Wikimedia CEE Spring 2025/Rules

Rules on international level

Timezone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2)

Rules on local level

Austria

Timezone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2)

First three winners are awarded prizes from the Wikipedia Store, organisers can't win prizes.
Writing or improving an article with at least 2 kB is worth 1 point.
Writing or improving an article with at least 6 kB is worth 5 points (in order to encourage well written articles over smaller ones).
Articles about topics from Austria/Germany/Switzerland/South Tyrol/Liechtenstein don't count.
The articles have to be about notable topics and use sources.
The articles need to be added to the point-scoring table 4 days after the contest and no later.
The articles should consist of mostly text and not data presentation like tables or templates.

Belarus (classical)

Time zone: UTC+3

Articles should be created between 00:00 21 March & 23:59 31 May, 2025.
Articles should have sources.
Article should not consist of machine translation.
Articles about Belarus do not participate in the competition.
Any user can participate in contest, also jury members, but they cannot be awarded.

Three winners will be assigned for the greatest number of articles:

created — 2 winners;
improved with over 500 bytes per article — 1 winner.

Croatia

Timezone: UTC + 2

Any user can participate in the contest.
Articles shall be created between March 21, 2025 0:00 and May 31, 2025 23:59.
The article should be at least 2,000 bytes and a minimum of 200 words.
In an article should be sources.
The article should not consist of machine translation.

Greece

Timezone: UTC+3

The contest will be held for the following categories:

Best new article
Largest number of new articles created
Best new entrant (less than 400 edits in the main namespace before the start of the contest)
Largest volume of material added related to notable women from the region

An award will also be given to one of the participants that has written or expanded at least five (5) articles. The winner will be chosen randomly.

The best new article will be chosen by a jury. Each participant can receive a prize only in one (1) category, with the rest of his/her prizes (if any) going to the second user (or even third, if the 1st and 2nd have already received a prize) so that more users with significant contribution & effort will receive a prize.

Articles submitted to the contest must meet the following requirements:

they shall be created between March 21 2025 (00:00 UTC) and May 31 2025 (23:59 UTC)
at least 300 words have been added.
comply with the rules of Wikipedia, for example, notability, verifiability, and formatting rules.
are written in plain language, and not translated by automatic translators.
must not violate copyrights.

Articles about Greece do not participate in the competition.

The organizers and the jury cannot receive prizes/awards.

Malta

Timezone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2)

First three winners are awarded prizes as follows, along with an optional Solidarity Prize for a user who goes above and beyond to work with the Malta community.
Anyone can take part in the contest, except for the local and international organizers. Organizers can participate without competing.
To compete you must formally register. To register for the contest enter your name on the contest's page (on mt.wikipedia.org) as indicated in the Participants section. The organisers will check your contributions as listed there to determine the top three winners.
It is essential to use the Template {{CEE Spring 2025 | user = your name | country = country of article}} on the discussion page of each page you work on so that your contribution counts in the contest. This is the only way for the organizers to know that you are taking part in the contest. Also see/use the models of other languages if you choose to write in them apart from Maltese.

Points system

For each article you create you get two points
For each article you create from the official list you get three more points (five points in total)
For each article you improve you get a point
For each article you improve from the official list you get four more points (five points in total)
Pages on subjects directly linked to Malta do not count towards the points you can win in this contest if you are a Maltese user.

Poland

Timezone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2)

Basic rules

All registered Wikipedia users, who accepted the contest rules, can participate in the contest.
Articles should be written between 00:00 March 21 and 23:59 May 31, 2025.
The competition includes nine seven-day rounds and one nine-day round.
Only the articles that are thematically related to the contest, comply with Wikipedia's editing rules and recommendations, and are at least 2 kB in size are included in the contest. Only the articles with a template in accordance with the instructions provided on the contest page are included in the contest.
All the details including the list of awards can be found in the contest regulation document.

Prizes

The person awarded with weekly and special prizes may not be the Coordinator, employee, member of the Board of Directors or the Audit Committee of the Association, or persons close to them.
Prizes include:
1. Weekly prizes are awarded separately for each round of the contest; the articles counted for rounds must be entered on the page of the relevant round during the round; in each round of the contest, one weekly prize is awarded to the person who writes the most thematically related articles that meet Wikipedia's editing rules and recommendations and are at least 2 kB in size; one person can receive a weekly prize only once, so if a round is won by a person who has already received a weekly prize, the prize goes to the next person;
2. Special prizes: the first Special Prize will be awarded to the person who, during the entire contest, writes or significantly develops the most articles related to the subject of the contest, which not later than 60 days after the end date of the contest obtains the status of Good Article or Medal Article; the second Special Prize will be awarded to the person who, during the entire contest, writes or significantly expands the most articles related to the subject of the given rounds, which no later than 60 days after the contest end date will be presented in the "Did you know..." section on the Wikipedia homepage; The Third Special Prize will be awarded to the person who writes the most biographical articles about women related to the subject of the given round during the entire contest; Special Prizes can be won by those who have won a weekly prize;
3. the Traveler's Prize is awarded to all contest participants who, by the end of the round, have written a minimum of 2 articles;
4. Cascade prizes are awarded when the total number of articles written during the contest exceeds the prize thresholds: 250, 500, 750 and 1000; these are awarded to all contest participants who have won four traveler's prizes by the time the threshold is exceeded, and who have completed the form posted on the contest wikipage; in case the prize thresholds are not exceeded, the cascade prizes will not be awarded;
5. CEE Spring champion challenge prizes are awarded to those who will create new articles related to at least 20 different countries, regions, languages or communities participating in CEE Spring 2025 and add themselves to the table on the contest wikipage.

Romania & Moldova

Timezone: UTC+2 / UTC+3

I. Eligibility and duration
1. Any user registered at Wikipedia can participate. Organizers can participate, but cannot get prizes.
2. Articles should be written between 00:01 March 21 and 23:59 May 31, 2025. Winners' list will be published no later than July 31, 2025. Users must register here.

II. Articles
3. Articles should be written on a topic related to any country or region in Central and Eastern Europe in the contest, except Romania and Moldova.
4. Articles should follow basic standards of Romanian Wikipedia:

to be written in Romanian; automated translations are disqualified;
to describe a notable topic;
to contain verifiable information;
to follow Wikipedia's Manual of Style;
to not contain copyvio text.

5. New articles with a total of at least 200 words of prose (thus excluding infobox, footer, table of contents, tables, lists, etc.) are accepted, as well as existent articles that were extended at least ten times (in bytes). Words are counted using the XTools! counter of each article, available by navigating to "Istorie" → "autori" (History → authors).

III. Points
6. The points are counted as follows:

Every new article: 5 points + 2 points for each 100 words of prose.
Every existent (as of March 21) article that has been extended ten times in bytes: 2 points for each 100 additional words of prose.
For obvious violation of basic standards of Wikipedia (see rule 4.), all previous points are cancelled.
Proper use of {{Wikimedia CEE Spring 2025}} in an article's talk page: 1 point. Usage of this template is described in its documentation page.

7. Jury may disqualify any participants that display strong violation of fair play – this includes misleading or impeding organizers and fellow participants, mass loading of previously prepared articles at any stage, sockpuppeting, etc.

IV. Prizes
8. A participant can only get one prize, in order of their listing below. For example, winner of the Main prize cannot get any of the subsequent prizes.
9. Prize categories (if a tie occurs, lots will be drawn):

Main prize: who gets most points overall.
Special prize for diversity: who gets most points among users that wrote at least one article (not disqualified by any previous rule) about all the countries and regions participating in the contest by March 21, 2025, except Romania and Moldova.
Special prize for beginners: who gets most points among users with less than 100 contributions to mainspace at the beginning of the contest (March 21, 2025) and at least 5 submitted articles.

Serbia

Timezone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2)

All registered users can participate in the contest.
Participants can register for the competition by entering their signature on this page. Applications are open until the end of the competition.
Contestants can choose the articles they will write about.
All articles should be written according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, which include using an encyclopedic writing style and citing reliable sources.
During the duration of the competition or after its completion, the competitors list the names of the articles they created/wrote/amended in the records.
In the records, the competitor should emphasize that he has completed the creation of an individual article (eg done, completed) within 48 hours. Also, it should be marked whether it is a new or amended article.
Participants must be sure to check if the article has been previously reserved by another user.
The members of the jury give their marks and decide on the winners.
Jury members will review all articles and score each one individually with points from 0 to 5, and then multiply the score by the number of bytes of the new or updated article. Articles that are determined not to be the subject of the competition will be excluded from evaluation. The first three users with the most points are entitled to the prize.
All newly written and significantly expanded articles on the talk page require a template entry
The number of articles is not limited.

Slovenia

Timezone: CET/CEST (UTC+1/UTC+2)

Any registered user can participate, but the organisers aren't eligible for prizes.
New articles and additions to existing articles must be at least 200 words to count.
Articles about exclusively Slovenian topics don't count.
Contributions must comply with basic rules of Wikipedia (notability, verifiability, neutrality, copyright).
Points awarded:
- 1 point for 200 added words per page, if fewer than 500
- 5 points for each 500 added words per page
- 25 extra points for promoted featured articles
- 3 extra points for new articles every Wikipedia should have (expanded) or promoted to a higher class
- 3 extra points for articles every Wikipedia should have promoted to a higher class
- up to half of the points deducted for articles tagged with cleanup templates
Words are counted including infoboxes and image captions but excluding references, "See also", external links, navigation templates and other technicalities.
Awards will be given to:
- the three contestants with most points
- the newbie editor with most points (accounts registered in 2025, with less than 100 contributions before the beginning of the contest, min. 5 points)
- each contestant who contributes content about every participating country/region.