Wikipedia:Contests

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

Writing

Commons:Picture of the Year/2022

Media

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:US Banknote Contest/2019
A contest focused on images of United States banknotes
commons:Category:Photography competitions
Various photography competitions on Commons, including Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth

Abandoned contests

Other related events

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

Organizing contests

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.