The second round of the 2019 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to scored 32 points to advance into round 3. Our top four scorers in round 2 all scored over 400 points and were:
Cas Liber (1210), our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three DYKs. He also made good use of the bonus points available, more than doubling his score by choosing appropriate articles to work on.
Kosack (750), last year's runner up, with an FA, a GA, two FLs, and five DYKs.
Adam Cuerden (480), a WikiCup veteran, with 16 featured pictures, mostly restorations.
Zwerg Nase (461), a seasoned competitor, with a FA, a GA and an ITN item.
So far contestants have achieved nine featured articles between them and a splendid 80 good articles. Commendably, 227 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2019 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. The judges are pleased with the thorough GARs that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.
The Hurricane Herald is the arbitrarily periodical newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006; it has been almost thirteen years since that time. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from April 14–May 31, 2019. This edition's editor and author is Hurricane Noah (talk·contribs).
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
History of tropical cyclone naming - The practice of using names to identify tropical cyclones goes back several centuries, with storms named after places, saints or things they hit before the formal start of naming in each basin. The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is given to the Queensland Government MeteorologistClement Wragge, who named tropical cyclones and anticyclones between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific basin. Over the following decades, various naming schemes have been introduced for the world's oceans, including for parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The majority of these lists are compiled by the World Meteorological Organization's tropical cyclone committee for the region and include names from different cultures as well as languages. Over the years there has been controversy over the names used at various times, with names being dropped for religious and political reasons. For example, female names were exclusively used in the basins at various times between 1945 - 2000 and were the subject of several protests. The names of significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Australian region are retired from the naming lists and replaced with another name, at meetings of the various tropical cyclone committees.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity
Cyclone Fani was an extremely severe cyclonic storm that made landfall in Odisha, India on May 3. The storm achieved peak intensity as a near Category 5-equivalent cyclone with 3-minute sustained winds of 215 km/h (130 mph), 1-minute sustained winds of 250 km/h (155 mph), and a minimum central pressure of 937 hPa (mbar). Fani caused over $1.8 billion (2019 USD) in damage in India and Bangladesh and killed at least 89 people.
Since the last newsletter, twelve systems have formed.
Southwest Indian Ocean
In the Southwest Indian Ocean, Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in Mozambique approximately 1 month after Cyclone Idai, causing widespread flooding and destruction. Overall, Kenneth killed at least 52 people and caused more than $100 million in damage. Additionally, Tropical Cyclone Lorna formed over the eastern portion of the basin in late April and dissipated in early May without affecting land.
Australian Region
In the Australian Region, cyclones Lili and Ann formed in early May and both affected land. No deaths were reported, although Lili caused moderate damage in the Maluku Islands and East Timor.
South Pacific
In the South Pacific, a tropical depression formed in mid-may, but failed to intensify and dissipated a few days later.
South Atlantic
In the South Atlantic, Subtropical Storm Jaguar formed in late May and lasted for approximately two days before becoming extratropical.
Western Pacific
In the Western Pacific, three weak tropical depressions existed during the first half of May.
North Atlantic
In the North Atlantic, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed on the same day as Jaguar, but failed to intensify and dissipated on the next day.
The Eastern Pacific hurricane season began on May 15.
The Atlantic hurricane season will begin at 2:00 AM EDT on June 1.
The Central Pacific hurricane season will begin sometime after 12:00 AM HST on June 1.
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter in April 2019
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue in April 2019. Sorted chronologically. Struckout users denote users who have left or have been banned.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Every year, editors new and old help maintain the new season of season articles. The older users are likely used to the standards of the project, such as how to Wikilink and reference properly. Newer users might make mistakes, and they might make them over and over again if they don't know better. If anyone (who happens to read this) comes across a new user, please don't bite, because with enough pushback, they'll decide that this group of editors is too mean, and unfun. This is all a volunteer project; no one can force anyone to do anything. We're all on here because of our love of knowledge and tropical cyclones. If you find someone new, consider using the official WPTC welcome template - Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Welcome.
I also encourage that if you know any tropical cyclone researchers, please speak up and try recruiting them to edit. Veteran editors can't keep editing forever. Life gets busy, and the real world beckons!
Yellow Evan has been involved with WPTC since 2008. Since the last newsletter, Yellow Evan has taken 5 typhoon articles to good article status as well as created 2 more. Overall, he has created and/or significantly contributed to more than 130 good articles. Your work in the Western Pacific Basin is invaluable... Thank you for your contributions!
Latest WikiProject Alerts
The following are the latest article developments as updated by AAlertBot, as of the publishing of this issue. Due to the bot workings, some of these updates may seem out of place; nonetheless, they are included here.
This section lists content that have become featured, articles and lists, since the past newsletter in mid-April 2019. From April 14–May 31, 2019, 1 featured article was promoted:
An awards program for the project began on May 31. It involves 25 levels that may be gained by earning points for completing various actions such as getting good or featured articles. Additional awards will be added in the future.
As of this news letter, there are more articles ranked a good article or better (1317) than articles ranked B-class or worse (1272), for the first time in the project's history.
Every Atlantic hurricane season from 1945 to 2007 is rated at least a GA. That is an impressive feat, and an incredibly body of work among many editors.
Cyclone Raja became the 150th featured article in the project. Thanks to all of the editors and their tireless edits for writing 2.7% of all of Wikipedia's featured articles.
In the 24 hours after Hurricane Michael's TCR was released, the article on the hurricane was edited 82 times by 18 different users.
In March 2019, the most popular article in the project was Cyclone Idai, viewed 231,969 times during the month. The generic cyclone was 2nd most popular, with 131,080 views. In 3rd place was Hurricane Katrina with 112,283 views. Included in the top 20 were the 2018 and 19 Atlantic hurricane seasons, hurricanes Michael, Florence, Irma, Maria, and Harvey, and the 1896 Cedar Keys hurricane, which was TFA on March 20th.
Tropical cyclones by year - from 2000 to present, there were 2,490 tropical cyclones of various intensity, causing a collective $1 trillion in damage and 200,000 deaths
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 150 featured articles and 69 featured lists. There are 142 A-class articles, but that number is subject to change, depending if we mandate that all A-class articles have an A-class review first. There are 956 good articles, meaning it is possible we get to our 1000th GA by the end of the year. There are only 61 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 350 C-class articles, 720 start-class articles, and 141 stub-class articles, with 29 lists and 8 current articles. The number of lists may decrease further as the "Tropical cyclone X" articles continue to be reclassified as set index articles. These figures mean that nearly half of the project is rated a GA or better - including the lists/current/future articles, there are 1272 articles that are below GA status, versus 1317 that are GA or better.
WPTC 15th Anniversary push: some goals for the 15th year of WPTC include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
Project Goals & Progress
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
Hi. I'm DannyS712 (talk), and I just wanted to remind you that you are a current participant in round 3 of this year's WikiCup! There are just over 2 weeks until the third round ends – if you haven't made you first submission for this round yet, there is still time to start; if you have already started, keep up the good work. See your submissions page: here. Good luck!
I just wanted to let you know I am sorry about the result of the FAC. The work you have done with the article is phenomenal and I thank you for it, but at the same time, the article has to be airtight on facts. The spot checks simply showed the article needs to be looked at in its entirety by yourself and possibly a couple of others in order to make sure it is. Please don't take my opposition personally. I just want to make sure an article of this importance is accurate and can hold up. Trust me when I say that people will scrutinize your work if this goes to TFA and appears on the main page. They will not hesitate to open a removal proposal if they find multiple issues regarding accuracy. I can relate as I did a similar thing with Rosa recently. You just have to make sure it is truly ready before nominating. All the best,
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Hurricane Dennis (1999) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Yellow Evan -- Yellow Evan (talk) 17:21, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
WikiCup 2019 July newsletter
The third round of the 2019 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round needed to score at least 68 points, which is substantially lower than last year's 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:
Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with 500 points derived mainly from a featured article and two GAs on natural history topics
Adam Cuerden, with 480 points, a tally built on 16 featured pictures, the result of meticulous restoration work
SounderBruce, a finalist in the last two years, with 306 points from a variety of submissions, mostly related to sport or the State of Washington
Usernameunique, with 305 points derived from a featured article and two GAs on archaeology and related topics
Contestants managed 4 (5) featured articles, 4 featured lists, 18 featured pictures, 29 good articles, 50 DYK entries, 9 ITN entries, and 39 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and it is imperative to claim them in the correct round; one FA claim had to be rejected because it was incorrectly submitted (claimed in Round 3 when it qualified for Round 2), so be warned! When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.
The Hurricane Herald is the arbitrarily periodical newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006; it has been almost thirteen years since that time. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from June 1–July 31, 2019. This edition's editor and author is ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) .
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
Hurricane Barry was the wettest tropical storm on record in Arkansas, and one of only four hurricanes to strike Louisiana in July. Originating from a trough over the southeastern United States, Barry formed on July 11 off the southeast Louisiana coast. Despite wind shear and an asymmetrical structure, the storm intensified into a minimal hurricane before making landfall near Intracoastal City, Louisiana. Barry dropped heavy rainfall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio Valley, peaking at 23.43 in (595 mm) near Ragley, Louisiana. The storm caused flooding rains, power outages, and one death due to rip currents. Damage totaled over US$500 million.
The Atlantic hurricane season, and the Central Pacific hurricane season, began on June 1. The 2019-20 tropical cyclone year in the Southern Hemisphere began on July 1 in the South-West Indian Ocean, Australian region, and South Pacific.
Since the last newsletter, 18 other systems have formed worldwide, in addition to Barry.
Western Pacific
In the Western Pacific, Tropical Storm Sepat in June passed near Japan and was classified as a subtropical storm by the JTWC. In early July, Tropical Storm Mun killed two people when it struck Vietnam. Tropical Storm Danas formed near the Philippines and moved northward, later crossing the Korean peninsula. Toward the end of July, Tropical Storm Nari moved across Japan as a tropical depression, and Tropical Storm Wipha struck southern China. There were also three tropical depressions, one of which the JTWC classified as a tropical storm.
Short-lived Tropical Depression Three formed near the Bahamas and dissipated east of Florida in late July
North Indian Ocean
Cyclone Vayu was a powerful cyclone that threatened western India, but stalled and weakened significantly before moving ashore. The storm killed eight people, and lashed western India with heavy rainfall and high tides.
South-West Indian Ocean
In late July, Zone of Disturbed Weather 01 lasted for a few days east of Madagascar in the southern hemisphere winter.
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter in June/July 2019
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue in May 2019. Sorted chronologically. Struckout users denote users who have left or have been banned.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 152 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 142 A-class articles, but that number is subject to change, depending if we mandate that all A-class articles have an A-class review first. There are 961 good articles, meaning it is possible we get to our 1000th GA by the end of the year. There are only 62 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 363 C-class articles, 717 start-class articles, and 141 stub-class articles, with 26 lists and 9 current articles. The number of lists may decrease further as the "Tropical cyclone X" articles continue to be reclassified as set index articles. These figures mean that more than half of the project is rated a GA or better - including the lists/current/future articles, there are 1283 articles that are below GA status, versus 1325 that are GA or better.
Reports, bulletins, and other products issued by Regional Specialized Meteorological Centers are the authoritative source on meteorological information pertaining to tropical cyclones in their respective basins. This includes both quantitative and qualitative information about a storm's characteristics, including intensities, durations, and locations. The most recent post-storm assessments take precedence over operational data. Thus, post-season revisions to a storm's "best track" file, new information presented in a tropical cyclone report, or official database adjustments made by the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project, or other official reanalyses supersede operational information where they disagree. Data in operational RSMC products can still be used if later data does not dispute them. Information from other public agencies can also be used, but generally require in-text attribution. While the original best track data from meteorological agencies is a reliable source and can be referenced, readers often find difficulty interpreting them. Consider using IBTrACS, a more easily understandable track database, which is endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for this information. Because the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting System (ATCF) used by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and National Hurricane Center is liable to change frequently in realtime, they should not be used for currently active storms. Forecasts from these agencies and RSMCs should only be used to cite the forecasts themselves; in other words, they can only be used to describe what was expected to occur, and never to describe what did occur.
Maps and other graphics published by meteorological agencies may be used to describe events (see the associated essay). However, they should only be referenced if they are explicit in conveying the supported information and do not require any rigorous meteorological interpretation (such as satellite analysis or drawing conclusions over what the arrangement of meteorological features represents). In general, self-published sources should not be used as sources for present or historical storm intensities. However, information contained in articles from reliable sources or commentary from established tropical cyclone experts can be used as sources for information not covered by WMO-endorsed agencies. If such sources dispute WMO-endorsed meteorological data, commentary on the disputed information may be used, making sure to attribute claims and giving due weight.
Storm effects are typically referenced with a wide array of published sources. These may include news organizations, risk assessment organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGO), government agencies, and impact databases. So long as they are reliable sources, they can be used as references for tropical cyclone impacts. Note that figures from early impact reports, often disseminated by the first NGO situation reports and news reports, may quickly be outdated in light of newer information. When sourcing damage totals or casualty figures, use the most recent value from a reliable source, as these values tend to be more stable and use more up-to-date information. If such figures are disputed by other reliable sources, this should be noted in the article, making sure to attribute claims and giving due weight. Routine calculations of damage and casualty figures (for instance, adding casualties from different countries) are acceptable as long as they arise from reliable sources.
Latest WikiProject Alerts
The following are the latest article developments as updated by AAlertBot, as of the publishing of this issue. Due to the bot workings, some of these updates may seem out of place; nonetheless, they are included here.
The article for hurricane (tropical cyclone) was created on December 2, 2001. On October 3, 2002, User:Ed Poor created an article for Hurricane Lili while the storm was active and near peak intensity; since then, 163 other people have edited the article to help make it a . In March 2004, User:BigT27 created an article for the hyperactive 1995 Atlantic hurricane season, then the 3rd most-active Atlantic hurricane season on record. On August 14 of that year, an article was created for Hurricane Iniki, the first non-Atlantic storm, and on August 31, the 1900 Galveston hurricane became the first TC-related . On October 4, 2004, Cyclone Tracy became featured, which was the 2nd FA in the project. A week later, User:Golbez created the article for 2004 Pacific hurricane season, which was the first season article for the EPAC.
On August 26, 2005, User:CrazyC83 created an article for Hurricane Katrina after the legendary storm crossed over southern Florida. By two days later, there were 500 edits to the article, and the hurricane was threatening to hit New Orleans as a Category 4 or 5. We now know it was “only” a Category 3 at landfall. In the 14 years since Katrina, there have been 6,327 editors to the Hurricane Katrina article, along with 23 sub-articles. During the 2005 season, there were debates among editors whether lesser notable storms, like Hurricane Cindy (2005), should have articles. At one point in 2006, there were articles for every named storm during the 2005 AHS, but in the 13 years since then, articles for tropical storms Franklin, Harvey, and Lee, and Philippe were created and merged. As a way to coordinate edits among the tropical cyclone pages, User:Jdorje created Template:Hurricane on September 12, 2005. This is the same template that appears on the talk pages for every article in the WPTC. On October 5, Jdorje officially created WP:WPTC, the tropical cycloneWikiProject. That October, in quick succession, the Atlantic hurricane seasons reached back to the beginning of recordkeeping (before 1600s) due to a collaboration of several editors; User:RattleMan created the first season article for the North Indian Ocean; User:Miss Madeline successfully nominated List of California hurricanes for featured list; and Jdorje created a a standardized storm path template.
In 2006, a series of users improved articles worldwide to featured article status. Professional met David Roth joined the project, and in the same year, the NOAA and NHC copied some material from Wikipedia, including track maps, and the Tropical Cyclone Report for Tropical Storm Chris (2006). In June 2006, User:Nilfanion created the project assessment page, which documents the status of every article, organized by basin, the year, and storm shaded by the quality. On August 1, the chat room on IRC for the project was created, which allowed real-time communication among editors. There’s something special about conversing with fellow weather geeks during an epic storm, which seems to have become all the more common. On January 1, 2007, the number of good articles in the project reached 100. On January 29th, a collaboration of users made the List of retired Pacific hurricane names the first featured topic in the project. It was joined by the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season in March 2007.
In 2008, further collaborations helped make the article for tropical cyclone a featured article, one of 100 FA’s in the project. Notably among project members, Tropical Storm Erick (2007) became featured on December 14, 2008. The storm lasted for a short amount of time over open waters, and as such, it was the shortest featured article anywhere on Wikipedia. Users questioned whether the storm was notable enough to have such a detailed article, but the article described the storm in articulate detail. After an AFD and two featured article review (and a series of low-notability storms being merged), Erick was delisted as a featured article on March 2, 2013.
In the period from 2008 to 2013, users created task forces for various basins, articles for all of the seasons in the Atlantic and EPAC, and enough high-quality articles that more than half of all storm/season articles were good or featured articles. In January 2008, there were 1000 articles in the entire project. On January 1, 2014, User:Yellow Evan created Typhoon Nancy (1982), which was the 2000th article in the project. In October 2008, there were 100 FA’s in the project, which reached 200 on November 28, 2015, with Hurricane Fay (2014). By March 2016, every basin had at least 100 storm articles, multiple featured articles, and season articles of various quality.
Featured Content
This section lists content that have become featured, articles and lists, since the past newsletter in mid-April 2019. From June 1–July 31, 2019, one featured article and one featured list was promoted:
An awards program for the project began on May 31. It involves 25 levels that may be gained by earning points for completing various actions such as getting good or featured articles. Additional awards will be added in the future.
In June 2019, the most popular article in the project was Cyclone Fani, viewed 139,696 times during the month. The generic cyclone was 2nd most popular, with 91,890 views. In 3rd place was the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season with 90,741 views, followed by Hurricane Katrina with 78,591 views. Included in the top 20 were the 2019 season articles for EPAC, WPAC, and NIO, TFA Cyclone Raja, 2018 and 19 Atlantic hurricane seasons, hurricanes Michael, Harvey, Maria, and Sandy. In July 2019, Hurricane Barry (2019) was viewed 85,793 times, with a peak on the day after the storm moved ashore.
WPTC 15th Anniversary push: some goals for the 15th year of WPTC include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
Project Goals & Progress
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated files}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the file's talk page.
The fourth round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 454 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with over 400 points being eliminated, and all but two of the finalists having achieved an FA during the round. Casliber, our 2016 winner, was the highest point-scorer, followed by Enwebb and Lee Vilenski, who are both new to the competition. In fourth place was SounderBruce, a finalist last year. But all those points are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.
Round 4 saw the achievement of 11 featured articles. In addition, Adam Cuerden scored with 18 FPs, Lee Vilenski led the GA score with 8 GAs while Kosack performed 15 GA reviews. There were around 40 DYKs, 40 GARs and 31 GAs overall during round 4. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.
As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Florida Council until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Drmies (talk) 02:04, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Adam Cuerden (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were:
All those who reached the final will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field. Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!
Casliber (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 7 FAs during the course of the competition.
Muboshgu (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 7 in the news articles in round 1.
Ed! (submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 56 good article reviews in round 1.
Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.
We have opened a scoring discussion on whether the rules and scoring need adjustment. Please have your say. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2020 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth14:18, 2 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Orphaned non-free image File:Immokalee Lodge.png
Thanks for uploading File:Immokalee Lodge.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders and improvers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. We are relaxing the rule that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2020 will count; now to be eligible for points in the competition, you must have completed significant work on the content at some time! Any questions on the rules or on anything else connected to the Cup should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk·contribs·email), Godot13 (talk·contribs·email), Vanamonde93 (talk·contribs·email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Hurricane Erin (1995) you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Yellow Evan -- Yellow Evan (talk) 06:40, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 57 contestants qualifying. We have abolished the groups this year, so to qualify for Round 3 you will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two contestants.
Our top scorers in Round 1 were:
Epicgenius, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with a featured article, five good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 895 points.
Gog the Mild came next with 464 points, from a featured article, two good articles and a number of reviews, the main theme being naval warfare.
Raymie was in third place with 419 points, garnered from one good article and an impressive 34 DYKs on radio and TV stations in the United States.
Harrias came next at 414, with a featured article and three good articles, an English civil war battle specialist.
CaptainEek was in fifth place with 405 points, mostly garnered from bringing Cactus wren to featured article status.
The top ten contestants at the end of Round 1 all scored over 200 points; they also included L293D, Kingsif, Enwebb, Lee Vilenski and CAPTAIN MEDUSA. Seven of the top ten contestants in Round 1 are new to the WikiCup.
These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. In Round 1 there were four featured articles, one featured list and two featured pictures, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. Between them, contestants completed 127 good article reviews, nearly a hundred more than the 43 good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Contestants also claimed for 40 featured article / featured list reviews, and most even remembered to mention their WikiCup participation in their reviews (a requirement).
Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.
There was an error in the WikiCup 2020 March newsletter; L293D should not have been included in the list of top ten scorers in Round 1 (they led the list last year), instead, Dunkleosteus77 should have been included, having garnered 334 points from five good articles on animals, living or extinct, and various reviews. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]