Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions

"WP:OP-ED" redirects here. For the guideline on not editorializing in article content, see MOS:OP-ED. For the policy on op-eds and original research, see WP:NOROPED. For the guideline on citing op-eds as sources, see WP:NEWSOPED.

Submission Desk Please propose Signpost stories you want to write (or have already begun writing). Submitted stories are published subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Editor(s) in chief. We value the involvement of Wikipedians, and appreciate your submissions. If you have ideas or questions that don't fit neatly into this framework, don't hesitate to address us on our user talk pages, by email, or as a last resort, on the general Signpost talk page. The Signpost's content guidelines may be useful to aspiring writers; take note, especially, of the statement of purpose section. We encourage you to contact us early in the process of developing a story. Different writers have varying levels of interest in editorial input, and we pride ourselves on finding the right balance with each writer; but in most cases, a brief discussion early on can help all parties shape our expectations, and can help produce a strong finished piece. We aim to support Wikimedians wishing to share news with their peers, and look forward to working with you. My idea about wikipage parser Submission: User:Dušan Kreheľ/Signpost draft:My idea about wikipage parser Column: TDB Author: Dušan Kreheľ Discussion: This is my view of what a wikipage parser should look like, which should have a new implementation and a new RFC about the Mediawiki wiki(page) language should come. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 13:56, 3 December 2022 (UTC) The article is done. Please someone check my English, I'm not very good at it. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 21:46, 25 December 2022 (UTC) @Dušan Kreheľ: Some good thoughts there, but also some fundamental misunderstandings, in particular here: Even if the grammar of the wiki page is defined (it exists, but I can't find the link somehow), there is no RFC document that would specify the entire syntax and semantics of the wiki page, and especially how to deal with bad inputs. The reason why you couldn't find the link to that parser grammar is that it doesn't exist, for various reasons that are explained e.g. in this 2013 blog post: The only complete specification of Wikitext’s syntax and semantics is the MediaWiki PHP-based runtime implementation itself, which is still heavily based on regular expression driven text transformation. The multi-pass structure of this transformation combined with complex heuristics for constructs like italic and bold formatting make it impossible to use standard parser techniques based on context-free grammars to parse Wikitext. [...] No invalid Wikitext: Every possible Wikitext input has to be rendered as valid HTML – it is not possible to reject a user’s edit with a “syntax error” message. Many attempts to create an alternative parser for MediaWiki have tried to simplify the problem by declaring some inputs invalid, or modifying the syntax, but at Wikimedia we need to support the existing corpus created by our users over more than a decade [as of 2013, i.e. two decades by now]. or in this presentation by the (then) Parsoid team: Do wikitext constructs behave like DOM trees? No. * Wikitext has no spec and hence no formal semantics * Behavior emerges out of legacy PHP parser's implementation [etc.] Proposals such as yours to reform and consolidate the wikitext syntax by making breaking changes had been made before, e.g. at the 2011 Berlin hackathon (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-05-16/Technology report) by the Sweble team. Back then the Wikimedia Foundation was embarking on its Parsoid/VisualEditor work and rejected such proposals in favor of a more conservative approach (which still ended up causing thousands of small bugs and inconsistencies with the existing wikitext content and much community frustration). A Signpost article about this topic that is ignorant of this background and the reasons behind the current state of affairs (cf. Chesterton's fence) will not be be very useful for our readers. With this and your other recent Signpost drafts about technical topics, I would encourage you to first solicit feedback from experts before submitting them to the Signpost. You can do this by e.g. by posting on the Wikitech-l mailing list or by pinging knowledgeable folks directly (regarding parser matters, that might involve people from the WMF team that currently works on Parsoid, such as Subbu or Cscott). Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 28 December 2022 (UTC) @HaeB: I deleted the sentence "Even if the grammar …". It is not necessary. Why to have this article: If the dwiki project was successful, it could later influence the Wikimedia project. It would probably not be fair not to comment/notify now. "Plan to throw one [version] away; you will, anyhow" (The Cathedral and the Bazaar) – History or other things can be good or bad. For example: OpenOffice vs LibreOffice, initd vs systemd and GCC vs EGCS. I informed on wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org before: 1, 2 and 3. if You do not consider the article suitable, I will accept the refusal of publication. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 14:57, 29 December 2022 (UTC) Thanks for the excellent summary of the current parser situation, @HaeB. Note that there is a good spec now for the *output* of the parser, at mw:Specs/HTML, which can be considered an Abstract syntax tree for the wikitext input. So I think there's still fertile ground for experimentation of alternative wikitext syntaxes using the DOM spec as an interchange format. As long as your new syntax can roundtrip to/from the standard DOM spec HTML, then you can interoperate with legacy wikitext. You can edit an article via "legacy wikitext" -> "MediaWiki DOM" (via Parsoid) -> "your own format" (via your own serializer) and then save it with a pipeline like "your own format" -> "MediaWiki DOM" (via your own parser) -> "legacy wikitext" (via Parsoid). If done properly, this won't leave dirty diffs. There's a thought experiment proposal of this sort at phab:T149659 (slides). We've also thought about eventually storing the HTML DOM representation directly in the database (phab:T112999), although no work in either of those direction is expected any time soon. But maybe this inspires you toward some ways a "new wikitext syntax" could interoperate with our current infrastructure. C. Scott Ananian (talk) 17:07, 28 February 2023 (UTC) @HaeB,@Cscott: No invalid Wikitext: It's is none problem. Example, from 2024-01-01 is set the new wiki parser. So new politic: the older version (before 2024-01-01) are parsing with the old parser, the revision with __STANDART_WIKI_SYNTAX__ is with new parser the revision in 2024-01-01 and later, are parser with new parser. How is the problem, to have in MediaWiki the 2 parsers. "The multi-pass structure of this transformation combined with complex heuristics for constructs like italic and bold formatting make it impossible to use standard parser techniques based on context-free grammars to parse Wikitext." For my one parser implementacion was none problem to create syntax abstract tree. Don't have a standard? After all, if I want to create a syntax that will be used for the next 20 years from today, then it would be appropriate to standardize the syntax. Isn't not having a defined syntax just putting off the problem for later? I don't have the impression that Parseod is today developed and functional enough to be used for editing wiki pages by means of bots. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC) WikiProject report Organized Labour The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report Column: WikiProject Report Author: Shushugah Discussion: This piece is about Wikipedia:WikiProject Organized Labour. It promotes a February edit-a-thon, and would ideally be published February 1st. Am open to January 15th if it's ready by then, but think that is unlikely. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:05, 11 January 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-04/WikiProject report A more global view of the visual arts The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:MartinPoulter/Signpost draft Column: Opinion (but could be in Research Report as it's a summary of a peer-reviewed paper) Author: MartinPoulter and Waqas Ahmed Discussion: Our research into a cultural gap in Wikimedia projects' coverage of visual art was published early this month. We briefly describe the problem and invite the community to help close the gap, which we are doing through editathons, a target article list, and outreach to cultural institutions. MartinPoulter (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2023 (UTC) @JPxG and MartinPoulter: This is a great article and should be approved and scheduled for publication ASAP. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:47, 31 January 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-04/Opinion. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) SLAPP against Estonian Wikipedia The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:K2suvi/Signpost draft:SLAPP against Estonian Wikipedia Column: News Author: K2suvi Discussion: This piece is about news about a possible SLAPP case against Estonian Wikipedia. For those who don't know, a SLAPP is a strategic lawsuit against public participation, usually seen as a bad thing. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:53, 11 April 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-04/Op-Ed. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians, a year into the all-out war The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:Aced/Signpost March 2023 Submission Column: TDB Authors: Anton Protsiuk and Vitalii Petrushko Discussion: We in the Ukranian wiki community have published several assortments of stories of Ukrainian Wikimedians during the war over the past year – one, two, three. Now that the world has marked an anniversary of the full-scale invasion, and the war still rages, we though we'd bring a new collection of stories. Aced (talk) 10:23, 2 March 2023 (UTC) @JPxG and Smallbones: pinging you just in case. --Aced (talk) 06:56, 6 March 2023 (UTC) @Aced: IMHO this looks like it can be published with minor copyediting, but we'll see what the EIC @JPxG: says. There's also a potential problem with the request for donations. I personally don't see any reason that we can't include it, but I'm sure it will be controversial, so we'll have to discuss it among the staff. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:43, 11 March 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-03-20/Eyewitness Wikipedia as an anchor of truth The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:Lambiam/Signpost draft:Wikipedia as an anchor of truth Column: Op-Ed Author: User:Lambiam Discussion: About a use of Wikipedia – hot inasmuch as hallucinating LLM chatbots are a hot item.  --Lambiam 21:43, 9 March 2023 (UTC) Looks like Op-ed to me. I'm not sure it's finished yet, seems a little short? I can provide more feedback if you like. Set status to In development/pending approval for now. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2023 (UTC) @Lambiam: Can you add an "in conclusion" section or something like that? It doesn't have to be long, just to wrap up the thoughts presented in the first section and give the reader something to chew on. I think once that's done, I can move it to the Signpost draft area. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2023 (UTC) I've added a section, not really a conclusion but nevertheless something readers can chew on. The final three sentences are OR – I hope that is allowed in the Wikipedia Signpost  --Lambiam 19:54, 11 April 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-26/Op-Ed. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Signpost statistics between year 2005 and 2022 The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:Dušan Kreheľ/Signpost draft Column: Special report Author: Dušan Kreheľ Discussion: "Signpost statistics between year 2005 and 2022" These are my statistics based on publicly available data at the time mentioned in the article. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 13:00, 5 April 2023 (UTC) Looks like In Focus to me. I like the tables you have created, we will need to beef up some text to explain what's being presented but either the original author or a Signpost staff member (maybe me) can do that. Maybe needs discussion about how we do that, prior to approval. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:11, 6 April 2023 (UTC) Changed to Special report to match Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-01/Special report with similar topic. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:29, 6 April 2023 (UTC) @Dušan Kreheľ: I marked this "needs clarification" for text that is highlighted in the draft. I'm not sure that I correctly interpreted something you wrote about the "home wiki". ☆ Bri (talk) 23:09, 6 April 2023 (UTC) @Bri: I had edited the paragraf with the "home wiki" definition. The statistic are with ratio now. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 10:31, 7 April 2023 (UTC) Thank you. I've updated status to "needs review" which is the last step prior to approval for publication. It will of course also get a copyedit pass from other Signpost editors. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:48, 7 April 2023 (UTC) @Bri: OK. Please identify yourself as (which?) co-author, since you modified the text. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-26/Special report. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:MPaul_(WMF)/Signpost_April_2023_Submission Column: News from the WMF Author: MPaul (WMF) Discussion: Two part series summarising the priorities for the Wikimedia Foundation next year including the staffing, budget and other changes and importantly will link through to the many ways people can share their inputs, thoughts, priorities and feedback. MPaul (WMF) (talk) 14:36, 6 April 2023 (UTC) @MPaul (WMF): Thank you for submitting this. I'm sure it will be approved. Please use the Start article button next to "News from the WMF" at WP:Newsroom when you are ready. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:49, 6 April 2023 (UTC) @MPaul (WMF): Just letting you know that the writing deadline for the next issue is this Saturday. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:52, 11 April 2023 (UTC) Hello Bri and @JPxG I have drafted this submission for the News from the WMF section. Thank you @Bri for the suggestion on the section. I hope you can review and consider it for the next Signpost issue. I'd like to come back for the Signpost issue after this one for the second part of this series. MPaul (WMF) (talk) 14:47, 14 April 2023 (UTC) Note to say we're starting part two of the series for the next Signpost issue. My colleague @KStineRowe (WMF) may take the lead this time. MPaul (WMF) (talk) 11:58, 4 May 2023 (UTC) Hello @Bri and @JPxG - I have drafted the second part in this series for the next Signpost - 07 May issue. I hope it can be considered. MPaul (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-26/News from the WMF. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Obituary for user:DGG, David Goodman The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/DGG obituary Column: Obituary Author: bluerasberry, with meta:Wikimedia New York City Discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Obituary_for_user:DGG,_David_Goodman Bluerasberry (talk) 16:59, 10 April 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-26/Obituary. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Research under a cloud The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: User:XOR'easter/sandbox/Too soon to count Column: Recent research Author: XOR'easter, with edits by PamD and David Eppstein Discussion: This is something of a sequel to the "Recent research" column from 25 July 2021. XOR'easter (talk) 15:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC) I hope this will get into the next issue. Johnbod (talk) 14:22, 2 May 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-08/Recent research. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Collective planning with the Wikimedia Foundation The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/News_from_the_WMF Column: News from the WMF Author: MPaul (WMF) Discussion: The second article in a series describing the priorities and work of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article invites Wikimedians to collaborate with the Foundation. Hello @Bri and @JPxG sorry for the second ping - I have drafted the second part in this series for the next Signpost - 07 May issue. I added this entry here so the draft was not buried in the comments of the first part. Hope it can be considered. MPaul (WMF) (talk) 15:54, 5 May 2023 (UTC) Acknowledged. I think we should run it in the issue being preprared now, for continuity. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-08/News from the WMF. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Opinion piece I'm going to start, any thoughts? Submission: User:Dilpickl/opinionpiecedraft Column:Opinion Author: Dilpickl Discussion: Opinion piece: "Sitcoms aren't as funny as you think." Dil (need me?) (what I've done) 13:46, 16 May 2023 (UTC) TITLE Submission: User:Talirongan/Signpost Story1 Column: TDB Author: Talirongan Discussion: This piece is about... Talirongan (talk) 09:11, 18 May 2023 (UTC) Wikipedians Convene for Queering Wikipedia 2023: The First International LGBT+ Wikipedia Conference The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived. Submission: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report Column: WikiProject report Author: Hexatekin, Jsamwrites, and OwenBlacker Discussion:We need help with formatting the images and final editing, etc.! Thank you! Hexatekin (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC) Published at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-22/WikiProject report. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC)