World War I edit-a-thons/Europeana Challenge/Welcome to the Challenge

Welcome to the Europeana Challenge!

We would like to welcome you all to the Europeana Challenge that will take place as an integrated part of the parallel WWI edit-a-thons on the 29^th of June 2013.

In this challenge all of the participants of the edit-a-thons (IRL or online doesn't matter) are invited to use the many fantastic pictures from World War I that have been uploaded from Europeana's enormous WWI portal to our Wikimedia Commons category. These images originate from GLAMs all over Europe and we want these images to be used in as many articles in as many language versions as possible in order to share our common history in a neutral way (i.e. you can participate on any language version of Wikipedia that you prefer). For that we require your help!

As we strive for the images to illustrate well written and comprehensive articles points will be given not just for the addition of the images to the articles, but also for the expansion of existing articles or the creation of new articles (this includes working on articles where the picture from Europeana has already been added). The points will be summarized and the international winner will receive a travel cheque worth 300 euros! Perhaps the money can help you come to Wikimania?

On top of the international contest, we would be happy to also support the local edit-a-thons with money to buy smaller prizes for the local winners and other costs, for up to 200 euros per event (there is a limited amount of event money - so first come, first served). The local prizes are decided by the local organizers. If you, for whatever reason, can't organize a full blown edit-a-thon in your country on the 29^th you could still participate in the Europeana Challenge by organizing an online event on your Wikipedia language version. Please add yourself to the list here and fill out the template so it's easy for everybody to see what is going on. It's not harder than creating a contest page either on Meta or on your home Wikipedia and link to it from there. (Of course we encourage you to also prepare a press release to make the most of the event).

Please contact john.anderssonwikimedia.se for more information if you would like to organize an edit-a-thon in your country/region or if you just are curious and would like to know more! Of course you can still organize an edit-a-thon that day without taking part in the Europeana Challenge, but we hope that this will increase the overall participation and make it even more fun!

How it works

We welcome any Wikipedian with a named account (on any wiki) to participate in the Europeana Challenge. You just have to edit the articles on the 29th. This is a 24 hour contest starting at 00.01 and ending at 23.59 your local time.

To participate you must sign up on the Participants page and on that page you must include a link to your talk page (it may be on any Wikipedia, but please test the link to make sure it works!).

The challenge is based on a point system, with the goal for each participant to gain as many points as possible. You get points for writing in articles that have an image from Europeana in them (you can either add the image yourself from the Europeana 1914-1918 category on Wikimedia Commons, or expand the articles that already have them added):

8 points - Expand an article with at least 300 words of text (containing one or many Europeana image(s)).
8 points - Create a new article with at least 300 words of text (containing one or many Europeana image(s)).
3 points - Expand an article with at least 100 words of text (containing one or many Europeana image(s)).
3 points - Create a new article with at least 100 words of text (containing one or many Europeana image(s)).
1 point - Add a Europeana picture to an article without expanding it otherwise (each different language version that you add the picture to counts).

And to avoid any confusion: if you for example write an article consisting of 180 words you still get 3 points as you have not reached the second level of 300 words.