Wikipedia talk:The Core Contest

Who wants to organise this year?

My health is going up and down a bit too much to be a reliable organiser (should have posted in January). Would be a shame if my tardiness means there is no core contest this year. I'm willing to judge still. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:56, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I had a great time judging last year, and would love to take a more lead-role as organiser/judge. Aza24 (talk) 16:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

(takes two steps back) okay @Aza24: happy for you to don the captain's hat this year! And reporting for duty! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:45, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Great! Will get things set up soon. Aza24 (talk) 07:47, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

And obviously any questions you have we'll be happy to answer. Lead on! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

TCC 2024: Dates?

Hi all! We're starting a little later than last year, but I think that 15 April to 31 May, like last year would be fine.

We'd still have a good three weeks to spread the word and rack up entries. Any thoughts? Aza24 (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I intend to participate, and this sounds good to me. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

A short lead-in time but doable. Need to get cracking on all fronts quickly though. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:29, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

+1 submissions pages/alerts should probably be up in the next couple of days. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed! I will get on this. Aza24 (talk) 01:02, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Great name

Coretheapple (talk) 17:06, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree Remsense诉 17:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Question

Are there any rules prohibiting the improvement of more than one article? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

They do not. The more entries, the more joy. Last year, we had two editors working on multiple articles: Artem G on various mars rovers, and Phlsph7 on knowledge/education. If the articles differ significantly in coreness, we'll put more emphasis on the changes in the more core artice :). Conversely, you're also allowed to work together on an article, which we saw often in the earlier contests. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

(Good to know.) Remsense诉 17:50, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I'll put that out there now: does anyone maybe want to work on something together as well? Throw some ideas out there! Remsense诉 12:39, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Initial stats

Good luck everyone. I've asked my script to generate some initial stats on all the articles. The total yearly pageviews for this group of article is over 24 million(!)25 million, which I don't think we've had in a while.

Article	VIT	2023 views	Words	References	Median Age
Mongol invasions and conquests	4	1/4M	1502	48	2001
History of North America	3	<100k	3904	31	2003
Classical Chinese	4	>100k	2326	22	1993
Modern philosophy	4	>100k	1796	21	2008
Nursing	3	>1/2M	9163	156	2015
Monarchy	3	>1/2M	4936	52	2016
Turkey	3	>8M	13746	684	2015
Wang Xizhi	4	<100k	731	7	2018
Renewable energy	3	>M	7729	355	2021
Federal Republic of Central America	5	>200k	1009	15	2004
Moscow	3	>M	15546	309	2017
Edward Oliver LeBlanc	5	<100k	252	5	2015
Independent music	5	150k	1940	28	2016
Call of Duty	5	3M	4931	100	2014
Pakistan	3	7M	14331	657	2011
Voltairine de Cleyre	5	<100k	1585	36	2003
Love	3	2M	5690	92	2003
Mind	2	1/4M	7687	239	2010
Night	4	>200k	1384	14	2017
Performing arts	2	1/4M	3896	23	2015
Antioch	4	1/2M	5945	109	2005
Library of Congress	4	1/2M	5696	132	2015

—Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:08, 14 April 2024 (UTC), 06:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC), 19:40, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting cohort of articles. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Always a good sign for coreness when these single-word articles (Love, Mind, Night etc.) are present. Aza24 (talk) 03:55, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

FYI, some of the pageview statistics in the table look a little inaccurate. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I had forgotten to update the year for which it takes the pageviews (2022 instead of 2023). More effort to do last 12 months. Have updated the table with 2023 data now and quite a few articles changed categories. Of course, the million award should be taken with a grain of salt, as it's about the last 12 months if I recall correctly.

I think this link should lead you to the code. Not sure what people need to have access though. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:08, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Requesting to withdraw

Putting this here because I'm not sure how to "withdraw" from this. Before the contest started, I signed up with Call of Duty  5, which is an article I thought I would be able to improve in an adequate time frame. However, a third into the contest, and I do not think I will be able to properly improve the article, or at least do it justice. I also will be leaving the country in the last week and a half of the contest per a note I have left on my own talk page, which will limit my time. While I may improve this article one day on my own terms, I am requesting to withdraw from this years Core Contest. If this is not the place to ask to withdraw from, then I would like to know where the place to request that would be. λ NegativeMP1 06:15, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Hey @NegativeMP1, no worries! Thanks for your initial interest and honest evaluation of your time. Anyone is allowed to withdraw at any time; we just ask that you move your entry in Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries to Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries#Withdrawn entries. Best – Aza24 (talk) 18:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Payment issue

So, I still have not been paid for last year's contest. I needed to register a new bank account that supported international payments, submitted the information to Karla Marte at wmuk at the beginning of May, and sent a reminder email earlier this week after hearing nothing back. She hasn't gotten back to me since. Did anyone else manage to get paid? (t · c) buidhe 14:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I did, a week or 2 ago, but I'm in the UK. It's not good. Mind you, I've had similar issues with US universities and small payments for research interviews etc. For the amounts involved you'd think they could just mail banknotes. Johnbod (talk) 15:44, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Similar problem for me. I sent them my banking information at the end of April and there hasn't been a transaction so far. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:49, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry to hear, but thank you all for reaching out. I'll follow up with WMUK to see if there has been a delay on their end, or if there's another reason. Aza24 (talk) 20:04, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I gave up once it was clear that I had to divulge my personal information. There's a price where I'd trust the WMF with that, but it's higher than £35. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:08, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Here in the UK I just got Amazon vouchers (fine by me), so only my email was needed. But these can't be sent/used internationally, by what seems to me an odd Amazon quirk. It's remarkably difficult/expensive to make small international payments of actual money - odd when debit & credit cards are so efficient across borders. Johnbod (talk) 02:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree, having to disclose personal information is an issue. Given all the other issues encountered so far, it would probably be best to not offer monetary rewards in the future and use barnstars instead. While the idea is nice in principle, the current process is too cumbersome to be worthwhile. Phlsph7 (talk) 06:45, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't a problem in previous years, afaik. Johnbod (talk) 03:41, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it was either. We are currently waiting to hear back; if these issues persist, we'll look for alternative funding in the future. Aza24 (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I have also just claimed mine but I'm UK based so similarly was able to get an Amazon voucher without providing any personal details. Sammielh (talk) 11:10, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Words and references added table

Article	VIT	2023 views	Words	References	Words added	Refs added
Classical Chinese	4	>100k	2050	20	-153	-2
Monarchy	3	>1/2M	4942	52	6	0
Turkey	3	>8M	11531	648	-2041	-37
Wang Xizhi	4	<100k	3850	145	3119	138
Renewable energy	3	>M	6699	318	-1027	-37
Federal Republic of Central America	5	>200k	9244	387	6574	291
Edward Oliver LeBlanc	5	<100k	2931	119	2679	114
Independent music	5	150k	1784	93	-66	67
Pakistan	3	7M	10800	661	-2181	12
Voltairine de Cleyre	5	<100k	12864	419	9692	333
Love	3	2M	7087	112	1358	19
Mind	2	1/4M	7535	175	-152	-64
Night	4	>200k	4184	212	2800	198
Performing arts	2	1/4M	3896	23	0	0
Library of Congress	4	1/2M	5696	132	0	0
Human history	1	1/2M	9897	581	-385*	-1*
Withdrawn entries
Mongol invasions and conquests	4	1/4M	1502	48	0	0
Antioch	4	1/2M	5954	109	9	0
Nursing	3	>1/2M	3618	141	-5877	-26
History of North America	3	<100k	3890	31	-14	0
Modern philosophy	4	>100k	1796	21	0	0
Moscow	3	>M	15437	316	-109	7
Call of Duty	5	3M	4916	100	-14	0

* Manually estimated, so maybe not consistent Thanks everybody for your contributions! As always, a huge improvement in many of the articles here. There are a lot of entries this year, so we might take slightly longer than normal to come back to y'all. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful statistics. For the number of references, I think you are counting reference tags, at least I get the same count as you (175) for the article Mind. This article uses citation bundles, meaning that each reference tag may contain several individual citations, by my count 441 citations in total. This will probably also be an issue for the article Human history, which has 581 bundles with a total of 658 individual citations by my count. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:20, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

That's good to know! I'm very much looking forward to reading both! —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:08, 1 June 2024 (UTC)