Wikipedia:Article rescue contest 2

Welcome to the second "put your money where your mouth is" contest. Plenty of people argue to keep on Articles for deletion with the reasoning that there is the potential for an article to be encyclopedic&mdash;even Featured&mdash;even though the article that currently exists there is in serious need of cleanup. Then the AfD is closed, the article is kept, and nobody touches it ever again.

This contest is to encourage people to actually put their money where their mouths are and do something when they say an article topic has potential: prove it!

Yes, the general idea (and the format of this page! ha!) is blatantly modelled after Article rescue contest. Something about the sincerest form of flattery, and all that.

Rules
These are the proposed rules. Be bold in editing them!


 * 1) The article must have had a valid nomination on AfD or VfD - nominating something to be able to enter it is disallowed.
 * 2) Kept or deleted: recreation of a deleted article under the same title is OK, if they are not substantially the same as a previously deleted entry.
 * 3) We will also accept articles that have been saved from speedy deletions, but subsequently left unattended.
 * 4) Rewrites of copyright violations are also accepted.
 * 5) The article must be found to have been in need of a rewrite to be encyclopedic *or* deleted outright. The point is not just to rescue articles that have been listed for deletion (although that is a fine thing to do), but to rescue those where people doubt that a good, encyclopedic article can even be written.
 * 6) At least five articles must be entered for the contest to take place. Tell your friends.
 * 7) Ideally, pick an article which is of general interest so as to attract as many Wikipedians to help out.
 * Or, something you improved which was coordinated through the Cleanup Taskforce

All entries subject to judges' discretion and the merciless editing of your peers

Best practices
If you begin to improve your chosen article while it is still actively listed in AfD, you almost certainly will find your work mindlessly mercilessly deleted before you can complete it &mdash; articles that have grown by a factor of eight have been obliterated without a second glance. You should keep an off-line backup, to be restored once you are ready to submit it to the judge. Alternately, you can request an administrator to undelete the article; the Epopt will do so for legitimate participants in this contest.

Date
All entries must be submitted by 23:59 UTC on Monday, July 13 (the second anniversary of the founding of the Article Rescue Squadron), 2009.

Prizes
(Note: To be determined; can someone design three barnstars with 1st place, 2nd, etc.?)
 * 1st place :
 * 2nd place :
 * 3rd place :


 * Suggest a base level be determined by judges that all participants would get one of our existing barnstars (we already have a few) and one special contest one is modified from those that can be customized with text to indicate level of recognition. Not sure if Olympic-type levels may work better so we could have multiple golds, silvers etc as appropriate.

Judges
(Note: To be determined; User:A Man In Black called User:Benjiboi, User:DGG, and User:A Nobody leading members of the ARS, so these three could be possible.)


 * these may be better served with more NPOV folks possibly recruited from GA and FA projects; I would also wait until scope and goals are better defined. -- Banj e  b oi   01:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Sample submissions
Here is an example of a submission by a hypothetical Wikipedian:


 * Article: Jello Belt
 * AfD discussion: Articles for deletion/Jello Belt
 * [link to diff between before and after....] - Example User 15:59, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Here's an example of an article rescued from speedy deletion:
 * Article: B0
 * [link to diff between before and after....] - Example User 15:59, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Here's an example of an article rewritten by an anonymous user after copyvio concerns were communicated:
 * Gobind Sadan Institute

Real submissions for the contest

 * Who is next? Add your submission here!!