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Welcome to The Downlink · Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects · User Activity Checks
Welcome to The Downlink
Welcome to The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Future issues will contain information on issues under discussion, newly featured content, and articles written by members of the project to appear in the newsletter. All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter. If you were not aware of being a member of WikiProject Spaceflight, membership of the former Human spaceflight, Unmanned spaceflight, Timeline of spaceflight and Space colonization WikiProjects was merged into WikiProject spaceflight during the reorganisation of the spaceflight projects, for more details, please see below.
Reorganisation of Space WikiProjects
The ongoing discussion of the future of Space WikiProjects has been making progress. WikiProject Space was abolished on 5 December 2010, with the Spaceflight, Astronomy and Solar System projects becoming independent of each other. On the same day, an assessment banner, {{WikiProject Spaceflight}} was created for WikiProject Spaceflight to replace the generic space one which had been used previously. On 9 December, WikiProject Space Colonization was abolished, with its tasks being subsumed into WikiProject Spaceflight. On 12 December, the Human spaceflight and Unmanned spaceflight WikiProjects became task forces of WikiProject Spaceflight, whilst WikiProject Timeline of spaceflight became a working group.
A number of issues are still under discussion:
Introducing better defined assessment criteria and an A-class review process
Setting clearer importance criteria for assessing articles
Establishing a joint task force with the Astronomy and Solar System projects to cover space telescopes and planetary probes
Defining the roles of projects, taskforces and working groups, and processes for establishing new ones
A series of checks are underway to establish the numbers of users who are still active within WikiProject Spaceflight, its task forces and working group. All usernames on the members lists were struck out, and members were asked to unstrike their own names if they were still an active member of the project. If you wish to do so, and have not already, please unstrike your name from the master list, plus the lists on any applicable task forces or working groups
Welcome to The Downlink·Project News·News from Orbit·Article News·Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics·Salyut 2
Welcome to The Downlink
Welcome to the first full issue of The Downlink, a new monthly newsletter intended to inform members of WikiProject Spaceflight about the latest developments in the project and its articles. Below you will find information about happenings within the project, our recognised content, spaceflight in the news and events needing to be covered in articles. You will also find an editorial about the first concerted effort to develop featured topics related to spaceflight, and an article in need of your help and improvements.
Project News will provide details of discussions about and changes in the organisation and structure of the project, newly recognised content, and changes in membership. News from Orbit will summarise spaceflight news and upcoming events, and list suggestions for articles in need of updating as a result. Article News will give details of requests for assistance within articles, and discussions regarding content.
All members of WikiProject Spaceflight are invited to contribute any content that they would like to see in the newsletter, and we would particularly welcome the submission of editorials, or an article about an area of spaceflight which you are working on, or particularly interested in. Please see The Downlink page for more details.
Discussion within the project is still dominated by the reorganisation proposals. A discussion over the formation and roles of working groups and task forces has led to some clarification regarding working groups, however the roles of the task forces remain vague, and several proposals to abolish them have surfaced. The Human Spaceflight to-do list has been merged into the main project to-do list, with the combined list currently located on the Tasks page of the Spaceflight portal.
New assessment criteria for importance and quality have been implemented, and refinements continue to be made to the importance scale. The scope of the project was redefined to exclude astronomical objects explicitly. Although A-class criteria have been defined, a review process is yet to be discussed or implemented.
Colds7ream conducted an analysis of open tasks related to the reorganisation which four major issues remain unresolved: Discussion concerning the existence and roles of task forces within the project; recruitment of new editors; updating guidelines and whether the project or the task forces should be responsible for maintaining them; and the continued existence of the Human spaceflight portal
six weeks after consensus was reached to abolish it.
Discussion about the structure of the project is ongoing, with several proposals currently on the table. One proposal calls for the abolition of task forces in favour of increased emphasis on working groups, whilst another calls for the task forces to become a list of topics. The idea of a formal collaboration system has been suggested, however opposition has been raised.
One of the main open tasks at the moment is replacing the older {{
is doing a very good job replacing them, but as of the morning of 31 December, there are still 1,424 left to be converted. Additionally, the implementation of a new B-class checklist built into the template has necessitated the reassessment of former B-class articles, which the template has automatically classified as C-class.
News from Orbit
On 3 December,
Akatsuki spacecraft failed to enter orbit around Venus in the evening of 6 December. The Proton launch was the maiden flight of the Blok DM-03
. There is currently no article for this satellite.
17 December saw
Briz-M upper stage successfully launched KA-SAT on 26 December. Barring any suborbital launches at the end of the month which have not yet been announced (a NASA Black Brant was scheduled for December but does not appear to have flown), 2010 in spaceflight concluded on 29 December when an Ariane 5ECA launched the Hispasat-1E and Koreasat 6
spacecraft. These do not currently have articles.
Four launches are currently scheduled to occur in January 2011. A
Improved Crystal electro-optical imaging spacecraft. Two launches are planned for 20 January, with Kounotori 2, the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, being launched by an H-IIB, and the Zenit-3F making its maiden flight to deploy Elektro-L No.1, the first Russian geostationary weather satellite to be launched since 1994. On 28 January Progress M-09M will be launched by a Soyuz-U. 28 January will also be the twenty-fifth anniversary of the loss of the Space ShuttleChallenger on mission STS-51-L
be created, to cover laws of the United States concerning spaceflight.
Articles related to methods of taking-off and landing were discussed. The term
HTHL
do not. It was suggested that the existing article should be merged, and each term be covered by the article for the equivalent aviation term, however some distinction between use in the fields of aviation and spaceflight should remain.
Concern was raised that a large scale deletion request could cause many images to be lost from articles, help was requested to investigate whether any of the images were not subject to copyright, or if they were then whether they could be uploaded to the English Wikipedia under a claim of fair use.
Concerns were raised about a large amount of content in the newly-created article deorbit of Mir duplicating existing content in existing Good Article Progress M1-5. A proposal to merge deorbit of Mir into Progress M1-5 was made, however objections were raised, and discussion has since stalled without reaching a consensus. It has also been requested that the article Mir be copyedited.
The existence of separate categories for "spaceflight" and "space exploration" has been questioned, with a suggestion that some of the exploration categories, including Category:Space exploration iteslf, should be merged into their spaceflight counterparts.
Editorial – Space Stations and the Push for Featured Topics
There has recently been much talk about trying to increase the activity of the project. To this end, a major reorganisation effort has been undertaken, which has seen the space WikiProjects separated into the Astronomy, Solar System and Spaceflight groups, with WikiProject Space being abolished. We have also seen the child projects of WikiProject Spaceflight being abolished, with Timeline of Spaceflight becoming a working group, and the Unmanned and Human Spaceflight projects becoming task forces for now, with some suggestions that they should be abolished outright. The problem with the previous structure was that there were too many different groups of editors, and nobody was sure which projects were supposed to be doing what. Now there is only one project, this is somewhat clearer, but spaceflight is still a huge topic.
Another way to improve the activity of the project is to attract more editors. Spaceflight is a topic which many people have at least a very casual interest in, and therefore it is strange that there are only about four or five people regularly participating in discussions on the project talk page. Evidently action is needed to raise the profile of the project.
One way in which the project's profile can be raised is to have a major success associated with it. The creation of a featured topic could be one such success, and would also be hugely beneficial to articles in the area that it relates to. Space Stations are one of the most high-profile and notable areas of spaceflight, and are therefore a logical choice to spearhead such an initiative.
To this end, in late December a working group was established to concentrate and coordinate efforts to establish featured topics related to space stations. An initial proposal calls for topics on
Salyut, Mir and the International Space Station, as well as one on space stations in general. There is currently an effort to get Mir
promoted to Good Article status; the article currently requires a copyedit, after which it will be sent for peer review and then to GAN.
This is by no means a short-term project. There are many articles, particularly for the larger space stations such as the ISS and Mir, which are currently nowhere near becoming recognised content. Skylab is the smallest of the proposed featured topics, but it still requires that three C-class articles, two Start-class articles and a redirect all reach at least Good Article status, with at least three becoming Featured Articles. The ISS topic is so large that it may have to be subdivided.
I don't expect that we will have any featured topics by the end of the year, but I believe that a Good Topic, which requires all articles reach at least GA status, but does not require any featured articles, may be possible. I also believe that several articles on the subject can easily be improved to Good Article status, and some articles may be at featured level by the end of the year. In the long term, having featured topics will benefit the project and its content.
Selected Article – Salyut 2
Salyut and Almaz programmes. It malfunctioned two days after launch, and consequently was never visited by a manned Soyuz
mission.
The Salyut 2 article describes the station:
“
Salyut 2 (OPS-1)(
Proton rocket
upper stage that had placed it in orbit later exploded nearby. On April 11, 1973, 11 days after launch, an unexplainable accident caused the two large solar panels to be torn loose from the space station cutting off all power to the space station. Salyut 2 re-entered on May 28, 1973.
”
The article is currently assessed as start class, and is in need of attention. It consists of the above paragraph, along with a list of specifications and an infobox. The article needs to be rewritten in a more encyclopaedic style, and with more information about the space station. It has not yet been determined whether Salyut 2 would have to be included in a featured topic about the Salyut programme, or whether since it was never manned it is less integral to the topic, however if its inclusion were necessary then in its current form it would be a major impediment to this. Downlink readers are encouraged to improve this article, with a view to getting it to B-class and possibly a viable Good Article candidate by the end of the month.
Hi, Bubba73! Just wanted to give you some advice on this issue as I'm sure you saw that I commented at AN/I. The first thing to do when a new editor is reverting and doing other "bad" things is go to
WP:AN3 in the case of edit-warring and file a report. By this time, an admin (or watcher who will alert an admin) might have already blocked the user: not always, but now you've got a "paper trail" of evidence to show you did all you could to stop any possibly disruptive activity. Anyway, I hope I wasn't too "curt" in my AN/I comment, and Cheers :> Doctalk06:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Invitation to join WikiProject United States
Hello, Bubba73/Archive 7 (2011)! WikiProject United States, an outreach effort supporting development of United States related articles in Wikipedia, has recently been restarted after a long period of inactivity. As a user who has shown an interest in United States related topics we wanted to invite you to join us in developing content relating to the United States. If you are interested please add your Username and area of interest to the members page here. Thank you!!!
vandalism: "Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism". Adambro (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
I asked about this the other day, and they said to revert and warn the editor (see AN/I above). That editor has been disruptive on that article for several days. I made comments in the edit summaries. I wrote on the article's talk page. I left a welcome message on the user's talk page. I left a level-1 warning. I recently left a level-2 warning. How do you suggest it be handled? Bubba73You talkin' to me?01:24, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Hello, Bubba73. You have new messages at Adambro's talk page. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.
There were a lot of jokes about this at the time, but an animal in the wild doesn't usually approach a person. If an animal acts strangely, they may be rabid. Bubba73You talkin' to me?19:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
You bet. Fending it off with an oar was probably a good thing to do, as we didn't need to have our first President ever to die from rabies. And maybe you remember that killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 19:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, our strongest defense against the destruction of most of the material about chess variants on Wikipedia lies in providing "reliable sources" from tangible reference books (such as Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants).
FYI- "9250" announced today that he is working on a book about 3-D chess variants.
I'm confused by this. All books are not created equal. I'd much rather have a book by the likes of Jean-Louis Cazaux. In my opinion '9250' (James Trimm) is not a credible source on anything. Just because someone prints ink on wood pulp does not give credibility. (If it did, the world would be a very fake place indeed.)
There is lots of work by many varied authors, some quite credible, at Zillions and Chessvariants. Why can't they be reliable sources in some cases? Because trees weren't felled? (I don't get it!) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:08, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
I have Pritchard's encyclopedia but no others on chess variants. That is a good reliable source but it might not be the only one. All articles need a reliable source. Bubba73You talkin' to me?16:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Project News·News from Orbit·Article News·The Charts·Yuri Gagarin
Project News
A report on popular pages from December 2010 revealed surprising trends in readers' interests. Boeing X-37 was the most popular article within the project's scope, with SpaceX Dragon in second with Global Positioning System in third place. The top seven articles were all assessed as C-class, with the remainder of the top ten being Good Articles. It was noted with some concern that moon landing conspiracy theories was more popular than moon landing.
A discussion regarding whether missiles warranted inclusion within the project scope was conducted, and resulted in the continued inclusion of missiles.
The last remaining articles tagged with the banner of the former Human Spaceflight WikiProject were re-tagged with the WikiProject Spaceflight banner. The last banner was removed on 8 January, and the template has since been deleted. The project is thankful to ChiZeroOne for his work in this field.
Concerns were raised that the new article reporting system was not working correctly, however it was noted that there is sometimes a delay before articles appear on the list.
Discussion regarding the existence of the separate spaceflight and space exploration category structures led to a mass CfD being filed on 10 January to abolish the space exploration categories, merging them into their counterparts in the spaceflight category structure. This was successful, and the exploration categories have been removed. Several other categorisation issues remain unresolved.
A proposal was made to standardise some of the infoboxes used by the project, the future of Template:Infobox spacecraft(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was discussed, and design work began on a replacement. Template:Rocket specifications-all(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was nominated for deletion and subsequently kept due to extant substitutions, however it was noted that the template had been deprecated by WikiProject Rocketry. Concerns were also raised that the existing infoboxes were not well-equipped to handle spacecraft which operated in more than one orbit, or whose orbits changed over the course of their missions (which in practise is most of them).
Five members of the project gave interviews for the Wikipedia Signpost, and a report on the project, authored by SMasters (talk·contribs), is expected to be published in the 7 February edition of the Signpost. It is hoped that this will raise interest in and awareness of the project.
News from orbit
Four orbital launches were conducted in January, beginning on 20 January with the launch of Elektro-L No.1 on the first Zenit-3F rocket. This was followed later the same day by the launch of a Delta IV Heavy with the USA-224 reconnaissance satellite. The articles for USA-224 and the Zenit-3F rocket could use some expansion, whilst the Elektro-L No.1 satellite needs its own article.
On 22 January, an H-IIB launched the second H-II Transfer Vehicle, Kounotori 2, to resupply the International Space Station. It arrived at the station on 27 January. Less than a day after its arrival, another cargo mission was launched to the station; Progress M-09M departed Baikonur early in the morning of 28 January, docking on 30 January. In addition to payloads to resupply the station, the Progress spacecraft is carrying a small subsatellite, Kedr, which will be deployed in February. Kedr does not currently have an article. Progress M-08M departed on 24 January to make the Pirs module available for Progress M-09M, and has since reentered the atmosphere. Its article needs to be updated to reflect the successful completion of its mission.
The NanoSail-D2 satellite, which failed to deploy from FASTSAT in December, unexpectedly separated from its parent craft and began operations on 18 January, with its solar sail deploying on 21 January.
Nine orbital launches are scheduled to occur in February, beginning with the launch of the first
Briz-KM
, on the first day of the month. Articles need to be written for the Geo-IK-2 series of satellites, as well as for Geo-IK-2 No.11 itself, and the Briz-KM upper stage that will be used to insert it into orbit.
A
NRO L-66, a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office, on 5 February. The payload has not yet been identified, however once more details are known, it will need an article. Iran is expected to launch the Rasad 1 and Fajr 1 satellites in February, with 14 February the reported launch date. The satellites will fly aboard a single rocket; either the first Simorgh or the third Safir
. Once this launch occurs, the satellites will need articles, and the article on their carrier rocket will require updating.
The second
Explorer-1 [PRIME]
. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated.
On 24 February, a
External Tank
.
At some point in February, a
Compass navigation system. The date of this launch is currently unknown. Both satellites will require articles once more information is available. A PSLV launch, carrying the Resourcesat-2, X-Sat and YouthSat spacecraft, is expected to launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre
towards the end of the month, probably between 20 and 23 February.
Stop press: The Rokot launch was conducted at 14:00 UTC on 1 February, and at the time of writing it appears to have ended in failure, due to a suspected upper stage malfunction. The spacecraft is in orbit, it is not clear at the time of writing whether it will be salvageable.
. A user requested feedback on major changes which had been made to the article, however at the time of writing no responses have been offered.
Following up on the issues covered in the last issue, the requested move of
Missile Range Instrumentation Ship to Tracking ship was successful, with the article being renamed. The discussion concerning types of launch and landing resulted in a proposal to merge VTVL into VTOL, however this has been met with some opposition. Several other options have been suggested on Talk:VTVL
. The large scale deletion of mis-tagged Soviet images on Commons went ahead, with most of the useful ones having already been backed-up locally under fair use criteria.
Discussion was held regarding the naming of spaceflight-related articles. Concerns were raised regarding inconsistency in article titles and disambiguators. A project guideline was adopted to standardise titles, with the parenthesised disambiguators "(satellite)" and "(spacecraft)" being adopted as standards for spacecraft, and the exclusion of manufacturers' names from article titles was recommended. Issues regarding Japanese spacecraft with two names, the correct names for early Apollo missions, and dealing with acronyms and abbreviated names remain unresolved.
A large number of articles were moved to conform to the standard disambiguation pattern. In addition, several Requested Moves were debated. A proposal to move
Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA and Assembly Concept for Construction of Erectable Space Structures was nominated for Good Article reassessment due to concerns over the article's quality. Doubts were also expressed over the thoroughness of the original review conducted upon its nomination for GA status. It was also suggested that the article's title may not be the most common name for the experiment, and that it might be necessary to move the page. Concerns were also raised regarding whether Space Interferometry Mission was up-to-date, however these are being addressed. Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet
looks likely to be promoted to GA status.
Help was requested for adding citations to List of Mir spacewalks. A request was made that STS-88 be reviewed against the B class criteria, and suggestions for improvements made. Another user requested improvements to the article Yuri Gagarin, with a view to having the article promoted to featured status in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his Vostok 1 mission. As a result of this request, Yuri Gagarin is this month's selected article.
Questions were raised as to whether an article or category should be created to cover derelict satellites. The categorisation of spacecraft by the type of rocket used to place them into orbit was also suggested. In another categorisation issue, it was questioned whether Space law should fall under space or spaceflight.
There is no editorial this month as no content was submitted for one. Instead, we present the "top ten" most popular articles within the project, based on the number of page views in January. Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was the most popular article of the last month, up fourteen places from 15th in December. Space Shuttle Challenger was the highest climber in the top 40, up 42 places from 50th. December's most popular article. Boeing X-37, dropped 57 places to 58th. On a happier note further down the chart, moon landing is now ahead of moon landing conspiracy theories.
Yuri Gagarin was the first man to fly in space, aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961. He was subsequently awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and was training for a second flight at the time of his death in 1968.
His article describes him and his spaceflight experience:
“
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (
cosmonaut who on 12 April 1961 became the first human to journey into outer space
.
On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first man to travel into
Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky
.
”
The article is currently assessed as C class, and had been assessed as B class prior to the criteria being redefined. Although a full reassessment has not yet been made, it seems close to the B class criteria, however details on his spaceflight experiences are somewhat lacking. It has been requested that the article be developed to Featured status by April, in time for the fiftieth anniversary of his mission.
You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media
).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. SeraphimbladeTalk to me05:26, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
A search for references failed to find significant coverage in
notability
.
While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be
deleted for any of several reasons
.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
I have the new edition. I got it a few months ago because I wanted to be able to check new variants to see if they are notable. I got tired of seeing variants that they just made up at school two days ago. I haven't gotten to cleaning out old ones though.
Just yesterday two kids at my daugheter's school chess club (which I coach) made up a variant. They put the pieces on the third and sixth ranks; and and pieces are pawns and pawns are pieces. Bubba73You talkin' to me?02:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Hi Bubba, I could go on & on how/why I feel the 1994 ed. is more enjoyable & easier to use! Not only that, but Beasley points out he dropped certain things from the 1st edition (like sample games), thinking readers of 2nd ed. will already own 1st ed. (!). Also, *all* of the 1st ed. artwork/graphics/diagrams/photos were lost or misplaced and only a partial of that was recreated for the 2nd ed. (and more crudely, me thinks!). As mentioned I could go on & on, but I'll stop here. :) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:00, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
If you can ever get your hands on 1st ed., I highly recommend. (Granted, 2nd ed. has some updated Pritchard file info on some vars. But a lot was dropped, too. But there are other significant diffs between the editions. (You'll know what I mean, when you *own* 1st ed.! Soooo much more an enjoyable read!) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:24, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Disputed non-free use rationale for File:TalVisitByFischer.jpg
Thank you for uploading
image copyright tag
; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.
You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media
).
If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. J Milburn (talk) 11:21, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Disputed non-free use rationale for File:SovietTeam1954.jpg
Thank you for uploading
image copyright tag
; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.
There have been very few discussions relating to the administration of the project in the last month, as things start to settle down after the merger.
An
WP:MILHIST
, or to develop one specifically for the requirements of this project.
User:ChiZeroOne has set up a collaboration page in his userspace, initially focussing on articles related to Skylab. Collaboration pages were at one point proposed as part of the structure of the Spaceflight project itself, however no consensus was achieved on the issue. If this collaboration is successful, it could open the door to a reevaluation of that situation.
News from orbit
Five orbital launches were conducted in February, out of nine planned. The first, that of the
Briz-KM ended in failure after the upper stage malfunctioned. The Rokot has since been grounded pending a full investigation; the satellite is in orbit, but has been determined to be unusable for its intended mission. A replacement is expected to launch within the year. A general article on Geo-IK-2
satellites is needed, to supplement those on the individual satellites.
A Minotaur I rocket launched
Glonass-K1 No.11, on 26 February. It is currently unclear as to whether the satellite has received a Kosmos
designation or not.
Seven launches are expected to occur in March. On 4 March, the
. KySat and Hermes require articles, whilst the article on Explorer-1 [PRIME] needs to be updated. This launch was originally scheduled for February, but following a scrubbed launch attempt, it was delayed.
Briz-M launch will carry the SES-3 and Kazsat-2 spacecraft into orbit, in the first dual-launch of commercial communications satellites on a Proton. Several other launches may occur in March, however their status is unclear. Last month, a Long March 3B rocket was expected to launch two navigation satellites; Compass-M2 and Compass-M3, however this launch did not take place. It is unclear if it has been delayed to March, or further. The launch of the Tianlian 2 communications satellite on a Long March 3C may also be conducted in March, or possibly April. Both the Compass and Tianlian launches would occur from the same launch pad, which requires a turnaround of almost a month between launches, so it is unlikely that both will happen in March. A Safir
launch, which had been expected in February, now appears to have been delayed to April, but given the secrecy of the Iranian space programme, this is unclear.
Article news
Discussion regarding the merger of articles on launch and landing modes seems to have stagnated, with no consensus being reached on any existing proposal. A discussion regarding changes in the sizes of Soviet and American rockets during the 1950s and early 1960s was conducted, with claims that rockets became smaller in that period being dismissed, however it was noted that smaller rockets were developed with equivalent capacity to older ones were developed, as well as much larger ones with increased capacities.
Category:Derelict satellites orbiting Earth was created as a result of discussion surrounding the categorisation of derelict satellites. Concerns have also been raised that satellites are being listed as no longer being in orbit whilst still in orbit and derelict, and a discussion was held on how their status could be verified. An effort to categorise spacecraft by the type of rocket used to launch them is underway, however the categorisation of satellites by country of launch was rejected.
, and a redirect was created at the title proposed by the anonymous user.
Concerns were raised regarding the quality of the article
Japan's space development. Editors noted that the article appeared to be a poorly-translated copy of an article from the Japanese Wikipedia, although there have been some signs of improvement. Discussion regarding moving the article to Japanese space program
is ongoing, however a move request has not yet been filed.
A particular concern was raised regarding false claims in the article Van Allen radiation belt. In one case a scientist to whom one of the claims had been attributed was contacted, and clarified that he had made a remark to that effect as a joke in the 1960s, but was not entirely sure how or why it had been included in the article. Other concerns were raised before the discussion moved to WikiProject Astronomy.
A question was raised regarding the copyright status of images credited to both NASA and ESA, particularly with regard to images of the launch of the Johannes Kepler ATV. The discussion reached no general conclusions, however it was found that the specific images that were suggested for inclusion in the article could be used, since they were explicitly declared to be in the public domain.
A template, Template:Spaceflight landmarks(edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), was created to cover landmarks in the United States that are related to spaceflight. Several sources of public-domain NASA images were also discussed, and it was noted that almost all NASA images are public domain, however there are some exceptions.
It has been proposed that
Permanent Multipurpose Module since the two cover separate uses of the same spacecraft. A review of the article STS-88
has also been requested.
Three new Good Articles have been listed:
Reaction Engines Skylon have been nominated for Good Article status and are awaiting review, whilst List of Mir spacewalks
is undergoing a peer review with a view to it becoming a featured list.
Editorial: Direction of the Project
Well folks, its now been more than three months since the
User:GW Simulations
has begun this excellent monthly newsletter for us. However, there are a few areas of the project that seem to be passing by the wayside, specifically the areas dedicated to fostering collaboration on articles and article sets between the project members, so here I present a call for more collaboration on the project.
Presumably, the lack of collaboration is due to folks not being aware of what's going on, so here's a quick rundown of some of the ways you get involved in the group effort. Firstly, and most importantly, it'd be fantastic if more members got involved in the discussions ongoing at the project's main talk page, found at
WT:SPACEFLIGHT
. There are several discussions ongoing there, such as the relaunch of the spacecraft template, requests for assistance with various assessment and copyright queries, and conversations regarding category organisations, which affect many more articles, and thus editors, than are currently represented in the signatures so far.
Secondly, it was established earlier on in the project's formation that a great way to attract more editors would be to develop some good or featured topics. There are a couple of efforts ongoing to try to see this idea to fruition, such as the
Space stations working group and ChiZeroOne's own collaboration page, currently focussed on Skylab-related articles. These pages, however, have been notably lacking in activity lately, which is a shame, as their aims, given enough editor input, would really see the project furthering itself. Similarly, there are a number of requests for assessment for articles to be promoted to GA class, among other things, on the Open tasks page, which lists all of the activities needing input from members. If everyone could add this page to their watchlists and swing by it regularly, we could power through the good topics in extremely short order! Other things that could do with being added to people's watchlists include Portal:Spaceflight/Next launch, the many templates at Template:Launching/Wrappers and the task list at Portal:Spaceflight/Tasks
.
Finally, I'd like to try and get people involved in finally settling the organisational problem we have with reference to the task forces and working groups. Whilst the
) in particular are currently dead in the water. I'm unsure as to whether or not this is because people are unaware of their existence, they clash too much with one another and the rest of the project or because people don't see a need for them, but if interested parties could make themselves known and others voice suggestions for getting rid of them, we can decide either if they're worth keeping and get them running again, or do away with a layer of bureaucracy and close them down. Any thoughts on the matter would be much appreciated.
In summary, then, we've got a great project going here, with a nice set of articles, a good editor base and lots of ways of getting involved. Thus, a plea goes out to everyone to get involved, get editing with the other project members, and hopefully we'll see ourselves take off in a manner not dissimilar to the trajectory dear old Discovery took last week. Many thanks for everyone's hard work so far, and poyekhali! :-)
The Charts
Since it is useful to keep track of the most viewed pages within the project's scope, it seems like a good idea to continue this feature, which was originally included in last month's issue as a one-off.
Europa was a rocket developed by a multinational European programme in the 1960s. Consisting of British, French and German stages, it was intended to provide a European alternative to the US rockets used for the launch of most Western satellites to that date. Although the British Blue Streak first stage performed well on all flights, problems with the French and German stages, as well as the Italian-built payload fairing, resulted in the failure of all multistage test flights and orbital launch attempts. The programme was abandoned after the failure of the Europa II's maiden flight in 1971. The article Europa (rocket), describes it:
Blue Streak missile), France would build the second and Germany
the third stage.
The Europa programme was divided into 4 successive projects :
Europa 1: 4 unsuccessful launches
Europa 2: 1 unsuccessful launch
Europa 3: Cancelled before any launch occurred
Europa 4: Study only, later cancelled
The project was marred by technical problems. Although the first stage (the British Blue Streak) launched successfully on each occasion, it was the second or third stage that failed.
”
The article is currently assessed as start-class, and is missing a lot of information. It also lacks some basic features such as inline citations. Since Europa was a fairly major programme, enough information should be available to produce a much higher quality article, and it could probably be brought up to GA status with enough effort.
Hi Bubba;
Personally, I prefer "Black" and "White" over "black" and "white" when referring to the players. (It's how I grew up.) But, I notice in lots and lots of WP articles, smalls are used instead. (So, I have tried to stay consistent w/ that apparent convention, when making an edit.)
I don't mind smalls too much, but it seems to me consistency should be the thing. That said, is this a "bigger" issue - e.g., should all WP chess articles be either one way [caps], or the other [smalls], for consistency? (Is there any consensus on it; has it ever been discussed?)
p.s. I'm also don't prefer "bishop", "king", etc., preferring instead "Bishop", "King". (Because again, I grew up that way. And, I think caps for piece names is more logical as well, since the caps correspond better to their single letter abbrevs in algebraic: Bg2, Kh1, etc.) But again, I've used smalls on piece names since that is what I've been seeing on WP.
This has been discussed on the Chess Project, and the consensus is to use "Black" and "White" when it stands in for a person, but lower case when referring to pieces (e.g. "the black rook"). They are caps when used to stand for a person because it is sort of like a proper noun. I think the articles are mostly consistent, and I change them when I see an inconsistency. I see almost all lower case for the pieces, and I think that is the preference of of the members of the chess project. I see them uppercase mostly in old literature. (They are not proper nouns.) Bubba73You talkin' to me?01:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Thx for the clarification! I do think the consensus to use smalls has a weird effect though ... the phrase "the black rook" can only mean one thing in chess: the rook owned by Black. (So "black rook" is synonymous to "Black's rook".) If that weren't the case, then "the black rook" means "the rook colored black color", and I don't think color is really being referred to per se (probably a bad idea anyway since FIDE mandates only "dark"). So to me "Black rook" always means "Black's rook", so my vote would have been for caps, even though the word itself is holding the spot of an adjective in the sentence, when really it's like an implied & abbrev'd possessive.
Anyway, that's my analysis. (... I "resign".) :) I'm glad to know what the WP convention is! Thx.
BTW could you let me know if I got any of these wrong? (Thx again!)
1) "Who is playing the black pieces in this game?"
2) "Did you say Browne is playing the black side?"
3) "Did you say Browne is playing Black?"
4) "If Browne is Black, who is White?"
5) "Who was the White player for that game?"
6) "Did Browne have White?"
p.s. No pun intended on name "Browne" (Walter Browne). :)
Hi Bubba, these two (phrase conditions) keep throwing me:
1) "A brilliant White move" vs. "A brilliant white move".
2) "The Black position is weak" vs. "The black position is weak".
Since "move" and "position" don't refer to pieces, I've preferred CAP on White & Black in those cases.
(But! There are other phrase conditions not related to pieces which are clear, e.g. "the black square a1", etc., so, I have doubt.)
Hi Bubba, we agree, but the reason is maybe confused (e.g. if "a weak black pawn move" can be rewritten "a weak pawn move by Black", is there a difference w/ your "brilliant move by Black" example?). After thinking some more on it, I'm thinking now the division line is probably implied to be about actual color (i.e. a "piece" can have actual color, so can a square; but not a "move", or a "position"). How's does that analysis sit w/ you? Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi Bubba, I put up a Parton var I've always been fascinated by (2000 A.D. – whaddya think?). I see you coded the chess diag templates, they allow #s to be put on sqrs but not letters (if I read it right), so I created a graphic instead, making look like a template diag, to accomodate all the letters I needed, since iconics of course aren't avail. Has any thought been given for adding ability to place letters in sqrs, not only #s? Thx for your consider. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I've seen it - a good start. I didn't have anything to do with writing the template and I don't know anything about how to do it. What I did is write a program that runs under Windows that lets you enter a position graphically (also with numbers, black dots, white dots, and Xs on the squares) and it will generate the WP diagram for it. It works for 8x8 with regular pieces only. Bubba73You talkin' to me?18:16, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
No probs. I am new to editing Wiki and didn't realise such a thing could happen. Thanks for letting me know. - Jessiessica (talk·contribs)
Service award level
There has been a major revision of the the
Service Awards
: the edit requirements for the higher levels have been greatly reduced, to make them reasonably attainable.
Because of this, your Service Award level has been changed, and you are now eligible for a higher level. I have taken the liberty of updating your award on your user page.
Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Damiens.rf19:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Value of chess pieces.
Hello there, I am the user with IP 189.79.206.127 and I did the change that was erroneously identified as vandalism. The original text said that a good bishop values 10% of a bad bishop or more, and that's ridiculous. It implies that you would need up to 10 good bishops to match a bad one. The author wanted to say that a good bishop is worthy 10 percent more than a bad bishop or even more, which is pretty much the same thing of saying it values 110% of a bad one or more. That's the change I made. You're mistaking your ignorance of simple math for vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabriel dCF (talk • contribs) 03:23, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
when I write about chess I use the descriptive notation, not the short notation. I lot of books write move using descriptive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.113.152.93 (talk) 04:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
8
8
7
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a
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A position like this is not illegal. The king is safe from attack.
No, I have a book called "The Chess Doctor" which uses both notations, so writing with discriptive wouldn't hurt in wikipedia at all. You just have to know how to read it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.113.152.93 (talk) 04:50, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
A couple of pages use descriptive. Even if most pages are short algebraic notation so there is nothing wrong with descriptive. In fact some write moves like this: 1 e2-e4, e7-e5, etc. So there's no one right way to write moves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.113.152.93 (talk) 08:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes there is something wrong with descriptive notation - it has been obsolete for more than 25 years. Wikipedia doesn't use it.
It appears you have done a lot of work on this article, with very nice results. I want to mention a key position which is not included in the article. It is the position White: Ke5, Qd5; Black: Kd2, Pc2; Black to move. We know it’s a draw, because the white king can’t reach b3 or e2 in two moves. But out of Black’s five legal moves, four of them lose, and the one drawing move may not be easy to find in actual play.
After each of Black’s losing moves, White has only one move to win. White must reply to Kc3 with Qd4+, to Kc1 or Ke2 with Qa2, and to Ke3 with Qg2. The last of these is probably White’s hardest winning move to find.
After the correct 1…Ke1, Black must still play accurately to draw. Play might continue 2 Qa5+ Kd1 3 Qa4 Kd2 4 Qa2. Now we have the position of Trap #2, when Black must play Kc3! to hold the draw.
Do you think it would be worthwhile to include this position in the article? Several endgame books fail to mention it, but I think it should be learned by anyone who claims to know the queen vs. pawn endgame. I learned it from Horowitz, I. A. (1957), How to Win in the Chess Endings, David McKay Company, Inc.,
BTW, I made a mistake in reverting something you edited on that page, about what square the king needs to get to and in how many moves. I was looking at the text above the diagram in question instead of below. Bubba73You talkin' to me?01:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Searching for Bobby Fisher accusations of vandalism
You know, adding unsourced, but accurate, information has never been considered vandalism on Wikipedia. Did you bother to check before you accused me of it? It's a sad state of affairs where accurate corrections are reverted as vandalism and the contributor reprimanded. [1], [2], [3], also the commentary in Chessmaster 11. Now, I know that I don't have a perfect source here, since Waitzkin can't be considered a 100% reliable source about himself. But I think it suffices for something like this and the information in the article right now isn't sourced to anything. But hey, you're the boss. If you want to keep bad info in Wikipedia, that's your call. -67.180.254.114 (talk) 13:35, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I looked it up in the book and gave the page numbers. And the first reference you give confirms what I said. It says that a draw would give him first place on tiebreakers, which means that their actual score was tied. In those cases, they are declared co-champions. Bubba73You talkin' to me?16:45, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay. I'll take your word for it, though I don't really understand what a tiebreaker is, if not to break ties. But I don't play tournament chess. The first refence specifically says "Josh knew that he only needed a draw to win the Championship on tie-breaks" - so he won the Championship, but they were co-champions? I don't understand that.
I apologize for my tone, but I made a good faith contribution and being accused of vandalism is just irksome. You didn't engage me in discussion at all, just a revert and a vandalism warning. Don't we use
You don't have to take my word for it - read the account in the book (I added the page numbers). Both players won the first six games. They played a draw in the seventh/final game, which gave them equal scores (6.5 points each). Now such ties are often broken by playing more games, but in the past Tie-breaking in Swiss-system tournaments were used. These are numerical tie-breakers based on games already played - not additional games. (These tie-breakers can be partially calculated before the last round, which is how Josh could know he would be in first place if he drew the last game with Jeff.) The tiebreaker would be to give the first place trophy to one and the second place trophy to the other. But titles (and cash prizes, if applicable) were awarded equally, making them co-champions.
Yes, now I believe your edit was
in good faith, and I removed the warning from your talk page. But I have approximately 100 pages on my watchlist, and I have to revert vandalism several times a week (sometimes several times a day). Putting incorrect information into chess articles is one of their favorite things to do. Most of the vandals are anons, without a history of good edits to chess articles. Your one previous edit was blanking someone's user page. So I jumped to conclusions a little quickly, I apologize for that. Bubba73You talkin' to me?19:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
File:FilipAndTal.jpg listed for deletion
A file that you uploaded or altered,
Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Damiens.rf21:01, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
Disputed non-free use rationale for File:Reshevsky1960.jpg
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claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media
claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media
claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media
claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media
Bubba, help! I don't understand the legalise. ("Market role"? "Rationale"? Does rationale have two diff defs? The justification to use in Bobby Fischer article doesn't need a defense. So I don't get the bad that's happening.) Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:10, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
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what it looked like is important. Contrast these conditions with the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match - the plain wooden chairs versus th Eanes executive chairs, the table, etc. It shows how much the conditions for chessplayers changed as a result of the Fischer-Spassky match. Bubba73You talkin' to me?17:18, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Disputed non-free use rationale for File:SpasskyFischer1972.jpg
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If you want to include some discussion of the change in the way chess players were treated, sourced to reliable sources, then go ahead. However, you can't try to justify blanket use of non-free images of chess matches based on your claims about how important it is to see how the players were treated... J Milburn (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
, then click the "Edit" tab at the top of the page and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
I have a relatively puckish bent to my personality, that combined with some impulse control issues tends to have me change some things for purposes of entertainment rather than education. But this impulse is very rare and I find has dwindled as I have matured. I am an avid user of Wikipedia and very much appreciate the work you fine people do. And so while I have done some minor acts of mischief in the past I hope to in the future redeem myself. To become a sort of Wikipedia Eugène François Vidocq, the french father of criminology, who was himself once a criminal.
But I digress. I hope my suggestion on how to deal with the Palin/ Revere Problem is helpful. Good night to you and as a resident of Arkansas, I hope the heat breaks soon.
If you wish to respond please do it on my talk page, I am new to conversing via this method and it has a bit of a learning curve.
ForeverZero (talk) 06:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ForeverZero (talk • contribs) 06:39, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
But if you change something for your entertainment, if no one catches that, it will misinform someone else. What if you go to Wikipedia to learn something, but someone has put in false information? Bubba73You talkin' to me?15:11, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the Chess Life DVD set includes all pages of the magazines including ads, announcements and rating lists. They are scanned images collected into PDFs, typically a single PDF for a year's worth of magazines. Unfortunately there's no OCR or electronic index, so you have to search them visually unless you know where to look. Quale (talk) 19:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi Bubba. You mentioned a TOC is too wide, if it can't fit the notation tag. And I see you slendered a TOC on one of the articles (can't remember which one at the moment!). Ok, now I have done it too (my first): Ruy Lopez. (How did I do?) Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
p.s. I had no similar issue, when adapting notation tag–TOC to:
Yes, the width of the TOC depends on the length of the longest section title and the size of the font you use. I use large fonts so one was too wide to display well on my screen. One section title was much too long anyway, so I shortened it.
Hi Bubba, shortened Ruy Lopez section title further (by removing word "the"). Also shortened the notation Side box itself. (How does Ruy Lopez appear on your screen now?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC) p.s. Remembered the article! (It was Susan Polgar.)
It depends on how wide I have my browser window. I have a 16:9 screen. I usually have the browser windowed to about what it would be with a 4:3 screen. With that, the TOC and info box together are wider than the window would be, so it places the TOC entirely below the info box and the notation box above the TOC, which actually isn't too bad. If I widen my browser window enough, the TOC and info box will fit side-by-side, and it changes to do that and then the notation box is to the right of the TOC. Bubba73You talkin' to me?03:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Interesting! But I'll leave that up to you to do, if you like. (With more than 11,000 views of Ruy Lopez in last 30 days, I'm afraid to do myself!) ;) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
, then click the "Edit" tab at the top of the page and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.
Hi! Would you mind taking a look at that article's talk page, where I responded to your tagging it. As I say there, I don't have any strong feelings about it, so if you want to nominate it for deletion, that's ok with me, even though the last edition of Pritchard's was published before this variant came to be. But I feel it should either be AfD'ed or the tag removed. Cheers! Asav (talk) 06:19, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi Bubba, I think the current options (left–right, and artcile/section/diagram levels) gives notation tag the flexibility for perfect & appropriate application to any article. (I don't see how it could be better. What do you think?) Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 01:56, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Vssun (talk) 10:39, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
File:Capablanca2.jpg listed for deletion
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