Wikipedia:The Core Contest/Winners


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the April/May 2024 Core Contest


 * First place (and a prize of £100) goes to for a complete rewrite of Night. Tackling such broad articles can be challenging, but Rjjiii approached this head on, with a vast reworking of sourcing and prose. In particular, we commend its readability and global perspective.
 * A second place (and a prize of £80) goes to  for improving both Mind and Human history. The former received a complete rewrite with monumental reworking of both sources and coverage. The latter gained a series of crucial sourcing and prose improvements, which have pushed this Vital level-1 article to GA-Standard.
 * A tie for third place (and a prize of £35) goes to for improving Wang Xizhi. What was once a C-class article is now among the most outstanding Chinese biographies on Wikipedia.
 * A tie for third place (and a prize of £35) goes to for improving Pakistan. The Vital level-3 article has seen crucial sourcing advances, major updating and reorganization, as well as a heavy trim of extraneous information.

The panel of judges was, and

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you to all of the participants! WMUK will reach out shortly. –  Aza24  (talk)   23:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the April/May 2023 Core Contest


 * First place (and a cash prize of £100) goes to for improving  The Holocaust;  very core, highly relevant; their work on bringing geographical balance to the article puts the topic in a whole different light. We also commend improvements to sourcing and prose
 * A close second place (and a prize of £80) goes to  for improving Education from an unstructured jumble into a well-sourced piece of instruction.
 * Third prize goes (and a prize of £50) goes to for improving  Donatello, a near five-fold expansion with great sourcing and fantastic imagery
 * A tie for fourth place (and a prize of £35) goes to for improving Crime, for a strong improvement in sourcing.
 * A tie for fourth place (and a prize of £35) goes to for International law, improved by converting contextless listicles into a proper sourced prose.

The panel of judges was, and

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the April/May 2022 Core Contest


 * First place (and an Amazon voucher for £100) goes to for improving  Ancient History;  about as core an article as one could get; great job of tightening the lead, and improving the prose and references. A pleasure to read.
 * A tie for second place (and a voucher for £50) goes to  for improving Asteroid, reworked nicely with a nice lead
 * A tie for second place (and a voucher for £50) goes to for improving  Italian Renaissance sculpture, a comprehensive article on a broad subject….from nothing.
 * A tie for second place (and a voucher for £50) goes to  for improving East Timor, recognising the difficulty in collating diverse sources and building a cohesive solid article.
 * Finally a shout out to for buffing Simón Bolívar. Nice work but we ran out of prize slots. Anyway, well done all!

The panel of judges was, and

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:33, 29 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the June/July 2021 Core Contest


 * First place (and a cash prize of £100) goes to for his massive expansion of Prehistoric religion
 * A tie for second place (and £50) goes to for expanding Lusaka and  for their great effort in Dracula
 * A tie for third place (and £25) goes to for improving History of music, and  for expanding Dili

The panel of judges was, and

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly. FemkeMilene (talk) 11:01, 28 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the May/June 2017 Core Contest


 * First place (and an Amazon voucher for £105) goes to for improving  Aztec
 * Second place (and a voucher for £85) goes to for improving  Sandro Botticelli
 * Third place (and a voucher for £60) goes to for improving Anthozoa

The panel of judges was, and

Congratulations to all the winners, WMUK will be in touch shortly Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the May/June 2016 Core Contest


 * First place (and an Amazon voucher for £80) goes to for his major expansion and tidying of Ancient Greek art
 * A tie for second place (and a voucher for £60) goes to for his massive cleanup of Classics and  for their great effort in Habitat
 * A tie for fourth place (and a voucher for £25) goes to for improving Furniture, and  for improving Danish language..

The panel of judge was

Congratulations to all the winners, I will be in touch to sort out prizes. Karla Marte(WMUK) 13:20, 21 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the March/April 2015 Core Contest


 * First place (and an Amazon voucher for £85) goes to for his major expansion of News
 * A tie for second place (and a voucher for £65) goes to for his massive work in Maya civilization and  &  &  for their great effort in English language
 * Fourth place (and a voucher for £35) goes to for expanding the core article Vegetable.

The panel of judges (four this time) were, , ,


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the March/April 2014 Core Contest


 * First place goes to for his major expansion in Ottonian art
 * A tie for second place goes to for her wonderful work in Poultry and  for his massive cleanup effort in Philosophy of science
 * Fourth place goes to for expanding the core article Literature.
 * Fifth place goes to for his work on Drink.

The panel of judges (five this time) were, , , ,


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the April 2013 Core Contest

Many apologies about the delay everyone, but herewith we announce the winners of the April 2013 Core Contest. Before we go on, our heartfelt appreciation (again) to everyone who rolled up their wiki-sleeves and got stuck into some core contentwork. We're sorry we couldn't award prizes to more folks.


 * First place and a voucher for £125 goes to share between and  for performing an absolutely massive job on Sea


 * Second place and a voucher for £75 goes to for buffing up the classical work Metamorphoses


 * Third place and a voucher for £55 goes to for really tightening up and buffing Nazi Germany

Cheers all! Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the August 2012 Core Contest

Many apologies about the delay everyone, but herewith we announce the winners of the August 2012 Core Contest. Before we go on, our heartfelt appreciation to everyone who rolled up their wiki-sleeves and got stuck into some core contentwork. We're sorry we couldn't award prizes to more folks.


 * First place and a voucher for £75 goes to for polishing up The Alps


 * Second place and a voucher for £55 goes to and  for Franz Kafka


 * Equal third places/honourable mentions (and vouchers for £30) go to for language,  for mineral,  for shrimp, and  for Bob Hope

Finally a special mention goes to for a Herculean effort on sculpture...however as a WMUK trustee he is (sadly) ineligible for a prize (John we'll try and get a different sponsor next time maybe!)

Cheers all! Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the March 2012 Core Contest

Right, here will be a placeholder for the 2012 winners...watch this space...sometime in the future. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay folks, apologies after a longer than expected delay—congratulations to all entrants for switching tack and chiselling away at some of our core content, an area underrepresented in our Good and Featured Article lists. As with 2007, the rankings are an amalgam of the three judges' views, ranked on the judging criteria, namely the improvement of the article combined with its "core-ness" to come up with a "best additive encyclopedic value" to wikipedia, with precedence for improvements to lower overall quality articles at the outset (i.e. improving articles in most desperate need of maintenance). And warm heartfelt thanks go to Wikimedia UK for stumping up the readies to make this competition possible :)


 * First Prize (by a hair's breadth) goes to for his work on greatly tidying up and buffing Ecosystem....which will see a £75 voucher coming his way.
 * Second Prize goes to for a mammoth effort on Middle Ages....which will see a £55 voucher coming her way.
 * There are four Honorable Mentions (or Equal Third Prizes if you wish)....each of which can look forward to a £30 voucher – sugar by, romanticism by , Brothers Grimm by and lettuce by  (had to digest something healthy after all that sugar....)

Anyway, wikimedia UK will be in touch with the prizewinners by email for the prizes (buy something nice folks!) – and again, congrats to all for participating! Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the 2007 Core Contest

Exactly a year ago, I began a contest with a promise of financial rewards for people who most improved core articles on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, due to financial difficulties on my end, I was unable to award the winners in a timely manner. I sincerely regret this. I am grateful, however, that several generous individuals have come together in support of this effort, believing as I do in the value that this adds to Wikipedia's content. It is because of their generosity and determination that we are able to award the authors of seven important articles which have improved the level of Wikipedia's content significantly. I am especially glad that contributors can be rewarded for their work, because, after all, it is their efforts, more than anything else, that make Wikipedia a valuable resource.

The original judges of the Core Contest scored the articles independently and assessed them by various measures, such as difficulty, the amount of new material written, and of course, its quality, the number and quality of new references, illustrations, etc. Each judge then ranked the articles in the order of their assessment. The final ranking of the articles was determined by adding the judges' ranks together, and ordering the articles according to that sum.

The judges are pleased to announce their choices for the winning articles:


 * 5th place (tie). by Yllosubmarine
 * 5th place (tie). by BillC
 * 4th place. by Johnbod
 * 3rd place. by Earthdirt
 * 2nd place (tie). by Sherurcij
 * 2nd place (tie). by VanTucky (now known as Steven Walling)

and the best-improved article by a single author:


 * 1st place. Blofeld of SPECTRE (now known as User:Dr. Blofeld)

However, the list of winners is not complete! The combined ranking of the judges identified the article by Simmaren and Awadewit as the single most improved article. However, as the combined work of two significant authors, it was placed in a category by itself.

These winning articles are indeed in a class by themselves, with many adding over 30 kB of beautifully written, richly illustrated, and heavily referenced new prose. The top article, Deforestation in Brazil did not exist on Wikipedia prior to the contest and highlights a critical problem facing our planet. Domestic sheep and Emily Dickinson have become Featured Articles, while Electricity quickly became a Good Article.

All the participants of this contest can be proud of their accomplishments; the judges found the entries to be stellar. The contest focused an incredible outpouring of energy into the most fundamental articles needed by an encyclopedia: articles that are too often ignored. As one judge noted, the core articles of Wikipedia improved more in this two-week contest than in a whole year of Article Improvement Drives. Congratulations to everyone on a job well done; we're all winners for each other's work.

If anyone has outstanding questions about the contest, you are kindly directed to ask them on the talk page of Proteins or to me personally via email, and not here. Thank you and congratulations once again!

Once again, I am especially grateful to those people who believed in the contest and made sure that it was carried through to completion. Danny (talk) 00:44, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Herewith is 's announcement for the third incarnation of his 2006 Danny's Contest (direct precursor to and in essence analogue of Core Contest)

The judges did a great job, but there were so many great entries that I have decided to expand the awards.
 * 1) Runner up (and a $35 gift certificate from Amazon) -- Theramenes (Robth)
 * 2) Runner up (and a $35 gift certificate from Amazon) -- Battle of Ceresole (Kirill Lokshin)
 * 3) First place (and a $100 gift certificate from Amazon) -- Crawford expedition (Kevin Myers)

Please contact me privately with your contact information to receive your awards. Thank you to all the contestants, who did a great job expanding and improving articles, and to the judges who accepted the challenge. Stay tuned for news of my next contest. Danny 00:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)