Learning patterns/Tracking contest submissions

Tracking contest submissions

problemI want to know the best way to track contest submissions.

solutionParticipants can either track their own submissions, or you can use an automated system to collect this information. There are good reasons to do both.

creator• KHarold (WMF)

discuss

endorse

status:in progress

What problem does this solve?

Keeping track of contest submissions for judging and scoring can be quite a chore depending on how many people are participating in a contest, or how detailed the contest scoring system is. Choose a tracking system that will work for your contest based on the size of your contest and the time or programming resources you may have available.

What is the solution?

Manual tracking

This is the most simple way to track contest submissions. It is a good choice for contests where participants are working on just one article, or where there is a simple scoring system in place.

It is a good idea to make contest participants responsible for keeping track of edits made for the competition so that judges know that they are reviewing the correct edits.^[1]^[2]
Use a table on participant sub-pages or on the contest registration page to track edits.
Manual tracking may help keep participants engaged in the competitions and may encourage collaboration. Program leaders have noted that that in self-tracked competitions, participants review eachother's work to ensure fair judging. This can lead to more collaboration on articles.^[1]^[2]

Automated tracking tools

Edit summary tracking tool

Contest participants use a key word or phrase in the edit summary of each edit made for the competition. A tool can be used to track all edit summaries containing that key phrase.
When running a contest where participants earn points for the volume of edits they are making, such as fixing typos or expanding stubs, it is important to have a tool that makes it easy to track content edits.^[3]

Bots

UKBot: Used in weekly competitions on Norweigan Wikipedia.
LivingBot: Used on English WikiCup.

Education extension

You may consider using the education extension to track contest submissions. The tool will automatically create an event page, collect user names of participants and has tools the contest administrator can use to track edits and collaboration.
Learn more about the education extension.

Add YOUR tracking tips!

General considerations

When to use

Examples

Related patterns

External links

References

↑ ^a ^b "Users list their contributions on the registration page. only users registered there and listing edits they have made, those are the only ones counted for competition. This method intentionally chosen, so that the participants keep in mind the competition, and we know for certain those edits are related to those contests." - Kaarel
↑ ^a ^b "Self scoring systems make people feel active on the contest. Gets community engaged, encourages Wikipedians to check each other’s and talk to each other, and try to beat each other. I used to count myself, but took too much time and there was always one error where community member got mad." - User:Kippleboy
↑ "When running a high volume contest, you need a super-easy automated way to track submissions.” - Tyop Contest

[:0-1] "Users list their contributions on the registration page. only users registered there and listing edits they have made, those are the only ones counted for competition. This method intentionally chosen, so that the participants keep in mind the competition, and we know for certain those edits are related to those contests." - Kaarel

[:1-2] "Self scoring systems make people feel active on the contest. Gets community engaged, encourages Wikipedians to check each other’s and talk to each other, and try to beat each other. I used to count myself, but took too much time and there was always one error where community member got mad." - User:Kippleboy

[3] "When running a high volume contest, you need a super-easy automated way to track submissions.” - Tyop Contest

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