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Hello, Inks.LWC. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi, Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/The 10,000 Challenge is up and running based on Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge for the UK which has currently produced over 2300 article improvements and creations. If you'd like to see large scale quality improvements happening for Canada like The Africa Destubathon, which has produced over 1600 articles in 5 weeks, sign up on the page. The idea will be an ongoing national editathon/challenge for Canada but fuelled by a contest such as The North America Destubathon to really get articles on every province and subject mass improved. I would like some support from Canadian wikipedians here to get the Challenge off to a start with some articles to make doing a Destubathon worthwhile! Cheers. --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:55, 22 November 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Greetings Recent Changes Patrollers!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about technical proposals related to Recent Changes Patrol in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

1. Adjust number of entries and days at Last unpatrolled
2. Editor-focused central editing dashboard
3. "Hide trusted users" checkbox option on watchlists and related/recent changes (RC) pages
4. Real-Time Recent Changes App for Android
5. Shortcut for patrollers to last changes list

Further, there are more than 20 proposals related to Watchlists in general that you may be interested in reviewing. (and over 260 proposals in all, across many aspects of wikis)

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Note: You received this message because you have transcluded ((User wikipedia/RC Patrol)) (user box) on your user page. Since this message is "one-time-only" there is no opt out for future mailings.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 01:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

On 1 January 2017, WikiCup 2017 (the 10th Annual WikiCup) will begin. This year we are trying something a little different – monetary prizes.

For the WC2017 the prizes will be as follows (amounts are based in US$ and will be awarded in the form of an online Amazon gift certificate):

• First place – $200
• Second & Third place – $50 each
• Category prizes – $25 per category (which will be limited to FA, FL, FP, GA, and DYK for 2017). Winning a category prize does not require making it to the final round.

Note: Monetary prizes are a one-year experiment for 2017 and may or may not be continued in the future. In order to be eligible to receive any of the prizes above, the competing Wikipedia account must have a valid/active email address.

After two years as a WikiCup judge, Figureskatingfan is stepping down. We thank her for her contributions as a WikiCup judge. We are pleased to announce that our newest judge is two-time WikiCup champion Cwmhiraeth.

The judges for the 2017 WikiCup are Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), and Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email).

Signups are open now and will remain open until 5 February 2017. You can sign up here.

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:02, 14 December 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello everyone, and sincere apologies if you're getting this message more than once. Just a heads-up that there is currently work on an extension in order to enable CSS styling in templates. Please check the document on mediawiki.org to discuss best storage methods and what we need to avoid with implementation. Thanks, m:User:Melamrawy (WMF), 09:11, 6 February 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. It would have been 5 points, but when a late entrant was permitted to join the contest in February, a promise was made that his inclusion would not result in the exclusion of any other competitor. To achieve this, the six entrants that had the lowest positive score of 4 points have been added to the 64 people who otherwise would have qualified. As a result, some of the groups have nine contestants rather than eight. Our top four scorers in round 1 were:

• Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
• Iry-Hor, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with a featured article, a good article and a tally of 282 bonus points for a score of 517. All these points came from the article Nyuserre Ini, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh,
• 1989, another WikiCup newcomer, was in joint third place at 240. 1989 has claimed points for two featured lists and one good article relating to anime and comedy series, all of which were awarded bonus points.
• Peacemaker67 shared third place with five good articles and thirteen good article reviews, mostly on naval vessels. He is also new to the competition.

The largest number of DYKs have been submitted by Vivvt and The C of E, who each claimed for seven, and MBlaze Lightning achieved eight articles at ITN. Carbrera and Peacemaker67 each claimed for five GAs and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga was well out in front for GARs, having reviewed 32. No featured pictures, featured topics or good topics yet, but we have achieved three featured articles and a splendid total of fifty good articles.

So, on to the second round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, April 2017

Greetings! The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: Arbcom Magioladitis ARBCOM case has closed. The remedies of the case include: Community encouraged to review common fixes Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope Reminders/Restrictions specific to Magioladitis BRFAs We currently have 27 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions There are multiple ongoing discussions surrounding bot-related matters. In particular: RFC on COSMETICBOT Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes Requested move for the Bot Owners' Noticeboard A phabricator ticket T162685 has been made to have a "bots" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked New things Several new things are around: A BAG Guide has been created (WP:BAGG, discussion). Users now have the option to hide AWB from their watchlists via a script (WP:HIDEAWB, discussion) The guidance on how to deal with bot issues has been overhauled (WP:BOTISSUE, discussion) The bot policy has been updated to clarify that bot operators are required to register accounts. (WP:BOTACCOUNT, discussion) Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can unsubscribe from future newsletters by removing your name from this list.)

The second round of the competition has now closed, with just under 100 points being required to qualify for round 3. YellowEvan just scraped into the next round with 98 points but we have to say goodbye to the thirty or so competitors who didn't achieve this threshold; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Our top scorers in round 2 were:

• Cas Liber, led the field with five featured articles, four on birds and one on astronomy, and a total score of 2049, half of which came from bonus points.
• 1989 was in second place with 826 points, 466 of which were bonus points. 1989 has claimed points mostly relating to anime and Japanese-related articles.
• Peacemaker67 took third place with two FAs, one GA and seven GARs, mostly on naval vessels or military personnel, scoring 543 points.
• Other contestants who scored over 400 points were Freikorp, Carbrera, and Czar. Of course all these points are now wiped out and the 32 remaining contestants start again from zero in round 3.

Vivvt submitted the largest number of DYKs (30), and MBlaze Lightning achieved 13 articles at ITN. Carbrera claimed for 11 GAs and Argento Surfer performed the most GARs, having reviewed 11. So far we have achieved 38 featured articles and a splendid 132 good articles. Commendably, 279 GARs have been achieved so far, more than double the number of GAs.

So, on to the third round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 288 points being required to qualify for round 4. It was a hotly competitive round with all but four of the contestants exceeding the 106 points that was necessary to proceed to round 4 last year. Coemgenus and Freikorp tied on 288, and both have been allowed to proceed, so round 4 now has one pool of eight competitors and one of nine.

Round 3 saw the achievement of a 26-topic Featured topic by MPJ-DK as well as 5 featured lists and 13 featured articles. PanagiotisZois and SounderBruce achieved their first ever featured articles. Carbrera led the GA score with 10, Tachs achieved 17 DYKs and MBlaze Lightning 10 In the news items. There were 167 DYKs, 93 GARs and 82 GAs overall, this last figure being higher than the number of GAs in round 2, when twice as many people were taking part. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 4, we say goodbye to the fifteen or so competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, 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. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 05:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Greetings! Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: BAG BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG! BRFAs We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes are still ongoing. The RFC on COSMETICBOT has concluded with "a clear consensus exists to adopt the proposed language". The new wording is now live. The venue for bot appeals and reexaminations has been changed from WP:BRFA to WP:BOTN (see discussion) The Wikipedia:Bot owner's noticeboard is now the Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (see discussion). New things A historical correction was made to WP:BOTPOL (see discussion). WP:HIDEBOTS now mentions how to hide all bots from your watchlist, not only specific bots. The phabricator ticket T162685 is now closed, and we now have "#Bots-Framework" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked. Wikibits.js has been removed (see discussion). 21 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). WP:BOTISSUE has been updated to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes. WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion). Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Round 4 of the WikiCup has ended and we move forward into the final round. In round 4, a total of 12 FAs, 3 FLs, 44 GAs, 3 FLs, 79 DYKs, 1 ITN and 42 GARs was achieved, with no FPs or FTs this time. Congratulations to Peacemaker67 on the Royal Yugoslav Navy Good Topic of 36 items, and the 12 featured articles achieved by Cas Liber (5), Vanamonde93 (3), Peacemaker67 (2), Adityavagarwal (1) and 12george1 (1). With a FA scoring 200 points, and bonus points available on top of this, FAs are likely to feature heavily in the final round. Meanwhile Yellow Evan, a typhoon specialist, was contributing 12 DYKs and 10 GAs, while Adityavagarwal and Freikorp topped the GAR list with 8 reviews each. As we enter the final round, we are down to eight contestants, and we would like to thank those of you who have been eliminated for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. The lowest score needed to reach round 5 was 305, and I think we can expect a highly competitive final round.

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. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed. 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 reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best man (or woman) win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 06:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The final round of the 2017 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2017 WikiCup top three finalists:

• First Place - Adityavagarwal (submissions)
• Second Place - Vanamonde (submissions)
• Third Place - Cas Liber (submissions)

In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:

• Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a two-way tie with themselves for an astonishing five FAs in R2 and R4).
• Good Article – Adityavagarwal had 14 GAs promoted in R5.
• Featured List – Bloom6132 (submissions) and 1989 (submissions) both produced 2 FLs in R2
• Featured Pictures – SounderBruce (submissions) improved an image to FP status in R5, the only FP this year.
• Featured Topic – MPJ-DK (submissions) has the only FT of the Cup in R3.
• Good Topic – Four different editors created a GT in R2, R3 and R4.
• Did You Know – Adityavagarwal had 22 DYKs on the main page in R5.
• In The News – MBlaze Lightning (submissions) had 14 ITN on the main page in R2.
• Good Article Review – Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (submissions) completed 31 GARs in R1.

Over the course of the 2017 WikiCup the following content was added or improved on Wikipedia: 51 Featured Articles, 292 Good Articles, 18 Featured Lists, 1 Featured Picture, 1 Featured Topics, 4 Good Topics, around 400 Did You Knows, 75 In The News, and 442 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.

Regarding the prize vouchers - @Adityavagarwal, Vanamonde93, Casliber, Bloom6132, 1989, and SounderBruce: please send Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) an email from the email address to which you would like your Amazon voucher sent. Please include your preference of global Amazon marketplace as well. We hope to have the electronic gift cards processed and sent within a week.

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2018 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), and Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So the 2017 WikiCup has come to an end. Congratulations to the winner, to the other finalists and to all those who took part. 177 contestants signed up, more than usual, but not all of them submitted entries in the first round. Were editors attracted by the cash prizes offered for the first time this year, or were these irrelevant? Do the rules and scoring need changing for the 2018 WikiCup? If you have a view on these or other matters, why not join in the WikiCup discussion about next year's contest? Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:59, 17 November 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello, Inks.LWC. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. With 53 contestants qualifying, the groups for round 2 are slightly smaller than usual, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining users.

Our top scorers in round 1 were:

• Aoba47 led the field with a featured article, 8 good articles and 42 GARs, giving a total of 666 points.
• FrB.TG , a WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points, gained from a featured article and masses of bonus points.
• Ssven2, another WikiCup newcomer, was in third place with 403 points, garnered from a featured article, a featured list, a good article and twelve GARs.
• Ceranthor, Numerounovedant, Carbrera, Farang Rak Tham and Cartoon network freak all had over 200 points, but like all the other contestants, now have to start again from scratch. A good achievement was the 193 GARs performed by WikiCup contestants, comparing very favourably with the 54 GAs they achieved.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) and Vanamonde (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings! Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: ARBCOM Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary). Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision). A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion). BAG Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity. BRFAs We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up. New things WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion). 6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well. Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical) The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently. You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently. Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Hello,

There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month.

There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how ((infobox ship)) is parsed).

If you are interested in helping with this project, please see Wikipedia:Linter. There are also some basic instructions (and links to even more information) at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2018-April/001836.html You can also leave a note at WT:Linter if you have questions.

Thank you for all the good things you do for the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The second round of the 2018 WikiCup has now finished. Most contestants who advanced to the next round scored upwards of 100 points, but two with just 10 points managed to scrape through into round 3. Our top scorers in the last round were:

• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with three featured articles
• Iazyges, with nine good articles and lots of bonus points
• Yashthepunisher, a first time contestant, with two featured lists
• SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with seventeen good topic articles
• Usernameunique, a first time contestant, with fourteen DYKs
• Muboshgu, a seasoned competitor, with three ITNs and
• Courcelles, another first time contestant, with twenty-seven GARs

So far contestants have achieved twelve featured articles between them and a splendid 124 good articles. Commendably, 326 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2018 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met; most of the GARs are fine, but a few have been a bit skimpy.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:10, 1 May 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Courcelles, a first time contestant, with 1756 points, a tally built largely on 27 GAs related to the Olympics
• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three GAs on natural history and astronomy topics
• SounderBruce, a finalist last year, with a variety of submissions related to transport in the state of Washington

Contestants managed 7 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 120 good articles, 1 good topic, 124 DYK entries, 15 ITN entries, and 132 good article reviews. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 458 GA reviews, in comparison to 244 good articles submitted for review and promoted. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process; several submissions, particularly in abstruse or technical areas, have needed additional work to make them completely verifiable.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk), Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 2 July 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Greetings! Here is the 6th issue of the Bots Newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: ARBCOM Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves. BAG There were no changes in BAG membership since the last Bots Newsletter. Headbomb went from semi-active to active. In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the backlog. BOTREQs and BRFAs As of writing, we have... 24 active BOTREQs, please help if you can! 5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see live status). 54 approved bot tasks since the start of 2018. Of note, Community Tech bot 5 (the #10 Wish on the 2017 Community Survey) was approved to notify users concerning problematic images and files from Wikimedia Commons. Also If you're a bot operator that can help with Tidy/Linter error cleanup (see discussion, discussion), please file a BRFA! 8 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion, discussion, discussion). Discussions These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active. Use of tags by bots – Exploring the use of a new 'bot' tag. Mass page moves – Bot policy question/clarification about mass moves. Creation of redirects – Bot policy question/clarification about the creation of redirects. Guidance on disruptive use of semi–automated tools? – Related to meatbots (see also MOS discussion, which resulted in small addition to MOS:VAR). Discussion concerning WP:BOTFLAG/WP:RC – A reminder that bots should use the bot flag when it makes sense to use it (see also VPT discussion and CREATEBOT update). Out of curiosity... (to all bot operators) – BotPasswords vs OAuth usage amongst bot operators. Introducing Toolhub – Toolhub is looking for feedback. New things ((Automated tools)), a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. ((Draft article))) to provide convenient links to editors. AWB 5.10.0.0 is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the changelog for what's new. Note that the next version will require .NET Framework 4.5. Many thanks to Reedy and the AWB team. BotWatch, "a listing of editors that have made >2 edits per minute [without] a bot flag", is being developed by SQL (see discussion). Massive updates and improvements have been made to Citation bot in the past few months (see discussions, discussions, discussions). You can activate the bot here, amongst other methods. HTML Tidy has been phased out (see Tech News #28). ((Newbot)) has been reorganized a bit (diff). In particular, it links to previously approved BRFAs (see discussion). Wikipedia:Bots#See also has been reorganized a bit (diff). The bot dictionary has two new entries, context bot and context-sensitive edit. The bot request header has been updated to include better guidance (see discussion). The subcategories of Category:Wikipedia bot requests for approval have been sorted in a consistent manner to make past BRFAs easier to find. Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The fourth round of the 2018 WikiCup has now come to an end. The eight users who made it to the final round had to score a minimum of 422 points to qualify, with the top score in the round being 4869 points. The leaders in round 4 were:

• Courcelles scored a magnificent 4869 points, with 92 good articles on Olympics-related themes. Courcelles' bonus points alone exceeded the total score of any of the other contestants!
• Kees08 was second with 1155 points, including a high-scoring featured article for Neil Armstrong, two good topics and some Olympics-related good articles.
• Cas Liber, with 1066 points, was in third place this round, with two featured articles and a good article, all on natural history topics.
• Other contestants who qualified for the final round were Nova Crystallis, Iazyges, SounderBruce, Kosack and Ceranthor.

During round four, 6 featured articles and 164 good articles were promoted by WikiCup contestants, 13 articles were included in good topics and 143 good article reviews were performed. There were also 10 "in the news" contributions on the main page and 53 "did you knows". Congratulations to 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. 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. Good luck, and let the best editor win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:31, 1 September 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Courcelles (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 147 GAs, 111 GARs, 9 DYKs, 4 FLs and 1 ITN. Our finalists were as follows:

1. Courcelles (submissions)
2. Kosack (submissions)
3. Kees08 (submissions)
4. SounderBruce (submissions)
5. Cas Liber (submissions)
6. Nova Crystallis (submissions)
7. Iazyges (submissions)
8. Ceranthor (submissions)

All those who reached the final win awards, and awards will also be going to the following participants:

• Cas Liber (submissions) wins the FA prize, for three featured articles in round 2.
• Courcelles (submissions) wins the GA prize, for 92 good articles in round 3.
• Kosack (submissions) wins the FL prize, for five featured lists overall.
• Cartoon network freak (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 30 articles in good topics overall.
• Usernameunique (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 24 did you know articles in round 3.
• Zanhe (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 17 in the news articles overall.
• Aoba47 (submissions) wins the GAR prize, for 43 good article reviews in round 1.

Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition.

Next year's competition begins on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; it is open to all Wikipedians, new and old. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2019 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email) and Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email).

Hello, Inks.LWC. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello and Happy New Year!

Welcome to the 2019 WikiCup, the competition begins today. If you have already joined, your submission page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and we will set up your submissions page. One important rule to remember is that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2019, and which you have nominated this year, is eligible for points in the competition, the judges will be checking! Any questions should be directed to one of the judges, or left on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will make it to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 1 January 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
• Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
• MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
• Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
• Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
• Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

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. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).

Template:Southern hemisphere tropical cyclone seasons has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:56, 1 March 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Template:Northern hemisphere tropical cyclone seasons has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The second round of the 2019 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to scored 32 points to advance into round 3. Our top four scorers in round 2 all scored over 400 points and were:

• Cas Liber (1210), our winner in 2016, with two featured articles and three DYKs. He also made good use of the bonus points available, more than doubling his score by choosing appropriate articles to work on.
• Kosack (750), last year's runner up, with an FA, a GA, two FLs, and five DYKs.
• Adam Cuerden (480), a WikiCup veteran, with 16 featured pictures, mostly restorations.
• Zwerg Nase (461), a seasoned competitor, with a FA, a GA and an ITN item.

Other notable performances were put in by Barkeep49 with six GAs, Ceranthor, Lee Vilenski, and Canada Hky, each with seven GARs, and MPJ-DK with a seven item GT.

So far contestants have achieved nine featured articles between them and a splendid 80 good articles. Commendably, 227 GARs have been completed during the course of the 2019 WikiCup, so the backlog of articles awaiting GA review has been reduced as a result of contestants' activities. The judges are pleased with the thorough GARs that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the 2019 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round needed to score at least 68 points, which is substantially lower than last year's 227 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Cas Liber, our winner in 2016, with 500 points derived mainly from a featured article and two GAs on natural history topics
• Adam Cuerden, with 480 points, a tally built on 16 featured pictures, the result of meticulous restoration work
• SounderBruce, a finalist in the last two years, with 306 points from a variety of submissions, mostly related to sport or the State of Washington
• Usernameunique, with 305 points derived from a featured article and two GAs on archaeology and related topics

Contestants managed 4 (5) featured articles, 4 featured lists, 18 featured pictures, 29 good articles, 50 DYK entries, 9 ITN entries, and 39 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them, and it is imperative to claim them in the correct round; one FA claim had to be rejected because it was incorrectly submitted (claimed in Round 3 when it qualified for Round 2), so be warned! When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:12, 2 July 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Greetings! Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: ARBCOM Nothing of note happened. Just like we like it. BAG Several (1 + 12 = 13) users have been retired/resigned from the BAG due to inactivity, per our new activity requirements (discussion). BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG. Two BAG members retired Madman (talk · contribs) retired. BU Rob13 (talk · contribs) vanished and retired. Three new BAG members have been voted in, welcome to the BAG! Primefac (talk · contribs) joined on 2018-12-12 (RfBAG). Primefac operates PrimeBOT (talk · contribs) which does a plethora of tasks. TheSandDoctor (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-01-21 (RfBAG). TheSandDoctor operates several bots including DeprecatedFixerBot (talk · contribs). Enterprisey (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-08-07 (RfBAG). Enterprisey operates EnterpriseyBot (talk · contribs), which does a plethora of tasks, RemindMeBot (talk · contribs) which posts reminders, and codes several scripts. We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary. BOTDICT Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary Editor-hostile wikitext – describes wikitext structuring that is editor hostile, even if it renders correctly Spectrum of usefulness – describes how tasks are deemed useful or not BOTPOL Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Wikipedia counts, as does operating a bot (RFC). Copyvio flag: Bot accounts may be additionally marked by a bureaucrat upon BAG request as being in the "copyviobot" user group on Wikipedia. This flag allows using the API to add metadata to edits for use in the New pages feed (discussion). There is currently 1 bot using this functionality. Mass creation: The restriction on mass-creation (semi-automated or automated) was extended from articles, to all content-pages. There are subtleties, but content here broadly means whatever a reader could land on when browsing the mainspace in normal circumstances (e.g. Mainspace, Books, most Categories, Portals, ...). There is also a warning that WP:MEATBOT still applies in other areas (e.g. Redirects, Wikipedia namespace, Help, maintenance categories, ...) not explicitely covered by WP:MASSCREATION. BOTREQs and BRFAs As of writing, we have... 20 active BOTREQs, please help if you can! 14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status). In 2018, 96 bot task were approved. An AWB search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied. Since the start of 2019, 97 bot task were approved. Logs show 15 were withdrawn/expired, and 15 were denied. 10 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). 5 other bots have been deflagged per operator requests or similar (see discussion). New things All bot-related discussion pages now have a centralized and searchable archive box (see discussion). Discussions are searchable per noticeboard, or globally. ((Bot)) now supports |status=expired (see discussion). This led to the deletion of Category:Indefinitely blocked Wikipedia bots as useless (see discussion). WP:BOTREQ now mentions WP:SCRIPTREQ and WP:AWBTASKS as alternatives to bot requests. The bot creation guide now mentions bot flags, and two new languages Awk and MATLAB. Other minor tweaks have been made. AAlertBot has received major code updates. In particular, WP:AALERTS will now report splits, mergers, and AFC submissions. Citation bot has received several updates (User talk:Citation bot/Archive 10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17). In particular, the bot stopped the automated removal of |publisher= from ((cite journal)), and stopped the automated addition of CiteSeerX links, and now uses OAuth to authenticate those who make requests of the bot. Other discussions These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active. Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Adminbots requests page Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Double-redirect tagging (2019) Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Long and Winding Road to Parsoid Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 13#Bot-like user scripts Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 13#WP:URLREQ Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 13#Wikipedia:Bots/Status Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group#Minimum edits Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Minor update to WP:BOTISSUE Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Semi-automated Portal creation Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Clarification on "Bots operated by multiple users" Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Bots triggered by multiple users Wikipedia talk:Bots#How to use Special:ApiFeatureUsage See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard. Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The fourth round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 454 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with over 400 points being eliminated, and all but two of the finalists having achieved an FA during the round. Casliber, our 2016 winner, was the highest point-scorer, followed by Enwebb and Lee Vilenski, who are both new to the competition. In fourth place was SounderBruce, a finalist last year. But all those points are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 11 featured articles. In addition, Adam Cuerden scored with 18 FPs, Lee Vilenski led the GA score with 8 GAs while Kosack performed 15 GA reviews. There were around 40 DYKs, 40 GARs and 31 GAs overall during round 4. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. 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 14 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help 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 yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:44, 1 September 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in climate change. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:28, 24 September 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

custom message

Hi... if you don't know, that template is strictly FYI. It is part of the procedures for "DS", and is fully explained by clicking on the links in the template itself. I placed the same thing on my own page, and will try to make sure recent Climate crisis editors all have one. No biggie. Just a procedural thing. But be sure to read about DS if you don't already know. Carry on! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The WikiCup is over for another year! Our Champion this year is Adam Cuerden (submissions), who over the course of the competition has amassed 91 featured pictures, including 32 in the final round. Our finalists this year were:

1. Adam Cuerden (submissions) with 964 points
2. Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 899 points
3. Casliber (submissions) with 817 points
4. Kosack (submissions) with 691 points
5. SounderBruce (submissions) with 388 points
6. Enwebb (submissions) with 146 points
7. Usernameunique (submissions) with 145 points
8. HaEr48 (submissions) with 74 points

All those who reached the final will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field. Awards will be handed out in the coming weeks. Please be patient!

• Casliber (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 7 FAs during the course of the competition.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 14 GAs in round 5.
• Yashthepunisher (submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 4 FLs overall.
• Adam Cuerden (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 91 FPs overall.
• MPJ-DK (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 7 articles in good topics in round 2.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 14 did you know articles in round 5.
• Muboshgu (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 7 in the news articles in round 1.
• Ed! (submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 56 good article reviews in round 1.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have achieved much this year. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

We have opened a scoring discussion on whether the rules and scoring need adjustment. Please have your say. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2020 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth 14:18, 2 November 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 on Monday, 2 December 2019. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2019 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Happy New Year, Happy New Decade and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders and improvers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. We are relaxing the rule that only content on which you have completed significant work during 2020 will count; now to be eligible for points in the competition, you must have completed significant work on the content at some time! Any questions on the rules or on anything else connected to the Cup should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. Good luck! The judges for the WikiCup are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email), Godot13 (talk · contribs · email), Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello, I noticed you recently removed mention of this individual's Wikipedia account on their article, and also removed the Category:Wikipedia people tag. Is it against some policy to not make such a note, and if so what is the purpose of that category? The subject in this particular case approved the inclusion and was "proud" to be noted as a Wikipedian. - Indefensible (talk) 02:55, 15 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The "Wikipedia people" category is for people related to Wikipedia (i.e., for articles about people notable as Wikipedians). The Category includes people like Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and other people who are known for their activities related to Wikipedia. It's not meant for people who also have a Wikipedia account. For that, there is Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles; I already added a link to the article on that page. As for the link to a user account on the article page, I've never seen that added before. If you were going to include it, you would need to add a reliable source to comply with the policy on biographies of living persons. Inks.LWC (talk) 03:10, 15 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Got it, thanks. I was not aware of that list previously. - Indefensible (talk) 03:42, 15 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 57 contestants qualifying. We have abolished the groups this year, so to qualify for Round 3 you will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with a featured article, five good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 895 points.
• Gog the Mild came next with 464 points, from a featured article, two good articles and a number of reviews, the main theme being naval warfare.
• Raymie was in third place with 419 points, garnered from one good article and an impressive 34 DYKs on radio and TV stations in the United States.
• Harrias came next at 414, with a featured article and three good articles, an English civil war battle specialist.
• CaptainEek was in fifth place with 405 points, mostly garnered from bringing Cactus wren to featured article status.
• The top ten contestants at the end of Round 1 all scored over 200 points; they also included L293D, Kingsif, Enwebb, Lee Vilenski and CAPTAIN MEDUSA. Seven of the top ten contestants in Round 1 are new to the WikiCup.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. In Round 1 there were four featured articles, one featured list and two featured pictures, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. Between them, contestants completed 127 good article reviews, nearly a hundred more than the 43 good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Contestants also claimed for 40 featured article / featured list reviews, and most even remembered to mention their WikiCup participation in their reviews (a requirement).

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

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. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:47, 1 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There was an error in the WikiCup 2020 March newsletter; L293D should not have been included in the list of top ten scorers in Round 1 (they led the list last year), instead, Dunkleosteus77 should have been included, having garnered 334 points from five good articles on animals, living or extinct, and various reviews. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The second round of the 2020 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 75 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top ten contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 186 good articles achieved in total by contestants, and the 355 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

• Epicgenius, with 2333 points from one featured article, forty-five good articles, fourteen DYKs and plenty of bonus points
• Gog the Mild, with 1784 points from three featured articles, eight good articles, a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews and lots of bonus points
• The Rambling Man, with 1262 points from two featured articles, eight good articles and a hundred good article reviews
• Harrias, with 1141 points from two featured articles, three featured lists, ten good articles, nine DYKs and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews
• Lee Vilenski with 869 points, Hog Farm with 801, Kingsif with 719, SounderBruce with 710, Dunkleosteus77 with 608 and MX with 515.

The rules for featured article reviews have been adjusted; reviews may cover three aspects of the article, content, images and sources, and contestants may receive points for each of these three types of review. Please also remember the requirement to mention the WikiCup when undertaking an FAR for which you intend to claim points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth. - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the 2020 WikiCup has now come to an end. The 16 users who made it into the fourth round each had at least 353 points (compared to 68 in 2019). It was a highly competitive round, and a number of contestants were eliminated who would have moved on in earlier years. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Epicgenius, with one featured article, 28 good articles and 17 DYKs, amassing 1836 points
• The Rambling Man , with 1672 points gained from four featured articles and seventeen good articles, plus reviews of a large number of FACs and GAs
• Gog the Mild, a first time contestant, with 1540 points, a tally built largely on 4 featured articles and related bonus points.

Between them, contestants managed 14 featured articles, 9 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 152 good articles, 136 DYK entries, 55 ITN entries, 65 featured article candidate reviews and 221 good article reviews. Additionally, MPJ-DK added 3 items to featured topics and 44 to good topics. Over the course of the competition, contestants have completed 710 good article reviews, in comparison to 387 good articles submitted for review and promoted. These large numbers are probably linked to a GAN backlog drive in April and May, and the changed patterns of editing during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:33, 2 July 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with 865 points being required to qualify for the final round, nearly twice as many points as last year. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants with 598 and 605 points being eliminated, and all but two of the contestants who reached the final round having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

• Bloom6132, with 1478 points gained mainly from 5 featured lists, 12 DYKs and 63 in the news items;
• HaEr48 with 1318 points gained mainly from 2 featured articles, 5 good articles and 8 DYKs;
• Lee Vilenski with 1201 points mainly gained from 2 featured articles and 10 good articles.

Between them, contestants achieved 14 featured articles, 14 featured lists, 2 featured pictures, 87 good articles, 90 DYK entries, 75 ITN entries, 95 featured article candidate reviews and 81 good article reviews. Congratulations to 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. 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 yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk), Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The 2020 WikiCup has come to an end, with the final round going down to the wire. Our new Champion is Lee Vilenski (submissions), the runner-up last year, who was closely followed by Gog the Mild (submissions). In the final round, Lee achieved 4 FAs and 30 GAs, mostly on cue sport topics, while Gog achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on important battles and wars, which earned him a high number of bonus points. The Rambling Man (submissions) was in third place with 4 FAs and 8 GAs on football topics, with Epicgenius (submissions) close behind with 19 GAs and 16 DYK's, his interest being the buildings of New York.

The other finalists were Hog Farm (submissions), HaEr48 (submissions), Harrias (submissions) and Bloom6132 (submissions). The final round was very productive, and besides 15 FAs, contestants achieved 75 FAC reviews, 88 GAs and 108 GAN reviews. Altogether, Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors all through the contest. Well done everyone!

All those who reached the final will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or in the event of a tie, to the overall leader in this field.

• Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for a total of 14 FAs during the course of the competition.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) win the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in round 4.
• Rhododendrites (submissions) wins the featured picture prize, for 3 FPs in round 3 and 5 overall.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 23 FAC reviews in round 5.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 45 GAs in round 2 and 113 overall.
• MPJ-DK (submissions) wins the topic prize, for 33 articles in good topics in round 2.
• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the good article reviewer prize, for 100 good article reviews in round 2.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 22 Did you know articles in round 4 and 94 overall.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 63 In the news articles in round 4 and 136 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2021 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66, Vanamonde and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Category:Michigan ballot measures has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 09:26, 7 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. We thank Vanamonde93 and Godot13, who have retired as judges, and we thank them for their past dedication. The judges for the WikiCup this year are Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Round 1 of the competition has finished; it was a high-scoring round with 21 contestants scoring more than 100 points. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2, with 55 contestants qualifying. You will need to finish among the top thirty-two contestants in Round 2 if you are to qualify for Round 3. Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius led the field with a featured article, nine good articles and an assortment of other submissions, specialising on buildings and locations in New York, for a total of 945 points.
• Bloom6132 was close behind with 896 points, largely gained from 71 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
• ImaginesTigers, who has been editing Wikipedia for less than a year, was in third place with 711 points, much helped by bringing League of Legends to featured article status, exemplifying how bonus points can boost a contestant's score.
• Amakuru came next with 708 points, Kigali being another featured article that scored maximum bonus points.
• Ktin, new to the WikiCup, was in fifth place with 523 points, garnered from 15 DYKs and 34 "In the news" items.
• The Rambling Man scored 511 points, many from featured article candidate reviews and from football related DYKs.
• Gog the Mild, last year's runner-up, came next with 498 points, from a featured article and numerous featured article candidate reviews.
• Hog Farm, at 452, scored for a featured article, four good articles and a number of reviews.
• Le Panini, another newcomer to the WikiCup, scored 438 for a featured article and three good articles.
• Lee Vilenski, last year's champion, scored 332 points, from a featured article and various other sport-related topics.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. In Round 1, contestants achieved eight featured articles, three featured lists and one featured picture, as well as around two hundred DYKs and twenty-seven ITNs. They completed 97 good article reviews, nearly double the 52 good articles they claimed. Contestants also claimed for 135 featured article and featured list candidate reviews. There is no longer a requirement to mention your WikiCup participation when undertaking these reviews.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or something else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

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. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Volume II, Issue 2, March 15, 2021 ←(Previous issues) 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 → The Frozen Times The Frozen Times is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Non-tropical storms. The newsletter aims to summarize recent developments and activities in the WikiProject, in addition to recent extratropical cyclone activity on a global scale. The Frozen Times has been running since its revival in March 2021, although the first issue was published in February 2008. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Frozen Times covers all project-related events from February 2008–March 14, 2021. This edition's authors and editors are MarioJump83, HurricaneCovid, Shift674, and LightandDark2000. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Non-tropical storms: News and Developments On the heels of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones revival from 2018–2020, MarioJump83 and LightandDark2000 took the initiative to formally revive this WikiProject on January 15, 2021. Not long afterward, on February 7, 2021, the WikiProject community came to the decision to revive the project newsletter as well. We decided to model the entire WikiProject after WPTC, following a similar format and creating similar project pages for use on WPNTS, since the two projects are closely tied. There was also general agreement among the active editors on WPNTS to coordinate work with WPTC, given the numerous overlaps between the two WikiProjects. On February 4, 2021, the WPTC and WPNTS communities came together to include WPNTS articles in WPTC's annual competition, the Cyclone Cup, based on a suggestion from HurricaneCovid. The decision was made as a result of agreement between editors over how non-tropical storms (nor'easters, European windstorms, etc.) are cyclones too, and thus merit inclusion as well. WPNTS editors are now allowed and encouraged to participate in the Cyclone Cup, regardless of whether those editors are a part of WPTC or not. Currently, a number of WPNTS users are participating in the Cup, and we hope you will too! On February 8, 2021, MarioJump83 introduced our project barnstar, which was accordingly named The Extra-Tropical Cyclone Barnstar. It was named based on a pun in which the "Tropical" word in The Tropical Cyclone Barnstar became more 'tropical', so much that it turned The Tropical Cyclone Barnstar to brown. (Hence the name "Extra-Tropical" and the brown cyclone icon). Since there were no barnstars that were shaped like a comma in the Meteorology barnstars category, we had to take one which is available. On February 24, 2021, we came to the decision to model the project newsletter after the WPTC newsletter, The Hurricane Herald. The first step of that was to give our newsletter a name. Agreement was reached on February 24 to use LightandDark2000's suggested name, The Frozen Times, as the name of the WPNTS newsletter. HurricaneCovid assisted in the creation of the logo for the newsletter, and MarioJump83 aided the endeavor as well. On March 9, 2021, HurricaneCovid first introduced the idea of modeling North American winter articles after tropical cyclone season articles. While a few editors rejected the idea at first, by the next day most users had shown their support for it and the plan was implemented. The improvements were done over a period of 3 days, mainly by HurricaneCovid and MarioProtIV, and involved the creation or modification of several templates, including a timeline, some new infoboxes, and a button template. The implementation of these new templates has only been completed in one season article, and is still unfinished in most. New articles since the last newsletter The number of new articles since the last issue are innumerable. Thus, we will not be able to list them all here. New GAs since the last newsletter Braer Storm Snow Low-pressure area Subtropical cyclone December 1960 nor'easter December 1992 nor'easter December 2000 nor'easter February 1969 nor'easter January 1992 nor'easter Rainband Wet season Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak Waterspout Cyclogenesis 1991 Perfect Storm Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone Tropical Storm Rolf Member of The Edition Featured members – MarioProtIV and HurricaneCovid MarioProtIV joined Wikipedia in 2014, although his activity really ramped up in late 2015. He formally joined this WikiProject in early February 2021, just after its revival. Since and before formally joining, he has been one of the most prolific editors in non-tropical storm articles, particularly being a major part of getting 2020–21 North American winter to greater quality and taking the initiative to constantly update the article, as well as other separate winter storm articles. He has also participated in and started several discussions within WPNTS, further influencing the quality of current event articles in the WikiProject. We would like to thank him for his outstanding work, and therefore jointly give him the Member of The Edition award. HurricaneCovid joined Wikipedia in March 2020, though he began working with weather-related articles and joined WPTC in November. He joined WPNTS in January 2021, just before its revival, although he had begun actively editing extratropical cyclone articles in December 2020. He has been doing constant work on 2020–21 North American winter throughout the North American winter season so far. He has helped write much of the article, with aid from MarioProtIV, as well as numerous other articles for the most major storms. He was present throughout the barrage of winter storms and the Arctic air outbreak in North America, in mid-February, creating most of the articles for storms in that period. He also helped with the revival of the WikiProject, and it was partially his idea to model this newsletter after The Hurricane Herald. For his consistent work to WPNTS, we are jointly giving him the Member of The Edition award for this issue. Project revivers – LightandDark2000 and MarioJump83 LightandDark2000 joined Wikipedia as an IP editor in May 2009, although he didn't register an user account until 3 years later, in May 2012. He became active on WPTC and WPNTS in 2013, formally joining the projects in 2014 and 2016, respectively. He is one of the most-senior active members on WPNTS, as most of the active participants joined in 2020 or 2021. Soon after formally joining, he largely stopped editing Wikipedia on storm-related articles, turning his attention to MILHIST from 2014–2017, and later took numerous WikiBreaks in 2016 and in 2019–2020, due to real-life activities and college. However, he began making a return to Wikipedia in July 2020, and since then, he has made a full return. In December 2020, he returned to WPNTS, with the start of the climatological winter in North America. He became a main part of the revival and resurrection of WPNTS from January–February 2021, assisting in efforts to revamp the project and helping to coordinate it. During this time, he continued his work on WPNTS articles, including during a historic outbreak of cold temperatures and a barrage of back-to-back winter storms in North America, in February. For his aid in the revival of this WikiProject, and his work on WPNTS articles, we are jointly giving him a modification of the MoTE award. MarioJump83 first joined Wikipedia in 2013 as SMB99thx, although they first began working with storm-related articles in August 2020. They joined WPNTS in November 2020, quickly becoming the main coordinator and most active user in terms of getting the project restarted. They did outstanding work in terms of modeling the project after WPTC, with the aid of LightandDark2000, and got the project's act together. They took the initiative to formally restart the project in January 2021, and continued work restoring, improving, and creating project pages, including this newsletter. LightandDark2000 was along every step of the way, and helped out MarioJump83 create and improve project pages, modeling after WPTC. We would like to thank their outstanding work in getting the WikiProject together, and are thus jointly giving them a version of the MoTE award. For the time being, there will be no user nominations, as this WikiProject is currently relatively small; however, once we gain enough participants, we will begin nominating members for MoTE. Storms of The Edition over the last five newsletters Period Storm February 2008–March 14, 2021 February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm (Winter Storm Uri) December 2007–February 2008 January 2008 North American storm complex Storm of The Edition – February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm (Winter Storm Uri) The February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm, also referred to as Winter Storm Uri, was a strong and destructive winter storm that affected areas from the West Coast of the United States, through the Deep South and Northern Mexico, to the Northeast and Eastern Canada. The second of three major winter storms to affect the continent within the month, the system originated as a powerful low-pressure area in the Pacific and came ashore as a frontal system on February 13. The system then dived southward along a trough in the polar jet stream, while also strengthening, and began producing snowfall in the Deep South. The storm system then began expanding in terms of size, and the main low spawned a secondary low in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida on February 15. As the storm grew more organized, it spawned another low pressure center to the north on February 16, which quickly became the main low-pressure center. When the system exited the continent early on February 17, almost 75% of the continental U.S. was covered in snow, which almost broke a record. The newest low moved up the coast of Nova Scotia, beginning to strengthen faster along the way. It then began to quickly intensify, while approaching landfall on Newfoundland, reaching a central pressure of 985 millibars (29.1 inHg) by 12:00 UTC on that day. The system then began meandering across the Atlantic, while proceeding to strengthen further, reaching a peak intensity of 960 millibars (28 inHg) on February 19. Afterward, the storm then began weakening rapidly, dissipating southwest of Greenland on February 24. The storm system resulted in over 170 million Americans being placed under winter weather alerts, reaching as far south as Galveston, Texas. The swath of snow and ice it produced stretched from Washington to Maine. It ranked as a Category 3 winter storm on the Regional Snowfall Index (RSI) scale, and it became the second of three Category 3+ winter storms to affect North America in February 2021. The system caused over 9.9 million power outages, with 5.2 million in the U.S. and 4.7 million in Mexico, making it the worst blackout event recorded in North America since the Northeast blackout of 2003. The hardest hit area by both the severe winter weather and long-term power outages was Texas, with the 2021 Texas power crisis taking place due to the storm. Some long-term power outages in areas of the Deep South lasted over one week long. It also brought destructive severe weather to parts of the Southeastern U.S., spawning five tornadoes, including an EF2 and a high-end EF3 tornado. In total, the storm resulted in at least 136 fatalities, with 124 in the U.S. and 12 in Mexico, making it the deadliest winter storm in decades. Damage from this system is estimated to cost at least $195 billion (2021 USD), making it the costliest winter storm on record, as well as one of the costliest natural disasters in the modern era. Other significant storms Post-Tropical Cyclone Zeta – The post-tropical remnants of Hurricane Zeta began interacting with another storm system on October 29, 2020, as rain overspread the Eastern U.S. However, as a cold front came through overnight allowing a blast of colder air, precipitation began switching over to snow in parts of New England. By the next day, the remnants of Zeta passed south of New England and moved out into the Atlantic, strengthening on the way. Zeta became the first tropical cyclone to produce accumulating snowfall as an extratropical storm since Hurricane Sandy, resulting in several thousand power outages in New England and up to 6.5 in (17 cm) of snow. December 15–17, 2020 nor'easter (Winter Storm Gail) – The December 15–17, 2020 nor'easter, also unofficially referred to as Winter Storm Gail, the only Category 2 winter storm on the RSI scale in December, formed from a disorganized low pressure in the Southern Plains on December 14. The low pressure began organizing the next day, meandering east before it came offshore of the East Coast on December 16. It then rapidly intensified, reaching a peak intensity of 985 millibars (29.1 inHg) off the New England coast on December 17. The system then moved into the Atlantic, weakening slowly until dissipation on December 19. The nor'easter produced significant snowfall up to 15 in (38 cm) along the I-95 corridor, with over 3 ft (36 in) in parts of the interior Northeast. In total, it caused 7 fatalities and over 56,000 power outages. The nor'easter is estimated to have caused at least $125 million (2021 USD) in damages. Storm Filomena – Storm Filomena, the eighth named storm of the 2020–21 European windstorm season, formed over the Atlantic near the Canary Islands on January 7, 2021. It then slowly meandered northeastward, crossing the Iberian Peninsula over the next few days, producing heavy snowfall on the way. The storm then accelerated east, reaching a peak intensity of 995 millibars (29.4 inHg) and crossing Italy and Greece from January 11–13. Filomena then began rapidly weakening, and dissipated in interior Europe on January 15. It was significant because of unusually heavy snow up to 24 in (61 cm) in the Iberian Peninsula, which caused a total of 5 fatalities. Filomena is estimated to have caused at least $2.2 billion (2021 USD) in damage. January 31 – February 3, 2021 nor'easter (Winter Storm Orlena) – The January 31 – February 3, 2021 nor'easter, also unofficially referred to as Winter Storm Orlena, the first of three Category 3+ winter storms in February 2021, formed as a powerful low pressure off the Pacific coast on January 25. The slow-moving low pressure meandered off the U.S. West Coast for several days, causing an atmospheric river event and producing heavy rain and snow. On January 30, the weakening low pressure crossed the Rockies and moved into the Midwest, producing a second low pressure off the North Carolina coast on January 31. The second low slowly meandered up the East Coast from February 1–4, reaching a peak intensity of 985 millibars (29.1 inHg) on February 3. The system then accelerated into the Atlantic, weakening and dissipating on February 5. The system caused up to 100 in (250 cm) of snow in the Sierra Nevada and 18–24 in (46–61 cm) in both the Boston and New York City metro areas. In total, it caused 7 fatalities and resulted in over 575,000 power outages. The system is estimated to have caused at least $100 million (2021 USD) in damages. February 15–20, 2021 North American winter storm (Winter Storm Viola) – The February 15–20, 2021 North American winter storm, also unofficially referred to as Winter Storm Viola, the last of three Category 3+ winter storms in February 2021, formed on February 14 as a strong low pressure in the Pacific. The next day, the weakening low came ashore in the West Coast and the main low spawned several other low pressures on February 15, connected by a series of fronts. One of the low pressures to the south quickly took over, moving east over the next few days. It then spawned another low pressure to the east, which moved up the East Coast from February 18–19, becoming a nor'easter. The low reached an initial peak of 990 mb (29 inHg) as it exited the coast on February 19. The system then bombed out, reaching a peak intensity of 952 millibars (28.1 inHg) on February 22. It then slowly began to weaken, while moving northeastward, and dissipating on February 26. The storm brought a second round of snow and ice to the Deep South just days after another destructive storm came through the same areas. In total, the storm resulted in at least 29 fatalities and caused over 4 million power outages. The system is likely to have caused approximately $1 billion (2021 USD) in damage. New WikiProject members More information can be found here. The following list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the last issue. Evolauxia (talk · contribs) Yellow Evan (talk · contribs) Itfc+canes=me (talk · contribs) Robomaeyhem (talk · contribs) Cyclonebiskit (talk · contribs) KnowledgeRequire (talk · contribs) All2341 (talk · contribs) (Blocked due to sockpuppetry) Bettymnz4 (talk · contribs) Anhamirak (talk · contribs) TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk · contribs) Inks.LWC (talk · contribs) Bruvtakesover (talk · contribs) Earth100 (talk · contribs) (Blocked due to edit warring) JordanKyser22 (talk · contribs) Jdcomix (talk · contribs) LightandDark2000 (talk · contribs) PurpleDiana (talk · contribs) AC5230 (talk · contribs) (First new member of WPNTS in 2020!) Buttons0603 (talk · contribs) CyclonicStormYutu (talk · contribs) MarioJump83 (talk · contribs) HurricaneTracker495 (talk · contribs) (Blocked due to sockpuppetry) Shift674 (talk · contribs) CycloneFootball71 (talk · contribs) (First new member of WPNTS in 2021!) HurricaneCovid (talk · contribs) BrownieKing (talk · contribs) MarioProtIV (talk · contribs) Super Cyclonic Storm Corona (talk · contribs) ChessEric (talk · contribs) Destroyeraa (talk · contribs) United States Man (talk · contribs) Elijahandskip (talk · contribs) (WikiProject Current events coordinator!) RandomIntrigue (talk · contribs) Bn5660 (talk · contribs) To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the tasks or to-do lists towards the bottom of the newsletter for tasks that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions! Note that most of the members listed here are inactive now, with the majority of them moved having been moved into the inactive list. Featured Content Update New featured articles (February 2008–March 14, 2021) Extratropical cyclone Christmas 1994 nor'easter December 1969 nor'easter Hurricane Charley (1986) 1991 Perfect Storm New good articles (February 2008–March 14, 2021) Braer Storm Snow Low-pressure area Subtropical cyclone December 1960 nor'easter December 1992 nor'easter December 2000 nor'easter February 1969 nor'easter January 1992 nor'easter Rainband Wet season Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak Waterspout Cyclogenesis Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone Tropical Storm Rolf Current candidates None during this issue Current assessment table Assessments are valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 8 featured articles and 1 featured list. There are 21 good articles, but only 1 A-class article, perhaps because most articles of that quality already passed an FA review. There are 53 B-class articles, 110 C-class articles, 172 start-class articles, and 52 stub-class articles, with 14 lists. These figures mean that roughly one-fifth of the project is rated B-class or better. Tropical Storm Rolf was the 20th GA in the project. About the assessment scale → Project Goals & Progress The following is the current progress on the two milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. Updates on the following goals can also be found on the project home page. 30 featured pages: 30% complete 100 good or better articles: 31% complete WikiProject tasks Featured article reviews 24 Feb 2021 – Extratropical cyclone (talk · edit · hist) was put up for FA review by Z1720 (t · c); see discussion Requested moves 17 Feb 2021 – February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm (talk · edit · hist) move request to Winter Storm Uri by Hurricane Noah (t · c) was closed by Paine Ellsworth (t · c) on 03 Mar 2021; see discussion 17 Feb 2021 – February 2021 North American ice storm (talk · edit · hist) move request to Winter Storm Shirley by Hurricane Noah (t · c) was closed by Paine Ellsworth (t · c) on 03 Mar 2021; see discussion 17 Feb 2021 – February 15–20, 2021 North American winter storm (talk · edit · hist) move request by Hurricane Noah (t · c) was closed by Paine Ellsworth (t · c) on 03 Mar 2021; see discussion 17 Feb 2021 – February 11–14, 2021 North American storm complex (talk · edit · hist) move request to Winter Storm Tabitha by Hurricane Noah (t · c) was closed by Paine Ellsworth (t · c) on 03 Mar 2021; see discussion WikiProject to-do Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : October 2020 United States ice storm, Early December 2017 North American winter storm Cleanup : Northeastern United States blizzard of 1978, Nor'easter Merge : February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm and February 2021 North American cold wave Stubs : May 2016 North American storm complex Update : Cyclone Kyrill Verify : March 2008 Midwest floods Wikify : 2002 Central Plains ice storm Why I revived this WikiProject, by MarioJump83 Since this is the first issue of The Frozen Times since the revival of WPNTS, I thought we should have an opinion piece detailing the reasons based on which the revival took place. And the project member who would know these reasons the best would be none other than the main resurrector of the WikiProject, MarioJump83! HurricaneCovid (contribs) Hello, WikiProject Non-tropical storms! I am the one who first took the initiative of this WikiProject's revival. While most of my work here is mostly related to maintenance work and some coordinating before resigning after the revival of this newsletter (I would like to say that LightandDark2000 is the coordinator of the project now given he is the only active member to join before 2020), there are reasons why I took the initiative to revive the project. Firstly, WPTC members, for some reason that was unclear to me, began joining the project in droves beginning in late 2020 and continuing into 2021. This surprised me since normally, people don't join defunct WikiProjects in large numbers. Secondly, many WPTC members, many of them based in either the United States or Europe, continue to edit extratropical cyclone articles, even when climatological winter ends in the Northern Hemisphere. This suggests that there is a space for WPNTS to spring up once again. Third and lastly, WPNTS-covered articles are quite active for a defunct WikiProject. I honestly think that this WikiProject shouldn't have been considered defunct in the first place. Ultimately, these reasons drove me to revive the WikiProject on the heels of Wikipedia's 20th anniversary on January 15, 2021. It's short, but it's what I can say for the reasons why I came to the decision to revive this WikiProject. I hope this WikiProject lasts for a long time, even when I'm not present as part of it. MarioJump83! Write the next issue of The Frozen Times →

The second round of the 2021 WikiCup has now finished; it was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 61 points to advance to Round 3. There were some impressive efforts in the round, with the top eight contestants all scoring more than 400 points. A large number of the points came from the 12 featured articles and the 110 good articles achieved in total by contestants, as well as the 216 good article reviews they performed; the GAN backlog drive and the stay-at-home imperative during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been partially responsible for these impressive figures.

Our top scorers in Round 2 were:

• The Rambling Man, with 2963 points from three featured articles, 20 featured article reviews, 37 good articles, 73 good article reviews, as well as 22 DYKs.
• Epicgenius, with 1718 points from one featured article, 29 good articles, 16 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
• Bloom6132, with 990 points from 13 DYKs and 64 "In the news" items, mostly recent deaths.
• Hog Farm, with 834 points from two featured articles, five good articles, 14 featured article reviews and 15 good article reviews.
• Gog the Mild, with 524 points from two featured articles and four featured article reviews.
• Lee Vilenski, with 501 points from one featured article, three good articles, six featured article reviews and 25 good article reviews.
• Sammi Brie, with 485 points from four good articles, eight good article reviews and 27 DYKs, on US radio and television stations.
• Ktin, with 436 points from four good articles, seven DYKs and 11 "In the news" items.

Please remember that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of Round 2 but before the start of Round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in Round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (except for at the end of each round, when you must claim them before the cut-off date/time). When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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 yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:27, 2 May 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the 2021 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 294 points, and our top six scorers all had over 600 points. They were:

• The Rambling Man, with 1825 points from 3 featured articles, 44 featured article reviews, 14 good articles, 30 good article reviews and 10 DYKs. In addition, he completed a 34-article good topic on the EFL Championship play-offs.
• Epicgenius, a New York specialist, with 1083 points from 2 featured article reviews, 18 good articles, 30 DYKs and plenty of bonus points.
• Bloom6132, with 869 points from 11 DYKs, all with bonus points, and 54 "In the news" items, mostly covering people who had recently died.
• Gog the Mild, with 817 points from 3 featured articles on historic battles in Europe, 5 featured article reviews and 3 good articles.
• Hog Farm, with 659 points from 2 featured articles and 2 good articles on American Civil War battles, 18 featured article reviews, 2 good articles, 6 good article reviews and 4 DYKs.
• BennyOnTheLoose, a snooker specialist and new to the Cup, with 647 points from a featured article, 2 featured article reviews, 6 good articles, 6 good article reviews and 3 DYKs.

In round three, contestants achieved 19 featured articles, 7 featured lists, 106 featured article reviews, 72 good articles, 1 good topic, 62 good article reviews, 165 DYKs and 96 ITN items. We enter the fourth round with scores reset to zero; any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them (one contestant in round 3 lost out because of this). When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). 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 yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:29, 2 July 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The fourth round of the competition has finished with over 500 points being required to qualify for the final round. It was a hotly competitive round with two contestants, The Rambling Man and Epicgenius, each scoring over 3000 points, and six contestants scoring over 1000. All but one of the finalists achieved one or more FAs during the round, the exception being Bloom6132 who demonstrated that 61 "in the news" items produces an impressive number of points. Other contestants who made it to the final are Gog the Mild, Lee Vilenski, BennyOnTheLoose, Amakuru and Hog Farm. However, all their points are now swept away and everyone starts afresh in the final round.

Round 4 saw the achievement of 18 featured articles and 157 good articles. Bilorv scored for a 25-article good topic on Black Mirror but narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final round. There was enthusiasm for FARs, with 89 being performed, and there were 63 GARs and around 100 DYKs during the round. As we start round 5, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it to the final round; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For other contestants, 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 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help 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. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The WikiCup is over for another year and the finalists can relax! Our Champion this year is The Rambling Man (submissions), who amassed over 5000 points in the final round, achieving 8 featured articles and almost 500 reviews. It was a very competitive round; seven of the finalists achieved over 1000 points in the round (enough to win the 2019 contest), and three scored over 3000 (enough to win the 2020 event). Our 2021 finalists and their scores were:

1. The Rambling Man (submissions) with 5072 points
2. Lee Vilenski (submissions) with 3276 points
3. Amakuru (submissions) with 3197 points
4. Epicgenius (submissions) with 1611 points
5. Gog the Mild (submissions) with 1571 points
6. BennyOnTheLoose (submissions) with 1420 points
7. Hog Farm (submissions) with 1043 points
8. Bloom6132 (submissions) with 528 points

All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the featured article prize, for 8 FAs in round 5.
• Lee Vilenski (submissions) wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 5.
• Gog the Mild (submissions) wins the featured topic prize, for 13 articles in a featured topic in round 5.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the good article prize, for 63 GAs in round 4.
• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the good topic prize, for 86 articles in good topics in round 5.
• The Rambling Man (submissions) wins the reviewer prize, for 68 FAC reviews and 213 GAN reviews, both in round 5.
• Epicgenius (submissions) wins the DYK prize, for 30 did you know articles in round 3 and 105 overall.
• Bloom6132 (submissions) wins the ITN prize, for 71 in the news articles in round 1 and 284 overall.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. Thanks to all who have taken part and helped out with the competition, not forgetting User:Jarry1250, who runs the scoring bot.

If you have views on whether the rules or scoring need adjustment for next year's contest, please comment on the WikiCup talk page. Next year's competition will begin on 1 January. You are invited to sign up to participate; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to see you all in the 2022 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:55, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:16, 23 November 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. BRFA activity by month Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots. Our last issue was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots. Overall Between September and December 2019, there were 33 BRFAs. Of these, Y 25 were approved, and 8 were unsuccessful (N2 3 denied, ? 3 withdrawn, and 2 expired). September 2019 Y Monkbot 16, DannyS712 bot 60, Ahechtbot 6, PearBOT 3, Qbugbot 3 · N2 DannyS712 bot 5, PkbwcgsBot 24 · ? DannyS712 bot 61, TheSandBot 4 TParis goes away, UTRSBot goes kaput: Beeblebrox noted that the bot for maintaining on-wiki records of UTRS appeals stopped working a while ago. TParis, the semi-retired user who had previously run it, said they were "unlikely to return to actively editing Wikipedia", and the bot had been vanquished by trolls submitting bogus UTRS requests on behalf of real blocked users. While OAuth was a potential fix, neither maintainer had time to implement it. TParis offered to access to the UTRS WMFLabs account to any admin identified with the WMF: "I miss you guys a whole lot [...] but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help". Ultimately, SQL ended up in charge. Some progress was made, and the bot continued to work another couple months — but as of press time, UTRSBot has not edited since November 2019. Article-measuring contest resumed: The list of Wikipedians by article count, which had lain dead for several years, was triumphantly resurrected by GreenC following a bot request. October 2019 Y OAbot 3, DannyS712 bot 47, Pathbot 2, PearBOT 2, DannyS712 bot 59, DannyS712 bot 62, HasteurBot 14, PearBOT 4, WOSlinkerBot 4, MilHistBot 5 Curb Safe Charmer adopts reFill: TAnthony pointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered; creator Zhaofeng Li had retired from Wikipedia, and a maintainer was needed. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "Not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!" November 2019 Y BHGbot 4, YiFeiBot 2, DannyS712 bot III 64 · ? PearBOT Old bots do new tricks: DannyS712 bot III 64 prowled redirects, YiFeiBot 2 archived GoCE requests, and BHGbot 4 removed links to portals deleted at MfD (until its authorization was revoked in January at operator BrownHairedGirl's request). December 2019 Y DemonDays64 Bot, DannyS712 bot III 66, Bot1058 6, Monkbot 15, MilHistBot 6, PearBOT 5, DannyS712 bot IV 65 · N2 SportsStatsBot · Xinbenlv bot, SteveBot 8 Redirects to be autopatrolled: A RfC took place at WP:NPP, closing with unanimous consensus that new redirects should be automatically marked as patrolled by bot. DannyS712 wasted no time, and submitted DannyS712 bot III 66 the next day; it passed two days after that. 200,000 bios get short descs: Along a similar vein, Bot1058 6 was approved to remove disambiguation pages from Category:Monitored short pages and a new bot (DemonDays64 Bot) changed lots of http links to https using JavaScript Wiki Browser. One particularly neat task, PearBOT 5, automatically generated short descriptions for more than 200,000 biographies. In the next issue of Bots Newsletter: What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers? What happens when two bots want to clerk the same page? What happens when an adminbot goes hog wild? Will reFill ever get fixed? What's up with ListeriaBot, anyway? Python 3.4 deprecation? In my PyWikiBot? (It's more likely than you think!) These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the January 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out! Signing off... jp×g 04:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2022 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2022 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. BRFA activity by month Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots. After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever. Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost two years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020. Overall In the first half of 2020, there were 71 BRFAs. Of these, Y 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with N2 8 denied, ? 2 withdrawn, and 2 expired). January 2020 Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore. Y ST47Bot, Seppi333Bot, Qbugbot 4 · N2 PkbwcgsBot 25, PkbwcgsBot 26 A new Pywikibot release dropped support for Python 3.4, and it was expected that support for Python 2.7 would be removed in coming updates. Toolforge itself planned to drop Python 2 support in 2022. Two new bots dropped in January 2020: ST47Bot, the successor to STBot, and Seppi333Bot, whose task was to perform a weekly update of four "massive" wikitables for WikiProject Molecular Biology. Cydebot, an adminbot operated by Cyde since 2006, was blocked after going berserk on categories that hadn't yet been CfD'd. February 2020 Y AnomieBOT 78, Cewbot 2, DannyS712 bot 67, DannyS712 bot III 63, PearBOT 6, DemonDays64 Bot 2 · N2 PearBOT On February 1, some concerns were raised about ListeriaBot performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator Magnus Manske (who originally coded the Phase II software|precursor of MediaWiki) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily blocked for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved. On February 18, ST47Bot got into a tussle with Amalthea (bot), and had to be partially-blocked from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview. March 2020 Y MajavahBot, SDZeroBot, TheSandBot 6, TheSandBot 7, Bitbotje, FACBot 6, TheSandBot 8, Qbugbot 5, Cewbot 3, SDZeroBot 2, PrimeBOT 31, WikiCleanerBot 12 · AntiCompositeBot In March, a long discussion was started at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy by Skdb about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- API changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be Toolforge hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code). Some of the twelve bot tasks approved this month were TheSandBot 6 (removing blocked users from Category:Wikipedia usernames with possible policy issues), and TheSandBot 7 (removing unblocked users from Category:Wikipedians who are indefinitely blocked for promotional user names). SDZeroBot 2 was approved to refine geographic stub tags. New bots approved this month were MajavahBot (to patrol WP:EFFPR), SDZeroBot (to merge stub tags), and Bitbotje (fixing DISPLAYTITLE modifications, DEFAULTSORT errors and broken behavior switches in draftspace). April 2020 Y TheSandBot 9, BHGbot 5, DannyS712 bot 69, SDZeroBot 3, ST47ProxyBot, WugBot 4, SDZeroBot 4, DatBot 10, WikiCleanerBot 11, WikiCleanerBot 13, WikiCleanerBot 14, AntiCompositeBot 2, Cewbot 4 · N2 DaedanBot 1 · Creffbot A discussion on the bot noticeboard, "Re-examination of ListeriaBot", was started by Barkeep49, who pointed out repeated operation outside the scope of its BRFA (i.e. editing pages in mainspace, and adding non-free images to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was blocked on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several safeguards were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18. ST47ProxyBot joined the stable in April, after a BRFA started in December was finally completed. As an adminbot, it was authorized to block IP addresses belonging to open proxies, public VPN services, and web hosts. New tasks approved for existing bots included BHGbot 5 (diffusing categories), TheSandBot 9 (taking over some tasks from the inactive RonBot), and WugBot 4 (updating data at ((Interactive COVID-19 maps))). Also, DatBot 10 was approved to scale down non-free SVGs — I didn't even know that was a thing. A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy was started by Thryduulf about whether WP:BOTCOMM should explicitly specify that bot operators must be responsive to concerns raised on English Wikipedia specifically (as opposed to Phabricator, SourceForge, Toolforge, et cetera). Eventually, the policy was amended to its current form: Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Wikipedia. Pages reachable via unified login, like a talk page at Commons or at Italian Wikipedia could also be acceptable [...] External sites like Phabricator or GitHub (which require separate registration or do not allow for IP comments) and email (which can compromise anonymity) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it. May 2020 Y MajavahBot 3, DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, Dreamy Jazz Bot 4, QEDKbot, William Avery Bot 2, DannyS712 bot 68, PrimeBOT 32, TheSandBot 10, Bot1058 7, BHGbot 6, EaglesBot 2, Cewbot 5, WikiCleanerBot 17 · N2 MDanielsBot, PhuzBot 3, Gedimon · ? PearBOT 7 MajavahBot 3, an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Wikipedia. The page, located at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report, is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status. Other approvals for this month were William Avery Bot 2 (processing redirects in ((R from scientific name))), DannyS712 bot 68 (allowing users to schedule bot reminders for themselves), TheSandBot 10 (removing blocked/locked users from Category:User talk pages with conflict of interest notices), Bot1058 7 (updating Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests/Permalink), Dreamy Jazz Bot 4 (adding ((WikiProject Biography|living=no)) to talk pages where their associated article is in a year of death category), and QEDKbot (deleting and nominating empty categories). General syntax fixing tasks were approved for DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, PrimeBOT 32, BHGbot 6, Cewbot 5, and EaglesBot 2, as well as WikiCleanerBot 15, 16, and 17. Seven bots who fell below activity requirements (with neither the bots nor their operators having any edits or logged actions in two years) had their bot flags removed. They were NekoBot, Robert SkyBot, DASHBotAV, VoxelBot, JackieBot, ReferenceBot, and CensusBot. On May 12, EmausBot was blocked. June 2020 Y QEDKbot 2, AnomieBOT 79, WOSlinkerBot 6, Yapperbot 2, Yapperbot, AnomieBOT 80, Dreamy Jazz Bot 5, WikiCleanerBot 18, HasteurBot 15, MusikBot II 4, NoSandboxesHere · N2 RedWarn · ? Seppi333Bot 2 In July 2017, Headbomb made a proposal that a section of the Wikipedia:Dashboard be devoted to bots and technical issues. In November 2019, Lua code was written superseding Legobot's tasks on that page, and operator Legoktm was asked to stop them so that the new code could be deployed. After no response to pings, a partial-block of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues [...] Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored. On June 7, RexxS blocked Citation bot for disruptive editing, saying it was "still removing links after request to stop". A couple weeks later, a discussion on the bots noticeboard was opened, saying "it is a widely-used and useful bot, but it has one of the longest block logs for any recently-operating bot on Wikipedia". While its last BRFA approval was in 2011, its code and functionality had changed dramatically since then, and AntiCompositeNumber requested that BAG require a new BRFA. Maintainer AManWithNoPlan responded that most blocks were from years ago (when it lacked a proper test suite), and problems since then had mostly been one-off errors (like a June 2019 incident in which a LTA had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors). David Tornheim opened a discussion about whether bots based on closed-source code should be permitted, and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on [the bot]". Some disagreed: Naypta said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so". Two new bots had their first BRFAs approved: Yapperbot, to replace Legobot for handling the Feedback Request Service, and NoSandboxesHere, to remove ((user sandbox)) from articles in draftspace using Category:Non-userspace pages using User sandbox. Conclusion What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers? Will Citation bot ever be set free to roam the project? What's the deal with all those book links that InternetArchiveBot is adding to articles? Should we keep using Gerrit for MediaWiki? What if we had a day for bots to make cosmetic edits? These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the February 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out! Signing off... jp×g 23:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

And so ends the first round of the WikiCup. Last year anyone who scored more than zero points moved on to Round 2, but this was not the case this year, and a score of 13 or more was required to proceed. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius, a finalist last year, who led the field with 1906 points, gained from 32 GAs and 19 DYKs, all on the topic of New York buildings.
• AryKun, new to the contest, was second with 1588 points, having achieved 2 FAs, 11 GAs and various other submissions, mostly on the subject of birds.
• Bloom6132, a WikiCup veteran, was in third place with 682 points, garnered from 51 In the news items and several DYKs.
• GhostRiver was close behind with 679 points, gained from achieving 12 GAs, mostly on ice hockey players, and 35 GARs.
• Kavyansh.Singh was in fifth place with 551 points, with an FA, a FL, and many reviews.
• SounderBruce was next with 454 points, gained from an FA and various other submissions, mostly on United States highways.
• Ktin, another WikiCup veteran, was in seventh place with 412 points, mostly gained from In the news items.

These contestants, like all the others who qualified for Round 2, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews of a large number of good articles as the contest ran concurrently with a GAN backlog drive. Well done all! To qualify for Round 3, contestants will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two participants.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Anything that should have been claimed for in Round 1 is no longer eligible for points. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:07, 3 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And so ends the first round of the WikiCup. Last year anyone who scored more than zero points moved on to Round 2, but this was not the case this year, and a score of 13 or more was required to proceed. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Epicgenius, a finalist last year, who led the field with 1906 points, gained from 32 GAs and 19 DYKs, all on the topic of New York buildings.
• AryKun, new to the contest, was second with 1588 points, having achieved 2 FAs, 11 GAs and various other submissions, mostly on the subject of birds.
• Bloom6132, a WikiCup veteran, was in third place with 682 points, garnered from 51 In the news items and several DYKs.
• GhostRiver was close behind with 679 points, gained from achieving 12 GAs, mostly on ice hockey players, and 35 GARs.
• Kavyansh.Singh was in fifth place with 551 points, with an FA, a FL, and many reviews.
• SounderBruce was next with 454 points, gained from an FA and various other submissions, mostly on United States highways.
• Ktin, another WikiCup veteran, was in seventh place with 412 points, mostly gained from In the news items.

These contestants, like all the others who qualified for Round 2, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews of a large number of good articles as the contest ran concurrently with a GAN backlog drive. Well done all! To qualify for Round 3, contestants will need to finish Round 2 among the top thirty-two participants.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Anything that should have been claimed for in Round 1 is no longer eligible for points. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The second round of the 2022 WikiCup has now finished. It was a high-scoring round and contestants needed 115 points to advance to round 3. There were some very impressive efforts in round 2, with the top seven contestants all scoring more than 500 points. A large number of the points came from the 11 featured articles and the 79 good articles achieved in total by contestants.

Our top scorers in round 2 were:

1. Epicgenius, with 1264 points from 2 featured article, 4 good articles and 18 DYKs. Epicgenius was a finalist last year but has now withdrawn from the contest as he pursues a new career path.
2. AryKun, with 1172 points from two featured articles, one good article and a substantial number of featured article and good article reviews.
3. Bloom6132, with 605 points from 44 in the news items and 4 DYKs.
4. Sammi Brie, with 573 points from 8 GAs and 21 DYKs.
5. Ealdgyth, with 567 points from 11 GAs and 34 good and featured article reviews.
6. Panini!, with 549 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and several other sources.
7. Lee Vilenski, with 545 points from 1 FA, 4 GAs and a number of reviews.

The rules for featured and good article reviews require the review to be of sufficient length; brief quick fails and very short reviews will generally not be awarded points. Remember also that DYKs cannot be claimed until they have appeared on the main page. As we enter the third round, any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed now, and anything you forgot to claim in round 2 cannot! Remember too, that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Winter waterspout.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the 2022 WikiCup has now come to an end. Each of the sixteen contestants who made it into the fourth round had at least 180 points, which is a lower figure than last year when 294 points were needed to progress to round 4. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• BennyOnTheLoose, with 746 points, a tally built both on snooker and other sports topics, and on more general subjects.
• Bloom6132, with 683 points, garnered mostly from "In the news" items and related DYKs.
• Sammi Brie, with 527, from a variety of submissions related to radio and television stations.

Between them contestants achieved 5 featured articles, 4 featured lists, 51 good articles, 149 DYK entries, 68 ITN entries, and 109 good article reviews. As we enter the fourth round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article nomination, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. WikiCup judges: Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:51, 3 July 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The fourth round of the WikiCup has now finished. 383 points were required to reach the final, and the new round has got off to a flying start with all finalists already scoring. In round 4, Bloom6132 with 939 points was the highest points-scorer, with a combination of DYKs and In the news items, followed by BennyOnTheLoose, Sammi Brie and Lee Vilenski. The points of all contestants are swept away as we start afresh for the final round.

At this stage, we say goodbye to the eight competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia, and we hope you will join us again next year. For the remaining competitors, 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 14 days of "earning" them, and importantly, before the deadline on October 31st!

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help 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 yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. The judges are Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:44, 3 September 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The 2022 WikiCup has drawn to a close with the final round going down to the wire. The 2022 champion is

• Lee Vilenski (1752 points), who won in 2020 and was runner up in both 2019 and last year. In the final round he achieved 3 FAs and 15 GAs, mostly on cue sports. He was closely followed by
• Bloom6132 (1732), who specialised in "In the news" items and DYKs, and who has reached the final round of the Cup for the past three years. Next was
• BennyOnTheLoose (1238), another cue sports enthusiast, also interested in songs, followed by
• Muboshgu (1082), an "In the news" contributor, a seasoned contestant who first took part in the Cup ten years ago. Other finalists were
• Sammi Brie (930), who scored with a featured article, good articles and DYKs on TV and radio stations,
• Kavyansh.Singh (370), who created various articles on famous Americans, including an FA on Louis H. Bean, famed for his prediction of election outcomes. Next was
• PCN02WPS (292), who scored with good articles and DYKs on sporting and other topics and
• Z1720 (25) who had DYKs on various topics including historic Canadians.

During the WikiCup, contestants achieved 37 featured articles, 349 good articles, 360 featured article reviews, 683 good article reviews and 480 In the news items, so Wikipedia has benefited greatly from the activities of WikiCup competitors. Well done everyone! All those who reached the final round will receive awards and the following special awards will be made, based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. So that the finalists do not have an undue advantage, these prizes are awarded to the competitor who scored the highest in any particular field in a single round, or the overall leader in this field.

• Lee Vilenski wins the featured article prize, for a total of 6 FAs during the course of the competition and 3 in the final round.
• Kavyansh.Singh wins the featured list prize, for 3 FLs in round 2.
• Adam Cuerden wins the featured picture prize, for 39 FPs during the competition.
• Z1720 wins the featured article reviewer prize, for 35 FARs in round 4.
• Epicgenius wins the good article prize, for 32 GAs in round 1.
• SounderBruce wins the featured topic prize, for 4 FT articles in round 1.
• Lee Vilenski wins the good topic prize, for 34 GT articles in round 5.
• Sammi Brie wins the good article reviewer prize, for 71 GARs overall.
• Sammi Brie wins the Did you know prize, for 30 DYKs in round 3 and 106 overall.
• Bloom6132 wins the In the news prize, for 106 ITNs in round 5 and 289 overall.

Next year's competition will begin on 1 January and possible changes to the rules and scoring are being discussed on the discussion page. You are invited to sign up to take part in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors, and we hope to have a good turnout for the 2023 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners and finalists, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Dear project member, This message is being sent out to encourage new ideas and feedback on those proposed in regard to the colors debate for WikiProject Weather. For those who are unaware of what's been happening over the last year, I will give a brief summary. We have been discussing proposed changes to the colors of the dots on tropical cyclone maps and templates and infoboxes across the entire weather project in order to solve issues related to the limited contrast between colors for both normal vision as well as the various types of color blindness (MOS:ACCESS). We had partially implemented a proposal earlier this year, however, it was objected to by a number of people and additional issues were presented that made it evident this wasn't the optimal solution. We tried to come up with other solutions to address the issues related to color contrast, however, none of them gained traction and no consensus was generated.

We need your help and I encourage you to propose your own scale and give feedback on those already listed. Keep in mind that we are NOT making a decision on any individual proposal at this time. We are simply allowing people to make proposals and cultivate them given feedback from other project members. Please visit our project page for additional details. The proposal phase will close no later than December 31st at 23:59 UTC. Noah^Talk 04:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2022 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2023 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs · email) and Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:16, 1 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So ends the first round of the 2023 WikiCup. Everyone with a positive score moved on to Round 2, with 54 contestants qualifying. The top scorers in Round 1 were:

• Unlimitedlead with 1205 points, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with two featured articles on historical figures and several featured article candidate reviews.
• Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
• FrB.TG was in third place with 625 points, garnered from a featured article on a filmmaker which qualified for an impressive number of bonus points.
• TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
• Iazyges was in fifth place with 532 points, from two featured articles on classical history.

The top sixteen contestants at the end of Round 1 had all scored over 300 points; these included LunaEatsTuna, Thebiguglyalien, Sammi Brie, Trainsandotherthings, Lee Vilenski, Juxlos, Unexpectedlydian, SounderBruce, Kosack, BennyOnTheLoose and PCN02WPS. It was a high-scoring start to the competition.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. The first round finished on February 26. Remember that any content promoted after that date but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed.

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. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:36, 2 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Template:Discussion centralize top has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Izno (talk) 02:21, 7 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The second round of the 2023 WikiCup has now finished. Contestants needed to have scored 60 points to advance into round 3. Our top five scorers in round 2 all included a featured article among their submissions and each scored over 500 points. They were:

• Iazyges (1040) with three FAs on Byzantine emperors, and lots of bonus points.
• Unlimitedlead (847), with three FAs on ancient history, one GA and nine reviews.
• Epicgenius (636), a WikiCup veteran, with one FA on the New Amsterdam Theatre, four GAs and eleven DYKs
• BennyOnTheLoose (553), a seasoned competitor, with one FA on snooker, six GAs and seven reviews.
• FrB.TG (525), with one FA, a Lady Gaga song and a mass of bonus points.

Other notable performances were put in by Sammi Brie, Thebiguglyalien, MyCatIsAChonk, PCN02WPS, and AirshipJungleman29.

So far contestants have achieved thirteen featured articles between them, one being a joint effort, and forty-nine good articles. The judges are pleased with the thorough reviews that are being performed, and have hardly had to reject any. As we enter the third round, remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Precious

Eight years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:52, 15 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The third round of the 2023 WikiCup has come to an end. The 16 users who made it to the fourth round had at least 175 points. Our top scorers in round 3 were:

• Thebiguglyalien, with 919 points from a featured article on Frances Cleveland as well as five good articles and many reviews,
• Unlimitedlead, with 862 points from a high-scoring featured articles on Henry II of England and numerous reviews,
• Iazyges, with 560 points from a high-scoring featured article on Tiberius III.

Contestants achieved 11 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 47 good articles, 72 featured or good article reviews, over 100 DYKs and 40 ITN appearances. As always, any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Please also remember that you must claim your points within 14 days of "earning" them. When doing GARs, please make sure that you check that all the GA criteria are fully met. Please also remember that all submissions must meet core Wikipedia policies, regardless of the review process.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews Needed (remember to remove your listing when no longer required). Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk). MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:18, 8 July 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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)

The WikiCup is a marathon rather than a sprint and all those reaching the final round have been involved in the competition for the last ten months, improving Wikipedia vastly during the process. After all this hard work, BeanieFan11 has emerged as the 2023 winner and the WikiCup Champion. The finalists this year were:-

• BeanieFan11 with 2582 points
• Thebiguglyalien with 1615 points
• Epicgenius with 1518 points
• MyCatIsAChonk with 1012 points
• BennyOnTheLoose with 974 points
• AirshipJungleman29 with 673 points
• Sammi Brie with 520 points
• Unlimitedlead with 5 points

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's WikiCup, whether they made it to the final round or not, and particular congratulations to the newcomers to the competition, some of whom did very well. Wikipedia has benefitted greatly from the quality creations, expansions and improvements made, and the numerous reviews performed. All those who reached the final round will win awards. The following special awards will be made based on high performance in particular areas of content creation and review. Awards will be handed out in the next few days.

• Unlimitedlead wins the featured article prize, for 7 FAs in total including 3 in round 2.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured list prize, for 5 FLs in total.
• Lee Vilenski wins the featured topic prize, for a 6-article featured topic in round 4.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the featured picture prize, for 6 FPs in total.
• BeanieFan11 wins the good article prize, for 75 GAs in total, including 61 in the final round.
• Epicgenius wins the good topic prize, for a 41-article good topic in the final round.
• LunaEatsTuna wins the GA reviewer prize, for 70 GA reviews in round 1.
• MyCatIsAChonk wins the FA reviewer prize, for 66 FA reviews in the final round.
• Epicgenius wins the DYK prize, for 49 did you know articles in total.
• Muboshgu wins the ITN prize, for 46 in the news articles in total.

The WikiCup has run every year since 2007. With the 2023 contest now concluded, I will be standing down as a judge due to real life commitments, so I hope that another editor will take over running the competition. Please get in touch if you are interested. Next year's competition will hopefully begin on 1 January 2024. You are invited to sign up to participate in the contest; the WikiCup is open to all Wikipedians, both novices and experienced editors. It only remains to congratulate our worthy winners once again and thank all participants for their involvement! (If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.) Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:51, 5 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:30, 28 November 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The 2024 competition has just begun and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. Even if you are a novice editor you should be able to advance to at least the second round, improving your editing skills as you go. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page ready for you to take part. Any questions on the scoring, rules or anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close on 31 January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. The judges for the WikiCup this year are: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs · email), Epicgenius (talk · contribs · email), and Frostly (talk · contribs · email). Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The 2024 WikiCup is off to a flying start, with 135 participants. This is the largest number of participants we have seen since 2017.

Our current leader is newcomer Generalissima (submissions), who has one FA on John Littlejohn (preacher) and 10 GAs and 12 DYKs mostly on New Zealand coinage and Inuit figures. Here are some more noteworthy scorers:

• AirshipJungleman29 (submissions), with one FA on Hö'elün, two GAs on Mongolia-related articles, and two DYKs;
• Vami_IV (submissions), with one FA on Doom (2016 video game), one GA on Boundary Fire (2017), and 11 reviews;
• MaranoFan (submissions), with one FA on Holidays (Meghan Trainor song), a nine-article FT on 30 (album), and two DYKs;
• Skyshifter (submissions), with one FA on OneShot and one DYK;
• Sammi Brie (submissions), with five GAs and five DYKs on television and radio stations;
• voorts (submissions) and Elli (submissions), both with one FA and one DYK each.

As a reminder, competitors may submit work for the first round until 23:59 (UTC) on 27 February, and the second round starts 1 March. Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round; currently, competitors need at least 15 points to progress. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges (Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), Epicgenius (talk · contribs), and Frostly (talk · contribs)) are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]