December has been a very successful month, with lots of article promoted, and hopefully more to come in January:
Promoted articles:
Scout Moor Wind Farm
Scout Moor Wind Farm is England's largest onshore wind farm. Although it was opposed by environmentalists, the wind farm was opened on 26 September 2008 and provides enough power for 40,000 homes.
The B of the Bang is the sculpture that was erected to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games and for a while was the largest sculpture in the UK. And because of safety concerns, it may be dismantled.
Current nominations: January looks set to be very busy, with Chadderton, Cine City, Withington, and Nico Ditch at WP:GAN, the Greater Manchester portal up for Featured Portal status, and Sale a Featured Article Candidate. Please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them.
Abram featured in the DYK section of the front page last month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?
The project has a new tool, a watchlist of all our project's articles. This should help us keep an eye on them and spot new editors who might want to join our project. Also, Jza84 has developed a map of WP:GM's GAs and FAs. It shows a gap in coverage in the north west of the county, something we should try to change.
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as Featured and Good content goes, our lead is extending, with 10 and 16 more FAs than Yorkshire and London respectively, and 13 and 14 more GAs than Yorkshire and London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Two of our aims were crossed off as Scout Moor Wind Farm became an FA, and Radcliffe, Greater Manchester a GA. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Member News
There are now 46 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 14 members inactive since 1 July 2008) as 1 new member joined the project in December:
Welcome from everyone, and let's remember to make new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
With the new(ish) year, I think it's right to look back over the year just gone. Last year was massive for our project, with lots of successes building on a successful 2007. In terms of featured content, we became the leading wikiproject in 2007, but 2008 saw us cement our status as one of the UK's leading wikiprojects: having started the year with most FAs (two more than London and Yorkshire), but falling behind in terms of GAs, we now have more FAs and GAs than any project under WP:UKGEO. While our aim is to improve all articles related to Greater Manchester, not collect trophies, we now lead the field by a long way and everyone deserves to feel proud for their part.
We've had articles featured on the main page, both in DYK? and as today's Featured Article, but success is more than a matter of numbers; the project has grown into a community where editors join together to provide information and improve Wikipedia. A great example of this is the work our project did on Denshaw. Back in April, it was targeted by vandals and as a result was featured in national news. We stepped in and improved and protected the article, showing what WP:GM is capable of. This is undoubtedly the noisiest project in the UK and it's strength comes from the wide range of interests of its many members. We've even been so successful that we were accused of forming a claque.
During 2008, our numbers have increased and, while some have left, we've welcomed many strong editors who will help bring the project more success. With so much emphasis on Good and Featured articles, it's sometimes easy to forget that a lot of effort goes into articles that don't get recognition. The table below shows that the number of B-class articles has increased since the start of 2008, and that the proportion of stub-class articles under our project has gone down.
My own experience of Wikipedia has been positive and enjoyable, especially due to WP:GM. I've worked on interesting subjects with nice people, and hopefully the experience is similar for others. We've covered subjects as varied and interesting as castles, mummies, computers, Olympic swimmers, and wind farms, stuff I probably wouldn’t know about if it wasn’t for Wikipedia. I enjoy being a part of this project, and as we approach the WP:GM's second birthday (24 February) I'm sure it will continue to go from strength to strength in 2009.
Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!
Project News
January has been a very successful month, with lots of article promoted, and hopefully more to come in January:
Promoted articles:
View of Broadway in Chadderton
Chadderton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham. It has a long and interesting history beyond that of its mill town façade; a Celtic hill fort, a medieval lordship and still an important industrial and metropolitan town.
Nico Ditch stretches from Ashton-under-Lyne to Stretford and according to legend was dug in a single night to defend against the Danes.
Article news: Cine City, Withington is at WP:GAN, please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them. Unfortunately, despite User:Joshii's effort the Greater Manchester portal did not become featured.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Member News
There are now 48 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 14 members inactive since 1 July 2008) as 2 new members joined the project in January:
Welcome from everyone, and let's remember to make new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Happy birthday! It was the project's second birthday on 24 February, so thank you to everyone who's helped improve and Greater Manchester related article, not just our members, your work is very much appreciated. The last month has been very successful, with lots activity:
Nico Ditch stretches from Ashton-under-Lyne to Stretford and according to legend was dug in a single night to defend against the Danes.
Cine City in 2004
The Cine City, Withington, was the third cinema to open in Britain and when it closed in 2001 it was the third longest running cinema in England. It was opened in 1912, and demolished in 2008.
Current nominations: As of the completion of this newsletter, there are no GA nominations, but Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and Buckton Castle are at FAC. The articles detail the world's first stored-program computer, and the best preserved castle in Greater Manchester. There's a good chance that one or more of these interesting articles could be promoted, so please keep an eye on them in case there's any way you can help!
Charles White (physician) and Worsley featured in the DYK section of the front page last month (actually, Worsley featured in January but was missed out of the last newsletter!). For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?
The project's cleanup listing has been updated with stats from 24 February 2009. As of 8 October 2008, 447 (26.5%) of 1689 our articles needed a clean-up, this has risen slightly to 455 out of 1809 (25.2%). This is encouraging as the proportion has gone down, and indicates the standard of the project's articles are steadily improving. While the high-profile successes of GAs and FAs are important, the project's aim is to improve all GM-related articles.
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Sister projects
In an attempt to encourage communication between related wikiprojects, or to at least raise awareness, this section is dedicated to the important goings on of WP:Merseyside and WP:Cheshire, our sister projects and the only other user groups dedicated to improving articles in North West England.
WP:CHES – After a period of low activity, the project has picked up recently, with initiatives (such as beginning a newsletter and sending a questionnaire to its member) to encourage greater participation from its members. This has paid dividends with two GAs being promoted in February and greater activity in general.
WP:MERSEY – After being set-up in September 2008, the project is experiencing a period of lowish activity. While the project has a handful of FAs and GAs, most of its articles are unassessed; assessing requires no familiarity with a subject, so any help WP:GM members can lend would be greatly appreciated.
Other news
There is a meet-up scheduled for 14 March in Manchester for anyone interested. It is not organised by WP:GM and is open to all wikipedians. More details can be found here.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
After a flurry of activity in January, progress on the Salford article has slowed, but it is steadily progressing towards a good standard. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
The project compared
The Greater Manchester WikiProject is one of the leading UK-based groups. Some other projects are no as lucky as we are in the numbers of active enthusiastic users. Below are some statistics of the other leading UK projects and some geographically close to Greater Manchester.
There are now 46 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 17 members inactive since 1 September 2008) as 1 new member joined the project in February:
Majorly is an experienced editor who has recently decided to join WP:GM, and has been working hard on Cheadle Hulme. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Delivered on 1 March 2009 by Nev1. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add two *s by your username on the Project Mainpage.
New unitary authority changes
Hi David, a while ago you provided me with some advice on the status of County Councils which I was able to use in the Subdivisions of England article. As I'm sure you're aware, further administrative changes are imminent and the article will need to be updated again. I was wondering if you knew what is happening to the county councils of Cornwall, Durham etc. when their districts are abolished and the counties become unitary. Do you think these should be listed in the Unitary Authority section only (as is the case with IoW now), or should they also stay in the County level section?
Also, Bedfordshire and Cheshire are to contain more than one unitary authority. Do you know whether these County Councils are to be abolished (like what happened with Avon) or legally retained (like what happened with Berkshire)?
Many thanks! Bazonka (talk) 09:10, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure why you reverted the anonymous contributor's addition of Brighton and Hove to the list of towns applying for city status in 2000. As it reads now, Brighton and Hove was successful in applying, even though they didn't apply. Can you have another look at it please? Skinsmoke (talk) 22:42, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the speedy reply - would you mind quickly heading to that page and posting that? This way any licence discrepancies may be fixed. Parrot of Doom (talk) 15:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dont know if you can help please, saw your excellent profile on the Minsterley branch line. I am with a group trying to get this line made into a formal cycle way from Shrewsbury to Minsterley and am trying to establish its current legal status. Could you point me in the right direction of where you found it was already a "protected route", as I have had no luck in clarifying this.
Many many thanks for your clarification on this this is excellent news, and we can now move forward by discussions with the new Unitary. Watch this space. Kind regards Nik H.
Unitary authorities
I presume you are writing a message to explain why you undid my good faith edits to this article. It's usual on Wikipedia to at least leave an edit summary to explain why you reverted good faith edits, rather than treat them like vandalism and leave the default edit summary. Incidentally, both Durham and Northumberland still call themselves "County Council" - see their respective websites. JRawle (Talk) 14:04, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, with regards to Berkshire and the metropolitan counties - the article was correct and gave the information that in these instances the metropolitan county (or non-metropolitan county in respect of Berkshire) remains in law. These counties are not just ceremonial counties therefore - they do still have their non-metropolitan/metropolitan county status, just without a county council.
Your explanation above is much better than that in the article, which is rather poorly worded.
Secondly, with regard to county council names being retained - I believed that all five did change their name, though it now appears that two (Durham and Northumberland) have decided to retain their old county council names. The article now reflects this.
A quick flick through their websites would soon have releaved that fact! ;)
Thirdly, the sentence "In the Greater London administrative area, the 32 London Boroughs and the City of London are also counted as unitary authorities for most purposes." should be kept - I don't see why that nugget of information shouldn't be included. If you think it's confusing (which as far as I can tell, it isn't) then move it to somewhere else in the article.
The article doesn't seem to be sure whether or not it's about all areas with effectively one council, or just those that are usually referred to as a "unitary authority". The table further up the page doesn't include metropolitan or London councils, yet they are referred to here as if they are unitary authorities the same as any other. The case of London is already discussed more clearly in the following paragraph so I'm not sure it needs to be there twice. I suggest an explanation of the status of Metropolitan counties similar to that of London, with relevant wikilinks. JRawle (Talk) 14:19, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Canopus Towers. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").
Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canopus Towers. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).
You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.
Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Military history of the peoples of the British Islands. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").
You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.
Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry there's not been a newsletter for three months, it's not that there hasn't been anything to say but that there almost hasn't been time to say it...
On 20 March 2009 Manchester was "today's Featured Article" and received over 44,000 visitors. This was the culmination of about 2 years of effort from a lot of editors who found the article in this state before the founding of the project. Along with Greater Manchester, it's our flagship article and for it to reach the mainpage is a great achievement. It was an incredible collaborative effort and shows what the project is capable of, and since then we have gone from strength to strength. The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine was Today's Featured Article on 30 May, with 33,000 visitors.
Promoted articles:
Carrington Moss is an 1,100 acres (450 ha) peat bog in Trafford; in the 19th century, it was reclaimed to be used agriculturally and for the disposal Manchester's waste, and is still used for farming.
Manchester Mummy is about Hannah Beswick, whose macabre fear of being buried alive lead to her demanding that her body was kept above ground and checked periodically for signs of life.
The town of Sale in Trafford was probably founded in the Anglo-Saxon period and is best known as the home of physicist J. P. Joule the founding place and former home of and Sale Sharks rugby club.
Cheadle Hulme is a suburb of Stockport that formed from several small hamlets, rather than growing around a church which was usual for medieval villages. (also Stockport's first GA!)
Mellor hill fort is the only Iron Age hill fort in Greater Manchester and was only discovered in the 1990s.
Partington, in Trafford, is a town and civil parish that was until the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, a mainly agrarian community. With the opening of the canal, Partington became a major coal port and following the Second World War was expanded as an overspill estate for deprived parts of Manchester.
With all the project's success, we must be careful not to become complacent. In March, David Beckham was delisted as a Good Article because it lacked enough references and was poorly written in parts. Improving an article and getting it reviewed for GA is a lot of effort and it's a real shame to see the article delisted, but a reminder that our role as an article writer is two-fold: once we improve them, we have an obligation to maintain them. Beckham is the kind of person who is regularly in the news, so the article will get a lot of attention and need regular updating, and it was written by members of WP:FOOTBALL, but let's take it as a reminder of what's needed from us.
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Over the past three months, we've succeeded in our aims of bringing Eccles and Worsley to GA status, thanks largely to the seemingly inexhaustible Parrot of Doom. Recently another aim was added: bringing Stockport to GA standard. It's currently C-class and has some well developed sections. It will be a difficult task, but worthwhile considering it's Greater Manchester's third largest settlement. Also, the importance of bringing Salford to GA has been emphasised; it's currently B-class and should be the easiest of our aims to accomplish, although it's been there for a long time. Let's see if we can put this one to rest soon.
The project compared
Over the past three months, WP:LOND and WP:YORK have had a massive upsurge in the number of articles under their auspices. And interestingly, WP:YORKS has had an upsurge in GAs (10), and WP:LOND has had an increase in both GAs and FAs (8 and 10 respectively), closing down the gap with WP:GM. Although WP:DERB appears to have lost a GA, one of their articles was incorrectly tagged; however Derwent Valley Mills is being prepared to become a Good Article candidate, and hopefully will be the project's first. With the recent retirement of Ddstretch and Espresso Addict, WP:CHES has lost two of its most active contributors, but is still managing to produce good articles such as list of castles in Cheshire (FL) and John Douglas (now a Good Article candidate). The majority of WP:MRSY's articles are now assessed and will hopefully go from strength to strength.
There are now 48 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 17 members inactive since 1 September 2008) as 2 new members have joined the project since the start of March:
The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Manchester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Part of the seven arches railway viaduct in Cheadle Hulme
Cheadle Hulme is a suburb of Stockport that formed from several small hamlets, rather than growing around a church which was usual for medieval villages, although there is evidence of activity dating back to the Bronze Age.
Did you know that after the collapse of the Broughton Suspension Bridge in 1831, the British military introduced the order to "break step" when soldiers were crossing a bridge? Featured on the Did you know? section on 6 June 2009.
Other news:
Recently Salford was turned into a disambiguation page with the article on the settlement moved to Salford, Greater Manchester. This will hopefully make it clearer to the reader that Salford, Greater Manchester, and the City of Salford are not the same thing. Just remember to specify which Salford next time you're adding a wikilink to an article!
Although it wasn't technically this month, list of people from Wigan was created on 2 July, and any help populating the list with sourced names would be great. It's one of nine such list for the boroughs in Greater Manchester (Bury doesn't have a list yet) and they all need populating.
Remember to be careful about editors claiming places are still in Lancashire, today I had to revert someone insisting that Leigh isn't in Greater Manchester and recently the Friends of Real Lancashirevoiced their dislike of the Lancashire article so this issue isn't going to go away.
Just remember that the project watchlist can help us catch vandalism and is worth checking from time to time.
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Recently another aim was added: bringing Stockport to GA standard. It's currently C-class and has some well developed sections. It will be a difficult task, but worthwhile considering it's Greater Manchester's third largest settlement. Also, the importance of bringing Salford to GA has been emphasised; it's currently B-class and should be the easiest of our aims to accomplish, although it's been there for a long time. Let's see if we can put this one to rest soon.
Member News
No new members joined the project in June and there are 45 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 20 members inactive since 1 January 2009). The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Manchester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
The project compared
In June, WP:LON has a massive upsurge in the number of FAs, with some great work by Iridescent in promoting a swathe of bridge articles to FA. WP:YORKS has over taken WP:GM in terms of GAs, and for the first time since June 2008 (when WP:LON had the lead), WP:GM is not the project with most GAs. In June, the Derwent Valley Mills became a GA and is WP:DERBY's first GA although there are more likely candidates in the pipeline. WP:CHES continues to perform strongly considering it has few active editors, and in June John Douglas (architect) was promoted to FA and there is currently a FLC. In June, there was discussion at WT:MERSEY about how to generate more audited content (ie: GAs and FAs) and since then one article has been promoted to GA, there is one GAC and other articles being prepared for GAC.
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Hey, since I saw you have been helping out on the Great Power page recently. The GA review is due to end at the end of this week. Want to help out if you got the time? Deavenger (talk) 02:42, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
July 2009
Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed maintenance templates from Dunnsheath. When removing maintenance templates, please be sure to either resolve the problem that the template refers to, or give a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, as your removal of this template has been reverted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. All articles require references. The information came from somewhere, you need only list it using citations.RadioFan (talk) 17:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed maintenance templates from Dunnsheath. When removing maintenance templates, please be sure to either resolve the problem that the template refers to, or give a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, as your removal of this template has been reverted. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. All articles require references. The information came from somewhere, you need only list it using citations. RadioFan (talk) 17:09, 24 July 2009 (UTC)