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WikiCup 2023 September newsletter

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The fourth round of the competition has finished, with anyone scoring less than 673 points being eliminated. It was a high scoring round with all but one of the contestants who progressed to the final having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

  •   Epicgenius, with 2173 points topping the scores, gained mainly from a featured article, 38 good articles and 9 DYKs. He was followed by
  •   Sammi Brie, with 1575 points, gained mainly from a featured article, 28 good articles and 50 good article reviews. Close behind was
  •   Thebiguglyalien, with 1535 points mainly gained from a featured article, 15 good articles, 26 good article reviews and lots of bonus points.

Between them during round 4, contestants achieved 12 featured articles, 3 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 126 good articles, 46 DYK entries, 14 ITN entries, 67 featured article candidate reviews and 147 good article reviews. Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them and within 24 hours of the end of the final. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

I will be standing down as a judge after the end of the contest. I think the Cup encourages productive editors to improve their contributions to Wikipedia and I hope that someone else will step up to take over the running of the Cup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), and Cwmhiraeth (talk)

DCWC September update

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The Developing Countries WikiContest has now been running for two months, and we've seen tremendous improvement in the encyclopedic coverage of several underrepresented areas from a wide range of editors! The coordinators would like to highlght some of the newer faces who have been making notable contributions in the contest, including but by no means limited to:

Only one month remains until the end of the contest, so it's time to make your remaining nominations! Please consider answering some review requests, particularly the older entries, as a way of helping out your fellow participants and moving up the leaderboard. Good luck!

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the contest talk page or ask one of the coordinators: Ixtal (talk · contribs), sawyer777 (talk · contribs), or TechnoSquirrel69 (talk · contribs). (To unsubscribe from these updates, remove yourself from this list.) Sent via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 22:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

PD-NWS Violations Update #2 (Key To Read Third Section)

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I am providing members of the WikiProject of Weather along with users who frequently edit weather-related articles an new update (2nd update) to the discussions regarding the PD-NWS image copyright template.

On the Commons, an RFC discussion is taking place to figure out how to manage the template. No "formal" administrative-style rules have occurred, so nothing has changed. That is not a surprise as the RFC is still ongoing.

What is new?

  • The entire Template:PD-NWS has been placed inside a "License Review" template, which is viewable via the link aforementioned.
  • Most of the photographs which were uploaded to the Commons originally under the PD-NWS template (approximately 1,500) have been reviewed. Out of those ~1,500 images, only about 150 are requiring additional looks. Most images have been verified as free-to-use and switched to a respective, valid template.
  • As of this moment, approximately 50 photos have been nominated for deletion (results pending).
  • A handful of images have been deleted (either confirmed copyrighted or under the Commons precautionary principle.
  • One image has been kept following a deletion request under the PD-NWS template.

How to deal with new photos?

Given all of this, you might be wondering how the heck you use weather photos while creating articles? Well, here is what you can do!

What about third-party photos?

In the case of third-party photos...i.e. ones not taken by the National Weather Service themselves...there is an option which was discussed and confirmed to be valid from an English Wikipedia Administrator.

  • KEY: Third party images of tornadoes & weather-related content can potentially be uploaded via Wikipedia's Non-Free Content Guidelines!
  • Experiments/testing has been done already! In fact, I bet you couldn't tell the difference, but the tornado photograph used at the top of the 2011 Joplin tornado was already switched to a Non-Free File (NFF)! Check it out: File:Photograph of the 2011 Joplin tornado.jpeg! That photo's description can also be used as a template for future third-party tornado photographs uploaded to Wikipedia...with their respective information replaced.
  • NFFs can be uploaded to multiple articles as well!
  • The absolute key aspect of NFFs is that they relate to the article and are not decoration. For example with the Joplin tornado, the photograph: (1) shows the size of the tornado, (2) shows the "wall of darkness", which was described by witnesses, (3) shows a historic, non-repeatable event of the deadliest tornado in modern U.S. history. The exact reasoning does not have to be extremely specific as Wikipedia's NFF guidelines "is one of the most generous in the world" (words of Rlandmann (not pinged), the administrator reviewing all the PD-NWS template images).
  • Tornado photographs will almost certainly qualify under the NFF guidelines, especially for tornadoes with standalone articles or standalone sections.
  • NFFs cannot be used when a free-photograph is available, no matter the quality, unless the section is about that specific photograph. For example, the photograph used at the top of the 2013 Moore tornado article is confirmed to be free-to-use, therefore, no NFFs of that tornado can be uploaded on Wikipedia. However, the "Dead Man Walking" photograph could almost certainly be uploaded as an NFF to the 1997 Jarrell tornado article as that photograph is the topic of a section in the article.
  • NFFs currently on Wikipedia can and should be placed in this category: Category:Non-free pictures of tornadoes.

Update Closing

Hopefully all of that information kept you informed on the Commons copyright discussion process and how you can still create the best articles possible! If you have a question about something mentioned above, reply back and I will do my best to answer it! Also, ping me in the process to ensure I see it! Have a good day! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 01:00, 5 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Books & Bytes – Issue 64

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The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 64, July – August 2024

  • The Hindu Group joins The Wikipedia Library
  • Wikimania presentation
  • New user script for easily searching The Wikipedia Library

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --16:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

WIkiProject Doctor Who: September 2024 Newsletter

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The Space-Time Telegraph
Volume II, Issue II — September 2024
Brought to you by the editors of WikiProject Doctor Who

You like Doctor Who? What's his name then?

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the second issue of the new newsletter! Following the success of the first newsletter we are back to write more stuff.

Articles for deletion
Several articles have been nominated for deletion, such as Time War (Doctor Who), and several articles have been deleted, or merged or redirected, especially those relating to books, due to lack of WP:SIGCOV and WP:NBOOK. Editors can always help either by participating in the deletion discussions (which are noted on the project page), adding to such articles, or bringing attention to other such articles through AfD or the WikiProject talk page, to aid in clean-up.

Notice of Draft Articles
A new Doctor Who spin-off was announced at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con, called The War Between the Land and the Sea, and will feature old and new Whoniverse characters working for UNIT as they battle the Sea Devils. The main space article currently redirects to Whoniverse, but collaboration is currently underway in a draft article. As filming on this miniseries has recently begun, its relocation to the mains space will presumably take place soon per the recommendations laid out at WP:NTV.


There is also a draft article in progress for the upcoming 2024 Christmas special. While this article won't be moved until the episode airs, any new contributions are welcome.

Doctor Who News
A small number of editors have recently raised questions regarding the reliability of Doctor Who News. This website is particularly used for information regarding viewing figures and the Appreciation Index of most episodes as well as some news information. If there is a better source for any information supported by this website, it should be replaced in good faith.


A full consensus on whether or not to remove the information that can't be supported by a different source has not yet been reached. Any editor who has opinions on this matter should contribute to the discussion on the WikiProject talk page.

Continued Progress Towards Good/Featured Content
There has been lots of progress made towards recognized articles in the last two months, related to such diverse categories as series, specials, lists and episodes A sub-page has also been added to the WikiProject, to list any possible goals we can aim towards.

Proposals Regarding the State of Fictional Elements Articles in the WikiProject

Several proposals have been laid out regarding fictional elements in the WikiProject, which includes fictional characters, locations, and more. Due to a concerning quality state regarding the large majority of them, several methods of tackling them in order to improve these articles' quality for the future have been proposed. The primary three proposals are as follows:
1. A priority list should be made to determine what articles are most pressing and in need of improvement in the WikiProject overall. Focus would be put onto important subjects and articles in a state of dubious notability that would make them viable for deletion processes such as AfD.
2. A group of articles is selected for improvement, which are ones deemed most relevant to the WikiProject for the future. Any lesser important subjects can be sidelined and worked on as editors see fit.
3. A long term goal is made to improve all elements. This will come at the caveat of taking significantly longer and requiring more heavy participation than the above two proposals, but would guarantee a slow and steady way to solve the issue.
If any editors are interested in chiming into the conversation and sharing their piece on how this should be handled, or if any editors wish to help with this proposal and improve fictional elements articles, then feel free to share thoughts at the discussion's section on the article's talk page.

Contributors

"I'm not appalled by it" - The New New York Times

If you wish to contribute to future editions of the newsletter or have any feedback, leave a message on the WikiProject talk page or reach out to one of the current contributors listed above.
If you do not wish to receive future editions of the Space-Time Telegraph, please remove your name from our our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:41, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply