Good afternoon everyone! I have a couple of things that I'm begging your assistance with: I hope you folks can help.
1. We need the page at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer expanding a bit. Perhaps with 'volunteer stories', or something similar. The comment at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Volunteer raises an important point, and from a new volunteer too. At present, it's a bit... basic and functional, and could use some expansion. 2. We've had a couple of contacts from local political parties trying to get pages about candidates in the upcoming London Assembly elections. At present, we only really have stubs on a few of the candidates. We told them politely that it's not something we can help with - WP is written by volunteers - although we did of course offer to teach their volunteers how to edit (and edit ethically and openly) if necessary. Perhaps this is something to keep an eye on when you're patrolling articles, or looking for a new DYK? 3. Does anyone have decent photoshopping skills? I have a few pictures that need digitally improving at some point - nearly all WMUK-related, and a few are planned for upcoming blog posts. Credit will go where credit is due, of course, and they'll all be uploaded to Commons on good time - but we need the colour/lighting levels adjusted on a few, maybe some artistic cropping, etc. Only a small job, but it needs doing, and no doubt there are people out there who are better at it than I would be!
Really hope you all can help. Feel free to reply on- or off-list.
All the best,
Richard Symonds Office& Development Manager Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 207 065 0991
On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 4:19 PM, Richard Symonds < richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Good afternoon everyone! I have a couple of things that I'm begging your assistance with: I hope you folks can help.
- [...]
- We've had a couple of contacts from local political parties trying
to get pages about candidates in the upcoming London Assembly elections. At present, we only really have stubs on a few of the candidates. We told them politely that it's not something we can help with - WP is written by volunteers - although we did of course offer to teach their volunteers how to edit (and edit ethically and openly) if necessary. Perhaps this is something to keep an eye on when you're patrolling articles, or looking for a new DYK?
It's worth noting that traditionally PPCs have had difficulty sustaining
articles, whereas incumbent MPs are all notable. I suspect the same may be true of L.A. elections.
As the motto goes, sources first, article second. Although I personally don't mind helping with some of these (being a politics student).
Regards, Harry (User:Jarry1250)
I was looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Biggs_(politician) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Biggs_%28politician%29, which led me to believe that possible they are notable - if elected. There are a few sources for the candidates, but mostly local news - eg "Party X hopeful cleans up our streets with help from the local football team!"
Might possibly pass GNG.... possibly.
On 08/02/2012 16:34, Harry Burt wrote:
On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 4:19 PM, Richard Symonds <richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk mailto:richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Good afternoon everyone! I have a couple of things that I'm begging your assistance with: I hope you folks can help. 1. [...] 2. We've had a couple of contacts from local political parties trying to get pages about candidates in the upcoming London Assembly elections. At present, we only really have stubs on a few of the candidates. We told them politely that it's not something we can help with - WP is written by volunteers - although we did of course offer to teach their volunteers how to edit (and edit ethically and openly) if necessary. Perhaps this is something to keep an eye on when you're patrolling articles, or looking for a new DYK?It's worth noting that traditionally PPCs have had difficulty sustaining articles, whereas incumbent MPs are all notable. I suspect the same may be true of L.A. elections.
As the motto goes, sources first, article second. Although I personally don't mind helping with some of these (being a politics student).
Regards, Harry (User:Jarry1250)
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Richard Symonds Office& Development Manager Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 207 065 0991
On 8 February 2012 16:59, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
I was looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Biggs_(politician), which led me to believe that possible they are notable - if elected. There are a few sources for the candidates, but mostly local news - eg "Party X hopeful cleans up our streets with help from the local football team!"
Might possibly pass GNG.... possibly.
I think you would struggle to show that such coverage was "significant".
The specific notability guideline ([1]) says to redirect candidates to the article on the election, which sounds like a good guideline to me. I think members of the London Assembly could be notable as members of a "state or provincial legislature" (there are states and provinces with smaller populations than Greater London - New South Wales has about half a million fewer people, for example, and everyone on [2] has an article), but they would have to win the election first.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:POLITICIAN 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_New_South_Wales_Legislative_Asse...
On 8 February 2012 16:34, Harry Burt harryaburt@gmail.com wrote:
It's worth noting that traditionally PPCs have had difficulty sustaining articles, whereas incumbent MPs are all notable. I suspect the same may be true of L.A. elections.
Yes.
In early 2010, I reviewed a lot of pages for constituencies to look for articles on PPCs, which tend to be very problematic puff-pieces of limited notability. I think perhaps 75% were fairly irredeemable.
In the current case, the best answer is to point toward the notability guidelines for politicians, which I think explicitly state that the community does not think candidates for an office which would otherwise confer notability can be notable simply by virtue of being candidates for it, and to explain that the corrolary of this is that articles on candidates are often deleted, which leads to tears.
(Perhaps a bullet-point FAQ on "Can I have an article?", with common arguments and problems, is a worthwhile thing to produce for outreach purposes. "#15. 'But I wrote a book!'")
On 8 February 2012 16:19, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.ukwrote:
- We've had a couple of contacts from local political parties trying
to get pages about candidates in the upcoming London Assembly elections. At present, we only really have stubs on a few of the candidates. We told them politely that it's not something we can help with - WP is written by volunteers - although we did of course offer to teach their volunteers how to edit (and edit ethically and openly) if necessary. Perhaps this is something to keep an eye on when you're patrolling articles, or looking for a new DYK?
The helpful answer (being a candidate doesn't confer notability) belongs
in a FAQ somewhere. Question is, where.
Charles
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