User:The Obento Musubi/Wikicup

This is my proposition for some changes for the next Wikicup cycle. It may still have some kinks in it, but please notify me if you have any questions. An example layout of how the contest would work can be found here.

Proposed Schedules

I honestly feel that a year-long contest is ridiculously long. I took the time to create two tables demonstrating possible schedules for each cup. The first is a two-month contest schedule which has four contests per year and four preparation periods. The second schedule is a three-month long contest schedule with three contests per year and three prep months.

Proposed Two-Month Contest Schedule
	February	Winter Cup (blue)
Year One	January	Winter Cup (blue)
	March	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Spring Cup
	April	Spring Cup (green)
	May	Spring Cup (green)
	June	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Summer Cup
	July	Summer Cup (orange)
	August	Summer Cup (orange)
	September	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Autumn Cup
	October	Autumn Cup (red)
	November	Autumn Cup (red)
	December	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Winter Cup
Year Two	January	Winter Cup (blue)
Year Two	February	Winter Cup (blue)

Proposed Three-Month Contest Schedule
	February
Year One	January	Winter Cup (blue)
	March
	April	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Summer Cup
	May	Summer Cup (orange)
	June
	July
	August	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Autumn Cup
	September	Autumn Cup (red)
	October
	November
	December	Announcement of Winners – Preparation for Winter Cup
Year Two	January	Winter Cup (blue)
	February
	March

If consensus is reached to enact this proposal, the first Wikicup enacting this proposal will either be the Summer Cup beginning in July (first schedule) or the Autumn Cup beginning in September (second schedule). This means that, if community consensus is reached that the first schedule is more favorable, then preparations would take place in June, coinciding with the finals of the current ongoing cup. Another option with the first schedule is to wait until October for the Autumn Cup. If you like schedule one better but don't wish to start the new Wikicup until August, then there is a third alternative: to complete 2009 with Schedule 2, and subsequently apply Schedule 1 for all future Wikicups. So, in a nutshell:

First schedule

Begin with the Summer Cup – July 2009
Preparations begin in June 2009 – coincides with the Finals of the current Wikicup
Begin with the Autumn Cup – October 2009
Preparations begin in September 2009 – no coinciding events

Second schedule

Begin with the Autumn Cup – September 2009
Preparations begin in August 2009 – preparations begin a month after Wikicup 2009 is over

Third alternative

Complete 2009 using Schedule 2 and apply Schedule 1 for all future Wikicups. This means, after Wikicup 2009 ends in July 2009, preparations will begin in August, the contest will go from September—November, and preparations for the Winter Cup will commence in December. The 2010 schedule will then follow Schedule 1.

Each cup has a seasonal name including its respective colors, although this may be debatable because seasons are opposite in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. If the seasonal proposal is taken, there will be all four seasons in the first schedule, but there will only be three seasons in the second schedule: winter, summer, and autumn. Note that other possibilities may include:

Water Cup, Blue Cup
Tree Cup, Grass Cup, Green Cup
Sun Cup, Orange Cup
Fire Cup, Red Cup

Thanks to the French Wikipedia's Wikiconcours for the icons.

Preparation

Instead of the maximum 25 policy at the Wikicup, I propose that the max be bumped up to about 40 or 50 competitors (it's okay if not all seats are filled). Thus, there should be maximum 10 teams – currently called "pools" – with five competitors per team. Each team will have max-five articles under its scope. Its job will be to expand those specific five articles and attribute them. If a team chooses, they will be able to specify a certain theme. For example, a leader may create the Fruit Team, whose objective is to bring five fruit-related articles to VGA-status. Those five articles under its scope are:

Another team, hypothetically called "The Green Team", might have these articles under its scope:

Although the five are completely unrelated, it shall be acceptable nonetheless. The point of having the five specific articles will be so that the edits are concentrated on making quality edits to a few select articles. The articles will be recognized by having a little icon at the top of its page, and a signpost on its talk page indicating that it was a winner (or a contestant) in the Wikicup.

Contest

During the contest itself, contestants are to improve their selected articles.

Scoring

Unlike the current scoring, it will be nearly impossible to determine the number of minor edits from pages. Therefore, winners shall be determined from the following criteria:

Difference in article size (in bytes)
- Difference in bytes ÷ 1,000 (round to the nearest tenth)
- There shall be no negative points – an article may start out to be 15,000 bytes, but will end up with 13,000 due to removal of unnecessary information or simplification. The group will simply not earn any points in this category for that article.
- Example 1: If an page is expanded by 8,293 bytes, they shall earn 8.3 points.
- Example 2: If an article has 9,204 bytes, but the team removes 2,190 bytes of information due to vandalism, unnecessary information, or simplification, the team will not earn any points for that article in this category.
- Exception: If teams are removing valuable information and are removing content by vandalism, they may be disqualified.
Difference in number of images
- The more images, the better! Each constructive image with a caption is worth 5 points.
- Example: If an article had only one image (in the infobox), and five images (with their respective captions) were added to the article, the team would earn 25 points.
Number of DYKs accepted and displayed on the main page
- Number of DYKs × 10
Number of GA promotions
- Number of GAs × 50
Number of VGA promotions
- Number of VGAs × 100

Awards

Teams will be given awards, and it will be up to the team to decide which members deserve awards. The only time team members may deny an award to a member is if the member did not participate at all, or did not contribute much to the articles under the scope. Members may not be denied an award on personal reasons. The awards for teams are as follows:

First place
Second place
Third place
Consolation prize – Winter Cup
Consolation prize – Spring Cup
Consolation prize – Summer Cup
Consolation prize – Autumn Cup

Teams under third place will be given an award the same color as the cup in which they are participating. For example, if the Fruit Team mentioned above came in fifth place in the Winter Cup, members will be awarded . Articles improved by non-winning teams shall not have an icon at the top-right corner of the page.

The articles under the scope of the first, second, and third place teams will be tagged using the {{icon}} template, and a signpost will be added to the talk page indicating that it was part of the Wikicup. The Wikicup will conclude and the process will start over.

Jury

The jury will now serve to tally up the score as was the case before, and will now have the power to disqualify teams from the cup. If any team is disruptive or cheats somehow, the jury will be able to disqualify them and eliminate from the competition. If the problem escalates, the jury will have the right to notify an administrator and block disruptive team members.

Suggestions

Please contact The Obento Musubi (talk · contribs) to make suggestions. Suggestions will be taken into consideration and this page will be updated. In addition to personally contacting me, you may also discuss this with other people at the Wikicup talk page.