User blog:Drew1200/Official Editing Contest of 2013!

Ever since we made an attempt to join Brickimedia, we've been falling behind on maintaining our huge database of information. However, statistically speaking, November is the best month for editing! November has always been one of the most active times for editors and bots. We're going to encourage that again this year with an official editing contest for November 2013.

Last year, we set our record for most editors, and most edits. We had 73 users who made more than 5 edits. That's a really big number, and I'm hoping we can beat it this year. I would encourage everyone who reads this blog to make at least 5 edits this month. You actually get a reward just for doing that. See the awards section below for more information.

We're hoping this'll be a pretty big contest, so actually, we're going to have three contests in one! First off, we'll just have a normal editing contest. Whoever makes the most edits wins. The other two will be a second version of previous contests. We're going to have another file categorizing race, and an article creating contest. Here's some more detail on each contest...

Plain ol' Boring Editing Contest
The main contest here will be for making as many edits as possible. The first thing I want to say about this is that the admins will be watching. If you are making spam edits, the admins have the right to subtract a number of edits, or disqualify you entirely. It'll require at least 3 admins agreeing to subtract points, so you don't have anything to worry about if you're not spamming. So stay productive, but edit fast!

In order to enter this contest, make a comment below, and then make five edits! You'll be entered in the contest, and you'll receive an award template that can be viewed below.

One more note for this contest. Only mainspace edits count. So all the blog comments and forum posts you make during this time will not count towards your total. This also means that if you choose to participate in the file categorization race, none of those edits count for this contest. However, edits from the article creation contest do count.

Awards

 * Grand Prize: Grand Editor, featured on a future blog announcing the winners, 3 custom emote requests, an optional 50 MLN clicks, or 15 LMB likes, and super-bragging rights!
 * Top 3: Top Editor, and featured on a future blog announcing the winners.
 * Participant: Editor
 * Secret Awards…

File Categorization Race
Most of you probably remember Klint's file categorization race from earlier this year. The idea is to go around, and categorize all the images you can. If you're unsure of what categories to add, or where to find the pictures, please ask in the comments.

Awards

 * Grand Prize: Grand Cat, featured on a future blog announcing the winners, an optional 40 MLN clicks, or 10 LMB likes, and 2 custom emote requests.
 * Top 3: Top Cat, and featured on a future blog announcing the winners.
 * Participant: Editor

Article Creation Contest
Another successful contest we've had was for creating articles. We ended up creating nearly 700 articles in a short period of time. We are now having the Article Creation Contest 2.0, with improved prizes, and hopefully, even more participation!

This contest is probably the most complex one. If you plan to participate, we ask that you be the one to keep track of the articles you create. You can do that by listing them on Special:Mypage/Pages Created. We’ll keep track of the pages you have listed there, and check to make sure you really did create them.

Awards

 * Grand Prize: Grand Creator, featured on a future blog announcing the winners, an optional 40 MLN clicks, or 10 LMB likes, and 2 custom emote requests.
 * Top 3: Top Creator, and featured on a future blog announcing the winners.
 * Participant: Editor

Outdated Template
Ever since we began doing articles about users, it's been my goal to make it as easy as possible to update. It began with the SourceBox, which allowed for a quick and easy source. It continued with the Profile template, which allowed for updating the rank and avatar far easier. Seaside's User template made if even easier by putting all the different fields in a single area, and making it easier to configure the categories.

Lately, I've been working on one more step that will hopefully make it even easier! If you've read any of our articles in the past few days, you may have noticed that in the SourceBox, there's an extra link. The link either takes you to the Updated or Outdated category. Now, by going to the Outdated category, and clicking "What links here", you can see a complete list of articles needing updated. Now you don't have to sort through dozens of pages to find outdated ones. They're all list right there on that page for you. If the user is active, and the page has not been edited in over a week, then it's automatically considered outdated, and placed in the appropriate category. I hope you guys find this as convenient as I do, and I think it'll really help to speed up the editing for this contest!

Annoying Little Details
This contest will run from now until the end of the year, but we’ll be primarily focused on November. Along with myself, Nxtstep101 and Agent Spy will be helping to supervise all the little details. We’ll do our best to quickly get you the participant templates as soon as you earn them, and to keep track of how many edits are made/files categorized/articles created.


 * Also, if you’d like to join. Before you begin editing, please leave a comment on this blog saying you’ll participate. As soon as you do that, we’ll quickly look at your edits through Special:Editcount, so we’ll be able to keep track of how many edits you make during the contest.
 * Feel free to join all or none of the contests, but we'd prefer you join at least one!
 * I'm still working on getting some of the award templates up. If one of them is a red link, don't worry, I'll get it up soon.
 * Wait, one more little annoying detail! The contest does not start until November 1st. You can begin editing now if you want, but nothing counts for the contest until that date.

If you have any questions at all, please ask in the comments!