Wikipedia:Article rescue contest

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The contest has now closed.

The judges are currently evaluating the entries.
Results will be published here and in the Wikipedia Signpost as soon as they're known.

Welcome to the "put your money where your mouth is" contest. There are plenty of people who vote keep on Articles for deletion with the reasoning that there is the potential for an article to be encyclopedic—even Featured—even though the article that currently exists there is in serious need of cleanup, and frankly, is usually downright awful. Then the AfD is closed, the article is kept, and nobody touches it ever again.

This contest is to encourage people to actually put their money where their mouths are and do something when they say an article topic has potential: prove it!

Yes, the general idea (and the format of this page! ha!) is blatantly modelled after Danny's contest. Something about the sincerest form of flattery, and all that.

Rules

These are the proposed rules. Be bold in editing them!

The article must have had a valid nomination on AfD or VfD - nominating something to be able to enter it is disallowed.
Kept or deleted: recreation of a deleted article under the same title is OK, if they are not substantially the same as a previously deleted entry.
We'll also accept articles that have been saved from speedy deletions, but subsequently left unattended.
Rewrites of copyright violations are also accepted.
The article must be found to have been in need of a rewrite to be encyclopedic *or* deleted outright. The point isn't just to rescue articles that have been listed for deletion (although that's a fine thing to do), but to rescue those where people doubt that a good, encyclopedic article can even be written.
At least five articles must be entered for the contest to take place. Tell your friends.
Ideally, pick an article which is of general interest so as to attract as many Wikipedians to help out.
Or, something you improved which was coordinated through the Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce

All entries subject to judges' discretion and the merciless editing of your peers

Best practices

If you begin to improve your chosen article while it is still actively listed in AfD, you almost certainly will find your work ~~mindlessly~~ mercilessly deleted before you can complete it — articles that have grown by a factor of eight have been obliterated without a second glance. You should keep an off-line backup, to be restored once you are ready to submit it to the judge. Alternately, you can request an administrator to undelete the article; the Epopt will do so for legitimate participants in this contest.

Date

All entries must be submitted by 23:59 UTC on October 22, 2005.

Prizes

1st place : The esteem of your peers and the satisfaction of a job well done! Isn't that enough? No? How about a shiny new coffee mug?
2nd place : A nice virtual fruit basket
3rd place : A list of words and phrases based on all the letters in your user name will be created for you :-)

Judges

Sample submissions

Here is an example of a submission by a hypothetical Wikipedian:

Article: Jello Belt

AfD discussion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jello Belt

[link to diff between before and after....] - Example User 15:59, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example of an article rescued from speedy deletion:

Article: B0

[link to diff between before and after....] - Example User 15:59, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example of an article rewritten by an anonymous user after copyvio concerns were communicated:

Gobind Sadan Institute

Real submissions for the contest

Who's next? Add your submission here!!

Dpbsmith's submissions

OK, here goes. There's no requirement for modesty, is there? (These are all mine). Dpbsmith (talk) 12:49, 3 October 2005 (UTC) The diffs are between the article when nominated and when the AfD/VfD was closed. In some cases the article has developed noticeably since then.[reply]

Current rescues

Bummel ~~currently in AfD.~~ Removed early from AfD, see [1]. diff. The original here was factually inaccurate, as it implied that bummel was an English word made famous by Jerome K. Jerome.

Previous rescues

Pecan pie diff, kept 17 March 2005
Jessamyn West. Version nominated for deletion April 2nd, 2005. Note that this actually became two articles: Jessamyn Charity West for the self-described "anti-capitalist" librarian, who writes the librarian.net blog, who was the subject of the original substub, and Jessamyn West, Indiana author of The Friendly Persuasion, who had no article at the time. Both articles kept, 22 March 2005.
Pea soup. diff, 3 December 2004. I'm particularly pleased by how collaborative this one was and how much it's been added to since.
Sunny Jim. diff, kept 13 November, 2005.

Unfocused's submission

Since we weren't specific, I'm assuming that the contest is geared toward getting people to edit current AfD candidates. However, I'll submit one of my previous rescues, just because it's fun. Un focused 03:11, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We used to have a rule about how long an article needed to be on AFD to be included, but we eventually decided against it, because it doesn't serve the contest's goals. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:14, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Previous rescues

Zetor. diff, kept 12:16, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC). All three edits during the VfD period were mine, and the second two were a comma correction, and adding a category.
- Nice! Dpbsmith (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Epopt's submission

Current rescues

The Epopt tried to rescue companion, but the deletionists insisted on their pound of flesh regardless of the improvement, so he's working on it off-line.

Crypticfirefly's submission

Previous rescues

1530s in architecture diff I just couldn't believe that only two things of note occurred during that time period. All the edits saving this article are mine.
Diane Pozefsky diff showing my edits All I really did here was provide more information this lady's publications, showing she is notable. Someone else took it further, so I only deserve partial credit for this one.
Numbers in Egyptian Mythology diff This isn't an area that I know much about. I actually went out and purchased a reference book so that I could add some good references to the article. Some of the less reliable references were added by someone else, but then I spent a lot of time fixing the "note" tags.

I've moved this one to Numbers in Egyptian mythology per wikipedia naming conventions on capitalization. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mehmet Mustafaoğlu diff showing my changes Added a lot of information about this guy establishing notability. I like to believe that it encouraged the creator of the page to get busy and add even more.

Current rescue

List of U.S. state snack foods no diff, history of US state foods. People were saying that it should be merged to List of U.S. state foods but that article had already been deleted. I went ahead and boldly made a new article on the state foods page that included references for most of the material. Don't know if this counts as a rescue for purposes of the contest, but here it is anyway.
Tracer gun diff. It irked me that this article was nominated for deletion about an hour after it was created by an anonymous user (probably a high school student), and it is about a toy that I have played with. So I almost completely rewrote the article. Hope it makes it . . .

the wub's submission

Current rescue

DJ Quietstorm diff. Spotted this on AfD. Googling turned up a few links, notably [2] which proved he has a record deal and more importantly a Pink Floyd top, and was therefore worthy of rescue :-) Was pretty challenging because it was the first time I'd ever tried to rescue an article like this, and most of the info I could find was in Japanese o_O the wub "?!" 19:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Llywrch's submission

Previous rescues

Asrat Woldeyes Saw this on AfD, at first glance the article was fit for deletion, but a bit of Googling showed that the subject was very notable: he was an important Ethiopian doctor, professor and politician. Rewrote, & added a lot of badly-needed information on a man I found incredibly fascinating. -- llywrch 22:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Majts's submission

Devolution (fallacy) : Article originally called Devolution (biology), survived a VfD on 14 August 2005. diff

The critics say .... (from User_talk:Majts)

Hello, I was the original person that added Devolution to Vfd (at the time) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devolution (biology) Thinking it was a complete hopeless mess :) I am very impressed with what it has become Devolution (fallacy) which I consider factually accurate, and useful! I just wanted to say thanks for turning that sinking ship around! hehe - user:cohesion

Majts 17:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]