Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-02/Features and admins
Features and admins
The best of the week
Administrators
The Signpost congratulates five editors on their promotion to adminship:
- Thumperward (nom)—Chris Cunningham, a system administrator in Scotland—has been with us for more than four years. He has worked heavily on most of Wikipedia's core templates, including infoboxes and article message boxes, and has a strong record of involvement at the help desk and the technical village pump.
- Favonian (nom), "a mathematician by education, a software architect by profession and an amateur historian when time allows", is fluent in both English and Danish. During more than two years of editing, Favonian has been active in anti-vandalism and new-page patrolling, with maintenance work on linking, referencing and categorisation.
- Bsadowski1 (nom), from the American midwest, has been active since December 2008, and has specialised in tasks such as ensuring compliance in account creation and operation, patrolling new pages, and reporting vandalism. Bsadowski is also an admin and checkuser on the Simple English Wikipedia, and an admin on MetaWiki.
- Joe Decker (nom), a graduate of the prestigious California Institute of Technology, has been a Wikipedian since 2005. He has been a significant contributor to the unreferenced BLP cleanup drive, in which he has provided referencing for more than a thousand articles created by other editors.
- Jujutacular (nom), also known as "juju", specialises in featured content. He is an active reviewer for featured list candidates and featured picture candidates, and has produced 2 featured lists, 15 did you knows, 3 featured sounds, and 11 featured pictures.
Featured articles
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status:
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- Guy Bradley (nom), an American game warden and early-20th-century champion of bird protection "who was shot and killed in the line of duty, after confronting a man and his two sons who were hunting egrets in the Everglades" (nominated by María).
- Ernest Augustus I of Hanover (nom), who allegedly "slept with his sister, and had a son by her. He murdered his valet. He murdered Lord Graves. He was going to murder the Princess Victoria, if he could." (Wehwalt).
- Montague Druitt (nom), a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case. Of NPOV interest, the article was "read and amended" by two people—one felt Druitt was guilty, the other that he was innocent (DrKiernan).
- "Pilot" (Supernatural) (nom), the first episode of a 2005 television program which received mixed reviews, with critics praising the horror elements but of varying opinions on the lead actors' performances (Ophois).
- Manchester United F.C. (nom), the high-profile UK professional football club (PeeJay2K3 and Tomlock01).
- 2009 International Bowl (nom), the only NCAA football bowl game from the 2008–09 bowl season played outside the United States (Grondemar).
- Hod Stuart (nom), a Canadian professional ice hockey player in the early 20th century. His death led to the first all-star game in sports, a benefit game for his wife and children.(Kaiser matias).
- Eagle (comic) (nom), a comic launched in 1950. The illustrator, Frank Hampson, said he "wanted to give hope for the future, to show that rockets, and science in general, could reveal new worlds, new opportunities. I was sure that space travel would be a reality." (Parrot of Doom)
- Little Thetford (nom), a village from which 61 men were sent to fight in the First World War, at the time more than 30 percent of the population (Senra).
- Subfossil lemur (nom), giant lemurs that are thought to be extinct; however, there have been recent reports of sightings by Malagasy villagers (Visionholder).
- Edmund Evans (nom), the man Beatrix Potter made responsible for printing the watercolour illustrations in her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Truthkeeper88).
- Hoxne Hoard (nom), a farmer, a lost hammer, and a chance discovery: the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold ever uncovered in Britain, in 1992, and now housed in the British Museum (see the FAC nomination page for the collaborators).
- Kentucky gubernatorial election, 1899 (nom), which reviewer Hamiltonstone referred to as "an absolutely cracking story." (Acdixon)
- Hemming's Cartulary (nom), a manuscript which nominator Ealdgyth joked "survived fire, the dissolution of its monastery and almost a thousand years to end up at FAC." (co-nominated by Deacon of Pndapetzim)
- Mark Kerry (nom), an Australian backstroke and freestyle swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won three Olympic medals (YellowMonkey).
- Armillaria luteobubalina (nom), a tree-killing fungus in Australia (Sasata and Casliber).
- Ross Perot presidential campaign, 1992 (nom), funded largely by Perot himself, who relied on marketing and wide grassroots support to spread his message. (William S. Saturn)
Choice of the week: The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Brianboulton to select what he believes is the best FA for the week. He wrote: "I was tempted to choose Edmund Evans for the beauty of its images, but in the end I decided on Montague Druitt. Unsolved mysteries, even 120-year-old ones, are endlessly fascinating, especially when told in sparse, lucid prose which is sometimes deliciously dry. I loved this line: 'Druitt, his mother and his sister Georgiana were invited to a ball in honour of Clarence at the home of Lord Wimborne on 17 December 1888, although they did not attend because by that time Montague was dead, his mother was in an asylum, and his sister was expecting her second child.' Seems like some people will do anything to avoid their social obligations."
Four featured articles were delisted:
- Iranian peoples (nom: neutrality, prose, sourcing, style and copyrights)
- Tooth enamel (nom: sourcing and copyrights)
- Krazy Kat (nom: sourcing and comprehensiveness)
- Bhumibol Adulyadej (nom: sourcing, neutrality, comprehensiveness and copyrights)
Featured lists
Eight lists were promoted:
- List of Cleveland Indians first-round draft picks (nom), a comprehensive list of the 57 players drafted in the first round by the Cleveland Indians baseball team (nominated by Wizardman).
- 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans (nom), the best college basketball players in the 2009–10 season. Notable All-Americans include Evan Turner, who won many National Player of the Year awards, and John Wall, the first pick in the 2010 NBA Draft (TonyTheTiger).
- List of Nashville Sounds awards, All-Stars, and league leaders (nom). Three players from this minor-league baseball team have won Most Valuable Player awards, and eight have won Pitcher of the Year awards (NatureBoyMD).
- Historic Chapels Trust (nom), a heritage charity that cares for redundant non-Anglican chapels and other places of worship in England. Its varying acquisitions range from the semi-derelict to the elaborate (Peter I. Vardy). Honorable mention by our judge: see picture, right.
- 500 home run club (nom), which currently consists of 25 players who have hit at least 500 home runs. Although membership in this group used to be almost a ticket to the Hall of Fame, it has lost prestige because of recent members' ties to performance-enhancing drugs (Staxringold). Choice of the week: see picture, right.
- List of Final Fantasy media (nom). In addition to its best-selling video game series, Final Fantasy has spawned many works in other media, including anime, movies, novels, manga, and radio dramas (Axem Titanium).
- The United States congressional delegations from Utah (nom) are the Members and Senators who have represented Utah in Washington, D.C. Currently, both Senators and two of the members are Republicans; the third member is a Democrat (Bgwhite and Golbez).
- List of Governors of Florida (nom), the 43 people who have served as Governor in the U.S. state of Florida. The current governor is Charlie Crist, who has held office since 2007 (Golbez).
Choice of the week: We asked regular nominator and reviewer Rambo's Revenge for his pick of this week's crop: "Look through the log of promoted featured lists and you will see that sport figures frequently. However, this is not something to be bemoaned. Even as a baseball-ignorant Brit, the 500 home run club stood out to me as an exemplary list. It uses sortabilty to show how, chronologically, members of the club appear to have a pathway into the Hall of Fame. A less common theme is architectural lists; the newly promoted Historic Chapels Trust is a beautifully complete piece of content that not only gives a rounded explanation and history of the Trust but details, descriptions and, where possible, images of each constituent chapel." Pictures from both lists appear above.
Featured topic
One topic was promoted:
- Kentucky gubernatorial election, 1899 (nom). This tumultuous election and its aftermath featured political party infighting, voter fraud, a Supreme Court case, and the only assassination of a state governor in U.S. history (nominated by Acdixon).
Featured pictures
Eleven images were promoted:
- A tramp (nom) depicted in an 1899 American poster. Adam Cuerden recropped the original for better composition, treated the colours to approach the likely original unfaded version, and made other subtle improvements. (below)
- Dendropsophus microcephalus (nom), a male of this frog species displaying its vocal sac while calling (created by Brian.gratwicke).
- Tasmanian Darner (nom) Photographer Noodle snacks said the dragonfly "was sitting beside Lake Will, drying its wings, [and] by taking many shots to get a sharp one I was able to get something decent thanks to the obliging subject".
- Metallic Ringtail (nom) are found in still-water bodies lakes, swamps, and alpine bogs. Noodle snacks, the creator, carefully identified the species from The complete field guide to dragonflies of Australia; he pointed out that both "metallic lustre and ringtail" are clearly visible.
- Common Brushtail Possum (nom) an animal native to Australia, and taken with a flash, virtually the only way to capture images of nocturnal animals (created by Noodle snacks).
- Ruthenium bar (nom), atomic number 44 (created by Alchemist-hp) (right)
- Uluguru Mountain Ranges (nom), a panorama showing the Uluguru Mountains in Morogoro, Tanzania (created by Muhammad Mahdi Karim). (top)
- Ernest Borgnine (nom), the actor, showing off his new Chief Petty Officer hat at the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C. (created by Mark D. Faram of the U.S. Navy) (below)
- Peacock Flounder Bothus mancus in Kona (nom), four frames showing a flounder as it changes colour to match the surroundings, and then burying itself in sand (created by Mbz1).
- Common collared lizard (nom), taken from an angle that the nominator stated was "perfect to show off the pattern on the body, and especially on the neck, from which the lizard takes its name" (created by Dschwen).
- Central Heterochromia (nom), showing an eye condition in which there are two colours in the same iris. The image was created by Adam Cuerden, who told reviewers that "sometimes, yourself is the best illustration ... I thought, why not?"
Choice of the week: Juliancolton was a member of the 2009 Organizing Committee for the Commons Picture of the Year Award (see Signpost coverage). We invited him to choose his number-one featured picture for the week. "In my opinion", he told us, "the Uluguru Mountain Ranges (top) panorama is among the most impressive images promoted this week. Aside from helping to fill a notorious gap in coverage of Africa on Wikipedia, it has impressive technical quality. Panoramas are difficult to successfully create, and this particular one expresses quite a bit of skill on the photographer's part."
Two featured pictures were delisted:
- Physical map of the Philippines (nom), for being far below current FP standards for image size.
- Cosmic Microwave Background (nom), replaced with a more detailed image of a longer study.
This image of a 1899 American poster depicting a tramp (an itinerant vagrant), is a new featured picture.
Reviewers praised this picture of veteran American actor Ernest Borgnine for its brilliant character portrayal.
2 August 2010
News and notes
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Discuss this story
Thumperward certainly deserves adminship. I hope when I'm in uni (which, of course, is one big dream) I can get my name up there, with 'Wikipedian since 8'. :) I'll be, like, 20 by then. Kayau Voting IS evil 03:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I reckon the picture of Ernest Borgnine aptly summarizes my thoughts on the excellent style this page has taken recently - hats off 'n smiles :) Lee∴V (talk • contribs) 11:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really do like the new fleshing out of new admins, promotions to featured status etc. Makes them come to life. So much better than the bald way they were done before.--86.74.186.220 (talk) 21:00, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You guys are doing a fantastic job at this section, really very fun to read. Sadads (talk) 12:10, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]