Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Archive 26

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Images (pls check this out and let me know what u think)

I have set up a sandbox with a mockup of this month's issue, including article images. A couple people I showed it to said it looked fine (although it is in some cases a bit hard to tell which image goes to which article -- but I think most of them make this clear). I didn't have time to mess with the actual templates -- if I'd done that, it would be possible to make this look way better. Anyway, have a look at it, and let me know what you all think. jp×g 14:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Note that the headlines and the subheadings are just nonsense I typed out to have something be there. jp×g 14:17, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I think a little extra whitespace between items would help readers associate images with articles. I also think a little more grid design (that is, aligning items to fit on grid) would make it easier for readers to browse through the items. (I appreciate that layout changes may have to wait until another issue.) isaacl (talk) 20:19, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Woah. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:48, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I like it! I did wonder why the Nina featured picture suddenly had a square crop. Do wish we didn't keep gaining articles. And part of that's my fault. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 02:00, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Not really a fan of it. They take a lot of space (and bandwidth for those with data caps). If they're kept, the images should be below the blurb, not above. That might be my main problem with things. Or maybe it's the AI-ness of them that makes me dislike it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:09, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: I can definitely see an objection on the space the images take up (I spent some time toying around with a version where they were 2:1 instead, but Craiyon (due to arcane linear algebra reasons) generates square images so it would have required aggressive crops on all of them. Next issue gives us time to figure out something smarter. The spacing of the images versus the headlines and subheadings annoys me too -- a friend of mine and fellow webshit said it was hard to tell whether the image was above or below each heading. (I think this and the spacing could be improved at the same time, by either integrating image params into the item template or making a new item template that allowed for them, rather than this, which is literally just interspersing image embeds between the normal templates for each article). jp×g 03:53, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

An image parameter would definitely be the way to go, if images are desired. And I'm not sure they should be. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost has a very clean look and light look.

I've updated the mockup. Smaller images, below the blurbs. Looks cleaner, it breaks in weird places. Still not sure if I like it, but it's better. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Worth noting it's missing a fair few articles. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 04:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, but it's a mockup. Ideas are what's important at this stage, not comprehensiveness / blurb accuracy etc... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:59, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Aye, only mentioning it in case we jump to publication too quickly Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 13:11, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@Adam Cuerden: Most of these were quite easy, but I will say that cropping FPs to squares felt like chiseling an ancient temple. It was not a happy task...

Ach. I know. German Wikipedia, I think it is, is forever recropping mine. Anyway, like the idea, is missing a few articles, though, and I feel like we could do a little better with positioning things, but I couldn't tell you how. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 04:59, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, all

Looks great. I trust that JPxG will handle the feeder readback. Images should also appear soon. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 00:39, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2022-08-01 is busting the expansion limit... not sure how to dealt with it. Perhaps simply a redirect to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single in the meantime would be good. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:45, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

  I think I got most of the 07-31 dates and changed them to 08-01. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:49, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I loaded up JWB to mass-fix them and was a little surprised to see that there were barely any incorrect links. I thought it might have been busted for a sec. Good job!!! jp×g 00:52, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

• Yeah, uh... it seems that the publishing script bases its dates off GMT, which means that all the freaking pages got moved to /2022-08-01/ instead of /2022-07-31/. This is extremely annoying and I didn't notice until after I had run the script. I don't think there is any way to fix this, so there is just going to forever be a bizarre historical anomaly where the Signpost had no July 2022 issue and two August 2022 issues. The mass message already went out. Kill me..... jp×g 00:52, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, everyone just got a talk page notification of the "August 1" issue of the Signpost. I am malding so hard right now. Piss out my ass! Someone talk me down from an AWB run. jp×g 00:53, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Not talking you down from it. A mass move (leaving redirects behind) would solve most of the issue. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:54, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

>1250 user talk pages

>29 issue pages

Even if I used the forbidden secret JWB autoclick technique (note: this is a weapon of mass destruction and nobody should do it) I think it would still take about an hour and a half. Still tempting. jp×g 00:59, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Or make a WP:BOTREQ. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:04, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I've redirected Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2022-08-01 to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single for now. It's not a long term solution, but it'll work as long as the next issue isn't up. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:05, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's my article ready to go for August.

Really, the rest of you are so slow. Featured content is ready for copyedit, and all of you are so far behind. It's like you haven't even started. Slackers. (Do I need a joke tag on this?) Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 01:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About#The Signpost team

@Adam Cuerden, Bluerasberry, Bri, EpicPupper, Evad37, FormalDude, Ganesha811, Gerald Waldo Luis, HaeB, Headbomb, Ixtal, JPxG, Masssly, Smallbones, and Vysotsky:

I've taken a look at all the regular/special columns we have and expanded the table to cover all our bases. I've filled it out as best I could tell, but everyone from the team should review for accuracy, that would be best. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:31, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Woah. This is big. I think some of these are irregular, submission-type columns; in particular, Opinion, Op-Ed (basically the same), and Special Report. Perhaps community view too. From the team is also irregular. I would remove those. Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 06:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Submission types columns should be marked as open to anyone, probably with a link to the submissions page, so this invites people to submit things for them. As for irregular like "From the team", I don't really see that it needs to go. This gives an idea to the readers of who does what normally. All IMO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:14, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@JPxG, mind weighing in? 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 15:05, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

While I don't mind doing Gallery if no-one else wants it, I suspect me claiming it would be unfair. A lot of people have done excellent work with it, and it's frankly way too malleable to take its power from everyone else. It can do anything from being a nice collection of images to a teaching tool to telling a story.

On the other hand, while I'd be delighted to work with them if they came back, Evad37 hasn't been on Wikipedia (or, at least, has no contributions) since January, so I suspect I'm actually on my own for Featured content. You can also shove me in as a copyeditor, I suppose. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 01:30, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Given this issue's size....

We used to do the signpost every week. I don't propose we go back to that, but d'ye think it might be worth publishing twice a month, with whatever articles are ready? FC splits neatly, and there's a bit less pressure to include everything if the next issue is close to hand. And if not every issue has certain regular features, as long as they're once a month, we're no worse off. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 00:50, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing earlier. If we've increased to 22 articles a month, it might be worth considering upping the frequency myself. But it would have to be something sustainable. If the next issue we have something like 14 articles, then going twice a month might make sense.

At the same time, going through this frenzy of editing twice a month is... not something i particularly want to go through. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:53, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

This occurred to me as well: both the May issue and the July issue have required technical editing because they gaped out templates and transclusion limits. The only thing that keeps me from suggesting this wholeheartedly is that, first of all, the June issue wasn't that huge, and second of all, it would be a pain in the ass. jp×g 00:54, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

At least in theory, it should be half the work, since we'd be putting out half the articles, and anything not ready enough just gets pushed forwards. But... that's the theory. Even if it's less work, it's still twice the commitment. I suppose we could look into a third co-ordinator. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 01:17, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Realistically, what it would be is a doubling of most sections like Humour, Essay, Tips and Tricks, etc..., and things like Discussion Report, Featured Content would be split amongst two issues. All in all, there's about 8 articles that would be split in two, and the rest would appear twice.

There's also the possibility of running columns on alternate week, but I don't know that that would be very popular. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:45, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

From the archives idea

something I've been thinking about. You know how Scientific American has that "50, 100, 150 Years Ago" feature? Well, maybe that's a little obscure, but it's exactly what it sounds like. Anyway, we could use that for From the archives. Just look back 5, 10, or 15 years ago, and choose one or more articles or brief news from each. I could do a mockup for August? Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 01:37, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

And here we are! It's like a normal From the Archives, but substantially more work. Yay? Of course, it might be a case where we want this as a seperate column to the main from the archives, especially if it's regular.

That said, I think there's probably improvements in format and layout to be seen, so if copyeditors are feeling bored after the mere twenty-eight articles we had to go through yesterday, feel free. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 02:44, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Minor Newsroom restructure

I've taken the liberty of alphabetizing the newsroom so that it's easier to find pieces. Humour? Look in the Hs. Discussion report? In the Ds. I've kept From the editors on top since that should always get top billing.

Open to feedback on this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:29, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

THANK YOU. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8% of all FPs} 02:47, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Reader feedback, September

View reader feedback on issue 9 (September)

All: You can monitor reader feedback by pressing the button (you missed the button, didn't you?). ☆ Bri (talk) 00:39, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Indeedly I diddly. I think this is something we should probably integrate into the Signpost script (which is on my to-do list but I haven't quite gotten around to it ~uguu). jp×g 03:51, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Also, there ought to be this direct link, for those who have a bunch of geeked-up filters on their RecentChanges (like me for example). jp×g 03:52, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Ha ha, I meant "you missed the button" like "you missed your dog that ran away". Because there wasn’t one last month, just a fake offer for a brown Zune or something (I'd totally take one of those, actually). It's all good. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:40, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

.

I understand all of this was because the rush to publish caused a lot of miscommunication, however:

• I had asked for the Gallery not to be published because I couldn't finish it. It's been published, including a note about how I hoped to be able to do research before publication
• In the media is a comedy of errors. Cutting three weeks of research because you don't want to risk outing J.J. McCullough's account is fine. We shouldn't have lied and say that it's only speculated he was an admin while sitting on proof otherwise, but that was an accident. However, right before publication, text was added to explicitly make that identification in a revised first sentence, making the claim it's only "speculated" he was a former admin a really obvious lie on our part.
• Also, I'll set up FC, but after all the attribution's done, I'm going to stop for the month. Spending all month begging for help and only getting it a few hours before publication was stressful, and I can't do that again this month. And if it reaches publication day without the short summaries of the articles and lists, well, it won't hurt to publish a barebones FC once. I've already written and finished two other articles for October's issue, so it's not like I'm slacking that hard. I just need some time off.

I'm kind of really, really annoyed right now. I get there's no malice, but it's frustrating nonetheless. And I'm going to go to bed having said that. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.1% of all FPs} 04:49, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I should not have run October's Gallery in the state it was in. I fucked up (there as well as elsewhere in the issue) by not catching up on discussion before running the issue. The result was that a crappy article got sent out to thousands of people with your name on it, for which you are within your rights to be pissed off. This should not happen, and I will do my best to not let it happen in the future. Additionally, I apologize for letting everything on this talk page (including this section) hang in the air for so long. jp×g 23:48, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

User group application

@EpicPupper and JPxG: You said back in August you had applied for user group status. Would you have an update? (The only thing I can find on Meta is an inactive application from years ago: [1]) Best, --Andreas JN466 15:52, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I toyed with that idea when I was E-in-C. Also Bluerasberry raised the idea of applying for a grant. However as a counter argument it might be better to remain independent of the Foundation because the The Signpost is the organ of en.Wiki and not of the Wikimedia movement. As such, it often has articles that are critical of the Foundation, as is its right as a newspaper and its contributors. The WMF is therefore not likely to smile benignly on it. Comments the authors of this month's article on NPP received by email from the BoT were read as suggesting that board might intervene and edit it. Concerns were also raised that they would even demand it not be published. That didn't happen, but the fears were real and we were not sure until we actually saw it published. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

My position is that when the Wikimedia Foundation collects money, they do so in the name of the Wikimedia community and based on the trust that the donors have in the Wikipedia community. If The Signpost were to use Wikimedia Movement funds then I do not think that is a conflict of interest because donors intend for the money to go to projects like The Signpost. I support The Signpost registering as a Wikimedia Movement Affiliation (user group) because everything Kudpung is saying is the mainstream Wikimedia community instinct and first thought. If we had a user group, then the talk page of that user group would be the expected and normal place to discuss funding and governance issues, and not this newsroom. I think there should be distance between this newsroom and sponsored projects.

Here are two old applications for grants. I could revise. I can support the organization in applying.

• meta:Grants:Project/bluerasberry/fund a Signpost publisher
• meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/Bri/Signpost publication manager

If anyone wants to meet and talk by video chat then I would. We can either record, or more likely, I would take notes on the conversation and publish here if we want a discussion record. I would do 1:1 or in any group. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, being able to apply for grants was not listed among the benefits motivating this user group application in the initial discussion from April 2022 (unless one counts the scholarship to attend the annual Wikimedia Conference, which could enable one Signpost writer to report directly from the event). Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:42, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Back to Andreas' question, it would in particular be useful to clarify the following points as part of this update:

• Who are the initial members of the Signpost user group? (m:Wikimedia user groups/Creation guide states one needs "Three active Wikimedia editors" at minimum.)

Also per m:Wikimedia user groups/Creation guide, as part of the application you agreed to have the Signpost bound by the user groups code of conduct, which among other things stipulates the following:

• "You must behave transparently, including [...] providing an annual update of your activities to the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation. You should post this report as an update on Meta-Wiki." - who is going to take on this task, and ensure that it continues to be carried out every year in the future?
• "You must provide the Wikimedia Foundation the names and contact informations for two representatives for your user group. These representatives must agree to this agreement. Upon the Wikimedia Foundation's request, your representatives will need to provide additional information to confirm their identity. The names of your representatives may be used publicly to identify your group." - Am I correct in assuming that the current EiCs (EpicPupper and JPxG) will serve as the initial representatives?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:42, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't saying I'm against the idea, in fact I would very much support it. I was just making aware of some of the possible downsides to take into consideration.There are one or two other areas of Wikipedia where the creation of a simple user group is under discussion. Some thematic projects (I believe Mil Hist and Med but I may be wrong) already have user groups and there ae many local user groups outside the chapters. Normally I guess the application would be made by the coords of a project, or in this case the regular editors, but its not a prerequisite. The minimum number of members is 3 but a condition is that it should be open to new members. Naturally the user group's talk page would be separate from the newsroom. It would normally be the talk page of the group's meta or Wikipedia page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:45, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I've always had mixed feelings on becoming a recognized Wiki group (probably a thematic group or a user group) beyond a Wikipedia Project on en.Wiki (which presumably we already are - though I think we pre-date the other Wiki Projects, and like other Projects are only recognized informally by a semi-defunct project WP:Wikiprojects). I'm not specifically against becoming a thematic group or user group, but recognize that it would bring in a few problems, and I'm unsure of the benefits· Like Andreas, I'm wondering what became of the recent proposal, but I did find something on Meta m:The Signpost which, from the box on the right seems to be sorta directed at the Affiliations committee. But as far as I can tell no application to AffCom was made. That would involve some work, some of which should be discussed here.

• The problems, as far as I see, are that we'd use the ug to ask for money from the WMF, and that would be a conflict of interest. How could we cover the WMF without bias if they gave us any real money? Yes we have to follow the WMF rules already - but there are few of them and we're used to them - and I can't remember them trying to interfere in The Signpost - but it's a good principle not to take money from people you cover unless it's absolutely clear that they have no editorial control. Same pretty much goes for Wiki admins and ArbComb - we have to follow en.Wiki rules - but that's like The New York Whatever Paper needs to follow NY City laws without ceding editorial control to the mayor.
• What are the benefits?
  • We could get a free trip or two to conferences - that's not a biggie to me (I've been to enough conferences in my life), but other people might like a small freebie.
  • We could maybe get some sort of vote on somethings, again that's not a biggie and I'd generally advise against using it as a potential conflict of interest.
  • There might be some benefit from publishing on Meta, e.g translating the issues into French and German.
  • We could get a small amount of money, say for paying a $100 prize each month for the best news photo of the month. Maybe pay a $100 honorarium for non-Wiki writers to contribute articles. Things along those lines.
  • OK, here's the biggy possible benefit, but I think it's mostly an illusion. Maybe we could get big money from the WMF. Sorry to say it, but if anybody hopes to get $100,000 per year - I think you're wrong. $10,000 - 15,000 might be possible, but what would we do with it? See my previous point immediately above. If we did 5 projects like those examples on a slightly larger scale, the money would run out real quickly, e,g. say we pay $500 each month to the author of the "best article of the month", that would take half the budget right there. It's been proposed a few years ago, to pay the publisher $300/month. I don't think that's such a major problem now, but that would be a third of the budget. I wouldn't mind having a bit of petty cash around (to buy a book to quickly review, or to do a contest) but that's about all I see possible with the money that *might* be available. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I suspect most authors who are Wikipedia editors won't want to accept payment, since they'd have to declare as paid editors, and there's a stigma associated with the disclosure for many. isaacl (talk) 05:52, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Smallbones that accepting (or asking for) money would create an obvious conflict of interest that would instantly compromise the publication. In my view the user group (if one is created) should never do so. At most I could imagine an individual writing for the Signpost asking for a scholarship to a Summit or Wikimania so as to cover the event.

The only potential benefits of user group status that I can see right now are

1. slightly better status within the overall movement and
2. an affiliate vote in the BoT elections.

Neither of these benefits is worth having if it encourages or results in editorial interference on the part of the WMF.

Personally, I am somewhat doubtful that an application would be looked upon at all favourably. From the WMF point of view, we are a loose cannon. Moreover, withdrawing user group status, once granted, has the potential to become messy. Still, you never know. Andreas JN466 14:34, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

This thread is now almost a week old, and we still don't have answers to any of the above questions about the actual user group application - except one that EpicPupper revealed in their good-bye message (see below):

The user group application has JPxG, Bri, and Smallbones' email attached to it. Should I receive any correspondence regarding it that was not sent to others, I will forward it appropriately.

(which is interesting considering that Smallbones said above that "[...] as far as I can tell no application to AffCom was made"...?)

By the way, the "Three active Wikimedia editors" requirement I quoted above is a minimum. m:Wikimedia user groups/Creation guide#Step_1:_Gather_the_people says

At least three people are required for the establishment of a user group; but we recommend gathering at least 10 in your group.

Clearly something went wrong here. It may be worth contacting the Affiliations Committee just in case, to let them know that this application (if it exists) does not involve - and might not necessarily be supported by - the majority of the editors who could be regarded as part of the Signpost team. If a new attempt at an application is made, I would strongly recommend more transparency about the process.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:19, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

• If a user group application had been correctly filled out and submitted, there would either be an acceptance or a rejection from The Affilliations Committee sent to the submitter or a request for more information or to correct errors in the submission form.

I still support the idea of a simple user group and the possibility of funding a representative to the Berlin summit, but as Andreas says: From the WMF point of view, we are a loose cannon, and I think it's unlikely for the Foundation to advance any actual cash to an entity that critcises it. Indeed, based on comments in an an email from the Board of Trustees the fears were very real that they would edit out anything they didn't like or even veto the publication. When it was explained to them that interfering with The Signpost would put them in an even worse light, they got quite upset and replied with a surly "Well, do want you want then". The NPP team has not heard from them since and is unsure if the board still supports the NPP request.

As The Signpost's editorial board seems to be in a constant state of flux, especially since Smallbones stood down after his very long tenure as E-in-C, there is no obligation for an E-in-C to be one of the 3 founder members, or indeed any of the 'board' members. Ironically in a way it could even be like the BoT's relationship with the WMF. Bottom line is, anyone can go ahead and do the declaration, particularly those who have been around a long time and who are likely to still be around (health permitting) for some time to come. They don't need to be among the full-time team of staff writers though their help and contributions wold be welcome. There shouldn't need to be a lot of discussion about creating a simple user group and who should do it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:01, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

I have never been of much certainty with regard to this. EP was the one who made the application, and I was not very involved with it, so I imagine that he is the one whose contact information is there. I will look into it. My basic understanding, and opinion, of the matter is thus: if the WMF wants to fly us out to conferences and buy us camera lenses and feed us caviar, that is cool. I know many people who write on a variety of subjects, and the general practice at many publications is to pay authors at least some nominal amount for articles -- I think this could be nice, although certainly not obligatory. Certainly, it would grant us a bit more cachet if we put out a public call for articles. I am not interested in an arrangement where we are required to run articles past the WMF for approval prior to publication; if funding were to be contingent on that, I think I would speak for the Signpost community in expressing disinterest.

This is something that we will have to figure out in more detail, because even from this talk page section, it is clear to me that it's a whole production, and it seems to me like the degree to which it's a whole production may be greater than the benefit that it accrues to us. However, I would like to discuss the issue further. jp×g 23:57, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Familiarization

I am assembling a reading list, by which I can increase my wisdom to more effectively edit the Signpost. So far, I have been able to use Quarry to get a list of every Signpost article since January 2005, which I am annotating here; I also intend to read through the full talk archives of all project pages here. If anybody has any additional material that I should peruse, please let me know; I would like to understand as much as possible. jp×g 11:37, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Note: it seems that there has been a good deal of embarrassing drama as well -- it seems that a working knowledge of this will be necessary. In light of this, please be advised that my email inbox is open. jp×g 11:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Additional note: this invitation is also extended to haters. Feel free to send me any manner of rude and insulting emails, so long as they increase my ability to administer the Signpost. jp×g 11:44, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

The deal

Hi everyone. I have been out for a while -- first I moved to a place where the Internet was terrible, then I ordered some Internet from the Internet, then that Internet sucked so I had to return it, then I had to order another Internet, then (jpxg doxxers take note) there was a wildfire perniciously close to my house, then some personal stuff I had to deal with, then I decided to just sit on my ass and read books for a few weeks instead of doing my duties. The upshot is that I think I learned some stuff from the books. Anyway, in this time a bunch of stuff has emerged that I am going to deal with now. Apologies for the absence. jp×g 23:14, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

First, the fuckups. I made several in the last issue: the Gallery that wasn't ready, the affair with the identity of the critical article, and a couple articles that I didn't actually have time to review. I will post a more detailed apology for those above. I feel bad about having done this, I feel worse for letting it hang in the air like a stale fart for weeks, and I will not let it happen again.

I think part of the issue, as Adam mentioned above, is the stress of everything having to happen a couple hours before publication. This is to be expected for a newspaper, after all, but I think that there may be some broader problems with the deadline. That is to say, we (myself included in this since I do it regularly) tend to ignore the writing deadline and treat the publication deadline as an acceptable overrun. It is pretty typical to see articles being worked on even during publication, and this makes the publication process insanely difficult. If the writing deadline is the 27th, and publication time is the 28th at 11:00, nobody should be editing articles at 12:05. I don't know a good way around this: as I've said, I have done this myself more than once, so it is not really an issue of misbehavior or laziness. However, the situation where half of the month's articles (including time-sensitive ones that it would make no sense to postpone for the next issue) are marked as "not ready" when the writing deadline passes is a pain in the ass and I think we should quit doing it. I'm not sure what a solution here looks like, but what I will try is this:

For the October issue, articles should be done by the writing deadline, which is 29 October at 23:00 UTC. If there are articles that require some copyediting that's fine, but anything that isn't marked "ready for copyediting" by then will get run in November.

I'm aware that I am probably going to snare myself with this, but I think it's a step worth taking. jp×g 23:43, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

I endorse the concept of "done is done" by writing deadline. Let's see how it works. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:14, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Noted. Andreas JN466 19:05, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

I endorse it too, although I'm not part of the team. I just don't understand all these new problems with getting The Signpost out. As far as I can remember, although I was only E-in-C for a few months and with Bri at my side, we didn't have any problems with deadlines and we produced some pretty fat issues. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@JPxG: Your work in getting each issue out is much appreciated, also and especially by those of use who had that responsibility before. I've got to say though that I fail to see why "everything having to happen a couple hours before publication" was a reason for the Gallery issue - looking at the version history, the last edit had been made 24 days before the writing deadline, and the the note by the author about not publishing it, which apparently got overlooked in the process, was posted 17 hours before the publication deadline. Likewise, it can't really have had much to do with last month's confusion about the publication date, which persisted for over a week after my question about it on this page went unanswered.

Regarding It is pretty typical to see articles being worked on even during publication, and this makes the publication process insanely difficult, there is a pretty straightforward solution which we had been using routinely until recently: Post a "pencils down" note here shortly before the actual publication process begins. To my recollection, ever since it had been started (by Smallbones, IIRC), this practice had reliably avoided interference with the publication script.

In other words, I feel that there may have been important other reasons for the recent problems, but as you indicated there were also particular complications in September including EpicPupper's unannounced absence. That said (again recalling the many times I've been in your situation during my own EiC tenure), I totally understand your point about the writing deadline in general, especially concerning submissions that require extensive review because they are about sensitive topics or come from still-inexperienced Signpost contributors. Regarding "Recent research" though, I'm not sure if you saw my newsroom response to you on September 30. RR is by now one of the longest-running regular sections that has successfully kept up a monthly rhythm (basically without interruptions for over a decade) and it has long been finalized by me - as the editor of that section - around publication time, one reason being that it's designed to accommodate reviews by other contributors that I then edit and augment myself (or, if there are none that month, use the time that I've set aside for "Recent research" to instead fill the void by writing up items myself, and move items from our to-do list that couldn't be covered in time to the "Other recent publications" list). I have always committed to having something publishable in place by the publication deadline. That said, having seen your note here I changed tack a bit this month and started to write up something earlier which I should be able to post shortly today already. But that's not going to be the situation every month. I'm open to discussions about this, but the current process is what has enabled me to consistently keep up this time commitment over many years and keep this section alive.

Lastly, and I say this being entirely supportive of these efforts, I feel a bit concerned that you appear to be pouring so much energy currently into things that are not directly connected with the core EiC responsibility of getting each new issue out: Reading through thousands pages from the Signpost's archive since 2003 and working on annotating it, updating the encyclopedia article about the Signpost, readership acquisition studies and reform proposals, preparing yet another lengthy "From the team" editorial, etc. I'm not saying that this work isn't valuable, on the contrary I've been trying to support some of it already. But please watch for burnout, and consider focusing on one item at a time and seeing it through to completion before embarking on other big projects. I writing this after having seen this comment above by Chris troutman about what may have gone wrong earlier this year.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:06, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Why?

• Hypothesis 1: We do not get ten thousand readers on every article because the Signpost sucks.

This seems unlikely to me. The Signpost is epic as hell. It is insanely good compared to most for-profit newspapers, and it is flat-out unbelievably good compared to most newspapers written by a team of a dozen volunteers. Whenever I show somebody an article here, they remark on its quality.

• Hypothesis 2: We do not get ten thousand readers on every article because we do not engage in lurid, sensationalist coverage.

This seems unlikely to me as well. I have experimented with writing provocative headlines, and God knows we have experimented with writing provocative articles. While this definitely has some effect, the effect it has is to take us from 200 readers to 700 readers.

• Hypothesis 3: We do not get ten thousand readers on every article because nobody gives a crap about Wikipedia.

This also seems unlikely to me. As I mentioned above, a half-assed Twitter thread about the WMF fundraising banners got 35,000 likes, and Tweets generally get about one like per hundred views. While I obviously don't have access to @echetus's analytics account, it seems likely to me that about a quarter million people at least scrolled through that thread.

• Hypothesis 4: We do not get ten thousand readers on every article because nobody knows we exist.

This one seems quite likely, and I will investigate it in some more detail. There are a number of factors in play here:

a) We tend to look inward for guidance in terms of what we write about, how we write about it, and how we present it. I am myself regularly prone to saying "AfD", eg. Another example is that we rarely write about (or mention) stuff that is dead-ass obvious to every Wikipedia editor, like the fact that editors are not paid or compensated by the Wikimedia Foundation for writing articles, or that every person who comments on an AfD is not an administrator. Few people here need any explanation of these things, and few people here would find them interesting. However, it may be worth giving them at least some mention.

b) Signpost articles look like ass when presented anywhere other than the Signpost issue page. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that when linking to a Signpost article on Facebook, Twitter, Discord, Slack etc, there is no preview. Here is an example of what I'm talking about: it looks like ass. Most websites (including most news websites) offer preview card content for an article in page metadata -- this is not possible for us. While Wikipedia does do this for pages in articlespace, it does not do so for projectspace pages, which are additionally not indexed by search engines. Essentially, this is a feature put in place because we have no reason to show random Google searchers the annals of noticeboards and drafts and arguments in projectspace. However, this results in the Signpost getting hosed. Some conversations I've had on the technical side have led me to conclude that this cannot be changed on a page-specific basis (and that doing so would require some seriously major changes to enwp's MediaWiki implementation).

c) Signpost articles look like ass even when presented on the Signpost issue page. For example, almost every news publication features a front page with trending articles, header images for each article, and a byline. We do none of these. I have experimented with using illustrations on the main issue page, but our current mechanism for this is extremely half-assed (it requires templates to be put in manually for each image, for one) and doesn't work on archive pages.

d) We don't break stories. Due to the fact that we publish once a month, and that all of our articles are put out at the same time, we often end up in the goofy situation where we have some enormous scoop -- sometimes even with a fully-written article -- and sit on it for weeks, meanwhile other sites do not have this issue and can publish it when they write about it, and so all we end up doing is writing a drab summary of someone else's article that we could have just written ourselves.

e) Other stuff. I am sure someone else can think of some stuff.

Anyway, I think that this is something we can chew on for a while -- while my brain is gigantic I cannot hope to explain everything myself. However, even from this, I think there are a couple obvious solutions that present themselves to us, chief among them a frontend that does not look like ass. I am looking into this right now, so I cannot provide any triumphant solution, but I expect to have something presentable in the near future. As for the other stuff -- what does everyone think? jp×g 18:15, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I think one aspect is that internal WP stuff, which is (mostly) the topic of the Signpost, is quite boring to most people. Much of it may be boring to regular editors too, and we are few in numbers. The general WP-reader likes to read (parts of) the sausage, but is not very interested in it's production. That said, are new Signpost "announced" on WP:s twitter, and if not, is that something we should try? It's not unthinkable to put something like "Read the latest Signpost here" on the Main page. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:57, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't say internal Wikipedia stuff is nessecarily boring to people. I've seen some threads on social media that talk about stuff we argue about sometimes with several thousand views and hundreds of comments (people are drawn to drama, lol). I agree that there is some aspect of there's not much awareness outside of active editors that the Signpost exists. I will say that our views don't seem that bad in relation to our active editorship base, 4,909 people made more than 100 edits this month and 500 made more than a thousand [2].

Also, JPxG, before EpicPupper took an immortal's version of a wikibreak, they expressed interest in my essay: User:Clovermoss/Mobile editing. It's about my observations from editing through the android Wikipedia app and my relatively positive interactions with WMF staff. There's a lot more background on my talk page if you're curious. At the time I said I needed more time to work on it. I still do, honestly. But I was wondering if it was still interesting since you're currently the EiC? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:53, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Agree it's not necessarily boring, I missed a qualifier there. There was the Star Trek Into Darkness discussions, and the Trump-penis thing of November 2018. But much of it will be. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:15, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

If we had an attractive person read the blurbs on a YouTube channel, with a catchy thumbnail, it'd probably get more viewers than The Signpost itself. But what's the point? A lot of what we do is super inside baseball and will never have deep interest for gobs of people. I think the Twitter thing was probably more sticky because you don't have to stick around long and devote a lot of brain power to Twiter, like you do have to for a full length piece of conventional writing. In other words if we try to compete for short attention spans, we'll get exactly what readers we deserve for that effort. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Very well put, JPxG. Thoughts:

• I do think we should go back to fortnightly publication. Some things do feel stale after four weeks.
• Headlines are key for getting readers from the general public. If it's an article that could be of interest to a general audience, the headline should always be such that it'll get clicks if seen on Slashdot, Reddit etc.
• Posting online: on many platforms, it's possible to post the lead image manually below the link to the article. Not ideal, but a little better.
• A design makeover is long overdue.

Andreas JN466 13:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• Agreed that the monthly schedule is holding us back. In addition to the staleness problem, the issues have also swollen to a size where few readers will want to read the entire issue in one session (I certainly haven't in a long time). Compare the tables of content from the 2022 archive with, say, 2018 or 2012. Even a reader who is usually only interested in, say, a third of our topics is now much more likely to run out of time or focus before making it through all the stories from the current issue that fall in her scope of interest. To put it differently: A main driver of our traffic are the new issue announcements (to user talk page subscribers, etc). And since we send them out much more rarely now (monthly) than until some years ago (weekly or fortnightly), their effect is spread more thinly over our stories.
• on many platforms, it's possible to post the lead image manually below the link to the article - indeed, and that's what I have been doing with the monthly new issue announcements post on Twitter and (partially) Facebook since I took these on in March 2021. Not sure you had a chance to look at these in your analysis, JPxG? Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• By coincidence, I found this unpublished draft while combing through old pages, which is from 2020, and has some material germane to present discussion. jp×g 00:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  Note that the article for the 2019 stats is here and 2018 stats are here. jp×g 00:58, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

A lot of good points here, so forgive me for correcting a few that make less sense:

• projectspace pages, which are additionally not indexed by search engines. [...] this results in the Signpost getting hosed. - huh? At least for Google, that's not true. (You can also check for individual stories whether they are indexed, e.g. here are two from the current issue: [3][4].) Some conversations I've had on the technical side have led me to conclude that this cannot be changed on a page-specific basis (and that doing so would require some seriously major changes to enwp's MediaWiki implementation). - looks like these conversations might have involved some garbled recollections of WP:NOINDEX?
• I don't think we can draw too many conclusions from the fact that a single viral Twitter thread surpassed our coverage in popularity. Contrary to what was said above, crafting a Twitter thread with good virality potential is quite a bit of work and a skill in itself. The text of the thread was over 700 words, combined with over 25 images (much of which custom-made screenshots it seems) and embedded videos. We can't necessarily expect the same impact for our lower-effort linkposts on Twitter where the bulk of the relevant content is off-Twitter (i.e. our stories here on wikipedia.org).
• Also, many threads that go viral on Twitter do in fact come from "some totally random guy with 5,000 followers", that's not unusual. There is a lot of luck involved in going viral, but if you want to increase your chances, you can try to pitch it to "big" accounts and see if they retweet or quote-tweet you. We haven't been doing that much as far as I'm aware.
• Speaking of which: Annie Rauwerda of the wildly popular Depths of Wikipedia Twitter account (665K followers) has had some very kind words about the Signpost and has tweeted or retweeted us several times this year (e.g. [5][6]), with considerable effect. It might be worth to spend some time every month to select a story or two from the new issue that is likely to appeal to a general audience, and pitch it to her. (I might try to do that myself this month, but I don't think I'll have the bandwidth to do that consistently in the future, beyond the monthly announcement tweet for the entire issue that I have committed to do.) I could also ping her to see if she would like to offer us some general advice on what kind of Signpost content might worth pursuing for the purpose of reaching a wider audience. Clearly she knows a thing or two about that.
• Back to that viral thread: It seems that the (American) culture war angle was at least part of the reason why this went viral. As many people doing journalistic and social media work know, riling up the audience about this kind of thing is one of the most reliable recipes to generate engagement. We could easily employ it too - just run a few opinion pieces arguing that, say, white supremacy is deeply embedded in Wikipedia's Featured Article process, or that woke cancel culture has pervaded the Wikimedia Foundation's product strategy ;-) Contrary to what was said above under hypothesis 2, I don't think we have been doing that much. But then again maybe we shouldn't.
• Lastly, concerning the grants from the $4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund that the later part of the thread focused on, questioning their effectiveness (alleging e.g. that one organization "received a quarter million dollars of donor cash" but "Their output is extremely long YouTube videos which get about 50 views a time"), it seems to me based on a cursory archive search (correct me) that we simply haven't reported about this before, except reproducing the Foundation's own announcement without independent coverage (which might have highlighted e.g. that the closed process for these grants represented a clear break from the participatory grantmaking principles that WMF embraced before.) In other words, we kind of missed the boat on this one and got scooped.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• This reminds me that once the source of one of the Signpost's sections was described as "the coolest thing on the Internet that no one talks about". The public at large probably only sees Wikipedia for the encyclopedic value and occasional hilarity of either vandalism or edit wars, not knowing we write some compelling stuff in the community pages. igordebraga ≠ 03:50, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Publication date for December

I've always been a stickler for maintaining a regular publication schedule. It lets our readers know when to look for us. Maybe reading The Signpost might even become a favorite habit for a Sunday evening (depending on the time zone). Emergencies and similar excepted, of course. But December has usually been different. The week between Christmas and New Years Day is an especially difficult week to publish in - but only on the first 2 and the last 2 days. Let's get a reading on which of the 3 middle days people here prefer. Most people are taking time off from work or studies, so it doesn't matter to me, schedules are usually easy for most people, even if they are already disrupted. But I'll say Wednesday, Dec. 28, just to get this started. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:13, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I personally prefer the 28th or the 29th. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:02, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Would it be too ridiculous to do a half-issue on the 15th or so, and then a half-issue on January 6th or so? We've been having big issues, and I think people would understand a split issue given the holidays. Gives us a chance to get breaking news out, and hold back anything non-urgent/Non-Christmassy for later. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

As Benjamin Franklin once said about the Signpost -- "A two-week publishing schedule, if you can keep it". I think it would be good, but quite difficult; some more improvements to our workflow may help in this regard. Who knows, maybe we can pull it off. I am certainly for giving it a shot. jp×g 21:33, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I think the important thing to remember is that it's a lot less of a deal if we hold something back when the next publication is relatively close. So if you need the whole month, focus on the later deadline, if you're able to get it out earlier, go for the earlier one. We don't need to do everything every two weeks Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 00:27, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Featured content

I've roughed in the December issue; everything except the summaries for five articles and my introductory paragraph. If we are doing two issues, given we work a month behind, probably not a bad idea to have it early. Unless there's more content promoted (outwith FPs) on the 30th, it's done. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

User group application

For more context, ~4 weeks after the user group application was submitted, I contacted AffCom on Twitter (original tweet deleted, but AffCom response is still present). I was told that the process "involves different teams" and takes more than the 3 weeks that was provided as an estimate on-wiki. I've emailed AffCom and asked about the status of the application. Best, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 00:34, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper: Is there any on-wiki record of the application? Bluerasberry (talk) 22:55, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry no. I believe it works on an email basis. Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 04:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

To clarify for others, this is in reference to this recently archived thread. I appreciate that we now have a bit more clarity about several of the questions that were raised there; e.g. to recap, I understand that the initial members of this user group (if approved) are anticipated to be EpicPupper, JPxG, Bri, and Smallbones. But the answers to the following two questions are still unclear to me:

Per m:Wikimedia user groups/Creation guide, as part of the application you agreed to have the Signpost bound by the "User group agreement and code of conduct", which among other things stipulates the following:

• "You must behave transparently, including [...] providing an annual update of your activities to the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation. You should post this report as an update on Meta-Wiki." - who is going to take on this task, and ensure that it continues to be carried out every year in the future?
• "You must provide the Wikimedia Foundation the names and contact informations for two representatives for your user group. These representatives must agree to this agreement. Upon the Wikimedia Foundation's request, your representatives will need to provide additional information to confirm their identity. The names of your representatives may be used publicly to identify your group." - Am I correct in assuming that the two EiCs at the time of the application (EpicPupper and JPxG) will serve as these initial representatives?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:03, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

@HaeB hello! I'd like to clarify the relation of myself, J, B and S to the user group. The user group's "members" are all the contributors listed on the about page! The application just required emails and names from a few people, so I listed them. As for your two questions:

• I can commit to this, and was planning to when I submitted the application. The role of "affiliations committee liaison" (which was previously on the about page, although it seems to have been deleted) was created for this purpose.
• This is correct; if the application were to be approved, JPxG would be included as EiC and I would be as liaison.

I hope that clears it up! Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 00:44, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I recently removed the "Affiliations Committee liaison" and "Technology manager" roles from the "About" page that you had added there in August without explanation (alongside a few other somewhat puzzling changes, some of which have since been corrected too, by others and myself).

As explained in the edit summary, this was because nobody from the existing Signpost team seemed to know what these are. (I had asked around on this talk page - "I'm curious about the "Technology manager" and "Affiliations Committee liaison" roles listed there - does anyone know what they refer to?" and received no reply for over two weeks.)

It's good to know that you are volunteering to write these annual reports. We can discuss more if and when the application gets approved, but I'd already like to suggest to run these (and other communications with AffCom) by the rest of the Signpost team, e.g. by posting a draft here firsts. Again, I'm very happy you are back on Wikipedia and I don't want to dwell on the past more than necessary, but as someone else reminded us recently, you have at times shown a problematic tendency to speak on behalf of the entire Signpost when you shouldn't have (even before your co-EiC tenure, in that controversial "From the team" piece - I stayed out of that controversy at the time, but you were definitely not speaking for me either there, and in the time since then I have begun to wonder if there were lessons learned from it or not).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:49, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Response to suggestion page

I suggested that JamieF go forward with her suggestion, "the View it! tool, a new tool for discoverability of images on Commons in development utilizing Structured Data on Commons." It sounds to me like it should be part of a a Signpost Technology report article, unless it gets really long then it can be stand-alone. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:57, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Featured content

I think this might be my most "meta" introduction, as it explains exactly how the sausage is made.... Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 18:52, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

feeder readback

all posts are at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2022-11-28... perhaps less clumsy than the relatedchanges one. Let me know what you all think of it. ,jp×g 16:44, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Or the old fashioned way ☆ Bri (talk) 17:04, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Bri's version catches all comments. JPxG's version misses Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-11-28/Book review, Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-11-28/Opinion‎, and Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-11-28/Tips and tricks‎‎ Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:56, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, the way my version works is to automatically pull the issue's articles from Module:Signpost -- if they haven't been added to the index page, they won't show up on the single comments page. Right now, this relies on people going through the issue manually with SignpostTagger, which means it is not an ideal solution (at least not for a few days after publication).

The obvious solution is to integrate some functionality into the Signpost Publishing Script that collates JSON data for the issue and automatically adds it to the module's index, although this requires someone (probably me, although I would certainly be thrilled if someone else figured it out) going through SPS to figure out what is going on under the hood. jp×g 23:32, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Archiving November newsroom talk

Can I get some guidance on what to keep on this page from November? I think there was some part of pulled back from the archive last month. Just don't want to over-archive again. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

You know, I wonder if it wouldn't be easier for us to just do the archives by month. It would create some doscontinuity, but it would be a hell of a lot easier to deal with. jp×g 20:12, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think anything above the discussion of the next publication date matters anymore. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 21:07, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I have un-archived two that shouldn't have been archived yet. Please respect that not everyone is active here every day, so the fact that there were no responses in a thread for like two days does not mean that it has concluded. And as discussed before, given how frequently manual archiving has created problems on this talk page over the course of this year, I am strongly in favor of just letting the bot do this work, even if that wouldn't fully satisfy the desire to minimize the current number of sections.

Alternatively, we may want to start respecting the talk page headers again ;) - to viz:

• This page "is to discuss the upcoming issue of The Signpost."
• Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost is "for general or technical issues, praise, queries, or complaints related to The Signpost as a whole."

That may help to separate the timely discussions about specific stories from the slower-moving general topics like the COI policy or user group conversations. It seems that we all (myself included) have slipped into instead treating this page as the default location for all Signpost team discussions, and Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost more as an externally facing reader forum, but I am not sure that distinction makes much sense.

If there are no objections, I may start to occasionally move newly posted threads to the more appropriate one of these two talk pages, as per the existing header descriptions.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:14, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't expect to be the only voice deciding. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 13:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Talk pages for single-page issues

I had to dick around with some URLs to prevent this being messed up by the spam blacklist, but these exist now (the /Single/ syntax only goes back to 2010). jp×g 10:10, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

?

What is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Community? Nothing links to it: Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Community. jp×g 08:40, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Few links to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Quick Start as well aside from being once (?) included on welcome templates.

Wow I have never seen that community page before this minute. I think I created or expanded the quick start page for folks who show up and ask what they can do. I have posted it to a userpage recently. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:49, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Five, Ten, and Fifteen Years Ago

This month is interesting: 2017 has maybe 4 things of note (including an interview of Charles J. Sharp that I plan to quote a bit of). 2007... everything happened at once. Haven't checked 2012 yet. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 22:48, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

CommonsComix

I feel a little bad

Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 01:05, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

News from the WMF

Potential candidate: this blog post about a Ukrainian writer and Wikipedian killed in the Ukraine war

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/12/05/ukrainian-writer-and-wikipedian-volodymyr-vakulenko-killed-by-russian-invaders/

See also https://imi.org.ua/en/news/author-volodymyr-vakulenko-killed-under-occupation-suspilne-i49327 --Andreas JN466 09:08, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

• The article Volodymyr Vakulenko was created a week ago. I believe he edited as uk:Користувач:Вакуленко-К. Володимир. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:20, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Translations?

I write texts about Wikipedia on a fairly regular basis, for Swedish magazines, newspapers and other outlets. Some of these are not relevant for Wikipedians (they are meant explain things for outsiders), others are irrelevant outside of a Swedish context, but some could potentially be of interest to The Signpost, if translated and adapted. Would the occasional translation of material previously not available in English be of interest?

For example, I'm thinking of an article which I figure could fit the serendipity feature, about when I realized the painter of some art I just bought might have been a functionary in a Swedish Nazi party in the 1940s, and then spent a year – or around a hundred hours, spread out over a year – to get to the point where I could update his Swedish Wikipedia article with a couple of sentences. A light-hearted example of how bizarre amount of work sometimes leads to rather small edits. /Julle (talk) 07:22, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Julle: Sounds good to me; the Signpost is decidedly not confined to the English Wikipedia topic-wise, and you'll find quite a few such stories in its archives. Of course there may be cases where you would want to add more context for an international audience (instead of going with a 1:1 translation). Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:49, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Decline in active admins

I assume this is specific to the English-language Wikipedia. While I realize Signpost is within en-wiki, this is a case where I think that context should be stated explicitly. - Jmabel | Talk 20:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)