Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-23/Features and admins

Administrators
The Signpost congratulates four editors on their promotion to adminship.
 * GorillaWarfare (nom), formerly Theunicyclegirl, who has been with us since July 2006. She is an active vandal-fighter, contributes to AfDs, and helps with the backlog of unreferenced articles.
 * Nev1 (nom), a prolific content contributor in areas related to Greater Manchester. This was Nev1's second successful RfA; he passed his first in 2008, but voluntarily gave up the tools in January 2010. Nev1 could have been re-promoted without going through an RfA, but believed "it would not be honest to claim an extant mandate from two years ago".
 * Jmh649 (nom), a Canadian emergency physician. "Doc James" (his signed name) has been active since July 2008, and a substantial contributor to important medical articles; these include obesity, gout, and streptococcal pharyngitis (commonly known as strep throat).
 * Fainites (nom), a Wikipedian since December 2006, has been a productive editor in the often-fraught subject of psychology. He is a primary contributor to three featured articles in the topic: reactive attachment disorder, Rudolf Wolters, and attachment theory.

Featured articles
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status:
 * , the holding company for the lines opened during 1906 and 1907; they survived dodgy financing and over-optimistic passenger estimates to become the dominant transport organization in London (nominated by DavidCane).
 * , adopted in December 2000. Alexander Alexandrov wrote the music, and Sergey Mikhalkov the lyrics (the melody had been used for the Soviet anthem) (Zscout370).
 * , with a population of 1,500, was just south of the boundary between union and confederate states and was adjacent to a major free black community before the Civil War. It narrowly escaped torching by Union forces during the Civil War. (Neutralhomer)
 * , a large, critically endangered lemur characterized by long, silky white fur. The male uses its specialized toothcomb to gouge trees before scent-marking with its chest. The article includes six sound files exemplifying this primate's extraordinarily varied auditory displays. (Simponafotsy and Visionholder, with taxonomic assistance from Ucucha). (sound file above)
 * , a state park in Pennsylvania covering 13,047 acres (53 km2), with a complex natural, economic and cultural history (Dincher and Ruhrfisch).
 * , a tributary of the Sandy River in Oregon. It is the primary source of drinking water for the city of Portland, Oregon (Finetooth). (picture at the right)
 * , a remote volcanic zone on the Coast of British Columbia. The name comes from Mount Cayley, the largest and most persistent volcano in the zone (Volcanoguy).
 * , founded in 1871 in Hereford, UK, for blind or partially sighted students. It is the home of the first association football academy for visually impaired players, and houses the National BlindArt collection (TheRetroGuy and PaulLargo).
 * "Road to the Multiverse" (nom), an episode of the animated television comedy series Family Guy, in which the main characters use a remote control device to travel through a series of various parallel universes (GageSkidmore).
 * , the ghastly murders of eleven women&mdash;mostly prostitutes&mdash;in the 19th century. Although the true killer has yet to be revealed, the murderer is widely thought to be the "notorious, but elusive, individual known as Jack the Ripper" (DrKiernan).
 * , an astronomical object, about two-thirds the size of Pluto, which currently lies about three times as far from the Sun as the outermost planet, Neptune, and takes about 12,000 years to orbit the Sun (Kheider and Serendipodous).
 * , an Australian Olympic swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s. He successfully lobbied for the right of Australian Olympians to compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics despite the government's wish to boycott it to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; he was stripped of the captaincy of the national team for poor behaviour (YellowMonkey).
 * , a fortified compound in Jerusalem of the 2nd century BCE. (Astynax and Poliocretes)
 * , an Ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele with engraved text that was vital to the understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The collaboration was part of the British Museum Project (Captmondo and Andrew Dalby). (picture at right)
 * , a 13-minute English-language film released in 2007 (Skomorokh).
 * Thomasomys ucucha (nom), "a little rodent from Ecuador with a nice name", according to nominator Ucucha.
 * , another of Iridescent's "eating disorders of the French Revolutionary Wars" mini-series, in which a Polish soldier was captured by the British and subjected to a bizarre dietary experiment.

Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Iridescent to select his best of the week (and of course to dutifully disregard his own nomination). "I chose Silky Sifaka. To me, Wikipedia's great strength is its ability to treat relatively obscure topics with the same thoroughness it gives to the major topics. Readers can find equally good articles on major subjects elsewhere; but there's probably no other free resource which covers this particular species so thoroughly. With its combination of well-written prose neither over-technical nor dumbed-down, thoughtfully chosen images, and informative sound and video clips, this article is Wikipedia at its best." (sound-bite at the top)

Featured lists
Nine lists were promoted:
 * , the count of medals won by participating IOCs at the 1992 Winter Olympics, held in Albertville, France. Germany won the most overall medals (26) and gold medals (10) (nominated by Courcelles and Sonia).
 * . Rowland's debut album, Simply Deep, topped the UK charts, and her single "Dilemma" (with Nelly) was certified platinum three times in Australia (Lil-unique1)
 * . Formed as Watford Rovers in 1881, Watford has won their league knockout competition twice since 1896 (WFCforLife, HornetEd and Bazj).
 * , an annual prize given primarily for non-fiction works related to science fiction or fantasy (PresN).
 * . Madonna had six of her singles top the chart in this decade—more than any other artist during that decade. (Rambo's Revenge)
 * . The film won 65 awards from 155 nominations, including a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay, and a BAFTA award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Dan Dassow, JuneGloom07, and Courcelles).
 * Only two tropical cyclones occurred in the South Pacific—Cyclone Joy and Cyclone Sina—both of which were retired after this season (Anhamirak and Jason Rees).
 * , a registered charity in England and Wales that campaigns for and rescues redundant historic churches threatened by demolition, decay, or inappropriate conversion. The oldest church owned by the charity is St Peter's Church, Wickham Bishops, an 11th-century private chapel for the Bishops of London, now used as an art studio (Peter I. Vardy).
 * . Of the 25 players selected in the first round by the Rockies, 16 have been pitchers, the most of any position; of these, 11 have been right-handed and 5 left-handed (Courcelles). (picture at the right)

Choice of the week. We asked FL nominator and reviewer Chrishomingtang, who specializes in basketball-related topics, for his choice: "I picked List of Watford F.C. seasons as my favorite. The lead flows well and clearly explains the team's history. The table looks great and every abbreviation is explained in the key section. The entire list is well-referenced and well-illustrated by relevant images."

Featured pictures
18 images were promoted:
 * Lambis truncata (nom), commonly known as the giant spider conch (created by Llez).
 * Sahelanthropus tchadensis skull cast (nom), from a member of an extinct hominid species that dates to about 7 million years ago. Reviewers praised the high encyclopedic value, and LucasBrown favored the "slight reflection from the surface the cast rests on" that gives it an "unnatural aura" (created by Archaeodontosaurus). (right)
 * Wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling (nom). Creator Prolineserver was one of two Wikimedians to earn media accreditation for the wedding (previous Signpost coverage).
 * Eastern Bettong (nom), a nocturnal animal native to south-eastern Australia and the eastern part of Tasmania (created by Noodle snacks).
 * Chaetodipterus faber (nom), with the common name Atlantic spadefish. Papa Lima Whiskey edited the image to address white balance issues (created by Matthew Hoelscher).
 * 360° Panoramic view of Freiburg, Germany (nom). Creator Armin Hornung took the pictures from the Schlossberg tower and stitched them together using hugin.
 * Crystalline Dolomite & Magnesite (nom), chemical formula CaMg(CO3)2 (created by Archaeodontosaurus).
 * Ford Focus RS WRC 09 (nom), an action shot of Jari-Matti Latvala driving his Ford Focus RS WRC 09 in Muurame shakedown. Photographer Kallerna, who achieved sharp focus despite the proximity and motion of the vehicle, assures us that "there was still room between me and the car (~ 1 metre)."
 * Kelvin–Helmholtz Instability (nom). This mesmerizing animation illustrates a Kelvin–Helmholtz instability arising at an interface between fluids of different densities and speeds (created by Bdubb12). (animated video at the top)
 * Nudibranch laying an egg spiral on a sea squirt (nom). This striking image received unanimous praise for its vibrancy (created by Nhobgood).
 * Vertical replenishment (nom), a highly encyclopedic panorama of a US Navy operation (created by John L. Beeman, US Navy).
 * Last flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis (nom). Nominator Raeky referred to this as "an amazing shot of a historic flight" (created by NASA).
 * Space Shuttle Atlantis's last flight (side view) (nom). Although this shot of the launch is rare and unconventional, reviewers supported it for its "dramatic angle" and "wow factor" (created by NASA).
 * Humpty Dumpty (nom), as illustrated by W. W. Denslow in 1904 (created by William Wallace Denslow).
 * Cretaceous fossils (nom), This rock has three recognizable fossils: Nematonotus sp., lobster Pseudostacus sp., and a partial Dercetis triqueter (created by Mbz1).
 * Messier 81 (nom), a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (created by NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team, i.e., the STScI/AURA). (Interactive large-image viewer)
 * Chthamalus stellatus (nom), a species of acorn barnacle common on rocky shores in South West England, Ireland, and Southern Europe (created by MichaelMaggs). (right)
 * Toad Mountain Harlequin frog (nom), a species of brightly colored toad endemic to Panama (created by Brian.gratwicke).

Choice of the week. We asked Makeemlighter, a regular reviewer and closer at featured pictures candidates, to choose his favorite among the past week's promotions: "With several outstanding images this week, it was a difficult choice. I kept coming back to the Freiburg panorama, so I'll make it my pick. This panorama is very sharp and well-stitched. As an American living in a suburban neighborhood, it's fascinating to see such a detailed image of this German city. I really get a great sense of what it must be like to live in Freiburg. It's particularly interesting to see the modern layout of a city that's been around since the 12th century. Be sure to check it out using the 360° viewer. " (below)