Wikipedia:WikiCup/History

This page documents the history of the annual WikiCup, a content-increasing event for editors of Wikipedia. The competition began in 2007, and was originally based on an association football contest, with the primary criteria being edit counts and unique page edits. The first Cup had 12 participants and was taken by after a win against  in the final. The 2008 contest had a slightly more healthy competitor count at 24, and the format was still heavily edit count based. This was won by, again beating Sunderland06 in the final round.

In 2009, the format was changed significantly before and, often controversially, during the contest. The focus was shifted from edit counts to content creation, offering substantially fewer points for mainspace edits than for audited content. As well as the familiar featured articles, lists and pictures, along with good articles, In the News and Did You Know?, points were awarded for lesser-known areas of Wikipedia's audited content; featured and good topics, featured sounds and featured portals. This change drew the contest away from merely an edit count and encouraged higher quality contributions. Edits outside of the article (and, later, portal) space counted for nothing, and edits made with automatic tools such as Twinkle, Huggle and AutoWikiBrowser were ignored. By the 2010 competition, edit count no longer counted for points, regardless of whether or not it was in the mainspace.

2009
After ten months of near-constant content creation, the 2009 WikiCup drew to a close on October 31, with Durova claiming the ultimate prize. Throughout the competition she alone managed the remarkable total of 3,705 points, made up of several different categories of featured content.

Durova fought past 59 other users in total in the contest, which began as a group stage in January 2009. Around 1,500 pieces of featured, good, In the News or Did you know? content were created by contestants over the course of the competition as a whole, including nearly 40 featured articles, over 200 featured pictures and over 300 good articles.

2012
2012 in the WikiCup saw several rule changes, which included the increase of DYK and FL points, the introduction of bonus points, the deduction of topic points, and the removal of featured sounds. In the past, featured sounds had counted for 35 points, and was the third most "valuable" achievement. In Round 1 there were 115 participants, and 10 points were required to be scored in order to advanced to the next round. The highest scorer in 2012's round 1 was User:Grapple X, who scored 486 points primarily through 420 points gained from Good Articles. In that round there were only three Featured Article scorers, with one apiece. More people advanced rounds than eliminated, though two people withdrew from the competition.

In Round 2 at least 65 points were needed to advance into Round 3. The highest scorer was once again Grapple X, this time with 789 points. Pools E and H both had 5 participants advance rounds, the most out of any pool. However, two people withdrew from the Cup in this round. In Round 3 Grapple X in Pool B remained the highest scorer with 856 points mostly through Good Articles. At least 243 points were required to move to the next round. Pool D saw the most dominant performance, with all but one member of the pool advancing to round 4. Pool A saw only the pool winners advance, though both did meet the 243 point requirement. In Round 4 Grapple X remained the highest scorer with 961 points. User:Miyagawa won Pool A with 746 points and second overall. Pool B had the higher score average with 528.5 average points compared to Pool A's 420.5. The minimum pointage required to move to the final round was 573 points. Most points were scored with Good Articles, with 2,430 total. Despite its low points, DYKs saw a prominent presence, with 2,200 points earned.

The Final Round averaged 979.5 points per person. User:Cwmhiraeth won the final round with 2,242 points, which won her the competition. Most of her points came from the 1,180 DYK points earned. Had a participant scored just Cwmhiraeth's DYKs, they would have finished fourth already. In the final round, DYK was the preferred scorer, with 2,990 points total earned via DYK.

Variations
In late 2009, a bacon-themed variation of the WikiCup was created. As of January 2013, three completed seasons have been held.