User talk:Danger/Archive 14

WikiCup 2014 August newsletter
The final of the 2014 WikiCup begins in a few short minutes! Our eight finalists are listed below, along with their placement in Round 4:


 * , a WikiCup newcomer, finished top of Pool A and was the round's highest scorer. Godot is a featured picture specialist, claiming large numbers of points due to high-quality scans of historical documents, especially banknotes.
 * 1) is a WikiCup veteran, having been a finalist every year since 2010. In the semi-final, he was Pool B's highest scorer. Cas's points primarily come from articles on the natural sciences.
 * 2) was Pool A's runner-up. Czar's points come mostly from content related to independent video games, including both articles and topics.
 * 3) was Pool B's runner-up. Another featured picture specialist, many of Adam's points come from the restoration of historical media. He has been a WikiCup finalist twice before.
 * 4) won the WikiCup in 2012 and 2013, and enters this final as the first wildcard. She focuses on biology-related articles, and has worked on several high-importance articles.
 * 5) is the second wildcard. George's points come primarily from meteorology-related articles. This year and last year, George was the first person in the competition to score.
 * , the third wildcard, was the 2010 champion and a finalist last year. His writes mostly on military history, especially naval history.
 * , the fourth and final wildcard, has participated in previous WikiCups, but not reached any finals. Bloom's points are mostly thanks to did you knows, featured lists and good articles related to sport and national symbols.

We say goodbye to this year's semi-finalists. ,, , , , and  have all performed well to reach this stage of the competition, and we hope they will all be joining us again next year.

There are two upcoming competitions unrelated to the WikiCup which may be of interest to those who receive this newsletter. The Stub Contest will run through September, and revolves around expanding stub articles, especially high-importance or old stubs. In addition, a proposal has been made for a new competition, the GA Cup, which the organisers plan to run next year. This competition is based on the WikiCup and aims to reduce the good article review backlog.

There is now a thread for brainstorming on how next year's WikiCup competition should work. Please come along and share your thoughts- What works? What doesn't work? What needs changing? Signups for next year's competition will be open soon; we will be in touch. If, at this stage of the competition, you are keen to help the with the WikiCup, please do what you can to participate in review processes. Our finalists will find things much easier if the backlogs at good article candidates, featured article candidates, featured picture candidates and the rest are kept at a minimum. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. and 22:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Thank you! Aye, very very busy. :-) Finally doing science. I miss you all, and may yet return for an Ucucha-esque project on some unloved organism, but likely not for a long while. Take care yourself! Danger High voltage! 15:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:James Randi Educational Foundation
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:James Randi Educational Foundation. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014 September newsletter
In one month's time, we will know our WikiCup 2014 champion. Newcomer has taken a strong lead with a featured list (historical coats of arms of the U.S. states from 1876) and a raft of featured pictures. Reigning champion is in second place with a number of high-importance biology articles, including new FA Isopoda and new GA least weasel. , who is in his fifth WikiCup final, is in third, with featured articles Pictor and Epacris impressa.

Signups for the 2015 WikiCup are open. All Wikipedians, new and experienced, are warmly invited to sign up for the competition. Wikipedians interested in friendly competition may also like to sign up for the GA Cup, a new WikiCup-inspired competition which revolves around completing good article reviews. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. and 22:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Tom Ridge
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Tom Ridge. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — Legobot (talk) 00:00, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014: The results
The 2014 WikiCup champion is, who flew the flag of the Smithsonian Institution. This was Godot13's first WikiCup competition and, over the 10 months of the competition, he has produced (among other contributions) two featured lists and an incredible 292 featured pictures, including architectural photographs and scans of historical documents. , 2012 and 2013 WikiCup champion, came in second, having written a large number of biology-related articles. , WikiCup finalist every year since 2010, finished in third.

A full list of our prize-winners follows:


 * wins the prize for first place and the FP prize for 181 featured pictures in the final round.
 * wins the prize for second place and the DYK prize for 65 did you knows in the final round.
 * wins the prize for third place and the FA prize for four featured articles in the final round.
 * wins the prize for fourth place
 * wins a final 8 prize.
 * wins a final 8 prize.
 * wins a final 8 prize.
 * wins the GA prize for 27 good articles in round 2 and the review prize for 28 good article reviews in round 1.
 * wins the FL prize for three featured lists in round 2.
 * wins the FPo prize his work on featured portals.
 * wins the topic prize for a nine-article featured topic in round 3.
 * wins the news prize for 28 in the news articles in round 3.

Congratulations to everyone who has been successful in this year's WikiCup, whether you made it to the final rounds or not, and a particular congratulations to the newcomers to the WikiCup who have participated this year. We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2014 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. and 22:51, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Tib Bsm on Bon/ RfC
If you have a spare moment, can I draw your attention to the "Bon" and "RfC" sections on the Tib Bsm talk page of WP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Tibetan_Buddhism). There's been a hassle going on there for over a month. Moonsell (talk) 10:26, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I feel for you, but honestly, my life is so much better without Wikipedia in it. Happy editing. Danger High voltage! 19:09, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 is just around the corner...
Hello everyone, and may we wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2015 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. We have a few important announcements concerning the future of the WikiCup.


 * We would like to announce that Josh (J Milburn) and Ed (The ed17), who have been WikiCup judges since 2009 and 2010 respectively, are stepping down. This decision has been made for a number of reasons, but the main one is time. Both Josh and Ed have found that, over the previous year, they have been unable to devote the time necessary to the WikiCup, and it is not likely that they will be able to do this in the near future. Furthermore, new people at the helm can only help to invigorate the WikiCup and keep it dynamic. Josh and Ed will still be around, and will likely be participating in the Cup this following year as competitors, which is where both started out.
 * In a similar vein, we hope you will all join us in welcoming Jason (Sturmvogel 66) and Christine (Figureskatingfan), who are joining Brian (Miyagawa) to form the 2015 WikiCup judging team. Jason is a WikiCup veteran, having won in 2010 and finishing in fifth this year. Christine has participated in two WikiCups, reaching the semi-finals in both, and is responsible for the GA Cup, which she now co-runs.
 * The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. While it may be impossible to please everyone, the judges will make every effort to ensure that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.

If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn (talk), The ed17 (talk), Miyagawa (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Global account
Hi Danger! As a Steward I'm involved in the upcoming unification of all accounts organized by the Wikimedia Foundation (see m:Single User Login finalisation announcement). By looking at your account, I realized that you don't have a global account yet. In order to secure your name, I recommend you to create such account on your own by submitting your password on Special:MergeAccount and unifying your local accounts. If you have any problems with doing that or further questions, please don't hesitate to ping me with. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 launch newsletter
Round one of the 2015 WikiCup has begun! So far we've had around 80 signups, which close on February 5. If you have not already signed up and want to do so, then you can add your name here. There have been changes to to several of the points scores for various categories, and the addition of Peer Reviews for the first time. These will work in the same manner as Good Article Reviews, and all of the changes are summarised here.

Remember that only the top 64 scoring competitors will make it through to the second round, and one of the new changes this year is that all scores must be claimed within two weeks of an article's promotion or appearance, so don't forget to add them to your submissions pages! If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, and you hope to get it promoted before the end of the round, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. However, please remember to continue to offer reviews at GAN, FAC and all the other pages that require them to prevent any backlogs which could otherwise be caused by the Cup. As ever, questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup and the judges are reachable on their talk pages. Good luck! , and

If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 March newsletter
That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. 64 competitors made it into this round, and are now broken into eight groups of eight. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups. Round 1 saw some interesting work on some very important articles, with the round leader owing most of his 622 points scored to a Featured Article on the 2001 film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which qualified for a times-two multiplier. This is a higher score than in previous years, as had 500 points in 2014 at the end of round 1, and our very own judge,  led round 1 with 601 points in 2013.

In addition to Freikorp's work, some other important articles and pictures were improved during round one, here's a snapshot of a few of them:
 * took Bumblebee, a level-4 vital article, to Good Article;
 * worked-up the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 article, also to Good Article status;
 * developed an extremely timely article to Good Article, taking Magna Carta there some 800 years after it was first sealed;
 * And last but not least, worked up a number of Featured Pictures during round 1, including the 1948 one Deutsche Mark (pictured right), receiving the maximum bonus due to the number of Wikis that the related article appears in.

You may also wish to know that The Core Contest is running through the month of March. Head there for further details - they even have actual prizes!

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. , and

Thanks for your assistance! Miyagawa (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiCup.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:54, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 March newsletter
That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. 64 competitors made it into this round, and are now broken into eight groups of eight. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups. Round 1 saw some interesting work on some very important articles, with the round leader owing most of his 622 points scored to a Featured Article on the 2001 film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within which qualified for a times-two multiplier. This is a higher score than in previous years, as had 500 points in 2014 at the end of round 1, and our very own judge,  led round 1 with 601 points in 2013.

In addition to Freikorp's work, some other important articles and pictures were improved during round one, here's a snapshot of a few of them:
 * took Bumblebee, a level-4 vital article, to Good Article;
 * worked-up the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 article, also to Good Article status;
 * developed an extremely timely article to Good Article, taking Magna Carta there some 800 years after it was first sealed;
 * And last but not least, worked up a number of Featured Pictures during round 1, including the 1948 one Deutsche Mark (pictured right), receiving the maximum bonus due to the number of Wikis that the related article appears in.

You may also wish to know that The Core Contest is running through the month of March. Head there for further details - they even have actual prizes!

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. , and

Thanks for your assistance! Miyagawa (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiCup.

(Opt-out Instructions) This message was send by through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:55, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Language-population update project
Hi. The 18th edition of Ethnologue just came out, and if we divide up our language articles among us, it won't take long to update them. I would appreciate it if you could help out, even if it's just a few articles (5,000 articles is a lot for just me), but I won't be insulted if you delete this request.

A largely complete list of articles to be updated is at Category:Language articles citing Ethnologue 17. The priority articles are in Category:Language articles with old Ethnologue 17 speaker data. These are the 10% that have population figures at least 25 years old.

Probably 90% of the time, Ethnologue has not changed their figures between the 17th and 18th editions, so all we need to do is change "e17" to "e18" in the reference (ref) field of the language info box. That will change the citation for the artcle to the current edition. Please put the data in the proper fields, or the info box will flag it as needing editorial review. The other relevant fields are "speakers" (the number of native speakers in all countries), "date" (the date of the reference or census that Ethnologue uses, not the date of Ethnologue!), and sometimes "speakers2". Our convention has been to enter e.g. "1990 census" when a census is used, as other data can be much older than the publication date. Sometimes a citation elsewhere in the article depends on the e17 entry, in which case you will need to change "name=e17" to "name=e18" in the reference tag (assuming the 18th edition still supports the cited claim).

Remember, we want the *total* number of native speakers, which is often not the first figure given by Ethnologue. Sometimes the data is too incompatible to add together (e.g. a figure from the 1950s for one country, and a figure from 2006 for another), in which case it should be presented that way. That's one use for the "speakers2" field. If you're not sure, just ask, or skip that article.

Data should not be displayed with more than two, or at most three, significant figures. Sometimes it should be rounded off to just one significant figure, e.g. when some of the component data used by Ethnologue has been approximated with one figure (200,000, 3 million, etc.) and the other data has greater precision. For example, a figure of 200,000 for one country and 4,230 for another is really just 200,000 in total, as the 4,230 is within the margin of rounding off in the 200,000. If you want to retain the spurious precision of the number in Ethnologue, you might want to use the sigfig template. (First parameter in this template is for the data, second is for the number of figures to round it off to.)

Dates will often need to be a range of all the country data in the Ethnologue article. When entering the date range, I often ignore dates from countries that have only a few percent of the population, as often 10% or so of the population isn't even separately listed by Ethnologue and so is undated anyway.

If Ethnologue does not provide a date for the bulk of the population, just enter "no date" in the date field. But if the population figure is undated, and hasn't changed between the 17th & 18th editions of Ethnologue, please leave the ref field set to "e17", and maybe add a comment to keep it so that other editors don't change it. In cases like this, the edition of Ethnologue that the data first appeared in may be our only indication of how old it is. We still cite the 14th edition in a couple dozen articles, so our readers can see that the data is getting old.

The articles in the categories linked above are over 90% of the job. There are probably also articles that do not currently cite Ethnologue, but which we might want to update with the 18th edition. I'll need to generate another category to capture those, probably after most of the Ethnologue 17 citations are taken care of.

Jump in at the WP:LANG talk page if you have any comments or concerns. Thanks for any help you can give!

— kwami (talk) 02:42, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Reference for The Darkness
I'm totally intimidated by the code needed to post on Wikipedia and unfortunately don't have time to teach myself how to use it. So I was told I did not have a proper reference to add the new drummer to The Darkness page. Is a tweet from The Darkness itself a proper reference? I think it should be, if it's a verified twitter account. I wanted to add this to The Darkness page but guess I don't know how. https://twitter.com/thedarkness/status/591941391154044928

108.18.240.25 (talk) 18:59, 25 April 2015 (UTC)HannaB

WikiCup 2015 May newsletter
The second round one has all wrapped up, and round three has now begun! Congratulations to the 34 contestants who have made it through, but well done and thank you to all contestants who took part in our second round. Leading the way overall was in Group B with a total of 777 points for a variety of contributions including Good Articles on Corona Borealis and Microscopium - both of which received the maximum bonus. Special credit must be given to a number of high importance articles improved during the second round.
 * was one of several users who worked on improving Ulysses S. Grant. Remember, you do not need to work on an article on your own - as long as each person has completed significant work on the article during 2015, multiple competitors can claim the same article.
 * took Dragonfly to Good Article for a 3x bonus - and if that wasn't enough, they also took Damselfly there as well for a 2x bonus.
 * worked up Alexander Hamilton to Good Article for the maximum bonus. Hamilton was one of the founding fathers of the United States and is a level 4 vital article.

The points varied across groups, with the lowest score required to gain automatic qualification was 68 in Group A - meanwhile the second place score in Group H was 404, which would have been high enough to win all but one of the other Groups! As well as the top two of each group automatically going through to the third round, a minimum score of 55 was required for a wildcard competitor to go through. We had a three-way tie at 55 points and all three have qualified for the next round, in the spirit of fairness. The third round ends on June 28, with the top two in each group progressing automatically while the remaining 16 highest scorers across all four groups go through as wildcards. Good luck to all competitors for the third round! , and  16:30, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 September newsletter
The finals for the 2015 Wikicup has now begun! Congrats to the 8 contestants who have survived to the finals, and well done and thanks to everyone who took part in rounds 3 and 4.

In round 3, we had a three-way tie for qualification among the wildcard contestants, so we had 34 competitors. The leader was by far in Group B, who earned 1496 points. Although 913 of these points were bonus points, he submitted 15 articles in the DYK category. Second place overall was at 864 points, who although submitted just 2 FAs for 400 points, earned double that amount for those articles in bonus points. Everyone who moved forward to Round 4 earned at least 100 points.

The scores required to move onto the semifinals were impressive; the lowest scorer to move onto the finals was 407, making this year's Wikicup as competitive as it's always been. Our finalists, ordered by round 4 score, are:


 * , who is competing in his sixth consecutive Wikicup final, again finished the round in first place, with an impressive 1666 points in Pool B. Casliber writes about the natural sciences, including ornithology, botany and astronomy.  A large bulk of his points this round were bonus points.
 * , second place both in Pool B and overall, earned the bulk of his points with FPs, mostly depicting currency.
 * , first in Pool A, came in third. His specialty is natural science articles; in Round 4, he mostly submitted articles about insects and botany.  Five out of the six of the GAs he submitted were level-4 vital articles.
 * , second in Pool A, took fourth overall. He tends to focus on articles about cricket and military history, specifically the 1640s First English Civil War.
 * , from Pool A, was our highest-scoring wildcard. West Virginia tends to focus on articles about the history of (what for it!) the U.S. state of West Virginia.
 * , from Pool A, likes to work on articles about British geography and places. Most of his points this round were earned from two impressive accomplishments: a GT about Scheduled monuments in Somerset and a FT about English Heritage properties in Somerset.
 * , from Pool B, came in seventh overall. RO earned the majority of her points from GARs and PRs, many of which were earned in the final hours of the round.
 * , also from Pool B, who was competing with RO for the final two spots in the final hours, takes the race for most GARs and PRs—48.

The intense competition between RO and Calvin999 will continue into the finals. They're both eligible for the Newcomers Trophy, given for the first time in the Wikicup; whoever makes the most points will win it.

Good luck to the finalists; the judges are sure that the competition will be fierce!

, and  11:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Seeking an Adopt-a-User
Hello ? (am not sure about the name...) & thank you so very much for this much-needed informative message on my Talk Page.

I am a linguist with great interest in many languages & lately, I've contributed to certain entries yet, my contributions have been "reverted" (which, for the life of me, I can't/don't understand). I would be GREATLY APPRECIATIVE to anyone who could explain this to me (what I've apparently done wrong-a most frustrating thing to me...!) & perhaps help me grow with Wikipedia to become its much more skilled/competent/experienced user (in terms of its correct use) so as to be able to contribute more information as well as more often, with no "glitches"!

Thank you,

2602:301:7742:8490:300B:A75D:6941:1E45 (talk) 07:57, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015: The results
WikiCup 2015 is now in the books! Congrats to our finalists and winners, and to everyone who took part in this year's competition.

This year's results were an exact replica of last year's competition. For the second year in a row, the 2015 WikiCup champion is. All of his points were earned for an impressive 253 featured pictures and their associated bonus points (5060 and 1695, respectively). His entries constituted scans of currency from all over the world and scans of medallions awarded to participants of the U.S. Space program. came in second place; she earned by far the most bonus points (4082), for 4 featured articles, 15 good articles, and 147 DYKs, mostly about in her field of expertise, natural science. , a finalist every year since 2010, came in third, with 2379 points.

Our newcomer award, presented to the best-performing new competitor in the WikiCup, goes to. Everyone should be very proud of the work they accomplished. We will announce our other award winners soon.

A full list of our award winners are:


 * wins the prize for first place and the FP prize for 330 featured pictures in the final round.
 * wins the prize for second place and the DYK prize for 160 did you knows in the final round (310 in all rounds).
 * wins the prize for third place and the FA prize for 26 featured articles in all rounds.
 * wins the prize for fourth place
 * wins a final 8 prize.
 * wins a final 8 prize.
 * wins a final 8 prize and the FL prize for 11 featured lists.
 * wins the most prizes: a final 8 prize, the GA prize for 41 good articles, and the topic prize for a 13-article good topic and an 8-article featured topic, both in round 3.
 * wins the news prize for the most news articles in round 3.

We warmly invite all of you to sign up for next year's competition. Discussions and polls concerning potential rules changes are also open, and all are welcome to participate. The WikiCup judges will be back in touch over the coming months, and we hope to see you all in the 2016 competition. Until then, it only remains to once again congratulate our worthy winners, and thank all participants for their involvement! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

, and  18:39, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 is just around the corner...
Hello everyone, and we would like to wish you all a happy holiday season. As you will probably already know, the 2016 WikiCup begins in the new year; there is still time to sign up. There are some changes we'd like to announce before the competition begins.

After two years of serving as WikiCup judge, User:Miyagawa has stepped down as judge. He deserves great thanks and recognition for his dedication and hard work, and for providing necessary transition for a new group of judges in last year's Cup. Joining Christine (User:Figureskatingfan) and Jason (User:Sturmvogel 66) is Andrew (User:Godot13), a very successful WikiCup competitor and expert in Featured Pictures; he won the two previous competitions. This is a strong judging team, and we anticipate lots of enjoyment and good work coming from our 2016 competitors.

We would also like to announce one change in how this year's WikiCup will be run. In the spirit of sportsmanship, Godot13 and Cwmhiraeth have chosen to limit their participation. See here for the announcement and a complete explanation of why. They and the judges feel that it will make for a more exciting, enjoyable, and productive competition.

The discussions/polls concerning the next competition's rules will be closed soon, and rules changes will be made clear on WikiCup/Scoring and talk pages. The judges are committed to not repeating the confusion that occurred last year and to ensuring that the new rules are both fair and in the best interests of the competition, which is, first and foremost, about improving Wikipedia.

If you have any questions or concerns, the judges can be reached on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, on their talk pages, or by email. We hope you will all join us in trying to make the 2015 WikiCup the most productive and enjoyable yet. You are receiving this message because you are listed on WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Figureskatingfan (talk), and Godot13 (talk).--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016: Game On!
We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.

We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016: Game On!
We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.

We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015 March newsletter


That's it, the first round is done, sign-ups are closed and we're into round 2. Forty-seven competitors move into this round (a bit shy of the expected 64), and we are roughly broken into eight groups of six. The top two of each group will go through to round 3, and then the top scoring 16 "wildcards" across all groups.

Twenty-two Good Articles were submitted, including three by, and two each by , , , and. Twenty-one Featured Pictures were claimed, including 17 by (the Round 1 high scorer). Thirty-one contestants saw their DYKs appear on the main page, with a commanding lead (28) by. Twenty-nine participants conducted GA reviews with completing nine.

If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Thanks to everyone for participating, and good luck to those moving into round 2. ,, and --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 March newsletter (update)
Along with getting the year wrong in the newsletter that went out earlier this week, we did not mention (as the bot did not report) that claimed the first Featured Article Persoonia terminalis of the 2016 Wikicup. ,, and .--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:05, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 May newsletter


Round 2 is over and 35 competitors have moved on to Round 3.

Round 2 saw three FAs (two by and one by ), four Featured Lists (with three by ), and 53 Good Articles (six by  and five each by, , and ). Eleven Featured Pictures were promoted (six by and five by ). One Featured Portal, Featured Topic and Good Topic were also promoted. The DYK base point total was 1,135. scored 265 base points, while and  each scored 150 base points. Eleven ITN were promoted and 131 Good Article Reviews were conducted with completing a staggering 61 reviews. Two contestants, and, broke the 700 point mark for Round 2.

If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Thanks to everyone for participating, and good luck to those moving into round 2. ,, and -- MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016 November newsletter: Final results
The final round of the 2016 WikiCup is over. Congratulations to the 2016 WikiCup top three finalists:
 * First Place -
 * Second Place -
 * Third Place -

In addition to recognizing the achievements of the top finishers and everyone who worked hard to make it to the final round, we also want to recognize those participants who were most productive in each of the WikiCup scoring categories:
 * Featured Article – Cas Liber (actually a three-way tie with themselves for two FAs in each of R2, R3, and R5).
 * Good Article – MPJ-DK had 14 GAs promoted in R3.
 * Featured List – produced 2 FLs in R2
 * Featured Pictures – Adam Cuerden restored 18 images to FP status in R4.
 * Featured Portal – produced the only FPO of the Cup in R2.
 * Featured Topic – and Calvin were each responsible for one FT in R3 and R2, respectively.
 * Good Topic – MPJ-DK created a GT with 9 GAs in R5.
 * Did You Know – MPJ-DK put 53 DYKs on the main page in R4.
 * In The News – and, each with 5 ITN, both in R4.
 * Good Article Review – MPJ-DK completed 61 GARs in R2.

Over the course of the 2016 WikiCup the following content was added to Wikipedia (only reporting on fixed value categories): 17 Featured Articles, 183 Good Articles, 8 Featured Lists, 87 Featured Pictures, 40 In The News, and 321 Good Article Reviews. Thank you to all the competitors for your hard work and what you have done to improve Wikipedia.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:52, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

We will open up a discussion for comments on process and scoring in a few days. The 2017 WikiCup is just around the corner! Many thanks from all the judges. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. ,, and

WikiProject Good Articles's 2016-2017 GA Cup
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup December newsletter: WikiCup 2017
On 1 January 2017, WikiCup 2017 (the 10th Annual WikiCup) will begin. This year we are trying something a little different – monetary prizes.

For the WC2017 the prizes will be as follows (amounts are based in US$ and will be awarded in the form of an online Amazon gift certificate):
 * First place – $200
 * Second & Third place – $50 each
 * Category prizes – $25 per category (which will be limited to FA, FL, FP, GA, and DYK for 2017). Winning a category prize does not require making it to the final round.

Note: Monetary prizes are a one-year experiment for 2017 and may or may not be continued in the future. In order to be eligible to receive any of the prizes above, the competing Wikipedia account must have a valid/active email address. After two years as a WikiCup judge, Figureskatingfan is stepping down. We thank her for her contributions as a WikiCup judge. We are pleased to announce that our newest judge is two-time WikiCup champion Cwmhiraeth.

The judges for the 2017 WikiCup are, , and.

Signups are open now and will remain open until 5 February 2017. You can sign up here.

If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:02, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Request for Comments on use of certain files not copyrighted in the US
Hello,

There is an ongoing discussion about the use of files on Wikipedia that are not protected by copyright in the US because there is no copyright relations between the US and the country of publication. You commented in a 2012 discussion on the same topic that resulted in no consensus. You are invited to share your views in the ongoing discussion. AHeneen (talk) 21:16, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

March 2017 WikiCup newsletter
And so ends the first round of the competition, with 4 points required to qualify for round 2. It would have been 5 points, but when a late entrant was permitted to join the contest in February, a promise was made that his inclusion would not result in the exclusion of any other competitor. To achieve this, the six entrants that had the lowest positive score of 4 points have been added to the 64 people who otherwise would have qualified. As a result, some of the groups have nine contestants rather than eight. Our top four scorers in round 1 were:


 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Cas Liber, last year's winner, led the field with two featured articles on birds and a total score of 674.
 * 🇪🇺 Iry-Hor, a WikiCup newcomer, came next with a featured article, a good article and a tally of 282 bonus points for a score of 517. All these points came from the article Nyuserre Ini, an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh,
 * 🇯🇵 1989, another WikiCup newcomer, was in joint third place at 240. 1989 has claimed points for two featured lists and one good article relating to anime and comedy series, all of which were awarded bonus points.
 * Peacemaker67 shared third place with five good articles and thirteen good article reviews, mostly on naval vessels. He is also new to the competition.

The largest number of DYKs have been submitted by Vivvt and The C of E, who each claimed for seven, and MBlaze Lightning achieved eight articles at ITN. Carbrera and Peacemaker67 each claimed for five GAs and Krishna Chaitanya Velaga was well out in front for GARs, having reviewed 32. No featured pictures, featured topics or good topics yet, but we have achieved three featured articles and a splendid total of fifty good articles.

So, on to the second round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 1 but before the start of round 2 can be claimed in round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is a good article candidate, a featured process, or anything else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

May 2017 WikiCup newsletter
The second round of the competition has now closed, with just under 100 points being required to qualify for round 3. YellowEvan just scraped into the next round with 98 points but we have to say goodbye to the thirty or so competitors who didn't achieve this threshold; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Our top scorers in round 2 were:


 * 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Cas Liber, led the field with five featured articles, four on birds and one on astronomy, and a total score of 2049, half of which came from bonus points.
 * 🇯🇵 1989 was in second place with 826 points, 466 of which were bonus points. 1989 has claimed points mostly relating to anime and Japanese-related articles.
 * Peacemaker67 took third place with two FAs, one GA and seven GARs, mostly on naval vessels or military personnel, scoring 543 points.
 * Other contestants who scored over 400 points were Freikorp, Carbrera, and Czar. Of course all these points are now wiped out and the 32 remaining contestants start again from zero in round 3.

Vivvt submitted the largest number of DYKs (30), and MBlaze Lightning achieved 13 articles at ITN. Carbrera claimed for 11 GAs and Argento Surfer performed the most GARs, having reviewed 11. So far we have achieved 38 featured articles and a splendid 132 good articles. Commendably, 279 GARs have been achieved so far, more than double the number of GAs.

So, on to the third round. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 2 but before the start of round 3 can be claimed in round 3. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points equally.

If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article nominations, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to help keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 13:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 July newsletter
The third round of the competition has finished in a flurry of last minute activity, with 288 points being required to qualify for round 4. It was a hotly competitive round with all but four of the contestants exceeding the 106 points that was necessary to proceed to round 4 last year. Coemgenus and Freikorp tied on 288, and both have been allowed to proceed, so round 4 now has one pool of eight competitors and one of nine.

Round 3 saw the achievement of a 26-topic Featured topic by MPJ-DK as well as 5 featured lists and 13 featured articles. PanagiotisZois and SounderBruce achieved their first ever featured articles. Carbrera led the GA score with 10, Tachs achieved 17 DYKs and MBlaze Lightning 10 In the news items. There were 167 DYKs, 93 GARs and 82 GAs overall, this last figure being higher than the number of GAs in round 2, when twice as many people were taking part. Even though contestants performed more GARs than they achieved GAs, there was still some frustration at the length of time taken to get articles reviewed.

As we start round 4, we say goodbye to the fifteen or so competitors who didn't quite make it; thank you for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 3 but before the start of round 4 can be claimed in round 4. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them (some people have fallen foul of this rule and the points have been removed).

If you are concerned that your nomination, whether it be for a good article, a featured process, or anything else, will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 05:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017 September newsletter
Round 4 of the WikiCup has ended and we move forward into the final round. In round 4, a total of 12 FAs, 3 FLs, 44 GAs, 3 FLs, 79 DYKs, 1 ITN and 42 GARs was achieved, with no FPs or FTs this time. Congratulations to Peacemaker67 on the Royal Yugoslav Navy Good Topic of 36 items, and the 12 featured articles achieved by Cas Liber (5), Vanamonde93 (3), Peacemaker67 (2), Adityavagarwal (1) and 12george1 (1). With a FA scoring 200 points, and bonus points available on top of this, FAs are likely to feature heavily in the final round. Meanwhile Yellow Evan, a typhoon specialist, was contributing 12 DYKs and 10 GAs, while Adityavagarwal and Freikorp topped the GAR list with 8 reviews each. As we enter the final round, we are down to eight contestants, and we would like to thank those of you who have been eliminated for the useful contributions you have made to the Cup and Wikipedia. The lowest score needed to reach round 5 was 305, and I think we can expect a highly competitive final round.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on WikiCup/Reviews Needed. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to reduce the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck, and let the best man (or woman) win! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13, Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth 06:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)