Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-03-12/Featured content

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Featured articles

The Sega 32X: "In the world of video games, there's no stranger story". It's also a new featured article.

"Æthelstan, king of the English and ruler of the whole of Britain", to quote how he chose to describe himself, was a 10th century monarch and is now a featured article.

Five articles were promoted to featured status this week.

Ontario Highway 71 (nominated by Floydian) is a highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. Part of the Trans-Canada Highway, Highway 71 "opened up a large section of Ontario to the rest of Canada for the first time", according to the nominator. It connects with the United States via the privately owned Fort Frances–International Falls International_Bridge.
Æthelstan (nominated by Dudley Miles) was an Anglo-Saxon king in the 900s. Thanks to his conquering of the Viking kingdom in York, historians consider him the first King of England, and he played a crucial role in mainland Europe: the article tells us that "no other West Saxon king played as important a role in European politics".
E. W. Hornung (nominated by SchroCat) was an English author of a series of stories about fictional gentleman's thief A. J. Raffles in London. Living in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he abruptly quit writing fiction after the loss of his son in the First World War. Hornung's Wikipedia article was the recent target of a contentious move request: should there be a space between the initials EW?
Streatham portrait (nominated by Crisco 1492) is a copy of a portrait of Lady Jane Grey. The original was most likely made during her lifetime, but the copy is of poor quality and is currently damaged. Despite this, it was bought by the British National Portrait Gallery for a large sum, rumored to be £100,000.
Sega 32X (nominated by Red Phoenix) was an add-on for the Sega Genesis video game console. The nominator tells us that "In the world of video games, there's no stranger story, I believe, than the Sega 32X":

“

It was one of the most unique concepts in video gaming—the idea that a video game console's life could be expanded by adding a piece of hardware to boost the system's power, more so than the Sega CD and its addition of a CD-ROM drive. What resulted was a commercial failure that caught few by surprise because of its incredibly poor timing and support, and it served as a lesson to the entire gaming industry. I think this article is so neat because it features so many aspects of the 32X's short lifetime and how it's seen today, even by Sega's former executives who were a part of its development.

”

Featured lists

Two lists were promoted to featured status this week.

The list of awards and nominations received by Megadeth (nominated by Вик Ретлхед) includes one Genesis Award and two Loudwire Music Awards along with eleven nominations for Grammy Awards.
The Croatian special police order of battle in 1991–95 (nominated by Tomobe03) chronicles Croatia's special police units involved in the Croatian War of Independence. The article is a product of the Military history WikiProject's A-class review process.

Featured pictures

Fifty-two pictures were promoted were promoted to featured status this week.

Theodore Roosevelt (created by Pach Brothers, restored and nominated by Crisco 1492) was a President of the United States, the inspiration for the name of the teddy bear, author, cowboy, and war veteran.
United States Silver Certificates set (prepared from Smithsonian Institution collections and nominated by Godot13) – A massive set of 47 images—though seven were previously featured—of historical United States banknotes from the silver certificate era.
Burning of the Euromaidan headquarters and accompanying close-up image (created by Amakuha and nominated by Adam Cuerden) – The Wikimedia movement is lucky to have many Ukrainian Wikipedians attempting to document the recent horrors their country had fallen into. Amakuha, a photojournalist, has produced quite a few images documenting the recent revolution. In the nomination, Amakuha noted the background behind the images: "this building witnessed all the recent major fights for [the] independence of Ukraine ... seeing this building burnt down marks new age in [Ukraine's] history".
Mary I of England (created by Antonis Mor and nominated by Crisco 1492) – The Catholic Mary I of England became known as Bloody Mary due to her execution of large numbers of Protestants, after successfully seizing power from her cousin Lady Jane Grey.
Balzhinima Tsyrempilov (created by Аркадий Зарубин [Arkady Zarubin] and nominated by Tomer T) – A closeup of former number one ranked Russian archer Balzhinima Tsyrempilov.
A dominostein (created by Alchemist-hp, nominated by Crisco 1492) is a sweet treat commonly sold at Christmastime.
Drill instructor (created by John Kennicutt, U.S. Marine Corps and nominated by Theparties) – Attending boot camp requires both physical and mental endurance as the service attempts to break you down and build you into an effective soldier. The person in charge of doing so is known as a drill instructor, and this is an example of one verbally correcting an officer candidate.
Windmills in Groningen, The Netherlands (created by Uberprutser and nominated by Editør) – The traditional Goliath Windmill in Eemshaven with a modern wind farm behind it.
SMS Kaiser Wilhelm II (created by Hugo Graf, scanned by Mr.Nostalgic, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) – Another entry in Cuerden's German warship painting restorations, which is running concurrently with Parsecboy's work on pre-WWI German ironclad articles. In this case, Kaiser Wilhelm II is currently a featured article candidate and now the subject of a featured picture.
Armenian illuminated manuscript (created by Toros Roslin and nominated by Ètienne Dolet) – An example of an illuminated manuscript from 1256 entitled Canon Table Page.
Monoceros, Canis Minor, and Atelier Typographique (by Sidney Hall and Richard Rouse Bloxam, after Alexander Jamieson; restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) – is Plate 31 from Urania's Mirror, a series of star charts meant to have holes punched in them so that they could be held up to the light and reveal what the constellation looks like.
Centre Block (created by Saffron Blaze and nominated by Crisco 1492) is the main building of the Canadian parliamentary complex.

This five-dollar bill from 1896 forms part of a massive set of images prepared by Godot13 from the Smithsonian Institution's collection.

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12 March 2014 (all comments)

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Adam, I love how you're linking the nomination to "And nominated by x". Very cleaver, much better than the way I used to do this. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure I've seen it used before. The layout of this feature changes all the time. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's I think me who have used it 1st time. Herald talk with me 16:58, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is a Marine Corps Drill Instructor assigned to OCS properly addressed as a platoon sergeant? That's not how the original photo description from the Marine Corps reads. This little tidbit was added into the Commons description by High Contrast in 2010. The image itself was nominated by a blocked user who probably knows nothing about it. This assertion of title was recently added to the Drill instructor article by Matthew Proctor with no citation or edit summary. Neither anyone voting on the image nor anyone at The Signpost questioned the veracity of this "platoon sergeant" title.

Now I realize I might accomplish more by helping Signpost volunteers write entries rather than publicly finding fault, but I think this is a teachable moment. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In the end, none of us can be experts on everything Wikipedia covers, and if an error slips in, we can apologise, but we can't re-research every fact; Assume Good Faith has to have some rôle, particularly for summaries such as this. It's why articles are generally written and improved by experts, or, at least, well-informed amateurs. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 19:59, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the comment, Chris. It is an example of crowdsourcing at work. :-) I'll also second Adam's comment. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:32, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And let me second that thanks. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 21:00, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Question: What did I wrongly??? --High Contrast (talk) 01:15, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@High Contrast: You introduced an unsourced statement, which an IP later tweaked. Wikipedia wants massive content at the expense of most of it being unsourced and some percentage of that info being incorrect. It seems odd because you had been reverting changes by IPs prior to that. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In order to hold up the truth. This edit was not my idea nor is it based on my knowledge. Another user contacted me to make this edit. Unfortunately, I cannot find where (page link) this edit request was done. --High Contrast (talk) 18:03, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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