The contest department has completed its eight month of competition. The leader for this month, with a massive 92 points, is Blnguyen; Woodym555 is in second place, with 32 points, and Cla68 and TomStar81 are tied for third place, with 15 points each. Overall, Blnguyen is now in first place, with 140 points, followed by JKBrooks85, with 120 points, and by Woodym555, with 63 points. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
Tag & Assess 2007—the project's first major article tagging and assessment drive—is continuing; all project members—and anyone else who's interested—are invited to assist with this effort.
The
number of articles tagged as being within our scope
The contest department has completed its ninth month of competition. The top scorer this month is Blnguyen, with 22 points, followed by Dreamafter, with 8 points, and Redmarkviolinist, with 6 points. Blnguyen also remains the overall leader, with 162 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
in recognition of his efforts in improving the quality of articles related to Vietnamese military history, including the creation of numerous A-Class articles.
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his outstanding work on topics related to the Victoria Cross, notably including the creation of featured articles, featured lists, and a featured topic.
Although the drive is officially closed, existing participants can continue tagging until January 31 if they wish, with the extra tags counting towards their tally for barnstar purposes.
We'd like to see what lessons can be learned from this drive, so we've set up a feedback workshop. Comments and feedback from participants and non-particpants
alike are very welcome and appreciated.
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The project coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by February 14!
The contest department has completed its tenth month of competition, which saw an unprecedented 44 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 95 points, followed by Cla68, with 42 points, and Ed! and Woody, with 21 points each. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 182 points in total. All project members are encouraged to submit the articles they're working on as entries.
A new auxiliary infobox, {{
operational plan
}}, is now available.
A
new page for military history essays
has been created; project members are encouraged to post their own advice and opinions on matters within the project's purview.
New guidelines concerning
ship pronouns
have been added to the style guide.
picture peer reviews
are now accessible through the project's review department.
A category restructuring workshop is now open; brainstorming regarding the arrangement of the top-level military history categories is currently ongoing.
Awards and honors
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his superior contributions to a variety of articles about the United States Air Force, including a great number of those dealing with wings and installations.
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of the outstanding contribution he has made to the project's organization by going above and beyond the call of duty in tagging, assessing, and classifying a massive number of articles during the 2007 assessment drive.
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will occupy the eight Assistant Coordinator positions. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated!
In the simultaneous referendum on project organization, you voted almost unanimously for a primus inter pares structure. As a tangible reflection of this, Assistant Coordinators are now known as Coordinators.
The contest department has completed its eleventh month of competition, which saw 10 entries. The top scorer this month is Dreamafter, with 28 points, followed by Smsarmad, with 13 points, with Blnguyen, Ed! and jwillbur also fielding entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
A new B-Class Assessment Drive ("BCAD") will go operational no later than
WP:MHA-BCAD
now to your watchlist.
Awards and honors
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his outstanding organizational work, his painstaking maintenance work, and his unstinting advice, throughout his two years of project leadership.
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his outstanding effort to improve our compliment of naval ships by updating infoboxes, replacing deprecated infoboxes, and locating sources for ships in the employment of their respective countries' navies.
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. We have around 60,000 articles to check, so all assistance is very welcome. As usual, there are barnstars galore and service awards for contributing editors.
The
project scope
has been amended to include specific reference to historically accurate video games. Songs and music with long military associations are also now included.
The Contest department has completed its thirteenth month of competition, which saw 27 entries. The top scorer this month is Ed! with 37 points, followed by Cam with 22 points. Woody, Howard C. Berkowitz, Redmarkviolinist, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
The coordinators have "adopted" task forces to act as prime point of contact. A list of which coordinators have adopted which task forces is
An interesting proposal to set up teams to deal with specific tasks, like taking the Top Ten most frequently read military history articles to featured articles status is
here
.
The coordinators are exploring ways of developing and improving our fifty or so task forces. More information is
here
.
All editors are invited to contribute to a
discussion
about the naming of military operations in an endeavor to reach consensus.
Awards and honors
Congratulations and kudos to the four top-performing editors in
newsletter. Good news for our FA-class article Bird: It's now the top Google hit for both "Bird" and "Birds"!
Articles of note
New
lists
:
Song Thrush
(March 20)
New
good articles
:
Emperor Penguin
(March 20)
Hooded Crow
(March 17)
Featured topic update
Work on our first potential featured topic is nearing completion, with only New World vulture (B-class) and Cathartes (stub-class) left to go. Any help you can give in bringing either article up to GA/FA status would be appreciated.
Project news
The current
Cattle Egret
. Help us to improve the article about this widespread species, which is found throughout most of the world—often lurking near the feet of foraging livestock.
On a related note, be sure to vote for May's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 April. Nominations are listed on the collaboration page; feel free to add a new article to the list if there's one you'd especially like to see worked on.
A drive is on to bring all of our bird family articles up to at least start class. Currently, 44 families have only stub-class articles. See the list of families needing improvement to help with the project.
Our list of articles awaiting assessment has dropped in the past month, and now numbers less than 1,900. If each project member assessed just a couple of articles a day (most will be stub or start class), we could continue to drive that number down. To find articles needing assessment, have a look at the Statistics table here and click on Unassessed for a listing. Special thanks to Dixonsej (talk·contribs), who has been assessing up a storm!
Aviculturalists wanted...
Snowmanradio (talk·contribs) is hoping to help start up an Aviculture task force. Anyone who'd like to help improve our coverage of aviculture-related topics is encouraged to get in touch.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Please contact MeegsC (talk·contribs) with your ideas!
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) rates Wikipedia as "the best general resource" for military research (p. 7). Of the military pages, he says: "The results are largely accurate and generally free of bias" (he also suggests people join the wikiproject). When rating WP as the No. 1 military site (p. 201) he says "Wikipedia is often criticised for its inaccuracy and bias, but in my experience the military history articles are spot on."
A-Class reviews: the usual four-day review period may now be extended by up to three days (ie seven days in total) in the following circumstances:
the article has no opposes but has insufficient support for promotion or
the article's nominator requests more time to resolve matters arising during the review.
The full text is
here
.
The
special projects department
has opened. It will focus on specific ad-hoc high-priority tasks and implement them with informal, short-term groups of editors.
The Contest department has completed its fourteenth month of competition, which saw 16 entries. The top scorer this month is Cam with 21 points, followed by Redmarkviolinist with 11 points. Woody, Dreamafter, Kyriakos, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
A discussion has been opened into the structuring of top level operational categories, starting with Category:World War II. All interested editors are invited to help establish a consensus.
Awards and honors
Congratulations go to
American Civil War task force
.
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is a very variable species (or is it several species, as some authorities insist?) found throughout much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, and in small numbers in westernmost Alaska.
We have our first official task force, covering articles related to domestic pigeons; new project member
WP:PIGEONS
.
Project news
The ongoing drive to improve our bird family articles continues; there are still at least 36 bird family articles currently rated as stubs. If you'd like to help improve one or more, the list of those needing work is here.
A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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With the holiday season upon us, we're very short of reviewers at
A-Class Reviews and are likely to remain so for the next month or so. If just five new reviewers each reviewed one article a week, the problem would be solved! To keep track of Milhist articles for peer and A-Class reviews, simply paste the code – {{WPMILHIST Review alerts
}} – onto your talk page.
Similarly, copy-editors are currently in short supply. If you can help out at the
WPMILHIST Copy-editing alerts
}} onto your talk page.
The debate on whether Milhist should adopt the new C-Class has been closed, with a strong and clear consensus against adopting. The archived discussion is
. The idea is to see how it can be improved, or whether it needs changing or updating.
The month-long trial of partner peer reviews with
discussed
. All feedback welcome!
Awards and honors
Congratulations to
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his consistently excellent edits and his continued commitment and tireless efforts towards improving the quality of articles pertaining to military history.
Congratulations to
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Polish military history, including the creation of numerous Featured Articles, A-Class articles, and Good Articles on the subject.
Peer Reviews
, during the quarter March-May 2008. They have all been awarded the Content Review Medals.
The
entries
.
Tag & Assess '08 has now closed, with approximately 10,000 articles successfully tagged. Many thanks to all those who participated. The top three scorers were Jim Sweeney (Gold Wiki), Dashiellx (Silver Wiki) and Ejosse1
(Bronze Wiki).
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newsletter. June was another good month for article improvement, with a total of seven achieving the highest classes—we're well on the way to reaching our first 100 milestone.
Earlier this year, Casliber (talk·contribs) challenged the project to try to get 100 articles to FA or GA status before the end of the year—and we're certainly well on our way, with more than 80 articles currently at those levels. Casliber has made a listing of existing articles with significant content here; if you'd like to try your hand at improving an article, this might be a good place to start.
Collaboration efforts
Move us nearer to that 100 article goal by helping to improve this month's project collaboration. The Hoatzin is an unusual South American bird known for its unique digestive sytem, foul odor and clawed wings (as a juvenile).
In a related note, be sure to vote for August's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 July. We could use a few new nominations...
Project news
The ongoing drive to improve our bird family articles continues; despite significant efforts by a number of editors, there are still at least 37 bird family articles currently rated as stubs—mostly because we keep finding articles we'd forgotten to include! If you'd like to help improve one or more, the list of those needing work is here.
A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIX (July 2008)
The criteria for Military history A-Class reviews have been overhauled. The new standard is deliberately set higher than before, and is much closer to
featured article quality
. The new criteria are:
A1. The article is consistently referenced with
as appropriate
.
A2. The article is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail.
A3. The article has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise
lead section
that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents.
A4. The article is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant.
A5. The article contains supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where appropriate.
The
timescale
for A-Class articles has also been changed to give more editors an opportunity to participate.
The six-monthly Coordinators' election has been moved back a month to avoid clashes with the holiday period. The sign-up period will run from 1–15 September and the elections themselves from 16–30 September.
Birds WikiProject newsletter. Things were a bit slower in the "Articles of Note" department last month, but many editors were quietly working away on an impressive array of tasks. Casliber (talk·contribs
), in particular, has expanded multiple articles—getting many of them featured in the Main Page DYK section in the process.
This month's collaboration is our first group attempt to upgrade a genus level article.
Ara
is a genus of macaws—spectacularly large parrots which live in the neotropics. Several of the eight living species are highly endangered (at least one is already extinct), and all are beloved by aviculturalists. Help us improve the article about these intriguing birds.
In a related note, be sure to vote for September's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 August. As always, we could use a few new nominations...
), who's been plugging away on the neotropical articles, resolving all sorts of issues...
Project news
Improve me!
We're finally down to fewer than 30 "stub" bird family articles, thanks to herculean efforts by Sabine's Sunbird (talk·contribs). Can you help to improve the remainder? If so, the list of those needing work is here.
A change in Wikipedia's taxobox setup has meant the removal of the IUCN status scale image from all articles. To re-display the scale, add "| status_system = iucn3.1" to the taxobox parameters in any article for which it is appropriate.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXX (August 2008)
The Military history WikiProject coordinator selection process is underway, to elect nine coordinators to serve for the next six months. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 (UTC) on 14 September! Voting starts at 00:01 (UTC) on 15 September and runs until 23:59 (UTC) on 30 September.
A new barnstar specifically encouraging and recognizing excellence in Milhist article creation and development has been introduced. Any editor who has made a significant contribution to three or more Milhist A-Class articles promoted since 1 August 2008 under the new A-Class criteria is eligible. Nominations for the medal should be made here; should list the three A-Class articles for which the medal is sought; and must be subsequently supported by three or more project coordinators, who will be responsible for making the award. Editors may nominate themselves or any other qualifying editor.
about whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is underway. All comments are welcome.
The 2008 Tag & Assess Workshop is still open, seeking input on ways to improve the efficiency, user-friendliness and organization of future Milhist drives. All comment is welcome, especially from people who didn't participate in the drive!
Awards and honors
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of her exemplary work on military history featured pictures, sounds, and articles.
The W1.0 Editorial Team have selected 1133 Military history articles for inclusion in the W0.7 test release. For convenience, these are broken by task force and you'll find a list on each task force headed "Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for [task force name]" on the task force talk page. You may nominate extra articles for inclusion or existing ones for removal. If you can improve any of the articles on the list, by adding references, or copy-editing, or cleaning up generally, please do so.
A
new discussion
has started about naming articles on Soviet WWII operations. All contributions are welcome as we hope to resolve this longstanding issue once and for all.
The debate over whether Milhist should adopt C-Class is continuing. All comments and suggestions are welcome.
Awards and honors
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his exemplary work on military history articles and DYK entries.
newsletter. Ties to our project are growing: Avibase, one of the internet's largest generators of database-driven country checklists, now directs its users to Wikipedia's pages for more information on individual species.
Bird of prey, this month's collaboration article, is an overview of the many species of diurnal and nocturnal raptors. Please help us boost the quality and content of this important article—which is currently a mere start!
In a related note, be sure to vote for November's collaboration, which will be chosen on 21 October. As always, we could use a few new nominations...
Project news
A listing of bird-related articles destined for the next Wikipedia DVD is available here.[1] Unfortunately, a few of the identifed articles are currently stubs (
Cuculiformes
), and others have banners indicating various problems. We should try to get as many as possible updated and upgraded before the October 20 cutoff—the date by which we need to identify "safe" versions for inclusion.
The bot that runs the project's cleanup list has unfortunately developed some problems since its last run (in August), but there are still plenty of corrections to make on the existing list!
We're still on course to reach our (informal) target of 100
featured articles or lists by the end of the year, with only 12 more to go. Antbird
is currently at FAC (where reviews would be helpful). Do you have an article nearing completion that needs some copyediting, reference searches or writing assistance? Let the project know!
Bird news
A new species of
Vanikolo Islands, which are part of the Solomon Islands. The Wikipedia editor who creates a new article on this species (containing at least some basic information) will be named in next month's newsletter. An abstract of the Ibis article is available here
.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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Following a lengthy discussion, three new coordinators – EyeSerene, Maralia and the_ed17 - have been coopted. The purpose of the appointments is partly to fill the place left by the retirement of TomStar81 and partly to provide increased/improved coordinator capacity to cover existing coordinator absences and to help with upcoming major projects. As a reminder, coordinators are merely editors who have committed to go the extra mile for the project and that there are very few processes that require coordinator input. Specifically these are closing A-Class reviews, and endorsing two project award nominations. Any editors who wish to help with the nitty-gritty of this busy project (cross-posting A-Class review, peer review and featured article candidate alerts; responding to member questions and queries, helping with drives) are positively encouraged to do so.
A
workshop has been set up to redesign and improve the newsletter. In our recent competition
, a new name was chosen – The Bugle. All editors are welcome to participate, especially those with graphic and design skills!
Adoption of C-class remains firmly on the Milhist agenda with
discussions
approaching their fourth month of debate. More views are sought on this.
Awards and honors
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from February 2007 to September 2008.
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his long and distingushed service as a Coordinator of the Military history WikiProject from August 2006 to September 2008.
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of his diligent and excellent copyediting of vast quantities of Military History articles—notably his work on multiple Featured Article Candidates.
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
in recognition of both his long and distinguished service as a coordinator of this project from August 2007 to October 2008, and of his exemplary contributions to articles on the vessels of the U.S. Navy.
It'll mean a sprint to the finish line to reach our informal goal of 100 FA/GA articles by year's end; we're currently 11 articles shy of that total. A list of possible candidates—articles already containing significant amounts of information, which only need a bit more work to nudge them into contention—can be found here, if you'd like to help.
This month's collaboration article is Penguin—an iconic and well-known family that is the project's third most popular "read" (after Bird and Chicken). With more than 80,000 readers a month, this article deserves to be one of our first-class entries. Though it's in reasonable shape at the moment, it needs the expansion of a few key sections, and could use considerable referencing as well as some copyediting. Can you help?
In a related note, be sure to vote for December's collaboration, which will be chosen on 30 November. As always, we could use a few new nominations—Birdwatching is the only contender at the moment.
Project news
Over the last month, we've obtained many new photos from the photosharing website Flickr. Some photos on Flickr are already suitably licensed for use on Wikipedia. However, it's also possible to ask uploaders to change the license of those photo(s) which are unsuitably licensed (by far the majority), and a good proportion of them have been willing to release images when asked. This is particularly useful for articles that currently have no images. There are still thousands of bird articles needing photos and few people involved in this process. Contact Richard001 (talk·contribs) or Snowmanradio (talk·contribs) for more information about how you can help.
We have a newly-generated cleanup list to work on. According to its latest stats, we now have more than 13,750 articles in the project, with 760 (5.5%) tagged as needing corrections or improvements of some kind.
Newletter challenge
Northern Rockhopper Penguin, Eudyptes moseleyi, which has been split by many of the world's authorites; this will remove a redlink from our Penguin
article as well. The editor who starts this article and gets it to at least a reasonable stub class will be mentioned in next month's newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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. The aim is to make sourcing and citation checking easier by sharing information about editors' personal book holdings. If you have half an hour to spare, why add a list of your Milhist reference books?
DYK drew 71,300 page views in a single day - now the all-time high for DYK views.
As a result of the
2008 Arbitration Committee elections, Lead Coordinator Roger Davies is the fourth coordinator of the project to be appointed to the Arbitration Committee. The others are Kirill Lokshin (2007-2009), FayssalF (2008-2010) and YellowMonkey
(2007-2008).
This month saw 14 military history-related articles promoted to
will take place in March for the April-September term. If you want to become more involved in the project, now's the time to start thinking about it!
Upon the improvement of
Special Projects Department
as the second and ninth most frequently-read MILHIST articles.
Following
A-Class Medal System
has been changed to include three new medals: The A-Class Medal with Oak Leaves, the A-Class Medal with Oakleaves and Swords, and the A-Class Medal with Oakleaves, Swords, and Diamonds, each of which is respectfully awarded after 5, 10, and 20 groups of three A-Class Articles.
The number of our A-Class articles grew by more than 25% during this month, compared to the total number of A-Class articles existent at the end of December.
in recognition of his many valuable contributions to the project as an active reviewer, a thoughtful contributor to military history discussions, a fine content contributor, and a gentleman.
Apologies for the long gap between the last newsletter and this one; if anyone is interested in helping to produce these regular updates, assistance would be much appreciated! A new year means new goals: can we get to 50 featured articles for the project before mid-year? We're only three articles away at the moment...
After a few month hiatus, we're about to start up our monthly collaboration article improvement drive again. The results of last year's collaborations were mixed. We started strongly, with three of our first four efforts reaching FA status—two of them before their months had even expired! However, things quickly tailed off after that, and none of our later efforts even reached GA status. Please vote for 2009's first collaboration, which will be chosen on Valentine's Day (14 February). If none of the existing nominations is of interest, consider adding a new one!
Northern Rockhopper Penguin
, which is recognized by many of the world's taxonomic authorities as being worthy of species status. This month, we're looking for someone to start an article about distraction displays—behaviors used by birds to lure or drive potential predators away from nests or young. The editor who starts this article and gets it to at least a reasonable stub class will be mentioned in next month's newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVI (February 2009)
This month has been interesting for MILHIST, as we reorganized a few departments. The Outreach Department has been replaced by the tabs at the top of our totally redesigned project page; thanks to Kirill for the design and Bellhalla for the logo. We also created the Academy, a hub for practical advice about creating, editing, and reviewing quality content. All project members are cordially invited to fill in some of the red links, and new ideas are always welcome.
As you can see on the right, our A-class and featured content is growing quite rapidly; these numbers have now gone up by 45 for the second straight month! Great work! In addition, thanks go out to those who recently helped in reducing the
A-class nominations
backlog. Reviewers are still needed; if you feel up to it, please stop by and leave comments on an article—every review helps!
) and for each task force (on the task force page).
The Military history coordinator elections, to appoint coordinators for the period April–October 2009, take place this month. If you are thinking of standing as a candidate, the schedule is as follows:
Nomination period: 00:01 Sat 7 March - 23:59 Fri 13 March
Voting period: 00:01 Sat 14 March - 23:59 Sat 29 March
Awards and honors
Ian Rose has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Australian military history articles (including four Featured Articles, an A-Class article, and four Good Articles), his highly civil and collaborative editing, and his willingness to provide advice and assistance to other editors.
MisterBee1966 has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his contributions to seven featured lists on German military awards during the Second World War, and for contributing to four good articles and being instrumental in promoting three of them to A-Class status.
Today's featured article
" list to accommodate relevant main-page appearances, and his generosity in providing many images for our visual library.
The Land has been awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of his significant contributions to the area of maritime warfare, as he has authored six of the seven articles in the "history of the battleship" series, with four of them now being featured.
Our first collaboration article for 2009 is Cockatoo—a well-known Australasian family of parrots. The article is already in reasonable shape, thanks to early efforts by a number of contributors, and with a little more work, we should be able to get it to GA/FA status. Can we get our first "group star" for the year on this one?
On a related note, be sure to vote for April's collaboration article, which will be chosen on March 31. If none of the existing nominations interest you, consider adding a new one!
Please be sure to mark any featured lists as FL-class rather than FA-class. All of our current featured lists have been moved into this new(ish) category.
Beginning in April, we'll be removing from our "active participants" list the name of any editor who hasn't edited on Wikipedia for 6 months or more, putting them instead into a "retired editors" section. (Please note that will be easy to move yourself back into the active category if you start editing again after an extended absence.) This should help us to better evaluate our project's editor retention and make for more efficient newsletter delivery.
Videos
We all know the old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words." And if that's true, videos are probably worth 10,000! They're a great way to add information to articles—for instance by showing behaviours that are hard to explain with text or static pictures. They can also include audio, adding a dimension unavailable in a photo. If you don't have your own video camera, you can still help the project by finding and requesting videos from others who have already taken them (checking, for example, at Flickr, YouTube or The Internet Bird Collection). If you have questions about how to upload videos, several project members, including Richard001 (talk·contribs) or Aviceda (talk·contribs), may be able to help.
Newsletter challenge
acoustical luring
, which is a method used by some predatory birds to lure potential prey into reach. The person who creates this article and gets it beyond a mere stub level will be mentioned in the next newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
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This has been an automated delivery by Cbrown1023talk 21:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVII (March 2009)
The big news of course was the seventh project coordinator election covering the period ending 30 September. The quality of the candidates was extremely high, with some of the project's top content builders running alongside highly experienced backroom people. Of the eighteen candidates, sixteen were finally appointed, giving us probably the most rounded coordination team so far.
The C-class referendum, held at the same time, produced a slight majority of votes for introduction, but was insufficient to demonstrate a clear consensus. So, for the time being at least, therefore, the project will continue without C-class. Otherwise, focus is likely be on the
Academy
and the development of courses to develop reviewing, copy-editing and article-building skills. Some review of our task forces is also probable, perhaps consolidating some of the smaller, quieter, ones. As ever, input from everyone is not only welcomed but positively encouraged.
The coordinators' gratitude goes not only to those who participated in the election and referenda but also to everyone who works quietly and conscientiously away to make participation in this project rewarding, successful and productive. Milhist is very fortunate in its membership! Thank you all, Roger Daviestalk 16:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So close! After many long months of effort, we're only one article away from our project goal of 100 good or featured articles and lists. Can we make it by next month?
April's collaboration article is Puffin—a genus-level article about the "little brothers" of the ocean. Although this is another popular article with Wikipedia readers (the 59th most popular bird article, according to February's statistics), it currently ranks only as a "Start". Help us to improve its usefulness to our readers!
On a related note, be sure to vote for May's collaboration article, which will be chosen on April 27. If none of the existing nominations interest you, consider adding a new one!
The latest copy of the project's
Turkey Vulture
.
As noted last month, we'll be removing from our "active participants" list the name of any editor who hasn't edited on Wikipedia for 6 months or more, putting them instead into a "retired editors" section. (Please note that will be easy to move yourself back into the active category if you start editing again after an extended absence.) This should help us to better evaluate our project's editor retention and make for more efficient newsletter delivery.
Commons and bird images
Except in very rare cases, all bird-related images, sounds and videos should be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Those uploaded directly into en.wikipedia cannot be used by other Wikipedia or Wikimedia projects, and are also much harder to find. Unfortunately, there are currently a number of such images in existence. Some are not used in articles, and most are not placed into a bird-specific image category. If you come across one, please consider moving it to Wikimedia Commons, which has a much better system for categorizing bird images. You can search for and move images yourself, but or you can simply add them to Category:Bird images (which should only contain images from en.wikipedia, with the occasional exception such as featured pictures), which allows others to find and move them. If you need any assistance in getting starting, please contact Richard001 (talk·contribs).
Newsletter challenge
It was decided (by talk page agreement) that last month's challenge was too specific; instead a redirect was created to the aggressive mimicry article, which was expanded slightly with bird-related information. This month, we're looking for someone to start an article about ornithophily—pollination by bird; currently, this "article" exists only as a redirect to the more general article about zoophily. The person who creates this article and gets it beyond a mere stub level will be mentioned in the next newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
, a widespread species which is in increasing peril across much of its worldwide range. (Some scientists have predicted that the American subspecies, for instance, may be extinct as soon as 2010.) Help us to raise the profile of this worldwide shorebird.
On a related note, be sure to vote for June's collaboration article, which will be chosen on May 27. If none of the existing nominations interest you, consider adding a new one!
"Heard" birds
Spoken articles are Wikipedia articles which have been read aloud and recorded. Such recordings make Wikipedia content available for visually challenged users, for those who can understand English but cannot read it, for those who enjoy podcasting, and for people learning English. Currently, WP:BIRDS has 14 spoken articles—a tiny fraction of the more than 13,000 articles and lists overseen by the project. There is a real need to increase this number, and it's easy to help with the process. Recording an article can be done using a home computer with a microphone and the free software Audacity. The Spoken Wikipedia WikiProject oversees all recording efforts, and their project pages should be followed carefully to ensure that agreed standards of access, content and performance are met. Please contact AshLin (talk·contribs
) for more information.
Newsletter challenge
Western Bonelli's Warbler
, both of which currently exist only as redirects. The person who splits this article and separates the appropriate information into each new article will be mentioned in the next newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
" bent; can you help us to get our first African species to FA?
On a related note, be sure to vote for July's collaboration article, which will be chosen on June 27. If none of the existing nominations interest you, consider adding a new one!
There still 16 bird families with articles currently considered to be Stubs—great progress if you think back to the scores we had last year, but still more than we should have. Any assistance in reducing that number would be much appreciated!
Newsletter challenge
Brazilian Merganser
article. The editor(s) who perform this needed service will be mentioned in next month's newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
With end of year exams beckoning for many members, this has been a quiet month on the talk pages for Milhist. (If you are facing exams yourself, we all wish you the very best of luck!) During this quieter period, some of our most active reviewers are busy revising so it would be really appreciated if you can help with peer reviews or A-Class reviews. You can easily track articles needing review, by copying {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your userpage.
This month sees our first newsletter editorial. The idea is to provide regular tips and hints to help editors get up to speed with our large (and sometimes complicated) project. This month's piece, by EyeSerene, explains the workings of the project's main template, which is at the core of the project's tagging and assessing activities. Roger Daviestalk 20:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In a welcome addition to a long under-represented area, this month saw the creation of the
Pakistani military history task force
, which hits the ground running with 11 participants.
In another task force development, please help recruit members for some of our smallest and quietest task forces. If you know anyone who may be interested, or are interested yourself, please see the
List of Knight's Cross recipients of the U-boat service
.
Henry Burrell (RAN officer)
.
Editorial: "How to use the Milhist template"
Welcome to a new occasional feature of The Bugle, where over coming issues we'll be exploring some of the roles, tasks, and technical functions that go into creating what archivist and researcher Simon Fowler has described as the best general resource for military history on the internet.† As a project we can rightly be proud of that accolade, and we gratefully acknowledge the debt we owe to those dedicated editors from across Wikipedia that have helped to make the Military history WikiProject what it is today.
Many editors' first inkling of milhist's existence is when they spot our project banner on an article talk page. The banner can be easily added to appropriate articles by any editor, by typing {{WPMILHIST}} at (or near) the top of the talk page on a new line, and saving the page with an appropriate edit summary. This short form of the template will add the article to our project, and also flag the article as needing assessment and assignment to a task force by automatically adding it to the unassessed articles and articles with no associated task force categories.
As with many templates in use on Wikipedia, additional parameters can be specified. Possibly the most useful to include is the class parameter, because this will help out any editors who come along later to assess the article. To add the class parameter, edit the template markup to look like {{WPMILHIST|class=}}... and if you wish, have a read through the assessment guidance on milhists's
B-class checklist
.
Finally, when adding the milhist banner it's useful to assign the article to one (or more) of our
task forces
. This will help to bring it to the attention of those editors most likely to be interested in, and knowledgeable about, the subject. As with assessment, task force assignment is accomplished by adding a parameter to the template—in this case, simply the name of the task force followed by =yes (or =y). For example, to assign a Start-Class article to the Second World War and Canadian task forces, the template should read {{WPMILHIST|class=start|B1=|B2=|B3=|B4=|B5=|WWII=yes|Canadian=yes}}.
For a full list of all the banner template parameters and more detailed usage instructions, see
main project talk page. Happy templating! EyeSerenetalk
†Simon Fowler, Guide to Military History on the Internet, UK:Pen & Sword 2007,
How do you change the world? You can start by writing an incredible article for the world's encyclopedia. Moni3 kicks it old school again with
gay rights movement
in the United States and around the world. It's a featured article hitting the mainpage this Sunday to mark the 40th anniversary of the events. So first off, wow! Clever and cool. Moni3 has been recently named hottest delegate to Obama's bookclub but that may not be official yet. (Shhh!)
Otto4711 mentioned that gee we really should swamp the DYK section with LGBT-related articles for use on the 28th as well. We have eight or so in the
holding area
and if you push yourself to get an article together you might be able to get in on the fun. Do this now!
The official rules for DYKs can be found here. Once you have expanded an article 5-fold or created an article with at least 1,500 characters of prose, place your DYK thread here. Use this handy tool to count your 1,500 characters. As a suggestion, when you add your potential hook, include the character count and a link to the source(s) that confirm the hook. These will be confirmed anyway but may help.
The layout for the individual quotes is here (just copy/paste into one of the red links on Portal:Transgender/Random quote). Then this counter has to be upped to match the new # of total quotes (not counting quote zero).
Obama proclamation
On June 1, President Barack Obama declared June 2009 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, citing the riots as a reason to "commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans". Excerpts at the bottom.
F*ck me I'm famous
I was interviewed by Wikipedia Signpost, the weekly in-house newsletter, for the
A friendly reminder to consider taking photos while you're
Wikicommons. I'm sooo totally over having to deal with lovely images being deleted and argued about. If they are just free they are then also freely usable worldwide. And no, they don't need photos of your cha-cha or hoo-hoo-dilly
transman, possibly the most famous in the world. This also serves as a friendly reminder that we recently updated Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines - it's not perfect but should help inform on those gnip-gnop battles that do seem to drag on, and not in the good way
, the article alerts and keyword search alerts are handily located at the top of the page. Always fascinating to see what's up. All help appreciated on those.
, click the link to the left. If you do not have an IRC client, you'll need to get one installed on your computer first. Once you've done this, then click on the link to the left.
For more general information on IRC and a listing of other useful Wikipedia-related channels, see
Wikipedia:IRC channels
.
The project had at one point another channel at #LGBTprojectconnect but as the original people associated with the setting up and administration of that channel have seemed to have disappeared, this new channel has been set up. Plus the new channel is inline with required naming conventions for Wikipedia related IRC channels. So, feel free to use this channel. Such a channel gives opportunity to discuss the latest happening on articles, the LGBT project itself, latest happening in your life with "wiki-friends" here, etc.. You can say things on there you normally wouldn't here on Wikipedia (keeping it civil of course) like talk about the latest hot guy/girl or tell a joke.. you get the point. Anyway, see you there - eventually!
LGBT to-do list (held over from last edition)
Give out more
barnstars
, and let each other know that what they're doing is valued.
Create a guide to stave off burnout, because editors in this project get burned out faster than others. There are many hills to climb.
Bring back the monthly collaboration project.
Participate in LGBT Peer reviews.
Get familiar with the characteristics of Good Articles and get our top priority articles to
WP:GA
.
Keep our
open tasks template
updated.
Use the Newsletter, Moni3! You can suggest what to send out in the newsletter, too!
Offer research materials, copy editing, ideas, and support to your fellow editors.
Keep the
project talk page
informed of problems and discussions we should know about.
“
There are many well-respected LGBT leaders in all professional fields, including the arts and business communities. [I]n both the White House and the Federal agencies -- openly LGBT employees are doing their jobs with distinction and professionalism. [...] LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live their lives with dignity and respect. At the international level, I have joined efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the world. Here at home, I continue to support measures to bring the full spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans. These measures include enhancing hate crimes laws, supporting civil unions and Federal rights for LGBT couples, outlawing discrimination in the workplace, ensuring adoption rights, and ending the existing "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in a way that strengthens our Armed Forces and our national security. [...] As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. [...] I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists. - Barack Obama, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2009
, The White House (June 1, 2009).
”
-- Banjeboi
To receive this newsletter in a different format, please let us know here. If you have any news or any announcements to be broadcast, do let Moni3 know.
Newsletter delivery by xenobot 17:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XL (June 2009)
The big news this month is the launch of the Academy content drive (see below if you want to help). But otherwise it has been a very busy month for both reviewing and contest department entries, surprisingly so considering the wind down of the academic year.
Introduced in February, The Academy is an online school for new members. This month, we're launching a drive to increase the breadth and depth of its content. If you can help, by writing four to six paragraph articles, please do so! Barnstars galore to be won!
Perhaps the most important—and, indeed, most respected—aspect of the Military History project is our rigorous A-Class Review (ACR) system, which puts articles through the most robust review outside of
WP:FAC
. Although reviewing might seem daunting to newcomers, this article will give you an outline of three popular reviewing methods so you can actually start contributing yourself.
General nit-pick - this is one of the easiest - and one of the most common - reviewing styles seen throughout Wikipedia. It is a similar approach to that you would see in proofreading and classroom marking. Basically, it is a general overview of the article, not getting too specific on aspects of the prose. The most common statements include This article could benefit from a light copyedit before going to FAC or You might want to check the endash and emdash placement in the article. It's a style that is incredibly easy to manage, and one that requires little-to-no experience in previous reviewing.
Specialization - it often is the case that those who have been reviewing articles for a long time will move away from the general review towards more specific areas of articles. As an example, Tony usually stays within the realm of prose and copyediting while reviewing Featured Article Candidates, Tom used to focus almost entirely on external links and disambiguations, while others specialize their focus exclusively on copyediting, reference formatting, dashes, punctuation and flow, image licensing, and a host of other areas. This is a review method that is not nearly as time-consuming as other methods, as it allows you to quickly scan an article, spot the things that you work on, and how they need to be fixed.
Sectional - My preferred style of reviewing, this is one of the most informative styles. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most time-consuming and exhaustive styles. Essentially, it involves going through the entire article, section by section, and pointing out every major (and often many of the minor) flaws present within each section. Everything from prose to reference formatting to content. It is a reviewing style that is exhausting, and often takes two or three goes through the article to get everything (sometimes even more), but it gives the article's main contributors two benefits. First, everything is well organized, mostly under section headers like this one, and it often makes finding individual sentences or refs much easier, as they are within that section. Secondly, it points out a lot of the problems from a lot of the areas.
We're looking for input on several topics this month — including whether we should change the period of time we work on collaboration articles from a month to a quarter, and whether we should change the authority for our species (and article) naming from Handbook of Birds of the World to the International Ornithological Committee's World Bird List. Be sure to add your two cents (or pence or rand or rupees or pesos or bolivars or whatever other currency is appropriate) to the discussions...
The question has been raised as to whether we should change our collaboration article period from monthly to quarterly. Please weigh in on the debate — and be sure to list anything you'd like to have considered for possible collaboration efforts.
Project news
What's my name? Help decide — see the text.
A proposal has been made to change the standard source for species (and article) names from
International Ornithological Committee's World Bird List. Do you agree or disagree? Comments and opinions are sought here
.
There's renewed interest in getting some of our nearly-there topics ready for a run at
FA-class
would enable us to put that one up for featured topic as well.
Last month saw the start of an
Outline of Birds
, which should eventually provide a project index, allowing interested readers to more easily access all of the articles associated with WikiProject Birds. Help to populate the outline with any articles you find missing.
I need a proper introduction!
Newsletter challenge
Brazilian Merganser article. This issue, we're looking for someone to expand the Semnornis
(toucan-barbets) article from Stub-class to Start-class. The editor who does so will be named in next month's newsletter.
Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!
Military history coordinator elections take place in September. You might like to start thinking about whether you are interested in standing. More information to follow in the next edition of The Bugle. In the meantime, enjoy the remainder of the holiday season and come back refreshed and raring to go! Roger Daviestalk 02:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply
We current have an astonishing fifty articles within our scope up for promotion to
Good Article and it's a bit backlogged. Can you help with reviewing
to speed up the process?
The Military history Academy content drive is underway with nearly twenty new essays so far. More contributions are welcome. Just click on the one of the redlinks here and start writing!
Are you missing out on an
here
.
More eyes would be welcome on the ten articles currently being
peer reviewed
. It doesn't take long to peer review an article and your perspective is appreciated!
Contest department
The Contest department has completed its twenty-eighth month of competition, with 77 articles entered by 9 editors. Sturmvogel 66 was placed first again this month with an amazing 94 points, closely followed by Ed! at 91 points. They receive the Chevrons and the Writer's Barnstar respectively. Parsecboy commendably came third with 76 points, with honorable mentions going to Woody (29), Wild Wolf (25), Ian Rose (21), and AustralianRupert (16). Thanks go to Starstriker7 and Piotrus, who also fielded entries.
Awards and honours
Congratulations go to
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
for bringing almost all of the WWI-era German battleships up to GA, A, or FA class. His single-minded determination in this field has helped immeasurably with the project's WWI Centennial Drive.
The voting phase of the eighth coordinator elections, for the October–March term, started on 13 September and will run until 23:59 Sat 26 September.
Each candidate garnering twenty or more endorsements will be appointed, to a maximum of fifteen. This election has a strong field of sixteen candidates running, offering many skills and representing all aspects of the project.
The Contest Department is going from strength to strength and drew a massive number of entries in August (see the results below). If you haven't fielded any entries yet, please think about doing so. It's great fun! Roger Daviestalk 14:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
People with an interest in clearly presenting battle information, and First World War buffs, will find the discussion about a new campaign box for the Battle of the Somme interesting.
With the recent increase in enthusiasm, Wikipedia-wide, for creating "outline" articles, there's an ongoing discussion here. The idea is to produce guidelines for overview articles for Milhist editors and reviewers.
Proposals have been made to introduce a new self-scoring "honour" system for Contest Department entries. Contributions, especially from regular nominees, are welcome.
has done some useful number-crunching following the fortunes of the 97 Milhist featured article candidates submitted between January and July this year. The research shows that 70% of Milhist articles were promoted against an overall average of 51%.
Looking behind the figures, some other interesting facts emerge. First, 84% of our promoted articles had successfully passed a Milhist
A-Class Review
before going on to FAC. Second, of the 29 Milhist articles that failed, less than half (41%) had had an A-Class Review. Third, the 97 Milhist articles accounted for 16% of all FACs submitted between January and July of this year.
The clear lesson is that if you want a string of featured articles to your credit, you may find Milhist's A-class Review process to be of benefit to you! Roger Daviestalk
To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section
Greetings to all members of the Military history WikiProject, and to those outside the project who receive this news letter as well! My name is TomStar81, and it with a great sense of pride that I assume the position of lead coordinator for the project. On behalf of all the coordinators, both new and returning, we wish to thank those of you who participated in the September elections, and we look forward to working to advance the goals of the project for the next six months.
With the elections concluded, there are two changes. First, Roger Davies has been appointed a coordinator emeritus, joining our first coordinator emeritus Kirill Lokshin. Secondly, for the first time ever, the lead coordinator for the Military history WikiProject will be taking a lengthy wikibreak. For those who were unaware of this, I am an undergraduate student, and will be taking a leave of absence, effective end September, to focus on graduating in December. However, with fourteen coordinators, and two coordinators emeritus, I am confident the needs of the project will be well taken care of. For the VIII coordinator tranche, TomStar81 (Talk)
This month witnessed an all new and improved scoring system and process established in the Contest Department, which has run both smoothly and successfully. A total of 54 articles were entered this month by 11 editors.
, who also fielded entries. All interested editors are encouraged to submit entries for next month's contest; it can be a rather exciting experience!
Awards and honours
The WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves has been awarded to Roger Davies for his outstanding leadership of the Military history WikiProject, including his introduction of the logistics department, his dedication to the Tag and Assess 2008 & B-class Assessment Drive efforts, and his astute advice and never-ending support and encouragement as both a coordinator and lead coordinator.
The contest department has completed its thirty-first month of competition; its second month under the new and improved scoring system. A total of 53 articles were entered by nine editors. Sturmvogel 66 came in first with 96 points, followed by Auntieruth55 on 80 points. They are presented the Chevrons and Writer's Barnstar respectively. Honorable mentions go to Ian Rose (38), Abraham, B.S. (33) and Parsecboy (10). Our thanks go to Cuprum17, Ed!, The ed17 and Piotrus, who also fielded entries. All editors are encouraged to submit any articles that are working on for next month's contest.
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