User talk:AstroHurricane001/Archive 24

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September 2008

Motto of the day

Hello, I notice you're using one of the {{motd}} templates, run by Wikipedia:Motto of the day. You may have noticed that some of the mottos recently have been followed by a date from 2006, or on occasion simply "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". The reason for this is that Motto of the day is in some very serious need of help. Participation in the project, which has never been especially high, has dropped considerably over this past summer, to the point we have had several days where no motto was scheduled to appear at all. Over the past several weeks, I've been the only editor scheduling mottos at all, but there aren't enough comments on some of these mottos to justify their use. If we do not get some help - and soon - your daily mottos will stop. In order for us to continue updating these templates for you, we need your help.

When you get a chance between your normal editing, could you stop by our nominations page and leave a few comments on some of the mottos there, especially those that do not have any comments yet? This works very simply; you read a motto, decide whether or not you like it, and post your opinion just below the motto. That's it - no experience required, just an idea of what you personally like and what you feel reflects Wikipedia and its community. If you do have past experience with the project, then please close some of the older nominations once they've got a decent consensus going. There are directions on the nominations page on how to do this.

If you have any questions, please let me know, or post on the project's talk page. I'm looking forward to reading your comments on the suggested mottos, and any additional suggestions you'd like to make. Until then, happy editing! Hersfold (t/a/c) 01:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Tropical cyclones WikiProject Newsletter #20

Number 20, September 6, 2008

The Hurricane Herald

This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary, both of the activities of the WikiProject and global tropical cyclone activity. If you wish to change how you receive this newsletter, or no longer wish to receive it, please add your username to the appropriate section on the mailing list. This newsletter covers all of August 2008.

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles.

Storm of the month

Hurricane Gustav at landfall in western Cuba at peak strength
Hurricane Gustav at landfall in western Cuba at peak strength

Hurricane Gustav was a deadly and damaging hurricane which formed late in the month in the Caribbean Sea. It first struck Haiti on August 26 as a minimal hurricane, where it killed 76 people and damaged or destroyed over 10,000 houses. Gustav turned to the southwest, moving over Jamaica where it killed 11 people. The hurricane rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) before making landfall on western Cuba; in the country, Gustav damaged or destroyed over 100,000 houses, though no deaths were reported due to well-executed evacuations. In the Gulf of Mexico, Gustav weakened due to its previous land interaction, and on September 1 it made landfall in south-central Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane, where it caused heavy damage. Across its path, the hurricane caused 101 deaths, with an initial damage total of $20 billion.

Other tropical cyclone activity

  • Atlantic Ocean– In addition to Gustav, three other tropical cyclones formed. Early in the month, Tropical Storm Edouard caused light damage when it moved ashore along Texas. In the middle of the month, Tropical Storm Fay formed over Hispaniola and later crossed over Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico; throughout the Caribbean it caused 25 deaths. Fay struck southwestern Florida, moved across the state, turned to the west, and moved across the Florida panhandle, making a record four landfalls on the state. The storm dropped 27.65 inches (702.1 mm) of rain in Melbourne, making Fay the fourth wettest Florida tropical cyclone. In the end of the month, Hurricane Hanna formed northeast of the Lesser Antilles; its impact will be covered in the next month's summary.
  • Eastern Pacific Ocean – Four named storms developed in the basin during the month, including Tropical Storm Kika, which was the first Central Pacific tropical cyclone since Ioke in 2006. Hurricane Hernan was the strongest hurricane of the month in the basin, reaching Category 3 status while remaining away from land. Tropical Storm Iselle lasted for a few days, but did not affect land. Tropical Storm Julio made landfall on Baja California Sur, producing heavy rainfall and causing two deaths.
  • Northwestern Pacific Ocean – The month began with Tropical Storm Kammuri forming and hitting southern China; the storm killed 140 people, mostly in neighboring Vietnam, and damage totaled $120 million (USD). Tropical Storms Phanfone and Vongfone lasted for a few days out at sea, before Typhoon Nuri formed and struck northern Luzon, causing 12 deaths.
  • 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season – A depression formed and struck Odisha.

Member of the month

Cyclone barnstar
Cyclone barnstar

The August member of the month is Cyclonebiskit, who has been on Wikipedia since April. The user helped maintain the current season articles as well as storm articles. Cyclonebiskit has written one GA, and wrote much of one of the recent tropical cyclone articles.

New and improved articles

Storm article statistics

Grade May Jun Jul Aug
FA 41 41 42 46
A 17 18 18 18
GA 129 135 139 147
B 101 96 15 15
C 0 3 98 99
Start 209 208 202 197
Stub 9 9 10 15
Total 506 510 524 537
ω 2.88 2.87 2.94 2.92
percentage
Less than C
43.1 42.5 40.5 39.5
percentage
GA or better
37.0 38.0 38.0 39.3

Version 0.7
This month, several of the WikiProject's articles were selected for the Version 1.0 Editorial Team's Version 0.7 static release. The article selection occurs using an automated process using WikiProjects' quality and importance assessments. For WPTC, this means that 29 articles will be part of this release, an increase from 13 in the previous release. It should be noted that these numbers are based on preliminary data that can change based on updates to the database and corrections to the selection algorithm and WP:1.0's cut-off score.

The list of articles chosen for the release can be seen here. Of the selection, almost half of the articles are already featured, and eleven are good articles. There one B-Class article (1970 Bhola cyclone, two C-Class articles (Hurricane Andrew, Cyclone Nargis), and two Start-Class articles (Pacific typhoon, Hurricane Rita). As these articles will be published in a CD, it is imperative that the project improve them quickly.

The full list of all the WikiProject's articles is also available here. According to that list, WPTC's highest-scoring article—Tropical cyclone—has a score of 1969, which is very good as Canada, the selection's highest-scoring article, has a score of 2,409. That said, Extreme wind warning is the least important article we have, with a score of 227, so we may have to improve it a little bit so it isn't that low...

♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 05:16, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Panzhihua and Wenchuan earthquakes

AH: I did some experiment in the summary of 2008 Panzhihua earthquake, in hope it can eventually help clean up contents in 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Please see if it improves readability.

Additionally, I added more tectonics citations to 2008 Sichuan earthquake. But the overlay of information doesn't make the section more readable because I am not technical enough to change the existing flow. Can you rearrange the flow of content? Sillyvalley (talk) 01:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ike deaths

If caused by the winds themselves (as they usually are), fallen trees and limbs are direct deaths. If they were blown down by other means (i.e. an accident while cutting them), they would be indirect. All the inland deaths so far have been direct deaths. CrazyC83 (talk) 23:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for supporting me in my RfA, which passed with a count of (154/3/2). I appreciate the community's trust in me, and I will do my best to be sure it won't regret handing me the mop. I am honored by your trust and your support. Again, thank you. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 19:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)