The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue VI - April 2008

Project News

• Since the last newsletter in March, our number of featured articles/lists has increased by 3, giving us a total of 21! List of tallest buildings and structures in Salford and Manchester City F.C. seasons were promoted to featured list status on 22 March along with Castles in Greater Manchester which passed FLC on 1 April. Well done to all those who contributed!

• Peterloo Massacre was nominated for FAC on 6 April. So far it has received support for FAS but feel free join the discussion here.

• The reduction of WP:GM GAs, mentioned in the last issue, has been tackled with Buckton Castle and Oasis (band) being passed on 9 March and Upper Brook Street Chapel, Manchester on 7 April. We now have 13 GAs due to hard work of our contributors. Well done!

• Hulme Arch Bridge was nominated for GAS on March 30.

• WP:GM still is still the leading local British WikiProject. As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 6 on London and Yorkshire who have 15 FAs each. Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still lacking GAs and falls behind London by 6. This topic was at the front of the new aims discussion ( here) and is an important issue for WP:GM.

• As mentioned above, new aims have been decided. See the right hand column for more details.

Member News

There are now 44 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester! A warm welcome to the 5 new members that have joined us since March:

• Attenboroughp ( talk · contribs)
• Paypwip ( talk · contribs)
• Liquidswords ( talk · contribs)
• Azallen ( talk · contribs)
• Man2 ( talk · contribs)

No users left the WikiProject this month. Hooray!

Thanks

A big "thank you" to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Written by Polishname • Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

New Aims

The completion of all but one of the short term aims set last December resulted in a discussion on WT:GM to set new aims for the WikiProject. They are:

• Obtain FA status for Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain FL status for List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA -> FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain GA status for a third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.

It took us four months to get our last aims completed, why not try and see if these can be done in less time than before! All input is welcome but if anyone has any books or photos etc specifically related to these topics, they would be extra-specially welcome.

But before rushing ahead with these new aims, let's not forget the one that got away last time: to obtain B -> GA status for Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Bolton and Stockport. Most of these articles are in poor condition and in need of repair. Good quality images are urgently needed also. Let's make sure that this aim doesn't stay off our radar much longer.

Don't Forget...

• Images!
  The shortage of good images was mentioned in the last issue and still hasn't been resolved! A good place to start would be the requested photographs category but please remember that there are many articles not within this category that have the same need in common.

• Assessment
  " Assess and review all relevant articles for quality, importance and progress" is one of our mid-term aims. At the present moment, there are only 43 unassessed articles. This task could be completed well before the next newsletter is out.

• Last but not Least...
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention. Please take a look and see what you can do.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue VII - May 2008

Project News

• The Peterloo Massacre article was promoted to FA on 12 April. One of our top priority articles, it had previously been only start class. The process began on 25th March and since then underwent over 700 edits before the end of April, with Jza84, Malleus Fatuarum, and Richerman making significant contributions to the rapid development of the article. Ddstretch and Mr Stephen also contributed to discussions on the article talk page.

• Hulme Arch Bridge was promoted to GA. This was mainly the effort of Mike Peel who was also largely responsible for the promotion of Upper Brook Street Chapel, Manchester last month.

• Perhaps the most unusual event of April 2008 for the project has surrounded the Denshaw article. Denshaw is a village of about 500 people in Saddleworth, Oldham, which attracted media attention due to vandalism of the stub class article. Once this was brought to the project's attention, efforts were made to improve the article which led to a successful DYK? nomination and might even advance it to GA status with a bit more effort. In April there were over 19,000 visitors who saw the project in action. Contributors included Jza84, Ddstretch, Malleus Fatuarum, Hassocks5489, Nev1 and Mike Peel.

• Also this month 5 articles featured on the DYK? section of the front page: Hulme Arch Bridge, Peterloo Massacre, Bolton and Leigh Railway, Barnes Hospital, Denshaw, and Platt Fields Park. This certainly puts into perspective one of the project's previous mid-term aims "feature on the Did you know? section with at least three articles related to Greater Manchester". If you've expanded an article 5 fold or started one with at least 1.5kb of prose in the past 5 days and it has an interesting and referenced fact don't hesitate to read the conditions of DYK? and nominate it here. It gets the project noticed!

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still leading local British WikiProjects. As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 7 on London and Yorkshire who have 15 Featured Articles each. Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still lacking GAs and falls behind London by 6 (we have 14, London 20). If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

Member News

There are 45 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. One new member has joined the project this month:

• Kieran5676 on 30th April and is interested in south Manchester.

The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A rather large "thank you" goes out to all the editors who edited article related to Greater Manchester, or who edit the project itself.

Written by Basketball110 and Nev1 • Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

New Aims

Last month the project set new and ambitious aims for itself:

• Obtain FA status for Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain FL status for List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA and/or FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain GA status for one third (1/3) of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.

It took us four months to get our last aims completed, why not try and see if these can be done in less time than before! All input is welcome but if anyone has any books or photos etc specifically related to these topics, they would be extra-specially welcome.

Most of the articles covered by our new aims haven't experienced much activity in the past month, if you thing you can help improve an article be bold and get editing. Articles such as List of people from Bolton and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.

Our highest priority article is of course Greater Manchester, there is a peer review from March with issues still to be addressed before it can be put forward as a featured article candidate. Salford is another top priority article because it's the county's second city; it's under gone a lot of editing but still has a way to go before it reaches GA. Also active this month has been the City of Salford article – part of our aim to get 1/3 of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs to GA &ndash.

Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Reminders...

• Images!
  The rate of good images has gone up since it was mentioned in the last issue, but more images are needed! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Assessment
  When this section was written, there was only 1 unassessed article! This task has probably already been finished, but it might now have. To check click here.

• Last but not Least...
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention. Please take a look and see what you can do.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue VIII - June 2008

Project News

• No FA news this month... but lots of GA!

• Old Trafford, Murrays' Mills and 1990 Strangeways Prison riot all passed GAC last month! In previous newsletters, the issue of WP:GM's lack of GAs has been raised numerously, so a large 'well done' to all those who contributed, be it little or large!

• Also, Milnrow and City of Salford have been nominated at WP:GAC. Feel free to join in with their discussions here and here respectively. To 'obtain GA status for a third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs' is one of WP:GM's short-term aims, let's hope the City of Salford won't be the last borough with this status.

• In other news, the Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester list has been coming along nicely and may even soon reach FLC! Please help out where you can.

• Well done to Mike Peel for getting Platt Fields Park onto the DYK!

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on London! Although taking the lead in FAs, WP:GM is still flagging a little in GAs and falls behind London by 3. This is the closest we have ever got to taking the lead in local British GAs, if you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

• And don't forget that the Manchester congestion charge article will need all input possible to keep it up to date with the government's new legislation (grumble grumble)...

Member News

There are 46 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. Our newest member is:

• James50567 - a warm welcome from us all!

Let's not forget that Jza84 became an administrator this month! Congratulations on your new role.

The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A rather large "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed..

Written by Polishname • Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

The short-terms aims for the WikiProject are:

• Obtain FA status for Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain FL status for List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA and/or FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain GA status for one third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.

Most of the articles covered by our new aims haven't experienced much activity in the past month, except for City of Salford being nominated at WP:GAC. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Articles such as List of people from Bolton and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.

Greater Manchester is, of course, our highest priority article. Mr Stephen posted some milestones to getting this article up to FA status a while back. Please check them out and see what you can do.

Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Reminders...

• Images!
  The rate of good images has gone up since it was mentioned in the last issue, but we'll need more if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Assessment
  As of 12th April, we have had 100% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, we still 151 of our 1551 article unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.

• Last but not Least...
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue IX - September 2008

Project News

It's been three months since the last newsletter, but there's been a lot going on...

• Promoted articles:

Greater Manchester is one of our project's top priority articles, the Greater Manchester article comprehensively covers everything to do with the county, from culture and history, to transport and demography.

Manchester United F.C. records and statistics is about the records of one of Greater Manchester's best know clubs, which feats like "the club currently holds the record for the most FA Cup triumphs with 11".

City of Salford is about the local government area and Greater Manchester's second city. Getting Salford to GA is one our the aim's of our project, so hopefully this may help.

Castleshaw Roman fort and Mamucium are about Greater Manchester's two Roman forts and are part of the county's lesser known ancient history.

Hyde Road in Ardwick was the home of Manchester City F.C. from 1887 until it was demolished in 1923.

Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is about the history and modern restoration of the disused canal running through the county. (It's now at FAC, so please improve the article if you can!)

Manchester Mummy is about Hannah Beswick, whose macabre fear of being buried alive lead to her demanding that her body was kept above ground and checked periodically for signs of life.

Milnrow is a small town in Rochdale with a long history. The wool trade was important to the town and was the basis of much of its industry. (It's also the first GA for Rochdale!)

Ordsall Hall is an important Tudor hall in Salford with a reputation for being haunted!

Royton is a town in Oldham that was strongly influenced by the Industrial Revolution.

Trafford Park was the first industrial estate in the world!

• Added to the project:

Some articles out there are already good quality and have been added to the project as we continue to expand:

Joy Division, the rock band from Salford that would later become New Order and perhaps best known for their song ' Love Will Tear Us Apart'.

Bert Trautmann is the German goalkeeper who broke his neck playing for Manchester City... and carried on playing!

• The Peterloo Massacre appeared on the front page on 16 August! Well done to everyone who contributed to the article about a key moment of Greater Manchester's history and managed to get it showcased.

• A new portal has been set up! The Greater Manchester portal showcases some of the best articles to do with the county. Thanks to Polishname for single-handedly getting it up and running.

• Castleshaw Roman fort, Cine City, Withington, The Towers (Manchester), Daily Express Building, Withington Community Hospital, Mamucium, Port of Manchester, and Mark Addy (Albert Medal) have all appeared on the DYK? section of the main page! For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• There is a proposal to move members who haven't edited for a while to an inactive members list, so if you've not been edited recently but still want to be a member let us know!

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 5 on Yorkshire and 11 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 5 more than London and 7 more than Yorkshire! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Written by Nev1 • Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

The short-terms aims for the WikiProject are:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain FL status for List of railway stations in Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA and/or FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain GA status for one third of Greater Manchester's Metropolitan Boroughs.
• Obtain B -> GA status for Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Bolton and Stockport.

Although the project has had a lot of GAs and FAs recently, most of the articles covered by our short term aims haven't experienced much activity recently. Baby has undergone some change, but has a long way to go, and List of railway stations in Greater Manchester is very close to FL quality. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Articles such as List of railway stations in Greater Manchester already appear very close to FL status and may just require an editor to guide them through the FLC process.

Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Member News

There are 53 members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. Since 12 June, the project has gained 7 new members:

Welcome to everyone, and let's remember to make these new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help.

The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Assessment
  As of 1st September, we have had 99.5% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, we still 157 of our 1662 article unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

• Last but not Least...
  If you've got a story to go in next month's news letter, leave a note here.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue X - October 2008

Project News

Usually this is where this month's promoted articles are listed, however there is something more important this month. In September, the project was notified which of its articles were selected for a DVD version of wikipedia. The 49 are listed here, although the quality ratings are a bit out of date. Twenty-two of the articles were GA-class or higher, and only five were below B-class. These are articles that have been selected by wikipedia, not simply as the best but the most important, so they require our attention, most importantly those that fall below GA standards. We still have until the 20th October to make changes to the articles, so please if you think you can improve any of them in any way please do so!

In other news, it's been a busy month with plenty going on...

• Promoted articles:

The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal is a disused canal undergoing restoration. The canal, which travels between Bolton and Manchester with a branch heading north east to Bury, was abandoned in 1961.

Old Trafford is the iconic home ground of Manchester United F.C.; it has staged international matches and is the only ground in the country to have been given a five-star rating by UEFA.

List of railway stations in Greater Manchester details the 100 stations along Greater Manchester's 142 miles of track, with figures such as number of users.

Having previously been described as "bare, wet, and almost worthless", Ashton-under-Lyne rose to prominence in the Industrial Revolution as one of the most famous mill towns in the north west.

Tameside is a metropolitan borough east of Manchester, encompassing the towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Audenshaw, Denton, Droylsden, Dukinfield, Hyde, Longdendale, Mossley and Stalybridge.

Henry Taylor is Oldham's forgotten Olympic hero. He won 3 swimming golds at the 1908 Olympics, a record for most golds in a single games by a Briton until Chris Hoy equalled it this year.

Ronnie Wallwork was born in Newton Heath and has represented the England U20 football team; after playing for Manchester United, he spent most of his career playing for West Bromwich Albion F.C.

• Henry Taylor, Peel Park, Salford, and the Manchester and Bolton Railway appeared on the DYK? section of the main page! For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on Yorkshire and 15 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 5 more than London and 7 more than Yorkshire! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

• There wasn't space in the last newsletter, but as of 24 July 2008 the project has a list of articles that have tags on them. As of 14 July 2008, 351 (21.8%) of our articles need a clean-up, although this should have gone down as some have already received attention (the bot does not seem to update the listing often).

• In other news, the Merseyside Wikiproject has been set up. If you have an interest in the area or want to help out in any way, head over to the project page and pitch in.

Written by Nev1 Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

The short-terms aims for the WikiProject are:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain GA and/or FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain B -> GA status for Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Bolton and Stockport.

In the past month we've achieved two of our short-term aims! The List of railway stations in Greater Manchester was expertly guided through the featured list process with hardly a problem, and now that Tameside is a GA a third of the county's boroughs are GA status or better. There's still plenty to do, some our our top-priority articles need referencing or tidying up, so don't hesitate to dive in! If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! And please keep an eye on the 49 articles selected for the wikipedia DVD.

Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Member News

No new members joined the project in September and there are 49 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester. A new list of inactive members has been started. Anyone who hasn't made an edit to wikipedia since 1 March 2008 automatically goes onto the list.

If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Assessment
  As of 4th October, we have had 100% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, 151 of our 1684 articles remain unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

• Last but not Least...
  If you've got a story to go in next month's news letter, leave a note here.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XI - November 2008

Project News

It's been a quieter month than September, but plenty has been going on...

• Promoted articles:

Born in Stalybridge and raised in Ashton-under-Lyne, Hugh Mason was a mill owner and politician. He was popular among his workers for shortening the working week at his factories without cutting their pay.

Bank Street was the home ground of Manchester United F.C. from 1893 until 1910. The site was abandoned because it was not big enough in the opinion of club owner John Henry Davies.

• No articles were DYKs this month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on Yorkshire and 14 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 7 more than both Yorkshire and London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

• Trafford was featured on the main page on the 12th October and was viewed 13,800 on the day (27,100 times over 4 days).

• The project's cleanup listing has been updated with stats from 8 October. As of 14 July, 351 (21.8%) of our articles need a clean-up, this has risen to 447 out of 1689 (26.5%). Although this is disappointing, it reflects a more widespread use of tags on articles to indicate what needs attention rather than a decline in the standard of this project's articles.

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Member News

There are now 53 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester as 4 new members joined the project in October:

• TheFamousPeter
• Felix Folio Secundus TheFamousPeter
• RuthAS
• Anthony of the Desert

Welcome to everyone, and let's remember to make these new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Written by Nev1 Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

The short-terms aims for the WikiProject are:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.
• Obtain GA and/or FA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain FL status for List of people from Bolton.
• Obtain B -> GA status for Rochdale, Wigan, Bury, Bolton and Stockport.

On top of these aims, some our our top-priority articles need referencing or tidying up, so don't hesitate to dive in! If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Thanks

A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Assessment
  As of 1st November, we have had 100% of our articles assessed for quality! Even so, 75 of our 1708 articles remain unassessed for importance. Please take a look and see what you can do.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

• Last but not Least...
  If you've got a story to go in next month's news letter, leave a note here.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XII - December 2008

Project News

November has been a successful month, with lots of progress made on articles, and more work in the pipe-line:

• Promoted articles:

Scout Moor Wind Farm is England's largest onshore wind farm. Although it was opposed by environmentalists, the wind farm was opened on 26 September 2008 and provides enough power for 40,000 homes.

The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine was the world's first stored-program computer. It ran its first program on 21 June 1948. The SSEM was a template for the Manchester Mark 1.

The River Irwell runs 39 miles from its source in Lancashire until it joins with the River Mersey. The river was important in the Industrial Revolution, and was left poluted with industrial waste and lifeless.

The Manchester and Bolton Railway opened in 1838 with passenger and freight services. Though some of the original stations are no longer in use, the railway is now part of the Manchester to Preston Line.

• The Bridgewater Canal is currently a GA nominee and the Scout Moor Wind Farm is under scrutiny at WP:FAC. Please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them. Hopefully, next month we can report on two more promoted articles!

• Scout Moor Wind Farm featured in the DYK section of the front page last month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as featured content goes, we have a lead of 8 on Yorkshire and 14 on London! WP:GM now is the leading project in terms of GAs too with 10 more Yorkshire and 11 more than London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Member News

There are now 50 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester as 2 new members joined the project in November:

• How do you turn this on
• ClemRutter

Welcome to everyone, and let's remember to make these new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Written by Nev1 Template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

In November, our project aims were revamped. Our short term aims now are:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine.
• Obtain GA status for River Irwell.
• Obtain FA status for Scout Moor Wind Farm.
• Obtain GA status for Radcliffe, Greater Manchester.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

Already we're making great progress, and Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and the River Irwell are already GAs, while Scout Moor Wind Farm is on the way to becoming an FA! The Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF) are hot topics at the moment with the referendum currently open. As an aside, some of our top-priority articles need referencing or tidying up, so don't hesitate to dive in. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Thanks

A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the Wikipedia:WikiProject Greater Manchester/Cleanup listing|list of articles needing cleanup]] are in permanent need of attention.

I know it's early but since there won't be a newsletter for a month... merry Christmas everyone, enjoy the holiday and mince pies.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XIII - January 2009

Project News

December has been a very successful month, with lots of article promoted, and hopefully more to come in January:

• Promoted articles:

Scout Moor Wind Farm is England's largest onshore wind farm. Although it was opposed by environmentalists, the wind farm was opened on 26 September 2008 and provides enough power for 40,000 homes.

North Road Stadium was the first home of Manchester United F.C., back when it was called Newton Heath F.C., and was the club's home until 1893.

The B of the Bang is the sculpture that was erected to commemorate the 2002 Commonwealth Games and for a while was the largest sculpture in the UK. And because of safety concerns, it may be dismantled.

The Bridgewater Canal was built in the second half of the 18th century to transport coal to Manchester from the Duke of Bridgewater's mines in Worsley

Radcliffe is best known as a mill town, but was mentioned in the Domesday Book and features the medieval Radcliffe Tower.

• Current nominations: January looks set to be very busy, with Chadderton, Cine City, Withington, and Nico Ditch at WP:GAN, the Greater Manchester portal up for Featured Portal status, and Sale a Featured Article Candidate. Please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them.

• The Belle Vue Zoological Gardens is being prepared for GA, and Abram, Whitefield, and Wigan are approaching a good standard, while Radcliffe is already being improved, ready for its next FAC.

• Abram featured in the DYK section of the front page last month. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• The project has a new tool, a watchlist of all our project's articles. This should help us keep an eye on them and spot new editors who might want to join our project. Also, Jza84 has developed a map of WP:GM's GAs and FAs. It shows a gap in coverage in the north west of the county, something we should try to change.

• WikiProject Greater Manchester is still the leading local British WikiProject! As far as Featured and Good content goes, our lead is extending, with 10 and 16 more FAs than Yorkshire and London respectively, and 13 and 14 more GAs than Yorkshire and London! If you see an article that you think deserves to be a GA, don't hesitate to nominate it at WP:GAC!

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

Two of our aims were crossed off as Scout Moor Wind Farm became an FA, and Radcliffe, Greater Manchester a GA. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

Member News

There are now 46 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 14 members inactive since 1 July 2008) as 1 new member joined the project in December:

• Sitush

Welcome from everyone, and let's remember to make new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

Hopefully everyone had a fun Christmas and new year and is looking forward to a good 2009.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XIV - February 2009

Looking back at 2008

With the new(ish) year, I think it's right to look back over the year just gone. Last year was massive for our project, with lots of successes building on a successful 2007. In terms of featured content, we became the leading wikiproject in 2007, but 2008 saw us cement our status as one of the UK's leading wikiprojects: having started the year with most FAs (two more than London and Yorkshire), but falling behind in terms of GAs, we now have more FAs and GAs than any project under WP:UKGEO. While our aim is to improve all articles related to Greater Manchester, not collect trophies, we now lead the field by a long way and everyone deserves to feel proud for their part.

We've had articles featured on the main page, both in DYK? and as today's Featured Article, but success is more than a matter of numbers; the project has grown into a community where editors join together to provide information and improve Wikipedia. A great example of this is the work our project did on Denshaw. Back in April, it was targeted by vandals and as a result was featured in national news. We stepped in and improved and protected the article, showing what WP:GM is capable of. This is undoubtedly the noisiest project in the UK and it's strength comes from the wide range of interests of its many members. We've even been so successful that we were accused of forming a claque.

During 2008, our numbers have increased and, while some have left, we've welcomed many strong editors who will help bring the project more success. With so much emphasis on Good and Featured articles, it's sometimes easy to forget that a lot of effort goes into articles that don't get recognition. The table below shows that the number of B-class articles has increased since the start of 2008, and that the proportion of stub-class articles under our project has gone down.

Top High Mid Low None Total FA 3 1 2 6 12 A 1 1 GA 5 1 4 1 11 B 15 20 25 20 8 88 Start 21 70 124 165 79 459 Stub 3 23 102 393 84 605 Assessed 47 119 264 592 171 1193 List 3 7 7 17 Unassessed 211 211 Total 47 119 264 592 382 1404

Top High Mid Low None Total FA 7 4 5 3 19 FL 2 2 8 12 A 1 1 GA 8 8 12 8 36 B 14 26 40 31 111 C 9 12 29 29 1 80 Start 14 89 212 335 650 Stub 2 51 153 623 1 830 List 3 21 15 39 Assessed 54 196 474 1052 2 1778 Unassessed 1 1 Total 54 196 474 1052 3 1779

My own experience of Wikipedia has been positive and enjoyable, especially due to WP:GM. I've worked on interesting subjects with nice people, and hopefully the experience is similar for others. We've covered subjects as varied and interesting as castles, mummies, computers, Olympic swimmers, and wind farms, stuff I probably wouldn’t know about if it wasn’t for Wikipedia. I enjoy being a part of this project, and as we approach the WP:GM's second birthday (24 February) I'm sure it will continue to go from strength to strength in 2009.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Project News

January has been a very successful month, with lots of article promoted, and hopefully more to come in January:

• Promoted articles:

Chadderton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham. It has a long and interesting history beyond that of its mill town façade; a Celtic hill fort, a medieval lordship and still an important industrial and metropolitan town.

Manchester Liners was the first pasenger and cargo shipping company to operate on the Manchester Ship Canal. It was founded in 1898 and closed in 1985.

In 2006, controversy was caused when Sony's first person shooter game Resistance: Fall of Man featured a representation of Manchester Cathedral without permission from the Church of England.

Nico Ditch stretches from Ashton-under-Lyne to Stretford and according to legend was dug in a single night to defend against the Danes.

• Article news: Cine City, Withington is at WP:GAN, please keep an eye on these articles and if any issues are raised in their reviews help to address them. Unfortunately, despite User:Joshii's effort the Greater Manchester portal did not become featured.

Aims

Our short-term aims remain:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

Member News

There are now 48 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 14 members inactive since 1 July 2008) as 2 new members joined the project in January:

• Chaosdruid
• Skinsmoke

Welcome from everyone, and let's remember to make new members feel included in the project! If you need help, you can go to the project talk page, or perhaps look at the list of members to see if anyone can help. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Thanks

A big "thank you" goes to all the editors who help make this WikiProject what it is; no edit goes unnoticed.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XV - March 2009

Project News

Happy birthday! It was the project's second birthday on 24 February, so thank you to everyone who's helped improve and Greater Manchester related article, not just our members, your work is very much appreciated. The last month has been very successful, with lots activity:

• Promoted articles:

Radcliffe, Greater Manchester is best known as a mill town, but was mentioned in the Domesday Book and features the medieval Radcliffe Tower, which is a Scheduled Monument.

There are 38 Scheduled Monuments in Greater Manchester; SMs are nationally important historic sites. The 38 include castles, medieval halls, and Bronze Age cairns.

Nico Ditch stretches from Ashton-under-Lyne to Stretford and according to legend was dug in a single night to defend against the Danes.

The Cine City, Withington, was the third cinema to open in Britain and when it closed in 2001 it was the third longest running cinema in England. It was opened in 1912, and demolished in 2008.

The Manchester Mark 1 was developed from the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, also built in Manchester, and was one of the first electronic stored-program computers in the world.

• Current nominations: As of the completion of this newsletter, there are no GA nominations, but Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and Buckton Castle are at FAC. The articles detail the world's first stored-program computer, and the best preserved castle in Greater Manchester. There's a good chance that one or more of these interesting articles could be promoted, so please keep an eye on them in case there's any way you can help!

• Charles White (physician) and Worsley featured in the DYK section of the front page last month (actually, Worsley featured in January but was missed out of the last newsletter!). For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• The project's cleanup listing has been updated with stats from 24 February 2009. As of 8 October 2008, 447 (26.5%) of 1689 our articles needed a clean-up, this has risen slightly to 455 out of 1809 (25.2%). This is encouraging as the proportion has gone down, and indicates the standard of the project's articles are steadily improving. While the high-profile successes of GAs and FAs are important, the project's aim is to improve all GM-related articles.

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Sister projects

In an attempt to encourage communication between related wikiprojects, or to at least raise awareness, this section is dedicated to the important goings on of WP:Merseyside and WP:Cheshire, our sister projects and the only other user groups dedicated to improving articles in North West England.

• WP:CHES – After a period of low activity, the project has picked up recently, with initiatives (such as beginning a newsletter and sending a questionnaire to its member) to encourage greater participation from its members. This has paid dividends with two GAs being promoted in February and greater activity in general.

• WP:MERSEY – After being set-up in September 2008, the project is experiencing a period of lowish activity. While the project has a handful of FAs and GAs, most of its articles are unassessed; assessing requires no familiarity with a subject, so any help WP:GM members can lend would be greatly appreciated.

Other news

There is a meet-up scheduled for 14 March in Manchester for anyone interested. It is not organised by WP:GM and is open to all wikipedians. More details can be found here.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

After a flurry of activity in January, progress on the Salford article has slowed, but it is steadily progressing towards a good standard. If you think you can help improve an article, be bold and get editing! Although these are the project's explicit short term aims, we endeavour to "improving all Wikipedia articles that are concerned with Greater Manchester", so every edit is valuable.

The project compared

The Greater Manchester WikiProject is one of the leading UK-based groups. Some other projects are no as lucky as we are in the numbers of active enthusiastic users. Below are some statistics of the other leading UK projects and some geographically close to Greater Manchester.

	GTRM	YORK	LOND	MRSY	CHES	DERB
FA	34	22	15	8	3	0
GA	42	32	27	6	24	1
B	105	182	228	11	57	37
C	99	126	43	19	29	68
Start	713	1654	1749	188	570	461
Stub	769	3214	1201	104	454	680
List	47	87	57	5	21	21
Unassessed	0	0	555	1230	13	21
Total	1809	5317	3876	1571	1171	1289

Member News

There are now 46 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 17 members inactive since 1 September 2008) as 1 new member joined the project in February:

• Majorly

Majorly is an experienced editor who has recently decided to join WP:GM, and has been working hard on Cheadle Hulme. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Machester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XVI - June 2009

Project News

Sorry there's not been a newsletter for three months, it's not that there hasn't been anything to say but that there almost hasn't been time to say it...

On 20 March 2009 Manchester was "today's Featured Article" and received over 44,000 visitors. This was the culmination of about 2 years of effort from a lot of editors who found the article in this state before the founding of the project. Along with Greater Manchester, it's our flagship article and for it to reach the mainpage is a great achievement. It was an incredible collaborative effort and shows what the project is capable of, and since then we have gone from strength to strength. The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine was Today's Featured Article on 30 May, with 33,000 visitors.

• Promoted articles:

Carrington Moss is an 1,100 acres (450 ha) peat bog in Trafford; in the 19th century, it was reclaimed to be used agriculturally and for the disposal Manchester's waste, and is still used for farming.

Manchester Mummy is about Hannah Beswick, whose macabre fear of being buried alive lead to her demanding that her body was kept above ground and checked periodically for signs of life.

The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machinewas the world's first stored-program computer. It ran its first program on 21 June 1948. The SSEM was a template for the Manchester Mark 1 and the first in a series of groundbreaking computers designed at Manchester.

The town of Sale in Trafford was probably founded in the Anglo-Saxon period and is best known as the home of physicist J. P. Joule the founding place and former home of and Sale Sharks rugby club.

Cheadle Hulme is a suburb of Stockport that formed from several small hamlets, rather than growing around a church which was usual for medieval villages. (also Stockport's first GA!)

The East Lancashire Railway 1844–1859 (ELR) only operated for 16 years, but in its short history it was threatened by competitors such as the North Union Railway, and was involved in a dangerous stand-off with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR). Eventually the ELR and L&YR were amalgamated in 1859.

Eccles, famous for the Eccles cake, is a town in the City of Salford that boomed with the Industrial Revolution. Along with Worsley, it is a proposed World Heritage Site.

Mellor hill fort is the only Iron Age hill fort in Greater Manchester and was only discovered in the 1990s.

Partington, in Trafford, is a town and civil parish that was until the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, a mainly agrarian community. With the opening of the canal, Partington became a major coal port and following the Second World War was expanded as an overspill estate for deprived parts of Manchester.

The town of Worsley was home to the Duke of Bridgewater's coal mines and is under consideration to be preserved as a World Heritage Site; the duke built the Bridgewater Canal to transport coal from the mines.

• Manchester computers, Emma (1828 ship), Carrington Moss, Greater Manchester bus route 192, and Mellor hill fort have all featured in the DYK section of the front page since the start of March. For details of the DYKs by the project that have appeared on the main page, see Did you know?

• With all the project's success, we must be careful not to become complacent. In March, David Beckham was delisted as a Good Article because it lacked enough references and was poorly written in parts. Improving an article and getting it reviewed for GA is a lot of effort and it's a real shame to see the article delisted, but a reminder that our role as an article writer is two-fold: once we improve them, we have an obligation to maintain them. Beckham is the kind of person who is regularly in the news, so the article will get a lot of attention and need regular updating, and it was written by members of WP:FOOTBALL, but let's take it as a reminder of what's needed from us.

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Stockport
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

Over the past three months, we've succeeded in our aims of bringing Eccles and Worsley to GA status, thanks largely to the seemingly inexhaustible Parrot of Doom. Recently another aim was added: bringing Stockport to GA standard. It's currently C-class and has some well developed sections. It will be a difficult task, but worthwhile considering it's Greater Manchester's third largest settlement. Also, the importance of bringing Salford to GA has been emphasised; it's currently B-class and should be the easiest of our aims to accomplish, although it's been there for a long time. Let's see if we can put this one to rest soon.

The project compared

Over the past three months, WP:LOND and WP:YORK have had a massive upsurge in the number of articles under their auspices. And interestingly, WP:YORKS has had an upsurge in GAs (10), and WP:LOND has had an increase in both GAs and FAs (8 and 10 respectively), closing down the gap with WP:GM. Although WP:DERB appears to have lost a GA, one of their articles was incorrectly tagged; however Derwent Valley Mills is being prepared to become a Good Article candidate, and hopefully will be the project's first. With the recent retirement of Ddstretch and Espresso Addict, WP:CHES has lost two of its most active contributors, but is still managing to produce good articles such as list of castles in Cheshire ( FL) and John Douglas (now a Good Article candidate). The majority of WP:MRSY's articles are now assessed and will hopefully go from strength to strength.

	GTRM	LOND	YORK	MRSY	CHES	DERB
FA	38	25	23	8	4	0
A	0	1	0	0	1	0
GA	44	35	42	12	23	0
B	105	225	193	31	83	37
C	113	55	238	104	66	71
Start	731	1817	2142	528	530	482
Stub	771	1229	3603	421	455	702
List	48	75	103	20	28	24
Unassessed	0	2821	0	463	0	0
Total	1850	6344	6344	1587	1190	1316

Member News

There are now 48 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 17 members inactive since 1 September 2008) as 2 new members have joined the project since the start of March:

• Juliancolton
• Sharadjalota456

The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Manchester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XVII - July 2009

Project News

• Promoted articles:

Cheadle Hulme is a suburb of Stockport that formed from several small hamlets, rather than growing around a church which was usual for medieval villages, although there is evidence of activity dating back to the Bronze Age.

The Cheadle Hulme railway station was opened in 1845 and was the second railway station in the settlement.

• June's DYK?:

Did you know that after the collapse of the Broughton Suspension Bridge in 1831, the British military introduced the order to "break step" when soldiers were crossing a bridge? Featured on the Did you know? section on 6 June 2009.

• Other news:
• Recently Salford was turned into a disambiguation page with the article on the settlement moved to Salford, Greater Manchester. This will hopefully make it clearer to the reader that Salford, Greater Manchester, and the City of Salford are not the same thing. Just remember to specify which Salford next time you're adding a wikilink to an article!

• Although it wasn't technically this month, list of people from Wigan was created on 2 July, and any help populating the list with sourced names would be great. It's one of nine such list for the boroughs in Greater Manchester (Bury doesn't have a list yet) and they all need populating.

• There is currently a discussion on our project's importance scale which has been adopted by WP:YORKS, and what it should cover. Please feel free to join in, the more people are involved the better!

• Remember to be careful about editors claiming places are still in Lancashire, today I had to revert someone insisting that Leigh isn't in Greater Manchester and recently the Friends of Real Lancashire voiced their dislike of the Lancashire article so this issue isn't going to go away.

• Just remember that the project watchlist can help us catch vandalism and is worth checking from time to time.

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Salford.
• Obtain GA status for Stockport
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

Recently another aim was added: bringing Stockport to GA standard. It's currently C-class and has some well developed sections. It will be a difficult task, but worthwhile considering it's Greater Manchester's third largest settlement. Also, the importance of bringing Salford to GA has been emphasised; it's currently B-class and should be the easiest of our aims to accomplish, although it's been there for a long time. Let's see if we can put this one to rest soon.

Member News

No new members joined the project in June and there are 45 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 20 members inactive since 1 January 2009). The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Manchester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

The project compared

In June, WP:LON has a massive upsurge in the number of FAs, with some great work by Iridescent in promoting a swathe of bridge articles to FA. WP:YORKS has over taken WP:GM in terms of GAs, and for the first time since June 2008 (when WP:LON had the lead), WP:GM is not the project with most GAs. In June, the Derwent Valley Mills became a GA and is WP:DERBY's first GA although there are more likely candidates in the pipeline. WP:CHES continues to perform strongly considering it has few active editors, and in June John Douglas (architect) was promoted to FA and there is currently a FLC. In June, there was discussion at WT:MERSEY about how to generate more audited content (ie: GAs and FAs) and since then one article has been promoted to GA, there is one GAC and other articles being prepared for GAC.

	GTRM	LOND	YORK	MRSY	CHES	DERB
FA	39	32	24	8	5	0
A	0	1	0	0	1	0
GA	44	32	45	12	23	1
B	106	230	191	32	88	37
C	115	59	246	108	71	71
Start	740	1823	2211	605	528	485
Stub	771	1236	3688	498	454	707
List	52	80	132	23	29	25
Unassessed	0	2825	1	305	0	1
Total	1867	6318	6538	1591	1199	1327

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!

The WikiProject Greater Manchester Newsletter
Issue XVIII - August 2009

Project News

• Promoted articles:

Salford is Greater Manchester's second city (although it is the wider district which has city status), but for most of its history it was larger and more important than Manchester. The Salford Quays area will become the home of CBBC and BBC Sport in 2011.

The Peak District was the first national park in Britain and spans Cheshire, Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, and West Yorkshire. It was used by the Dam Busters and used as a location for the film based on the story.

• Other news:
• There's been a lot of article activity in the last month, especially in Wigan-related pages. Wigan is the only borough in Greater Manchester without a GA or FA to its name, and it would be great if this could change. A lot of work has been put into Tyldesley, any and help to get it to GA would be great. There's also been a high-profile new article created: media in Manchester. Pitch in on the talk page if you're interested!

• Just remember that the project watchlist can help us catch vandalism and is worth checking from time to time.

• WT:GM: The project's talk page is a forum for discussion and to keep up to date with the latest project developments and initiatives put it on your watchlist! Recently there have been discussions on articles to be deleted, the congestion charge, how to get members involved and working together, and plenty of other stuff.

Aims

Our extant short-term project aims:

• Obtain GA status for Stockport.
• Obtain GA status for Kersal Moor.
• Obtain GA status for Manchester city centre.
• Obtain GA status for Congestion charging in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund (TiF).
• Get a lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county.

Last month, we achieved our long-standing aim of bringing Salford up to GA status. It's been a fine effort and perhaps we can concentrate on our other objectives, especially getting Stockport, the largest settlement article not to be at least B-class, to GA.

Member News

There are now 47 active members of WikiProject Greater Manchester (with a further 20 members inactive since 1 January 2009) as two new members have joined the project since the start of March:

• Sansonic ( talk · contribs)
• J3Mrs ( talk · contribs)

J3Mrs has done some fine work on Wigan-related articles, especially Tyldesley so hopefully we can help him with his efforts. The project is always looking for new members, and if you spot an editor who makes good changes to Greater Manchester related articles why not invite them to join up by adding this template to their talk page: {{SUBST:Welcome WPGM}}.

The project compared

In July, WP:LON almost doubled in scope and now has over 12,000 articles – far more than any other UK county WikiProject. Last month, the Peak District was promoted to GA; the area is mainly in Derbyshire but covers several other counties and is a massive achievement for all involved. WP:CHES continues to perform strongly considering it has few active editors, with one FL promoted in July and another in the pipeline. WP:GM is still the leading UK county project in terms of FAs and by proportion of audited content (ie: GAs and FAs). A lot of effort has gone into producing this project's articles, so let's make sure we keep tags on them and that they don't degrade.

	GTRM	LOND	YORK	MRSY	CHES	DERB
FA	39	36	25	8	6	0
A	0	2	0	0	1	0
GA	46	37	46	14	25	2
B	104	238	196	33	94	37
C	123	73	250	123	83	72
Start	769	1859	2252	669	530	490
Stub	815	3749	3768	564	456	712
List	56	81	136	25	28	25
Unassessed	0	6522	0	172	0	2
Total	1952	12597	6673	1608	1223	1340

Reminders...

• Images!
  There are some good images around, but more are still needed if we're going to get a "lead/static image in every infobox of every town in the county"! The requested photographs category lists some of the articles needing images.

• Articles needing attention
  Please remember that the list of stubs needing expansion and the list of articles needing cleanup are in permanent need of attention.

Written by Nev1, based on a template by Jza84 | Single-Page View

Would you like to write the next newsletter for WP:GM?? Please nominate yourself at WT:GM! New editors are always welcome!