Community bulletin board

2010-12-13 News and notes: Wikipedia articles expert-reviewed by Encyclopedia of Life, and more In the news: Confusion about Wikileaks continues, Wikipedia vs. Britannica in India, and more Rencontres Wikimédia: Wikimedia and the cultural sector: two days of talks in Paris. WikiProject report: WikiProject Algae Features and admins: The best of the week Election report: The community has spoken Arbitration report: Requested amendment re Pseudoscience case Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News About·Archives·Single-page·Newsroom·Suggestions Centralized discussion RfC on styling <references /> like {{reflist}} sitewide. There is a poll open to adopt Commons:Sexual content as a Wikimedia Commons policy. Feedback is solicited on all aspects of the December 2010 ArbCom elections. A third MfD discussion on Wikipedia:Valued pictures – there are questions about purpose and activity. RfC about whether the admin policy should be amended to require discussion before undoing administrative actions. RfC regarding whether the Incubator should be reframed as "soft deletion" mechanism. A proposed guideline/policy to summarize the key norms and expectations about the community itself for the benefit of newcomers.

Notices

• The Great Backlog Drive 2010 is a project started by the Wikipedia Contribution Team with the stated mission to clear out Wikipedia's backlogs during the 2010 fundraising period. We need all the help we can get to put a dent in Wikipedia's massive backlogs. There's many diverse areas available to work on, in varying levels of difficulty. All users interested in maintenance and clean-up tasks are encouraged to sign up for the drive! Keep track of your progress and earn barnstars and esteem, or do it just for the satisfaction that you've helped make Wikipedia a better place. Every little bit counts!

Project pages seeking contributors

Discussions

Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention:

Help out

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

Things to do

General tasks

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

Commenting

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

Special skills

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

Fix-up projects

Open tasks

Here are some tasks you can do:

• Wikify: PR-5 Wiewior plus, Notre Dame High School (Ottawa), The Implications of Cultural Diversity in U.S School Districts, Online lead generation, Tobias Künzel, More...
• Copyedit: Gustavo Petro, Government Radio Network (Australia), Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, Homeworld 2, Israel Arts and Science Academy, More...
• Update: None More...
• Style: Binitarianism, War of the Gods (comics), Information Therapy, Moondwara, Frances Ward, More...
• Translation: 2010 Chilean telethon, 2008 Chilean telethon, 2007 Chilean telethon, 2006 Chilean telethon, 2004 Chilean telethon, More...
• Cleanup: Freetown Christiania, Titania (Hotel), Billy Hahn, Azam Tariq (Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan), Vangipuram, More...
• Verify: The Skeptic's Dictionary, List of fossil sites, San Diego Formation, French nobility, T.M.Revolution, More...
• Neutrality: Christ Church (Moscow, Idaho), Canadian Union of Public Employees, Power-Plate, Dal-Tex Building, Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, More...
• Original research: Bagman, Pet store, Rising Stars, Etiquette in Australia and New Zealand, Run Lola Run, More...
• Merge: Ocean nourishment, Power-Plate, Battle rap, Freestyle rap, LAV III, More...
• Split: Intermediate spiral galaxy, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ultratop 40, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Antiques Roadshow, More...
• Stubs: Andrea Miller (athlete), Pierre Hurel Trio, Ternate language, Boże, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Camden Airstrip, More...
• Expand: Opisthokont, List of places in Schleswig-Holstein, Australia Council for the Arts, Seguin High School (Arlington, Texas), Young People for a United World, More...
• Article Incubator: Valery Nikolayevsky, Erik Rush, Viktor Vidović, $30 Film School, Lovari, More...
• Article deletion discussions: Sportspeople, Australia, United Kingdom, Arts, United States of America, More...
• Article Requests: Mayo scissors, Flora of Argentina, Parliament of Chechnya, Chambeshi Bridge, Joseph Bosisto, More...
• Image Requests: Madame Berthe's Mouse Lemur, Brogan (shoes), Bishop's Castle, Glasgow, Auerlite, Orchestron, More...
• Mediation Cabal: History of ancient Israel and Judah, Senkaku Islands, Seven Laws of Noah, Kendrick mass, File 18, Adding Redlinks, Time capsule, Christian apologetics, Albanian nationalism, jimbrossard, or Help mediate an open case!

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

Purge the cache of the list above

Collaborations

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

Collaborations by topic

Other collaborations

Active improvement teams

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

WikiProjects

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

Language translation

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

Guidelines, help & resources

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

Help

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

Editing

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

Policies and guidelines

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

Article standards

Working with others

Resources

New user information

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

Ways to communicate

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

Community support groups and programs

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

Common procedures

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

How to resolve conflicts

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

Community information

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

Related communities

Tip of the day

Do you know any languages other than English? If so, you also can contribute to the Wikipedia in those languages, or translate articles from that Wikipedia into the English Wikipedia. Don't forget to include an interlanguage link when you translate a new article. To help coordinate with other language Wikipedias, you can join the Wikipedia Embassy. Also, check out how other languages are doing with our multilingual statistics.

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