User talk:Skarmory/Newsletters and mass messages 1

Welcome to the 2021 WikiCup!
Happy New Year and Happy New WikiCup! The competition begins today and all article creators, expanders, improvers and reviewers are welcome to take part. If you have already signed up, your submissions page can be found here. If you have not yet signed up, you can add your name here and the judges will set up your submissions page. Any questions on the rules or on anything else should be directed to one of the judges, or posted to the WikiCup talk page. Signups will close at the end of January, and the first round will end on 26 February; the 64 highest scorers at that time will move on to round 2. We thank Vanamonde93 and Godot13, who have retired as judges, and we thank them for their past dedication. The judges for the WikiCup this year are and. Good luck! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

48th issue of Hurricane Herald newsletter
 Light and Dark2000  🌀 (talk) 19:46, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:AFC Helper News
Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest. Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
 * The template db-afc-move has been created - this template is similar to db-move when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

New Page Patrol newsletter August 2022
Hello ,

After the last newsletter (No.28, June 2022), the backlog declined another 1,000 to 13,000 in the last week of June. Then the July backlog drive began, during which 9,900 articles were reviewed and the backlog fell by 4,500 to just under 8,500 (these numbers illustrate how many new articles regularly flow into the queue). Thanks go to the coordinators and, as well as all the nearly 100 participants. Congratulations to who led with 880 points. See this page for further details.
 * Backlog status

Unfortunately, most of the decline happened in the first half of the month, and the backlog has already risen to 9,600. Understandably, it seems many backlog drive participants are taking a break from reviewing and unfortunately, we are not even keeping up with the inflow let alone driving it lower. We need the other 600 reviewers to do more! Please try to do at least one a day.


 * Coordination: and  have taken on some of the coordination tasks. Please let them know if you are interested in helping out.  will be handling recognition, and will be retroactively awarding the annual barnstars that have not been issued for a few years.


 * Open letter to the WMF: The Page Curation software needs urgent attention. There are dozens of bug fixes and enhancements that are stalled (listed at Suggested improvements). We have written a letter to be sent to the WMF and we encourage as many patrollers as possible to sign it here. We are also in negotiation with the Board of Trustees to press for assistance. Better software will make the active reviewers we have more productive.


 * TIP - Reviewing by subject: Reviewers who prefer to patrol new pages by their most familiar subjects can do so from the regularly updated sorted topic list.


 * New reviewers: The NPP School is being underused. The learning curve for NPP is quite steep, but a detailed and easy-to-read tutorial exists, and the Curation Tool's many features are fully described and illustrated on the updated page here.


 * Reminders
 * Consider staying informed on project issues by putting the project discussion page on your watchlist.
 * If you have noticed a user with a good understanding of Wikipedia notability and deletion, suggest they help the effort by placing on their talk page.
 * If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process and its software.
 * To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:25, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

WikiCup 2023 March newsletter
{{collapse|So ends the first round of the 2023 WikiCup. Everyone with a positive score moved on to Round 2, with 54 contestants qualifying. The top scorers in Round 1 were:


 * {{flagicon image|Royal standard of England (1406–1603).svg|link=Dual monarchy of England and France}} Unlimitedlead with 1205 points, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with two featured articles on historical figures and several featured article candidate reviews.
 * {{flagicon|New York (state)}} Epicgenius was in second place with 789 points; a seasoned WikiCup competitor he specialises in buildings and locations in New York.
 * {{flagicon|Germany}} FrB.TG was in third place with 625 points, garnered from a featured article on a filmmaker which qualified for an impressive number of bonus points.
 * {{flagicon|USA}} TheJoebro64, another WikiCup newcomer, came next with 600 points gained from two featured articles on video games.
 * {{flagicon|Byzantine Empire}} Iazyges was in fifth place with 532 points, from two featured articles on classical history.

The top sixteen contestants at the end of Round 1 had all scored over 300 points; these included {{flagicon|Berkelland}} LunaEatsTuna, {{flagicon image|Flag of Mars.svg|link=Mars}} Thebiguglyalien, {{flagicon image|Transgender Pride flag.svg|link=Transgender}} Sammi Brie, {{flagicon|New England}} Trainsandotherthings, {{flagicon|ENG}} Lee Vilenski, {{flagicon|Indonesia}} Juxlos, {{flagicon image|Flag of Earth.svg|link=Earth}} Unexpectedlydian, {{flagicon|Washington}} SounderBruce, {{flagicon|Wales}} Kosack, {{flagicon image|Flag_of_Esperanto.svg|link=Esperanto}} BennyOnTheLoose and {{flagicon|Chicago}} PCN02WPS. It was a high-scoring start to the competition.

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start again from scratch. The first round finished on February 26. Remember that any content promoted after that date but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Some contestants made claims before the new submissions pages were set up, and they will need to resubmit 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. 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 Needed.

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. Sturmvogel 66 and Cwmhiraeth. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:37, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

New Pages Patrol newsletter January 2023
Hello , The October drive reduced the backlog from 9,700 to an amazing 0! Congratulations to who led with 2084 points. See this page for further details. The queue is steadily rising again and is approaching 2,000. It would be great if <2,000 were the “new normal”. Please continue to help out even if it's only for a few or even one patrol a day. won the 2022 cup for 28,302 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 80/day. There was one Gold Award (5000+ reviews), 11 Silver (2000+), 28 Iron (360+) and 39 more for the 100+ barnstar. led again for the 4th year by clearing 49,294 redirects. For the full details see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone!
 * Backlog
 * 2022 Awards

Minimum deletion time: The previous WP:NPP guideline was to wait 15 minutes before tagging for deletion (including draftification and WP:BLAR). Due to complaints, a consensus decided to raise the time to 1 hour. To illustrate this, very new pages in the feed are now highlighted in red. (As always, this is not applicable to attack pages, copyvios, vandalism, etc.)

New draftify script: In response to feedback from AFC, the The Move to Draft script now provides a choice of set messages that also link the creator to a new, friendly explanation page. The script also warns reviewers if the creator is probably still developing the article. The former script is no longer maintained. Please edit your edit your common.js or vector.js file from  to  '''

Redirects: Some of our redirect reviewers have reduced their activity and the backlog is up to 9,000+ (two months deep). If you are interested in this distinctly different task and need any help, see this guide, this checklist, and spend some time at WP:RFD.

Discussions with the WMF The PageTriage open letter signed by 444 users is bearing fruit. The Growth Team has assigned some software engineers to work on PageTriage, the software that powers the NewPagesFeed and the Page Curation toolbar. WMF has submitted dozens of patches in the last few weeks to modernize PageTriage's code, which will make it easier to write patches in the future. This work is helpful but is not very visible to the end user. For patches visible to the end user, volunteers such as and  have been writing patches for bug reports and feature requests. The Growth Team also had a video conference with the NPP coordinators to discuss revamping the landing pages that new users see.


 * Reminders
 * Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
 * There is live chat with patrollers on the New Page Patrol Discord.
 * Please add the project discussion page to your watchlist.
 * If you no longer wish to be a reviewer, please ask any admin to remove you from the group. If you want the tools back again, just ask at PERM.
 * To opt out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

NPP July 2022 backlog drive is on!
(t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:26, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

NPP message
Hi ,

For those who may have missed it in our last newsletter, here's a quick reminder to see the letter we have drafted, and if you support it, do please go ahead and sign it. If you already signed, thanks. Also, if you haven't noticed, the backlog has been trending up lately; all reviews are greatly appreciated.
 * Invitation

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:11, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Board of Trustees election
Thank you for supporting the NPP initiative to improve WMF support of the Page Curation tools. Another way you can help is by voting in the Board of Trustees election. The next Board composition might be giving attention to software development. The election closes on 6 September at 23:59 UTC. View candidate statement videos and Vote Here. MB 04:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

October 2022 New Pages Patrol backlog drive
(t &#183; c)  buidhe  21:17, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

October 2022 New Pages Patrol backlog drive is on!
You are receiving this message because you signed up to participate in the drive, but have not yet reviewed any pages in October. We would love to see you over at the backlog drive! Buidhe 10:49, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Early end of the backlog drive
A few days ago, new page patrollers got the backlog to zero. Due to the unprecedented success of the backlog drive, it will be ending early—at the end of 24 October, or in approximately two hours.

Barnstars will be awarded as soon as the coords can tally the results. Streak awards will be allocated based on the first three weeks of the drive, with the last three days being counted as part of week three.

Great work everyone! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:50, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject Weather: Map Dot & Template/Infobox Colors
Dear project member, This message is being sent out to encourage new ideas and feedback on those proposed in regard to the colors debate for WikiProject Weather. For those who are unaware of what's been happening over the last year, I will give a brief summary. We have been discussing proposed changes to the colors of the dots on tropical cyclone maps and templates and infoboxes across the entire weather project in order to solve issues related to the limited contrast between colors for both normal vision as well as the various types of color blindness (MOS:ACCESS). We had partially implemented a proposal earlier this year, however, it was objected to by a number of people and additional issues were presented that made it evident this wasn't the optimal solution. We tried to come up with other solutions to address the issues related to color contrast, however, none of them gained traction and no consensus was generated.

We need your help and I encourage you to propose your own scale and give feedback on those already listed. Keep in mind that we are NOT making a decision on any individual proposal at this time. We are simply allowing people to make proposals and cultivate them given feedback from other project members. Please visit our project page for additional details. The proposal phase will close no later than December 31st at 23:59 UTC. Noah Talk 02:44, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

New Page Patrol – May 2023 Backlog Drive
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)