|Notes=I'm sure some will decry the lack of [[trigger warning]], but this is approved on my own authority. ☆ [[User:Bri|Bri]] ([[User talk:Bri|talk]]) 04:30, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
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WikiConference report
With publication soon (?) I just noticed that the gallery in the WikiConference report includes an image of a community banned editor. Maybe this should be removed? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User is community banned in five Wikimedia projects. A week ago the user was found not guilty for purposes of global ban.
The user and case are complicated but they were welcome to the conference. I am fine with anyone's decision to edit the gallery. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:29, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, I wish I'd known about that discussion on Meta, I would have contributed my observations that they multi-voted using at least four socks in one of our elections. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:18, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions for next issue
Just so I don't forget, a few days ago I went through the "Suggestions" section to collect some news that went over our heads:
- This study on under-representation and mischaracterization of Black and/or female figures on Wikipedia (suggested by Gråbergs Gråa Sång; will likely feature in "Recent Research", so I'm going to flag it to @HaeB);
I hope these are useful for the next issue, and let me know if there are any mistakes! Oltrepier (talk) 17:03, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I've just found out that Chris Albon (the WMF's Director of Machine Learning) was recently interviewed by an Italian portal! Does it sound interesting enough for "In the Media"? Oltrepier (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG, Smallbones, and Bri: Just so you know, I've managed to sneak a couple of blurbs into the ITN column, and flagged the study I mentioned to HaeB.
I could write a short obituary about Lushchai, but like I wrote before, I think we should do a double-check on those news, just to be sure, and look for some more details about his activity on Wikipedia.
[P.S. We could open a whole separate discussion for this last topic, if needed.] Oltrepier (talk) 10:16, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just chiming in here since this was specifically brought to my attention. I'm going to steer clear of the Joint Statement thing, I can feel my blood pressure rising just reading the title and I know I'm not anywhere near objective on this subject.
I think we could use more discussion of how the Foundation is applying ML, and especially in what way it will be visible to the community. Are AI assisted editing platforms anywhere on the horizon, for example to do research on under-construction articles. That would be neat, but I expect it's more about internal metrics and other business-y things of that ilk. I have some technical knowledge in this area and could perhaps contribute. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:41, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(continued) Skimmed the Albon interview and it was super lite. You're welcome to take that on, but I don't see a lot of substance there to talk about. He mentioned that the community has ben developing tools in this area for a while, I presume he's talking about WP:ORES but here's the rub. I challenge anybody not familiar with it to find the ORES "article quality" score for any randomly selected article. It's virtually impossible for someone not familiar with its existence. The Foundation needs to be more decisive about how to expose this, let alone more ambitious integration like I described briefly above. IMHO what this is about, is a really under-featured environment for content contributors. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One more thing, I hope this isn't a repeat of something I said before (I looked and couldn't find it). There was a really interesting discussion in 2020 around just one example of what AI tools could do, as either a force for good, or evil, in locating bad actors. Of course @Bluerasberry: had an insightful comment, which I will try to summarize in my own words: The problem with ML tools isn't one of dreaming up useful tools, it's reimagining our whole relationship to the tech, and to each other, and having some leadership around how to approach this from a foundational perspective. That's lowercase f foundational at the end. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:17, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bri Yeah, in the end I've just opted for quickly mentioning the Albon interview in the In the Media column, and we'll probably leave it at that...
I have absolutely zero experience with the subject, so your perspective looks very interesting! Oltrepier (talk) 16:22, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is a major election following one of the most complicated development processes in Wikimedia Movement history. The timeline was just posted 5 April, which I find inconvenient and too short of notice for a process which requires high voter participation and a new organization which is likely to consume US$100,000s of thousands of dollars of resources before the next election.
I wish we could report the election before it is over but more than that, I wish elections were disallowed without confirming a schedule and giving notice. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I requested an extension of the voting timeline so that we would have time to report it.
Ratification of the Movement Charter - meta:Movement_Charter#Timeline schedule just posted a couple of days ago, election in June
I am a bit uncomfortable that these elections, which are designed to seat the decision makers for the direction of hundreds of millions of dollars, are just now scheduled. Also considering the stakes, there is not much communication plan in place. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:15, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
20:6+1 Special report
The 2024 RfA reform changes seem like they may be out of scope for the regular News and notes column. Describing how we got here and all of the Phase I tweaks and major changes — starting with admin elections, I think — might merit its own special page. What do Newsroom folks think? ☆ Bri (talk) 14:42, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bri I was about to write a short recap for it, actually!
Sounds good to me if we're going to mark it as a "Special report" of sorts, since the News and Notes column has already several articles locked in and might become too bloated otherwise.
@Bri Thank you, that will definitely be useful! Oltrepier (talk) 16:18, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I just wanted to let you all know that I've finally finished my article, and it's now ready for copyediting! Oltrepier (talk) 20:54, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Er, I've just realized that I forgot to add a pic to the article...
Have you got any interesting suggestions that might fit in (either in the Commons catalogue or AI-generated)? Oltrepier (talk) 19:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Will someone come to the rescue? (real photograph)
One day, will the last administrator walk away and turn out the lights? (AI generated)
Again the literal rescue theme. . . (real)
Well, going with the "coming to the rescue" theme, you could use this Featured picture. Or if you have any ideas for what the AI generated image would look like, drop a note here and I can work with our sometimes-Signpost helper prompt engineer/artist, and gen some up this evening (US Pacific time). ☆ Bri (talk) 19:43, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a stab at an AI generated image depicting departure of administrators. Obviously we could tweak this a million ways. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:51, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that people in general are currently quite unhappy about image model output, as every time we've used them in the last few months it has garnered sharply negative commentary. Well, everyone loved them in '22, so I don't really get it. I think it is mostly a copyright law politics thing, and probably in a few years nobody will remember or care what this opinion was or why anybody held it, but for the time being it may be wise to avoid using it if possible. jp×g🗯️ 10:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's an AI thing. All four of the generated images had errors. Here's another. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:17, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reporting a likely bug in the Newsroom
Is it me, or does the Newsroom's table cite the "Special report" column twice? It must be a graphical bug... Oltrepier (talk) 10:34, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed it for now, but if the table is auto-regenerated after publication, we should fix the underlying problem, probably with a template or a script. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:36, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The way the table's generated is by keeping an automatic list of all the regular columns, then doing a database query to get everything else out of that name space that isn't included in the initial list. It shouldn't be double-including stuff, I'll take a look. jp×g🗯️ 00:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pitch: story on WikiCite and the upcoming Wikidata graph split
I wrote an op-ed about the imminent split of Wikidata to separate d:Wikidata:WikiCite content into a new Wikibase instance, and being the start of Wikidata federation. This is a rushed development from the Wikimedia Foundation. It is good that they are committing to support WikiCite, but it is chaotic to be under pressure to take action.
Disclosure: I am a data scientist who develops WikiCite, sometimes with sponsorship, but not for some years I think. I must be the most expert person available to write this. I am still working on the draft but wanted to share the idea sooner.
I do not think this requires so much review, but if anyone has questions, ask. Can we move this into the next issue? Bluerasberry (talk) 18:12, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was preparing a response and my computer glitched and ate it (ah the joys of HTML form editing). Now I'm kind of peeved and don't want to type it all back in. I'd say yes, it should go in the issue, but it was hard for me to read and could use a sharper op-ed framing. Maybe Bluerasberry was trying to stay away from this for one reason or another related to Wikipedian in Residence status.
The central problem with reading, especially for a lay (non-IT fluent) person, it's going to be very hard to figure out what the editorial "ask" is. Is it a pitch for funding? A pitch for more direction on tech? More community involvement in tech funding-related questions? I think the thesis might be there in the final paragraph -- it's hard to get non-technical people to direct a technically oriented solution. But maybe we're kind of compounding the problem with a lengthy hard to read piece on the technical heart of the issue.
So, in summary, maybe Bluerasberry needs a clear green light to make this a personal perspective. It could be a full-on op-ed on the decisions that made Wikidata inefficient for the Wikicite tool, and ways forward. Or else, we dial it back into a dry but concise framing of the technical issue with Wikidata, which I think is a scaling issue with a system that's being pushed beyond its intended limits, or (same thing really) beyond the combination of architecture choices and and computing resources devoted to the assumed uses. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:54, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let me consider more. It is not a pitch for funding. It is a pitch for direction in tech and community involvement.
I think the story is that Wikidata may need 10 million dollars to grow. Medium-sized data uploads, small by many standards, were halted in 2017. I do not think it could be fixed before 2030. It is really had to figure out. Let me think more.
The personal part is that although the data halting has affected 100s of people, I have a university project which has probed more deeply at the nature of the problem. My inability to upload data is my issue, but also, there is no room for other datasets of similar size. Let me think more. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:12, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Clarifying, I didn't think it was a pitch for funding. But a naive reader could have seen the headline and the author, and made an assumption. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:19, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I shared this article with the Wikimedia Foundation team who are organizing the graph split. I incorporated their comments and they supported my submission.
I may make further changes in response to comments if I get them before publication, but I would like to submit this for the next issue as an editorial. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:07, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I'm committing to finish the blurb on the SVT's report on Ruviki and ru.wiki as soon as possible, and I'll take care of the brief blurbs, as well. However, I don't feel I'm familiar enough with what's going on over at the French Wikipedia (the story originally flagged by @Bluerasberry)... Is anyone able to help on that front? Oltrepier (talk) 07:20, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, my article is now ready for copy-editing!
Sadly, I'm afraid I can't help much more for this issue... Oltrepier (talk) 20:37, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This looks quite good, and should be enough to go off. I do not know what's going on at the French Wikipedia either; I will make a go at spinning something out from the links we have there. jp×g🗯️ 00:19, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also wanted to remind that the lead stories about the annual reports by Wikipedia/WMF and the OWID gadget still have to be developed... I can help with them, too, if needed! Oltrepier (talk) 07:23, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like there may be a lot to get through. Nevertheless, I will give it a shot. jp×g🗯️ 00:43, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Although I won't be able to work on it, I just wanted to mention that the lead story about the WMF's annual report should be the only thing missing in this column before it's finally ready! Oltrepier (talk) 19:02, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG Have now filled in the section on the WMF and Endowment reports. AndreasJN466 17:54, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There has been a global ban of a fr-WP and Commons admin with more than a million edits. Looks like some info as to why is available . Probably worth a blurb. Sdkbtalk 15:12, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sdkb Honestly, I don't know if we'll be able to sneak it in this time, but surely it will be an interesting feat for the next issue! Oltrepier (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It'll be stale news by next issue, but up to you. It probably only needs a sentence or maybe two. Sdkbtalk 19:05, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sdkb I noticed that @Bri added a quick mention about the ban to N&N, so it should be all good now. Anyway, thank you for flagging it! Oltrepier (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to the French admin board you link, he was first blocked for six months and then indeffed because he made a death threat off-wiki. AndreasJN466 18:24, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like we still don't have coverage of the OWID gadget situation, so I'll try to add a brief note within the new 3 hours (unless you happen to have something written up offline already, JPxG).
For context, the gadget was covered in the last issue already (and coincidentally or not, the WMF announcement came a day after we published). Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
20:6+1 Arbitration report
There will be one from me. jp×g🗯️ 00:17, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I am about four thousand words deep, but it's currently 5am. I will be on tomorrow. jp×g🗯️ 12:38, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see it was started. Looking forward to what comes next. By the way I stepped in as the regular contributor for that feature for a while, I think it was late 2017–2020. It took a lot of time to carefully review and follow the cases, then even more to write up a concise summary for what could often be voluminous commentary and final decision. The absence of a regular, dedicated person now is represented in the lack of writing. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I heard online that we were smoking cigars in an oak-paneled room and deliberately refusing to write arb reports so as to suppress the truth about the brave fighters of Wikipediocracy; that version of the story makes us sound really powerful and well-staffed, so maybe we should go with that. jp×g🗯️ 01:45, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not a cigar fan, but I could imagine myself enjoying a Bourbon in that oak paneled room. It will have to wait for my big raise as a Signpost editor, though. How's that coming along, anyway? ☆ Bri (talk) 05:45, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sidetracked by having to translate like 800 fr.wp AN/I threads about "le wokisme" [sic]... jp×g🗯️ 08:03, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I really think we should have one on the COI case that ended recently, if there is time. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delays, since I had discussed with y'all sharing it months ago. We managed to shorten the query to <10 seconds so I'll be done with the data collection within the week. The associated graphs won't work on wiki (:sobs:) but I can host them on my website as a d3.js graph and link said website within the essay if that's fine with y'all. — ♠ Ixtal( T / C ) ⁂ Sign up for the 2024 DCWC! — Non nobis solum ♠ 01:11, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Next "In the media" (2)
Cf. this request for an uninvolved proofreader to do some fact-checking. Thank you. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 13:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SashiRolls: I wrote the section. Are you comfortable editing the text in the way you proposed? I encourage you to do so. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:03, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I reacted a bit. If you are comfortable editing then give it a go. I reworded the text to clarify that the Friction magazine article is an open letter by LGBT+ Wikipedia editors, so it is a source with a perspective and not attempting neutrality. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:25, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You removed the POV tag without treating any of the three problems:
The recently-created essay Wikipedia:No queerphobia and its related deletion discussion reflect the current mood at English Wikipedia. The close of that discussion said that folks agree that people can write pretty much whatever they want in essay space as long as it does not violate policy. This may or may not reflect a "mood" or a "zeitgeist".
Deadnaming is the term for the hateful practice of referring to a transgender person by their former name in unnecessary contexts. That's not what Merriam Webster (§) or en.wp say.
The results of that poll were narrowly in favor of including the deadnames. This "summary" fails to mention that the birth name must be reported in RS for it to be mentioned anywhere (generally in the early biography section only), and that the person must have become notable primarily while still using their birthname for it to be mentioned in the infobox or in the lede. NB: it is about the lede that there was a narrow majority of people saying that a person who became notable while still using their birthname should have their birthname mentioned in the lede. For the rest of the votes (excepting typography) there was no mention of a "narrow" majority.
I would expect these matters to be addressed before removing the POV tag. I will not become a co-author of this summary: I think it's up to the Signpost to factcheck these points. This is enough of a hot-button issue that I don't think this should be done sloppily.-- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 18:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@SashiRolls I checked with BR and got the go-ahead to boldly copy edit it for them and just did so, I believe I addressed your points.
I changed it to "perhaps reflects" - I do think it does as despite that consensus, many people wanted it deleted for various reasons, and many took issues with certain definitions given for queerphobia. The zeitgeist can't be observed in the essay or the close, but the edit history, talk page, and discussions. Since it was a discussion of what constitutes queerphobia and how to handle it, I think it bears mention.
I removed that sentence, the discussion wasn't about deadnaming (ie, using the deadname), it was about mentioning the deadname, which is different.
I added more details of the poll to better represent what it concluded, as well as gave context of the style guidelines that preceded it.
I generally added some more details, dealt with some voice issues, and restructued a little so the flow is
an open letter was published about this poll ->
why the poll was held + what happened in this poll + who else covered it ->
here's what the open letter said about this poll and frwiki in general+ an here's an open letter saying similar things from 2 years ago
While it was an improvement, unsurprisingly the author of the essay mentioned in the first paragraph is not likely to be the most neutral commentator on their essay. I made a couple sample edits, both of which had mistakes in them (the second, while better than the first, failed to mention that the poll was on fr.wp when the subject was introduced! lol) Nevertheless, both of these versions are less POV than the current text, which now claims that a user essay and the discussion of its deletion (for "I don't like it" or redundancy reasons) are comparable to a poll that had hundreds of participants discussing a considerably more weighty BLP issue than whether users have the right to express their opinions in an essay. As I said, I don't wish to co-author the article. Nevertheless you are welcome to incorporate any suggestions you find useful and discard the rest. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 22:08, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that's a fair point with regard to my neutrality lol. As such, I tried not to expand on it and focus on presenting it for other editors to interpret as they see fit. I don't think they're comparable fully, but two key similarities pop up imo 1) they're an attempt to garner community consensus with regards to how to respect LGBT people 2) both had charges of canvassing. I've just made some edits to try and add more details in general and incorporate your suggestions. I moved the no queerphobes mention to the bottom, disclosed I edited it, and added mention of the DRV. I also added a mention of the latest MOS:DEADNAME discussion which seems pertinent. As it stands, the essay/MFD/DRV and the deadname RFC were the most high profile closed cases regarding transphobia/naming recently on enwiki, I was also tempted to mention the Telegraph discussion on RSN but since it's ongoing think it's probably better not to. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:05, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Man we're past deadline -- not just writing deadline, but also publication deadline -- and I am already working on an arb report covering eighteen months instead of one month -- Jesus Christmas this is a gigantic block of text to proofread and copyedit that wasn't here yesterday... also it's about the hottest-button social issue of our times... also it's in French... what in tarnation... why the hell was there an articlespace pov tag in this... so many questions... I guess I will answer them, myself, tonight, starting with what in the damn hell the significance is of these Friction guys -- gals -- folx -- saying "LGBTQUIA+" in the lead of their article and "LGBTQIA+" in the headline, why are they saying "contributeurices" instead of "contributeurs" (are they all women?) because WiR on here sure don't call themselves "editrices" or "contributresses", maybe this is some weird French thing, jp×g🗯️ 05:14, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can only answer some of the questions (and apologize for the block of text I made you proofread and French rabbit hole we led you down lol).
LGBTQUIA+ seems to be Friction Magazine's acronym, not the authors of the letter. It's used to say Following numerous press articles on the treatment of trans people on Wikipedia, several LGBTQUIA+ contributors have written this open letter that we are publishing today on Friction Magazine. in the summary while the editors themselves use the shorter acronym and the byline is for "Contributeurices LGBTQIA+". I realized that only after adding a clarification to the article the U is for "undefined" (and, weirdly enough but neither here nor there, seems to primarily be a West Coast US thing).
wrt "contributeurices", AFAICT it's a gender neutral reclamation, stemming from discussions in French linguistic circles over the last few years on refeminization (French dropped the feminine forms of many words and kept only the masculine, there have been efforts in recent years 1) to reintroduce the feminine and 2) to hybridize the feminine and masculine). The french feminine form of contributors would be "contributrices" [1][2][3] ie: this is some weird French thing, like if we combined "actors" and "actresses" as "actoresses" to show the group was gender neutral
It's a bit late notice, but since it's pre-written, could WP:No Queerphobia be featured as the essay for today's issue? I saw it was mentioned in the In The Media section briefly and there isn't an essay pre-slated so thought I should ask, my apologies if this is the incorrect place for that. Best regards, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:00, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that essay might be too controversial to feature on The Signpost. Nothing against the essay, of course, but a lot of people do not like it, even those who oppose queerphobia. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:30, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for both your inputs! I'm not super invested in having it in the Signpost, but part of the reason I wrote it in Wikipedia: space was because I wanted to get more feedback and have it be a community essay (at this point, enough editors have chimed in I don't consider it mine). As such, reposting it in the signpost seems like a good way to get some more input and perhaps raise awareness about issues of discrimination me and other editors feel we have to deal with. I'm not sure if its mention in the "In the Media" makes it superfluous for the issue or a good supplement, and I'm not sure how controversial it will be and how much of a factor that is (though I doubt it'll stir more controversy than a certain humour essay lol). All we can do is wait for the editor in chief (who, IIRC, indirectly contributed to it through suggestions I incorporated). Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:24, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think another one of these past deadline in the same issue would have given me a coronary, maybe next one. I was pretty stuffed with the arb report also, orz././... jp×g🗯️ 10:58, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bri, JPxG, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist, and Oltrepier: Pinging everyone involved in the above discussion. This essay remains extremely controversial and a dispute surrounding it is currently at ANI. I still think that this essay is too controversial to feature in The Signpost, and we should leave it out. I say this as someone who strongly opposes queerphobia. I simply think that it would be a bad idea for The Signpost to get involved here. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not extremely controversial, there was a pretty clear consensus (or two) it met all the policies and guidelines of a userspace essay. Some don't like it, but that holds for all essays. Considering it would be published either right before or at the start of pride month, it seems the perfect time to publish an essay on queerphobia on enwiki and what policies provide recourse written by queer editors. The ANI case is going to a SNOW close GENSEX TBAN for the editor who opened it. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:58, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that makes sense. I was just worried about the angry shouting spreading to the Signpost comments. QuicoleJR (talk) 16:08, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A reasonable worry lol, I think it'll be a tempest in a teapot though. It's already been at MFD, DRV, AE, ANI, the LGBT noticeboard, and etc so I would hope all who've got strong feeling on it either way have got it out of their system and some fresh perspectives will arise. There will probably be some arguing in the comments, but I'm guessing it will look like Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-05-16/Comix and everyone will move on quickly. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
20:6+1 Traffic report
It looks like the upcoming Top25 report, through May 11, is under development but nearly done. Should we pull it in to the current issue, in its current state? Preview at Special:Permalink/1223973452. My concern is if we don't put it in this issue, it will be pretty stale by the time the next issue of The Signpost comes out. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:11, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't want to put 4 again. But the Signpost is already late, will post the latest one. igordebraga≠ 00:42, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Boy oh boy -- anyway I am running the script now, single talk page should be showing up at the top of the newsroom talk (in a cot) like always -- 4am, time to sloop. Ready to see which of the things from this issue the pitchforks get out for !!!! jp×g🗯️ 11:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your work on the Arbitration report and everything else.
I set the next issue date to 31 May, so we could have two in this month. I hope this is OK with the Newsroom team. Reminder: we have a major US holiday the weekend just prior to the publication date, which is a three-day weekend for many, so we shouldn't depend on high team productivity at that time – at least from United Statesians. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:05, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Unreviewed WMF submissions
NGunasena (WMF) notes here that there is currently a substantial backlog of WMF-submitted Signpost contributions. This seems unfortunate, since we should be encouraging and rewarding foundation folks who seek to communicate with us here, and since some are old enough at this point that they may have gone out of date. Would the editors be able to try to clear this backlog over the coming issues? (That said, we should of course be careful, since someone at the foundation doing particular work is by definition unable to report on that work as an outsider, so we should use opinion or other perspective labels as needed.) Sdkbtalk 15:04, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of the couple on there, there are two that sat for some time. Currently one of those is at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Technology report and I've reached out to the authors to confirm it's still up-to-date -- it looks ready to run basically.
Another is User:ELappen (WMF)/Signpost draft -- could this go into N&N? @Bri and Jayen466: take a look if you can, and see if this can be slotted into N&N in the Form 990 section, or if it would be better to have it be its own piece. jp×g🗯️ 09:43, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. I think as it stands, it is too short for a standalone section. My suggestion would be to add it in a quote box or as a separate section in the next N&N. AndreasJN466 11:54, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
this is annoyingly unfunny. ltbdl (talk) 14:53, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Humor is subjective. This seems non-actionable unless you have something to offer regarding editorial process...? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:35, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
kill the comics section, that could work. ltbdl (talk) 02:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, a serious question: are you actually requesting that we stop having a feature because you personally find some of the stuff in it dumb? If this is the case, then no.
If this is not the case, and you are just saying you think it sucks, then I appreciate the feedback and apologize for writing and running so much anodyne stuff. I have done my best within the constraints we must operate in. jp×g🗯️ 07:23, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it'd get rid of a lot of drama, probably. ltbdl (talk) 08:31, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Turn on your monitor... jp×g🗯️ 06:52, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
20:7+1 Recent research
As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now in its thirteenth year). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here, as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:48, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A suggestion for 20:7+2 Special report
Hello! First of all, sorry for not being able to help with the up-coming issue: I've been pretty much snowed with other tasks and priorities...
Since the first ever election cycle for the newly-established Italian ArbCom has just come to an end, I feel like it would be nice to talk about it next time, so much that I'm considering to write a full Special report about it, by even reaching out to some of the most notable users involved in the process. However, if you feel like we should rather stick to a shorter blurb in the "News and notes" column, I'd be up for it, as well!
How do you all feel about this? Oltrepier (talk) 20:26, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We are abjectly grateful to anyone who writes anything at all about the governance of the non-English projects. Sounds interesting, in particular given the Orsini affair and the recent de-stewarding of one of the Italian stewards. AndreasJN466 14:42, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jayen466 I'm very happy to read this! So, do you think it deserves its own Special report? Oltrepier (talk) 20:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Up to the EiC, but there aren't too many projects that have an ArbCom, so if a major project creates one, yes, I'd say that's worth writing about. I also wonder if User:Gitz6666 might like to contribute some views or info to any article; he is a native speaker. AndreasJN466 22:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the ping. I'd be happy to help, but I'm afraid that a contribution from me would be perceived as inappropraite, even inflammatory, by many it.wiki users. Notable points about the Italian ArbCom: 1. It has limited purview and doesn't deal with deflagging/desysopping. 2. The arbitrators' opinions/votes and their reasoning are kept secret from the community (see here at N° 4), which frankly I find extraordinary since arbitrators are elected from the community. I've written my views on this in my blog here (in Italian). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now in its thirteenth year). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here, as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:48, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
