The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XIII - January 2009

Project News

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 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.

North Road Stadium was the first home of Manchester United F.C., back when it was called Newton Heath F.C., and was the club's home until 1893.

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.

The Bridgewater Canal was built in the second half of the 18th century to transport coal to Manchester from the Duke of Bridgewater's mines in Worsley

Radcliffe is best known as a mill town, but was mentioned in the Domesday Book and features the medieval Radcliffe Tower.

• 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.

• The Belle Vue Zoological Gardens is being prepared for GA, and Abram, Whitefield, and Wigan are approaching a good standard, while Radcliffe is already being improved, ready for its next FAC.

• 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.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• 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:

• Sitush

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.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

Hopefully everyone had a fun Christmas and new year and is looking forward to a good 2009.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XIV - February 2009

Looking back at 2008

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.

Top High Mid Low None Total FA 3 1 2 6 12 A 1 1 GA 5 1 4 1 11 B 15 20 25 20 8 88 Start 21 70 124 165 79 459 Stub 3 23 102 393 84 605 Assessed 47 119 264 592 171 1193 List 3 7 7 17 Unassessed 211 211 Total 47 119 264 592 382 1404

Top High Mid Low None Total FA 7 4 5 3 19 FL 2 2 8 12 A 1 1 GA 8 8 12 8 36 B 14 26 40 31 111 C 9 12 29 29 1 80 Start 14 89 212 335 650 Stub 2 51 153 623 1 830 List 3 21 15 39 Assessed 54 196 474 1052 2 1778 Unassessed 1 1 Total 54 196 474 1052 3 1779

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.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

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:

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.

Manchester Liners was the first pasenger and cargo shipping company to operate on the Manchester Ship Canal. It was founded in 1898 and closed in 1985.

In 2006, controversy was caused when Sony's first person shooter game Resistance: Fall of Man featured a representation of Manchester Cathedral without permission from the Church of England.

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.

Aims

Our short-term aims remain:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• 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:

• Chaosdruid
• Skinsmoke

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.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XV - March 2009

Project News

Happy birthday! It was the project's second birthday on 24 February, so thank you to everyone who's helped improve and Greater Manchester related article, not just our members, your work is very much appreciated. The last month has been very successful, with lots activity:

• Promoted articles:

Radcliffe, Greater Manchester is best known as a mill town, but was mentioned in the Domesday Book and features the medieval Radcliffe Tower, which is a Scheduled Monument.

There are 38 Scheduled Monuments in Greater Manchester; SMs are nationally important historic sites. The 38 include castles, medieval halls, and Bronze Age cairns.

Nico Ditch stretches from Ashton-under-Lyne to Stretford and according to legend was dug in a single night to defend against the Danes.

The Cine City, Withington, was the third cinema to open in Britain and when it closed in 2001 it was the third longest running cinema in England. It was opened in 1912, and demolished in 2008.

The Manchester Mark 1 was developed from the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, also built in Manchester, and was one of the first electronic stored-program computers in the world.

• Current nominations: As of the completion of this newsletter, there are no GA nominations, but Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and Buckton Castle are at FAC. The articles detail the world's first stored-program computer, and the best preserved castle in Greater Manchester. There's a good chance that one or more of these interesting articles could be promoted, so please keep an eye on them in case there's any way you can help!

• Charles White (physician) and Worsley featured in the DYK section of the front page last month (actually, Worsley featured in January but was missed out of the last newsletter!). For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• The project's cleanup listing has been updated with stats from 24 February 2009. As of 8 October 2008, 447 (26.5%) of 1689 our articles needed a clean-up, this has risen slightly to 455 out of 1809 (25.2%). This is encouraging as the proportion has gone down, and indicates the standard of the project's articles are steadily improving. While the high-profile successes of GAs and FAs are important, the project's aim is to improve all GM-related 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.

Sister projects

In an attempt to encourage communication between related wikiprojects, or to at least raise awareness, this section is dedicated to the important goings on of WP:Merseyside and WP:Cheshire, our sister projects and the only other user groups dedicated to improving articles in North West England.

• WP:CHES – After a period of low activity, the project has picked up recently, with initiatives (such as beginning a newsletter and sending a questionnaire to its member) to encourage greater participation from its members. This has paid dividends with two GAs being promoted in February and greater activity in general.

• WP:MERSEY – After being set-up in September 2008, the project is experiencing a period of lowish activity. While the project has a handful of FAs and GAs, most of its articles are unassessed; assessing requires no familiarity with a subject, so any help WP:GM members can lend would be greatly appreciated.

Other news

There is a meet-up scheduled for 14 March in Manchester for anyone interested. It is not organised by WP:GM and is open to all wikipedians. More details can be found here.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

After a flurry of activity in January, progress on the Salford article has slowed, but it is steadily progressing towards a good standard. 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.

The project compared

The Greater Manchester WikiProject is one of the leading UK-based groups. Some other projects are no as lucky as we are in the numbers of active enthusiastic users. Below are some statistics of the other leading UK projects and some geographically close to Greater Manchester.

	GTRM	YORK	LOND	MRSY	CHES	DERB
FA	34	22	15	8	3	0
GA	42	32	27	6	24	1
B	105	182	228	11	57	37
C	99	126	43	19	29	68
Start	713	1654	1749	188	570	461
Stub	769	3214	1201	104	454	680
List	47	87	57	5	21	21
Unassessed	0	0	555	1230	13	21
Total	1809	5317	3876	1571	1171	1289

Member News

There are now 46 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 17 members inactive since 1 September 2008) as 1 new member joined the project in February:

• Majorly

Majorly is an experienced editor who has recently decided to join WP:GM, and has been working hard on Cheadle Hulme. 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}}.

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 list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.