 The Frozen Times is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Weather's Non-tropical storms task force. The newsletter aims to summarize recent developments and activities in the task force, in addition to recent extratropical cyclone activity on a global scale. The Frozen Times has been running since its revival in March 2021, although the first issue was published in February 2008. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Frozen Times covers all task force-related events from March 15–June 7, 2021. This edition's authors and editors are HurricaneCovid and Super Cyclonic Storm Corona. Past editions can be viewed here. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Non-tropical storms task force: News and Developments
New articles since the last newsletter
New GAs since the last newsletter Thank you, Juliancolton, Southern Illinois SKYWARN, JForget, Thegreatdr, and AstroHurricane001
Other significant storms
New task force members More information can be found here. The following list lists members who have joined/rejoined the task force since the last issue.
To our new members: welcome to the task force, and happy editing! Feel free to check the tasks or to-do lists towards the bottom of the newsletter for tasks that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Current assessment table Assessments are valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 13 featured articles and 1 featured list. There are 51 good articles, but only 3 A-class articles, perhaps because most articles of that quality already passed an FA review. There are 60 B-class articles, 144 C-class articles, 211 start-class articles, and 65 stub-class articles, with 15 lists. These figures mean that roughly one-fourth of the task force is rated B-class or better. Tropical Storm Rolf was the 20th GA in the task force. Task force Goals & Progress The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the task force as of this publishing. Updates on the following goals can also be found on the task force home page.
Task force tasks Articles to be merged
Task force to-do The Rebirth of WPNTS, by HurricaneCovid Hi; this is my first opinion piece for The Frozen Times (or for any newsletter). Before I start, I would like to say that CodingCyclone is the one who actually suggested I write about this topic for my opinion piece. I would also like to thank LightandDark2000 for giving me a detailed history of WPNTS so I could properly write it. That's all, now on to the OP! WPNTS had its beginnings over a decade ago, less than 7 years after Wikipedia was created. The project was founded by Juliancolton on December 23, 2007, in the midst of the hyperactive and deadly 2007–08 North American winter. For the first time, editors interested in winter storms and extratropical cyclones had a place to collaborate on those types of articles. The project drew in a number of editors soon after it was founded, about 12–24 of them. They began improving extratropical cyclone articles, getting a number of them to GA or FA status. They had also began starting winter season articles, similar to current North American winter season articles but much, much longer. They set these season articles up from 2006–07 to 2009–10, and later reorganized them into "Global storm activity" articles. The WikiProject was never overly active, but it had a good amount of activity, with about 25–30 regularly active members keeping the project running. Project membership peaked from 2009–2011, when WPNTS had its "Golden Days" in terms of activity. However, project membership began to fall off sharply after 2011, and it was reduced to a core of about a dozen active users, which also slowly bled off over the next few years. Despite this, new members continued joining (some unofficially) through 2015, with some vital editors at the time including MarioProtIV, LightandDark2000, and our Member of The Edition, Master of Time. Master of Time began creating articles for North American winter seasons. To veteran editors, it was like a rebirth of the old winter season articles, but still different since these focused solely on North America. Activity continued at a level and steady pace on WPNTS through 2016, although it never returned to its peak. After 2016, more active members bled off as well, leaving behind a core of about 8 active members keeping the project running for the next few years. In 2018, inactivity began to grow particularly acute, with WPNTS being reduced to a small core of 4–5 active members. In 2019, the WikiProject was declared defunct. As put by LightandDark2000, "It was so inactive that no one even challenged it." Work on winter season articles continued, but only by a few WPTC members or the occasional passerby. Eventually, WPNTS managed to find the light at the end of the tunnel and end those dark times. The COVID-19 pandemic played a big role in that happening. Starting in mid-2020, WPNTS saw droves of new members joining, mostly WPTC members. Through the latter half of 2020, members joined at a steady rate, despite it still being officially "inactive". This was the largest influx of new members WPNTS had seen since its "Golden Days" over a decade ago. From May 2020 to the present, the number of active members blew up from 3 to 32. During this time, some longtime WPNTS editors, including Master of Time, MarioProtIV, and United States Man officially joined. MarioJump83 and I joined during late 2020, and with the help of LightandDark2000, we restarted the project. Members continued joining at a steady pace in 2021, with the active members list continuing to grow to this day. For the first time in nearly a decade, WPNTS was alive and running, and while we have not managed to return to the Golden Days, we hope we will be able to do so someday in the near future. I hope the new life in WPNTS continues to grow for a long time, and that new members keep the former project (now task force) alive and well. Signing off, ~ 🌀 Hurricane Covid 🌀 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Nominations for MoTE
Master of Time ( talk · contribs)
I am nominating Master of Time as the Member of The Edition for this issue, even though we have over 9 weeks before its publishing. Master of Time has been an active and prolific contributor to WPNTS articles, particularly with North American winter articles. He was also a crucial contributor to WPNTS from 2014–2018, and was one of the few editors keeping the Wikiproject alive at the time. For all his hard work to WPNTS, he deserves more recognition in the project, and for that reason I am nominating him for MoTE. 🌀 Hurricane Covid 🌀 ( contribs) 13:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
- Support – Superb candidate. Master of Time has spent years working hard on winter storm articles, particularly the ones relating to storms in North America. He was maintaining those pages even as WPTNS membership was falling off. He even started the North American winter articles! He has also made plenty of contributions to severe weather articles. He deserves to be recognized. LightandDark2000 🌀 ( talk) 03:38, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
- Strong Support – Per above. -Shift 674- 🌀 contribs 14:49, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
- Support - per above. CodingCyclone! 🌀 📘 02:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
- Strong Support – Per above. ~ ~ 🌀 𝚂𝙲𝚂 𝙲𝙾𝚁𝙾𝙽𝙰 🌀 13:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)