Archive:Monthly Write-a-Thon/April 1, 2009

What's a Write-a-Thon?
It's a bunch of people getting together on a wiki at a particular time to do a bunch of writing. It's like an online party! Heck no, it is an online party! It's also an excuse for infrequent wikiers to show up and party hardy; to exchange ideas with people we might not "meet" otherwise.

But hey, why not show up in between the write-ins, too!

When?
Write-a-Thons happen the first Wednesday of every month. The next Write-a-Thon is Wednesday, April 1st, 2009. Starts on March 31st, 1200 UTC, when it starts being Wednesday in New Zealand, and ends on April 2nd, 1200 UTC, when it finishes being Wednesday in Hawaii. Save The Date! Put it on your calendar! Set yourself a reminder!

Any new article you create, and any edit you make to somebody else's Write-a-Thon article during that time period will count, though to be a bona fide partier, you have to write your new articles when it's that day in your part of the world.

Our first Write-a-Thon took place Wednesday, August 1, 2007 and was considered a roaring good time--we had about 30 partiers creating something like 50 articles, and editing lots.

Read all about it!! Let's try this again
By popular request, we'll be trialling Write-a-Thon II, a Sunday session of the Write-a-Thon to accommodate those who work all week and have trouble making it in to the party room on Wednesdays.

Soooo--if you worked Wednesday, if you had a bad day Wednesday and didn't get to come to the party or didn't get to do as much as you would have liked, or if you would just like another opportunity to join in the fun, come on along. Starts on March 8th, 1200 UTC, when it starts being Sunday in New Zealand, and ends on March 10th, 1200 UTC, when it finishes being Sunday in Hawaii.

What are the rules?
Rules? This is a party! There are no rules!

Well, OK, maybe there are a couple rules:
 * We'll have a Write-a-Thon the first Wednesday of every month.
 * To participate, you only have to do two things: (1) start a new article (even just a stub will qualify, if not too short - and please remember to include the subpages template!), and (2) make a substantive edit (not just a copyedit) to somebody else's new article. Then you can list your name here as a partier.  Until then, sign in as a porch-sitter, party-crasher, or total party poop.

The Partiers

 * Well, it's Wednesday in Australia and Aleta was here bright and early, but unfortunately couldn't figure out the page archiving, so couldn't note her ever-so-puntual attendance. Thanks to Joe Quick hte situation has been rectified.  I started by noting the defining Battle of Hastings and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr..  Need to think of a happy event now, or edit someone else's! Aleta Curry 03:31, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * After getting the clarion call from Aleta, Supten decided to find out what does the word events signify and WP increased his confusion as to where to start from! He took the safest way to begin and added a few external and bibliographic links to Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Then he thought whether the Launch of the Citizendium can be marked as an event or not!
 * Larry Sanger earlier wrote April Fool's Day and then edited Battle of Hastings.
 * Sorry for the multiple service outages today. I'm flummoxed, and now motivated to do something about it, even if we have to pay someone! --Larry Sanger 00:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Derek had better show up for Palm Sunday service, he's one of the servers. Started Battle of the Plains of Abraham and is trying to remember about 1066 and all that. -Derek Hodges 02:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Petréa Mitchell wanted to get restarted writing about usability, and suddenly remembered that Three Mile Island was a crucial moment in the career of the young Don Norman.
 * The article folk saint is not about an event. But I think I did start it during a Write-a-Thon and I think it might be pretty much done now. Completion of a project counts as an event in my book. Does the last section seem out of place or poorly composed?  I think it might be.--Joe Quick 18:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Rather late and missed the boat!

 * Joshua Choi forgot that the Write-a-Thon is based on UTC time and thought he could wait until his local time's evening. Joshua Choi 00:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ...and he just discovered that there's a Write-a-Thon II this Sunday! Joshua Choi 00:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Porch sitters--article creators who didn't edit a new article
Ian Johnson created Europride - a great excuse for a gay and lesbian community party. Then added Zurich host city to the event this year and home to many seasonal events itself.--Ian Johnson 09:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The total party poops
Todd Coles will most likely have no time to contribute today, but will make sure he gets the CZ:Article of the Week and CZ:New Draft of the Week updated on the main page on his lunch break (I am late again!). Perhaps we will see some good new articles to nominate after today..


 * Todd, thanks a lot for keeping the articles of the week updated!!! --Larry Sanger 15:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No worries.. the wiki thwarted my plans earlier today. --Todd Coles 00:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Howard will be erratic today, as his cold is such that the hope of dying is keeping him alive. If he really felt ambitious, he regards voodoo as appropriate study for his undead state. He did, however, did toss in one piece of military electronics, the ASQ-213, and is trying to consider the concept of events other than going back to bed.

Gareth Leng is drowning today but will try to chip in Sunday


 * That's okay, fellas, we'll try again on Sunday! Aleta Curry 00:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Joe just finally managed to get here when the wiki is working. He got a new computer today and is trying to get everything set the way he likes it, but will try to come back before Wednesday is over to actually contribute something.

Questions

 * Is there any event involving the creation or launching of something nice to drink? We don't have any April libations (so far), and after the service outages, Larry and the Tech Guys (sounds like a Boy Band) might need one! Aleta Curry 00:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Ya mean The Night They Invented Champagne ? -Derek Hodges 01:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

2007

 * Inaugural - beer!
 * September - champagne
 * October - we were refurbishing the bar and only had coffee!
 * November - made up for last month with more vodka than was good for us and plenty of rum.
 * December - eggnog and wine

2008

 * January - Whisky and the Cocktail of the Month, a pharisee
 * February - schnapps and the Cocktail of the Month, the caipirinha (considered the national drink of Brazil)
 * March - port wine (which should probably live at port (wine), no? (Someone put that on their list, please....Oh, *someone* did--thanks, Ro) and the Cocktail of the Month, a Dead Aunt
 * April - Akpeteshie hot and fresh from Ghana. And cool shandies and spritzers if that took your fancy.  Lotsa staggering around the bar after this party!
 * May - Was it champagne? No, we were dry, I think.
 * June - Were we abstaining yet again?
 * July - Sherry
 * August - pineapple juice Well, that's all right, I guess!
 * September - Given the music theme, i assume it was pop?
 * October - Cranberry juice. Some nut who shall remain nameless but whose initials are HP suggested Drano, (i.e. what cleans better than Drano?) but....
 * November - Spring water (Now Bruce just has to write it! Aleta Curry 04:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC))
 * December - Piña colada - get some light rum, mix it with pineapple and coconut cream. Instantly warp back to the eighties.

2009

 * January - Bloody Mary - because, as Nietzsche said, we should only love that which is written with blood. Controversial enough?
 * February - Absinthe - updates last month, but doesn't it make one forget? (No. Urban legend, except that 50-percent-plus alcohol does do its mite)
 * March - Energy Drink - pump that caffeine into your system so you can burn through all those pesky definition subpages!

New Suggestions and Discussion

 * How about another Spring cleaning in March 2009? Daniel Mietchen 08:20, 6 October 2008 (CDT)
 * Not a bad idea at all, unless I get swamped with new, untried requests in the mean time. Aleta Curry 18:47, 6 October 2008 (CDT)
 * Possibly the theme could be subpages. Some of them need a lot of housekeeping. Or getting some decent images for the articles we do have. Chris Day 19:17, 6 October 2008 (CDT)


 * What about red links in Random pages? --Daniel Mietchen 10:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest "Numbers". Richard Pinch 07:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "Hometown Heroes" - write about someone famous from your part of the world (either where you're from, or where you are now).
 * "Poles Apart" - find the spot directly on the other side of Earth from you, and write about someone or something in the vicinity. (Contributors on other planets, follow a similar procedure for whatever planet you're on. Contributors not on planetary bodies permitted to write about whatever they feel like.)
 * Fill in an item from this interesting list of natural objects. Or this interesting list of people.
 * All articles must start with the same letter of the alphabet, allowing for diacritics and transliteration (so Å, Á, and あ would all count if A were the letter, for instance).
 * Photo stubs - no minimum word length, no theme requirement, but must contain an image.
 * Choose a random number from 1 to 500, then go to Special:WantedPages and start an article on the topic currently at that rank.
 * How about an alternate weekend date, say the Sunday after the official Write-a-Thon, for those of us who spend our Wednesdays working at places that frown on extensive personal use of company computers? --Petréa Mitchell 19:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There's a current forum thread on this-the proposal was to move the WaT to the weekend. Your suggestion might pose a good compromise. Aleta Curry 21:33, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I would be a lot more able to participate on weekends. My weekday workdays are 11+ hours.Pat Palmer 02:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * What will people most enjoy writing that could lead many different contributors to a short, but complete and interesting article that links to larger articles? Maybe "Events" could be a theme - pen-portraits of memorable sporting moments (see try, or notable historical events - including tsunamis, eruption of Krakatoa, comet collision with Jupiter, the birth of Dolly the sheep, freeing of Nelson Mandela, the sinking of the Titanic, assassination of Martin Luther King, the Mutiny on the Bounty, the discovery of the Americas? Can I suggest asking that every new article should have at least one external link and links to other articles here?Gareth Leng 12:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I like this idea. Further, definitions and other subpages are preferable, even for stubs. Chris Day 17:01, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Dare I suggest that even stubs can and should be non-orphans? Basic criteria: Howard C. Berkowitz 18:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Reachable from the front page or a core article/workgroup page
 * Link to at least three other articles, even if they are redlinks in a Related Articles subpages
 * Have at least three other articles link to them

Future Theme Schedule

 * February - Thoughts and Books
 * March - Spring Clean II!
 * April - Events
 * May - It's a Wide World/It's a Small World After All