Wikipedia talk:Developing Countries WikiContest

thoughts on this year's contest

overall, the 2025 DCWC went over pretty smooth! i'm very happy with the amount of articles and countries we collectively improved, and congratulations to everyone who participated, and of course to those who won awards. i have some key thoughts and proposals for 2026.

Gaza as least-developed

i propose, given the incredible destruction of nearly all civilian infrastructure and economic activity in the Gaza Strip over the last 2 years, that Gaza be reclassified as least-developed. the West Bank shall remain classified as developing.

minor change to DYK age bonus

in the rules we have 2019 as the year where DYK bonus points start, which is a holdover from the 2024 contest. i'd suggest we maintain 5 years as the boundary and for 2026, update it to 2021. in future contests we'll update the year accordingly.

call for coordinator volunteers for next year

the biggest challenge for us three this year was simply a lack of manpower. all three of us had lots of things going on IRL, which led to noticeably slower updates to the leaderboard. i won't speak for @TechnoSquirrel69 or @Arconning, but i'd be happy to coordinate next year as well - we really just need a couple more people who can pitch in. it's not a terribly difficult job, and it's mainly just updating the leaderboard and discussing things that come up during the contest. we mainly communicate via a Discord groupchat, as well as the community server. thanks in advance to anyone who wishes to volunteer! ... sawyer * any/all * talk 12:09, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

This was a great contest. I agree with all of your points, and, as a major GAN reviewer in the contest, I want to recommend a minor change in the scoring policy for reviews:

• Should there be extra points in the length of the review (not including big templates or other things like this)?

Again, this contest was a nice edition, and I would like to see more better additions in the future. 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 (My "blotter") 14:58, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

I'd love to help next summer, schedule permitting. Mooonswimmer 16:37, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Agreed on all counts. I was going to come back to the coordinator question a little closer to next year's contest, since it's hard for people to make commitments a year in advance for these things, but I think we could certainly do with more than three to spread the workload out a little. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 18:51, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

definitely. i thought it was worth bringing up now though, so people can let it marinate in their minds as it were. ... sawyer * any/all * talk 11:59, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

The inclusion criteria seems to be shifting slightly from the original premise of using UN Developing Countries (and Least Developing Countries) categories as time go on. If there is a desire to continue to shift from the actual Developing Countries classification, it may be worth figuring out a new criteria system entirely that aligns with the desired purpose of the changes. CMD (talk) 05:29, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

i don't really know what you mean, since in this case Gaza is the only example (and indeed it's just a proposal) of us departing from the formal classifications. in what way has the inclusion criteria shifted? ... sawyer * any/all * talk 09:43, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The significant one I remember from last year was adding Greenland. The statuses of Developing Country and Least Developed Country are ones with real-world implications that come with their own set of political disputes. Deliberately departing from the existing lists while using their terminology and retaining the original framing ("Countries classified as...") is a bit misleading, and I'm not sure what benefit it brings in turn. CMD (talk) 10:03, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

on the scoring page we have those specific cases in their own section... we don't claim that they're "classified" as anything by any intergovernmental organization. the point of those is to fill the gaps in the developing/least developed indices, which generally do not account for colonial holdings like Greenland. ... sawyer * any/all * talk 11:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

also, last year was our first contest - we could not have been diverging from our own inclusion criteria on the first contest, as we decided to include e.g. Greenland, DPRK, & Cuba before it started. ... sawyer * any/all * talk 11:40, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The classification claim is on the map caption in the main page. The divergence is from the IMF/UN lists used to create the base lists, which were presumably the inclusion criteria used to generate the base lists. CMD (talk) 12:00, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

thank you for being specific; i've changed the wording of the map caption (i was looking at the scoring page, not the main page). the IMF and UN lists are a good baseline but they are flawed, which is why we have exceptions decided by consensus. ... sawyer * any/all * talk 12:07, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

This is a good idea but the main purpose of the contest is to improve the coverage of underrepresented places on Wikipedia. If this means that Greenland, the DPRK, and Cuba be included in the definition used by this contest, that is okay. I would cite IAR, but this is a wikicontest where the rules are whatever the contest-holders dictate (following wikipedia's principles) Thanks, 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩 Easternsahara 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩 02:06, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

I support reclassifying Gaza to a least developed place, as it seems quite appropriate considering the leveling of Gaza. The change to DYK age also makes sense. I'd like to support TheNuggeteer's idea on factoring the length of a review as Wikicup (similar contest) has problems with gaming the system and whatever discourages that is a good change. Thanks, 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩 Easternsahara 🇪🇭🇵🇸🇸🇩 02:08, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm sad I couldn't get to fully participate in this event. I will absolutely join the 2026 one though! Could anyone clarify to me what the "DYK age bonus" means here? — EarthDude (Talk) 20:32, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

the DYK age bonus is for articles which made it to DYK after having existed for several years (something uncommon enough to merit a few extra points) - it's noted at WP:DCWC/S#From DYK age ... sawyer * any/all * talk 19:49, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification! I appreciate it. I guess it makes sense that there would be such a bonus. — EarthDude (Talk) 03:54, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

I was satisfied with this year's edition so I'll definitely come back next year. I'd support the change regarding Gaza due to the ongoing genocide and destruction. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

glad to hear you enjoyed it! ... sawyer * any/all * talk 19:49, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you so much for organising this contest! WoohOOoooooo!! Very inspiring! I ran out of time to participate due to my irl life demands, so could only work on very few Wikiprojects. I am happy to know of intiatives like this and definitely would be interested to stay in your loop. If you are open to unsolicited feedback ha! Please read on if yes, if no just ignore!------------->I don't know if you organised any workshops? That might be a fun way for us to work together and gather momentum.

Also I relaly appreciated your patience and kindness, am sure I made a few mistakes and remember that you wer super pleasant about whatever error I made. Top notch and I encourage youuouUOuuuouuou all!!! On y va!!! Until soon, I&I22 (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

thank you for your kind words! a workshop is not a bad idea, although i've never organized one before. ... sawyer * any/all * talk 19:51, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

@Sawyer777 if you felt to, you could join an umbrella Wikimedia project and get training by attending workshops and training events - this would also help you gather community and reach for these kinds of group efforts. If you organise with them they would also possibly help with the promos.

I, myself am part of Wikimedia Uk and Wikimedia Canada

/media.uk/wiki/Training_the_Trainers/Volunteer_role:_Wikimedia_UK_trainer I&I22 (talk) 14:41, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

A suggested addition for next year

I didn't participate in this year's contest, as much of what would gain me points isn't of much interest to me. But I would like to ask if next year, you could make it so making new articles gained people points. I love creating articles from scratch, and competing to do so would probably make me more active. There would need to be size and sourcing requirements to stop automated creations, but I think it could work. There aren't many articles on niche topics in developing countries (traditional events, niche history, ect.) that could be great editions to our great encyclopedia. Also, sorry for making this comment so long after your request for comment. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 00:44, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

@Mikeycdiamond: No need to apologize; long comments on the DCWC talk page are my favorite kind, so thank you! The DCWC indirectly awards new article creation by requiring that they go through Did you know?. There's a few reasons for this, the main ones being to discourage mass stub creation and to take content reviewing responsibilities off of the coordinator team — this was also briefly brought up last year. Each submission gets 5 points as a baseline, with additional points for longer articles or being related to least-developed countries; see the scoring rules for more information. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 00:52, 28 October 2025 (UTC)