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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-22/Features and admins

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Features and admins

The best of the week

From the newly promoted featured article, Petrified Forest National Park, in north-eastern Arizona. The nominator, Finetooth, photographed The Tepees on 4 October, with their layers of black basalt and white and red sedimentary material. Standing on the edge of the vast badlands, a Spanish explorer is rumoured to have named the area "The Painted Desert".


New administrators

The Signpost welcomes two editors as our newest admins.

  • Sphilbrick (nom), from Connecticut on the east coast of the US, has experience at MFD and Requests for feedback. His contributions to content work include the areas of women's basketball and local history, and he has uploaded more than 170 photographs, mostly from the US National Register of Historic Places, as part of the Connecticut photo contest.
  • PresN (nom), an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Texas, currently works as a software development engineer in Seattle, Washington. He is an active member of the Video Games WikiProject and has made significant contributions to the promotion of 12 featured articles and lists, and of 45 good articles. A particular interest of his is video game music, including the Music of the Final Fantasy series.


The ruins of the castle built at Acton Burnell by Robert Burnell, where it is believed the first parliament of England at which the Commons were fully represented was held, in 1283
Four articles were promoted to featured status. These will be added to next week's promotions for the next Choice of the week.
  • Petrified Forest National Park (nom), is named after its petrified logs. Its 380 km2 (146 sq mi) include the badlands (picture at top), petroglyphs, pueblo ruins, sandy washes, abundant grasslands, and a wide variety of wildlife. (nominated by Finetooth)
  • Robert Burnell (nom), another bad-boy bishop; this advisor to Edward I has a mistress and kids hanging out in the shadows, says nominator Ealdgyth.
  • Aylesbury duck (nom), the story of how the economics, technology and values of the Industrial Revolution intersected with the farming methods of the Middle Ages, and briefly turned an obscure English country town into an early example of large-scale factory farming. The squeamish might well want to stay away, says nominator iridescent.
  • Dendrocollybia (nom), the branched shanklet, is the only mushroom that produces little branches along the length of its stem; these slimy outgrowths allow it to reproduce asexually, on top of its sexual capacity via spores produced on its gills. "Clever or what?", says nominator Sasata.

Two featured articles were delisted:


Four lists were promoted:

Two featured lists were delisted:


Choice of the week, the Venus flytrap sea anemone, which closes its tentacles to capture prey or to protect itself.
This spectacular Grandidier's Baobab tree, probably about 25 m high, is near Morondava on Madagascar. The photo is only the second featured picture of a tree on the English Wikipedia.
Six images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":

Choice of the week. Noodle snacks, a regular reviewer and nominator at featured picture candidates, told The Signpost:

"I chose Venus flytrap sea anemone for its sharpness and encyclopedic value. The photo was taken on the US Government's NOAA “Expedition to the Deep Slope 2007” at a depth of more than 1,000 m, presenting interesting technical challenges, including the provision of an artificial source of light."


New featured picture, Kabelleger's photograph of the Malmtrafik Iore-hauled train at Torneträsk, a lake in the Lapland close to the northern tip of Sweden, with Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the west.


Information about new admins at the top is drawn from their user pages and RfA texts, and occasionally from what they tell us directly.