Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/Features and admins

Good-lookin' slugs and snails

Featured picture Choice of the week, the killer sea snail, the Branched murex. H. Zell's multi-angled shots are displayed as a panorama so you can examine the rich structure of the shell. As our judge points out, you could almost reach in and touch it. The rhythm of the whole photographic composition is clearer at the article on the species.

New administrators

The Signpost welcomes three editors as our newest admins.

• Leyo (nom) has a Masters of Science degree and is a native German-speaker from Switzerland, with good French and basic Spanish. He has been active on the English Wikipedia for four years and has made more than 50,000 edits to an unusually wide range of Wikimedia projects. He is already an admin on Commons and the German Wikipedia, and being an admin on en.WP will enhance his ability in the interwiki management of image files.
• Elen of the Roads (nom) is an English local government officer, and has been with Wikipedia since 2008, editing fully since 2009. She is an active contributor to WP:Media copyright questions and AN/I, and also contributes to AFD, using her close knowledge of policy. She has a keen interest in Egyptology, but lists her most significant article contribution as rescuing an article on industrial mixing technology.
• Diannaa (nom), from Alberta in western Canada, has made more than 12,000 edits, nearly 60% of them in article space. She has helped to combat vandalism, although most of her admin interests, she says, will lie in managing content rather than editors, including our seriously backlogged area of copyright. Diannaa is an active member of the Guild of Copy Editors and has participated in three Backlog elimination drives (the next one of which starts soon). She is a member of the WikiProject Military History, and has helped several editors promote their articles and lists to good and featured status.

Featured articles

• ARA Moreno (nom), the first of two ships in the Rivadavia class, were a product of a naval arms race between the three most powerful South American countries: Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (nominated by The ed17).
• Oryzomys peninsulae (nom), a little-known rice rat—it may be extinct, it may not; we are uncertain (Ucucha).
• Galaxy Science Fiction (nom), one of the most influential science fiction magazines ever published, which came into being almost accidentally, and had a chequered on-again off-again history of publication (Mike Christie).
• William Walton (nom), one of England's leading 20th century composers (Tim riley).
• Art Ross (nom), a Canadian ice hockey defenceman and executive from 1905 until 1954. Regarded by his peers as one of the best defenders of his era (Kaiser matias).
• Pedro II of Brazil (nom) (1825–91), the second and last ruler of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for 58 years (Lecen and Astynax).
• Killer7 (nom), an action-adventure video game released in 2005, for the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 (Axem Titanium).
• Trocaz Pigeon (nom), "just an odd wood pigeon really", says nominator Jimfbleak, "the third in a series of Madeiran endemic birds"
• December 1964 South Vietnamese coup (nom), one of half a dozen changes and rearrangements of government in South Vietnam in 1964, full of deception and intrigue (YellowMonkey). (picture at right)

Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Hurricanehink to select the best of the week.

Three featured articles were delisted:

• Dorset (nom: referencing)
• Adi Shankara (nom: referencing)
• Ahmedabad (nom: referencing, NPOV)

Featured lists

Four lists were promoted. These will be considered for Choice of the week in a later edition.

• Ciara discography (nom) (nominated by Candyo32)
• Counties of Romania (nom) (Nergaal)
• Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album (nom) (Another Believer)
• 1984 Winter Olympics medal table (nom) (Parutakupiu)

Featured topics

One topic was promoted:

• Rivadavia class battleships (nom), with two featured articles and one good article. This was a two-ship group of battleships designed by the American Fore River Shipbuilding Company for the Argentine Navy and in commission 1914–56.

Two featured topics were delisted:

• The Orange Box, (loss of and failure to regain article status).
• Half-Life 2 titles, (loss of and failure to regain article status).

Featured pictures

• Pulmonata (nom), an illustrated collage of members of the pulmonates, an informal group of snails and slugs that includes many land and freshwater families, and several marine families; the nomination passed after clarification of its encyclopedic value (created by H. Morin; restoration by Citron).
• IJN Yamato schematic (nom), a schematic of the Japanese battleship Yamato in her final configuration on 7 April 1945 (Alexpl).
• Slate pencil urchin (nom), a sea urchin that inhabits the littoral regions of the Atlantic Ocean, probably "traveling over the hard corals and not feeding on them", says creator Nick Hobgood.
• Branched murex (nom), a predatory sea snail of the murex family, an economically important species in the Indo-West Pacific. The compound image shows the characteristics: a short spire, slightly inflated body whorl, moderately long siphonal canal, and striking leaf-like ornamentations (created by H. Zell).
• John Reynold's death (nom), the career US Army officer (1820–63) who died almost instantly after being shot in the back of the head or neck and falling from his horse on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. (Alfred Rudolph Waud, restoration by Jujutacular and Papa Lima Whiskey, including slightly more contrast and less yellowing on the advice of reviewers; from the Library of Congress).

Choice of the week. Chick Bowen, a regular reviewer and nominator at featured picture candidates, told The Signpost:

"This week saw the promotion of several excellent images demonstrating the remarkable range of our featured pictures. Two historical prints and two digital photographs were joined by an exceptionally detailed and historically precise original drawing. Had the lively underwater photography of Nick Hobgood not been recognized in this space two weeks ago, I might well have chosen his marvelous candid shot of a most peculiar creature in motion, but equally impressive is H. Zell's composite image of a sea snail shell, taken from multiple angles. The precise focus and large depth of field show the possibilities of digital macro photography, revealing complex textures that almost give a sense of tactility."

Information about new admins at the top is drawn from their user pages and RfA texts, and occasionally from what they tell us directly.

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User:Hurricanehink's rationale: "My choice of the week is the December 1964 South Vietnamese coup, since high school kids might well come across that in their curricula." Um, how about the rest of the world, Hink? Don't think kids in the UK, for example, are at all likely to have this on their curricula. Yep, you guessed it - I'm coming out with that old cry of 'US bias in selection procedures'. 81.147.150.57 (talk) 17:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It all depends on the judge. I'd be very partial to Pedro II because I am interested in modern Latin American history (and because of the ridiculous amount of sources they consulted!) We also had a German judge a couple weeks ago. Overall, I'd say Tony and Dabomb are doing an excellent job. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why would U.S. students be more likely to come across an article on South Vietnam than students in the UK? Powers ^T 13:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm amazed anyone would ask this, but, since you did ... because Vietnam plays a massive part in US history; not so in UK history. We didn't fight that one. Just like I doubt the Falklands War would get as much of a look-in in US curricula as it would in UK ones. History studies are always slanted towards the national and international policies of the country that is teaching the history. 86.133.55.218 (talk) 17:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, my own curriculum didn't cover this particular coup, so I didn't realize its importance to the war. Powers ^T 19:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't that very well known; in many general books on the VN War such as by Karnow and Langguth only 1-3 pages in 700 touch on that particular incident. YellowMonkey (bananabucket!) 03:22, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Technically, good and featured topics aren't demoted for "not enough work done on them", it's because one or more of the articles lose their GA or FA status and don't get re-promoted within 3 months. --PresN 05:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks; fixed. Tony (talk) 06:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How does Moreno remind you of hurricanes? Nice week for admins, too. 68.98.31.172 (talk) 14:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

He sees a similarity between WP:OMT and WP:WPTC Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Essjay phenom

I raised concerns on the talk page here, and with HaeB, that The Signpost not go down the Essjay slippery slope by printing unverified credentials of admins. Concerns about this slippery slope realized: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Redthoreau in a recently closed RFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the reason that your concerns were discounted is that they aren't important. So Leyo says he has a Master's of Science; my high school chemistry teacher had an M.S. in chemistry, & once told us that the only other work his degree qualified him for was being a lab tech. As long as Leyo makes his content-related arguments based on common sense & secondary sources that can be verified -- which is what everyone should do, & someone with an M.S. ought to know the secondary literature well enough to do that -- & doesn't try to pass himself off as an authority, what's the problem? Essjay wouldn't have been forced to leave Wikipedia in disgrace had he not attempted to use his unverified credentials not only to win discussions, but also to misrepresent himself to a journalist writing about Wikipedia. Doing so not only made him look bad, but more importantly hurt Wikipedia. As you were told, that fact fills out a little bit about who Leyo says he is; it's simply a part of his online persona. Please give the matter a rest & move on. -- llywrch (talk) 22:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Telling me to "give the matter a rest and move on" might work (doubt it, though), if the facts didn't stand in my way. The Signpost article says: "Leyo (nom) has a Masters of Science degree ..." That is asserted as fact; nowhere is it clarified in this article that "that fact fills out a little bit about who Leyo says he is", and with the reward culture on Wiki, we may see other RFA candidates alleging credentials they don't have, and other RFA !voters Supporting on that basis (I have no doubt Leyo is who he says he is, or ElenoftheRoads is who she says she is, and that is not the issue here). Learn from history. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Learn from what history? Essjay? While I'm tempted to respond with something along the lines of "one sparrow does not make it spring", a more nuanced response is that Essjay shows why lying about one's qualifications (or anything on Wikipedia) in order to boost one's stature is a bad idea: eventually the deception will be found out, & the fallout will force the liar to leave. (And maybe even those who associated with the liar.) Looking at the RfA you linked to, three people voted "oppose" because of that statement -- you were one of them -- & only one person voting in support of RedThoreau mentioned his academic credentials -- which was in response to your comment. Everyone with more than minimal experience on Wikipedia knows to handle claims about qualifications with a grain of salt; all that's needed is one interaction with someone who claims to be an authority in a given field. In fact, the average level of skepticism towards experts -- both alleged & proven -- is so high that we drive away far more real authorities than the fakes. -- llywrch (talk) 17:40, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]