Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-07-02/Featured content

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2 July 2014

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Featured articles

Six featured articles were promoted this week.

Banksia coccinea

The Blind Leading the Blind. Unfortunately, this excellent article only has a low-resolution image of the painting in question.

Soeara Berbisa (nominated by Crisco 1492) is a 1941 film from the Dutch East Indies. It follows two young men who compete for the affections of a woman before learning that they are long-lost brothers.
Banksia coccinea (nominated by Casliber) Casliber's twenty-third featured article on a species in the Banksia genus of Australian flowering plants, noted for their flower spikes and vaguely pinecone-like woody fruiting bodies. Banksia coccinea is one of the larger species, able to grow to the size of a small tree (with a maximum size of 8m (26 ft)), whereas most can only grow to shrub height.
Hilda Rix Nicholas (nominated by Hamiltonstone) was an Australian painter and artist who painted significant works including The Summer House and The Fair Musterer. She was one of the first Australians to paint post-impressionist landscapes, and was made a member of the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français.
Electra Heart (nominated by WikiRedactor) is the second studio album by Welsh singer Marina Diamandis, professionally known as Marina and the Diamonds. The record debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 21,358 copies and music critics were divided in their opinions of Electra Heart.
Judah P. Benjamin (nominated by Wehwalt) was a lawyer and politician who was a United States Senator from Louisiana. He was the first man professing the Jewish faith to be elected to the United States Senate, and the first Jew to hold a cabinet position in North America.
The Blind Leading the Blind (nominated by Curly Turkey) is a painting by the Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, completed in 1568. Executed in distemper on linen canvas, it measures 86 cm × 154 cm (34 in × 61 in) and depicts the Biblical parable of the blind leading the blind from Matthew 15:14.

Featured lists

Five featured lists were promoted this week.

A gorgeous featured picture of a Common Kingfisher by Andreas Trepte

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis's illustration The Fairy Tale of Kings.

George Formby on screen, stage, record and radio (nominated by SchroCat & Cassianto) George Formby was an English entertainer who tended to perform in the character of a working-class Lancashire lad. Starting his working life as a jockey, he moved into the variety circuit and then films, where he was the biggest box office draw in the late 1930s and early 1940s; he played the ukulele and banjolele, and toured to entertain over three million troops during the Second World War.
List of Bangladesh Premier League captains (nominated by Pratyya Ghosh) The Bangladesh Premier League of cricket is a competition between seven city-based teams that has run for two years, replacing a division-based league previously used in the country. In that time, twenty-two players have captained for their teams in one match or more.
List of Major League Baseball hitters who have batted in 10 runs in one game (nominated by Bloom6132) When a batter's actions cause a run to be scored, not necessarily by the batter themselves crossing the homeplate, runs batted in are credited to that player. Only thirteen players have ever batted in ten runs or more in one game, and none have ever managed the feat twice.
List of current Indian governors (nominated by Indopug) India is divided into twenty-nine states, each led by a governor appointed by the President of India for a five-year term. Their power is limited by an elected council of ministers, whose advice they must act on.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta (season 6) (nominated by WikiRedactor) The Real Housewives of Atlanta is a reality show based around the lives of, well, a number of housewives in Atlanta, Georgia. It has been moderately well-received by critics, with the sixth season being the most acclaimed so far. This is one of those borderline cases between article and list article, with a fair bit of documentation of, for example, critical reception, production and crew, and television ratings. But the heart of the article is a list of episodes, so, fair enough, I suppose.

Featured pictures

Seventeen featured pictures were promoted this week.

The Chickahominy- Sumner's Upper Bridge: 1862 watercolour by William McIlvaine.

The death of the Aral Sea: Left, 1989; Right, 2008.

One of John Bauer's famous illustrations of folk tales for Among Gnomes and Trolls.

Common kingfisher (created by Andreas Trepte, nominated by Armbrust) A wide-ranging bird, found in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, the Common Kingfisher is a sparrow-sized blue-and-orange bird which feeds mainly on fish.
Betafite (created and nominated by Alchemist-hp) A rare specimen of octahedral betafite, an important ore for thorium, uranium, and niobium. Alchemist-hp is an expert in minerals and elemental specimens, with huge numbers of featured pictures within those fields.
Shelter promotional poster (created by Might and Delight; uploaded (and presumably, release negotiated by) Hahnchen; nominated by Crisco 1492) Shelter is a video game where players take on the rôle of a mother badger trying to protect her cubs while moving them to a new home.
Queen Victoria visits the HMS Resolute (created by William Simpson, nominated and restored by Adam Cuerden) Created by noted wartime artist William Simpson, this artwork depicts a visit by Queen Victoria to the Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute, which had been lost in the ice three years previously, but was found abandoned by Americans. The American government voted to purchase and refurbish the ship and return it to Britain, as a token of goodwill. It was officially given to Queen Victoria shortly after this visit.
Ayasofya Mosque (Hagia Sophia) (created by Gaspare Fossati and Louis Haghe, [[ |nominated]] and restored by Adam Cuerden) The interior of the Ayasofya Mosque from 1852, before the restoration that attempted to compromise between the mosque and the Hagia Sophia church that had been converted into the mosque. Gaspare Fossati was one of two brothers charged with renovating the mosque, who were the main source of information for many of the mosaics hidden under a plaster coating when the ancient church was converted for use by Islam. Some have been uncovered again since.
Ten-dollar, Twenty-dollar, Fifty-dollar, and One-hundred-dollar Interest Bearing Notes from the 1864 series (prepared and nominated by Godot13 from the collections of the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution) The American Interest Bearing Notes were an American-Civil-War-era series of paper money which, besides being legal tender at their face value, also gained interest over time. This set is as complete as is currently possible - as explained in the nomination (which actually has more information than the article on this point) denominations of $500, $1,000 and $5,000 were issued, but none are known to have survived.
Comparison of the Aral Sea between 1989 and 2008 (created by NASA and Zafiroblue05, nominated by Nergaal) The Aral Sea was once one of the four largest lakes in the world, but Soviet irrigation projects diverted the rivers that fed it in the 1960s, causing it to slowly dry up. Rusting ships rest on desert that was once a lake, water nowhere near. The fate of the Aral Sea is considered one of the worst ecological disasters in modern history.
Geisha (created and nominated by Japanexperterna.se/JPNEX) Having recently delisted two problematic images of geisha, being able to turn around and provide an excellent depiction of one is quite a good thing. Showing all aspects of the geisha dress, and in an appropriate setting, this image is an excellent source of information.
The Chickahominy – Sumner's Upper Bridge (created by William McIlvaine, nominated and restored by Adam Cuerden) In the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War, two parts of the Union Army were separated by the flooding of the Chickahominy River. General Edwin Vose Sumner's efforts to reestablish bridges and to allow the army to recombine saved the Union Army from disaster in the Battle of Seven Pines, although, in that case, with a much less stable bridge, it was a calculated risk, and the bridge washed away just after the soldiers marched across.
A Day and The Fairy Tale of Kings (created by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and nominated (1, 2) by Hafspajen) Fin-de-siècle Eastern European artists, whatever their merit, are not, generally speaking, particularly well-known in "western" countries, with the Cold War era not having helped the distribution of cultural capital from these regions. Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis was a Lithuanian artist, writer, and composer who was one of the pioneers of the abstract art movement, and had a major influence on Lithuanian culture, but isn't so well known outside of his country as in it.
Polish złoty from 1794 (prepared and nominated by Godot13 from the collections of the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution) In 1794, under the authority of Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Polish government released the first issue of banknotes for złotych, the currency of Poland. This is one denomination of this first series of banknotes. The cut-off scrollwork at the top is a security measure - the tops were cut off at various angles and kept for comparison when the notes were redeemed.
Marcus C. Lisle (created by the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing, restored and nominated by Godot13) Marcus C. Lisle served in the United States House of Representatives for Kentucky as a Democrat from 1893 until his death in 1894.
Princess Tuvstarr gazing down into the dark waters of the forest tarn (created by John Bauer, nominated by Hafspajen) One of John Bauer's famous illustrations of Scandinavian folk tales for the magazine Among Gnomes and Trolls.

Featured topics

SMS Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, one ship in the new featured topic by Parsecboy.

One featured topic was promoted this week.

Battleships of Germany (automatic promotion from good topic; originally nominated in August 2011 by Parsecboy) You know, it gets hard, weeks on end, to keep praising Parsecboy for his incredible work on ship articles. Nonetheless, this is an amazing achievement: There are sixty-two articles in this topic, covering every single German battleship, and the classes they're divided into. Over half of the sixty-two articles are featured (the rest being good articles)—and this isn't even the only topic that Parsecboy is working on. Alongside Sturmvogel 66, he's probably Wikipedia's most prolific naval expert.