Wikipedia talk:WikiCup

WikiCup content needing review view •
Featured content Featured/good topic candidates DYK GAN PR

Is teaming with reviewers in the spirit of the cup?

In this cup as well as in the previous year's, our friend BeanieFan11 has submitted very large amounts of GAs. I don't want to diminish his work in this area; sports articles are an area where dedicated editors can make a huge difference in coverage, especially in as broad of an area as Beanie focuses on. However, I feel that the way these GANs have been conducted might run foul of the spirit of the cup here. Beanie GANs large numbers of short sport articles, which are picked up by one of two reviewers within a matter of hours and passed without much delay, generally just minor style tweaks. Talk:Kenneth Odumegwu/GA1 is a good example of a typical such article; it was submitted to GAN at 19:48 on September 27, taken at 20:06, reviewed at 20:24, and passed at 21:23. These pick up rapidly at the end of competitions such as the WP:DCWC or in the last two weeks of last year's cup, where 50 GAs were reviewed and passed. 3 and a half GAs a day, for those keeping track.

This sort of rapid post-and-review tactic is very effective at getting large numbers of GAs quickly, but I feel it greatly diminishes the efforts of other editors, especially ones who do not have access to close colleagues who will quickly review all of one's GANs. No editor in an area outside of something like sports could reasonably hope to match this pace. It unreasonable to expect someone to have buddy-reviewers to rapidly pass articles in order to compete at the highest level, and its unreasonable to punish editors who edit in areas where the GA bar is much higher and requires more thorough reviewing. This is ultimately just my thoughts on the matter, and so I would like to hear from the judges and all of you. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

This certainly looks odd. I have always believed that the social skills needed to actually find reviewers (or to convince the FAC coordinators to grant a second concurrent nomination) are part of what is celebrated and scored in the WikiCup, but having one or two friends who rapidly review several GAs per day (which have been pre-written up to a year ago, some of them were even withdrawn after the last WikiCup ended) does not sit quite right with me. —Kusma (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh woah, I did not realize that last part. That definitely seems like it's beyond the bounds of the competition. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 16:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Sorry, I'm not trying to be disruptive – I've been putting in a large amount of my time recently to work on these articles (e.g. I've written from scratch about 15 quality articles in the past week, although not all qualify for the Cup). Do you think that there's any issues with the articles themselves? If it seems I'm having low-quality articles rapidly passed as GA then I'd agree that its inappropriate; but, if the only issue is that there's a few users who like to review my articles quickly, I'm not sure I quite see how it would be an issue? – given that many of these otherwise would take months to attract any interest; the three oldest pending GANs are each early Green Bay Packers articles (an area I've done significant work in) which have gone untouched since January. I feel that the ability to produce a good number of GAs is kind of balanced out by some articles receiving much higher amounts of points – e.g. the current leader has achieved three FAs which, when claimed, would equal 1,800 points alone. How would I be able to compete with that with no one to review the articles in a timely manner? As for the articles themselves, if you think any of them are sub-GA – I'm happy to address any issues with them. Pinging @Gonzo fan2007 and WikiOriginal-9: (reviewers) BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it true that some of these articles were pre-written/withdrawn from last year's Cup? — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 19:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Current leader only has two FAs actually @BeanieFan11. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Hey man im josh, Chagatai Khan just passed. Honestly, three FAs in one month needs some serious recognition. Amazing work AirshipJungleman29! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh woops, WikiCup stats page hadn't updated yet :P Hey man im josh (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• I am not the right person to decide whether this fits "the spirit", but if anything it's surprising this isn't more common given that the WikiCup system encourages it. This is as much a game of social engineering as it is actual content creation. We can't say "the winner is whoever coordinates their noms the best, as long as they don't coordinate them too much", but that's the system we're using. BeanieFan11's GA stats confirm that this is what's happening, whether BeanieFan11 sought the help or merely accepted it. WikiOriginal-9's stats confirm that they are almost entirely inactive at GAN besides reviewing Beaniefan11's noms near the end of competitions. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:41, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm just going to chime in here once, but please ping me if you need a response to something. I told BeanieFan11 that I would be happy to review any WP:PACKERS GAs he produces years ago, and that's what I do. I really don't care what the purpose is, if they want to contribute to a WikiProject I am passionate about, awesome! I have written 41 GAs myself, 22 FLs, and 2 FAs. I have reviewed about 100 GAs in my time. I am comfortable in my reviewing process, but am always happy to accept any constructive criticism.

BeanieFan11 focuses his efforts in a niche area: little-known professional sports bios. He is a good writer and most of his articles are under 800 words. To be frank, they aren't that difficult to review. The article example, Kenneth Odumegwu, has 20 inline sources, is a comprehensive article on the person and well-rounded. Is there anything wrong with it per GA criteria? That article is clearly better than 95% of the stuff on Wikipedia. I am not going to just make comments for the sake of making comments to inflate a review; I don't nitpick. I also often assist in editing the article. For example, I was the one that archived the references with IABot. I could've asked BeanieFan11 to do it to add one more part of the review, but its easy enough to do myself. In the past, I have even made small copyedits to articles instead of taking more time to comment on those edits. Lastly, I will note that in the creator-reviewer relationship, BeanieFan11 now already implements many of my past comments and I know what to look for.

The purpose of the Wikicup is not to win (The purpose of the Cup is to encourage content creation and improvement and make editing on Wikipedia more fun.) It's to encourage article creation and development. BeanieFan11 is highly motivated and produces great content within his niche area of interest. If you are unhappy with the impacts of his impressive article production and the fact that he has friends willing to do the thankless reviewing work, then I recommend a discussion on changing rules. Maybe there is a cap in points each area, to encourage diverse article creation? As BeanieFan11 noted, I have waited patiently since January for some of my GANs. Note, that offer is open to anyone who wants to promote WP:PACKERS content. Just let me know what you need reviewed, and I'll be there.

Lastly, I cannot grasp how BeanieFan11's success diminishes anyone's work. Everyone is to be commended for participating and improving the encyclopedia. We should be celebrating these individuals for their contributions, not worrying about someone being too successful at something that promotes Wikipedia's purpose. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this would be very different if there were evidence of misconduct of some sort. Right now it just seems to be a question of how it affects the rules of the game here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Gonzo fan2007, I've actually used you as an example regarding "if you want quick points, nominate what people are interested in and will review quickly". If someone wants to have their content reviewed quickly, nominate Packers articles. I've gone on further to say that that is not gaming the system, because you're one of the best reviewers I'm aware of and you don't take it easy out of friendliness. Hell, since we've worked more together I feel like you've actually been harder on me, as if you're like "you can do better josh", and it's benefited the articles I've worked on and Wikipedia as a whole (and I'm very grateful for it). I believe, from what I'm reading, the concern is saving all of the GAs until close to the end of the round/cup. Hey man im josh (talk) 21:12, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Hahaha I appreciate it! And yeah, us Joshes have to make sure all Joshes keep up our good reputation. Wouldn't want an on-Wiki Josh fight, right? Haha « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't care about the WikiCup. BeanieFan asked me if I could review the articles, so I reviewed them. That's literally all there is to it. I have no idea where Beanie is in the standings right now. I haven't looked. All of my reviews are thorough. It took me 3 hours this morning to review the 12 articles he asked me about yesterday. I also don't just "pass" everything. I thought one article Beanie asked me about last year was too short so I didn't review it. There were also about 10 or so reviews that Beanie didn't get to in time last year, so those ended up failing. He has come back and fixed some of the issues later on though.

Also, I am not entirely inactive from the GAN process. It is true I don't do too many reviews unless someone asks me to, but I have 17 GAs and 3 GANs right now that are awaiting reviews. I could have more than that too in my thousands of article creations and expansions, but, personally, I don't nominate articles if I think they are on the short side. I have stricter length requirements for my own articles than I do for reviews. With some of Beanie's article's about one-game NFL players, there isn't much else more to say. If there is good sourcing out there, Beanie usually includes it. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

That's an average of 15 minutes per review. I've reviewed about a hundred GANs of varying length, and I don't know if I ever managed to do one in under 15 minutes. But if the review is thorough then it's thorough. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

If anyone thinks any of Beanie's GAs aren't up to snuff, feel free to start a GAR. Like I said, I have no skin in this game.

I see where you are coming from though. If I was a competitor in the WikiCup, he would probably annoy me to with all of his GAs (lol). ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 21:51, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

To preface this, I received a private message yesterday expressing concern about how one competitor has been renominating GANs that they withdrew at the end of the previous year's cup. Without naming names, I should say that withdrawing GA/FA nominations based solely on the timing of WikiCup rounds is against the spirit of the cup, even if the articles do meet the GA/FA criteria.

I'll say that collusion between GAN/FAC nominators and reviewers may also be against the WikiCup's spirit, but it's not clear what the remedy for this is. Disqualifying nominations based on who the reviewer is can get tricky really quickly, especially if a particular topic area only attracts a small number of reviewers (which would inevitably lead to one editor reviewing multiple articles from the same nominator). Additionally, it really depends on the quality of the article; even if the same reviewer looked at multiple articles from one nominator, I'd be less inclined to mark the GANs/FACs as ineligible if these articles otherwise meet the good article or featured article criteria. On the other hand, if the nominations are truly disruptive, one option is to disqualify all of the affected articles, while another option is to remove the user from the competition. However, I'd prefer to do that only if other contestants agree that such user's continued presence in the WikiCup would be disruptive. Perhaps @Frostly or @Cwmhiraeth could chime in with their thoughts.

However, banking potential GANs/FACs for subsequent rounds is not by itself against the rules. In fact, this is actually somewhat encouraged by the fact that points reset at the end of each round. Additionally, editors are allowed to claim points for GANs/FACs even if they did most of the work for that article in a previous year. If there is a desire to change this (for example, if contestants wish to implement a rule saying "work on these articles must be done this year"), we can certainly discuss that. – Epicgenius (talk) 20:47, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Epicgenius, appreciate your comments and insights. That said, collusion seems to be a strong word (dictionary definition is secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others). All coordination has been done on-Wiki, and there hasn't been any attempt to hide anything. The commentary between BeanieFan11 and I is right there on our talk pages and archives. They even gave me a barnstar for being willing to review their articles. Are you implying that is what is happening here? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:55, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

@Gonzo fan2007, thanks for the response. With regard to the second paragraph of my comment, I wasn't commenting on Beanie's situation specifically. As long as Beanie contacted you on-wiki, I personally don't see your reviews of Beanie's articles as collusion, since you theoretically could have rejected his on-wiki request (though from the comments above, I do think some people might've gotten that impression). Generally, I think it's fine for WikiCup competitors to ask specific editors to look at their articles, as long as the request falls within WP:APPNOTE.

I was saying that collusion, or more appropriately WP:CANVASSING, would be inappropriate. For example, if a contestant were to ask another editor to review their GAN via a private message, and then it got reviewed within 5 minutes, then that would be collusion/canvassing. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:13, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, Epicgenius. I appreciate it, and am happy to affirm that all of our discussion regarding GA reviews occurs on-Wiki. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Not asking for it to be reimplemented, but this seems like a good time to mention that there was, until the 2020 cup, a rule which required content to have been worked on and nominated during the course of the competition. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:17, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Epicgenius. Weighing in with my two cents, I completely agree that withdrawing nominations completely based on the Cup's timing is innapropiate. I also think that there's several pieces to equally consider when determining whether a pattern of GANs/FACs is disruptive, including whether requests for reviews are done in private or on-wiki, what other contestants think, the quality and detail of reviews, etc. (as you've discussed). Ultimately, broader rule changes (like the points reset change discussed below) might help address these concerns in the long-run. — Frostly (talk) 04:07, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I have not been much involved in the running of the cup this year, real life having intervened. The "Spirit of the cup" is a rather nebulous concept and I do not really think it has been breached here. If an article is written and submitted that meets the GA criteria and another editor chooses independently to review it, that seems good to me. I do not hear people saying in this thread that the quality of the articles or the adequacy of the reviews is below standard. Ultimately the winner of the cup is the the editor who makes the best choices as to what articles/processes/subjects to concentrate on. I remember 10 years ago, when I was edged into second place in two successive years by a Featured Picture specialist, thinking how unfair it was that FP reviews were fixed at 10 days whereas all the other article processes had variable lengths that were not under the control of the contestant. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:15, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, seeing someone nominate a slew of articles, then seeing a second person immediately review all of them, regardless of merit, is highly suspicious, and stuff like that is why i stopped participating in the cup long ago. But it's also hard for me to get mad at that when all the finalists are likely doing precisely that at some level, you can't get this far without making those kind of connections. Wizardman 13:23, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say allll the finalists! The only thing I try to do is a lot of reviews in hopes of getting them back :P I don't think it's unreasonable to write articles with the knowledge that someone is very passionate about a specific subject, and that that someone will immediately give a quality review if a related article is nominated. With that said, I get why it would feel pretty bad if someone "saved" a bunch of articles for near the end to surprisingly overtake someone. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

On one hand, I understand it could be demoralizing to see one particular contestant's nominations reviewed all at once. However, I'd also say that the scoring system actually incentivizes this behavior by resetting everyone's points at the end of every round, so contestants may be more motivated to send up a bunch of nominations in round 5.

As I mentioned above, I think such reviews should still be within the spirit of the cup as long as the collaboration doesn't run afoul of WP:CANVASS, and both the nominations and reviews are of adequate quality for GAN/FAC. If you think a review or set of reviews violate WP:CANVASS, or if you think there's a substandard GAN, FAC, or review, feel free to let me or another judge know. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:37, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Let me 'devil's advocate' this for a bit. In 2024, I have nominated about 20 GANs. Half of those took over 6 months to get a review, even with multiple GAN backlog drives. For someone who primarily works in the GA field, if you don't have relationships with reviewers, you would never be able to move forward in the Wikicup. If this is a problem, if GANs are set-up in a way that can facilitate quick point accumulation (single reviewer that can occur very quickly, as opposed to other review processes that take more time), then I would recommend having a discussion about decreasing the points gained for a GAN. That said, one FAC with a 3x multiplier is the same point total as 17 standard GANs. Even for shorter GANs, that is a lot of writing, sourcing and formatting work.

To a second point, the spirit of the Wikicup is not to crown a winner at the end; it is to celebrate amazing content creation, of all participants! BeanieFan11 has an amazing track record of creating well-sourced and well-written content within their topic niche. The questions that should be asked are (1) does the article meet the criteria, (2) was the review thorough, constructive and comprehensive and (3) was WP:CANVASS breached (noting that WP:APPNOTE allows for notiifcations On the user talk pages of concerned editors. Examples include: Editors who have made substantial edits to the topic or article; Editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics); Editors known for expertise in the field; Editors who have asked to be kept informed). Regarding the Packers, I meet most of, if not all, those criteria, so it would appear appropriate for me to be notified as such. And frankly, I check the Packers article alerts every day, so the notification isn't even that necessary.

Lastly, I will reiterate, if anyone creates WP:PACKERS content, I will be right there to provide a review (GAN, FAC, FLC, DYK, etc). The offer isn't restricted to just one editor. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:56, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

It could be interesting to not reset the scores every round. (It leads to all sorts of things like people delaing GA promotions in order to claim them in the next round). —Kusma (talk) 09:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That is an interesting idea. I suppose we can discuss the idea of changing the scoring from a round-based system to a cumulative system before the 2025 Cup begins. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:58, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

There is a two-tier point system for DYKs based on length. If part of the issue here is the incentivization of WP:FEATUREDSTUBs (GOODSTUBs?), then why not extend that further? But otherwise, the rules of the game does incentivize this sort of activity, finding a niche of small topics, so I'm surprised it seems to not be discussed much before. Short articles take less time to produce, but also less time to review. (If anyone wants an easy niche, Saint Lucia at the Olympics and its 8 specific sub-articles are available.) CMD (talk) 01:26, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

GAs that haven't been properly reviewed

GAs that qualify for the Cup should be reviewed according to the Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. This includes the statement

• This must include a spot-check of a sample of the sources in the article to verify that each source supports the text in the article that it covers, and that no copyrighted material has been added to the article from the source.

GA nominations for the Cup should only count if they essentially follow the current GA instructions. We do not want the Cup to lead to another WP:DCGAR type issue just because people think they can bypass spotchecks for a nominator whom they trust.

Unfortunately there are a large number of GAs submitted in this round of the Cup where spotchecks appear not to have been done. —Kusma (talk) 16:19, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Kusma, thanks for bringing this up. I don't think this requirement is currently mentioned in Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring, so I can understand why a competitor may have submitted GA nominations even if the reviewers failed to properly follow the GAN reviewing instructions. The scoring page doesn't mention anything about the quality of other people's reviews of contestants' GAs; the rules only talk about reviews initiated by contestants themselves.

This omission is a pretty major oversight, so we can add a rule requiring that GAs are only eligible for points if their respective reviews satisfy all the criteria outlined under WP:GAN/I#R3. With only a few hours remaining in this year's competition, such a last-minute change to the rules might not be feasible, but this is definitely something we can do for next year's WikiCup.

In the meantime, I see there is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Reviews being done in under a minute??. I'm going to ping @BeanieFan11 as a heads-up, but if these reviews did consistently fail to include spotchecks, I'm not inclined to approve these unless the reviewer can complete their spotchecks within the next six and a half hours. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: You may want to read the reviewer's comment at that discussion: Yes, I do checks for sources. I just don't specifically write that unless I find anything off. – spot checks are being done, the reviewer usually just points it out when there's issues with the sources / text. Thoughts? BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:33, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@BeanieFan11, ideally, each review should include at least a sentence saying that no issues were found in the spotchecks. If there is no acknowledgment of the spotchecks at all, it may give the impression that such checks were not done. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: Is knowing that, per the above comment, they did have spotchecks per @WikiOriginal-9: sufficient, or no? BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:39, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@BeanieFan11, no, it is not. However, all we really need is for @WikiOriginal-9 to write something like "I did a spot check and found no issues" on each of the review pages, if they found no issues. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I made another comment at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations#Reviews_being_done_in_under_a_minute??. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: WikiOriginal-9 added spotcheck comments to each of the GA reviews. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I just saw. In my assessment, these comments do satisfy GAN's spotcheck requirement, so these submissions are eligible for WikiCup points. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone object to my adding the following bullet point to Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring#Good article nomination reviews?

• Except for in-depth quick fails, all reviews must include a spot-check of a sample of the sources in the article, in accordance with WP:GAN/I#R3.

– Epicgenius (talk) 18:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't object to that, but I would like for us to try and also enforce this for GAs scored in the Cup, not just for GA reviews scored in the Cup. This means people would need to ask their GA reviewers to make their spot checks explicit. (That might annoy one or two reviewers, but the Cup really should promote best practices in GA reviewing, whether GA participants are the reviewers or the reviewees). —Kusma (talk) 22:17, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I was going to comment something similar. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:17, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm on board with this. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 23:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've added a new bullet point to Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring#Good article nomination reviews and a new section for good articles. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:12, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm also going to ping @Cwmhiraeth and @Frostly in case my co-judges disagree with this change. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Epicgenius, thanks for the ping! I completely agree with the rule change — Frostly (talk) 04:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Should reviews be worth more?

Based on a discussion on Discord, I thought I'd put it out there. The goal of the competition is to encourage content creation and promotion, which it does fairly well for the most part. However, reviews are a crucial part of this, and it's been discussed that perhaps a tweak to how much they're worth, with further explanations about review criteria (show your work when doing a review and don't just rubber stamp everything) could benefit everybody involved. My initial thought was bumping from 5 points for a GAR or FAR to 7, but I'd obviously love to hear what everybody else thinks on the subject. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:14, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Not all reviews are equal. Many PRs and some FA reviews are fairly quick, as they do not need to cover everything. GA reviews are sometimes a lot more work and should perhaps be worth more (especially long reviews of long articles with many sources). From my own reviews, consider the difference between Talk:Georgine Kellermann/GA1 and Talk:Chinese characters/GA1: should both be worth the same? —Kusma (talk) 14:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

On average, GA reviews are probably more in-depth than FA, FL, or PR reviews (assuming they are done to the required standard) because they are one-person, full-article reviews. I would support increasing the GA review point total, but would be more hesitant about the other ones; if the PR total is increased maybe it could help drive interest in a half-dead process? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

One major difference between PR/FAC and GA reviews is that the reviewer does not have to wait for the nominator to do anything, so more of them can be done in a short time. For that reason I would not support increasing points for PR and FAC reviews. —Kusma (talk) 16:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think there's a problem in trying to quantify the quality of different reviews of the same type, one which is difficult to do objectively. I think it's a hurdle that would put too much of a burden on the cup coordinators, but I do still think we should consider raising the points for reviews. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:59, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I've never participated in the WikiCup, but I agree that GA reviews (which I have never done) seem a lot more daunting than FL reviews (which I have done a few of) simply because the reviewer takes sole responsibility for the review.

OTOH, it would be nice to give bonus points for difficult reviews, as Kusma's examples illustrate. Perhaps simply awarding fewer points to quickfailed reviews or reviews where the nom doesn't respond would be a start. Toadspike [Talk] 14:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Could do something for GA reviews like 'GA reviews of [this length] are worth 5 points; GA reviews of at least [this length] are worth 10 points' – similar to the DYK points scale. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:09, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the GAN Backlog scoring model should be adopted. First, you don't get points for reviewing articles under 800 words of readable prose. And then for every 2,500 words, you get bonus points. So 800-2,500 words get base point, 2,500-5,000 gets first bonus points, 5,000-7,500 gets second bonus points, and so on. I would also be supportive of bonus points for reviews of fellow Wikicup participants' articles. That way the Wikicup is helping to address the additional reviews that the competition generates and it produces a sense of camaraderie. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the GAN backlog drives' scoring rules could be a good model for us here. —Kusma (talk) 16:30, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I have no opinion as to the idea of implementing the GAN backlog drives' scoring rules. However, if there is consensus for this change, I wonder if it's possible for LivingBot to automatically calculate the word length of articles that are being reviewed. This is similar to what is already done for DYKs, except the bot currently calculates the number of prose bytes, not words, for DYKs.

Also pinging LivingBot's maintainer @Jarry1250 as a heads-up. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:08, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this, but I think the baseline should be 7 points per GA review. FA reviews should remain at 5 points flat, no word count bonus. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's a bit of a slippery slope to put reviews at a high rate. Gaming is already a problem, I don't think we should make a strategy of just doing reviews more viable. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:18, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of the Cup is to encourage content creation. Although reviews are an important part of the process, if you reward reviews too highly, the scoring may become unbalanced. Featured pictures did not play a major part in this years contest, but it is also difficult to weigh their scoring against regular content. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:29, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I do not think reviews should score more than about 15 points maximum, and that only for substantial GA reviews of substantial articles. As we need criteria that can be quickly checked by the judges (with automated help), perhaps it should be simpler: 5 for FAC and PR and 5/7/10 for GA depending on word count (or a prose size proxy for that if that is easier for Jarry1250) would be my suggestion at this point. —Kusma (talk) 11:15, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping us judges in your consideration - it is much appreciated. With the caveat that I still have no opinion on this, I think the scoring system for reviews should be even simpler than that if it is ultimately implemented. E.g. 5 points for reviews of good articles below a certain threshold (e.g. 25,000 prose bytes) and 10 points for articles larger than that threshold.

As Cwmhiraeth says, the main goal of the Cup is content creation. Reviews, while appreciated, are more of a secondary means toward achieving that goal, so it is reasonable that they receive fewer points than something like DYKs, GAs, and featured content. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:13, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

The WikiCup should not cause additional strain on Wikipedia's review processes, so in my view it should always aim to generate a surplus of reviews. The scoring should help to make that happen. —Kusma (talk) 22:15, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

That's how I feel as well. I think, if we considered increasing the points for reviews by a smidge, it helps to actually get more content in the cup itself as a result. Reviewing 7 GAs to get the same points as writing 1 doesn't quite feel great, but reviewing 5 to get the same points would feel better balanced. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I will reiterate to, that providing bonus points for reviewing articles by Wikicup participants should be considered. Help offset the additional strain and its likely that the reviews will be of higher quality, knowing that another Wikicup participant is on the receiving end.

I am putting this in bold green because I want it to stick out: The goal of the Wikicup is not just "content creation", it is "recognized content creation". In order for an article to be formally recognized, it requires reviews. You can't have one without the other, so any argument that reviews aren't an essential part of the Wikicup doesn't compute with me.. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 16:12, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

And it's wrapped!

Hello, I just wanted to thank everybody, starting from hosts @Cwmhiraeth, @Epicgenius and @Frostly, for another great year of contributions! Although I didn't exactly put an inspiring performance myself, I'm happy I've somehow played a role in improving Wikipedia further.

Congratulations to @AirshipJungleman29, and props to the rest of the finalists, starting from @BeanieFan11 and @Generalissima: you all have put some incredible efforts in the final round.

I hope I'll see you next year! Oltrepier (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Why aren't points carried over each round?

I am new to the WikiCup so forgive me if this has already been discussed, but why aren't points carried over to the next round? From my understanding, the point of the WikiCup is to create and promote quality content. Having the points carried over would encourage people to consistently push out quality content over the course of a couple of months instead of saving all of it till the last month. Kind of a "marathon not a race" approach. I do understand that some people may enjoy the competitiveness of the final round but having points carry over would also help to deter gaming the system a bit as it would be harder to do so for many months. IntentionallyDense (talk) 22:09, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Carrying over would be helpful in alleviating the "timing" aspect a little bit. The downside would be that a few people would likely break into the thousands very quickly and it would feel really insurmountable for the people who didn't. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I think allowing points to carry over would eliminate most of the gamey-ness of it. At the moment, you basically don't even have to bother to get past the first round, while you can be subject to more matters of luck (like FAC promotion timing) on the final round. It'd also make it more accessible in case you happen to not have much free time in September/October (common for students, I imagine).

This would put "tortoise" editors on equal footing with "hare" editors, so to speak, which is very much not the case currently. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Those are my thoughts. It might be more unforgiving to those who have an off month and can't put out as much content one month but I also really like the point you brought up about having less time in Septemebr and October as that is a huge factor for me as a student. IntentionallyDense (talk) 22:41, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand what specific gaming of the system would be deterred, and how. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it would be deterred altogether however if there was problematic behaviour going on there would be much more time to address it. IntentionallyDense (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

What is "it" IntentionallyDense—what specific examples of gaming the system do you think would be deterred, and how? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

It is a game. That's the whole point. It's a competition, and folks can be strategic. That's not gaming the system. Resetting the points each round encourages people to steadily make content. Of course people will try to time content, figure out how to get those extra points, that's what makes it fun and exciting! If we want a marathon kind of competition, then I suggest creating a new competition. I think that could be pretty cool actually, to have a separate competition that recognizes the person who overall contributed the most content to EnWP in a year. It might be tricky to iron out the details, but I think it should be separate from the WikiCup, if it exists at all. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:49, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I am inclined to agree. It seems fairly easy to "game" the new system too. The main difference is that all variability disappears—in the current WikiCup, even if you plan to "game" the final round, you still need to be active enough in all four preceding ones to get there. In the proposed version, there is still no need for consistent content production: just nominate 100 GANs in the first month, sit back and probably win, with 95% of competitors losing all interest by February to boot. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:03, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think many people are sitting on a pile of 100 articles ready for GA. (Sammi Brie probably is, but she is having trouble getting them all reviewed quickly enough). Anyway, the question is whether we can reward people more for content creation and less for timing/social engineering skills. —Kusma (talk) 09:15, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Based on this years cup, there actually is evidence to say that people are sitting on tons of quality articles. IntentionallyDense (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The examples I was thinking of may not be particularly "bad" but have been questioned by others. I'm not trying to say that these practices are breaking any rules or anything I've just noticed others voicing their concerns about them. Something like teaming up with another editor (as in one or two editors agree to review every nom for a certain person) may be discouraged as this would be much harder to keep up over the course of several months. Additionally any lower qaulity reviews (if those exist) would most likely be picked up on. Again I'm not saying these practices need to be discouraged persay but they have been brought up in the past. IntentionallyDense (talk) 00:02, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

This is a bit of a tricky situation. On one hand, switching to a cumulative points system would reduce the incentive for people to wait for later rounds to nominate content. It would just be easier on us judges, since we wouldn't have to reset everyone's submissions page every 2 months.

On the other hand, if a competitor were to open a commanding lead in the first few rounds, it might actually exacerbate the disparity between the highest-scoring users and the lowest-scoring users. For example, if someone were to nominate multiple high-multiplier featured articles in round 1, they would have a sizable advantage going into round 2, which means there's less competition for the top few spots in later rounds. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:01, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Raise featured list points?

I've discussed this in passing on Discord, but I think we should consider adjusting the points that are given for featured lists. I'm going to just spew some reasons and thoughts of mine on the matter;

• Featured lists cannot be spammed like good articles, DYKs, or ITNs because of the limit on the number of featured list candidates you can have at any given time (2)
• Far fewer lists are eligible for the interwiki bonus point multipliers
• Should featured articles really be more than 4x the value of featured lists?
• The most featured lists in any round this year was 6 (by myself), for a base point total of 270.
• The most featured articles in any round this year was 3 (by Generalissima), for a base point total of 600.
• I pulled some numbers, and this is only the second time that we've had more featured lists than articles.
• I feel as though we're simply not incentivizing the FL process for the cup, and I think the points could be increased to encourage a greater mix of content from participants.
• Featured list points were last increased from 40 to 45 prior the 2012 cup
• Featured article points were doubled from 100 to 200 prior to the 2014 cup
• The ratio was 2.5 lists being worth 1 FA from 2010–2011
• 2010–2011: 40 pts per FL vs 100 pts per FA (2.5 FL:1 FA)
• 2012–2014: 45 pts per FL vs 100 pts per FA (2.22 FL:1 FA)
• 2015–present: 45 pts per FL vs 200 pts per FA (4.44 FL:1 FA)

In short, I believe the value of featured lists is not properly reflected with the current scoring. As such, I am proposing that featured list points be raised to 65 (3.08 FL per FA), 70 (2.86 FL per FA), or 80 (2.5 FL per FA) starting with the 2025 WikiCup. I'd very much appreciate any feedback on the matter. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:54, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think these are good ideas to consider. Actually, perhaps it might be time for another scoring reform; the last such reform took place in 2019, when competitors were much less likely to submit FLs for points. We haven't changed the scoring rules substantially since then. – Epicgenius (talk) 18:18, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it could be beneficial to examine. Though not exploited in the most recent iteration of the cup, there have been concerns voiced on Discord about the gameability of ITN items. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:23, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean, at the moment, an FP is only worth ⅔ a FL, and less than a GA. If FLs get raised by themselves, FPs get more marginal. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 18:26, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Adam Cuerden: I disagree actually because of the fact there's no limits (to my knowledge) on the number of featured picture nominations you can have. My suggestion is meant to compensate for the limits in place for featured lists. I think there's just not a lot of cross over between FP nominators and WikiCup participants. Looking at the 2022 stats as an example, you had 12 pictures in round 1 (360 base pts), 13 pictures in round 2 (390 base points), and 14 pictures in round 3 (420 base points). These base point values just aren't possible with featured lists, so in a sense, it's actually moving things closer to being equal instead of further apart. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:37, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. As far as I can tell, I have more FPs than any other person on Wikipedia, and I still generally lost every year, even years I was literally spending entire days morning to night working on restoration.

On my best year ever, 2019 - and, remember, no-one is more productive than me - I had 99 FPs. That's 1970 points for the entire year. Last year, the winner had 2582 points in the final round alone. In 2021, the winner had over 5000, again, last round alone.

If I don't participate, no-one would be stupid enough to participate who works with FPs. Whic is very, very much against the original goal of the Wikicup, to celebrate all varieties of featured content. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 20:13, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think it would make sense to increase the value of FPs a bit, since nobody actually seems to submit any and they certainly don't seem easy. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

In terms of article writing (as someone who has written all three), I feel that FLs are only slightly more difficult to accomplish than GAs, but are significantly less difficult to write than FAs. The current ratio of FL:FA points seems about right to me; I would not support increasing over 55. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:35, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

There actually are some high-multiplier FLs in the current WikiCup submission round. I do not see a good argument to support a massive change to the points awarded to FLs. I agree with Airship that we need to compare to GAs as well. —Kusma (talk) 10:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

@Kusma: If we're comparing to GAs, then I'd like to point out that featured list candidates require 3 reviews, one of them being a source review, and a rough minimum of 20 days of time to be promoted. We've seen it plenty where certain types of GAs can be nominated quite quickly and reviewed the same day by only a single nominator. This doesn't make the work less valuable, but they can and have been "spammed", in that, someone can make a lot of nominations and they are reviewed and promoted the same day. This is not possible with FLs because of the number of reviewers and

As far as the high-multiplier FLs in the current WikiCup, a 3x multiplier still doesn't compete with FAs, and there are not a ton of high-multiplier FL opportunities out there aside from lists of cities. It was actually my goal to see how far I could get in the cup solely based on FLs and my pending elimination was the reason I actually started working on the Olympics lists. Besides the Olympics lists, the other opportunities are typically very large lists that would be a lot more work than GAs. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:30, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not part of the Wikicup much, but there should be some serious consideration to increasing the points for reviews, which is the area most lacking these days on Wikipedia. Maybe triple points for completing a review of a fellow Wikicup participant's article (which could also promote comradery within the competition)? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 20:17, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Noting that I did propose increasing points after this comment was made. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:34, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I've unarchived this thread temporarily as it seems to not have been discussed too much. Do we have a consensus on how many points each FL should be worth? If so, I'll email Jarry1250 and ask him to modify his bot's code based on this discussion. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:56, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I would support bumping them up to 65 points, making a featured article worth three featured lists (without multipliers). I also support 80 points, making one FA worth 2.5 FLs, but that seems less likely to gain consensus because of the larger shift. Anyone else have a different opinion? QuicoleJR (talk) 02:12, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I think there's rough consensus, at this point, that an increase of some kind may be appropriate, with Airship noting they would not support an increase to anything higher than 55 pts, though I do still maintain that a ratio of 3 FLs being worth 1 FA (by bumping to 65 points) is more appropriate. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:37, 18 November 2024 (UTC)