And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. It would have been 5 points, but when a late entrant was permitted to join the contest in February, a promise was made that his inclusion would not result in the exclusion of any other competitor. To achieve this, the six entrants that had the lowest positive score of 4 points have been added to the 64 people who otherwise would have qualified. As a result, some of the groups have nine contestants rather than eight. Our top four scorers in round 1 were:

• Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
• Iry-Hor, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with a featured article, a good article and a tally of 282 bonus points for a score of 517. All these points came from the article Nyuserre Ini, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh,
• 1989, another WikiCup newcomer, was in joint third place at 240. 1989 has claimed points for two featured lists and one good article relating to anime and comedy series, all of which were awarded bonus points.
• Peacemaker67 shared third place with five good articles and thirteen good article reviews, mostly on naval vessels. He is also new to the competition.

The largest number of DYKs have been submitted by Vivvt and The C of E, who each claimed for seven, and MBlaze Lightning achieved eight articles at ITN. Carbrera and Peacemaker67 each claimed for five GAs and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga was well out in front for GARs, having reviewed 32. No featured pictures, featured topics or good topics yet, but we have achieved three featured articles and a splendid total of fifty good articles.

So, on to the second round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Charu Mihir Sarkar at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 15:31, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

On 6 March 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Charu Mihir Sarkar, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that three Bangla Congress ministers, Charu Mihir Sarkar, Bhabatosh Soren, and S.K. Dhara, resigned on the same day in 1970 from the West Bengal government? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Charu Mihir Sarkar. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Charu Mihir Sarkar), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Mifter (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

On 6 March 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Bhabatosh Soren, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that three Bangla Congress ministers, Charu Mihir Sarkar, Bhabatosh Soren, and S.K. Dhara, resigned on the same day in 1970 from the West Bengal government? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Bhabatosh Soren), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Mifter (talk) 12:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Cachar Congress is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cachar Congress until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. ChunnuBhai (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Soman. You have new messages at Template:Did you know nominations/Revolutionary Communist Party of India.
Message added 08:05, 7 March 2017 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:05, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Lalchand Fulamali‎ at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:06, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of Revolutionary Communist Party of India at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 16:27, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Please see new comment on the nomination page: the original hook has been struck and a new one is needed. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

On 28 March 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Revolutionary Communist Party of India, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Revolutionary Communist Party of India attacked the Dum Dum Airfield in 1949? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Revolutionary Communist Party of India. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Revolutionary Communist Party of India), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Mifter (talk) 00:01, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Kingdom First Party is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kingdom First Party until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. The Drover's Wife (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2017 (UTC)