Wikipedia talk:GLAM/GibraltarpediA/Gibraltar Challenge/The Challenge

Topics and article length
Heyho,

Just wondering: what topics can all participate? I see a looot of links to articles about plants that happen to be in Gibraltar - are all able to participate? Is there a clear definition of when an article does and does not participate? effeietsanders 14:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, and another question: which words count? Should you count words in the source text (assume not), or rather in the resulting text. Do image captions and reference sections count? effeietsanders 07:56, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. The plan is for the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens to add QRpedia codes to all their plant labels so visitors can find out all about them on their smart phones. This is why we need to populate Wikipedia with articles on all the plants found at the gardens. As for article length, what counts are the words in the article's prose (i.e. excluding section headers, references, infobox and other templates, lists captions and tables). Hope this clarifies your queries. --Gibmetal 77 talk 2 me 10:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That definitely clarifies the length question. However, the plants was just an example (I'm not thát thrilled to write about plants myself), what is the definition for articles that can participate? For example, in the Teylers Challenge we had a simple rule that the article's proze had to link to an article with 'Teylers' in the name. Something like that would help clarifying how broad the scope is. effeietsanders 14:03, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see this message sooner, I think having Gibraltar as a blue link within the text is good guide to what is "allowable", we have 2 big lists in the articles section, New and Improved Articles and also Suggested Articles as a guide. We don't pretend these are exhaustive lists, hope that goes some way to answering your question? Mrjohncummings (talk) 09:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Effeiets, further to John's reply, here is the list of planned articles. However, these are just some suggestions and the project doesn't limit itself to these suggestions. Hope this helps... --Gibmetal 77 talk 2 me 11:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:GAME
I'm not familiar with this project and only mildly familiar with this competition but it seems to clearly conflict with WP:GAME. Was this discussed when this competition was started? Did anyone contact WMF and let them know that a competition with a prize was being held completely on their servers?  Ol Yeller21 Talktome  20:09, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * The idea of having a competition associated with Wikipedia has been used at the British Museum, DYK, Derby Museum, ARKive, Wiki Cup, Teylers Museum, Monmouth etc etc - the latter won coolest project at Wikimania. There are thousands of people contributing to the mission via the above projects. That works for me Victuallers (talk) 22:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not as concerned with incentivized editing as I am with the legal implications that come with hosting a competition that features a trip as a prize. I'd also like to read on-wiki conversations about such competitions for my own benefit.  Where either issues discussed on Wikipedia?  Ol Yeller21  Talktome  03:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You might have missed the fact that the competion ended three months ago, so this seems rather like beating a dead horse. What "legal implications" do you perceive? I also can't see how WP:GAME would come into the picture - it's primarily about interactions between editors. "Gaming the system" does not refer to competitions to create and improve articles - maybe you've misinterpreted the phrase? Prioryman (talk) 13:31, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I'm wrong but I feel like your response is rather defensive which may not be surprising seeing as, no only did this competition resulted in a "VIP" trip to Gibraltar, you have refused to share who sponsored the trip. Should it matter, probably not, but your defense of the sponsor indicated at least some level of care regarding the protection of the sponsors.  My whole life is centered around manipulating incentives so this case, while it ever so slightly presents a conflict of interests that's underlined by a major participant introducing copyright violations, doesn't particularly turn my stomach.  Awarding points to editors for editing with the hopes of a reward is the definition of gaming a system.  Perhaps you're not familiar with the phrase.  As WP:COI points out, that doesn't specifically indicate that all edits made during this competition are problematic but, as I mentioned, at least some are, which is expected when a system is gamed.  Your lack of understanding of the legal implications associated with holding such a competition completely on Wikipedia's servers is obviously clear at this point.  You've pointed out as much yourself.  I don't really care to take the time to brief a layperson so unless someone else that I've invited to this conversation was aware of the legal implications and discussed them with the WMF, I don't really have anything else to talk about here.  At least not with you.  Ol Yeller21  Talktome  02:26, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * @OlYeller21, major participant introducing copyright violations. Wait?  What? You have evidence that a major participant introduced copyright violations to win this contest?  Please provide diffs to substantiate this claim immediately. Who is the person? What Gibraltar related copyright violations introduced to English Wikipedia that were created as part of the content improvement drive?  This is a very serious accusation for you to to make.  It needs to be immediately substantiated now or you need to retract it. --LauraHale (talk) 04:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * One of the critics of Gibraltarpedia recently removed Autopatroller rights from a Gibraltarpedia participant because of copyvio amongst his 2011 pre Gibraltarpedia contributions, but they don't seem to be alleging that he was still committing copyvio by the time Gibraltarpedia took place, and haven't disputed his description of those copyright violations them as newbie mistakes from the start of his editing career. Unlike vandalism, copyvio is something where we are often able to re-educate editors and get them up to our standards, so we shouldn't be surprised if one or more Gibraltarpedia participants had a past history of copyvio, the important issue is the fresh but as yet unsubstantiated allegation that there were copyright violations in this contest. Considering the level of scrutiny that Gibraltarpedia got I would be very surprised if there was copyvio amongst the Gibraltarpedia related submissions, and I hope that OlYeller promptly substantiates or retracts his assertion that there were.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  12:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Since this latest bout of harassment of Gibraltarpedia participants seems to have originated from Wikipediocracy, as usual, I won't hold my breath waiting for a retraction. Prioryman (talk) 22:25, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Quite right, Victuallers. Other stuff exists, so therefore this must have been okay. 119.225.135.183 (talk) 05:40, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi all, FYI the prizes were paid for by me and Victuallers using some of the money we were paid by the Government of Gibraltar for running training session and creating and advising on some of the wifi infrastructure (our job description is here). Mrjohncummings (talk) 16:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delayed response. I was out of the country until last night and WP wasn't a high priority for me.
 * First off, I'd like to apologize to GibraltarpediA for mistakenly assuming that a participant had added copyrighted material to WP in an attempt to inflate his score with such a large prize as a motivation. As the notifications for his copyright violations came recently, I assumed incorrectly that those mistakes were made for this competition.  As WereSpielChequers pointed out, that's not uncommon mistake for a new user.  I was completely wrong and should have been more careful.


 * Secondly, Prioryman, I apologize that I have upset you so deeply. I took your your response, saying, "you tell me what your previous account name was and which user you are on Wikipediocracy, and I'll tell you who's funding my trip to Gibraltar." when asked who is funding the competition as a sign that you had won.  I don't think that my interpretation was "idiotic", as you put it, but you seem to have a very emotional way of dealing with confrontations so I guess I'm not surprised.


 * As for WP:GAME, I don't think this was the place to bring them up and after I did, I found that an extensive conversation had occurred at AN about such competitions. I was hoping that someone here might point me to that conversation but it seems that a defensive position was taken instead.  Like I've said multiple times, while I still think that such competitions raise some issues, I'm not sure that the negatives even come close to outweighing the positives.  I do worry, though, that as such competitions grow, the ability to check new articles for issues may become a problem but that's probably not something that can or should be blamed on the competition as much as a lack of new page patrollers.


 * As for the legal issues, I'm sure that several of you are aware that the WMF was alerted and at least one or two of you have been working with them to be sure that the WMF is not perceived as being responsible for the the competition. I think that's great and I'm glad I brought this up for the reasons covered below.


 * As Maggie stated, I feel that it's important for your organization to seek legal council when creating such competitions. The US and the UK have similar laws regarding competitions and lotteries as well as what define each.  This is clearly a competition and not a lotter (which is a good thing).  What I'm not sure about is which laws would apply as the servers hosting the competition are in Florida and the competition is being held by an organization in the UK.  At any rate, bother require things such as start and end dates being published, a list of winners being published, a list of official rules being published before the competition starts, and in some cases, that non-profit organizations running a competition announce their sponsors (I don't know enough to say if that rule applies in this case).  It seems that for this competition, the rules never stated a start date on the rules page (or anywhere, from what I can find), the rules changed during the competition (slightly), and I still can't find any sort of posting regarding who actually won.  Because of this, the competition may have opened GLAM up to some legal issues.  I also don't believe that I'd be posting official rules in a place where any person can come and change them at any given time but I'm no attorney.  If you wish to read more about the laws governing competitions and lotteries in Florida and in the UK, The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services list their regulations online and it seems that the CAP Code governs competitions in the UK.


 * I don't really care what you guys or GLAM do at this point as I feel that the WMF and WP have covered themselves but I thought you might want to shield yourself from issues in the future. Again, sorry for my misunderstandings with who won and the copyright violations.   Ol Yeller21  Talktome  17:41, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the long explanation. The winner of the competition can be found by typing "winner, Gibraltarpedia" into Google or it is on the main competition page. It is also quite well advertised internationally using the template below. Actually Prioryman never entered the competition. Hope this helps:- Victuallers (talk) 12:16, 27 March 2013 (UTC)