Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-12-03/Featured content

ABCD; Any Body Can Dance!

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Featured articles

Six featured articles were promoted this week.

Female genital mutilation (nominated by SlimVirgin) A detailed, comprehensive and important article, brought to Good Article status and now Featured Article by SlimVirgin, on an operation with no known health benefits, carried out with scalpels, knives, razors, scissors, glass, sharpened rocks and fingernails on millions of girls and women. "Over 125 million women and girls have experienced FGM in the 29 countries in which it is concentrated”. Outlawed or restricted in many of these countries this practice, recognised by the United Nations General Assembly as a human-rights violation, is still commonly carried out, often from a mother’s fear "that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion."
Three Beauties of the Present Day (nominated by Curly Turkey) is both a featured picture and article. Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1753–1806) is considered by many art historians the greatest of ukiyo-e (Japanese woodcut) artists, and known for his clear, precise and elegant drawings, which marked a new period of development in Japanese art history. This woodblock print depicts three celebrity beauties of 1790s Edo (today's Tokyo), and part of Utamaro's famous bijin-ga series. Tomimoto Toyohina (we're hoping someone notices the red link), a famous geisha, is depicted in the middle. The two other beauties were teahouse waitresses, Naniwaya Kita, (Okita) to the right, holding a uchiwa, and Takashima Hisa, (Ohisa), left, holding a hand towel over her left shoulder, all frequent models of Utamaro.
Nativity (Christus) (nominated by Victoria); The great art history team, Ceoil and Victoriaearle's new FA. The painting was completed in the 1450s by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It depicts the Holy Family before three low Romanesque windows surrounded by four angels and an expansive landscape. Christus was a sophisticated painter capable of harmonious colours, setting and brilliant colours. The work contains both complex Christian symbolism and naturalistic elements. The grass sprouting from the roof symbolizes new life and fresh beginnings. The trompe-l'oeil frame contains reliefs on the arch depicting small sculptures organised in a half circle. The lead image is a recently promoted featured picture.
Tony Hawk's Underground (nominated by Tezero) You know what, I'm just going to quote nominator Tezero on this one: "When asked, this is what I unfailingly name as my favorite video game of all time: it's got magically addictive gameplay, a killer soundtrack, a park editor that still hasn't been replicated, a set of diverse and very alive level maps, and probably the deepest, most relatable plot ever featured in an extreme sports game. Way back in the summer of 2006, when I was 11, this game introduced me to numerous rock bands I still dig, on top of the entire genre of rap. In other words, it was predictable by all estimates that I would pick this article up as a project, and I'm now ready to take it across the final border. I'm especially proud of this article in particular being brought here, as it would be the first FA (it's currently the only GA) in the Tony Hawk series, which is represented unusually poorly among Wikipedia's recognized content considering its popularity."
Barn owl (nominated by Cwmhiraeth) Welsh Wikipedian Cwmhiraeth is a master at handling the big topics on Wikipedia, such as Isopoda and Sea. The common, but iconic barn owl is one of the most widespread of all species of owl, occurring in every continent except Antarctica. The medium-sized, often pale-coloured owl has a heart shaped pale pearly white face and black eyes that give the bird a distinctive appearance. The barn owl is a nocturnal bird, relying on its acute sense of hearing when hunting in complete darkness, and usually becomes active shortly before dusk, though it sometimes hunts by day. Its diet tends to be small mammals like rats and mice, as well as lizards, amphibians and insects and other small prey. Captive individuals may reach twenty years of age or more, and occasionally, even a wild bird can reach this advanced age. Some interesting facts from the article: Weight for weight, barn owls consume more rodents—often regarded as pests by humans—than possibly any other creature. This makes the barn owl one of the most economically valuable wildlife animals for agriculture. Farmers often find these owls more effective than poison in keeping down rodent pests, and they can encourage barn owl habitation by providing nest sites.
Science Fiction Quarterly (nominated by Mike Christie) Science Fiction Quarterly was an American pulp science fiction magazine published during a boom in science fiction magazines at the end of the 1930s. Science Fiction Quarterly reprinted a science fiction novel in each issue as the lead story, for example several of Ray Cummings' books. Among the better-known stories published by the magazine were "Second Dawn", by Arthur C. Clarke; "The Last Question", by Isaac Asimov; and "Common Time", by James Blish.

Three Beauties of the Present Day, both a featured picture and a featured article, is an Utamaro ukiyo-e print, subject of our new featured article.
Petrus Christus' Nativity is both a featured picture and a featured article.

August 1955 cover of Science Fiction Quarterly. Given the titles on the cover, one suspects the illustration is for "The Taint". Chisel-jawed man is so screwed.
A barn owl.

Featured lists

Three featured lists were promoted this week.

Lo Nuestro Award for Urban Album of the Year (nominated by Javier Espinoza) The Lo Nuestro Award for Urban Album of the Year is an honour presented annually by American television network Univision in recognition of the most talented performers of Latin music. Originally selected by a voting poll conducted among program directors of Spanish-language radio stations in the United States and also based on chart performance on Billboard Latin music charts, with the results being tabulated and certified by the accounting firm Deloitte; since 2004 the winners have been selected through an online survey. The trophy awarded is in the shape of a treble clef.
List of international cricket centuries at the Bellerive Oval (nominated by Nick Gibson) The Bellerive Oval is a cricket ground in Hobart, Australia, home of the Tasmania cricket team and the Hobart Hurricanes with a capacity of 16,000 spectators. As of October 2014, the ground has hosted 11 Test matches and staged 31 ODI matches.
List of ICC Champions Trophy five-wicket hauls (nominated by Vensatry) Originally inaugurated as the "ICC Knock Out Trophy" in 1998, the ICC Champions Trophy is a tournament that has been organised every two or three years since, it is an One Day International (ODI) tournament organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC), considered the second most significant after the World Cup. In cricket, a five-wicket haul refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single innings, and it is regarded as a significant achievement. There have been only 10 instances of a bowler taking a fifer in the ICC Champions Trophy tournaments. As of the 2013 tournament, 10 players from seven nations have taken fifers. Who did? read the list, we are not going to tell everything...

Featured pictures

Nine featured pictures were promoted this week.

Dactylorhiza fuchsii (created by Uoaei1, nominated by Chris Woodrich) Found from Ireland in the west, across much of Europe, and into Siberia, Mongolia, and the disputed province of Xinjiang in northwest China, Dactylorhiza fuchsii is a common spotted orchid, very variable in colour and shape of flowers, due to its ease of picking up traits from related species through interbreeding.
Legong Bapang Saba performer (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) Although legong is traditionally a sacral group dance, performed at Balinese temples, since the mid-20th century secular versions have been developed. This is one of them, with an adult woman dancer rather than the traditional prepubescent girls; the other members of the group are out of frame.
Cendrawasih performance: showing hanging scarf, showing "spread wings", showing two performers with flirting movements (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) Developed in the 1980s, the cendrawasih dance is styled after the mating dance of the birds-of-paradise. However, both dancers are women. This featured picture set shows three aspects of the dance: a lone dancer, with her shawl "wings" still hanging; a dancer "flying" on her wings, and the male and female birds-of-paradise in a courtship dance, circling around each other.
Baris Tunggal performer (created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) Like legong, baris is traditionally a sacral dance (though performed by men instead of young girls or women), and there are different versions of this war dance depending on the weapon carried by the dancers. The baris tunggal dance, as here, was designed later on for secular performances, and features a single dancer.
Church of St. John at Kaneo (created by Diego Delso, nominated by Chris Woodrich) Located in Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia (on Kaneo Beach), the roughly 13th-century Church of St. John at Kaneo has ancient frescoes rediscovered during restoration in 1964, gorgeous positioning in the landscape, and two other excellent photographs in its article that should probably have been nominated with it as a set. I wouldn't dare criticize my co-author Crisco 1492, so I'll criticize the nominator, Chris Woodrich - oh the shame!
Tiger beetle (created and nominated by Muhammad Mahdi Karim) A Tanzanian tiger beetle, of the Lophyra genus. The article mentions their "large bulging eyes, long, slender legs and large curved mandibles", but I think we're quite safe, I mean they're... hmm... there's actually no scale on this phot- OH MY GOD IT'S COMING FOR US, RUN!
Ellen Terry at Age Sixteen (created by Julia Margaret Cameron, nominated by Chris Woodrich) English actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928) was one of the leading Shakespearian actresses of her day. In her early life, she was on and off the stage due to marriages, but on her second return in 1874, she became incredibly popular, and, by 1878 when she joined Henry Irving's company, was considered both the best Shakespearian actress in Britain, but also Britain's best actress for comedy.