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2010-04-05 News and notes: New board member, rights elections, April 1st activities, videos In the news: Wikipedia influences drug terminology, brief headlines WikiProject report: WikiProject Baseball and news roundup Features and admins: This week in approvals Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News About·Archives·Single-page·Newsroom·Suggestions WikiVoices Episode 51: WikiNews live article creation Join our next conversation!

Notices

• Please vote on the rules for the Wikipedia:Trading card game, or submit a new proposal.

Project pages seeking contributors

Discussions

Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention:

Help out

Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you are not ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration.

Things to do

• Respond to a request for comment, Wikiquette alert or provide a third opinion.
• Adopt a basic topic list, to help develop and maintain a table of contents to a major subject on Wikipedia.
• Give a requested editor review.
• Can you draw or take pictures? Make a requested image.
• Peer review or give feedback on some articles.
• Comment at Featured portal candidates and Portals at peer review.
• Make recommendations on articles listed at Good article reassessment.
• Respond to the Reward board or Bounty board.
• Are you good at photo editing? Then try cleaning up some of these images, or helping out at the Graphics Lab.
• Can you use GIS tools? Help make requested maps.
• Can you communicate in another language? There are articles that need translation into English. You can also proofread a translation.
• Let SuggestBot suggest pages for you to improve.
• Update pages with old (ref or note template) citations to the new references format.
• Patrol new pages and help improving new articles.
• Assess articles by quality or by importance – pick a topic of interest and grade according to that WikiProject's scale. (See links from article talk pages.)
• Do you have a historical perspective? Articles slanted towards recent events might need to be looked at with a new eye.
• Category:Wikipedia backlog always needs attention.

Fix-up projects

Open tasks

Here are some tasks you can do:

• Wikify: The White Panda, Golden Screen Cinemas, Entity Abstraction Pattern, Folk music of Pakistan, Chaski (Latin American folk music ensemble), More...
• Copyedit: Masking threshold, Homeworld 2, East-European Shepherd, Rajanaka Bhumi Chand, Titof, More...
• Update: Irma Anderson, Militaria, Toni Daggert, Daz Eden, Uganda U-19 cricket team, More...
• Style: Jann Knijnenburg, NGC 1360, Mr. Brainwash, Andre Bársony, Gnosticism, More...
• Translation: Mirok Li, Primitive Scottish Rite, Economy of Turin, Honda N engine, Brazilian Workers Confederation, More...
• Cleanup: Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, FM OSAKA, Noah Levine, Puzzle Series, Siberian regionalism, More...
• Verify: Safeway Inc., Operation Gladio, Bombing of Berlin in World War II, Ectinosomatidae, Euptychiina, More...
• Neutrality: Theodoros Zagorakis, Sungazing, Alan Bateman, TRG (musician), Military history of Bulgaria during World War II, More...
• Original research: Free Bird, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, Mohammed Burhanuddin, Weasel word, Flashover, More...
• Merge: Université Bordeaux IV, Montesquieu University – Bordeaux IV, Telma retarder, Palestinian territories, List of mayors of Montreal, More...
• Split: Female masking, Technological convergence, All of Your Love, Gundam, Philippine Revolution, More...
• Stubs: Pre-Columbian engineering in the Americas, Mar Aprem Mooken, Miga, Poland, Guanaja Airport, The Road to Ruin (1928 film), More...
• Expand: E. Warren Clark, Autolux, Philosophy of futility, Underwater videography, Macomb Mall, More...
• Article deletion discussions: Athletes, Sports, Twenty Ten Music, Deletion sorting, India, More...
• Article Requests: Hermes Lima, Tax liability, Surgical elevator, Epoxy cement, Aksay River, Gloria de Campeao, More...
• Image Requests: Krukenberg procedure, British Landrace, Gondi dumpling, Ulla (instrument), Boeing Model 95, More...
• Mediation Cabal: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, 9/11 conspiracy theories, History of Georgia (map case), Murder of Meredith Kercher, National-Anarchism, Jat people, Second Sino-Japanese War, or Help mediate an open case!

Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it is probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.

Purge

Collaborations

To improve the quality of articles that are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.

Collaborations by topic

Other collaborations

Active improvement teams

• Countering systemic bias
• Version 1.0
• Spam fighting team
• Categorization projects
• Spotlight

WikiProjects

WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist—examine the master list to find one that interests you.

Language translation

Wikipedia is not just in English. Versions exist in many different languages. To fill in some of the English Wikipedia's gaps, we translate articles from other languages into English. You can view a list of articles that need translation from any language, or, in a few cases, by only one language (this is only available for the more popular languages).

Gift shop

Share ideas of logos or other Wikipedia motifs to be used on clothing or for other purposes in Wikipedia merchandise.

Guidelines, help & resources

Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.

Help

• Wikipedia help – Browse help pages
• Where to ask questions

Editing

• The Manual of Style guidelines and tutorial
• How to edit a page
• Contributing
• How to write a great article
• Where to find information for articles
• A list of template messages
• What special pages are
• Tools for editing
• Request newspapers or magazines

Policies and guidelines

Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply to both articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed.

Article standards

Working with others

Resources

New user information

Introduction · Sandbox · Help · Adoption · What Wikipedia is not · Glossary · Account benefits · Planning school assignments

Ways to communicate

Contact (overview) · Discussion pages · Mailing lists · IRC chat · Meetups · User pages · Requests for comment · Public watchlists · Regional notice boards · Administrators' noticeboard · Requests for article feedback · Local Embassy

Community support groups and programs

Welcoming committee · Editor assistance · Wiki-adoption · Birthday Committee · Harmonious editing club · Wikipedia awards program · Dept. of Fun · One featured article per quarter · Missing encyclopedic articles

Common procedures

Featured content · Good articles · Requests for feedback · Deleting a page (full policy) · Moving a page (naming policies) · Protecting a page (full policy) · Reverting a page · Administrator nominations (summaries) · Category-based access

How to resolve conflicts

Stay cool! · Be nice to newcomers · Alert others · Dispute resolution · Arbitration policy

Community information

About Wikipedia · Goings-on · About Wikimedia · Wikipedians · Wiki-adoption · Donations · Administrators · Babel · Culture · Games · Humor · Mottoes

Related communities

Tip of the day...

Wikipedia articles should focus on describing facts in a neutral fashion. When writing about facts, cite sources that can verify the information being presented. Stick to a factual style even when writing about fiction or opinions. Providing references is particularly important for controversial opinions—instead of using weasel words like "some people believe…," you should cite sources to help readers know who believes what, and why.

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