User talk:Pratyya Ghosh/Archives/28 (2014-12)

Greetings, all! We hope that all of our American GA Cup competitors had an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday.

Friday saw the end of Round 2. Two from 7 pools, plus a tie score and one wildcard (16 in all) moved onto the next round. Some pools were more competitive than others. Round 2's highest scorer was 3family6, with an impressive 255 points. Good888, who came in second place overall with 202 points, reviewed the most articles (19). The wildcard slot for Round 2 went to Jaguar. Congrats to all!

Round 3 will have 15 competitors in three pools. The key to moving forward in Round 2 seemed to be reviewing articles with the longest nomination dates; almost everyone who moved forward nominated at least one article from the pink nomination box (20 points) or reviewed articles that had languished in the queue for over 5 months (18 points). The GA Cup was also used to promote a group of articles about The Boat Race, a rowing race held annually since 1856 between Oxford University and Cambridge University, on the River Thames. 17 Boat Race articles were promoted to GA in November.

In Round 2, 110 reviews were completed, as compared to 117 in Round 1. The GA Cup continues to be a success. This month, we got a report from User:AmericanLemming, who maintains the GA statistics, that in October, there was a net gain of 201 articles nominated for GA. He thought that more open GANs could mean that more editors are submitting more of their articles to the GAN process. In addition, having a high-throughput of GANs means that more articles get reviewed more quickly, which reduces the frustration of potentially waiting several months to get an article reviewed. The activity in Round 2 of the GA Cup seems to bear that out. It's our hope that the competitors' enthusiasm continues in Round 3, and we can continue to make a difference in helping more editors improve their articles.

For Round 3, participants have been randomly put in 3 pools of 5 contestants each; the top two in each pool progressing, as well as the top 2 of all remaining users. Round 3 will start on December 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on December 29 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 3 and the pools can be found here.

There have been a couple of rules clarifications to announce. We're slightly changing the wording to the second bullet in "General rules", which now reads: You may only score points in a round for reviews which have been completed in that round. We're also including this clarification: Only reviews started during the competition are eligible. We have also lost a judge, so there are now only three judges.

Good luck and remember to have fun as we move into the holiday season. It is the judges' hope that every competitor in the GA Cup has a joyous holiday season and Happy New Year.

Cheers from Dom497, TheQ Editor and Figureskatingfan.

Drive: Thanks to everyone who participated in November's Backlog Elimination Drive. Of the 43 people who signed up for this drive, 26 copy edited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

Progress report: The November Drive removed 26 requests from the Requests page and 509 articles from the {{copy edit}} backlog. We copy edited 83 articles tagged in the target months; July, August, and September 2013. Together with tag removals from articles unsuitable for copy editing, we eliminated July 2013 from the backlog and reduced August and September's tags to 61 and 70 respectively. As of 01:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC), the backlog stood at 1,974 articles, dipping below 2,000 for the first time in the Guild's history (see graph at right). Well done everyone!

Blitz: The December Blitz will run from December 14–20 and will focus on articles related to Religion, in recognition of this month's religious holidays in much of the English-speaking world. Awards will be given out to everyone who copy edits at least one of the target articles. Sign up here!

Election time again: The election of coordinators to serve from 1 January to 30 June 2015 is now underway. Candidates can nominate themselves or others from December 01, 00:01 (UTC), until December 15, 23:59. The voting period will run from December 16, 00:01 (UTC), until December 31, 23:59. You can read about coordinators' duties here. Please consider getting involved and remember to cast you vote—it's your Guild and it doesn't organize itself!

Thank you all once again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve anything without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978, and Miniapolis.

Hello Pratyya Ghosh, May you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New year 2015.
Happy editing,
The Herald : here I am

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Blitz: Thanks to everyone who participated in the December Blitz. Of the 14 editors who signed up for the blitz, 11 copyedited at least one article. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.

January drive: The January backlog-reduction drive is just around the corner; sign up here!

Election time again: The election of coordinators to serve from January 1 to June 30, 2015 is now underway. The voting period runs from December 16, 00:01 (UTC), until December 31, 23:59. Please cast your vote—it's your Guild, and it doesn't run itself!

Happy holidays from your GOCE coordinators Jonesey95, Baffle gab1978 and Miniapolis.

Happy Holiday!

Hello Pratyya Ghosh, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing,
Darylgolden^(talk) 02:26, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Hello Pratyya Ghosh, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing,
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:01, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Hello Pratyya Ghosh, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015.
Happy editing,
Bhootrina (talk) 12:33, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Happy New Year! We hope that all of our GA Cup competitors had an enjoyable and safe holiday season.

Monday saw the end of Round 3. Eight contestants moved forward to Round 4—the top two contestants from each of Round 3's three pools and the top two participants of all remaining users. It was an exciting competition, especially towards the end. Round 3's highest scorer was Jaguar, Round 2's wildcard, with an impressive 305 points, the highest score in the GA Cup thus far. Pool B was the closest race; J_Milburn and Cwmhiraeth switched places a few times in the final hours of the competition, although J Milburn edged out Cwmhiraeth by just 9 points. Pool A was, by far, the most competitive; four out of five moved onto Round 4, and its competitors earned a cumulative 935 points and reviewed 59 articles. Ritchie333, who came in second overall with 255 points, reviewed the most articles (17). Peacemaker67 and Wizardman earned the two wildcard slots, with 184 and 154 points, respectively. Congrats to all!

114 articles were reviewed this round, as compared to 110 in Round 2 and 117 in Round 1. The key to success in Round 3, like in Round 2, was reviewing articles with the longest nomination dates; everyone who moved forward reviewed articles from the pink nomination box (20 points) or reviewed articles that had languished in the queue for over 5 months (18 points). Many of these articles had languished because their nominators had left Wikipedia and had little chance of passing to GA, so our competitors provided a great service by helping remove them from the queue. Also as in Round 2, The Boat Race articles proved to be popular review choices, with 10% of all the articles reviewed in December. We appreciate the competitors' continued enthusiasm, even during the busy holiday season. At least one competitor even reviewed articles while preparing for a holiday meal!

For Round 4, participants have been randomly put in 2 pools of 4 contestants each. The top two in each pool will progress to the finals, as well as the top participant (5th place) of all remaining users. The semi-finals will start on January 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on January 29 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 4 and the pools can be found here.

We received some excellent feedback about how to improve the GA Cup in the future, including the definition of "quickfails" and the use of pools, which we'll seriously consider as we move forward. As a result of this feedback and the experience we've gained, there will be some changes to the rules come next years GA Cup.

Good luck to all our semi-finalists! It is the judges' hope that every competitor in the GA Cup continue to have fun and be enthusiastic about reviewing and passing articles to GA!

Cheers from Dom497, TheQ Editor and Figureskatingfan.