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Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup!

Hello and Happy New Year!

Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup, the competition begins today. If you have already joined, your submission page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and we will set up your submissions page. One important rule to remember is that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2019, and which you have nominated this year, is eligible for points in the competition, the judges will be checking! Any questions should be directed to one of the judges, or left on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will make it to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Hello Enwebb: Thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, and have a great New Year! Cheers, JACKINTHEBOXTALK 13:56, 1 January 2019 (UTC)



Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year snowman}} to people's talk pages with a friendly message.

DYK for Little brown bat

On 15 January 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Little brown bat, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the offspring of the little brown bat weighs nearly a third of its mother's weight at birth? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Little brown bat. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Little brown bat), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Alex Shih (talk) 00:01, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for the calculation of the desired size can be found at WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. See User:RonBot for info on how to not get these messages. RonBot (talk) 18:14, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 Reminder

Hi. I'm DannyS712 (talk), and I just wanted to remind you that you have signed up to compete in this year's WikiCup! There are about 2 weeks left before the first round ends – if you haven't yet made your first submission, there is still time to start; if you have already started, keep up the good work. See your submissions page: here. Good luck!

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 07:33, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Stellaluna

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Stellaluna you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Barkeep49 -- Barkeep49 (talk) 14:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Oscar de Beaux

On 18 February 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Oscar de Beaux, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Oscar de Beaux, in his 1930 publication "Biological ethics", was one of the first people to argue that conserving nature is ethical? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Oscar de Beaux. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Oscar de Beaux), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Stellaluna

The article Stellaluna you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Stellaluna for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Barkeep49 -- Barkeep49 (talk) 14:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

  • United States L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
  • Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
  • Denmark MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
  • United States Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
  • Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
  • Ohio Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!

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 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), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).

DYK nomination of Jane Collective

Hello! Your submission of Jane Collective at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank You

Thanks for reverting that, got a little too casual and didn't realize I was messing those up. Thanks for all your contributions on here! Grillo7 (talk) 00:42, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Grillo7 no problem! I knew your intentions were good. Enwebb (talk) 00:49, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Jane Collective

On 8 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Jane Collective, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that when arrested for performing illegal abortions, members of the Jane Collective protected their clients' identities by swallowing their names and contact information? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jane Collective. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Jane Collective), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Vanamonde (Talk) 00:01, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Jane Collective

On 8 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Jane Collective, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that when arrested for performing illegal abortions, members of the Jane Collective protected their clients' identities by swallowing their names and contact information? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Jane Collective. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Jane Collective), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Vanamonde (Talk) 00:02, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Stellaluna

On 8 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Stellaluna, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Janell Cannon's children's book Stellaluna won a Grammy Award for best spoken word album? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Stellaluna. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Stellaluna), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 12:01, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

goodbye for now

Enwebb, just thought I'd let you know I finished auto taxoboxes and speciesboxes, so I'll be moving on to something else....It certainly was interesting to deal with personalities.....I hope I helped you and others to make bats a better place....Holler at me if I help you further in any way.....Pvmoutside (talk) 13:30, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing all of those--greatly appreciated. It's not usually like this, I promise! Enwebb (talk) 16:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Mags Portman

On 10 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Mags Portman, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that sexual-health doctor Mags Portman and activist Greg Owen worked together to provide accessible HIV medication, preventing thousands of new HIV diagnoses in the United Kingdom? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Mags Portman), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Greg Owen (activist)

On 10 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Greg Owen (activist), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that sexual-health doctor Mags Portman and activist Greg Owen worked together to provide accessible HIV medication, preventing thousands of new HIV diagnoses in the United Kingdom? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Greg Owen (activist)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Eileen Shore and Frederick Kaplan hook

Hi, nice job on the articles. Just wanted to note that a bot might come along and shorten those long strings of authors in the science papers. Next time you might want to just write the first author followed by "et al." Here is the script:

{{cite journal|title=Natural History of ''Giardia lamblia'' and ''Cryptosporidium'' Infections in a Cohort of Israeli Bedouin Infants: A Study of a Population in Transition|first1=Drora|last1=Fraser|display-authors=etal|journal=The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|volume=57|issue=5|date=November 1997|pages=544–549|doi=10.4269/ajtmh.1997.57.544}} Best, Yoninah (talk) 23:19, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Eileen Shore

On 15 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Eileen Shore, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that researchers Eileen Shore and Frederick Kaplan discovered the mutation responsible for a disease that turns muscle into bone? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Eileen Shore), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Frederick Kaplan

On 15 March 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Frederick Kaplan, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that researchers Eileen Shore and Frederick Kaplan discovered the mutation responsible for a disease that turns muscle into bone? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Frederick Kaplan), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.17

Hello Enwebb,

News
Discussions of interest
  • Two elements of CSD G6 have been split into their own criteria: R4 for redirects in the "File:" namespace with the same name as a file or redirect at Wikimedia Commons (Discussion), and G14 for disambiguation pages which disambiguate zero pages, or have "(disambiguation)" in the title but disambiguate a single page (Discussion).
  • {{db-blankdraft}} was merged into G13 (Discussion)
  • A discussion recently closed with no consensus on whether to create a subject-specific notability guideline for theatrical plays.
  • There is an ongoing discussion on a proposal to create subject-specific notability guidelines for chemicals and organism taxa.
Reminders
  • NPR is not a binary keep / delete process. In many cases a redirect may be appropriate. The deletion policy and its associated guideline clearly emphasise that not all unsuitable articles must be deleted. Redirects are not contentious. See a classic example of the templates to use. More templates are listed at the R template index. Reviewers who are not aware, do please take this into consideration before PROD, CSD, and especially AfD because not even all admins are aware of such policies, and many NAC do not have a full knowledge of them.
NPP Tools Report
  • Superlinks – allows you to check an article's history, logs, talk page, NPP flowchart (on unpatrolled pages) and more without navigating away from the article itself.
  • copyvio-check – automatically checks the copyvio percentage of new pages in the background and displays this info with a link to the report in the 'info' panel of the Page curation toolbar.
  • The NPP flowchart now has clickable hyperlinks.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – Low – 2393 High – 4828
Looking for inspiration? There are approximately 1000 female biographies to review.
Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.


Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Tom Cade

On 3 April 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Tom Cade, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that conservationist Tom Cade was so successful in his efforts to save the peregrine falcon that it was removed from the US Endangered Species List in 1999? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Tom Cade. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Tom Cade), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Nydia Blas

On 9 April 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Nydia Blas, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that photographer Nydia Blas has said she is intrigued by the use of photography to influence public opinion, for example the use of photographs by anti-lynching activists? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Nydia Blas. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Nydia Blas), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:01, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, group, product, service, person, or point of view and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic. Please read the guidelines on spam and Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator. Jeb3Talk at me here 17:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Jebcubed I'm a bit confused by this. It is of your opinion that there is no encyclopedic content on this article, that it is unambiguously and irredeemably promotional? Per policy, Nor does this criterion apply where substantial encyclopedic content would remain after removing the promotional material as deletion is not cleanup; in this case please remove the promotional material yourself, or add the {{advert}} tag to alert others to do so. I have no interest in writing promotional articles and do not believe that this is one. I'm concerned that you are using a speedy deletion nomination inappropriately where an AfD or a cleanup template would do if you feel strongly there is an issue. Enwebb (talk) 18:23, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Oriana Wilson

Hello! Your submission of Oriana Wilson at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! RRD (talk) 16:11, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 Reminder

Hi. I'm DannyS712 (talk), and I just wanted to remind you that you are a current participant in round 2 of this year's WikiCup! There are only a few days until the second round ends – if you haven't made you first submission for this round yet, there is still time to start; if you have already started, keep up the good work. See your submissions page: here. Good luck!

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 05:00, 25 April 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

DYK for Andrew Tallon

On 27 April 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Andrew Tallon, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that art historian Andrew Tallon used lasers to collect one billion data points of the interior and exterior of Notre-Dame de Paris, which could be used for its reconstruction? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Andrew Tallon. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Andrew Tallon), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 00:03, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Precious

bats

Thank you for quality articles such as Andrew Tallon, Little brown bat, Stellaluna and Jane Collective, for welcoming new users, for project work expanding and tagging, for disambiguating, for "cruising along all kinds of pages", - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:39, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks so much Gerda Arendt!! Enwebb (talk) 21:17, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Kathleen Hite

On 28 April 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Kathleen Hite, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Kathleen Hite, scriptwriter for Gunsmoke, accepted a job as a secretary at CBS so she could badger them into letting her write? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Kathleen Hite. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Kathleen Hite), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Mambo (Vodou)

Hello! Your submission of Mambo (Vodou) at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 14:36, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 May newsletter

The second round of the 2019 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to scored 32 points to advance into round 3. Our top four scorers in round 2 all scored over 400 points and were:

  • Scotland Cas Liber (1210), our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three DYKs. He also made good use of the bonus points available, more than doubling his score by choosing appropriate articles to work on.
  • Wales Kosack (750), last year's runner up, with an FA, a GA, two FLs, and five DYKs.
  • Adam Cuerden (480), a WikiCup veteran, with 16 featured pictures, mostly restorations.
  • Kingdom of Prussia Zwerg Nase (461), a seasoned competitor, with a FA, a GA and an ITN item.

Other notable performances were put in by Chicago Barkeep49 with six GAs, United States Ceranthor, England Lee Vilenski, and Saskatchewan Canada Hky, each with seven GARs, and Denmark MPJ-DK with a seven item GT.

So far contestants have achieved nine featured articles between them and a splendid 80 good articles. Commendably, 227 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2019 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. The judges are pleased with the thorough GARs that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

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) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Speaking of bats...

I just got Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Bats Task Force/Article alerts set up. No notices yet, but still good to have. --Nessie (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! I'll go add that to the task force page now. Enwebb (talk) 15:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Tree of Life Newsletter

April 2019—Issue 001


Tree of Life


Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

Sturgeon nominated by Atsme, reviewed by Chiswick Chap
Eastern brown snake nominated by Casliber, reviewed by Opabinia regalis
Cactus wren nominated by CaptainEek, reviewed by Sainsf
Bidni nominated by PolluxWorld, reviewed by DepressedPer
Crinoid nominated by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by Chiswick Chap

Newly nominated FAs

Cretoxyrhina nominated by Macrophyseter
Eastern brown snake nominated by Casliber



WikiCup heating up

Tree of Life editors are making a respectable showing in this year's WikiCup, with three regular editors advancing to the third round. Overall winner from 2016, Casliber, topped the scoreboard in points for round 2, getting a nice bonus for bringing Black mamba to FA. Enwebb continues to favor things remotely related to bats, bringing Stellaluna to GA. Plants editor Guettarda also advanced to round 3 with several plant-related DYKs.

Wikipedia page views track animal migrations, flowers blooming

A March 2019 paper in PLOS Biology found that Wikipedia page views vary seasonally for species. With a dataset of 31,751 articles about species, the authors found that roughly a quarter of all articles had significant seasonal variations in page views on at least one language version of Wikipedia. They examined 245 language versions. Page views also peaked with cultural events, such as views of the Great white shark article during Shark Week or Turkey during Thanksgiving.

Seasonal variation in page views among nine bird species
Did you know ... that Tree of Life editors bring content to the front page nearly every day?

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:24, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Wow

The Stub Barnstar
The Marianna Knottenbelt article was only a half an hour old before you jumped in and expanded it so beautifully! Thanks! ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:11, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
ThatMontrealIP The NPP backlog has been going up so I try to do some reviewing occasionally—it was the first one I saw in the queue! Btw, have you ever looked at getting a Newspapers.com subscription for free from the Wikipedia library? I find it really useful for finding sources for people active before the digital era. Thanks for the barnstar! Enwebb (talk) 01:17, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Haven't looked at newspapers.com. My general approach with the women artist stubs has been to get them up there! I've been parsing museum web sites to find the names. I figure that once they are up, and unlikely to be deleted since they are in collections, someone will come along and add more sources. I wasn't expecting that to happen in 30 minutes though! Nice work, and thank you.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 01:25, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Great job on the newsletter!

The Press Barnstar
The WikiProject Tree of Life Newsletter is really nice. Thanks for putting it together! Nessie (talk) 01:53, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
NessieVL thanks for the barnstar! I'm really glad to hear that you enjoyed it :) Enwebb (talk) 14:00, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Oriana Wilson

On 12 May 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Oriana Wilson, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Oriana Wilson discovered a new species of bat, which was then named after her? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Oriana Wilson. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Oriana Wilson), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:03, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello Enwebb-

Thanks so much for your suggestions on my page the 11th Shorty Awards. I have finished the article, and you are free to look over it and fix it as you like. Johntron1414 (talk) 21:43, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.18

Hello Enwebb,

WMF at work on NPP Improvements

Niharika Kohli, a product manager for the growth team, announced that work is underway in implementing improvements to New Page Patrol as part of the 2019 Community Wishlist and suggests all who are interested watch the project page on meta. Two requested improvements have already been completed. These are:

  • Allow filtering by no citations in page curation
  • Not having CSD and PRODs automatically marked as reviewed, reflecting current consensus among reviewers and current Twinkle functionality.
Reliable Sources for NPP

Rosguill has been compiling a list of reliable sources across countries and industries that can be used by new page patrollers to help judge whether an article topic is notable or not. At this point further discussion is needed about if and how this list should be used. Please consider joining the discussion about how this potentially valuable resource should be developed and used.

Backlog drive coming soon

Look for information on the an upcoming backlog drive in our next newsletter. If you'd like to help plan this drive, join in the discussion on the New Page Patrol talk page.

News
Discussions of interest

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7242 Low – 2393 High – 7250


Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk) at 19:17, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Megabat

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Megabat you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jens Lallensack -- Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Larry Kahn (tiddlywinks)

On 25 May 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Larry Kahn (tiddlywinks), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the tiddlywinks rivalry of Larry Kahn and Dave Lockwood is so intense, it has been compared to that of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazer? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Larry Kahn (tiddlywinks)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:03, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Dave Lockwood (tiddlywinks)

On 25 May 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Dave Lockwood (tiddlywinks), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the tiddlywinks rivalry of Larry Kahn and Dave Lockwood is so intense, it has been compared to that of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazer? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Dave Lockwood (tiddlywinks)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:03, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Aglamesis Bro's for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Aglamesis Bro's is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aglamesis Bro's until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. DGG ( talk ) 09:25, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Megabat

The article Megabat you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Megabat for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Jens Lallensack -- Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:21, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

May 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

May 2019—Issue 002


Tree of Life


Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

Cretoxyrhina by Macrophyseter
Bramble Cay melomys by The lorax/Vanamonde93, reviewed by Jens Lallensack
Chimpanzee by LittleJerry/Chiswick Chap, reviewed by Tim riley
Spinophorosaurus by FunkMonk/Jens Lallensack, reviewed by Enwebb
Trachodon mummy by Jens Lallensack, reviewed by Gog the Mild
Megabat by Enwebb, reviewed by Jens Lallensack

Newly nominated FAs

Spinophorosaurus by FunkMonk/Jens Lallensack
Trachodon mummy by Jens Lallensack




Fundamental changes being discussed at WikiProject Biology

On 23 May, user Prometheus720 created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.

Editor Spotlight: These editors want you to write about dinosaurs

Editors FunkMonk and Jens Lallensack had a very fruitful month, collaborating to bring two dinosaur articles to GA and then nominating them both for FA. They graciously decided to answer some questions for the first ToL Editor Spotlight, giving insight to their successful collaborations, explaining why you should collaborate with them, and also sharing some tidbits about their lives off-Wikipedia.

1) Enwebb: How long have you two been collaborating on articles?

  • Jens Lallensack: I started in the German Wikipedia in 2005 but switched to the English Wikipedia because of its very active dinosaur project. My first major collaboration with FunkMonk was on Heterodontosaurus in 2015.
  • FunkMonk: Yeah, we had interacted already on talk pages and through reviewing each other's articles, and at some point I was thinking of expanding Heterodontosaurus, and realised Jens had already written the German Wikipedia version, so it seemed natural to work together on the English one. Our latest collaboration was Spinophorosaurus, where by another coincidence, I had wanted to work on that article for the WP:Four Award, and it turned out that Jens had a German book about the expedition that found the dinosaur, which I wouldn't have been able to utilise with my meagre German skills. Between those, we also worked on Brachiosaurus, a wider Dinosaur Project collaboration between several editors.

2) Enwebb: Why dinosaurs?

  • JL: Because of the huge public interest in them. But dinosaurs are also highly interesting from a scientific point of view: key evolutionary innovations emerged within this group, such as warm-bloodedness, gigantism, and flight. Dinosaur research is, together with the study of fossil human remains, the most active field in paleontology. New scientific techniques and approaches tend to get developed within this field. Dinosaur research became increasingly interdisciplinary, and now does not only rely on various fields of biology and geology, but also on chemistry and physics, among others. Dinosaurs are therefore ideal to convey scientific methodology to the general public.
  • FM: As outlined above, dinosaurs have been described as a "gateway to science"; if you learn about dinosaurs, you will most likely also learn about a lot of scientific fields you would not necessarily be exposed to otherwise. On a more personal level, having grown up with and being influenced by various dinosaur media, it feels pretty cool to help spread knowledge about these animals, closest we can get to keeping them alive.

3) Enwebb: Why should other editors join you in writing articles related to paleontology? Are you looking to attract new editors, or draw in experienced editors from other areas of Wikipedia?

  • JL: Because we are a small but active and helpful community. Our Dinosaur collaboration, one of the very few active open collaborations in Wikipedia, makes high-level writing on important articles easier and more fun. Our collaboration is especially open to editors without prior experience in high-level writing. But we do not only write articles: several WikiProject Dinosaur participants are artists who do a great job illustrating the articles, and maintain an extensive and very active image review system. In fact, a number of later authors started with contributing images.
  • FM: Anyone who is interested in palaeontology is welcome to try writing articles, and we would be more than willing to help. I find that the more people that work on articles simultaneously with me, the more motivation I get to write myself. I am also one of those editors who started out contributing dinosaur illustrations and making minor edits, and only began writing after some years. But when I got to it, it wasn't as intimidating as I had feared, and I've learned a lot in the process. For example anatomy; if you know dinosaur anatomy, you have a very good framework for understanding the anatomy of other tetrapod animals, including humans.

4) Enwebb: Between the two of you, you have over 300 GA reviews. FunkMonk, you have over 250 of those. What keeps you coming back to review more articles?

  • FM: One of the main reasons I review GANs is to learn more about subjects that seem interesting (or which I would perhaps not come across otherwise). There are of course also more practical reasons, such as helping an article on its way towards FAC, to reduce the GAN backlog, and to "pay back" when I have a nomination up myself. It feels like a win-win situation where I can be entertained by interesting info, while also helping other editors get their nominations in shape, and we'll end up with an article that hopefully serves to educate a lot of people (the greater good).
  • JL: Because I enjoy reading Wikipedia articles and like to learn new things. In addition, reviews give me the opportunity to have direct contact with the authors, and help them to make their articles even better. This is quite rewarding for me personally. But I also review because I consider our GA and FA system to be of fundamental importance for Wikipedia. When I started editing Wikipedia (the German version), the article promotion reviews motivated me and improved my writing skills a lot. Submitting an article for review requires one to get serious and take additional steps to bring the article to the best quality possible. GAs and FAs are also a good starting point for readers, and may motivate them to become authors themselves.

5) Enwebb: What are your editing preferences? Any scripts or gadgets you find invaluable?

  • FM: One script that everyone should know about is the duplink highlight tool. It will show duplinks within the intro and body of a given article separately, and it seems a lot of people still don't know about it, though they are happy when introduced to it. I really liked the citationbot too (since citation consistency is a boring chore to me), but it seems to be blocked at the moment due to some technical issues.
  • JL: I often review using the Wikipedia Beta app on my smartphone, as it allows me to read without needing to sit in front of the PC. For writing, I find the reference management software Zotero invaluable, as it generates citation templates automatically, saving a lot of time.
    • Editor's note: I downloaded Zotero and tried it for the first time and think it is a very useful tool. More here.

6) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-wiki?

  • FM: Perhaps that I have no background in natural history/science, but work with animation and games. But fascination with and knowledge of nature and animals is actually very helpful when designing and animating characters and creatures, so it isn't that far off, and I can actually use some of the things I learn while writing here for my work (when I wrote the Dromaeosauroides article, it was partially to learn more about the animal for a design-school project).
  • JL: That I am actually doing research on dinosaurs. Though I avoid writing about topics I publish research on, my Wikipedia work helps me to keep a good general overview over the field, and quite regularly I can use what I learned while writing for Wikipedia for my research.

Get in touch with these editors regarding collaboration at WikiProject Dinosaurs!

Marine life continues to dominate ToL DYKs

Discuss this issue

You are receiving this because you added your name to the subscribers list of the WikiProject Tree of Life. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.

Sent by DannyS712 (talk) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 03:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Minor template automation

Hi, If the subpage of the newsletter is just the number (e.g. WP:WikiProject Tree of Life/Newsletter/002) then it is possible to use {{SUBPAGENAME}} in templates (e.g. Issue-nav) so that you don't have to type in the 'N' parameter. Could remove one little bit of formatting effort. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 23:18, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Evolution and evolvability, I followed the format of another newsletter when I set this one up. By all means, move things as you will so long as nothing breaks. Enwebb (talk) 23:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Done! Should be one fewer things to manually change for each newsletter. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:00, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 Reminder

Hi. I'm DannyS712 (talk), and I just wanted to remind you that you are a current participant in round 3 of this year's WikiCup! There are just over 2 weeks until the third round ends – if you haven't made you first submission for this round yet, there is still time to start; if you have already started, keep up the good work. See your submissions page: here. Good luck!

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 19:11, 12 June 2019 (UTC) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk)

New Page Review newsletter July-August 2019

Hello Enwebb,

WMF at work on NPP Improvements

More new features are being added to the feed, including the important red alert for previously deleted pages. This will only work if it is selected in your filters. Best is to 'select all'. Do take a moment to check out all the new features if you have not already done so. If anything is not working as it should, please let us know at NPR. There is now also a live queue of AfC submissions in the New Pages Feed. Feel free to review AfCs, but bear in mind that NPP is an official process and policy and is more important.

QUALITY of REVIEWING

Articles are still not always being checked thoroughly enough. If you are not sure what to do, leave the article for a more experienced reviewer. Please be on the alert for any incongruities in patrolling and help your colleagues where possible; report patrollers and autopatrolled article creators who are ostensibly undeclared paid editors. The displayed ORES alerts offer a greater 'at-a-glance' overview, but the new challenges in detecting unwanted new content and sub-standard reviewing do not necessarily make patrolling any easier, nevertheless the work may have a renewed interest factor of a different kind. A vibrant community of reviewers is always ready to help at NPR.

Backlog

The backlog is still far too high at between 7,000 and 8,000. Of around 700 user rights holders, 80% of the reviewing is being done by just TWO users. In the light of more and more subtle advertising and undeclared paid editing, New Page Reviewing is becoming more critical than ever.

Move to draft

NPR is triage, it is not a clean up clinic. This move feature is not limited to bios so you may have to slightly re-edit the text in the template before you save the move. Anything that is not fit for mainspace but which might have some promise can be draftified - particularly very poor English and machine and other low quality translations.

Notifying users

Remember to use the message feature if you are just tagging an article for maintenance rather than deletion. Otherwise articles are likely to remain perma-tagged. Many creators are SPA and have no intention of returning to Wikipedia. Use the feature too for leaving a friendly note note for the author of a first article you found well made or interesting. Many have told us they find such comments particularly welcoming and encouraging.

PERM

Admins are now taking advantage of the new time-limited user rights feature. If you have recently been accorded NPR, do check your user rights to see if this affects you. Depending on your user account preferences, you may receive automated notifications of your rights changes. Requests for permissions are not mini-RfAs. Helpful comments are welcome if absolutely necessary, but the bot does a lot of the work and the final decision is reserved for admins who do thorough research anyway.

Other news

School and academic holidays will begin soon in various places around the Western world. Be on the lookout for the usual increase in hoax, attack, and other junk pages.

Our next newsletter might be announcing details of a possible election for co-ordinators of NPR. If you think you have what it takes to micro manage NPR, take a look at New Page Review Coordinators - it's a job that requires a lot of time and dedication.


Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:38, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 July newsletter

The third round of the 2019 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round needed to score at least 68 points, which is substantially lower than last year's 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

  • Norfolk Island Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with 500 points derived mainly from a featured article and two GAs on natural history topics
  • South Carolina Adam Cuerden, with 480 points, a tally built on 16 featured pictures, the result of meticulous restoration work
  • Cascadia (independence movement) SounderBruce, a finalist in the last two years, with 306 points from a variety of submissions, mostly related to sport or the State of Washington
  • United States Usernameunique, with 305 points derived from a featured article and two GAs on archaeology and related topics

Contestants managed 4 (5) featured articles, 4 featured lists, 18 featured pictures, 29 good articles, 50 DYK entries, 9 ITN entries, and 39 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and it is imperative to claim them in the correct round; one FA claim had to be rejected because it was incorrectly submitted (claimed in Round 3 when it qualified for Round 2), so be warned! When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything 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). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Josephine Groves Holloway

Hello! Your submission of Josephine Groves Holloway at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Orygun (talk) 20:54, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

June 2019 Tree of Life Newsletter

June 2019—Issue 003


Tree of Life


Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!
Newly recognized content

Masked booby by Casliber and Aa77zz, reviewed by Jens Lallensack
Rook (bird) by Cwmhiraeth, reviewed by J Milburn
Vernonopterus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus
Campylocephalus by Ichthyovenator, reviewed by Super Dromaeosaurus
Unionopterus by Super Dromaeosaurus, reviewed by Ashorocetus
Big Cat, Little Cat by Barkeep49, reviewed by J Milburn
Félicette by Kees08, reviewed by Nova Crystallis

Newly nominated content

Masked booby by Casliber
Adelophthalmidae
Plains zebra by LittleJerry
Letter-winged kite by Casliber



Relative WikiWork
Project name Relative WikiWork
Cats
4.79
Fisheries and fishing
4.9
Dogs
4.91
Viruses
4.91
ToL
4.94
Cetaceans
4.97
Primates
4.98
Sharks
5.04
All wikiprojects average
5.05
Dinosaurs
5.12
Equine
5.15
Bats
5.25
Mammals
5.32
Aquarium fishes
5.35
Hypericaceae
5.38
Turtles
5.4
Birds
5.46
Australian biota
5.5
Marine life
5.54
Animals
5.56
Paleontology
5.57
Rodents
5.58
Amphibians and Reptiles
5.64
Fungi
5.65
Bivalves
5.66
Plants
5.67
Algae
5.68
Arthropods
5.69
Hymenoptera
5.72
Microbiology
5.72
Cephalopods
5.74
Fishes
5.76
Ants
5.79
Gastropods
5.8
Spiders
5.86
Insects
5.9
Beetles
5.98
Lepidoptera
5.98
Spineless editors overwhelmed by stubs

Within the Tree of Life and its many subprojects, there is an abundance of stubs. Welcome to Wikipedia, what's new, right? However, based on all wikiprojects listed (just over two thousand), the Tree of Life project is worse off in average article quality than most. Based on the concept of relative WikiWork (the average number of "steps" needed to have a project consisting of all featured articles (FAs), where stub status → FA consists of six steps), only seven projects within the ToL have an average rating of "start class" or better. Many projects, particularly those involving invertebrates, hover at an average article quality slightly better than a stub. With relative WikiWorks of 5.98 each, WikiProject Lepidoptera and WikiProject Beetles have the highest relative WikiWork of any project. Given that invertebrates are incredibly speciose, it may not surprise you that many articles about them are lower quality. WikiProject Beetles, for example, has over 20 times more articles than WikiProject Cats. Wikipedia will always be incomplete, so we should take our relatively low WikiWork as motivation to write more articles that are also better in quality.

Editor Spotlight: Showing love to misfit taxa

We're joined for this month's Editor Spotlight by NessieVL, a long-time contributor who lists themselves as a member of WikiProject Fungus, WikiProject Algae, and WikiProject Cephalopods.

1) Enwebb: How did you come to edit articles about organisms and taxonomic groups?

  • Nessie: The main force, then and now, driving me to create or edit articles is thinking "Why isn't there an article on that on Wikipedia?" Either I'll read about some rarely-sighted creature in the deep sea or find something new on iNaturalist and want to learn more. First stop (surprise!) is Wikipedia, and many times there is just a stub or no page at all. Sometimes I just add the source that got me to the article, not sometimes I go deep and try to get everything from the library or online journals and put it all in an article. The nice thing about taxa is the strong precedent that all accepted extant taxa are notable, so one does not need to really worry about doing a ton of research and having the page get removed. I was super worried about this as a new editor: I still really dislike conflict so if I can avoid it I do. Anyway, the most important part is stitching an article in to the rest of Wikipedia: Linking all the jargon, taxonomers, pollinators, etc., adding categories, and putting in the correct WikiProjects. Recently I have been doing more of the stitching-in stuff with extant articles. The last deep-dive article I made was Karuka at the end of last year, which is a bit of a break for me. I guess it's easier to do all the other stuff on my tablet while watching TV.

2) Enwebb: Many editors in the ToL are highly specialized on a group of taxa. A look at your recently created articles includes much diversity, though, with viruses, bacteria, algae, and cnidarians all represented—are there any commonalities for the articles you work on? Would you say you're particularly interested in certain groups?

  • Nessie: I was a nerd from a time when that would get you beat up, so I like odd things and underdogs. I also avoid butting heads, so not only do I find siphonophores and seaweeds fascinating I don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes. I go down rabbitholes where I start writing an article like Mastocarpus papillatus because I found some growing on some rocks, then in my research I see it is parasitized by Pythium porphyrae, which has no article, and how can that be for an oomycete that oddly lives in the ocean and also attacks my tasty nori. So then I wrote that article and that got me blowing off the dust on other Oomycota articles, encouraged by the pull of propagating automatic taxoboxes. Once you've done the taxonomy template for the genus, well then you might as well do all the species now that the template is taken care of for them too. and so on until I get sucked in somewhere else. I think it's good to advocate for some of these 'oddball' taxa as it makes it easier for editors to expand their range from say plants to the pathogenic microorganisms of their favorite plant.
My favorite clades though, It's hard to pick for a dilettante like me. I like working on virus taxonomy, but I can't think of a specific virus species that I am awed by. Maybe Tulip breaking virus for teaching us economics or Variola virus for having so many smallpox deities, one of which was popularly sung about by Desi Arnaz and then inspired the name of a cartoon character who was then misremembered and then turned into a nickname for Howard Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate. Sorry, really had to share that chain, but for a species that's not a staple food it probably has the most deities. But anyway, for having the most species that wow me, I love a good fungus or algae, but that often is led by my stomach. Also why I seem to research so many plant articles. You can't eat siphonophores, at least I don't, but they are fascinating with their federalist colonies of zooids. Bats are all amazing, but the task force seems to have done so much I feel the oomycetes and slime moulds need more love. Same thing with dinosaurs (I'm team Therizinosaurus though). But honestly, every species has that one moment in the research where you just go, wow, that's so interesting. For instance, I loved discovering that the picture-winged fly (Delphinia picta) has a mating dance that involves blowing bubbles. Now I keep expecting them to show me when they land on my arm, but no such luck yet.

3) Enwebb: I noticed that many of your recent edits utilize the script Rater, which aids in quickly reassessing the quality and importance of an article. Why is it important to update talk page assessments of articles? I also noticed that the quality rating you assign often aligns with ORES, a script that uses machine-learning to predict article quality. Coincidence?

  • Nessie: I initially started focusing on WikiProject talk page templates because they seem to be the key to data collecting and maintenance for articles, much more so than categories. This is where you note of an article needs an image, or audio, or a range map. It's how the cleanup listing bot sorts articles, and how Plantdrew does his automated taxobox usage stats. The latter inspired me to look for articles on organisms that are not assigned to any ToL WikiProjects which initially was in the thousands. I got it down to zero with just copypasta so you can imagine I was excited when I saw the rater tool. Back then I rated everything stub/low because it was faster: I couldn't check every article for the items on the B-class checklists. Plus each project has their own nuances to rating scales and I thought the editors in the individual projects would take it from there. I also thought all species were important, so how can I choose a favorite? Now it is much easier with the rater tool and the apparent consensus with Abductive's method of rating by the pageviews (0-9 views/day is low, 10-99 is med, 100-999 is high...). For the quality I generally go by the ORES rating, you caught me. It sometimes is thrown off by a long list of species or something, but it's generally good for stub to C: above that needs formal investigation and procedures I am still learning about. It seems that in the ToL projects we don't focus so much on getting articles to GA/FA so it's been harder to pick up. It was a little culture shock when I went on the Discord server and it seemed everyone was obsessed with getting articles up in quality. I think ToL is focusing on all the missing taxa and (re)organizing it all, which when you already have articles on every anime series or whatever you can focus on bulking the articles up more. In any event, on my growing to-do list is trying to get an article up to FA or GA and learn the process that way so I can better do the quality ratings and not just kick the can down the road.

4) Enwebb: What, if anything, can ToL and its subprojects do to better support collaboration and coordination among editors? How can we improve?

  • Nessie: I mentioned earlier that the projects are the main way maintenance is done. And it is good that we have a bunch of subprojects that let those tasks get broken up into manageable pieces. Frankly I'm amazed anything gets done with WikiProject Plants with how huge its scope is. Yet this not only parcels out the work but the discussion as well. A few editors like Peter coxhead and Plantdrew keep an eye on many of the subprojects and spread the word, but it's still easy for newer editors to get a little lost. There should be balance between the lumping and splitting. The newsletter helps by crossing over all the WikiProjects, and if the discord channel picked up that would help too. Possibly the big Enwiki talk page changes will help as well.

5) Enwebb: What would surprise the ToL community to learn about your life off-Wikipedia?

  • Nessie: I'm not sure anything would be surprising. I focus on nature offline too, foraging for mushrooms or wild plants and trying to avoid ticks and mosquitos. I have started going magnet fishing lately, more to help clean up the environment than in the hopes of finding anything valuable. But it would be fun to find a weapon and help solve a cold case or something.
June DYKs

Discuss this issue

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sent by ZLEA via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Newsletter

Nice work on the ToL newsletter! Guettarda (talk) 00:01, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Guettarda the secret was that beautiful gradient of 37 colors, right?? Enwebb (talk) 13:01, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Giant golden-crowned flying fox, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Ficus variegata (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 15:51, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Megaloglossus

I threw together a stub for Megaloglossus, as the genus is no longer monotypic, but it's pretty minimal. You might want to expand it (especially since you wrote the article on Azagnyi fruit bat that made the genus no longer monotypic). Plantdrew (talk) 21:54, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Plantdrew thanks for the note, I'll put it on the to-do list. Enwebb (talk) 21:56, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Isabelle Story

On 9 July 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Isabelle Story, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Isabelle Story, a member of Eleanor Roosevelt's press corps, published a weekly column called "Chatting With The First Lady"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Isabelle Story. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Isabelle Story), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 00:01, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Megabat

On 12 July 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Megabat, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that in two species of megabat, males have been observed to produce milk? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Megabat. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Megabat), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

valereee (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

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