should be removed, preferably using the {{BLP unverified}} template".--Father Goose (talk) 07:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

User talk:The Wordsmith/BLP sourcing

Maybe these two projects can work together or be combined? Okip 04:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, anybody who's doing work there can opt to formally join the contest. I for one prefer to do BLP sourcing work just to get it done.--Father Goose (talk) 07:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Continue in April?

What is the interest in having a second contest in April? J04n(talk page) 11:46, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

When sporadically online, I have been heavily involved in User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects. Now that is off the ground, I would really like to participate in the second contest this time. Okip 12:23, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Pohick2 for outscoring everyone for the month of March 2010. Strong work!! J04n(talk page) 23:44, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

i guess i'll buy myself a beer, good work everybody, Okip come on down. Pohick2 (talk) 01:11, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Did we do a contest? I wasn't aware. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:24, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Peregrine Fisher, I'm very sorry if I didn't make it clear enough when the contest started. J04n(talk page) 00:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

LOL, Okip come on down? we should request a reward of sorts at Wikipedia:GL/I. what do you all think? Anyone want to request it? They made some pretty ones for the article incubator: Wikipedia_talk:Article_Incubator#Article_Incubator_Barnstar Okip 23:42, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

you are the next contestant on the BLP is all right. -- this cup thing is the stand-in for a barnstar but i take it, it was a stealth win, given the apathy, but having proven the point that BLP's can be improved, i return to article creation; i welcome the next winner Pohick2 (talk) 02:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't even know the contest had started... :P Congrats, I guess. Theleftorium 09:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey where is the scoreboard? I was looking to see if I was last, but no points added up yet. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:37, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

• The scoreboard is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons/Contest/March 2010 Scoring, everyone (that knew about it) just put in their own scores. The link is on the project page under the heading 'Scoring'. I should have done a better job of advertising. J04n(talk page) 10:22, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
  • scoring is a pain, but best done on a subpage as you go along, then use a spreadsheet to concatenate the table code. Pohick2 (talk) 02:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

publicity

How well publicized is this contest? I've fully sourced between 150 and 200 articles in Feb and March but just found out about this. Gawd dang it, think I had a shot here ;). Seriously, I think you need to get the word out better.radek (talk) 02:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:CONTEST" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Wikipedia:CONTEST and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 16#Wikipedia:CONTEST until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. NotReallySoroka (talk) 04:55, 16 June 2022 (UTC)