Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom: Difference between revisions

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:See also [[Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost#Dispatches]]: It is questionable if this even fits into the scope of Dispatches, or to what extent the processes of an inactive (if not historical) project must be followed to the letter, but these questions can also be sorted out over the next week.
:See also [[Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost#Dispatches]]: It is questionable if this even fits into the scope of Dispatches, or to what extent the processes of an inactive (if not historical) project must be followed to the letter, but these questions can also be sorted out over the next week.
:Regards, [[User:HaeB|HaeB]] ([[User talk:HaeB|talk]]) 17:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
:Regards, [[User:HaeB|HaeB]] ([[User talk:HaeB|talk]]) 17:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
:: Yes, it fits into the scope of the Dispatches, which is content review processes. ResMar could have determined if the Project was active by posting to talk there: he chose not to. Water under the bridge, but there are several important missing tools, and before this is ready to run, the main editors who wrote and use those tools at content review processes should be pinged in for review. Also, since Raul was already planning to write a Dispatch, coordination would have avoided a still possible overlap-- if Raul has his ready to go next week (about the 3000th FA), it should take priority over this one. [[User:SandyGeorgia|Sandy<font color="green">Georgia</font>]] ([[User talk:SandyGeorgia|Talk]]) 18:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)




Revision as of 18:17, 24 August 2010

The Signpost
← Current issue
WP:POST/N
Newsroom

Suggestions Review desk Opinion desk Interviews desk

WikiProject desk

IRC channel

Template:SignpostNavigation

Notices

  • Everyone interested in Signpost matters is invited to join the IRC channel #wikisignpost.(webchat)
  • note: I took myself off as the lead for News & Notes -- not because I don't still love the post, but because getting seated on the board means I have even less time, and makes it inappropriate for me to be lead writer on this section (and I haven't been doing it for a month or two anyway). I will still contribute suggestions to the newsroom; feel free to incorporate these as you see fit. cheers, phoebe / (talk to me) 09:43, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would anyone be able to find a place to mention the ongoing discussion at Valued Picture Candidates (Wikipedia_talk:Valued_picture_candidates#Dead_project.3F) about revamping and saving the project or shutting it down? — raekyT 14:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to this week's discussion report.  ℳono  20:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm working on a "Quotation workshop" tutorial-like page for content writers generally. I will use some examples from The Signpost, which needs to manage quotations intensively. At this stage, could I quote here something I'll use on that page; it's a fragment from the "Ten rules for writing" by Elmore Leonard, American crime fiction writer, on which he was interviewed last year on ABC Radio National:

    "Never use a verb other than 'said' to carry dialogue'. Not 'stated', not 'declared', not 'exclaimed' ".

    PS, on exclamation points, you might be amused to hear his view: "I say you're allowed three per 100,000 words". :-) Tony (talk) 05:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Next issue

Due for publication: Error: first parameter cannot be parsed as a date or time.!  Deadline this week is 3:00 UTC, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Issue/Next.
Once all tasks are complete, the editor-in-chief (or nominated deputy) should complete the publication process.

News and notes

Needs copyedit

It appears that N&N and ITN are the bottleneck again this week. I'll take care of the announced German Wikipedia story (it's mostly written already), but it would be very much appreciated if someone else could write up the other items. Especially Pending changes, public policy and controversial content are important topics that need to be covered in this issue. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We need journalists for both pages who are in a position to do the bulk of the write-ups on the weekend. These two pages are now detracting from the deadline discipline of the other pages. Neither is yet sufficiently advanced to think about copy-editing. Tony (talk) 02:30, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm working out this one atm, but I agree, this is rediculous tying down of everything else. ResMar 02:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, it is unfortunate that no one has signed up for this under "regular responsibilities" even though it is an essential part of the Signpost. I will put up a call for writers under "Notes" once we are published. The payment schemes story is ready for copyedit btw.
I had looked at the backup list to call in assistance, but I assumed Pretzels would probably had read my above note already, and Tarheel95 hasn't been active for several days. Resident: Thanks a lot for stepping into the breach. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem :) ResMar 13:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, it is done and needs a copyedit. ResMar 15:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Great effort & impressive work. Have copyedited most of it but ran out of time to look through the Flattr story. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the news

Done
Check status
Forty two has indicated he would help finishing it in what I assume to be a few hours. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject report

Done
Check status

Features and admins

Done
Check status

Discussion report

On hiatus
Check status

Arbitration report

Done

See the discussion "Ncmvocalist needs to step down or be replaced".  Ⓢock  23:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with concerns raised previously that the title "The Report on Lengthy Litigation" should be dropped. Litigation is defined as "the conduct of a lawsuit", and arbitration is not about lawsuits. –xenotalk 00:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the "Coren is late" thing being flogged again and again, week after week? "The proposed decision that was drafted by Coren has sparked several concerns among participants and non-participants (example)." Apart from the issue of balance, it's not interesting to readers to get the stale feeling they've read it all before. I wonder whether the Arb Report should not take a break when there's nothing new happening. My journalist's antennae are picking up that readers should be alerted only when something significant happens: this is just the place to avoid the bureaucratic, repetitive feel of ArbCom cases themselves. When judgements are made, that is the time for significant detail, summarising the case in a user-friendly way. Tony (talk) 01:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, throwing the same fit again and again is getting readers nowhere. ResMar 01:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm picking up from comments, both on and off wiki, are that people want to know about what progress has been made on a case, where it's heading, and how this is affecting participants, others, and the project, even before the voted decision is handed down. They actually want more rather than less so as to make the case more accessible, be it during the case or at the end - the latter of which is where we give a full summary, and rather than just restating the decision, conveying the meaning of what is stated is what will make it more accessible and user-friendly. As for why the quoted sentence has remained: it's a significant turning point or development that forms part of the actual case history (the whole approach to the case changed), and incidentally, people are most interested in the proposed decision phase because that's where the "end product" comes from. I also don't think it's appropriate to misrepresent cases as being something that they are not. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:31, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've just compared last week's with this draft. The repetition of whole sentences re-explaining the background is a problem to which I have no immediate solution. No other Signpost page has to follow ongoing events of such long duration. I wonder whether there's a way of linking back to the first Arb Report on a case, which explained the background, to minimise the repetition of whole sentences. Do the cases need to be covered each week?
Could I raise a few issues? "these appear to have received significant support from the Committee." When you say, "appear to", does that mean it has received significant support? Is The Signpost making a subjective call here? Same for this: "A standard discretionary sanctions scheme and a remedy concerning evidence sub-pages are also very likely to form part of the final decision." (My italics.) And as a reader I don't get a sense of what is happening in such a statement as "other proposed findings of fact or remedies that were drafted by Coren are not passing." I think a better idea is to remove the stuff about delays and concerns that is basically copied from last week, and to specify briefly which motions are not passing. It would be a benchmark of service to the community if readers could get a grip on the details without having to go to the case itself (perish the thought). Tony (talk) 07:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think they do; as someone pointed out, they don't read every week's Signpost (understandable; people have busy lives) - the number of people who catch up is well...debateable. Forcing them to trudge through prior pages in order to catch up won't work, and moreover, people should be focussed on where it started, what has happened since, and where it is going in each issue. Yes, there is some repetition, but I don't think that cost outweighs the overall benefit (and the people who found the previous style of arb reports bland seem to be interested in the direction this is being taken in).
Sure. This reflects what appears at this moment (and note this is not done - at the moment, I'm just putting down thoughts of what should not be missed this week, and tidying up thoughts that are already written, but I'm glad that there is alertness about this). Yes, I'll be substituting the calls with actual figures (8 out of 10 active arbitrators; 4 votes to close; etc, though arguably, I'd be interested to know who'd debate whether the call is accurate in this case). Heh, and I'm guessing you already know about my views of Signpost being the replacement of well...anything. :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Technology report

Done

The recent progress in constructing a parser for MediaWiki (e.g. [1], highlighted by David Gerard) seems newsworthy. In recent weeks Andreas Jonsson posted some good examples illustrating the diffculty of the problem on the list [2]. Might make a nice full story. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's been handled —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
It's in brief now; I guess we can churn out a full story (lots of context is needed, it's pretty technical stuff) if it comes to anything. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 08:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sister projects

On hiatus

Dispatches

Postponed

If anyone else has any other wonderful tools they can add it here. Hope it's good enough for a dispath :) ResMar

  • Not to discourage you, however, I think this needs some work. First of all, I believe a panel should select the tools (if we even do this), as there are lots of useful tools not there. Also, I think we should interview some members of the User Scripts WikiProject (for example, AzaToth, who wrote Twinkle; TheDJ, who wrote HotCat and Qui). I have some more ideas, but let's not publish this week. Please discuss.  1year  03:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can't see why not. You're the first person to have any issues with it :/ If you know anything else you can add it. I talked to HaeB and he said to remove some of the over-specific ones, and so I did. I do not see the need to have a comitte pick them, and turning this relatively simple thing into a big project-interview-tool-overview mishmash is not what I intended. It's only meant for content tools. Qui and Twinkle are useless in that regard. In other words, I don't see any real reason not to publish this except wanting to turn it into some big thing. ResMar 14:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, note the disclaimer; it's not meant to be comprehensive. This article is more a synopsis of my personal experiences with these tools. I wrote the article in the hopes that it will help guide users new to wikipedia through some of the great utilities we have out there, not to be comprehensive, and not to be an interview thing. If you want to interview the project you can but it's hardly a reason to delay this article until sometime next month; you can simply link to it. ResMar 14:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's good. I've completely reformatted and copy-edited it. Tony (talk) 23:04, 21 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think Mono has a point. It's all very well to call it a synopsis of your personal experience, but others may (or in fact, probably will) have their own experiences, views and selections about what tools should be reported, how much is to be reported about them, and why they should be reported. I thought when people think a report solely reflects the views of the author that they call it an editorial, but this would send the message that if you can make it appear sanitised, it no longer is a problem. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:45, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But why does "Opinion:" have to be in the title, much less open it? This is not a good look; journalism that is in the OpEd genre doesn't usually turn readers off with an explicit announcement of such in the title. What you do sometimes see is "Opinion" in the page header(s), with individual articles titled substantively, not according to the genre. I just find it clunky. Why not announce that it's opinion in the opening paragraph? Tony (talk) 07:19, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even with the Opinion header, I don't think we can justify the urgency in publishing this. On the other hand, I can see reasons for putting it off, and I do see potential in it if more is done to it (per Mono). Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't understand this aversion. Ok, you delay it. Then what? You elect some sort of psuedo-commiteee and turn the article in a large listing? I'm heavily against this. Let it go as it stands, no need to denounce the article as "opinionized" and throw a big fit over nothing. ResMar 13:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you have any other useful tools feel free to add them. However remember the narrowness of the scope. There are plently of other things out there not related to this article's scope. What you are saying is like arguing on Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates that Template:Featured article tools is baised, let's have a commitee pick them instead. Someone has been reading too many arbcom reports...ResMar 13:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
After such a spectacularly unhelpful + bad-faith response, I'm not going to even bother anymore. Perhaps others will get through to you - like here. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:31, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If there's anyone with bad faith its you for assuming so. My comments were meant wholeheartidly and truthfully. Never really expected something so simple to meet such and such opposition. I just want to get the damn thing published. Adding in interviews, its own series, etc. etc. is nice and everything but this is already written and set. ResMar 14:57, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not run this Dispatch: see Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-23/Dispatches. I'm sorry for being late for this, but this Dispatch was not proposed at WT:FCDW, was not properly reviewed, and is not ready to run. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You're supposed to propose it? That page looks seriously inactive. Topics backed up since 2008. Ugh, why is this so polarizing...ResMar 15:02, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is already a good text with information that many readers will find interesting. That being said, it is not a time-critical article, and several valid suggestions for improvement have been made, so postponing it seems a good idea.
See also Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost#Dispatches: It is questionable if this even fits into the scope of Dispatches, or to what extent the processes of an inactive (if not historical) project must be followed to the letter, but these questions can also be sorted out over the next week.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it fits into the scope of the Dispatches, which is content review processes. ResMar could have determined if the Project was active by posting to talk there: he chose not to. Water under the bridge, but there are several important missing tools, and before this is ready to run, the main editors who wrote and use those tools at content review processes should be pinged in for review. Also, since Raul was already planning to write a Dispatch, coordination would have avoided a still possible overlap-- if Raul has his ready to go next week (about the 3000th FA), it should take priority over this one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Regular responsibilities

Signpost journalists can claim responsibility for regular features, and continue writing their beat for as long as they wish. If you would like to be a regular writer for The Signpost, add your name to the appropriate task. If you'd be willing to cover a story that is usually covered by another editor, or are willing to cover it sporadically when the normal writer can't, add your name to the Backup list so you can be contacted when the need arises – the more the merrier. If a beat is not assigned to anyone and no draft for the next issue is listed above, anyone should feel free to write it that week.

Task User Backup
News and notes Pretzels, HaeB, Tarheel95
In the news Wackywace Sk8er5000, Belugaboy, Tarheel95, HaeB, extransit, Theo10011, Diego Grez
WikiProject report Coordinated at the WikiProject desk
Discussion report Mono and Wackywace
Features and admins seresin Tony1, Dabomb87
Arbitration report Ncmvocalist Mabeenot, Jéské Couriano
Technology report Jarry1250 Occasionally: TheDJ, Theo10011
Sister Projects Forty two
Dispatches WP:FCDW
Design & templates Pretzels, Mono
Copy-editing team Tony1, Pretzels, Tarheel95
Publication HaeB seresin
Talkpage deliveries EdwardsBot
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