Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-10-11/Features and admins

Administrator
The Signpost welcomes Eagles247 (nom) as a new admin. Eagles247, from Philadelphia, has been editing since May 2009, with 18,000 edits, 50 new articles, two GAs and nine DYKs to his name. His interests include American football articles, and he is a member of WikiProject National Football League and WikiProject College football. He intends to participate at AIV, AFD, MFD and NPP, and has increasing expertise at sockpuppet investigations.

Featured articles
Six articles were promoted to featured status:
 * SMS Baden (1915) (nom), was Germany's last battleship of World War I, and the only capital ship not successfully sunk in Scapa Flow after the end of the war (nominated by ).
 * , although an obscure figure even within his profession of economics, is considered by some people to be the true father of economics (as opposed to Adam Smith), according to nominator . (picture at right)
 * , straight from the periodic chart on your high-school chemistry classroom wall, this metal reacts explosively with frozen water, but melts in your hand.
 * L'Orfeo (nom) (1567–1643), the first opera by Claudio Monteverdi, the Italian composer who was the turning point between the European renaissance and baroque. This featured article completes a tryptich of his three surviving operas, all nominated by . (audio excerpt below)
 * (1847–1914), known as the father of the Republican party in Kentucky.
 * (born 1980), a Swedish professional ice hockey winger with the Vancouver Canucks.

Choice of the week. Raul654, Wikipedia's Featured Article Director, has shepherded the process since its early days. We owe it to him that featured articles have appeared since January 2004 in a prominent spot on the main page, which has greatly increased their profile in the project. The Signpost asked Raul to select the best of the week.

We had an interesting and diverse set of articles promoted this week. If I were choosing an article based strictly on my interest in the subject, it would go to SMS Baden, which is a great article in its own right. But clearly L'Orfeo, and its primary author Brianboulton, deserve special recognition. I know first-hand how hard it is to get fine arts articles up to FA status, especially musical ones. Particularly on a subject of great importance (L'Orfeo is one of the first operas ever written). The article contains everything a reader could expect – descriptions of the background, composition, instrumentation, and a plot synopsis.

I was especially pleased to see that the article includes a freely licensed sound clip. It is quite difficult to find good-quality freely licensed classical music recordings, which contribute greatly to a music article. (The audio clip got me thinking about using audio for musical articles on the main page in place of pictures – an idea that is shockingly obvious in retrospect)

Kudos, Brian – excellent work. Wikipedia is the better for it.

Featured topics
Five topics were promoted, three of them prepared by WikiProject Military History. The first two complete the German pre-dreadnought series, leaving only the WWI-era Helgoland, Kaiser, and König classes and the handful of WWII-era ship articles to be done, "before this monster is finally finished", says nominator :
 * Wittelsbach class battleships (nom), the third class of German pre-dreadnoughts, was the first built under the naval expansion program of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.
 * Braunschweig class battleships (nom), also with six good articles, were the last but one class of German pre-dreadnoughts.
 * Another of MilHist's Operation Majestic Titan projects, Kongō class battlecruisers (nom), with one featured article and four good articles, concerns the class of four battlecruisers/fast-battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War (nominator Cam).
 * Like a Virgin (nom) is about American recording artist (legend) Madonna's second studio album of this title, the singles released from the album, and the supporting tour and its subsequent live video release (nominator Legolas).
 * Brill Tramway (nom), with seven featured articles and one Good article, concerns a 10 km (six mi) privately built rail-line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England—a tramway with an interesting history.



Featured lists
Three lists were promoted. These will be considered for Choice of the week in the next edition.
 * , consisting of ten studio albums, five compilation albums, two soundtrack albums, three live albums and sixty-six singles (nominated by ).
 * . C.L. "Butch" Otter, a Republican, has been Idaho's governor since 2007 ( and ).
 * , claimed to be one of the longest continuous record-keeping traditions in Britain.

Featured pictures
Seven images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":
 * USS Yorktown collision (nom), a dramatic photograph of the intentional collision with this guided missile cruiser by a Soviet frigate in what some observers have called "the last incident of the Cold War" (created by the US Navy, picture at bottom).
 * The chemical element cobalt (nom), a metal that has been the basis for colours and pigments in jewelry and paints since ancient times.
 * Plains Zebra Equus quagga (nom), a natural shot of this striped animal in characterful lighting, showing group grazing behaviour in the background (created by ) (picture at right).
 * The chemical element rhenium (nom), a heavy, shiny metal, was the last naturally occurring stable element to be discovered, in 1925. It was named after the great river, the Rhine. It comes at a price of more than $6,000 a kilo (picture at right).
 * F-16 jet in flight (nom), from an aerobatics display in 2009 by the elite Solo Display Team of the Dutch Air Force (Airwolf).
 * Rutherford B. Hayes (nom), the 19th President of the United States (created by Mathew Brady, the celebrated 19th-century American photographer).
 * Russell's The Custer Fight (nom), a lithograph depicting the Native American side in the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn (created by Charles Marion Russell, the artist of the Old American West).


 * Choice of the week. Our judge,, considered the promotions last week, plus the three eligible promotions from the week before (Red-and-yellow Barbet, Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, and USS Oregon in dry dock). He told The Signpost:
 * "Definitely not an easy choice this week. All the images are excellent, some depicting interesting historical events and others adding to our knowledge of natural history. Although much of my experience is underwater, having chased a good number of darting fish and other fast-moving critters, I can really appreciate the skill that was required to capture an image of a subject moving at high speed at such a distance. For me, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor (pictured at the bottom of last week's page) sticks out above the others as a high-quality image and a great choice for nomination. – Nick"