User talk:Joshii/March 2008

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue V - March 2008

Project News

• Since the January newsletter there has been an increase of 5 featured articles/lists, taking our total number of featured entries upto 16 17 (Trafford passed today!).

• Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester, reported on in the last newsletter, is now a featured list, and was one of the project's finest team efforts towards one of the finest such lists. The Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester has since been started. Can you help?

• Trafford and List of tallest buildings and structures in Salford remain featured candidates, although both look likely to be promoted. UPDATE: Trafford was promoted today!

• Although WP:GM leads the way in terms of featured content by a local British project, the Kent and Yorkshire WikiProjects are close to this total, with 11 and 14 featured entries respectively.

• Following a somewhat frenzied collaboration at the start of March, and a nomination by User:Joshii, Greater Manchester was promoted to GA status. It's the first metropolitan county to obtain this recognition.

• There has otherwise been a reduction in WP:GM nominations for GA status, something which the project has begun to discuss on the talk page.

• Having completed all but one of our short term aims set last December, the project would like to look at developing new short term aims. Suggestions have been made here, but there is scope for flexibility. Do you have a entry you would like to see developed?

• Other articles to have undergone a major upgrading include Salford, Stalybridge, Middleton and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.

Member News

There are now 39 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester! Welcome to the 8 new members that joined since our last newsletter:

• Polishname (talk · contribs)
• Jimet (talk · contribs)
• Phon123 (talk · contribs)
• Abfab27 (talk · contribs)
• Sharadjalota456 (talk · contribs)
• Mike Peel (talk · contribs)
• Unsy770 (talk · contribs)
• Hassocks5489 (talk · contribs)

Two members have left the project however, each for rather different reasons:

• Archtransit (talk · contribs) was an administrator, and project member, who was found to have been abusing his editting and sysop privliges. Following investigation, Archtransit was banned indefinately. A report in The Signpost is found here.

• Rudget (talk · contribs), also an administrator, decided to leave the project. Reasons mentioned included the demands of admin duties taking over too much time. Rudget helped towards Didsbury's GA promotion, and Portal:North West England's FP promotion.

Thanks

This WikiProject, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!

Roll Call!!!

• Are YOU still around?

WP:GM is a great project, and is leading the way for local WikiProjects of the UK. However, though the project talk page is a hub of activity, it is regularly used by only a core of 5-6 editors, which isn't making the most of its potential. Indeed, a study, by the University of Minnesota found that "One-tenth of 1 percent of editors account for nearly half of Wikipedia's content value". We at WP:GM do not want to follow suit!

There are several editors who have, sadly, not editted since the turn of 2008, and others, which concentrate in areas other than Greater Manchester material (which is quite fine!).

The WikiProject Greater Manchester would like to know if YOU are still around, and if so, if you've like to be more involved, and, if not, why not and what can we do to get you involved and be a bigger part of the team?

Feel free to come by the project talk page and leave us a message on what you're working on and/or what you'd like to see improved. The project is only as strong as its members and we'd like to know if you're still active or if we can help you with your editting.

Images

• A picture's worth a thousand words

In our last issue, a plea was made for more images to be submitted to Wikipedia/WikiCommons to improve the quality and context of our articles. Many of our Top priority articles are still lacking in quality images, if any!

www.geograph.org.uk is an online resource of photographs of places in the UK, which we can use. Www.flickr.com also has some images we are permitted to use. Do you have a digital camera however? Can you take photographs of townscapes and landmarks in your local area that can be used here? Middleton, Hulme and Rochdale all have examples of images in their lead that help give a sense of place and improve the context to our readers.

Simillarly, many of our most crucial articles about our largest towns are still in poor condition: Stockport, Bury, Prestwich, Bolton, and Wigan are of "start class" standard with short lead sections and unreferenced sections - a much lower standard than we should allow! If you feel you can help, please be bold and try to improve these. There is a list of resources that can help.

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!