Community bulletin board

2010-02-08 News and notes: Commons at 6 million, BLP taskforce, milestones and more In the news: Robson Revisions, Rumble in the Knesset, and more Dispatches: Fewer reviewers in 2009 WikiProject report: WikiProject Olympics Features and admins: Approved this week Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation About·Archives·Single-page·Newsroom·Suggestions WikiVoices Episode 50: Part 1 (Minors and Wikipedia) Episode 50: Part 2 (BLP and new users) Join our next conversation!

Notices

• GA Sweeps is in the final stage of completion, and we can still use additional reviewers. A few article reviews this month by just a few more editors will help to finish the process and free up reviewers to assist with GAN. We would appreciate any additional assistance!
• Britain Loves Wikipedia - a free photography competition - is running in 20 museums across the UK throughout February. Join in, take photos, win prizes!
• A petition is open regarding perceived abuses of the ignore all rules policy

Project pages seeking contributors

Discussions

Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention:

Help out

Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you are not ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration.

Things to do

• Respond to a request for comment, Wikiquette alert or provide a third opinion.
• Adopt a basic topic list, to help develop and maintain a table of contents to a major subject on Wikipedia.
• Give a requested editor review.
• Can you draw or take pictures? Make a requested image.
• Peer review or give feedback on some articles.
• Comment at Featured portal candidates and Portals at peer review.
• Make recommendations on articles listed at Good article reassessment.
• Respond to the Reward board or Bounty board.
• Are you good at photo editing? Then try cleaning up some of these images, or helping out at the Graphics Lab.
• Can you use GIS tools? Help make requested maps.
• Can you communicate in another language? There are articles that need translation into English. You can also proofread a translation.
• Let SuggestBot suggest pages for you to improve.
• Update pages with old (ref or note template) citations to the new references format.
• Patrol new pages and help improving new articles.
• Assess articles by quality or by importance – pick a topic of interest and grade according to that WikiProject's scale. (See links from article talk pages.)
• Do you have a historical perspective? Articles slanted towards recent events might need to be looked at with a new eye.
• Category:Wikipedia backlog always needs attention.

Fix-up projects

Open tasks

Here are some tasks you can do:

• Wikify: Mohammad Ezz, Michael Kefalianos, Frank William Erickson, John Paul Daniel (a.k.a. BEBO), Kobbari Lavuju, More...
• Copyedit: Germanisation, Prostitution in Zambia, Prostitution in Sierra Leone, Néctar (album), Alexander Young (musician), More...
• Update: List of top-division football clubs in OFC countries, Vollsmose terrorists, David Radler, Homecoming Queen (song), Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, More...
• Style: Tapeworm infection, Boiling water reactor, Passion Pit, Allal, Audio bit depth, More...
• Cleanup: Boundary element method, Prescriptivity, Susan Reed, Reggae in Australia, Ambient house, More...
• Verify: Pakistan Army, Cuauhtémoc, Arthur C. Brooks, Centaurea, List of Lepidoptera that feed on Centaurea, More...
• Neutrality: Berkeley Mafia, Nikolai Yezhov, Cuisine of the United States, Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Neways, More...
• Original research: Illegal prime, MoinMoin, Kesen dialect, Safri Duo, John Cranke, More...
• Merge: Swing yarder, Forest inventory, The Real MacKay, Edmonton City Council, Edmonton Town Council, More...
• Split: Turks and Caicos Islands, List of video games based on anime or manga, Early Earth Federation mobile suits in the Gundam universe, Herring Gull, Blumenkraft, More...
• Stubs: Nasser Khamis, Al Huwari v. George W. Bush, Arsen Nersisyan, Huis ter Heide (Drenthe), SVA Bad Hersfeld, More...
• Expand: James Atkinson (JP), Peter Gow, Abhay Thipse, Driver 76, Internet Go server, More...
• Article deletion discussions: Awesome (window manager), Extention basin, Lael Anson Best, NanoNAS, Dempsey and Rowe, More...
• Article Requests: Francisco Antonino Vidal, Soil management, Kaisersheim, Pilotto syndrome, Tinkisso Falls, More...
• Image Requests: Garlic fingers, Hatinh Langur, Mount Evelyn Aqueduct, Facial symmetry, Zhu (percussion instrument), More...
• Mediation Cabal: Wikipedia:Manual of Style, United States Senate special election in Massachusetts, Biocentrism, Kid Rock, Passport, WikiProject Football/Clubs, September 11 attacks, French phonology, Moon (film), or Help mediate an open case!

Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it is probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.

Purge

Collaborations

To improve the quality of articles that are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.

Collaborations by topic

Other collaborations

Active improvement teams

• Countering systemic bias
• Version 1.0
• Spam fighting team
• Categorization projects
• Spotlight

WikiProjects

WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist—examine the master list to find one that interests you.

Language translation

Wikipedia is not just in English. Versions exist in many different languages. To fill in some of the English Wikipedia's gaps, we translate articles from other languages into English. You can view a list of articles that need translation from any language, or, in a few cases, by only one language (this is only available for the more popular languages).

Gift shop

Share ideas of logos or other Wikipedia motifs to be used on clothing or for other purposes in Wikipedia merchandise.

Guidelines, help & resources

Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.

Help

• Wikipedia help – Browse help pages
• Where to ask questions

Editing

• The Manual of Style guidelines and tutorial
• How to edit a page
• Contributing
• How to write a great article
• Where to find information for articles
• A list of template messages
• What special pages are
• Tools for editing
• Request newspapers or magazines

Policies and guidelines

Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply to both articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed.

Article standards

Working with others

Resources

New user information

Introduction · Sandbox · Help · Adoption · What Wikipedia is not · Glossary · Account benefits · Planning school assignments

Ways to communicate

Contact (overview) · Discussion pages · Mailing lists · IRC chat · Meetups · User pages · Requests for comment · Public watchlists · Regional notice boards · Administrators' noticeboard · Requests for article feedback · Local Embassy

Community support groups and programs

Welcoming committee · Editor assistance · Wiki-adoption · Birthday Committee · Harmonious editing club · Wikipedia awards program · Dept. of Fun · One featured article per quarter · Missing encyclopedic articles

Common procedures

Featured content · Good articles · Requests for feedback · Deleting a page (full policy) · Moving a page (naming policies) · Protecting a page (full policy) · Reverting a page · Administrator nominations (summaries) · Category-based access

How to resolve conflicts

Stay cool! · Be nice to newcomers · Alert others · Dispute resolution · Arbitration policy

Community information

About Wikipedia · Goings-on · About Wikimedia · Wikipedians · Wiki-adoption · Donations · Administrators · Babel · Culture · Games · Humor · Mottoes

Related communities

Tip of the day...

The <nowiki> tag can be useful to suppress the interpretation of Wiki markup; this is often useful to demonstrate or explain Wiki markup language to another user.

Wiki markup (and Wiki tags that resemble HTML tags) between <nowiki> and </nowiki> are not interpreted, and are displayed on the page just the way they are typed. For example, [[this]] would ordinarily form a link, but since it is between nowiki tags, it does not. This is rarely of use in an actual Wikipedia article.

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