This is an archive of past discussions with User:Fingerpuppet. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I changed the first paragraph of the lead as previous users had not mentioned that it is defined by the ONS. However, yes your point raises that the second paragraph is a little.... vague in polite terms.
Please feel free to go ahead and alter this, as I certainly agree you raise not only a good point, but a valid issue which may help readers! If you are unfamiliar with how to use inline citation for article, just give me a shout at my talk page and we'll work something out!
If I may ask a more personal question (given your contributions)... are from the Gtr Mcr area? I'm curious to know as I work alot on articles relating to this region, but could do with knowing a few more contacts from this part of the world in an effort to consult users to keep things neutral and factual! Keep up the good work however, you're doing great! Jhamez8402:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
--Great stuff you added to the GMUA article - it makes a lot more sense and sounds very much more professional. I just made a minor copyedit (cosmetic) and added a category. Thanks for the contributions, you're proving to know your stuff! Jhamez8401:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! HagermanBot17:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Population of glasgow ==
I can see where you are coming from however in that case this information is out of date and serves no purpose. The population of Glasgow, the third largest city in the u.k, Glasgow is the only city with a population between 500,000 to 1 million. no other city not even leeds or liverpool is close to that. The "Greater glasgow" conurbation OTHERWISE known as the "clyde valley"!!!!!!!! is 1,750,000...it is an urban area...it is a conurbation. if you look the WORD definition up of conurbation, and compare this to the glasgow area you will see that The greater glasgow or clyde valley conurbation; of which glasgow is central to, has a population of 1,750,000. fact.Glasgowfinder (talk) 12:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
IT IS EASY TO SEE HOW BIG THE GLASGOW URBAN AREA IS BEAUSE IT IS ONE CONTINIOUS MASS OF NETWORK OR TOWNS, CITIES AND VILLAGE ALL CENTERD AROUND GLASGOW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glasgowfinder (talk • contribs) 12:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
WikiProject West Midlands is active!
Hey, as you expressed your interest in participating in the West Midlands Wikiproject, I thought I should now tell you that is now active: Wikipedia:WikiProject West Midlands. If you are still interested, please add your name to the list of Participants.
I will be doing some tasks to get the project going such as created user templates and templates for articles as well as seeing if any more users and editors would be interested in participating. Thanks! - Erebus55512:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Question on Second City
Nice query for TC, full of traps - but he seems strangely shy to answer for once, perhaps his tendancy to always at all times have the last word has limits, and you, Fingerpuppet, have discovered them. MarkThomas22:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Please don't leave cynical messages on my talk page. I thought I'd wait and give the conversation the benefit of a pause for a few cups of tea to wake me up, to be sure I didn't say anything I might regret. Its unfortunate you can't say the same. MRSC • Talk08:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
(Greater) Manchester WikiProject
Just a line to let you know that the consensus appears to be that this proposal be ammended to be a county-wide project. Given this, you may therefore be interested to register your interest. Thanks, Jhamez8420:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't do this normally but the improvement drive nominations page has gone quiet all of a sudden. So, could you please add a nomination or support/object the current nomination on there. Thanks and happy editting! - Erebus55521:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Dear Fingerpuppet
I am looking for help with getting an article on Black Patch park off the list of pieces facing deletion. Can you help? The general point that it reads too much like an essay is not very helpful. Does the whole article need rewriting or just some sections. is it a question of the whole style of the article or some specific edits? I am confused, especially as i have several other articles mainly by me on Wikipedia whihc one editor described as exemplary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Patch_ParkSimon Baddeley10:29, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Do you have cite for the Chasewater boundary changes, please? Not that I doubt you, but I've been trying to find the details for some time. Andy Mabbett15:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
No problem! I'm not from the area and am basing my map on several which give conflicting urban boundaries and (it seems) generallised motorway locations. I can't fix it without your feedback and knowledge and I do therefore appreciate it!!!
I've made some fresh ammendments to this map. I'm sorry I missed your comment about an ONS map - found it then when I was archiving my talk page.
This shouldn't be a problem - I have a number of maps yet to produce (I'm aiming to get all the metropolitan counties to have their own infobox maps up and running), but would be happy to produce some then to improve the various Urban Area articles.
Feel free to highlight any problems with the new West Midlands map, found in places such as Dudley (I'm still struggling with the pointer calibration). Jhamez8413:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Shrewsbury line
While the railway line does indeed run from Wolverhampton, not Birmingham, to Shrewsbury, the vast majority of the Central Trains services on it do run to/from Birmingham. Therefore the use of "Birmingham-Shrewsbury" in the previous/next station boxes in quite acceptable. --RFBailey21:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
As a user who's been closely involved in this field of Urban areas, I was wondering if you are familliar with two things:
1. Does a map of the Greater Manchester Urban Area (according to the last census of course) exist in the published realm? Or, even better, in the online realm?
2. Does any part of the (somewhat rural) civil parish of Saddleworth (Uppermill, Greenfield etc) form part of the Greater Manchester Urban Area?
If you know of the answers to these issues, I'd be eternally grateful if you could help, or at least point me in the right direction.
I've also noted your points you've raised about the WMs infobox map - I suspect there is a calibration error, though I can also fix Blackheath. Jhamez8417:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you so much! That's a great help, and I really appreciate it!..... I'll try to fix the WM map asap. Jhamez8422:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Great article! I've updated the RBS template to try to show more accurately where it joined. As far as I can see (from your article and from this map) it left the existing Walsall-Wolverhampton line after it diverges from the RBS line. IS this correct? I've also tweaked the Oxley chord to show it going under the RBS line.
I think the line must have closed in the 1970s, not 1980s. It's shown in my 1970 rail atlas, but the first edition of the Baker atlas, published in 1977, only shows a short siding at Wolverhampton, and the line only going from Walsall to Birchills power station at the other end. – Tivedshambo(talk)09:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
It's actually only the W Mids that will be an issue - everywhere else, the "Railway stations in" parallel the counties, which I used as the basis for the "Disused railway stations in..." categories. I do think it's a problem that needed to be addressed, as in some places the fact that the disused stations are being listed alongside the open stations is ridiculously distorting the lists (check out Category:Railway stations in Gwynedd for example). For all the "disused" categories I've made them subcategories of "Railway stations in (county)", so for everywhere outside the W Mids there's no content being lost.
If you (or anyone else) don't raise an objection, I'll split the W Mids into Wolverhampton/Sandwell/Dudley/Birmingham (I think that will catch all of them), move the disused stations into those, but not restore "Railway stations in..." as a category; I agree that there are so many disused stations there that it warrants special treatment, and the alternatives will end up wildly skewing the open stations lists. Or would it make more sense to follow what's always been the case for London, where for example St Ann's Road railway station is categorised as Category:Disused railway stations in London and Category:Transport in Haringey? What I really want to avoid is setting a precedent for breaking up the London category into separate categories for the 33 boroughs with only one or two members each — iridescenti(talk to me!)21:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I've split the W Mids stations back into Wolverhampton, Birmingham etc and made them subcategories of West Midlands and Railway stations in... - hopefully that will be stable as a solution. Did Dr Beeching have something against Wolverhampton? — iridescenti(talk to me!)22:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
My personal favourite stealth closure is the Croxley Green branch - "temporarily closed for refurbishment" for eleven years, despite a respectable chunk of the line now covered by a bypass - closely followed by Denton with its mighty one-train-per-week (northbound only) service.
The question of whether 'Oldham' cats should be renamed to 'Metropoloitan Borough of Oldham' has been taken to CfD, see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_June_9#Oldham. As far as I can tell, this renaming proposal would apply to Wigan, Stockport and all other metropolitan boroughs - UK-wide - that share a name with a town. Your contributions would be welcome. Mr Stephen15:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
West Midlands map
Hello, thanks for the contact. I'm slowly getting back into editting again, and will be happy to take a look at the West Mids map. Leave it with me for a week or so, and I'll double check where the error seems to have occurred (it'll certainly be on my part though!).
I still intend to make maps for every county of England asap, I've just had an editting block of late!
Hi there, please can you help me with this?? Also, see the project talkpage for more info regarding the Walsall article (if you can help, then that's great!)
You help me with an article... I'll help you with one!! I suppose that's fair, isn't it??
Hi. I'm not sure the entry for Bristol on this page is correct. If I look at the source provided, I see a different figure. Can you tell me where your figure comes from? Thanks SP-KP23:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Perhaps the Bristol entry could have an explanatory note to point this out? SP-KP23:16, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Regarding WM Region Map
Sure, I could easily change the Sandwell bit. I'm still rather confused on Telford; it is technically one town, right? I think all of the UA's are lacking room for me to type in their names, but I'll see if i can devise a method for making it clear. Chrisbayley16:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Sigh! I don't think it is going to work. They can't even "keep the peace" for a day without attacking each other's supposed arguments. I'm even more convinced it will end in deletion or blocking of one or more editors. But I guess we need to see if they can surprise us. DDStretch (talk)16:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Many thanks for pointing out that Walsall and Birmingham are distinct entities. That was quick - a few days after creating this article. Part18:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC) Perhaps you may be interested
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List of largest United Kingdom settlements by population
I am at a loss of what to do about this page now. People who clearly know nothing about the topic keep changing the figure for Cardiff. Should there be some sort of survey to clarify which is the correct figure? Marky-Son16:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
It's very awkward - though it only ever seems to be places where the Urban sub-division is smaller than the local authority that seems to have a problem with it! I guess the only thing to do is keep patiently explaining the differences between the different ways of measuring, as people clearly aren't reading the lead section properly. I wonder if there is a way of totally rewriting the lead section to make it clearer? Fingerpuppet16:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Well I see someone was confused about Bristol further up your talk page. Maybe some people don't like being told how small their city is. Maybe it would be good to use an example, such as Cardiff, in the lead section and break down the population of the city, urban area etc, so people can tell the difference. Words like urban subdivision are meaningless unless you're geographically-minded, and even settlement seems to be causing some bother so there must be some way of making it easier to understand. This seems to be a problem with Cardiff, because the difference between the different areas, in terms of population, is very small. Whereas with Birmingham, it's clear that it's just a section of the whole conurbation. Marky-Son17:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
No worries, my wife, who comes from the town, made me promise to try and get it to FA status in return for allowing me to spend longer on the computer instead of being sociable :-) ChrisTheDude20:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Horsley Fields Junction
Interesting that you should re-categorise Horsley Fields Junction as being to do with Transport in Wolverhampton. It is in Wolverhampton, but surely it is part of the wider transport network of the West Midlands? Thanks for checking my additions - I do need checking. Typing and thinking at the same time is too much :) OosoomTalk to me10:44, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
It is indeed part of the wider network, though not just in the West Midlands county, but also it's on the links out to Staffordshire and Shropshire via Aldersley and Autherley Junctions. The same comments could be made about, say, Wolverhampton railway station, and I just thought that it would be better placed in the more precise category. I won't complain too much if you disagree and feel that it should be moved back. Fingerpuppet14:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
May seem like old news now, but Manchester was recently listed as a good article, try and make as much effort as you can with trying to make it featured.
Manchester Airport has seen unprecedented vandalism from anonymous editors recently, on 24th September it was protected by MastCell for a period of 1 week. Make sure to visit the page (after that date) regularly so we can stamp out any "bad edits".
Try to invite more members to this project. As much as a streamlined team is good, the more editors we have the broader the range we can cover.
Image source problem with Image:BrownhillsWatlingStreet.JPG
Image Copyright problem
Thanks for uploading Image:BrownhillsWatlingStreet.JPG. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.
As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 06:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI06:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The project now has 28 members! 7 new participants enrolled this week, they can be viewed here. There was also change to the welcoming messages this month, by Jza84, which reinvigorated the style in response to the change of colours on the main and affiliated pages. See the welcome templates, here. Finally, a barnstar has been created for the project! See the final design on this page, and so far it has been awarded to one lucky participants, WebHamster. Well done.
Greater Manchester Article News
Well has this month been a hub of activity, or what? (See:Original diff) The new assessment scale has been welcomed by many here at WPGM and as of 4th November, 81.37% of all 650 articles have been assessed with both importance and class. Two articles have been passed good article criteria since last delivery, they are: Didsbury & Dunham Massey. Well done to all involved.
Current Debates
There was a lengthy debate over a certain number of related articles in Manchester City Centre this week, (See:the thread involved). Aytoun Street, Barton Square, Brazenoose Sqaure, Dover Street, Manchester and Police Street were all flagged by Pit-yacker as being deserved of deletion per lacking notablilty. The process took 5 days at articles for deletion and the result was, delete. Other sections that readied editors into scrambling over themselves this month were: should Greater Manchester boroughs get their own infobox? Such as with London boroughs. The debate continutes.
Monthly Challenges
Same as last month, we've have to get Manchester upto Featured Article Standard. However, with Manchester now rated as A-Class (above GA and below FA) it may be easier than first thought. Try to fill all the current "to do" requirements. There has also been some talk of increased activity of bringing Greater Manchester to Good Article Standard. It would be ideal if all 650 articles were at least GA standard, but that will never happen in the next month. But please if you can, assess your ability to understand an article and if you're acquauinted with the task in hand and potentially long wait for a writing and for a review, go ahead! Be bold.
Manchester Airport once again saw more vandal edits this month, and was protected for another consecutive month on 22nd October by Jmlk17. Some users have also realised the extreme coincidence in the first half of 65% of editing IPs, i.e. all begin with "79.72". Could it be the same editor? If you can keep visiting the page to revert vandalism in sight. The most freqeunt additions that are factually incorrect are the inclusions of: Chicago O'Hare and New York-JFK to Pakistan International Airlines (T2) and Newquay to Air Southwest (T3). MAN also has a peer review.
Although you may not have noticed that this WikiProject has a associated portal. The page named, Portal:North West England, is updated frequently, but it would be nice to get more editors. It too has recently undergone a peer review, and some criteria has been added to get the page to featured portal status. You could signify your involvement by adding {{User Portal NWE}} to your userpage.
The project now has 31 members. 3 new participants enrolled last month, they can be viewed here. Andrew has also created another template for your talk page (even though this links to your userpage) which displays for all to see that you are a member of the project. You can add it to your page by including {{WPGM Talk}} to the page. It may be difficult to see the true effects of these welcoming messages, but I'm estimating that since the introduction of these that 12 new users have joined, all 100% have accepted their invitations, and therefore they are 100% successful in their aim.
Greater Manchester Article News
Once again, the project has been subject to much praise from three newly promoted featured articles, and one more good article. Oldham (nom), Manchester (nom), M62 motorway (nom) and Chat Moss (review) have all passed with flying colours. Featured articles now make up 0.03% more of the overall articles that there are relating to the project, than last month. Of all 791 pages which are tagged with this template, 100% have been assessed with the new scale which was introduced last month. It may also be worth noting two others pages that are undergoing transformations are: List of companies based in Greater Manchester and Belle Vue Zoo.
Current Debates
There was a lengthy debate over Manchester Airport this month, which lead to three article for deletions, second nominations viewable here and deletion review viewable here. Basically, what happened was there was quite a great misunderstanding of what the purpose of the lists actually were. They were to compile a list of the destinations served by each terminal and linked along into a sub-page, where it would seem the overview page (i.e. Manchester Airport) would look less cluttered, as was the suggestion at the peer review. Some participants at the first AFD, stated that reviews shouldn't be carried out upon unless there is consensus, and as they are not authorative should only be used as a guide. It was soon sorted though and all three daughter-lists were deleted. There has also been a change to the projects aims, which took a dramatic overhaul this week following the FA pass of Manchester. The change was performed by Jza84. It is now recognised that we should bring not only top importance articles to FA standard but also ones that have been long-since reviewed, like Altrincham and Stretford. And if you're wondering why Salford is there it's due to the fact that there is a consensus among the project members that as Salford is in such close vicinity to the City of Manchester, that it's our "duty" to help promote it. The change came about about after this discussion.
Monthly Challenges
New this month, we have to get Greater Manchester upto Featured Article Standard. However, with Manchester now rated as FA-Class and the proposed "skipping" of the GA process, it may not be too long before we see this under the success section on the project mainpage. It would be ideal if all 791 articles were at least GA standard, but that will never happen in the next month! But please if you can, assess your ability to understand an article and if you're acquauinted with the task in hand and potentially long wait for a writing and for a review, go ahead! Be bold. The progress monitor can be seen here.
Once again, Portal:North West England has been subject to much exposure on behalf of it's editors. The current status of the portal is looking good and it has so far gained unanimous support at it's FPOC. Hopefully, it'll be promoted and we'll have yet another success on our hands. Also, most major articles that are relevant have been tagged with a shortcut to the Portal mainpage, by Jza.
And finally, have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all our Greater Manchester Wikipedians! The project now has 34 members. 5 new participants enrolled last month, they can be viewed here. On behalf of the team I hope they have prosperous and enjoyable usership and wish them well with their forthcoming work!
User:Archtransit and User:Rudget, both part of our team, are current candidates for adminship (see here for Archtransit and here for Rudget). We wish them luck with this persuit and hope they will become our latest project participants with admin status!
Simillarly, the Portal:North West England is now officially a featured portal. User:Rudget has been overwhelmingly involved with this portal and he too is hereby thanked on behalf of the project for his continued contributions to this page and many others.
There have been a number of debates this month, some of which with a high level of potential impact for the project and its members.
Article assessment for the project became a point of contention when around 1400 articles were tagged by a bot. Most of these artcles were on "minor" association football players. The consensus was that in our state of around 30 participants and as a predominatly geography based project, most of these articles should be untagged, at very least for the time being. Of our 1403 articles now tagged however, only (?) 85% are assessed - a drop of 15%!
Perhaps one of the most notable debates this month was the possibility of... scrapping the project newsletter! User:Rudget has written the last three editions (that's all of them!) and has decided that he'd like to pass on the responsibility. It has been proposed that a noticeboard system be introduced to highlight new issues in a near(!)-realtime fashion. I User:Jza84 am writing what could now be the last GM newsletter for a while. If you're a member of the team, but aren't closely involved with the project, then we'd love to hear from you at WT:GM with your views on which system of communication is the right way forwards (if any/both!).
Monthly Challenges
As was stated in last months newsletter, the Greater Manchester remains a key article for the project, and one which has been identified as urgent in our quest for Featured Article status. Sadly, for all our other successes, Greater Manchester has changed little since this time last year] (!) and is still an article requiring expansion and development. The new WP:UKCOUNTIES guide may provide new ways in which to channel our efforts. Although we endevour to have good article status even for our suburbs and hamlets, other articles specifically identified as needing development towards FA include Salford, Stretford and Altrincham.
Many of our most crucial articles about our largest towns are still in poor condition: Rochdale, Bury, Prestwich, Bolton, and Wigan are of "start class" standard - much lower than we should have. If you feel you can help, please be bold and try to improve these.
One final challenge for this month is for all those with new digial cameras for Christmas, or even digial images stored away on a disc!... many of our place articles are still without a single photograph, and www.geograph.org.uk is running low on quality images. Even those with photographs often have a low quality photograph of the local church. MORE ARE NEEDED! Especially townscapes! If you think you can help, a barnstar is up for grabs for best picture added in the next month or so!
We're always looking for potential new project members and ways for greater communication, collaboration and participation. WP:GM has a strong core of users, but would like to have more input from a wider user-base. If you can think of ways to improve our ways of working, please feel free to mention them at WT:GM. Simillarly, if you notice a new or unapproached user who is producing sound work related to Greater Manchester and its consituent parts, please don't forget to ask them if they'd like to join us, either in your own hand, or by adding {{Welcome WPGM}} to their talk page.
Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!
Delivered on January 5th, 2008 by Jza84. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add two *'s by your username on the Project Mainpage.
Major conurbations
Hello there Fingerpuppet,
I've been wondering for a while if it would be more appropriate to have a sub-page on England and the UK's conurbations, and transclude them onto their respective articles? These sections seem to be a hub for POV-ists, civic-vanity-ists and outright vandals, and contantly flash up on my watch list! The content could be put into a table page and semi-protected perhaps???? -- Jza84 · (talk)14:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've gone ahead and transcluded the table for England (via Template:England conurbations). I think it should be semi-protected but we can see if this is messed with or not first I guess. Hopefully this should stop non-sense being added for a while. Might be worth watching this page. I'm not sure if the same should be done for the UK too. -- Jza84 · (talk)17:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Since the January newsletter there has been an increase of 5 featured articles/lists, taking our total number of featured entries upto 16 17 (Trafford passed today!).
Although WP:GM leads the way in terms of featured content by a local British project, the Kent and Yorkshire WikiProjects are close to this total, with 11 and 14 featured entries respectively.
Following a somewhat frenzied collaboration at the start of March, and a nomination by User:Joshii, Greater Manchester was promoted to GA status. It's the first metropolitan county to obtain this recognition.
There has otherwise been a reduction in WP:GM nominations for GA status, something which the project has begun to discuss on the talk page.
Having completed all but one of our short term aims set last December, the project would like to look at developing new short term aims. Suggestions have been made here, but there is scope for flexibility. Do you have a entry you would like to see developed?
Two members have left the project however, each for rather different reasons:
Archtransit (talk·contribs) was an administrator, and project member, who was found to have been abusing his editting and sysop privliges. Following investigation, Archtransit was banned indefinately. A report in The Signpost is found here.
Rudget (talk·contribs), also an administrator, decided to leave the project. Reasons mentioned included the demands of admin duties taking over too much time. Rudget helped towards Didsbury's GA promotion, and Portal:North West England's FP promotion.
Thanks
This WikiProject, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
WP:GM is a great project, and is leading the way for local WikiProjects of the UK. However, though the project talk page is a hub of activity, it is regularly used by only a core of 5-6 editors, which isn't making the most of its potential. Indeed, a study, by the University of Minnesota found that "One-tenth of 1 percent of editors account for nearly half of Wikipedia's content value". We at WP:GM do not want to follow suit!
There are several editors who have, sadly, not editted since the turn of 2008, and others, which concentrate in areas other than Greater Manchester material (which is quite fine!).
The WikiProject Greater Manchester would like to know if YOU are still around, and if so, if you've like to be more involved, and, if not, why not and what can we do to get you involved and be a bigger part of the team?
Feel free to come by the project talk page and leave us a message on what you're working on and/or what you'd like to see improved. The project is only as strong as its members and we'd like to know if you're still active or if we can help you with your editting.
Images
A picture's worth a thousand words
In our last issue, a plea was made for more images to be submitted to Wikipedia/WikiCommons to improve the quality and context of our articles. Many of our Top priority articles are still lacking in quality images, if any!
www.geograph.org.uk is an online resource of photographs of places in the UK, which we can use. Www.flickr.com also has some images we are permitted to use. Do you have a digital camera however? Can you take photographs of townscapes and landmarks in your local area that can be used here? Middleton, Hulme and Rochdale all have examples of images in their lead that help give a sense of place and improve the context to our readers.
Simillarly, many of our most crucial articles about our largest towns are still in poor condition: Stockport, Bury, Prestwich, Bolton, and Wigan are of "start class" standard with short lead sections and unreferenced sections - a much lower standard than we should allow! If you feel you can help, please be bold and try to improve these. There is a list of resources that can help.
Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!
Delivered on March 8th, 2008 by Jza84. If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add two *'s by your username on the Project Mainpage.
West Mids map
Hello there! Thanks for the contact,
I did draw up the map for the West Mids county. However, I did not calibrate it (it's something way beyond my technical knowhow!). You might want to direct your query to User:Warofdreams who calibrated most of the county maps. If it turns out there is a problem with the image itself (which is possible, or even likely, as it was one of my first) please let me know and I'll try to fix it. --Jza84 | Talk 23:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Peterloo Massacre was nominated for FAC on 6 April. So far it has received support for FAS but feel free join the discussion here.
The reduction of WP:GM GAs, mentioned in the last issue, has been tackled with Buckton Castle and Oasis (band) being passed on 9 March and Upper Brook Street Chapel, Manchester on 7 April. We now have 13 GAs due to hard work of our contributors. Well done!
WP:GM still is still the leading local British WikiProject. As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 6 on London and Yorkshire who have 15 FAs each. Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still lacking GAs and falls behind London by 6. This topic was at the front of the new aims discussion (here) and is an important issue for WP:GM.
As mentioned above, new aims have been decided. See the right hand column for more details.
Member News
There are now 44 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester! A warm welcome to the 5 new members that have joined us since March:
Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!
New Aims
The completion of all but one of the short term aims set last December resulted in a discussion on WT:GM to set new aims for the WikiProject. They are:
Obtain GA status for a third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.
It took us four months to get our last aims completed, why not try and see if these can be done in less time than before! All input is welcome but if anyone has any books or photos etc specifically related to these topics, they would be extra-specially welcome.
But before rushing ahead with these new aims, let's not forget the one that got away last time: to obtain B -> GA status for Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Bolton and Stockport. Most of these articles are in poor condition and in need of repair. Good quality images are urgently needed also. Let's make sure that this aim doesn't stay off our radar much longer.
Don't Forget...
Images! The shortage of good images was mentioned in the last issue and still hasn't been resolved! A good place to start would be the requested photographs category but please remember that there are many articles not within this category that have the same need in common.
Assessment "Assess and review all relevant articles for quality, importance and progress" is one of our mid-term aims. At the present moment, there are only 43 unassessed articles. This task could be completed well before the next newsletter is out.
The Peterloo Massacre article was promoted to FA on 12 April. One of our top priority articles, it had previously been only start class. The process began on 25th March and since then underwent over 700 edits before the end of April, with Jza84, Malleus Fatuarum, and Richerman making significant contributions to the rapid development of the article. Ddstretch and Mr Stephen also contributed to discussions on the article talk page.
Perhaps the most unusual event of April 2008 for the project has surrounded the Denshaw article. Denshaw is a village of about 500 people in Saddleworth, Oldham, which attracted media attention due to vandalism of the stub class article. Once this was brought to the project's attention, efforts were made to improve the article which led to a successful DYK? nomination and might even advance it to GA status with a bit more effort. In April there were over 19,000 visitors who saw the project in action. Contributors included Jza84, Ddstretch, Malleus Fatuarum, Hassocks5489, Nev1 and Mike Peel.
Also this month 5 articles featured on the DYK? section of the front page: Hulme Arch Bridge, Peterloo Massacre, Bolton and Leigh Railway, Barnes Hospital, Denshaw, and Platt Fields Park. This certainly puts into perspective one of the project's previous mid-term aims "feature on the Did you know? section with at least three articles related to Greater Manchester". If you've expanded an article 5 fold or started one with at least 1.5kb of prose in the past 5 days and it has an interesting and referenced fact don't hesitate to read the conditions of DYK? and nominate it here. It gets the project noticed!
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still leading local British WikiProjects. As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 7 on London and Yorkshire who have 15 Featured Articles each. Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still lacking GAs and falls behind London by 6 (we have 14, London 20). If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
Member News
There are 45 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. One new member has joined the project this month:
Kieran5676 on 30th April and is interested in south Manchester.
The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A rather large "thank you" goes out to all the editors who edited article related to Greater Manchester, or who edit the project itself.
Obtain GA status for one third (1/3) of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.
It took us four months to get our last aims completed, why not try and see if these can be done in less time than before! All input is welcome but if anyone has any books or photos etc specifically related to these topics, they would be extra-specially welcome.
Most of the articles covered by our new aims haven't experienced much activity in the past month, if you thing you can help improve an article be bold and get editing. Articles such as List of people from Bolton and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.
Our highest priority article is of course Greater Manchester, there is a peer review from March with issues still to be addressed before it can be put forward as a featured article candidate. Salford is another top priority article because it's the county's second city; it's under gone a lot of editing but still has a way to go before it reaches GA. Also active this month has been the City of Salford article – part of our aim to get 1/3 of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs to GA &ndash.
Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Reminders...
Images! The rate of good images has gone up since it was mentioned in the last issue, but more images are needed! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Assessment When this section was written, there was only 1 unassessed article! This task has probably already been finished, but it might now have. To check click here.
I am currently developing a wiki about transport in the uk and i was wondering if you would like to help. please if so go to wikia:uktransport:User talk:Kentish121 and leave a message.
Old Trafford, Murrays' Mills and 1990 Strangeways Prison riot all passed GAC last month! In previous newsletters, the issue of WP:GM's lack of GAs has been raised numerously, so a large 'well done' to all those who contributed, be it little or large!
Also, Milnrow and City of Salford have been nominated at WP:GAC. Feel free to join in with their discussions here and here respectively. To 'obtain GA status for a third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs' is one of WP:GM's short-term aims, let's hope the City of Salford won't be the last borough with this status.
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on London! Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still flagging a little in GAs and falls behind London by 3. This is the closest we have ever got to taking the lead in local British GAs, if you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
And don't forget that the Manchester congestion charge article will need all input possible to keep it up to date with the government's new legislation (grumble grumble)...
Member News
There are 46 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. Our newest member is:
Let's not forget that Jza84 became an administrator this month! Congratulations on your new role.
The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A rather large "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed..
Obtain GA status for one third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.
Most of the articles covered by our new aims haven't experienced much activity in the past month, except for City of Salford being nominated at WP:GAC. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Articles such as List of people from Bolton and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.
Greater Manchester is, of course, our highest priority article. Mr Stephen posted some milestones to getting this article up to FA status a while back. Please check them out and see what you can do.
Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Reminders...
Images! The rate of good images has gone up since it was mentioned in the last issue, but we'll need more if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Assessment As of 12th April, we have had 100% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, we still 151 of our 1551 article unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.
Not sure what you are going on about but the information I have supplied is from ONS who are the ones behind the Liverpool Urban Area > who say they only do the statistics and they told me "ONS are responsible only for producing statistics for the Urban Areas as
defined by the Department for Communities and Local Government. If you wish
to comment on the boundaries you will need to contact them. Their email
address is......." Dmcm2008 (talk) 00:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Liverpool Urban Area 'greater Liverpool
I am not sure how this works, but I am seeking additional opinions on the discussion on this page, I will abide by the general consensus. User JZA continues to undermine my edits and has done over a period. However I am only looking at opinions on the discussion page on Liverpool Urban Area if you are interested please leave your thoughts. There are two references on that page which have maps, and although this wider/greater Liverpool is unofficial the zone if you like is covered on these maps and they are just two examples. Hope you may offer something constructive. Thank you. Dmcm2008 (talk) 10:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Oxford Wikimania 2010 and Wikimedia UK v2.0 Notice
Hi,
As a regularly contributing UK Wikipedian, we were wondering if you wanted to contribute to the Oxford bid to host the 2010 Wikimania conference. Please see here for details of how to get involved, we need all the help we can get if we are to put in a compelling bid.
We are also in the process of forming a new UK Wikimedia chapter to replace the soon to be folded old one. If you are interested in helping shape our plans, showing your support or becoming a future member or board member, please head over to the Wikimedia UK v2.0 page and let us know. We plan on holding an election in the next month to find the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board who after obtaining charitable status will start the fund raising, promotion and active support for the UK Wikimedian community for which the chapter is being founded.
You may also wish to attend the next London meet-up at which both of these issues will be discussed. If you can't attend this meetup, you may want to watch Wikipedia:Meetup, for updates on future meets.
We look forward to hearing from you soon, and we send our apologies for this automated intrusion onto your talk page!
It's been three months since the last newsletter, but there's been a lot going on...
Promoted articles:
Greater Manchester is one of our project's top priority articles, the Greater Manchester article comprehensively covers everything to do with the county, from culture and history, to transport and demography.
Manchester United F.C. records and statistics is about the records of one of Greater Manchester's best know clubs, which feats like "the club currently holds the record for the most FA Cup triumphs with 11".
City of Salford is about the local government area and Greater Manchester's second city. Getting Salford to GA is one our the aim's of our project, so hopefully this may help.
Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is about the history and modern restoration of the disused canal running through the county. (It's now at FAC, so please improve the article if you can!)
Manchester Mummy is about Hannah Beswick, whose macabre fear of being buried alive lead to her demanding that her body was kept above ground and checked periodically for signs of life.
Milnrow is a small town in Rochdale with a long history. The wool trade was important to the town and was the basis of much of its industry. (It's also the first GA for Rochdale!)
Ordsall Hall is an important Tudor hall in Salford with a reputation for being haunted!
Bert Trautmann is the German goalkeeper who broke his neck playing for Manchester City... and carried on playing!
The Peterloo Massacre appeared on the front page on 16 August! Well done to everyone who contributed to the article about a key moment of Greater Manchester's history and managed to get it showcased.
A new portal has been set up! The Greater Manchester portal showcases some of the best articles to do with the county. Thanks to Polishname for single-handedly getting it up and running.
There is a proposal to move members who haven't edited for a while to an inactive members list, so if you've not been edited recently but still want to be a member let us know!
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 5 on Yorkshire and 11 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 5 more than London and 7 more than Yorkshire! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Although the project has had a lot of GAs and FAs recently, most of the articles covered by our short term aims haven't experienced much activity recently. Baby has undergone some change, but has a long way to go, and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester is very close to FL quality. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Articles such as List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.
Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Member News
There are 53 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. Since 12 June, the project has gained 7 new members:
Welcome to everyone, and let's remember to make these new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help.
The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Assessment As of 1st September, we have had 99.5% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, we still 157 of our 1662 article unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.
Wow! That's a massive, massive help! Much clearer and much more helpful for our readers and editors alike! Thanks for taking a look at this, :) --Jza84 | Talk 20:07, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey there
Thanks for backing me up in my question in the talk page of Manchester. The good people of the Manchester site didn't do as I (I thought) politely asked, so now I have to report them. They're boasting figures that aren't legitimate and can no longer continue to do so.
--Tubs uk (talk) 22:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
WikiProject Greater Manchester October Newsletter, Issue X
Usually this is where this month's promoted articles are listed, however there is something more important this month. In September, the project was notified which of its articles were selected for a DVD version of wikipedia. The 49 are listed here, although the quality ratings are a bit out of date. Twenty-two of the articles were GA-class or higher, and only five were below B-class. These are articles that have been selected by wikipedia, not simply as the best but the most important, so they require our attention, most importantly those that fall below GA standards. We still have until the 20th October to make changes to the articles, so please if you think you can improve any of them in any way please do so!
In other news, it's been a busy month with plenty going on...
Promoted articles:
The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is a disused canal undergoing restoration. The canal, which travels between Bolton and Manchester with a branch heading north east to Bury, was abandoned in 1961.
Having previously been described as "bare, wet, and almost worthless", Ashton-under-Lyne rose to prominence in the Industrial Revolution as one of the most famous mill towns in the north west.
Henry Taylor is Oldham's forgotten Olympic hero. He won 3 swimming golds at the 1908 Olympics, a record for most golds in a single games by a Briton until Chris Hoy equalled it this year.
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on Yorkshire and 15 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 5 more than London and 7 more than Yorkshire! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
There wasn't space in the last newsletter, but as of 24 July 2008 the project has a list of articles that have tags on them. As of 14 July 2008, 351 (21.8%) of our articles need a clean-up, although this should have gone down as some have already received attention (the bot does not seem to update the listing often).
In other news, the Merseyside Wikiproject has been set up. If you have an interest in the area or want to help out in any way, head over to the project page and pitch in.
In the past month we've achieved two of our short-term aims! The List of railway stations in Greater Manchester was expertly guided through the featured list process with hardly a problem, and now that Tameside is a GA a third of the county's boroughs are GA status or better. There's still plenty to do, some our our top-priority articles need referencing or tidying up, so don't hesitate to dive in! If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! And please keep an eye on the 49 articles selected for the wikipedia DVD.
Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Member News
No new members joined the project in September and there are 49 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. A new list of inactive members has been started. Anyone who hasn't made an edit to wikipedia since 1 March 2008 automatically goes onto the list.
If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Assessment As of 4th October, we have had 100% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, 151 of our 1684 articles remain unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.
Hi there. I wonder if you could take a look at the discussion about census records on this link, and if you knew where I could find more extensive modern records on the town? Right now I can't find 1981 and 1991 population records, or any individual records regarding employment in 2001 (manufacturing, textiles, etc). Kind Regards Parrot of Doom (talk) 23:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I just wanted to thank you for the extra data you provided, and the excellent inline citations which I doubt I could have made quite so neatly :) I'm beginning to wonder if there are any post-1974 employment records for areas smaller than a borough - I'm not sure they exist at all. Parrot of Doom (talk) 11:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - it does appear to provide figures for Radcliffe, but percentages rather than numbers. That's fine as I can easily work out the figures I need though, and it also provides a good example of what Radcliffe's current industry is, it should help me complete the economy section. Presumably it's ok to mix employment figures from different sources, so long as they're separately referenced? Parrot of Doom (talk) 18:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
It's been a quieter month than September, but plenty has been going on...
Promoted articles:
Born in Stalybridge and raised in Ashton-under-Lyne, Hugh Mason was a mill owner and politician. He was popular among his workers for shortening the working week at his factories without cutting their pay.
No articles were DYKs this month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on Yorkshire and 14 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 7 more than both Yorkshire and London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
Trafford was featured on the main page on the 12th October and was viewed 13,800 on the day (27,100 times over 4 days).
The project's cleanup listing has been updated with stats from 8 October. As of 14 July, 351 (21.8%) of our articles need a clean-up, this has risen to 447 out of 1689 (26.5%). Although this is disappointing, it reflects a more widespread use of tags on articles to indicate what needs attention rather than a decline in the standard of this project's articles.
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Member News
There are now 53 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester as 4 new members joined the project in October:
Welcome to everyone, and let's remember to make these new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
On top of these aims, some our our top-priority articles need referencing or tidying up, so don't hesitate to dive in! If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Assessment As of 1st November, we have had 100% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, 75 of our 1708 articles remain unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.
Last but not Least... If you've got a story to go in next month's news letter, leave a note here.
Delivered on 2 November 2008 by Nev1. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add two *s by your username on the Project Mainpage.
Leeds
Hi thanks for the back-up on Leeds article. I do not know why new users head for Leeds and bring up the similar arguments for merging the articles, this user has done edits in Wales then suddenly changed to Leeds. May be they are all the same person just stirring it up because they cannot get their own way. Keith D (talk) 23:57, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Hi again, looks like we have a set of socks here as this is this new users only edit and yet they pick up on the same theme. Keith D (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
WikiProject Greater Manchester December Newsletter, Issue XII
November has been a successful month, with lots of progress made on articles, and more work in the pipe-line:
Promoted articles:
Scout Moor Wind Farm is England's largest onshore wind farm. Although it was opposed by environmentalists, the wind farm was opened on 26 September 2008 and provides enough power for 40,000 homes.
The River Irwell runs 39 miles from its source in Lancashire until it joins with the River Mersey. The river was important in the Industrial Revolution, and was left poluted with industrial waste and lifeless.
The Bridgewater Canal is currently a GA nominee and the Scout Moor Wind Farm is under scrutiny at WP:FAC. Please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them. Hopefully, next month we can report on two more promoted articles!
Scout Moor Wind Farm featured in the DYK section of the front page last month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on Yorkshire and 14 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 10 more Yorkshire and 11 more than London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Member News
There are now 50 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester as 2 new members joined the project in November:
Welcome to everyone, and let's remember to make these new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Already we're making great progress, and Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and the River Irwell are already GAs, while Scout Moor Wind Farm is on the way to becoming an FA! The Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF) are hot topics at the moment with the referendum currently open. As an aside, some of our top-priority articles need referencing or tidying up, so don't hesitate to dive in. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Articles needing attention Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the Wikipedia:WikiProject Greater Manchester/Cleanup listing|list of articles needing cleanup]] are in permanent need of attention.
I know it's early but since there won't be a newsletter for a month... merry Christmas everyone, enjoy the holiday and mince pies.
Delivered on 5 December 2008 by Nev1. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please add two *s by your username on the Project Mainpage.
WikiProject Greater Manchester January Newsletter, Issue XIII
December has been a very successful month, with lots of article promoted, and hopefully more to come in January:
Promoted articles:
Scout Moor Wind Farm
Scout Moor Wind Farm is England's largest onshore wind farm. Although it was opposed by environmentalists, the wind farm was opened on 26 September 2008 and provides enough power for 40,000 homes.
The B of the Bang is the sculpture that was erected to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games and for a while was the largest sculpture in the UK. And because of safety concerns, it may be dismantled.
Current nominations: January looks set to be very busy, with Chadderton, Cine City, Withington, and Nico Ditch at WP:GAN, the Greater Manchester portal up for Featured Portal status, and Sale a Featured Article Candidate. Please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them.
Abram featured in the DYK section of the front page last month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?
The project has a new tool, a watchlist of all our project's articles. This should help us keep an eye on them and spot new editors who might want to join our project. Also, Jza84 has developed a map of WP:GM's GAs and FAs. It shows a gap in coverage in the north west of the county, something we should try to change.
WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as Featured and Good content goes, our lead is extending, with 10 and 16 more FAs than Yorkshire and London respectively, and 13 and 14 more GAs than Yorkshire and London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!
WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Two of our aims were crossed off as Scout Moor Wind Farm became an FA, and Radcliffe, Greater Manchester a GA. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.
Member News
There are now 46 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 14 members inactive since 1 July 2008) as 1 new member joined the project in December:
Welcome from everyone, and let's remember to make new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Mixing and Matching population figures from censuses and from other non-census estimates
Hello, Jza84 suggested you may be able to help out here. There is a discussion about the form of words to use to describe population figures in Leeds where figures from the 2001 census are compared with figures from estimates about 2007. No flagging about their different status (estimate by means other than census versus estimate which is the census figure) was originally made in the text. I was told that Manchester seems to also not flag up the status of 2007 estimates separately from the census, and the discussion can be followed by looking at the editing history of Leedshere and here, User talk:Ddstretch#Leeds, and Talk:Manchester#The second sentence. Do you have a view on the matter of the wording and the comparisons that might then be done by readers? If you had it could shed some light on what might be the better way forwards. Thanks. DDStretch (talk)20:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
WikiProject Greater Manchester February Newsletter, Issue XIV
With the new(ish) year, I think it's right to look back over the year just gone. Last year was massive for our project, with lots of successes building on a successful 2007. In terms of featured content, we became the leading wikiproject in 2007, but 2008 saw us cement our status as one of the UK's leading wikiprojects: having started the year with most FAs (two more than London and Yorkshire), but falling behind in terms of GAs, we now have more FAs and GAs than any project under WP:UKGEO. While our aim is to improve all articles related to Greater Manchester, not collect trophies, we now lead the field by a long way and everyone deserves to feel proud for their part.
We've had articles featured on the main page, both in DYK? and as today's Featured Article, but success is more than a matter of numbers; the project has grown into a community where editors join together to provide information and improve Wikipedia. A great example of this is the work our project did on Denshaw. Back in April, it was targeted by vandals and as a result was featured in national news. We stepped in and improved and protected the article, showing what WP:GM is capable of. This is undoubtedly the noisiest project in the UK and it's strength comes from the wide range of interests of its many members. We've even been so successful that we were accused of forming a claque.
During 2008, our numbers have increased and, while some have left, we've welcomed many strong editors who will help bring the project more success. With so much emphasis on Good and Featured articles, it's sometimes easy to forget that a lot of effort goes into articles that don't get recognition. The table below shows that the number of B-class articles has increased since the start of 2008, and that the proportion of stub-class articles under our project has gone down.
My own experience of Wikipedia has been positive and enjoyable, especially due to WP:GM. I've worked on interesting subjects with nice people, and hopefully the experience is similar for others. We've covered subjects as varied and interesting as castles, mummies, computers, Olympic swimmers, and wind farms, stuff I probably wouldn’t know about if it wasn’t for Wikipedia. I enjoy being a part of this project, and as we approach the WP:GM's second birthday (24 February) I'm sure it will continue to go from strength to strength in 2009.
Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!
Project News
January has been a very successful month, with lots of article promoted, and hopefully more to come in January:
Promoted articles:
View of Broadway in Chadderton
Chadderton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham. It has a long and interesting history beyond that of its mill town façade; a Celtic hill fort, a medieval lordship and still an important industrial and metropolitan town.
Nico Ditch stretches from Ashton-under-Lyne to Stretford and according to legend was dug in a single night to defend against the Danes.
Article news: Cine City, Withington is at WP:GAN, please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them. Unfortunately, despite User:Joshii's effort the Greater Manchester portal did not become featured.
Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
Member News
There are now 48 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 14 members inactive since 1 July 2008) as 2 new members joined the project in January:
Welcome from everyone, and let's remember to make new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.
Thanks
A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.
Reminders...
Images! There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.
Hi again. I wonder if you have anything to help me fill out the population table on this article? A Vision of Britain has hardly anything. If you have a file you could email me, I'd happily enter the details myself. Parrot of Doom (talk) 21:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll see what I can dig out - it's not unusual for population data to be sketchy before 1901, as that's the first census for which post-1888 local authorities are available, and before that you end up looking for Ancient Parish data and the like. Fingerpuppet (talk) 11:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! HagermanBot 17:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
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