Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-12-17/WikiProject report

WikiProject Plants, also known as WP:PLANTS, is a WikiProject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of plant species and botany. It is an old Project, having been created in August 2004 by TeunSpaans. Although the project nominally has some 70 members, it is primarily maintained by a core of around 20. Several members have an academic background.

For the most part, project members work on their own projects within the scope of WP:PLANTS. Given the sheer number of articles (26,000+ and missing a great many more), and the variety of interests, it is often difficult to coordinate actions in creating Featured or Good articles. One of the project's GAs, plant defense against herbivory, was in fact spearheaded by users who weren't nominally project members. Overall, the focus of the project is currently more on filling lists with blue links than improving existing articles (Although MPF, amongst others, has been working on improving and sourcing tree articles).

2007 also saw the project's first FAs and GAs not to be spearheaded by other projects: Verbascum thapsus and Ailanthus altissima. Articles that became GAs in 2007 include Acer rubrum, Marsileaceae and Marchantiophyta.