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Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Newsletter/December 2011

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The WikiProject United States Newsletter
December 2011

Scope and Mission of WikiProject United States

Welcome to WikiProject United States on the English Wikipedia! We are a project dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to the United States, with an emphasis on subjects with regional and national significance. This project was formed to coordinate the development of United States related articles and help maintain the United States Portal. Some project goals are to help list and categorize United States related articles, develop quality standards for articles and build templates that help users browse the articles that fall under this project. This project also provides a place for Wikipedians to share information and resources regarding improvements to United States related articles. Here, editors can ask for help with certain articles and bring otherwise overlooked articles and problems, to the attention of other editors. For more information of the role of WikiProjects, check out WikiProject guidelines.

Articles of note

This section highlights some of the US related content that has been promoted to Featured Status in the last 2 months:
Note:Articles pertain to one or more of the WikiProjects relating to United States topics but not necessarily WikiProject United States.

New featured articles:
Chaplain–Medic massacre • Chester A. Arthur • Ernie Fletcher • Happy Chandler • Hudson Valley Rail Trail • Indian Head gold pieces • McDonnell XF-85 Goblin • Nancy Cartwright • Rogers Hornsby • Ruby Laffoon • Standing Liberty quarter • Tryon Creek • Turban Head eagle • United States Senate Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania, 2010 • USS Arizona (BB-39) • Willamette River • 2008 Humanitarian Bowl • 2008 Orange Bowl

New featured lists:
Arkansas Razorbacks head football coaches • Babe Ruth Award • Chicago White Sox managers • Clemson Tigers head football coaches • David O. Selznick filmography • Edgar Martínez Award • Florida Marlins managers • Human characters in Sesame Street • Jennifer Lopez discography • Katy Perry discography • Oakland Athletics team records • Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (S) • Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (T–V) • Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (W–Z) • Washington Nationals first-round draft picks

Project article statistics for August 31, 2011

Current statistics

Air Force One over Mt. Rushmore
Project news

As with the previous few months, October and November have continued to see a lot of activity with the project. We have completed determining what US related projects are interested in collaboration and for the most part the projects now represented on the project page should be the last of them. From this point forward we should see much fewer projects being added although we continue to build relationships with other US related projects and look forward to those expanding further in the future. We are continuing to integrate and standardize some of the functionality of the supported projects and it may be another month or two before the process of setting up these projects is complete.


Events and meetups
  • In case you haven't noticed the big banner on the top of your watchlist you are invited to participate in the Wikimedia DC Fine Art Edit-a-Thon and GLAM-WIKI Meetup on Saturday, December 17, 2011 in Washington, D.C.!
  • There is another DC meetup scheduled for sometime in January TBD. If you are interested in attending the information can be found here.
  • In 2012, Wiki Loves Monuments will come to the United States. If you are interested in photography or in monuments this might be an interesting event for you. More information is available here.
  • Wikimania 2012 is coming fast. As some may have heard, Washington, D.C., was selected as the 2012 site for Wikimania, and we're down to about 215 days. If you are interested in attending, more information can be found here.
Portals and portal related content

The United States portal is getting very close to Featured portal status. With the new push to get a space on the main page for featured portals I would like to start devoting some time to getting this one built up. If anyone would like to help out with this leave a message on the talk page here.

In addition to Portal:United States Portal:Supreme Court of the United States was recently promoted to featured status as well. We have a lot of portals related to the United States that could be promoted relatively quickly and with minimal work. If you have any recommendations for a portal that you would like to get promoted please let the project know.

Collaboration
The collaboration for December 2011 is the Hope Diamond

The collaboration candidate for last month was 99 Percent Declaration with more than 500 edits.

There are currently three collaboration candidates for December: The Star-Spangled Banner, Great Depression in the United States and the United States Postal Service

Some other possibilities for future collaborations can be found on the collaborations talk page and are: Camp David, the White House, Charles Lindbergh and Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. If one of these sounds like a good candidate please add it to the list of candidates or add your own if you have some ideas about an article that would make a good collaboration.

Future improvements
  • Adding infoboxes to the articles that need them
  • Assessing the articles that need it
  • Adding the articles that are still missing
  • A major redesign of the newsletter which will make it easier to update, make it more attractive and leave a smaller footprint on the talk pages
  • Fill in To do tasks for all supported projects
  • Make sure that all projects have Article alerts, Recognized content, popular pages and Project Watchlists.
  • Recruit for the projects. There are lots of editors working on the articles already. We just need to get them interested in the projects again.

If any of these sound interesting to you please feel free to help out.

National level projects:
American music • American Old West • American television • Asian Americans • FBI • Franco-Americans • KYOVA Region  • Library of Congress • Mexican-Americans • September 11, 2001 • Superfunds • U.S. counties • U.S. Government • U.S. Governors • U.S. Presidents • U.S. presidential elections • U.S. State Legislatures

States and territories:
Arizona • Colorado • Delaware • District of Columbia • Idaho • Indiana • Kansas • Kentucky • Louisiana • Mississippi • Nebraska • New Hampshire • New Mexico • North Carolina • North Dakota • Ohio • Rhode Island • South Carolina • Utah • Vermont • Washington • West Virginia • Wyoming

City and local:
Charlotte, North Carolina • Cincinnati, Ohio • Durham, North Carolina • Eastern Mountain Coal Fields task force • Eastern Washington task force • Indianapolis, Indiana • Louisville, Kentucky • Myrtle Beach, South Carolina • New Hampshire Mountains • New Orleans, Louisiana • Ohio townships task force • Omaha, Nebraska • Seattle, Washington • File:Shreveskyline.JPG Shreveport, Louisiana • Yellowstone task force • Youngstown, Ohio

Education and university: Louisiana Tech • West Virginia University


Joint Projects:

Caution: The projects in this section are associated or maintained by multiple projects.
Under no circumstances should the banner from another project be replaced with the banner for WikiProject United States.
 • American animation work group - With WikiProject Animation • American cinema - With WikiProject Film • US comics work group - With WikiProject Comics • US history - With United States History • US military history • American Civil War • American Revolutionary War - With WikiProject Military History

Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

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