The Signpost

Features and admins

No, not science fiction—real science

Featured picture Choice of the week, "Laser towards the Milky Way". Despite the first impression of a still from a science-fiction movie, this extraordinary image is of recent cutting-edge research. It was taken in mid-August by ESO Photo Ambassador Yuri Beletsky at the high-altitude Paranal Observatory in Chile. The laser reaches 90 km into the Earth's mesosphere to form a reference point, enabling sharper observations of phenomena such as the giant black hole at the centre of the galaxy.

New administrator

The Signpost welcomes TheCatalyst31 (nom) as our newest admin. TheCatalyst is a member of several WikiProjects, including Trains, US roads, and Cities, and has created many articles on small communities. TheCatalyst has a strong record of gnoming and page patrolling, has contributed to the AfD process, and has assisted the creation of three Good Articles.

Six articles were promoted to featured status:


From FA Choice of the week, The Story of Miss Moppet. The initial publication in 1906 departed from the typical format of children's books: a strip folded accordion-fashion into a grey cloth wallet. When fully opened, it was 10 cm tall and 2.5 m long (4.3 × 98.1 in). This image is of an excerpt from the strip: Miss Moppet tosses the mouse about in the duster (left) and discovers the mouse has escaped (right).


Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Slim Virgin to select the best of the week.


Five lists were promoted:

We thought carefully before posting this example of the power of images to shock and even to transform. This newly promoted featured picture is of a young girl in Bangladesh, as late as 1973, who was infected with smallpox. The disease has been banished from the face of the planet through advances in medical science and a huge effort by the World Health Organisation.
Six images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":

Choice of the week. We asked H. Zell to judge what he believes is the best new featured picture, disregarding his own new featured picture.

"This week saw a wide range of themes: American history, medical science, historical architecture, and biology, and physics. Very impressive is the alien-like Bubble tip anemone. I finally decided on Laser towards the Milky Way. A comparison with similar pictures in the same category—for example 1, 2, and 3—shows the technical difficulty of taking such shots by night. Here, the stars are bright and the sharpness is astonishing: the acid test is that these features stand up to scrutiny in the full-resolution display."


Alien or Earthling? The featured picture judge also praised this shot of the Bubble tip anemone, which is our excuse for breaking our promise last week to give you a rest from underwater photography. The bubbles are clearly visible as complex white striations in the individuals closer to the surface.


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


















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