If you are not yet a member of the The Worcestershire project, you are probably receiving this because you have significantly contributed to one of our pages. Now is the time to consider joining - it might help you get some assistance on a page you feel particularly attached to it.
Someone once asked on the project page if they could get a newsletter. The Worcestershire project only has a few members and they most probably have the project pages and major articles on their watchlists, but here goes anyway...
Great news for 2010!
This year has got off to great start with the promotion of Malvern, Worcestershire to Good Article status. The GA review process was particularly strict and demanding, and a good thing too, because it sets a benchmark for the quality to be targeted for other articles in the project, even if we do not intend to reach GA with them. Furthermore, and probably most important, this particular review clearly demonstrated what can be achieved with teamwork, and it puts the page on a par with biggies such as Manchester, one of the Wikipedia's flagship English settlement articles. Anyone can go ahead and create an article, and some articles have a major contributor, but it would have been impossible for Malvern to have been promoted without the extraordinary collaborative effort of a dedicated few, spread across three continents in very different time zones, and sometimes tripping over each other at all times of the day and night to get the article up to snuff.
Recently founded
Since the Worcs project was founded barely seven months ago on 8 June last year, in addition to the creation and maintenance of the project pages themselves. a lot of work has already been done by the Worcs project members, including the creation of stubs for most of the missing settlements in the county, creation and improvement work on Malvern Water, creation and expansion of articles on important schools and one or two biographies in the county, and general repetitive tasks such as keeping spam and vandalism at bay.
Experts!
All the members of the project have their own specialised fields of interest of course, such as French wine, schools, Lancashire, the Malverns, cricket, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, busses, castles, waterways, or Spike Milligan. However, they all have a common denominator somewhere that brings them together in Worcestershire.
The Worcestershire project mainly concerns settlements. Perhaps after the success of Malvern, the immediate priority now is to improve the articles that really ought to be the flagships of the project, namely Worcester, and Worcestershire. These two are, sadly, some of the articles in the worst state. They have been created long ago and expanded over time by a great many shingle-edit authors and IPs.
So wotnow? (pun)
A possible suggestion would be to take one of those rather shoddy pages, probably Worcester, the county seat, or the project's eponymous article Worcestershire and do a Malvern job on it. Such a concerted piece of teamwork might even earn the project another major GA - and we now know it can be done!
An attempt at a meet up failed last year - mainly either because some of the most active members of the project live in other countries, or the timing wasn't quite right. We can have another attempt in April, when Kudpung will be back in Malvern for his dad's 90th birthday, and hopefully this will coincide with a home trip to the UK for GyroMagician.
The place to make your suggestions and dicscuss it all is HERE - be sure to have the page on your watchlist!
Would you like to join the WP:WORCS?? Please enter yourself at WP:WORCS! - new editors are always welcome!
Happy Wikying, all the best for 2010, and special thanks again all round for the efforts of the Malvern taskforce, and to everyone else who has contributed to our articles.
Currently there are two featured articles in Worcestershire.
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, so we can concentrate our efforts on these first. Priorities are not set in stone and if you would like to discuss changes, please join in at [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Worcestershire.
Other priorities:
The recommended priority by kind is for creation/improvement of complete articles is:
Places in the county
Schools in the county (Particularly susceptible to vandalism - please keep them on your watch lists if possible).
Transport in the county
Notable buildings/objects/geo features/AONB/Heritage sites, etc. in the county
History in the county
Industry & Commerce in the county.
People in the county - NOTE: These all need the Worcs project banner adding to their talk pages, and assessing.
County related articles about things not actually in the county, and/or other related projects.
Monitor The watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Some of our articles need their infoboxes completing infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference. If you a re uploadiing an image, be sure it has a correct FUR, and that you have preferably already created a link on the page where you want it to be.
Moves, merges, and multiple edits Please be careful when performing articles moves and check if anyone seems to be in the middle of doing the same thing. If he; she, or they are, stop and have a chat about it. Otherwise you may be unintentionally duplicating or reverting each other's work. This is particularly important if an article is currently under a GA review. image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
You are probably receiving this because you have significantly contributed to one of our pages. If you are not yet a participant in the Worcestershire project, now is the time to consider joining - it might help you get some assistance on a page you feel particularly attached to.
Here goes for the second irregular news bulletin...
First GA in 2010
We finally got over our euphoria over the Malvern, Worcestershire promotion to Good Article status. The GA sets a benchmark for the quality to be targeted for other articles in the project, and clearly demonstrated how important teamwork is.
Recently founded
A lot of work has already been done since the Worcs project was started, including the recent tagging of the talk pages of all the articles about people connected with Worcestershire, keeping spam and vandalism at bay, and welcoming new editors on their talk pages.
Experts needed!
The Worcestershire project mainly concerns settlements. It's generally agreed that the immediate priority now is to improve the articles that shiould be the flagships of the project, namely Worcester, and Worcestershire which are some of the articles in the worst state.
Meet up
Kudpung has booked his flight from Asia and will be back in Malvern from 1 April for a month, and looks forward to meeting up with as many Wikipedians as possible, especially those who work on the Worcs project.
NEWS
Two major debates are raging on the 'pedia and we have been cautiously taking part.
In for a shake up is an accumulation of nearly 50,000 totally unsourced articles that may end up on the cutting room floor after a period of grace. As a project, we can help by taking a look at those BLP in the county and doing what we can before the axe falls.
citations
A war almost broke out over citation formats, but a mature approach from Worcs project members prevented any physical injury. There, are only three basic rules for citations: 1. All articles must have them. 2. Consitency of format throughout an articles. 3. Changes to the format require a consensus. We are not obliged to use citation templates, and WP:LDR might not be such a good idea while chunks of text and/or their references are being copied and pasted around related articles in the county. In any case, let's always discuss what we have in mind HERE.
new project pages
The project main page has been pruned to be cleaner, and much of the support material has been transferred to dedicated pages. New usefull banners and templates have been created, and shortcuts to the new pages that also include a side bar navigator and a brand new easily edited To Do list.
new participant
After all the hints getting him to join, we now welcome User:wotnow !
sysop (admin)
Our only admin has resigned his tools. It would be great to have an active admin as a member of the project. If you think you would be able to cope with all the responsibility adminship involves, checkout WP:RfA and nominate yourself. Nobody needs to have a high edit count or to be an expert in all areas, but being active, having a reasonable overview of the workings of the Wikipedia, and a decent level of maturity, are expected minima. The process is not painless, and is worse than a British army promotion board! Alternatively you can always nominate another user.
Would you like to join the WP:WORCS?? Please enter yourself at WP:WORCS! - new editors are always welcome!
Happy Wikying, and thanks to everyone else who has contributed to our articles.
New project resources
Before making any major edits to articles or stubs, please be sure to read the new WP:WORCS/HowTo.
Urgent tasks are now listed at: WP:WORCS/ToDo. It should be referred to often, and will be your main stop for most maintenance tasks. We recommend keeping the page on your watchlist.
Most project pages now have brand new side bar for easy navigation. (Thanks, GyroMagician).
Priority Articles==
The top priority articles have been identified as probably being:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, so we can concentrate our efforts on these first. Priorities are not set in stone and if you would like to discuss changes, please join in at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Worcestershire.
Other priorities:
The recommended priority by kind is for creation/improvement of complete articles is:
Places in the county
Schools in the county (Particularly susceptible to vandalism - please keep them on your watch lists if possible).
Transport in the county
Notable buildings/objects/geo features/AONB/Heritage sites, etc. in the county
History in the county
Industry & Commerce in the county.
People in the county - NOTE: These all need the Worcs project banner adding to their talk pages, and assessing.
County related articles about things not actually in the county, and/or other related projects.
Monitor The watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Some of our articles need their infoboxes completing infobox.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference. If you are uploadiing an image, be sure it has a correct FUR, and that you have preferably already created a link on the page where you want it to be.
Moves, merges, and multiple edits Please be careful when performing articles moves and check if anyone seems to be in the middle of doing the same thing. If he; she, or they are, stop and have a chat about it. Otherwise you may be unintentionally duplicating or reverting each other's work. This is particularly important if an article is currently under a GA review. image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR.
and the first one in (checks notes) THIRTEEN years! When I first joined this WikiProject back in December last year, I was slightly tempted to mark it as inactive, as activity had extremely slowed and there had been no new participants in 3 years. But I have decided to revive this project, as Worcestershire means a lot to me and I know it does for so many others. But as many participants of this project have disappeared completely off Wikipedia, this project is now in dire need of attention and it would be helpful if a group of editors could join me and continue to maintain it.
Here goes for the third EXTREMELY irregular news bulletin...
Hanley Castle High School was was promoted to Good article on 30 August 2012. There are 78 good articles for educational institution of all kinds of which there are 4 GA for secondary schools in the UK. Hanley High School is the first state school in the UK to become GA.
Evesham was nominated on 2 December 2010 as a Good Article Candidate. The nomination unfortunately failed due to unforeseen unavailability of the editors working on the article. It only requires minor attention to be renominated.
Urse d'Abetot was awarded Featured Article status on 13 October 2009. Promoted by Karanacs, the article was 96.4% the work of Ealdgyth. It was finally featured on the main page on 14 April 2018.
The Battle of Powick Bridge was awarded Featured Article status in 2020 and appeared on the Main Page on 12 February 2023.
If you notice any editors contributing significantly to Worcestershire-related articles, then please ask them to join this WikiProject, as we need all the help we can get.
Would you like to join the WP:WORCS?? Please enter yourself at WP:WORCS! - new editors are always welcome!
Happy Wikying, and thanks to everyone else who has contributed to our articles.
New project resources
Before making any major edits to articles or stubs, please be sure to read the new WP:WORCS/HowTo.
Urgent tasks are now listed at: WP:WORCS/ToDo. It should be referred to often, and will be your main stop for most maintenance tasks. We recommend keeping the page on your watchlist.
Population Now that the 2021 census details have been released, most settlement articles need updating. This website: https://www.citypopulation.de/ can be helpful, although you should note this does not collect data from hamlets or small villages.
Monitor The watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Infoboxes Some of our articles need their infoboxes completing.
References Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion is always in need of attention. Please take a look and see if you can help. One small edit, such as adding a reference section and reference, to an article each session would make a big difference. If you are uploadiing an image, be sure it has a correct FUR, and that you have preferably already created a link on the page where you want it to be.
There is a project creating missing civil parish articles in England at User:Crouch, Swale/Missing parishes. The missing parishes in Worcestershire currently are:
I am currently planning on reforming the Evesham article to get it up to scratch for another GA nomination. If other editors are interested in helping me then please do, especially if you live in Evesham yourself, as the main photo is from 2008 and is out-of-date as there is a new statue in front of the building.
On the newsletter
I intend to write a brand-new newsletter once every two months, though I would like other editors to help me in completing it in case of my unavailability.
Imprint Written by Ollieisanerd (some sections are same as last time written by Kudpung) • All comments to WT:WORCS Based on an original concept by WP:YORKS
Quite a bit of work has been done on the Evesham article to hopefully get it up to Good article standard since the previous Newsletter. It looks a bit better now, it just needs some citations and it should be up to scratch. I hope to have submitted it for the GA review by the next Newsletter (September). Any other editors are free to help!
Malvern College has been listed for a Good article reassessment. Any farther additions to the article to help it retain its GA status are welcome. If you are interested in the discussion, then please visit the reassessment page.
Malvern College has been delisted after a Good article reassessment. We now have 13 Good Articles. Any farther additions to the article to help it regain its GA status are welcome by addressing the concerns raised at the reassessment page.