User talk:Lewis Hulbert/Archive/2015

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) 04:55, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

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  17:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Introducing the new WikiProject Hampshire!
Greetings!

I am happy to introduce you to the new WikiProject Hampshire! The newly designed WikiProject features automatically updated work lists, article quality class predictions, and a feed that tracks discussions on the 2,690 talk pages tagged by the WikiProject. Our hope is that these new tools will help you as a Wikipedia editor interested in Hampshire.
 * Browse the new WikiProject page
 * Become a member today! – members have access to an opt-in notification system

Hope to see you join! Harej (talk) 20:42, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

POTD notification
Hi Lewis,

Just to let you know, the Featured Picture File:Church of All Saints, Odiham 1.JPG is due to make an appearance as Picture of the Day on August 26, 2015. If you get a chance, you can check and improve the caption at Template:POTD/2015-08-26. Thank you for all of your contributions! — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:11, 6 August 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)

Five minutes to help make WikiProjects better
Hello!

First, on behalf of WikiProject X, thank you for trying out the WikiProject X pilot projects. I would like to get some anonymous feedback from you on your experience using the new WikiProject layout and tools. This way, we will know what we did right, and if we did something horribly wrong, we can try to fix it. This feedback won't be associated with your username, so please be completely honest. We are determined to improve the experience of Wikipedians, and your feedback helps us with that. (You are also welcome to leave non-anonymous feedback at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject X.)

Please complete the survey here. The survey has two parts: the first part asks for your username, while the second part contains the survey questions. These two parts are stored separately, so your username will not be associated with your feedback. There are only nine questions and it should not take very long to complete. Once you complete the survey I will leave a handwritten note on your talk page as a token of my appreciation.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, Harej (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello! Just sending a reminder to complete the survey linked above. (This is the only reminder I'll send, I promise.) Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions. Thank you!!! Harej (talk) 22:17, 15 September 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!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:04, 24 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)