Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-12-10/WikiProject report

WikiProject Greater Manchester is a WikiProject that aims to improve any of Wikipedia's articles related to Greater Manchester of the United Kingdom. Started by on 24 February 2007, it has grown to 30 participants. As of 8 November, all articles within its scope that used its project banner had been assessed.

Interview with
We interviewed, one of the project's most active members.
 * 1. What is the best way for users unfamiliar with Greater Manchester-related topics, new to Wikipedia, or just interested to get involved in the project?
 * Well, there are quite a few ways in which any unsuspecting member of Wikipedia can get involved with our works. Our project talk page, has become very active in the past few months, and we are always striving hard to help other users who may have issues or who are just in need of advice on what article they may be editing. It's also a few months since we introduced the welcome templates, just as any other WikiProject's, they work by recognising a users abilities to add content to articles, whilst also keeping key Wiki-policies in mind. Unusually, we use two messages for welcoming users, one as sign that we know they are editing to articles which may be related to Greater Manchester, and then one after once they may or may not have registered.
 * 2. What do you think about the progress the project has made during its time on Wikipedia?
 * Since the opening editor, Pit-yacker- set up the project, we've now collectively understood that there are at least 820 pages relating to Greater Manchester, (which ideally we'd love to get all to FA standard), there are now 9 featured articles (most in the last month or so), 11 good articles and at least 75 B-class articles, the whole list is viewable here.  Several of the editors, including Jza84, Malleus Fatuarum, And-Rew and WebHamster, have all been dedicated to the cause of the project and have collaborated together to build the effects we see today. An example of the work done by the project is, Manchester. Once a small article (before the founding of the project), but with months of work by many of the editors and some others, it's now featured with over 105 kilobytes of information. It gained unanimous support at it's FAC back in November and every issue that was set by some editors, was swiftly corrected. The GA reviewer, Pursey, even commented on the swiftness and dedication of all involved, and was so impressed gave a barnstar to every user that was involved.
 * 3. Are there any ongoing discussions pertaining to project issues or articles in the project's scope?
 * Hmm…well there are two articles which are undergoing extensive scrutiny at the Project talk page, namely Altrincham and Pendlebury, which are receiving quite a bit of "editor reviewing" and good feedback from other users in the project. There are also quite a few cases where some users are using sandboxes or the template on pages which are receiving, mostly, exclusive edits by the users who instigate the notice. Apart from that, WP:GM is coming along quite nicely.
 * 4. What is the advantage of having the project's newsletter?
 * The newsletter, which was set up in October (about the time as most other project’s newsletters founding) is a great way of bringing together the project’s members. I set it up to create an outreach to some of the users which may be not up to full editing activity and to inform some other users who may be active, but not necessarily involved with the project (or at least up to one post every two weeks) to inform them of project developments, and to maybe even trigger a, what I’d like to call, "SAD – sole article dedication". The acronym not pertaining to the emotion, obviously. :)
 * 5. What are some of the project's most recent successes?
 * As with the response to Question 2, the project has come along way since it’s foundation and has become recognised by some outside editors as a great way of helping Greater Manchester related articles upto scratch. The example of Manchester previously, is only a small part of what’s been happening. 9 featured articles, 5 of which have been passed in the last month, in itself shows the large and wide-spread activity which has occurred. From motorways (freeways) to metropolitan boroughs (districts) we’re working on them all. And the relative portal, Portal:North West England, also recently became featured.