Wikipedia has various contests from time to time -- for good writing, site and logo designs, or great images or media -- to encourage and recognize brilliant, unusual, or specially-targeted contributions.

Contests have also been run on various other Wikimedia projects, generally eliciting excitement and support; the Wikinews writing contest in March/April and the second German writing contest (part of the International writing contest) both attracted over 10 unusual prizes from the community to hand out to the lucky/skillful winners.

You can also add to Ideas for new contests if you have a good idea for a contest and you can use this Toolkit model to reduce the time it takes to set up your contest.

Contests[edit]

Writing[edit]

Current and future contests[edit]

Media contests[edit]

• Wikimania competition

  An extended media contest, combining a contest for media gathered while at or en route to Wikimania, with a general contest for all content produced this year.

• Wikipedia:WikiSnap Challenge

Other related events[edit]

• Wikipedia:The Great Wikipedia Dramaout, for 5 days, starting July 18, 2009, Wikipedians are being asked to voluntarily refrain from editing all non-article areas of Wikipedia, and instead dedicate themselves to creating, cleaning up, and building articles.
• Wikipedia:The Great Backlog Drive

Past and completed contests[edit]

Media[edit]

• meta:Mascot - "Contest" for a Wikipedia mascot

Administration[edit]

• Wikipedia:Admin backlog contest

Organizing contests[edit]

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) advises [1] that although there is no problem in general with third parties running contests on Wikipedia, contest organizers should note the following:

• The contest should not be presented as if it was being organized, sponsored or endorsed by the WMF. This includes using the Wikipedia/WMF logos, which are trademarked and may only be used with the permission of the WMF (see Wikipedia:Copyrights), or implying that the WMF has any involvement beyond hosting the platform being used. (If you are unsure about your contest in this regard, please contact liaisonwikimedia.org.)
• Contributors are liable for their own contributions, which include the people running such contests.
• Organizers may wish to obtain advice on contest law before attempting to run a contest, on-wiki or elsewhere.
• Organizers can save time by copying this Wikipedia:Contests/Toolkit/Template model to set up a contest, based on a successful contest which produced nearly 3000 articles in one month.