Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost

WikiCup 2015

Hi there; this is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2015 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, more than fifty users have signed up to take part in the competition; interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 21:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I should probably note: I will quit if this becomes an advertising platform for the Wikicup without covering the major controversy over it. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 16:25, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

@Adam Cuerden: Hope you don't mind that I moved your comment to the talk page since it somehow got into the table. Could you link to or explain the controversy? I for one am ignorant of it. Gamaliel (talk) 00:48, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Didn't receive

I did not receive the January 7 edition, even though I subscribed. What happened? Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 03:40, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

@Nahnah4: I'm not sure; I can't find anything that's wrong. Let's see if it was a hiccup and the 14 January edition goes to your page. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:19, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

op-ed

To editor Gamaliel: I posted a second op-ed well before you marked the page "on hiatus." It's free content for you. All you might do is proofread it. As for me, I can't get enough of the sound of my own voice (or the sight of my excellent turn of phrase). I'll be back tomorrow to re-read this comment. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:33, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry! Whatever I did to screw up the table was completely uninentional. I will try to fix it when I am back on a proper computer instead of this tablet. Gamaliel (talk) 05:10, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm having trouble figuring out what I did wrong. Can you link me to your missing op-ed? Gamaliel (talk) 18:25, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Still linked at the opinion desk. It's about AfC. You might want to move old entries into the archives, too. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:23, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Chris troutman The template does that automatically when resetting the newsroom. I've slotted it in for you. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

GLAM

The GLAM newsletter is currently produced on a monthly basis, and has many stories that would be of interest to a wider signpost audience. Would it make sense for the signpost and the GLAM community to work together more closely, either by the signpost crew copying some key GLAM articles into a GLAM section of the first signpost after the GLAM newsletter comes out, or by the Signpost simply republishing/linking to the GLAM newsletter as a monthly GLAM section of the signpost? WereSpielChequers Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 16:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Jonathan Cardy (WMUK): Sorry for the delayed reply on this ... we are going through an editorial transition right now. My initial reaction is that this sounds like an idea with some potential. Let me talk to Gamaliel about this, and see what he thinks, but I think this can definitely go somewhere. Thanks for bringing it up. Go Phightins! 18:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Ping Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) because Phightins did not put ")" the first time. Rcsprinter123 (talk) 18:26, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

If that works, maybe the monthly GLAM supplement could be alternated with some sort of special reports from the various other WMF entities, perhaps on an alternating basis? I suppose I and a few others could get together a report from Wikisource every few months. John Carter (talk) 18:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Hmm. Just thinking out loud here. We have the research report the last edition of each month, if we did something with GLAM the first (or would it be the second), we could potentially run something the first and third (or second and third) WMF-ish. Go Phightins! 21:58, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Does the education project have any sort of regular newsletter? Maybe if it does, running that as a once-a-month supplement, with the various other entities filling in the 4th week, might work best. John Carter (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think there is an education one, and I'm pretty sure there is a tech one. Agreed that a different "supplement" each week would make more sense than just a GLAM one. Thinking more deeply on it, the ideal route would be for a non GLAM person to do some sort of a summary/intro that included such highlights as the latest content donations. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 12:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Highly related to this, can I direct your attention to my suggestion from a couple of months ago called newsletter roundup. I believe if there was a system/section in place which highlighted the publications across the wikiverse that had happened since the previous edition of the signpost, that would be a valuable service that the signpost could offer. Furthermore, I would suspect the authors of those reports would themselves be keen to do the updating of the info. Meaning that the burden of effort on the Signpost crew would be minimal once the setup was in place. Wittylama 15:13, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Better Delievery

Hey all,

Will it be good to have a Signpost edition at your talkpage with at least some decorations as Book & Bytes give? I mean, some border and/or Signpost log and/or the like..--The Herald : here I am 16:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

We send out editions to more people and more often than Books & Bytes and This MOnth in GLAM, so I've always preferred the minimalistic approach. Most Wikipedians, in my experience, don't like to have a cluttered talk page! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

This week

I sent out the Signpost this week, so any mistakes are solely attributable to me and not User:Pine or User:The ed17. Gamaliel (talk) 20:01, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Thankfully, though, I don't think there were any. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

21 Jan 2015 single-page link not there

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-01-21 link isn't there. Incidentally, searching for "Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2014" yields results but 2015 doesn't show anything (there should be two right? 14 Jan and 21 Jan issue). -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

 Done.. - The Herald (here I am) 15:24, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@Gamaliel:..It is because of the confusion of Wikipedia Signpost and Signpost.. - The Herald (here I am) 15:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thanks but I notice this difference: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-01-21 versus Wikipedia:Signpost/Single/2015-01-21. I see that the former style is used for the previous years, eg Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2014-03-19. Also, previous issue Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-01-14 is missing. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 15:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It appears that the bot has not been automatically doing this for quite some time, and quite simply no one has noticed the difference. :-) I've alerted Jarry1250 to the issue. Thanks, Ugog! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:42, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate tone when transcluded?

Could the regular Signpost editors have a look at this thread? Portal:Featured content gets about 12,000 views a day. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:42, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Women-only wiki

Hello, please report on this. --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the clear and brief instruction, NaBUru38. I shall look into featuring this, as I produce the WikiProject report. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (announce) @ 17:42, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

We are going to cover this in NAN. Go Phightins! 01:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, so I won't. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (banter) @ 15:57, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

What's NAN? GoodDay (talk) 16:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

GoodDay: News and Notes. Rcsprinter₁₂₃ (utter) @ 17:00, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks :) GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Redirect quote template

Conversation moved from Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Quote. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:18, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

First, Andy, it was an MfD, and I assumed you'd realize that you were being reverted because you hadn't discussed your edits beforehand (again; this seems to be a reoccurring pattern). The quote templates are not the same, and I don't see a compelling reason why they should be merged. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I've moved my comment back where I started the conversation. Leave it there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

To Signpost editors, is this matter satisfactorily resolved, though not discussed here? As has been questioned and assert at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Quote#Concluded?? --doncram 00:58, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Per my closure there, I believe it to be so. Go Phightins! 01:14, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion for an item in the Signpost -- no Page view statistics

(I don't know where I am supposed to make a suggestion, so please forgive me if I have sinned)

Page view statistics has been down for days, and no one seems to know why or who to report it to. See:Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#http:.2F.2Fstats.grok.se_partial_data. Ottawahitech (talk) 16:12, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Legoktm: Can you fit this into the technology report before publication? Rcsprinter¹²³ (palaver) @ 17:42, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Context: last October, the WMF said that they were trying to build a new page view system: "Negrin told [the Signpost] that they are aware of the problem and are currently working to replace the current apparatus with a "modern, scalable system," which will come out in a preliminary form next quarter." Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Ijon (Asaf Bartov) has raised it here Shyamal (talk) 05:18, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Single page edition for the latest issue?

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-02-11 is a redlink. :( Anomie⚔ 11:28, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

• Anomie thanks for the note. I have filled that page manually. The publication tool gave me some errors at its last page. Pinging User:The ed17 to check into the publication tool. --Pine^✉ 11:58, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

• This is a known defect of the publishing script. When Jarry has time to fix the numerous other errors in the script, I'm hopeful that he will address this one as well. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

On professionalism

The use of a ":)" in the caption appearing on the front page of the paper bothers me; it seems a needless breach of professionalism that doesn't add anything to the picture in question. ResMar 16:07, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Fixed! Gamaliel (talk) 19:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Was it not intentional? ResMar 22:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspect it was just grabbed from the FC article, which has a traditionally lighter tone than the rest of the Signpost, and we didn't notice the emoticon. Gamaliel (talk) 22:15, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Some ideas

I remember back—way back—when I was active at this publication the number one thing that got me excited (never mind the bloody dispatches) was the opinion desk, which published some engrossing and truly interesting material. Now, I've not been active in this project or on Wikipedia in general for quite a while, but I'm still quite disappointed with the desk's low level of output. There are a lot of essays being written on Wikipedia and new ones are going up all the time; why not publish a few of them?

I understand that, as always, this has a lot to do with the overwhelming nature of the work slewn onto the paper editors (Ed's comments in that TFD only serve to reinforce my notion of the temporal and thankless nature of it all). Still I think that we certainly we could have found something that someone wrote in all of 2014 worth publishing! Perhaps this would require actively searching out and reading other people's works and curational discussions about what's worth publishing amongst the staff. I'm curious to see if there isn't some mechanism by which someone might be able to scrobble through most recently written Wikipedian essays to see if any are worth publishing. They won't all have the impact of the one we published on declining administrator promotion (I admit, I am jealous!), but I think they're a valuable thing for any publication to keep stock of and a way to differentiate this paper from "encyclopedia on the encyclopedia" to, well, a newspaper.

What do you all think? ResMar 03:44, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Resident Mario. Actually, we have run some interesting op-eds and such over the past year, including I believe three since Gamaliel and I became co-editors, but to be honest, I forgot that page existed, so I never listed them there. I suspect that is some of the reason that page looks so bare. The ed17 -- is that correct? Thanks for bringing it up, and we do always strive to have an opinion piece or special feature of some kind in each issue. Go Phightins! 11:40, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You guys should really put more effort into keeping a catalog of publications: I'm still the only person in the edit history for the special desk, for instance. Ensuring editorial continuity in the paper is important—otherwise people write things, others read them, and then they vanish into the archives forever, never to be seen or introduced into or cited in relevant discussions again. ResMar 16:05, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

A side effect of soliciting and receiving more op-eds via email and Google docs led to the op desk being underutilized. The lack of an updated list of op-eds is, I admit, my fault. I forgot to keep track of them. A quick check of the 2014 archives shows that we had fourteen op-eds and three forums last year. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

@The ed17: Aha! My concerns are unwarranted then! Excellent.

I have another several harebrained schemes, however, also in the theme of "continuity".

Series template modifications

The Signpost maintains continuity across articles on related subjects primarily through the use of the Series template. This template has the advantage of allowing past stories to automatically front-link to more recently written ones: a topic-specific implementation of the template is made and then posted across the related articles that is automatically updated on all of them when a new one is published and included in the list. However there were always issues fitting all of the articles on a particular subject into the template comfortably when there were a lot of them, which causes a lot of formatting problems in older articles which were designed with the then-current, much shorter topic list in mind. See, for instance, the flagged revisions story-roll, and how it fits in—or doesn't—here and here. Ideally we (you?) should be trying to both maintain continuity in articles and prevent older ones from degrading in the long-term.

For that purpose I've jury rigged an extended version of the template with the capacity to auto-hide links: an example in action is here. I think it's definitely worthwhile investigating bringing that functionality into the series template, or perhaps into an extended version of the series template.

One problem is that elegant custom toggle bit that I back-in-the-day stole from some Foundation page or other only opens downwards (as do all the other item-hiding templates), which would require listing items in reverse chronological order, which isn't necessarily a good change to make. Another is defining a breakpoint for when "enough is enough" and further articles should be hidden; I think this would be a trivial problem in Lua, but I have no experience with Wikipedia's new template paradigms. ResMar 18:06, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

ResMar, that's brilliant. I've had trouble with the overly lengthy template. Legoktm, is there any chance you could help with the Lua end of this? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Indexing of past stories

I have spent the past couple of hours going through past issues of the Signpost and building or fixing up lists of published content as they appear in the various subdesks. I implore the editors that, in the future, they keep these lists active—ae. update them as necessary whenever special reports, series, etc. are published. If we cannot track of its own ideas in a cohesive manner how can we expect readers to keep track of them, too? ResMar 03:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I finished up the op-eds. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Unused templates which may be of use

There are a handful of templates in the namespace which do not see any use: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Briefly, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Related, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Discussion used, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Poll, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Analysis. Perhaps a use could be found for them, perhaps not. ResMar 03:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Poll and analysis were used often in Jarry's tech reports. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Poll in particular is super interesting to me. I can imagine sticking it into a N&N entry and asking users whether or not they agree/disagree with particular statements, issues, etc. The way I was thinking of implementing it involves users clicking on blue-links which accept their response and return the results so far on some sort of external website, but Jarry's implementation is much more impressive, both visually and technically. It is also (as far as I can tell), unfortunately, broken :). ResMar 06:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, he would run them on the Toolserver, which is now gone. You might be able to get someone to do it on Labs; I suspect that it would be incredibly simple to code. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:36, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Guidelines

I think that this page from 2011 should be revived and made more prominent in the organization of the paper. It provides a framework for how Signpost content is organized, and could prove useful as a companion to the sidebarred "Style" guidelines: where one explains how the articles should be written, the other explains what is being written. It's a formalization of what regulars here already know, but I think it's an important one that would be helpful in getting potential editors started. ResMar 03:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not often that I can say that I've never seen a Signpost page before. I've made a few tweaks to update that page to current expectations. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:05, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm currently bringing it up to specification; once I'm done I think I'll sidehost it to the Style link in the sidebar. ResMar 06:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

It'll need the traffic report! You've done a great job with it. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:36, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I've added a couple of splash infographics to the page, it's good to go. ResMar 19:18, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, I hear there's an opening in N&N? I might bite. ResMar 06:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

There is an opening! I'm around for bouncing ideas of of, institutional knowledge, and contacts, but grad school is (a) taking much of my time and (b) making me write a lot. I don't have a lot of willingness to finish a paper and immediately turn around for NAN. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:36, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Whereas my schoolwork is apparently not sufficient to keep me from spending half a day cataloging old Signpost pages! ResMar 06:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

I have 120 essay exams to grade, a book to read, and a book review to write by Tuesday. ;-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

FP draft

Could anyone please set up a draft on the next featured issue, we are nowhere and I have no idea how to do it. We should be working on that already. Please, help. Hafspajen (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2015 (UTC)