Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2014/Project news

Welcome to the July 2014 edition of the Bugle!

After years of preparations, the centenary of World War I is upon us. TomStar81 kicks off the Bugle's coverage of this anniversary with an op-ed discussing the main themes of the conflict and opportunities for Wikipedia editors to cover them. The Bugle's editors are hopeful that future editions will include articles concerning the war, and submissions are - as always - very welcome.

While on the topic of anniversaries and editions of the Bugle, we're very pleased to highlight the fact that this is the newsletter's 100th edition! Many thanks to all the editors who have contributed material over the years, as well as to the people who came before us as editors of the newsletter since it began way back in March 2006! The Bugle's archives are available here and make for very interesting reading.

Returning to the current edition, Adam Cuerden has reorganised our regular coverage of new featured pictures into a more attractive format, which does greater justice to the images. The article news section also highlights the unusual fact many more MilHist articles achieved Featured status than A-Class last month, with the pair of new A-Class articles being dwarfed by an impressive seven new FAs.

The book review section includes our first-ever website review, with Jonas Vinther discussing a website developed by the historian Laurence Rees; other website reviews for future editions would also be warmly welcomed by the editors! The section isn't entirely misnamed though, as it includes a review by Nick-D of a bargain e-book, as well as the usual round-up of book reviews from other sources.

Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk)

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is working on several fronts to improve access to historical records through Wikimedia and encourage better quality content (especially by uploading its digitized records and holding editathons or scanathons in Washington, D.C.). This contest is an informal program to show NARA's appreciation for interesting work being done by Wikipedians. NARA has several reproduction US WWI and WWII war posters from its trust fund to give away as prizes.

Dominic will list one or more missing or stub articles at the Challenge page, and the prize will go to anyone who writes a C-Class article or better. That is the whole challenge; it is open to anyone. Dominic will choose articles broadly related to NARA's mission and activities, but there are no self-serving requirements (like that you must use NARA images or reference the organisation in any way unless it would be appropriate to the topic anyway). Please get involved!


 * No awards were made last month.


 * The contest department completed its 85th round of competition last month. A total of 25 articles were submitted by 8 editors. Peacemaker67 came first with 44 points from 8 articles to receive the Chevrons, followed by Lineagegeek who earned the Writer's Barnstar with 24 points from 5 entries. Honourable mentions go to Zawed (22 points) and Parsecboy (20 points). Djmaschek, Gecko G, Ian Rose and Tomobe03 also fielded entries. Please submit any articles you are working on for this month's contest now.