User talk:WikiLambo

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.

Articles of note

New

1. Antbird (October 19)

New

1. Indigo Bunting
   (October 30)

Welcome to our newest members

• Bogbumper (talk · contribs)
• Vuerqex (talk · contribs)
• WikiLambo (talk · contribs)

Article statistics

Bird articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	2	19	61	153			235
FL	1		6	24			31
FM					618		618
GA	6	11	33	149		1	200
B	10	37	69	242			358
C	12	104	258	1,078	1	2	1,455
Start	5	112	829	6,232		3	7,181
Stub		16	1,302	7,880		2	9,200
List		12	75	747	105	1	940
Category				4	3,867		3,871
Disambig				2	195		197
File				1	305		306
Portal					57		57
Project					58		58
Redirect	1	14	99	231	2,026		2,371
Template				1	277		278
NA				3			3
Other					10		10
Assessed	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	9	27,369
Unassessed						10	10
Total	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	19	27,379
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 98,399			Ω = 5.28

Collaboration efforts

• 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

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The

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...

Articles of note

New

1. Northern Bald Ibis
   (January 27)

New

1. Huia (January 13)
2. Djibouti Francolin
   (January 16)
3. Golden White-eye
   (January 20)

Welcome to our newest members

• BluWare (talk · contribs)
• First Light (talk · contribs)
• talk · contribs
  )
• Nestguard (talk · contribs)
• Speednat (talk · contribs)
• The Bushranger (talk · contribs)
• Vulture19 (talk · contribs)

Project news

• 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

Articles of note

New

• Whitefish Point Bird Observatory (January 25) – with apologies for not including it last month
• Rufous-crowned Sparrow
  (February 13)

Article statistics

Bird articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	2	19	61	153			235
FL	1		6	24			31
FM					618		618
GA	6	11	33	149		1	200
B	10	37	69	242			358
C	12	104	258	1,078	1	2	1,455
Start	5	112	829	6,232		3	7,181
Stub		16	1,302	7,880		2	9,200
List		12	75	747	105	1	940
Category				4	3,867		3,871
Disambig				2	195		197
File				1	305		306
Portal					57		57
Project					58		58
Redirect	1	14	99	231	2,026		2,371
Template				1	277		278
NA				3			3
Other					10		10
Assessed	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	9	27,369
Unassessed						10	10
Total	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	19	27,379
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 98,399			Ω = 5.28

Project news

• 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

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!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

The

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?

Articles of note

New

• Macaroni Penguin
  (March 13)
• Tree Sparrow
  (March 19)
• Black Drongo
  (March 22)

New project members

• Wiki User 68 (talk · contribs) (with apologies for not welcoming you last month!)

Article statistics

Bird articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	2	19	61	153			235
FL	1		6	24			31
FM					618		618
GA	6	11	33	149		1	200
B	10	37	69	242			358
C	12	104	258	1,078	1	2	1,455
Start	5	112	829	6,232		3	7,181
Stub		16	1,302	7,880		2	9,200
List		12	75	747	105	1	940
Category				4	3,867		3,871
Disambig				2	195		197
File				1	305		306
Portal					57		57
Project					58		58
Redirect	1	14	99	231	2,026		2,371
Template				1	277		278
NA				3			3
Other					10		10
Assessed	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	9	27,369
Unassessed						10	10
Total	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	19	27,379
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 98,399			Ω = 5.28

Project news

• 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 59^th 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!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

The

We've done it! With the awarding of a GA rating to

Articles of note

New

• Tree Sparrow
  (April 4)
• Rufous-crowned Sparrow
  (April 18)

New

• Australian Magpie
  (April 15)

New project members

• Welbergen (talk · contribs)

Article statistics

Bird articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	2	19	61	153			235
FL	1		6	24			31
FM					618		618
GA	6	11	33	149		1	200
B	10	37	69	242			358
C	12	104	258	1,078	1	2	1,455
Start	5	112	829	6,232		3	7,181
Stub		16	1,302	7,880		2	9,200
List		12	75	747	105	1	940
Category				4	3,867		3,871
Disambig				2	195		197
File				1	305		306
Portal					57		57
Project					58		58
Redirect	1	14	99	231	2,026		2,371
Template				1	277		278
NA				3			3
Other					10		10
Assessed	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	9	27,369
Unassessed						10	10
Total	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	19	27,379
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 98,399			Ω = 5.28

Project news

• May's collaboration article is
  Red Knot
  , 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

Newsletter challenge

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The

With three new additions to the project's FA/FL/GA article count, we're on our way towards our next goal — of 150 such articles.

Articles of note

New

• List of birds of Maryland (May 23)

New

• Azure-hooded Jay
  (May 1)
• Red-capped Robin
  (May 1)

New project members

• Barn Owl 444 (talk · contribs)
• Dougjj (talk · contribs)
• talk · contribs
  )

Project news

• June's collaboration article is
  Anglophone
  " 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

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!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.

The

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...

Articles of note

New

1. Macaroni Penguin
   (June 2)
2. Australian Magpie
   (July 7)
3. Ruff (July 14)

New

1. Alpine Chough
   (June 23)
2. Red-throated Diver
   (July 18)

New project members

• Dger (talk · contribs)
• Frosted Orange (talk · contribs)
• KnowledgeRequire (talk · contribs)
• talk · contribs
  )

Article statistics

Bird articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	2	19	61	153			235
FL	1		6	24			31
FM					618		618
GA	6	11	33	149		1	200
B	10	37	69	242			358
C	12	104	258	1,078	1	2	1,455
Start	5	112	829	6,232		3	7,181
Stub		16	1,302	7,880		2	9,200
List		12	75	747	105	1	940
Category				4	3,867		3,871
Disambig				2	195		197
File				1	305		306
Portal					57		57
Project					58		58
Redirect	1	14	99	231	2,026		2,371
Template				1	277		278
NA				3			3
Other					10		10
Assessed	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	9	27,369
Unassessed						10	10
Total	37	325	2,732	16,747	7,519	19	27,379
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 98,399			Ω = 5.28

Potential collaboration changes

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

• 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.

Newsletter challenge

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!

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here.