Thumperward (nom)—Chris Cunningham, a system administrator in Scotland—has been with us for more than four years. He has worked heavily on most of Wikipedia's core templates, including infoboxes and article message boxes, and has a strong record of involvement at the help desk and the technical village pump.
Favonian (nom), "a mathematician by education, a software architect by profession and an amateur historian when time allows", is fluent in both English and Danish. During more than two years of editing, Favonian has been active in anti-vandalism and new-page patrolling, with maintenance work on linking, referencing and categorisation.
Bsadowski1 (nom), from the American midwest, has been active since December 2008, and has specialised in tasks such as ensuring compliance in account creation and operation, patrolling new pages, and reporting vandalism. Bsadowski is also an admin and checkuser on theSimple English Wikipedia, and an admin onMetaWiki.
Joe Decker (nom), a graduate of the prestigious California Institute of Technology, has been a Wikipedian since 2005. He has been a significant contributor to theunreferenced BLP cleanup drive, in which he has provided referencing for more than a thousand articles created by other editors.
"Susan Blue" by the children's book illustratorKate Greenaway (1885), engraved and printed byEdmund Evans, the subject of a new featured articleThe article on the village ofLittle Thetford, north of London, was promoted. This 2005 tornado sucked up large quantities of dark earth from the surroundingfenland.The treasure beneath the field: the silver "Hoxne Tigress", a broken-off handle from an unknown object in theHoxne Hoard, unearthed by accident in Suffolk, England (picture byMike Peel)Babe Ruth—from500 home run club, our featured listChoice of the week—was the first player to reach 500 home runs (1929)Biddlestone Chapel, was built as a private chapel in a remote location in Northumberland, England, on the remains of a medieval pele tower.A maleDendropsophus microcephalus tries to attract females by blowing up his vocal sac during a call.The elementRuthenium. This image was shot outdoors, and the sky can be seen reflected by the mirror-like surface of the processed bar.
Guy Bradley (nom), an American game warden and early-20th-century champion of bird protection "who was shot and killed in the line of duty, after confronting a man and his two sons who were hunting egrets in the Everglades" (nominated byMaría).
Ernest Augustus I of Hanover (nom), who allegedly "slept with his sister, and had a son by her. He murdered his valet. He murdered Lord Graves. He was going to murder the Princess Victoria, if he could." (Wehwalt).
Montague Druitt (nom), a suspect in theJack the Ripper case. Of NPOV interest, the article was "read and amended" by two people—one felt Druitt was guilty, the other that he was innocent (DrKiernan).
"Pilot" (Supernatural) (nom), the first episode of a 2005 television program which received mixed reviews, with critics praising the horror elements but of varying opinions on the lead actors' performances (Ophois).
Hod Stuart (nom), a Canadian professionalice hockey player in the early 20th century. His death led to the first all-star game in sports, a benefit game for his wife and children.(Kaiser matias).
Eagle (comic) (nom), a comic launched in 1950. The illustrator,Frank Hampson, said he "wanted to give hope for the future, to show that rockets, and science in general, could reveal new worlds, new opportunities. I was sure that space travel would be a reality." (Parrot of Doom)
Little Thetford (nom), a village from which 61 men were sent to fight in the First World War, at the time more than 30 percent of the population (Senra).
Subfossil lemur (nom), giant lemurs that are thought to be extinct; however, there have been recent reports of sightings byMalagasy villagers (Visionholder).
Hoxne Hoard (nom), a farmer, a lost hammer, and a chance discovery: the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold ever uncovered in Britain, in 1992, and now housed in the British Museum (see the FAC nomination page for the collaborators).
Hemming's Cartulary (nom), a manuscript which nominatorEaldgyth joked "survived fire, the dissolution of its monastery and almost a thousand years to end up at FAC." (co-nominated byDeacon of Pndapetzim)
Mark Kerry (nom), an Australian backstroke and freestyle swimmer of the 1970s and 1980s, who won three Olympic medals (YellowMonkey).
Choice of the week:The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewerBrianboulton to select what he believes is the best FA for the week. He wrote: "I was tempted to chooseEdmund Evans for the beauty of its images, but in the end I decided onMontague Druitt. Unsolved mysteries, even 120-year-old ones, are endlessly fascinating, especially when told in sparse, lucid prose which is sometimes deliciously dry. I loved this line: 'Druitt, his mother and his sister Georgiana were invited to a ball in honour of Clarence at the home of Lord Wimborne on 17 December 1888, although they did not attend because by that time Montague was dead, his mother was in an asylum, and his sister was expecting her second child.' Seems like some people will do anything to avoid their social obligations."
2010 NCAA Men's Basketball All-Americans (nom), the best college basketball players in the 2009–10 season. Notable All-Americans include Evan Turner, who won many National Player of the Year awards, and John Wall, the first pick in the 2010 NBA Draft (TonyTheTiger).
Historic Chapels Trust (nom), a heritage charity that cares for redundant non-Anglican chapels and other places of worship in England. Its varying acquisitions range from the semi-derelict to the elaborate (Peter I. Vardy).Honorable mention by our judge: see picture, right.
500 home run club (nom), which currently consists of 25 players who have hit at least 500home runs. Although membership in this group used to be almost a ticket to the Hall of Fame, it has lost prestige because of recent members' ties to performance-enhancing drugs (Staxringold).Choice of the week: see picture, right.
List ofFinal Fantasy media (nom). In addition to its best-selling video game series,Final Fantasy has spawned many works in other media, including anime, movies, novels, manga, and radio dramas (Axem Titanium).
List of Governors of Florida (nom), the 43 people who have served as Governor in the U.S. state of Florida. The current governor is Charlie Crist, who has held office since 2007 (Golbez).
Choice of the week: We asked regular nominator and reviewerRambo's Revenge for his pick of this week's crop: "Look through the log of promoted featured lists and you will see that sport figures frequently. However, this is not something to be bemoaned. Even as a baseball-ignorant Brit, the500 home run club stood out to me as an exemplary list. It uses sortabilty to show how, chronologically, members of the club appear to have a pathway into the Hall of Fame. A less common theme is architectural lists; the newly promotedHistoric Chapels Trust is a beautifully complete piece of content that not only gives a rounded explanation and history of the Trust but details, descriptions and, where possible, images of each constituent chapel." Pictures from both lists appear above.
Kentucky gubernatorial election, 1899 (nom). This tumultuous election and its aftermath featured political party infighting, voter fraud, a Supreme Court case, and the only assassination of a state governor in U.S. history (nominated byAcdixon).
A tramp (nom) depicted in an 1899 American poster.Adam Cuerden recroppedthe original for better composition, treated the colours to approach the likely original unfaded version, and made other subtle improvements.(below)
Tasmanian Darner (nom) PhotographerNoodle snacks said the dragonfly "was sitting beside Lake Will, drying its wings, [and] by taking many shots to get a sharp one I was able to get something decent thanks to the obliging subject".
Metallic Ringtail (nom) are found in still-water bodies lakes, swamps, and alpine bogs.Noodle snacks, the creator, carefully identified the species fromThe complete field guide to dragonflies of Australia; he pointed out that both "metallic lustre and ringtail" are clearly visible.
Common Brushtail Possum (nom) an animal native to Australia, and taken with a flash, virtually the only way to capture images of nocturnal animals (created byNoodle snacks).
Ernest Borgnine (nom), the actor, showing off his new Chief Petty Officer hat at the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C. (created by Mark D. Faram of the U.S. Navy) (below)
Common collared lizard (nom), taken from an angle that the nominator stated was "perfect to show off the pattern on the body, and especially on the neck, from which the lizard takes its name" (created byDschwen).
Central Heterochromia (nom), showing an eye condition in which there are two colours in the same iris. The image was created byAdam Cuerden, who told reviewers that "sometimes, yourself is the best illustration ... I thought, why not?"
Choice of the week:Juliancolton was a member of the2009 Organizing Committee for theCommonsPicture of the Year Award (seeSignpost coverage). We invited him to choose his number-one featured picture for the week. "In my opinion", he told us, "theUluguru Mountain Ranges(top) panorama is among the most impressive images promoted this week. Aside from helping to fill a notorious gap in coverage of Africa on Wikipedia, it has impressive technical quality. Panoramas are difficult to successfully create, and this particular one expresses quite a bit of skill on the photographer's part."
Thumperward certainly deserves adminship. I hope when I'm in uni (which, of course, is one big dream) I can get my name up there, with 'Wikipedian since 8'. :) I'll be, like, 20 by then. KayauVotingISevil03:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I really do like the new fleshing out of new admins, promotions to featured status etc. Makes them come to life. So much better than the bald way they were done before.--86.74.186.220 (talk)21:00, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to everybody for your kind words. Readership of F and A has increased since the new format was introduced; I hope that translates to more page views and editorial involvement for the promoted articles and media as well.Dabomb87 (talk)15:07, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]