Directory:Wikipedia Response Testing

A Facebook Event

Working session: June 1-15, 2010.

Observation period: June 16-30, 2010.

Submission by qualified candidates: July 1-3, 2010.

Judging: July 4-7, 2010.

Awards and cash prizes: July 8, 2010.

We view Wikipedia as a dynamic experiment in social drama, not as an authoritative encyclopedia.

Between June 1 and June 15, using a registered User account, you will be encouraged to insert the most outlandish, silly, counter-intuitive sorts of misinformation into any article(s) on Wikipedia that received at least 1,000 page views in the month of April 2010. (See here for an example of checking page views.) We anticipate that most attempts will fail to last more than a few minutes or hours.

However, if your piece of misinformation endures unaltered from June 16 through June 30, you may then submit it here or here (between July 1 and July 3) as a qualifier for consideration as a Wikipedia Response Testing finalist entry. (Just prior to entering your qualified candidate, you had better record a WebCitation.org version of your edit -- in case the Wikipediots "oversight" your hard-earned misinformation.)

A panel of judges will evaluate all of the finalists' entries (between July 4 and July 7), and winners will be announced July 8. A Grand Prize winner will be awarded $100, with a First Runner-Up receiving $50. Contestants must be able to prove in some way that they were responsible for their Wikipedia Response Testing entry (for example, on July 1, write "WRT on Facebook" on your Wikipedia User page, with a link to your edit, and record it with WebCitation.org). It is your decision whether or not to revert your test edit after you have submitted it for judging.

The judges will assess your cumulative portfolio of misinformation work, under a single User name. So, the more misinformed edits you make to numerous articles, the more credit you'll build with the judges. However, make too many such edits and your whole portfolio could come crashing down at the hands of a vengeful admin.

Scoring: log(Number of cumulative page views, April 2010) x log(Number of cumulative page views, June 16-30, 2010) x (Outrageousness of misinformation, per 10-point scale, mean score of judges)

Ready? Set. Go!