User talk:Bzweebl/Archive 1

Archive 1

Welcome Bzweebl!

Now that you've joined Wikipedia, there are 48,335,013 users!

Hello, Bzweebl. Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions! I'm MichaelQSchmidt, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge.

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Sincerely, Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 08:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)   (Leave me a message)

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Your recent edits

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when they said it. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Massive deletion

What is this a duplicate of? Your edits are welcome, but please do be careful of deleting such a large amount of content by other editors in the future.[1] Thanks, and happy editing! Khazar2 (talk) 16:21, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

The exact same section was already in the article earlier on. There were two of the section I deleted. —Bzweebl— ^talk 16:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

My mistake, and thank you for the catch; I should have double-checked before saying anything. Keep up the good work! Khazar2 (talk) 16:31, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

In The News/Recurring Items

I am posting here to ask for editors to look at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Recurring_items and to comment at the talk page to discuss/vote on an amendment to the ITN/R list. I am posting this message on a number of editor's talk pages to encourage debate.

In connection to an ongoing debate on which items can appear on the front page under "In The News", "Recurring Items" are nominated events which require very little debate in the nomination process.

I propose the following amendment to the current ITN/R list. In addition I will put this on the talk page of as many editors as I can find who are contributors to ITN/C

At Wikipedia:In_the_news/Recurring_items, I propose the following amendment to section 3:

• At line 5, delete "and", and add after "territories" the words "and the world's twenty smallest nations".

Section 3, Line 5 would then read:

• Disputed states, dependent territories and the world's twenty smallest nations should be discussed at WP:ITN/C and judged on their own merits.

I look forward to the debate doktorb _words^deeds 07:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

ITNR for elections

As someone who regularly contributes to election articles: Due to recurrent discussions that lead nowhere, an open-ended discussion and proposals are invited Wikipedia talk:In the news/Recurring items/Elections for ITN on the main page as to what should be recurrent without ITNC discussionsLihaas (talk) 07:24, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Can you not read an Edit summary?

Please stop accusing me of "mistakes". If you can read an Edit summary, it's obvious that they're not. We may have a difference of opinion. That does not mean that either of us is mistaken.

Your repetitive, insulting Edit summaries (unlike mine) will not convince me to give up. It's a Talk page, FFS, not an article. Don't be so silly about this. HiLo48 (talk) 23:12, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure about this? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you have been writing edit summaries which appear to me to be advocating that there be a listed option of keeping the status quo, yet these edit summaries have been coupled with edits which seem to delete the option of maintaining the status quo. Am I getting mixed up here? —Bzweebl— ^talk 23:20, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Removal of a !vote

Hi there. While I appreciate the comment that you made in this edit, I also see that at the same time, you removed my !vote from an unrelated discussion. Was this intentional? If so, I'd like to know why; if not, I'd encourage greater care in future. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:54, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that, I'm not quite sure how that happened. I didn't mean to. I will try to be more careful next time, so thanks a lot for letting me know. —Bzweebl— ^talk 22:06, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Signature difficult to read

The appearance and color of your signature are such that that your signature -- —Bzweebl— ^talk -- is difficult to read. Please look over Wikipedia:Signatures and consider changing the appearance and color of your signature to ensure that the end result is easily readable by virtually everybody. Thanks! -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The signature uses the CSS3 text-shadow property which is unsupported by some browsers, for example all normal releases of Internet Explorer. Without text-shadow support the signature becomes —Bzweebl— ^talk. The username is hard to see for many people. Please pick a color which is more readable when text-shadow is unsupported. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:41, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for explaining your concerns. My signature should look normal for everyone besides me now. Bzweebl (Talk) 14:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Is this new signature acceptable? Bzweebl (talk) 04:28, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I like it. It reminds me somewhat of a form of Synesthesia (specifically grapheme–color synesthesia), a condition that fascinates me so much that I almost wish I had it. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 19:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

It looks OK to me. It's also OK to use text-shadow if the text color is easy to read in browsers where text-shadow is unsupported. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Talkback (Ks0stm)

Hello, Bzweebl. You have new messages at Ks0stm's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 19:19, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for the barnstar! It brought me a huge smile! I thought it was going to be a disambiguation notice. Take care! :) ComputerJA (talk) 06:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

ITN and jazz

Hi, I just wanted to drop a friendly note. I really like ITN because, despite its obvious imperfections, it is a place where editors often come together to discuss and evaluate content and notability based on arguments, rather than based on personality. I think our example is a textbook case of this - we agree on many issues, yet disagree on others, and we do so civilly, and never resort to personal comments; I find the same applies with other users on there. Anyway, just wanted to drop by to say hi! Colipon+(Talk) 02:15, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

While i certainly dont agree with the ITN worth (its personality politics there and HIGHLY subjective), there have been a lot of civil comments. colipon had issues, and i think i tried to answer them by initiating a discussion but it eventually fell back to the same. I must say though you (Bzweebl) are highly civil and productive there. You should try DYK sometime ;) Came here to give you a barnsar but just realised this personal comment seemed better.(Lihaas (talk) 01:47, 18 June 2012 (UTC)).

Thank you for your compliment, and your work as well. I too am disappointed that your election discussion went for nothing, but that's just what to expect on ITN. I did try DYK, but it was too technical for me to find it enjoyable. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 02:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Dyk's more objective mostly. What part confused you? Maybe i could help?(Lihaas (talk) 12:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)).

It includes checking for copyvios- I do not know WP copyright policy or how to check for it or anything about copyright, so I can't review nominations completely. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 14:26, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah thats much easier (and for your first 5 DYKs you dont even need reviews). Its basically to ensure that the wording is not from the source and written differently. Source should only be used to confirm facts. See Wikipedia:Copyvio#Resources. Otherwise its pretty standard (i have the DYK tool installed that checks for length and date requirements automtically (less than a mn there)). Then reflinks needs to be used instead of bare refs (helps to keep a new page clean) and that there is no OR/synthesis in unsourcesd bits that many articles have (which i think is the best part of DYK.) Then you have leeway as the reviewer to suggest a better hook or comment on that. You could try a review with the 1/2 i have pending? ;)Lihaas (talk) 17:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for all your help. I still don't know if I will join, but I'll definitely watch a few nominations. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 22:48, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

???

Who is this/ how do you know me?? g.j.g (talk) 04:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 May newsletter

We're halfway through round 3 (or the quarter finals, if you prefer) and things are running smoothly. We're seeing very high scoring; as of the time of writing, the top 16 all have over 90 points. This has already proved to be more competative than this time last year- in 2011, 76 points secured a place, while in 2010, a massive 250 was the lowest qualifying score. People have also upped their game slightly from last round, which is to be expected as we approach the end of the competition. Leading Pool A is Cwmhiraeth (submissions), whose points have mostly come from a large number of did you knows on marine biology. Pool B's leader, Grapple X (submissions), is for the first time not our highest scorer at the time of newsletter publication, but his good articles on The X-Files and Millenium keep him in second place overall. Miyagawa (submissions) leads Pool C, our quietest pool, with content in a variety of areas on a variety of topics. Pool D is led by Casliber (submissions), our current overall leader. Nearly half of Casliber's points come from his triple-scored Western Jackdaw, which is now a featured article.

This round has seen an unusually high number of featured lists, with nearly one in five remaining participants claiming one, and one user, Muboshgu (submissions), claiming two. Miyagawa's featured list, 1936 Summer Olympics medal table, was even awarded double points. By comparison, good article reviews seem to be playing a smaller part, and featured topics portals remain two content-types still unutilised in this competition. Other than that, there isn't much to say! Things are coming along smoothly. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Re: "you seem to be a bit confused"

I was agreeing with Lihaas, the paragraphs seem to be a bit wonky, but I was agreeing with him. doktorb _words^deeds 05:12, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

You're right, I'm sorry. I think I'm the one that's confused! Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 14:17, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

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WikiCup 2012 June newsletter

Apologies for the lateness of this letter; our usual bot wasn't working. We are now entering round 4, our semi-finals, and have our final 16. A score of 243 was required to reach this round; significantly more than 2011's 76 points, and only a little behind 2010's 250 points. By comparison, last year, 150 points in round 4 secured a place in the final; in 2010, 430 were needed. Commiserations to Pool A's igordebraga (submissions), who scored 242 points, missing out on a place in the round by a whisker. However, congratulations to Pool B's Grapple X (submissions), whose television articles have brought him another round victory. Pool A's Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came second overall, with an impressive list of biological did you knows, good articles and featured articles. Third overall was Pool D's Muboshgu (submissions), with a long list of contibutions, mostly relating to baseball. Of course, with the points resetting every round, the playing field has been levelled. The most successful Pool was Pool D, which saw seven into the final round. Pool B saw four, C saw three and Pool A saw only the two round leaders.

A quick note about other competitions taking place on Wikipedia which may be of interest. There are 13 days remaining in the June-July GAN backlog elimination drive, but it is not too late to take part. August will also see the return of The Core Contest- a one month long competition first run in 2007. While the WikiCup awards points for audited content on any subject, The Core Contest about is raw article improvement, focussing heavily on the most important articles on Wikipedia. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 10:46, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 July newsletter

We're approaching the beginning of 2012's final round. Pool A sees Cwmhiraeth (submissions) as the leader, with 300 points being awarded for the featured article Bivalvia, and Pool B sees Grapple X (submissions) in the lead, with 10 good articles, and over 35 articles eligible for good topic points. Pool A sees Muboshgu (submissions) in second place with a number of articles relating to baseball, while Pool B's Ruby2010 (submissions) follows Grapple X, with a variety of contributions including the high-scoring, high-importance featured article on the 2010 film Pride & Prejudice. Ruby2010, like Grapple X, also claimed a number of good topic points; despite this, not a single point has been claimed for featured topics in the contest so far. The same is true for featured portals.

Currently, the eighth-place competitor (and so the lowest scorer who would reach the final round right now) has scored 332, more than double the 150 needed to reach the final round last year. In 2010, however, 430 was the lowest qualifying score. In this competition, we have generally seen scores closer to those in 2010 than those in 2011. Let's see what kind of benchmark we can set for future competitions! As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 22:19, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back to ITN

Cheers --IP98 (talk) 22:39, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I've been away for four weeks, spending plenty of time watching the Olympics, and am excited to return now that ITN no longer has to worry about all the Olympic debate. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 23:16, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

A brownie for you!

Welcome back! It's good to see your name around again! ComputerJA (talk) 04:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! It's great to hear that from someone as skilled as you. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 17:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back

Welcome back from Wikibreak! You've been missed. Khazar2 (talk) 05:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It means a lot to me that my work is appreciated. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 17:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Precious

	in the news
	Thank you for your dedication to the news on the Main page, such as Okobie road tanker explosion, for the clear rainbow colours on your user and in your signature, and for speaking up clearly with reason, - you are an awesome Wikipedian, shalom! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Wow. Bzweebl (talk • contribs)

A year ago, you were the 214th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Shabbat Shalom

	Shabbat Shalom
	Regardless of whether I'm Jewish or not (personal choice not to reveal that info), I noticed on your user page that you are a modern Orthodox Jew. So it's only polite that I wish you a Shabbat Shalom! Activism1234 20:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! 1 hour till Shabbos, so I was just about to turn off my computer. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 22:01, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bzweebl. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests.
Message added 16:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks, TBrandley 16:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Current events

		The Current Events Barnstar
		Isn't it obvious? You're a frequent visitor to ITN and help update and nominate important articles. Your presense is welcoming at ITN. Activism1234 04:26, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the return barnstar! Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:34, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 August 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Bagumba's RfA

Hi. I just !voted on Bagumba's RfA and I noticed that as of now, your neutral was the only non-supporting comment in the whole thing. I am sure your reference to not being able to support because of question 6 was intended in the same playful spirit as the question itself and the candidate's response to it, but I'd still like to ask you to withdraw that !vote as I hate to see something presumably meant in jest detracting from the otherwise unanimously supportive comments so far.

Of course, if you were making a serious point that I have missed (e.g. if the questions were renumbered since you !voted or something), please feel free to ignore this. Thanks and regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:13, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for making the change. I didn't and don't mean for this to take on exaggerated importance, but I appreciate your accommodating my request. Thanks again. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:57, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Fell free to let me know anytime I do something that doesn't look right. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 01:58, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Content

Which content are you referring to?? I don't recall removing any content. --Activism1234 19:35, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Here. It was probably an accident because I can't imagine why you would want to remove it, but I have no clue how it happened. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 19:37, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Whaaaat? That's messed up. Sorry, didn't intend that! (We both voted to support it anyway, why would I remove it on purpose?) Thanks for notifying me. --Activism1234 19:38, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Silly question

I'm going to sound pretty ridiculous when I say this, but how do you get colors in your signature when you link to your user page? Because, as you can tell by my signature, it only works for my talk page at the moment. I'm asking you, of course, because of your colorful signature. ^{Brambleberry of RiverClan}_meow 21:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you want the code? You can get that by looking at the page source, as I'm sure you know. If you want me to explain any technical details I can't, because I got the coding for my signature from someone else. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 00:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't want the code for yours, I just want the link to my user page to appear a different color than the navy link color. ^{Brambleberry of RiverClan}_meow 18:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm still confused. Do you want me explain how to do it, because for that you just have to see the markup. Other than that, I can't explain anything. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 18:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I did check the markup, but it didn't work. And I know my color is good because I looked at it on my userpage, and it showed up. ^{Brambleberry of RiverClan}_meow 18:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't help you further because the markup came from someone else; it was not of my own creation and I am not an expert in signatures. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 18:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay. No problem. ^{Brambleberry of RiverClan}_meow 18:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

24 August Shabbat Shalom

	Shabbat Shalom
	Shabbat Shalom! Activism1234 20:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

deaths itn rfc

You recently participated in an informal discussion here on reforming the recent deaths section of ITN. The old discussion has been closed, and a more formal proposal has been made as an RfC. Please feel free to add your vote and comment to the new section, and, if you support, please indicate whether you prefer bare links or one-word blurbs. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 04:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Principality of Sealand

Hello,

I do not manage to put on Wikipedia the sentence which indicates that Sir-Christopher is elected a Prime Minister of the Principality of Sealand in 2012. Can has him(it) to you to put?

Thank you very much — Preceding unsigned comment added by PofSealand (talk • contribs) 11:25, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 August 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 05:19, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Maintenance work & invite to NPP

Hi Bzweebl! I'm glad to see you taking an interest in what makes Wikipedia tick. I see you are fairly new here and and I recommend reading this and following all the links and footnotes. It's obviously aimed at candidates, but as we don't have a much advice for voters, you may find it interesting. As I wrote it, I would welcome any comments on its talk page. BTW, we need a lot of help patrolling new pages - you can find out more about it at WP:NPP and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me on my talk page. Happy editing and keep up the good work! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Shabbat Shalom

	Shabbat Shalom 31 August
	Shabbat Shalom! Activism1234 22:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 August newsletter

The final is upon us! We are down to our final 8. A massive 573 was our lowest qualifying score; this is higher than the 150 points needed last year and the 430 needed in 2010. Even in 2009, when points were acquired for mainspace edit count in addition to audited content, 417 points secured a place. That leaves this year's WikiCup, by one measure at least, our most competitive ever. Our finalists, ordered by round 4 score, are:

1. Grapple X (submissions) once again finishes the round in first place, leading Pool B. Grapple X writes articles about television, and especially The X-Files and Millenium, with good articles making up the bulk of the score.
2. Miyagawa (submissions) led Pool A this round. Fourth-place finalist last year, Miyagawa writes on a variety of topics, and has reached the final primarily off the back of his massive number of did you knows.
3. Ruby2010 (submissions) was second in Pool B. Ruby2010 writes primarily on television and film, and scores primarily from good articles.
4. Casliber (submissions) finished third in Pool B. Casliber is something of a WikiCup veteran, having finished sixth in 2011 and fourth in 2010. Casliber writes on the natural sciences, including ornithology, botany and astronomy. Over half of Casliber's points this round were bonus points from the high-importance articles he has worked on.
5. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came second in Pool A. Also writing on biology, especially marine biology, Cwmhiraeth received 390 points for one featured article (Bivalvia) and one good article (pelican), topping up with a large number of did you knows.
6. Muboshgu (submissions) was third in Pool A. Muboshgu writes primarily on baseball, and this round saw Muboshgu's first featured article, Derek Jeter, promoted on its fourth attempt at FAC.
7. Dana Boomer (submissions) was fourth in Pool A. She writes on a variety of topics, including horses, but this round also saw the high-importance lettuce reach featured article status.
8. Sasata (submissions) is another WikiCup veteran, having been a finalist in 2009 and 2010. He writes mostly on mycology.

However, we must also say goodbye to the eight who did not make the final, having fallen at the last hurdle: GreatOrangePumpkin (submissions), Ealdgyth (submissions), Calvin999 (submissions), Piotrus (submissions), Toa Nidhiki05 (submissions), 12george1 (submissions), The Bushranger (submissions) and 1111tomica (submissions). We hope to see you all next year.

On the subject of next year, a discussion has been opened here. Come and have your say about the competition, and how you'd like it to run in the future. This brainstorming will go on for some time before more focused discussions/polls are opened. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:09, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 September 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 10:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

your signature

Interesting to see you have "chosen" to change the color of your signature: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news&curid=485213&diff=511255697&oldid=511219722 μηδείς (talk) 18:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Um, that edit wasn't me. Could you clarify why you are raising this on my talk page? I don't really understand your comment. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 20:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I was bringing to your attention that your signature's color had been changed from rainbow to blue. (I am sorry, I thought I conveyed I knew it wasn't really you by putting "chosen" in quotes.) In the meantime someone else fixed your signature back to normal and warned the miscreant. μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 16:32, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 September 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 04:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Shana Tovah

	Shana Tovah
	Have a sweet new year! Activism1234 22:02, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 September 2012

• From the editor: Signpost expands to Facebook

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 15:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 September 2012

• In the media: Editor's response to Roth draws internet attention

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 September newsletter

We're over half way through the final, and so it is less than a month until we know for certain our 2012 WikiCup champion. Grapple X (submissions) currently leads, followed by Sasata (submissions), Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and Casliber (submissions). However, we have no one resembling a breakaway leader, and so the competition is a long way from over. Next month's newsletter will feature a list of our winners (who are not necessarily only the finalists) and keep your eyes open for an article on the WikiCup in a future edition of The Signpost. The leaders are already on a par with last year's winners, but a long way from the huge scores seen in 2010. That said, a repeat of the competition from 2010 seems unlikely.

It is good to see that three-quarters of our finalists have already scored bonus points this round. This shows that, contrary to criticism that the WikiCup has received in the past, the competition does not merely incentivise the writing of trivial articles; instead, our top competitors are still spending their time contributing to high-importance articles, and bringing them to a high standard. This does a great service to the encyclopedia and its readers. Thank you, and good work!

The planning for next year's WikiCup is ongoing. Some straw polls have been opened concerning the scoring, and you can now sign up for next year's competition. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 19:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

• Paid editing: Does Wikipedia Pay? The Founder: Jimmy Wales

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The Signpost: 08 October 2012

• News and notes: Education Program faces community resistance

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 19:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Paddy Roy Bates

It's not that important, but I just wanted to let you know that your comment on the Admin noticeboard wasn't entirely accurate, as I was fine with the article being pulled but I didn't support that course of action. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:40, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

OK. Well, you are free to set the record straight there, if you want. I mean, if you really want to. -- tariqabjotu 04:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

• Op-ed: AdminCom: A proposal for changing the way we select admins

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Thank you

Thank you for taking the time to participate in my RfA. I hope that I will be able to improve based on the feedback I received and become a better editor. AutomaticStrikeout 02:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

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Disambiguation link notification for October 19

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recent deaths/mcgovern

Hey, would you consider closing your four-part nom, given it invites pointy BS like IP98's four vote oppose, and maybe repost just McGovern? Or withdraw the other three from the nom, and just focus on McGovern? If there's an admin you can prompt to look at this, please do so. The lack even of comment by admins seems rather odd here. μηδείς (talk) 03:55, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I would rather not do that. I don't want to be overly aggressive in squeezing through my own nom, but you are welcome to try. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:56, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are saying, you are not willing to talk to an admin or not willing to withdraw the other people from your four part nom? The latter hardly seems aggressive. μηδείς (talk) 04:11, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

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Followup RFC to WP:RFC/AAT now in community feedback phase

Hello. As a participant in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion article titles, you may wish to register an opinion on its followup RFC, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage, which is now in its community feedback phase. Please note that WP:RFC/AAMC is not simply a repeat of WP:RFC/AAT, and is attempting to achieve better results by asking a more narrowly-focused, policy-based question of the community. Assumptions based on the previous RFC should be discarded before participation, particularly the assumption that Wikipedia has or inherently needs to have articles covering generalized perspective on each side of abortion advocacy, and that what we are trying to do is come up with labels for that. Thanks! —chaos5023 20:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 October 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiCup 2012 October newsletter

The 2012 WikiCup has come to a close; congratulations to Cwmhiraeth (submissions), our 2012 champion! Cwmhiraeth joins our exclusive club of previous winners: Dreamafter (2007), jj137 (2008), Durova (2009), Sturmvogel 66 (2010) and Hurricanehink (2011). Our final standings were as follows:

1. Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
2. Sasata (submissions)
3. Grapple X (submissions)
4. Casliber (submissions)
5. Muboshgu (submissions)
6. Miyagawa (submissions)
7. Ruby2010 (submissions)
8. Dana Boomer (submissions)

Prizes for first, second, third and fourth will be awarded, as will prizes for all those who reached the final eight. Every participant who scored in the competition will receive a ribbon of participation. In addition to the prizes based on placement, the following special prizes will be awarded based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, the prize is awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round.

• The featured article award goes to Grapple X (submissions), for four featured articles in the final round.
• The good article award also goes to Grapple X (submissions), for 19 good articles in the second round.
• The list award goes to Muboshgu (submissions), for three featured lists in the final round.
• The topic award goes to Grapple X (submissions), for three good topics (with around 40 articles) in round 4.
• The did you know award goes to Cwmhiraeth (submissions), for well over 100 DYKs in the final round.
• The news award goes to ThaddeusB (submissions), for 10 in the news items in round 3.
• The picture award goes to Grandiose (submissions), for two featured pictures in round 2.
• The reviewer award goes to both Ruby2010 (submissions) (14 reviews in round 1) and Grandiose (submissions) (14 reviews in round 3).
• Finally, for achieving an incredible bonus point total in the final round, and for bringing the top-importance article frog to featured status, a biostar has been awarded to Cwmhiraeth (submissions).

Awards will be handed out in the coming days; please bear with us! This year's competition also saw fantastic contributions in all rounds, from newer Wikipedians contributing their first good or featured articles, right up to highly experienced Wikipedians chasing high scores and contributing to topics outside of their usual comfort zones. It would be impossible to name all of the participants who have achieved things to be proud of, but well done to all of you, and thanks! Wikipedia has certainly benefited from the work of this year's WikiCup participants.

Next year's WikiCup will begin in January. Currently, discussions and polls are open, and all contributions are welcome. You can also sign up for next year's competition. There will be no further newsletters this year, although brief notes may be sent out in December to remind everyone about the upcoming competition. It's been a pleasure to work with you all, and we hope to see you all in January! J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:17, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 November 2012

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The Signpost: 12 November 2012

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The Signpost: 19 November 2012

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The Signpost: 26 November 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 11:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Sky city

Hello,

I noticed that you were involved in WikiProject Skyscrapers, and I thought you could help me. I am trying to take Skycity to DYK, considering what an interesting hook it will make. For which, I intend to expand the article as much as I can (to meet DYK expansion standards). For this I request your help to expanding the article and making it a truly great hook.

I am trying to keep all edits at User:TheOriginalSoni/Sky city so that we have more than the traditional 7 days to finish this hook. Hope you shall help!!!

Thanks and cheers!! TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:15, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bzweebl. You have new messages at TheOriginalSoni's talk page.
Message added 04:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Sky city

Are you sure that sky city has been approved? We shall need some serious sources to support our claims on that.

The article and the sources look like they are very nearly exhausted by now. Now should we try and look for more photos and other information, background maybe?

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:06, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

That's what the real article says, so I figured it was true. If that is not the case then you can change it back.

Looking for background information to add to the article seems like a good idea. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:10, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Some background on the group looks important. I have tried to explain whatever I could remember in my own words, but it will be better if we use sources to make a proper paragraph or two on the group and its president [They used to make large scale air conditioners before for example]. Just going through the references shall be enough to supply it.

We need pictures, esp one comparing this building with burj.

As for the approval, see my edit summary. Thats what the case is, IMO. If the actual scenario is different (and some sources say so), then we better leave it as approved. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh and I am bad with handling references, so it would be good if you can restructure them in the best way possible, so they dont look as chaotic as they are now TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Some background on the city can also be good, I think TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:32, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Will get to as many of these things as I can tomorrow. There are existing pictures comparing real and proposed skyscrapers, so taking one and adding Sky City shouldn't be too difficult for someone- not me- who knows how to do that. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 04:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

How do you think the article looks as of now? Good to be nominated or is there some work still to be done? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 06:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

If you mean nominate for DYK, I don't think that's a plausible goal. You need a fivefold expansion of prose, and we're not close to that. Sorry I've been busy the past couple of days, but I'll keep working on it. However, DYK does seem impossible to me for this article, so maybe it's time to put it in the mainspace and work from there. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 06:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

How do you think the article looks now? Do you think we can haul it up to GA status? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:30, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with the GA process, but your work definitely has been excellent, so it might not be a bad idea to seek out some sort of review or recognition. Sorry I haven't been working recently, but I am very impressed by your work. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 00:27, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 December 2012

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The Signpost: 10 December 2012

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did you vote?

hi there, your vote in ArbCom elections triggered a spoof CSRF alarm. Would you be so kind as to please confirm that you actually voted? :) Apologies for the inconvenience. Pundit|utter 07:37, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I voted. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 21:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 December 2012

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Invitation to WikiProject Brands

Hello, Bzweebl. You are invited to join WikiProject Brands, a WikiProject and resource dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of brands and brand-related topics. To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 December 2012

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WikiCup 2013 starting soon

Hi there; you're receiving this message because you have previously shown interest in the WikiCup. This is just to remind you that the 2013 WikiCup will be starting on 1 January, and that signups will remain open throughout January. Old and new Wikipedians and WikiCup participants are warmly invited to take part in this year's competition. (Though, as a note to the more experienced participants, there have been a few small rules changes in the last few months.) If you have already signed up, let this be a reminder; you will receive a message with your submissions' page soon. Please direct any questions to the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! J Milburn 19:28, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

• From the editor: Wikipedia, our Colosseum

• In the media: Is the Wikimedia movement too 'cash rich'?

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser a success; Czech parliament releases photographs to chapter

• Technology report: Looking back on a year of incremental changes

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Working out the details at Wikipedia:Today's article for improvement

The RFC for TAFI is nearing it's conclusion, and it's time to hammer out the details over at the project's talk page. There are several details of the project that would do well with wider input and participation, such as the article nomination and selection process, the amount and type of articles displayed, the implementation on the main page and other things. I would like to invite you to comment there if you continue to be interested in TAFI's development. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 02:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 January 2013

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An invitation for you!

	Hello, Bzweebl. You're invited to join WikiProject Today's article for improvement. If you're interested in participating, please add your name to the list of members. Happy editing! Northamerica1000(talk) 23:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 January 2013

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The Signpost: 21 January 2013

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The Signpost: 28 January 2013

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WikiCup 2013 January newsletter

Signups are now closed; we have our final 127 contestants for this year's competition. 64 contestants will make it to the next round at the end of February, but we're already seeing strong scoring compared to previous years. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) currently leads, with 358 points. At this stage in 2012, the leader ( Grapple X (submissions)) had 342 points, while in 2011, the leader had 228 points. We also have a large number of scorers when compared with this stage in previous years. 12george1 (submissions) was the first competitor to score this year, as he was last year, with a detailed good article review. Some other firsts:

• 12george1 (submissions) was also the first to score for an article, with the good article Hurricane Gordon (2000). Again, this is a repeat of last year!
• Buggie111 (submissions) was the first to score for a did you know, with Marquis Flowers.
• Spencer (submissions) was the first to score for an in the news, with 2013 Houphouët-Boigny stampede.
• Status (submissions) was the first to score for a featured list, with list of Billboard Social 50 number-one artists.
• Adam Cuerden (submissions) was the first to score for a featured picture, with File:Thure de Thulstrup - L. Prang and Co. - Battle of Gettysburg - Restoration by Adam Cuerden.jpg.

Featured articles, portals and topics, as well as good topics, are yet to feature in the competition.

This year, the bonus points system has been reworked, with bonus points on offer for old articles prepared for did you know, and "multiplier" points reworked to become more linear. For details, please see Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring. There have been some teething problems as the bot has worked its way around the new system, but issues should mostly be ironed out- please report any problems to the WikiCup talk page. Here are some participants worthy of note with regards to the bonus points:

• Ed! (submissions) was the first to score bonus points, with Portland-class cruiser, a good article.
• Hawkeye7 (submissions) has the highest overall bonus points, as well as the highest scoring article, thanks to his work on Enrico Fermi, now a good article. The biography of such a significant figure to the history of science warrants nearly five times the normal score.
• HueSatLum (submissions) claimed bonus points for René Vautier and Nicolas de Fer, articles that did not exist on the English Wikipedia at the start of the year; a first for the WikiCup. The articles were eligible for bonus points because of fact they were both covered on a number of other Wikipedias.

Also, a quick mention of The C of E (submissions), who may well have already written the oddest article of the WikiCup this year: did you know that the Fucking mayor objected to Fucking Hell on the grounds that there was no Fucking brewery? The gauntlet has been thrown down; can anyone beat it?

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 February 2013

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The Signpost: 11 February 2013

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The Signpost: 18 February 2013

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WikiProject Cleanup

Hello, Bzweebl. You are invited to join WikiProject Cleanup, a WikiProject and resource for Wikipedia cleanup listings, information and discussion. To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000(talk) 15:35, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

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WikiCup 2013 February newsletter

Round 1 is now over. The top 64 scorers have progressed to round 2, where they have been randomly split into eight pools of eight. At the end of April, the top two from each pool, as well as the 16 highest scorers from those remaining, will progress to round 3. Commiserations to those eliminated; if you're interested in still being involved in the WikiCup, able and willing reviewers will always be needed, and if you're interested in getting involved with other collaborative projects, take a look at the WikiWomen's Month discussed below.

Round 1 saw 21 competitors with over 100 points, which is fantastic; that suggests that this year's competition is going to be highly competative. Our lower scores indicate this, too: A score of 19 was required to reach round 2, which was significantly higher than the 11 points required in 2012 and 8 points required in 2011. The score needed to reach round 3 will be higher, and may depend on pool groupings. In 2011, 41 points secured a round 3 place, while in 2012, 65 was needed. Our top three scorers in round 1 were:

1. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions), primarily for an array of warship GAs.
2. Miyagawa (submissions), primarily for an array of did you knows and good articles, some of which were awarded bonus points.
3. Casliber (submissions), due in no small part to Canis Minor, a featured article awarded a total of 340 points. A joint submission with Keilana (submissions), this is the highest scoring single article yet submitted in this year's competition.

Other contributors of note include:

• Sven Manguard (submissions), whose Portal:Massachusetts is the first featured portal this year. The featured portal process is one of the less well-known featured processes, and featured portals have traditionally had little impact on WikiCup scores.
• Sasata (submissions), whose Mycena aurantiomarginata was the first featured article this year.
• Muboshgu (submissions) and Wizardman (submissions), who both claimed points for articles in the Major League Baseball tie-breakers topic, the first topic points in the competition.
• Toa Nidhiki05 (submissions), who claimed for the first full good topic with the Casting Crowns studio albums topic.

Featured topics have still played no part in this year's competition, but once again, a curious contribution has been offered by The C of E (submissions): did you know that there is a Shit Brook in Shropshire? With April Fools' Day during the next round, there will probably be a good chance of more unusual articles...

March sees the WikiWomen's History Month, a series of collaborative efforts to aid the women's history WikiProject to coincide with Women's History Month and International Women's Day. A number of WikiCup participants have already started to take part. The project has a to-do list of articles needing work on the topic of women's history. Those interested in helping out with the project can find articles in need of attention there, or, alternatively, add articles to the list. Those interested in collaborating on articles on women's history are also welcome to use the WikiCup talk page to find others willing to lend a helping hand. Another collaboration currently running is an an effort from WikiCup participants to coordinate a number of Easter-themed did you know articles. Contributions are welcome!

A few final administrative issues. From now on, submission pages will need only a link to the article and a link to the nomination page, or, in the case of good article reviews, a link to the review only. See your submissions' page for details. This will hopefully make updating submission pages a little less tedious. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 17:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

• Op-ed: We must do more to turn readers into editors

• News and notes: Outing of editor causes firestorm

• Featured content: Slow week for featured content

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Television Stations

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 21:21, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 11 March 2013

• From the editor: Signpost–Wikizine merger

• News and notes: Finance committee updates

• Featured content: Batman, three birds and a Mercedes

• Arbitration report: Doncram case closes; arbitrator resigns

• WikiProject report: Setting a precedent

• Technology report: Article Feedback reversal

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 March 2013

• News and notes: Resigning arbitrator slams Committee

• WikiProject report: Making music

• Interview: Meeting in the middle: Wikipedia and libraries

• Featured content: Wikipedia stays warm

• Arbitration report: Richard case closes

• Technology report: Visual Editor "on schedule"

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:57, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 March 2013

• WikiProject report: The 'Burgh: WikiProject Pittsburgh

• Featured content: One and a half soursops

• Arbitration report: Two open cases

• News and notes: Sue Gardner to leave WMF; German Wikipedians spearhead another effort to close Wikinews

• Technology report: The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed?

• Recent research: "Ignore all rules" in deletions; anonymity and groupthink; how readers react when shown talk pages

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 March newsletter

We are halfway through round two. Pool A sees the strongest competition, with five out of eight of its competitors scoring over 100, and Pool H is lagging, with half of its competitors yet to score. WikiCup veterans lead overall; Pool A's Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) (2010's winner) leads overall, with poolmate Miyagawa (submissions) (a finalist in 2011 and 2012) not far behind. Pool F's Casliber (submissions) (a finalist in 2010, 2011 and 2012) is in third. The top two scorers in each pool, as well as the next highest 16 scorers overall, will progress to round three at the end of April.

Today has seen a number of Easter-themed did you knows from WikiCup participants, and March has seen collaboration from contestants with WikiWomen's History Month. It's great to see the WikiCup being used as a locus of collaboration; if you know of any collaborative efforts going on, or want to start anything up, please feel free to use the WikiCup talk page to help find interested editors. As well as fostering collaboration, we're also seeing the Cup encouraging the improvement of high-importance articles through the bonus point system. Highlights from the last month include GAs on physicist Niels Bohr ( Hawkeye7 (submissions)), on the European hare ( Cwmhiraeth (submissions)), on the constellation Circinus ( Keilana (submissions) and Casliber (submissions)) and on the Third Epistle of John ( Cerebellum (submissions)). All of these subjects were covered on at least 50 Wikipedias at the beginning of the year and, subsequently, each contribution was awarded at least three times as many points as normal.

Wikipedians who enjoy friendly competition may be interested in participating in April's wikification drive. While wikifying an article is typically not considered "significant work" such that it can be claimed for WikiCup points, such gnomish work is often invaluable in keeping articles in shape, and is typically very helpful for new writers who may not be familiar with formatting norms.

A quick reminder: now, submission pages will need only a link to the article and a link to the nomination page, or, in the case of good article reviews, a link to the review only. See your submissions' page for details. This will hopefully make updating submission pages a little less tedious. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) J Milburn (talk) 22:37, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 April 2013

• Special report: Who reads which Wikipedia?

• WikiProject report: Special: FAQs

• Featured content: What the ?

• News and notes: Grants given for Wikipedia Library, six others; April Fool's Day ructions

• Arbitration report: Three open cases

• Technology report: Wikidata phase 2 deployment timetable in doubt

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 14:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 08 April 2013

• Wikizine: WMF scales back feature after outcry

• WikiProject report: Earthshattering WikiProject Earthquakes

• News and notes: French intelligence agents threaten Wikimedia volunteer

• Arbitration report: Subject experts needed for Argentine History

• Featured content: Wikipedia loves poetry

• Technology report: Testing week

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 April 2013

• Op-ed: How do we fix RfA inactivity?

• WikiProject report: Unity in Diversity: South Africa

• News and notes: Another admin reform attempt flops

• Featured content: The featured process swings into high gear

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 21:11, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 April 2013

• In the media: Wikipedia inaccurate, says Florence; New Wikipedia app for breaking news

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Editor Retention

• News and notes: Milan conference a mixed bag

• Featured content: Batfish in the Red Sea

• Arbitration report: Sexology case nears closure after stalling over topic ban

• Technology report: A flurry of deployments

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 13:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

• News and notes: Chapter furore over FDC knockbacks; First DC GLAM boot-camp

• In the media: Wikipedia's sexism; Yuri Gadyukin hoax

• Featured content: Wiki loves video games

• WikiProject report: Japanese WikiProject Baseball

• Traffic report: Most popular Wikipedia articles

• Arbitration report: Sexology closed; two open cases

• Recent research: Sentiment monitoring; UNESCO and systemic bias; and more

• Technology report: New notifications system deployed across Wikipedia

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:06, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 April newsletter

We are a week into Round 3, but it is off to a flying start, with Sven Manguard (submissions) claiming for the high-importance Portal:Sports and Portal:Geography (which are the first portals ever awarded bonus points in the WikiCup) and Cwmhiraeth (submissions) claiming for a did you know of sea, the highest scoring individual did you know article ever submitted for the WikiCup. Round 2 saw very impressive scores at close; first place Casliber (submissions) and second place Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) both scored over 1000 points; a feat not seen in Round 2 since 2010. This, in part, has been made possible by the change in the bonus points rules, but is also testament to the quality of the competition this year. Pool C and Pool G were most competitive, with three quarters of participants making it to Round 3, while Pool D was the least, with only the top two scorers making it through. The lowest qualifying score was 123, significantly higher than last year's 65, 2011's 41 or even 2010's 100.

The next issue of The Signpost is due to include a brief update on the current WikiCup, comparing it to previous years' competitions. This may be of interest to current WikiCup followers, and may help bring some more new faces into the community. We would also like to note that this round includes an extra competitor to the 32 advertised, who has been added to a random pool. This extra inclusion seems to have been the fairest way to deal with a small mistake made before the beginning of this round, but should not affect the competition in a large way. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please feel free to contact one of the judges.

A rules clarification: content promoted between rounds can be claimed in the round after the break, but not the round before. The case in point is content promoted on 29/30 April, which may be claimed in this round. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 16:00, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 May 2013

• News and notes: Candidates nominating for Foundation elections; Looking ahead to Wikimania 2014

• Technology report: Foundation successful in bid for larger Google subsidy

• Featured content: WikiCup update: full speed ahead!

• In the media: New Wikipedia for Schools edition; Anders Behring Breivik's Wikipedia contributions

• WikiProject report: Earn $100 in cash... and a button!

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 19:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

• News and notes: WMF–community ruckus on Wikimedia mailing list

• WikiProject report: Knock Out: WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts

• Featured content: A mushroom, a motorway, a Munich gallery, and a map

• In the media: PR firm accused of editing Wikipedia for government clients; can Wikipedia predict the stock market?

• Arbitration report: Race and politics opened; three open cases

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 03:02, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

• Foundation elections: Trustee candidates speak about Board structure, China, gender, global south, endowment

• WikiProject report: Classical Greece and Rome

• News and notes: Spanish Wikipedia leaps past one million articles

• In the media: Qworty incident continues

• Featured content: Up in the air

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:30, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Needs You!

Hi there Bzweebl! I've noticed you have yourself listed as a member of the Food and Drink Wikiproject. Unfortunately it looks like the project has been slowly sliding into inactivity except for a couple of people. That makes me a sad potato, and nobody likes a sad potato amirite?

If you'd like to turn my frown upside down, can you do two small things?

First off, go here and add {{Tick}} (Y) next to your name if you're still part of the project.

Second, go to the project talkpage and participate in a discussion about how to make the project more active, and how to go about making articles in our area of interest a lot better.

You don't want to make me cry, do you? Potatoes have a lot of eyes you know. So come on, join in! :)

— The Potato Hose 18:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

• News and notes: First-ever community election for FDC positions

• In the media: Pagans complain about Qworty's anti-Pagan editing

• Foundation elections: Candidates talk about the Meta problem, the nation-based chapter model, world languages, and value for money

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Geographical Coordinates

• Featured content: Life of 2π

• Recent research: Motivations on the Persian Wikipedia; is science eight times more popular on the Spanish Wikipedia than the English Wikipedia?

• Technology report: Amsterdam hackathon: continuity, change, and stroopwafels

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:29, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 June 2013

• From the editor: Signpost developments

• Featured content: A week of portraits

• Discussion report: Return of the Discussion report

• News and notes: "Cease and desist", World Trade Organization says to Wikivoyage; Could WikiLang be the next WMF project?

• In the media: China blocks secure version of Wikipedia

• WikiProject report: Operation Normandy

• Technology report: Developers accused of making Toolserver fight 'pointless'

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 23:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 June 2013

• News and notes: How Wikimedia affiliates are spending $8.4 million; PRISM scandal

• Featured content: Mixing Bowl Interchange

• In the media: VisualEditor will "change world history"

• Op-ed: The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons

• Discussion report: VisualEditor, elections, bots, and more

• Traffic report: Who holds the throne?

• Arbitration report: Two cases suspended; proposed decision posted in Argentine History

• WikiProject report: Processing WikiProject Computing

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:40, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 June 2013

• Op-ed: Two responses to the 'Tragedy of Wikipedia's Commons'

• Traffic report: Most popular Wikipedia articles of the last week

• In the media: South African learners want Wikipedia; Editing of Israel topics

• WikiProject report: The Volunteer State: WikiProject Tennessee

• News and notes: Swedish Wikipedia's millionth article leads to protests; WMF elections—where are all the voters?

• Featured content: Cheaper by the dozen

• Discussion report: Citations, non-free content, and a MediaWiki meeting

• Technology report: May engineering report published

• Arbitration report: The Farmbrough amendment request—automation and arbitration enforcement

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 June 2013

• Traffic report: Most-viewed articles of the week

• In the media: Daily Dot on Commons and porn; Jimmy Wales accused of breaking Wikipedia rules in hunt for Snowden

• Recent research: Most controversial Wikipedia topics, automatic detection of sockpuppets

• News and notes: Election results released

• Discussion report: Privacy policy, X!'s edit counter, old rangeblocks, and the Article Incubator

• Featured content: Wikipedia in black + Adam Cuerden

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Fashion

• Arbitration report: Argentine History closed; two cases remain suspended

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 21:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 June newsletter

We are down to our final 16: the 2013 semi-finals are upon us. A score of 321 was required to survive round 3, further cementing this as the most competitive WikiCup yet; round 3 was survived in 2012 with 243 points, in 2011 with 76 points and in 2010 with 250 points. The change may in part be to do with the fact that more articles are now awarded bonus points, in addition to more competitive play. Reaching the final has, in the past, required 573 points (2012, a 135% increase on the score needed to reach round 4), 150 points (2011, a 97% increase) and 417 points (2010, a 72% increase). This round has seen over a third of participants claiming points for featured articles (with seven users claiming for multiple featured articles) and most users have also gained bonus points. However, the majority of points continue to come from good articles, followed by did you know articles. In this round, every content type was utilised by at least one user, proving that the WikiCup brings together content contributors from all corners of the project.

Round 3 saw a number of contributions of note. Figureskatingfan (submissions) claimed the first featured topic points in this year's competition for her excellent work on topics related to Maya Angelou, the noted American author and poet. We have also continued to see high-importance articles improved as part of the competition: Ealdgyth (submissions) was awarded a thoroughly well-earned 560 points for her featured article Middle Ages and 102 points for her good article Battle of Hastings. Good articles James Chadwick and Stanislaw Ulam netted Hawkeye7 (submissions) 102 and 72 points respectively, while 72 points were awarded to Piotrus (submissions) for each of Władysław Sikorski and Emilia Plater, both recently promoted to good article status. Collaborative efforts between WikiCup participants have continued, with, for example, Casliber (submissions) and Sasata (submissions) being awarded 180 points each for their featured article on Boletus luridus.

A rules reminder: content promoted between rounds can be claimed in the round after the break, but not the round before. The case in point is content promoted on the 29/30 June, which may be claimed in this round. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. We are currently seeing concern about the amount of time people have to wait for reviews, especially at GAC- if you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 10:08, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 03 July 2013

• In the media: Jimmy Wales is not an Internet billionaire; a mass shooter's alleged Wikipedia editing

• Featured content: Queen of France

• WikiProject report: Puppies!

• News and notes: Wikipedia's medical collaborations gathering pace

• Discussion report: Snuggle, mainpage link to Wikinews, 3RR, and more

• Technology report: VisualEditor in midst of game-changing deployment series

• Traffic report: Yahoo! crushes the competition ... in Wikipedia views

• Arbitration report: Tea Party movement reopened, new AUSC appointments

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 23:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 July 2013

• Op-ed: It's time to stop pretending the English-language Wikinews is a viable project

• WikiProject report: Not Jimbo: WikiProject Wales

• Traffic report: Inflated view counts here, there, and everywhere

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation Board appoints world expert in women's issues, global south

• Dispatches: Infoboxes: time for a fresh look?

• Featured content: The week of the birds

• Discussion report: Featured article process governance, signature templates, and more

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 08:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 July 2013

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Square Enix

• Traffic report: Most-viewed articles of the week

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation's new plans announced

• Featured content: Documents and sports

• Arbitration report: Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case opens; July 22 deadline for checkuser and oversight applications

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 17:24, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 July 2013

• In the media: Wikipedia flamewars

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Religion

• Discussion report: Partially disambiguated page names, page protection policy, and more

• News and notes: Wikivoyage turns ten, but where to now?; Wikipedia Zero expands into India

• Traffic report: Gleeless

• Featured content: Engineering and the arts

• Arbitration report: Infoboxes case opens

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 21:03, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 July newsletter

We're halfway through this year's penultimate round, and the competition is moving along well. Pool A's Sasata (submissions) currently leads overall, while Pool B's Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) is second. Both leaders are WikiCup veterans, and both have already scored over 600 points this month. If the round were to end today, Miyagawa (submissions), with 274 points, would be the lowest-scoring participant to make it through. This indicates that participants will need a score comparable to last year's (573, the highest ever) to qualify for the final. The high scores this year are a testament both to the quality of participants and to the increased focus on significant content (eligible for bonus points) in this year's competition. So far this round, both Sasata and Cwmhiraeth (submissions) have made up over half of their score through bonus points, with, for example, high importance FA koala earning Sasata a total of 440 points (from a multiplier of 4.4) and high-importance GA sea earning Cwmhiraeth a total of 216 points (from a multiplier of 7.2). Other articles on important topics submitted this round include a featured article on the Norman conquest of England by Ealdgyth (submissions), and good articles on Nobel laureate in literature Henryk Sienkiewicz, Nobel laureate in physics Hans Bethe, and the noted Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū. These articles are by Piotrus (submissions), Hawkeye7 (submissions) and Sturmvogel_66 respectively.

Other than that, there is not much to report! If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:34, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2013

• Op-ed: The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change

• Recent research: Napoleon, Michael Jackson and Srebrenica across cultures, 90% of Wikipedia better than Britannica, WikiSym preview

• Traffic report: Bouncing Baby Brouhaha

• WikiProject report: Babel Series: Politics on the Turkish Wikipedia

• News and notes: Gearing up for Wikimania 2013

• Arbitration report: Race and politics case closes

• Featured content: Caterpillars, warblers, and frogs—oh my!

• Discussion report: Defining consensus; VisualEditor default state; expert and layperson terms in article titles

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 03:19, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 07 August 2013

• Arbitration report: Fourteen editors proposed for ban in Tea Party movement case

• Traffic report: Greetings from the graveyard

• News and notes: Chapters Association self-destructs

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Freedom of Speech

• Featured content: Mysterious case of the grand duchess

• Discussion report: CheckUser and Oversighter candidates, and more

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 00:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2013

• News and notes: "Beautifully smooth" Wikimania with few hitches

• In the media: Chinese censorship

• Featured content: Wikipedia takes the cities

• Special report: Jimmy Wales: media favors entertainment over raising public awareness

• Discussion report: Wikivoyage, reliable sources, music bands, account creators, and OTRS

• WikiProject report: For the love of stamps

• Arbitration report: Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds case closes

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 10:50, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 August newsletter

This year's final is upon us. Our final eight, in order of last round's score, are:

1. Hawkeye7 (submissions), a WikiCup newcomer who has contributed on topics of military history and physics, including a number of high-importance topics. Good articles have made up the bulk of his points, but he has also scored a great deal of bonus points. He has the second highest score overall so far, with more than 3000 points accumulated.
2. Casliber (submissions), another WikiCup veteran who reached the finals in 2012, 2011 and 2010. He writes on a variety of topics including botany, mycology and astronomy, and has claimed the highest or joint highest number of featured articles every round so far this year. He has the third highest score overall, with just under 3000 points accumulated.
3. Cwmhiraeth (submissions), 2012 WikiCup champion, who writes mostly on marine biology. She has also contributed to high-importance topics, seeing huge numbers of bonus points for high-importance featured and good articles. Previous rounds have seen her scoring the most bonus points, with scoring spread across did you knows, good articles and featured articles.
4. Sasata (submissions), a WikiCup veteran who finished in second place in 2012, and competed as early as 2009. He writes articles on biology, especially mycology, and has scored highly for a number of collaborations at featured article candidates.
5. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions), the winner of the 2010 competition. His contributions mostly concern Naval history, and he has scored a very large number of points for good articles and good article reviews in every round. He is the highest scorer overall this year, with over 3500 points in total.
6. Ealdgyth (submissions), who is competing in the WikiCup for the second time, though this will be her first time in the final. A regular at FAC, she is mostly interested in British medieval history, and has scored very highly for some top-importance featured articles on the topic.
7. Miyagawa (submissions), a finalist in 2012 and 2011. He writes on a broad variety of topics, with many of this year's points coming from good articles about Star Trek. Good articles make up the bulk of his points, and he had the most good articles back in round 2; he was also the highest scorer for DYK in rounds 1 and 2.
8. Adam Cuerden (submissions) has previously been involved with the WikiCup, but hasn't participated for a number of years. He scores mostly from restoration work leading to featured picture credits, but has also done some article writing and reviewing.

We say goodbye to eight great participants who did not qualify for the final: Piotrus (submissions), Figureskatingfan (submissions), ThaddeusB (submissions), Dana boomer (submissions), Status (submissions), Ed! (submissions), 12george1 (submissions), Calvin999 (submissions). Having made it to this stage is still an excellent achievement, and you can leave with your heads held high. We hope to see you all again next year. Signups are now open for the 2014 WikiCup, which will begin on 1 January. All Wikipedians, whatever their interest or level of experience, are warmly invited to participate in next year's competition.

This last month has seen some incredible contributions; for instance, Cwmhiraeth's Starfish and Ealdgyth's Battle of Hastings—two highly important, highly viewed pages—made it to featured article status. It would be all too easy to focus solely on these stunning achievements at the expense of those participants working in lower-scoring areas, when in fact all WikiCup participants are doing excellent work. A mention of everything done is impossible, but here are a few: Last round saw the completion of several good topics (on the 1958, 1959 and 1962 Atlantic hurricane seasons) to which 12george1 had contributed. Calvin999 saw "S&M" (song), on which he has been working for several years, through to featured article status on its tenth try. Figureskatingfan continued towards her goal of a broad featured/good topic on Maya Angelou, with two featured and four good articles. ThaddeusB contributed significantly to over 20 articles which appeared on the main page's "in the news" section. Adam Cuerden continued to restore a large number of historical images, resulting in over a dozen FP credits this round alone. The WikiCup is not just about top-importance featured articles, and the work of all of these users is worthy of commendation.

Finally, the usual notices: If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 05:46, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikiproject Food and Drink Newsletter - September 2013

The WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter Volume III, no. 1 – September 2013 Note: If you would like opt out from receiving future newsletters, please place a note next to your name on the project's participant list.
Project News The project has been updated with new Goals, with target numbers of 500 each for Featured and Good articles, and for 10% of all project-related articles to be improved to B-Class or better. 500 good articles: 80.6% complete 500 featured articles: 10.6% complete 10% of all articles rated B-Class or better: 46.3% complete A new Welcome squad section has been added to the project's main page. If interested, please sign on! A new DYK articles page has been created listing food and drink articles that have been featured on Wikipedia's Main page as Did you know entries. Please add new food and drink DYK articles to the list! The project's Top-level importance nominations page has several new entries. New additions and discussion are always welcome. A proposal to create a Chocolate Task Force is currently being discussed. The new ' was created in June 2013. The Coffee portal was significantly expanded in May–June 2013. Breakfast foods WikiProject Breakfast was created in April 2013. Check it out! Please see the project's Tasks and To do sections for project and article tasks, and feel free to update the lists with new entries. Please feel free to contribute to the creation of the newsletter's next issue. Any and all contributions are welcome! The project's previous newsletter was published in August 2008. Its reintroduction has been performed in hopes to increase project participation. Apologies if you did not wish to receive this newsletter (see opt-out message at top).	New members who have joined in July–August, 2013: Ailemadrah (talk · contribs) Ranking Update (talk · contribs) The project currently has 97 members. Please feel free to welcome the new members! New articles created in August 2013: Botak Jones Gingerbread Museum Ciulama Akçaabat meatballs Dry meatballs Meatball soup Farali potatoes Food Photographer of the Year Tire meatballs Death Wish Coffee Also, in July 2013, (at least) 41 new food/drink-related articles were created. To view a listing of them, see New articles. Also, please add new articles to the list when discovering them! Past newsletters: See Monthly newsletters Portals Portals
Food and drink articles by quality and importance There are currently 26,063 articles and 10,184 stubs attributed to the project. 31 articles are at Featured article level, 114 are at Good article level, 2 are at Featured list level and 1 is at A-level. — View by clicking show — Article statistics Food and drink articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 8 16 31 FL 2 2 FM 60 60 A 1 1 GA 6 9 31 68 114 B 11 10 28 29 78 C 54 296 507 677 364 1,898 Start 40 412 1,255 3,014 2,002 6,723 Stub 4 99 726 4,306 5,049 10,184 List 6 42 49 131 31 71 330 Category 1,513 1,513 Disambig 55 55 File 682 682 Portal 427 427 Project 193 1 194 Redirect 391 391 Template 475 475 Assessed 122 877 2,604 8,241 3,838 7,487 23,169 Unassessed 2,894 2,894 Total 122 877 2,604 8,241 3,838 10,381 26,063

• Posted by Northamerica1000^(talk) 01:50, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:Food

It would be appreciated if you joined in the conversation occurring at WT:Food regarding the layout and presentation of the project's main page. Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:22, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 September newsletter

In 30 days, we will know the identity of our 2013 WikiCup champion. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) currently leads; if that lead is held, she will become the first person to have won the WikiCup twice. Sasata (submissions), Hawkeye7 (submissions)—who has never participated in the competition before—and Casliber (submissions) follow. The majority of points in this round have come from a mix of good articles and bonus points. This final round is seeing contributions to a number of highly important topics; recent submissions include Phoenix (constellation) (FA by Casliber), Ernest Lawrence (GA by Hawkeye7), Pinniped, and red fox (both GAs by Sasata).

The did you know (DYK) eligibility criteria have recently changed, meaning that newly passed good articles are accepted as "new" for did you know purposes. However, in the interests of not changing the WikiCup rules mid-competition, please note that only articles eligible for DYK under the old system (that is, newly created articles or 5x expansions) will be eligible for points in this year's WikiCup. We do, however, have time to discuss how this new system will work for next year's competition; a discussion will be opened in due course. On that note, thoughts are welcome on changes you'd like to see for next year. What worked? What didn't work? What would you like to see more of? What would you like to see less of? All Wikipedians, new or old, are also warmly invited to sign up for the 2014 WikiCup.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 23:06, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 October newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our champion, for the second year running, is Cwmhiraeth (submissions). Our final nine were as follows:

1. Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
2. Hawkeye7 (submissions)
3. Sasata (submissions)
4. Sturmvogel_66 (submissions)
5. Casliber (submissions)
6. Adam Cuerden (submissions)
7. Miyagawa (submissions)
8. Piotrus (submissions)
9. Ealdgyth (submissions)

All those who reached the final win prizes, and prizes will also be going to the following participants:

• Casliber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for four featured articles in round 4, worth 400 points.
• Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 20 good articles in round 3, worth 600 points.
• Another Believer (submissions) wins the FL prize, for four featured lists in round 2, worth 180 points.
• Adam Cuerden (submissions) wins the FP prize, for 23 featured pictures in round 5, worth 805 point.
• Sven Manguard (submissions) wins the FPo prize, for 2 featured portals in round 3, worth 70 points.
• Hawkeye7 (submissions) wins the topic prize, for a 23-article featured topic in round 5, worth 230 points.
• Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 79 did you know articles in round 5, worth 570 points.
• ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 23 in the news articles in round 4, worth 270 points.
• Ed! (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 24 good article reviews in round 1, worth 96 points.
• The judges are awarding the Oddball Barnstar to The C of E (submissions), for some curious contributions in earlier rounds.
• Finally, the judges are awarding Cwmhiraeth (submissions) the Geography Barnstar for her work on sea, now a featured article. This top-importance article was the highest-scoring this year; when it was promoted to FA status, Cwmhiraeth could claim 720 points.

Prizes will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who has been successful in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and a particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition. While it has been an excellent year, errors have opened up the judges' eyes to the need for a third judge, and it is with pleasure that we announce that experienced WikiCup participant Miyagawa will be acting as a judge from now on. We hope you will all join us in welcoming him to the team.

Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. Brainstorming and discussion remains open for how next year's competition will work, and straw polls will be opened by the judges soon. Those interested in friendly competition may also like to keep an eye on the stub contest, being organised by Casliber. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2014 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email) and The ed17 (talk • email) 00:46, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 January newsletter

The 2014 WikiCup is off to a flying start, with, at time of writing, 138 participants. The is the largest number of participants we have seen since 2010. If you are yet to join the competition, don't worry- the judges have agreed to keep the signups open for a few more days. By a wide margin, our current leader is newcomer Godot13 (submissions), whose set of 14 featured pictures, the first FPs of the competition, was worth 490 points. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:

• 12george1 (submissions) and TropicalAnalystwx13 (submissions) were the first people to score, for the good article Tropical Storm Bret (1981) and its good article review respectively. 12george1 was also the first person to score in 2012 and 2013.
• Sven Manguard (submissions) scored the first ITN points for 2014 North American polar vortex.
• WonderBoy1998 (submissions) scored points for an early good topic, finishing off Wikipedia:Featured topics/She Wolf.
• TheAustinMan (submissions) scored the first bonus points of the competition, for his work on Typhoon Vera.
• Igordebraga (submissions) has scored the highest number of bonus points for a single article, for the high-importance Jurassic Park (film).

Featured articles, featured lists, featured topics and featured portals are yet to play a part in the competition. The judges have removed a number of submissions which were deemed ineligible. Typically, we aim to see work on a project, followed by a nomination, followed by promotion, this year. We apologise for any disappointment caused by our strict enforcement this year; we're aiming to keep the competition as fair as possible.

Wikipedians interested in friendly competition may be interested to take part in The Core Contest; unlike the WikiCup, The Core Contest is not about audited content, but, like the WikiCup, it is about article improvement; specifically, The Core Contest is about contribution to some of Wikipedia's most important article. Of course, any work done for The Core Contest, if it leads to a DYK, GA or FA, can earn WikiCup points.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email), The ed17 (talk • email) and Miyagawa (talk • email) 19:54, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 February newsletter

And so ends the most competitive first round we have ever seen, with 38 points required to qualify for round 2. Last year, 19 points secured a place; before that, 11 (2012) or 8 (2011) were enough. This is both a blessing and a curse. While it shows the vigourous good health of the competition, it also means that we have already lost many worthy competitors. Our top three scorers were:

1. Godot13 (submissions), a WikiCup newcomer whose high-quality scans of rare banknotes represent an unusual, interesting and valuable contribution to Wikipedia. Most of Godot's points this round have come from a large set of pictures used in Treasury Note (1890–91).
2. Adam Cuerden (submissions), a WikiCup veteran and a finalist last year, Adam is also a featured picture specialist, focusing on the restoration of historical images. This month's promotions have included a carefully restored set of artist William Russell Flint's work.
3. WikiRedactor (submissions), another WikiCup newcomer. WikiRedactor has claimed points for good article reviews and good articles relating to pop music, many of which were awarded bonus points. Articles include Sky Ferreira, Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus and "Wrecking Ball" (Miley Cyrus song).

Other competitors of note include:

• Hahc21 (submissions), who helped take Thirty Flights of Loving through good article candidates and featured article candidates, claiming the first first featured article of the competition.
• Prism (submissions), who claimed the first featured list of the competition with Natalia Kills discography.
• Cwmhiraeth (submissions), who takes the title of the contributor awarded the highest bonus point multiplier (resulting in the highest scoring article) of the competition so far. Her high-importance salamander, now a good article, scored 108 points.

After such a competitive first round, expect the second round to also be fiercely fought. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2, but please do not update your submission page until March (UTC). Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email), The ed17 (talk • email) and Miyagawa (talk • email) 00:01, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 March newsletter

A quick update as we are half way through round two of this year's competition. WikiCup newcomer Godot13 (submissions) (Pool E) leads, having produced a massive set of featured pictures for Silver certificate (United States), an article also brought to featured list status. Former finalist Adam Cuerden (submissions) (Pool G) is in second, which he owes mostly to his work with historical images, including a number of images from Urania's Mirror, an article also brought to good status. 2010 champion (Pool C) is third overall, thanks to contributions relating to naval history, including the newly featured Japanese battleship Nagato. Cliftonian (submissions), who currently leads Pool A and is sixth overall, takes the title for the highest scoring individual article of the competition so far, with the top importance featured article Ian Smith.

With 26 people having already scored over 100 points, it is likely that well over 100 points will be needed to secure a place in round 3. Recent years have required 123 (2013), 65 (2012), 41 (2011) and 100 (2010). Remember that only 64 will progress to round 3 at the end of April. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page; if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email), The ed17 (talk • email) and Miyagawa (talk • email) 22:55, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 April newsletter

Round 3 of the 2014 WikiCup has just begun; 32 competitors remain. Pool G's Adam Cuerden (submissions) was Round 2's highest scorer, with a large number of featured picture credits. In March/April, he restored star charts from Urania's Mirror, lithographs of various warships (such as SMS Gefion) and assorted other historical media. Second overall was Pool E's Godot13 (submissions), whose featured list Silver certificate (United States) contains dozens of scans of banknotes recently promoted to featured picture status. Third was Pool G's ChrisGualtieri (submissions) who has produced a large number of good articles, many, including Falkner Island, on Connecticut-related topics. Other successful participants included Cliftonian (submissions), who saw three articles (including the top-importance Ian Smith) through featured article candidacies, and Caponer (submissions), who saw three lists (including the beautifully-illustrated list of plantations in West Virginia) through featured list candidacies. High-importance good articles promoted this round include narwhal from Reid,iain james (submissions), tiger from Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and The Lion King from Igordebraga (submissions). We also saw our first featured topic points of the competition, awarded to Czar (submissions) and Red Phoenix (submissions) for their work on the Sega Genesis topic. No points have been claimed so far for good topics or featured portals.

192 was our lowest qualifying score, again showing that this WikiCup is the most competitive ever. In previous years, 123 (2013), 65 (2012), 41 (2011) or 100 (2010) secured a place in Round 3. Pool H was the strongest performer, with all but one of its members advancing, while only the two highest scorers in Pools G and F advanced. At the end of June, 16 users will advance into the semi-finals. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk • email), The ed17 (talk • email) and Miyagawa (talk • email) 17:56, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 June newsletter

After an extremely close race, Round 3 is over. 244 points secured a place in Round 4, which is comparable to previous years- 321 was required in 2013, while 243 points were needed in 2012. Pool C's Godot13 (submissions) was the round's highest scorer, mostly due to a 32 featured pictures, including both scans and photographs. Also from Pool C, Casliber (submissions) finished second overall, claiming three featured articles, including the high-importance Grus (constellation). Third place was Pool B's , whose contributions included featured articles Russian battleship Poltava (1894) and Russian battleship Peresvet. Pool C saw the highest number of participants advance, with six out of eight making it to the next round.

The round saw this year's first featured portal, with Sven Manguard (submissions) taking Portal:Literature to featured status. The round also saw the first good topic points, thanks to 12george1 (submissions) and the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. This means that all content types have been claimed this year. Other contributions of note this round include a featured topic on Maya Angelou's autobiographies from Figureskatingfan (submissions), a good article on the noted Czech footballer Tomáš Rosický from Cloudz679 (submissions) and a now-featured video game screenshot, freely released due to the efforts of Sven Manguard (submissions).

The judges would like to remind participants to update submission pages promptly. This means that content can be checked, and allows those following the competition (including those participating) to keep track of scores effectively. This round has seen discussion about various aspects of the WikiCup's rules and procedures. Those interested in the competition can be assured that formal discussions about how next year's competition will work will be opened shortly, and all are welcome to voice their views then. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 18:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Whatsup

Havent seen you on here for awhile. Just saw you on ITN after ages/Lihaas (talk) 05:02, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for welcoming me back! I had become disenchanted with all the debate and procedure over such minor things on ITN. I worked so hard on just trying to get an admin to actually institute the RD ticker after I felt consensus had been reached, and that made me realize why editor retention is such a problem. However, I couldn't stay away from ITN for too long, so I decided to check back in again. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 05:42, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

So partner in crime it is ;)

good to have neutral partners in the hotbed of Israeli-paeslinian issues. people have said im biasesd, yet on Yitzhak Shamir and (some other page I forget) I was the pro-Israeli POV being accused. How can you be PVO if youre pro-both sides?Lihaas (talk) 05:57, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I used to have an Israeli flag displayed prominently on my userpage as you may remember, but I have recently been keeping a more neutral approach on Israeli-Palestinian issues as well. However, without knowing the specifics of your case, you are correct that it is very difficult to make an Israeli-Palestinian related edit or comment without being accused of bias. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

European Court of Human Rights decision regarding Poland and CIA black site

I've removed the below ITN nomination as it seemed to be breaking the page formatting in a way I couldn't work out how to fix. The nomination text was:

European Court of Human Rights decision regarding Poland and CIA black site

Article: Black site (talk · history · tag)
Blurb: ​ The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it cooperated with USA allowing CIA to hold and interrogate Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri on its territory in 2002-2003. The court ordered the Polish government to pay each of the men (Post)
News source(s): Poland 'helped in CIA rendition', European Court rules
Credits:

• Updated and nominated by Bzweebl (talk · give credit)

Article updated

Nominator's comments: This is major news regarding the controvercial CIA practices. 21:45, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem might be that you are not supposed to link the article title -- but delinking it didn't seem to fix the problem, so I think you'll have to fill in the template again from scratch. Regards, Espresso Addict (talk) 23:13, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

There are two problems. The first is that you are correct that you are not supposed to link the article title, and the second, more important problem is that the wikilink for European Court of Human Rights was opened but never closed. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:21, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this. Someone else appears to have nominated an overlapping story in the meantime. I fear by cutting & pasting in the code here I've broken your talk page -- do feel free to delete this item! Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 03:30, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

ITN for 45th Pacific Islands Forum

--Spencer^T♦C 18:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Precious again

in the news
Thank you for your dedication to the news on the Main page, such as Okobie road tanker explosion, for the clear rainbow colours on your user and in your signature, and for speaking up clearly with reason, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!, shalom!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Two years ago, you were the 214th recipient of my PumpkinSky Prize, repeated in br'erly style, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:37, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Four years ago, you were recipient no. 214 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Five years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:27, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

re:NPOV

The Signpost is exempt from NPOV rules. Serendi^podous 08:29, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 August newsletter

The final of the 2014 WikiCup begins in a few short minutes! Our eight finalists are listed below, along with their placement in Round 4:

1. Godot13 (submissions), a WikiCup newcomer, finished top of Pool A and was the round's highest scorer. Godot is a featured picture specialist, claiming large numbers of points due to high-quality scans of historical documents, especially banknotes.
2. Casliber (submissions) is a WikiCup veteran, having been a finalist every year since 2010. In the semi-final, he was Pool B's highest scorer. Cas's points primarily come from articles on the natural sciences.
3. Czar (submissions) was Pool A's runner-up. Czar's points come mostly from content related to independent video games, including both articles and topics.
4. Adam Cuerden (submissions) was Pool B's runner-up. Another featured picture specialist, many of Adam's points come from the restoration of historical media. He has been a WikiCup finalist twice before.
5. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) won the WikiCup in 2012 and 2013, and enters this final as the first wildcard. She focuses on biology-related articles, and has worked on several high-importance articles.
6. 12george1 (submissions) is the second wildcard. George's points come primarily from meteorology-related articles. This year and last year, George was the first person in the competition to score.
7. Sturmvogel 66 (submissions), the third wildcard, was the 2010 champion and a finalist last year. His writes mostly on military history, especially naval history.
8. Bloom6132 (submissions), the fourth and final wildcard, has participated in previous WikiCups, but not reached any finals. Bloom's points are mostly thanks to did you knows, featured lists and good articles related to sport and national symbols.

We say goodbye to this year's semi-finalists. Matty.007 (submissions), ThaddeusB (submissions), WikiRedactor (submissions), Figureskatingfan (submissions), Yellow Evan (submissions), Prism (submissions) and Cloudz679 (submissions) have all performed well to reach this stage of the competition, and we hope they will all be joining us again next year.

There are two upcoming competitions unrelated to the WikiCup which may be of interest to those who receive this newsletter. The Stub Contest will run through September, and revolves around expanding stub articles, especially high-importance or old stubs. In addition, a proposal has been made for a new competition, the GA Cup, which the organisers plan to run next year. This competition is based on the WikiCup and aims to reduce the good article review backlog.

There is now a thread for brainstorming on how next year's WikiCup competition should work. Please come along and share your thoughts- What works? What doesn't work? What needs changing? Signups for next year's competition will be open soon; we will be in touch. If, at this stage of the competition, you are keen to help the with the WikiCup, please do what you can to participate in review processes. Our finalists will find things much easier if the backlogs at good article candidates, featured article candidates, featured picture candidates and the rest are kept at a minimum. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 22:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 September newsletter

In one month's time, we will know our WikiCup 2014 champion. Newcomer Godot13 (submissions) has taken a strong lead with a featured list (historical coats of arms of the U.S. states from 1876) and a raft of featured pictures. Reigning champion Cwmhiraeth (submissions) is in second place with a number of high-importance biology articles, including new FA Isopoda and new GA least weasel. Casliber (submissions), who is in his fifth WikiCup final, is in third, with featured articles Pictor and Epacris impressa.

Signups for the 2015 WikiCup are open. All Wikipedians, new and experienced, are warmly invited to sign up for the competition. Wikipedians interested in friendly competition may also like to sign up for the GA Cup, a new WikiCup-inspired competition which revolves around completing good article reviews. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 22:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Collaboration

Since my s\ummer of busy is now over (seeing my edits ive had more edits today than the whole month), I was wondering if there are any articles you want to work on together. Youre one of the few editors here id like to work with (reply here itself)Lihaas (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit busy sometimes, but I'd love to collaborate on an article. I only know your interests from what I've heard from you at ITN, but here is a sampling of some of the articles I've been interested in working on:

• Edward Stratemeyer, Jean-Claude Juncker, Noma (restaurant), 35th America's Cup, Oracle Team USA, Principality of Sealand, Salmon P. Chase, Sam Groth, Saudi Aramco, Uru people, World Chess Championship 2014, any chess player, any darts player, articles on Grenada, articles on the politics or elections of a specific country, or any current events article.

If you have other articles you wish to suggest, by all means let me know. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 02:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Im mostly currentevent/politics/politicans and even sports sometimes.

I also don't mind reviewing/cleaning stuff asa 2nd pair of eyes to content additions. Then maybe trying it for GA or something.Lihaas (talk) 08:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Jean-Claude Juncker could use a lot of work, most significantly in referencing. For our first goal I think we should find sufficient references to eliminate the orange tags, then work from there. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 02:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

2014 Hong Kong protests

Hi Bzweebl,

Thank you for contacting me on this issue. There was already consensus established to add 2014 Hong Kong protests to ITN. The article was removed without consensus, and I readded it. If you believe that the protests are no longer sufficiently newsworthy to remain in ITN, I would be glad to discuss that with you.

Neelix (talk) 01:56, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014: The results

The 2014 WikiCup champion is Godot13 (submissions), who flew the flag of the Smithsonian Institution. This was Godot13's first WikiCup competition and, over the 10 months of the competition, he has produced (among other contributions) two featured lists and an incredible 292 featured pictures, including architectural photographs and scans of historical documents. Cwmhiraeth (submissions), 2012 and 2013 WikiCup champion, came in second, having written a large number of biology-related articles. Casliber (submissions), WikiCup finalist every year since 2010, finished in third.

A full list of our prize-winners follows:

• Godot13 (submissions) wins the prize for first place and the FP prize for 181 featured pictures in the final round.
• Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the prize for second place and the DYK prize for 65 did you knows in the final round.
• Casliber (submissions) wins the prize for third place and the FA prize for four featured articles in the final round.
• Czar (submissions) wins the prize for fourth place
• Sturmvogel 66 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
• 12george1 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
• ChrisGualtieri (submissions) wins the GA prize for 27 good articles in round 2 and the review prize for 28 good article reviews in round 1.
• Caponer (submissions) wins the FL prize for three featured lists in round 2.
• Sven Manguard (submissions) wins the FPo prize his work on featured portals.
• Figureskatingfan (submissions) wins the topic prize for a nine-article featured topic in round 3.
• ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the news prize for 28 in the news articles in round 3.

Congratulations to everyone who has been successful in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and a particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have participated this year. We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2014 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk · contribs) The ed17 (talk · contribs) and Miyagawa (talk · contribs) 22:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 is just around the corner...

Hello everyone, and may we wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2015 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. We have a few important announcements concerning the future of the WikiCup.

• We would like to announce that Josh (J Milburn) and Ed (The ed17), who have been WikiCup judges since 2009 and 2010 respectively, are stepping down. This decision has been made for a number of reasons, but the main one is time. Both Josh and Ed have found that, over the previous year, they have been unable to devote the time necessary to the WikiCup, and it is not likely that they will be able to do this in the near future. Furthermore, new people at the helm can only help to invigorate the WikiCup and keep it dynamic. Josh and Ed will still be around, and will likely be participating in the Cup this following year as competitors, which is where both started out.
• In a similar vein, we hope you will all join us in welcoming Jason (Sturmvogel 66) and Christine (Figureskatingfan), who are joining Brian (Miyagawa) to form the 2015 WikiCup judging team. Jason is a WikiCup veteran, having won in 2010 and finishing in fifth this year. Christine has participated in two WikiCups, reaching the semi-finals in both, and is responsible for the GA Cup, which she now co-runs.
• The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. While it may be impossible to please everyone, the judges will make every effort to ensure that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.

If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk), The ed17 (talk), Miyagawa (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 launch newsletter

Round one of the 2015 WikiCup has begun! So far we've had around 80 signups, which close on February 5. If you have not already signed up and want to do so, then you can add your name here. There have been changes to to several of the points scores for various categories, and the addition of Peer Reviews for the first time. These will work in the same manner as Good Article Reviews, and all of the changes are summarised here.

Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round, and one of the new changes this year is that all scores must be claimed within two weeks of an article's promotion or appearance, so don't forget to add them to your submissions pages! If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs)
If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 March newsletter

One of several of Godot13's quality submissions during round 1

That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. 64 competitors made it into this round, and are now broken into eight groups of eight. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups. Round 1 saw some interesting work on some very important articles, with the round leader Freikorp (submissions) owing most of his 622 points scored to a Featured Article on the 2001 film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which qualified for a times-two multiplier. This is a higher score than in previous years, as Godot13 (submissions) had 500 points in 2014 at the end of round 1, and our very own judge, Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) led round 1 with 601 points in 2013.

In addition to Freikorp's work, some other important articles and pictures were improved during round one, here's a snapshot of a few of them:

• Cwmhiraeth (submissions) took Bumblebee, a level-4 vital article, to Good Article;
• AHeneen (submissions) worked-up the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 article, also to Good Article status;
• Rodw (submissions) developed an extremely timely article to Good Article, taking Magna Carta there some 800 years after it was first sealed;
• And last but not least, Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points) worked up a number of Featured Pictures during round 1, including the 1948 one Deutsche Mark (pictured right), receiving the maximum bonus due to the number of Wikis that the related article appears in.

You may also wish to know that The Core Contest is running through the month of March. Head there for further details - they even have actual prizes!

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · email) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email)

Thanks for your assistance! Miyagawa (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiCup.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:54, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 May newsletter

C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) is a long-period comet discovered on 17 August 2014 by Terry Lovejoy; and is one of several Featured Pictures worked up by The Herald (submissions) during the second round.

The second round one has all wrapped up, and round three has now begun! Congratulations to the 34 contestants who have made it through, but well done and thank you to all contestants who took part in our second round. Leading the way overall was Cas Liber (submissions) in Group B with a total of 777 points for a variety of contributions including Good Articles on Corona Borealis and Microscopium - both of which received the maximum bonus.

Special credit must be given to a number of high importance articles improved during the second round.

• Coemgenus (submissions) was one of several users who worked on improving Ulysses S. Grant. Remember, you do not need to work on an article on your own - as long as each person has completed significant work on the article during 2015, multiple competitors can claim the same article.
• Cwmhiraeth (submissions) took Dragonfly to Good Article for a 3x bonus - and if that wasn't enough, they also took Damselfly there as well for a 2x bonus.
• LeftAire (submissions) worked up Alexander Hamilton to Good Article for the maximum bonus. Hamilton was one of the founding fathers of the United States and is a level 4 vital article.

The points varied across groups, with the lowest score required to gain automatic qualification was 68 in Group A - meanwhile the second place score in Group H was 404, which would have been high enough to win all but one of the other Groups! As well as the top two of each group automatically going through to the third round, a minimum score of 55 was required for a wildcard competitor to go through. We had a three-way tie at 55 points and all three have qualified for the next round, in the spirit of fairness. The third round ends on June 28, with the top two in each group progressing automatically while the remaining 16 highest scorers across all four groups go through as wildcards. Good luck to all competitors for the third round! Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · email) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) 16:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 September newsletter

The finals for the 2015 Wikicup has now begun! Congrats to the 8 contestants who have survived to the finals, and well done and thanks to everyone who took part in rounds 3 and 4.

In round 3, we had a three-way tie for qualification among the wildcard contestants, so we had 34 competitors. The leader was by far Casliber (submissions) in Group B, who earned 1496 points. Although 913 of these points were bonus points, he submitted 15 articles in the DYK category. Second place overall was Coemgenus (submissions) at 864 points, who although submitted just 2 FAs for 400 points, earned double that amount for those articles in bonus points. Everyone who moved forward to Round 4 earned at least 100 points.

The scores required to move onto the semifinals were impressive; the lowest scorer to move onto the finals was 407, making this year's Wikicup as competitive as it's always been. Our finalists, ordered by round 4 score, are:

1. Cas Liber (submissions), who is competing in his sixth consecutive Wikicup final, again finished the round in first place, with an impressive 1666 points in Pool B. Casliber writes about the natural sciences, including ornithology, botany and astronomy. A large bulk of his points this round were bonus points.
2. Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points), second place both in Pool B and overall, earned the bulk of his points with FPs, mostly depicting currency.
3. Cwmhiraeth (submissions), first in Pool A, came in third. His specialty is natural science articles; in Round 4, he mostly submitted articles about insects and botany. Five out of the six of the GAs he submitted were level-4 vital articles.
4. Harrias (submissions), second in Pool A, took fourth overall. He tends to focus on articles about cricket and military history, specifically the 1640s First English Civil War.
5. West Virginian (submissions), from Pool A, was our highest-scoring wildcard. West Virginia tends to focus on articles about the history of (what for it!) the U.S. state of West Virginia.
6. Rodw (submissions), from Pool A, likes to work on articles about British geography and places. Most of his points this round were earned from two impressive accomplishments: a GT about Scheduled monuments in Somerset and a FT about English Heritage properties in Somerset.
7. Rationalobserver (submissions), from Pool B, came in seventh overall. RO earned the majority of her points from GARs and PRs, many of which were earned in the final hours of the round.
8. Calvin999 (submissions), also from Pool B, who was competing with RO for the final two spots in the final hours, takes the race for most GARs and PRs—48.

The intense competition between RO and Calvin999 will continue into the finals. They're both eligible for the Newcomers Trophy, given for the first time in the Wikicup; whoever makes the most points will win it.

Good luck to the finalists; the judges are sure that the competition will be fierce!

Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs) 11:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015: The results

WikiCup 2015 is now in the books! Congrats to our finalists and winners, and to everyone who took part in this year's competition.

This year's results were an exact replica of last year's competition. For the second year in a row, the 2015 WikiCup champion is Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points). All of his points were earned for an impressive 253 featured pictures and their associated bonus points (5060 and 1695, respectively). His entries constituted scans of currency from all over the world and scans of medallions awarded to participants of the U.S. Space program. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) came in second place; she earned by far the most bonus points (4082), for 4 featured articles, 15 good articles, and 147 DYKs, mostly about in her field of expertise, natural science. Cas Liber (submissions), a finalist every year since 2010, came in third, with 2379 points.

Our newcomer award, presented to the best-performing new competitor in the WikiCup, goes to Rationalobserver (submissions). Everyone should be very proud of the work they accomplished. We will announce our other award winners soon.

A full list of our award winners are:

• Godot13 (submissions) (FP bonus points) wins the prize for first place and the FP prize for 330 featured pictures in the final round.
• Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the prize for second place and the DYK prize for 160 did you knows in the final round (310 in all rounds).
• Cas Liber (submissions) wins the prize for third place and the FA prize for 26 featured articles in all rounds.
• West Virginian (submissions) wins the prize for fourth place
• Calvin999 (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
• Rationalobserver (submissions) wins a final 8 prize.
• Harrias (submissions) wins a final 8 prize and the FL prize for 11 featured lists.
• Rodw (submissions) wins the most prizes: a final 8 prize, the GA prize for 41 good articles, and the topic prize for a 13-article good topic and an 8-article featured topic, both in round 3.
• ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the news prize for the most news articles in round 3.

We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2016 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · logs), Miyagawa (talk · contribs · logs) and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · logs) 18:39, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability 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. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:50, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 is just around the corner...

Hello everyone, and we would like to wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2016 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. There are some changes we'd like to announce before the competition begins.

After two years of serving as WikiCup judge, User:Miyagawa has stepped down as judge. He deserves great thanks and recognition for his dedication and hard work, and for providing necessary transition for a new group of judges in last year's Cup. Joining Christine (User:Figureskatingfan) and Jason (User:Sturmvogel 66) is Andrew (User:Godot13), a very successful WikiCup competitor and expert in Featured Pictures; he won the two previous competitions. This is a strong judging team, and we anticipate lots of enjoyment and good work coming from our 2016 competitors.

We would also like to announce one change in how this year's WikiCup will be run. In the spirit of sportsmanship, Godot13 and Cwmhiraeth have chosen to limit their participation. See here for the announcement and a complete explanation of why. They and the judges feel that it will make for a more exciting, enjoyable, and productive competition.

The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. The judges are committed to not repeating the confusion that occurred last year and to ensuring that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.

If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Figureskatingfan (talk), and Godot13 (talk).--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016: Game On!

We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.

We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016: Game On!

We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.

We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 March newsletter

One of Adam Cuerden’s several quality restorations during round 1

That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. Forty-seven competitors move into this round (a bit shy of the expected 64), and we are roughly broken into eight groups of six. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups.

Twenty-two Good Articles were submitted, including three by Cyclonebiskit (submissions), and two each by MPJ-DK (submissions), Hurricanehink (submissions), 12george1 (submissions), and Cas Liber (submissions). Twenty-one Featured Pictures were claimed, including 17 by Adam Cuerden (submissions) (the Round 1 high scorer). Thirty-one contestants saw their DYKs appear on the main page, with a commanding lead (28) by Cwmhiraeth (submissions). Twenty-nine participants conducted GA reviews with J Milburn (submissions) completing nine.

If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Thanks to everyone for participating, and good luck to those moving into round 2. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 March newsletter (update)

Along with getting the year wrong in the newsletter that went out earlier this week, we did not mention (as the bot did not report) that Cas Liber (submissions) claimed the first Featured Article Persoonia terminalis of the 2016 Wikicup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email).--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:05, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 May newsletter

FP of Christ Church Cathedral, Falkland Islands by Godot13

Round 2 is over and 35 competitors have moved on to Round 3.

Round 2 saw three FAs (two by Cas Liber (submissions) and one by Montanabw (submissions)), four Featured Lists (with three by Calvin999 (submissions)), and 53 Good Articles (six by Worm That Turned (submissions) and five each by Hurricanehink (submissions), Cwmhiraeth (submissions), and MPJ-DK (submissions)). Eleven Featured Pictures were promoted (six by Adam Cuerden (submissions) and five by Godot13 (submissions)). One Featured Portal, Featured Topic and Good Topic were also promoted. The DYK base point total was 1,135. Cwmhiraeth (submissions) scored 265 base points, while The C of E (submissions) and MPJ-DK (submissions) each scored 150 base points. Eleven ITN were promoted and 131 Good Article Reviews were conducted with MPJ-DK (submissions) completing a staggering 61 reviews. Two contestants, Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and Cas Liber (submissions), broke the 700 point mark for Round 2.

If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Thanks to everyone for participating, and good luck to those moving into round 2. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) -- MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

The WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter (August 2016)

The WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter Volume III, no. 6, August 2016 Note: To opt out from receiving future newsletters, please click here for instructions.
Project News New featured article: Borscht, Good Article nominations Borscht was promoted to featured article status on June 5, 2016. The following articles are nominated for GA status: Bean dip ReaLemon Carrot For recent events regarding project-related articles, see Article alerts. Article alerts Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Article alerts	Feel free to welcome the new members who have recently joined the project. 7 new members!MikeHikesThey Terk Err JerbsZefrsdlsy37bclavellinadtoled1Discott The project currently has 117 active members. Some recent food and drink new articles and content: Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Miyagawa (talk · contribs · new pages (8)) started on 2016-08-08, score: 10 Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Miyagawa (talk · contribs · new pages (8)) started on 2016-08-08, score: 10 Double Mountain Brewery (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Another Believer (talk · contribs · new pages (156)) started on 2016-08-08, score: 20 List of largest wastewater treatment plants (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Calvin411 (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2016-08-05, score: 10 Loch Duart (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Haseeb delpihero (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2016-08-03, score: 20 Henan Faria da Silveira (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Add92 (talk · contribs · new pages (36)) started on 2016-08-07, score: 10 Plutonocene (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by CxHy (talk · contribs · new pages (6)) started on 2016-08-07, score: 20 Neptunocene (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by CxHy (talk · contribs · new pages (6)) started on 2016-08-07, score: 10 Thorocene (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by CxHy (talk · contribs · new pages (6)) started on 2016-08-07, score: 20 Protactinocene (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by CxHy (talk · contribs · new pages (6)) started on 2016-08-07, score: 20 Satti (food) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Democratics (talk · contribs · new pages (3)) started on 2016-08-02, score: 10 Forum of Indian Food Importers (FIFI) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Bangaji (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2016-07-28, score: 20 Milton L. Banks (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Dbanks1112 (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2016-08-06, score: 10 Watercress soup (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs · new pages (9)) started on 2016-08-05, score: 20 SuperMeat (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by KDS4444 (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2016-07-31, score: 20 Abu Talib Urban Farmer (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Adjoajo (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2016-08-04, score: 10 Fisherman's Basket (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Rain and Keet (talk · contribs · new pages (5)) started on 2016-08-04, score: 20 Daegu Chimac Festival (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Kanghuitari (talk · contribs · new pages (130)) started on 2016-08-04, score: 20 Tokki Soju (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Kanghuitari (talk · contribs · new pages (130)) started on 2016-08-04, score: 10 Numbers (Vancouver) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Another Believer (talk · contribs · new pages (156)) started on 2016-08-03, score: 10 Morning Call Coffee Stand (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by MatthewVanitas (talk · contribs · new pages (9)) started on 2016-08-03, score: 10 Shinho (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Moist Towels (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2016-08-01, score: 10 Past newsletters
Food and drink articles by quality and importance There are currently articles attributed to the project, including 10,764 stubs. There are 40 articles at Featured article class, 209 are at Good article class and 3 are at Featured list class. Article statistics Food and Drink WikiProject article assessment Food and drink articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 15 31 53 FL 2 2 4 FM 141 141 GA 18 31 76 278 403 B 56 232 345 718 86 1,437 C 77 404 994 3,550 528 5,553 Start 22 329 1,675 12,041 3,908 17,975 Stub 17 540 9,021 4,948 14,526 List 12 71 115 543 23 274 1,038 Category 8,919 8,919 Disambig 217 217 File 3,022 3,022 Portal 811 811 Project 440 440 Redirect 10 73 638 2,860 3,581 Template 1,046 1,046 NA 2 20 22 Other 208 208 Assessed 185 1,103 3,833 26,824 17,707 9,744 59,396 Unassessed 14 1,966 1,980 Total 185 1,103 3,833 26,838 17,707 11,710 61,376 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 204,360 Ω = 5.12 Assessment log and Guide to Assessment Help on Editing and Sourcing Articles

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 November newsletter: Final results

The final round of the 2016 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2016 WikiCup top three finalists:

• First Place - Cas Liber (submissions)
• Second Place - MPJ-DK (submissions)
• Third Place - Adam Cuerden (submissions)

In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:

• Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a three-way tie with themselves for two FAs in each of R2, R3, and R5).
• Good Article – MPJ-DK had 14 GAs promoted in R3.
• Featured List – Calvin999 (submissions) produced 2 FLs in R2
• Featured Pictures – Adam Cuerden restored 18 images to FP status in R4.
• Featured Portal – SSTflyer (submissions) produced the only FPO of the Cup in R2.
• Featured Topic – Cyclonebiskit (submissions) and Calvin were each responsible for one FT in R3 and R2, respectively.
• Good Topic – MPJ-DK created a GT with 9 GAs in R5.
• Did You Know – MPJ-DK put 53 DYKs on the main page in R4.
• In The News – Dharmadhyaksha (submissions) and Muboshgu (submissions), each with 5 ITN, both in R4.
• Good Article Review – MPJ-DK completed 61 GARs in R2.

Over the course of the 2016 WikiCup the following content was added to Wikipedia (only reporting on fixed value categories): 17 Featured Articles, 183 Good Articles, 8 Featured Lists, 87 Featured Pictures, 40 In The News, and 321 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2017 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Figureskatingfan (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email)

WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup

WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup Greetings, all! We would like to announce the start of the 4th GA Cup, a competition that seeks to encourage the reviewing of Good article nominations! Thus far, there have been three GA Cups, which were successful in reaching our goals of significantly reducing the traditionally long queue at GAN, so we're doing it again. Currently, there are over 400 nominations listed. We hope that we can again make an impact this time. The 4th GA Cup will begin on November 1, 2016. Four rounds are currently scheduled (which will bring the competition to a close on February 28, 2017), but this may change based on participant numbers. We may take a break in December for the holidays, depending on the results of a poll of our participants taken shortly after the competition begins. The sign-up and submissions process will remain the same, as will the scoring. Sign-ups for the upcoming competition are currently open and will close on November 14, 2016. Everyone is welcome to join; new and old editors, so sign-up now! If you have any questions, take a look at the FAQ page and/or contact one of the judges. Cheers from 3family6, Figureskatingfan, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase. We apologize for the delay in sending out this message until after the competition has started. Thank you to Krishna Chaitanya Velaga for aiding in getting this message out. To subscribe or unsubscribe to future GA Cup newsletters, please add or remove your name to our mailing list. If you are a participant, you will be on the mailing list no matter what as this is the easiest way to communicate between all participants.

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Bzweebl. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup December newsletter: WikiCup 2017

On 1 January 2017, WikiCup 2017 (the 10th Annual WikiCup) will begin. This year we are trying something a little different – monetary prizes.

For the WC2017 the prizes will be as follows (amounts are based in US$ and will be awarded in the form of an online Amazon gift certificate):

• First place – $200
• Second & Third place – $50 each
• Category prizes – $25 per category (which will be limited to FA, FL, FP, GA, and DYK for 2017). Winning a category prize does not require making it to the final round.

Note: Monetary prizes are a one-year experiment for 2017 and may or may not be continued in the future. In order to be eligible to receive any of the prizes above, the competing Wikipedia account must have a valid/active email address.

After two years as a WikiCup judge, Figureskatingfan is stepping down. We thank her for her contributions as a WikiCup judge. We are pleased to announce that our newest judge is two-time WikiCup champion Cwmhiraeth.

The judges for the 2017 WikiCup are Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email).

Signups are open now and will remain open until 5 February 2017. You can sign up here.

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:02, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

March 2017 WikiCup newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. It would have been 5 points, but when a late entrant was permitted to join the contest in February, a promise was made that his inclusion would not result in the exclusion of any other competitor. To achieve this, the six entrants that had the lowest positive score of 4 points have been added to the 64 people who otherwise would have qualified. As a result, some of the groups have nine contestants rather than eight. Our top four scorers in round 1 were:

• Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
• Iry-Hor, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with a featured article, a good article and a tally of 282 bonus points for a score of 517. All these points came from the article Nyuserre Ini, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh,
• 1989, another WikiCup newcomer, was in joint third place at 240. 1989 has claimed points for two featured lists and one good article relating to anime and comedy series, all of which were awarded bonus points.
• Peacemaker67 shared third place with five good articles and thirteen good article reviews, mostly on naval vessels. He is also new to the competition.

The largest number of DYKs have been submitted by Vivvt and The C of E, who each claimed for seven, and MBlaze Lightning achieved eight articles at ITN. Carbrera and Peacemaker67 each claimed for five GAs and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga was well out in front for GARs, having reviewed 32. No featured pictures, featured topics or good topics yet, but we have achieved three featured articles and a splendid total of fifty good articles.

So, on to the second round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

May 2017 WikiCup newsletter

The second round of the competition has now closed, with just under 100 points being required to qualify for round 3. YellowEvan just scraped into the next round with 98 points but we have to say goodbye to the thirty or so competitors who didn't achieve this threshold; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Our top scorers in round 2 were:

• Cas Liber, led the field with five featured articles, four on birds and one on astronomy, and a total score of 2049, half of which came from bonus points.
• 1989 was in second place with 826 points, 466 of which were bonus points. 1989 has claimed points mostly relating to anime and Japanese-related articles.
• Peacemaker67 took third place with two FAs, one GA and seven GARs, mostly on naval vessels or military personnel, scoring 543 points.
• Other contestants who scored over 400 points were Freikorp, Carbrera, and Czar. Of course all these points are now wiped out and the 32 remaining contestants start again from zero in round 3.

Vivvt submitted the largest number of DYKs (30), and MBlaze Lightning achieved 13 articles at ITN. Carbrera claimed for 11 GAs and Argento Surfer performed the most GARs, having reviewed 11. So far we have achieved 38 featured articles and a splendid 132 good articles. Commendably, 279 GARs have been achieved so far, more than double the number of GAs.

So, on to the third round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 July newsletter

The third round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 288 points being required to qualify for round 4. It was a hotly competitive round with all but four of the contestants exceeding the 106 points that was necessary to proceed to round 4 last year. Coemgenus and Freikorp tied on 288, and both have been allowed to proceed, so round 4 now has one pool of eight competitors and one of nine.

Round 3 saw the achievement of a 26-topic Featured topic by MPJ-DK as well as 5 featured lists and 13 featured articles. PanagiotisZois and SounderBruce achieved their first ever featured articles. Carbrera led the GA score with 10, Tachs achieved 17 DYKs and MBlaze Lightning 10 In the news items. There were 167 DYKs, 93 GARs and 82 GAs overall, this last figure being higher than the number of GAs in round 2, when twice as many people were taking part. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 4, we say goodbye to the fifteen or so competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 05:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 September newsletter

Round 4 of the WikiCup has ended and we move forward into the final round. In round 4, a total of 12 FAs, 3 FLs, 44 GAs, 3 FLs, 79 DYKs, 1 ITN and 42 GARs was achieved, with no FPs or FTs this time. Congratulations to Peacemaker67 on the Royal Yugoslav Navy Good Topic of 36 items, and the 12 featured articles achieved by Cas Liber (5), Vanamonde93 (3), Peacemaker67 (2), Adityavagarwal (1) and 12george1 (1). With a FA scoring 200 points, and bonus points available on top of this, FAs are likely to feature heavily in the final round. Meanwhile Yellow Evan, a typhoon specialist, was contributing 12 DYKs and 10 GAs, while Adityavagarwal and Freikorp topped the GAR list with 8 reviews each. As we enter the final round, we are down to eight contestants, and we would like to thank those of you who have been eliminated for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. The lowest score needed to reach round 5 was 305, and I think we can expect a highly competitive final round.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best man (or woman) win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 06:25, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 November newsletter: Final results

The final round of the 2017 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2017 WikiCup top three finalists:

• First Place - Adityavagarwal (submissions)
• Second Place - Vanamonde (submissions)
• Third Place - Cas Liber (submissions)

In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:

• Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a two-way tie with themselves for an astonishing five FAs in R2 and R4).
• Good Article – Adityavagarwal had 14 GAs promoted in R5.
• Featured List – Bloom6132 (submissions) and 1989 (submissions) both produced 2 FLs in R2
• Featured Pictures – SounderBruce (submissions) improved an image to FP status in R5, the only FP this year.
• Featured Topic – MPJ-DK (submissions) has the only FT of the Cup in R3.
• Good Topic – Four different editors created a GT in R2, R3 and R4.
• Did You Know – Adityavagarwal had 22 DYKs on the main page in R5.
• In The News – MBlaze Lightning (submissions) had 14 ITN on the main page in R2.
• Good Article Review – Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (submissions) completed 31 GARs in R1.

Over the course of the 2017 WikiCup the following content was added or improved on Wikipedia: 51 Featured Articles, 292 Good Articles, 18 Featured Lists, 1 Featured Picture, 1 Featured Topics, 4 Good Topics, around 400 Did You Knows, 75 In The News, and 442 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.

Regarding the prize vouchers - @Adityavagarwal, Vanamonde93, Casliber, Bloom6132, 1989, and SounderBruce: please send Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) an email from the email address to which you would like your Amazon voucher sent. Please include your preference of global Amazon marketplace as well. We hope to have the electronic gift cards processed and sent within a week.

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2018 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018

So the 2017 WikiCup has come to an end. Congratulations to the winner, to the other finalists and to all those who took part. 177 contestants signed up, more than usual, but not all of them submitted entries in the first round. Were editors attracted by the cash prizes offered for the first time this year, or were these irrelevant? Do the rules and scoring need changing for the 2018 WikiCup? If you have a view on these or other matters, why not join in the WikiCup discussion about next year's contest? Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:59, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Bzweebl. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible 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.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.

Our top scorers in round 1 were:

• Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
• FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
• Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.
• Ceranthor, Numerounovedant, Carbrera, Farang Rak Tham and Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 May newsletter

The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:

• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
• Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
• Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
• SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
• Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
• Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
• Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs

So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Archive 1