Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-01-24/Features and admins - Wikipedia

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Features and admins

The best of the week

This week's "Features and admins" covers Saturday 15 – Friday 21 January (UTC)

New administrators

The Signpost welcomes Gimme danger (nom) as our newest admin. Danger has been editing for four and a half years and has participated in many Wikipedia tasks. Among these are the help desks, speedy deletions, backlogs, and assisting new editors' contributions; an example of Danger's larger achievements is the clearing of WikiProject Wisconsin's assessment backlog of some 5,000 articles. Danger self-describes as "fundamentally a gnome".

Featured articles

Thirteen articles were promoted to featured status:

• Ariel (moon) (nom), the brightest of the 27 known moons of Uranus, discovered in 1851 and named for a sky spirit in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock and Shakespeare's The Tempest. Almost all knowledge of Ariel comes from a single fly-by of Uranus performed by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986; however, it managed to image only 35% of the moon's surface (nominated by Ruslik0 and Serendipodous). Picture at right
• Interstate 80 Business (West Wendover, Nevada – Wendover, Utah) (nom), a highway with historical significance, and which is the main street between those twinned cities on the Nevada–Utah border (Admrboltz).
• Windsor Castle (nom), one of the best known castles in England, with a fascinating political, social, and architectural history (Hchc2009).
• Maya stelae (nom), stone monuments fashioned in the Classic Period Maya culture that are remarkable for their stylistic variety (Simon Burchell).
• Fantastic (magazine) (nom), probably the only magazine launched as a result of the Korean War, it lasted for 28 years, making it one of the more durable science fiction and fantasy magazines, and was instrumental in popularising the "sword and sorcery" genre (Mike Christie).
• Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō (nom), commissioned in 1922, was the world's first commissioned ship designed and built as an aircraft carrier, and the first aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy (Cla68).
• Section 116 of the Australian Constitution (nom), about a provision of the Australian Constitution that sets uncertain boundaries for establishing any religion, imposing religious observance, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion by the federal government; this clause has been judicially interpreted in a significantly narrower way than a similar provision in the US Consitution (Mkativerata).
• Bombing of Singapore (1944–1945) (nom), the US and British air raids on the Japanese-occupied island during 1944 and 1945 (Nick-D). Picture at right
• SMS Rheinland (nom), the third German dreadnought-type battleship built for the Imperial Navy (Parsecboy).
• Battle of Sio (nom), a minor battle, but one of a series that nominator Hawkeye7 hopes to assemble into a featured topic on the New Guinea campaign.
• Almirante Latorre-class battleship (nom), another article in The ed17's South American battleship series, this one tells the tortured tale of two Chilean ships ordered during the 1907–14 dreadnought arms race.
• Pennatomys (nom), the "snowy winged mouse", an extinct Carribean rodent (Ucucha).
• Adenanthos obovatus (nom), from the Southwestern Australian floristic region, which has more flowering plants than Europe and Asia put together (Casliber and Hesperian). Picture at right

Featured lists

Seven lists were promoted:

• Nashville Vols all-time roster (nom) (nominated by NatureBoyMD)
• List of signs and symptoms of diving disorders (nom) (RexxS).
• List of National Treasures of Japan (crafts: others) (nom) (Bamse). Picture at right
• Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (C) (nom) (Killervogel5).
• Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (nom) (PresN).
• List of unreleased Britney Spears songs (nom) (Xwomanizerx).
• Shooting thaler (nom) (RHM22).

Four featured lists were delisted:

• Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons (nom: accessibility, style, referencing)
• Girls Aloud discography (nom: verifiability, lead, sourcing, formatting, accessibility)
• List of former municipalities of Norway (nom: lead, prose, referencing)
• Aesop Rock discography (nom: lead, referencing)

Featured pictures

Seven images were promoted; each can be viewed in medium size by clicking on "nom":

• Eilean Donan Castle (nom; related article) in north-west Scotland, originally built in the early 13th century as a defence against the Vikings and restored between 1919 and 1932, including the construction of an arched bridge for easier access. Creator Diliff recently "managed a trip up to Skye in Scotland and was spoilt by the lighting as I passed this castle". The nomination received unanimous support from 17 reviewers. Picture at top
• Blue-winged Parrot (nom; related article), typically 20 cm long and found in Tasmania and southeast Australia. It is found in savannah woodland, grasslands, orchards, farmlands, marshes, heath, dunes, and other open habitats up to 1200 m (created by Noodle snacks).
• Black-headed Honeyeater (nom; related article), a bird endemic to Tasmania, first described in 1839. It often hangs upside down from branches while foraging (created by Noodle snacks).
• Red-capped Plover (breeding plumage) (nom; related article), widespread in Australia and a vagrant to New Zealand, it eats mainly small invertebrates, especially molluscs, crustaceans and worms (created by Noodle snacks).
• Mantra-Rock Dance poster (nom; related article), for a concert held in 1967 at the San Francisco Avalon Ballroom (created by Harvey Wallace Cohen).
• Tracy Caldwell Dyson in Cupola (nom; related article), a human looking at the Earth from space (created by NASA/Douglas H. Wheelock). Picture at bottom
• Henry Compton (nom; related article), a portrait by Godfrey Kneller of the man who was Bishop of Oxford 1674–76 and Bishop of London 1675–1713 (created by Godfrey Kneller).

Featured sounds

One sound file was promoted: Bright College Years (nom and link to related article), a performance of the first and third verses of Yale's unofficial alma mater by the 2006 Yale Whiffenpoofs. It is the first choral a cappella performance to reach featured sound status.

Information about new admins at the top is drawn from their user pages and RfA texts, and occasionally from what they tell us directly.