Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost

The Signpost Feedback

Please use this page for general or technical issues, praise, queries, or complaints.

• If you have a story suggestion, please add it to our Suggestions page.
• If you have an article-specific comment, please add it to that article's talk page.
• If you have an article or report to be published, please list it at the Newsroom.
• If your message is urgent, please contact the editor HaeB directly or try to find a Signpost regular in the IRC channel #wikisignpost ^connect.
• For an index of Signpost pages, please see the Index.

Why no Signpost?!

Why is there no Signpost on my talk page?--^{The Master} _{of Mayhem} 14:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it's going out now, seems it was a little behind schedule this week. –xeno^talk 14:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Section title

I'm sure I can't be the first to ask, but would it make sense to either disambiguate or merge News and Notes, and In the News? I've been enjoying the Signpost for 2 years and still don't know how they are different. Ocaasi ^c 08:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

An explanation of the different scopes is here. In short, while there is indeed some overlap, "In the news" treats coverage of Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects in external media, and the newsworthiness for that section is at least in part judged according to the attention a piece of news might be getting in the general public. In other words, in ITN our readers learn about news items that may shape public perception of Wikipedia, even when they are basically non-news to a regular Wikipedian (Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and is freely editable, etc.). For example, the two items titled "Introducing Wikipedia" in this week's "in the news" are basic explanations of Wikipedia that are unlikely to tell regular Signpost readers much they don't already know, but they may still want to learn about fact that Wikipedia/Wikimedia got attention from a major newspaper in India. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response. So News and Notes is more the insider perspective and In the News is more the outsider perspective. Makes sense. Is there an interest in choosing section titles that reflect that more clearly? For N &N perhaps: What's Happening, Around the Pump, This week in Wikipedia, Community News and Notes, Inside News and Notes, Insider News and Notes, etc. It's a small change, but if a regular reader like myself was confused, I'm probably not the only one. Cheers, Ocaasi ^c 11:03, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Another option, short of changing a long-standing title, would be to add a brief tagline, such as In the News press about Wikipedia from around the world; and News and Notes updates from inside the community, that sort of thing. Ocaasi ^c 11:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The sections are defined at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Resources#Regular sections. — Pretzels ^Hii! 17:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I believe that's the problem. The section titles should be self-explanatory, and not require a glossary. Pretend you're a new reader for a minute: you wouldn't even know where to look, presuming you'd take the time to, and you'd probably expect that the titles would just be intuitive. A title should be informative first (along with recognizable and consistent). I'm not sure that adding a brief sub-header or tagline (in lieu of renaming e.g. Community News and Notes) would be a bad idea. Ocaasi ^c 21:16, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Quarterly policy update

Any suggestions on how to put together a more concise version of this quarter's policy update for next week's Signpost? (i.e. 8 days away) - Dank (push to talk) 19:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Dank, I'd summarise and link to details, and avoid technical tweaks to prose and esoteric stuff. It might be framed as "significant" changes in policy and guidelines. The readers will soon stop if it looks like a long tabulation of every single change. Consider adding a rider that editors are advised to consult the actual pages for a definitive account of changes. In some cases, you could provide a single diff for the whole three month's changes—that is, if they aren't too dense. That would be useful. Tony (talk) 14:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

A great place to know what is happening

I believe the services offered by the signpost if very good. It shows how Wikipedia is changing or affecting the world in which we live in. --CrossTempleJay (talk) 22:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Where's today's issue?

Just wondering...8 hours late! Lanthanum-138 (talk) 12:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, it's sometimes quite a heave to get the edition out. And it's one of the rare instances of deadlined work for wiki-editors. Tony (talk) 13:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You were probably looking at the 03:00UTC time given in the Newsroom. This has never (afair) been the actual publication time, but is treated more as a story preparation deadline, i.e. there is consensus that stories submitted after this may be postponed by the editor. A more embarrassing occurrence would be if the issue comes out on a (UTC) date after the nominal date stated in the byline and URL of each story. But we made that deadline quite comfortable with this issue - in fact, it was the earliest publication time since last November.

I assume most regular readers know that the Signpost usually comes out some time during Monday (more likely in the UTC evening), but such comments are entirely understandable, and it fact help us to stay on track ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now. Thanks, Lanthanum-138 (talk) 11:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion regarding "Features and admins" section

Currently the "Features and admins" section of the Signpost lists all new featured content as well as new administrators. After some consideration I have grown concerned that this practice contributes to the idea that adminship is a form of "Featured editor", when it should be nothing of the sort. In order to avoid this I suggest moving the new administator announcements to another section of the Signpost, perhaps the Arbitration report. There is much more in common between the announcement of new administrators and Arbitration work than there is in the current arrangement. –Grondemar 03:02, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with that suggestion. Failing that, we should publish a barnstar leaderboard for each month to bring some sort of balance (in jest) ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:11, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• I suppose that's fair. I wonder though if we couldn't have a sort of "editor update" section for significant things that aren't RFA or Arbcom? Significant retirements, for instance. Or we could look for significant editor achievements (DYKs; bot creation, monthly cleanup completed, etc) or even random praise. Something to give a bit more of a sense of what goes on. Rd232 ^talk 03:24, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• Anything that makes F and A less onerous is just fine by me. Tony (talk) 04:11, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• The connection between arbitration and admins is that arbitration is the only way to involuntarily desysop someone at this point in time (and we already cover those developments). However, it is a group of editors from the Community who decides what work is of 'featured status', and it's a group of editors from the Community who decides which users are 'admins', so given these are announcements about which work and editors have been selected, I'm not seeing the merit behind the suggestion. If anything, most admins prefer to tend to more routine tasks and few get involved with arbitration, while arbitration itself is about the last step in dispute resolution and the decisions (dealing with problem resolution that are being made by a group of users who have been elected for this specific task). I've seen few (if any) admin nominations saying "I want to be an admin so I can enforce arbitration decisions"; so far it's been "I want to help with deletion and vandalism". So I don't think the arb report is the place for it; whether admins should be with the featured work or whether it should moved to some other segment per Rd232 (or into the discussion report) is certainly worth considering though. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:53, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
• Sounds fine to me. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
• Agree and suggestion. Admin matters should be separated from "featured content", and presentation should not suggest that adminship is a big deal. Maybe a section "Community matters", or something, covering significant community matters like adminships, major policy changes/RFCs, perhaps significant WMF staff changes, and other significant matters of internal self-regulation by the community? That would fit in well and not duplicate other areas, would not present admins as "special", and allows coverage as needed of a key area that is useful but not very visible. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

So can the admin notifications go in the "In brief" section of NAN instead of F and A? Then F and A could become "Featured content", perhaps. The admin notification would be a small job for a new contributor to The Signpost who would be willing to commit to it weekly. Dabomb, do you mean Vocalist's post sounds fine or the opening post sounds fine? Tony (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

A Featured Content section could easily include at least a summary of WP:GA changes. They are after all conveniently logged at Wikipedia:Good articles/Log. Mentioning delistings by name (whilst giving weekly totals for promotions) could help spur improvements. Rd232 ^talk 22:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree - would be nice to summarily and briefly list GA's by name (in a similar brief format as we do for say, RFA's). GA gets low profile compared to FAC, and they probably deserve a mention. "New GA's", "Currently under review" and "Delistings" (if any) plus a link to the GA nominees list. GAs are a good point of reasonably high quality so it will be good to give them a little more exposure :)

I think a "community" section would be good though for reasons stated. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 05:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

But a whole new "community" section suggests something more elaborate than merely shifting from F and A to NAN the small subsection on new admins. (BTW, it now includes mention of live RfAs, incorporated after a reader's suggestion a few months ago.) Who is volunteering to do this? FT2, if you are volunteering, that would be a popular move; otherwise, it's not a viable change, I think. The page is already too long for readers sometimes, and I find it to be an onerous commitment, although I'm willing to continue because it's an important service to the community, and highlights the importance of high standards in all areas.

On GAs, GTs, GLs (since all or none seems to be the only fair way): F and A has never done this, and the title indicates featured material only. I know Dabomb, the co-author, is firmly against diluting the treatment by including "good" promotions, and I agree with him. To me, the good content processes are just a stepping stone. I don't mean offence to anyone who is involved, but good journalism quintessentially needs to highlight, to ration, its treatment, don't you think? And it's a volunteer labour-force issue, too: who's gonna do the extra on the page if "good" is included? Tony (talk) 08:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Tony, can you clarify. How can something be both a "popular move" and yet (if a given person doesn't volunteer) "not viable"? Presumably you mean that it would be popular but needs a volunteer to be viable?

• Response to FT2: a translation of my previous post is that "The Signpost is chronically short of volunteers; if you volunteered to list the admin bit in NAN each week, it would be welcomed by existing volunteers; if you encouraged other editors to do this, it would also be welcomed. Tony (talk) 13:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Anything GA should not be in featured content. The entry for a week's GA movements (eg 3 - 9 May) looks like this:

• Good content promotions: Articles: 2010–11 Princeton Tigers men's basketball team - 5.7×28mm - Arizona State Route 97 - August (Fringe) - Bad Blood (The X-Files) - Battle of Coral–Balmoral - Borjomi (water) - Born This Way (Glee) - Burmese–Siamese War (1548–1549) - Charlie Buckton - Darius Morris - Dølehest - East Huaxia Road (Shanghai Metro) - Ecology - Eskaya people - First Battle of Maryang San - Frank Pick - Great Britain at the 1992 Winter Paralympics - Harpy Tomb - Heartbreaker (Mariah Carey song) - Hue–Da Nang Campaign - Hurricane Ernesto (2006) - Jerry's Painting - Juno Beach - Karl Marx - Koninginnedag - Kristins Hall - Lockheed Martin VH-71 Kestrel - M-122 (Michigan highway) - M-77 (Michigan highway) - M-80 (Michigan highway) - Madras Presidency - Michigan State Trunkline Highway System - My Worlds Acoustic - Nikephoros (Caesar) - Occupation (Battlestar Galactica) - Operation Bribie - Paisley witches - Potcake dog - RAF Coastal Command - Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science - Rufus Wainwright (album) - Samarium - Simon Byrne - Southeast Asia Treaty Organization - Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973 - Sydney Johnson - Tesco bomb campaign - Thatgamecompany - The 23rd Psalm - The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak - The Way You Love Me (Keri Hilson song) - Thomas Jefferson Hogg - Tricia Tanaka Is Dead - Tropical Storm Bonnie (2010) - TuneUp Utilities Topics:
• Good content demotions: Articles: Calabozos - Charles Holden - Chlorine - George Headley - Hurricane Ginger - Olivia Shakespear - Pigeon photography - SS Edmund Fitzgerald - U.S. Route 131

It would not dilute featured content to put this in the "community" section (it took just 2 - 3 minutes to collate and format) and would surely be of popular interest listed this way. Signpost will have its own editorial policy, however a community section could be run for a while with readers asked to give feedback during a trial period, and I think it would on the whole be positively received. Is lack of a volunteer the main issue? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:41, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this list not already clear from the GA log ? (If so, would a single link suffice, since there's no added value such as on F and A, where a short blurb is included.) Would the other "good" content processes complain if they were excluded? What else, apart from this and the admin thing, do you envisage going into a "Community" page? Who would write it, reliably, week in week out? Tony (talk) 13:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

• Logical completion of FT2's proposal - split up Content Matters (pun intended) and Community News. As a minimum, this successfully splits the F and A (as per Grondemar's excellent suggestion) without creating more jobs. But it's also flexible and extensible if other volunteers want to contribute. That dividing line is both logical and useful to readers (many of whom are distinctly community- or content-oriented editors), so for instance if somebody wants to write about:
  • Good Article or Peer Review project reports → Content Matters
  • Changes to MOS, BLP policy, Deletion, Notability, Article Protection/Pending Changes, and other content-related policies and guidelines → Content Matters
  • Reports on unusually controversial or precedent-setting AFDs → Content Matters
  • Death notices/brief obituaries of recently deceased editors → Community News
  • Changes to block policy, checkuser, other user-related policies and guidelines → Community News
  • New community structures (e.g. Advisory Council on Project Development proposals) and roles (e.g. WMF Volunteer Coordinator) → Community News
  • ArbCom and Board elections, maybe news from the Chapters and WMF → Community News [in practice indepth coverage ArbCom elections will probably get its own section, but announcements of nomination deadlines etc would certainly belong in Community News]

I believe all of these have been covered in the Signpost at some point (even GA statistical milestones do get into News & Notes!). The weekly staple of Community News would be RFA reports, and that of Content Matters would be the glorious FA and FP (et al.) roundup. Yet it strikes me this would be a much better way of organizing things, especially for those times when other material (such as the examples above) is presented for publication.

As for GA reportage, a low maintenance option would be asking whoever does the start-of-month updates of Wikipedia:Good article statistics to write the figures up as a brief monthly summary for the Signpost ("In April the number of Good Articles rose by 214, below the 12-month average and the lowest monthly rise since December 2010. Reviewer fatigue from March's backlog reduction drive, in which there was a net gain of 499 GAs, has been blamed for the slump."). In no way would that devalue coverage of featured content! If a volunteer can be found, a weekly list of promotions and demotions is quick-and-easy to produce from the GA logs and wouldn't take up much space. Personally I doubt a GA promotions list would be of widespread interest given its length, turgid style, eclectic nature of the articles, and its "stepping-stone" nature. For a weekly report, my suggested priorities would be brief coverage of the review backlog (available from Template:WikiProjectGATasks and WP:GAN) and the demoted articles, both of which could be pitched as rallying calls to action. The risk is projecting the image of a project eternally in desperate straits, unless the mood is lightened by more positive weekly or monthly growth figures! I don't feel GA coverage would be out of place in the Signpost, but of course nobody could be forced to write it - and the same applies to all the other potential contributions I listed above. But having it or any of the others as separate subsections of "Content Matters" would not, in my opinion, dilute the more in-depth (and visually striking!) Featured Roundup. TheGrappler (talk) 13:39, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Very good ideas. But the realist in me asks, who's going to commit to do it? Are you interested, Grappler? As with F and A, it soon becomes painfully obvious when you write it that the community comes to expect a consistent service, and there are complaints if it's not forthcoming. Our Managing Editor, HaeB, also expects it. The "core" pages are part of the identity of the publication. Are you suggesting that "Community news" be part of the core? Weekly or monthly? Dank might be willing to contribute, but probably not as the sole author. Another potential issue is that splitting this into "Community news" and "Content matters" would risk having too little text in some issues. Tony (talk) 14:03, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Inserting: Thanks, Tony, but I don't want to report on policy for now. Copyediting and Milhist soak up all my wiki-time. I'll continue doing the quarterly WP:Update. - Dank (push to talk) 23:52, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

See below. Unfortunately I can't claim credit for any "good ideas", just remembering some of the things that have all been done at some point in the past! I wasn't proposing any new work, just pointing out that if resurrected, some of the old ideas would fall neatly into a Content/Community split that would be the logical consequence of FT2's idea of separating out commmunity news. Since N&N contains a mixture of news types that could be redistributed accordingly, I'm less wary than you of either Community or Content sides being under-texted. For removal of doubt, I was imagining both as "Core" with the featured roundup as the heart of "Content Matters" and the RFA roundup being a staple of "Community News". The idea would be that if there was another user obituary, or anyone resurrected the GA or AFD reports, those writeups could simply be "bolted on" as subsections of the appropriate Community/Content core section. TheGrappler (talk) 01:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the thoughtful suggestions. A few quick points:

• Check out the resources page for an overview of the regular Signpost sections and (tentative) definitions of their current scope.
• Regarding coverage of "major policy changes/RFCs" (FT2) or "unusually controversial or precedent-setting AFDs" (TheGrappler), the above suggestions very much correspond to the "Discussion Report" section which has produced good overviews in the past (see especially the 2009 archive) but is sadly inactive now. If someone wants to revive it, or otherwise commit to do this kind of reporting in a regular fashion (possibly under a different name), they are very welcome - I agree we should do more in that direction.
• Other things suggested above for a "Community matters" section are currently covered in N&N more or less regularly, e.g. "significant WMF staff changes". The flexibility of the N&N section might make it preferable for some topic areas that do not lend themselves to a weekly or monthly routine.
• Regarding the GA listings, I'm personally not terribly keen on anything that basically consists of dumping logs into the Signpost, without actual journalistic writing. (One reason that the F&A section has grown in popularity since last year is that Tony and others started adding value by highlighting interesting facts about new featured content, instead of merely listing it.) On the other hand, a "weather report" about GA statistics, as suggested by TheGrappler, could go down well with readers.
• As for the initial comment, I didn't see the combination of F and A as a big problem, but I can see where Grondemar was coming from (it's also worth noting that the generic subtitle for the "Features and admins" section used to be "Approved this week" instead of "The best of the week"), and if someone wants to cover new adminships in N&N instead, I'm fine with that. Who is going to do it?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:06, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

That all makes sense - every point I raised above came from things that the Signpost has covered at various points in the past, rather than ideas for what it "should" cover or proposals for new work, and you're right I was obviously remembering the old "Discussion Report". Also agree re writeup for GA listings. I think Grondemar made a good point and that new admins is a better "fit" with some of the material in N&N, such as the WMF news or major community announcements. On the other hand there are things that appear in N&N (e.g. occasional statistical updates on GAs) or which used to appear in the Discussion Report (e.g. AFD notability decisions) that to me seemed closer in spirit to the "Newly Featured" coverage, in that they were basically of interest to content editors. FT2's proposal was to merge together admin notices with other user/community-related news, some of which currently resides at N&N (and some of which only existed historically e.g. in the Discussion Report). My proposal, as a logical extension of that, was an explicit divide between Content and Community news (which de facto is what FT2's proposal would result in) - admittedly that'd be a big reorganization, perhaps resulting in N&N being completely split between the two, but would have the advantages of consistency, a specificity to more community- or content-oriented editors, and giving a natural home should anybody wish to resurrect e.g. AFD or GA reports. I can understand that such a change would be unattractive from an editorial point of view, as it would involve a larger reallocation of work than simply moving RFA reports to N&N (without necessarily creating any new work). From the reader's point of view, I suppose it depends whether the "coherence" of sections is valued more than their "variety": personally I'd prefer a clear Content/Community divide, but I could understand some readers preferring N&N as a "mixed bag". TheGrappler (talk) 01:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

• Without having read all of this thread (just some of it) I think the original proposal to remove admin notices from the featured content section. Perhaps it would work best with the notes about milestones on other projects (Xyz Wiktionary reached 200,000 entries, etc) or with any announcements about staff employed by the Foundation? Thryduulf (talk) 15:22, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

• I noted that this week's Signpost moved the admin promotion section out of the Featured Content page and into the News and Notes section. This is a great improvement and seems to work well. Thanks! –Grondemar 04:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Agree - much better :) One minor copyedit - the wording "The Signpost welcomes two new admins" suggests these might be Signpost admins. After all, for example Wikimedia mailing lists have "admins", why not Signpost. May I suggest "Signpost congratulates X and Y on being given adminship this week", "New adminships: congratulations to.....", or something?? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:22, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad you like it. "Congratulates": that's what we started with, but people objected—some of them strongly (POV, etc). So we toned it down. Should it be "two new English Wikipedia admins"? A mouthful. Tony (talk) 13:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

What about: "Signpost wishes good luck to Name1, Name2, Name3, granted adminship this week. <detail about them here>" ?

Anyhow, as a publication POV isnt an issue, you're allowed an editorial line, including a line that goes "we believe new admins should be congratulated". The main thing is to make sure it's clearly about new WP admins and not "Signpost admins" (which some people may think exist if it's worded that way). FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:22, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

This seems like a moot point at the moment; why not just link it (aka "admins")? Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:12, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Tony (talk) 16:49, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that this is an improvement. And I like Grappler's suggestion above -- a page with open community discussions, including RfA discussions, WP:CENT, and other significant community discussions [the recent f-l discussion about poetlister, for instance]. – SJ + 01:23, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Email delivery of the complete "single page" view

Please, please...? :)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 14:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I hear you. I would be willing to integrate this into the weekly publication process (using the "official" wikipediasignpost Gmail account), but could use some help in setting up an efficient workflow for it - for one, figuring out the best way to generate a "clean" HTML from Wikipedia:Signpost/Single. (Size should actually be fine for an e-mail - for this week's issue, the HTML is 137kB, plus 320kB of other files - image thumbnails and CSS/JS, the latter perhaps not optimized for offline viewing. The PDF is much larger.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

May be good to summarize what the workflow would have to encompass and any points needing to be addressed, then everyone can contribute ideas. Not sure I know enough to comment, though I appreciate the positive-ness! :) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:02, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, identifying those points is already part of the work... Setting up and administering a mailing list for this should not be too difficult (it might be possible to persuade WMF to set up a Wikimedia mailing list, althogh I am not sure how well Mailman works with HTML e-mails, cf. [1]). Generating the HTML which is to be sent out seems to be trickier, because the requirements of most e-mail clients differ from that of browsers. See e.g. [2] ("for coders, it's a real headache to create [HTML emails] properly"), [3] ("You have to code like it's 1996"). In other words, one shouldn't just take the HTML (+CSS, JS) delivered to one's browser and copy it into the e-mail.

Is anybody else interested in such a service, and/or could provide technical advice?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Help:email notifications is relevant for people subscribed on their talk page. Rd232 ^talk 23:42, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Dutch SP page screwing up

The formatting seems to have gone peculiar this week. Tony (talk) 13:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I already noticed. Apologies to all global subscribers - the links were still intact, but some of the section subtitles were overlapping or cut off.

Here is what happened: The variable part of the delivered message is generated automatically, ready for copy and paste, and the format there did not change. But I used a different browser this week for copying and pasting - Opera, which for some reason inserts a blank at the beginning of each line (Firefox, IE and Chrome don't). And unfortunately these extra blanks were hard to see in the diff, which I routinely check before starting the message delivery bot.

Anyway, apart from this (and an issue with Toolserver lag some weeks ago which MZMcBride solved right away) the global Signpost subscription has been working really well since introduced in September, and people from other projects are still welcome to sign up for delivery to their user talk page, or to dedicated Signpost delivery pages on their projects (like the Dutch example linked by Tony above, recently followed by the Swedish and Kannada Wikipedias).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Shit happens. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

And there's a two-word candidate for WP's sixth pillar. :-) Tony (talk) 15:22, 20 May 2011 (UTC) PS The Dutch page gets 80–100 hits a month. The number of direct subscribers from other projects seems to be steadily increasing at about two a week. That's 100 a year, a welcome addition to our readership, and it might hit a critical mass at some stage, where it increases at a greater rate. I note HaeB's and others' efforts to give an international flavour to parts of the SP, which is most welcome IMO. Tony (talk) 15:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Signpost by snail mail

Just wanted to note this novel (and generous) offer by Rcsprinter123. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

RFCs

Could we please have mention in next weeks signpost of the two RFCs on the useage of flags in infoboxes and lists, currently taking place at WT:MOSICON. Mjroots (talk) 11:52, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Why not list all the RFCs on WP:CENT launched that week? It would be easy copy-paste; just needs a home (since Discussion Report isn't going). Rd232 ^talk 23:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

+1 to including WP:CENT somehow each week, with a sentence of explanation for each. – SJ + 01:18, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Developer communication suggestion

I made a suggestion in a WP:VPT discussion:

what if some developer(s) contributed just a little to the Signpost on a (semi)regular basis describing some of the trials and tribulations of what they're currently developing? One of the big problems in this area is lack of communication. If the community better understood what is involved and how hard it is, that would help, I think. Plus the Signpost has a feedback section - I'm sure [developers would] get encouragement/praise as well.

I did previously try something in that direction with WP:DEVMEMO, but that didn't work out. Perhaps something smaller and more informal, fitting into an existing process, might work? Rd232 ^talk 00:39, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:HaeB

Just some quick thoughts here: I think it is an idea with a lot of potential, and I agree with what you said about (lack of) communication. The Technology Report section of the Signpost already sometimes does something like this, for example check out the series that Jarry1250 did last year where the Google Summer of Code students presented their projects (first issue, last issue), or this story which I based mainly on an IRC interview and other information provided by a Foundation employee about his (then) current project. If you want to organize something like this (it's probably easier to get people to provide one-off snapshot reports first, before aiming at the "(semi)regular basis" you mention), go ahead. Of course it would be good to inform Jarry1250 (the regular writer for the Tech report) and me in order to avoid duplicate efforts, but otherwise feel free to ask developers if they would like to contribute.

Some context: The Foundation's Tech Department has made recently made considerable efforts to improve communication with the commmunity, with the hiring of "bugmeister" Mark Hershberger, Sumana Harihareswara as Volunteer Development Coordinator and Guillaume Paumier focusing a lot on communication (like writing posting on the WMF Techblog). They could perhaps sometimes offer advice or assistance, e.g. set up contact with a particular developer.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I really don't have time or energy to pursue this myself. I just think it's a good idea and hope someone can follow it up. Please nudge anyone who might potentially be interested. Rd232 ^talk 00:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Great idea. – SJ + 01:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

As I said there, I'm all ears on this. The issue is that AFAICT (most) developers know of the Signpost, they (presumably) know they could contribute to it. But developers don't like writing, they like coding and evidently the temptation has never really taken them to write about what they're doing. One example: after an appeal from Sumana, five of this year's GSoCers emailed me to inquire about writing something. I emailed them back a fortnight ago with a brief description of what they'd need to write. One has so far replied. (A few people regularly supply tips and corrections, however, such as Guillaume Paumier. Those are much appreciated.) So you can see, nice idea, uphill battle trying to make it work :( - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 10:11, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Well perhaps that's where HaeB's suggestion of interviews might help, so the developers don't need to do the writing themselves. The main thing of interest to me with this idea is trying to expose a bit more of what is involved with development - normally we just see end product (or lack of it). Bugzilla discussions can shed a light, but hardly anybody sees those, and they're not particularly understandable for outsiders. Rd232 ^talk 11:46, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I agree wholeheartedly with the ambition. IRC interviews do sound interesting. I'd just have to think of how to approach that one. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 12:02, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Skype audio interviews (possibly with more than one developer for a "story"), recorded with permission, then selectively transcribed and edited, and wound into interview-narrative text selectively, and the draft sent to the interviewee for vetting? Yes, it would be a significant advance to have that kind of community–developer communication. Tony (talk) 04:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Op-ed pieces?

I really enjoyed the board elections section of this week's (June 7) Signpost. I think that a weekly, or biweekly (every two weeks, I think that's the right word) op-ed type piece would make the Signpost even better. Looking at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Opinion desk, I see this has been proposed, but it doesn't seem like many of these pieces are approved or have even been proposed recently. Is submitting essays or opinion pieces still an option? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Good essays and op-ed pieces continue to be welcome, it's just that someone needs to do the work of soliciting, selecting, writing and editing them. As Ragesoss said (on the linked page, when introducing the section in 2009), we should take care to select opinion pieces for "quality, originality, and relevance to the community" - Wikipedians generally love to express their opinions about various aspects of the project and related issues (and do so hundreds of times each day). For such reasons, publishing such pieces on a case by case basis seems preferable for the time being. Do you have any concrete suggestions for suitable topics and/or writers?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:07, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response (and sorry for my late one). I agree that quality, originality, and relevance are key to an interesting op-ed piece, and while I'm not sure on any specific topic, I might try writing a more humorous submission sometime soon if I can find the time to do so. (I think the Signpost could benefit from some humor once in a while, especially as we haven't had a WP comic strip in forever.) Where would I go about submitting such a piece? The opinion desk doesn't really seem alive. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:25, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Fetch, perhaps a draft in your userspace, link to it on HaeB's page when ready? Tony (talk) 04:28, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Featured picture nom links

The current standard for the Signpost seems to format FP nomination link as: Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Month-Year#Nomination. To me it would be more sensible to link directly to the nomination page rather than the transclusion: Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Nomination. Producing this link is easier in my opinion so it would save time, the linked page is smaller so loading time would improve, and the link is also much more likely to be correct years from now. If there is a good reason to do it the other way that's fine, but I thought I would offer my 2¢. Jujutacular ^talk 14:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank god. I wish I'd known a year ago. Thank you. Tony (talk) 15:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem! Thanks for all the work you do for the Signpost. Jujutacular ^talk 23:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

"How You Can Help" headline out of date?

The "How you can help" sidebar in the tech section has the headline "Comment on a BRFA" even though the text of the sidebar is about testing the new mobile gateway. Perhaps the headline is left over from last week's sidebar? Sumanah (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, an oversight of mine. Fixed now, thanks. Incidentally, I've had two contributions from GSoC students so far, so I shall probably run them at some point. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)