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Volume 4, Issue 35 — 2008-08-25 WikiWorld: "George P. Burdell" News and notes: Arbitrator resigns, milestones Wikipedia in the News Dispatches: Interview with Mav Features and admins Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News The Report on Lengthy Litigation Archives·Newsroom·Tip line·Single-page·Subscribe Wikimania InterviewsSue Gardner, Diplopedia,Wikiversity, Corpus LinguisticsWikimania Daily showsPre-conf., Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Post-conf.+Jimbo Subscription · Feedback · Talk to us on skype! not|the|wikipedia|weekly Next Skypecast: Happening very soon! Sign Up at the Wiki page!! (details/sign up) Latest: Episode 32 2nd September 2008 Copy editing and polishing Content - the tricks of the experts' trade. (visit wiki page for Part 2!) Notices Please check out the Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal and leave your comments. Wider community attention is needed to judge the semi-finalists. A proposal to include links to 3 main page lead articles from Wikinews onto the Main Page on Wikipedia. They would be incorporated from User:Wikinews Importer Bot/Wikinews Lead articles into {{In the news}}. Please weigh in at Template talk:In the news. New project pages seeking contributors WikiProjects Texas Tech University Reggae Media Restoration New York State Routes (not new, but split from parent) Portals and Collaborations Portal:Texas Tech University Portal:Furry Portal:Greater Manchester Discussions Discussions in the following areas have requested wider attention: Biographies Economy and Trade History and Geography Language and Linguistics Media, Art, Design, and Literature Politics Religion and Philosophy Science and Math Society (including Law, Sport, and Sex) Wikipedia: Policies and Guidelines Wikipedia: Style and Layout See also Wikizine · In the media · News · Announcements · Mailing lists · Meetups

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. 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. Frequent IRC user, or a wikignome? Visit WikiProject Spotlight to join in on their latest collaboration. Fix-up projects Article categorization Articles to be split Articles written by a single editor Bad category names Category needs checking Core topics needing cleanup Dead-end pages Disambig pages with links Elements of Style External links Articles needing copy edit Linkrot Notability Missing articles Most wanted articles Most wanted stubs Name disambiguation Stub sorting Transwiki log cleanup Typos Unreferenced articles Untagged images

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

Collaborations To improve the quality of articles that are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.
Core Topics Collaboration The Amazon River flowing through the rainforest The Core Topics Collaboration works to improve essential Wikipedia topics. The current collaboration is Amazon rainforest. The Amazon Rainforest (Brazilian Portuguese: Floresta Amazônica or Amazônia; Spanish: Selva Amazónica or Amazonía) is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon Basin of South America. The area, also known as Amazonia, the Amazon jungle or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres), located within nine nations: Brazil (with 60 percent of the rainforest), Peru (with 13 percent of the rainforest, second after Brazil), Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. States or departments in four nations bear the name Amazonas after it. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. You can help pick the next Core Topic collaboration article.
Collaborations by topic Alternative music (Parklife) Anglicanism (Essays and Reviews) Australia (HM Bark Endeavour) Biography (Henry Kissinger) Birds (Ara (genus)) Chicago (List of Chicago Landmarks update) Dinosaurs (Herrerasaurus) Education in Australia (Corpus Christi College, Perth) European History (Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights) History (List of history topics) India (Jammu and Kashmir) History of science (Galileo Galilei) Homeschooling (Tim Tebow) LGBT studies (LGBT symbols) Lutheranism (Augsburg Confession ) Malaysia (Geography of Malaysia) Mammals (Primate) Mathematics (Algebraic Number Theory) Medicine (Heart failure) Novels (Look Homeward, Angel) Oregon (Kevin Duckworth & Statesman Journal) Rugby union (Rugby union) Science (Carbon) Spanish Translation (Joaquín Torres García)	Other collaborations Active improvement teams Countering systemic bias Encyclopedic Standards Version 1.0 Cleanup Taskforce Spam fighting team Categorization projects Maintenance Help clear up the backlog of articles to be merged! Merging is the process combining two (or sometimes more) articles into a new article, or adding the content of one article to another. You'll need to be familiar with the associated templates. Before you begin, you need to know the details of merging and moving pages. After you read that, you're ready to begin consolidating and improving articles! 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. They are separate from, though may work with, Collaborations. 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).

Guidelines, help, and 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 Be bold! WP:BB • WP:BOLD Citing sources WP:CITE • WP:REF Copyrights WP:C Editing WP:EP External links WP:EL Image use WP:IUP Include only verifiable information WP:V Manual of Style WP:MOS • WP:STYLE Neutral point of view WP:NPOV • WP:NEU What Wikipedia is not WP:WWIN • WP:NOT Working with others Assume good faith WP:AGF • WP:FAITH Avoid instruction creep WP:CREEP Civility and etiquette WP:CIV • WP:EQ Consensus WP:CON Do not bite the newcomers WP:BITE Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point WP:POINT No personal attacks WP:NPA • WP:ATTACK Resolving disputes WP:DR Vandalism WP:VAND

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 · Kindness Campaign · Reach out · Stress alerts · 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 The links below lead to the main community pages of the projects. All of these projects are multilingual and open-content. Meta-Wiki – Coordination of all Wikimedia projects. Wiktionary – A collaborative multilingual dictionary. Wikinews – News stories written by readers. Wikibooks – A collection of collaborative textbooks. Wikiquote – A compendium of referenced quotations. Wikisource – A repository for free source texts. Wikispecies – A directory of species. Wikiversity – Where teachers learn, and learners teach. Commons – Repository for free images and other media files. Tip of the day... Please fill-in edit summaries Just below the edit box is the edit summary field. Edit summaries are displayed in an article's history to make it easier for other editors to know what you did to an article. They are a very important part of Wikipedia operations, so please summarize all your edits! Do you keep forgetting to fill-in the edit summary box before saving your edits? Well, you can let Wikipedia remember for you! Go to my preferences, select the "Editing" tab, and check the last option box, "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary". With this option set, Wikipedia won't allow you to save if the edit summary box is empty. Read more: Meta Help:Preferences Wikipedia:Edit summary Prior tip - Next tip