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The contest lasts for six weeks, from April 15 to May 31 this year. Editors usually nominate the articles they plan to work on at the start. This helps others know which articles are being worked on and allows editors time to gather sources like books or papers. However, it's also okay to nominate articles after the contest starts. Editors can submit improved articles anytime during the contest.

After the six weeks, judges will review the entries and announce the winners within two or three weeks. Other editors can also comment on the entries. The potential article pool includes vital and other core articles. Editors are welcome to improve and nominate any broad or important article not on the list if they explain why their article should be considered. When you submit an article you improved for the contest, please list a specific revision that you're happy with, as well as a link to the revision on which you built your improvements. For example, this diff would show improvements made to the article Lebensraum, and this shows the initial state. Only edits made during the contest period may be included in the diff link.

List of contest entries

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List here articles submitted, and the diffs showing the improvement. Multiple segments are allowed to clarify the diffs submitted by a particular editor in a busy article. Co-submissions are allowed. Judges will comment on entries immediately below them, clarify benefits gained and offer feedback on what else needs to be done. Within two weeks of the conclusion, prizewinners will be announced. An example of how to lay out a sample entry as follows.

A very core example

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  • Nominator:
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments:

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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Writing

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  • Nominator: Remsense
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: 2, presently  – I burned out last year chipping away at Classical Chinese, as it was ultimately too difficult to really get comfortable with the whole body of RS I wanted to use. For this though, I've basically been knee-deep in research by way of sub-articles (History of writing and Writing system, among others) for a year-plus. I'm very confident TCC is coming up at the right time to serve as a push toward getting this big project I've tasked myself with accomplished – and a Vital level-2 FA secured under my belt.

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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The arts

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Comments by judges

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Aah yeah! A VIT1 article. Many kudos (is that something people still say?). For Remsense, collaborations are allowed in TCC, because they're fun, so you would score "points" for helping out if that's okay with HKLionel. In terms of the article, the first paragraph is a bit too difficult, and you may be able to WP:EXPLAINLEAD more effectively (diverse and plural?). Overall, the lead is written quite flowery, which might be self-referential? The prose is more difficult than need be, if we imagine teenagers reading this for instance. Typically we don't use words like WP:OUR in prose. The history starts with the Greeks, which might be a Western bias? All in all: definitely room for improvement during the contest. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:07, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Mongol Empire

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Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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  • Looking forward to seeing what you identify as the issues with accuracy. It's always unnerving seeing just how much misinformation Wikipedia is spreading that could be corrected with a bit of close attention. A coherent, non-bullet point legacy section like your work on Genghis Khan is also an exciting prospect. Good luck. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 18:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

South America

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  • Nominator: Generalissima
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: Vital-2, 1.74 million pageviews last year. B-class, but on the low end of that; large portions of uncited text, and awkward prose (especially with the economy-related sections, which are long lists of links and statistics that are just not fun to read at all). Generally has an overemphasis on niche statistics over presenting a good overview of the continent itself. Last year I tried to do the history of a continent, but I've found that general geography might actually be more interesting and useful for my skillset, so I'm gonna try my best! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:59, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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Trunk (botany)

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  • Nominator: Dracophyllum
  • Improvements: (start state → Final state
  • Improvement metrics:
    • Start Class to GA Class
    • ~10x size expansion; from 4000 bytes to 40,000 bytes
    • ~6x word count, from ~500 words to ~3,200 words
    • ~3x images count, from 6 to 17 images; including a custom diagram I made
    • ~21x ref count, from 4 to 84 references
    • Introduced new sections on Culture, Uses, Ring Dating, Ecology, Mechanics (my fav), and Growth.
    • Overall, a large expansion that makes the article broader and more detailed. I might try to get to FA, but probably will start work on Flower again instead. Dracophyllum 11:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: Hopefully this will be more achievable than Flower. Article is start class and very bare bones, missing many sections. See progress at my userpage. Dracophyllum 09:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by judges

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  • Brilliant, this article is starting from a very poor baseline. Still a VIT4 article, with loads of potential for improvement. I can imagine that there is a large gap between the type of sources you could find on this (highly academic) and the type of people reading this (teenagers studying for their biology GCSEs for instance). To ensure the article doesn't become too technical, it may be useful to compare your text to secondary school text book material on this. Even now, the article already assumes more background knowledge than it should (like knowing what monocots are, or secondary growth). Looking forward to a beautifully illustrated article. I see you've not yet started writing in your userpage (text wouldn't count for the competition if it was dotted down in advance), but you have started to collect images, which might trigger the same concerns (right, @Casliber and Aza24:. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:35, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's my bad. I guess don't include the quality of the images in your judging? Apologies, Dracophyllum 06:32, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure you'll do some more work on images while working on the article, so I hope we can give at least a few points there. Will make this clearer in the rules when I've got time! —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Flower

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  • Nominator: User:Dracophyllum
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
    • C to B/GAN class
    • Decrease of ~30,000 bytes, despite new writing, because I cut a lot of unnecessary detail and cruft.
    • Improved lede and sections on Use, Culture, and Evolution. This effort supplements my last effort in 2021.
    • Decrease in references by 20, as a result of pruning and reformatting into consistent sfns.
    • Decrease in word count from ~8500 to ~6000 words
    • Overall, improved reference quality, conciseness of prose, and rewrote some sections. Dracophyllum 12:57, 23 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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Eunuch

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  • Nominator: CitrusHemlock
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: A level four vital article which received over a million views in the past year. The article currently stands at C-class, and suffers from several issues. Notably, it lacks a standard citation style, a section on modern perceptions and depictions of eunuchs, and a section on similarities of eunuch classes between regions. For this competition I plan on shifting the article from individual descriptions of eunuch classes across regions, to broader, more integrated coverage of their general roles in society. CitrusHemlock 13:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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Dating

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  • Nominator: Rusalkii
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: I've been considering doing some work on this since I stumbled on it a few months ago. I don't usually work on big-picture article like this so it's possible all I'll really manage to do is de-cruft it, but I'll consider that a victory given the number of barely relevant and overspecific tangents. Any advice for finding sources would be appreciated, especially for a good multi-cultural overview of the concept. I'd also welcome anyone who wants to collaborate on this one. (I think there's a decent chance I'll withdraw with minimal work done, but I figured I'd rather put myself forward and then drop it than just think about it and never do anything at all) Rusalkii (talk) 21:55, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have mentioned this in the WP:TEAMBVITAL channel on discord and have been discussing improvements there. This may end up being a collaboration. Rusalkii (talk) 17:38, 17 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have been somewhat busy this past week and change. I've gone through a few sources for this but am beginning to suspect that with the scope issues here I've bitten off significantly more than I can chew (which is not unexpected). I'm considering narrowing my focus to improving the online dating section, which looks like it has a few high-quality overview sources available, and adding a history section. Rusalkii (talk) 20:25, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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  • I must say I expected this to be a topic in historiography, archaeology or something similar. The article seems ripe for a "globalize" tag, with nothing about the world outside the US & UK. Hmmm. Much of it seems sourced to random anecdotal bits of journalism. Johnbod (talk) 03:07, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, I've taken a quick look at the sources and unfortunately this also seems reflected in at least the (easier to find in English) academic ones as well. I'm sure there's something there but I think it'll be quiete difficult to end up with an at all balanced article. Rusalkii (talk) 06:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looks really interesting. I'm trying to imagine how you would organize this article: I can see value in a section on cessation/breakup (just as there is initiation). The scope also currently seems messy: it is the period wherein activities are performed, it is the activities themselves, it is the precursor to an intimate relationship, and then later in the #Dating violence section it is the intimate relationship itself. How you establish the relationship with courtship will also be interesting, that article says "Courtship–known [in the United States] as 'dating'..." while this one says dating "falls into the category of courtship". Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 18:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at the initial state of this article, WOW, that's a lot of cruft. Your improvement of the article will certainly be helpful. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 03:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you looked at it at the time you signed this comment then that's post a -10,000 bytes cleanup of all the really low hanging fruit. Rusalkii (talk) 03:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Spice

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Comments by judges

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  • We do not write well about culinary matters, and this article is case in point. Tried to find more information about health claims, but the cited article in the lead is of better quality than the first PubMed entries. The claim is not mentioned in the article yet (against MOS:LEADNOTUNIQUE). Health may require it's own section with WP:MEDRS sourcing? Not sure if we need that section on standardisation, or footnote a. This is an article where the tiny default image size is not optimal; I would enlarge images. Good luck! —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:49, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Imran Khan

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  • Nominator: SheriffIsInTown
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: 5, , 2.45 million page views last year – Since the subject is a popular political figure in Pakistan, the article contains a considerable amount of political point of view and misrepresentation of sources. My goal during this drive will be to ensure that the article content accurately reflects the information in the sources and that only reliable sources are used. Additionally, I will focus on improving the grammar. The article is over 17,000 words of prose; I will attempt to shorten it as time permits, and the work will continue after the contest ends. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 20:05, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by judges

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  • That's a brave (and spicy?) choice. Best to give page watchers a heads-up User:SheriffIsInTown, that you're planning to do major work on the article for this contest. I imagine there is increasing academic work on Khan, meaning we should be in the period where we can more easily distinguish details from key deveopments, and ensure we're up-to-date. The first controversy subsection for instance may have more recent developments perhaps? WP:3O may be a good one to keep in mind if there are disagreements, as it's probably the most effective content dispute resolution process. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:56, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Femke I have been working on that article for months. The watchers already know I am making major changes, but if it's a requirement for this contest, I will leave a note on the talk page. Let me know. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 15:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a requirement of course. Just a tip given the contentious nature of the topic. If you're speeding up the number of edits, others may want to be "prepared" to chime in. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Niamey

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Comments by judges

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  • Lovely choice! I'm always excited when I see people address our systemic biases in the core contest. The lead is the first thing that stands out as needing improvements. Having 3/4 short/medium paragraphs makes it much more accessible. Given the many VIT1 to VIT3 others in the competition, you may need to show more improvements to vie for the prizes. Fortunately, the article is ripe for a massive improvement! I see you've got experience with these type of articles, but if you have questions, Chipmunkdavis and Amakuru might be able to help you out, as they've worked on similar geographic articles in the past. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:45, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

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  • Nominator: Ealdgyth
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: Vital level 4, it has just under 2 million page views in the last 12 months. It's rated C-class but much of its content is a chart of the wonders. There is very little other content actually on concept or the various other selections of the ancient world's wonders. It currently comes in at 1255 words, and has a whole 18 citations. This will be my main focus, but I have hopes of also working on Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, using the Seven Wonders article as a more upbeat article to edit when the Uprising article gets me too depressed.

Comments by judges

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Comments by others

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  • If you are thinking of discussing the wonders in prose, I hope you'll keep the table as a quick overview, it's really nice to be able to get a birds-eye view at a glance. Although the exact coordinates are a bit ridiculous, particularly for the Hanging Gardens. I also really dislike the graphic, it's too busy and fails MOS:COLOR. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 18:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Police department

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Comments by judges

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  • It's a surprising omission. I don't know enough about police to talk about how this should be organised, but I do see that the police article isn't that good (C-class, horribly complicated first sentence and rest of lead). Some systemic bias towards UK/US (for instance in the early modern history). Bloated word count of 13,000+, quite a few uncited paragraphs, and I suspect as is common with these broad articles, a lot of text-source integrity issues. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:55, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Yucca

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  • Nominator: MtBotany
  • Improvements: (start state + improvement diff)
  • Comments: For the honor of Plantipedia I'm jumping in with Yucca! It is a level 4 vital article that is rated as "C" currently. The species list is out of date and may need to be split out into a separate article for readability depending on the length the main text gets to as I improve it. There are a number of citations needed for statements and a lack of information in general. I'll see if I can get this all the way to "good article", but quite confident that I can get to to "B". 🌿MtBotany (talk) 15:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by judges

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  • Lovely! The lead is maybe most glaringly in need of some TLC. If it were written by someone trying to shoo away all those plebs from Wikipedia, they would get full points. The first sentence now mentions both the scary Latin family name, but for good measure also the subfamily name. As a European, I don't think I'm familiar with any of the species in this genus (at least not their English common names), but if people in North America would, it may make the lead more accessible (or is the genus name itself familiar?). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:22, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In the Americas yucca is also used as a familiar common name. It is used more often than any of the other common names like Spanish bayonet or Adam's needle. But, the lede should make that fact clearer and I agree the lede is fairly jargon filled. Asparagus family for the lede and Asparagaceae down in the section on taxonomy. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 15:17, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by others

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Political philosophy

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Withdrawn entries

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