User:Hijiri88/Proposed amendments to WAM 2018 rules


 * While it is acceptable to copy text within Wikipedia, or submit multiple articles that are very similar to each other, participants who do so excessively (as determined by one or more of the WAM judges) will not qualify for the top prize, or will have their multiple similar articles counted as a single entry. They may still receive a postcard if four or more of their entries satisfy the rules. This is to encourage variety and the creation of a large amount of new, original content, and to avoid indirectly discouraging such content creation by unfairly prioritizing editors who create multiple articles based on a single template with some statistics and figures subbed in each time.
 * Any article found to include plagiarized text, even after it has already been judged and scored, will be discounted when tallying the final scores, and any participant who has plagiarized text in ten or more of their entries will be disqualified from the running for the top prize. (If they have submitted four or more articles that are not plagiarized, they may still receive a postcard.)
 * Judges who pass articles that violate any of the WAM rules (obvious grammatical or spelling errors, any copyright problems, etc.) must provide an explanation when questioned about it on user their user talk pages, or the points given by them for those articles are invalid).
 * Judges are expected to read through each entry before deciding whether to pass or fail. They are not required to do a thorough source check, but should excercise good judgement.
 * While a spirit of friendly competition between WAM participants is endorsed, and it is recognized that participants aiming to submit the most articles will monitor the rankings and the contributions of the other participants, participants are reminded not to engage in behaviour that could give the impression hounding. Judges are expected to discourage problematic behaviour by critically reading entries before passing them; this will allow participants to focus on their own contributions without feeling obliged to "do the judges' work for them" by placing maintenance tags on other editors' articles. WAM is not a valid defense for hounding behaviour, and inappropriately tagging another users' contributions solely because they tagged yours, or because they are higher than you in the rankings, is subject to the same kind of potential sanctions as such behaviour would be at any other time.