Community bulletin board

2011-08-01 News and notes: Wikimania; why Board of Trustees elections attract few votes; brief news In the news: Consensus of Wikipedia authors questioned about Shakespeare authorship; 10 biggest edit wars on Wikipedia; brief news Research interview: The Huggle Experiment: interview with the research team WikiProject report: Little Project, Big Heart — WikiProject Croatia Featured content: Featured pictures is back in town Arbitration report: Proposed decision submitted for one case Technology report: Developers descend on Haifa; wikitech-l discussions; brief news About·Archives·Newsroom·Single-page·Suggestions Centralized discussion Discussion on how to deal with processes (such as XfDs) created in violation of block, topic-ban, or ban, but has had input from other (legitimate) editors supporting the processes Proposal to improve policy compliance in DYKs and/or introduce articles from other forums into DYK. Proposal to provisionally close the content noticeboard and redirect to the new dispute resolution noticeboard as a trial, following on from the original proposal Discussion about a possible "Publishers cited by Wikipedia" compilation, mirroring the existing "Journals cited by Wikipedia" compilation Discussion regarding what features should appear on the main page Proposal about splitting deletion discussions for non-free files and free files Discussion about the trial duration for requiring autoconfirmed status in order to create articles Proposal to remove the bureaucrat permission from users who have been inactive for more than one year Proposal to grant bureaucrats the technical ability to remove the admin flag and proposals for a policy to govern this use if granted Discussion to clarify the use of diacritics for subjects whose native names contain them

Notices

• Wikipedia Loves Libraries will be held in cities across the US in October 2011, with help from the Wikimedians Active in Local Regions of the United States (WALRUS) committee.
• Proofreaders and testers are needed for the Tip-of-the-day project. We need people to try out the tips before they go live, to make sure they work as claimed.

Project pages seeking contributors

Discussions

Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention:

Help out

Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you are not ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration.

Things to do

General tasks

• Patrol new pages and help improve new articles.
• Category:Wikipedia backlog always needs attention.
• Assess articles by quality or by importance—pick a topic of interest and grade according to that WikiProject's scale. (See links from article talk pages.)
• Adopt a basic topic list (Outline), to help develop and maintain a table of contents to a major subject on Wikipedia.
• Let SuggestBot suggest pages for you to improve.
• Update pages with old (ref or note template) citations to the new references format.
• Do you have a historical perspective? Articles slanted towards recent events might need to be looked at with a new eye.

Commenting

• Respond to a request for comment or Wikiquette alert, or provide a third opinion.
• Give a requested editor review.
• Peer review or give feedback on some articles.
• Comment at Featured portal candidates and Portals at peer review.
• Make recommendations on articles listed at Good article reassessment.
• Respond to the Reward board or Bounty board.

Special skills

• Can you draw or take pictures? Make a requested image.
• Are you good at photo editing? Then try cleaning up some of these images, or helping out at the Graphics Lab.
• Can you use GIS tools? Help make requested maps.
• Can you communicate in another language? There are articles that need translation into English. You can also proofread a translation.
• Are you a budding journalist? Summarise Wikipedia-related news and events for the Signpost.

Fix-up projects

Open tasks

Here are some tasks you can do:

• Wikify: Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, SAHRIT, Angelo Donghia, Young Ronald, Young Johnstone, More...
• Orphans: Eugene Colson, Dwarkadas Sampat, The Intelligent Investor (publication), Keith Paulson-Thorp, Bruce Walsh, More...
• Copyedit: Tilak Nagar (Delhi), Dick Dastardly, Arab Board of Health specializations, Rumi maki, DJ Paul, More...
• Update: Norwich Council election, 2011, Index of Economic Freedom historical rankings, As the World Turns, 2010–11 Toledo Walleye season, Royal League, More...
• Style: Vimalaprabha, Odilo Weeger, Heatherton Village, Over, Cambridgeshire, Duraspark, More...
• Translation: Macapá, Corteo Storico, Mateus da Costa Meira, Matanza (band), Rong Di, More...
• Cleanup: Frying Pan Park, Steven T. Byington, Ephraim Einhorn, Solar bonds, Initial D Arcade Stage, More...
• Verify: Miniaturization, Soliton (optics), Power graph analysis, Platypezidae, Alan Gilbert (academic), More...
• Neutrality: Antireligious Museum, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Maximum power principle, Effects of the 2008–2010 automotive industry crisis on the United States, Zachary Richard, More...
• Original research: Cherie Johnson, All Alone in the Night, Impact of the Arab Spring, John Bevan (musician), Haute Tension, More...
• Merge: Those Were the Days (song), Comparison of instant runoff voting to other voting systems, Marianas Trench (band), Washington High School (Wisconsin), Symphony No. 10, More...
• Split: Logarithmic scale, Babes in the Wood murders, Nostratic languages, Kiev Governorate, Rigpa, More...
• Stubs: Wola Kiełczyńska, Moses Garu, Coroners Court of Queensland, Volha Zinkevich, Paniahue, More...
• Expand: Sakhr Abu l-Barakat, Municipal associations in Thuringia, Sigismund Gelenius, Kym Marsh, 1850 in Wales, More...
• Article Incubator: Deadpool (film), The Wolverine (film), Example Article, The Sunday Times leak and police raid, Female Servants in 18th Century England, More...
• Article deletion discussions: Internet, Africa, Radio, Log/2011 May 11, Alexis Neiers, More...
• Article Requests: Agriculture in Singapore, Hoyeraal syndrome, African drama, Banking in Peru, Bangladeshi literature, More...
• Image Requests: Rebekah Brooks, Namdapha flying squirrel, Ardisia japonica, Munchy box, Pagsanjan River, More...
• Mediation Cabal: Murder of Meredith Kercher (two sentences), or Help mediate an open case!

Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it is probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.

Purge the cache of the list above

Collaborations

To improve the quality of articles that are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.

Collaborations by topic

Other collaborations

Active improvement teams

• Countering systemic bias
• Version 1.0
• Spam fighting team
• Categorization projects
• Spotlight

WikiProjects

WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist—examine the master list to find one that interests you.

Language translation

Wikipedia is not just in English. Versions exist in many different languages. To fill in some of the English Wikipedia's gaps, we translate articles from other languages into English. You can view a list of articles that need translation from any language, or, in a few cases, by only one language (this is only available for the more popular languages).

Guidelines, help & resources

Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.

Help

• Wikipedia help contents – Browse help pages
• Help desk
• Where to ask questions

Editing

• The Manual of Style guidelines and tutorial
• How to edit a page
• Contributing
• How to write a great article
• A list of free online resources for research
• A list of template messages
• What special pages are
• Tools for editing
• Request newspapers or magazines

Policies and guidelines

Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply to both articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed.

Article standards

Working with others

Resources

New user information

Introduction · Tutorial · Sandbox · Help · Adoption · What Wikipedia is not · Glossary · Account benefits · Planning school assignments · New contributors' help page · FAQ

Ways to communicate

Contact (overview) · Discussion pages · Mailing lists · IRC chat · Meetups · User pages · Requests for comment · Public watchlists · Regional notice boards · Administrators' noticeboard · Requests for article feedback · Local Embassy

Community support groups and programs

Welcoming committee · Editor assistance · Wiki-adoption · Birthday Committee · Harmonious editing club · Wikipedia awards program · Dept. of Fun · Missing encyclopedic articles

Common procedures

Featured content · Good articles · Requests for feedback · Deleting a page (full policy) · Moving a page (naming policies) · Protecting a page (full policy) · Reverting a page · Administrator nominations (summaries) · Category-based access

How to resolve conflicts

Stay cool! · Be nice to newcomers · Alert others · Dispute resolution · Arbitration policy

Community information

About Wikipedia · Goings-on · About Wikimedia · Wikipedians · Wiki-adoption · Donations · Merchandise · Administrators · Babel · Culture · Games · Humor · Mottoes

Related communities

Tip of the day

If you have created an account, you may notice little "[edit]" links on some pages. An [edit] link is shown for every heading on a page. If you don't like the [edit] links, you can turn them off in your preferences. Just uncheck the box next to "Enable section editing via [edit] links". That setting is activated by default, so all you have to do is deactivate it by removing the checkmark.

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