User talk:Exoplanetaryscience/2016

Dear fellow Wikipedian,

I would like to personally invite you to the March edition of the Wik-Ed Women meetup, which will take place on March 15, from 6-10 in the evening. It will occur at Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, 2245 E Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90021 (downtown LA -- map). The building has a pink top with old signage for American Accessories, Inc. dba Princess Accessories (Photos [PDF]). There is on-site parking in the back, which also has an entrance. If you cannot attend in person, you are more than willing to work remotely, as we appreciate all help that you can provide. Finally, here is a link to the Facebook event, in case you want to invite friends, as we are always looking for new editors to help expand coverage of women on Wikipedia!

I hope to see you there! Cosmicphantom (talk) - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:54, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Join our Facebook group here! To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.

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Greetings, GA Cup competitors!

Wednesday saw the end of Round 1. Sainsf took out Round 1 with an amazing score of 765. In second place, MPJ-DK earned an astounding 742 points, and in third place, FunkMonk received 610 points.

In Round 1, 206 reviews were completed, more than any other year! At the beginning of March, there were 595 outstanding nominations in the GAN queue; by the end of Round 1, there were 490. We continue to make a difference at GAN and throughout Wikipedia, something we should all be proud of. Thanks to all our competitors for helping to make the GA Cup a continued success, and for your part in helping other editors improve articles. We hope to see all remaining users fighting it out in Round 2 so we can lower the backlog as much as possible.

To qualify for the second round, you needed to make it into the top 16 of participants. Users were placed in 4 random pools of 4. To qualify for Round 3, the top 2 in each pool will progress, and there will also be one wildcard. This means that the participant who comes in 9th place (all pools combined) will also move on. Round 2 will start on April 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on April 28 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 2 and the pools can be found here

Also, remember that a major rule change will go into effect starting on April 1, which marks the beginning of Round Two. Round 1 had an issue brought up in the rules, which we are correcting with this clarification. We believe that this change will make the competition more inherently fair. The new rule is: All reviews must give the nominator (or anyone else willing to improve the article) time to address the issues at hand, even if the article would qualify for what is usually called a "quick fail" in GA terms. To avoid further confusion, we have updated the scoring page, replacing the term "quick fail" with the term "fail without granting time for improvements". We expect all reviewers to put a review on hold for seven days in cases such as these as well, in order to apply the same standards to every competitor. The judges will strictly enforce this new rule.

Good luck and have fun!

Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase.

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Hello, GA Cup competitors!

Thursday saw the end of Round 2. Sainsf once again took out Round 2 with an amazing score of 996 (a higher score then he received in Round 1!). In second place, MPJ-DK earned an astounding 541 points, and in third place, Carbrera received 419 points.

In Round 2, 142 reviews were completed! At the beginning of April, there were 486 outstanding nominations in the GAN queue; by the end of Round 1, there were 384. Another demonstrable way in which this competition has made a difference is in the length of time articles languish in the queue. At the beginning of this GA Cup, the longest wait was over 9 months [1]; at the end of Round 2, the longest wait had decreased significantly, to a little over 5 months.[2] It's clear that we continue to make a difference at GAN and throughout Wikipedia, something we should all be proud of. Thanks to all our competitors for helping to make the GA Cup a continued success, and for your part in helping other editors improve articles. We hope to see all remaining users fighting it out in Round 3 so we can keep lowering the backlog as much as possible.

To qualify for the third round, contestants had to earn the two highest scores in each of the four pools in Round 2; plus, one wildcard. We had an unusual occurrence happen in Round 2: because only one contestant submitted reviews in one pool, we selected the contestant with the next highest score to move forward to Round 3. (There will be a rule change for future competitions in case something like this happens again.) For Round 3, users were placed in 3 random pools of 3. To qualify for the Final of the 3rd Annual GA Cup, the top user in each pool will progress, and there will also be one wildcard. This means that the participant who comes in 4th place (all pools combined) will also move on. Round 3 will start on May 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on May 29 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 3 and the pools can be found here.

Good luck and have fun!

Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase.

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Hello, GA Cup competitors!

It has been brought to our attention that we made a mistake in the last newsletter. In the last newsletter, we said that the "4th place" overall would make the Final along with the top user from each pool. However, the users who will advance will be the top user from each pool along with "4th and 5th place" overall.

We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion that we caused.

Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase.

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Hello, GA Cup competitors!

Tuesday saw the end of Round 3. Sainsf, for the third time, won with a sizable 487 points and a shocking 29 articles reviewed. In second, MPJ-DK had 168 points and 7 reviewed articles. In second place, MPJ-DK earned 168 points with just 7 articles, and in third place, Carbrera received 137 points with just 9 articles. Our two wildcard slots went to J Milburn with 122 points and Sturmvogel 66 with 101 points.

In Round 3, 65 reviews were completed! At the beginning of the GA Cup, there were 595 outstanding nominations in the GAN queue; by the end of Round 3, there were 394. Another demonstrable way in which this competition has made a difference is in the length of time articles languish in the queue. At the beginning of the GA Cup, the longest wait was over 9 months [3]; at the end of Round 3, the longest wait had decreased significantly, to a little over 5 months [4]—nothing before 2016. It's clear that we continue to make a difference at GAN and throughout Wikipedia, something we should all be proud of. Thanks to all our competitors for helping to make the GA Cup a continued success, and for your part in helping other editors improve articles. We hope to see all remaining users fighting it out in the Finals for the GA Cup so that are successes continue.

To qualify for the Finals, contestants had to earn the highest scores in each of the three pools in Round 3; plus, as well as the top 2 of all remaining users in all of the pools. For the Finals, users were placed in one pool of the remaining five users. To win the GA Cup, you must have the most points. The Finals started on June 1 at 0:00:01 UTC' and end on June 30 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about the Finals and the pools can be found

We wish all the contestants the best of luck!

Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase.

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Hello to our truly awesome GA Cup competitors!

Thursday, June 30 saw the end of the 2016 GA Cup. It was a huge success. In the final, our five competitors reviewed an astonishing 207 articles, the most in any GA Cup final thus far. We continue to reach our goals and make a substantial impact in how quickly articles are reviewed for GA status. On March 1, the start of this competition, the article longest in the queue had languished there since June 26, 2015 [5]; in the July 1, 2016 list, the average wait length is just four months [6]. It's clear that we continue to make a difference at GAN and throughout Wikipedia, something we should all be proud of. Thanks to all our competitors for their enthusiasm, and for helping to make the GA Cup a continued success. Remember that most articles can't even be considered for FA status unless it's been passed to GA first, so our efforts have created hundreds of potentials FAs. That is, as they say, a big deal.

The final this time represented a real horse race between our 1st and 2nd place winners. First-time competitor (who had won all previous rounds) Sainsf earned an impressive 1456 points with 91 articles reviewed during the final. Close behind, in second place was Carbrera, also a first-time competitor, reviewed the most articles (94). Their enthusiasm was a treat to witness. Congrats to you both!

The competition went relatively smoothly, with very little drama this time. We had to clarify one rule: in order for the points to count, you must mark your reviews as completed; it's not up to the judges to ensure that all reviews are completed by the end of a round. We were strict about adhering to this clarification, especially at the end of the final. We intend on stressing it in the stated rules for our next competition, which will be announced soon, so watch out for it. We also intend on applying for a grant through Wikimedia to include gift certificates for our winners, to further incentivize the GA Cup.

MrWooHoo should receive special recognition for acting as our main judge, and for stepping in for the rest of the judges when real-life busyness took over. He reviewed the majority of the submissions during our final round. Thanks for your hard work, and for the hard work of all our judges. We look forward to the next competition.

Again, thanks to all our competitors, and congrats to our winners.

Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase.

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Greetings, all!

We would like to announce the start of the 4th

Good article nominations

! Thus far, there have been three GA Cups, which were successful in reaching our goals of significantly reducing the traditionally long queue at GAN, so we're doing it again. Currently, there are over 400 nominations listed. We hope that we can again make an impact this time.

The 4th GA Cup will begin on November 1, 2016. Four rounds are currently scheduled (which will bring the competition to a close on February 28, 2017), but this may change based on participant numbers. We may take a break in December for the holidays, depending on the results of a poll of our participants taken shortly after the competition begins. The sign-up and submissions process will remain the same, as will the scoring.

Sign-ups for the upcoming competition are currently open and will close on October 31, 2016. Everyone is welcome to join; new and old editors, so sign-up now!

If you have any questions, take a look at the FAQ page and/or contact one of the judges.

Cheers from 3family6, Figureskatingfan, Jaguar, MrWooHoo, and Zwerg Nase.