Coolest Tool Award
Wiki communities around the globe have diverse use cases and technical needs. Volunteer developers are often the first to find and address those use cases. They experiment with new ideas, build local and global solutions and enhance the experience in our software.
There are incredibly many great tools out there.
It’s time to celebrate this!
Coolest Tool Award 2022[edit]
The fourth edition of the Coolest Tool Award happened virtually on Friday, December 16th, 2022, at 17:00 UTC (9:00 PST, 18:00 CET, 22:30 IST)! 📆
- The event was live streamed on YouTube in the MediaWiki channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_dcFFIZ5w
- The following venues can be used for socializing:
- YouTube live stream chat (MediaWiki)
- Twitter #CoolestToolAward
- Mastodon #CoolestToolAward
- #wmhack Telegram group / IRC #wikimedia-hackathonconnect
How to nominate tools[edit]
The call for nominations is now closed. Thank you very much for your ideas & recommendation(s)!
The award is organized & selected by the Coolest Tool Academy. Members of the 2022 edition are: Gbemisola, Emmanuel, Siobhan, Sage, TheresNoTime, Andre and Komla.
2022 Winners[edit]
| Winner | Video | Category | Category description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Citation Hunt | Newbie friendly | New tools or tools by new developers | |
| MoreMenu | Editor | Tools that augment editing | |
| PetScan | Reusable | Serves many wikis and projects | |
| PatchDemo | Developer | Tools that primarily serve developers | |
| Bullseye | Newcomer | New tools or tools by new developers | |
| Wiki99 | Diversity | Tools that help include a variety of people, languages, cultures ... | |
| Scholia | Impact | Intuitive and easy to use | |
| TwinkleMobile | Mobile | Tools to improve content quality | |
| OpenRefine | Eggbeater | Tools in use for more than 10 years | |
| Honorable mentions |
How does it work?[edit]
Coolest Tool Academy[edit]
The award is organized & selected by the Coolest Tool Academy. This group is selected with a variety of criteria ensuring continuity (up to 2 spots from previous years), previous year winners, mix of editors / developers / Wikimedia Foundation staff, mix of geography and languages. This is done to minimize bias. Folks who are interested in organizing the Coolest Tool Award in the next edition are invited to reach out to us. :-)
Nomination process[edit]
The nomination process is open for 2-3 weeks, to give time for people to submit nominations for their favorite tools.
You can nominate multiple tools and are encouraged to do so! The more the merrier, the Academy needs your help getting to know all the cool tools in the ecosystem.
What is a tool?[edit]
A tool is a piece of software in the Wikimedia ecosystem that is useful from your perspective. Some examples of tools are: gadgets, MediaWiki extensions, websites and web services, APIs, mobile applications, desktop applications, bots, PAWS notebooks, user scripts, etc.
The most important thing is to highlight the work of the technical community, no matter what shape or form the tool takes :-)
Selection process[edit]
After the nomination process finishes, the Academy gets together to discuss the entries and selection process, then they individually review the nominated tools, and finally there is a last meeting where the Academy reconvenes and discusses the nominations to finally assign the awards in a variety of categories.
Award ceremony[edit]
The awarded projects are announced in a dedicated award ceremony. Depending on the situation either co-located with an existing movement event, or if it is not possible, in a virtual event.
