Submissions/Efficient and sustainable sponsored Wikipedia articles writing contests

From Wikimania 2012 • Washington, D.C., USA

This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2012.

This is a withdrawn submission for Wikimania 2012. Reason: The speaker was refused in U.S. visa

Submission no.

72

Title of the submission
Efficient and sustainable sponsored Wikipedia articles writing contests
Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation)
presentation
Author of the submission
Andriy Makukha
E-mail address
andriy.makukha@gmail.com
Username
Amakuha
Country of origin
Ukraine
Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)
Wikimedia Ukraine («Вікімедіа Україна»)
Personal homepage or blog
http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Amakuha
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)
Ex-first lady of Ukraine with the winner of the second Wikicontest in Ukraine
Ukrainian Wikipedia has an original set of awards and elaborate user rankings which prove to motivate users to produce certain effective way of contributing (not just clicking around). Also Wikimedia Ukraine awards a monthly symbolic real prize for the greatest amount of text written in Ukrainian Wikipedia in a month both among newbies and experienced wikipedians.
But last autumn Wikimedia Ukraine has come up with a new way to popularize writing to Wikipedia. We organized a first Wikipedia articles writing contest in Ukraine. The event was sponsored by Wikimedia France (€2000) and supported by some major Ukrainian media. It was devoted to “writing about France in Ukrainian Wikipedia and writing about Ukraine in French Wikipedia”. Two thirds of the money were used for prizes. The main prizes were quite impressive: a trip to Paris, a netbook and e-readers.
The competitive atmosphere of the contest generated more than 500 articles with 8 Mb wikitext in Ukrainian Wikipedia in 7 weeks. But among six winners of the contest, three registered in Wikipedia specially for the event (they did not have prior experience with any kind of wiki or markup language at all). At the same time, as would not be expected, the final versions of articles were of very high quality. And there were virtually no clashes between common “voluntary” life of Wikipedia as we used to, with the “contest” life. — All of this, we believe, was due to the effective set of rules developed by us. Particularly, the rules rely heavily on the ability of the contest coordinators to do quite complex computations (e. g. with a Wikipedia bot).
Next autumn the french contest will most probably be repeated.
Not long after the first contest, Wikimedia Ukraine announced another contest of the same type. This time it was sponsored by a major charity organization of Ukraine, and was devoted to charity. The event has tripled a number of articles about charity in Ukrainian Wikipedia, as well as brought the chapter to the limelight of local charity funds. (see picture)
In this talk, the author will share the experience of organizing an efficient Wikipedia contest. A thorough analysis of results of the contests (participation of contestants after the contests, feedback of supporters and opponents of this type of events) will be presented. Some other original and effective psychological incentives of Ukrainian Wikipedia will be mentioned.
Track
WikiCulture and Community
Length of presentation/talk
25 Minutes (20 minutes + 5 for discussion)
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
depends on scholarship from Wikimedia
Slides or further information (optional)
I will use slides
Special request as to time of presentations


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  1. SarahStierch (talk) 21:06, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. C.R.Selvakumar (talk) 00:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Steven (WMF) (talk) 21:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Здорово! I'm really interested in learning more about Ukrainian Wikipedia, for personal and professional reasons :D Maryana (WMF) (talk) 21:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Graham87 (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  6. -- Marcus Cyron (talk) 18:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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