The Community Portal is the central place to find out what's happening on Wikipedia. Learn what tasks need to be done, what groups can be joined, and get or post news about recent events or current activities.
Post your Wikipedia related news and announcements here! New portals, collaborations, and wikiprojects seeking contributors. New initiatives, proposals, discussions, or article drives, and current maintenance backlogs.
New board members Oscar, Mindspillage and Jan Bart; Stable versions; Google Earth; NYC meetup; Cultural moment via Wikisource
Notices
The Physics article has been undergoing an (arduous) review. Editors involved in the process now have (after muchdiscussion) three lead section proposals. A request for votes from the wikipedia community is now required to gain a broader base of opinion on what the lead section of the Physics article should be. Voting page and lead proposal links are located here, votes and comments welcomed.
The Graphics Lab has just been set up. Based on its successful French counterpart, the Graphics Lab is a place for users propose images for clean-up and request the creation of SVG maps and diagrams. Everything is in place now, but there is an urgent need of users who can clean up photos, create SVG diagrams and maps!
The new topic of discussion at the Virtual Classroom is Budgiekiller, on vandalism. Both questions and answers are welcome.
A proposal for a new policy designed to replace the current vandalism warning policy has been started by Azer Red.
Wikipedia is, by number of articles, the largest encyclopedia ever to exist. However, many articles are stubs, or otherwise need attention. If you like, go ahead, be bold, and jump right in. If you aren't ready to fly solo, you can participate in a Collaboration.
Not sure where to report a certain type of problem with article content? If it exists, it's probably listed at Wikipedia:Maintenance.
Collaborations
To improve the quality of articles which are short or lacking in detail, Wikipedia's community organizes collaborations to expand articles.
Article Creation and Improvement Drive
The Article Creation and Improvement Drive works on an article that needs a lot of help before reaching featured-article standard. The subject of this week's article improvement drive is Cactus:
The name cactus has been traditionally given to any member of the flowering plant family Cactaceae. They are often used as ornamental plants, but some are also crop plants.
Cacti are distinctive and unusual plants which have adapted to extreme aridenvironments, showing a wide range of anatomical and physiological features which conserve water. Their stems have expanded into green succulent structures containing the chlorophyll necessary for life and growth, while the leaves have become the spines for which cacti are so well known.
A photosynthetic reaction centre is a protein that is the site of the light reactions of photosynthesis. The reaction centre contains pigments such as chlorophyll and phaeophytin. These absorb light, promoting an electron to a higher energy level within the pigment. The free energy created is used to reduce an electron acceptor and is critical for the production of chemical energy during photosynthesis.
Scheme of human sex chromosomes and resulting germ cells.
Sex refers to the male and female duality of biology and reproduction, a process in biological DNA that dates back 4.6 - 3.5 billion years. DNA links back in an unbroken series of sexual reproduction taking forward information to present day. The somewhat similar term gender has more to do with identity than biology. The concept is confined to organisms that reproduce sexually.
Help clear up the backlog of articles to be merged! Merging is the process combining two (or sometimes more) articles in to a new article, or adding the content of one article to another. You'll need to be familiar with the associated templates. Before you begin, you need to know the details of merging and moving pages. After you read that, you're ready to begin consolidating and improving articles!
WikiProjects
WikiProjects are ongoing team efforts to improve articles having to do with a particular subject, and to manage the logistics of that topic. Hundreds exist — examine the master list to find one that interests you. They are separate from, though may work with, Collaborations.
Wikipedia has many help pages, policies, and departments. Here are some of the most general. For a comprehensive list of Wikipedia's departments, see the Wikipedia department directory.
Wikipedia has many established policies, guidelines, conventions, and traditions. This is a very brief sampling of some of the most important; for more information, see the main policies and guidelines page. Policies and guidelines apply both to articles and how to work with fellow editors. For easy access, the shortcuts to the pages are also listed.
The current events portal is used to describe current world-wide events of note, not just in politics, but also in science, culture, technology, sports, entertainment and many other areas. The information in question should be added to any relevant articles as well. However, Wikipedia does not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories (use Wikinews for that). Instead, the In the news section on the Main Page mentions and links to entries of timely interest that are (and this is crucial) nonetheless encyclopedia articles that have been updated to reflect an important current event. Non-Administrators can suggest items or changes to this Main Page section by editing the candidates page, from which administrators will update the live template from time to time.
