This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 35

←

Archive 40

Archive 41

Archive 42

Archive 43

Archive 44

Archive 45

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

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

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

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

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; award recipients; contest results Articles: The month's Featured and A-class content Book reviews: Nick-D on the legacy of World War II Op-ed: Bomzibar on German military history

Hi. I hope that you've enjoyed the past couple of years of sabbatical from being an arbitrator, but I've noticed you poking increasingly around the arbitration pages, so maybe you are starting to miss it? If it's consistent with your other editing plans, I hope you will give serious thought to running again in this year's election. I consistently found your work and input as an arbitrator to be of the highest standard, and I sincerely think it would be very positive for the Committee and the community if you were to consider returning.

I apologize for springing this on you without warning, and it's more than two months until the election, so there's no need to respond hastily (or indeed at all). Best regards, Newyorkbrad ( talk) 23:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Brad. I'm responding here with a couple of thoughts on what you said. I do continue to follow the arbitration pages, but that's more to do with taking an interest in how things have changed (and not changed) over the past two years (2011 and 2012) compared to when I was an arbitrator (2009 and 2010). I certainly don't miss it, and I think I have said in the past that I would be reluctant to stand again, though I wouldn't rule it out completely. My main misgivings would be not having done as much content work as I wanted to do over the past two years, and not being entirely happy (despite your kind comments) with how I performed as an arbitrator. I'd want to do better in any second stint if I was elected (and I don't think that is by any means as certain as you seem to imply), both in terms of handling the workload and getting the balance right with content work. The main problem in the past few months has been finding the time to do any editing whatsoever. I'm hoping things will have settled down again by October.

It also depends to a large extent on who stands for election, as I've always said that if there are those willing and competent to do the role, with the time for the role, and with chances of being elected, that should be enough. One final point, picking up on your comments about the 'community' and its functioning ('community' being a rather uncertain term around here). This is more determined, in my view, by how new editors are guided and encouraged (and discouraged where needed), and on how experienced and patient editors and admins provide leadership and enable consensus-building where needed on divisive issues (both local ones and project-wide ones). More of that kind of thing is needed, rather than confrontation and arbitration. Ideally, most issues would be resolved short of arbitration, but as you know that doesn't always happen. Carcharoth ( talk) 08:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

While I am sympathetic, I too would hope you would. I understand if you in the end choose not to (it's a ridiculously thankless task), but I hope you will anyway : ) - jc37 17:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

--The Olive Branch 18:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject has started its 2012 project coordinator election process, where we will select a team of coordinators to organize the project over the coming year. If you would like to be considered as a candidate, please submit your nomination by 14 September. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact one of the current coordinators on their talk page. This message was delivered here because you are a member of the Military history WikiProject. – Military history coordinators ( about the project • what coordinators do) 08:46, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey all :). We've just deployed another set of features for Page Curation. They include flyouts from the icons in Special:NewPagesFeed, showing who reviewed an article and when, a listing of this in the "info" flyout, and a general re-jigging of the info flyout - we've also fixed the weird bug with page_titles_having_underscores_instead_of_spaces in messages sent to talkpages, and introduced CSD logging! As always, these features will need some work - but any feedback would be most welcome.

Hi, as announced on the ME project talk, I have now nominated this one for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 September 21. Just wanted to let you know as the original author. De728631 ( talk) 17:01, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. No objection from me. Replacing that template by a parameter in {{ WikiProject Middle-earth}} is something that needed doing. Thanks for doing that. You may want to update the template documentation so people know what parameters are available. Carcharoth ( talk) 07:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

[1] Paul August ☎ 22:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

LOL! Dragging me out of my wikibreak as well! :-) I did notice you there, and it was good to see a familiar name. Must be getting old! Carcharoth ( talk) 23:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

;-) Now go have a nice break. Paul August ☎ 00:38, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey Carcharoth. This will be, if not our final newsletter, one of the final ones :). After months of churning away at this project, our final version (apart from a few tweaks and bugfixes) is now live. Changes between this and the last release include deletion tag logging, a centralised log, and fixes to things like edit summaries.

Hopefully you like what we've done with the place; suggestions for future work on it, complaints and bugs to the usual address :). We'll be holding a couple of office hours sessions, which I hope you'll all attend. Many thanks, Okeyes (WMF) ( talk) 11:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Biography for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. - Mabeenot ( talk) 16:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

On 26 September 2012, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Charles Illingworth, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the school of surgery founded by Charles Illingworth, Glasgow's Regius Professor of Surgery from 1939, "came to dominate academic surgery in Britain for a generation or more"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Charles Illingworth. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page ( here's how, quick check) and it will be added to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Graeme Bartlett ( talk) 08:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to review my FAC, much appreciated. In particular the sources you found for the awards etc. were great - and I will remember them for future work. I've gone through the points you raised and reworked areas of the article. Would you have time to look through again and see if I caught all that is needed/comment further? Cheers. -- Errant ^{( chat!)} 23:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)