Following from the successful Backstage Pass event held at the British Museum on 4 June, attended by around 40 Wikipedians and resulting in the creation of a number of new articles, the British Museum have announced a competition for the creation of Featured Articles related to the British Museum’s collections!
The competition page gives the following summary:
The British Museum is offering five prizes of £100 (≈$140USD/€120) at their shop/bookshop for new Featured Articles on topics related to the British Museum in any Wikipedia language edition. Ideally, the topics will be articles about collection items.
This is the first time an organisation in the UK has put out a prize that recognises the value of fine articles on Wikipedia. This is a recognition that Wikipedia work is not only good quality but is consistent with the outreach aspect of the Museum’s mission to engage the public. It is likely to have a positive effect for the Museum in terms of usage of the deeper resources and links back to their research material. It is a win–win situation for free cultural products, and more broadly for the cultural sector.
The museum has curators dedicated to answering phone and email questions about their specialist areas and they recognise that editing Wikipedia articles, especially about items in the BM’s collections, counts for those purposes. If you require assistance in approaching the British Museum curators, please contact Liam Wyatt (User:Witty lama).
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