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September 9, 2010

DAB Challenge - September (Yes, they actually do this)

DAB Challenge - September

Welcome to the Monthly DAB Challenge! The purpose of this competition is to see who can fix the most links to disambiguation pages from the list below. The list is composed of the top 500 disambig pages with links as of September 1st.

How to score points

The scoring system is straightforward - make an article no longer link to one of the disambigs in the list, and you earn one point.

These types of edits will earn you points:

  • Repairing disambig links within an article
  • Removing disambig links from an article
  • Changing a redirect that points to a disambig to point to something else
  • Repairing or removing disambig links within a template

Through redirect and template edits you can rack up points with a single edit. If a template with a disambig link is transcluded in 30 articles, and fixing that template causes all 30 articles to no longer link to the disambig, you receive 30 points. (Note though that it usually takes a couple of days for template fixes to be reflected by the articles that transclude them, so be patient when waiting to see results.)

These types of edits will NOT earn you points:

  • Any fix that doesn't "stick" (that is, if an article you fixed is re-linked to the disambig, you lose your point)
  • Fixing article-to-disambig links that were created after this month's list was generated on September 1st
  • Removing the {{disambig}} template so an article is no longer a disambig
  • Page moves that cause an article to no longer point to a disambig

There are several compelling arguments I could make to justify this policy, but the simple truth is leaving out these scenarios made the programming a lot easier.

A final note on scoring: it isn't going to be perfect. Some edits will be improperly attributed, and others may not be caught by the system. But I've tried to keep this at a minimum, and don't expect it to ruin anyone's standings.

A word of caution

The purpose of this competition is to have fun, acknowledge the contributions of others, and improve Wikipedia. Anyone who does not make constructive edits (for instance, by making hasty, uninformed edits that have to be fixed later) will be banned indefinitely from the leaderboards. As insurance against this, I've created the ability to view the dab-fixing efforts of others (see below).

Current leaderboard for September

This list, updated hourly, includes anyone who has fixed at least 10 links from the disambig list this month. The second link goes to a page that lists what articles the user has fixed, what disambig was involved, and the diff of the "fixing" edit.

   1. BD2412    2473 fixed
   2. Woohookitty    2135 fixed
   3. R'n'B    975 fixed
   4. DennisIsMe    628 fixed
   5. JamesAM    602 fixed
   6. JaGa    494 fixed
   7. JustAGal    314 fixed
   8. J04n    114 fixed
   9. Utcursch    113 fixed
  10. Ajstov    73 fixed
  11. 96.227.210.71    62 fixed
  12. Barkeep    55 fixed
  13. Tassedethe    45 fixed
  14. Yousou    21 fixed
  15. George Burgess    20 fixed
  16. Zundark    20 fixed
  17. Belovedfreak    13 fixed
  18. Peloneous    13 fixed
  19. YUL89YYZ    11 fixed

The List for September

On the first of every month, a new list of the top 500 from disambiguation pages with links is generated. The number of links is updated once daily, so you can see what disambigs are still available. If all links to a disambig are fixed, or if it is no longer a disambig, it will not be displayed.

   1. Heterogeneous   288 links
   2. Freedom   206 links
   3. Highland   138 links
   4. Papilla   124 links
   5. Ukrainian Orthodox Church   119 links
   6. Dasara   118 links
   7. Settlement   103 links
   8. Congo   97 links
   9. Afro-Caribbean   96 links
   10. Duration   92 links
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