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Archive 1

Non-free files in your user space

Hey there Focus, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Focus/TNG. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

  • See a log of files removed today here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 October 2010

The Signpost: 1 November 2010

The Signpost: 8 November 2010

The Signpost: 15 November 2010

Your contributed article, History of ornithology

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.

Hello, I notice that you recently created a new page, History of ornithology. First, thank you for your contribution; Wikipedia relies solely on the efforts of volunteers such as you. Unfortunately, the page you created covers a topic on which we already have a page - Ornithology. Because of the duplication, your article has been tagged for speedy deletion. Please note that this is not a comment on you personally and we hope you will to continue helping improve Wikipedia. If the topic of the article you created is one that interests you, then perhaps you would like to help out at Ornithology - you might like to discuss new information at the article's talk page.

If you think that the article you created should remain separate, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hang on}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion, or "db", tag; if no such tag exists, then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hang-on tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, you can contact one of these administrators to request that the administrator userfy the page or email a copy to you. Additionally if you would like to have someone review articles you create before they go live so they are not nominated for deletion shortly after you post them, allow me to suggest the article creation process and using our search feature to find related information we already have in the encyclopedia. Try not to be discouraged. Wikipedia looks forward to your future contributions. jsfouche ☽☾ talk 17:01, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 November 2010

Thanks!

I really liked your copy-edit of the lead here! Would you be interested in doing a little more of that to some other parts of the article? Grammer iz the olny thing holdin it bak from GA.  :-P NYMFan69-86 (talk) 17:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I actually spotted that article on the GAN page which is why I took a look at it in the first place. I'll try to do more if I have time. Have you considered putting in a request at the Guild of Copy Editors? —focus 20:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Thank you so much!!! No, I've actually never sought out their help before, but I'll drop a note. Thanks again.  :-) NYMFan69-86 (talk) 03:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Reviewer permission

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged revisions, underwent a two-month trial which ended on 15 August 2010. Its continued use is still being discussed by the community, you are free to participate in such discussions. Many articles still have pending changes protection applied, however, and the ability to review pending changes continues to be of use.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under level 1 pending changes and edits made by non-reviewers to level 2 pending changes protected articles (usually high traffic articles). Pending changes was applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

For the guideline on reviewing, see Wikipedia:Reviewing. Being granted reviewer rights doesn't grant you status nor change how you can edit articles even with pending changes. The general help page on pending changes can be found here, and the general policy for the trial can be found here.

If you do not want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Rollback

Hello, per your request, I've granted you Rollback rights! Just remember:

If you have any questions, please do let me know.

HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:49, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Drive – Final push

Greetings GOCE Backlog elimination drive participant, We are now coming up to the last few days of the drive, the last for 2010. Currently, it looks like we will achieve our target for reducing the backlog by 10%, however, we still have huge numbers for 2009. We have 55 participants in this drive. If everyone just clears 2 articles each, we will reduce the backlog by a further 110 articles. If everyone can just do 3 articles, we will hit 165. If you have yet to work on any articles and have rollover words, remember that you do need to copyedit at least a couple of articles in this drive for your previous rollover to be valid for the next drive. There are many very small articles that will take less than 5-10 minutes to copyedit. Use CatScan to find them. Let's all concentrate our firepower on the first three months of 2009 as we approach the end of this final drive for the year. Thank you once again for participating, and see you at the finish line! – SMasters (talk) 04:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Regulus bulgaricus

Materialscientist (talk) 06:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you

I appreciate your doing the GA review of Buffalo nickel. If there is an article you would like me to look over, please let me know.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 November 2010

Talk:Painted turtle

I brought up another possible solution to our little dilemma...it may solve our problems but I can't be sure.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 18:06, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE elections

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors

Elections are currently underway for our inaugural Guild coordinators. The voting period will run for 14 days: 00:01 UTC, Friday 1 December – 23:59 UTC, Tuesday 14 December. All GOCE members in good standing, as well as past participants of any of the Guild's Backlog elimination drives, are eligible to vote. There are six candidates vying for four positions. The candidate with the highest number of votes will become the Lead Coordinator, therefore, your vote really matters! Cast your vote today.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors via SMasters using AWB on 01:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 December 2010

Raccoon Image

You don't like raccoons? Me either. However, there's been some discussion here about the removal of the image from Painted turtle. Thank you, NYMFan69-86 (talk) 18:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 December 2010

citations

howdy...I want to finish the content I'm working on, then add full citations from my notes...I'm a bit unfamiliar with wikipaedia citation format and markup, so I'll study the content you suggest tonight

regards, stevesg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevesg (talk • contribs) 16:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 December 2010

American Kestrel

Please check out my request at Talk:American Kestrel. I am reluctant to make a change without your input. Thank you.Buster Seven Talk 13:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The zeitgeist movement edit

hello, the reason i edited the article was because the part that i edited was completely uncited and not backed up by fact. If this is the case, will you at least make it clear that it is not cited to help improve the article. That way ppl will not take this as fact and will understand that this has no proof attached to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.191.249.2 (talk) 04:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for letting me know your intentions. Typically when non-logged in users remove entire sections from articles it's vandalism, so that's why I reverted it. If you think the information in that section was inaccurate, don't hesitate to remove it again. Just make sure you provide a WP:EDIT SUMMARY whenever you make those types of edits so other people will know your intentions. —focus 04:55, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

ok sounds good. So then am I right in thinking i'm in the clear to remove that part of the article as long as i state why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.191.249.2 (talk) 05:10, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

You should be okay, as long as you're acting in good faith and you're improving the article's accuracy. —focus 05:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program is looking for new Online Ambassadors

Hi Focus! I noticed your activity as a Good Article reviewer, and wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors in the coming term. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:24, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 December 2010

Your request on the Adminstrators Noticeboard

I don't see anything wrong (other than cluebot coming in to revert a attack against our fearless leader) with the game article. Could you clarify. And for the record, the place you probably wanted to report the vandalism to was Administrative Intervention against Vandalism. I'll watch your talk page for a couple of days to help (as a standard user). Hasteur (talk) 15:23, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

That's strange, because it appeared to be fixed a few minutes after I posted that. It may have just been something going on with my browser, because the vandalism that ClueBot reverted was still showing on the page, but not in the source, so I couldn't remove it. A few other people saw it too, on other computers, so maybe the page just had to be purged or something? Anyway, it's gone now, so you can just ignore that request. —focus 16:23, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Year-end Report

Season's Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors

We have reached the end of the year, and what a year it has been! The Guild of Copy Editors was full of activity, and we achieved numerous important milestones in 2010. Read all about these in the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report.

Highlights
  • Membership grows to 503 editors
  • 2,589 articles removed through four Backlog elimination drives
  • Our encounter with Jimbo Wales
  • Guild home pages reorganized and redesigned
  • Report on our inaugural elections
  • Guild Plans for 2011
  • New barnstars introduced
  • Requests page improved
  • Sign up for the January 2011 Backlog elimination drive!
Get your copy of the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report here On behalf of the Guild, we take this opportunity to wish you Season's Greetings and Happy New Year. See you in 2011!
– Your Coordinators: S Masters (lead), Diannaa, The Utahraptor, and Tea with toast.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 06:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Sibley

I notice you changed the Sibley ref for kinglet from the British to the American edition, but your edit summary didn't make it clear why the reference to the eidtion I actually used was incorrect, could you please clarify or revert, thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not aware that there was a separate British version, and I assumed it was a mistake (since the page number is the same in the American edition). I might note that the majority of people know the book from the American title, since it's a NA field guide, so it might be better to use that version in the citation to avoid confusion. If you feel otherwise, don't hesitate to revert it. —focus 16:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
No big deal, it's quite common for books to have different publishers in different countries. I'm so used to seeing colour, behaviour etc. Americanised at random that I tend to leap into a kneejerk reaction, I'm afraid. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:10, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2011 WikiCup!

Hello, happy new year and welcome to the 2011 WikiCup! Your submissions' page can be found here and instructions of how to update the page can be found here and on the submissions' page itself. From the submissions' page, a bot will update the main scoresheet. Our rules have been very slightly updated from last year; the full rules can be found here. Please remember that you can only receive points for content on which you have done significant work in 2011; nominations of work from last year and "drive-by" nominations will not be awarded points. Signups are going to remain open through January, so if you know of anyone who would like to take part, please direct them to Wikipedia:WikiCup/2011 signups. The judges can be contacted on the WikiCup talk page, on their respective talk pages, or by email. Other than that, we will be in contact at the end of every month with the newsletter. If you want to stop or start receiving newsletters, please remove your name from or add your name to this list. Good luck! J Milburn and The ed17 12:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Saint Croix Macaw review.

I have posted my 2 cents to the review page. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:35, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. I have incorporated your suggestions and listed the page at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 05:07, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 3 January 2011

Response to GA review of Cad and the Dandy

Thank you very much for reviewing my GA nomination, Cad and the Dandy. I really appreciate the detailed feedback, and I have endeavoured to address as many of your comments as possible. I have posted a full response on the talk page and hopefully you will be happy with the changes. Do let me know if not, and I will make further amendments. --KorruskiTalk 15:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject United States

Hello, Focus/Archive 1! WikiProject United States, an outreach effort supporting development of United States related articles in Wikipedia, has recently been restarted after a long period of inactivity. As a user who has shown an interest in United States related topics we wanted to invite you to join us in developing content relating to the United States. If you are interested please add your Username and area of interest to the members page here. Thank you!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Ecology & Stork

Hi Focus...I accepted the review job for Stork and hope to see you in Ecology as a reviewer. Thanks.Thompsma (talk) 21:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Winter (dolphin)

The DYK project (nominate) 06:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2011

DYK for List of birds of Pennsylvania

The DYK project (nominate) 06:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive news

Guild of Copy Editors January 2011 backlog elimination drive

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors January 2011 Backlog elimination drive! The drive is halfway over, so here are some mid-drive stats.

Participation
GOCE January 2011 backlog elimination drive progress graphs

So far, 43 people have signed up for this drive. Of these, 25 have participated. If you signed up for the drive but haven't participated yet, it's not too late! Try to copy edit at least a few articles. Remember, if you have rollover words from the last drive, you will lose them if you do not participate in this drive. If you haven't signed up for the drive yet, you can sign up now.

Progress report

We have eliminated two months from the backlog – January and February 2009. One of our goals is to eliminate as many months as possible from the 2009 backlog. Please help us reduce the size of this part of the backlog if you haven't already. Another goal is to reduce the entire backlog by 10%, or by 515 articles. Currently, we have eliminated 375 articles from the queue, so if each participant copy edits four more articles, we will reach that goal.

Thank you for participating in the January 2011 drive. We anticipate it will be another big success!

Your drive coordinators –S Masters (talk), Diannaa (Talk), The UtahraptorTalk to me, and Tea with toast (Talk)

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors at 20:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC).

Thurisind

Hi, Focus. I was just wondering if you are interested in finishing the copy edit on Thurisind, which you had selected from the Requests page? If you want me to, I could finish it. Let me know what you want to do. Thanks. --Diannaa (Talk) 00:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

I forgot about that article; I got interrupted by more urgent matters before I could finish the CE. I'll try to look at the rest of it today or tomorrow, but if you want to do a more thorough read-through I certainly won't stop you. :-) Focus (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
No, go ahead. I just wanted to give you a friendly reminder. Thank you --Diannaa (Talk) 02:25, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 January 2011

Orphaned non-free image File:Omelette -- Dali.jpeg

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⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Omelette -- Dali.jpeg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Online Ambassadors

I saw the quality of your contributions at DYK and clicked on over to your user page and was pretty impressed. Would you be interested in helping with the WP:Online_Ambassadors program? It's really a great opportunity to help university students become Wikipedia contributers. I hope you apply to become an ambassador, Sadads (talk) 16:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 January 2011

WikiCup 2011 January newsletter

We are half way through round one of the WikiCup. Signups are now closed, and we have 129 listed competitors, 64 of whom will make it to round two. Congratulations to The Bushranger (submissions), who, at the time of writing, has a comfortable lead with 228 points, followed by Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions), with 144 points. Four others have over 100 points. Congratulations also go to Greece Yellow Evan (submissions), who scored the first points in the competition, claiming for Talk:Hurricane King/GA1, Principality of Sealand Miyagawa (submissions), who scored the first non-review points in the competition, claiming for Dognapping, and United Kingdom Jarry1250 (submissions) who was the first in the competition to use our new "multiplier" mechanic (explanation), claiming for Grigory Potemkin, a subject covered on numerous Wikipedias. Thanks must also go to Jarry1250 for dealing with all bot work- without you, the competition wouldn't be happening!

A running total of claims can be seen here. However, numerous competitors are yet to score at all- please remember to submit content soon after it is promoted, so that the judges are able to review entries. The number of points that will be needed to reach round two is not clear- everyone needs to get their entries in now to guarantee their places! 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 GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 22:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2011

The Signpost: 7 February 2011

The Signpost: 14 February 2011

The Signpost: 21 February 2011

WikiCup 2011 February newsletter

So begins round two of the WikiCup! We now have eight pools, each with eight random contestants. This round will continue until the end of April, when the top two of each pool, as well as the next 16 highest scorers of those remaining, will make it to round three. Congratulations to The Bushranger (submissions) (first, with 487 points) and Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions) (second, with 459), who stormed the first round. Scotland Casliber (submissions) finished third with 223. Twelve others finished with over 100 points- well done to all of you! The final standings in round one can be seen here. A mere 8 points were required to reach round two; competition will no doubt be much more fierce this round, so be ready for a challenge! A special thanks goes, again, to United Kingdom Jarry1250 (submissions) for dealing with all bot work. This year's bot, as well as running smoothly, is doing some very helpful things that last year's did not. Also, thanks to Bavaria Stone (submissions) for some helpful behind-the-scenes updating and number crunching.

Some news for those who are interested- March will see a GAN backlog elimination drive, which you are still free to join. Organised by WikiProject Good articles, the drive aims to minimise the GAN backlog and offers prizes to those who help out. Of course, you may well be able to claim WikiCup points for the articles you review as part of the drive. Also ongoing is the Great Backlog Drive, looking to work on clearing all of the backlogs on Wikipedia; again, incentives are offered, and the spirit of friendly competition is alive, while helping the encyclopedia is the ultimate aim. Though unrelated to the WikiCup, these may well be of interest to some of you.

Just a reminder of the rules; if you have done significant work on content this year and it is promoted in this round, you may claim for it. Also, anything that was promoted after the end of round one but before the beginning of round two may be claimed for in round two. Details of the rules can be found on this page. For those interested in statistics, a running total of claims can be seen here, and a very interesting table of that information (along with the highest scorers in each category) can be seen here. 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 GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 23:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2011

Talk:Ecology/GA2

Hey. It seems like thompsma has disappeared, so with this review I think there's two options going forward. Either a full review can be conducted of the article and it be summarily failed, or the review can be done and we can put notices on a couple talk/project pages so that this does not have to be failed. I'll leave whichever course of action up to you since you're the reviewer. Wizardman Operation Big Bear 17:01, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Nah, I haven't disappeared; I've just been less active. I'm hesitant to do a full review unless my comments will be adressed, since I don't have a lot of time to spend on wikipedia, and I'd prefer to find someone who will be able to work on the article before I complete the review. Would that be okay? Focus (talk) 20:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi Focus, I just wanted to double check. /GA2 does not appear to have been closed off, but the article has been relisted at WP:GAN as not under review and I've just "signed up" to do /GA3. Are we clashing here? Pyrotec (talk) 20:59, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
If you want to do the review that's fine, but the original nominator has not been active for a few weeks; that was partly the reason the review was re-listed. You might want to drop a note on some wikiproject talk pages to find someone to respond to the review; that or fail the article automatically. Focus (talk) 21:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 7 March 2011

The Signpost: 14 March 2011

The Signpost: 21 March 2011

The Signpost: 28 March 2011

WikiCup 2011 March newsletter

We are half way through round two of the WikiCup, which will end on 28 April. Of the 64 current contestants, 32 will make it through to the next round; the two highest in each pool, and the 16 next highest scorers. At the time of writing, our current overall leader is Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions) with 231 points, who leads Pool H. Poland Piotrus (submissions) (Pool G) also has over 200 points, while 9 others (three of whom are in Pool D) have over 100 points. Remember that certain content (specifically, articles/portals included in at least 20 Wikipedias as of 31 December 2010 or articles which are considered "vital") is worth double points if promoted to good or featured status, or if it appears on the main page in the Did You Know column. There were some articles last round which were eligible for double points, but which were not claimed for. For more details, see Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring.

A running total of claims can be seen here. However, numerous competitors are yet to score at all- please remember to submit content soon after it is promoted, so that the judges are able to review entries. The number of points that will be needed to reach round three is not clear- everyone needs to get their entries in now to guarantee their places! 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 GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 00:56, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 April 2011

The Signpost: 11 April 2011

Reward Claim

Focus — I have completed 50 constructive edits to Antonio Stradivari as per your reward board post, including the addition of 14 or so reliable sources. I am hereby claiming the reward for the task. :) NielsenGW (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Nice! I haven't been on for a while but I just logged in and noticed this; sorry for not responding sooner. Thanks Focus (talk) 03:43, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 April 2011

The Signpost: 25 April 2011

WikiCup 2011 April newsletter

Round 2 of the 2011 WikiCup is over, and the new round will begin on 1 May. Note that any points scored in the interim (that is, for content promoted or reviews completed on 29-30 April) can be claimed in the next round, but please do not start updating your submissions' pages until the next round has begun. Fewer than a quarter of our original contestants remain; 32 enter round 3, and, in two months' time, only 16 will progress to our penultimate round. Scotland Casliber (submissions), who led Pool F, was our round champion, with 411 points, while 7 contestants scored between 200 and 300 points. At the other end of the scale, a score of 41 was high enough to reach round 3; more than five times the score required to reach round 2, and competition will no doubt become tighter now we're approaching the later rounds. Those progressing to round 3 were spread fairly evenly across the pools; 4 progressed from each of pools A, B, E and H, while 3 progressed from both pools C and F. Pools D and G were the most successful; each had 5 contestants advancing.

This round saw our first good topic points this year; congratulations to Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions) and Assyrian people Nergaal (submissions) who also led pool H and pool B respectively. However, there remain content types for which no points have yet been scored; featured sounds, featured portals and featured topics. In addition to prizes for leaderboard positions, the WikiCup awards other prizes; for instance, last year, a prize was awarded to Democratic Republic of the Congo Candlewicke (submissions) (who has been eliminated) for his work on In The News. For this reason, working on more unusual content could be even more rewarding than usual!

Sorry this newsletter is going out a little earlier than expected- there is a busy weekend coming up! A running total of claims can be seen here. 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 GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 19:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 May 2011

GOCE drive newsletter

The Guild of Copy Editors – May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive

The Guild of Copy Editors invite you to participate in the May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive began on May 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on May 31 at 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this backlog elimination drive are to eliminate as many articles as possible from the 2009 backlog and to reduce the overall backlog by 15%. ! NEW ! In an effort to encourage the final elimination of all 2009 articles, we will be tracking them on the leaderboard for this drive.

Awards and barnstars
A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.

We look forward to meeting you on the drive! Your GOCE coordinators: SMasters, Diannaa, Tea with toast, Chaosdruid, and Torchiest

You are receiving a copy of this newsletter as you are a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, or have participated in one of our drives. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add you name here. Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 07:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive newsletter

The Guild of Copy Editors – May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive

The Guild of Copy Editors invite you to participate in the May 2011 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive began on May 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on May 31 at 23:59 (UTC). The goals of this backlog elimination drive are to eliminate as many articles as possible from the 2009 backlog and to reduce the overall backlog by 15%. ! NEW ! In an effort to encourage the final elimination of all 2009 articles, we will be tracking them on the leaderboard for this drive.

Awards and barnstars
A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page.

We look forward to meeting you on the drive! Your GOCE coordinators: SMasters, Diannaa, Tea with toast, Chaosdruid, and Torchiest

You are receiving a copy of this newsletter as you are a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, or have participated in one of our drives. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add you name here. Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 07:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 May 2011

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WikiCup 2011 May newsletter

We're half way through round 3 of the 2011 WikiCup. There are currently 32 remaining in the competition, but only 16 will progress to our penultimate round. Scotland Casliber (submissions), of pool D, is our overall leader with nearly 200 points, while pools A, B and C are led by Texas Racepacket (submissions), Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions) and Saskatchewan Canada Hky (submissions) respectively. The score required to reach the next round is 35, though this will no doubt go up significantly as the round progresses. We have a good number of high scorers, but also a considerable number who are yet to score. Please remember to submit content soon after it is promoted, so that the judges are able to review entries. Also, an important note concerning nominations at featured article candidates: if you are nominating content for which you intend to claim WikiCup points, please make this clear in the nomination statement so that the FAC director and his delegates are aware of the fact.

A running total of claims can be seen here. 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 GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 23:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 June 2011

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The Signpost: 20 June 2011

Non-free files in your user space

Hey there Focus, thank you for your contributions. I am a bot, alerting you that non-free files are not allowed in user or talk space. I removed some files I found on User:Focus/PSU. In the future, please refrain from adding fair-use files to your user-space drafts or your talk page.

  • See a log of files removed today here.

Thank you, -- DASHBot (talk) 05:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 June 2011

WikiCup 2011 June newsletter

We are half way through 2011, and entering the penultimate round of this year's WikiCup; the semi-finals are upon us! Points scored in the interim (29/30 June) may be counted towards next round, but please do not update your submissions' pages until the next round has begun. 16 contestants remain, and all have shown dedication to the project to reach this far. Our round leader was Scotland Casliber (submissions) who, among other things, successfully passed three articles through featured article candidates and claimed an impressive 29 articles at Did You Know, scoring 555 points. Casliber led pool D. Pool A was led by Ohio Wizardman (submissions), claiming points for a featured article, a featured list and seven good article reviews, while pool C was led by Norway Eisfbnore (submissions), who claimed for two good articles, ten articles at Did You Know and four good article reviews. They scored 154 and 118 respectively. Pool B was by far our most competitive pool; six of the eight competitors made it through to round 4, with all of them scoring over 100 points. The pool was led by Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions), who claimed for, among other things, three featured articles and five good articles. In addition to the four pool leaders, 12 others (the four second places, and the 8 next highest overall) make up our final 16. The lowest scorer who reached round 4 scored 76 points; a significant increase on the 41 needed to reach round 3. Eight of our semi-finalists scored at least twice as much as this.

No points were awarded this round for featured pictures, good topics or In the News, and no points have been awarded in the whole competition for featured topics, featured portals or featured sounds. Instead, the highest percentage of points has come from good articles. Featured articles, despite their high point cost, are low in number, and so, overall, share a comparable number of points with Did You Know, which are high in number but low in cost. A comparatively small but still considerable number of points come from featured lists and good article reviews, rounding out this round's overall scores.

We would again like to thank United Kingdom Jarry1250 (submissions) and Bavaria Stone (submissions) for invaluable background work, as well as all of those helping to provide reviews for the articles listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. Please do keep using it, and please do help by providing reviews for the articles listed there. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews generally at GAC, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup.

Two final notes: Firstly, please remember to state your participation in the WikiCup when nominating articles at FAC. Finally, some WikiCup-related statistics can be seen here and here, for those interested, though it appears that neither are completely accurate at this time. 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 receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 23:31, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive invitation

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors

The latest GOCE backlog elimination drive is under way! It began on 1 July and so far 18 people have signed up to help us reduce the number of articles in need of copyediting.

This drive will give a 50% bonus for articles edited from the GOCE requests page. Although we have cleared the backlog of 2009 articles there are still 3,935 articles needing copyediting and any help, no matter how small, would be appreciated.

We are appealing to all GOCE members, and any other editors who wish to participate, to come and help us reduce the number of articles needing copyediting, as well as the backlog of requests. If you have not signed up yet, why not take a look at the current signatories and help us by adding your name and copyediting a few articles. Barnstars will be given to anyone who edits more than 4,000 words, with special awards for the top 5 in the categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words".

>>> Sign-up now <<<

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 08:57, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

GOCE drive invitation

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors

The latest GOCE backlog elimination drive is under way! It began on 1 July and so far 18 people have signed up to help us reduce the number of articles in need of copyediting.

This drive will give a 50% bonus for articles edited from the GOCE requests page. Although we have cleared the backlog of 2009 articles there are still 3,935 articles needing copyediting and any help, no matter how small, would be appreciated.

We are appealing to all GOCE members, and any other editors who wish to participate, to come and help us reduce the number of articles needing copyediting, as well as the backlog of requests. If you have not signed up yet, why not take a look at the current signatories and help us by adding your name and copyediting a few articles. Barnstars will be given to anyone who edits more than 4,000 words, with special awards for the top 5 in the categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words".

>>> Sign-up now <<<

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 08:59, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 July 2011

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WikiCup 2011 July newsletter

We are half way through the penultimate round of this year's WikiCup; there is less than a month to go before we have our final 8. Our pool leaders are New Zealand Adabow (submissions) (Pool A, 189 points) and Russia PresN (submissions) (Pool B, 165 points). The number of points required to reach the next round is not clear at this time; there are some users who still do not have any recorded points. Please remember to update your submissions' pages promptly. In addition, congratulations to PresN, who scored the first featured topic points in the competition for his work on Thatgamecompany related articles. Most points this round generally have, so far, come from good articles, with only one featured article (White-bellied Sea Eagle, from Scotland Casliber (submissions)) and two featured lists (Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story, from PresN and Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album, from Another Believer (submissions)). Points for Did You Know and good article reviews round out the scoring. No points have been awarded for In the News, good topics or featured pictures this round, and no points for featured sounds or portals have been awarded in the entire competition. On an unrelated note, preparation will be beginning soon for next year's WikiCup- watch this space!

There is little else to be said beyond the usual. Please list anything you need reviewing on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews, so others following the WikiCup can help, and please do help if you can by providing reviews for the articles listed there. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews generally at GAC, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup- points are, of course, offered for reviews at GAC. Two final notes: Firstly, please remember to state your participation in the WikiCup when nominating articles at FAC. Finally, some WikiCup-related statistics can be seen here and here. 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 receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 11:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 August 2011

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The Signpost: 15 August 2011

GOCE drive newsletter

Invitation from the Guild of Copy Editors

The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their September 2011 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy editing backlog. The drive will begin on September 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on September 30 at 23:59 (UTC). We will be tracking the number of 2010 articles in the backlog, as we want to copy edit as many of those as possible. Please consider copy editing an article that was tagged in 2010. Barnstars will be given to anyone who edits more than 4,000 words, with special awards for the top 5 in the categories "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words". See you at the drive! – Your drive coordinators: Diannaa, Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02, and SMasters.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 16:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 August 2011

The Signpost: 29 August 2011

WikiCup 2011 July newsletter

The finals are upon us; we're down to the last few. One of the eight remaining contestants will be this year's WikiCup champion! 150 was the score needed to progress to the final; just under double the 76 required to reach round 4, and more than triple the 41 required to reach round 3. Our eight finalists are:

  • Scotland Casliber (submissions), Pool A's winner. Casliber has the highest total score in the competition, with 1528, the bulk of which is made up of 8 featured articles. He has the highest number of total featured articles (8, 1 of which was eligible for double points) and total did you knows (72) of any finalist. Casliber writes mostly on biology, including ornithology, botany and mycology.
  • Russia PresN (submissions), Pool B's winner and the highest scorer this round. PresN is the only finalist who has scored featured topic points, and he has gathered an impressive 330, but most of his points come from his 4 featured articles, one of which scored double. PresN writes mostly on video games and the Hugo Awards.
  • Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions), Pool A's runner-up. Hurricanehink's points are mostly from his 30 good articles, more than any other finalist, and he is also the only finalist to score good topic points. Hurricanehink, as his name suggests, writes mostly on meteorology.
  • Ohio Wizardman (submissions), Pool B's runner-up. Wizardman has completed 86 good article reviews, more than any other finalist, but most of his points come from his 2 featured articles. Wizardman writes mostly on American sport, especially baseball.
  • Principality of Sealand Miyagawa (submissions), the "fastest loser" (Pool A). Miyagawa has written 3 featured lists, one of which was awarded double points, more than any other finalist, but he was awarded points mostly for his 68 did you knows. Miyagawa writes on a variety of topics, including dogs, military history and sport.
  • Canada Resolute (submissions), the second "fastest loser" (Pool B). Most of Resolute's points come from his 9 good articles. He writes mostly on Canadian topics, including ice hockey.
  • Greece Yellow Evan (submissions), who was joint third "fastest loser" (Pool A). Most of Evan's points come from his 10 good articles, and he writes mostly on meteorology.
  • Australia Sp33dyphil (submissions), who was joint third "fastest loser" (Pool B). Most of Phil's points come from his 9 good articles, 4 of which (more than any other finalist) were eligible for double points. He writes mostly on aeronautics.

We say goodbye to our seven other semi-finalists, Another Believer (submissions), Poland Piotrus (submissions), United Kingdom Grandiose (submissions), Bavaria Stone (submissions), Norway Eisfbnore (submissions), Saskatchewan Canada Hky (submissions) and Wisconsin MuZemike (submissions). Everyone still in the competition at this stage has done fantastically well, and contributed greatly to Wikipedia. We're on the home straight now, and we will know our winner in two months.

In other news, preparations for next year's competition have begun with a brainstorming thread. Please, feel free to drop by and share any thoughts you have about how the competition should work next year. Sign ups are not yet open, but will be opened in due course. Watch this space. Further, there has been a discussion about the rule whereby those in the WikiCup must delcare their participation when nominating articles at featured article candidates. This has resulted in a bot being created by new featured article delegate Ucucha (talk · contribs). The bot will leave a message on FAC pages if the nominator is a participant in the WikiCup.

A reminder of the rules: any points scored after August 29 may be claimed for the final round, and please remember to update submission pages promptly. If you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 23:58, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 September 2011

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The Signpost: 26 September 2011


WikiCup 2011 September newsletter

We are on this year's home straight, with less than a month to go until the winner of the 2011 WikiCup will be decided. The fight for first place is currently being contested by Principality of Sealand Miyagawa (submissions), Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions) and Australia Sp33dyphil (submissions), all of whom have over 200 points. This round has already seen multiple featured articles (1991 Atlantic hurricane season from Hurricanehink and Northrop YF-23 from Sp33dyphil) and a double-scoring featured list (Miyagawa's 1948 Summer Olympics medal table). The scores will likely increase far further before the end of the round on October 31 as everyone ups their pace. There is not much more to say- thoughts about next year's competition are welcome on the WikiCup talk page or the scoring talk page, and signups will open once a few things have been sorted out.

If you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 12:34, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 3 October 2011

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The Signpost: 24 October 2011

GOCE drive newsletter

Invitation from the Guild of Copy Editors

The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their November 2011 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on November 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on November 30 at 23:59 (UTC). We will be tracking the number of 2010 articles (and specifically will be targeting the oldest three months), as we want to copy edit as many of these as possible. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits more than 4,000 words, and special awards will be given to the top 5 in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Diannaa, Chaosdruid, The Utahraptor, Slon02, and SMasters.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 01:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

WikiCup 2011 October newsletter

The 2011 WikiCup is now over, and our new champion is Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions), who joins the exclusive club of the previous winners: Dreamafter (2007), jj137 (2008), Durova (2009) and Sturmvogel_66 (2010). The final standings were as follows:

  1. Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions)
  2. Australia Sp33dyphil (submissions)
  3. Greece Yellow Evan (submissions)
  4. Principality of Sealand Miyagawa (submissions)
  5. Ohio Wizardman (submissions)
  6. Scotland Casliber (submissions)
  7. Canada Resolute (submissions)
  8. Russia PresN (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.

No prize was awarded for featured pictures, sounds or portals, as none were claimed throughout the competition. The awards will be handed out over the next few days. Congratulations to all our participants, and especially our winners; we've all had fun, and Wikipedia has benefitted massively from our content work.

Preparation for next year's WikiCup is ongoing. Interested parties are invited to sign up and participate in our straw polls. It's been a pleasure to work with you all this year, and, whoever's taking part in and running the competition in 2012, we hope to see you all in January! J Milburn and The ed17 00:38, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2011

2011 WikiCup participation

Awarded to Focus, who reached round 2 in the 2011 WikiCup.

It was good to have you on board this time around- we hope you enjoyed the competition! In case you are interested, signups for next year are open. Thanks, J Milburn and The ed17 20:50, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 7 November2011

The Signpost: 14 November 2011

MfD nomination of Portal:Baroque period

Portal:Baroque period, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Baroque period and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Baroque period during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 20:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 November 2011

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The Signpost: 05 December 2011

The Signpost: 12 December 2011

The Signpost: 19 December 2011

GOCE drive newsletter

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors

Elections are currently underway for our third tranche of Guild coordinators. The voting period will run for 14 days: 00:01 UTC, 16 December – 23:59 UTC, 31 December. All GOCE members, as well as past participants of any of the Guild's Backlog elimination drives, are eligible to vote. There are five candidates vying for four positions. Your vote really matters! Cast your vote today.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 10:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 December 2011

2012 WikiCup

Hi! As you've previously expressed interest in the competition, I'm just letting you know that the 2012 WikiCup is due to start in less than 24 hours. Signups are open, and will remain so for a few weeks after the beginning of the competition. The competition itself will follow basically the same format as last year, with a few small tweaks to point costs to reflect the opinions of the community. If you're interested in taking part, you're more than welcome, and if you know anyone who might be, please let them know too- the more the merrier! To join, simply add your name to Wikipedia:WikiCup/2012 signups, and we will be in touch. Please feel free to direct any questions to me, or leave a note on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! You are receiving this note as you are listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Please feel free to add or remove yourself. J Milburn (talk) 01:44, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

GOCE 2011 Year-End Report

Guild of Copy Editors 2011 Year-End Report

We have reached the end of the year, and what a year it has been! The Guild of Copy Editors was full of activity, and we achieved numerous important milestones in 2011. Read all about these in the Guild's 2011 Year-End Report.

Highlights
  • Membership grows to 764 editors, an increase of 261
  • Report on coordinators' elections
  • Around 1,000 articles removed through six Backlog elimination drives
  • Guild Plans for 2012
  • Requests page report
  • Sign up for the January 2012 Backlog elimination drive!


Get your copy of the Guild's 2011 Year-End Report here
On behalf of the Guild, we take this opportunity to wish you Season's Greetings and Happy New Year. We look forward to your support in 2012!
– Your 2011 Coordinators: Diannaa (lead), The Utahraptor, and Slon02 and SMasters (emeritus).

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 06:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 January 2012

The Signpost: 09 January 2012

Your input is needed on the SOPA initiative

Hi Focus,

You are receiving this message either because you expressed an opinion about the proposed SOPA blackout before full blackout and soft blackout were adequately differentiated, or because you expressed general support without specifying a preference. Please ensure that your voice is heard by clarifying your position accordingly.

Thank you.

Message delivered as per request on ANI. -- The Helpful Bot 16:30, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2012

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WikiCup 2012 January newsletter

WikiCup 2012 is off to a flying start. At the time of writing, we have 112 contestants; comparable to last year, but slightly fewer than 2010. Signups will remain open for another week, after which time they will be closed for this year. Our currrent far-away leader is Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions), due mostly to his work on a slew of good articles about The X-Files; there remain many such articles waiting to be reviewed at good article candidates. Second place is currently held by Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions), whose points come mostly from good articles about television episodes, although good article reviews, did you knows and an article about a baroness round out the score. In third place is Mauritius Jivesh boodhun (submissions), who has scored 200 points for his work on a single featured article, as well as points for work on others, mostly in the area of pop music. In all, nine users have 100 or more points. However, at the other end of the scale, there are still dozens of participants who are yet to score. Please remember to update your submission pages promptly!

The 64 highest scoring participants will advance to round 2 in a month's time. There, they will be split into eight random groups of eight. The score needed to reach the next round is not at all clear; last year, 8 points guaranteed a place. The year before, 20.

A few participants and their work warrant a mention for achieving "firsts" in this competition.

  • Florida 12george1 (submissions) was the first to score, with his good article review of Illinois v. McArthur.
  • Florida 12george1 (submissions) was also the first to score points for an article, thanks to his work on Hurricane Debby (1982)- now a good article. Tropical storms have featured heavily in the Cup, and good articles currently have a relatively fast turnaround time for reviews.
  • Russia Sp33dyphil (submissions) was the first to score points for a did you know, with Russian submarine K-114 Tula. Military history is another subject which has seen a lot of Cup activity.
  • Russia Sp33dyphil (submissions) is also the first person to successfully claim bonus points. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is now a good article, and was eligible for bonus points because the subject was covered on more than 20 other Wikipedias at the start of the competition. It is fantastic to see bonus points being claimed so early!
  • Byzantine Empire Speciate (submissions) was the first to score points for an In the News entry, with Paedophryne amauensis. The lead image from the article was also used on the main page for a time, and it's certainly eye-catching!
  • Mauritius Jivesh boodhun (submissions) was the first to score points for a featured article, and is, at the moment, the only competitor to claim for one. The article, "Halo" (Beyoncé Knowles song), was also worth double points because of its wide coverage. While this is an article that Jivesh and others have worked on for some time, it is undeniable that he has put considerable work into it this year, pushing it over the edge.

We are yet to see any featured lists, featured topics or good topics, but this is unsurprising; firstly, the nomination processes with each of these can take some time, and, secondly, it can take a considerable amount of time to work content to this level. In a similar vein, we have seen only one featured article. The requirement that content must have been worked on this year to be eligible means that we did not expect to see these at the start of the competition. No points have been claimed for featured portals or pictures, but these are not content types which are often claimed; the former has never made a big impact on the WikiCup, while the latter has not done so since 2009's competition.

A quick rules clarification before the regular notices: If you are concerned that another user is claiming points inappropriately, please contact a judge to take a look at the article. Competitors policing one another can create a bad atmosphere, and may lead to inconsistencies and mistakes. Rest assured that we, the judges, are making an effort to check submissions, but it is possible that we will miss something. On a loosely related note: If you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAC, 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, or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn and The ed17 00:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 February 2012

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The Signpost: 27 February 2012

WikiCup 2012 February newsletter

Round 1 is already over! The 64 highest scorers have progressed to round 2. Our highest scorer was Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions), again thanks mostly to a swathe of good articles on The X-Files. In second place was United Kingdom Tigerboy1966 (submissions), thanks an impressive list of did you knows about racehorses. Both scored over 400 points. Following behind with over 300 points were Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions), Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), Wisconsin Miyagawa (submissions) and Scotland Casliber (submissions). February also saw the competition's first featured list: List of colleges and universities in North Dakota, from Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions). At the other end of the scale, 11 points was enough to secure a place in this round, and some contestants with 10 points made it into the round on a tiebreaker. This is higher than the 8 points that were needed last year, but lower than the 20 points required the year before. The number of points required to progress to round 3 will be significantly higher.

The remaining contestants have been split into 8 pools of 8, named A through H. Round two will finish in two months time on 28 April, when the two highest scorers in each pool, as well as the next 16 highest scorers, will progress to round 3. The pools were entirely random, so while some pools may end up being more competitive than others, this is by chance rather than design.

The judges would like to point out two quick rules reminders. First, any content promoted during the interim period (that is, on or after 27 February) is eligible for points in round 2. Second, any content worked on significantly this year is eligible for points if promoted in this round. On a related note, if you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAC, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which would otherwise be caused by the Cup. 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 receiving 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) 23:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 March 2012

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The Signpost: 26 March 2012

WikiCup 2012 March newsletter

We are over half way through the second round of this year's WikiCup and things are going well! Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions), of Pool B, is our highest overall scorer thanks to his prolific writings on television and film. In second place is Pool H's Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), thanks primarily to work on biological articles, especially in marine biology and herpetology. Third place goes to Pool E's Scotland Casliber (submissions), who also writes primarily on biology (including ornithology and botany) and has already submitted two featured articles this round. Of the 63 contestants remaining, 15 (just under a quarter) have over 100 points this round. However, 25 are yet to score. Please remember to update your submission pages promptly. 32 contestants, the top two from each pool and the 16 next-highest scorers, will advance to round 3.

Congratulations to Vanuatu Matthewedwards (submissions), whose impressive File:Wacht am Rhein map (Opaque).svg became the competition's first featured picture. Also, congratulations to Florida 12george1 (submissions), who claimed good topic points, our first contestant this year to do so, for his work on Wikipedia:Featured topics/1982 Atlantic hurricane season. This leaves featured topics and featured portals as the only sources of points not yet utilised. However, as recent statistics from Wisconsin Miyagawa (submissions) show, no source has yet been utilised this competition to the same extent it has been previously!

It has been observed that the backlogs at good article candidates are building up again. While the points for good article reviews will be remaining constant, any help that can be offered keeping the backlog down would be appreciated. On a related note, if you are concerned that your nomination, be it at good article candidates, a featured process or anywhere else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/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 receiving 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) 23:17, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 16 April 2012

Science lovers wanted!

Science lovers wanted!
Hi! I'm serving as the wikipedian-in-residence at the Smithsonian Institution Archives until June! One of my goals as resident, is to work with Wikipedians and staff to improve content on Wikipedia about people who have collections held in the Archives - most of these are scientists who held roles within the Smithsonian and/or federal government. I thought you might like to participate since you are interested in the sciences! Sign up to participate here and dive into articles needing expansion and creation on our to-do list. Feel free to make a request for images or materials at the request page, and of course, if you share your successes at the outcomes page you will receive the SIA barnstar! Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to your participation! Sarah (talk) 02:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 April 2012

WikiCup 2012 April newsletter

Round 2 of this year's WikiCup is over, and so we are down to our final 32, in what could be called our quarter-finals. The two highest scorers from each pool, as well as the next 16 highest scorers overall, have entered round 3, while 30 participants have been eliminated. Pool B's Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions) remains our top scorer with over 700 points; he continues to gain high numbers of points for his good articles on The X-Files, but also Millennium and other subjects. He has also gained points for a good topic, a featured list, multiple good article reviews and several did you knows. Pool E's Scotland Casliber (submissions) was second, thanks primarily to his biology articles, with Pool H's New York City Muboshgu (submissions) coming in third, with an impressive 46 did you knows, mostly on the subject of baseball. Casliber and Cwmhiraeth both scored over 600 points. Pools E and H proved our most successful, with each seeing 5 members qualify for round 3, while Pools C and D were the least, with each seeing only 3 reach round 3. However, it was Pool G which saw the lowest scoring, with a little under 400 points combined; Pool H, the highest scoring group, saw over triple that score.

65 points was the lowest qualifying score for round 3; significantly higher than the 11 required to enter round 2, and also higher than the 41 required to reach round 3 last year. However, in 2010, 100 points were needed to secure a place in round 3. 16 will progress to round 4. In round 3, 150 points was the 16th highest score, though, statistically, people tend to up their game a little in later rounds. Last year, 76 points secured a place, while in 2010, a massive 250 points were needed. Guessing how many points will be required is not easy. We still have not seen any featured portals or topics this year, but, on the subject of less common content types, a small correction needs to be made to the previous newsletter: File:Wacht am Rhein map (Opaque).svg, our first featured picture, was the work of both Vanuatu Matthewedwards (submissions) and United Kingdom Grandiose (submissions), the latter of whom has also gone on to score with File:Map of the Battle of Guam, 1944.svg. Bonus points also continue to roll in; this round, England Ealdgyth (submissions) earned triple points for her good articles on William the Conqueror and the Middle Ages, Casliber and Cwmhiraeth both earned triple points for their work on Western Jackdaw, now a good article, Michigan Dana Boomer (submissions) earned triple points for her work on lettuce and work by Bavaria Stone (submissions) to ready antimony for good article status earned him triple points. United Kingdom Jarry1250 (submissions) managed to expand Vitus Bering far enough for a did you know, which was also worth triple points. All of these highly important topics featured on 50 or more Wikipedias at the start of the year.

An article on the WikiCup in the Wikimedia Blog, "Improving Wikipedia with friendly competition", was posted at the end of April. This may be of interest to those who are signed up to this newsletter, as well as serving as another way to draw attention to our project. Also, we would again like to thank United Kingdom Jarry1250 (submissions) and Bavaria Stone (submissions), for continued help behind the scenes. As ever, if you are concerned that your nomination, be it 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 receiving 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) 23:09, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

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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 Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), whose points have mostly come from a large number of did you knows on marine biology. Pool B's leader, Conradh na Gaeilge 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. Wisconsin 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 Scotland 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, New York City 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) 23:30, 31 May 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 Minas Gerais igordebraga (submissions), who scored 242 points, missing out on a place in the round by a whisker. However, congratulations to Pool B's Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions), whose television articles have brought him another round victory. Pool A's Wales 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 New York City 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) 10:53, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

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WikiCup 2012 July newsletter

We're approaching the beginning of 2012's final round. Pool A sees Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) as the leader, with 300 points being awarded for the featured article Bivalvia, and Pool B sees Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions) in the lead, with 10 good articles, and over 35 articles eligible for good topic points. Pool A sees New York City Muboshgu (submissions) in second place with a number of articles relating to baseball, while Pool B's Minnesota 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) 22:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

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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. Conradh na Gaeilge 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. Wisconsin 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. Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions) was second in Pool B. Ruby2010 writes primarily on television and film, and scores primarily from good articles.
  4. Scotland 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. Wales 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. New York City 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. Michigan 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. Canada 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: Russia GreatOrangePumpkin (submissions), England Ealdgyth (submissions), England Calvin999 (submissions), Poland Piotrus (submissions), North Carolina Toa Nidhiki05 (submissions), Florida 12george1 (submissions), Cherokee Nation The Bushranger (submissions) and North Macedonia 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) 00:13, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

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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. Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions) currently leads, followed by Canada Sasata (submissions), Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and Scotland 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) 19:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

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WikiCup 2012 October newsletter

The 2012 WikiCup has come to a close; congratulations to Wales 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. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
  2. Canada Sasata (submissions)
  3. Conradh na Gaeilge Grapple X (submissions)
  4. Scotland Casliber (submissions)
  5. New York City Muboshgu (submissions)
  6. Wisconsin Miyagawa (submissions)
  7. Minnesota Ruby2010 (submissions)
  8. Michigan 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.

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) 00:24, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

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Talkback

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Your GA nomination of A Hero's Song

The article A Hero's Song you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:A Hero's Song for things which need to be addressed. Tomcat (7) 16:22, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of A Hero's Song

The article A Hero's Song you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:A Hero's Song for comments about the article. Well done! Tomcat (7) 18:52, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

DYK for A Hero's Song

The DYK project (nominate) 16:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

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)

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. Colorado Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) currently leads, with 358 points. At this stage in 2012, the leader (Irish Citizen Army 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. Florida 12george1 (submissions) was the first competitor to score this year, as he was last year, with a detailed good article review. Some other firsts:

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:

  • United States Ed! (submissions) was the first to score bonus points, with Portland-class cruiser, a good article.
  • Australia 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.
  • Chicago 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 British Empire 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) 00:43, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

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

Other contributors of note include:

Featured topics have still played no part in this year's competition, but once again, a curious contribution has been offered by British Empire 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) 11:42, 1 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 Colorado Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) (2010's winner) leads overall, with poolmate London Miyagawa (submissions) (a finalist in 2011 and 2012) not far behind. Pool F's New South Wales 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 (Australia Hawkeye7 (submissions)), on the European hare (Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions)), on the constellation Circinus (Alaska Keilana (submissions) and New South Wales Casliber (submissions)) and on the Third Epistle of John (Indiana 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)

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If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Theo's Little Bot (error?) 01:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 April newsletter

We are a week into Round 3, but it is off to a flying start, with Republic of Rose Island 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 Wales 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 New South Wales Casliber (submissions) and second place Colorado 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) 16:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Love history & culture? Get involved in WikiProject World Digital Library!

World Digital Library Wikipedia Partnership - We need you!
Hi Focus! I'm the Wikipedian In Residence at the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO. I'm recruiting Wikipedians who are passionate about history & culture to participate in improving Wikipedia using the WDL's vast free online resources. Participants can earn our awesome WDL barnstar and help to disseminate free knowledge from over 100 libraries in 7 different languages. Multilingual editing encouraged!!! But being multilingual is not a necessity to make this project a success. Please sign up to participate here. Thanks for editing Wikipedia and I look forward to working with you! SarahStierch (talk) 14:46, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Good Articles Recruitment Centre

Hello! Now, some of you might have already received a similar message a little while ago regarding the Recruitment Centre, so if you have, there is no need to read the rest of this. This message is directed to users who have reviewed between 12-14 Good article nominations and are not part of WikiProject Good articles (the initial messages I sent out went to only WikiProject members and users that had over 15 reviews).

So for those who haven't heard about the Recruitment Centre yet, you may be wondering why there is a Good article icon with a bunch of stars around it (to the right). The answer? WikiProject Good articles will be launching a Recruitment Centre very soon! The centre will allow all users to be taught how to review Good article nominations by experts just like you! However, in order for the Recruitment Centre to open in the first place, we need some volunteers:

  • Recruiters: The main task of a recruiter is to teach users that have never reviewed a Good article nomination how to review one. To become a recruiter, all you have to do is meet this criteria. Now, one of the most important criteria is that you have at least 15 independent reviews. If you are reading this, you are likely 3 (or less) reviews short, so if you review another couple nominations, you can become a recruiter! If interested, make sure you meet the criteria, read the process and add your name to the list of recruiters. (One of the great things about being a recruiter is that there is no set requirement of what must be taught and when. Instead, all the content found in the process section is a guideline of the main points that should be addressed during a recruitment session...you can also take an entire different approach if you wish!) If you think you will not have the time to recruit any users at this time but are still interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still add your name to the list of recruiters but just fill in the "Status" parameter with "Not Available".

NOTE: If you are interested in becoming a recruiter but do not meet the 15 review requirement, you can still add your name to the list of recruiters and put your status as "Not Available" until you have reviewed enough nominations.

  • Nominators, please read this: If you are not interested in becoming a recruiter, you can still help. In some cases a nominator may have an issue with an "inexperienced" editor (the recruitee) reviewing one of their nominations. To minimize the chances of this happening, if you are fine with a recruitee reviewing one of your nominations under the supervision of the recruiter, please add your name to the list at the bottom of this page. By adding your name to this list, chances are that your nomination will be reviewed more quickly as the recruitee will be asked to choose a nomination from the list of nominators that are OK with them reviewing the article.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to seeing this program bring new reviewers to the Good article community and all the positive things it will bring along.

A message will be sent out to all recruiters regarding the date when the Recruitment Centre will open when it is determined. The message will also contain some further details to clarify things that may be a bit confusing.--Dom497 (talk)

This message was sent out by --EdwardsBot (talk) 21:04, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

File:Boccherini String Quintet in E.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as:

is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 15:49, 11 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. Idaho 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: Wyoming 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 Australia Hawkeye7 (submissions) 102 and 72 points respectively, while 72 points were awarded to Poland 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, New South Wales Casliber (submissions) and Canada 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) 10:09, 1 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 Canada Sasata (submissions) currently leads overall, while Pool B's Colorado 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, London 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 Wales 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 Wyoming 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 Poland Piotrus (submissions), Australia 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) 23:35, 31 July 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. Australia 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. New South Wales 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. Wales 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. Canada 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. Colorado 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. Wyoming 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. London 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. Scotland 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: Poland Piotrus (submissions), Idaho Figureskatingfan (submissions), Ohio ThaddeusB (submissions), Michigan Dana boomer (submissions), Prince Edward Island Status (submissions), United States Ed! (submissions), Florida 12george1 (submissions), England 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)

File:Boccherini String Quintet in E.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as:

is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 15:54, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

File:Boccherini String Quintet in E.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as:

is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 15:54, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

American kestrel

Please check out the talk page and a new possible image. Thoughts? ```Buster Seven Talk 20:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 September newsletter

In 30 days, we will know the identity of our 2013 WikiCup champion. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) currently leads; if that lead is held, she will become the first person to have won the WikiCup twice. Canada Sasata (submissions), Australia Hawkeye7 (submissions)—who has never participated in the competition before—and New South Wales 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) 23:07, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2013 October newsletter

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

  1. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions)
  2. Australia Hawkeye7 (submissions)
  3. Canada Sasata (submissions)
  4. Colorado Sturmvogel_66 (submissions)
  5. New South Wales Casliber (submissions)
  6. Scotland Adam Cuerden (submissions)
  7. London Miyagawa (submissions)
  8. Poland Piotrus (submissions)
  9. Wyoming Ealdgyth (submissions)

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

  • New South Wales Casliber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for four featured articles in round 4, worth 400 points.
  • Colorado Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 20 good articles in round 3, worth 600 points.
  • Portland, Oregon Another Believer (submissions) wins the FL prize, for four featured lists in round 2, worth 180 points.
  • Scotland Adam Cuerden (submissions) wins the FP prize, for 23 featured pictures in round 5, worth 805 point.
  • Republic of Rose Island Sven Manguard (submissions) wins the FPo prize, for 2 featured portals in round 3, worth 70 points.
  • Australia Hawkeye7 (submissions) wins the topic prize, for a 23-article featured topic in round 5, worth 230 points.
  • Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 79 did you know articles in round 5, worth 570 points.
  • Ohio ThaddeusB (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 23 in the news articles in round 4, worth 270 points.
  • United States 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 British Empire The C of E (submissions), for some curious contributions in earlier rounds.
  • Finally, the judges are awarding Wales 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) 00:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

File:Boccherini String Quintet in E.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as:

is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 04:27, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Classical Music, Composition Task Force Revival

Hello, I'm Tal Brenev. I've recently left a message at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Classical music/Compositions task force, in an attempt to revive the WikiProject. I will try to send a message to everyone on the list of participants, so as to get more suggestions and/or ideas. If you would like to participate, leave a message at the WikiProject Talk Page, or on my talk page. Thanks!

---Tal Brenev (talk) 22:42, 23 January 2014 (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 Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions), whose set of 14 featured pictures, the first FPs of the competition, was worth 490 points. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:

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. Smithsonian Institution 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. Oh, better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly... 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. United States 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:

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 Smithsonian Institution 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 Oh, better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly... 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. Rhodesia 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 Oh, better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly... 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 Smithsonian Institution 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 United States ChrisGualtieri (submissions) who has produced a large number of good articles, many, including Falkner Island, on Connecticut-related topics. Other successful participants included Rhodesia Cliftonian (submissions), who saw three articles (including the top-importance Ian Smith) through featured article candidacies, and Washington, D.C. 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 Canada Reid,iain james (submissions), tiger from Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and The Lion King from Minas Gerais Igordebraga (submissions). We also saw our first featured topic points of the competition, awarded to Nepal Czar (submissions) and Indiana 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) 17:57, 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 Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions) was the round's highest scorer, mostly due to a 32 featured pictures, including both scans and photographs. Also from Pool C, Scotland 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 Republic of Rose Island Sven Manguard (submissions) taking Portal:Literature to featured status. The round also saw the first good topic points, thanks to Florida 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 Idaho Figureskatingfan (submissions), a good article on the noted Czech footballer Tomáš Rosický from Bartošovice v Orlických horách Cloudz679 (submissions) and a now-featured video game screenshot, freely released due to the efforts of Republic of Rose Island 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)

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. Smithsonian Institution 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. Scotland 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. Nepal 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. Oh, better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly... 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. Wales 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. Florida 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. Colorado 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. Canada 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. Herm Matty.007 (submissions), Ohio ThaddeusB (submissions), United States WikiRedactor (submissions), Idaho Figureskatingfan (submissions), Greece Yellow Evan (submissions), Portugal Prism (submissions) and Bartošovice v Orlických horách 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 Smithsonian Institution 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 Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) is in second place with a number of high-importance biology articles, including new FA Isopoda and new GA least weasel. Scotland 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)

WikiCup 2014: The results

The 2014 WikiCup champion is Smithsonian Institution 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. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), 2012 and 2013 WikiCup champion, came in second, having written a large number of biology-related articles. Scotland Casliber (submissions), WikiCup finalist every year since 2010, finished in third.

A full list of our prize-winners follows:

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) 22:52, 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) 18:54, 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 Australia 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 Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions) had 500 points in 2014 at the end of round 1, and our very own judge, Colorado 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:

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 India 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 Belarus 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.

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) 16:32, 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 Scotland 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 Philadelphia 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. Belarus 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. Smithsonian Institution 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. Wales 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. Somerset 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. Washington, D.C. 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. Somerset 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. United States 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. England 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 Smithsonian Institution 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. Wales 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. Belarus 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 United States 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:

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) 14:02, 24 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) 14:11, 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) 18:04, 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 Connecticut Cyclonebiskit (submissions), and two each by Denmark MPJ-DK (submissions), Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions), Florida 12george1 (submissions), and New South Wales Cas Liber (submissions). Twenty-one Featured Pictures were claimed, including 17 by There's always time for skeletons 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 Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions). Twenty-nine participants conducted GA reviews with Lancashire 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) 02:39, 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 New South Wales 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) 16:06, 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 New South Wales Cas Liber (submissions) and one by Montana Montanabw (submissions)), four Featured Lists (with three by England Calvin999 (submissions)), and 53 Good Articles (six by Lancashire Worm That Turned (submissions) and five each by Zanzibar Hurricanehink (submissions), Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions), and Denmark MPJ-DK (submissions)). Eleven Featured Pictures were promoted (six by There's always time for skeletons Adam Cuerden (submissions) and five by Smithsonian Institution Godot13 (submissions)). One Featured Portal, Featured Topic and Good Topic were also promoted. The DYK base point total was 1,135. Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) scored 265 base points, while British Empire The C of E (submissions) and Denmark MPJ-DK (submissions) each scored 150 base points. Eleven ITN were promoted and 131 Good Article Reviews were conducted with Denmark MPJ-DK (submissions) completing a staggering 61 reviews. Two contestants, Wales Cwmhiraeth (submissions) and New South Wales 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) 03:00, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Focus/PSU

User:Focus/PSU, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Focus/PSU and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Focus/PSU during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Ricky81682 (talk) 18:49, 17 July 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:

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 – England Calvin999 (submissions) produced 2 FLs in R2
  • Featured Pictures – Adam Cuerden restored 18 images to FP status in R4.
  • Featured Portal – Yakutsk SSTflyer (submissions) produced the only FPO of the Cup in R2.
  • Featured Topic – Connecticut 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 – India Dharmadhyaksha (submissions) and New York City 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)

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:

  • Scotland Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
  • European Union 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,
  • Japan 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.
  • South Australia 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:

  • Scotland 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.
  • Japan 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.
  • South Australia 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 05:38, 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 06:26, 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:

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 – Canada Bloom6132 (submissions) and Japan 1989 (submissions) both produced 2 FLs in R2
  • Featured Pictures – Cascadia SounderBruce (submissions) improved an image to FP status in R5, the only FP this year.
  • Featured Topic – Denmark 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 – India MBlaze Lightning (submissions) had 14 ITN on the main page in R2.
  • Good Article Review – India 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)

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:

  • United States Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
  • Germany FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
  • India 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.
  • United States Ceranthor, India Numerounovedant, Minnesota Carbrera, Netherlands Farang Rak Tham and Romania 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:

  • Scotland Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
  • Republic of Texas Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
  • India Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
  • Cascadia (independence movement) SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
  • United States Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
  • San Francisco Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
  • South Carolina 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)

WikiCup 2018 July newsletter

The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

  • South Carolina Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
  • Scotland Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
  • Cascadia (independence movement) SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington

Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. 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. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.

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), Cwmhiraeth (talk), Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiCup 2018 September newsletter

The fourth round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The eight users who made it to the final round had to score a minimum of 422 points to qualify, with the top score in the round being 4869 points. The leaders in round 4 were:

  • South Carolina Courcelles scored a magnificent 4869 points, with 92 good articles on Olympics-related themes. Courcelles' bonus points alone exceeded the total score of any of the other contestants!
  • Hel, Poland Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.
  • Scotland Cas Liber, with 1066 points, was in third place this round, with two featured articles and a good article, all on natural history topics.
  • Other contestants who qualified for the final round were Marshall Islands Nova Crystallis, Republic of Texas Iazyges, Cascadia (independence movement) SounderBruce, Wales Kosack and United States Ceranthor.

During round four, 6 featured articles and 164 good articles were promoted by WikiCup contestants, 13 articles were included in good topics and 143 good article reviews were performed. There were also 10 "in the news" contributions on the main page and 53 "did you knows". Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

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. 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, and let the best editor 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, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

WikiCup 2019 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 454 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with over 400 points being eliminated, and all but two of the finalists having achieved an FA during the round. Casliber, our 2016 winner, was the highest point-scorer, followed by Enwebb and Lee Vilenski, who are both new to the competition. In fourth place was SounderBruce, a finalist last year. But all those points are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 11 featured articles. In addition, Adam Cuerden scored with 18 FPs, Lee Vilenski led the GA score with 8 GAs while Kosack performed 15 GA reviews. There were around 40 DYKs, 40 GARs and 31 GAs overall during round 4. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

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 Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

WikiCup 2019 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly Adam Cuerden (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were:

  1. Better far to live and die / Under the brave black flag I fly Adam Cuerden (submissions) with 964 points
  2. England Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 899 points
  3. Norfolk Island Casliber (submissions) with 817 points
  4. Wales Kosack (submissions) with 691 points
  5. Washington (state) SounderBruce (submissions) with 388 points
  6. Antarctica Enwebb (submissions) with 146 points
  7. United States Usernameunique (submissions) with 145 points
  8. Indonesia HaEr48 (submissions) with 74 points

All those who reached the final will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field. Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

We have opened a scoring discussion on whether the rules and scoring need adjustment. Please have your say. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2020 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth 14:18, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2020 WikiCup!

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders and improvers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. We are relaxing the rule that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2020 will count; now to be eligible for points in the competition, you must have completed significant work on the content at some time! Any questions on the rules or on anything else connected to the Cup should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 57 contestants qualifying. We have abolished the groups this year, so to qualify for Round 3 you will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

  • New York (state) Epicgenius, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with a featured article, five good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 895 points.
  • England Gog the Mild came next with 464 points, from a featured article, two good articles and a number of reviews, the main theme being naval warfare.
  • United States Raymie was in third place with 419 points, garnered from one good article and an impressive 34 DYKs on radio and TV stations in the United States.
  • Somerset Harrias came next at 414, with a featured article and three good articles, an English civil war battle specialist.
  • Pirate flag CaptainEek was in fifth place with 405 points, mostly garnered from bringing Cactus wren to featured article status.
  • The top ten contestants at the end of Round 1 all scored over 200 points; they also included United States L293D, Venezuela Kingsif, Antarctica Enwebb, England Lee Vilenski and Nepal CAPTAIN MEDUSA. Seven of the top ten contestants in Round 1 are new to the WikiCup.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. In Round 1 there were four featured articles, one featured list and two featured pictures, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. Between them, contestants completed 127 good article reviews, nearly a hundred more than the 43 good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Contestants also claimed for 40 featured article / featured list reviews, and most even remembered to mention their WikiCup participation in their reviews (a requirement).

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

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). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup newsletter correction

There was an error in the WikiCup 2020 March newsletter; United States L293D should not have been included in the list of top ten scorers in Round 1 (they led the list last year), instead, United States Dunkleosteus77 should have been included, having garnered 334 points from five good articles on animals, living or extinct, and various reviews. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 May newsletter

The second round of the 2020 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 75 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top ten contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 186 good articles achieved in total by contestants, and the 355 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

  • New York (state) Epicgenius, with 2333 points from one featured article, forty-five good articles, fourteen DYKs and plenty of bonus points
  • England Gog the Mild, with 1784 points from three featured articles, eight good articles, a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews and lots of bonus points
  • Botswana The Rambling Man, with 1262 points from two featured articles, eight good articles and a hundred good article reviews
  • Somerset Harrias, with 1141 points from two featured articles, three featured lists, ten good articles, nine DYKs and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews
  • England Lee Vilenski with 869 points, Gondor Hog Farm with 801, Venezuela Kingsif with 719, Cascadia (independence movement) SounderBruce with 710, United States Dunkleosteus77 with 608 and Mexico MX with 515.

The rules for featured article reviews have been adjusted; reviews may cover three aspects of the article, content, images and sources, and contestants may receive points for each of these three types of review. Please also remember the requirement to mention the WikiCup when undertaking an FAR for which you intend to claim points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! 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.

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. - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 July newsletter

The third round of the 2020 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it into the fourth round each had at least 353 points (compared to 68 in 2019). It was a highly competitive round, and a number of contestants were eliminated who would have moved on in earlier years. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

  • New York (state) Epicgenius, with one featured article, 28 good articles and 17 DYKs, amassing 1836 points
  • Botswana The Rambling Man , with 1672 points gained from four featured articles and seventeen good articles, plus reviews of a large number of FACs and GAs
  • England Gog the Mild, a first time contestant, with 1540 points, a tally built largely on 4 featured articles and related bonus points.

Between them, contestants managed 14 featured articles, 9 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 152 good articles, 136 DYK entries, 55 ITN entries, 65 featured article candidate reviews and 221 good article reviews. Additionally, Denmark MPJ-DK added 3 items to featured topics and 44 to good topics. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 710 good article reviews, in comparison to 387 good articles submitted for review and promoted. These large numbers are probably linked to a GAN backlog drive in April and May, and the changed patterns of editing during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

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), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with 865 points being required to qualify for the final round, nearly twice as many points as last year. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with 598 and 605 points being eliminated, and all but two of the contestants who reached the final round having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

  • Free Hong Kong Bloom6132, with 1478 points gained mainly from 5 featured lists, 12 DYKs and 63 in the news items;
  • IndonesiaHaEr48 with 1318 points gained mainly from 2 featured articles, 5 good articles and 8 DYKs;
  • England Lee Vilenski with 1201 points mainly gained from 2 featured articles and 10 good articles.

Between them, contestants achieved 14 featured articles, 14 featured lists, 2 featured pictures, 87 good articles, 90 DYK entries, 75 ITN entries, 95 featured article candidate reviews and 81 good article reviews. Congratulations to all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

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. 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. 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), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2020 November newsletter

The 2020 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round going down to the wire. Our new Champion is England Lee Vilenski (submissions), the runner-up last year, who was closely followed by England Gog the Mild (submissions). In the final round, Lee achieved 4 FAs and 30 GAs, mostly on cue sport topics, while Gog achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on important battles and wars, which earned him a high number of bonus points. Botswana The Rambling Man (submissions) was in third place with 4 FAs and 8 GAs on football topics, with New York (state) Epicgenius (submissions) close behind with 19 GAs and 16 DYK's, his interest being the buildings of New York.

The other finalists were Gondor Hog Farm (submissions), Indonesia HaEr48 (submissions), Somerset Harrias (submissions) and Free Hong Kong Bloom6132 (submissions). The final round was very productive, and besides 15 FAs, contestants achieved 75 FAC reviews, 88 GAs and 108 GAN reviews. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

All those who reached the final will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2021 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2021 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. We thank Vanamonde93 and Godot13, who have retired as judges, and we thank them for their past dedication. The judges for the WikiCup this year are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 March newsletter

Round 1 of the competition has finished; it was a high-scoring round with 21 contestants scoring more than 100 points. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 55 contestants qualifying. You will need to finish among the top thirty-two contestants in Round 2 if you are to qualify for Round 3. Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

  • New York (state) Epicgenius led the field with a featured article, nine good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 945 points.
  • Republic of Venice Bloom6132 was close behind with 896 points, largely gained from 71 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
  • Scotland ImaginesTigers, who has been editing Wikipedia for less than a year, was in third place with 711 points, much helped by bringing League of Legends to featured article status, exemplifying how bonus points can boost a contestant's score.
  • Rwanda Amakuru came next with 708 points, Kigali being another featured article that scored maximum bonus points.
  • Ktin, new to the WikiCup, was in fifth place with 523 points, garnered from 15 DYKs and 34 "In the news" items.
  • Botswana The Rambling Man scored 511 points, many from featured article candidate reviews and from football related DYKs.
  • Gog the Mild, last year's runner-up, came next with 498 points, from a featured article and numerous featured article candidate reviews.
  • Hog Farm, at 452, scored for a featured article, four good articles and a number of reviews.
  • United States Le Panini, another newcomer to the WikiCup, scored 438 for a featured article and three good articles.
  • England Lee Vilenski, last year's champion, scored 332 points, from a featured article and various other sport-related topics.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. In Round 1, contestants achieved eight featured articles, three featured lists and one featured picture, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. They completed 97 good article reviews, nearly double the 52 good articles they claimed. Contestants also claimed for 135 featured article and featured list candidate reviews. There is no longer a requirement to mention your WikiCup participation when undertaking these reviews.

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 a good article candidate, a featured process, or something 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. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 May newsletter

The second round of the 2021 WikiCup has now finished; it was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 61 points to advance to Round 3. There were some impressive efforts in the round, with the top eight contestants all scoring more than 400 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 110 good articles achieved in total by contestants, as well as the 216 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in Round 2 were:

  • Botswana The Rambling Man, with 2963 points from three featured articles, 20 featured article reviews, 37 good articles, 73 good article reviews, as well as 22 DYKs.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius, with 1718 points from one featured article, 29 good articles, 16 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
  • Republic of Venice Bloom6132, with 990 points from 13 DYKs and 64 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
  • Hog Farm, with 834 points from two featured articles, five good articles, 14 featured article reviews and 15 good article reviews.
  • England Gog the Mild, with 524 points from two featured articles and four featured article reviews.
  • England Lee Vilenski, with 501 points from one featured article, three good articles, six featured article reviews and 25 good article reviews.
  • Sammi Brie, with 485 points from four good articles, eight good article reviews and 27 DYKs, on US radio and television stations.
  • Ktin, with 436 points from four good articles, seven DYKs and 11 "In the news" items.

Please remember that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of Round 2 but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in Round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (except for at the end of each round, when you must claim them before the cut-off date/time). 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. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:27, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

GAN Backlog Drive - July 2021

Good article nominations | July 2021 Backlog Drive
July 2021 Backlog Drive:
  • This Thursday, July 1, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number, length, and age, of articles reviewed.
  • Interested in taking part? You can sign up here.
Other ways to participate:
You're receiving this message because you have conducted 10+ good article reviews or participated in the March backlog drive.

Click here to opt out of any future messages.

--Usernameunique

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 July newsletter

The third round of the 2021 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 294 points, and our top six scorers all had over 600 points. They were:

  • Botswana The Rambling Man, with 1825 points from 3 featured articles, 44 featured article reviews, 14 good articles, 30 good article reviews and 10 DYKs. In addition, he completed a 34-article good topic on the EFL Championship play-offs.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius, a New York specialist, with 1083 points from 2 featured article reviews, 18 good articles, 30 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
  • Republic of Venice Bloom6132, with 869 points from 11 DYKs, all with bonus points, and 54 "In the news" items, mostly covering people who had recently died.
  • England Gog the Mild, with 817 points from 3 featured articles on historic battles in Europe, 5 featured article reviews and 3 good articles.
  • Hog Farm, with 659 points from 2 featured articles and 2 good articles on American Civil War battles, 18 featured article reviews, 2 good articles, 6 good article reviews and 4 DYKs.
  • Zulu (International Code of Signals) BennyOnTheLoose, a snooker specialist and new to the Cup, with 647 points from a featured article, 2 featured article reviews, 6 good articles, 6 good article reviews and 3 DYKs.

In round three, contestants achieved 19 featured articles, 7 featured lists, 106 featured article reviews, 72 good articles, 1 good topic, 62 good article reviews, 165 DYKs and 96 ITN items. We enter the fourth round with scores reset to zero; 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 (one contestant in round 3 lost out because of this). 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. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:29, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 September newsletter

The fourth round of the competition has finished with over 500 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants, Botswana The Rambling Man and New York (state) Epicgenius, each scoring over 3000 points, and six contestants scoring over 1000. All but one of the finalists achieved one or more FAs during the round, the exception being Republic of Venice Bloom6132 who demonstrated that 61 "in the news" items produces an impressive number of points. Other contestants who made it to the final are Gog the Mild, England Lee Vilenski, Zulu (International Code of Signals) BennyOnTheLoose, Rwanda Amakuru and Hog Farm. However, all their points are now swept away and everyone starts afresh in the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 18 featured articles and 157 good articles. George Floyd mural Bilorv scored for a 25-article good topic on Black Mirror but narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final round. There was enthusiasm for FARs, with 89 being performed, and there were 63 GARs and around 100 DYKs during the round. As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it to the final round; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For other contestants, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

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 Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup 2021 November newsletter

The WikiCup is over for another year and the finalists can relax! Our Champion this year is Botswana The Rambling Man (submissions), who amassed over 5000 points in the final round, achieving 8 featured articles and almost 500 reviews. It was a very competitive round; seven of the finalists achieved over 1000 points in the round (enough to win the 2019 contest), and three scored over 3000 (enough to win the 2020 event). Our 2021 finalists and their scores were:

  1. Botswana The Rambling Man (submissions) with 5072 points
  2. England Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 3276 points
  3. Rwanda Amakuru (submissions) with 3197 points
  4. New York (state) Epicgenius (submissions) with 1611 points
  5. Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1571 points
  6. Zulu (International Code of Signals) BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 1420 points
  7. Hog Farm (submissions) with 1043 points
  8. Republic of Venice Bloom6132 (submissions) with 528 points

All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

If you have views on whether the rules or scoring need adjustment for next year's contest, please comment on the WikiCup talk page. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2022 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. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:55, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

GAN Backlog Drive – January 2022

Good article nominations | January 2022 Backlog Drive
January 2022 Backlog Drive:
  • On New Year's Day, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number and age of articles reviewed.
  • Interested in taking part? You can sign up here.
Other ways to participate:
You're receiving this message because you have conducted 10+ good article reviews or participated in the March backlog drive.

Click here and remove your username from the mailing list to opt out of any future messages.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles at 21:18, 31 December 2021 (UTC).

Welcome to the 2022 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2022 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2022 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2022 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 May newsletter

The second round of the 2022 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 115 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top seven contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 11 featured articles and the 79 good articles achieved in total by contestants.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

  1. New York (state) Epicgenius, with 1264 points from 2 featured article, 4 good articles and 18 DYKs. Epicgenius was a finalist last year but has now withdrawn from the contest as he pursues a new career path.
  2. Christmas Island AryKun, with 1172 points from two featured articles, one good article and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews.
  3. Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132, with 605 points from 44 in the news items and 4 DYKs.
  4. Sammi Brie, with 573 points from 8 GAs and 21 DYKs.
  5. Ealdgyth, with 567 points from 11 GAs and 34 good and featured article reviews.
  6. United States Panini!, with 549 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and several other sources.
  7. England Lee Vilenski, with 545 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and a number of reviews.

The rules for featured and good article reviews require the review to be of sufficient length; brief quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be awarded points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! 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.

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. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the WikiCup. Last year anyone who scored more than zero points moved on to Round 2, but this was not the case this year, and a score of 13 or more was required to proceed. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

  • New York (state) Epicgenius, a finalist last year, who led the field with 1906 points, gained from 32 GAs and 19 DYKs, all on the topic of New York buildings.
  • Christmas Island AryKun, new to the contest, was second with 1588 points, having achieved 2 FAs, 11 GAs and various other submissions, mostly on the subject of birds.
  • Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132, a WikiCup veteran, was in third place with 682 points, garnered from 51 In the news items and several DYKs.
  • Philadelphia GhostRiver was close behind with 679 points, gained from achieving 12 GAs, mostly on ice hockey players, and 35 GARs.
  • United Nations Kavyansh.Singh was in fifth place with 551 points, with an FA, a FL, and many reviews.
  • SounderBruce was next with 454 points, gained from an FA and various other submissions, mostly on United States highways.
  • United Nations Ktin, another WikiCup veteran, was in seventh place with 412 points, mostly gained from In the news items.

These contestants, like all the others who qualified for Round 2, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews of a large number of good articles as the contest ran concurrently with a GAN backlog drive. Well done all! To qualify for Round 3, contestants will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two participants.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Anything that should have been claimed for in Round 1 is no longer eligible for points. 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 Needed.

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. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:07, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

June 2022 Good Article Nominations backlog drive

Good article nominations | June 2022 Backlog Drive
  • On 1 June, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number and age of articles reviewed.
  • Interested in taking part? Sign up here!
You're receiving this message because you have conducted 5+ good article reviews or participated in previous backlog drives.
Click here to opt out of any future messages.

(t · c) buidhe 04:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 July newsletter

The third round of the 2022 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 180 points, which is a lower figure than last year when 294 points were needed to progress to round 4. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

  • Zulu (International Code of Signals) BennyOnTheLoose, with 746 points, a tally built both on snooker and other sports topics, and on more general subjects.
  • Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132, with 683 points, garnered mostly from "In the news" items and related DYKs.
  • Sammi Brie, with 527, from a variety of submissions related to radio and television stations.

Between them contestants achieved 5 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 51 good articles, 149 DYK entries, 68 ITN entries, and 109 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. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article nomination, 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. WikiCup judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:51, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 September newsletter

The fourth round of the WikiCup has now finished. 383 points were required to reach the final, and the new round has got off to a flying start with all finalists already scoring. In round 4, Bloom6132 with 939 points was the highest points-scorer, with a combination of DYKs and In the news items, followed by BennyOnTheLoose, Sammi Brie and Lee Vilenski. The points of all contestants are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

At this stage, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For the remaining competitors, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and importantly, before the deadline on October 31st!

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 Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. The judges are Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:44, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2022 November newsletter

The 2022 WikiCup has drawn to a close with the final round going down to the wire. The 2022 champion is

  • England Lee Vilenski (1752 points), who won in 2020 and was runner up in both 2019 and last year. In the final round he achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on cue sports. He was closely followed by
  • Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132 (1732), who specialised in "In the news" items and DYKs, and who has reached the final round of the Cup for the past three years. Next was
  • Zulu (International Code of Signals) BennyOnTheLoose (1238), another cue sports enthusiast, also interested in songs, followed by
  • New York City Muboshgu (1082), an "In the news" contributor, a seasoned contestant who first took part in the Cup ten years ago. Other finalists were
  • Sammi Brie (930), who scored with a featured article, good articles and DYKs on TV and radio stations,
  • United Nations Kavyansh.Singh (370), who created various articles on famous Americans, including an FA on Louis H. Bean, famed for his prediction of election outcomes. Next was
  • Chicago PCN02WPS (292), who scored with good articles and DYKs on sporting and other topics and
  • Toronto Z1720 (25) who had DYKs on various topics including historic Canadians.

During the WikiCup, contestants achieved 37 featured articles, 349 good articles, 360 featured article reviews, 683 good article reviews and 480 In the news items, so Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors. Well done everyone! All those who reached the final round will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or the overall leader in this field.

  • England Lee Vilenski wins the featured article prize, for a total of 6 FAs during the course of the competition and 3 in the final round.
  • United Nations Kavyansh.Singh wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 2.
  • Adam Cuerden wins the featured picture prize, for 39 FPs during the competition.
  • Toronto Z1720 wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 35 FARs in round 4.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius wins the good article prize, for 32 GAs in round 1.
  • SounderBruce wins the featured topic prize, for 4 FT articles in round 1.
  • England Lee Vilenski wins the good topic prize, for 34 GT articles in round 5.
  • Sammi Brie wins the good article reviewer prize, for 71 GARs overall.
  • Sammi Brie wins the Did you know prize, for 30 DYKs in round 3 and 106 overall.
  • Kingdom of Scotland Bloom6132 wins the In the news prize, for 106 ITNs in round 5 and 289 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January and possible changes to the rules and scoring are being discussed on the discussion page. You are invited to sign up to take part in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to have a good turnout for the 2023 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners and finalists, 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. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Welcome to the 2023 WikiCup!

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2023 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 March newsletter

So ends the first round of the 2023 WikiCup. Everyone with a positive score moved on to Round 2, with 54 contestants qualifying. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

  • Unlimitedlead with 1205 points, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with two featured articles on historical figures and several featured article candidate reviews.
  • New York (state) Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
  • Germany FrB.TG was in third place with 625 points, garnered from a featured article on a filmmaker which qualified for an impressive number of bonus points.
  • United States TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
  • Byzantine Empire Iazyges was in fifth place with 532 points, from two featured articles on classical history.

The top sixteen contestants at the end of Round 1 had all scored over 300 points; these included Berkelland LunaEatsTuna, Thebiguglyalien, Sammi Brie, New England Trainsandotherthings, England Lee Vilenski, Indonesia Juxlos, Unexpectedlydian, Washington (state) SounderBruce, Wales Kosack, BennyOnTheLoose and Chicago PCN02WPS. It was a high-scoring start to the competition.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. The first round finished on February 26. Remember that any content promoted after that date but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

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. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:36, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 May newsletter

The second round of the 2023 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to have scored 60 points to advance into round 3. Our top five scorers in round 2 all included a featured article among their submissions and each scored over 500 points. They were:

Other notable performances were put in by Sammi Brie, Thebiguglyalien, MyCatIsAChonk, Chicago PCN02WPS, and London AirshipJungleman29.

So far contestants have achieved thirteen featured articles between them, one being a joint effort, and forty-nine good articles. The judges are pleased with the thorough reviews 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. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:14, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

You have been removed from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send due to inactivity

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Good article reassessment for Organization of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945)

Organization of the Luftwaffe (1933–1945) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Schierbecker (talk) 20:28, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

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