Editors needed for Tag & Assess 2008. To coincide with the summer holidays, it will be gearing up from 15 June. As usual, barnstars galore!
Partner peer reviews: for a thirty-day trial period, we'll be running joint peer reviews with Wikiproject Video Games. The idea is simple: we help with their reviews; they help with ours. This way both wikiprojects benefit from new reviewers and new ideas!
We're notable: A new book, Simon Fowler's 2007 Guide to Military History on the Internet (UK:Pen & Sword, ISBN9781844156061) rates Wikipedia as "the best general resource" for military research (p. 7). Of the military pages, he says: "The results are largely accurate and generally free of bias" (he also suggests people join the wikiproject). When rating WP as the No. 1 military site (p. 201) he says "Wikipedia is often criticised for its inaccuracy and bias, but in my experience the military history articles are spot on."
A-Class reviews: the usual four-day review period may now be extended by up to three days (ie seven days in total) in the following circumstances:
the article has no opposes but has insufficient support for promotion or
the article's nominator requests more time to resolve matters arising during the review.
The special projects department has opened. It will focus on specific ad-hoc high-priority tasks and implement them with informal, short-term groups of editors.
The Contest department has completed its fourteenth month of competition, which saw 16 entries. The top scorer this month is Cam with 21 points, followed by Redmarkviolinist with 11 points. Woody, Dreamafter, Kyriakos, Nousernamesleft and Outdawg also fielded entries. Blnguyen remains the overall leader, with 188 points in total. You are encouraged to submit articles you're working on as entries.
A discussion has been opened into the structuring of top level operational categories, starting with Category:World War II. All interested editors are invited to help establish a consensus.
This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary, both of the activities of the WikiProject and global tropical cyclone activity. If you wish to change how you receive this newsletter, or no longer wish to receive it, please add your username to the appropriate section on the mailing list. This newsletter covers all of May 2008.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles.
Storm of the month
Cyclone Nargis
Cyclone Nargis was the costliest and deadliest natural disaster in the history of Burma (Myanmar). It formed on April 27 in the central Bay of Bengal, and after initially tracking north-northwestward it turned to the east. Quickly strengthening to reach peak winds of at least 165 km/h (105 mph), Nargis made landfall in the Ayeyarwady Division of Burma on May 2 near peak intensity. The cyclone killed at least 80,000 people and potentially over 300,000. Passing near the metropolis of Yangon, the cyclone destroyed thousands of buildings, and damage was estimated at over $10 billion (USD). In the wake of the storm, the ruling military junta of Burma initially refused foreign aid, and after they allowed foreign assistance, the government was criticized for its poor handling of the aftermath of the storm.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Northwestern Pacific Ocean – Typhoon Rammasun was the strongest tropical cyclone worldwide during the month, though it did not affect land. Tropical Storm Matmo formed east of Luzon in the middle of the month and lasted for three days. Severe Tropical Storm Halong (Cosme) was the deadliest storm in the Pacific basin, causing 58 deaths and $94 million (USD) in damage after hitting Luzon on May 17. At the end of the month, Typhoon Nakri formed and reached peak intensity over open waters before becoming extratropical in early June.
Eastern Pacific Ocean – Tropical Storm Alma was was the easternmost forming Pacific tropical cyclone on record. Forming from a trough on May 29, it became a strong tropical storm before making landfall near León, Nicaragua, killing at least two people.
Project News
Several other languages are active in the realm of tropical cyclone articles, though as much as ours. The French Wikipedia has 76 storm articles, the Spanish Wikipedia has 99 storm articles, and the Portuguese Wikipedia has 116 storm articles. Each of the projects have several storm articles we do not have, and the coverage on non-notable storms outside of the Atlantic is better, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.
During the month, User:Potapych finished working on Template:Infobox Hurricane Small, which is used for the small Infoboxes in season articles; he has updated several season article already with the changes.
Tag & Assess 2008, an assessment drive initiated by the assessment department began on June 7, 2008 and will be running until July 2008. Many Wikipedians have started contributing to this mammoth task. This housekeeping activity will help manage articles in better way. You can also get involved!
Bot Assisted Assessment was successfully done using Bot0612 in May 2008. 1744 articles (18.5%) of all India unassessed articles were marked if they had been assessed by some other project.
IPL was hot on Wikipedia too!!! During the tournament, the article was among the most frequently edited articles. It is currently the only Indian article in top 100, occupying 58th spot.
Do you know of an article that is currently underrated? If so, please nominate the article at the Assessment Department's request for assessment. This will allow our project to get a better idea of the quality of our articles.
Article statistics and to-do lists
Article Statistics
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Is India the largest democracy? A request has been made to the Mediation Cabal for mediation on India article. There is currently an ongoing edit war if India be called the largest democracy of world.
This is your newsletter and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue (Issue 2 – July 2008). Any and all contributions are welcome. Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing!
The last newsletter was more than a year ago and after feeling the pinch, we got together in working towards in renewing this feature for our members. Fresh pair of legs we are, and hence can greatly improve with your suggestions and ideas. Please feel free to let us know of your thoughts. We hope to release the newsletter on a monthly/bi-monthly basis as per our initial thoughts.
Could you take a look at the new Ancient Near East portal? I'd like to submit it for a Featured Portal review when I find/improve a few more articles for the "selected article" section, and would welcome any feedback you could offer at this time.
