User talk:Polishname

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!

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue VI - April 2008

Project News

• Since the last newsletter in March, our number of featured articles/lists has increased by 3, giving us a total of 21! List of tallest buildings and structures in Salford and Manchester City F.C. seasons were promoted to featured list status on 22 March along with Castles in Greater Manchester which passed FLC on 1 April. Well done to all those who contributed!

• Peterloo Massacre was nominated for FAC on 6 April. So far it has received support for FAS but feel free join the discussion here.

• The reduction of WP:GM GAs, mentioned in the last issue, has been tackled with Buckton Castle and Oasis (band) being passed on 9 March and Upper Brook Street Chapel, Manchester on 7 April. We now have 13 GAs due to hard work of our contributors. Well done!

• Hulme Arch Bridge was nominated for GAS on March 30.

• WP:GM still is still the leading local British WikiProject. As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 6 on London and Yorkshire who have 15 FAs each. Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still lacking GAs and falls behind London by 6. This topic was at the front of the new aims discussion (here) and is an important issue for WP:GM.

• As mentioned above, new aims have been decided. See the right hand column for more details.

Member News

There are now 44 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester! A warm welcome to the 5 new members that have joined us since March:

• Attenboroughp (talk · contribs)
• Paypwip (talk · contribs)
• Liquidswords (talk · contribs)
• Azallen (talk · contribs)
• Man2 (talk · contribs)

No users left the WikiProject this month. Hooray!

Thanks

A big "thank you" to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

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

New Aims

The completion of all but one of the short term aims set last December resulted in a discussion on WT:GM to set new aims for the WikiProject. They are:

• Obtain FA status for Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain FL status for List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA -> FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain GA status for a third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.

It took us four months to get our last aims completed, why not try and see if these can be done in less time than before! All input is welcome but if anyone has any books or photos etc specifically related to these topics, they would be extra-specially welcome.

But before rushing ahead with these new aims, let's not forget the one that got away last time: to obtain B -> GA status for Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Bolton and Stockport. Most of these articles are in poor condition and in need of repair. Good quality images are urgently needed also. Let's make sure that this aim doesn't stay off our radar much longer.

Don't Forget...

• Images!
  The shortage of good images was mentioned in the last issue and still hasn't been resolved! A good place to start would be the requested photographs category but please remember that there are many articles not within this category that have the same need in common.

• Assessment
  "Assess and review all relevant articles for quality, importance and progress" is one of our mid-term aims. At the present moment, there are only 43 unassessed articles. This task could be completed well before the next newsletter is out.

• Last but not Least...
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention. Please take a look and see what you can do.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue VII - May 2008

Project News

• The Peterloo Massacre article was promoted to FA on 12 April. One of our top priority articles, it had previously been only start class. The process began on 25th March and since then underwent over 700 edits before the end of April, with Jza84, Malleus Fatuarum, and Richerman making significant contributions to the rapid development of the article. Ddstretch and Mr Stephen also contributed to discussions on the article talk page.

• Hulme Arch Bridge was promoted to GA. This was mainly the effort of Mike Peel who was also largely responsible for the promotion of Upper Brook Street Chapel, Manchester last month.

• Perhaps the most unusual event of April 2008 for the project has surrounded the Denshaw article. Denshaw is a village of about 500 people in Saddleworth, Oldham, which attracted media attention due to vandalism of the stub class article. Once this was brought to the project's attention, efforts were made to improve the article which led to a successful DYK? nomination and might even advance it to GA status with a bit more effort. In April there were over 19,000 visitors who saw the project in action. Contributors included Jza84, Ddstretch, Malleus Fatuarum, Hassocks5489, Nev1 and Mike Peel.

• Also this month 5 articles featured on the DYK? section of the front page: Hulme Arch Bridge, Peterloo Massacre, Bolton and Leigh Railway, Barnes Hospital, Denshaw, and Platt Fields Park. This certainly puts into perspective one of the project's previous mid-term aims "feature on the Did you know? section with at least three articles related to Greater Manchester". If you've expanded an article 5 fold or started one with at least 1.5kb of prose in the past 5 days and it has an interesting and referenced fact don't hesitate to read the conditions of DYK? and nominate it here. It gets the project noticed!

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still leading local British WikiProjects. As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 7 on London and Yorkshire who have 15 Featured Articles each. Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still lacking GAs and falls behind London by 6 (we have 14, London 20). If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

Member News

There are 45 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. One new member has joined the project this month:

• Kieran5676 on 30th April and is interested in south Manchester.

The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A rather large "thank you" goes out to all the editors who edited article related to Greater Manchester, or who edit the project itself.

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

New Aims

Last month the project set new and ambitious aims for itself:

• Obtain FA status for Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain FL status for List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA and/or FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain GA status for one third (1/3) of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.

It took us four months to get our last aims completed, why not try and see if these can be done in less time than before! All input is welcome but if anyone has any books or photos etc specifically related to these topics, they would be extra-specially welcome.

Most of the articles covered by our new aims haven't experienced much activity in the past month, if you thing you can help improve an article be bold and get editing. Articles such as List of people from Bolton and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.

Our highest priority article is of course Greater Manchester, there is a peer review from March with issues still to be addressed before it can be put forward as a featured article candidate. Salford is another top priority article because it's the county's second city; it's under gone a lot of editing but still has a way to go before it reaches GA. Also active this month has been the City of Salford article – part of our aim to get 1/3 of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs to GA &ndash.

Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Reminders...

• Images!
  The rate of good images has gone up since it was mentioned in the last issue, but more images are needed! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Assessment
  When this section was written, there was only 1 unassessed article! This task has probably already been finished, but it might now have. To check click here.

• Last but not Least...
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention. Please take a look and see what you can do.