This user may have left Wikipedia. AndyZ has only made a few edits on Wikipedia using this account since July 25, 2008. As a result, any requests made here may not receive a response. If you are seeking the assistance of this user on this page, you may need to approach someone else.
Hey AndyZ, awesome script, when the program does the auto-formatting per MoS, it replace can't to can not, and don't to do not. I'm not sure if it is possible but would it be possible to stop if from changing that when the words are inside "quotations". once again, i don't know if this is possible, just a thought.
Thanks for uploading Image:JS peer reviewer-preview.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 orphaned, meaning that it is 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).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. —Remember the dot(talk)21:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XIX (September 2007)
The September 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
Hi there! For some reason, I'm unable to install the PR into my monobook.js file. I have inserted the line "{{subst:js|User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js}}" and bypassed my cache over and over again, but the "peer review" button does not appear in an edit mode of an article. I'm very puzzled; there is no other script in my .js file, and I have repeatedly cleared my cache until I went insane. Could you help me? Thanks! --PostScript15:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Questions
Hi Andy, there was a suggestion on Wikipedia_talk:Content_review/workshop, specifically here to modify the message left by the PR script from the current version to something like "A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for minor issues of grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here."
Thanks, I just ran the script as AZPR and noted the change - I think "house style" was wikilinked to WP:MOS in the original suggestion. Also I did the October requests first, then made the November PR/A page, then tried the November requests, but the auto link was still to the October PR/A page. What I am doing wrong? As for the auto transcluded PR requests from other projects, I will ask at Talk PR. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch><>°°03:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to wikilinking "house style", could you please remove the word "minor". See the conversation cited above if you want details ;-) Thanks, `Ruhrfisch><>°°15:07, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XX (October 2007)
The October 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
Thanks so much for your suggestions on the Strang article. I've taken care of the first five, and will be working on the others as I get the time. I deeply appreciate your help with this! - Ecjmartin05:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Ayyavazhi article
Sir, As suggested by you I clicked the link here. And I found Ayyavazi article listed here. Now what is to be done? Pls healp, as i don't know much and too weak in correct usage of english, Thanks. - PaulRaj20:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am trying to follow your suggestions and I just added a infobox to U.B._Funkeys, but the rules for uploading photos confuses me. I am tring to add a picture of the USB Hub to the infobox, but the rules for images are so confussing, I don't know what I can or cannot add, much less what I have to do to referece, cite, or add what I need to to prove it's a free image. --MahaPanta18:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I've nominated this article for peer review[1] and we tried to improve it on the basis of the suggestions. But there's some disagreement about two points of it which I've put on hold tag in front of them. Please help us with participating in the discussion on Talk:Hezbollah#Disagreements. --Seyyed(t-c)04:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Peer review script
I'm hoping you'll revisit this statement in the peer review script:
Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.[?]
I'm encountering a lot of WP:OVERLINKing, perhaps because editors believe they need to add links ... just for the sake of adding links. I just finished delinking a lot of WP:OVERLINKing at Rotavirus, and the author got a peer review script telling him to add more links :-) Overlinking lately is as big a problem as underlinking, so perhaps you can refer to WP:OVERLINK. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to suggest that you remove this statement from the peer reviews: "There may be an applicable infobox for this article." Infoboxes are not mandatory and including this suggestion makes it seem like the article should have one. Editors should decide whether or not an infobox is justified. For a long time I thought infoboxes were required, although that isn't stated anywhere, simply because of scripts like this and templates that list whether articles have infoboxes or not. It seemed a natural conclusion to draw. I was surprised to discover that infoboxes were not required. Thanks. Awadewit | talk11:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXI (November 2007)
The November 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot00:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your support of my RfA and sorry for the confusion, I meant I didn't think you had made any edits with the AZPR account since September. I'll tweak my comment there next, ;-) Ruhrfisch><>°°03:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I hope not to seem unfriendly or make you feel unwelcome, but I noticed your user subpage at User:AZPR/c, and I am concerned that it might not meet Wikipedia's user page policy. After you look over that policy, could we discuss that concern here? I'd appreciate hearing your views, such as your reasons for wanting this particular page and any alternatives you might accept.
There are several options available for resolving this matter:
If you can relieve my concerns through discussing it here, I can stop worrying about it.
If you decide to delete the page yourself, please add {{Db-userreq}} to the top of the page in question and an administrator will delete it.
If the two of us can't agree on what needs to be done, we can ask for help through Wikipedia's user pages for discussion, which may result in the page in question being deleted.
Three reviews were done and the others were not yet. One is the lead and the copyediting. Please check the lead if its fine. Tell me if its not yet there. Thank you very much. --βritandβeyonce(talk•contribs)08:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I want to thank Snowolf and Dincher for nominating me, those who updated the RfA tally, and everyone for their support and many kind words. I will do my best to use the new tools carefully and responsibly (and since you are reading this, I haven't yet deleted your talk page by accident!). Please let me know if there is anything I can do to be of assistance, and keep an eye out for a little green fish with a mop on the road to an even better encyclopedia.
Thanks for the PR of Sid Barnes. The script picked up a number of contractions that are indeed outside of quotes, but each is in the title of a book and therefore italicised. You could consider telling the bot to ignore italicised contractions? Just a thought. Anyway, thanks. --Dweller (talk) 11:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the script to my monobook.js but nothings happened, I've bypassed my cache and I can't think of anything alse to do? Can you help me please! if it helps I've tried it on firefox and safari. Harland1 (t/c) 14:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Disputed fair use rationale for Image:MikeNewell.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:MikeNewell.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
I attempted to add some info on the subject but was reverted in a few hours with: "rv (makes no sense to me)". On Dec 28 I provided my rationale on the Talk page and so far have not seen any reaction to it. Does it still make no sense?
Being new to Wikipedia, I do not understand whether I am now engaged in some kind of an ongoing procedural process. Should I patiently wait? What are my options? Please help.
Thank you. 128.174.192.194 (talk) 18:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The backlog at Good Article Nominations has recently exploded to 236 unreviewed articles! Out of 264 total nominations, 17 are on hold, 10 are under review, and one is seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (47 articles), Film and cinema (25 articles), Television and journalism (16 articles), Art and architecture (15 articles), and Politics and government (14 articles).
If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
Reviewer of the Month
Dihydrogen Monoxide is the GAN Reviewer of the Month of December, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 of the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Dihydrogen Monoxide hails from Brisbane (which, incidentally, is almost a GA, kids ;)) and has been editing Wikipedia since August 2006. He mostly likes to review articles relating to music, Australia, or anything else that takes his fancy! He also has two articles waiting, and notes that there's still a huge backlog,... so get cracking!
Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of December include:
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
GAReview Template
Lots of you that frequent WP:GAN have undoubtedly seen the articles under review, marked with "Review - I am reviewing this article. ...". The articles have been marked as being under review by an editor using the {{GAReview}} template. The purpose of this template is essentially to prevent two editors from reviewing the same article at the same time, so it's essentially a common courtesy notice to other editors so that they don't pass or fail an article while you're in the midst of collecting and writing comments. However, just because an article is marked, shouldn't preclude another editor from contributing to the review. If you'd like to review it, go ahead; simply collect your comments and write them down on the article's talk page – but don't pass or fail the article – leave that to the other reviewer.
To use this template yourself, simply write "#:{{GAReview}} ~~~~" on the line immediately following the article's nomination at WP:GAN. You can even leave additional comments as well (e.g. "#:{{GAReview}} I will finish my review in the next 24 hours. ~~~~"). Reviewers marking articles with this template should also observe some common etiquette; please don't mark more than 1-3 articles as being under review at a time, and please try and finish your review within 3-5 days of marking the article.
GA Sweeps
After openly requesting the community for more participants into the Sweeps, we have 3 more members on the board. They are (in no particular order) Canadian Paul, VanTucky, and Masem. Canadian Paul will be sweeping "Middle East and the World" articles. VanTucky will be sweeping "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" and "Literature" articles. Masem will be sweeping "Television episodes". We're still looking for more reviewers. Interested individuals should contact OhanaUnited for details.
At this moment, participation in the sweeps project is by invitation only, as we desire experienced reviewers who have a thorough and extensive knowledge of the criteria. This is to ensure that articles that have "fallen through the cracks" would be found and removed, and that additional articles don't fall through the cracks during the sweep.
Currently, there are 16 members working on the project, and we have reviewed 74 articles in December 2007. Of those that are swept, 275 articles are kept as GA, 126 articles are delisted, and 5 promoted to FA.
Did You Know,...
... that the total number of good and featured articles is now over 5000?
... that GA was formed on October 11, 2005 and was formerly called "Half-decent articles"?
... that many discussions were made over the years on whether GA should have a symbol placed on the main article space, yet at the end always removed?
... that there was a proposal to change the GA symbol to a green featured star?
From the Editors
Happy New Year, everyone! I'm just filling in for Dr. Cash as he's busy (or away) in real life. This explains why I wasn't prepared for a full-length article on GA process, and instead I resort to a tiny DYK for GA.
OhanaUnited
Happy New Year as well! I'm still here, and haven't totally disappeared. I had to cut back on editing and reviewing during the month of December as I made the transition from Flagstaff, Arizona to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But I should be about settled in the Keystone State, so I'll be contributing more to Wikipedia again in the new year. Thanks to OhanaUnited for putting together much of the content for this newsletter! He's been working hard with the Sweeps, and the 'Did You Know' section is also a great idea, so I think that will become a regular feature now! I also figured out how to have a collapsible newsletter, so that will change our delivery options a bit. Cheers!
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXII (December 2007)
The December 2007 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
AZPR tweak
Hi Andy, Peer Review has changed somewhat in that the reviews are now bot generated. The WP:PR page no longer has the reviews - they are now transcluded from User:VeblenBot/C/Requests for peer review. Would it be possible to make the AZPR script run on the VeblenBot page? I have been adding the notice to PR requests one at a time for now, but the batch "add notices" would be nicer / easier. Hope you have a Happy New Year, Ruhrfisch><>°°18:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This was left on my talk page by User:Binarymoron. "Does the bot count "vague terms of size" that are within quotes too? If this is the case I have a good logic that can solve this problem, I am not familiar with programing languages other than C++ or VB so I dont know the coding in Perl or Python. Basically make the bot count all the double quotes before the word is encountered, if the number of counts(of double quotes) is even then the word is outside the qoutes and should be considered but if the number of counts is odd then the word is within the quotes and should be ignored." Thought it might be useful, Ruhrfisch><>°°02:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I was wondering if there is any easy fix to allow your script to work for pages that are not in the mainspace. I know that this isn't often needed, but it came up when I was attempting to use the tool for an article I am writing in a sandbox and then saw the tool wasn't accessible. I assume the reason is that it is disabled for anything starting with "user" or "user talk". Thanks in advance.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 07:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 14! TomStar81 (Talk) 01:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are now 3,485 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 206 unreviewed articles. Out of 251 total nominations, 37 are on hold, 7 are under review, and 1 is seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (57 articles), Theatre film and drama (34 articles), Music (19 articles), Transport (17 articles), Politics and government (16 articles), World history (13 articles), and Meteorology and atmospheric sciences (13 articles).
If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
GA Sweeps Update
During January, 57 Good Articles were reviewed. Including those articles that were under GAR or on hold, 35 were kept as GA, 20 delisted, 9 currently on hold or at GAR, and 3 were exempted as they are now Featured Articles.
Reviewer of the Month
Ealdgyth is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for January, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Ealdgyth, known in real life as Victoria Short, hails from Central Illinois, and has been editing Wikipedia since May 26, 2007. In this short time, she has made significant contributions to 9 Good Articles, including Baldwin of Exeter and Hubert Walter. Her interests in editing are in the areas of the Middle Ages, History, and horses. Outside of Wikipedia, she is starting her own photography business, and owns three horses. She likes to read science fiction, history, and geneology books. Congratulations to our GAN Reviewer of the Month for January!
Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of January include:
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
On Hold versus Failing an Article
This month, I thought I'd focus on a less technical and more of a procedural issue at WP:GAN – determining what the appropriate course of action to take when reviewing an article. Currently, there are four options to decide what to do with an article:
Failing it – it does not meet the criteria; remove the article's listing from WP:GAN and add {{ArticleHistory}} or {{failedGA}} to the article's talk page.
On Hold – The article meets most of the criteria, but might fall short in a few areas; keep it listed at WP:GAN, add #: {{GAOnHold|ArticleName}} ~~~~ below the listing and add {{GAonhold}} to the article's talk page.
Second Opinion – Similar to the on hold option, except an editor is either inexperienced or not knowledgeable enough about a given topic and asks another reviewer to offer another opinion before passing or failing; add #: {{GA2ndopinion|ArticleName}} ~~~~ to WP:GAN below the article's listing and add {{GA2ndoptalk}} to the article's talk page.
So how to you know when an article fails outright, or fails initially, but meets "enough" of the criteria to be placed on hold? The answer to this question probably varies by about the same amount as there are reviewers of Good Articles! Everybody treats this slightly differently. The most important thing to consider is that articles should not be on hold for longer than about one week. Although there is no hard and fast time limit for this, most editors would probably agree that five to seven days is enough time to address any GA-related issues with the article to get it to pass. Some editors have extended this a few days in the past, due to other extenuating circumstances, such as an article's primary editor being very busy with school or work, so they have asked for extra time. But as a general rule, a GA nominee that is placed on hold should meet enough of the criteria to be able to be passed within five to seven days. Some examples of articles that might be placed on hold would be:
the article is mostly complete, but might be missing one topic (subcategory).
minor copyediting is required (needs a few minor manual of style, spelling, or grammatical fixes.
mostly well sourced, but missing maybe a handful of references.
a couple of images need to be tagged with appropriate copyright tags.
On the other hand, an article should be failed if it:
is missing several topic categories, or there are several sections which are very short (1-3 sentences per section).
contains numerous sections which are just lists of information, as opposed to written out as prose.
there's entire sections of text that have no references, or there are a lot of {{cn}} or {{unreferenced}} tags.
has evidence of an active edit war in the article history.
has any {{cleanup}} or other warning tags in various places.
Did You Know...
... that on July 19, 2007, 1,548 good articles that have not been categorized at all were categorized in 15 days?
... that in Chinese Wikipedia, articles need to have at least six net support votes before they are promoted to GA?
... that the English Wikipedia has the most Good Articles, the German Wikipedia has the second most (at over 2000), followed by the Spanish Wikipedia (at over 800), the Chinese Wikipedia (at over 400), and the French Wikipedia (at over 200)?
... that Simple English Wikipedia has zero Good Articles?
... that "Sport and games people" category has the most Good Articles?
... that Virginia Tech massacre (which is now a featured article) was promoted to GA just only about one month after the shooting incident, but took more than seven months to reach FA status?
From the Editors
Originally, I wasn't planning to do "Did you know" other than as a fill-in for Dr. Cash. However, I decided to continue writing this section until I ran out of ideas.
OhanaUnited
Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.
Hi! I think I have addressed all the issues listed in Peer Review for this article and would like to renominate it for GA. Could you do that bot thing that you previously did before that generated those comments on the peer review page? I just want to see if I have missed anything. Thanks! NancyHeise (talk) 07:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Butting in - I run the PR script as AZPR too, so I saw this and reran it. I pasted it into the previous semi-automated peer review section (we put them in a separate section to cut down on size of the main peer review). Ruhrfisch><>°°12:33, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIII (January 2008)
The January 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, can you please run your review script on this article? I want to nominate for FA and think I have a decent article but would like some comments before I throw myself on my sword. Regards, Daysleeper47 (talk) 21:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endashes
Can you add an endash check on the script? When I see an article like Peyton Manning appear at FAC, I just feel bad for all the work the nominator has to do to fix all those dashes. And can you get the script to detect when cite templates have an empty or non-existent publisher field? Filling in all those publishers at Peyton Manning will take a huge effort. It would be great if the script could pick up some of these things. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Andy, GeometryGuy has been updating the peer review process and has some ideas for the semi-automated peer review process that I would appreciate your feedback on here. I think it would fix the bug, Thanks, Ruhrfisch><>°°01:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC) PS I emailed you too.[reply]
Hi Andy. I've tried to install your peer reviewer but am having trouble getting it working. I did clear the page cache and the other scripts I've tested seem to work find, but I don't see the "peer review" button or the "add to WP:PR" tag. Also, I just noticed that I'm getting a "Too much recursion" error in Firefox's Java Console whenever I load an edit page. Is this the sign of a bug or am I missing something stupid? Thanks! --jwandersTalk07:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also want to chime in and say that Peer Review does not work for me, even after I empty out my monobook.js file, and I have the same problems as mentioned above. Gary King (talk) 23:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hacked around in the code; deduced that this is a memory error (taking enough of MOS_format() "fixed" it; didn't seem to matter which parts I removed). Not sure how to tell Firefox to allocate javascript more mem, or whether this is a problem unique to my system (Firefox 2.0.0.12, Mac 10.4.11, 1GB Ram) or a leak in the script. --jwandersTalk07:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My system is Mac OS X 10.5.2 with Firefox 2.0.0.12 and 2 GB RAM. I have a feeling that OS X is where the problem lies; Windows users probably don't have issues with this script. Gary King (talk) 15:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just an FYI to whoever this should be addressed to: it would be nice if there was a web interface where users could type in the article name, then the bot could automatically generate a report on the Talk page of the article. Gary King (talk) 05:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are currently 3,647 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 185 unreviewed articles. Out of 237 total nominations, 42 are on hold, and 10 are under review. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (39 articles), Theatre, film, and drama (34 articles), Transport (23 articles), Music (21 articles), Politics and government (18 articles), Culture and society (13 articles), Places (13 articles), and World history (12 articles).
If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
GA Sweeps Update
Two members joined the sweeps team this month. They are Jwanders and jackyd101. Jwanders swept Physics sub-category quickly and is now sweeping "Astronomy and astrophysics". Meanwhile, jackyd101 is sweeping "Armies, military units and legal issues".
During February, 66 Good Articles were reviewed. Including those articles that were under GAR or on hold, 33 were kept as GA, 21 delisted, 17 currently on hold or at GAR, and 1 was exempted as they are now Featured Articles.
Reviewer of the Month
Blnguyen is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for February, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Blnguyen is from South Australia and has been editing Wikipedia since 2005. He was also the reviewer for the month of December 2007, so this marks the second time that he has been GAN's Top Reviewer for the Month. Congratulations to our GAN Reviewer of the Month for February!
Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of January include:
In this issue, we will focus on one of the requirements for good articles: a good article article should follow Wikipedia's guideline on lead sections. So what does this guideline say, why does it say what it does, and how can good article reviewers help?
The lead section is particularly important, because for many readers, it is the only part of the article which they will read. For instance, they may have come to the article by following a wikilink in another article simply to obtain a quick overview before they continue reading the original article. They may only read the first paragraph, or even the first sentence. On the other hand, one of the joys of Wikipedia is the way that it embodies the endlessly branching tree of knowledge; if a lead is well written, it may encourage even such a reader to read on and learn something new.
This is reflected in the terminology: "lead" is a word taken from journalism, where it recognized that many readers will only read the beginning of a newspaper article, and so it is important to convey the key points first, before going into detail. Note that "lead", in this sense, is pronounced as in "leading question" and is sometimes spelled as "lede" by journalists to distinguish it from lead, the metal, which was once very important in typesetting. Wikipedia supports both spellings.
Wikipedia:Lead section is written with all this in mind, and describes two different roles for the lead: first, it should introduce the topic; second it should summarize the article. This is not always as easy as it seems; indeed, it is almost impossible to write a good lead if the article itself does not cover the topic well. It has a side benefit that an article which satisfies this guideline is probably also broad: if the lead is both a good introduction and a summary, then the article probably covers the main points.
The good article process is often the first place in which an article is judged against this criterion, yet many current good articles may not meet it. A common fault is that the lead is purely an introduction, while the rest of the article contains other information, which should be summarized in the lead, but isn't.
So, how can reviewers help to improve this? One approach is to read the rest of the article, and not the lead, first. Make a note of the significant points discussed in the article. There is usually at least one important issue in each section. Then, go back to the lead and ask the following questions:
Does the first sentence of the lead define the topic, as described in the article?
Is the most important information mentioned in the first paragraph?
Is the lead a suitable length for the article? The lead guideline recommends 2–4 paragraphs depending on the article length, but judgment is more important than counting.
Are each of the significant topics that you noted mentioned in the lead?
If the answer to each of these questions is "yes", then the article probably meets the guideline. If not, you may be able to fix it yourself by summarizing the article. If you can't, then it suggests that there are not only problems with the lead, but also the rest of the article. That is the beauty of Wikipedia:Lead section.
Finally, there isn't universal agreement on whether the lead should contain inline citations. As long as the material in the lead is developed and cited elsewhere in the article, then inline citation is not required. There are exceptions, the most significant being quotations and controversial material about living persons.
Good luck helping more articles meet this important criterion!
From the Editors
Well, this is somewhat GA-related but at the same time not totally GA-related. However, I think this is important. Thanks to everyone who supported me at my 2nd RfA. It passed unanimously at 79 support, 0 oppose, 0 neutral. As many are impressed by my work in Good Articles processes, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone giving me a very enjoyable time at GA. There are 2 people that I want to explicitly say thank you to. They are Nehrams2020 and Epbr123. They patiently taught me how to do GA reviews properly in summer 2007. I couldn't achieve better without them. Now that I have the mop and the bucket, some of my time will be working on reducing Commons image backlog. Nevertheless, you will still see me once in a while in matters related to GA.
OhanaUnited
Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIV (February 2008)
The February 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 02:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Orphaned non-free media (Image:JS peer reviewer-preview.png)
Thanks for uploading Image:JS peer reviewer-preview.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media 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 media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 06:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXV (March 2008)
The March 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are currently 3,868 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 195 unreviewed articles. Out of 267 total nominations, 57 are on hold, 13 are under review, and 2 are seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The categories with the largest backlogs are: Theatre, film and drama (27 articles), Sports and recreation (25 articles), Transport (24 articles), Music (19 articles), War and military (19 articles), Politics and government (18 articles), Religion, mysticism and mythology (16 articles), Literature (14 articles), World history (14 articles), and Video and computer games (14 articles).
The GA Sweeps process is progressing nicely! During the month of March, a total of 92 articles were reviewed. Of that total, 74 were found to continue to meet the GA criteria, and 18 were delisted. There are currently 14 articles that are still on hold in this process, awaiting revisions. Congratulations to Nehrams2020 (talk·contribs), who sweeped a whopping 51 articles during the month! Jackyd101 (talk·contribs) also deserves congrats for sweeping a total of 26 articles!
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
To delist or not to delist, that is the question
So you’ve found an article that, on the face of it, does not merit its good article status. What next? Especially where there are many glaring issues that need addressing, it’s tempting to just revoke its GA status and remove it from the list, but although we are encouraged as editors to be bold, this approach (known to some as "bold delisting") is not recommended good practice. There are many reasons why a listed article might not meet the assessment criteria—it’s always possible that it never did, and was passed in error, but more likely the criteria have changed or the article quality has degraded since its original assessment. Either way, we should treat its reassessment with no less tact and patience than we would a fresh nomination.
This, in fact, provides a good starting point for the delisting process. Approach the article as though it has been nominated for GA review. Read it and the GA criteria carefully, and provide a full reassessment on the article talk page. Explain where and why the article no longer meets the criteria, and suggest remedies.
Having explained why the article no longer meets current GA criteria, allow its editors time to fix it! In keeping with the above approach, it may help to treat the article as on hold. There is no need to tag it as such, but give editors a reasonable deadline, and consider helping out with the repair work. Bear in mind that more flexibility may be required than for a normal hold—the editors did not request or expect your reassessment and will probably have other projects taking up their time. They may not have worked on the article for months or even years, and at worst the article may have been abandoned and its authors no longer active. As always, communication is the key. It sometimes helps to post messages to relevant WikiProjects (found at the top of the article talk page), or to contact editors directly (this tool is useful for identifying active editors for any given article).
Only once the above process has run its course, and sufficient improvement has not been forthcoming, is it time to think about delisting the article. Communicate your final decision on the article talk page, even if there was no response to your reassessment and hold, and take the time to fill in the various edit summaries on the article talk and GA list pages to ensure the delisting is transparent and trackable. If you have any doubts about your final decision, you can list the article at Good article reassessment or contact one of the GA mentors, who will be happy to advise.
Article reassessment is perhaps the single most controversial function of our WikiProject, and the one with the most potential to upset and alienate editors. Yet it is one of the most necessary too, since without the ability to revoke an article’s status we would be unable to maintain quality within the project. However, if we approach reassessment sensitively and with the goal of improving articles to the point where sanctions are unnecessary, we will ensure that delisting is the last resort, not the first.
As we near the 4,000 Good Articles milestone, the project continues to grow and to gain respect in the Wikipedia community. Nevertheless, we continue to have a large backlog. If every member of WikiProject Good Articles would review just one article each day during the month of April, the backlog would be eliminated!
Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.
To answer objections, I changed all the links to inline citations, because I think this deserves to be a featured article. Can you review and help advance it?--Parkwells (talk) 21:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are currently 4,050 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 195 unreviewed articles. Out of 227 total nominations, 16 are on hold, 14 are under review, and two are seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The categories with the largest backlogs are: Theatre, film and drama (45), Sports and recreation (34), Music (18), Transport (15), World history (14), Politics and government (13), and Places (12).
Noble Story (talk·contribs) is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for April, based on the assessments made by Dr. Cash on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Noble Story joined Wikipedia on May 16, 2007. He is a big fan of the Houston Rockets, and edits many related articles, as well as articles on basketball in general. Congratulations to Noble Story (talk·contribs) on being April's GAN Reviewer of the Month!
Other outstanding reviewers during the month of April include:
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
GA Topic
Do you know what a GA topic is? If you are not nodding your head, or don't know what I'm talking about, then you should pay attention to this article.
There are ten GA top-level topics (but you will spot the eleventh as this article goes along). These topics are: Arts, Language and literature, Philosophy and religion, Everyday life, Social sciences and society, Geography and places, History, Engineering and technology, Mathematics, and Natural sciences. Each of these topics are further narrowed down to more specific topics. For example, Arts can be narrowed down to Art and architecture, Music, and Theatre, film and drama. But let's not get into sub-topics in this article because of its depth.
Now you will probably ask, "I already knew this, so what is your point?" What I want to illustrate is that some people often forget a step when they promote an article to GA. After they have posted their review in the article talk page, added the article name to the corresponding topic in the good article page, increased the GA count by 1, and added the {{GA}} to article talk page, many reviewers tend to forget to add the topic parameter in {{GA}} or {{ArticleHistory}}. You can browse the topic parameter abbreviations at on this page as well as what each top-level GA topic means, because sometimes it can be chaotic and confusing to pick a topic. For example, should On the Origin of Species be placed under the Natural Science topic (because it's related to evolution), or under the Language and Literature topic (because it is a book)? The correct answer is to place it under Language and literature topic, because its categorization as a proper title supercedes other categories.
Let's go back to the page that shows GA topics; does anyone spot the eleventh topic? Yes, Category:Good articles without topic parameter is the 11th topic, only it shouldn't be there. Articles that do not have a topic parameter in either {{GA}} or {{ArticleHistory}} will be placed in this category. The topic "Uncategorized" is not very informative, is it? So if you have time, you can consider cleaning up the articles that are left in this category and move them to the appropriate category by adding a topic parameter.
That's it for this month, I hope you learned a little from it.
GA Sweeps Update
The GA Sweeps process is progressing nicely! During the month of April, a total of 26 articles were reviewed. Of that total, 15 were found to continue to meet the GA criteria, and two were delisted. There are currently six articles that are still on hold in this process, awaiting revisions. One article was exempted from review because it was promoted to FA. Two articles were exempted from review because they were already delisted by another member in the community.
We are once again recruiting new sweeps participants. Candidates should be very strong and comfortable in reviewing GA and familiar with the GA processes and criteria. If you are interested, please contact OhanaUnited for details.
...that different languages have different symbols representing GA? (Alemannic uses , Bavarian uses , Czech and French use , Estonian, Icelandic, and Swedish use , Esperanto and German use , Polish, Spanish, and Turkish use , Portuguese uses , Russian uses , Ukrainian uses )
Note: Lithuanian and Serbian have their own symbol but only uploaded locally. Other languages not listed above either have the same symbol as english or they don't have GA process.
From the Editors
There is currently a debate on adding a small green dot to the top right corner of all Good Articles that pass the criteria, similar to the small bronze star that is added to the top right corner of Featured Articles. Members of WikiProject Good Articles are encouraged to participate in the debate on this page.
Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008)
The April 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Automating semi-automated peer reviews
Hi Andy, archiving at Peer Review is now done by a bot and there are plans to totally automate the process of peer review, including the SAPRs. Please see User_talk:CBM#Semi_Automated_Peer_Review. I see you have not made any contributions for a few months, so I will email you too. Thanks, Ruhrfisch><>°°03:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)
The May 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Request
Hi!, I saw your peer review bot thing. I was reading it but I have a short attention span. Would you mind using it on Lockdown (2008) for me? It would be a big help. It is currently under a peer review but I've been told there are alot of problems with with it. So I would like to get rid of a few of those. I just found out about the bot today. I would install the software but I have a bad Internet connection.--WillC05:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVIII (June 2008)
The June 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 17:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
AZPR script change
Hi Andy, the semi-automated peer review script says that "years with full dates should be linked", however the MoS has been altered to make this optional within any given article - perhaps the script should be changed to just remove the notice in question? Please see Wikipedia talk:Peer review too. Hope you are well. Thanks, Ruhrfisch><>°°02:48, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Simple suggestion
The script should check whether an article has a category and suggest adding one if it doesn't. I guess that doesn't come too often, but I've just run it on an article w/out categories and discovered to much surprise the script ignored this problem. I am not sure if the script checks whether the last two elements of the article are categories and interwikis? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIX (July 2008)
The July 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tom Sayle
It seems to me someone has blanked your page. I've reverted it. Do not reply on my account page as not only is it blocked, but the talk page is protected and I am operating from my IP address. Also, who's compromised your account anyway, what does it mean and how has it affected you, and what is the Z standing for in AndyZ? (not Zajaczkowski, is it?)
There are currently 4,675 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 141 unreviewed articles. Out of 186 total nominations, 28 are on hold, 14 are under review, and 3 are seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
The categories with the largest backlogs are: Theatre, film, and drama (28 articles), Sports and recreation (27 articles), Music (22 articles), Transport (18 articles), and War and military (13 articles).
There are currently 4 articles up for re-review at Good Article Reassessment. Congratulations! There really is no "backlog" here! :-)
GA Sweeps is Recruiting Reviewers
We are once again recruiting new sweeps participants. Candidates should be very strong and comfortable in reviewing GA and familiar with the GA processes and criteria. If you are interested, please contact OhanaUnited for details.
GAN Reviewer of the Month
ThinkBlue (talk·contribs) is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for July, based on the assessments made by Dr. Cash on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. ThinkBlue had a whopping 49 reviews during the month of July! ThinkBlue was also one of our two reviewers of the month from June, and has been editing Wikipedia since December 1, 2006, and is interested in articles dealing with Friends, Will and Grace, CSI:Miami, Monday Night Raw, Coldplay.
Congratulations to Giggy (talk·contribs) on being May's GAN Reviewer of the Month!
Other outstanding reviewers during the month of July include:
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
GA Sweeps Process
The GA Sweeps process has recently reached its first year anniversary. If you are unaware of what GA Sweeps is, it is a process put in place to help ensure the integrity of the ever-growing number of GAs, by determining if the articles still meet the GA criteria. Experienced reviewers check each article, improving articles as they review them, and delisting those that no longer meet the criteria. Reviewers work on a specific category of GAs, and there are still many categories that need to be swept. In order to properly keep track of reviews, a set date was used to determine what articles needed to be reviewed (since any future GAs would be passed according to the most recent GA criteria).
The number of GAs that were to be reviewed totals 2,808. Since the beginning of Sweeps, the progress has reviewed 981 by the end of July 2008 (or exempted them). For a table and chart breakdown of the current progress, see here.
With more than twenty editors reviewing the articles, progress is currently a third of the way done. At this rate, it will take another two years to complete the Sweeps, and active involvement is imperative to completing on time. We are always looking for new reviewers, and if you are interested in helping in speeding up the Sweeps process and improving your reviewing skills, please contact OhanaUnited.
Did You Know...
... that the goal of GA Sweeps is to reviewed all articles listed before 26 August2007?
... that the entire category of, "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" has been swept?
... that of all subcategories, "Recordings, compositions and performances" in the Music category has the most articles (240 articles in total)?
The Reboot of Wikiproject New Jersey has certainly stirred up some new activity at the project. Discussion on several improvements and new initiatives have been going on at the talk page. There has been an involved discussion regarding our 124unassessed articles, especially those on municipalities. The current goal is to review and assess all 566 New Jersey muncipality articles by September 30. A suggestion has been made to intiate Wikipedia Takes New Jersey to begin clearing the large backlog of articles needing photos. Let's all grab our cameras and head out into the vast wilds of the Garden State. Town Halls, High Schools, Historic Places - every article deserves a picture.
The following articles may be in need of attention:
WPNJ member Mm40 has volunteered to coordinate a new WPNJ Collaboration project. It's been a while since we used the NJCOTW and new volunteers are needed. Join the discussion to volunteer.
Battle of Trenton was recently proposed as a Featured Article candidate. It was not promoted, but has now been nominated for A-Class review through the Military History WikiProject. Take a look at their A-Class FAQ. As we need to set up our own process for reviewing A-Class articles, it may be worth watching the process.
Please welcome the following new members to WikiProject New Jersey:
The redesign has been well received. There are still some things left to do. This newsletter was one big check mark off the list. Hopefully this can be continued on a regular basis. There are literally thousands of articles in Category:New Jersey that have not been tagged as part of the project, and stub sorting hasn't been run in 10 months. We will need to identify some friendly bot operators to help with these projects. An outreach department (which includes the newsletter) needs to be formalized. Creating an invitation template for easy placement on userpages will also be part of that effort.
There are lots of best practices described at the WikiProject Council with ideas of how to make our project more responsive, welcoming, active, and effective. Task forces? Peer review? Other ideas welcome!
I just wanted to say that the response to my bold makeover of WPNJ has been gratifying, but nothing will improve the project as much as more activity, and that means more members. There are lots of things to do in this new setup, and everyone with an interest should be able to find a way to contribute to the collaboration. I want to thank you all for the patience, the appreciation, and the effort. - Jim Miller
You are receiving this newsletter as a member of WikiProject New Jersey. To stop receiving these messages, remove your name here.
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXX (August 2008)
The August 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:19, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Automated peer review problem
I ran the peer review on Ardingly College and one of the issues was When writing standard abbreviations, the abbreviations should not have a 's' to demark plurality (for example, change kms to km and lbs to lb). I cannot find any examples within the article. However there is a 196 acre (0.79 km²). Is it possible that the ² is fooling the peer review, or is there a rogue measurement that I missed? Thanks. MortimerCat (talk) 23:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Maryland WikiProject has put together a great chart comparing the growth of several state WikiProjects, including WPNJ. Take a look at the chart to see how the growth of WPNJ compares to some of our peer projects. Please remember to place the {{WikiProject New Jersey}} tag on the talk pages of any New Jersey related articles you create or come across. You can also add the new articles page to your watchlist. Some updates have been made to the NJ Portal, but much more needs to be done. If a few volunteers can put together Featured Article summmaries, we can automate rotating the portal content. The same can be done for DYK items. Please take a look and see if you can assist.
The following articles may be in need of attention:
Selection is an automated process based on article assessments. To help avoid vandalism and POV concerns, specific versions of articles can be tagged for inclusion in the downloadable release. See the New Jersey section of the bot results to recommend a production version. The process ends on October 20, and then a bot will select an appropriate version if none has been recommended.
Please welcome the following new members to WikiProject New Jersey:
Both Jon Corzine and The Sopranos were promoted to Good Article status in the past month. No WikiProject New Jersey articles were promoted to Featured article status. Battle of Trenton was not listed as a Featured Article, and may need more editors to complete the remaining work to be promoted. Also, in an item that was missed last month, Thomas Edison was delisted as a Good Article in July.
The WPNJ Assessment Drive is ongoing. Please help assess all of the articles about places in New Jersey. There are currently 124 articles that have not been assessed.
Fall has arrived, and with it will come a rush of new Wikipedians. Inviting new editors to join WPNJ is easy to do, and can help us improve our New Jersey articles. Keep an eye out for editors who work on NJ articles who can help the project. The Wikipedia Release version project is in its final stages for the next version. Take a look at the article lists, cleanup where you can, and nominate articles that should be included on the DVD version of WP. Lets make sure that those who end up with a downloaded copy of WP get solid articles about New Jersey. - Jim Miller
You are receiving this newsletter as a member of WikiProject New Jersey. To stop receiving these messages, remove your name here.
Thanks for the review of Raphael at PR, which was mostly useful. However the first point made, on galleries, is just wrong, and the bot advice should be removed or heavily reworded for your future reviews. Small galleries within articles are acceptable in FAs - the test case for this was Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Robert Peake the Elder. In addition, WP:Galleries a) was never adopted (a point linking to a section completely obscures), and b) referred to the now-extinct Gallery-only pages, not internal galleries, which are often essential in visual arts subjects. You might caution against over-large or under-captioned galleries though. Thanks! Johnbod (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXI (September 2008)
The September 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A new bot is patrolling Wikipedia workflows to let WPNJ members know when any of our articles may be in need of attention. Any article tagged with the WPNJ banner that has been added to one of the major workflows (AfD, FAC, GAN, etc.) will be added to a new project page. The bot runs daily, so add the new Article Alerts page to your watchlist, or just check the main project page to see the updates. See the Article Alerts project page for details on how the bot works and which processes it covers.
The following articles may be in need of attention:
WPNJ received the following request for assistance with New Jersey Devils articles: "The WikiProject Ice Hockey is currently looking for editors to help update team articles about the 2008-09 NHL season. If you are interested in the NHL, please consider helping us keep these article current. To sign up, go to this page and add your name beside the team or teams you wish to particpate in." See the WPNJ talk page for more information.
Please welcome the following new members to WikiProject New Jersey:
No, not the state - the battleship! On October 15, USS New Jersey (BB-62) was the Featured Article on the Wikipedia main page. Featured articles receive heavier traffic when they are on the main page. Improving WPNJ articles to featured status can help drive more editors to our project.
Seems like a pretty light month in terms of activity at WPNJ. Personally, your editor was doing a lot of travelling and went on a wiki-free vacation for nine days. Time to dive back in and create some new NJ articles. - Jim MillerSee me | Touch me
You are receiving this newsletter as a member of WikiProject New Jersey. To stop receiving these messages, remove your name here.
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXII (October 2008)
The October 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIII (November 2008)
The November 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 15:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIV (December 2008)
The December 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 01:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXV (January 2009)
The January 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 03:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are 24 references, perhaps not a statement that does not have a reference. I have corrected the footnote position, I'll give it a once over. I'll made the other corrections. Thanks. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 17:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVI (February 2009)
The February 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Peer review ... more pictures?!
Hi, the bot just ran an automated overview on Obi (sash). What surprised me was that it said "This article has no or few images" while the article is 35 KB long with no less than 17 images. Doesn't the script count [[File:imagename.end]] as images, or did it add the line for some section of the article, or is this only a borderline case? Pitke (talk) 19:40, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The peer reviewer only looks for images using the "Image:" keyword: [[Image:Imagename.jpg|...]] and not the "File:" keyword. [[File:Imagename.jpg|...]]. This is a bug that needs to be fixed. —LinguistAtLarge • Talk16:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Automated peer reviewer and lists
Is the automated peer reviewer recommended for lists as well? If, let's say, I wanted to bring a list up to WP:FL status, will the script differentiate between an article and a list? I'm thinking certain suggestions the script may give may not apply to lists as they would to an article. -- OlEnglish(Talk)21:10, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
GA Sweeps invitation
Hello, I hope you are doing well. I am sending you this message since you are a member of the GA WikiProject. I would like to invite you to consider helping with the GA sweeps process. Sweeps helps to ensure that the oldest GAs still meet the criteria, and improve the quality of GAs overall. Unfortunately, last month only two articles were reviewed. This is definitely a low point after our peak at the beginning of the process when 163 articles were reviewed in September 2007. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. All exempt and previously reviewed articles have already been removed from the list. Instead of reviewing by topic, you can consider picking and choosing whichever articles interest you.
We are always looking for new members to assist with the remaining articles, so if you are interested or know of anybody that can assist, please visit the GA sweeps page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. If only 14 editors achieve this feat starting now, we would be done with Sweeps! Of course, having more people reviewing less articles would be better for all involved, so please consider asking others to help out. Feel free to stop by and only review a few articles, something's better than nothing! Take a look at the list, and see what articles interest you. Let's work to complete Sweeps so that efforts can be fully focused on the backlog at GAN. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Peer review thing
Just a note (I'm not sure if someone else has pointed this out) that in the points about Br/Am English, 'program[me]' is an imperfect example given that 'computer programs' are called that in Br Eng (unlike T.V. or theatre programmes), so it might be worth using a different example that doesn't have this caveat. - Jarry1250(t, c)12:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have nominated History of Portugal (1777–1834) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. KensplanetTC16:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestions, AndyZ. I've made some changes to the article and will do some more as time permits. Thanks Kesangh (talk) 09:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
People have expressed interest in having the automated reviews for the FA/FL candidates and the GA noms. The idea is that since it doesn't hurt to have them, we might as well have them. Could you implement the automated PRs for them too? Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a bot, but a semi-bot at best. I have to run it by hand (it is an automated script) every night for WP:PR as User:AZPR (which AndyZ gave me access to before he became inactive). Ruhrfisch><>°°03:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I should have made clear that the PR bot links the semi-automated peer reviews (SAPRs) once I paste them into the directory, this month at WP:PRA/JL09. I also use the number of SAPRs in each month's directory for the PR stat at WP:FAS. So if this is done, it would work best in a separate directory (so as not to confuse the bot or mess up the PR stats). If I were to do this, it would be much more work as I would presumably have not only put the SAPRs in the directory, but add some sort of link to them in the FAC / FLC / GAN. I did not see any disucssion of this at GAN. The discussions at FLC and FAC seemed lukewarm at best. I am limited in the amount of time I have and respectfully decline. I do note that anyone can add the script to their monobook and generate a SAPR for any article. Ruhrfisch><>°°18:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that would be very nice of you. The script has a few bugs / quirks (see comments above - for one it does not recognize File and so thinks articles have no images). I would be glad to provide comment on the bot request. User:CBM does the Peer review bot and should know about this too (so the two bots can interact well together). I think FAC SAPRs could be on the FAC talk page. Same for FLC. Not sure about GAN. Ruhrfisch><>°°03:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bot request to further automate the SAPR process
Hi Andy, not sure if you still watch things here, but a bot request has been made to automate the generation of the semi-automated peer reviews, here. I thought you should know and will try emailing you too. Ruhrfisch><>°°12:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
NJ Portal Userbox
Hi, I added the userbox {User Wikiproject New Jersey}* to my user page and only the "This user is part of the New Jersey WikiProject." part shows up. Wikipedia:WikiProject New Jersey (under participation) it shows "This user lives in the state of New Jersey." and "This user grew up in the state of New Jersey." I live in NJ and grew up in NJ so I would like those user boxes too. How can I get them?
correct code is used on userpage.
Christopher 02:38, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Peer review script suggestions
I am using the script for various reviews. Things that it seems to ignore but I think could be fixed: 1) spotting and commenting on unreferenced paragraphs and sections 2) stub templates on long articles and no templates on short ones 3) on talk pages, missing or unassessed WikiProject tags --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:39, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This page's header indicates the user has not been active recently; not sure if anyone is updating the code. I have also noticed this script may not consider the Chemistry MOS, e.g. Palladium and Silver. 23:06, November 7, 2009 (UTC) + 23:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC) + MornMore (talk) 01:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)08:16, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind, the Chemistry MOS does not appear to contradict the primary. Though perhaps requested, was puzzling to find Silver article suggestions in both a monthly peer review summary and the Chemistry peer review.
Education Task Force - The conversion of the former WikiProject Education is New Jersey has been completed. New Jersey education-related articles are now supported by the Education task force. The project banner has been updated to fully support the task force with independent importance ratings.
No More Comments - A proposal at the Village Pump has resulted in the deprecation of comments subpages. These were usually found at Talk:Article title/Comments and contained little more than assessment notes. These pages were not widely watched, and are often a hidden location for vandalism and BLP violations. WPNJ has 104 articles that used these pages. A complete list of them, along with their contents, can be viewed at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Jersey/Deprecation of comments. It is up to the members of WPNJ to decide what to do with this information.
The following articles may be in need of attention:
Municipality template compromise; School Districts (almost) complete
New WPNJ members
Legislative templates in municipal articles - A rather lengthy discussion ran from the end of August until the end of October regarding the use of our legislative district templates in articles about local municipalities. Many WPNJ members commented on the concept, and a proposed compromise seems to have been reached. The templates will require some adjustments to fit the new wording, but should result in more directly relevant sections about County, State, and Federal representation in our articles on cities, towns, villages, townships, and boroughs. Hopefully, more dicussions like this can result is some kind of Manual of Style to bring greater standardization to all of these articles.
School District articles now comprehensive - WPNJ Founder Alansohn recently reported that almost all of New Jersey's school districts now have articles - "I have created the article for the last missing (non-vocational) school district in the state." Congrats to Alansohn, who I am sure would love more members at the Education task force to help maintain these articles!
Please welcome the following new members to WikiProject New Jersey:
Editor's news. OK, so I am going to try this again. It's been a little over a year since our last edition, and activity at the project was a bit slow during that time. Things have picked up again over the last few months, so once more into the breech I go. I will try to produce this newsletter on a regular basis (bi-monthly?) to see if we can get some more activity going at WPNJ. Help is always appreciated, and there is plenty to do. - Jim MillerSee me | Touch me
You are receiving this newsletter as a member of WikiProject New Jersey. To stop receiving these messages, remove your name here.
New Statistics Table There has been an upgrade to the WP 1.0 bot that updates our project's summary table. The new table lists all page classes including Portal-class, Redirect-class, and Disambig-class. We now have a better picture of the scope of the WikiProject and the pages that we cover. New York Times to charge for accessThe New York Times is an invaluable resource for properly referencing articles, but especially due to its extensive archives and coverage of New Jersey issues. The announcement that metered content will be started in 2011 has the potential to make article sourcing much more difficult. It also causes a need to update linked sources in articles before all of the NYT links go dead. Any link can be archived on demand by using WebCite. We can help avoid dead links by archiving any article sources from the NYT.
The following articles may be in need of attention:
BLP Issue Boils Over There are discussions all over the 'pedia about deleting close to 50,000 unreferenced Biographies of Living People. We won't get into a rehash here, but let's just look at what we can do. There is a new item on the project task list for sourcing BLPs. All articles that are in both Category:People from New Jersey and Category:All unreferenced BLPs are now available on this work list. These articles need to be sourced, PRODded, or sent to AfD.
An ounce of preventionUnreferenced BLPs are one of the catgories regularly listed in the WPNJ Cleanup listing. New articles are also a prime location to find articles that do not yet have references. You can keep an eye on the New Articles list to help prevent the workload from getting any larger. Can we do more? There are bots that will automatically add the WPNJ Project Banner to all articles in our designated categories if we have consensus to request it. Join the discussion here.
Please welcome the following new members to WikiProject New Jersey:
No new WPNJ members since the last issue!
In NJ, politics means article updates
Help Wanted
New Leaders in NJ Government Over the past 2 weeks, new legislators have been sworn in, the legislature has new leadership, the 55th Governor of New Jersey has been inaugurated, and we have our first Lt. Governor. All new members of the Legislature have at least stub articles, and many of the templates have been updated.
Updating templates Many New Jersey articles utilize stadardized templates to convey information. With elections happening as often as they do in this state, January is always a good time to review these templates and update them with new information. Does your town or county have new elected officials? It's maintainance time on many of our articles on municipalities and counties as well.
Outreach Run across any new editors on New Jersey-related articles? Invite them to join WPNJ!
Editor's news Must have been some winter holiday season in New Jersey, because the project talk page has been unusually quiet. I thought with all that snow, many of us would be inside and doing things here at WP. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying a healthy and happy 2010!! - Jim MillerSee me | Touch me
You are receiving this newsletter as a member of WikiProject New Jersey. To stop receiving these messages, remove your name here.
WikiProject Good Articles will be running a GAN backlog elimination drive for the entire month of April. The goal of this drive is to bring the number of outstanding Good Article nominations down to below 200. This will help editors in restoring confidence to the GAN process as well as actively improving, polishing, and rewarding good content. If you are interested in participating in the drive, please place your name here. Awards will be given out to those who review certain numbers of GANs as well as to those who review the most. Hope we can see you in April.
A discussion has begun about whether the article Jones (Animal Farm), which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.
You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Anonymax (talk) 23:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion has begun about whether the article Pilkington (Animal Farm), which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.
You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Anonymax (talk) 23:52, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Good Articles will be running a GAN backlog elimination drive for the entire month of March. The goal of this drive is to bring the number of outstanding Good Article nominations down to below 50. This will help editors in restoring confidence to the GAN process as well as actively improving, polishing, and rewarding good content. If you are interested in participating in the drive, please place your name here. Awards will be given out to those who review certain numbers of GANs as well as to those who review the most. On behalf of my co-coordinator Wizardman, we hope we can see you in March. MuZemike delivered by MuZebot00:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To begin or stop receiving this newsletter, please list yourself in the appropriate section here. To assist with preparing the newsletter, please visit the newsroom. BrownBot (talk) 22:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Notification of pending suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Following a community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in over one year). As a result of this discussion, your administrative permissions will be removed pending your return if you do not return to activity within the next month. If you wish to have these permissions reinstated should this occur, please post to the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and the userright will be restored per the re-sysopping process (i.e., as long as the attending bureaucrats are reasonably satisfied that your account has not been compromised and that your inactivity did not have the effect of evading scrutiny of any actions which might have led to sanctions). This removal of access is procedural only, and not intended to reflect negatively upon you in any way. We wish you the best in future endeavors, and thank you for your past administrative efforts. MadmanBot (talk) 01:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Notification of imminent suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Following a community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in over one year). As a result of this discussion, your administrative permissions will be removed pending your return if you do not return to activity within the next several days. If you wish to have these permissions reinstated should this occur, please post to the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and the userright will be restored per the re-sysopping process (i.e., as long as the attending bureaucrats are reasonably satisfied that your account has not been compromised and that your inactivity did not have the effect of evading scrutiny of any actions which might have led to sanctions). This removal of access is procedural only, and not intended to reflect negatively upon you in any way. We wish you the best in future endeavors, and thank you for your past administrative efforts. MadmanBot (talk) 00:05, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suspension of administrative permissions due to inactivity
Following a community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in over one year). As a result of this discussion, your administrative permissions have been removed pending your return. If you wish to have these permissions reinstated, please post to the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard and the userright will be restored per the re-sysopping process (i.e. as long as the attending bureaucrats are reasonably satisfied that your account has not been compromised and that your inactivity did not have the effect of evading scrutiny of any actions which might have led to sanctions). This removal of access is procedural only, and not intended to reflect negatively upon you in any way. We wish you the best in future endeavors, and thank you for your past administrative efforts. WJBscribe(talk)16:06, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject has started its 2012 project coordinator election process, where we will select a team of coordinators to organize the project over the coming year. If you would like to be considered as a candidate, please submit your nomination by 14 September. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of the current coordinators on their talk page. This message was delivered here because you are a member of the Military history WikiProject. – Military history coordinators (about the project • what coordinators do) 08:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Hello, you are receiving this message because you are currently a participant of WikiProject Good articles. Since the creation of the WikiProject, over 200 user's have joined to help review good article nominations and contribute to other sections of the WikiProject. Over the years, several of these users have stopped reviewing articles and/or have become inactive with the project but are still listed as participates. In order to improve communications with other participants and get newsletters sent out faster (newsletters will begin to be sent out monthly starting in October) all participants that are no longer active with the WikiProject will be removed from the participants list.
If you are still interested in being a participant for this WikiProject, please sign your user name here and please help review some articles so we can reduce the size of the backlog. If you are no longer interested, you do not need to sign your name anywhere and your name will be removed from the participants list after the deadline. Remember that even if you are not interested at this time, you can always re-add your name to the list whenever you want. The deadline to sign your name on the page above will be November 1, 2012. Thank-you. 13:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for having to send out a second message but a user has brought to my attention that a point mentioned in the first message should be clarified. If user's don't sign on this page, they will be moved to an "Inactive Participants" list rather then be being removed from the entire WikiProject. Sorry for any confusion.--Dom497 (talk)15:11, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter - October 2012
There are currently 15,862 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 345 unreviewed articles. Out of 439 total nominations, 24 are on hold, 66 are under review, and 4 are seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article! Even just reviewing one will help!
The categories with the largest backlogs are: Social sciences and society (80 articles), Sports and recreation (70 articles), Music (63 articles), Theatre, film and drama (52 articles), and History (41 articles). Please consider reviewing articles within these sections.
There are currently 13 articles up for reassessment at Good Article Reassessment. Please help out and go to WP:GAR and review an article! Remember that anyone can review articles that are listed under "Community Reassessment" even if another user has already listed their opinion...the more opinions, the better!
Member News
There are currently 222 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to all the new members that joined during the past 17 months! If you aren't yet part of WikiProject Good Articles and interested in joining WikiProject Good Articles, go here and add you name. Everyone is welcomed!
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
If you haven't done so already, please remember to add your name to this list if you are still interested/active with this WikiProject. If you are no longer interested/active you don't need to add your name anywhere, you're name will be moved into a "inactive participant" list at the beginning of November. Inactive users will not receive future newsletters from this WikiProject via their talk page.
GA Task forces
There is currently not much going on at this time but there is a very large backlog. Until the next backlog elimination drive, please help reduce the number of nominations by reviewing articles and helping other reviewers that may need second opinions.
Thanks to everyone who committed some time to help reduce the nominations backlog during the June-July 2012 backlog elimination drive. Most barnstars have been given out but there are still a few left. Participants that haven't gotten a barnstar yet should get it soon.
Possible Fall/Winter 2012 Backlog Elimination Drive
A discussion is currently being held on the WikiProject's talk page on weather another eliminations drive should take place within the next few months as the last one proved to be extremely successful. Please take the time to go to the the talk page and include your opinion on if you would be interested in taking part in a Fall/Winter 2012 elimination drive.
Good Articles of the Month
Each month, 5 random good articles will be choose to be featured here as the good articles of the month.
Having references included in articles is one of the most important aspects to a good article, let alone Wikipedia! Without them, no one would ever know what is true and what is false and Wikipedia probably wouldn't be where it is today. So this month, I will talk about how to check for references, how reliable they are, and so on and so forth.
The first thing to do when reviewing an nominee is to do a quick scan of the article. One of the things to look for is if the article has references! If you don't see a list at the bottom of the article page, quick-fail it.[2] For newcomers, quick-failing is failing an article when you spot a problem before actually conducting a full review. If you do find a list of references (and in most cases you will) make sure to look through each and every one. If you want to save some time, use this tool as it will tell you if there are any problematic references in the article you are reviewing.
Next, check the reliability and type of the references/sources. In terms of the type of reference, check to see how many primary and/or secondary sources are included. Primary sources are the ones published by the subject of the article. For example, if the subject of the article has to do with the iPhone 4s and the source is published by Apple, it is considered a primary source. Secondary sources are those not published by the subject of the article (or in close relation to it). Newspapers are examples of secondary sources and considered one of the better types to include in the article (not saying primary sources are bad). If you find that most/all of the references are primary sources, notify the nominator about this issue(s) and place the article on hold once you have completed the review. Only in the event that a secondary source can't be found as a replacement, then the primary source can remain. If there is a good mix of primary and secondary sources, that is perfect and no references need to be changed.
Now, reliability. Forums are generally not considered reliable and some blog's may not be reliable either. Newspapers, most sources published by the subject, some blogs, etc. are considered reliable. If you don't know wether the source is reliable, ask for a second opinion. For more info about how to identify wether a reference is reliable or not, visit this article.
Finally, one of the more basic things to look for is that every statement in the article has at least one reference! The only case that a statement doesn't need a reference is when it is common sense that the statement is defiantly true and/or in the case where the statement can't be challenged, as per what Wikipedia says, "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable published source using an inline citation."
From the Editor
After a long 18 month hiatus, the third volume of the WikiProject Good Articles newsletter is here! Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue of the newsletter here or on the editors talk page.
Also, Happy Halloween...in advance!!!
PLEASE READ: If you do not wish to receive future WikiProject Good Articles newsletter's on your talk page, please remove your self from this list. If you are viewing this newsletter from the WikiProject Good Articles page or on someone else's talk page and want to receive future newsletters on your talk page, please add your name to the list linked above.
^Before quick-failing the article, verify that one of the several referencing templates is correctly placed at the bottom of the article. If the template is not placed, try to place it to see if references are displayed. If this proof returns no references, then proceed to quick-failing.
Improving Wikipedia one article at a time since 2005!
WikiProject Good Articles - Participant Clean-up (Second Call)
You are reciving this message because you have not added your name to the list of active WikiProject Good Articles participants. Though you may have recived the first message sent out in September, some users may have had that message archived before coming online to read it and therefore never saw it. If you are deeming yourself inactive with the WikiProject please disregard this message as your name will be moved to an "inactive participant" list at the end of the clean-up. If you are still active with the WikiProject, please be sure to include your name on this list. The current deadline to add your name to the list (if you are still active) is November 1, 2012. A third and final message will be sent out during the last week of the clean-up before the deadline. Thank-you.--EdwardsBot
WikiProject Good Articles - Participant Clean-up (Final Call)
You are receiving this message because you have not added your name to the list of active WikiProject Good Articles participants. Though you may have recived the past two messages sent out in September and October, some users may have had that message archived before coming online to read it and therefore never saw it. If you are deeming yourself inactive with the WikiProject please disregard this message as your name will be moved to an "inactive participant" list at the end of the clean-up. If you are still active with the WikiProject, please be sure to include your name on this list. The deadline to add your name to the list (if you are still active) is November 1, 2012. This will be the last message sent out before the deadline which is in 2 days. Thank-you.--EdwardsBot
Newsletter delivered by ENewsBot (info) · 3 November 2012
Notice of change
Hello. You are receiving this message because of a recent change to the administrator policy that alters what you were told at the time of your desysopping. The effect of the change is that if you are inactive for a continuous three year period, you will be unable to request return of the administrative user right. This includes inactive time prior to your desysopping if you were desysopped for inactivity and inactive time prior to the change in policy. Inactivity is defined as the absence of edits or logged actions. Until such time as you have been inactive for three years, you may request return of the tools at the bureaucrats' noticeboard. After you have been inactive for three years, you may seek return of the tools only through WP:RFA. Thank you. MBisanztalk00:20, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The WikiProject: Good Articles Newsletter (December 2012)
Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot · 12 February 2012
Good Article Nominations Request For Comment
A 'Request For Comment' for Good Article Nominations is currently being held. We are asking that you please take five to ten minutes to review all seven proposals that will affect Good Article Nominations if approved. Full details of each proposal can be found here. Please comment on each proposal (or as many as you can) here.
At this time, Proposal 1, 3, and 5 have received full (or close to) support.
If you have questions of anything general (not related to one specif proposal), please leave a message under the General discussion thread.
Please note that Proposal 2 has been withdrawn and no further comments are needed. Also, please disregard Proposal 9 as it was never an actual proposal.
Hello! Now, some of you might be wondering why there is a Good article icon with a bunch of stars around (to the right). The answer? WikiProject Good articles will be launching a Recruitment Centre very soon! The centre will allow all users to be taught how to review Good article nominations by experts just like you! However, in order for the Recruitment Centre to open in the first place, we need some volunteers:
Recruiters: The main task of a recruiter is to teach users that have never reviewed a Good article nomination how to review one. To become a recruiter, all you have to do is meet this criteria. If we don't get at least 5-10 recruiters to start off with, the Recruitment Centre will not open. If interested, make sure you meet the criteria, read the process and add your name to the list of recruiters. (One of the great things about being a recruiter is that there is no set requirement of what must be taught and when. Instead, all the content found in the process section is a guideline of the main points that should be addressed during a recruitment session...you can also take an entire different approach if you wish!) If you think you will not have the time to recruit any users at this time but are still interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still add your name to the list of recruiters but just fill in the "Status" parameter with "Not Available".
Co-Director: The current Director for the centre is me (Dom497). Another user that would be willing to help with some of the tasks would be helpful. Tasks include making sure recruiters are doing what they should be (teaching!), making sure all recruitments are archived correctly, updating pages as needed, answering any questions, and distributing the feedback form. If interested, please contact me (Dom497).
Nominators, please read this: If you are not interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still help. In some cases a nominator may have an issue with an "inexperienced" editor (the recruitee) reviewing one of their nominations. To minimize the chances of this happening, if you are fine with a recruitee reviewing one of your nominations under the supervision of the recruiter, please add your name to the list at the bottom of this page. By adding your name to this list, chances are that your nomination will be reviewed more quickly as the recruitee will be asked to choose a nomination from the list of nominators that are OK with them reviewing the article.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to seeing this program bring new reviewers to the Good article community and all the positive things it will bring along.
A message will be sent out to all recruiters regarding the date when the Recruitment Centre will open when it is determined. The message will also contain some further details to clarify things that may be a bit confusing.--Dom497 (talk)
As a listed GA participant, you are invited to contribute to a formal Request for Comment on the question of whether Good Articles should be eligible to appear in the Did You Know? slot in future. Please see the proposal on its subpage here, or on the main DYK talk page. To add the discussion to your watchlist, click this link. Thank you in advance. GilderienChat|Contributions03:18, 1 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Knights of Columbus FAC
Hello! Seven years ago you took part reviewing the Knights of Columbus article when it was up for Featured Article. It passed then, but was later delisted. I've addressed the new concerns and have put it back up for consideration again. If you would be kind enough to review the article again and then offer either your support or suggestions on its new nomination page, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks! --Briancua (talk) 13:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In past Backlog Drives, the goal was to reduce the backlog of Good article nominations. In the upcoming drive, another goal will be added - raising as much money as we can for the Wikimedia Foundation. How will this work? Well, its pretty simple. Any user interested in donating can submit a pledge at the Backlog Drive page (linked above). The pledge should mention the amount of money the user is willing to donate per review. For example, if a user pledges 5 cents per review and 100 nominations are reviewed, the total donation amount is $5.00.
At the time this message was sent out, two users have submitted pledges for a total of 8 cents per review. All pledges, no matter how much money, are greatly appreciated. Also, in no way is this saying you must make a pledge.
Notification of automated file description generation
Your upload of File:5th NY Volunteer memorial.jpg or contribution to its description is noted, and thanks (even if belatedly) for your contribution. In order to help make better use of the media, an attempt has been made by an automated process to identify and add certain information to the media's description page.
This notification is placed on your talk page because a bot has identified you either as the uploader of the file, or as a contributor to its metadata. It would be appreciated if you could carefully review the information the bot added. To opt out of these notifications, please follow the instructions here. Thanks! Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out)11:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
March 2014 GAN Backlog Drive
It's that time again! Starting on March 1, there will be another GAN Backlog Drive! There will be several changes compared to previous drives:
This drive will introduce a new component to it; a point system. In a nutshell, older nominations are worth more points than newer nominations. The top 3 participants who have the points will be awarded the Golden, Silver, or Bronze Wikipedia Puzzle Piece Trophy, respectively.
Unlike the December 2013 Backlog Drive, earning an additional barnstar if you reached your goal has been removed.
The allowance to have insufficient reviews has been lowered to 2 before being disqualified.
An exception to the rule that all reviews must be completed before the deadline has been created.
Also, something that I thought I would share with all of you is that we raised $20.88 (USD) for the WMF in the December 2013 drive. It may not sound like a lot but considering that that was raised just because we reviewed articles, I would say that's pretty good! With that success, pledges can be made for the upcoming drive if you wish.
More info regarding the drive and full descriptions regarding the changes to this drive can be found on the the drive page. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a message on the drive talk page.
I look forward to your participation and hope that because of it, some day the backlog will be gone!
WikiProject Good articles Future GAN Backlog Drive
Hello everyone! Hope you've all been having a great summer!
TheQ Editor recently proposed the idea of having another Backlog Drive in either September/October or November/December of this year. For those of you who have participated in the past two drives you know I was the one who organized them, however, come September, this will be my most important year in school so I will not be able to coordinate this drive (if it happens). TheQ Editor has volunteered to be a coordinator for the drive. If any of you would like to co-coordinator, please notify TheQ Editor on his talk page.
If you would be interested in participating in a Backlog Drive sometime before the end of this year, please notify TheQ Editor. Also, make sure to specify what month(s) work best for you.
At the time this message was sent out, the backlog was at 520 nominations. Since May, the backlog has been steadily increasing and we are currently near an all time high. Even though the backlog will not disappear over one drive, this drive can lead to several others which will (hopefully) lead to the day where there is no longer a backlog.
As always, the more participants, the better, and everyone is encouraged to participate!
Hello everyone! We hope you have all been having a great summer!
As we all know, the recent GAN Backlog Drives have not had any big impact on the backlog. Because of that, me (Dom497), Figureskatingfan, and TheQ Editor have worked on an idea that could possibly finally put a dent into the massive backlog. Now, I will admit, the idea isn't entirely ours as we have took the general idea of the WikiCup and brought it over to WikiProject Good Articles. But anyways, here's what we have in mind:
For all of you that do not know what the WikiCup is, it is an annual competition between several editors to see who can get the most Good Articles, Featured Article's, Did You Know's, etc. Based of this, we propose to you the GA Cup. This competition will only focus on reviewing Good articles.
For more info on the proposal, click here. As a FYI, the proposal page is not what the final product will look like (if you do go ahead with this idea). It will look very similar to WikiCup's page(s).
The discussion for the proposal will take place here. Please let us know if you are interested, have any concerns, things to consider, etc.
WikiProject Good articles is holding a new competition, the GA Cup, from October 1, 2014 - March 28, 2015. The Cup will be based on reviewing Good article nominations; for each review, points will be awarded with bonuses for older nominations, longer articles and comprehensive reviews. All participants will start off in one group and the highest scoring participants will go through to the second round. At the moment six rounds are planned, but this may change based on participant numbers.
Some of you may ask: what is the purpose for a competition of this type? Currently, there is a backlog of about 500 unreviewed Good article nominations, almost an all time high. It is our hope that we can decrease the backlog in a fun way, through friendly competition.
Everyone is welcome to join; new and old editors! Sign-ups will be open until October 15, 2014 so sign-up now!
If you have any questions, take a look at the FAQ page and/or contact one of the four judges.
I am a historian from the Netherlands and I am researching Anthony Colve, and i am having trouble finding much of anything. I saw that you wrote that he was appointed to be governor of New Jersey after the end of his governorship of New Netherland in 1674, which I have not read elsewhere. What is your source for this? There seems to be a gap in the historical record regarding who was governor of West New Jersey between 1674 and 1680. Was this Colve? Any information you have on this mysterious character would be tremendously helpful for my research. Please contact me at artyom.anikin@gmail.com and let me know; I would be very grateful and happy to discuss colonial history further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.57.54.68 (talk) 02:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Woodrow Wilson Middle School, Edison, New Jersey until a consensus is reached, and anyone 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. Jacona (talk) 13:45, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
Hello Andy Z,
I tried installing the Peer reviewer bit it says that there is an error in my Vector.js and I do not see the button next to Log Out. Please tell me what to do.
SparrowHK (talk) 01:59, 28 November 2014 (UTC)SparrowHK[reply]
"Military history" is one of the most important subjects when speak of sum of all human knowledge. To support contributors interested in the area over various language Wikipedias, we intend to form a user group. It also provides a platform to share the best practices between military historians, and various military related projects on Wikipedias. An initial discussion was has been done between the coordinators and members of WikiProject Military History on English Wikipedia. Now this discussion has been taken to Meta-Wiki. Contributors intrested in the area of military history are requested to share their feedback and give suggestions at Talk:Discussion to incubate a user group for Wikipedia Military Historians.
Peer Reviewer is giving confusing results about last few sections.
The gtl section of the peer reviewer semi-bot is confusing me. When presented with Willimantic, Connecticut, it says that the last few sections are misordered. But they're 'See also', 'Notes', 'External links', which looks like what's being asked for! Is the bot wrong? Am I missing something? grendel|khan04:27, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! There's a (not-top-level) heading 'City history' in the article, which matched the string == Cit. Whew; it was a false positive. Maybe the script should use regex searches--it's much easier to look for ^==\s?Cit(e|ation) than to expand something like that out. grendel|khan18:07, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations open
Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:03, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
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.
Good Article Nomination Backlog Drive The March 2021 GAN Backlog Drive begins on March 1, and will continue until the end of the month. Please sign up to review articles and help reduce the backlog of nominations!
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
