This is a Wikipedia user talk page. For the fictional wolf of the same name, see Carcharoth.

This is a Wikipedia user talk page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original talk page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Carcharoth.

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-Class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on nuclear weapons in Britain and Nick-D on Australia's war in the Pacific Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at the Kamurun Campaign of 1914–16 Timeline: This month in World War I

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

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

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

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

Your efforts at tidying the article are much appreciated. However, can I request that further images are not added without some discussion? Additional images should only be used if they add something, e.g. the Butler House stones - an excellent addition. The O'Connell picture badly overcrowded the text and was of marginal relevance. There are probably dozens of images that could go into the article, but not at the expense of drowning the text; we need to be careful. Brianboulton ( talk) 17:45, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

PS: Sorry, just seen your posts to the talkpage where you have raised issues relating to images, but my main point remains: we need to be careful what we add. Some of the images you've produced might be used instead, rather than in addition, to those presently in the article. Brianboulton ( talk) 17:51, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I think you are over-reacting to the addition of a single image. You disagreed and removed it - that is fine. As you say, the article talk page is the place to discuss it. I did just notice that it was you who pointed out at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions a problematic image - the images uploaded by that user are problematic and will need to go, but hopefully it will be possible to find suitable replacements. Carcharoth ( talk) 18:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Mail call! Scartol •  Tok 00:52, 18 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Offhand, this looks fairly simple. Most of the worst damage is in the sky. The healing brush will get the spots, the clone stamp (with fuzzy edge) can help with the right side. Of the small part of right side that has significant details, a low-exposure burn tool will help darken parts that have faded. Some cropping will be needed as there is aroundm - well, I'm not great at eyeballing pixel count, but probably around a 10-20 pixel strip on the right with no data; any small intrusions with no data can be reconstructed with clonestamp. To avoid deleting parts of the image, I'd be inclined to try and fill in the chunks after rotation, to avoid deleting parts. I'd try to get a higher resolution scan first, though. One exists. Adam Cuerden ^{( talk)} 10:21, 18 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Experimentally I have replaced the probably dodgy 1927 infobox image with an older (1830) picture. What do you think? This image includes your crop File:Nelson's Pillar plinth detail.jpg, though without the detail. I tried your crop in the text, but it shows rather pallidly and I'm not sure. Your crop of the new entrance, however, looks very well I think – again, your thoughts, please. Brianboulton ( talk) 17:27, 20 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Those changes look good. Thanks for letting me know. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:34, 20 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I've also looked at the Paula Murphy source again. While I still believe there is little new information there, I agree with you that it would be good to cite a high-quality academic source. So I've changed a couple of the Fallon/Kennedy citations to Murphy. I've also added a brief quote from the book, concerning the aesthetics of Kirk's statue. I am still dithering about the article's ending – which poet to sign off with, primarily. We could replace Clarke with Richard Murphy, but I've not read Murphy's poem beyond the quotes in the interview, and I'm a bit worried that the "chiselled voice" might be seen as provocative, an Anglo-Irish sneer. Got to be rather careful, with the centenary in mind. Brianboulton ( talk) 11:46, 21 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Understood. All looks good. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:08, 21 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I have closed the peer review, prior to FAC nomination later this evening. I've had advice that the broken pillar iamage is probably OK, based on this; anyway, it's worth going to FAC with it and seeing how it fares there. I can't see anything else that needs attention. If you want to tweak anything, you've got a few hours to do it before I finalise the nomination.

After a FAC nom I always wait for about 48 hours before engaging with any review comments. I find the break essential if I am to consider comments objectively. You can of course proceed as you wish, but if you're unsure, keep in touch so that we are not responding at cross purposes. Brianboulton ( talk) 17:24, 23 March 2016 (UTC) reply

(true also for Brian who got many of these already and will watch, I guess) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 07:11, 24 April 2016 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-Class content Book review: Hawkeye7 discusses a Panzer general and a "mercenary mum" Op-ed: TomStar81 on the terrible battles of 1916 Timeline: This month in World War I

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australian spies, Nick-D on the German Army Op-ed: TomStar81 on the 1916 Easter Rising Timeline: This month in World War I

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

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

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

Four years ago ...

thoughts
... you were recipient no. 122 of Precious, a prize of QAI!

I just remembered the centenary of the death of Max Reger, - more pictures on my talk, -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 05:51, 13 May 2016 (UTC) reply

The Reger pictures are now stored under my images, preceding a very moving memorial concert which I learned about on my talk, of all places! It became a tombstone in music. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 20:28, 18 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Five years now, and still so valid what I heard you say then: "how letting personal animosity and dislikes get in the way of the bigger picture ... destroys trust". I nominated a Magnificat for FAC, in case of interest. The lead image is from the town where I live, and was just back to be seen after restoration of the church. The church is called Union Church (if you translate it) because a union was possible there of the Lutheran and Reformed Protestants, in 1817, a model for others. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:48, 13 May 2017 (UTC) reply

Neer mind, I try to forget the Magnificat -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 10:18, 10 June 2017 (UTC) reply

Six years now! -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:35, 13 May 2018 (UTC) reply

... and seven, with thanks! I turned to a sad task: improving articles of some - too many - who recently died. On the Main page now: Georg Katzer and Wolfgang Meyer who recorded with Harnoncourt, more here. My tombstones ;) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:24, 13 May 2019 (UTC) reply

... and eight, and see regarding the above, WP:QAI/Recent deaths. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 07:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australian spies (part two) Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at the Battle of Jutland Timeline: Events of World War I

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Australian Imperial Force Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at the Battle of the Somme Timeline: This month in World War I

You may not have seen Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Irregular chess opening Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 15:03, 15 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Hi, thanks for referencing every entry - agree that refimprove's removal is justified. But sources were primary so i tagged it so. Felt it fair to let you know as you'd gone to so much effort on it! Rayman60 ( talk) 17:14, 30 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks for letting me know. Award articles tend to be just lists, really. And the sources will mostly be primary. All the references are doing is confirming that the awards were presented to the people they were presented to, and the most authoritative source there is invariably the awarding institution. Not sure what to do here, as I don't think the tag is justified there. I would suggest asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Awards and prizes, but that is not very active. I will dig around and see if I can find anything more. Failing that, what do you think is best to do here? Carcharoth ( talk) 17:54, 30 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Agreed that sometimes primary sources can be the only way to get an all-encompassing list, however I would also have liked to have seen the list bolstered with independent sources. The lack of such suggests lack of notability so I would hope there are some out there. I added the tag based on a rather objective interpretation of the primary source concept without considering whether such specialised lists may wholly or largely rely upon them. Happy to go with whatever you think is most appropriate. Please do inform me of your thoughts and/or decisions so I know for future too. Rayman60 ( talk) 17:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

I have done some more with the article and removed the tag. I'd like to thank you for making me look at this some more, as there was some early history for this award that is interesting that I had missed. Was a bit stunned to find that one of the early awards was a sculpture that sold at auction recently for £50,000. The descendants of the person awarded that prize must be thanking their lucky stars he got that award and not one of the other ones instead! Carcharoth ( talk) 22:15, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your efforts! It's looking much better now, with more info and a number of decent sources. I wonder if the sentimental value to the descendants of those early prizes exceeds its current monetary value?? Rayman60 ( talk) 22:57, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

No idea. I was going to mention (but forgot in my note above), that I did go and discuss this on another user's talk page. The discussion (so far) is here. I hope the tone of that discussion doesn't come across as too world-weary! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 23:14, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Hey, if you're into awards lists, you might see if anything is wrong with this one I made aeons ago. Thanks and later...  Lingzhi ♦  (talk) 10:26, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

Sorry for the delay in replying. That looks a really nice list, on an obscure topic that deserves the attention you gave it. 2010 isn't aeons ago! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 22:12, 31 July 2016 (UTC) reply

After posting this, I looked at it and noticed that I had completely forgotten that I had put it up for FL years ago. I didn't agree with a damn word the FL reviewers said; it sounded like baloney. When I compared other FL's to that list, the other FL's were skimpy-wimpy horseshit. But whatever. :-) Anyhow, I am not yet fully in the swing of things after a long vacation & major summer housecleaning/gardening etc., and may not be for a few more days, but later on if you ever need anything please do give me a holler. Tks.  Lingzhi ♦  (talk) 01:19, 1 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at disease control and defence satellites Op-ed: TomStar81 on the rise of air power Timeline: This month in World War I

Hello! Your submission of Philip Hepworth at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah ( talk) 21:07, 15 August 2016 (UTC) reply

— Maile ( talk) 00:01, 16 August 2016 (UTC) reply

— Maile ( talk) 00:01, 20 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth, I've just got to the Welch Regiment War Memorial on my list (the links are gradually turning blue!) and was thinking about our earlier conversation about the eight(?) Lutyens cenotaphs. We thought that Norwich's wasn't one of the eight, but several of the NHLE entries list it as one— the entry for Rochdale Cenotaph, for example, says "This [Rochdale] is one of eight cenotaphs in England designed by Lutyens. The earliest to be erected was at Southampton in 1920; the latest at Norwich, in 1927". So we have:

1. Southampton
2. Reading
3. Maidstone
4. Derby
5. Rochdale
6. Whitehall
7. Richmond

Plus Norwich and Cardiff. I think probably the best way to handle it is to follow HE on describing Norwich as one of the eight in England, and treat the Welch Regiment's as a ninth. What do you think? Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:51, 21 August 2016 (UTC) reply

It would be best to try and locate all the entries where English Heritage state this fact (and also the one about the number of regimental memorials), and check they are being consistent. The entry I pointed you to earlier for the Whitehall Cenotaph only refers to 'Other variants on the design', omitting Norwich. It is possible the sources slightly contradict themselves, or are unclear. Maybe also see what other sources say as well.

One point about the Welch Regiment War Memorial which I raised in the earlier conversation is about who unveiled it. I found a source which said it was "unveiled on 11 November 1924 by Major-General Sir Thomas Marden". That source is a history of the Welch Regiment here (from 1952). The original unveiler had been intended to be R. H. K. Butler. There is an asterisk next to the name of Marden on page 13 of that history of the Welch Regiment, so maybe try and get hold of a copy of that source? On the other hand, that history of the Welch Regiment does have a mention of Plumer on page 12, saying he unveiled a memorial to the Regiment in Llandaff Cathedral on 19 July 1924, dedicated by the Lord Bishop of Llandaff (probably Pritchard Hughes) - the Welch Regimental memorial had been dedicated by Ernest Thorold. That history of the regiment is quite clear in distinguishing between the two memorials and ceremonies: on page 12: "There are three regimental memorials to The Fallen of the First World War. Two were unveiled in the year 1924. Firstly, the Regimental Memorial erected to the Memory of All Ranks of All Battalions of The Regiment in Llandaff Cathedral." (The unveiling of this by Lord Plumer is mentioned here). Then on page 13, the Lutyens cenotaph and its unveiling by Marden on 11 November 1924. You source the unveiling by Plumer to Skelton p.167, presumably Lutyens and the Great War? I had a look at my copy of that, and that is what Skelton and Gliddon say. I think they have erred here. Maybe someone should write to them at the Lutyens Trust about that? I checked the reports at the time from The Times and there is a report from 1924 about the Llandaff memorial unveiling (The Welch Regiment. War Memorial Unveiled. The Times (London, England), Monday, Jul 21, 1924; pg. 9; Issue 43709). Apparently Marden was at that unveiling as well. I can't find any report in The Times for the unveiling of the Lutyens cenotaph in Cardiff on 11 November 1924. I can only think Skelton and Gliddon (or their researchers) confused the two memorials. Maybe local newspapers in Cardiff might have a contemporary report on each unveiling? Carcharoth ( talk) 02:05, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

@ HJ Mitchell:, and I'll raise this on the article talk page as well and maybe edit the article to include this source. 10:58, 22 August 2016 (UTC) Have now edited the article to reflect the above. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Hiya Carcharoth, sorry for the late reply—I went to see my grandmother in Coventry for a few days. While I was there I managed to nip down to Rugby and Northampton and across to Leicester to see the Lutyens memorials there and take photos (which I'll upload to Commons in due course). Thanks for your edits to the Welch Regiment memorial. I had a look for a copy of that book, but it seems to be very rare and the only copies on the Internet are going for £100. Anyway, you're probably right about Skelton confusing the various memorials. I'm a member of the Lutyens Trust, so I might drop them an email.

As for the various cenotaphs, I'm now even more confused. The entry for the one in Maidstone says "This is one of eight cenotaphs in England designed by Lutyens [...] The earliest of Lutyens's cenotaphs to be erected was at Southampton, in 1920; the latest was that at Norwich, in 1927". Several other listings use the same phrase but not all do (including Southampton and Whitehall), and that implies there are eight in total, not eight plus Whitehall. But I count nine in England (ten in the UK), with Whitehall: Derby, Manchester, Maidstone, Reading, Rochdale, Southampton, Whitehall, Richmond, Norwich, and Cardiff (note that all ten listings refer make much of the objects being cenotaphs and being designed by Lutyens.). I might email Historic England about that—they've been responsive in the past when I've emailed them with minor errors. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:02, 27 August 2016 (UTC) reply

By the way, it feels like I'm finally making some headway on my little project to document all of Lutyens' war memorials: I count 43 free-standing memorials in the UK (+1 in Ireland), of which all but nine now have articles. The last nine are all war crosses which are all ... exactly the same but completely different! I think I'll send that email to Historic England tomorrow. It's a bank holiday so it'll probably take them a few days to respond but it might be the first thing in their inbox on Tuesday morning. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:58, 28 August 2016 (UTC) reply

@ HJ Mitchell: thanks for the update, and congrats on being nearly there with the Lutyens memorials! Sorry I didn't reply to your earlier message. I have got a bit carried away with a listing of all the MPs, peers and their sons that died in WWI and WWII. See here. It has been interesting seeing the various states of all those articles. The main listings (only considering those with Wikipedia articles here) of 46 entries for WWI and 56 entries for WWII should have been enough, but I then decided to see what could be done with the listings of the sons (and for WWII, brothers and daughters) on the memorials in both Houses for both World Wars. Turns out that the number is around 400... It is remarkable how many scions of the aristocracy fell in the wars (this is not anything new, people have written quite a bit about this) and the many stories associated with that. Carcharoth ( talk) 00:16, 29 August 2016 (UTC) reply

Down to eight now, but alas back to work tonight after a week off and a long weekend. I'll do what I can in the week though. I'd love to see blue links for all 43. Next challenge will be visiting the ones I haven't been to yet, but that could get expensive! I'll have to start thinking about a structure for a general article to link the 43 articles together. It's amazing, and tragic, to see the impact the wars had on society, and you're right that it's equally fascinating that not even the aristocracy came out of it unscathed. Part of my inspiration for this project was the realisation that the wars touched everyone—there's a war memorial in just about every town and village in Britain and in some small villages you can count more names on the war memorial than houses in the village. Speaking of the aristocracy (not, I hasten to clarify, that I'm landed gentry!), the fate of public schoolboys in the world wars is one that interests me. My old school has its own war memorial and my old history teacher has just written a book about the school's ex-pupils and staff in WWI. Gerald Gliddon (Tim Skelton's co-author on Lutyens and the Great War) wrote a book about public schools in WWI but I haven't been able to find a copy at a sensible price and it's not top of m list for the minute. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:20, 29 August 2016 (UTC) reply

@ HJ Mitchell: school memorials are another angle, yes. On my perambulations yesterday, I came across the webpages set up by Winchester College, see an example here (from WWII). Same story with the public schools - the people who were meant to become the next generation of leaders of the civil service, of industry and so on, were given commissions as junior officers and many were killed. Though the numbers of ordinary soldiers killed far outweighed other classes of soldiers in terms of numbers, the mortality rate was, I recall from reading about this some time ago, greatest among the junior officers who were expected to lead the charge over the top. With the aristocracy, it depended on the family. Many had a strong tradition of military service, and were more than willing to serve (and die). It was expected of them, and many were already in the military or in some cases raised and led new battalions from people on their estates. The actual lord/duke/earl might be too old to fight, but would be in uniform and would send his sons to fight. The most powerful and influential families might be able to arrange things a certain way (a safe posting at GCHQ or somewhere else behind the lines), but minor nobles and impoverished aristocrats (there were many of these) would not be able to do this. If the eldest son was killed, and the sons after him, and there were not enough 'spares' (as the younger sons of nobles were often called), then the title would (when the bereaved father later died) go to a sometimes distant relative or go extinct altogether. There was also a tradition in some families that the younger sons would enter the military. You get quite a lot of 4th/5th/6th sons, born to an older father who died before the war, in which case the eldest son became the new lord, and these younger sons (in their 30s and 40s by the time the war starts) are called up and also decimated to some extent. But it does vary a lot and from family to family. Some very sad individual cases, though this is not surprising when dealing with the sheer numbers involved. Nearly every permutation that was possible actually happened. And with that, I need to go to work as well! Carcharoth ( talk) 05:58, 30 August 2016 (UTC) reply

A request for comment is available on protecting user pages by default from edits by anonymous and new users. I am notifying you because you commented on this proposal when it was either in idea or draft form. Funcrunch ( talk) 17:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC) reply

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man.

Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man/Evidence.

Please add your evidence by September 17, 2016, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.

For non-parties who wish to opt out of further notifications for this case please remove yourself from the list held here

For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 10:04, 3 September 2016 (UTC) reply

• The 'cricket' thread has not been handled well by an editor or the clerks (and thanks very much for pointing out that he is a clerk - I missed that entirely), but I have added the evidence to my statement, without the PAs the IP thought fit to include. It's an illuminating example and should be examined without the questionable to-and-fro of deletion. Cheers - Gavin ( talk) 09:08, 9 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Peacemaker67 and Nick-D on Nazi terror and covert warfare Op-ed: Hawkeye7 looks at Australians on the Somme Timeline: This month in World War I

Dragged over from Iridescent's talk page. I think cadency may explain most of the variations you're seeing. After the death of his elder brother John in 1902, William Walrond was the eldest living son and heir apparent, so he differenced his father's arms with a label. If you look carefully at the shield for Neil Primrose, you'll see a crescent at the central point, superimposed over the design, showing that he was Rosebery's second son. Francis McLaren was Aberconway's son, and also has a crescent for difference, in this case at the top of the shield. Choess ( talk) 01:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Many thanks, Choess. I knew I'd have to say whether they were first, second or third sons at some point, and that is the perfect excuse and explains everything. Well, except the colour variants. Would you be able to help with the following (or suggest where to ask)?

• I presume there are no actual differences between 1 and 2?
• Why is 3 only part of the O'Neill shield?
• Why are the flags white for the McLaren shield compared to 4?
• Colours differ slightly for 5 (blue tongues and claws) and Primrose heraldic shield (red tongues and claws and red in the flowery bits.
• Black lions in the Thynne heraldic shield and red lions in 6.

Regarding the cadency, Clive was the eldest son but his father had predeceased him, so no cadence there as I presume the arms passed to him from his father. Walrond was the eldest surviving son, as you say, so the label of three points used (picking a suitable colour, I presume - apparently brisures are exempt from the rule of tincture). Baring was the fourth son, though his father predeceased him and his elder brother was the 5th Baron - the heraldic shield has both a crescent added (probably inherited from a second son inheriting the title at some point) and a martlet (as the fourth son). For Campbell, presumably he was the eldest or only son and his father predeceased him. Crichton-Stuart was a second son, and gets the crescent. Gladstone was an only son, but is given a martlet which I think is not a cadence given to him (WGCG) but a cadence that was inherited from the grandfather (the famous prime minster) who was a fourth son of the 1st Baronet Gladstone. Thynne was a third son, but the second son had died so he took the cadence of a second son. I'm going to stop there (you covered Primrose and McLaren). I see why they often don't bother with cadences... :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 07:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

• Baring arms: yes, those are just two different artistic interpretations of the same blazon.
• Arthur O'Neill: The other quartering, chequy or and gules a chief vair, is the coat of Chichester. O'Neill's grandfather, William O'Neill, 1st Baron O'Neill, was paternally a Chichester but changed his name on inheriting the O'Neill estates. William's great-grandmother Mary was heraldic heiress to her father Henry O'Neill of Shane's Castle (d. 1723) and had already brought the O'Neill quartering into the Chichester family arms.
• Francis McLaren: Debrett's 1985 says "castle triple towered and with flags flying sable". Burke's 1911 says "a triple towered castle sable, masoned argent, flags, windows, and porticullis of the second." So also Burke's 1902. Lodge's Peerage(?) 1907: "a castle triple-turreted sable". If the last represents the original arms, the artist would have some liberty in how to depict the castle, and the other blazons may simply be describing one particular artists' choice.
• Neil Primrose: The blazon in Balfour Paul, "An Ordinary of Arms", says that 2nd & 3rd quarters matriculated by Rosebery in 1823 were Argent a lion rampant double-queued sable, while the 1st & 4th quarters were vert, three primroses within a double tressure flory counter-flory or. Since no color is specified for the lion's tongue, claws, etc., the differences are purely from the artist's interpretation.
• Lord Alexander Thynne: Debrett's of 1878 gives the coat for the 4th Marquess as bearing the lion rampant, tail nowed and erected, gules. So also Fox-Davies Armorial Families 1895. Debrett's 1931 gives the same for 5th Marquess. The black color in the shield must be an artist's error.
• Guy Baring: The crescent is probably there because Lord Northbrook is the senior representative of the descendents of Sir Francis Baring, 1st Baronet, while Lord Ashburton is descended from his second son. However, looking at contemporary peerages and armories, the two families don't seem to have differenced their coats of arms, although the peers themselves had different crests and supporters. So the crescent under the martlet may be a hypercorrection by the heraldic artist. Cracroft's Peerage claims that Ashburton now uses a cross formé fitchée azure as a mark of difference but I can't find any other corroboration at the moment.
• Duncan Frederick Campbell: his father was Archibald Frederick, a barrister in Toronto, and his grandfather was Duncan Campbell. I suspect he was not actually armigerous and that the artist slapped up the undifferenced arms of Campbell on the memorial.
• William Glynne Charles Gladstone: like the Ashburtons, the contemporary Gladstones don't seem to have bothered with marks of cadency, so the added martlet may actually be another hypercorrection by the artist.

Hope this helps, Choess ( talk) 16:00, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

It is very helpful, thanks. I wonder if I should ask what ' armigerous' means? :-) (OK, the link answered that.) Several of those commemorated by heraldic shields were not sons of peers, but some did have that in their ancestry somewhere (e.g. Gladstone). I don't think Bennett-Goldney ( Francis Bennett-Goldney) had any aristocratic ancestry, but he was mayor of Canterbury. The Cawley brothers is an interesting case ( [1]; [2]). Harold Cawley and Oswald Cawley. I can't remember what order they were born in and what order they died in, but Harold died before his father was ennobled (hence was never styled 'The Honorable'), but was commemorated with a heraldic shield, maybe the arms were those of his father's baronetcy, rather than the Barony? No idea what they based the arms for Valentine Fleming on: [3]. Ditto Philip Glazebrook ( [4]). Unlike the others I failed to find arms for, Charles Thomas Mills was the son of a peer ( [5]), but for some reason the arms of the Hillingdon Barons don't seem to be on Commons (I suppose no-one has got round to it yet). The final one ( Willie Redmond) is interesting as well ( [6]), as "He came from a Catholic gentry family of Norman descent long associated with County Wexford" - I am sure the College of Arms had fun with that. If you really want to go to town on this, the three MPs without heraldic shields were Charles Henry Lyell (a son of a baron), Tom Kettle (no relevant ancestry I can find), and John Joseph Esmonde (the family was part of the Baronetage of Ireland). Carcharoth ( talk) 23:33, 13 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Sorry, I've been meaning to answer this for a while. Peers (the nobility) are a subset of the gentry, which more or less corresponds to people entitled to bear arms (well, Round would disagree with Fox-Davies on that, but never mind). You can be an armiger without any family connection to a peer, or anyone with a hereditary title for that matter. Being a peer just means you get some extra knickknacks dispersed around the shield ( supporters and a coronet).

If you look here, there's the blazon of the Fleming arms (without the label for cadency); Robin (not Robert) is Valentine's nephew and was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1980. My guess is that the arms were granted to Robert (d. 1933) at some point on the way up the ladder. Lyell should have been an armiger: the Lyell of Kinnordy coat is described here, "or, a cross azure between four crosses patteé gules within a bordure engrailed of the last", and Charles, the geologist and baronet, bore a differenced version of the same. The Esmonde arms are "ermine, on a chief gules, three mullets or", so John Joseph should have been able to bear those, doubly differenced for cadency. I suspect Kettle was not armigerous but can't be sure. I have no idea why the other two would not have gotten shields, especially in light of Campbell, who was probably not an armiger. Incidentally, there's a somewhat confused explanation of the Redmond arms at Loftus Hall; they seem to arise from a garbled recollection of a Royalist attack on the (then) Redmond Hall, transformed by tradition into a Cromwellian siege. (The attack was conducted by a deputy of Esmonde's ancestor.) Choess ( talk) 01:52, 18 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Many thanks for this. All fascinating. As I've said elsewhere on similar topics, may come back to this after thinking about it for a bit. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:57, 18 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Greetings from the Military history WikiProject! Elections for the Military history WikiProject Coordinators are currently underway, and as a member of the WikiProject you are cordially invited to take part by casting your vote(s) for the candidates on the election page. This year's election will conclude at 23:59 UTC 23 September. For the Coordinators, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 06:00, 16 September 2016 (UTC) reply

A dedicated venue for combined discussion about NPP & AfC where a work group is also proposed has been created. See: Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC -- Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 08:38, 24 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Is this you? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:01, 26 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Most people I know don't accent everything so much, but that is one way to pronounce my username, yes. The important thing is that the 'c' is hard: Kar-khar-roth. Probably meant to be an emphasis on one or other of the syllables, but I forget which. The article: Carcharoth might tell you more (it gives an IPA pronunciation). Way back when, I should have chosen a more sensible name, something like Anfauglir... Carcharoth ( talk) 18:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks, got it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 30 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Hi, I too think that the Quote template should have a date param. I've added one to the sandbox version. Please have a look at it. If it's OK, we can put it in the main template code. -- Ebelular ( talk) 13:37, 27 September 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks for doing this. I am not very good with that sort of technical stuff. Can you try asking someone else? Sorry. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:44, 27 September 2016 (UTC) reply

That's OK. You can still provide valuable feedback about the look of the 'date'. Does this example look OK to you? -- Ebelular ( talk) 08:07, 28 September 2016 (UTC) reply

A proposed decision has been posted in the open The Rambling Man arbitration page. Please review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. If you are not a party, you may opt out of further notifications regarding this case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man/Mass Message List. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 01:36, 2 October 2016 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at recent works Op-ed: TomStar81 on the evolution of the tank Timeline: This month in World War I

Hello, Carcharoth,

I wanted to let you know that there's a discussion about whether First Lebanon War should be deleted. Your comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/First Lebanon War .

If you're new to the process, articles for deletion is a group discussion (not a vote!) that usually lasts seven days. If you need it, there is a guide on how to contribute. Last but not least, you are highly encouraged to continue improving the article; just be sure not to remove the tag about the deletion nomination from the top.

Thanks, Abbottonian ( talk) 04:37, 28 October 2016 (UTC) reply

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

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

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

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

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

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 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at two new books on the US military Interview: A chat with our new project coordinators Review essay: Nick-D discusses recent works on the British and Australian Armies in World War I Op-ed: TomStar81 on the end of the Battle of the Somme Timeline: This month in World War I

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 20:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins). MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at America's nuclear capability at the start of the Cold War Review essay: Hawkeye7 on the Manhatten Project suite of articles Op-ed: TomStar81 discusses leadership changes in World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

Hi there! I see you have been trying to reduce duplication on the editathon page. I don't think this is necessary at this stage as I was trying to compile a list of new articles during the editathon. When I've completed it, there might be a case for handling duplicates but I think it is important at this stage to compile a full list.-- Ipigott ( talk) 14:13, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I am trying to compile a full list as well. What is the difference between 'New or upgraded articles' and 'During the BBC editathon'? I am moving the articles (created on 8 December during the editathon) that I added to the former section, to the new section that you created. I am not removing any entries, just ensuring there is no duplication. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:16, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I appreciate your involvement and it is indeed great to have more than one person helping out. Would it be possible for you to give me about an hour to add all the new women's biographies created on 8 December to the new list? I am going through the [ AlexBot] lists and am about half way through. I had been adding them in the reverse order of creation (i.e. most recent at the top). Once the full list has been completed, we can mark duplicates if you think that is important. In fact it's not as important as you might think as duplicates are eliminated automatically in the WiR metrics.-- Ipigott ( talk) 14:22, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Ah, I hadn't realised you were only part way through. I thought you had left quite a few out. As you are planning to finish the list, I am very happy to leave you to do that (alphabetical order for articles created on that single day might be better ultimately). I don't understand what you mean about WiR metrics. Do you mean the stats generated from the WikiProject tags? That is different to manually created lists like this. Manually created lists shouldn't have duplicates either as that can confuse people. Some articles were also moved from drafts, and some articles were created before and after 8 December. Also, not all will have been tagged with Womeninred. Are you aware of the hashtag used in edit summaries and the search that find around 138 articles? See here (and remove the en filter if you want to see the articles created in other languages). Carcharoth ( talk) 14:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

FWIW, Margaret Read (musician), doesn't appear on the AlexBot list. I also found one that was speedily deleted, see Wanjiru Kihusa. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:36, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

If you would prefer, I will move everything to draft until the list has been completed. It will take me too long to explain everything here but I can assure you everything is very logical. Let me just say that the upper list has been created by people who have expressly contributed to the WiR editathon while the 8 December list is intended to identify all the articles created during the BBC editathon whether or not they were aware of WiR. Most weren't. The WiR metrics are here. All the name should also be included alphabetically for December.-- Ipigott ( talk) 14:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

You should keep using that space. It would be better for me to build my list elsewhere. I would like to include rejected drafts, articles that are still in draft form (one I am still trying to find), speedily deleted articles, and also the nominations made here that may not have been acted on yet but some were and were not explicitly linked from the BBC Live Reporting page (e.g. Mary Tape, Andrea Stark). Carcharoth ( talk) 14:46, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Additional articles possibly not mentioned elsewhere: Siyanda Mohutsiwa, a declined AfC draft: Draft:Monica Dinosaurescu, nomination not created Sirin Hamsho (nominated here), Kathryn McDowell (nomination), Sheema Kirmani (draft). Lucy Ann-Holmes was nominated by Helen Pankhurst in relation to No More Page 3, but no edits made on 8 December to the 'No More Page 3' article, and instead an article was created on Helen Pankhurst herself (from here). Imani Lansiquot or Imani-Lara Lansiquot was nominated but not created. Instagram has a nomination from BBC journalist Emily Maitlis here - no name mentioned, but presumably refers to Rose Cannan, wife of Denis Cannan and whose story is told here. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:48, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks for these additional names. There may be quite a few more. AlexBot is not comprehensive. I apologize for being brief but I wanted to get the list finished to avoid more edit conflicts, etc. I started off rather slowly yesterday as I was editing each of the articles as I went along and adding the names to Wikidata.

You'll be pleased to hear that I've now completed the list on the basis of AlexBot. I think it is an excellent idea of yours to highlight articles requiring attention. In fact nearly all of them need work on categories, de-orphaning, defaultsort, authority control, and of course general copy editing. Generally speaking we have been very lucky more have not been deleted but I expect the page reviewers are catching up. As we are working on a WikiProject page, I don't think duplication is an issue. The lists here are simply to demonstrate the number of articles created through the editathon and provide a basis for further work. Please now feel free to continue work on the list, adding any missing names and, if you wish, specifying what urgent work is required. I very much appreciate your assistance.-- Ipigott ( talk) 15:09, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

No problem. Thanks for coming here to co-ordinate. Another category is articles created in other languages that were already on en-Wikipedia: Shandra Woworuntu. The strange thing there is that it was created in Indonesian, but the cross-wiki links were not updated. I'll do that now. Carcharoth ( talk) 15:11, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

There were quite a few in other languages, no doubt as a result of the BBC's 90 second video on how to edit Wikipedia. There was one poor soul who wrote six articles and a user page in Zulu before everything was deleted. It occurred to me that if you have constructive suggestions for the improvement of our work, you might like to communicate on the Women in Red talk page. I think you'll find some of the recent segments interesting.-- Ipigott ( talk) 16:04, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I was shocked that (allegedly) someone (a male editor, as if that needed highlighting or made a difference) was blocked for 6 months for objecting to the notability of the articles being created on the Turkish Wikipedia. The reporting may have left out other details as to why the editor was really blocked, but then that would be really poor journalism. Carcharoth ( talk) 16:22, 10 December 2016 (UTC) reply

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	For your great efforts to help with checking the women articles done during the editathon. Doing a terrific job! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:05, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I am in the middle of a monster DIY project (essentially I had an extension built and I am doing all the fit-out myself, including moving most of the rest of the walls in the house), so I've not really had time to look into the BBC thing. Is there anything specifically you'd flag as interesting? Anything we could do better? Guy ( Help!) 20:26, 11 December 2016 (UTC) reply

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) reply

Thank you, Carcharoth, for you interesting comments on the AfD for List of female Egyptologists and for your follow-up work on Wikidata. I see that once you got the hang of it you were able to proceed very quickly. Are you aware that thousands of articles about women are being created automatically every week on the Welsh wiki? See details here. It looks to me as if it is time to have a serious review of Wikimedia policy, Wikidata development, and potential problems in this connection. As you must know, while Wikidata contains a great deal of useful information, most of it is unreferenced and relies mainly on the articles in the various Wikimedia languages. If it is to be used as a source for creating articles, even lists, far more attention will need to be given to quality control. For quite some time, I have been suggesting that Wikidata could be used as a source for creating new biographies on the English Wikipedia but I still think that until quality is improved, it should only be used as a source for further development by human editors. Perhaps you could advise on where this discussion could best be continued.-- Ipigott ( talk) 15:14, 26 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Thank you for the follow up here. I have misgivings about the Welsh increase. That is an artefact arising from the fact that the Welsh Wikipedia have so few articles. It is easy to make a difference there, less easy on en-Wikipedia. And if the Welsh Wikipedia translated all the en-Wikipedia articles they are missing into Welsh, the balance in the numbers would (unsurprisingly) be the same as we have here. About Wikidata, I agree that a discussion is needed, but it is really hard to work out where. And also to find people who are single-minded enough and have enough time to work on gathering community consensus over things like this. There are other things I need to do, and I promised myself I wouldn't get distracted! Maybe start with people like Nikkimaria, Risker, Johnpacklambert, Ealdgyth, and discuss at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2? There has been some recent activity on that page. There are some strong opinions around. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:44, 26 December 2016 (UTC) PS. I forgot to mention Fram, see here. For the record, I do support a lot of what Wikidata does. What I don't support is the push to try and make Wikipedia overly dependant on Wikidata. There needs to be proper reversibility and accountability baked into the system. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:52, 26 December 2016 (UTC) reply

PS. To Ipigott and anyone else reading. I am moderately familiar with Wikidata already. Have a look at my contributions over there. There is endless amounts that could be done over there. But it is not clear what is best done by people and what is best left to bots. Sometimes it feels like the same information is being entered twice, once on en-Wikipedia and once on Wikidata. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:56, 26 December 2016 (UTC) reply

• Thanks first of all for all the additional work you have been doing on Wikidata to expand and improve the list. Over the past few months, I have been doing an increasing amount of work on Wikidata too although I found it was very difficult to start with. It became much easier after I installed the gadget described here which allows you to add information to Wikidata without leaving the Wikipedia article you are working on. Compared to Wikipedia, Wikidata is a relatively new development and still requires considerable work but it seems to be coming on very well and can increasingly be used as a useful source of information in connection with the creation of new articles. But as you say, it contains many errors, some created by poor programming of the bots, others simply copied from incorrect details on Wikipedia. I finally decided to vote "Keep" on the list as I think deletion at this stage could have unexpected repercussions. Perhaps there is a more sensible way of dealing with the use of Wikidata lists on the mainspace, for example by including a meaningful introduction or lead and inviting comments on omissions or required correction on the talk page. I also note that Victuallers is interested in discussing the issue further once we have decided on the most appropriate place to do so.-- Ipigott ( talk) 11:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I suspect that we need not discuss how wikidata is used on en:wiki but how en:wiki is used by wikidata! I suspect a new interface will develop - maybe like the reasonator. Victuallers ( talk) 11:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Thanks to both of you for your thoughts. I am going to move on from this now. I will check back, but need to work on some other areas now. Carcharoth ( talk) 12:32, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply

I see you have been working on this further and calling for a Listeria update. As Nikkimaria and others are attempting to work on manual improvements to this and similar lists, I have suggested on Joe Roe's talk page that the Wikidata lists on women should be moved to Women in Red where they could continue to be updated from Wikidata but that the lists on the mainspace should be manually edited until consensus is achieved. Until now, Listeria has only provided updates about once every three weeks.-- Ipigott ( talk) 16:03, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Yes, I continue to get distracted. :-) I am going to do something else for a bit, but will try and keep up with developments over the next few days. Carcharoth ( talk) 16:04, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply

Time is running out to voting for the Military Historian and Newcomer of the year! If you have not yet cast a vote, please consider doing so soon. The voting will end on 31 December at 23:59 UTC, with the presentation of the awards to the winners and runners up to occur on 1 January 2017. For the Military history WikiProject Coordinators, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 05:01, 29 December 2016 (UTC) reply

This message was sent as a courtesy reminder to all active members of the Military History WikiProject.

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at three recent works Op-ed: TomStar81 on a curious episode of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

Hey Carcharoth, do you have access to a scanner or something similar? I'd love to upload the drawing from page 61 of Lutyens and the Great War to use in the York City article but I don't have access to any digitisation equipment. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply

Install the Google Drive app on a phone or tablet (the full standalone app, not just navigating to the Google website); open it up and select "new" (the big blue button with a + sign); select "scan" (the little camera) and bob's your uncle - phone cameras are so over-engineered these days, they have nearly the resolution of professional flatbed scanners. It works best if you set the book on the floor (to ensure it's completely flat) and against a dark background (so the software can spot the edges). ‑  Iridescent 23:24, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply

The image credits at the back of the book say that image (of the initial proposal in 1920 by Lutyens) was provided by York City Council. By all means do what Iridescent suggests, but I'm wary about scanning from actual published books from after 1923, even if the image itself is almost certainly public domain. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply

@ Iridescent: Wow, that works! I'm impressed! But now I have it in my Google Drive as a PDF; how can I get that into a JPEG or something useful?

Carcharoth, if Lutyens held the copyright then it's comfortably in the public domain; if the council did it's more complicated but almost certainly PD in the United States (so could be uploaded locally to enwiki) and very likely so in the UK (which would mean it could be uploaded to Commons). I understand your reservations but I can't imagine anyone claiming to own the copyright by virtue of printing it into a book. The National Portrait Gallery went to considerable effort to create photos of their paintings, for example, and even they ended up arguing the issue to a stalemate in the end. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply

To convert between file types, go to www.zamzar.com, a free service which converts between (virtually) any file types. PDF to PNG is probably the best choice if you plan to use something on Wikipedia, although JPEG, TIFF etc will obviously also all work. ‑  Iridescent 10:20, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply

The design was certainly displayed to the public in 1920, true. I use an online pdf to jpeg converter for the odd one or two conversions (when I can't get single images out of a PD online pdf publication), though if doing a lot you might want an actual piece of software on your device (though I use an online image editor now as well - you can do anything in the cloud these days, though it should be a place that looks 'right'). Not sure why it ended up as a pdf in the first place. Maybe you can adjust that in some settings somewhere. No idea about who retained the copyright, but suggest you mention York City Council in the upload so anyone who wants to can check. Carcharoth ( talk) 02:58, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply

I've asked at c:COM:VPC for some advice on that. In the US, copyright on works for hire expires 95 after publication, but I have no idea if the rule is the same for the UK and can't find anything useful. Ah well, I'm not in a rush. It would be nice to have, but it's not a dealbreaker. By the way, could you have another look at Spalding's FAC when you get a moment? Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply

• Hiya Carcharoth, I was wondering if I could trouble you to explicitly support at the Spalding FAC or if you have some lingering doubts? Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:44, 26 January 2017 (UTC) reply

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. ( T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. ( T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

---

13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if you are interested, but I'm inviting reviews for the article on the Kingdom of Singapura - Wikipedia:Peer review/Kingdom of Singapura/archive1. The reason is mainly because I believe it needs to be overhauled, but it may not be easy because of the extensive amount that's written already, therefore I would like suggestions (or even edits) that can improve it. The main problem is the uncertainty in the history and what appears to be skewing of the narrative (some points raised in Talk:Kingdom of Singapura), and historians believe that the many of the kings could be mythical. None on the list of reviewers seems to be interested in this particular area, but I'm hoping the subject might just be within the ambit of something "obscure" to interest you. Hzh ( talk) 16:11, 1 February 2017 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at submarine warfare in World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

G'day all, please be advised that throughout March 2017 the Military history Wikiproject is running its March Madness drive. This is a backlog drive that is focused on several key areas:

• tagging and assessing articles that fall within the project's scope
• updating the project's currently listed A-class articles to ensure their ongoing compliance with the listed criteria
• creating articles that are listed as "requested" on the project's various task force pages or other lists of missing articles.

As with past Milhist drives, there are points awarded for working on articles in the targeted areas, with barnstars being awarded at the end for different levels of achievement.

The drive is open to all Wikipedians, not just members of the Military history project, although only work on articles that fall (broadly) within the military history scope will be considered eligible. More information can be found here for those that are interested, and members can sign up as participants at that page also.

The drive starts at 00:01 UTC on 1 March and runs until 23:59 UTC on 31 March 2017, so please sign up now.

For the Milhist co-ordinators. Regards, AustralianRupert ( talk) & MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 07:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC) reply

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

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

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at works on two facets of US military power Op-ed: TomStar81 on the Russian Revolution Timeline: This month in World War I

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at air power and nuclear weaponry Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on Australia's part in the advance on the Hindenburg Line Timeline: This month in World War I

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

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

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Strategic Air Command doctrine Op-ed: Tomstar81 looks at a little-known aspect of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at the Battle of Kokoda and US defence acquisition in the 1960s Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on the Battle of Messines Timeline: This month in World War I

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

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at planning for the unthinkable Op-ed: TomStar81 on Russia's Provisional Government in World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

Hi I am new to Wikipedia, so forgive me if this is not the correct place to ask for help. I recently created an article for David Benac, but it needs reviewing. Any help would certainly be appreciated. It is wonderful that you offer your time. Thanks Nicool9 ( talk) 22:07, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Nicool9 reply

Hi. I saw your name in peer review volunteer list. Can you please review the Murshid Quli Khan article at Wikipedia:Peer review/Murshid Quli Khan/archive2. RRD ( talk) 19:23, 3 August 2017 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on the Battle of Messines and recent Australian Army leadership; Nick-D on South African armour Op-ed: Nick-D talks photography Timeline: This month in World War I

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at two recent releases Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on ANZACs in the Third Ypres Offensive Timeline: This month in World War I

Greetings from the Military history WikiProject! Elections for the Military history WikiProject Coordinators are currently underway. As a member of the WikiProject you are cordially invited to take part by casting your vote(s) for the candidates on the election page. This year's election will conclude at 23:59 UTC 29 September. Thank you for your time. For the current tranche of Coordinators, AustralianRupert ( talk) 10:39, 21 September 2017 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at Australian involvement on the Western Front in 1918 and in post-war New Guinea Op-ed: TomStar81 on the October Revolution Timeline: This month in World War I

Hey Carcharoth, long time no see. Hope you're well. I have an article that might be up your street and I'd really appreciate another pair of eyes on it before I decide what to do with it. It's the Equestrian statue of Edward Horner in Mells (Raymond Asquith's brother in law). It's a bit different from my previous articles so I'd love to hear any thoughts you (or your stalkers) had on it. Is there anything you think I should do differently, anything that's there that shouldn't be or anything that looks like it's missing, does the structure seem sensible? Thanks! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC) reply

@ HJ Mitchell: Hey, thanks for asking about this. I'd not seen that memorial before - it is fascinating! Couple of thoughts: There is a site called " The Returned collating information on returned grave markers. They might have more on the grave marker placed on the monument, though maybe all they have is what is here. You should really try and include a link to Horner's CWGC record, which gives his full name, the (moving) inscription on his grave ("SMALL TIME, BUT IN THAT SMALL MOST GREATLY LIVED THIS STAR OF ENGLAND"). The War Graves Photographic Project will have a photo of his grave. You have details of Edward Horner himself, but maybe you could try and include more about his parents? The mother has an ODNB entry you use as a reference - does the father also have an entry? Maybe see what other memorials they erected to his memory, to give some wider context. These aristocratic families often erected more than one such memorial. And maybe say more about the family reaction to the death - there are sometimes reports in the newspapers of memorial services. About the location of the statue, are there photos of it from early on (e.g. 1920s), and in the original location before it was moved? It was installed in 1920 - when was it commissioned? May look again later. Thanks again for asking, really nice bit of WWI memorial history. Carcharoth ( talk) 22:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Thanks a lot. That's some useful advice. I'll look at incorporating some of it into the article. I'm surprised you didn't know about it, but glad you found it interesting. I don't think there are any other memorials to him besides his grave but I'll look into it. Disappointingly, there's very little available on his father, which is odd because he was a KCVO. I might put together an article on Lady Frances though; there's enough to go from the ODNB. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:44, 16 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Sorry, I could not resist jumping in on this one, as I've been working on something for a while, so now we have your Sir John Francis Fortescue Horner and my Lady Frances Horner. Do feel free to hack away. Theramin ( talk) 23:55, 18 October 2017 (UTC) reply

The more the merrier! Glad I do have some others reading my talk page! :-) @ HJ Mitchell: @ Theramin: Have you both seen the picture here of Lady Horner with Lutyens. Might be trying to find out if that is available under an appropriate license, though it might not be. On slightly related topics, regarding the memorials erected in Amiens Cathedral and Cambrai Cathedral, I managed to take photos of most of the WWI memorials in Amiens Cathedral while there, including the Raymond Asquith one (see File:Memorial tablet to Raymond Asquith in Amiens Cathedral.JPG). If anyone does get to Cambrai Cathedral (or knows someone going there), do drop me a line as there are a number of memorials there that it would be good to get photos of if that is possible. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:03, 20 October 2017 (UTC) reply

@ Theramin: Hey, saves me a job. I'll go write something else! I wonder if I can squeeze enough out of the sources for an FA on the Lancashire Fusiliers War Memorial. Btw, Bury's own war memorial needs an article.

I'm hoping to take a trip to Mells next weekend, not least to get some better photos of the war memorial. I was hoping to get to the Western Front this year but it didn't quite happen and the weather is too unreliable for outdoor photography now; with a little luck I might get there next spring. Wikimedia UK have nicely offered to put some money towards the trip, presumably because it will produce nice easily measurable results and they can complete the WMF's box-ticking exercises, but win-win. Amiens and Cambrai cathedrals are high on my hitlist, and I'm not leaving without seeing Etaples, Thiepval, and a few of Lutyens' other major works and a few by other architects (Vim Ridge, the Menin Gate, Tyne Cot, etc). I'm thinking of doing it in roughly a line from Etaples to Bruges (Bruges for beer, rather than war memorials!). What else is on your list? You'd be welcome to tag along if you wanted; I think the 'plan' (broadly construed!) is that Thryduulf is going to hire a car and drive me around for a few days and I'm going to pick up the bill. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 06:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC) reply

I am sorely tempted, but it might be difficult as there is a lot going on and I don't have a lot of time for Wikipedia-related stuff at the moment (maybe email me further details?). I'd be very happy to offer advice, or point you to people who know even more about the area. There are any number of ways of touring that area, and once you've gone once you'll want to keep going back! On that last trip, I picked up a book giving detailed maps for cycling around cemeteries somewhere in that area. What else is on the list? Everything! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 22:35, 21 October 2017 (UTC) reply

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on late 1917 naval warfare Timeline: This month in World War I

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) reply

The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (led by the Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) is conducting a survey for en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

• https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be mailed to you via Special:Emailuser.

• Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 18:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply

As we approach the end of the year, the Military History project is looking to recognise editors who have made a real difference. Each year we do this by bestowing two awards: the Military Historian of the Year and the Military History Newcomer of the Year. The co-ordinators invite all project members to get involved by nominating any editor they feel merits recognition for their contributions to the project. Nominations for both awards are open between 00:01 on 2 December 2017 and 23:59 on 15 December 2017. After this, a 14-day voting period will follow commencing at 00:01 on 16 December 2017. Nominations and voting will take place on the main project talkpage: here and here. Thank you for your time. For the co-ordinators, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 08:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on the Halifax Explosion of 1917 Timeline: This month in World War I

Greetings,

"Military history" is one of the most important subjects when speak of sum of all human knowledge. To support contributors interested in the area over various language Wikipedias, we intend to form a user group. It also provides a platform to share the best practices between military historians, and various military related projects on Wikipedias. An initial discussion was has been done between the coordinators and members of WikiProject Military History on English Wikipedia. Now this discussion has been taken to Meta-Wiki. Contributors intrested in the area of military history are requested to share their feedback and give suggestions at Talk:Discussion to incubate a user group for Wikipedia Military Historians.

MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 11:29, 21 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth, hope all's well. Working together with you and Awickert on David A. Johnston was one of the highlights of my content work on Wikipedia, so I'd be happy to get your feedback on the Harry R. Truman article. I'm hoping to bring it to FAC, but I want to make sure it's comprehensive and well-written first. ceran thor 21:48, 1 January 2018 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the note. I'll try and take a look at some point soon (can't promise it will be very soon). Carcharoth ( talk) 16:17, 3 January 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Ceranthor: - "very soon" turned out to be now! :-) I have only one immediate suggestion (the article looks in very good shape), and that is to include something about his grave (or rather the memorial that was presumably erected by his family), as mentioned on the talk page, see here. Will need verifying with sources for location and date erected (it was called 'Harry R. Truman Memorial Park' in Castle Rock, but according to this was renamed, and the article corrected is a reliable source: [7], and a bit more on the history of that location here). A picture of that headstone would be nice. Maybe include the epitaph on there from his sister as well. And maybe try and find a free image of the lodge? Carcharoth ( talk) 17:07, 3 January 2018 (UTC) reply

All fantastic ideas. I'll get right on them as I've found myself with an hour free. ceran thor 17:10, 3 January 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Ceranthor: - last few tidbits I found: [8] (might have some more details) and [9]. The latter is an obituary of the sister (Geraldine Whiting) who died in 1987 and spent time with him at Mount Helen's. There is a video on YouTube of coverage of her laying a wreath at the mountain. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:17, 3 January 2018 (UTC) reply

All neat stuff. I've been trying to find a free image (or Flickr attributable image) but have came up short for the memorial. ceran thor 17:22, 3 January 2018 (UTC) reply

		Military history reviewers' award
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons for reviewing two Milhist articles at PR, GAN, ACR or FAC during the period October to December 2017. Thank you for supporting Wikipedia's quality content processes. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 05:01, 3 January 2018 (UTC) reply Keep track of upcoming reviews. Just copy and paste {{ WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user space

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at tropical medicine and Operation Market Garden Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on US Army doctrine in World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

Hello! I've ordered copies of Munnings' autobiography and At Duty's Call (both were quite reasonable on Amazon Marketplace). Are there any others you think I should get hold of? Real life has unexpectedly heated up with a combination of work and lack of sleep and a very dear friend needing a lot of support so I haven't had as much time for Wikipedia as I'd hoped. I might get an opportunity to make some progress with the Horner FAC in the middle of the week and next weekend and hopefully normal service or something closely resembling it will be resumed in a couple of weeks. I wonder if Munnings' book will tell us how he knew Lutyens; it seems to be a recurring theme with Lutyens that there's little record of how he met his collaborators and contacts (a problem I found when doing he RND's memorial; I don't think there's even a record of how he and Fabian Ware first met, as I recall the first known letter between them suggested they were already familiar). He certainly knew how to make useful and influential friends! Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:04, 28 January 2018 (UTC) reply

@ HJ Mitchell: no problem. Life is about to get busy for me as well. I will keep an eye out and help and reply where I can. Lutyens did get around a lot! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 20:14, 28 January 2018 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Napoleonic Wars and Hawkeye7 on World War II Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on generalship in 1918 Timeline: This month in World War I

I tried to reply to your comment about how the radio buttons for maps are introduced, but it was removed by another editor without comment. So there you are, in case that is helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.198.143 ( talk) 10:45, 15 February 2018 (UTC) reply

It is helpful. Thank you. Carcharoth ( talk) 11:15, 15 February 2018 (UTC) reply

A classic undersourced article. He was in the RAMC in WWI, which is why I thought you might have better sources. I have added some of what I have been able to make out, on the Talk page: much more a medical man from a medical family than a politician. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:29, 20 February 2018 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Have commented there, though not much to add. Carcharoth ( talk) 13:27, 21 February 2018 (UTC) reply

I've now got a book from the library, so can at least improve what's there. Charles Matthews ( talk) 12:44, 24 February 2018 (UTC) reply

Hello Carcharoth - here are the images related to GFF Corbet. His CWGC headstone as noted is in the civilian cemetery at Brookwood in the private grave noted in the CWGC documents. Interestingly the CWGC grave reference has no bearing on location in the civilian cemetery and a separate search of Borough records is needed! Hope these are helpful. They are fairly large files as it's then easier to read the inscriptions when viewed at 100%. WyrdLight ( talk) 18:46, 27 February 2018 (UTC) reply

WyrdLight, many thanks for those! I am glad I didn't try and find the graves. Is it easy to consult the borough records? Some boroughs make access easy, others are harder to look up. Carcharoth ( talk) 17:13, 1 March 2018 (UTC) reply

• 
  Brookwood Cemetery UK - Corbet family plot - inscription for Frederick Hugh MacKenzie Corbet
• 
  Brookwood Cemetery UK - Corbet family plot with inscription for Reginald Vincent Campbell Corbet killed at Gallipoli April 1915 and George Frederick Francis Corbet wounded at Ypres 1916 & who also has CWGC headstone (see related image)
• 
  Brookwood Cemetery UK - Corbet family plot with inscription for John Hugh Corbet who died of wounds at Douai January 1918
• 
  Brookwood Cemetery UK - Corbet family plot with CWGC headstone of Second Lieutenant GFF Corbet interred with relatives by family request
• 
  Brookwood Cemetery UK - Corbet family plot - showing CWGC headstone for GFF Corbet at the foot of the Corbet family plot

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

Our top scorers in round 1 were:

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at a work by Daniel Ellsberg Op-ed: TomStar81 on the 1918 flu pandemic Timeline: This month in World War I

G'day all, please be advised that throughout April 2018 the Military history Wikiproject is running its annual backlog elimination drive. This will focus on several key areas:

• tagging and assessing articles that fall within the project's scope
• adding or improving listed resources on Milhist's task force pages
• updating the open tasks template on Milhist's task force pages
• creating articles that are listed as "requested" on the project's various lists of missing articles.

As with past Milhist drives, there are points awarded for working on articles in the targeted areas, with barnstars being awarded at the end for different levels of achievement.

The drive is open to all Wikipedians, not just members of the Military history project, although only work on articles that fall (broadly) within the scope of military history will be considered eligible. This year, the Military history project would like to extend a specific welcome to members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, and we would like to encourage all participants to consider working on helping to improve our coverage of women in the military. This is not the sole focus of the edit-a-thon, though, and there are aspects that hopefully will appeal to pretty much everyone.

The drive starts at 00:01 UTC on 1 April and runs until 23:59 UTC on 30 April 2018. Those interested in participating can sign up here.

For the Milhist co-ordinators, AustralianRupert and MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 10:53, 27 March 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey Carcharoth, apologies for disappearing off the face of the Earth for the last couple of months. Thanks very much for all you did helping the Horner FAC to its conclusion; you deserve a co-nominator credit for your hard work. I'm (sort of) back and looking at picking up the war memorials again though time is a little limited. I was looking at the RND memorial and see it passed its ACR (again partly thanks to you covering for me!). I was wondering if you felt all your comments had been addressed there and whether you got chance to do anything with the historic photos? There's probably room for another couple of photos in the article with careful placement. On re-reading, the only thing that leaps out at me is that we should probably mention that Rupert Brooke's mother was at the ceremony (seems like quite an important detail given how much coverage he and his work get in the article). All the best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Addendum: I've added a mention of the mother. There are a couple of photos on that blog that could be useful if they could be cleaned up and we could establish their copyright status: the one of the memorial under construction with the scaffolding round it and the one of Churchill and Hamilton at the unveiling. I'd hope to take it to FAC at some point in the next couple of weeks; if you want a co-nom credit I'd be happy to oblige. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Thanks Harry. No need for co-noms for these. I'll try and help more later. Not much time at the moment, though good to see you back (it was indeed quite a while!). Carcharoth ( talk) 09:40, 4 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the bombing of Darwin; recent books by female military historians Review essay: K.e.coffman on Wikipedia's representations of the Nazi German military Op-ed: TomStar81 on the Red Baron Timeline: This month in World War I

I'm working on a study of political motivations and how they affect editing. I'd like to ask you to take a survey. The survey should take no more than 1-2 minutes. Your survey responses will be kept private. Our project is documented at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics.

Your survey Link: http://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9S3JByWf57fXEkR?Q_DL=56np5HpEZWkMlr7_9S3JByWf57fXEkR_MLRP_6KjSjpLoe8kdpVr&Q_CHL=gl

I am asking you to participate in this study because you are a frequent editor of pages on Wikipedia that are of political interest. We would like to learn about your experiences in dealing with editors of different political orientations.

Sincere thanks for your help! Porteclefs ( talk) 20:59, 9 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Category:Middle-earth theology, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Marcocapelle ( talk) 05:44, 11 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey, I was wondering if you would take a look at a new tool I've created.

It's called SearchSuite.

I hope you find it useful. All feedback welcome.     — The Transhumanist    05:53, 12 April 2018 (UTC) reply

		Military history service award
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons for reviewing a total of three Milhist articles at PR, GAN, ACR or FAC during the period January to March 2018. Thank you for supporting Wikipedia's quality content processes. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga ( talk • mail) 09:35, 20 April 2018 (UTC) reply

The Portals WikiProject has been rebooted.

You are invited to join, and participate in the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system and all the portals in it.

There are sections on the WikiProject page dedicated to tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too), and areas on the talk page for discussing the improvement and automation of the various features of portals.

Many complaints have been lodged in the RfC to delete all portals, pointing out their various problems. They say that many portals are not maintained, or have fallen out of date, are useless, etc. Many of the !votes indicate that the editors who posted them simply don't believe in the potential of portals anymore.

It's time to change all that. Let's give them reasons to believe in portals, by revitalizing them.

The best response to a deletion nomination is to fix the page that was nominated. The further underway the effort is to improve portals by the time the RfC has run its course, the more of the reasons against portals will no longer apply. RfCs typically run 30 days. There are 19 days left in this one. Let's see how many portals we can update and improve before the RfC is closed, and beyond.

A healthy WikiProject dedicated to supporting and maintaining portals may be the strongest argument of all not to delete.

We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.

Let's do this.

See ya at the WikiProject!

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   10:19, 21 April 2018 (UTC) reply

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

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at coalitions and logistics in World War II, and Nick-D at Australia's frontier wars Timeline: This month in World War I

The RfC discussion to eliminate portals was closed May 12, with the statement "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." This was made possible because you and others came to the rescue. Thank you for speaking up.

By the way, the current issue of the Signpost features an article with interviews about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

I'd also like to let you know that the Portals WikiProject is working hard to make sure your support of portals was not in vain. Toward that end, we have been working diligently to innovate portals, while building, updating, upgrading, and maintaining them. The project has grown to 80 members so far, and has become a beehive of activity.

Our two main goals at this time are to automate portals (in terms of refreshing, rotating, and selecting content), and to develop a one-page model in order to make obsolete and eliminate most of the 150,000 subpages from the portal namespace by migrating their functions to the portal base pages, using technologies such as selective transclusion. Please feel free to join in on any of the many threads of development at the WikiProject's talk page, or just stop by to see how we are doing. If you have any questions about portals or portal development, that is the best place to ask them.

If you would like to keep abreast of developments on portals, keep in mind that the project's members receive updates on their talk pages. The updates are also posted here, for your convenience.

Again, we can't thank you enough for your support of portals, and we hope to make you proud of your decision. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:51, 25 May 2018 (UTC) reply

P.S.: if you reply to this message, please {{ ping}} me. Thank you. -TT

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on a supergun of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

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:

• Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
• 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) reply

Hello from California! I found your name listed at Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in London and I have a photo request I hope you find interesting. I'm currently in the process of revamping the article for Rock Bottom, the 1974 album by Robert Wyatt. Prior to the album's recording, Wyatt famously fell from a fourth-story window during a party and became paralyzed from the waist down. The building was Vale Court in Maida Vale, a mansion block at A5 and Hall Road, fairly close to the Maida Vale tube station. You can get a a good look at it on Google Maps.

I've searched up and down, but I can't find any free photos of Vale Court. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could take a photo of this building. The photo could also be used in the article on Lady June, who hosted the party at which Wyatt fell, and perhaps in Maida Vale as well. It doesn't have to be a photo of any particular part of the building—I can't find any information about which window Wyatt fell from, anyway—so any general-purpose photo of the building itself would be fine, as long as it conveys the height. It's also not a pressing matter, so by all means take the photo at your convenience. — BLZ · talk 22:20, 9 July 2018 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: This month's external reviews Op-ed: TomStar81 on the murder of the Romanovs Timeline: This month in World War I

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at a classic US official history Op-ed: TomStar81 on belated declarations of war in 1916–18 Timeline: This month in World War I

Introduction

Hello to all! I do not intend to write a regular peer review newsletter but there does occasionally come a time when those interested in contributing to peer review should be contacted, and now is one. I've mailed this out to everyone on the peer review volunteers list, and some editors that have contributed to past discussions. Apologies if I've left you off or contacted you and you didn't want it. Next time there is a newsletter / mass message it will be opt in ( here), I'll talk about this below - but first:

• THANK YOU! I want to thank you for your contributions and for volunteering on the list to help out at peer review. Thank you!
• Peer review is useful! It's good to have an active peer review process. This is often the way that we help new or developing editors understand our ways, and improve the quality of their editing - so it fills an important and necessary gap between the teahouse (kindly introduction to our Wikiways) and GA and FA reviews (specific standards uphelp according to a set of quality criteria). And we should try and improve this process where possible (automate, simplify) so it can be used and maintained easily.

Updates

Update #1: the peer review volunteers list is changing

The list is here in case you've forgotten: WP:PRV. Kadane has kindly offered to create a bot that will ping editors on the volunteers list with unanswered reviews in their chosen subject areas every so often. You can choose the time interval by changing the "contact" parameter. Options are "never", "monthly", "quarterly", "halfyearly", and "annually". For example:

• {{PRV|JohnSmith|History of engineering|contact=monthly}} - if placed in the "History" section, JohnSmith will receive an automatic update every month about unanswered peer reviews relating to history.
• {{PRV|JaneSmith|Mesopotamian geography, Norwegian fjords|contact=annually}} - if placed in the "Geography" section, JaneSmith will receive an automatic update every yearly about unanswered peer reviews in the geography area.

We can at this stage only use the broad peer review section titles to guide what reviews you'd like, but that's better than nothing! You can also set an interest in multiple separate subject areas that will be updated at different times.

Update #2: a (lean) WikiProject Peer review

I don't think we need a WikiProject with a giant bureaucracy nor all sorts of whiz-bang features. However over the last few years I've found there are times when it would have been useful to have a list of editors that would like to contribute to discussions about the peer review process (e.g. instructions, layout, automation, simplification etc.). Also, it can get kind of lonely on the talk page as I am (correct me if I'm wrong) the only regular contributor, with most editors moving on after 6 - 12 months.

So, I've decided to create " WikiProject Peer review". If you'd like to contribute to the WikiProject, or make yourself available for future newsletters or contact, please add yourself to the list of members.

Update #3: advertising

We plan to do some advertising of peer review, to let editors know about it and how to volunteer to help, at a couple of different venues (Signpost, Village pump, Teahouse etc.) - but have been waiting until we get this bot + WikiProject set up so we have a way to help interested editors make more enduring contributions. So consider yourself forewarned!

And... that's it!

I wish you all well on your Wikivoyages, Tom (LT) ( talk) 00:31, 11 August 2018 (UTC) reply

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Cheers, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:53, 1 September 2018 (UTC) reply

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:

• 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!
• Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.
• 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 Nova Crystallis, Iazyges, SounderBruce, Kosack and 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Indy Beetle and Nick-D on the Katangese Gendarmes and India during World War II Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at two important treaties of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

G'day everyone, voting for the 2018 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

G'day everyone, voting for the 2018 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 06:22, 15 September 2018 (UTC) Note: the previous version omitted a link to the election page, therefore you are receiving this follow up message with a link to the election page to correct the previous version. We apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused. reply

Hi everyone, just a quick reminder that voting for the WikiProject Military history coordinator election closes soon. You only have a day or so left to have your say about who should make up the coordination team for the next year. If you have already voted, thanks for participating! If you haven't and would like to, vote here before 23:59 UTC on 28 September. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 03:29, 26 September 2018 (UTC) reply

		Military history reviewers' award
		On behalf of the Milhist coordinators, you are hereby awarded the WikiStripe for reviewing one Milhist article at PR, GAN, ACR or FAC during the period July to September 2018. Thank you for supporting Wikipedia's quality content processes. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 01:14, 4 October 2018 (UTC) reply Keep track of upcoming reviews. Just copy and paste {{ WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user space

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the use of so-called "substandard" manpower in armies Interview: On the Bugle turning 150 (issues that is!) Op-ed: TomStar81 on the collapse of empires at the close of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Courcelles ( submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:

1. Courcelles ( submissions)
2. Kosack ( submissions)
3. Kees08 ( submissions)
4. SounderBruce ( submissions)
5. Cas Liber ( submissions)
6. Nova Crystallis ( submissions)
7. Iazyges ( submissions)
8. Ceranthor ( submissions)

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

• Cas Liber ( submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
• Courcelles ( submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
• Kosack ( submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
• Cartoon network freak ( submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
• Usernameunique ( submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
• Zanhe ( submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
• Aoba47 ( submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.

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.

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. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 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 ( talk · contribs · email), Godot13 ( talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth ( talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 ( talk · contribs · email).

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Peacemaker67 looks at the Sydney Wars Op-ed: TomStar81 on the end of World War I Timeline: This month in World War I

		The Teamwork Barnstar
		In recognition of the role you played in cleaning up my God-awful spelling and grammar in the World War I Op-Ed series published by the Military history WikiProject's newsletter The Bugle over the last four years, I hereby present you with this teamwork barnstar. It is thanks to so many different editors like you who took the time to copyedit the nearly four year long series that it ended up being as successful as it was, and I am grateful for your help since spelling and grammar are not my strongest suites. Yours sincerely, TomStar81 ( Talk) 14:34, 2 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Nominations for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards are open until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2018. Why don't you nominate the editors who you believe have made a real difference to the project in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: Indy beetle looks at military newspapers in East Africa

Hey Carcharoth. Just wanted to say hi and let you know I'm going to be a bit more active for a while, and to say thanks for all your help with the Tower Hill Memorial. I've been working on Leicester's Arch of Remembrance and I'm planning to nominate it for A-class. I'd appreciate any thoughts you had (here, on the talk page, or at the ACR) before I look at moving onto FAC. Cheers, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:42, 15 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Voting for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards is open until 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December 2018. Why don't you vote for the editors who you believe have made a real difference to Wikipedia's coverage of military history in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:16, 16 December 2018 (UTC) reply

	Austral season's greetings
	Tuck into this! We've made about three of these in the last few days for various festivities. Supermarkets are stuffed with cheap berries. Season's greetings! Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 22:29, 24 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Awesome

Ten years!

-- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 07:46, 26 December 2018 (UTC) reply

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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at Albert Speer Op-ed: Factotem on common problems affecting infoboxes Timeline: This month in World War I

Hey, Carcharoth. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! A 10 fireplane Imform me 16:21, 8 January 2019 (UTC) reply

Not too late, I hope ;) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 13:45, 13 January 2019 (UTC) reply

Template:Infobox Tolkien character has been nominated for merging with Template:Infobox character. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Zackmann ( ^{Talk to me}/ _{What I been doing}) 22:54, 24 January 2019 (UTC) reply

Hey, I see you haven't been around for a few days so no worries if you're busy. But if you get chance to revisit Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Southampton Cenotaph, I'd really appreciate either a definitive support or further feedback if you feel there's still work to be done. Things seem to have stalled there and it would be nice to get it moving again before Leicester wraps up at FAC. You might also like the Midland Railway War Memorial which is also at ACR—might not be on your radar because I've only recently dug up some more sources. All the best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:30, 30 January 2019 (UTC) reply

Hi Harry. Thanks for the note. Yes, I am a bit busy. Will try and look in on those articles. While I am here, I see you are working on The Cenotaph. Some of the edits you are making and the material you are removing, I might try and put on the talk page so it doesn't get lost in the edit history (I would have moved some of these to the external links, rather than losing them entirely. The TLS is a reliable source and Eric Homberger and his 'Story of the Cenotaph' is well documented in various sources, possibly to the extent of mentioning in the text of the article). Not entirely sure about the name change either, as other places tend to refer to their cenotaph as 'The Cenotaph' as well. So it is not entirely obvious that the name change was needed. Glad someone is taking that article on, though. Carcharoth ( talk) 12:54, 1 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks very much for revisiting Southampton. As for Whitehall, some of the stuff I've taken out will go back in as get further through. I wanted to get a coherent narrative of how the Cenotaph came to be first, based on the most detailed sources (I've done Historic England and Skelton so far, with Greenberg and Homberger to go) before I start putting flesh on the bones. As for the name, from everything I've read, "The Cenotaph" without further context or clarification usually refers to Whitehall. It is after all the most famous, it was the first (if you count the temporary one), and most others were based on or inspired by it. I don't think somebody looking for Southampton or Manchester Cenotaphs, for example, would expect to find it by searching for just "the Cenotaph" and I think the new arrangement (with a hatnote to aid navigation) is much more useful than the previous, where "The Cenotaph" redirected to the generic article " Cenotaph" (which was even more likely to cause confusion given that its lead image is of Whitehall). The thought occurs that perhaps we need a List of cenotaphs—there are probably a couple of hundred across the UK and Commonwealth depending on how strictly we apply the definition of "cenotaph". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:09, 1 February 2019 (UTC) reply

By the way, any idea where I can get a copy of the TLS article? I can't seem to find one online, even behind a paywall. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:47, 1 February 2019 (UTC) reply

And thanks for fixing my typos! My computer died so I'm borrowing my girlfriend's—not only is it a keyboard I'm not used to but she doesn't have a spellchecker installed in her browser! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:01, 2 February 2019 (UTC) reply

@ HJ Mitchell: sorry for the delayed reply. I forgot I had these messages to reply to. The TLS material should be available here. I may be able to get to the Cengage Learning version. About the copyediting, I am always happy to copyedit those memorial articles - I hope it is not annoying to have me popping up sporadically to do that! On a different note, I visited an exhibition at the Tate Britain the other day (the big retrospective they had on Edward Burne-Jones), and who should be featured there but Lady Horner! The exhibition guide can be downloaded here, and Lady Horner (Frances Graham) is mentioned 19 times and she is featured in several of the paintings. It was interesting to learn more about that part of her life. The other exhibition-related note is that I am booked in to go to this exhibition about Alfred Munnings at the National Army Museum on Wednesday evening (you may not get this message in time). Both, as you know, are connections to the equestrian statue of Edward Horner. I doubt that will feature in the exhibition, but you never know (you can see some of the painting in the video at the link above). Carcharoth ( talk) 11:55, 26 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Review essay: Nick-D on the Japanese battleship Mikasa

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

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

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

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

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

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

Category:Middle-earth horses, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- wooden superman 13:26, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on US Navy aviation safety and Australian war crimes trials

		Military history reviewers' award
		On behalf of the Military History Project, I am proud to present the The Milhist reviewing award (1 stripe) for January to March 2019 reviews. Peacemaker67 ( talk) via MilHistBot ( talk) 00:35, 3 April 2019 (UTC) reply Keep track of upcoming reviews. Just copy and paste {{ WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user space

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Peacemaker67, Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at three books focussing on the World Wars Op-ed: Indy Beetle on the fall of Idi Amin

Hello there! I saw that I was pinged on my volunteer account ( user:lirazelf) in a talk page discussion about article rescue, you were maybe looking for contacts at the National Museum of Scotland or National Library of Scotland? Feel free to drop me a line on my work email - sara.thomas@wikimedia.org.uk, and I'll see what I can do to help :) Sara Thomas (WMUK) ( talk) 12:38, 16 April 2019 (UTC) reply

The person who would be interested is User:Hideo Izumida. I will drop a note on their talk page in case they don't get the ping. Carcharoth ( talk) 13:05, 16 April 2019 (UTC) reply

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

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

Other notable performances were put in by Barkeep49 with six GAs, Ceranthor, Lee Vilenski, and Canada Hky, each with seven GARs, and 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) 17:45, 1 May 2019 (UTC) reply

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC) reply

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, - Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australia's leadership and medical services in World War II and Peacemaker67 on Israel's targeted assassinations Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at the fate of the German fleet at Scapa Flow

Hello, Carcharoth. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, " Article incubator/List of British Army generals who died during World War I".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. IRIEN✓ (aka MAh'ia)🙏 10:47, 19 May 2019 (UTC) reply

I've declined this. @ Manupriy Ahluwalia: You shouldn't tag pages in the userspace of editors who are still active, especially not without discussing with them first. It might be more productive to focus your efforts in another direction. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 11:14, 19 May 2019 (UTC) reply

Newyorkbrad is a better Arbitration historian than me, but I certainly don't recall anyone naming a role account as a party to a case request before. Certainly it's a first for the WMF Office role account. As for awareness, that's probably something for the Clerks to investigate. Thryduulf ( talk) 12:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the Dambusters, and Hawkeye7 at Allied code breakers and Australia in New Guinea and Vietnam Op-ed: TomStar81 on the treaty that ended World War I

Hi Carcharoth, saw you mentioned Clear summaries and timelines may help get a handle on what is going on here. I've got a summary at WP:FRAMSUM, and Seraphimblade's timeline is there as well. I hope mine is clear... starship .paint ( talk) 14:41, 15 June 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Starship.paint: thanks (and sorry for the late reply). I have seen that, and those summaries are very useful. Hopefully they will be maintained as things progress. Carcharoth ( talk) 10:25, 18 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Step hen 01:34, 18 June 2019 (UTC) reply

It may look like I'm ignoring your list of diffs. It's only partially true but I've had a busy day. I have given your diffs some thought and struggled with them and finally had what I hope is an insight.

If we think of the classic journalistic questions:

• What
• when
• where
• why
• who

We can see that the timeline put together by starship.paint is an attempt to get at the "when" issues. It's an attempt to identify a chronological order of important events but not to exhaustively cover every aspect of the situation.

My table is more of a "where" at with respect to the location of important blocks of text. (I know, I know, I have some exceptions)

Your list of diffs slices up the material in terms of "who". That is, identify some of the important players and find out what each of them said about the situation.

That's an extremely valuable exercise but it doesn't fit in well with table it's sort of orthogonal to it.

I'm not quite sure what to do next. I had sort of hoped someone would peel out all of the WMF statements and put them in one block which would conveniently fit in my table. I'm not so thrilled about doing that myself, partly because I'm lazy, partly because if I do that for the WMF, someone will suggest that I ought to do so for Dr. James the board member, and Jimbo the board member, and obviously Fram, and I'm worried about sliding down that slippery slope. Not because it's a bad to do, but because I have more things on my plate than I can manage and I can't take all that on. S Philbrick (Talk) 01:41, 20 June 2019 (UTC) reply

No problem. What it really needs is, ahem, the structured environment of an ArbCom case to sort through all the diffs... (no, not really). Carcharoth ( talk) 12:16, 20 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth. Here's where WMF unilaterally changed policy (turning Wikipedia into a police state). [10] What's telling is that there was no prior discussion with the community, and there was no announcement to WP:AN or similar noticeboard to draw attention. It was effectively a giant power grab, that sailed under the radar. Jehochman ^Talk 22:46, 24 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Yeah. Interesting times. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:49, 24 June 2019 (UTC) reply

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

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

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

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) reply

Why is Fram banned while SNAAAAKE!! is still editing? [11] How did we get here? Jehochman ^Talk 13:09, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Why exactly are you baiting me so? Whoever you are. SNAAAAKE!! ( talk) 14:20, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

SNAAAAKE!!, I am sorry to disturb you but your case is an example of a widespread problem. I had been prepared to ban you yesterday, but was persuaded to be lenient by another editor who offered to mentor you. You've done nothing wrong today. Please keep up your efforts to reform, and I promise not to use you as an example again. I now realize it's not fair. Jehochman ^Talk 18:04, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Pinging someone you're trying to dunk on seems like a pretty dick move. @ Jehochman: - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:23, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Did you look at that situation yet? Look before jumping to conclusions. Jehochman ^Talk 17:38, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

You think I'm just some rando? I've known SNAAAAKE!! and his behaviors for years and years and was an active participant in the discussion, which you would have seen if you hadn't been jumping to conclusions. The fact that SNAAAAKE!! has done things that I feel are banworthy does not mean that I condone trolling him. It's really disrespectful and unbecoming of what Wikipedia should be, yet rarely is. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:43, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Do you expect me to memorize all 50 usernames of the people who invested their time in that discussion, the most recent of many? I don’t know how to communicate my frustration about this without naming the editor. Since I’ve named them I should ping them. Jehochman ^Talk 17:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

I mean, maybe don't make assumptions, haha. But anyway, I honestly would like to get an admin in on this to chime in. I just think it's really tacky to troll someone, regardless of who it is. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 17:56, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

This is the problem with Wikipedia. You are overlooking years and years of disruption and socking by one editor, and complaining about a ping. You're literally complaining that a ping is uncivil in the same comment where you call another editor a "dick". Claims of uncivil conduct and harassment are weaponized to win arguments. Jehochman ^Talk 18:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

I am calling for SNAAAAKE!! to be indefinitely banned and I am bothered by people who put his comfort on Wikipedia over the people he negatively affects. I am able to criticize him for this and you for this. Further, I didn't call you a dick, I said that pinging him is a dick move. Perhaps it would have been better if I said it was incredibly rude of you, but would that have really made it any better? I mean, what was your goal in pinging him, what did you want to happen from that? - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 18:08, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

I admit that pinging or mentioning him was a problem and I apologized to SNAAAAKE!! above. What I want to do is illustrate the selective nature of our enforcement. Here we have an editor with a mile long block log, multiple accounts, socks, claims of bad behavior of all sorts, and they get chance after chance after chance. And then there's a good faith contributor like Fram who maybe gets wound up, overzealous, and unintentionally treats somebody in a way that feels like harassment. Does Fram get support, counseling, a second chance? Fram seems to have gotten two warnings but no support for resolving his concerns that went to the integrity of encycopedia articles. There's also an issue that some are more equal than others. When ordinary rank and file editors are harassed, nobody really cares. But if a connected or powerful editor complains of harassment, WMF is ready to come down on the perpetrator like a ton of bricks. This is not fair. Jehochman ^Talk 18:22, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

I mean, I agree with that wholeheartedly. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 18:25, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm glad we came to agreement. For any other editor, the "F ArbCom" comment would warrant a 24 hour block at most, as a first block. Jehochman ^Talk 18:39, 3 July 2019 (UTC) reply

DannyS712 ( talk) 18:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Noticed you weren't credited -- DannyS712 ( talk) 18:21, 11 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Haweye7, Peacemaker67 and Nick-D on recent books covering the world wars

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect M. Angelo. Since you had some involvement with the M. Angelo redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. — the Man in Question (in question) 21:04, 16 July 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Peacemaker67 look at Italian, German and Australian forces in World War II

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Peacemaker67 look at Italian, German and Australian forces in World War II

In the month of September, Wikiproject Military history is running a project-wide edit-a-thon, Backlog Banzai. There are heaps of different areas you can work on, for which you claim points, and at the end of the month all sorts of whiz-bang awards will be handed out. Every player wins a prize! There is even a bit of friendly competition built in for those that like that sort of thing. Sign up now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/September 2019 Backlog Banzai to take part. For the coordinators, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 08:18, 22 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Cheers, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 02:37, 1 September 2019 (UTC) reply

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) reply

It's now the fifth day and your last question here was never answered. This is the most unsatisfactory part of the case. At this point I think the only reasonable option is to unban Fram and simply remain silent on the desysop question. Let WP:BN sort it out, or else Fram can file an appeal, or others can file a proper case about Fram's sysop status. The present case is so thoroughly tainted by procedural irregularities that it should be wrapped up. Jehochman ^Talk 18:47, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

G'day everyone, voting for the 2019 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 03:37, 15 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the legacy of World War II

Category:Arctic geography terminology, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. DexDor ^(talk) 18:47, 18 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I came in search of a "please run for Arb this year" - is there such a section where I can put my +1? — Ched ( talk) 02:50, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Only under very limited circumstances and for very specific reasons. Mainly because I have very little free time these days, despite appearances to the contrary. There are others who may be willing to run. I am grateful you asked me, but maybe ask others as well and see what they say. Carcharoth ( talk) 02:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

I can understand that. I did take your advice and found a half-dozen that I'd consider a good fit and asked. I do thank you for responding. — Ched ( talk) 03:59, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

You would certainly have my support if you decide to throw your hat in the ring. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 11:01, 20 September 2019 (UTC) reply

	The Special Barnstar
	Many thanks for your help and assistance over the last day or so. Cheers – SchroCat ( talk) 20:24, 21 September 2019 (UTC) reply

G'day everyone, the voting for the XIX Coordinator Tranche is at the halfway mark. The candidates have answered various questions, and you can check them out to see why they are running and decide whether you support them. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2018. Thanks, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 07:36, 22 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at three works Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on writing a military biography

Over on Iridescent's page you asked:

"As an aside, I'm finding the written records for Wikipedia's earliest days are beginning to dissolve." - this sounds bad. Is it too late to do anything about it?

(I'm answering your question here because I feel the thread there would become too tangled, & I wanted to save Iridescent the trouble of sorting it all out.)

The problem I'm seeing is an old one, & one which will certainly crop up beyond Wikipedia/the Foundation. Namely, the irreplaceable loss of important records. We have experienced, & may continue to experience this loss because people thought someone else was keeping these records. Or that at the time, old page versions weren't considered important.

In the case of the mail list, although WikiEN-L was followed at the time by a few hundred people, I suspect most of them assumed the archive on the WMF servers had a complete copy & so never bothered to keep theirs. Or assumed someone else was keeping a backup. Only a packrat like me would bother to keep a copy, & may not even know it. (And being a packrat, I don't know which hard drive my copy is.) So when some future historian wants to trace how Wikipedia began, using a new approach that requires access to the primary sources, there will be gaps; perhaps this future historian may find it impossible to answer the questions they pose.

As for the Foundation website, IMHO I believe those earlier pages were lost when the Foundation arrogated control of that website for itself -- another of Sue Gardner's acts that alienated long-term Wikipedians contributing to the decline in volunteers. The website was redesigned & materials that did not meet the new goals were deleted, & lost unless someone thought to backup a copy of its contents before this happened. (Iridescent is optimistic that this was done; being a little older & more experienced in how groups actually operate, I suspect no one even even thought to do this.)

This kind of loss is bound to happen: we lose historical records on a regular basis because, well, we can't keep everything & not everything will be of historical interest. (Maybe the discussions on WikiEN-L will prove to be unimportant to that future historian, who will use the more powerful computers of that day to crunch data from the page edits to find relationships & find their answers that way.) It would be nice if the Foundation recognized this loss & broadcasted a request for personal copies of the mailing lists' archives to replace the missing material. But I doubt anyone there is thinking of that eventuality. Sometimes I wonder if they even have a disaster recovery plan for when something bad happens to the servers in the data center. -- llywrch ( talk) 16:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you. Hopefully something can be done. Maybe ask somewhere about this? Maybe on the (moribund last time I looked) wikiEN-l mailing list, or one of the more active mailing lists? Carcharoth ( talk) 12:05, 24 October 2019 (UTC) reply

I hope it's ok if I say something - if not, feel free to delete. My thought was "I wonder how much web.archive sites have led folks to the belief that nothing is truly lost on the Internet" 'If someone else is willing to carry the load, why should I' thinking. — Ched ( talk) 12:20, 24 October 2019 (UTC) reply

That probably has an effect as well. In various areas, I encourage people to periodically try and put histories and memoirs in print, so that at least something remains in that format. Those who study history know how some primary sources can end up preserving a random and unrepresentative snapshot of what happened. Carcharoth ( talk) 12:23, 24 October 2019 (UTC) reply

Ironically, I invented a system to counter this exact problem, the need to keep a permanent archive of website content or email content, including all past changes. I was motivated and informed by my experience with Wikipedia. Jehochman ^Talk 19:31, 24 October 2019 (UTC) reply

(Sorry to be a bit slow in responding.) IMHO, the best solution would be to query everyone/anyone who is still around from the earliest days to ask what copies they might still have from those days, & if they'd be willing to share them in a central archive. (I remember when the archives of the ArbCom emails started surfacing on The Website That Shall Not Be Named some years back, in response to my request that they not be deleted, I learned this archive would be preserved for historical research. At least one corner of Wikipedia's history would be preserved. Hopefully.) -- llywrch ( talk) 08:37, 27 October 2019 (UTC) reply

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Adam Cuerden ( submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were:

1. Adam Cuerden ( submissions) with 964 points
2. Lee Vilenski ( submissions) with 899 points
3. Casliber ( submissions) with 817 points
4. Kosack ( submissions) with 691 points
5. SounderBruce ( submissions) with 388 points
6. Enwebb ( submissions) with 146 points
7. Usernameunique ( submissions) with 145 points
8. 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!

• Casliber ( submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 7 FAs during the course of the competition.
• Lee Vilenski ( submissions) wins the good article prize, for 14 GAs in round 5.
• Yashthepunisher ( submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 4 FLs overall.
• Adam Cuerden ( submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 91 FPs overall.
• MPJ-DK ( submissions) wins the topic prize, for 7 articles in good topics in round 2.
• Lee Vilenski ( submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 14 did you know articles in round 5.
• Muboshgu ( submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 7 in the news articles in round 1.
• Ed! ( submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 56 good article reviews in round 1.

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Willbb234 on Allied pilots, Hawkeye7 on the defence of Australia and logistics in Indochina, Nick-D on Australian commandos Op-ed: Hawkeye7 reports back on a high-profile history symposium

Hello!

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking to improve the community consultation outreach process for Foundation policies, and we are interested in why you didn't participate in a recent consultation that followed a community discussion you’ve been part of.

Please fill out this short survey to help us improve our community consultation process for the future. It should only take about three minutes.

The privacy policy for this survey is here. This survey is a one-off request from us related to this unique topic.

Thank you for your participation, Kbrown (WMF) 10:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:04, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

You may be interested to know that your namesake has been proposed for deletion. Andrew D. ( talk) 11:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Andrew Davidson: thank you. I will contest it, as there are some academic references (which I added in 2008!), though I expect it will go to AfD. I see I missed Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Middle-earth. Feels like consolidation is gathering pace. Carcharoth ( talk) 14:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

• Numerous related articles are currently threatened. For example, The Scouring of the Shire is already at AfD – the irony is quite perfect. Andrew D. ( talk) 15:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

A tag has been placed on Category:Middle-earth horses requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 13:49, 2 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Category:Middle-earth Dragons, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. TTN ( talk) 16:29, 5 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at works on aspects of the Second World War and Cold War

Only three years late in using your photo! Happy Christmas. KJP1 ( talk) 12:33, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Category:Kings of Arnor, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Michepman ( talk) 02:30, 24 December 2019 (UTC) reply

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

Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Assessment/Current work, 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/Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Assessment/Current work and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth/Assessment/Current work 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. BenKuykendall ( talk) 14:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC) reply

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

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

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. ― Susmuffin  ^Talk 22:28, 2 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Category:Kings of Rohan, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. ― Susmuffin  ^Talk 15:28, 3 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Category:Kings of Arnor, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. ― Susmuffin  ^Talk 21:13, 4 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Category:Kings of Dale, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. ― Susmuffin  ^Talk 21:13, 4 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Dear Carcharoth,

I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Fifteen Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for fifteen years or more. ​

Best regards, Chris Troutman ( talk) 14:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC) reply

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Minor miscellaeneous places in Arda. Since you had some involvement with the Minor miscellaeneous places in Arda redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Hog Farm ( talk) 03:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth; I don't really want to wade into that discussion, but I'm happy to talk. Did you have a specific question/request for me? I note that I have nominated very few Tolkien articles for deletion, and have argued to keep at least a few! Josh Milburn ( talk) 15:48, 8 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Nothing specific. I can understand you not wanting to wade into that discussion. Thanks for the note. Carcharoth ( talk) 15:57, 8 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Category:Chieftains of the Dúnedain, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Hog Farm ( talk) 06:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC) reply

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wetwang (Middle-earth). Since you had some involvement with the Wetwang (Middle-earth) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Hog Farm ( talk) 15:28, 14 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Category:Middle-earth words, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Hog Farm ( talk) 05:59, 18 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Jim Mattis

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at a failed German counterattack in the Battle of Normandy

G'day all, March Madness 2020 is about to get underway, and there is bling aplenty for those who want to get stuck into the backlog by way of tagging, assessing, updating, adding or improving resources and creating articles. If you haven't already signed up to participate, why not? The more the merrier! Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 08:19, 29 February 2020 (UTC) for the coord team reply

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

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

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

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

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

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) reply

There was an error in the WikiCup 2020 March newsletter; L293D should not have been included in the list of top ten scorers in Round 1 (they led the list last year), instead, Dunkleosteus77 should have been included, having garnered 334 points from five good articles on animals, living or extinct, and various reviews. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 09:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC) reply

A tag has been placed on Category:WikiProject Middle-earth article content templates requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 02:20, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews

Hey Carch. I'm just moving the thread over here from Iri's talk page, because it feels like bad manners to have a two-way conversation on somebody else's talk page. I did remove that link as dead, but I'd seen that you'd put it on the talk page so it wasn't gone forever. Some of the stuff I take out might go back in at a later date, but I'm not forgetting about it. The way I write an article is to build a skeleton first and then start hanging the meat on the bones. There's also a (small but growing) pile of stuff at User:HJ Mitchell/Sandbox that doesn't yet have a home in the article but needs working in later on it's also a dumping ground for semi-coherent thoughts and things I might come back to one day!, so definitely keep putting anything you dredge up on the talk page or wherever. It might take months, but I'll get to it. The representations in art is something I hadn't really thought of (ironic, considering I have a model of it on my bookcase!); it's definitely something that needs thought. The social history I had thought of; some of it's covered in the more academic books (eg Jay Winter's Sites of Memory and Ana Carden-Coyne's Reconstructing the Body, as well as some of the biographies of Lutyens. The other cenotaphs I haven't quite decided what to do with yet. They're not at risk of disappearing, don't worry. One of my thoughts is they might end up as a daughter article or list with just the most important examples in the main article. You can't put it in context without mentioning its influence on memorials across Britain and the empire, as it was then, (although it only seems to have been popular in Australia, NZ, Canada and HK). A lot depends on how long the article gets; I don't want to overwhelm the reader with information, and if it's getting too dense there might have to be a couple of daughter articles.

I'm working my way though Greenberg at the minute, though I'll be honest I find some of the material on geometry and reference to classical architecture quite dense; I'm used to writing history, and it's a little bit out of my comfort zone, but it's good to keep the brain active. I've also got a copy of the TLS piece now; there's a lot of background in there about the victory parade and the national mood and the state of politics at the time (some of which is relevant wrt the Cenotaph capturing that mood), but relatively little about the Cenotaph itself that isn't published elsewhere. Apologies for length! Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC) reply

No worries about the length, Harry. Yes, I should have decamped from Iri's talk page to here (or Talk:The Cenotaph) earlier, sorry about that. Let's keep talking about what sources are good to use. I may edit the page in question more than I would usually (i.e. being more active rather than just offering advice). Hopefully that won't cramp your writing style too much. PS. My editing might be a bit sporadic over the next few days, as circumstances and my access to a suitable environment in which to edit can change rapidly given the current circumstances. Hope all is well with you and yours. Carcharoth ( talk) 12:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Not cramping at all. I welcome all help in building the best article we can. It's likely that when it's finished it will be the best freely available account of one of England's most famous and most important monuments. And of course thee will be areas that interest you more than me and vice versa. As for sources, you can see the sorts of material I've been using so far on some of my other articles (I think Southampton Cenotaph and the Arch of Remembrance have the longest bibliographies so far). I tend to start with the sources that have the most to say and then add in more information and other perspectives from other others as I go through. Btw, there are quite a few drawings and other interesting illustrations in Greenberg that could be useful, but I'm not sure of their copyright status (presumably if Lutyens held the copyright, it should have expired 2015 and if it was crown copyright it should have expired, but if it rested elsewhere I have no idea) and I have no idea how to extract them from the PDF I've got. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:12, 19 March 2020 (UTC) reply

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

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot ( talk) 16:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Template:History of Middle-earth navbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym ( talk) 20:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Hi, if you're popping in now and again, maybe you'd take a look at this - I'm reworking it with new structure and at least one major theme that was missing, language (how did people miss that?). I hope it's not becoming too arcane? Trying to be comprehensible with examples, quotations, and indeed illustrations... would love to know what you think. Heaven knows how we'll find a GAN reviewer for it, things seem to take longer and longer and get more and more hit-and-miss. Keep well. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 17:28, 27 March 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Chiswick Chap: - only managing to pop in now and again, as you say. Have had a quick look. I will put a couple of comments here and say more later on the talk page if time. It looks very good overall. One theme, though maybe it fits better in J. R. R. Tolkien's influences (in the personal experience section) is the writings by various people about the influence of Tolkien's service in The Great War on his writings. That is definitely missing in both articles at the moment.

Many thanks. The war experience (and living through WW2 as a civilian) is definitely an Influence not a Theme. We have both JRRT's own word for its importance and that of many critics, I don't think they add a huge amount though Shippey is entertaining on Balrogs and flammenwerfers.

The Influences article is a sorry list, though I regrouped it; there's something very wrong about it, probably that it's trying too hard to itemise each language etc rather than considering the nature of the influence, but whatever the reason it's very plodding and uninformative. Ideas? Chiswick Chap ( talk) 08:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC) reply

On the missing religion, there is the bit Gandalf says at the coronation of Aragorn about "while the thrones of the Valar endure", and the finding of the sapling of the White Tree has some religious overtones that some have commented on, IIRC.

Many critics are very clear about the role of Providence, i.e. the Valar executing the will of Eru; Shippey connects this with Fate and Luck (and the Free Will of all the characters), I think very persuasively.

I think you have to be a bit careful about language such as "supposed negative themes", as there has been quite a bit of negative criticism and I am not sure where the right balance lies there.

Well, as people have offered criticisms, and as each one has been carefully rebutted by others, the title seems to fit the facts rather closely.

Have you had any thoughts on length and whether anything needs splitting off? It would be possible to write lots more, but I think you are getting the balance right there. People will want a one-stop article covering all the themes. Also, some of the themes are seen more in his other works (e.g. Fate and Free Will in the bit in Unfinished Tales [and other versions] where Ulmo appars to Tuor and says his bit about 'armour against fate', which is the title of a book I have on my shelves about British military intelligence in the First World War, though I think that is a complete coincidence), so is there potential for covering that somewhere? Carcharoth ( talk) 19:56, 29 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Yes, it mustn't get too much longer. On the non-LOTR materials, that's a broader topic, and not one I'd feel like attempting. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 08:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC) reply

I've finally got round to having a go at this hoary old article. It's looking less of a sad cruft-list and more of a decent attempt at an article already. See what you think when you have a moment. It's beginning to look like a match for Themes (and for the existing coverage of his Invented languages ... obviously the fans liked that one...). Chiswick Chap ( talk) 18:36, 31 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at the logistics behind the Crusades and the USAF's early Cold War nuclear deterrant

Template:LotR casts navbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym ( talk) 08:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC) reply

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:

• Epicgenius, with 2333 points from one featured article, forty-five good articles, fourteen DYKs and plenty of bonus points
• 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
• The Rambling Man, with 1262 points from two featured articles, eight good articles and a hundred good article reviews
• 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
• Lee Vilenski with 869 points, Hog Farm with 801, Kingsif with 719, SounderBruce with 710, Dunkleosteus77 with 608 and 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) reply

Hi Carcharoth I write two article with wikipedia roles. Please I wrote two articles according to Wikipedia rules. 1. Draft:Arash Ghaderi 2. Draft:Hasan Rahnamaeian Please check them and accept if there is no problem. Warm regards. Omid ahmadyani ( talk) 10:11, 7 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Category:Númenóreans has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Hog Farm ( talk) 18:37, 13 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at fortifications, the German Army, and post-Cold War conflict

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Caragdûr. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 25#Caragdûr until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm ( talk) 15:18, 25 May 2020 (UTC) reply

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Elendur son of Isildur. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 26#Elendur son of Isildur until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm ( talk) 21:37, 26 May 2020 (UTC) reply

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Círyon. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 28#Círyon until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm ( talk) 02:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the naval siege of Japan in 1945

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:

• Epicgenius, with one featured article, 28 good articles and 17 DYKs, amassing 1836 points
• 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
• 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, 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on Hadrian's Wall and Hawkeye7 on the British military Op-ed: Nick-D on diversity and military history

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: Nick-D on 1945

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 02:04, 1 September 2020 (UTC) reply

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

• Bloom6132, with 1478 points gained mainly from 5 featured lists, 12 DYKs and 63 in the news items;
• HaEr48 with 1318 points gained mainly from 2 featured articles, 5 good articles and 8 DYKs;
• 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) 19:51, 1 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Review Essay: Nick-D on the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society

G'day everyone, voting for the 2020 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2020. Thanks from the outgoing coord team, Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 05:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC) reply

Have you (or HJ Mitchell) ever come across the naval plot in Woodlands Cemetery, Gillingham before? (Ignore the fact that the Commons category is so bloated, when I get round to it I'll sort it by ship/regiment and give the photos more informative filenames.) It's the oddest CWGC plot I've ever seen, and I can't find it documented anywhere (although admittedly I haven't looked very hard). It has plenty of the traditional CWGC gravestones one would expect, but mixed in with them there are graves of the standard CWGC design but in black granite instead of white Portland stone, graves of a non-standard design but including the usual cross, and graves of the same non-standard design with a stylised "IHS" in place of the cross.

I can find no information at all as to why there are four designs in use there, and neither the CWGC website nor the information board in the cemetery shed any light. I can't see any apparent pattern; the four designs seem to be used interchangeably for all ranks and services, to the extent that there are sailors of the same rank who died on the same day on the same ship, with each of the four designs. I initially thought that maybe the non-standard shapes and colours were perhaps from a batch of blank stones ordered before the IWGC standardised the design, but there are burials with non-standard headstones well into the 1940s.

If you're interested in such things, the cemetery is well worth a visit. It's huge by British Isles standards at 1234 service burials, plus monuments to people buried in assorted Kent churchyards that have subsequently been destroyed and a dedicated plot for victims of the Gillingham bus disaster, and it's impeccably maintained. ‑  Iridescent 18:41, 1 October 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Iridescent: I hadn't seen that one before, no, thanks for that. I will look into it when I have time. Sadly (though for good reasons) have been very busy lately (though I don't seem to be the only one). Will try and catch up with Wikipedia matters soon. Carcharoth ( talk) 01:56, 27 October 2020 (UTC) PS. The Great War Forum has some threads on CWGC headstones of different stones if that helps. IHS may have been used as it might have been difficult to engrave the cross for some reason? reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on Franklin Roosevelt in World War II and Hog Farm on the Battle of Chancellorsville

The 2020 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round going down to the wire. Our new Champion is Lee Vilenski ( submissions), the runner-up last year, who was closely followed by 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. The Rambling Man ( submissions) was in third place with 4 FAs and 8 GAs on football topics, with Epicgenius ( submissions) close behind with 19 GAs and 16 DYK's, his interest being the buildings of New York.

The other finalists were Hog Farm ( submissions), HaEr48 ( submissions), Harrias ( submissions) and 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.

• Gog the Mild ( submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 14 FAs during the course of the competition.
• Bloom6132 ( submissions) win the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in round 4.
• Rhododendrites ( submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 3 FPs in round 3 and 5 overall.
• Lee Vilenski ( submissions) wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 23 FAC reviews in round 5.
• Epicgenius ( submissions) wins the good article prize, for 45 GAs in round 2 and 113 overall.
• MPJ-DK ( submissions) wins the topic prize, for 33 articles in good topics in round 2.
• The Rambling Man ( submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize, for 100 good article reviews in round 2.
• Epicgenius ( submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 22 Did you know articles in round 4 and 94 overall.
• Bloom6132 ( submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 63 In the news articles in round 4 and 136 overall.

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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D & Hawkeye7 look at two aspects of 20th Century warfare Op-ed: TomStar81 on the Unknown Soldiers

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 01:20, 24 November 2020 (UTC) reply

G'day all, the nominations for the 2020 Military history WikiProject newcomer and Historian of the Year are open, all editors are encouraged to nominate candidates for the awards before until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2020, after which voting will occur for 14 days. There is not much time left to nominate worthy recipients, so get to it! Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 06:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the war in Ukraine

G'day all, voting for the WikiProject Military history " Military Historian of the Year" and " Military history newcomer of the year" is about to close, so if you haven't already, click on the links and have your say before 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December! Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 23:34, 28 December 2020 (UTC) for the coord team reply

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) 11:10, 1 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Happy new year! Hope you're safe and settled down for yet another lockdown! I'm working on the London and North Western Railway War Memorial and might do some of the other railway war memorials since I've been slowly acquiring material about the railways in WWI. I was wondering if you (or perhaps Iridescent or one of your talk page stalkers) might be able to dig up the memorial's coverage in The Builder or the Architects Journal? Both are cited by Historic England and I was hoping they might have some more useful details. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:16, 5 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Hi Harry. Good to hear from you. All is well, though not much time to edit as I said to Iridescent above - did you see that ping from him? Will try and look at the LNWR memorial page and its sources at some point (and see if I can get access to the ones you mention). Carcharoth ( talk) 05:11, 7 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your efforts on the railway war memorials. Any thoughts on tracking down those magazine articles? Neither of them appear to have online archives going back that far. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:22, 13 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Yeah, sorry, I went a bit away from your initial question. I did look, but failed to find anything (apart from coming across that Masonic Lodge magazine called 'The Builder'...). Looks like someone will have to go to a library, unless the Haitha Trust digital archive versions can be accessed from the USA or a suitable organisation has access to that digitisation? Even they don't have a complete run, so again a library with them is needed. There are a number of architectural journals online for those dates, but it seems a bit random which of them (if any) the memorials are featured in. Carcharoth ( talk) 15:26, 13 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Do you think it's something a public library might have (I'm guessing not a smallish-town library so I might still need to enlist your help post-lockdown; perhaps the BL has copies?)? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC) reply

You want Britain's Railways In Wartime by Anthony Lambert as a starting point for this. (As long as you're not too fussed about the condition you can pick up a copy on Amazon for a tenner or so.) It's primarily about the technicalities of railway operations in wartime, but it also covers the memorials in some detail, including a full gazetteer of them. The Railway Heritage Trust is responsible for the cataloguing—and sometimes the maintenance—of all the station miscellany like war memorials, station clocks etc (their website has a dedicated page on memorials with a lot of links) and are usually fairly helpful in pointing you to obscure potential sources. (Thanks to Ottley everything published about UK railways up to 1995 is catalogued, but it isn't online, and I assume neither of you have any particular desire to spend around £100 on the 1884-page Bibliography of British Railway History.) ‑  Iridescent 08:35, 14 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Iridescent, thanks, I have a copy of Lambert. It's a very useful little book, especially the section on memorials and remembrance and the gazetteer of memorials in the back. Even with that, though, the LNWR memorial's article is looking a little thin. It gets lots of mentions in lots of places but not in any great detail, which is why I was hoping to track down the articles above. The Internet Archive has some early volumes of The Builder, but annoyingly stops around the turn of the century, presumably for copyright reasons. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:59, 14 January 2021 (UTC) reply

The Builder (now Building) is still in print, as is the Architect's Journal. You could always write to them and ask; a lot of specialist outfits like this are delighted to have outsiders show an interest. ‑  Iridescent 03:31, 15 January 2021 (UTC) reply

In response to your message, I left links to "The Times" in the talk section pf the following wikipedia pages: 1. Alfred Lord Milner 2. Viscountess Milner 3. Milner's Kindergarten I did this as an aid for other members. If there is a quality problem, or some other problem relating to newspaper sources, please let me know. Thank you.

Lord Milner is distantly related to me. He was the reason we on World War I. Link

Here is something you might like: Link to research tools Lord Milner ( talk)

Replied at your talk page. Carcharoth ( talk) 03:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC) reply

For now, this to remind me how the conversation went. You really think Lord Milner determined the outcome of World War I? It is late and I need to sleep (too many disrupted sleep patterns around these days). Will try and come back to this later. Carcharoth ( talk) 04:17, 15 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks Australian artillery in World War I Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on no-win scenarios

― Buster7  ☎ 19:48, 14 February 2021 (UTC) reply

• Thanks for your reply, Car. No rush at all. There is a long queue so nothing will happen for months. ― Buster7  ☎ 22:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Works on the Gallipoli Campaign, Battle of Perryville and US 1st Infantry Division

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Works on the Gallipoli Campaign, Battle of Perryville and US 1st Infantry Division

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:

• 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.
• Bloom6132 was close behind with 896 points, largely gained from 71 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Le Panini, another newcomer to the WikiCup, scored 438 for a featured article and three good articles.
• 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) 20:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on female computers, Nick-D on the Israeli Defence Forces

Hey y'all, the April 2021 WikiProject Military History Reviewing Drive begins at 00:01 UTC on April 1, 2021 and runs through 23:59 UTC on April 31, 2021. Points can be earned through reviewing articles on the AutoCheck report, reviewing articles listed at WP:MILHIST/ASSESS, reviewing MILHIST-tagged articles at WP:GAN or WP:FAC, and reviewing articles submitted at WP:MILHIST/ACR. Service awards and barnstars are given for set points thresholds, and the top three finishers will receive further awards. To participate, sign up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_History/April 2021 Reviewing Drive#Participants and create a worklist at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/April 2021 Reviewing Drive/Worklists (examples are given). Further details can be found at the drive page. Questions can be asked at the drive talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 17:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC) reply

It's good to see your name pop-up once in a while. I hope you and yours are doing well. — Ched ( talk) 00:52, 12 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Indeed. Paul August ☎ 10:10, 12 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Thank you both. Hope all is well with you. All well, though I wish I had more time to spend here! :-) Carcharoth ( talk) 14:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC) reply

I agree with them, and with you - Nice to see you around, and wish you (and I and others) had all the free time we wished, to be able to contribute here more : ) - jc37 17:04, 12 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Hey, jc37, that's a blast from the past. Some names I have forgotten, but not that one! :-) Good to see you around. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:25, 13 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Ditto and ditto, to be sure : )

(looks around hesitantly) soooo that RL thing seems to have let up a bit, so I've been sticking a toe or two in the waters around here as I can.

If you happen to notice anything you think I might be interested in, please please drop me a note : ) - jc37 23:41, 13 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Montgomery's doctrine and Nick-D on Mussolini's wars

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:

• 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.
• Epicgenius, with 1718 points from one featured article, 29 good articles, 16 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
• 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.
• Gog the Mild, with 524 points from two featured articles and four featured article reviews.
• 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) reply

• User:Radiant!/Classification of admins

Sooo, I wonder if your name better fits under Literary than Lupine? : )

(And yes, apparently, I am still unclassifiable...)

Funniest thing about that page? - They removed Radient from their own page lol - jc37 17:03, 6 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Precious

Nine years!

Good to see you around. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 07:48, 13 May 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick- D and Hawkeye7 look at intelligence gathering, doctrine and strategy

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on RAAF aircraft, Hawkeye7 on mission command and nuclear secrecy

... for what you said on User talk:SlimVirgin - missing pictured on my talk, with music full of hope and reformation -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 20:06, 29 June 2021 (UTC) reply

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:

• 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.
• Epicgenius, a New York specialist, with 1083 points from 2 featured article reviews, 18 good articles, 30 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
• Bloom6132, with 869 points from 11 DYKs, all with bonus points, and 54 "In the news" items, mostly covering people who had recently died.
• 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.
• 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) reply

June continued ... last year's flowers match the image on the user page nicely, see? - DYK that her last reply to me was in a thread Green for hope? - The DYK set in honour of Yoninah appeared yesterday, including Psalm 85, with the kiss of justice and peace - we wrote that together.

Fourth of July: Brian's birthday, remembered in gratitude for his unfailing inspiration and support - remember the Chapel - the missed - the music? - Can I interest you in a user's first FAC, Carillon? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 12:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC) reply

Thank you Gerda. I appreciate these messages, even if I am being remiss in not replying properly. Carcharoth ( talk) 07:11, 10 July 2021 (UTC) reply

Reading a bit is the proper reply ;) - More music: 2 songs, the morning song - about rising from being down, in more than one sense - is a GA, - there should be more given my initials, but I also want to care for articles of those who recently died (now Esther Béjarano), and psalms in memory of Yoninah, - more missing than there. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 16:34, 16 July 2021 (UTC) reply

+ more music, a new song about a feast - a dear family member remembered today when she would have been 122 -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 11:12, 22 July 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Peacemaker67 and Nick-D on World War I

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Commonwealth armies and an Australian spy, Nick-D on the American Revolutionary War and RAAF mine laying Op-ed: RobDuch on United States coastal defenses

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the coord team. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 01:58, 1 September 2021 (UTC) reply

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, The Rambling Man and 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 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, Lee Vilenski, BennyOnTheLoose, 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. 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) reply

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are still open, but not for long. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! No further nominations will be accepted after that time. Voting will commence on 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:42, 10 September 2021 (UTC) reply

Hey y'all, voting for the 2021 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche is now open. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2021. Voting will be conducted at the 2021 tranche page itself. Appropriate questions for the candidates can also be asked. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 04:38, 15 September 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australia and the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan Op-ed: Nick-D on writing about military procurement

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australia and the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan Op-ed: Nick-D on writing about military procurement

Hey y'all, voting for the 2021 Wikiproject Military history coordinator tranche will be closing soon. This is a simple approval vote; only "support" votes should be made. Project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 28 September 2021. Voting will be conducted at the 2021 tranche page itself. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:31, 26 September 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on British conscription and German warship raiders

Template:After Tolkien navbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes ( talk) 17:07, 1 November 2021 (UTC) reply

The WikiCup is over for another year and the finalists can relax! Our Champion this year is 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. The Rambling Man ( submissions) with 5072 points
2. Lee Vilenski ( submissions) with 3276 points
3. Amakuru ( submissions) with 3197 points
4. Epicgenius ( submissions) with 1611 points
5. Gog the Mild ( submissions) with 1571 points
6. BennyOnTheLoose ( submissions) with 1420 points
7. Hog Farm ( submissions) with 1043 points
8. 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.

• The Rambling Man ( submissions) wins the featured article prize, for 8 FAs in round 5.
• Lee Vilenski ( submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 5.
• Gog the Mild ( submissions) wins the featured topic prize, for 13 articles in a featured topic in round 5.
• Epicgenius ( submissions) wins the good article prize, for 63 GAs in round 4.
• The Rambling Man ( submissions) wins the good topic prize, for 86 articles in good topics in round 5.
• The Rambling Man ( submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 68 FAC reviews and 213 GAN reviews, both in round 5.
• Epicgenius ( submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 30 did you know articles in round 3 and 105 overall.
• Bloom6132 ( submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 71 in the news articles in round 1 and 284 overall.

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) reply

You don't seem to have been informed that Bergius process and Haber–Bosch process has been proposed for deletion. The prod is about to expire. Spinning Spark 10:49, 7 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Thanks Spinningspark. I remember creating this for the convenience of a single link from the list of Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. i.e. What you said here was correct. I'm not around enough to really take this any further, and in any case it all looks OK as it is anyway (probably wasn't ever really needed in the first place). Thanks, by the way, for taking the time to leave me a message about this. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:55, 10 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:07, 23 November 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Canadian junior officers in World War II

A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I am Petros Apostolopoulos, a Ph.D. candidate in Public History at North Carolina State University. My Ph.D. project examines how historical knowledge is produced on Wikipedia. If you are interested in participating in my research study by offering your own experience of writing about history on Wikipedia, you can click on this link https://ncsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9z4wmR1cIp0qBH8. There are minimal risks involved in this research.

If you have any questions, please let me know. Petros Apostolopoulos, paposto@ncsu.edu Apolo1991 ( talk) 14:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Franklin–Nashville campaign Review essay: Military History Wikiproject Coordinators' reading list

Hi!

You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.

When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.

Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.

If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.

We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.

Thank you. / Johan (WMF)

18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

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) reply

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) 15:01, 5 January 2022 (UTC) reply

January songs

in friendship

Thank you for being around! - Happy new year, in friendship! - Today I show - in "songs" - yesterday's snow, and today's music in memory of Jerome Kohl, a friend whom I miss much, - you will understand. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 12:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC) reply

Thank you Gerda. I wish I was around more. I do appreciate your messages and your lovely pictures! Carcharoth ( talk) 15:45, 29 January 2022 (UTC) reply

Thank you, and just come and go as you please. I'll upload more images over the next days. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 15:48, 29 January 2022 (UTC) reply

February songs

frozen

vacation now all done - my joy - more on my talk -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 17:43, 7 February 2022 (UTC) reply

Valentine's Day edition, with spring flowers and plenty of music -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 17:57, 14 February 2022 (UTC) reply

stand and sing -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 22:23, 25 February 2022 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Australian Army in Somalia Review essay: Hog Farm on American Civil War sites in the South and Midwest

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D on World War II in Europe

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:

• 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.
• 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.
• Bloom6132, a WikiCup veteran, was in third place with 682 points, garnered from 51 In the news items and several DYKs.
• GhostRiver was close behind with 679 points, gained from achieving 12 GAs, mostly on ice hockey players, and 35 GARs.
• 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.
• 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) 12:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth, hope all is well with you. I've got back to working on The Cenotaph and whenever you next poke your head round the door, I wondered if you'd cast an eye over it and see if there's anything lacking. It's not finished yet, obviously, but I'm not planning any more drastic changes. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:44, 18 March 2022 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on Hitler as a military leader

22:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on military logistics and rebuilding Nagasaki

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. 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. AryKun, with 1172 points from two featured articles, one good article and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews.
3. 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. Panini!, with 549 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and several other sources.
7. 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) reply

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 07:01, 13 May 2022 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on a World War II summit and the American space program

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at four recent works

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:

• BennyOnTheLoose, with 746 points, a tally built both on snooker and other sports topics, and on more general subjects.
• 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Falklands War artillery and Nick-D on the Battle of the Ruhr

Hi Carcharoth. I'm not sure if you are more interested in philosophy or religion articles, but I noticed you're listed at WP:PRV under Religion and philosophy as well as General copy editors. I recently put Quine–Putnam indispensability argument up for peer review here and was wondering if you have the time to provide any feedback on it. No problem if you don't have the time at the moment though as I've already sent messages to a few other editors. Thanks. Alduin2000 ( talk) 19:48, 6 August 2022 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on the Falklands War

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are opening in a few hours (00:01 UTC on 1 September). A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 17:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC) reply

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) 12:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Voting for the upcoming project coordinator election opens in a few hours (00:01 UTC on 15 September) and will last through 23:59 on 28 September. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. Voting is conducted using simple approval voting and questions for the candidates are welcome. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 22:26, 14 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Just a quick correction to the prior message about the 2022 MILHIST coordinator election! I ( Hog Farm) didn't proofread the message well enough and left out a link to the election page itself in this message. The voting will occur here; sorry about the need for a second message and the inadvertent omission from the prior one. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 17:40, 15 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Voting for the upcoming project coordinator election closes soon, at 23:59 on 28 September. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. Voting is conducted using simple approval voting and questions for the candidates are welcome. The voting itself is occurring here If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 20:13, 26 September 2022 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australian military leadership and Nick-D on the First Crusade's Byzantine connection

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: Meet some of the project coordinators

Heh. Thank you! Carcharoth ( talk) 22:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC) reply

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

• 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
• 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
• BennyOnTheLoose (1238), another cue sports enthusiast, also interested in songs, followed by
• 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,
• 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
• PCN02WPS (292), who scored with good articles and DYKs on sporting and other topics and
• 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.

• 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.
• 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.
• Z1720 wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 35 FARs in round 4.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the 1991 Gulf War air campaign Op-ed: Meet some more of the coordinators

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at British Territorials in India Interview: On turning 200 (issues of the Bugle!) Review essay: Coordinators' 2022 reading list Op-ed: Meet some more of the coordinators

Carcharoth, we need a new title for "Middle-earth in film" which a new editor has recently twice renamed. The article covers "television"/streaming as well as good ol' celluloid. Ideas? Discussion is at Talk:Adaptations of Middle-earth. Thoughts much needed. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 16:34, 31 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Saw that. No brilliant ideas right now, I'm afraid (on clicking through, I see it looks resolved now). Carcharoth ( talk) 22:58, 31 December 2022 (UTC) reply

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) reply

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{ subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

— Moops ^{⋠ T⋡} 16:59, 3 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on the key contributions of two Australian scientists in World War II Review essay: Nick-D reports on his recent visits to British military sites

Hey, Carcharoth. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman ( talk) 00:10, 9 January 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on translation and Eisenhower's armies Review essay: Catlemur on military museums in Athens

Category:Commonwealth War Graves Commission Crosses of Sacrifice has been nominated for upmerging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect ( talk) 03:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC) reply

February songs

my daily stories

My story on 24 February is about Artemy Vedel (TFA by Amitchell235), and I made a suggestion for more peace, - what do you think? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 17:53, 24 February 2023 (UTC) reply

today: two women whose birthday we celebrate today, 99 and 90! -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 11:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC) reply

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.
• Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
• 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.
• TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
• 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 LunaEatsTuna, Thebiguglyalien, Sammi Brie, Trainsandotherthings, Lee Vilenski, Juxlos, Unexpectedlydian, SounderBruce, Kosack, BennyOnTheLoose and 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hog Farm on the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War

March songs

my story today

We thank you today for Nelson's Pillar, introduced (in 2016): "Nelson's Pillar, erected in 1809 to honour the British hero of Trafalgar, was a feature of Dublin for more than 150 years until, suddenly, it wasn't. Before its sudden demise it was both loved and resented by Dubliners, and survived numerous schemes for its removal or replacement with something specifically Irish. A mixture of bureacracy, sentiment – and the sense that there were more urgent priorities – kept the "one-handled adulterer" on his pedestal for far longer than perhaps even he would have expected. Opinion is divided as to whether his eventual replacement in the city centre, the Spire of Dublin, is a worthy successor."! - Once I'm here: what do you think of this thread? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:57, 24 March 2023 (UTC) reply

Thank you Gerda. I remember watching Brian work on that article (and helping a small amount). :-( Good to see you around still. I had a quick look at the thread you pointed me to and the talk page discussion, but wouldn't really have anything to add. Hope all is well with you. Carcharoth ( talk) 20:51, 24 March 2023 (UTC) Hmm. Re-reading the talk page was a trip down memory lane. Brian was very patient with my suggestions! :-) I see an argument currently in progress over the infobox... Carcharoth ( talk) 20:58, 24 March 2023 (UTC) reply

Memory lane. I remember Brian as a generous person, interested in compromise. Right after the infoboxes arbcase (2013!) he came to my talk with a suggestion for what he called identibox, used for Percy Grainger. To see a military image being used in the context - instead of reaching out for his compromise - makes me sad. Privately, I'm on vacation, so that's well with me. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 21:39, 24 March 2023 (UTC) reply

sharing impressions from vacation on Madeira 20-30 March, pics now at 24 Mar from the peaks - the RfC with the non-neutral invitation to fight was closed, and went rather peacefully - what can we learn from it? - I saw today that Brian added an infobox to Imogen Holst in 2014, edit summary "risk" - should it still be a risk in 2023 to follow his example? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 10:42, 31 March 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on the Australian War Memorial and the South China Sea raid, Hawkeye7 on the 1999 East Timor intervention

April songs

my story today

Yesterday's story was around Messiaen, and I got no protest, - perhaps the ice age is going to end? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 17:06, 28 April 2023 (UTC) reply

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:

• Iazyges (1040) with three FAs on Byzantine emperors, and lots of bonus points.
• Unlimitedlead (847), with three FAs on ancient history, one GA and nine reviews.
• Epicgenius (636), a WikiCup veteran, with one FA on the New Amsterdam Theatre, four GAs and eleven DYKs
• BennyOnTheLoose (553), a seasoned competitor, with one FA on snooker, six GAs and seven reviews.
• FrB.TG (525), with one FA, a Lady Gaga song and a mass of bonus points.

Other notable performances were put in by Sammi Brie, Thebiguglyalien, MyCatIsAChonk, PCN02WPS, and 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) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on the Western Allied invasion of Germany Op-ed: Hawkeye7's tips for writing articles on military logistics

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on the Western Allied invasion of Germany Op-ed: Hawkeye7's tips for writing articles on military logistics

May songs

I had a good story on coronation day: a Te Deum we sang that day. And the following day we sang it for the composer ;) - And today we remember a composer who created music especially for us! -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 21:03, 9 May 2023 (UTC) reply

more pleasant music (just heard!) if you click on songs - did you know a string quartet with two cellos? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 15:24, 14 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Thanks, Gerda. Sorry to have not looked in for a while. Always good to see your messages. Carcharoth ( talk) 20:37, 24 June 2023 (UTC) reply

June songs

my story today

Thank you, and no rush ever. I enjoyed long bright days in Stockholm (click on songs), and even took a photograph of a tomb thinking of yours. I saw the first name, Sven-David, and thought the only one I knew was Sandström, and then it was the same. Plenty of music on my talk now that our festival started where I saw and heard the enchanting Diana Tishchenko. I added a pic that I took to her article, also a lovely short video with interview and music. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 21:05, 30 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D review three recent works

The third round of the 2023 WikiCup has come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 175 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Thebiguglyalien, with 919 points from a featured article on Frances Cleveland as well as five good articles and many reviews,
• Unlimitedlead, with 862 points from a high-scoring featured articles on Henry II of England and numerous reviews,
• Iazyges, with 560 points from a high-scoring featured article on Tiberius III.

Contestants achieved 11 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 47 good articles, 72 featured or good article reviews, over 100 DYKs and 40 ITN appearances. As always, 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. Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) and Cwmhiraeth ( talk). MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 15:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D on alleged Australian war crimes and Hawkeye7 on the 1944–45 Philippines campaign and the Australian Signals Directorate

July songs

Listening to Siegfried from the 2023 Bayreuth Festival, third act, Andreas Schager as Siegfried waking up Brünnhilde, reminded me of this discussion. Was there anything in it demanding arbitration? - A few weeks later, three participants were admonished, - for what still remains a mystery to me? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 20:26, 29 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Today Jahrhundertring, and I'm listening to Götterdämmerung from the Bayreuth Festival, close to the scene pictured, - the image (of a woman who can't believe what she has to see) features also on the article talk. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 18:59, 31 July 2023 (UTC) reply

August music

August songs

my story today

My story today - a first - isn't about an article by me, but one I reviewed for DYK, see here. I like all: topic, "hook", connected article (a GA on its way towards FA), image and the music "in the background". I just returned from a weekend with two weddings, so also like the spirit ;) - Pics to come, I promise one cake, the other was too large! Good music, and better even in the concert ending the second day, - Goldberg Variations theme for an encore, after Dohnányi Serenade! - I played with the dedication for Goldberg Variations in my Siegfried entry 10 years ago ;) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 21:49, 7 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Again not by me: today's story - with the triumph of music over military - is uplifting! -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 20:23, 9 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Today is Debussy's birthday. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 15:41, 22 August 2023 (UTC) reply

This too shall pass. - Ten years ago on 28 August, I heard a symphony, with a heavy heart because of the pending decision in WP:ARBINFOBOX, and not worried about my future here but Andy's. - It passed, and I could write the DYK about calling to dance, not battle, and Andy could write the DYK mentioning about peace and reconciliation, - look. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 15:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: Adam Cuerden on finding and using images

Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election have opened. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting will commence on 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:04, 2 September 2023 (UTC) reply

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with anyone scoring less than 673 points being eliminated. It was a high scoring round with all but one of the contestants who progressed to the final having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

• Epicgenius, with 2173 points topping the scores, gained mainly from a featured article, 38 good articles and 9 DYKs. He was followed by
• Sammi Brie, with 1575 points, gained mainly from a featured article, 28 good articles and 50 good article reviews. Close behind was
• Thebiguglyalien, with 1535 points mainly gained from a featured article, 15 good articles, 26 good article reviews and lots of bonus points.

Between them during round 4, contestants achieved 12 featured articles, 3 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 126 good articles, 46 DYK entries, 14 ITN entries, 67 featured article candidate reviews and 147 good article reviews. Congratulations to our eight finalists and 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 and within 24 hours of the end of the final. 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 your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

I will be standing down as a judge after the end of the contest. I think the Cup encourages productive editors to improve their contributions to Wikipedia and I hope that someone else will step up to take over the running of the Cup. Sturmvogel 66 ( talk), and Cwmhiraeth ( talk)

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Recent external reviews Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on the Oppenheimer biopic

September songs

my story today

Today's story is about a great pianist with an unusual career, taking off when he was 50. It's the wedding anniversary of Clara and Robert Schumann, but I was too late with our gift. Just for fun: when do you think did Mrs. and Mr. Schumann get their infoboxes, and by whom? (The answer can be found here, but please think first.) -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 14:43, 12 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Today I remember Raymond Arritt, who still helps me, five years after he died, per what he said in my darkest time on Wikipedia (placed in my edit-notice as a reminder), and by teh rulez. - Latest pics from a weekend in Berlin (one more day to come). -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 16:20, 19 September 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 on an American general and the first female astronauts, Nick-D on Roman fortifications

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

• BeanieFan11 with 2582 points
• Thebiguglyalien with 1615 points
• Epicgenius with 1518 points
• MyCatIsAChonk with 1012 points
• BennyOnTheLoose with 974 points
• AirshipJungleman29 with 673 points
• Sammi Brie with 520 points
• Unlimitedlead with 5 points

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 competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. 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.

• Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
• Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
• BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
• Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
• LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
• Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
• Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (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) 16:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at English Civil War logistics and Peacemaker67 at Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on how WP:SIZE matters

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Nick-D looks at the Russian invasion of Ukraine Op-ed: Nick-D on writing Rhodesian military articles

	A very happy Christmas and New Year to you!
	Have a great Christmas, and may 2024 bring you joy, happiness – and no trolls, vandals or visits from Krampus! Cheers SchroCat ( talk) 15:20, 18 December 2023 (UTC) reply

Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for 2023! The the top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki . Cast your votes vote here and here respectively. Voting closes at 23:59 on 30 December 2023. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. Hawkeye7 ( talk · contribs) via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 23:55, 22 December 2023 (UTC) reply

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 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 on 31 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: Cwmhiraeth ( talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius ( talk · contribs · email), and Frostly ( talk · contribs · 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. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Like 2019, remember? -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 21:37, 1 January 2024 (UTC) reply

On the Main page: the person who made the pictured festival possible -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 19:36, 16 January 2024 (UTC) reply

story · music · places

Today a friend's birthday, with related music and new vacation pics -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 22:38, 30 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Template:WikiProject Biography/category list has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym ( talk) 12:17, 4 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Hi Carcharoth, I hope you are keeping well, and all the best for 2024. I have an ask, but I've no idea how big an ask it is, so I shan't be either surprised or disappointed if the answer is no. This suggests that you may be reasonably proximate to Kensal Green Cemetery. I'm thinking I might do a small article on the grave of Marigold Churchill. There are a number of points of interest: Churchill's daughter / now re-interned at Bladon / Grade II listing / Eric Gill as designer / theft of cross. However, I don't really like doing buildings/structures articles without an image, and neither Commons nor Geograph can help. But I've no idea whether you are in a position to visit and take a photo or two; how big a 72-acre cemetery really is (sounds big!); how easily identifiable or not Marigold's grave might be. Anyways, thought I would ask but, again, refusal will not offend in any way! Best regards. KJP1 ( talk) 14:49, 7 January 2024 (UTC) reply

p.s. - Just in case, it looks like this, [12].

Thanks for asking KJP1. I can get to that location, but not that easily and not immediately. It is a big cemetery. It is not entirely clear where the grave is located, and it looks to be right over the south side, near the railway lines. I'd want a little bit more information before setting off, though the Historic England map looks clear enough. It wouldn't be in the next few weeks, but if you haven't got anything from anywhere else by mid-February (and the weather is a bit warmer!) drop me another ping. You could also ask on the talk page at Kensal Green Cemetery? Carcharoth ( talk) 19:15, 21 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Carcharoth - that is very kind. as suggested I shall ask on the Kensal Green page, and ce back to you, with an exact location, if that is unsuccessful. best regards KJP1 ( talk) 12:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC) reply

By way of an update; the article is done, Tomb of Marigold Churchill, and I had an opportunity to ask Ham and Swan if they might be able to help with an image. I shall let you know what they say. Although, it might be quite nice if you all went - you could make it a mini-Wiki meet! Thanks again. KJP1 ( talk) 14:14, 9 February 2024 (UTC) reply

And by way of a further update, Swan made their way to Kensal Green and took some superb shots. But many thanks for considering it. Best regards. KJP1 ( talk) 06:33, 21 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Thank you for the updates and glad the article and photos got done. Carcharoth ( talk) 19:03, 29 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Happy First Edit Day! Hi Carcharoth! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of the day you made your first edit and became a Wikipedian! The Herald (Benison) ( talk) 02:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 looks at three diverse works Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on the state of the Wikiproject

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Pickersgill-Cunliffe review four books

The 2024 WikiCup is off to a flying start, with 135 participants. This is the largest number of participants we have seen since 2017.

Our current leader is newcomer Generalissima ( submissions), who has one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher) and 10 GAs and 12 DYKs mostly on New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:

• AirshipJungleman29 ( submissions), with one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, and two DYKs;
• Vami_IV ( submissions), with one FA on Doom (2016 video game), one GA on Boundary Fire (2017), and 11 reviews;
• MaranoFan ( submissions), with one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and two DYKs;
• Skyshifter ( submissions), with one FA on OneShot and one DYK;
• Sammi Brie ( submissions), with five GAs and five DYKs on television and radio stations;
• voorts ( submissions) and Elli ( submissions), both with one FA and one DYK each.

As a reminder, competitors may submit work for the first round until 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February, and the second round starts 1 March. Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round; currently, competitors need at least 15 points to progress. 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 ( Cwmhiraeth ( talk · contribs), Epicgenius ( talk · contribs), and Frostly ( talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. 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. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 17:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Category:Tolkien studies has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. -- wooden superman 09:50, 23 February 2024 (UTC) reply

The first round of the 2024 WikiCup ended at 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February. Everyone with at least 30 points moved on to Round 2, the highest number of points required to advance to the second round since 2014. Due to a six-way tie for the 64th-place spot, 67 contestants have qualified for Round 2.

The following scorers in Round 1 all scored more than 300 points:

• Generalissima ( submissions), who has 916 points mostly from one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher), 15 GAs, and 16 DYKs on a variety of topics including New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures, in addition to seven reviews
• Vami_IV ( submissions), who has 790 points from two FAs on Felix M. Warburg House and Doom (2016 video game), two GAs, one DYK, and 11 reviews
• AirshipJungleman29 ( submissions), who has 580 points from one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, two DYKs, and five reviews
• Sammi Brie ( submissions), who has 420 points mostly from nine GAs and seven DYKs on television and radio stations
• MaranoFan ( submissions), who has 351 points from one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and three DYKs
• Skyshifter ( submissions), who has 345 points from one FA on OneShot, one DYK and two reviews

In this newsletter, the judges would like to pay a special tribute to Vami_IV ( submissions), who unfortunately passed away this February. At the time of his death, he was the second-highest-scoring competitor. Outside the WikiCup, he had eight other featured articles, five A-class articles, eight other good articles, and two Four Awards. Vami also wrote an essay on completionism, a philosophy in which he deeply believed. If you can, please join us in honoring his memory by improving one of the articles on his to-do list.

Remember that any content promoted after 27 February 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 Needed. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, feel free to review one of the nominations listed on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. 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. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 00:40, 28 February 2024 (UTC) reply

story · music · places

Music and flowers on Rossini's rare birthday -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 19:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7 and Nick-D look at four recent works

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content Book review: Hawkeye7, Nick-D and Pickersgill-Cunliffe discuss six (count 'em, six!) works comprising eight volumes Op-ed: Hawkeye7 on a lecture by the Australian official historian

We are approaching the end of the 2024 WikiCup's second round, with a little over two weeks remaining. Currently, contestants must score at least 105 points to progress to the third round.

Our current top scorers are as follows:

• Sammi Brie ( submissions) with 642 points, mostly from 11 GAs about radio and television;
• voorts ( submissions) with 530 points, mostly from two FAs ( Well he would, wouldn't he? and Cora Agnes Benneson) and three GAs;
• Generalissima ( submissions) with 523 points, mostly from 11 GAs about coinage and history;
• SounderBruce ( submissions) with 497 points, mostly from a FA about the 2020 season of the soccer club Seattle Sounders FC and two GAs;
• Tamzin ( submissions) with 410 points, mostly from a FA about the drink Capri-Sun and three GAs;
• Kusma ( submissions) with 330 points, mostly from a FA about the English botanist Anna Blackburne and a GA.

Competitors may submit work for the second round until the end of 28 April, and the third round starts 1 May. Remember that only competitors with the top 32 scores will make it through to the third round. 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. Please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs. As a reminder, competitors are strictly prohibited from gaming Wikipedia policies or processes to receive more points.

If you would like to learn more about rules and scoring for the 2024 WikiCup, please read Wikipedia:WikiCup/Scoring. Further questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges ( Cwmhiraeth ( talk · contribs), Epicgenius ( talk · contribs), and Frostly ( talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. 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. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 15:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC) reply