Wikisource:Tenth Anniversary Contest

Contest

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Wikisource project, various Wikisources are organising a proofreading contest.

On English Wikisource, we have chosen a short selection of ten assorted texts to be proofread (ten works for ten years). Each page proofread will win points for the proofreader, as described below. Every page helps and it is not necessary to complete any text within the contest, just to add to the work done in making these available to all.

This is open to experienced Wikisourcers and new volunteers who want to give the project a try.

Wikimedia UK have offered to award prizes for the winners of the contest (which is open to all regardless of nationality or location). The user with the highest score at the end of the contest will win a Kobo e-reader. There will also be two runners up: the users with the highest score in the first week and the highest score in the second week will each win a £10 (GBP) Amazon voucher.

How

General

The Competition texts section lists the texts that are being used for this contest. Each bold title links to an "index page" which is the central page for proofreading of any work on this project. On that index page will be a list of pages: a list of page numbers under the heading "Pages". Each page number will link to a page that needs to be proofread. They are colour-coded to show how far along they are. In the end, every page needs to be fully proofread and validated (green) or have no text on it (grey).

Users will be scored on each page they proofread during the competition.

Proofreading

Proofreading on Wikisource involves two people per page. The first proofreads the page; the second checks it. There is a traffic light system to show how complete a page is at the moment.

Proofreading means making the text in the editable text box match the text in the page scan as much as possible. The most important part is making sure that the text is the same but formatting should be matched wherever possible too. When the first person has finished a page, they should save it with the Proofread status (yellow). If they want to save the page at any point before finishing it, they should save it with the Not Proofread status (red).

When a page is proofread, someone else (and it needs to be someone else) should check the page to make sure that it does match the original page scan. If it does, this second person should save it with the Validated status (green). They are allowed to make changes to fix any problems they find while they are doing so.

As with any traffic light, there are also the blue and grey statuses. If the first person finds something they cannot do (eg. an illustration they can't include, some unusual characters they can't type, etc), they should save it with the Problematic status (blue). If the page is blank, it doesn't need to be proofread and can just be saved with the Without Text status (grey).

Other points

• If you are new to Wikisource, it might help to check out the Help pages, especially Beginner's guide to proofreading and subsequent pages.
• Handling the split between pages can be tricky. The computer assumes that the first word on the next page follows the last word on the current page. When this isn't true, the user needs to show the computer what to do:
  • If a word is split between pages, uses the {{hyphenated word start}} and {{hyphenated word end}} templates (or their shortcuts: {{hws}} and {{hwe}}). For example, at the end of the first page write {{hyphenated word start|bad|badger}} and at the start of the second page write {{hyphenated word end|ger|badger}}.
  • If the end of a page is also the end of a paragraph, add {{nop}} to the end of the page to tell the computer to start a new paragraph.
• The index talk page might have specific information about proofreading or other issues affecting a specific work.

Rules

Scoring

Proofread page	3 points
Validated page	1 point
Unproofread page	—
Problematic page	½ point
Page without text	½ point

1. The contest will run for two weeks: from 24 November to 7 December 2013 (inclusive).
2. The first week will run from 24–30 November. The second week will run from 1–7 December.
3. Universal Time (UTC) as recorded by the Wikimedia servers applies.
4. Only edits made during the set contest time will count for scoring.
5. Only the texts listed below in the Competition texts section count for scoring.
6. A user who proofreads a page earns three points. A user who validates (checks) a page earns one point.
7. If multiple users have contributed to proofreading a page, the points are split equally among them. Only one user can validate a page.
8. Just saving the unproofread, computer-generated text does not count as contributing to the page.
9. Problematic pages:—
   1. Earn half a point if they are still problematic at the end of the contest.
   2. Count towards splitting the points of a proofread page if the problem is solved.
10. Pages with the Without Text status earn half a point.
11. The overall winner is not counted for determining the runner up prizes.
12. The two runners up will be separate. In the case where one user becomes runner up in both weeks, the next highest scoring user will win in the second week.
13. Use of bots or other automatic editing is not allowed. (Aside for the cheating aspect, bots cannot correctly identify OCR errors in a text.)
14. If it becomes necessary, cheating or other misbehaviour will be assessed by the Wikisource community. Users judged to be cheating either the letter or the spirit of this contest may have their score annulled.

Competition texts

The following table lists the texts that will be used for this contest. These texts should all be of about the same difficulty of transcription, with no complicated formatting or unusual characters.

Just click on the bold titles to get to the index pages.

#

Text

Comment

1

Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, Volume 1 (1889) by Albert Barrère and Charles Godfrey Leland

First of a two-volume dictionary of Victorian slang terminology, initially compiled for private subscribers.

Reference • Dictionary • Slang

2

Foggerty's Fairy and other tales (1890) by William Schwenck Gilbert

A collection of early magazine pieces by one half of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Fiction • Short stories • Essays

3

The Royal Navy, a History, Volume 1 (1897) by William Laird Clowes

The first of five volumes on the history of the Royal Navy. This volume covers the period up to 1603.

History • Royal Navy

4

Men of Mark in America, Volume 1 (1905) edited by Merrill Edward Gates

First volume in a set of illustrated biographical dictionaries of Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Reference • Dictionary • Biography

5

Historical Essays and Studies (1907) by John Acton

A collection of historical essays on a variety of subjects.

History • Essays

6

Doctor Syn (1915) by Russell Thorndyke

First in the series of adventure novels about a pirate turned masked smuggler.

Fiction • Novel • Adventure

7

The Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Herman Cyril McNeile

A collection of short stories written about, and published during, World War I by a soldier on active duty.

Fiction • Short stories • World War I

8

Mahatma Gandhi: His Life, Writings and Speeches (1917) by Mohandas K. Gandhi

An early collection of Gandhi's work.

Politics • Speeches • Letters

9

The Republican Party (1920) by Willis Fletcher Johnson

History of the Republican Party in the United States up to 1920.

History • Politics

10

Amazing Stories, vol. 21 #6 (June 1947) edited by Raymond A. Palmer

A post-war issue of the famous science fiction pulp magazine. This issue is devoted to The Shaver Mystery, a proto-UFO paranormal phenomenon.

Fiction • Short stories • Science fiction

Results

There were 25 entrants in the contest, including users across the spectrum of experience on the project from first-time editors to administrators. A total of 2,895 edits were made to the selected texts during the contest, with a total of 5,682.5 points shared between the entrants. The final winners were:-

Winner	Slowking4
Runner up (week 1)	Moondyne
Runner up (week 2)	John Carter

For more information, including individual scores, please see the subpages Summary of the contest (for activity and scoring data) and Page data (for data on each page edited during the contest).