Wikipedia:WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem

This is a remarkable project, and a herculean task realized in the short time span of less than 15 weeks. Jon and his students are [a] model for thinking, sharing and contributing with[in] the open space of the internet. An important act of faith and intellectual responsibility. It is ever so impressive. Gives students real-world experience finding their way, collaboratively, to high standards of content and writing in their field. It's an incredible example of what college students and their inspired teacher can do, collaborating, reflecting, listening, revising. Over the course of the last few months I have learned so much about writing I cannot even express... and it shows. I have been a B+/A- student throughout my entire undergraduate career, and my last two papers have been A's! I think the grades speak for themselves. I will no longer allow my daughter to consider attending the University of British Columbia, so long as Murray is paid to teach there.

The University of British Columbia's class SPAN312 ("Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation") contributed to Wikipedia during Spring 2008. Our collective goals were to bring a selection of articles on Latin American literature to featured article status (or as near as possible). By project's end, we had contributed three featured articles and eight good articles. None of these articles was a good article at the outset; two did not even exist.

We had the unstinting support of the (in)famous FA-Team, who took this on as their first mission. We were also fortunate to have the support of members of Wikiproject Novels. The collaboration of other interested Wikipedia editors was of course very much appreciated. We would like to thank everyone for their hard work and incredible generosity.

Feel free to discuss this project. With the FA-Team, we are also now embarking on an analysis and post-mortem. You may also want to look at the following essay:


 * "Was Introducing Wikipedia to the Classroom an Act of Madness Leading Only to Mayhem if not Murder?". An essay by jbmurray.

Goals

 * To improve Wikipedia's coverage of selected articles on Latin American literature, particularly those related to dictator novels.
 * ✅ Eight new good articles and one new B-class article.


 * To submit these articles to Wikipedia review processes, such as peer review, good article nominations and featured article candidates.


 * To increase the number of featured articles in this area.
 * ✅ Three new featured articles.

News

 * El Señor Presidente as it looked when it was on the Wikipedia main page.
 * "Featured content from schools and universities". Wikipedia Signpost 4.19 (May 9, 2008).

Featured articles

 * (Wikipedia Featured Article number 2000) (April 10, 2008). Appeared on Main Page May 5, 2008.
 * (eecono, katekonyk, mfreud)


 * (April 22, 2008). Appeared on Main Page November 6, 2008.
 * (Isabel-clase, lincolnchan98, tommaso88)


 * (April 19, 2008). Appeared on Main Page June 29, 2008.
 * (carlaty, eshiu, Paulleblanc)

Good articles

 * (April 12, 2008)
 * (mariap7, nathanlusignan)


 * (April 9, 2008)
 * (Abarratt, basssrk, Juliemcd)


 * (April 7, 2008)
 * (aliyah, Lpotto, rosefinn)


 * (April 17, 2008)
 * (bessiec, Hector Argene, Mjlee27)


 * (March 30, 2008)
 * (arantxa.rap, jenbren, jgraworth)


 * (April 21, 2008)
 * (kn310376, michaeltufaro, Powars)


 * (April 10, 2008)
 * (Miriamcc, rabbitfast)


 * (April 17, 2008)
 * (Garethshort, jen.chim, sunnybeddow)

[[Image:Symbol b class.svg|14px]] B-class articles

 * [[Image:Symbol b class.svg|14px]] Miguel Ángel Asturias
 * (reabell, Span312)

Progress
A summary of how far we have come over the semester:


 * Augusto Roa Bastos: 4 February, 2008, 396 revisions, 10 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * Dictator novel: 16 January, 2008, 451 revisions, 9 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * Domingo Faustino Sarmiento: 31 January, 2008, 360 revisions, 8 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * El Señor Presidente: 15 January, 2008, 1094 revisions, 9 April, 2008. FA status achieved. Appeared on Main Page May 5.
 * Facundo: 12 January, 2008, 926 revisions, 17 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * Gabriel García Márquez: 22 January, 2008, 730 revisions, 13 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * I, the Supreme: 3 February 2008, 349 revisions, 21 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * Latin American Boom: 4 February, 2008, 440 revisions, 10 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * Mario Vargas Llosa: 31 January, 2008, 1225 revisions, 22 April, 2008. FA status achieved.
 * Miguel Ángel Asturias: 15 January, 2008, 609 revisions, 13 April, 2008. B-Class status achieved.
 * The Feast of the Goat: 4 February, 2008, 348 revisions, 17 April, 2008. GA status achieved.
 * The General in His Labyrinth: 3 February, 2008, 1034 revisions, 19 April, 2008. FA status achieved. Appeared on Main Page June 29.

See our archive of earlier progress reports.

Planning and resources
See Planning and resources.

Article traffic
Article traffic statistics demonstrate the size of the public for our work. These are the figures for March, 2008:


 * Gabriel García Márquez: 62,170 views. Or c. 740,000 views per year.
 * Mario Vargas Llosa: 11,869 views. Or c. 140,000 views per year.
 * Domingo Faustino Sarmiento: 5,142 views. Or c. 61,000 views per year.
 * Miguel Ángel Asturias: 4,892 views. Or c. 58,000 views per year.  NB 5,400 clicked through the day El Señor Presidente was on the main page.
 * Facundo: 4,416 views. Or c. 52,000 views per year.
 * The General in His Labyrinth: 4,119 views. . Or c. 49,000 views per year.
 * El Señor Presidente: 3,345 views. Or c. 40,000 views per year.  NB: 16,900 clicked though the day it was on the main page.
 * Latin American Boom: 3,319 views. Or c. 39,000 views per year.
 * Dictator novel: 2,143 views. Or c. 25,000 views per year.  NB 3,900 clicked through the day El Señor Presidente was on the main page.
 * The Feast of the Goat: 2,031 views. Or c. 24,000 views per year.
 * Augusto Roa Bastos: 1,558 views. Or c. 18,000 views per year.
 * I, the Supreme: 1,176 views. Or c. 14,000 views per year.

Some of these page views will be from group members working on the articles. But not all. Especially for the more popular pages! So there are people out there reading our work.

Google page rank
More information to underscore the significance of this assignment. These are each article's Google page ranks, using the most likely search parameters:


 * Dictator Novel: google rank #1 on first page of results
 * Facundo: google rank #1 on first page of results
 * Feast of the Goat (also Goat Feast): google rank #1 on first page of results
 * General in his Labyrinth (also General Labyrinth): google rank #1 on first page of results
 * Latin American Boom (also Latin America Boom): google rank #1 on first page of results
 * Roa Bastos: google rank #1 on first page of results
 * El Senor Presidente: google rank #2 on first page of results
 * Yo el Supremo: google rank #1 on first page of results
 * Gabriel Garcia Marquez: google rank #1 on first page of results
 * Domingo Sarmiento: google rank #2 on first page of results
 * Mario Vargas Llosa: google rank #2 on first page of results
 * Miguel Angel Asturias: google rank #3 on first page of results
 * I the Supreme: google rank #6 on first page of results

Members






Tools

 * Main tool page: toolserver.org


 * Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. automatically to references
 * Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
 * Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
 * Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.