The amorous android and the horsebreeder; WikiCup round two concludes

Contribute —

Featured articles

Seven featured articles were promoted this week.

Castell Coch (nominated by Dr. Blofeld, Hchc2009, and KJP1) The "quaint" Castell Coch was one of eight such defensive fortifications built by the Normans in order to protect Cardiff, the present-day capital of Wales, but is of special importance—according to co-nominator Dr. Blofeld, it is "beloved" by many Welsh and has a significant place in their culture and heritage. Rebuilt in stone between 1267 and 1277, the castle was reduced to ruins some time in the 14th century, probably during a Welsh rebellion in 1314, and it remained in this state for over 500 years. The Third Marquess of Bute had inherited Castell Coch in 1848, along with enough land and dosh to make him "one of the wealthiest men in the world", and he employed William Burges to rebuild the castle for use as a summer home. Work began on the exterior in 1875, although the start was delayed by Bute's unfounded fear of going bankrupt. By 1879 the exterior of the castle was finished. Two years later Burges was dead, but his team carried on to create a sumptuous and intoxicating High Victorian interior.
Enthiran (nominated by Ssven2 and Kailash29792) Enthiran is an Indian Tamil science fiction film. A scientist constructs a robot, and upgrades the robot's software to give it human emotions. The robot falls in love with the scientist's girlfriend after she kisses it. Rejected, it deliberately fails an evaluation by the Indian army; its creator is so angry that he chops the robot up and dumps it in a landfill. A rival scientist discovers the damaged robot, which has managed to re-assemble itself; he inserts a "red chip" which turns it into a homicidal maniac ... And that's as much of the plot as we're giving here.
Bazy Tankersley (nominated by Montanabw) An American horsebreeder, Ruth "Bazy" Tankersley started breeding Arabians in 1941 when she was 20. Over a 72-year career she bred more than 2,800 registered Arabians. Tankersley was also intensely interested in politics; her views gradually moved from conservative Republican to progressive, and she became a "strong supporter of environmental causes."
Romance (Luis Miguel album) (nominated by Erick) This "peculiar" album was solely responsible for the popularity spike of bolero—a genre that features slow-tempo Latin music—in the 1990s. The success of Romance led Luis Miguel to release three more bolero albums.
Unas (nominated by Iry-Hor) Unas was the last of nine pharaohs in the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt. His reign, recorded in later writings as lasting 30 years, was marked by a decline in the economy and a continued growth and decentralisation of the Egyptian administration. Iry-Hor tells us that Unas is "best known to us as the earliest king to have the Pyramid Texts inscribed on the walls of his pyramid, one of the oldest religious texts still in existence." (It's also the first appearance of a particularly morbid section of the Texts, the " Cannibal Hymn ".) This must have worked; 2,000 years after his death Unas was apparently still being worshiped in the Saqqara necropolis as a local god. Another 2,500 years later and you're reading about him.
Telopea oreades (nominated by Cas Liber and Melburnian) Native to small parts of the forests of southeastern Australia, Telopea oreades is a shrub that can grow up to 65 feet (20 m) tall. Casliber helped write the article after planning to grow it in his garden. It's commonly known as the Gippsland Waratah, and has an enlarged base, partly buried, which acts as a reservoir of energy and nutrients, allowing the shrub to rapidly regrow after bushfires.
Falcon's Fury (nominated by Dom497) On its fourth nomination, Falcon's Fury—a 335 feet (102 m) drop tower at Busch Gardens Tampa—is now a featured article. Riders are strapped into a gondola, which is then pulled up to the top. Once there the gondola rotates so that its occupants are facing straight down. After a random period of time varying between one and five seconds, the gondola is released and drops for five seconds, reaching a speed of up to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h). And then a big magnet slows and stops it, subjecting the riders to quite a G force!

Featured lists

Three featured lists were promoted this week.

List of women's international cricket hat-tricks (nominated by Harrias) Three wickets taken in three consecutive balls makes a hat-trick in cricket. It's pretty rare, and has only occurred fifteen times in women's international cricket. The first hat trick was in 1958 by Betty Wilson, bowling for Australia against England. There's been one this year, Sana Mir bowling for Pakistan against Sri Lanka.

Premio Lo Nuestro 2014 (nominated by Javier Espinoza) Los "Premios Lo Nuestro" se dan por la cadena estadounidense Univision para la mejor música latina lanzado en el año anterior. El mayor ganador de la noche fue Marc Anthony, quien ganó en las categorías de Álbum Tropical (3.0), Canción Tropical ("Live My Life"), Salsa Artista y Colaboración del Año ("Why Do You Lie?" con Tito El Bambino), así como el Premio a la Excelencia. Prince Royce ganó tres premios, Artista Tropical Masculino, Actuación Tradicional y Artista del Año. También: ¿Dónde está la biblioteca?

List of scheduled monuments in West Somerset (nominated by Rodw) A long list of nationally important archaeological sites and monuments in West Somerset. Most are barrows, cairns and the stumps of churchyard crosses, but there's a couple of World War II pillboxes as well. And a mound which might be a "possible round barrow".

Featured pictures

Ten featured pictures were promoted this week.

Agfa Optima 1a, one of the first fully automatic 35mm film cameras.

The Entombment (created by Titian, nominated by Crisco 1492) The Entombment by Titian is a painting commissioned around 1559 by Philip II of Spain. It depicts the body of Christ being held by the Pharisee Nicodemus, who had brought myrrh and aloes to embalm the body.

Yitang Zhang (created by Aynsley Floyd for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, nominated by Crisco 1492) It's said that for every equation in the text the readership halves. Yitang Zhang is a "Chinese-born American mathematician working in the area of number theory." We'd quote a couple of his equations to see if the saying holds, but he rubbed them off the blackboard too fast. Anyway he's proved that there are an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers that differ by 70 million or less. Zhang was awarded a 2014 MacArthur prize for that proof.

Salting Madonna (created by Antonello da Messina, nominated by Hafspajen) The Salting Madonna by Antonello da Messina is a depiction of the Madonna holding the Christ Child. Above her head two angels hold a suspended crown, anointing her as the Queen of Heaven. Jesus holds a pomegranate, symbolising the Passion. Messina painted it while he was in Sicily; he's regarded as having been influenced by Provençal artists in his portrayal of Mary in its abstract beauty.

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (created by Dirck Jacobsz, nominated by Crisco 1492) Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen was an Amsterdam artist at a time when Mokum Alef was but a mere market town. He's regarded as the last of the Netherlandish artists to not be influenced by the Italians, so this weird picture is all double Dutch.

Ramaria gracilis (created by Holger Krisp, nominated by Josh Milburn) Ramaria gracilis, this coral fungus is found in European coniferous woodland, where it grows on leaf litter. Its fruit bodies (basidiocarps) are made up of a dense cluster of branches.

Indus River near Leh (created by KennyOMG, nominated by Crisco 1492) The Indus is seen here as it flows through Ladakh; the broad valley is photographed from an elevated point near Leh. Although the river powers the agriculture and industry of Pakistan, in its higher reaches in Ladakh the emphasis today is on tourism, especially trekking. Overall, tourism now produces up to half of the Ladakh region's income.

Greenlandic krone (created by Kingdom of Denmark for use in Greenland. From the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, nominated by Godot13) In 1873, Denmark and Sweden formed a currency union, with the basic unit called the krone or (Swedish) krona. This note was issued in Denmark in 1874 for use in the Danish colony of Greenland- it bears the value of 50 øre, which is one-half of a krone.

The Plum (created by Édouard Manet, nominated by Crisco 1492)

I have seen

the Manet painting

that was in

the National Gallery

and which

you were probably

saving

for your next trip to DC

Forgive me

it was so beautiful

so pink

and so new

(with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

Agfa Optima 1a (created by Uwe Aranas, nominated by Crisco 1492) The Agfa Optima 1a was introduced in 1962 by Agfa and is a development of the original Optima camera, which was one of the first 35mm cameras with automatic exposure control. A selenium cell exposure meter next to the viewfinder controls the shutter speed and aperture. Focusing is by rotating the front lens cell to one of three positions, close-up, groups and landscape.

After the Bath, Woman drying herself (created by Edgar Degas, nominated by Crisco 1492) The work is part of a series of drawings, preliminary sketches and completed works in pastels and oils by Degas from this period that depict women bathing.

Second round of the WikiCup concludes

The second round of the WikiCup has all wrapped up, and round three has now started; 34 competitors remain. Leading the way overall was Cas Liber (submissions) in Group B with a total of 777 points for a variety of contributions including Good Articles on Corona Borealis and Microscopium - both of which received the maximum bonus. There was a number of high importance articles improved during the second round including the work by Coemgenus (submissions) on the 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. His work there is a prime example of how collaborative working can be included in the WikiCup - he wasn't the only person working on the article but individually it was considered to be significant enough for him to earn the points. Cwmhiraeth (submissions), WikiCup champion in 2013 and 2014 maxxed out the bonus points by taking Dragonfly to Good Article. Another significant GA which was promoted during round two was Alexander Hamilton by LeftAire (submissions); Hamilton was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a level 4 vital article.

The points varied across groups, with the lowest score required to gain automatic qualification was 68 in Group A - meanwhile the second place score in Group H was 404, which was high enough to win all but one of the other Groups! As well as the top two of each group automatically going through to the third round, a minimum score of 55 was required for a wildcard competitor to go through. We had a three-way tie at 55 points and so all three have qualified for the next round, in the spirit of fairness. On June 28, the top two in each group will progress automatically to the fourth round while the remaining 16 highest scorers across all four groups go through as wildcards.

Gallery of content created for the WikiCup this round

Key
FA	Featured article
GA	Good article
FL	Featured list
FP	Featured picture
FT	Featured topic
GT	Good topic
DYK	Did you know?
ITN	In the news

Of course this is not a complete list of content produced by any one contestant; consider this a sample of their overall work.

Top ten

Telopea oreades, a large shrub or small tree in the family Proteaceae and one of two FAs promoted by Cas Liber - the first placed competitor in this round.
Second-place Coemgenus not only worked up Ulysses S. Grant in the second round, but he's already submitted another President, James A. Garfield, as a FA for the third!
The Yarn Market, Dunster was one of third-place Rodw's 10 GAs.
Fourth-place Harrias worked up two cricket related FLs during the second round; List of tied Twenty20 Internationals and List of women's international cricket hat-tricks.
As well as taking Dragonfly to GA, fifth-place Cwmhiraeth took Damselfly there as well for a 2x bonus.
Former judge J Milburn in sixth-place took an episode of Inside No. 9, "Sardines" starring Reece Shearsmith, to FA.
Freikorp came in seventh position, based on points earned from a number of pop-culture related articles, including the film Tank Girl starring Lori Petty.
Messier 81, one of four FPs promoted at the hands of eighth-placed The Herald.
Last year's champion, Godot13, worked on eight FPs during round 2, including this image of the 1804 dollar.
The article on the 2014 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final between the Philadelphia Union and the Seattle Sounders FC was improved to FA by tenth-place Cptnono.