These days, we all acknowledge the ideals of quality over quantity and the vital importance of core topics - yet how many really key articles do we each know of in really poor shape? So often missing references, misleading information, or Britannica 1911's bias blight our most crucial articles.

So, to improve this situation, a small group of individuals are announcing a two-week-long contest focusing on Wikipedia's most important articles, running from November 25, 2007 to December 9, 2007. Any of those listed here count for the purposes of the contest. After the two-week period, the authors of the five most improved articles, to be selected by a panel of judges, will win $100 each, provided by Danny. Danny, Alison, and Walkerma will be judging the contest. Entries must be submitted no later than December 9, 2007 at 23:59 UTC. This contest is sponsored privately by a for-profit organization that may use any contributions to generate revenue, as allowed by the GFDL. The Wikimedia Foundation is not a sponsor of this contest.

Contest entries were listed at Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Entries, and good luck was wished. On 25 November 2008, the winners were announced, and congratulations were exclaimed to all.

Submissions

When you list a core article that, having improved, you're submitting for the contest, please list a specific revision that you're happy with, as well as a link to the revision on which you built your improvements. For example, this would show improvements I made to the article Lebensraum. Only edits made from November 24, 2007 onwards should be included in the diff link.

Suggestions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

List here any candidate articles that are in desperate need of improvement. Remove entries from this list as they are chosen for improvement (see next section).

Poultry is in dire need of improvement, and it would be rather easy to do. VanTucky ^talk 20:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dictatorship is practically a stub given what the article should summarize.
Parmo needs some tidying up
Vehicle is in some serious need of attention. — Rudget _{contributions} 19:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Incomplete

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These are some items which were placed in the below list of entries but from the phrasing they are works in progress. Authors of these comments should read the instructions at the top of this page and remove their items from this section. -- SEWilco 17:23, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure Lech Wasa is actually just Lech Wałęsa. On the one hand I only created a redirect, but on the other I turned a red link into a B-class article :) – Gurch 07:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, you rock! Ling.Nut (talk) 08:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Amusing. I guess this relatively common mispelling (just google...) was created by a process of droppoing both letters with Polish diactrics altogether :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 05:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am considering Chinese Exclusion Act Marlith ^T/C 01:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to hack away at Precipitation (meteorology) over the next few days. I will edit this post when I am satisfied with my work. Trvsdrlng (talk) 15:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Working on force. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to work on the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. I've already done a lot of work with green and may be able to get it to GA. Wrad (talk) 21:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've been improving and adding upon selected television shows and added some information to Template:Infobox Television. Shows include: 24 (TV series), Damages (TV Series, and others. Look at my contrib page for more info.
Mr Congeniality (talk) 21:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Working of Company (law) --RossF18 (talk) 23:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on Domestic sheep (Sheep redirects to that article, and I assume the list prefers this article rather than the sheep genus article of Ovis). I will provide a specific diff on the article's talk page by the end date. Thanks, VanTucky ^talk 03:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I actually only worked on World War II, and that not nearly so much as I would have wished. It's an active enough article that it was difficult to keep the article clean as I worked. Additionally, was hit by RL work, and unable to work at all on the other three articles. Mr Which ^??? 22:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Universe - I'm all-too-apt to take on more than I can manage, but I'll try to improve the article. Willow (talk) 14:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on Constantine I right now in my userspace. I'm hoping to get some books by the end of the week to dress up the citations and make the whole thing comprehensive before moving it to article mainspace. Geuiwogbil (Talk) 16:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Taking 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and if I have time Jesse Owens. This is a Secret ^account 02:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Thinking about it, I'll do Jesse Owens only. Hard to write the article on the fire. This is a Secret ^account 21:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am staking my claim to the wonderful Franco-Prussian War. How lucky I was to find such a great article!! Monsieurdl (talk) 04:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Umm. What is the scope of this content? Two of the entries are articles I wrote up to FA standard over the past 3 years :) Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Polish-Soviet War. As for Józef Piłsudski, I have recently finished a year-long rewrite of the article and it is a current FA candidate. I will see if I can improve partitions of Poland in the near future, it has long been on my 'to do' list.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 06:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Raphael taken up. Johnbod 15:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't wish to be part of the contest (I doubt I can finish in two weeks), but I am working to improve Emma Goldman (and I don't work well with others) so I'd rather not have someone try and use that as their contest entry. – Scartol • Tok 19:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I worked on Allah article and nominated it as a GA article. Over the past week, I also finished working on Ezra and Splitting of the moon, after a significant amount of editing, and nominated them as a GA article. These articles are not in the list but I believe they are important. For the next six days, I will be working on Anger and Fear articles as much as I can. Both of these articles appear in the list. Cheers, --Aminz 20:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've been continuing to expand and improve Winston Churchill. Ive been rewriting sections, copyediting, adding references I should of added when I added some of the text ages ago, added new sections and added some images LordHarris 10:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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List of contest entries

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I did my best to clean up Marilyn Monroe. Think I listed it right. I added more sources and expanded some sections. Took out repetitive areas and made it look nice. - --Thegingerone (talk) 12:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've completed a major rewrite of Europe's history section. (diff one and diff two) --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 21:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've created and done most of the work on Shanta Shelke article. This article remains almost the sole consolidated page on the marathi poetess. -Mayuresh 22:29, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a bash at Comics, [1]. Hiding T 23:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a substantial amount of work on the Nicaragua article over the past months, as well as create and source many articles relating to it. The page counts with over 100 sources, the majority of which i have added. I am particularly happy with the History section, which up until a couple months ago was almost nonexistent and missing a lot of vital information, and the Demographics section. I started the history section with this and turned it into what it looks like now. My diffs can be seen at the articles history page. - LaNicoya •Talk• 23:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My first edit to the Wright Brothers article was March 13, 2006 under IP 4.227.254.28. This is a linkto the version at that time. After a few more edits, I registered as DonFB, and continued editing under that User Name. About 85 to 90 percent of the article is now my text. The article was upgraded to Good on February 17, 2007, which I feel was the result of my many edits (improvements!) up to that time. I located, cropped, uploaded and initially captioned all the glider photographs, the 1904 Flyer photograph, the 1899 kite drawing, the Patent text image, the Aerodrome photo and the Hawthorn St photo; created the Glider Vital Stats table and added the Lift Equation; also added the 1905 Flyer and Fort Myer crash photos from existing images at Wikipedia. The current version (Nov. 25, 2007) is satisfactory to me, although I intend to improve the Last Years section, and the Footnotes section needs standardizing. DonFB (talk) 15:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've started Hypatia of Alexandria, since it seemed to be the least-detailed, least-referenced, most poorly written biographical article on the list. 100 edits later (amusingly, the article is now half the size it was before I began) 150 edits Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 21:43, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Feeling confident in my improvement of Hypatia (I'm going to do some more still, over the next few days), I've decided to also adopt Willem Barents which is now on the list, since it is pretty much just a copy/paste of the 1911 Encyclopaedia article on him. Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 10:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - So, final tally on Hypatia is 205 edits, including 32 new references, 4 new PD images, two new texts added to Wikisource and a complete overhaul that ends up (probably unique among the contest...) being half its original size :) Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 01:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - The final tally on Barents (not sure if the final rename to "Barentsz" was before the deadline or not?) who was just a copy/paste of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica when I started is 146 edits, including 49 new references, 19 new PD images (5 are only on Commons), and article is 500% larger than when I started.

I will take Reggae and begin adding citations in the next few days, will update --Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Update - here's what I've done with it so far. --Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Update 2 - I have added many more refs and research in this round of edits. --Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Update 3 - ditto; now ten footnotes, had been only one before contest. --Til Eulenspiegel 01:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Update 4 - article starting to take shape

I am going to work on snake and possibly reptile once I'm done with the snake piece.--Mike Searson (talk) 04:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go [2] only 240+ edits later --Mike Searson (talk) 15:11, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had been wanting to start editing a new article and since Samoa was on the list, i went for it. I will be making more edits but the first edit can be seen here. I added many sources and sources are my 1st priority. -- LaNicoya •Talk• 04:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go at Declaration of Independence (Israel), see diff. пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 14:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have:
- improved article book in various ways started at 13:12, 28 November 2007 and continued to organize, adding images including my photos and wikify. --Snek01 01:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- re-organized, shortened and variously improved an article water: start version, end version, diff. --Snek01 (talk) 01:15, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Rcej, and I improved the article medical test by expanding and rewriting the article, and adding 7 references. My entry, including my improvement to the article, can be found here. -- Rcej 01:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am putting together an article for Mining in South Africa, and will post it when I have it in good order. ZZ ^Claims~ Evidence 17:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know I won't get a chance to work on this much before Monday, so here is the diff of my work to date on the article. It's a good entry as is, but I plan to keep expanding. ZZ ^Claims~ Evidence 18:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've worked on Louis Pasteur.--Mumia-w-18 00:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I worked on Anger and Allah:
- Almost completely rewrote Anger: Difference between revisions: [3]; Original version [4]; Current version [5].
- Worked on Allah: Difference between revisions: [6] ; Original version [7]; Current version [8] --Aminz 10:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not a winning entry, but here's what I've been working on: Wildlife of Brazil. I rewrote the lede [9], then expanded it in way too many small edits [10] except this one where Utcursch fixed the titles of 2 of my refs. Plus added a couple of redirects Fauna of Brazil, Flora of Brazil, and added the article to the Brazilian topics template. (Not much, but if you can't find the article easily, what good is it?) I may continue to expand it, and no article is ever finished, so check back later for any further diffs. :-) Mahalo nui loa. --Ali'i 14:15, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Constant article has been completely rewritten and greatly expanded (more than 300 edits). I have added all the pictures and references. A lot of work still has to be done and I'll take it as an encouragement to make a FA out of it if I win. The version I started with is here and the diff is here. Randomblue (talk) 21:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to take a stab at NHS. Thanks, RHB - Talk 17:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

done

Hi. This is probably not very impressive but I tried improving Telescope and also added an image diff. Thanks. ~A H 1^(TCU) 00:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am entering Reproductive system with [11]. I completely rewrote this unsourced, one paragraph stub (1,088 bytes) into a lengthy summary article (23,803 bytes). This is an article I have been meaning to rewrite for awhile now, this contest just gave me the reason to finally get around to doing it. I have put many hours into this article, I hope others will edit it and make it even better. Earthdirt (talk) 03:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's coming down to the wire with Government (original) (changed) (diff). This article is not finished yet. If I finish in time, it'll be in the nick of time. I'll probably keep working right up until the end, and I'll update the links to show the new changes. Whatever happens, it's for a good cause, and this article really needed fixing.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 06:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is what Simmaren and Awadewit managed to achieve on Jane Austen (diff). It is far from complete, I'm afraid, but it is an improvement. Hopefully in a month or two, it will be even better. Awadewit | talk 19:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to submit Pop music, with this diff. ↔ Dennywuh (talk) 20:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here is Raphael diff. List of works by Raphael was part of it, but has now been floated off. (I've updated the diff a bit). Johnbod (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did some work on the Great Lakes (diff). Mr. Absurd (talk) 03:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Electricity – before my edits, and now: after. Diff — BillC ^talk 19:45, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have worked on Golda Meir, though much remains to be done.--Gilabrand (talk) 07:21, 26 November 2007 (UTC). Here is the link to the differences (not sure if I'm doing this correctly). [[12]]--Gilabrand (talk) 09:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've basically entirely rewritten Domestic sheep from 22:25, November 25th (last diff on the 25th) to 21:41, December 9th (current desired entry). VanTucky ^talk 13:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deforestation in Brazil by Blofeld of SPECTRE. The page was originally a redirect, but Blofeld of SPECTRE turned it into a well-written article. Here is the diff for edits made by Blofeld of SPECTRE between November 27 and December 9 (includes two minor edits: categorization by myself, and a spelling corection by Chris the speller). utcursch | talk 15:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes this core article was non existent and a great surprise seems as it is one of the most important problems facing the planet today. This is just a small example of the articles on major world issues that are missing. I began developing it from scratch and it has reached around 40kb in length although writing an article with the sheer diversity of potential sources which should be compiled to cover all aspects of the subject would require an enormous amount of copy editing to achive a "complete" article. Neverthless I think the article now covers the most important points of this major global problem although I will continue to work at improving it and finding additional references and rewriting sections over the coming weeks. I also found some very useful NASA satellite surveys of deforestation in the region which provide a unique picture of the problem and illustrate it -hopefully this will increase awareness of the reality of the problem. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^"Talk"? 16:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After two weeks, 122 additional references, 49 edits, nine gigantic tomes, four more images, and several gray hairs, Emily Dickinson has been completely rewritten by yours truly, although much improvement is still needed, I admit. Before -- Diff. María (habla conmigo) 16:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't have enough time to reference everything in the universe, but I think it's still an improvement over the earlier version from November 30th. The article was re-written from scratch, albeit with sundry references and external links held over from before. Here is the original version and here is the diff. Thanks; it was a lot of fun! :) Willow (talk) 17:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my current improvements on Great Observatories program: (diff). Not much was left of changes by another editor in the middle of the process: (diff) -- SEWilco (talk) 19:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Helicopter. Trimming the fat, tightening the belt, but it could probably still use some more work. --Born2flie (talk) 20:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per note on Danny's talk page [13], I am nominating domestic violence. I noticed it was not on the list, but that list includes Drug addiction (609 pages link here) and Alcoholism. Domestic violence is of similar importance, as a core article, and is linked 986 times in Wikipedia. That is a critical article, was poor quality. [14] It used to be much worse than that [15] before I spent some time on it in June/July. I had put it on hold, as it's a very difficult topic to work on. Someday, I'd like to make it a featured article. For now, the goal is WP:GA. After some work and cleanup in the past two weeks, here is the article now. --Aude (talk) 21:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Technology, one of the "Elite Eight", is badly in need of work, especially the History section. I'm happy with the Paleolithic section now and will continue all the way to the modern day. I probably got started on this too late for the purposes of the contest, but I'll be finishing the job either way.--Father Goose (talk) 22:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was only able to make it through the introduction and the "Overview" section of World War II. I may yet come back to this one. Here is the diff, such as it is. Mr Which ^??? 22:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Guru Gobind Singh. before and after (diff). Since the entire content didn't fit in the article Guru Gobind Singh, I created some new articles like Battle of Bhangani and Battle of Nadaun. utcursch | talk 23:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Constantine I Diff. Yikes! Sorry about missing the dateline by thirty minutes! I thought UTC was one hour ahead of what it really is. I made some modifications to the "Biography" and "Legacy" sections; the earlier parts of the biography have been more thoroughly vetted than the later parts of the biography. Geuiwogbil (Talk) 00:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Red diff. Started as a pathetic disambig page, and large portions of it are now prosified. Also, Green (diff) is now a GA! Here is what it used to be before I started work on it. Wrad (talk) 01:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notes after end of contest