Wikipedia talk:Bilorv's Challenges/Archive 1

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Archive created 15:39, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Decadent challenge evidence formatting
Do people prefer or (so the second one is similar to the formatting for the Alphabet challenge). 15 (talk) 15:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * the second one, I think, is quite nice. — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:53, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Concern for a challenge
Hello Bilorv! I know WIkipedia doesn't really provide health advice and that these are completely optional and just for fun, but the challenge "Rock around the clock" worries me as it implies you need to edit 24/7 for 1 week. This seems like a bad idea due to sleep deprivation. Is there some part of it that I'm not understanding that would mean it doesn't lead to sleep deprivation? ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 20:33, 8 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Pinging you just in case you don't get notified of this. ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 20:41, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It just means you need a hit on your timecard for every given hour at some point in your editing career. It doesn't have to be concurrently. I work nights, so my schedule is all over the joint - hence my timecard looking like the broad side of a barn after target practice. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 20:41, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * you do not have to complete the challenge in a week, nor would I think it healthy or advisable to do so. If you make an edit at, say, Monday 12 p.m. on one day then that hour is crossed off forever. You only have to make one edit in each hour and day combination across your time here (in my case, it took me over seven years to complete it). PMC works night shifts; other people may travel internationally regularly (so are in different timezones) or for many other reasons have completely healthy sleeping patterns and still complete the challenge. Many people will not be in a living situation that suits this challenge (or many of the others), and they should not attempt it. — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:52, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah ok. Thanks for your clarification. Would it be alright if I added that clarification to the description of the challenge just so it's a bit more clear. And I agree that doing it in 1 week is not healthy or advisable. I was a bit concerned when I read that you need to make an edit for the 256 hours of a week which to me makes me think that you have to be editing 24/7 for 1 week. ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 20:57, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I see you've gone ahead and added a footnote, not a problem but I've reworded it a little bit. P.S. there are 168 hours in a week (256 is 28, an important number in lots of areas of maths). — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:09, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oop you're right. Whenever I think of a large 3 digit number 256 immediately comes to mind lol. Thanks for rewording it! ― Blaze The WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 21:11, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Jack of All Trades
Do quickfails count as reviews for the purpose of this challenge? &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 09:32, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * good question! Yep, they're still reviews. I've added this and a couple of other clarifications to the note. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:05, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Based
Bilorv, thank you for this PREGOT one, it's going to drive me batshit insane. I found a fantastic candidate for the Oscars one and it turned out someone made a one-sentence stub last week and I considered speedying it out of spite. This is wonderful and hilarious and deeply painful, thank you. (To be clear, this is a compliment. I don't know how to quit things and I don't see why to try.) Vaticidalprophet 11:35, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . I think I'm 0/4 on this one. It's a deceptively difficult one—for some there might be notable historical redlinks out there, but in some cases you might have to be pre-emptively creating bios on people you think will win the award... — Bilorv ( talk ) 14:45, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I've already put the Tony in mainspace, and I have drafts for the Oscar, Pulitzer, and Razzie. I maybe have a couple possibilities for the Emmy, but I'm not sure on either. I have no clue at all for the Grammy or Peabody. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 23:17, 13 November 2021 (UTC)
 * A very good start—I'm excited to see what you can cook up. — Bilorv ( talk ) 01:03, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Minimalist conditions
Thanks for taking an interest in the challenges,, but I've removed you from Minimalist for now as I think you've misunderstood. The requirement is not that you make fewer than 50 edits to an article before it reaches GA, but that everyone has cumulatively made fewer than 50 edits. Take a look at the winners' entries (and the "xth edit" in the footnotes refer to the edit in the page history total, not just that editor's tally).

Your best bet for a Challenge based on your userpage might be Switch—see which ones you're missing (if any) and keep track with future DYKs when you fill those in. (If you need a first slot, that's an image one; last slot is generally a hook that's a bit quirky.) — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:47, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Polyglot
Could be fun for people to write articles which incorporate foreign language text or sources, say 15 different languages, or write the first article with text/sources from a given language. I have one of the few entries in Category:CS1 Kalaallisut-language sources (kl), which made me think of it. All of the languages currently supported can be seen here for sources and here for text. :) Urve (talk) 12:49, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice idea, very fully-formed. I'd like to stick to references only, for simplicity. My only concern is that per WP:NONENG, it's best to use non-English sources only when no reliable English-language source has the same information. On the other hand, when creating these challenges I've generally trusted that anyone interested knows policy fairly well and will not do anything untoward (like telling people they shouldn't edit a particular article so as to win Minimalist); I've now added a sentence on that subject in the intro. How about this as a challenge text?
 * Introduce sources in 15 foreign languages to articles. Each source should contain information not found in any reliable English-language source (to ensure WP:NONENG compliance).
 * — Bilorv ( talk ) 19:15, 27 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Good considerations :). Urve (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Great, added. — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:58, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
 * ... and, we have our first winner: ! — Bilorv ( talk ) 12:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice work! Trying my best and I'm still somewhere around 7 :) Urve (talk) 14:45, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

i have ideas for challenges of varying quality
open to hearing suggestions, and also open to hearing that all of these ideas don't work. Cheers! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 21:17, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * create five hooks that make the WP:DYKSTATS page in a single month (e.g. achieving more than $416 2⁄3$ views per hour on their DYK date) (i was thinking of calling this one "hooker" ... but it'll probably need a different name)
 * DYKnom credits don't count for this one, only DYKmake credits.
 * You may choose to count multi-hooks by the individual number of views for each article or by the total, but you can't do both! Example: a hook that gets 200, 450, and 500 views per hour for each of its articles would count as two hooks, one for each article that made it—a hook with two articles that each get 250 only counts as one, since you take the combined total of 500.
 * interstate commercialist: create ten articles that pertain to two or more U.S. states (they all have to be different states)
 * Alternatively, diplomat: create ten articles that pertain to two or more countries or the subject of international relations (as with round the world, these would need to fall under the wikiprojects for those countries or states, and they'd all have to be different countries)
 * punchy: create seven DYK hooks that make the WP:DYKSTATS page while being under 100 characters in length
 * Not Bilorv but the first one seems like a fun challenge. Other two are decent too, but I think "punchy" might be a bit much work/repetitive? Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 21:36, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * i was thinking about that too with punchy—I think the DYKSTATS requirement on that one might be a bit much. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 21:38, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Also, do longer hooks statistically get more attention? If not it's not a particularly useful cross-categorization. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 21:46, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I have no idea, and the amount of effort it would take me to get together a statistically significant sample would be ridiculous, so I'm gonna say "idk" and leave it there. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 21:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Might be a fun thing to put together some statics on, now I'm interested... would need a good way of scraping DYK data though. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 21:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * the average hook that made the DYKSTATS page in November 2021 was 124.7 characters long—the average hook for the month overall was 121.5 characters long. I also couldn't find any correlation between hook length and views per hour for the hooks that made it to the stats page (searching for a correlation overall would be a pain and a half). So, I'm going to say no, no immediate correlation. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 21:58, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Interesting ideas. I like the first one. I'd want to count multi-hooks as 1 credit for simplicity (and to stop someone getting it from just one nomination—we already have Did you know/Multiple Article Hook Hall of Fame). I'm not sure I actually understand the DYKnom/DYKmake distinction—can you tell me why sometimes you have one credit and sometimes the other? To be honest, I find "Hooker" a funny name, so I'd be willing to run with it unless anyone has anything better. It also gives me an idea for another:
 * Everywhere you look (working title): have content featured at three different sections of the main page simultaneously (TFA, ITN, DYK, OTD, TFP/TFL).
 * I just wonder whether three actually ever happens, or if two would be rare enough. (Two for the Challenge, three as a bonus?) Whoever got the credit for COVID-19 pandemic might have managed three at once...
 * On Interstate commercialist, I'm loathe to make a U.S.-specific challenge, but Diplomat is more promising, so I might meditate on that one. There's something I feel the other challenges mostly have in terms of "being a complete set" of something that "10 articles that meet this condition" doesn't quite fit, so I'm wondering if maybe there's some challenge relating to each continent on the planet that fits here.
 * As for Punchy, the more I think about it, the more I feel that being under 100 characters is not the right type of material for a challenge, because it has some sort of relation to quality. A good-quality hook is generally concise, but sometimes it needs to be longer than 100 characters and cramming it in a shorter limit would decrease quality. The aim with many of these General challenges is to rely on factors that are arbitrary and independent of quality—the random day of the month that a hook makes it to the main page (Calendar); the random letter a topic starts with (Alphabet) etc. — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:14, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll answer the rest momentarily, but a DYKmake credit is given to anyone who helped create, expand, or otherwise improve the article to make it eligible for DYK. If the person who nominates the article wasn't involved with creation/expansion, they get a DYKnom credit instead. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 00:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Happy to count multi-hooks as just one :) I hear your criticisms of Diplomat and Punchy, I agree that they're not the best—maybe there's a way to improve Diplomat. Possibly:
 * For the five populated continents of Eurasia, North America, South America, Africa, and Oceania, create ten articles such that each one pertains to two countries on two different continents, so that each pairing of continents is covered.
 * Eh, too complicated. As for Everywhere you look, I believe that articles that appear on ITN or OTD are ineligible to appear at DYK, unfortunately :l. Also, the timing it would take for an article to make it through DYK's queues at the same day it appears on TFA would be impeccable.
 * Secretly, I did like the name hooker when I suggested it. I'd be more than happy to run with that :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 01:33, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, the "Everywhere you look" thing needs rewording if that's your interpretation—I meant that you would have three different pieces of content in three different sections of the main page simultaneously. So you might have the day's TFA, a DYK hook in one of the slots for that day, and something "Ongoing" in ITN. You only need all three to appear at once for a split second (maybe something new is promoted to ITN and that bumps your credited article off). It would still have to be very fortunate timing outside of your control (with one way round that I can think of)—but that's the point.
 * I do like that new Diplomat—I'd want each of the fifteen combinations of pairs of the six populated continents (Europe and Asia separately), and I can list the combinations in a note. I don't think it's too complex (but that might be my maths brain talking). I'd drop the unique country requirement in this case.
 * Thanks for the DYKmake/DYKnom explanation—I've added a note requiring DYKmake for the existing Challenges as that was my intention (hopefully that doesn't change the status of the people already listed as winners). — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:33, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ooh, I like "Everywhere you look" now! That would still be super difficult, but all of these challenges are, really. As for Diplomat, happy to extend it to six (although it does irk me that they're clearly the same continent ), and listing them all in a note would probably clear it up, yeah. I also appreciate that you can simplify my word-spaghetti into more concise challenge statements, too. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 18:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, Bilorv, if you wanted to make a "fifty states" challenge not specific to the U.S., you could extend it to all of the provinces of any country—bonus for picking one of the other 192+ countries we seem to ignore :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/ she? ) 23:33, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we could extend it to "all the divisions of a country", but then it's a bit unbalanced in difficulty: 50 U.S. states is a bit hard than 9 South Korean provinces. I've added "Diplomat" and "Everywhere you look" (renamed "Wall-to-wall coverage" for now). — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:54, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Fair enough :) cheers! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:17, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

More categories
What about something like, getting a DYK/GA/FA for one each of the winners of the Big Four (Grammy Awards), Big Five Oscars, or Big Six Tonys? (I'd say "create" but those basically all already have articles anyway so improving to DYK/GA/FA seems more achievable). Bonus if you do it for of the entries of the same year. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 05:25, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh wow, I didn't know the major awards were formalised as such. Probably because the Emmys are the awards I know best and there's not such a clear set of "big" categories. I think, to be honest, two different Challenges about show business awards would be a bit too niche. I'm looking for even the "Topic-specific" challenges to be quite broad and diverse, and EGOT already stands out as the most constrained (the rest are about bios, books, and geographic-themed subjects—very wide-ranging). — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:14, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, they're not really formalized, but those are generally the big deal ones that people tune in for (ask your average person which Oscars they can name and they'll probably be the Big Four first). Fair cop on over-coverage though! Now that I'm here, rather than create a new section, I'll just tweak the section header and carry on. What about...creating an outfit? An article each on a type of hat, top, bottoms, and footwear, either in general like jeans or individual garments like Thriller jacket. A dress or robe or something like that would arguably be a top, or I suppose could be claimed as either top or bottom. Fictional garments or garments from religion/mythology/pop culture like the coat of many colors would count. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 02:24, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ooh, now an "Outfit" challenge is a really creative idea. I wonder how to make it rigorous/objective without being (Western) culture-specific or too narrow. I'm wondering if there's something here about improving articles with specific substrings in the title e.g. for "hat", you could have Top hat or Manhattan. Maybe that's a separate challenge, as it would start to exclude a lot of garment-related articles (e.g. fascinator). — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:07, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think if we want to prompt article creation and reduce systemic bias, the way to go is fairly loose. As long as it's considered a garment it can be counted for any part of the body that it normally covers, nominator picks one if it's more than one. So, a notable type of hooded cloak could be claimed as a hat or a top, a dress could be top or bottoms, and footed stockings could be bottoms or footwear. That way we don't get bogged down in precise definitions of what's what - we can just say "yup it would cover that area on a paper doll, check". It doesn't have to be a nice-looking outfit, after all :P Bonus for making an accessory article too, maybe. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 19:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * So, an article can count for any part of the body it covers, but only one (can't check off all of hat, top and bottoms for burqa)? And we're asking for "hat" (head), "top" (torso), "bottoms" (legs) and "footwear" (feet), and that's a complete list? — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:54, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ultimately you're the decider since it's your challenge page, but yeah, I think that's good. Limiting it to four broad categories and letting the nominator pick what counts for where keeps it simple and reduces the potential for quibbling. You could also allow for a bonus for having them all be from the same culture/continent/some other theme, or perhaps a bonus for creating an article about an accessory. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 23:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've gone for this as "Well-dressed". And while we're here I've repurposed my "contains the letters 'hat'" into a different Challenge, "Elementary". — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:40, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Polyonymous suggestion
Maybe a silly idea, but I feel like it would be cool to have a "bonus" to the challenge for getting an edit in all 24 currently-editable namespaces. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 19:30, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I was a bit annoyed I couldn't reasonably pick a round number larger than 20: I wanted 25. If I were to add a bonus, it would be for 25, as I'm allowing transwiki and now-deprecated namespaces. (If someone showed me they'd contributed to backend code behind a Special/File page then I'd allow that too.) But crossing off MediaWiki requires admin+ rights, so I think it's all just a little bit too unreasonable. — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:40, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You can get an edit in the MediaWiki namespace without +sysop provided you edit a page later moved there. But I guess it is a bit much to ask of people. Come to think of it, I certainly edited something in the Book namespace, though I don't have an easy way to prove it, so I guess I've edited in 25 namespaces? Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 21:48, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Very true on the MediaWiki point. I think I'd also have a Book namespace edit—presumably admins could see somehow by checking deleted subpages of Books/archive. It might not really be feasible to tell unless you could name a book you edited. If someone can say for sure they've edited in the namespace, that'd definitely count for one here. I think I'll leave the bonus for now, as it's getting quite complicated. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:15, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I can confirm that @Elli has two deleted edits that used to be in the Book namespace. (Easy to check using the "Wikipedia" namespace filter in deleted contributions). —Kusma (talk) 23:36, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Hm, that raises an edge case. I fulfilled several RM/TR requests to move books to other mainspaces in anticipation of the deletion. Where are those edits to? <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 10:30, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Moves are always weird ones, aren't they? If you left a redirect behind, then there's multiple "edits" logged in the page history, one in the initial namespace and one in the target namespace. If you didn't, then at no point did your edit ever appear in the page history of any page in the Book namespace, so only the target namespace. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:46, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Do I get a bonus for qualifying as Polyonymous on The English Wikipedia, Meta, and MediaWiki.org? I think if you combine all unique namespaces I've edited across all WMF wikis (that is, counting namespaces shared by multiple wikis only once), you get upwards of 40. That might be a good idea for another challenge. I also meet the 25 namespace bonus, with 23 regular namespaces plus 560803 which should qualify as making an edit to a special page, plus a few deleted TimedText talk edits. * Pppery * <sub style="color:#800000">it has begun...  16:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Go on then, let's set the bonus at 25. I've updated your entry accordingly (though you can surely make another edit to a TimedText talk page, like adding a WikiProject banner...). As for the other wikis, I've so far restricted the scope of the Challenges to the English Wikipedia, but that definitely is quite an achievement. — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Another related challenge: on MediaWiki.org, where I'm an admin, I've deleted pages in 25 different namespaces. To be fair, MediaWiki.org has more namespaces than the English Wikipedia, so this isn't as impressive as it sounds. Anyway, here's a list of the first page I deleted in each namespace: And all of this was done before I heard about this page. * Pppery * <sub style="color:#800000">it has begun... 19:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice, well I am yet to delete a page on any wiki, so you've got me beat. :) Sorry for the mixup with Sdkb in this diff. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:14, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * well technically you have... Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 22:27, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah of course—I forgot "move over redirect" actions work like that. I guess I'm up to deletions in 4 namespaces then. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:41, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Art challenge
There's a good few biography-related challenges but I wondered if there's merit in an artistic challenge, to address a sometimes neglected part of the encyclopaedia. Maybe creating articles from a broad set of categories: I've probably missed some obvious other facets of art, happy to take contributions! Maybe as a bonus a bio of an artist in each of these works? - Dumelow (talk) 17:55, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * A painting (or drawing, photograph etc?)
 * A piece of literature (poem, book, etc?)
 * A film (or play?)
 * A song
 * A sculpture
 * A piece of architecture


 * The classicist would go for "something for each of the muses", but I like the greater variety of arts. Are there muses for architects other than Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel? —Kusma (talk) 18:28, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Hm, I think I might actually take the muses. Both challenges are interesting, but the definitionally older artform skew of the muse challenge cuts at the heart of one of Wikipedia's biases, which is towards recent works. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 22:43, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Muses is the kind of tight theme I generally like (... and you've just given me a fantastic idea for something completely different), but four different types of poetry is maybe a bit much. I would be interested in something broader and still art-related. Though if there are enough people who would actually go for the muses one then I'd definitely add it.
 * If we're looking at encouraging improvement to underrepresented but highly important areas of the encyclopedia, that's the aim of WP:VITAL and the The Core Contest. Still, I can definitely see a Challenge with that focus. — Bilorv ( talk ) 00:28, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Topics or subtopics
By "every possible top-level category" in the Jack of all trades challenge, do we mean "topics" (don't have to review articles in every subtopic) or "subtopics" (have to review articles in every subtopic)? For instance, the topic "Music" has "Albums", "Songs" and "Other music articles" subtopics. I am fairly close, if it is the former. — <b style="color:#000000">The Most Comfortable</b> <b style="color:#8A2BE2">Chair</b> 08:04, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Just the "topics",, so one thing in "Music" but not one thing each from "Albums", "Songs" and "Other music articles". I see now that the note is a little ambiguous because it only gives as examples the first and last topics, which only have one subtopic within them, but that's the intention. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:28, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Avoiding clashes
Is there any way for people working on the longer/more complex content challenges to collaborate more to avoid clashing by writing the same articles? just wrote an article I've had in my drafts since before he started. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 02:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC)


 * given that we already implicitly do this with DYK credits, I don't see a reason why article creation credit can't be shared; i'd support that idea for more complicated articles. it'd be a case-by-case basis thing theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 03:48, 30 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry Vaticidalprophet, hadn't seen you were working on an article. Happy for you to merge your content into the one I created and take a credit.  From the looks of things you have enough sources to probably get it to GA.  I also think its reasonable to accept bringing an article to GA standard as an alternative to creation as there are relatively few articles uncreated in the EGOT category - Dumelow (talk) 09:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
 * For quality review processes, any substantial work to an article that helps it get from its previous level (e.g. GA) to the next one (e.g. FA) counts. For article creations, I'm not happy to accept GA as a substitute, but we can do this in the same fashion as WP:FOUR creation credits (Four Award): if multiple authors substantially contribute to a draft before it's moved to mainspace then they can all get credit. As a one-off, you can both have a credit for this article if Vaticidalprophet incorporates their work and sources into the article. — Bilorv ( talk ) 10:45, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

sourcing
I don't think it's tenable for every piece of evidence for these challenges to have their own ref—maybe we should start grouping the evidence by user in subpages of this page, and then every reference can just be to a subpage. (e.g. User talk:Bilorv/Challenges/theleekycauldron) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 21:08, 1 January 2022 (UTC)


 * obviously, all the winners and stuff would still be here, but it makes it easier to have a central place to update progress and the like. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 21:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm very proud there's been as much participation as justifies a conversation about scalability. However, I don't like the idea of mandatory subpages. It feels like more of a barrier to participation, especially as a lot of people (the majority?) might only have one Challenge completion. The page size isn't yet a problem, the wikitext should be pretty navigable as all the reference evidence is at the bottom of the page and the "Evidence" section isn't obscenely long. One change I've been meaning to make (if feasible) is to section the references by user, so there would be a level-3 section under "Evidence" with the title "theleekycauldron" and just your references. Another option is more militant piping, so my "Alphabetical" would begin: "A, B, C, ..."
 * As Dumelow has, anyone is welcome to create a page in their own userspace for evidence and use that for their referencing. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm also glad people have taken an interest :) it's a very fun page. I would really like the level three sectioning, actually; we could do it with ref grouping (nevermind, we don't put the evidence in the body anyway—it'd be interesting to use the "hidden" boxes for the refs, though). theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 21:48, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I was considering implementing ref grouping, I think that would be the better solution here. The page is nowhere near the size where everything can't be included on it, but it does make more sense to group the refs I think. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 22:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

FFA Alphabet
I have an idea for a challenge, which goes like this: Improve a Former featured article back to featured status; beginning with a letter of the alphabet. Realmaxxver (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Certainly a Challenge,, but maybe an unattainable one. If only 67 FFAs have been re-promoted across all of time, then asking one person to do 26, with very little choice for some of the rare letters, is too much (though WP:URFA/2020 should expand the pool of FFAs to work on). Perhaps more attainable could be that you must improve FFAs that collectively contain each letter of the alphabet (i.e. if you list them back-to-back then it's a pangram). — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:24, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Alphabet bonus
I have another suggestion for bonus points on the Alphabet challenge: all A-Z articles in the same topic area. (Alternatively, covered by the same wikiproject?) -- asilvering (talk) 21:01, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * WikiProject would be an objective metric, but I like the bonus as is, as it seems quite difficult (haven't dug up the stats, but it seems to me that articles beginning with digits are relatively rare). In contrast, I think it's actually more impressive to have an Alphabet spanning many different topics than one confined within a single topic area, where the process of article creation can become quite cookie cutter. (Not knocking it! Most of my article creations and content work are in a narrow topic range.) — Bilorv ( talk ) 00:34, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, I meant as an additional bonus! The digits one is surely really difficult. -- asilvering (talk) 03:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I was actually thinking, to make it harder for myself, I should try the challenges without accepting anything related to Venezuela - maybe I should go the reverse, too…Kingsif (talk) 06:02, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Plenty of articles beginning with digits in MilHist. Otherwise it gets tricky. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * True. I've got 2 and 8, and 1 shouldn't be hard if I went for it with some event in the 1000s millennium. But the Challenges are meant to be a bit tricky and a bit arbitrary, and the bonuses doubly so. — Bilorv ( talk ) 17:24, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Calendar
Quick question about this challenge. It says on each day of the month i.e. from 1st to 31st. Does this mean that you only fulfill the challenge if you get a DYK/ITN/OTD credit on each day of a single month (e.g. January 1 through January 31)? Or can it be each day of a month, e.g. you can mix-and-match January 1 with February 2? I definitely meet the latter for DYK, but likely not the former. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:19, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * has managed this for a single month (twice!), but the intention is that it can be each day of a month, so April 1, August 2, December 3, February 4, ... (or any mixture of months) will work. (Though of course not all months always have a 29th, 30th or 31st.) I'm sure the wording can make this clearer, but do not know how. — Bilorv ( talk ) 17:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Perhaps the example you just gave of April 1, August 2, December 3, February 4, can be put into a footnote. – Epicgenius (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Took a whack at that—feel free to revise :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 20:11, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, looks good! — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:41, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I decided to make it a bit harder for myself by going for each day in each month because I realised I had 1-31 of any month many times over. I'm hoping at some point to get one for every day of the year but will take a while (at least until 2024, when we get the next 29 Feb!) and perhaps some special occasion requests.  Sorry for any confusion caused! - Dumelow (talk) 07:31, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Smugly
Polyglot? See my User Page. I won't swear to citations in more than 10 non-English languages, though, and I'm not going to look.

I began keeping count after starting Arino, Mari El Republic, where Google Translate didn't understand any of the three existing WP articles. Narky Blert (talk) 12:51, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Rainbow challenge?
Hi Bilorv! Looking forward to attempting a few of these. What about a rainbow challenge, where you have to create seven articles, with each title containing one of the colours of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue (or cyan), indigo (or blue), violet? MeegsC (talk) 21:23, 8 April 2022 (UTC)


 * listen, i always learned that it was red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. what happened to that? why indigo-? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 21:24, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * , check out our rainbow article for answers to that. And didn't you ever learn ROY G. BIV?! ;) MeegsC (talk) 09:25, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I feel like limiting it to color names is going to make it inordinately difficult. But you could open it up to things/concepts associated to each color. "Tomato" could count for red, "Green Party of Lower Nowheresville" for green, etc. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 21:50, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, how about just three primary colours for reasons of difficulty (I'm tempted towards red, green and blue—generally used in physics/computer graphics)? The full rainbow could be a bonus. It looks like there's only 200 articles containing "indigo" and about 10,000 for "red", with similar numbers for "green" and "blue" (though this count includes redirects). — Bilorv ( talk ) 23:14, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * , what do you think about my suggestion for associated concepts instead? &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 02:03, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Or how about we combine blue and cyan and indigo (i.e. all blue) and say the article title has to have any SHADE of those six – rather than seven – colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)? For instance, scarlet or carmine or crimson would work for red, and there are 27 shades of orange. That would open up the possibilities too. MeegsC (talk) 10:48, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * With associated concepts, it would be difficult to draw the line of which associations are concrete enough e.g. does Frozen II count for blue? "The 1975" (song) for yellow or green (or both)? If we want to stick with the full range of the rainbow, I'd be happy to go with one shade of each of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. I think this would be achievable (although very difficult!).Another question is if we want to allow sub-parts of words (e.g. Redditch for "red") or crossing words (Are druryi for "red"), like for "Elementary".Either way, I really like the idea of a colour-themed challenge. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:11, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, your challenge page DOES say (emphasis mine) "A series of off-beat and very difficult editing challenges"! XD But seriously, why not TWO challenges? One called "Primary", with your idea of creating three articles with the actual colour names red, blue and green, and one called "Rainbow" where any shade of the each of the six colour familiess could be used. Or perhaps it's getting one appropriately-titled existing article from each colour family to FA rather than creating six new ones, since there are already thousands of some colour-titled articles out there! MeegsC (talk) 11:58, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, very difficult is the aim. Since I've been meaning to have a couple more like "Elementary", we could have a "Primary" with the letters "red", "blue" and "green" contained anywhere in the title (Are druryi permitted) and a "Rainbow" where you can have any shade for each of the six colours, but it has to be a standalone word in the title (like Princess Peach or Yellow-backed tanager, but not Greenpeace). (Any other suggestions for names than "Primary", by the way? Maybe "Artist" or something art-themed.) — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:14, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Those sound great! I like your "Artist" idea. Maybe Virtuoso? Or name it after some particularly famous artist, e.g. The Michelangelo? But Artist is fine too, I'd think. MeegsC (talk) 17:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I like the "Rainbow" version proposed, but I don't think we should restrict compound words - the challenge would be hard enough as is. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 06:04, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not too keen on the overlap i.e. "Primary" would get you halfway towards "Rainbow". Maybe we should stick with just "Rainbow" as the challenge and allow any shade of the six main colours contained anywhere in the title (including Are druryi). And we could restrict the colours to names listed in Shades of green etc. (with Shades of violet/Shades of magenta for purple and Shades of cyan for some extra blue/green options). So "sea" counts for sea green and "robin egg" for robin egg blue. — Bilorv ( talk ) 13:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * , I see that while most of your challenges are about creating articles, a few are about getting them to some higher level. How about the Rainbow challenge for creating articles, and the Primary/Artist/whatever about getting a red, blue and green (exact words in title about whatever subject) to FA? Those would be different enough there would be no overlap, and people could use already-existing articles if there was one they wanted to try to get to FA. MeegsC (talk) 18:19, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I don't know why that didn't occur to me. Yes, I think that's the configuration, unless there's any objections. — Bilorv ( talk ) 19:21, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Artist: Get three articles to featured article status whose titles contain the standalone words "red", "green" and "blue" in their title. (For instance, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Green's theorem and Green-Wood Cemetery count for "green", but Greenpeace does not.)
 * Rainbow: Create articles whose titles contain the consecutive letters of a shade of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. (Shades of cyan can count as blue or green, and magenta for purple. Names have to be listed at the given templates and can exclude the base colour name e.g. for robin egg blue, the title must contain "robin egg". Are druryi would count for "red".)
 * One question: Will the Artist challenge require one from each colour? Or three from one colour? Or any combination? One from each might be fun. MeegsC (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * One of each colour was the intention for both Challenges, though I found it tricky to word and already think the descriptions read a bit non-naturally and pedantically. Perhaps some of the nuance belongs in a footnote. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:18, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Both added now, with a footnote on Artist that hopefully clarifies the nuance. — Bilorv ( talk ) 06:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Chef
Hi again. Another idea. We have woefully few food and drink articles that have reached FA status – only 20, half of which are about books or people rather than food or drinks! How about a "Chef" challenge, where you have to get one of each to FA status: meat/fish/vegetarian equivalent, vegetable/fruit/tuber, herb/spice, dish (eg. chicken kiev, lentil soup, etc.)? For a bonus, you could add a sweet and a drink. ;) MeegsC (talk) 09:00, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'm not a fan of Challenges with loose categorisation, and I know we have a couple but most Challenges aren't about specific topic areas, to be as general as possible. Even "biography article" is something I count as "topic-specific", and the fewer articles that count for the Challenge, the easier it has to be. With the loose categorisation, it does my head in a bit sometimes trying to frame these things in non-culture specific ways—for instance, my counter-proposal might be for dishes that are a "starter", "main" and "dessert" but that's definitely too culture-specific. — Bilorv ( talk ) 06:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Good point. What if titles only had to have food words in them rather than be about an actual food item? In other words, Red Hot Chili Peppers or Apple TV would work for fruit/veg, Basil Fawlty or Saltwater crocodile would work for herb/spice, Meat Loaf (the musician) would work for either meat/fish/veg equivalent or dish, Sushila Nayyar would work for dish, etc.? Obviously, actual food items could also be used, if people wanted to write about them. It could be either for a suite of brand-new or improved (GA? FA?) articles. MeegsC (talk) 06:25, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I can see this one having potential actually. I'll think about it and see if I can come back with a counter-suggestion. — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I think I'm gonna leave this suggestion for now, and possibly revisit it at a later date if there's more takeup on the title-specific challenges we already have ("Artist", "Astronaut", "Elementary", "Rainbow" and "Well-dressed"). — Bilorv ( talk ) 19:18, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Marathon
Just to spitball here, I think it'd be fun to have a challenge to create two articles about locations 26.2 mi apart (±0.05 mi for rounding, I suppose, or we can make that a little bigger). theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 18:08, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough I was thinking of a location-based Challenge the other day. I like this one but I think the margin of error definitely needs to be bigger, maybe a full mile (and I wasn't sure that the number of miles in a marathon was a rational number, but by my calculation it's 26.21875 miles exactly, or 42.194988 km exactly). I think that because there are so many geostubs and their mass creation is often contentious (rightly so), I'd want the Challenge to be on getting articles to GA. I'd also want the set of articles we use to be as broad as possible, but it's a bit difficult: which point on the map would Rajasthan count as? Or even London? — Bilorv ( talk ) 06:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * GA is a good call; for cities and countries, my preferred and slightly more complicated solution would be to select the shortest possible distance between the two; any two places that share a border would have a distance of 0. The other option, which is simpler but less desirable, is treating the coordinates in every article as gospel and taking it from there. For other nuance, since this is a marathon-themed challenge, the two locations have to have a theoretically foot-traversable path between them (although that path doesn't specifically have to be 26.2 miles), so no watery destinations, especially territorial waters. Also, the distance between the two locations would be calculated as-the-crow-flies. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:50, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * How about this?
 * Marathon: Get two articles about places to good article status such that the shortest distance between them is the length of a marathon (or within a mile).


 * At first I liked the foot-traversible path point as then you could run a marathon between the places, but the more I try to word it, the more it seems like it's self-contradictory—you can't run as the crow flies between (most) two places because of street design or road design or whatever, so I think the Challenge should just be about the shortest distance between them (as you say, 0 for bordering places). — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I look forward to the marathon path that requires the runner to be Jesus. We could also have a bonus for orders of magnitude of precision; a bonus for within .1 miles, and another for .01? Other than that, looks good to me. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 18:06, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Bilorv, what do you think? (been a minute) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 06:19, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks for the reminder, and sorry that this fell off my to-do list somehow. I've added this, but without the bonus as I think exact measurements may be too hard to confirm. Thank you for the suggestion! — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:45, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Astronaut
This is fun! I'm wasting far too much time and energy thinking up potential new challenges! XD How about an Astronaut award, where you have to create some number of articles with titles that include the name of a planet, or celestial object (i.e. sun, star, moon, nebula, etc.) within the title – like in your Elementary challenge? So Marshall Islands, Omar Sharif, Venus flytrap, sunburn, and Moonie Highway would all qualify (if they hadn't already been written). MeegsC (talk) 20:26, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you're taking to them. :) I love the space theme. Maybe I'd say "a planet/dwarf planet, moon or sun in our Solar System" and ask for four articles. Io would basically be a free gimme but I think it's about the only one. I think the group of names that count would be quite tightly defined then. — Bilorv ( talk ) 06:33, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yep! I think that works. MeegsC (talk) 10:14, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Added! Thanks for the suggestion. — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The List of minor planets is perhaps too long to include "minor planet" in the rules as stated on the page. (I won't be angry if you rule out my entry). —Kusma (talk) 09:04, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, I forgot about Io, looks like I got it too… Kingsif (talk) 10:28, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Minor planets are definitely too much when you have possibilities like 954 Li, 1714 Sy, 2705 Wu, 3271 Ul, 6498 Ko, 16563 Ob, 366852 Ti, 614 Pia, 2857 NOT, etc. I'm nowhere near a prolific content creator and I'd have three off of 954 Li alone! ev iolite   (talk)  13:46, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there should be a smaller list of eligible celestial objects, or the challenge could require something like ten different names. Or the challenge could be easy :) —Kusma (talk) 16:03, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course, did say DWARF planet here on this page, not MINOR planet as he did on the main challenge page. According to our dwarf planet article, those are quite different – and there are far fewer of them. ;) MeegsC (talk) 21:47, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * yes, I said dwarf planet on the talk page, but it looks like I used "minor planet" in the challenge, (wrongly) thinking they were synonyms. The problem is that "dwarf planet" seems to be more a matter of uncertainty or opinion than I understood. I wonder if I should just include Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake as dwarf planets (or some other list of up to 10), and restrict "moon" to "moon of a planet". What do you think,, and ? — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:54, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest to go for "sun, planets and their moons or IAU dwarf planets". "IAU dwarf planets" is your list above but might grow. Just like the list of moons grows every now and then. That would mean I haven't passed the challenge. If Resolution (Wilson novel) counts for the sun, I'm not far off though. (I have Earth only in German: Diether Dehm). —Kusma (talk) 06:15, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * And it should be explicit that it must be four different objects, not four different articles. I have at least half a dozen of Io already... —Kusma (talk) 08:25, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Seems I pass this just with "planets and their moons". Thanks Pan (moon) and Margaret (moon)! —Kusma (talk) 08:32, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, seems sensible to not include lots of two and three letter combinations! (Even though with Kusma's proposition I'd be able to keep Io and Pan, but not Olympia) Kingsif (talk) 22:12, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks all for participating in the discussion. I've gone with "the Sun; the planets and their moons; the IAU dwarf planets" (and specified it needs to be four different objects). You're still allowed Io and some other three or four letter moons, but I don't think the task is trivial. If you've won it by accident (as I have), more power to you―I like these Challenges best when you might be halfway there already and only have to seek out another one or two contributions deliberately. Kusma and Kingsif: you may need to update your entries according to the new change. — Bilorv ( talk ) 14:24, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Yup, updated :) Kingsif (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Already did so, now removed a commented out part with extra minor planets. —Kusma (talk) 22:17, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Extra DYK slot bonus?
Might be a boring bonus, but sometimes DYK sets go up to 10 hooks, so getting the extras filled could be a bonus for the Switch challenge? Kingsif (talk) 06:12, 22 April 2022 (UTC)


 * well, I'm down to have a bonus I already won ;) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:54, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * it is pretty rare to have a ten-hook set; usually, it's only if the entire set is special occasion, like April Fools' day. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:55, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's an interesting idea but I think it's a bit fiddly: all of the Challenges are in some way attainable by concerted effort to get them (I think), but if ten-hook sets depend on how many April Fools' hooks there are that year and then the 1-in-10 chance you get your hook in the right slot then it's a bit unfair. — Bilorv ( talk ) 19:12, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

another idea
How about a ZOO category, where the article title has to contain an animal name but not be about an animal? For example, it could be an article about a phrase (e.g. elephant in the room), or a book (e.g. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) or a movie (e.g. The Horse Whisperer (film)) or a political party (e.g. Rhinoceros Party) or anything else except an actual animal. Given the wide range of possibilities (and how easy it would be to create stubs), maybe is should require getting the article to GA. Or maybe making a suite of 5–6 articles. After all, zoos have more than one animal! ;) MeegsC (talk) 12:00, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I think this idea is fantastic. To use the name "zoo", I feel like it has to be at least three "animals", but I like the bar of GA status as we have quite a lot of "create an article..." challenges. I don't think three is impossible: I'm at two with "Crocodile" (Black Mirror) and Butterfly (TV series) so this'll be one of the ones I'm going for. I've added the Challenge with this as the bar. — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:17, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe a bonus if you get them to FA. MeegsC (talk) 08:28, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'm a little reluctant to have bonuses of that form (replace "GA" with "FA"). I don't mind not every Challenge having a bonus; I'd rather the bonuses be thematically tied in somehow (like "Alphabet" having a bonus for digits as well as letters). — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:51, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * How about a bonus for three related animal titles then? i.e. Fox, wolf and coyote, or Cat, lion and leopard, or Ostrich, chicken and peacock, or something of that sort? MeegsC (talk) 06:44, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Side question - does it count if the animal word is in another language? &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 07:22, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, for the bonus I'll ask for the three animals to be in the same order, so three spiders or three canines/felines or three similar birds (not quite ostrich/chicken/peacock) would work.I think we should restrict this to the English word for the animal (so loanwords only if we don't have an English-language word for it). Any edge cases can be questions for the talk page. — Bilorv ( talk ) 09:09, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * , a question: should the animal name have to be a standalone? Or would something like Foxley Wood, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Catacombs work? MeegsC (talk) 13:27, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've clarified on the main page that it should be a standalone word. Otherwise I think there will be too many options with short animal names like cat, dog, ox and probably many two- or three-letter obscure options along the lines of tor. — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:15, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Marathon
How rigidly are we defining a place? I realized today I have GAs for Warwick Railway and Moshassuck Valley Railroad; the former began in Cranston, Rhode Island, while the latter began in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, less than 10 miles away from each other; both still exist partially under a different owner. But, can we count railroads as a place? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:34, 18 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I think basically anything that has a fixed location on the earth counts as a place, but the challenge is defined by the shortest possible distance between the two locations... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 02:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yep, I believe that's what we decided on: the shortest distance. Railroads would count but if they begin less than 10 miles away then distance is disqualifying. — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:20, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If a marathon is 26.2 miles, and they're within 10 miles of each other, that would meet the challenge, right? That's the shortest possible distance between them. It's an 8.1 mile long drive on I-95 between where both lines connect to the Northeast Corridor. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:49, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * the shortest distance between the two locations should be a marathon, plus or minus 1 mile. 8 miles is not in the interval [25.2 miles, 27.2 miles]. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:36, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh. Clearly I need to improve my reading comprehension. Oops. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Thief
Another idea: How about a THIEF challenge where you take one letter from a word in the title of the first article to leave a word found in the second title, and both articles need to be taken to GA? So for instance Blister and Lister (river) or Corny Lake and Corn (color) or Common reed warbler and Red herring. And for a ROBIN HOOD bonus, you have to add the "stolen" letter to another word in first article's title to match a word in a third article's title (i.e. Lakey Peterson for the second example). That would mean you couldn't get the Robin Hood bonus for the first example, so you'd have to choose your articles and letters wisely to get the bonus! MeegsC (talk) 17:47, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm open to some kind of wordplay Challenge like this—I might call it "Drop a letter" for clarity—but I wonder what the neatest possibility is. Perhaps the ultimate option is "Anagram: bring two articles to GA whose titles are anagrams of each other". I don't know if this would be far too hard or far too easy. I can think of a whole family of examples with numbers or years, like 123 (number) and 132 (number), but getting those to GA would be no mean feat. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:44, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Hooker question
Hooker says Receive a credit for five Did you know? hooks listed at WP:DYKSTATS (5,000 views per 12 hours on the main page) in a single calendar month. But there's two definitions of calendar month: (1) a named month, and (2) a 30 day period from one day in a month to the that same day the next month. At work we use the second definition when we refer to calendar month, but I was checking the editors who have completed it and they are all using the first definition. I ask because if it's a named month e.g. all hooks must be in August, then I don't have that. But if it also includes the second definition, then I do. Hooker doesn't specify, so can I go by the second definition? - Aoidh (talk) 17:14, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah sorry —I thought "calendar month" would be unambiguously a named month (January, February, ..., December). I'd prefer to stick to that scope because it's how DYK is archived and I think it's a bit conceptually neater. Thanks for asking! — Bilorv ( talk ) 17:55, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Textbook example
I had a question about footnote j, which says: The page only has to be linked in the MoS when you begin working on it. You may not insert a link to the page yourself. Does the footnote refer to GA promotion dates, or the start of any major edits to the page?

I noticed that I accidentally qualified for this one. I improved Lever House (linked from MOS:LIST since 2019) to GA in July 2021, though I had started working on that article in March 2021. Lever House qualifies under both interpretations (GA promotion date and major edit date). My question concerns Woolworth Building, which has been linked from MOS:LIST since May 2019. I and another editor started working on that page in January 2019, but the article was not promoted to GA until October 2019. Since the Woolworth article became a GA after being added to MOS:LIST, but was improved beforehand, would that article qualify? Epicgenius (talk) 17:12, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I think my intention when writing the footnote was to allow for something that, through no fault of your own, is replaced as an example in the MoS after you've poured hours of hard work into getting a particular article ready for GA. Looking back that's perhaps on the lenient side (the Challenges are ridiculous and sometimes unexpected things make your attempts go wrong), but I think we'll stick with it.An article that is linked in the MoS when it reaches GA should definitely count. Is this a little better: The page can be linked in the MoS at the GA promotion date or the date you first began work on it. You may not insert a link to the page yourself. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:30, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Bilorv, thanks for the response. Yeah, that definitely works. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:30, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

The Bug Jar
Here's an idea: The Bug Jar challenge. For creating a page for every currently classified Insect Order. This only applies to the extant orders, and not super-orders or extinct ones (mainly because not all of the extinct order pages have been made and super orders are ambiguously defined). In total, this would come out to be 29 articles needing to be created. Honestly, there are so many redlinks throughout taxonomy pages in general, we'd never run out of options. 🏵️ Etrius 🏵️ ( Us) 22:46, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion, ! This would certainly be a challenge, but it's a bit more specialised than I like them to be, even in the "Topic-specific challenges" section, where the topic is something like "people", "countries" or "the Solar System". There's maybe a Challenge here about taxonomic ranks, so I'll keep that in mind as one of the themes yet to be covered. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Bilorv Perhaps a more general idea would be one rock, one animal, and one plant. Call it Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 21:19, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, I like that. Could work well if we're very loose about what qualifies - like, if VeggieTales would qualify as a vegetable. (And maybe we could have a bonus for if you stick to a literal animal, vegetable, and mineral). &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 22:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * We've not got any topic-specific DYK ideas so this might be a good fit:
 * Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Receive a DYK credit for three articles, one in the category of animal, one in the category of vegetable and one in the category of mineral.
 * And yeah edge cases could come to the talk page but VeggieTales should qualify as being "in the category of vegetable". What do you think, and ? — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I like it. Would you count a geographical feature like a cave as a mineral? &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 12:32, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I especially like the simple wording of this. I think PMC's idea of keeping the categories loosely defined adds a low barrier to entry but still requires work in multiple areas. I am fine with the categories being as loose as 'mineral related' (e.g. cave), animal related (e.g. Electric organ (fish)), and vegitable related article (e.g. VeggieTales). Bonus for strict adherence is a good middle ground. A gold star if they're all improved to GA. 🏵️ Etrius ( Us) 16:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with loose interpretation and think we'll do it without a bonus. A cave would be fine. As examples I've listed horse (literally, an animal), VeggieTales (fiction that involves vegetables as a theme) and Isabella Karle (someone who studied minerals), hopefully illustrating the variety of things that could be accepted. I'm not a chemist but hopefully I won't have too much trouble with what is mineral-related and what isn't. — Bilorv ( talk ) 15:33, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Four eyes
Would Constantine III count? Gog the Mild (talk) 16:08, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * conditional on there being no other 'I's in the title, yep! All capitalisation/use of an 'i'/'I' counts. Constantine III (Western Roman emperor) would work but Constantine III of Abkhazia would not. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:34, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Cheers. It's the former and at FAC at the moment. Let's see how it goes. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:51, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * good luck with it! — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:46, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
... Hurricane Shark, Capri-Sun/Puccinia porri, John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 21:46, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * yes, this works, with either article for vegetable. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:45, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thanks! :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:42, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Question
For challenges such as "Alphabet" and "Round the World", can I count something that I expanded from a redirect? QuicoleJR (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * yes, absolutely! This is how I count my own article creations on my userpage and how other awards systems like the Four Award do it (first encyclopedic content). — Bilorv ( talk ) 18:20, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That is a relief. Thanks! QuicoleJR (talk) 18:28, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Two more questions:
 * Do video game articles count toward the country they were developed in?
 * If I make an article, but it gets deleted, can I still count it?
 * QuicoleJR (talk) 19:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * (1) Yes, that's a close national tie. (2) The lead says this: By sharing these challenges, I trust my fellow volunteers to maintain their usual levels of maturity and decorum when aiming to complete them; all policies, guidelines and community norms still apply. I wouldn't like to remove a winner because an article was later deleted, or try to list every nuance and exceptional case that could exist. However, I would generally be inclined to exclude deleted articles, delisted GAs and so forth. — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:36, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Got it. Thank you! QuicoleJR (talk) 20:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Idea
I am not sure what we could call this, but what about a challenge where you take an article from Stub-Class to FA? There are plenty of stubs to work with. QuicoleJR (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)


 * What do you think? QuicoleJR (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * yes, this could be the main idea of a Challenge. There's only a couple about FAs currently and I like the idea of improving an existing article. Perhaps something like "improve an article that has been rated as a stub for 10 years to FA status". We need a good name though. — Bilorv ( talk ) 19:02, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe "Revitalized" would be a good name for it? QuicoleJR (talk) 19:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * What about something like "seed to tree"?  Aza24  (talk)   21:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh! How about Phoenix? It would represent the metaphorical "rebirth" of the stub. QuicoleJR (talk) 13:23, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Any thoughts? QuicoleJR (talk) 13:24, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I think I want to deviate from "stub to FA" a bit, because I think we already have rewards for seeing an article through all major quality steps—the Four Award. The interesting idea here is to take an "old" or "bad" article that has been languishing and substantially improve it. DYK is designed to reward substantial improvement:
 * Archaeologist: bring an article to DYK that was created by a different editor at least 10 years beforehand.
 * Bonus if the article was created in 2001.
 * A phoenix's lifespan is cyclical, so instead of a linear path to high-quality ('stub to FA'), how about:
 * Phoenix: recreate an article that has been deleted, bring a delisted good article back to good article status and bring a former featured article back to featured article status.
 * What do we think? — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:30, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I like those! QuicoleJR (talk) 13:20, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I like these (especially Phoenix with its three different challenges), but would suggest to change the bonus on Archaeologist to "20 years ago" (easier) or "25 years ago" (harder and as of today impossible) as 2001 articles are a rather limited resource. (My personal best is Ulf Merbold, 19 years). —Kusma (talk) 13:28, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Added. For the Archaeologist bonus I was intending for it to be very difficult, but I think restricting it to 2005 or before would be fine (and doesn't become easier over time). — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:11, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Meta-challenge?
There could be a challenge for completing many challenges. For example, "Metadecadent" for users who have completed at least ten of the challenges (or "dodecadent" for twelve, but as I have completed exactly twelve, perhaps we should have something harder). I haven't checked everyone, but I think we have Kingsif leading with 17, Dumelow has 15, and there are a few people around the 11/12 mark including Bilorv, PMC and myself. Or just a leaderboard for how many challenges completed? —Kusma (talk) 10:32, 3 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Another name: Challenger. —Kusma (talk) 18:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The meta challenge sounds like a good idea to me... though a leaderboard might make this more competitive than it needs to be? Probably harmless though.  Aza24  (talk)   20:56, 3 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the suggestion, and that there's been enough interest in the Challenges for this to be an idea. :) I don't want a running leaderboard as it could be too much of a headache to keep up-to-date, but I don't mind static ones like Kusma's rough count above (well done to, and 's four bonuses have to count for something!). I've been doing Barnstars ad hoc for impressive entries (and missed out lots of cases where I should have given them), but maybe it could develop into Barnstars at milestone numbers of Challenges, with bonuses weighted extra. (Maybe given on request to reduce organisational work.) — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:25, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Potential for multiple bonuses
Some challenges seem naturally amenable to multiple kinds of bonus, even ones that currently have one. I was thinking about "Jack of all trades", which currently has nominating in each top-level category as its bonus, but considering how many different things tend to be picked up even naturally by GAN reviewers (and perhaps making an incentive to review more in the current backlog...), it seems that it could equally be "review in every subcategory, excluding reassessment categories". Is there any appetite for 'multiple possible bonuses'? <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 10:07, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It could also be a separate challenge, "Jack of all trades, and we mean it" or something. The challenge certainly has helped me diversify my GA reviewing. —Kusma (talk) 10:18, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I also noticed looking back over that no one actually has the bonus for that one yet, so it could just be changed, though there are some others where I wonder if multiple-bonuses might be reasonable where that isn't the case. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 10:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "Jack of all trades" is one I was a bit wary about as I don't want people going so far outside their comfort zone that the review is low-standard. There is advantage in reviewing as a non-specialist, like for 1(a)'s "understandable to an appropriately broad audience", but limitation too. Some categories like Mathematics are very technical. I thought top-level categories would be okay but every subcategory is where it maybe pushes it."Calendar" has two alternative bonus conditions, so you could get a double bonus there. I'd consider other double bonuses. I'm grateful for all ideas that are pitched, though I'm trying to increase selectiveness in proportion to the number of existing Challenges. — Bilorv ( talk ) 10:34, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Mathematics is as a top-level category with no subcategories traditionally a bit of a filter for the challenge as a whole (a disproportionate number of people with it if I count myself, given I just need to wrap up these reviews before I count have done mathematician bios). I think it's reasonable for the challenge to have fairly-tricky filters and the bonus to have stricter ones. There's not a huge difference in kind between "if you're not comfortable reviewing about mathematics, either you wait a long time for a mathematician bio or you don't get the challenge" and the same thing for something like chemistry or law or engineering, which are pretty much by chance under subcats rather than top-levels. <b style="color:black">Vaticidal</b><b style="color:#66023C">prophet</b> 10:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Archaeologist entry

 * I have just noticed the Archaeologist section and so entered my relevant DYKs into it. As this more than doubled the total number of bonus articles in the section I suspect that I have done something wrong. Perhaps someone could run an eye over it for me? Thanks.


 * Assuming that my grip is on the right end of the stick can I suggest a super-bonus challenge? The longest gap between article creation and a DYK appearance. I mention this of course because I think 18 years and 365 days (Punic Wars) will be difficult to beat. But this challenge will become easier over time. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:06, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Er, I have already beaten it! With my last DYK, Battle of Zama, 20 years and 112 days after the article's creation. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:10, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
 * You get beat by Logic, which was created 2001-01-20 (G.W.B.'s inauguration day!) and aired at DYK on 2023-05-21 :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:50, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * And here I thought my DYK for Mars in fiction (created 2001-09-30, DYK 2023-01-01) would be hard to beat. Oh well. TompaDompa (talk) 00:49, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * My personal best seems to be Interstate 90, which hit the front page 19 years 3 months after creation. Excluding credits given to articles that had passed GA, it seems to be 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup at 15 years 10 months.  Sounder Bruce  05:41, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Congratulations to you all! Perhaps this is the most common bonus but I think it's still an impressive achievement worthy of celebrating. The bonus also gets harder over time as the pool of pre-2005 non-DYK articles diminishes. I suppose the other thing would be getting a DYK credit for an article that you did create yourself, but over 10 or 15 years ago. I was very impressed with 's Four Award for National Union of Freedom Fighters with a creation date in 2005 and an FA date in 2021. — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! I still can't figure out if that's impressive, or just a sign of how much of a slacker I am that I take 16 years to finish an article I started :D Guettarda (talk) 18:39, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Omnipresent
Any thoughts or interest in a Challenge like this:
 * Omnipresent: create templates with a total transclusion count that exceeds the number of Wikipedia articles (currently ). (A winner can't be removed later if the transclusions fall below the articles.)

It's not my area so I don't know if this is too easy or has never been achieved. I guess it's mainly in the number chosen: I wonder whether it could even be changed from "articles" to "pages" (about a tenfold increase). The title isn't intended to match up literally (it doesn't require that, for every page, some template transcluded on it was created by you). I want to know if the Challenge is well-formed in that you could evidence the transclusion counts and that it would be straightforward to assess total transclusions (no issues caused by nested templates). — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:53, 1 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I would rate the challenge as near impossible – if you've created a seminal template like Infobox, Ambox, or Navbox, you have a fighting chance, but you'd probably need more than one to your name. I would wager that you could create every maintenance tag template and citation needed and still not have it. Assessing total transclusions is pretty easy with linkcount, but yeah – very very difficult to achieve. Really interesting idea, though! I wonder what my score is... theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:08, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Around ~1500 – i haven't created any that end up being used in other templates, they're mostly for narrow use. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect template comes fairly close with over 6 million transclusions. Would Module:Yesno count, with 28 million+ uses? —Kusma (talk) 20:11, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * (Note that neither of those is mine). Going forward, I assume the challenge can be won with new modules that become widely used in templates, but is extremely hard with new templates. —Kusma (talk) 20:13, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the input. Yes,, those would definitely count. But I might leave it for now. I guess I'd want it to be achievable going forwards, not just if you were around when Lua was first adopted or something. I could decrease the number massively but then it feels kind of arbitrary. Maybe if inspiration strikes or a template editor makes a suggestion I can revisit it. — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:57, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, interesting idea. Yeah, I think very hard to achieve if you didn't create Module:Arguments, Module:Yesno, Module:String or a couple other modules or seminal templates. I've created Module:Plain text (1.5M), Module:Settlement short description (700K), Module:Hatnote/styles.css (1.8M), and a few others that still only total to ~4.2M transclusions. I think it's achievable going forward if you create a styles page for a some widely used template or rewrite some widely used templates in Lua, although the number of widely-used templates left that need either of those is not that many. Galobtter (talk) 03:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Phoenix confusion
Somewhat confused about the challenge's definition, I feel like either I or SounderBruce has misunderstood it. Thoughts ? AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:33, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, not sure how I missed this at the time. The criteria are "and"s, so we need three separate conditions to be met (likely across three different articles). Interstate 82 meets only one condition, bringing a delisted GA back to GA. You also need to get an FFA to FA and (if you haven't already) recreate a deleted article. — Bilorv ( talk ) 16:08, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Whoops, I totally misinterpreted it as well. I'll report back once I have restored a former FA (a high hurdle, but worthy of a challenge).  Sounder Bruce  23:46, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Name Game
I have a suggestion for the Challenge. Name Game: Create two or more biographies with the same first and last name. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 03:52, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * this is one way to achieve Ambiguation. There's a fair few Challenges based around bios already, I think. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:11, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * If you think it's redundant, no worries! MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Calendar (2)
In the "Calendar" challenge, why is it restricted to just those three categories? It seems discriminate against editors who have articles at TFA or POTD. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * , TFA is the bonus. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Oops, I didn't read to the end of the sentence! Gog the Mild (talk) 16:53, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Most Challenges are targeted at a specific category of article, but in this case it seemed like DYK/OTD/ITN would be similar difficulties and separate Challenges would be repetitive.
 * TFA is the bonus as it's significantly harder, and POTD is focused on a different type of content (pictures, not articles). — Bilorv ( talk ) 20:55, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for a new challenge
Take an article created at least 20 years ago to GA. A lot of very old articles would well repay a bit of TLC. Possible name: "Palaeontologist". Gog the Mild (talk) 16:06, 12 November 2023 (UTC)


 * This is fairly close to "Archaeologist", especially since GA qualifies an article for DYK. —Kusma (talk) 17:00, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
 * have given 2,541 articles and counting a bit of TLC :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:07, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Idea (2)
A bonus for Centenarian: one from each century since 1 AD? AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 05:03, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It's already a risk going back to the 1000s (and even for Decadent) but I think birthdates are less common and less well-founded the further back in time we go. It's not my area so I couldn't estimate how many 300s AD notable figures there are yet to be created (or how many more there will be with discovery of new historical records). — Bilorv ( talk ) 13:16, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In theory, there are a lot of Norse 'gods' (who were in fact real people with some legends attributed) from that era for whom articles could be created. Not sure how many people would want to put in the effort. Kingsif (talk) 23:43, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Very interesting! I'm sure there's other cultures where we could definitively state 1-1000 AD birth centuries too. I might leave the Challenge as is though. — Bilorv ( talk ) 22:03, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure the people I claim for Centenarian were born in the right centuries, but I don't have absolute proof for some of them. Generally, it is much easier to find people who were alive in each century than born in each century, as the sources often do not care about birthdays all that much. For people born between 400 and 900 I would probably look outside of Europe, where our coverage is still more spotty. —Kusma (talk) 09:16, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Two ideas:
1) What if the Bonus for Centenarian was getting a Good Article for a figure born in each century? We definitely need more high quality articles about older figures.

2) What if the Decadent challenge could be extended to previous centuries? I'm already a decent chunk of the way through for fulfilling it in regards to the 1800s, and I think it could reasonably be done for the 1700s or 1600s. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 18:24, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * thanks for the suggestions! I've added the Centenarian Bonus as it's good to encourage broad articles on historical figures, not permastubs. I'm unsure whether the extension to Decadent has a place here, as two Challenges with bonuses is already a fair bit (plus EGOT is bio-specific). I also like the accident of having "Centenarian" and "Decadent" consecutively and I've ran out of time period–based puns. It could have been a bonus to Decadent but I like the current Women in Red bonus and I'm not keen on multiple bonuses in different directions. — Bilorv ( talk ) 14:42, 7 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Centenarian bonus challenge accepted Not sure I can get my current entries to GA status though, might need to write new articles. —Kusma (talk) 16:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)