Since this is the first WikiProject Report in six months, we thought we'd look back at some ofthe 41 WikiProjects that have been previously featured in theSignpost from October 8, 2007 to June 15, 2009. Where are they now?
WhenWikiProject Biography was featured in the first WikiProject Reporton October 8, 2007, the project's 400 members were celebrating its fifth birthday. Over two years later, WikiProject Biography is still active andboasts more than 600 members including 32 admin members. With over 700 pieces of featured content and more than 1,700 good articles, WikiProject Biography is one of Wikipedia's great success stories.
WikiProject Military history, the second project featured in theSignpost, would be covered twice by the Report onOctober 11, 2007 andJuly 28, 2008. It continues to be a very active project with an impressive 417 featured articles, 62 featured lists, 9 featured topics, 179 featured pictures, 9 featured sounds, 10 featured portals, and 218 A-Class articles. The project is nearing its goal of 500 featured articles and has organized two special long-term projects calledOperationGreat War Centennial andOperationMajestic Titan. The first aims to improve articles related toWorld War I, while the second has the goal of raising allbattleship andbattlecruiser articles toFA.
The only other project to be featured twice isWikiProject LGBT studies which was reported upon onDecember 3, 2007 andMay 25, 2009. To keep their 58 featured articles and lists free of vandalism, the project's members regularly patrol theLGBT watchlist. The number of articles within the scope of the project continues to grow rapidly, leaving the project with a backlog ofunassessed articles with which the project members would greatly appreciate some help.
Of the most recently featured projects,WikiProject Oregon tends to be the most active. When the project was featuredon June 15, 2009, project members boasted about their double collaboration system providing two articles each week for collaborative improvement.Those collaborations continue to this day, although they are now offered at a fortnightly rate. To get a feel for how busy the project is, take a look at theproject's very active talk page where new discussions are started daily.
Not all projects have fared so well.Motto of the Day was once a thriving WikiProject but has fallen on hard times. Theproject's talk page reveals that members were already having problems maintaining a constant supply of mottos several months before the Report interviewed six active contributorson January 31, 2009. Shortly after celebrating the project's fourth anniversary in April 2009, activity slowed down. In November 2009, one contributor commented that the project had been "teetering on running dry with only short bursts" of activity in the previous months. The last post on the project'smotto nomination page was on November 28, 2009.
The Report's interview with folks atWikiProject Color hinted at a promising future for the small project, but it hasn't grown much since the project was featuredon April 13, 2009. While it remains active, the project still has yet to bring an article up to featured status and the project's three good articles were battered by reassessments, leaving only the colorgreen with good article status.
There have also been some consolidations as WikiProjects changed focus or took on new responsibilities.WikiProject Food and Drink swallowed the inactive WikiProject Ice Cream while WikiProject Final Fantasy was absorbed byWikiProject Square Enix.
Several of the earliest WikiProjects featured in theSignpost focused on utilitarian topics likeWikiProject Outline of Knowledge (formerly WikiProject Lists of basic topics),WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, andWikiProject Guild of Copy Editors (formerly the League of Copy Editors).
The most active projects previously covered by the Report tend to be related to sports and entertainment, including WikiProjects onfootball (soccer),ice hockey,professional wrestling,films,music,opera,video games, andthe Simpsons.WikiProject Family Guy has been very active, resulting in 35 good articles, a featured article (North by North Quahog), and a featured list (List of Family Guy cast members). The project continues to produce a constant stream of good article nominees, mostly covering individual episodes of the television series.
In one of the Report's eeriest coincidences,WikiProject Michael Jackson was featuredone month before the pop star's death.
Over the years, WikiProject Report has tried to be somewhat comprehensive in its coverage. All three of the largest monotheistic religions have been featured:Judaism,Christianity, andIslam. Scientific topics featured in the Report have included WikiProjects onplants,agriculture,molecular and cellular biology,chemistry,pharmacology,tropical cyclones, and thesolar system. Geographic topics have ranged from the large countries covered byWikiProject China andWikiProject India to smaller communities likeWikiProject Greater Manchester.
Next week, WikiProject Report will focus on a storied project started in 2002. Until then, feel free to take a look at previous reports for the projects mentioned above and many more in theWikiProject Reports archive.
