Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Newsletter/Archive 45
 The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from December 1, 2020–January 15, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are SMB99thx, Hurricanehink, Destroyeraa, Chicdat, Typhoon2013, Weatherman27, Hurricane Noah, HurricaneTracker495, and LightandDark2000. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments New articles since the last newsletter include:
New GA's include:
A year in review: WPTC's accomplishments in 2020 2020 has been a hard year for many of us. Depending on where you live, the COVID-19 pandemic began as early as January. In most of the world, the pandemic ramped up in February and March, reaching its first peak in April–May. A second wave struck in June–August, which saw cases dramatically increase across the globe, while the third and largest wave began around October. However, during this pandemic, through lock-downs and online learning, as well as the the insanely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, the Wiki-project saw a huge influx of new editors show interest in editing tropical cyclone articles. Here, we will take a look at the stats: New members of WPTC since January 1, 2020: AC5230, Weatherman27, Chicdat, Rd003, Hurricaneboy23, Chlod, Destroyeraa, NOOBSKINSPAMMER, HurricaneMichael2018, JoeMT615, SMB99thx, Buttons0603, Robloxsupersuperhappyface, ChessEric, Allen2, Mazum24, Modokai, CodingCyclone, Gumballs678, Janm 7, Cyclone Toby, Hurricanehuron33, Hurricane21, TornadoLGS, Iseriously, Jupiter50, Funnycomixking, JackGordean, ARegularWisconsinite, CyclonicStormYutu, ARay10, Gex4pls, Nioni1234, HurricaneTracker495, Jangmi20, Dannisom, HurricaneCovid, Skarmory, Moline1, HurricaneIcy, Beraniladri19, HurricaneEdgar, Miguel 04012010, Cyclonetracker, Dam222, Hi 022828, Elijahandskip, TovarishhUlyanov, Animem 1, Shift674, HurricaneGeek, ThePelicanThing, FinnTheHurricaneFanatic, 8medalkid, Vida0007, TFESS, KILLERXR, Doge1941, Tropical Storm Angela, HurricaneKappa, X2A3Q, KingLucarius, Hurricanestudier123, 2 0 D a r t h S a n d M a n 0 5, iBlazeCat, FuturPDUCTIONS,SputtyTheSputnik New articles since January 1, 2020 New GAs since January 1, 2020 New FAs since January 1, 2020 WikiProject To-Do
Current assessment table Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
Project Goals & Progress The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for December
My experiences of tropical cyclones and tropical cyclone editing before joining WPTC by SMB99thx Hello, this is my third opinion piece! I planned this for a while now, but due to issues with length and tiredness, I decided to delay this opinion piece until now. I want to tell you about the reasons why I liked and loved tracking tropical cyclones and my experience regarding editing tropical cyclones before I joined this WikiProject. First of all, I have been watching tropical cyclones but on-and-off since 2012. That year, Hurricane Sandy as I remembered it got significant coverage on my country, Indonesia (Badai Sandy). That hurricane was the first tropical cyclone that I had ever known in my life (it's possible that Hurricane Katrina had significant coverage in my country, but I didn't remember anything at all about it), and without it I would never known about tropical cyclones by myself. When that hurricane was about to be finished, I visited the article about 2012 Atlantic hurricane season on Wikipedia, and it was the first article about tropical cyclones that I have ever read on Wikipedia. From that day, my interest on tropical cyclones grew but it was limited to the Atlantic hurricanes only. When 2013 started, if I'm thinking about tropical cyclones I frequently visited 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, and in particular the Seasonal summary section, which drew my eyes into when I didn't edit tropical cyclone articles yet. In November 2013, however, as I'm becoming an uncle of one (now three), Typhoon Haiyan showed up. That typhoon which devastated the Southeast Asian brother country of Philippines caused my interest on tropical cyclones to grow outside of Atlantic hurricanes. Now I'm finally aware of what's happening in Pacific, and it was the first time that I learned that tropical cyclones are everywhere in the world, not just Atlantic. That time, I read 2013 Pacific typhoon season as well as 2013 Pacific hurricane season (i don't remember reading these kinds of articles before that). When I read about it, I also visited 2013 Atlantic hurricane season once again and I was shocked by that it wasn't active! As such, I didn't watch tropical cyclones that much for most of 2014 and 2015. Hurricane Patricia didn't convince me enough to watch tropical cyclones again. In 2016, things changed again that led me to make my first edits on tropical cyclones in Wikipedia. Once Hurricane Matthew came and with it significant coverage on Indonesia that I have never seen since Hurricane Sandy, I finally watched tropical cyclones full-time for the first time. That hurricane was the cyclone that finally got me going for the tropical cyclones (not just the recent seasons, but the older seasons and also SHEM) and my quick-growing interest on tropical cyclones led me to find what made me uncomfortable. That led me to make my first edit on tropical cyclone-related articles in Wikipedia, which is to fix an error on 1954 Atlantic hurricane season article (now a GA). Member of the month (edition) –  New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
From December 1, 2020 to January 15, 2021, featured article were promoted: From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from December 1, 2020–January 15, 2021 in chronological order.
There is currently one featured article candidate: Sockpuppetry in WPTC by HurricaneTracker495 & LightandDark2000 Due to recent incidents involving sockpuppetry within WPTC, I invited some editors to address the problem of sockpuppetry inside this project. SMB99thx my edits! I would like to quickly point out that an idea was mentioned to use Checkuser on any new people who have joined the Wikiproject within the past 6 months to make sure that they are not sockpuppets. While this was a good idea, the Wikipedia policy states that we cannot do such a thing, unless there are valid suspicions about a specific users who join. My apologies, ~ 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 17:28, 6 December 2020 (UTC) Sockpuppetry is a major problem in WPTC, though it currently is not as bad as it once was. In 2013, IPhonehurricane95 made hundreds of socks and vandalized numerous tropical cyclone articles, in addition to posting graphic 9/11 images and harassing numerous editors. This continued until he disappeared in 2018. Thankfully, the socking today is nowhere as severe as the the aforementioned cases in 2013 and 2014. Recently, we had some bad vandalism, sockpuppetry, and impersonation from Wyatt2049 and possibly Evlekis. They attacked prominent hurricane articles and also impersonated users such as Destroyeraa and TornadoLGS. The most recent member known to have engaged in sockpuppetry was Destroyeraa, which took WPTC by surprise. Users lost trust in him by varying degrees. Since some of the LTAs on Wikipedia were once positive contributors, we may never know who is a sockmaster until they are caught. On the member list, struck out names generally represent sock(puppeteers) or those who have lost their editing privileges due to abusive behavior. Sockpuppetry is a serious problem on the project that needs to stop. ~ HurricaneTracker495 Sockpuppetry is a serious offense committed by various users on Wikipedia. Our own WPTC is not immune to this travesty. WPTC has seen its fair share of abuse from serial vandals and LTAs throughout the years. From 2013 through 2018, IPhonehurricane95 vandalized dozens of tropical cyclone articles and created more than 200 sock accounts. For several years, mostly spanning a two-year period from 2013 to 2014, IPhonehurricane95 defaced numerous tropical cyclone articles, mostly ones that he had once contributed to, were major storms, or were storms in an active tropical cyclone season. He also attacked essentially every single active editor on WPTC at the time, and he went on to attack every single Admin and CheckUser who had ever blocked him, in addition to making making racist remarks and threats of harassment. He eventually went cross-wiki, forcing the intervention of Stewards. In July 2014, he began including graphic 9/11 images in his vandalism, which further damaged the image of the project. IPhonehurricane95's vandalism inspired several copy-cat vandals, including one who has continued to plague the project to this day. This is a problem with LTAs and serial vandals – those who aren't stopped quickly enough and early on often bring bad publicity to the project, in addition to elevating the risk of copycat inspiring knock-offs. In 2016, IPhonehurricane95's socking spree dramatically decreased, with the LTA disappearing in 2018. Sockpuppetry on WPTC has not been nearly as bad since then, but sockpuppetry persisted on WPTC afterward, even to this day. Recent LTAs that WPTC had to deal with include Fly High in the Sky and Wyatt2049, and possibly Evlekis, with the later two engaging in a campaign of vandalism claiming fake Category 5 upgrades (or Category 0 downgrades) that attracted a lot of bad publicity. Recently, some users dabbled with socking, which got them into trouble. With the recent breaches of trust on WPTC and the confirmation of socking by CUs in several of the newer members, some members of WPTC have called for WPTC members to be vetted by CUs. In the past year alone, a few editors who had recently joined the project came out as sockmasters who went on to become LTAs, further adding to the pressure on WPTC. Personally, I feel that the newest editors from the past 6 months should be vetted, along with any of the newer editors with a history of deceptive or disruptive behavior, but long-standing CU policy is to not investigate anyone unless there are serious allegations of sockpuppetry (with evidence). This policy exists for good reason, and these requests for blanket CUs may very well be turned down, if proposed. Sockpuppetry is not only bad for the reputation and integrity of the project. It is also harmful to the well-being of editors on the site, especially when they become the targets of attacks. In addition, sockpuppetry breaks the trust of the community when the said offender is a trusted and valued member of the community, no matter the level and duration of the offense. Those editors have to work hard to regain the trust of the community, and in some cases, trust may never be restored. Perhaps equally as bad, sockpuppetry leads to false accusations of the practice and claims of intentional bad faith against both reformed ex-sockpuppeteers and non-socking editors alike. This further damages the reputation of the site, while unnecessarily inflaming tensions between editors on the project and damaging the cohesion between the community. These aspersions also hurt well-meaning editors on the site, and can have the unwanted consequences of embittering them or prompting them to go into retirement. While there are users on WPTC who are dedicated to rooting out and combatting vandals and sockpuppeteers on the site (including some who are a part of the Counter-Vandalism Unit), this is a responsibility that the entire project needs to bear as a whole, since socking is an issue that affects the entire project in one way or another. Editors should be willing and able to investigate potential cases of socking and other types of abusive behavior, while maintaining good faith at the same time. Sockpuppetry is serious issue and an ongoing challenge to the project. Equally as bad are unfounded allegations of the abuse against editors with a long-standing history of being a net-positive. However, together, as a community, we can combat this menace to safeguard the integrity and accuracy of WPTC articles, and make Wikipedia a healthy, productive environment. ~ LightandDark2000 🌀 |
