Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-17/WikiProject report

This week we interviewed one prominent member of the Tropical Cyclones WikiProject, Mitchazenia. A relatively small project, it has transformed into a high-achieving group with seventy-five featured articles or featured lists, eleven A-class articles, one hundred and fifty three good articles, four featured topics, a featured portal, and five featured pictures - ranking among the small group of other projects which have very high numbers of good or featured content.

The Tropical Cyclones Project is considered by some to be the best represented on Wikipedia in terms of the quality of the articles under its wing. Started on 5 October 2005 by Jdorje (talk · contribs), the Project (as with last week's report on the Professional Wrestling WikiProject) has been active for over 2½ years. The participant list has grown from just six people to (currently) around forty-five members, and, unlike some other projects, it also has a list of inactive members and retired editors. Its goal is to "provide an encyclopediac overview for tropical cyclones, including individual storms, historical warning of cyclones, and the structure of a cyclone", and as of 17 March 2008, it seems to be well on its way in achieving that. The quality of the Project's articles can be at least partly attributed to its "adopt an article" process, which lets members become more involved in the editing of a page, and has been likened to the popular Collaboration of the Week, which many projects have. A full list of the sister-projects and departments can be seen here.

1. Apart from the Project's aims, what does it strive to achieve?

   To: 1) Keep up with new tropical cyclones that occur, 2) Update on older storms when info becomes available.

2. Have there ever been any discussions pertaining to the progress of the Project, and if so, how do you think that may have affected its aims?

   There was a major issue in 2006 to the notability of tropical cyclone articles. This seems to have bit the wind, as the project now covers over 1000 articles, many in the Atlantic Ocean, many on little notability storms. Some of the notability of these articles has been disputed, such as the talk page of Tropical Storm Lorenzo (2001). However, as I said, nothing has really happened. Instead, there's more GA's, FA's, and A's than most projects, made mainly out of new articles. There was also a discussion in 2007 of the amount of inactive members the project, which was starting to reach over 50 members. The project is now down to mainly 24 members and is working on a normal basis again.

3. Have as member or small group gone out of their way to make the Project better?

   User:Hurricanehink, our largest article writer has been the main contributor to over 6 dozen of the aforementioned articles. He recently just gained adminship as what's pretty much keeping this project together.

4. What do you think the Project's success can be put down to?

   The project strives for success and high quality work in our articles.

5. After achieving so much, where does the Project go from here?

   We hope to become the most comprehensive tropical cyclone information source on the internet.

6. How could somebody who isn't a member of the Project become involved?

   The project welcomes anyone interested in helping out the project. There are several users willing to guide you during the way, and anyone can be considered a real benefit to the project.