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Many people celebrate Martin Luther King Day of Service by volunteering for some worthwhile cause. Of course, Wikipedia was built by volunteers.

On January 15th, interested Wikipedians will work collectively on some of the thankless, but worthwhile maintenance tasks that have serious backlogs. Of course you could always do this, but it is more fun to get a mob to attack a problem and bury it!

The first target of this group project will be to clear the backlog at Wikipedia:Dead-end pages. Follow the link for instructions on what to do. You can paste the following in your edit summaries to encourage others.

Celebrating Martin Luther King Day of Service by volunteering to clear backlogs. [[Wikipedia:Martin Luther King Day of Service|Join us!]]

Participants

  1. wompa99
  2. ike9898
  3. Wrcmills
  4. Also, January 15 happens to be Wikipedia:Wikipedia Day as well - so let's get down to work! Yuser31415 20:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  5. In honor of Dr. King, I'll do my best. Rest in peace, sir. Dooms Day349 04:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  6. -- C J King 04:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  7. Eyyy, no school! I am so in. V-Man737 11:23, 13 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  8. Ack, it's a Monday. Not much time therefore ( school), but I'll see if I can do something. \m/ For Jimmy and country! \m/Vanderdecken ξ φ 12:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  9. Back from wikibreak, and ready to go! P TO 00:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  10. Rmrfstar
  11. NinaOdell | Talk 15:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC) reply
  12. I'll see what I can do to help. SadanYagci
  13. darmokandjalad

Ideas

Start a new section for possible ideas on what to clean up.

  • In honor of the theme of the holiday, perhaps we should clean up articles related to freedom, voting rights, African-Americans, and the like. Dooms Day349 16:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC) reply
Just glancing through, Category:Wikipedia backlog has tons ready to go. V-Man737 03:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply
OK, 'tis cool then. Perhaps we should take some time to clear the Editor Review backlog? If we just got four or five people to assault it, we could have it through in just twenty or so minutes. Dooms Day349 03:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply
I'm up for anything... I'm starting a day early! Any backlogs (especially merging articles etc.) I'll tackle. I'll inform you of the total process at the end of tomorrow Wrcmills 08:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply
The note on Community Portal suggested clearing out backlogs - I think that would be the best thing to do. Leave the mainstream editor to get on with normal work, whilst we get rid of stuff that should have already been done, to bring us back up on time. There are some backlogs going all the way back to June etc. - they really need dismissing so we can get on with current stuff. — Vanderdecken ξ φ 14:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply
Yes, I think clearing backlogs is the thing to do. Some of it isn't fun, but that's sort of the point of this exercise; we'll voluteer our labor to do something that needs to done, but that is currently being neglected (thus the backlogs). Here's one that I suggest -- Wikipedia:Dead-end pages. Basically it is just adding wikilinks to page that have none. What do you say? ike9898 20:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply

Dead-end pages sounds good. So, we have:

1. Editor Reviews. 2. Dead-end pages.

What else? Dooms Day349 20:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply

If I am correctly understanding what I see on this page , Wikipedia:Editor review, there currently isn't a single outstanding review request. The backlog of dead-end pages is thousands long, so I doubt that eight participants will run out of things to do tommorrow.....
BTW, we all live in different places and have different schedules, but is there any interest in trying to pick a particular time window to this work? ike9898 23:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC) reply
I don't think that is necessary because most of the people working live either in the US or UK. Also, maintenance backlogs don't require much communication to tackle. P TO 00:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC) reply

It'd be a good idea to link Wikipedia:Martin Luther King Day of Service in some way in your edit summaries to encourage others to visit this page and join the drive. V-Man737 03:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC) reply

Good idea! Paste this in your edit summaries, if you like:
Celebrating Martin Luther King Day of Service by volunteeering to clear backlogs. [[Wikipedia:Martin Luther King Day of Service|Join us!]]
Yup, I'll be doing dead-ends today. Shame I can't install AWB on a school laptop... But the dead-end dump REALLY needs updating by someone with AWB - half of them do now have links, or have been deleted. — Vanderdecken ξ φ 09:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC) reply
I've started meself on "F is for Effing Dead-ends!" Wow, my fingers are taking a beating. Ugh, and I just now wanted to "un-dead-end" this whole section... ;_; Viva la Revolución!
I'm going to do more later today after school, had to abandon it last night Wrcmills 07:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC) reply

TY

Thanks for helping, guys! Salad Days 17:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC) reply