Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost

The Signpost Feedback

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

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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)

(apologies for reviving a dead thread) Milhist runs a monthly op-ed, although we only publish once a month. We've had willing editors most months. When we haven't, it has been trivial to solicit an op-ed on topics like NPOV, FAC, or RFA. I'd be willing to coordinate a department based on this. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:17, 12 July 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)

"Brief news", "Brief news", "Brief news"

Now three pages have this in their by-line, every week. This is becoming repetitive and dilutes what should be high-value news in the by-lines that go around in subscriber notifications. Perhaps Featured Content should start a "Brief news" section so we can degrade our by-line with this tired item, too. What should be put around is the unique news value each week. Tony (talk) 12:17, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

The argument for including "brief news" in the subtitle is that people take them as summary of the section's content, for deciding whether to click on the link or not. If (for example) here they only see "Picture of the Year 2010; data challenge" on the link for the first section, they might very well decide they are not interested in either of the two topics, and decide not to click. Of course there are quite a few regular readers who have learned that the section always contains brief news, and who would click in any case, but then again they are not the ones for whom the subtitle makes a difference anyway. Other opinions? Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

If they don't think "In the news" is worth clicking on, with "WikiLove roll-out; in damages for being removed from Wikipedia", then we may as well shut down. Seeing yet a third line wrapped over, with "brief news", is not going to attract anyone, and regular readers know it's always there anyway. "Brief news" looks ... brief and inconsequential. Headings and subheadings should be as short and punchy as possible, and should certainly not be a fixture like the sofa in the living room. Now "Technology report" has started doing it too. Well, if you insist, we'll start up a brief news section in Featured Content next week, so we can all say "..., brief news", at the end of every single page. How ridiculous. Tony (talk) 13:04, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a "more..." or "Read more..." - like how many blogs and news sites do it (successfully), might work better. - SMasters (talk) 14:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

It might be repetitive-looking but it's valuable - it indicates that there are more topics mentioned than the ones listed. It's a quick, easily-understood if not exactly elegant way to help the reader decide whether to click through. There's nothing wrong with having it on every page; it just indicates that there are lots of different items in the Signpost. It does not dilute the items listed fully (IMHO, of course), merely indicates that even more material is available. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:34, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I do find the current headline format very hard to read. As well as the overabundance of brief news (which, looking through the archives, has actually been going on a while now) there are far too many semicolons! I think last year's format ("Financial Times, death rumors, Google maps and more") was much clearer and more natural to read. — Pretzels ^Hii! 14:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see what's so "ridiculous" about keeping brief news in the subtitle where it is effective and appropriate. It would be one thing if the report focused on a couple of stories completely (eg; arb resignation during plagiarism incident), but if it's going to cover a variety of things as well, then having it in the subtitle does give the reader an indication that other stuff is there which may be of interest. I've often clicked reports to see if anything is in the brief news (if it is mentioned in the subtitle), either because I wasn't particularly interested in the main stories mentioned at the beginning of the subtitle, or I only had time to read brief news. I think it was useful to keep it in N&N and ITN, particularly this week. Not sure if TR needed it this week; haven't really made up my mind given that it only covered a couple of things.

The "and more" suggestion is just as effective as "brief news", but apparently Tony has an issue with that as well because it is not in line with his views. It really doesn't need to be said that segments which don't do brief news should be starting it up for pointy purposes. This is not a place where everyone must accept and bow down to Tony's views as if they are orders which bind us all before he creates a spectacle. Being passionate during a disagreement is one thing, but edging towards an extreme over something like this is another; please tone it down. Signpost should not be limited to the tastes of regular readers alone; it should be attracting new readers too who aren't accustomed with the regular format of our reports, so I think either "brief news" or "and more" should be retained/used as appropriate rather than removed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

"And more" was getting very lame, too. Ncmvocalist, I was actually hoping this was absolutely a place where everyone must accept and bow down to my views as if they are orders which bind us all. You're kidding me it's not ... and vocalist ... bow lower. Tony (talk) 14:56, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

My point about the semicolons and "and more" is that we used to have sentences as headlines, whereas now they are lists. I think sentences are preferable for a multitude of reasons. — Pretzels ^Hii! 20:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

• While we're on the matter of attracting users into clicking on Signpost pages, I've felt for some time that a thumbnail pic in the subs notice each week, along with crisper by-lines, would go down a treat. I think Pretzels's point about semicolons is worth considering. Your thoughts? (Lower still, vocalist) Tony (talk) 14:58, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Section below: sure, it needs further thought, and the positioning isn't quite right. But a pic on the subs notification on user pages would be very effective, don't you think? Tony (talk) 16:10, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you might be right about retiring the two-column format for subscription deliveries, as it takes up the same amount of space either way. If we include an image, I think the caption should at least link through to the relevant story. You may find some opposition from subscribers to posting images to users' talk pages in this way. — Pretzels ^Hii! 20:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there some way of testing subscribers' opinions on this? And what do other SP journalists think? If the pic could be positioned better, it could be a bit smaller. Also, John Vandenberg told me there are ways of making bullets not so bulky and indented. Also, what do people think about the shorter page names for SP articles? And, I'm uncertain about the semicolons/whole sentence thing. I can't see how it would work. Tony (talk) 07:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Some subscribers will be OK with it but others won't I think. I suppose we could give them the option of deciding which form they wish to subscribe to, without sticking to a single format alone? I'm thinking I'd better abandon hope for sentence-type headlines for the arb report; key words seem to be less of an issue (yet enough to get the readers too). I still think we need something in the subtitle to acknowledge other stuff whenever there's a lot covered in other/brief/more news, and when there's only a few things, we can just leave it out as a given. Of course, maybe things would be easier if we had the headline and then another line to include as a summary or something. We might need to think about it more and what other alternatives we can offer. Ncmvocalist (talk) 08:43, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 July 2011

Wikipedia turns 10

• News and notes: Anniversary celebrations; data challenge
• In the media: WikiLove roll-out; €25,000 in damages for being removed from Wikipedia; brief news
• WikiProject: The Star-Spangled WikiProject
• Featured content: Two newly promoted portals
• Arbitration: Arb resigns while mailing list leaks continue; motion re admin
• Technology: June report: Virginia datacenter, parser, user profiles; WikiLove 1.0

Stepping down as Signpost editor

With one eye laughing and one eye crying (as we say in German), I am announcing my resignation as the editor of the Signpost. The reason is that I am taking up work for the Foundation - to be announced shortly - and it would be too much of a conflict of interest if I were to continue to make final editorial decisions for a community-run publication. Since I jumped in when Ragesoss stepped down as editor-in-chief thirteen months ago (for very similar reasons), I have really enjoyed editing and writing for the Signpost, and I am very proud of our collective achievements. I think that the Signpost has played an important role in informing the community, and in fact the opportunity to do such work more consistently was a main motivation for me in starting to work for the Foundation. My role there will be to support movement communications activities.

I will continue and conclude several Signpost projects that I started as editor (such as the CPOV reader review). Besides acting as editor, I have also been contributing much of the content of the "News and notes and "In the news" sections - unlike the other four recurring sections, these two beats haven't had regular writers taking responsibility for them since quite some time. I won't be able to continue the same amount of involvement as a writer either, but like Sage before (example), I might offer to contribute articles about the Foundation's work in an official capacity (clearly noting it in the byline), subject to the judgment of the new editorship. I am also considering to continue to contribute as a volunteer in a limited fashion, for example for ITN about topics that don't directly involve the Foundation, but I would appreciate some feedback on what we should consider appropriate. In my talks with the WMF, it was clear that they really value the Signpost (and don't want to jeopardize it - however I am nowhere near thinking that it couldn't exist without one particular person; this has been nicely proven in previous years), and respect the Signpost's independence as a community publication.

With the next issue due for publication in three days, we should have a discussion right now about who will take responsibility for getting it out. Last year's discussion (see link above) saw some interesting ideas about collective editorship. To me it appears quite advantageous to have one particular person responsible for hitting the "publish" button (so to speak) for each issue, but it may not be necessary that this is the same person each week. And other editorial responsibilities are easier to share.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

HaeB, can I be the first (on this page) to wish you the best of luck with your new job, and to thank you for doing an amazing job at the Signpost. If anything, I think your tenure has editor-in-chief has solidified my view that The Signpost needs an individual to drive things forward. Unfortunately, we now have to start looking for another one afresh; and yet most of our regular writers are bound to be either too busy (such as myself) or have been around enough to ensure that they have enemies here. Finding a drama-free "nice guy" (or girl) to run The Signpost is going to be tricky. I can't help wondering if it may even take financial motivation (despite the threat that this may provide to neutrality, though I would argue it needn't). Anyway, thanks for your time and dedication. For my part, I may be able to help with this next issue as a one-off in addition to my usual duties. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!

HaeB, congratulations on your move to the Foundation; how lucky are they. At the same time, I'm deeply saddened that you'll have to take a smaller role at The Signpost. It seems hard to imagine the publication without your steady hand. Thank you for your highly professional leadership, your fine judgement on matters of journalism, and your sense of balance and protocol. I've learnt a lot from you. It will be difficult to fill your role, and I agree with Jarry that a single person is the right way to go—Jarry, thanks for offering to stand in for the upcoming edition.

HaeB, let's hope you can stay around The Signpost as much as the new job allows. (I don't have the right skills or experience to do this; the natural role for me is as a journalist/copy-editor.) Tony (talk) 17:25, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

If folks are interested, the announcement is here. :) Steven Walling at work 17:35, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

HaeB, Heartiest congratulations on the new job. I just want to say thank you for all your hard work at the Signpost. I have really enjoyed working with you. I'm sure you'll have a lot on your plate moving to a new city and doing all the things that is required to settle down. All the very best with your future at the Foundation. – SMasters (talk) 17:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations on your new job and thanks for your work on the Signpost.   Will Beback  talk  20:39, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

WMF has stolen another one of our best talents. Best of luck. -Mabeenot (talk) 21:13, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Joining the choir of congratulations and thanks. You have been great as the Signpost editor, and I have no worries you will be just as great in your new duties at the Foundation. Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 21:47, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations!!! I look forward to seeing your work with WMF. Cheers. Aude2 (talk) 18:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Huge congratulations to you! I have no doubt you'll be excellent in your new job at the WMF, and we'll certainly miss you at the Signpost. Best wishes for the move to SF — Pretzels ^Hii! 22:16, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, and to Jarry1250 for the offer to jump in for tomorrow's issue (I'll be e-mailing you the necessary details, and will in fact stand by tomorrow and during the next weeks - also on IRC - if there should be any technical questions. But I hope that the publication process page already explains most of it - since last year Dispenser and I have taken some trouble to improve and streamline it).

We could also use more contributors to the @wikisignpost news feeds on Identi.ca and Twitter. If you are good at digging out relevant news items, and would be interested in helping out, drop me a line.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• I think that this now repeated and seamless annual transfer of The Signpost editor to the WMF is fundamentally dishonest. How could anyone not living in California believe otherwise? Malleus Fatuorum 00:16, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

• • By not habitually making causal inferences based on a handful of data points? Skomorokh 00:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

New administrators

Just curious, as I do read the signpost, but don't read the behind the scenes stuff. Has the "New Administrators" bit been dropped? I seem to remember it was been moved from featured content, as it didn't really fit there, but was it dropped all together? I only ask, cos... you know... Worm^TT · (talk) 07:59, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why we don't put it with the Arbcom stuff. At our Review cousin, stuff would all be covered in the beuracracy forum. It really makes sense (it is "admin" in many meanings of that word).TCO (reviews needed) 16:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

We didn't come to a decision one way or another about whether to drop the new admins bit altogether, but chances are it will be mentioned in N&N either in the next week or at the end of the month. Our main focus this week was with our editor-in-chief who stepped down.

As to the other suggestion, The Signpost is NOT the "Review cousin" referred to (anymore than it is a Wikipedian AC, functionary, crat, admin, RFA, RFC, WQA, blog, etc.) ArbCom stuff will continue to be reported separately (and independently) in the arb report, given that it is the final step in DR, users want to know what's going on with the people they elected at the end of last year and they want it in a format which doesn't merely act as a parrot. We do have a discussion report, and that would've been the most ideal place we could mention all of the (other) bureaucracy, new admin announcements, Community discussions, etc. As the scope for that is so broad, there is always a lot to cover in that beat, but that is why many people find they don't have the time, willingness, or ability, to regularly do it to a satisfactory quality...which is why that report has not been written for a long time. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

New managing editor

Jarry has kindly hinted that he can continue to stand in for at least next week (and possibly longer?). Sooner or later we need to resolve the matter. As far as I can see, there are three options: (i) find a replacement for HaeB; (ii) do it by some kind of shared arrangement, a roster as it were; or (iii) do without. I for one really need someone I can go to at IRC to get a second opinion in the run-up to publication. And NAN and ITN need that careful judgement HaeB provided. Tony (talk) 15:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I support the idea of a CO. Maybe with an XO in case, something comes up again.TCO (reviews needed) 18:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

From my experience, I feel that having one primary editor is a good thing. I think having one person as editor frees up others to be good writers. Part of the reason I think that Michael and I both quit (certainly me) was that trying to write a couple stories and edit the rest gets to be tough. Ral315 (talk) 23:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Come back. Tony (talk) 13:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I would love to, but my schedule doesn't really permit it anymore. If I can ever provide any advice, though, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. (Also, FYI, I own WikipediaSignpost.com, so if anything goes wrong with that, let me know). Ral315 (talk) 03:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

From the interim editor

Two things:

• I am very unlikely [EDIT: Actually I can, see below] to be able to oversee the publication of the next issue (25 July). Anyone who could help getting it out on time would be appreciated :) (I'm not sure how busy HaeB is-- might it be possible to have one "neutral" editor to check the publication and then have him press all the relevant buttons?)
• On the upside, I would consider continuing in the role for a number of weeks afterwards if no candidate can be quickly found. The effective deadline for me would be in mid-September. (However, if I were to continue, I would like to bring the publication time forward by two hours. I wonder if that is possible for our regular "eleventh hour" editors.)

Thanks everyone. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 08:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC) updated 15:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

• • Jarry, your recent management is much appreciated. In view of the RL demands on you in the lead-up to the 25 July edition, I'm going to be bold and email User:Skomorokh to ask whether he'd consider stepping in, at least for the upcoming edition, and depending on how he and others feel about it, to consider the possibility of managing further editions. I think if he agreed (I really don't know what his RL commitments are), he'd probably need back-up from Jarry and HaeB and whoever else feels in a position to help at this stage. Tony (talk) 13:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
    • It turns out, purely by chance, I do have access to free WiFi, so I could stay up and handle the publication of this issue (25 July). I am on holiday, however, so either assistance or trying to move the deadline forward by an hour or two would be much appreciated. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

display bug?

The headline "Wikipedians' surfing habits explored, Sloan Foundation renews $3M grant; brief news" displays as "... renews M grant; ..." on Wikipedia:Signpost (and only there; everywhere else it's correct). Powers ^T 00:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

• I had inadvertently removed the figure from the headline previously, but it has since been restored and the contents page seems to be correct at the time of writing. — Pretzels ^Hii! 00:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

IP editor playing with Signpost pages

There seems to be an IP editor using the Signpost and other pages as a sandbox. Three IPs coming out of Ireland have posted "rte" to several pages and removed content from other pages. See Special:Contributions/92.251.208.185, Special:Contributions/178.167.182.132, and Special:Contributions/178.167.171.170. -Mabeenot (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, more than three. But it's not a problem, they even self-revert if no-one gets there before them. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikimania co-ordination

I thought that with this year's Wikimania only being a week away, it might be an idea to start co-ordinating how The Signpost editorial community intends to cover it. Below are two sections: Attending, Helping Remotely and Comments. If you are a Signpost regular coming to Haifa for Wikimania (or you aren't a regular but are attending the conference and want to help) stick your name in under Attending. From experience of covering technology conferences and BarCamps, the work required to cover a conference is quite heavy, so if you are a Signpost regular and are able to be online (on IRC etc.) and are interested in helping sort material coming from Wikimania, please add yourself in the Helping Remotely section. Things that they can do include: sorting out and curating the inevitable stream of photos on Flickr, Commons etc., contacting blog post authors and people doing audio-video about reuse and copyright clearance. If you've got any comments or suggestions about how we can best cover Wikimania at Signpost, feel free to add it to the Comments section. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Attending

• Tom Morris – I'm in The Nof hotel, will be arriving late on Wednesday (Aug 3) night and leaving on Sunday (Aug 7) afternoon.

Comments

On IRC, Skomorokh suggested that it would be good to have audio-video coverage of the event. I'll be bringing a digital dictaphone and a camera capable of HD video. I'm also planning on trying to take lots of plain text notes and have been working out how best to do that between laptop and other devices (and maybe that funny old pen-and-paper stuff). —Tom Morris (talk) 11:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Sweet. Here come SNN: Signpost News Network. -Mabeenot (talk) 22:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Summer of Research deletion process

Re. the "Summer of Research" diagram of deletion processes; the author has now made an SVG version available, which will aid future work: File:Deletion process on English Wikipedia (flowchart).svg.

I'm not quite sure how best to mention this in Signpost - maybe in the image caption, or as a note...I don't know.

So can someone else please feed that info in, as best you think appropriate. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  11:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Watchlisting the Signpost

I've only just noticed that it's possible to watchlist the Signpost, by watchlisting Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Issue. This is hidden away under Subscribe, and like a lot of people, I guess I never wanted to "subscribe" (I just come here and read it). I think the "Watch the Signpost" link should be on every Signpost page, in the footer or (if possible) the header. Rd232 ^talk 14:03, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I've added it to the header, we can see how it goes (currently 523 watchers). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:59, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Report about Wikipedia trifft Altertum

Hello! I was asked by several users to translate my report about the conference „Wikipedia trifft Altertum“ in the German Wikipedia into English because of the importance of the conference. The signpost is a very important place to inform a lot of English language people about interesting things which happen in die Wikimedia universe and so I thought about publishing it here too. And also because it was always an honour for me to write articles for the Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-06-07/Free Travel-Shirts, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-01-17/Sister projects and others. I'd be really happy if you could accept my report which I've created at User:DerHexer/Report about Wikipedia trifft Altertum. Do not hesitate to edit and correct my translation here and/or move it to one of your subpages if you think that it's worth to publish it here sooner or later. It's quite long so please leave me a message if I have to shorten it and please excuse the mistakes I made. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 01:25, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, I think we'll run that as soon as we get a chance (holidays, Wikimania, etc, make these things difficult at present). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Some thoughts

Hey all. I've been interim editor-in-chief for the last four issues, and all-in-all it's been a rather pleasing activity. If things go well, I can handle another 6 or 7 before my real life activity picks up again. To be able to do that effectively, however, while the search for a more permanent editor-in-chief continues, I would like to move the effective deadline forward to 10pm UTC. This is two hours earlier than has been traditional, but the feeling I have got over the past 2-3 issues is that 10pm is very feasible. In the meantime, if you think you can be The Signpost's new editor-in-chief, put yourself forward :)

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention a few other things:

• I have been developing a script that reduces the workload of editors-in-chief. It managed a 50% reduction last night and I hope to push that down further over the next weeks. The nominal editor-in-chief requirement is therefore running at around 15 minutes per week.
• As most regulars will know, it's always N&N and ITN that are the sticking points on each issue. There must be a solution to this problem, but our current (heavily volunteer) model doesn't seem to be of much use for some issues. I wonder if we might consider introducing some form of monetary incentive to our regular editors (although no-strings funding might be difficult to find).
• Ideas for continuing The Signpost's efforts to expand cross-project are more than welcome. Our Sister Projects feature remains dormant.
• Personally I would also like everyone to consider the issue of opinion pieces. I realise this has been a mixed area in the past, but I'm not sure where the consensus lies this days. Are opinion pieces (and editorials) acceptable? What if both sides on an argument shared "columns" in the same article?
• Does The Signpost have a place in efforts to make Wikipedia feel more like a community? Would offering an email subscription be a good way for part-time editors to feel "in touch"? Can we expand into that area? These, to my mind, are also interesting questions.

Just a few things to consider. Anyway, thanks everyone for your ongoing help with The Signpost and happy editing :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 18:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

In regards to your cross-project question, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in doing a "themed" issue of the Signpost where two or three features build off of a similar topic. For example, since Wikimedia's expansion into India has been in the news a lot this year, I thought we could have a WikiProject Report on WikiProject India, resurrect the Sister Projects section to interview admins from the Indian/Hindi Wikipedia, drag the Dispatches out of retirement to report on how people can improve articles that are not in their native language, and maybe sprinkle N&N and ITN with some news items about India or the Indian Wikipedia. Anyone interested? -Mabeenot (talk) 22:33, 2 August 2011 (UTC)