This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Unless someone else gets to it first, I can probably get my bot to clean up the duplicates on this tonight - ping me if desired. — xaosfluxTalk15:41, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry about this... I don't know what went wrong. I only hit the button once. I certainly wouldn't have sent two duplicate messages with that much of a gap. Chris Troutman (talk)15:45, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
The publishing script takes care of mass messaging, locally and globally – the Special:MassMessage interface doesn't need to be used unless there is a problem with the script. - Evad37[talk]15:55, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
That explains it. There are elements of the distribution that are tucked under the manual process section that your script performs and there are elements that it doesn't. I'll update the instructions, accordingly. Chris Troutman (talk)15:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
This is the first time I read this and I must say it is very very beautifully done, full of information and nice presentation. Very good job! --Gian (talk) 06:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
RSS oddities
Signpost 2018-03-29 RSS reader screenshot; not our best presentation to the worldRSS feed in Android app
Issues:
I installed Feedly, a top rated RSS reader for Android with 300,000+ installs. Entering "The Signpost" in the standard search bar, our RSS feed was not discoverable. But it did find a c. 2012 feed called "Wikipedia Signpost" that doesn't seem to be updated anymore. I had to paste in our RSS address, which is absolutely a barrier for 99.9% of our readers. Just finding it took me a few minutes and I work here (go ahead, I dare you to try). I wonder if this is fixable?
Another oddity, the single-page edition a) looks like hell (see screenshot, right) and b) has the publisher's name – i.e. mine – for many things that it shouldn't and c) lacks internal section titles. Also something I wonder is fixable.
By the way, for proper prioritization, do we know how many RSS subscribers we actually have? Is there any way to determine this? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:15, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Pinging @Samwilson, who made the feeds tool. But with 2a/2c, the problem is with Feedly following a rather strict interpretation of the RSS spec, which IIRC doesn't allow most (or maybe even all) html tags. With Firefox, which (on desktop at least) has a built in feed reader, it works correctly. The same RSS feed in Firefox - Evad37[talk]00:13, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
I should say one positive thing, which is on the "chooser" page, the graphics that are included in articles look great on my mobile device (see screenshot, left). Maybe an indicator of an area to spend more effort on to attract a diverse reading audience. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:30, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
I've updated the feed generator to wrap title and description in cdata, but I'm not sure that's the problem here. The feed does validate, but I think @Evad37 is right and Feedly's handling of HTML is more strict than other aggregators (the feed works fine in Thunderbird, for example). Feedly wants <content type="html"> containing escaped HTML, but we're serving up non-escaped HTML in a <content:encoded> element (as per the content module spec). I'll keep digging to see what the correct behaviour is.
As for making the feed available via search in Feedly, I've no idea; I guess there's some way to register on Feedly?
Just wanted to put this out there, maybe we can start talking about what works best for everybody. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts, of course; pinging Zarasophos as I think they've started on a makeover.
When revamping the Signpost documentation and newsroom workflow, we should keep in mind there are very different stakeholders with different needs and roles. I've tried to break this down into basics that don't necessarily depend on our current workflow model.
Stakeholders:
Readers
Intermittent or new contributors
Newsroom
Regular contributors
Regular column contributors
Copyeditors
The publication manager
The editor-in-chief
I think we need process that accomplishes these actions at a minimum. I've avoided the word "tracks" or "tells" in the interest of greatest flexibility. E.g. if the presence of a MediaWiki page in a specific location is sufficient, then we don't need to actively "track" a submission.
Communicates the goal publishing date for next issue
Communicates progress towards that goal
Communicates to readers
How to become contributors
How to provide news tips
How to provide feedback on specific article
How to provide suggestions on The Signpost in general
Who is reponsible for issue content
Communicates to intermittent or new contributors what they do to propose a new item
Communicates to all contributors what a completed item entails
Clear signal from selector (E-in-C, I think?) that intermittent pieces are approved
To Newsroom
To author
Clear signal from contributors to E-in-C when they are done writing, for approval
Clear signals to copyeditors
They can start editing a particular item's text
They can ignore a particular item (complete, rejected, or postponed)
What style/finish is required (e.g. title, blurb, byline; maybe also what is optional)
What style/finish is remaining
Clear signals to publication manager
It is time to publish
What to include in issue and in what order
Clear signal to readers that new issue is ready
One final thing; I think we should consider software that's specifically geared towards managing a group. Not necessarily MediaWiki based, examples: Asana, monday.com, Trello. Heretical? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:03, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm currently working on a draft for a new Signpost page space: Newsroom, Submissions, Suggestions, Quick Start, Content guidance, Style (the current style page will be called "formatting"), About. Take a look, but be aware that all of these are currently very WIP. I'll provide better documentation later today or tomorrow, kind of in a hurry right now. The main goal is clearing the pages were work is being done of giant unneccessary blocks of texts and putting them on their own separate pages, while linking them where they are needed. I'm also standardizing things like headers, footings etc. for a more uniform experience. Zarasophos (talk) 17:12, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm glad you kept the Quick Start that I ... started (smiley). Reviewing what I wrote, it sounds kind of project-manager-ish, which is in my nature, but we shouldn't lose track of the idea that this is a volunteer effort by people who aren't here to be tasked and nagged. If we have a solution that feels like nagging, it will probably not be succesful. There's not a lot of data to go on but my gut feeling is that some of the vacancies and resignations on the Newsroom staff were caused by a sense of being overwhelmed by the program and its responsibilities. If we have roles that people can step in and out of, it would be better than holding their nose to the grindstone. Also, not listed above but very important is a system of honorary recognition and reward, befitting the adhocracy/potlatch/reputation-based environment we have here. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
Bri, do you have any idea where I can find and edit the Table of Contents template for the Newsroom? I can't find it for the life of me... Zarasophos (talk) 08:18, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
What is needed is a group editable progress spreadsheet instead of a clunky Wikitable. Articles/features on the left; stages of production across the top. SaaS is likely to be payware though. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
If we want to go the way of working on the Signpost out of Wikipedia, I could always throw up a Google Doc or a Trello board, which would be my favourite. I was under the impression we wanted to avoid using secondary pages/software with account creation etc., though I guess everyone and their dog has a Google account by now... Zarasophos (talk) 13:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Google accounts are easy to create, even if one wants to create a throwaway account for privacy. The sticking point would be paying for a subscription, which makes us go again to WMF or one of the regionals like WMDC with a grant proposal. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:12, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
Isn't using an external service going to create duplication? How would we keep on-wiki and off-wiki stuff in sync? Assuming we're still going to have drafts and submissions and editing and (some) discussions on Wikipedia, and that we want the participation of new/one-time writers that aren't necessarily going to create an account elsewhere just to contribute to the Signpost. If what we want is something with "Articles/features on the left; stages of production across the top", we can do that with wikitext/templates. Possibly even transclude it from a namespace with VidsualEditor enabled if you want to be able to edit visually. - Evad37[talk]02:50, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
I was thinking the content would be on-wiki, and off-wiki tools used for coordination, status, assignments and so on. Some experimentation would be required to show this would all work. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:08, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
If we're going to use an external service, we should consider Phabricator, which would allow everyone to use their Wikipedia accounts, and wouldn't require a subscription. - Evad37[talk]09:55, 28 April 2018 (UTC)
I do think that some off-wiki tool is needed; I'm not familiar enough with Phabricator to know if it will work well enough. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:59, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Makeover trial pages by Zarasophos
Okay everyone (pinging Kudpung, Bri, Evad37 & Power~enwiki because they were active in this discussion before) it took some time and still is not really finished, but I want to get some opinions and feedback before I put any further work into it (and also because I really need to get writing on News and notes..) As I said before, my main goal was eliminating as many transclusions, repetitions and unneccessary stuff as possible, updating the Newsroom while trimming it down to the workflow itself in a way that would be accessible to anyone stumbling in here, even if no-one of the current team was left. But now, without any further ado, I present my Signpost Newsroom Overhaul (presented in the format in which it is also presented in the revamped Signpost Navigation Template, which is active on all overhaul pages in my userspace. Be careful, however: All links within the pages themselves still lead to the current Signpost pages)!
Newsroom - The main thing. Consists of only three parts: New here?, Discussion and Next issue. New here? gives non-team members quick ways to submit suggestions, submissions and a link to the Quick Start page as well as to more information. Discussion is self-explanatory. Then, we come to the heart of the thing: Next issue. As you may have noted, there is no more transclusion from the Submissions page. If you are a regular team member and want to write a piece, you start it right here with the relevant button, allowing for progress of the entire Next issue to be centrally controlled and checked on a single page. The expanded checklists for each feature allow for more overview over the current status, while the links to Content guidance and Resources for each feature allow writers access to all relevant information without having to search for it beyond the Newsroom page. Discussion of the features themselves also takes place directly on the Newsroom page. Excuse the broken links for the articles that are currently being written - I have no idea where I can actually access the template for the main article table, so I had to improvise a little...
Writing (Quick Start) - Has been redone to have all information relevant for aspiring contributors and team members. There is now a single page you can link to if anyone says he's interested in doing anything for the Signpost.
Resources - Has any and all useful links, tools etc. on a single page. No more going through About, Content guidance etc. to find something.
Formatting - The long form, tells you everything there is to know about Signpost formatting. Will probably only ever be read a single time ever by anyone.
Style - How to write. Not much done yet, but I will do that later on. Will help giving the Signpost a more unified language.
Style cheatsheet (not started) - Same as above, for short look-ups.
Guidelines
Content - All irrelevant stuff has been put elsewhere. Now only contains a list of features and what should be put into them.
Coordination - Workflow. What are the different pages for, what do the different roles do.
About - Statement of purpose, current team, Userboxes & Barnstar. The team box has been reordered to eliminate empty roles and make responsibilities more clear.
Archives (as is)
Submissions - Not much change, mainly reordering of the texts and buttons.
The main changes, I think, are that the Newsroom now actually is the single centre part of the Signpost. Submissions and Suggestions pages are now pages were non-team members submit their content for approval by Editors.
And apropos Editors: I think a discussion we need to be having is what an Editor can do and what only the Editor in Chief can do. In my opinion, especially in our current situtation, we should make it very clear on the Coordination page that all members of the Editorial Board are, yes, Editors and that the Editor in Chief is one of them - a primus inter pares, whose main responsibility is pulling the trigger of publication. That way, we get a collegium of editors who can all delegate responsibilities to each other, with most taking on some more special duties, instead of a few very specialized roles that in the end don't have that much to do. But that's up for debate.
Communicates the goal publishing date for next issue - Done by the current tracker
Communicates progress towards that goal - Done by the main article table in the Newsroom
Communicates to readers
How to become contributors - Done by the top of the Newsroom and the Quick Start page
How to provide news tips - Done by the top of the Newsroom and the Quick Start page
How to provide feedback on specific article - Not much change there, really
How to provide suggestions on The Signpost in general - See above
Who is reponsible for issue content - Done by the new Coordination page
Communicates to intermittent or new contributors what they do to propose a new item - Done by the top of the Newsroom and the Quick Start page
Communicates to all contributors what a completed item entails - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
Clear signal from selector (E-in-C, I think?) that intermittent pieces are approved - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
To Newsroom
To author
Clear signal from contributors to E-in-C when they are done writing, for approval - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
Clear signals to copyeditors
They can start editing a particular item's text - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
They can ignore a particular item (complete, rejected, or postponed) - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
What style/finish is required (e.g. title, blurb, byline; maybe also what is optional) - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
What style/finish is remaining - Done by the new checklist in the main article table in the Newsroom
Clear signals to publication manager
It is time to publish - Done by the Editor-in-Chief, as before; since it's a one time job for each issue, I think we don't need a dedicated position for that
What to include in issue and in what order - See above
Clear signal to readers that new issue is ready - Nothing new there
I like the single point of entry for new contributors, whether they are editors, op-ed writers, or most importantly, they don't know what's allowed and what they can do. I'll have to mull over the other changes a little more. By the way that was my checklist, not Kudpung's initially, but it doesn't really matter. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
BTW, I'm supposed to be E-in-C for the time being, but while I understand my principle duties are to have the final word on what gets published and when, I'm getting even more confused when trying to follow the submissions and their statuses - I have another couple of items lined up for this month, but either I've already forgotten how, or I just can't find where to add the 'From the editor' column. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes, it is Recuring themes:) I thought that coloured table was going to replace the ToC. Not that I mind either, but having to constantly update the two seems to be duplicating something. Whatever you think is best. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:21, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I listed it at WP:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom#Next issue as a reminder to the publication manager. A full ToC is probably overkill. But I should point out that we are already deviating from Zarasophos' proposal for tracking all items in the colored table. If we could get it in there, it would bring things back in alignment. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:23, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Just to bring discussion back on topic - what's the opinion on adopting the overhaul for the Signpost pages? To sum up the main differences for anyone not interested in trawling through the wall of text above:
No more transclusions of submissions onto the Newsroom
Article status is tracked by an extended checklist in the main Newsroom table
Single point of entry for new writers
General cleanup
Formatting fixes
This would be most effective if connected to some changes in team coordination and workflow as written in the new coordination page, mostly:
Regular team members start articles directly from the Newsroom
All members of the Editorial Board are Editors (with the Editor-in-Chief getting to pull the trigger & several other special posts)
Cutting of empty positions
But obviously, there needs to be consensus from the team to adopt the overhauled pages. All the static ones I'll be able to copy over, the Newsroom will probably need a bit more fiddling.
Still not sure. Would we couple this with a move to WP:Signpost/Subpage instead of the current (and out of date) WP:Wikipedia Signpost/Subpage? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:04, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd be very much in favour (especially since it would allow us to leave 10 years of accumulated subpage garbage behind), but I think we'd need to reconfigure bots for archiving etc. Should be a doable task, though. Zarasophos (talk) 22:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
Moving is a complicated due to all the templates and subtemplates that are used not just for the current issue, but also for the past issues in the archives. - Evad37[talk]01:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
A way to do it without breaking things, though, would be to leave all the pages, subpages, and templates where they are, mark them as deprecated (inside <noinclude>...</noinclude> sections to avoid breaking transcluded pages), and create new versions of everything for WP:Signpost/Subpage - Evad37[talk]02:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
As you can probably see, I was bold and implemented the main part of my planned overhaul. The Newsroom looks a bit chaotic due to the new transclusion from the Newsroom talk page (which, to be honest, I don't really get; didn't we want to get rid of transclusions? Is there a technical advantage I'm missing to using yet another page as source instead of just doing all things in the Newsroom and redirecting there?), but at least I commented out the Submission transclusions. Write-ups of workflows and what happens where can be found at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Coordination. The main Navigation template has also been overhauled to include all relevant pages in an easily reachable fashion. And @Bri:, as for your plan to move everything to Wikipedia:Signpost? I found left-behind messagees on some of these pages that said such a move was already in progress - they were from 2010... Zarasophos (talk) 12:03, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
As brought up at the dinosaur project[1], the current Signpost shows two photos from the Dilophosaurus article, the problem is, neither actually shows Dilophosaurus, but other dinosaurs (as clearly captioned in the article). So it would be quite urgent to switch these images with something else. FunkMonk (talk) 03:48, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
I took the main image for Signpost just now. Is it possible that the one labeled S. sinensis is actually Sinosaurus triassicus? Seems to be a mismatch between text and caption. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:01, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the fix! It's a confusing situation, because the specimen shown has been considered either S. triassicus or S. sinensis according to different studies, and it is uncertain whether there is one species or two... But no one considers it as Dilophosaurus anymore. FunkMonk (talk) 04:05, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
New readers
Here's a few things I've thought about we could do to attract new readers, which would hopefully also lead to more editors. (By the way, the Signpost front page had ~8k views in the last 30 days).
One time
Get a mention in the Did you Know section on the front page. - While I think producing the Signpost counts as improving the /Signpost page, it's probably pretty unlikely to actually happen
Add a watchlist notice for Signpost publication - Discussion 1, Notification at Village Pump; The participants of the discussions seem pretty solidly in favour, how long are RfCs or Watchlist message discussions usually open?
Be way more agressive with the ol' Social Media - I have no idea about Facebook, but on Twitter we could do polls, retweets and discussions even between issues
After each future issue
Post links to Signpost articles on pages that have been reported on, such as the recent Discussion report and the Village Pump subpage for deletion of portals.
Post on WP:Teahouse.
Any other ideas? Marketing can obviously get spammy (duh), but I think we'll need at least a little of it in order to survive. Zarasophos (talk) 08:27, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
We didn't post to social media in March because the active people did not have the social media credentials. I think Chris is looking for them to use in concert with publication going forward.
As for your ideas, all sound good. I wonder if the DYK people would be receptive.
I'd like to have some measure of our readership so we can gauge the impact that changes make or will make in the future. Is there any metric at all for "circulation"? ☆ Bri (talk) 15:01, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
I sent out a tweet from @wikisignpost for the current issue. I'm waiting on The ed17 to get the Facebook credential for our existing account. I am gathering a ideas about a larger social media strategy and I'll let the community here know when I have a plan. Chris Troutman (talk)15:07, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: OOC, have you tried Tweetdeck? It'll allow you to prep and schedule tweets to go out in the future without any further input from you.
Could someone please follow up with Xaosflux about the watchlist notice? He appears to be the only person who decides on what goes on the watchlist. When I asked for the watchlist notice for this issue he insisted onh there being a discussion. I don't know how much discussion it takes to convince him. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:03, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
xaosflux did not start a discussion at the VP. He did the proper thing and used the VP to notify of a discussion, which incidentally is taking place at MediaWiki_talk:Watchlist-messages#Signpost. That said, it's probably time to suggest to him that there is sufficient consensus already. That mini discussionisn't likely to draw 100s of participants any more than a Move RfC does on an article tp. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:35, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd prefer that anyone besides me close that discussion out, as I'm at least tangentially involved and while I'm not the "decider" for WL-notices I do maintenance them often, and would likely be the one to implement the posting if the support for it is realized. — xaosfluxTalk01:59, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
Not sure about the technicalities, but there is a thing showing up in the watchlist whenever a new site-wide thing happens: Arbcom lections, or various site-wide campaigns. A link thre can be put whenever a new signpost is released. Nergaal (talk) 18:57, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
I saw multiple links to Signpost on someone's talk page, and got here, but have still not found any overall description of what the Signpost is, where to find it, how long it is, how to search it, why I'd want to read it, etc. Does it lead to policy? make us better editors? I've been editing on wikipedia for years, but never heard of it before. First impression is that it seems long with random topics, so it would take some overview to make people like me come back regularly, rather than spend my limited time editing articles. This is a talk page; there's a "project page" which contains apparently random, and often not self-explanatory, titles of articles, but no overall descriptive page. The greyed all-caps titles are somewhat more self-explanatory than the big black titles, but are pretty hard to read. Perhaps the project page needs to start with an overview or link to such an overview. Not an overview of the most recent issue, but an overview of the whole concept. Numbersinstitute (talk) 22:26, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I answered this on the user's talkpage. Hope that this doesn't indicate a new widespread barrier to readership. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:29, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Some data
I've been looking for data to see how we've been doing in terms of readers the last two issues; the general outlook seems to be positive. If we look at the pageview statistics for the Signpost main page for the last year, we can see that while the spikes on release of each new issue have been decreasing, but the number of readers over time has increased. An interesting comparison is that to the main page of the German Kurier; the Signpost main page doesn't even have half of the Kurier views. However, the Kurier consists only of a main page, while Signpost articles are obviously their own subpages. This gives us another interesting comparison: News and Notes pageviews for each issue (apart from 02-05, which didn't have one). Issue 02-20 is the obvious outlier, with double as many views as the next one, but this can probably be attributed to the delay of the next issue. Another interesting statistic are [monthly edits to the Subscribe page, where the last three months have reached numbers not seen since early 2016.
All in all, I'd say we're going in the right direction. Keep it up, everyone! Zarasophos (talk) 18:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for that analysis, Zarasophos. I think Kudpung is moving forward with some stuff that should help us understand our audience better, as well. This is important work: developing an audience and keeping them engaged. He and I have another thing in the works that I hope energizes the Newsroom; not quite ready to reveal yet. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:01, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
The signpost seems to have been half-published this month- the main "Signpost" page has a lot of last month's blurbs linking to this month's articles (e.g. "Has the wind gone out of the AdminShip's sails?" linking to this months "The Admin Ship - All Hands on Deck"). --PresN00:28, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
This is going to be big. Will need a good report by someone with a flair for prose.
main page Italian Wiki today:(translated)
Dear Reader,
On 5 July 2018 the European Parliament will decide whether to speed up the approval of the copyright directive. This directive, if promulgated, will significantly limit the freedom of the Internet.
Instead of updating the copyright laws in Europe to promote everyone's participation in the information society, it threatens online freedom and creates barriers to accessing the Net by imposing new barriers, filters and restrictions. If the proposal is approved, it may be impossible to share a newspaper article on social networks or find it on a search engine. Wikipedia itself would risk to close.
The proposal has already met with the firm disapproval of over 70 computer scientists, including web creator Tim Berners-Lee (here), 169 academics (here), 145 organizations working in the fields of human rights, freedom of the press, scientific research and the computer industry (here) and the Wikimedia Foundation (here).
For these reasons, the Italian Wikipedia community has decided to obscure all encyclopedia pages. We want to continue to offer a free, open, collaborative encyclopedia with verifiable content. We therefore ask all Members of the European Parliament to reject the current text of the directive and to reopen the debate by examining the many proposals of the Wikimedia associations, starting with the abolition of Articles 11 and 13, as well as the extension of the freedom of panorama to the whole EU and the protection of the public domain.''
Similar main page (translation) on the Spanish Wikipedia:
Dear reader, :
On July 5, 2018, the plenary of the European Parliament will vote on whether to proceed with a proposal for a directive on copyright. This, if approved, would significantly damage the open Internet we know today.
Instead of updating copyright laws in Europe and promoting the participation of all citizens in the information society, the directive would threaten online freedom and impose new filters, barriers and restrictions to access the Web. If the proposal were approved in its current version, actions such as sharing a news item on social networks or accessing it through a search engine would become more complicated on the Internet; Wikipedia itself would be at risk.
So far, dozens of relevant people in the field of information technology have been strongly opposed to this proposal - among them, the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, and the Internet pioneer, Vinton Cerf, 169 academics, 145 organizations for human rights, press freedom, scientific research and technological development; and the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that promotes, among other projects for free knowledge, this encyclopedia.
For these reasons, the community of Wikipedia in Spanish has decided to darken all the pages of the encyclopedia before and during the voting of the text, that is, until 10 o'clock (UTC) on July 5. We want to continue offering an open, free, collaborative and free work with verifiable content. We call on all members of the European Parliament to vote against the current text, to open it up for discussion and to consider the numerous proposals of the Wikimedia movement to protect access to knowledge; among them, the elimination of articles 11 and 13, the extension of the freedom of panorama to the whole EU and the preservation of the public domain.
In other countries of the Spanish-speaking world, such as Colombia and Mexico, the Wikipedia community has recently opposed similar proposals. We ask you to keep abreast of their development and support this effort.
For more information on the campaign in the European Parliament and how to act, visit https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_vote_in_2018/en. You can follow the communication in social networks with the tags #WikipediaSeApaga, #SalvemosInternet and #SaveYourInternet.
Moving is very complicated due to all the templates and subtemplates that are used not just for the current issue, but also for the past issues in the archives. The only way to do it without definitely breaking things would be to leave all the pages, subpages, and templates where they are, mark them as deprecated (inside <noinclude>...</noinclude> sections to avoid breaking transcluded pages), and create new versions of everything. And because a large chunk of the templates are calling each other, they can't just be copied over to anew location – each new version would have to be carefully edited to call the new lot of templates rather than the old ones. Plus the RSS feeds would probably break if their categories get moved. Plus the publication script would need updating. TLDR: It's a tonne of work, and something(s) will probably end up breaking unless its done very, very, carefully. - Evad37[talk]03:12, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Just to credit the minor things, with thanks to Bluerasberry who added WP:Singpost as a redirect several years ago. Personally I think it would make a great name for a musical branch of this great publication. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, sing out with any news if you have any. Glad you found the redirect useful and feel encouraged to make your own when you think they might be useful. If you ever want help to submit content to Signpost then feel free to message either me or here. Blue Rasberry (talk)14:21, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
Suggestions: Signpost-specific hatnote template, alt text in image templates
(Note: I understand that the next publication's deadline is very close, so feel free to completely ignore this until after publication. This is not urgent at all.
In my editing and review of the source code for Signpost articles, I have developed two suggestions that may improve them:
Create a Signpost-specific hatnote (or just implement usage of {{hatnote}}) for "Reviewed by..." and other such hatnotes. This would avoid abuse of description list markup (the colons) and provide more semantic HTML.
Add an (optional) |alt= parameter to all appropriate media-related Signpost templates, especially Inline image and Inline image resizable, thereby allowing inclusion of alt text just as one otherwise can with files. This would ensure that users with screen readers, such as blind users, benefit from the images; and would provide a description of those images for users who do not load images for whatever reason (browser setting, browser type, bandwidth concerns, etc.).
Seems very do-able. Thanks for the suggestion. Letting other editors/writers know about this is a little more work I think. Best Regards, Barbara✐ ✉ 22:04, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, Barbara. After some consideration, the first issue can actually be solved by just ensuring Signpost editors use {{in5}}, though I think that is an inferior workaround to a hatnote. Regardless of how it is implemented, if any change does occur, then that would need to be understood by anyone editing for The Signpost.Regarding the second matter about alt text, I checked the template codes and found alt text functionality implemented in at least one, but not in others. After comparing the codes, I decided to boldly implement functionality for the Inline image (diff) and Inline image resizable (diff) templates so that the alt text I was adding to images using those templates would display. I hope you all don't mind. So long as it's acceptable, I can proceed to do so with the rest of the image templates found at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates.A third change in practice to consider, which also ensures semantic HTML and accessibility for those using screen readers and even unthinking machines, is using templates like {{em}}, {{strong}}, {{var}}, and {{dfn}} to wrap text when emphasizing (italics), strongly emphasizing (bold), indicating a variable (italics), and introducing a term that is defined for the article (no typeface change) respectively. Their equivalent HTML could be used instead, but using templates may be easier and is the wikified option. Relatedly, I have noticed that <center>...</center> is sometimes used to center text. That element was deprecated in HTML 4.0 and is no longer supported in HTML5. An HTML5-compliant alternative is {{center}}.Again, these are all minor issues and likely will not be relevant to an overwhelming majority of readers, except perhaps years from now. For example, as far as I am aware, screen reader support for semantic markup is still poor to absent, at least as of October 2014 (date in metadata). These all may be better practice to consider, though, if the Signpost staff at all wishes to do so. I understand that The Signpost is not the mainspace and that such quibbles may be even more pedantic here than there, so this is even less of a doubleplusunbig deal. Nonetheless, this talk page is for input and this is mine. Thank you for your time. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 23:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Ellipses in quotes
It has been suggested elsewhere that we modify MOS:ELLIPSIS and, when quoting another source, always include ellipses inserted by Signpost editors inside square brackets: [...] to indicate that they weren't in the source material. If there is consensus, we can modify the Signpost style guide. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:47, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
I'll semi-repeat what I said in user talk (with some expansion): If the quoted material itself contains an ellipsis, then one editorially inserted by the quoter should definitely be in square brackets, to differentiate them. But it needn't necessarily be done otherwise. There are some academic publishers who require it in all cases, but that's an obscure style. It's not typical in news, books, etc. However, the original proponent of the idea (Nøkkenbuer), in relation to The Signpost in particular is that using [...] consistently will present a cohesive style. And academics like the style because it is precise and without any ambiguity (unless you are quoting another academic quoting a third academic, and the second elided some of the third and you're quoting the elision, I suppose). These aren't poor arguments, but the fact that the majority of publications don't use the more arcane [...] unless they really have to would suggest that it's highly optional. I don't do it on WP unless I have to, but I do use it in my off-site technical writing; it need not be about personal preference/habits, and like any style matter on WP it's a matter of house style. If TS has its own mini-MoS (its ... room style?) then it's really up to the regulars who work on it what elision style they want to use. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 22:25, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Sorry Bri, I was entirely unclear — I meant that the table looks like what I said, which is as you say clearly wrong. Am I wrong is thinking "Editorial Board" is intended to be the header, while EIC/AEIC/EE should each have their current occupant, empty or otherwise, underneath them? Right now everything is shifted. ~ Amory(u • t • c)19:45, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes! Please do!! We need all the help we can get. You may want to check out the quick start page, our official resource for new writers. If there's a regular feature you want to write, reply below and I can provide some guidance on that. Or are you more interested in editing? — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 15:03, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for dropping by! If I can make some suggestions for (ir)regular contributions: 1) update the traffic report from the Top25. It's fairly simple cut/paste, trim the list of 25 to 10 and add dated headers as appropriate. 2) Find brief items for In the Media -- search for "wikipedia" in a web-based news aggregator often returns good results. Or scan Jimbo's talkpage or Women in Red talkpage. Wikipedia:Press coverage 2018#September has a dozen items that could be copied over, too. 3) If you are a Wiki "insider" (and I think you are) you probably know where to go for Discussion report tidbits. 4) Any and all help on column copyediting especially as we get within 3-4 days of publication at end of the month. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:05, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Your suggestion sounds great-the only problem I see is that we might not anyone available that would put in the time to do that. There is probably an editor who has the skills to shorten the task you are suggesting but I don't know who that would be. Best Regards, Barbara✐ ✉ 18:33, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
More generally, had it ever been nominated for deletion, as all your examples show, there is likelihood, it would have been developed and saved. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:06, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, although according to the AfC guidelines, the reviewer did not make a mistake when declining, either. (I suppose technically it's called "declining an AfC submission". MPS1992 (talk) 22:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Hey, Alanscottwalker, you may be pleased to see the developments at the "Suggestions" page (permanent link). Incidentally, I had suggested something there similar to what you did here, as well. Given that there appears to already be one piece of substantive coverage about the incident and perhaps another from a different angle, I am concerned that republishing (a summarized version of) that user essay might cause the issue to be unduly focused on that event. Yes, there is much interest in covering the "Strickland incident", but including all the coverage without robust content on a more diverse array of topics balancing it may cause that quality coverage to seem like filler. If you are interested in writing on something that interests you for the next issue, please do propose it; just so long as it is relevant (and ties back) to Wikipedia, the Wikimedia movement, or the Foundation, I am inclined to support inclusion.Regardless, I do think that at least a section or mention should be given to the user essay somewhere in the issue, since including Bradv's perspective on it all is crucial to provide readers with a more complete understanding. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 09:08, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
The editors of the Signpost would have to ask Bradv if he wants his essay to be published in the Signpost (even in condensed version, although you do not lack for space). If you-all want another piece by someone else covering the coverage and even op-eding in response, that's fine - and, no I don't think, you should have Bradv be the one to do that. I don't see why the Signpost can't have two pieces (and even another op-ed from another perspective: someone from Women-in-Red?). The value of the BradV piece is internal to Wikipedia, as it is an editor trying to do what he thought policy/guidelines want, in real time -- and that is a very valuable perspective to reflect upon, as we constantly evaluate our policy/guidelines. It is also a perspective that is unlikely to be published anywhere else, especially in detail, so it seems right up the Signpost's alley. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:21, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
If everything pans out in that "Suggestions" section, there might already be two separate pieces about it. This user essay, or a summary thereof, will potentially be the third if included. Sure, they all take different angles, go in different directions, and fill different functions, but they are all still about the "Strickland incident". Regardless, I think what you said is a cogent rationale for including either it or a summary of it, so long as Bradv is okay with it—they can even write the summary, if desired. I am also not opposed to publishing the original in full.I am still concerned about potentially three separate pieces related to this incident being excessive, though I am not inclined to discourage content creation for The Signpost. If substantial content on other topics becomes part of the upcoming issue, then those concerns are no longer so great. If not, however, then I just hope the readers take it in stride as a showcase of a diversity of opinions and perspectives. But of course, this is not my decision to make; that is up to the Signpost team. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 10:44, 7 October 2018 (UTC)Addendum: Then again, after some thought, perhaps I am presuming too much of Chris troutman's potential publication. It might be that Chris' piece will just be using the "Strickland incident" as a background or launching point for a larger commentary that may only tangentially relate to the events themselves. Perhaps Chris can elaborate further on those plans; if they are as I just described, then even all three pieces might not be such a cause for concern after all. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 10:55, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, even three pieces don't make a 'theme issue', although in the future theme issues might be something to think about, but that would likely take much time over months to develop pieces on a whole theme. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:00, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
A themed issue may be beyond the present capacity of The Signpost, though I definitely support such prospects. A themed series may be closer to doable, however, as Kudpung demonstrated with his AdminShip series. It was twofold thematic, too, both in terms of functionally being about admins and stylistically told with a creatively nautical narrative. It was met with praise, even within certain off-Wiki dens.Right now, however, it is difficult enough to even have enough content to publish. This "Strickland incident" has been a boon of sorts in that regard, insofar as The Signpost now has a surfeit of content connected to it. Assuming there is a next issue, it may be riding the waves of this media splash, but what of the issue after that? The publication may find itself right back in more dire straits once again. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 11:29, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
The various interactions about the Strickland incident definitely merit coverage in Discussion report. Let's make sure to get something there (with balance of course, not to repeat issue 10's kerfuffle). ☆ Bri (talk) 16:49, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Wiki golf to become a massive eSport?
Spanish gamer celebrity Alex el Capo livestreamed two rounds of wiki golf, which he described as a massive multiplayer online eSport. He succeeded in reach from a small hill in Spanish to videogame company Valve, and from a Uruguayan metal rap album to high fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson. However, he required quite lot of time and clicks, not to mentionand heavy use of text search. The video, which begins with research on Koreas, reached 120 k views in two days. --NaBUru38 (talk) 03:34, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Hi Signpost,
I'm interested in getting involved as a copy editor (and also helping with editing articles more generally, if that's an available position). I have experience editing at professional news outlets. The quick start page seems to be mostly for writers, though. Can you point me in the right direction to sign up? Thanks! - Sdkb (talk) 01:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
@Sdkb: glad to hear you are willing to lend a hand! Can I suggest starting with Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Coordination? Then hang out at Newsroom (talk) and see what discussion for the next issue is afoot. A few more tasks I suggested last month when another person asked are:
Update the traffic report from the Top25. It's fairly simple cut/paste, trim the list of 25 to 10 and add dated headers as appropriate.
Find brief items for In the Media -- search for "wikipedia" in a web-based news aggregator often returns good results. Or scan Jimbo's talkpage or Women in Red talkpage. Wikipedia:Press coverage 2018#October has a dozen items that could be copied over, too.
If you are a Wiki "insider", you probably know where to go for Discussion report tidbits.
Any and all help on column copyediting especially as we get within 3-4 days of publication at end of the month.
The Top-25 report contains the following about Brett Kavanaugh: "Ugh. Don't remind me that this guy is on the Supreme Court. What a sad, sad day for America. Please, never mention this name to me ever again, unless it's part of an impeachment effort." I find this quite offensive. This certainly wouldn't be tolerated in an article and I don't think it belongs in this context either. This is a summary of an article, and is arguably written in WP's voice. Even if it were clearly an opinion piece, WP is not the place for opinion on such subjects - go express your political views on some blog. MB13:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost does not write using Wikipedia's voice, it has its own voice. For example, its journalists are often expected to do original research. It also regularly publishes opinion. I have noticed lots of humor/opinion in the Top-25 report before and wondered if it was appropriate there, but that's up to the Signpost's editor. It very well might be appropriate as the topic might otherwise lapse into an extremely boring presentation, a little commentary lightens things up. Smallbones(smalltalk)14:58, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
I apologize to anyone who was offended by my commentary in the Top 25/Traffic Report. As I have said before, you are welcome to take it out. While opinions are common in the Report, I probably went too far here. pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 16:12, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
In addition to the comments above, please also keep in mind that the "Traffic report" is an edited republication of the Top 25 Report. Although it is described as "written in collaboration" with those who work at the Top 25 Report, it is really just the latter writing the report, publishing it as their separate newsletter, and The Signpost abridging a copypasted version with some editing; check the page histories and compare the reports to see for yourself. In that sense, the traffic report is more a lightly edited print or web syndication of the Top 25 Report than it is an original Signpost work. Consequently, unless you are advocating for The Signpost to more actively determine the content (or terminate the feature?), I think your content complaints are best directed there.Regardless, The Signpost is an internal, Wikipedia-namespace magazine and thus is not generally bound by the content policies and guidelines (except those on biographies of living persons for legal reasons), which are intended for mainspace articles and encyclopedic content therein. Whereas WikiVoice is the voice of the edited, The Signpost is the voice of the editor; it is much more like essays in that regard, where opinionated content is considered normal. So yes, such commentary probably would not be tolerated in an article, but The Signpost does not publish "articles" in the Wikipedia sense because it does not write encyclopedic content and it is not in the mainspace. That does not mean your input is irrelevant (of course it matters; you are the reader), but it does mean that there is no rules-based reason for avoiding such commentary.If you want to take advantage of this reality, then have your perspective included by writing for The Signpost, submitting content for it to publish, and participating in content discussions during drafting in the newsroom. So long as the content is related to Wikipedia, Wikimedia, or the Foundation, you can provide commentary, too, pending editorial consensus. You can do the same with the Top 25 Report, as well, whose team will probably be glad to have another editor helping out. Ultimately, one of the best remedies for addressing problems like this, and to ensure that they are, is to be bold and participate in shaping the content yourself, as is the wiki way. In the context of The Signpost, where postpublication editing is generally discouraged, this means participating before publication. I hope you do. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 17:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
@ProgrammingGeek: by all means do, and welcome to the Newsroom team! Don't be surprised if we call on you to do some housework nearer to publication deadline
I would like to know the English language link for this page. The data to the currently linked English language link is not correct I guess which is the reason why I am asking this question here.Adithyak1997 (talk) 10:40, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
@Pipetricker: I am currently involved in updating the malayalam language version of the page Portal:Current events. In that page, in its right side navigation bar, there is a link with the name 'News about Wikipedia' which redirects to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost page in English wikipedia. That specific page is updated by some users I think. When I checked [this] page, which is considered as the malayalam language link for the english page Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost, I was able to find that the specific page in malayalam was updated by Mediawiki Message Delivery. So, what I was trying to do is to identify the mislinked page in malayalam wikipedia and redirect it to the correct link in malayalam wikipedia so that I can create the new Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost in Malayalam.Adithyak1997 (talk) 11:21, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
For the interested readers: WSJ articles are paywalled, but they don't paywall links from Twitter. Here's a tweet by the author, from which you can link to the article:
The pertinent quote is: Questions about Mr. Whitaker’s claims to have been an Academic All-American were raised Monday on Wikipedia Signpost, an in-house publication for Wikipedia editors, by a user named Smallbones.. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:24, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
I have no idea where this belongs
From a comic strip web site, where comments included one about Wikipedia removing information that didn't fit, leading to this response: "Sometimes it’s ok, but the project was largely ruined by Wikipedians.".— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:14, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
How about a physical distribution of Signpost? I'd be willing to pay good money to have a traditional newspaper looking Signpost appear in my physical mailbox. That'd be cool. Benjamin (talk) 08:48, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
On my browser, The Signpost's articles appear in a font size that is much smaller than the setting I have chosen for articles. This change appears to have happened, at least to me, sometime in 2015. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-01-07 is fine, but Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-01-06 is too small. In my browser, I have to enlarge the font size for the whole session, which then makes all other web pages have text that is too large.
Is this happening for others? Was this a deliberate change? If it is happening and was deliberate, why was this change made, and would The Signpost's be open to changing back to normal prose size? Thanks for any information you can provide. – Jonesey95 (talk) 10:17, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
I tried removing the font size specification, but it did not make a difference for me. I did a test in MS Word, however, and I noted that Helvetica Neue, the font requested by that template, renders considerably smaller at a given font size than Verdana, which appears to be my default sans serif font (Vector skin, probably some other settings somewhere). I would be surprised if I am the only person that this is affecting. Is there an editorial reason for choosing Helvetica Neue, or for specifying a font at all? If not, it may be best for accessibility to remove the font specification and let the reader choose a font. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:02, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Hi @Bri: With some effort I might be able to figure this out, but I have many other tasks to deal with already and adding anything requires that I drop or delay something else. I have no plans to add another task that's outside of my current focus areas. Regrets, --Pine✉00:18, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Difference between 2015-01-07 and 2016-01-06 for Evad37 This change also predates my time at the Signpost, but for me the difference in font size is barely distinguishable (see screenshot). This may be one of those things that varies between operating systems, or dependant on which fonts you have installed. I don't have any objection to reverting to the standard font if this is causing trouble for other users. - Evad37[talk]00:46, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
I have removed the font family and size specifications from the above-linked file. The most recent Signpost certainly looks different, but it is much more readable, in my browser at least. If it's OK with everyone, I'd like to leave it like that unless there are complaints. I did notice that the 2016 Signpost linked above is still pretty small. I'll poke around to see if it uses some other header file. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:13, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Don't edit it yourself. Suggest you change on the relevant talk page. In my experience, the pepole who put together the signpost are always willing to put in significant corrections and improvements. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:44, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Non-controversial changes such as fixing typos are generally okay. I think this link would fall under the same category. More controversial stuff should be discussed but I can't see a reason why not to include it. Be bold! — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 15:15, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Apokrif, I think what you are referring to is mentioned in the The Signpost subpage, "Content Guidance: under the section "Errata". "Where an error is discovered, minor corrections are usually made to the article directly; major corrections may require an accompanying editor's note at the bottom of the page. Post-publishing updates are almost never done unless they would be extremely confusing to a reader, and even then we prefer to leave the content intact. For example, if a linked article is deleted shortly after publication, leave the sentence intact but add an editor's note after the sentence. Post-publication spelling corrections are also allowed, though post-publication copy-editing, which undermines an article's impression of quality, is not." Apart from this, the Signpost Team is there. Regards. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 15:20, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
When I click on the humour article link, it takes me to what I thought was a draft page for the next issue of the Signpost. I actually can't find the humour article that was part of our most recent issue of the Signpost. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉13:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Evad. The error is mine. I lost my sense of time. I will leave it as is-but this article is flawed. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉13:48, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Subscriptions to inactive users with Template:Not around added to their talk pages
A published Signpost article which concerns personal pronouns has been put up for deletion with over 40 !votes already. To my knowledge this is the first time this has been seriously proposed in the history of The Signpost. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:26, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
I recommend doing what most editors would do in this situation: retract the article, blank the page, mark it as historical, with an apology for having published it in the first place. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}05:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
You already said that at the other place. Let 's keep discussion there OK? This was intended to notify people unaware of the proposed action, not to open a second venue. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'm just suggesting that if you retract and blank the article the deletion won't be necessary. Bradv🍁06:04, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes I said it in many places, because this is the first time I hear the editorial staff reply to the idea, rather than cast aspersions, bully, or intimidate its critics. That the reply about a retraction still dodges the problem is discouraging. If the community is forced to delete the article because the Signpost refuses to take responsability for it and make amends for the hurt it caused, that would be a sad, sad outcome indeed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}06:10, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
This is a shocking and monumental failure by the Signpost editorial staff, Bri. Either you withdraw this trash and apologize, or I will be sure that the community will debate more serious consequences for the editorial staff. This is a debacle. Deal with it now. Cullen328Let's discuss it07:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Bri, at the cost of sounding rude, I may gently suggest that it might be time to seriously introspect into whether you and Kudpung are guys are the perfect fit for editorial duties of The Signpost.
And that kinda gets to the point of it: it's easy to cry that one's offended and therefore demand apologies and resignations but when volunteers provide a service gratis, there's a lack of recognition that the customers who paid nothing can take their eyeballs elsewhere. The Signpost has, even recently, posted content that I didn't like. I did what any reader should do: I left a comment on the talk page about my disapproval. Chris Troutman (talk)15:20, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Extended content
This is a shocking and monumental failure of all the templating people. Plural_they have so important things to say about what others have writen, that plural_they have no time left to write by plural_them-selves. What about a template atop each article ? Pldx1 (talk) 11:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
A patroller thinks something might be wrong with the political correctness of this page. That patroller can't be arsed to write an article by oneself, but can rest assured that sticking on a tag is a sufficient lip-service to patroller's duties.
As you travel through life you will encounter attempts at humor that you find to be offensive. See [6], which documents and complains about some very offensive material that is for some reason widely accepted as being OK. Go ahead and flame the "comic", boycott its sponsors/advertisers, etc., but do not attempt to censor. Besides being morally repugnant (who are you to tell me what I am allowed to see?) you are extremely likely to end up experiencing the Streisand effect up close and personal.
I have further advice for the censors. Don't read things that you find to be offensive. Unless you are tied to a chair with your head in a clamp, your eyes taped open, a self-refreshing Wikipedia feed on a monitor, and the Wikipedia Song blaring into your ears, nobody is forcing you to read and respond to The Signpost. Simply stop clicking on the links marked "editorial" or "humor". The fact that you have a choice about what you read means that if you encounter something that you are offended by you only have yourself to blame.
If you are tied to a chair, etc., let me address your captors: First, keep up the good work. Second, please take away its keyboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:37, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Nobody is censoring anything, we are opposed to retaining inappropriate material. It is not censorship to remove unhelpful and inappropriate material any more than it is censorship to remove unsourced or attack BLPs.
There is a reasonable expectation that material in a newspaper which states its purpose as informing, entertaining, and publishing would do one of those things. It is reasonable to expect something with this imprimatur not to actively offend or be hurtful.
Had the authors written an essay using policy and encyclopedic guidelines to disagree with the current policies or guidelines around pronoun usage, nobody would be upset and none of this would have happened. It is the manner and tone in which this was presented that has upset a great many of us. ~ Amory(u • t • c)15:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Too many semantics here imho. Yes WP is not free speech forum, nevertheless WP projects pages are supposed to be a place for the frank and contrarian exchange of opinions between Wikipedians as well.
Your first point correctly points out that Signpost is not the ANR (hence different policies may apply) and yet in your second point you make an analogy to ANR as an argument, that is a bit inconsistent and soft of exactly that misunderstanding of policy you were complaining about in your first point.
One of the 3 expectations for newspaper article you cite above seems clearly fullfilled, that is "satire" is "entertainment". Moreover a discussion on the use of pronoun (and related language issues/problems) in WP seems a fair subject for debate.
To which degree that "satire" is actually "actively" hurtful is unclear to me and seems to be a bit in the eye of the beholder. Now there is apparently are larger number of editors that found this satire offensive, but that on its own doesn't necessarily imply that the text itself surpasses the threshold for the policy violations claimed here or in the associated deletion discussion.--Kmhkmh (talk) 16:20, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
Political correctness is gone too far. It's making me want to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill. GoodDay (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
@The C of E: you may have intended to make a witty rejoinder by mentioning "Generation Snowflake", but I looked at that article and it only made me think of our wise sage User:Kudpung. For example, the article you mention says that people of that generation are sterotypically considered "more prone to taking offence and having less psychological resilience than previous generations, or as being too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own". It saddens me that Kudpung has recently been poorly, but I am sure he will soon be back to his former self. MPS1992 (talk) 05:25, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
Proposed merge
Hello Signpost readers and editors, I've been reading about the lack of volunteer work at the Signpost, and also noticed a page very similar in purpose to The Signpost, Wikipedia:Goings-on. To better coordinate efforts between the (admittedly few) editors of that page and the Signpost, and to combine wiki news into one outlet as opposed to several uncoordinated pages (G.O. doesn't get much traffic), I propose WP:Goings-on be merged into The Signpost. Thanks, PrussianOwl (talk) 01:58, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
One problem I see with this is that The Signpost is monthly, while Goings-On is weekly. Not saying it couldn’t work, just something to consider. — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 02:17, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
As I correctly predicted, had Headbomb and Fæ had simply ignored the page, it would have had comparatively few readers (most people who get the signpost notifications don't bother reading the subpages), but by attempting to remove that which they found offensive, they triggered the Streisand effect and insured that before this is over tens of thousands of people will have read the page. On the Internet, attempts at censorship almost always backfire, generate a ton of free publicity, and result in the material being reproduced on dozens of websites and in hundreds of online discussions. See AACS encryption key controversy for another example of attempted censorship having the opposite effect. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:53, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
It's so transparently dumb, here, to use the "Streisand Effect" for pretty much anything except to stress one's agenda. It does not matter, at all. Never on Wikipedia is the issue that you are free to publish something and have people see it, somewhere, the issue is always whether this vehicle for publication is the right one. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Plus the fact that it eventually was censored (blanking is as good as deleting to the lay reader) just confirms the whole Streisand Effect theory but I fear it is going to lead to a slippery slope where risque humour is no longer allowed on Wikipedia. I hope I am wrong. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk)17:45, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Guy, come on here with that. You must know that is an exaggerated number. It also does not necessarily prove the claim you are trying to make. (1) There's no control for this sort of thing. We don't have a second Wikipedia where these two specific editors didn't bring attention to this issue. (2) As I said here about half of all web traffic is just bots. This number has shown itself to be growing over time (sources in diff). (3) Something something.. Correlation is not causation. (4) The page is blanked, so people who head to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour are not exactly reading the article unless they actually view the history which we have no method of measuring as far as I am aware. (5) This conversation is really not going to get anywhere. (edit conflict) –MJL‐Talk‐☖18:11, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
The statistical theory that you are proposing is easy to test. Just compare the views of this Signpost humor piece with a couple of others. There is your scientific control. Bots, for example, are unlikely to just happen to visit the page that has the censorship attept more than the others. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
So Guy is blaming the people who responded to a really shitty piece of work, instead of blaming the author. "With friends like these, the Signpost does not need enemies". DuncanHill (talk) 22:20, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
So DuncanHill is blaming Barbra Streisand, who sued a photographer remove an aerial photograph of Streisand's mansion that, until she did that was viewed by four people -- none of whom had any way of telling that it was her home. That convinces me! I now realizes that it was the photographer who somehow magically made the image appear in newspapers and on Wikipedia. Barbara's actions had nothing to do with it. With enemies like Barbra Streisand, the photographer doesn't need friends. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Uh, more people seeing it was sort of the point? The problem wasn't "we have to pretend this doesn't exist!" it was "this existing in our internal newsletter is embarrassing as hell, no matter how many people see it". So more people saw it, and saw the reaction to it. This is good, because they saw the strong backlash to insensitive content. So I have no idea what you're crowing about. Parabolist (talk) 04:26, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Nope. Headbomb and Fæ were quite clear that they thought that the content was hurtful to transgendered people. A point which, BTW, I never disputed. The were also crystal clear about wanting to remove the content so that these individuals would not see it and thus be harmed. Nowhere did anyone arguing for deletion even hint that they wanted it widely disseminated.
Imagine that you agreed with Barbra Streisand about aerial images of her house being an invasion of her privacy. Imagine further that you knew what the results of her sueing the photographer would be. Would you have advised her to do it, just to embarrass the photographer? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:43, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
I guess if you completely ignore all the objections that people made that aren’t the one that proves your weird point, you ARE right! It’s blanked, everyone is mostly satisfied, you should really let it go. This whole section is embarrassing. Parabolist (talk) 06:00, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
This isn't normal (reflection/brainstorming ideas)
Premise: The current situation is not normal (or should not be). There shouldn't be drama blowing up following the publication of each issue. We shouldn't get dozens of readers telling something shouldn't have been published, or shouldn't have been covered in that way, every month.
I think it is time to reflect on the current structure and process, and whether they are serving us well. Some brainstorming ideas / points for discussion (not in any particular order, just stuff that's been going through my head)
It would be good to have more eyes on draft articles pre-publication. Maybe set up a mass-message list? – assuming that people would actually want to help out per WP:SOFIXIT
Should the community have some way to halt publication of a piece if there are multiple strong objections? – maybe somewhat along the lines of how voluntary admin recall works
Should the EIC(s) be subject to recall, or have time-limited terms? Should the position(s) be filled by voting/election? – rather than whoever has the job gets to keep it until they decide to give it up
How can we ensure that controversial subjects / minority viewpoints can still be appropriately covered? – that there isn't too much of a chilling effect preventing good-faith attempts to discuss difficult topics
Would it help to have a larger editorial board be in charge of approving articles, rather than just one person or two people? How many people? How difficult would it be to actually fill such a board?
That's what I've got to start off this discussion, feel free to raise more ideas or points for discussion below - Evad37[talk]07:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Evad, I think something needs to change for sure. That thing is not really the structure or having more eyes on drafts. I showed up hear, made my comments on the humor article, and then felt they were dismissed. That should not be the case. We shouldn't have done that. What we need is to change the culture of participation around here. I felt like I was made to choose between the Signpost and my objections on the humor article. However, there should be nothing wrong with editors giving feedback on articles ever. That really needs to stop. If I can't express my thoughts on a submission, then why should I even bother participating. Also, I have added myself as outreach manager now. ―MattLongCT-Talk-☖20:04, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
(+1) to what MattLongCT says. MattLongCT and Headbomb criticized the piece aprior to publication but were inappropriately shut down by a single sysop (who has since then evaded all responsibility for this saga) using an array of ridiculous arguments.
The first step towards the change will be to snap any links between The Signpost and the aforementioned two, who have taken charge of the publication. None seems any willing to accept any criticism and this is fundamentally contrary to the wiki-way. ∯WBGconverse08:44, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
The only pattern I see, Winged Blades of Godric, is that you have a propensity to frequent drama and drama boards, pontificating everywhere as if you were an admin, and making a lot of comments around Wikipedia that are borderline PA, taking things wildly out of context to satisfy your need for saga, and stalking my edits (diffs available) - and it's been noticed. That is what is fundamentally contrary to the wiki-way, so don't mention the word 'harrass' too casually. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:46, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
I don't much care about the patterns you see and at any case, I won't reply to some unsubstantiated aspersions which are not any related to the substance of the thread. FWIW, it's the third time that you accuse me of stalking you and I will repeat for the third time that (as someone who is an admin) you ought to know where the recourse lies. ∯WBGconverse10:05, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
I have to say, the response to the concerns raised by MattLongCT and Headbomb was highly unconstructive and frankly anti-collegiate. It does not make editors feel welcome at the Signpost, rather the opposite. DuncanHill (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
I would advise the editors to take these concerns seriously and work towards creating some sort of accountability to the community which you represent. It is inappropriate for self-appointed editors to deem themselves exempt from scrutiny because of editorial independence and nobody else being willing to do the job. If you want to be treated as newspaper editors and exercise editorial discretion, then you need to make sure that your actions are acceptable to your publisher. I think we would all rather see a self-policing system than have articles taken to MfD or editors topic-banned from the publication (hasn't happened yet, but it could).
Pre-publication community review brings the risk of vocal groups of editors shutting down perfectly reasonable articles that they disagree with. To prevent this, you could come up with a community-approved set of guidelines so that the review process would be based on policy instead of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. This would also give others the opportunity to help with things like basic fact-checking.
A community approval process for editor positions would certainly help with accountability. At the very least, the ability for the community to remove individuals from the position would be essential.
To address a point that has been raised several times: A bad Signpost is worse than no Signpost at all. –dlthewave☎17:32, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
This is like NGOs complaining to the WMF about its coverage, opining that a bad Wikipedia is worse than no Wikipedia, at all. If there's consensus against Bri as EiC, take it to WP:AN. Otherwise, be prepared to accept the sort of product provided by volunteers. You get what you paid for. Chris Troutman (talk)18:44, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
While I do not contribute to The Signpost anymore, I will happily look over pieces before publication as Evad37 suggests. Further, I would be on an editorial board if people need spots to be filled, as I think I have a relatively good sense of what should and shouldn't be published. I don't really think anybody on The Signpost's staff is at fault for the humour section of last issue, but feel the concerns raised by various editors before publication should have been listened to. assume good faith even if it kills you. Eddie891TalkWork23:09, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
I took some time to think about it, and I greatly support setting up some additional structure. Things like voting EICs in and out (although time limiting terms would probably not be a great idea), instituting clear official policies, and expanding an editorial board would help a lot. I also think we could do with a voting system to decide between multiple submissions for a column. However, I think it's going to be difficult to institute significant changes with so few contributors. In fact, I think quite a few of our problems are due to having so few people on the team. Correct me if I'm way off, but I think I only ever see about 10 people helping with each issue of the Signpost. The whole debacle with the humor piece kind of distracted from the fact that the rest of the issue was falling apart at the seams. How many times have we had to cut segments, not because there was no content to write, but because there was nobody to write it? We should definitely refine our process and make it more efficient, but we should also see if we can get more contributors on board since we're spread pretty thin right now. These problems go hand in hand. Let me know if I need to clarify anything; I'm being constantly interrupted as I type this so my phrasing is bound to be a bit rough. ♦AcoriSage20:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
@Acorri: Your first three sentences are discredited by everything else you said. Everyone wants to fault the Signpost contributors but calling for more participation doesn't work when we have a hard time scraping up volunteers. You seem too confident offering advice when you, yourself, are a relatively new editor. Either you want to step up and replace those persons you fault (which you're not, in my opinion, qualified to do) or you need to just keeping rowing on your small task on the team and leave it to more-informed editors to fix the issue. Chris Troutman (talk)20:18, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman and Acorri: With all due respect, I feel there is a certainly something missing here. Chris, who do you consider to be a signpost contributor? Like, get a list out beyond those listed here. Who has contributed any amount to the Singpost but is not listed there? That might be a good place to start... or maybe not. Up to you! :) –MJL‐Talk‐☖20:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
@MJL: I don't understand; please explain. (Also, I don't think there's any problem that needs to be solved, hence I don't offer a solution.) Chris Troutman (talk)20:36, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Chris troutman, my apologies. On the note of retention and recruitment, do we have a list of Wikipedians who have contributed to the last few issues? My thoughts are maybe that we could reach out to them to get them on the team more formally. –MJL‐Talk‐☖21:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: I'm not really trying to "fault" anyone. I just see that there are problems and I'm offering my thoughts to the discussion. I'm not trying to claim to have all the answers or overstep my knowledge. Clearly, I wouldn't be the right person to write policy, but I can see it needs to be done, and I would be ready and willing to help with the process in any way I can. Also, I didn't mean to downplay the difficulty of actually getting more people to help, although upon rereading my writing I can definitely see how it would come across that way. I was not so much trying to assert a solution as I was trying to bring up angle on the problem that hadn't been covered yet. I hope that makes sense, I know my phrasing is a bit discordant today. ♦AcoriSage23:42, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
I've been a reporter for small newspapers my entire adult life. Attacks by some readers and disagreement among some staffers happens at every single publication of any worth; you have to expect that some people will be pissed by some articles or else you're generating pablum. If you produce any kind of informative publication, then quarreling and outrage and cries of bias isn't a bug, it's a feature. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
DavidWBrooks, Considering the fact a good amount of Signpost editors disagreed with the humor article, and we did not have any recourse, would you say that is a legitimate concern? Also, I don't see your name listed as a contributing writer... would you consider writing for the "In the media" section? –MJL‐Talk‐☖00:14, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
I think the piece was within legitimate boundaries for disagreement; in other words, publishing it was fine even if I don't agree with it. And while I appreciate the need, reporting for Signpost would be exactly like my job and as I'm sure you understand, when I'm not working I like to do something that's not like my job! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:35, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Back in 2003 when I joined, I figured wikipedia would fizzle and die in a year or two. Never thought it would haunt - er, I mean, be a joyful part of my life for so long. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:13, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
I think the current situation is a bit more than "some people ... pissed by some articles". Controversy and passionate disagreements and arguments on a talk page is one thing, having a broad base of readers wanting something expunged from the record with drama spilling over into AN/ANI/Arbcom/elsewhere, is something else. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there even is one, but surely there is something we can try besides take it to AN/Arbcom or accept things the way they are – hence this reflection/brainstorming section. - Evad37[talk]01:22, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
The solution is relatively simple, The Signpost must retract this piece, and apologize for it. Because as it stands, the community told The Signpost that publishing what is effectively an attack piece against a marginalized community is not acceptable, and The Signpost has yet to acklowledge that and its editors must self-introspect accordingly. Fucking up happens. People have blindspots. But burying one's head in the sand, or pretending the problem lies with the readership and hoping things die down isn't the way forward. But this is a good roadmap.
Retract the article, clearly and unambiguously
Admit the fuckups (and there are multiple ones here, from failures to hear warnings ahead of time, to actually publishing of the piece, to harrasment of Signpost readers), acknowledge their root causes, both human and procedural, as The Signpost sees them, as well as clashes with The Signpost's mission and responsability towards the community
Apologize, unambiguously, resolve to do better in the future, with specific details on what The Signpost will do on a go-forward basis to prevent these things
Otherwise, the Signpost's readership and writership will dwindle, likely with several people boycotting the publication out of principle, and refusing to be associated with it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}03:09, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, I'll admit my part in getting it wrong with this comment. But when I was referring to "solution", I meant more generally, as in what we should be doing differently in the future; i.e. this section is meant to be discussing the root causes and what The Signpost will do on a go-forward basis to prevent these things. I agree that burying heads in sand isn't helpful – that also applies to those readers who would boycott the publication. This is after all a wiki where if you don't like the way things are, you can (try to) change them through discussions/proposals. - Evad37[talk]08:00, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Evad, I really appreciate that comment. I'm glad to know we still have people both willing to admit their shortcomings but also trying to find equitable solutions. It ain't easy running this thing. –MJL‐Talk‐☖17:57, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
@Headbomb: I don't think that piece was the unambiguous attack that you imagine. Your demands for nonsensical denouncements with the looming threat of lost readers only indicates to me that your minority opinion has left you dis-attached from objective reality. I hope that you follow-through on your rant and become disassociated with The Signpost and perhaps WIkipedia, as a whole. Chris Troutman (talk)10:56, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
"If you got a problem with that, boycott us, because we don't care, The Signpost and Wikipedia is better off without you anyway." Do you even hear yourself? "I hope you leave Wikipedia?" Really? REALLY? That's the response you have for criticism? Headbomb {t · c · p · b}14:59, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly what I've said; proof that my bluntness is required sometimes to get the point across when others prefer mealy-mouthed equivocation in the face of unreasonable behavior. Chris Troutman (talk)15:05, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Chris, you have been already censured by the community, a year back, for your incivility. Try to not behave like a jerk. ∯WBGconverse06:58, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Unless those with pompous sounding job titles Editor in chief participate to explain whether they actually have a role in publishing reviewed content, then this situation can happen at any time. Apart from threats to the editor above I see no meaningful participation from either of the notional E-in-Cs. Either there is a E-in-C function or there isn't. If there is, the purpose needs to be clarified. The existing activity is no where near what a true E-in-C would do in practice. It looks like self-aggrandisement. People cannot just claim titles and avoid scrutiny when, through their lack of intervention, an ongoing shambles including Arbcom. is created. So clarification on that role is needed, please. Leaky caldron (talk) 10:35, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I've said a lot about this over at the Arbcom case already so I'll try not to repeat myself (too much). What happened here was really not a failure of the publication's structure, as far as I can tell. It was a failure in response to criticism. Someone above said (paraphrased) that you're publishing junk if you're not generating some discussion and controversy. So you published something that, retrospectively, crossed the line out of provocative and into pointlessly offensive. You missed the mark, that's all; it happens. Like (I think) Headbomb said up the thread, we all have blind spots. And Headbomb also laid out a pretty reasonable roadmap for how you should respond when it happens again, and it will, 'cause ain't none of us perfect. It's when you go on the offensive that the trouble starts. Telling offended readers that they're wrong and that they have no right to be offended is a really effective recipe for maximum drama. Go read the ANI report or the MfD comments or the arbitration request all related to this incident if you're not convinced. It makes it look like you want to offend. And being journalistically provocative is a long way off from being deliberately offensive.
Most reasonable editors are going to forgive you for being human, and admitting that you fucked up. Because we've all fucked up, unless you've never done anything. For what it's worth I only really started reading The Signpostafter whatever it was with Kudpung last summer. The newsletter is fine, really. You just had a bad day. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:23, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
With respect, I disagree. Holding the title of Editor in Chief either means something or it doesn't, responsibility-wise. At least it sets an expectation of accountability. Lose the fancy Dan title and describe themselves as simply content aggregator (no editorial resp. for content) I am fine with that. But if you go by E-in-C, that means something, even in an in-house rag such as SP. Dump the titles. Leaky caldron (talk) 08:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Leaky, I don't think we actually disagree. I don't think I said anywhere that Signpost authors and their (nominal?) editors shouldn't be accountable for the material they publish, in fact I think what I wrote here is the opposite of that. Maybe our definitions of accountability differ? I don't think accountability means that you must lose your job immediately when you fuck up, and especially not when the people you work with fuck up, even if their job falls within your area of management (I'm applying professional metaphors to a volunteer-run organization, but IMO this is a valid comparison). Accountability, in my opinion, means that when you fuck up, you admit it, own it, and work to remedy the underlying situation so that you don't fuck up again. I guess I can't say that's happened here, but I also would not say that Bri (as current EiC) is at fault for this incident, certainly not all on her own, and I'm pretty confident that dismissing her would not actually solve any problems. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:51, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Done — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 20:12, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
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Moved from Template talk:Signpost-textonly
Done how does that look? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:04, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
Fixed. --Pipetricker (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
