Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GA Cup/Newsletter/September 2015

WikiProject Good Articles's 2015 GA Cup - Round 3

Greetings, all! We hope that everyone had a nice summer.

Saturday saw the end of Round 2. Things went relatively smoothly this month. The top 2 from 4 pools, plus the top participant (the wildcard, or "9th place") of all remaining competitors, moved onto Round 3. We had one withdrawal early in Round 2, so he was replaced by the next-highest scorer from Round 1. Round 2's highest scorer was Pool D's Tomandjerry211, who earned an impressive 366 points; he also reviewed the most articles (19). Close behind was Zwerg Nase, also in Pool D, at 297 points and 16 articles. The wildcard slot went to Good888. Congrats to all!

Round 3 will have 9 competitors in 3 pools. The key to moving forward was reviewing articles with the longest nomination dates, as it has been in every round up to now. For example, 2 competitors only needed to review 2 articles each to win in their pools, and each article were either from the pink nomination box (20 points) or had languished in the queue for over 5 months (18 points). The GA Cup continues to be a success in many ways, even with fewer competitors this time. For some reason, the competitors in the 2015 GA Cup have reviewed fewer articles in Round 2, which has made the judges scratch their head in confusion. We've speculated many reasons for that: the summer months and vacations, our competitors are saving their strength for the final rounds, or they all live in the Pacific Northwest and the heavy wildfire smoke has affected their thinking. Whatever the reason, Round 2 competitors reviewed almost 100 articles, which is a significant impact in the task of reviewing articles for GA status. We've considered that the lower participation this competition is due to timing, so we intend to discuss the best time frame for future GA Cups.

For Round 3, participants have been placed randomly in 3 pools of 3 contestants each; the top editor in each pool will progress, as well as the top 2 of all remaining users. Round 3 will start on September 1 at 0:00:01 UTC and end on September 28 at 23:59:59 UTC. Information about Round 3 and the pools can be found here.

Good luck to the remaining contestants, and have fun!

Cheers from Figureskatingfan, 3family6 and Jaguar, and MrWooHoo.

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