Explanation: Since I'm not allowed to ruthlessly take over the F1 project's newsletter (the urge is a local thing, I live in the same city Rupert Murdoch started off), I figured I could whet my appetite for doing something a little different by producing what should be a one-off newsletter. It's packed full of information about the project's *ahem* 19 articles, where they're going and who is taking them there.
The path of the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix article was not so smooth. Lasting an incredible 26 days, and making rare use of the talk page, the FAC was somewhat of a marathon, but with the help of several members of the project, and many concessions, passage was made.
One of my favourite pictures, from the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix
2008 Belgian Grand Prix was the first 2008 race report to attain Good article status, way back in November, after a truly horrific GAN (my first article assessment on Wikipedia, incidentally). In the end, it doesn't really matter, as I intend to carry out a major re-write on the article later this year, and have a shot at FA.
In stark contrast, 2008 Italian Grand Prixquick-passed GAN. The reviewer suggested a trip to FAC, but as this was around the time the Japanese article was there, I had no intention on following him up on it, and still don't.
Remember that ad for Honda (*spit*, we daren't speak their name), with the tag-line "Isn't it nice when things just work?" 2008 Chinese Grand Prix, with the exception of an infobox cite problem, passed with flying colours, thanks in no small part to the suggestions from Diniz and AlexJ.
2008 German Grand Prix became the first peer review as part of this project to be listed by someone other than me, when Darth Newdarasked the community for suggestions. So far, reviews have come from me and AlexJ, and I believe I can speak on behalf of the Sith when I say "more, please!"
Another of my favourite pictures, this time from the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix
If you are reading this because you are scavenging through someone else's talk page, allow me to explain the point of this project. We are here, in our electronic capacity, to make the 2008 Formula One season a Featured topic. This means at least seven articles to FA status, and the rest to GA status. Currently, as you should have been able to work out, we have two FAs and three GAs. While content writing is the key aspect, others such as copyediting, helping with peers reviews or just pointing out where the articles are just plain wrong are quite important.
Reminders
Rather than spam everyone when an article reaches PR or FAC, it would be better simply to leave a message on the project's talk page. For this reason, it may be a good idea to put the page on your watchlists if you want to be alerted to such things.
Everybody loves this picture, from the 2008 Australian Grand Prix
If you are writing an article, don't be afraid to take your lead from the existing GAs and FAs, particularly the later ones. This includes not just the format (with one section for Practice and qualifying) but paragraphs as well; the explanation of qualifying (which most recently appeared in the Bahrain article), originally written by D.M.N., has been hammered out across several PRs and FACs, to the point that I believe it is quite watertight. It is an important explanation, because modern qualifying practices in F1 are actually fairly hard to understand if you have never come across them before.
There is a project userbox, if you're interested. I don't even use it, but you can if you want.
The status box should be updated whenever an article changes class, which I believe people have been doing to this point anyway. I also use it to indicate (with links) whether an article is at PR, GAN or FAC, so it can be quite a useful page to keep an eye on.
Members
When I created the project page, I wrote that I was "fully expecting that the only name there will always be me". Four months later, we have seven users listed in the members section. I want to thank all of them for the effort they have put in so far, and to remind them that there is still a long way to go.
Delivered on March 6, 2009 by Apterygial. If you do not wish to receive future newsletters (assuming, of course, that there will be future newsletters), please let me know on the project talk page.
