Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-07/Featured content

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Its unusual to see featured articles and lists without short descriptions in the signpost, although I'm not going to raise a fuss over it, I am curious if this will become the new norm or if it is just a case of too few editors to the post this week to find the time to blurb. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The later. There are just not enough interested editors to write blurbs. You can help if you want. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:51, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I hear that. Its an increasingly common and frankly disturbing trend on Wikipedia as a whole, and the one problem that no one seems able to combat. I'm convinced it will be the doom of us all. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:38, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's not much to read, I end up with a bunch of checkerboards instead of featured photos and have to go on to something else and come back here.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Armbrust, Vchimpanzee and TomStar81; both me and Xanthomelanoussprog were interested in it, but there was a development that advised us not to write them any more. Check out the comments, here Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-09-02/Featured content. I got the impression that these contributions were not exactly appreciated. I would be very happy to go on with it but one has to feel that there is an interest for it. And we would still like to do it, but ... wonder if there is any interest in it. Hafspajen (talk) 15:43, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There was more detail than I wanted sometimes, but learning a little about the significance of some of those photos would be nice. Frankly, when I'm doing this, I have so much to do that it's kind of a relief when there's not a big long paragraph.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:40, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Vchimpanzee: I would advocate returning to the photo and description system because content apart from context is meaningless. While it is true that the images look lovely in a gallery if the only thing displayed are the images then how do we know what we are looking at and what the significance is? The simple answer is that most of us do not. If the purpose of the Post is to keep us informed then the words must be paired with the images in order to allow the general public some background information. Even the ritzest art museums have a card telling people what they are looking at, who created the art, when it was created, and other minor details. Surely we can come to some agreement on how best they be displayed. I'd be happy to play with the system and see if I couldn't come up with some kind of middle ground, but I'd need some sort of OK from the powers that be before fiddling with the POST. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:16, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@TomStar81: The change to the gallery thus far has been popular with readers and it is likely to remain the default indefinitely during weeks when there are no or few contributors. Anyone is welcome to contribute to FC and to change the format of FC in the course of their contribution, provided it's one that will be finished prior to publication. If you have some ideas, you're welcome to try them out with the October 21 edition of FC. (The October 14 Signpost is about to be published, likely today or tomorrow.) Gamaliel (talk) 21:34, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And they loaded. It took me a while to look at them. Some background information would have been nice.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:12, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Vchimpanzee: We don't have the contributors on a weekly basis anymore. Liz made a valiant effort to encourage editors to contribute specifically to this week's edition but there were no takers. This is, as TomStar81 writes above, "the new normal". We are hoping this will not be the case in the long-term, but we are debating what to do about this matter internally, and one option on the table is cancelling FC entirely. We'd like to hear what people want to see from this section, but of course our options are limited to what contributors are willing to contribute. Gamaliel (talk) 13:09, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
— Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
TomStar81 (Talk) 22:30, 13 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd start doing it again, but RL is soaking up time and mental energy. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 17:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]