A long term challenge to expand 50,000 stub articles on English Wikipedia.
The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge is a long term challenge to destub 50,000 articles on English Wikipedia for every country and topic. It began on March 1, 2020 with the Wikipedia:The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon and opened as a global editathon on March 31. It may take decades to accomplish, it may take ten years, it all depends on how many people actively contribute. A long term framework which will hopefully be speeded up by running Destubathon contests and hopefully something people will find motivating and enjoyable to participate in long term. Given that well over half of all Wikipedia articles are stubs it's one of the most important things we can do to make a difference to the overall quality of the encyclopedia. It's a substantial goal but let it roll I say! There are more than 3,800,000 stub articles on the English Wikipedia, more than half of our articles. It needs to be drastically reduced somehow! Ideally we need a 1 million Destubbing Challenge!
Note: The first article destubbed in 2024 was number 4611.
To expand 50,000 stubs by December 31 2029, aiming for an average of 5000 destubs each year and 13-14 destubs a day on average. In doing so we hope to make a considerable difference to the average article quality and consistency.
Give a small weekly prize (£10-20 Amazon vouchers) for most articles destubbed in one week, enough to buy up to 50 books a year to invest back into developing the site.
To cover over 200 countries and entities, every country on the planet, and every topic we currently have articles on.
5000 articles destubbed on Women biographies
10,000 articles destubbed on geo features
To find articles wrongly assessed as stubs and remove stub tags/update talk pages to start class
If we can get more editors running Destubathon contests and editathons for their geographical and topical areas it may be possible to ramp up the timescale in which this challenge can be achieved.
Destubathon contests are currently only envisaged (but not yet planned) over the next ten years for the following areas.
The Asian Destubathon - covers the Middle East and Russia through to Japan in the east, all Asian nations. - recommended one month contest. Possibly November 2020, coinciding with Asian Month.
The Far East Destubathon - covers China, Japan, eastern Russia, North and South Korea, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau
The Summer World Destubbing Challenge is running from May 1 to July 31 2020. £250 (c.$310) worth of prizes will be rewarded in early August for most articles destubbed. Prize claims are to be made here, but there won't be the regular monitoring and prompting you get in contests. The prize winners will simply be announced at the beginning of August. Editors are expected to follow the guidelines as closely as possible to be eligible. Please try to source every claim, no unsourced paragraphs. Try to write a minimum of 1.2 kb of readable prose (not including lists), but aim for no less 1.5 kb unless you genuinely can't find enough material. List articles on the main list here as you do regularly. No target will be set each week for number of articles. Keep it relaxed and free, but let's try to get a minimum of one article improved from every country or county/state.
Anybody who is interested in destubbing articles long term or for any of the weeks allocated for the Summer Focus sign up here. Articles done for the regional world challenges may also be placed here.
I think this will motivate me to improve more existing content long term and as it's done in a casual way without obligation to regularly contribute as in a contest should be fun.♦ Encyclopædius 15:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a lot of fun! Coldbolt (talk) 09:43, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Let's destroy (or maybe improve is more accurate) the stubs!!! DemonDays64 (talk) 13:59, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have a few drafts that can be merged into existing stubs :) --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 14:44, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I had already started a campaign in my own province to upgrade stubs for every town, village, notable place in my province of Nova Scotia, in Canada. Great to see I'm part of a movement! Delphine du Toit 16.46, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, I have nothing but time, so why not? Elf891516 (talk) 01:26, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There's enough people creating articles, we need more actually expanding the two-sentence stuff we already got. Wizardman 22:18, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
User:Wizardman hit it right on the nose! Too many casual editors focus on new article creation instead of improving existing ones! ClaudeDavid(talk) 17:06, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please! Mainly for my specialist area, South East England, at first … but maybe some more later! Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 21:19, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I get to destub articles AND free book money? Where do I sign! Pokemonprime (talk) 00:34, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I try to disturb focusing mainly on Sri Lankan, Indian and Nigerian related topics. Abishe (talk) 14:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Lost my job and can't work because of the virus so hopefully I can contribute Ryan1de (talk) 04:36, 10 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I try to de-stubbing focusing mainly on , Indian art, theater, music, & film related topics User:Mustafdesam ([[(User talk:Mustafdesam) 03:22, 12 May 2020 (UTC)]])[reply]
I hope to contribute by destubbing biology and geopolitics-related topic, mostly. Hope to do some good work and help reach the goal Backspacecadet (talk)
I have been expanding stubs for some time, but this is the first I read about this challenge. I would be glad to contribute more. Darwin Naz (talk) 04:49, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Since i've been contributing anyways, I might as well officially sign up. SilverserenC 19:36, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Joining here just because. (Note: I'm a mathematics nerd, so much of what I'll do isn't associated with a specific country.) Duckmather (talk) 3:54, 4 May 2021 (UTC) (updated on 23:02:21 (UTC)
May as well sign up officially! Doggo375 (talk) 08:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I hope that Wikpedia will have very few stub articles one day. Surfinsi (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia needs less stub articles. Let's improve its quality. Helloheart (talk) 20:13, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, better late than never... Let's see what I can do to help the community reach this bold goal! Oltrepier (talk) 13:59, 29 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You can check your entries using this tool before submitting here. The article readable prose, excluding sources and lists should be a minimum 1200 bytes (1.2 KB) and ideally 1500 bytes (1.5 KB).
What would make it easier on this is if everybody programs their common.js in their preferences to contain:
Now approach an article and look in the tools section on the left. You should see "Page size". Click that for each article and you'll quickly get a reading without having to paste text all of the time and look externally.
Look out for where it says, for example: "Prose size (text only): 1310 B (xxx words) "readable prose size" ". That's what we're looking for on this, that has to read over 1200 B when finished.
Articles related to every topic and nation are welcome here. When listing try to add the relevant county and country it is applicable to. If it is a biography, the county and country of birth.
All articles submitted here must be a minimum of 1.2 kb (1200 bytes) of readable prose. This is the bare minimum to accommodate for the fact that a lot of smaller localities and landmarks are difficult to write fuller articles on but are very worthy of including and having a reasonable basic entry on in their own right. Always aim for at least 1.5 kb (1500 bytes) of readable prose for a "destub" unless you're genuinely struggling to find enough to reach it.
All paragraphs must be fully sourced, with appropriate title, publisher, author, date information where relevant, no bare urls or poorly formatted sources which include publisher and title etc in one link etc. Be consistent in the sourcing and formatting and be careful of sourcing claims lower down in paragraphs and ensure that the sources verify all of the information given above.
All content submitted must have been checked and verified. If there are claims which are not verifiable in an existing stub or article, delete those claims before submitting.
All articles are expected to be free of copyright issues and plagiarism.
All talk page tags are expected to be updated from being classed as stubs. Remember to remove the stub tag at the bottom of the articles.
If you come across articles which are clearly no longer stubs and don't need much or any sourcing work or expansion, kindly remove the stub tag and update the tags on the talk page to reclassify it.
We are aiming for 5,000 women's biographies to be destubbed by 2030, an average of 500 articles a year. Biographies covering every country on the planet and every occupation are welcome. List the entries in the main list above and simply just link the article below too.
