The Birds WikiProject Newsletter
August 2009

We're looking for input on several topics this month — including whether we should change the period of time we work on collaboration articles from a month to a quarter, and whether we should change the authority for our species (and article) naming from Handbook of Birds of the World to the International Ornithological Committee's World Bird List. Be sure to add your two cents (or pence or rand or rupees or pesos or bolivars or whatever other currency is appropriate) to the discussions...

Articles of note

New featured articles:

1. Macaroni Penguin (June 2)
2. Australian Magpie (July 7)
3. Ruff (July 14)

New good articles:

1. Alpine Chough (June 23)
2. Red-throated Diver (July 18)

New project members

• Dger (talk · contribs)
• Frosted Orange (talk · contribs)
• KnowledgeRequire (talk · contribs)
• Skinips (talk · contribs)

Article statistics

Potential collaboration changes

The question has been raised as to whether we should change our collaboration article period from monthly to quarterly. Please weigh in on the debate — and be sure to list anything you'd like to have considered for possible collaboration efforts.

Project news

• A proposal has been made to change the standard source for species (and article) names from Handbook of Birds of the World to the International Ornithological Committee's World Bird List. Do you agree or disagree? Comments and opinions are sought here.
• There's renewed interest in getting some of our nearly-there topics ready for a run at Featured Topic. Currently, there are a trio of potentials: the Procellaridae, the New World vultures and the choughs. Each of the first two have two articles that will need to be improved to at least GA-class before the topic can be nominated. For the procellarids, Procellariiformes is currently B-class and Diving-petrel is currently Start-class. For New World vultures, New World vulture is currently B-class, and Cathartes is currently Start-class. The choughs are currently up for Good Topic listing — but getting either Alpine Chough or Chough to FA-class would enable us to put that one up for featured topic as well.
• Last month saw the start of an Outline of Birds, which should eventually provide a project index, allowing interested readers to more easily access all of the articles associated with WikiProject Birds. Help to populate the outline with any articles you find missing.

Newsletter challenge

Prashanthns (talk · contribs) met the last newsletter challenge and wikified the Brazilian Merganser article. This issue, we're looking for someone to expand the Semnornis (toucan-barbets) article from Stub-class to Start-class. The editor who does so will be named in next month's newsletter.

Got a suggestion? A correction? Something you'd like to see included in a future issue? Drop a note at the Tip Line with your ideas!

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