This is an archive of past discussions with User:Hassocks5489. 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.
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 The 49 are listed here, although the quality ratings are a bit out of date.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.
Hiya Hassocks, just a heads up to let you know that we have a response from Pordaria, in case you haven't seen it: right here. I admit that I fail to see how we could have improved or "fixed" the recordings, without uploading our own. Maybe that's what he meant. Anyway, I thought you might want to leave him a message, and if I manage to find some time today, I will, too. I'm still in favour of (in some way) removing or replacing the recordings, as I still think there's a strong case for it. (P.S. I meant to contribute to Huadpe's request for our thoughts on his recording, but have only been able to grab snatches of spare time; not enough to review. I should be able to do it tomorrow (half a day off work! hurray!)) Maedin\talk07:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to have taken so long to answer, I am unexpectedly busy and am having trouble finding time for Wikipedia, except for the odd revert here and there! I certainly can have a go at recordings for the articles, but if it's to happen soon and/or quickly, I will not be able to research it properly and my pronunciations will have to be best guesses. My Lebanese friend is busy with university in Dubai and the time difference means we're often not available at the same times. The other thing is that Pordaria has at least 11 articles he's recorded, some of them very long. It would be a mammoth task to either replace them all so soon with proper recordings, or for you to edit each one. I don't disagree that it's something we can work on—I will record and upload at least one this weekend (complete with my terrible anglicisations!) and you can tell me what you think—but to "fix" them all will take some time. Oh, well, :-) Maedin\talk07:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I am not "the originator". Please do not put words in my mouth. I do find it difficult to deal with idiots, so it would probably be best if you avoided my talk page in the future. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
Hiya Hassocks, thanks for your advice. I'll check it out. Apologies for the grumpy post on your talk page, which obviously shouldn't have been posted here. I guess he/she has some issues. Lets hope they're resolved soon, eh? Thanks again. All the best, Daicaregos (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
DYK for Hu Sihui
On 22 October, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Hu Sihui, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.
On 27 October, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Richard Levett, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.
Thanks for reviewing it. I corrected Ticonderoga to Attica (in New York State, these sort of things are usually in the village, but it was a good idea to ask). I also added a source for the first hook. Daniel Case (talk) 13:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
