Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom

Calendar: current deadline is highlighted, and current UTC date is 2024-05-17 12:33:31.
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The Signpost currently has 5532 articles, 693 issues, and 13465 pages (4379 talk and 9086 non-talk).

Current issue: Volume 20, Issue 7 (2024-05-16) ·

issue page · archive page · single-page edition · single-page talk (create)

Articles and pageviews for 2024-05-16

Pageviews for 2024-05-16 (V) Subpage Title 7-day 15-day 30-day 60-day 90-day 120-day 180-day Traffic report Crawl out through the fallout, baby 191 191 191 191 191 191 191 Special report Will the new RfA reform come to the rescue of administrators? 361 361 361 361 361 361 361 Op-Ed Wikidata to split as sheer volume of information overloads infrastructure 2748 2748 2748 2748 2748 2748 2748 News and notes Democracy in action: multiple elections 392 392 392 392 392 392 392 In the media Deadnames on the French Wikipedia, and a duel between Russian wikis 515 515 515 515 515 515 515 Comix Generations 340 340 340 340 340 340 340 Arbitration report Ruined temples for posterity to ponder over – arbitration from '22 to '24 371 371 371 371 371 371 371

Articles and pageviews for 2024-04-25

Pageviews for 2024-04-25 (V) Subpage Title 7-day 15-day 30-day 60-day 90-day 120-day 180-day WikiProject report WikiProject Newspapers (Not WP:NOTNEWS) 478 663 787 787 787 787 787 WikiConference report WikiConference North America 2023 in Toronto recap 544 773 867 867 867 867 867 Traffic report O.J., cricket and a three body problem 510 764 889 889 889 889 889 Recent research New survey of over 100,000 Wikipedia users 910 1208 1369 1369 1369 1369 1369 News and notes A sigh of relief for open access as Italy makes a slight U-turn on their cultural heritage reproduction law 786 1011 1149 1149 1149 1149 1149 In the media Censorship and wikiwashing looming over RuWiki, edit wars over San Francisco politics and another wikirace on live TV 1494 1972 2300 2300 2300 2300 2300

Delay

I see that most of the started articles for this issue aren't in copyeditable state, so I think it would be condign to put off the publication for a day (or maybe a little longer). jp×g🗯️ 18:51, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@JPxG I agree, it would help us work on them a little more calmly... Oltrepier (talk) 10:17, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I will see to get RR into a publishable state within the next six hours, and should also be able to help out a bit with N&N and/or ITM.

Looking at the other blue links at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Article status:

• Traffic report looks ready to be copyedited (CCing Igordebraga to confirm)
• WikiProject report has substantial content already but also lots of placeholders - Shushugah, would you prefer this to be postponed to the next issue?
• Tips and tricks and Obituary still consist mostly of Lorem ipsum and should probably be postponed or removed
• News from Wiki Edu seems problematic per the discussion above
• Web report is an inscrutable draft that was last edited in December and should probably be moved somewhere else or be deleted to avoid confusion

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:42, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

yes, please do postpone my WikiProject report, I will ping again new/existing contributors. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:52, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

@CaptainEek and Adam Cuerden: Are you still working on your respective columns? Oltrepier (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I've had a ton of paperwork regarding my dad's death. Next issue. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs.} 18:50, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

@Adam Cuerden I'm so sorry, I didn't know about it... Oltrepier (talk) 10:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually it doesn't seem that CaptainEek was planning to work on the obituary, based on the thread above (which probably would have been better placed on the suggestions page).

Overall it looks like we should go with N&N, ITM, Traffic report and RR, only. (RR should be publishable now, after Bri and I had to wrestle a bit with the rather unwieldy Nature paper, but could still use some copyediting. The former three still haven't been marked as ready for copyediting and also lack titles and blurbs.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@HaeB Oh, I messed up, sorry.

To be honest, I could have write a brief obituary myself, but since I never got to know Vami personally, I'm afraid of just "phoning it in" and sounding dishonest... Oltrepier (talk) 11:01, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@Shushugah: Any progress regarding Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report since last month? Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:11, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

If there's a need for more articles for the upcoming edition, I'd gladly writeup a report in the next few hours on the WikiCup (first round just finished), like I did a few months back, if there's any interest. @JPxG:? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:10, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Would there be any interest in me writing something up about it for this edition? BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak for JPxG (who is currently tasked with making the final calls on such questions), but it sounds like a good idea to me! Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:56, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

@BeanieFan11 You've got my co-sign, as well!

On a side note, has anyone had any updates on Wiki Loves Monuments? Oltrepier (talk) 10:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

The organizers came out with a big announcement on February 26 informing the world that ... "we approach the highly anticipated announcement of the winners of the Wiki Loves Monuments 2023" ;) I would check the social media channels mentioned there if you are looking for future updates. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

OK - will make sure to write one up in the next few hours. Thanks, BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:02, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Working on it... BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@JPxG, HaeB, and Oltrepier: Wrote it up here: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiCup report. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:51, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I did some quick copyediting. The layout is still messed up due to an apparent bug in the series template (also in this earlier story) - CCing JPxG as he appears to have looked into that template most recently. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I think I worked around the series template bug. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:29, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks good now -- I don't know exactly what's going on, layoutwise, with the sidebar templates. I haven't had time to check it out; I am a little burned-out on Signpost technical maintenance, so it may be a while, and in the meantime perhaps we just need to have the repeated end and start templates (unless anyone else can fix what's going on there). jp×g🗯️ 22:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• Okay, I am going to start going through now and making ready. jp×g🗯️ 22:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Nap and we roll. jp×g🗯️ 11:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG Wait, I'll try to take over the obituary real quick! Oltrepier (talk) 13:25, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG: Right, now the obituary should be ready to go, as well. Since I never got to know Vami personally, I was afraid of doing everyone a disservice, so I just used sawyer-mcdonell's note and gave him writing credits. Please let me know if it's still OK. Oltrepier (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for the credit! I'll add that @AirshipJungleman29 copyedited & reconfigured it at my request, so I'd request that he be given some credit too. :) sawyer * he/they * talk 19:08, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Sawyer-mcdonell Sure, I've done it just now. Thank you for clarifying! : ) Oltrepier (talk) 19:57, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

  Lovely! sawyer * he/they * talk 19:58, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Issue 2-04 publication

Since JPxG has said he's making ready for publication, I want to suggest people go pencils-down ASAP so we can get this thing out the door. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:30, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

That "start going through now and making ready" announcement was made over 20 hours ago, followed by no pertinent edits yet. I am very very unconvinced that team members making further edits in the meantime is the main hold-up here (btw, I see you made some additions to N&N yourself right after posting that "pencils-down" suggestion here).

Generally speaking, as we have discussed several times here over the last year or so, the problem is the lack of reliable deadlines (this issue was supposed to be published over three days ago). They just won't be taken serious if the EiC just sits back and waits for everything come in, then swoops in days after the supposed publication time to edit heavily and make decisions (and late-adds his own stories without a chance of them getting reviewed by others). Rather, one needs to be actively involved in the run-up to the deadline, e.g. by following up on stale drafts or providing feedback when asked. Both of these tasks had to be taken up by others in this section, and if it helps we could think about devolving that role more formally (in any case I would like to already highlight Oltrepier's great work on curating this issue).

Apropos, it would be good if the next issue's publication date could be set to a Sunday again per our usual custom.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much, @HaeB, although I did what I did mostly out of my natural selflessness... mixed with self-annihilation. : )

But jokes aside, I think all of the articles we agreed on publishing are actually good to go now; I've only left Vami's obituary un-ticked, because I wrote it myself, so I thought another pair of eyes would only improve it before giving it the final green light.

By the way, I take advantage of this discussion to let you know that I won't guarantee you to be able to contribute as much to the next few issues, due to real-life priorities (mostly study priorities). Sorry for it... Oltrepier (talk) 20:10, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if I would call it devolution. In the ancient times of 2022 tasks were divided to some extent (e.g. the editor-in-chief and publication manager were separate people). There was also one issue a month instead of two. Then for a while there were two editors-in-chief, and overall more manpoower available for writing and editing, and this swell of momentum was at the time the main impetus for moving to two issues a month. Well, now there is one EiC, who is me, and no publication manager, and it is somewhat difficult to find time for editing and formatting and publishing the whole thing as well as shepherding articles through the editorial process. Some of the stuff you've mentioned, I don't really know how to avoid. For example, if I publish articles marked for publication without editing them at all -- some of them from this issue were marked as ready for final approval and still had lorem ipsum at the start -- it will just look bad, and if I let stuff get published that's too edgy and spicy and unsubstantiated we will get dragged to ANI and our articles nominated for deletion and our editorial control eroded further (I am willing to fight these battles over stuff that is newsworthy and of public interest but not for, say, throwaway off-color remarks about the length of fingers -- we know how that went last time). If I just omit articles from the issue that aren't ready and don't add to them, it is sitting back and doing nothing, but if I complete unwritten articles by adding stuff to them (or write my own) it is swooping. I postponed publication of this issue by a couple days because none of the articles were close to ready, which is being late. At any rate, I have not contributed a piece of original reporting in multiple months.

I would very much appreciate if someone were able to help out with the publishing process.

I think that, if nothing else, the technical work has made it a lot easier to do this (the newsroom automatically displays all the articles without having to be manually edited every time, there's an automatically updating calendar in the deadline template, the deadline template itself is far simpler and easier to use, the draft templates give better help for article and image formatting, the publishing script/tagging script/draft templates/display templates now allow images without excruciating hours of manual formatting) -- so, while it still takes time, it no longer requires someone to go elbow-deep into the task beyond knowing basics of wiki markup.

I've mentioned here once or twice that the faster schedule has proven somewhat difficult, and that there would probably be less stress if we moved back to monthly publication, and it didn't seem very persuasive. Nonetheless, I think that for the next issue I am just going to set the date to three weeks from now, and if we manage to figure out something that allows an issue to be released two weeks from now that's great -- otherwise I do not think it's worthwhile. jp×g🗯️ 05:52, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Interview with WMF leadership

I have a draft at

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Interview

@Smallbones and Jayen466: Thanks for helping to coordinate this

Details:

1. This article links to the unedited draft video interview. If needed, I can have that unedited version in Wikimedia Commons within hours, and it is shareable as is. I do not expect to have an edited version uploaded till end of month.
2. I did this interview as a Signpost journalist. I would appreciate anyone calling out if that seems inappropriate, and if rather this should be from me as an individual community member.
3. The tone of this interview is giving a platform to WMF to say what they like. To me, the community interest here includes 1) confirming that the communication channel is open 2) providing the editorial service of linking to name-dropped concepts 3) curating links to background information not mentioned 4) hosting a comments section for anyone to react and 5) publishing this in the record as a collection of conversations on this topic, which could be useful when there a need to cite everything discussed on this topic till now.
4. I appreciate anyone checking to add more links or more cited sources that I may have missed.
5. I appreciate any feedback on this interview as a precedent for getting video interviews into The Signpost. I or anyone else could do more, if this format works.

Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I haven't looked at this yet but adding new media formats to The Signpost beyond pure print seems like a healthy and good direction for us. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:07, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Bluerasberry,

Thanks for this. I was wondering if you want to include some further sources at the end? Such as:

• The latest Fundraising Report 22/23 (I think you are currently linking to the one from the year before)
• Preparing Together: Updates on 2023 English fundraising (follow up post from the ABC for fundraising that you already have)
• And maybe 7 reasons you should donate to Wikipedia as well as Love Wikipedia? Get to know the nonprofit behind it? These give a good background overview for readers
• You can also always link to our meta page where we are happy to engage with anyone who is interested.

Hope this is helpful. Best, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 08:08, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@JBrungs (WMF): Thanks, they all fit, I added them all. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The issue immediately after 20-4 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) 05:34, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing this [1] is on your radar. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:08, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't, thanks for the heads-up! On first glance it doesn't quite seem to be in scope for "Recent research", e.g. because it is not an academic publication, so I think "In the media" might be the best section for it. Depending on the publication time of this issue (cf. below) I might be able to do a brief writeup if nobody else beats me to it. Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:32, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup

I noticed the next edition of The Signpost comes out soon. Was wondering if there'd be any support for me writing another article on updates of the WikiCup like I have twice before? I'd be glad to make it an annual column if anyone supports it (kind of liked doing the past two articles). Thoughts? @JPxG: BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

This issue

Somewhat large backlog to get through, which I will take a crack at tomorrow. Somebody has mentioned that there hasn't been an arbitration report in some time, so I will try to get something written. jp×g🗯️ 10:06, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Will the arbitration report have something to do with the comment at AN: It's no surprise that the environmental modeling software company with four Wikipedia articles is the one that has a Wikipedia admin on its payroll.? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:43, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I just added a story to N&N which should make it into a viable standalone section. ITM isn't quite yet, though.

Given that only "Interview" and "Humor" appear to be without major content gaps at this time, I think it is safe to assume that the updated deadline is not realistic either, so I just went ahead and tentatively moved it a bit further (JPxG, feel free to adjust to the actual intended publication time).

I'll aim to have RR publishable by that time, and hopefully I can also contribute a bit more to ITM. Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:28, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I will be on a plane in a couple days, and the couple weeks after that I will be on the same computer (but with a comically tiny screen). My hope is to spend most of tomorrow working and packing, and I don't know how much of an impressive arb report can get done between that and everything else, it might be kind of thin gruel. Some things that need to happen still:

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions#New Page Patrol receives a much-needed software upgrade
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions#Submission proposal: Op-ed on Wikipedia in the age of personality-driven knowledge
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions#Designing a new community wishlist
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions#Progress on the plan: How the Wikimedia Foundation has advanced on its Annual Plan goals

I think all four of these are good, and should be run in this issue; they have to get moved into articles and formatted properly (and piccies found). If someone could help out with this I would experience extreme pleasure (I will apologize for taking care of these extremely late on my own behalf). jp×g🗯️ 10:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I think all four of these are good, and should be run in this issue - can you explain your assessment more in case of the third piece? I don't see any content in the linked submission (User:JWheeler-WMF/Designing a new Community Wishlist).

Also, not to get into wider discussions about balancing opinion and journalistic reporting (or independent coverage vs. advocacy by interested parties), but four (or 3.5) different WMF-authored pieces in a single Signpost issue seems quite a lot. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:44, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

last night i offered to help out with the Signpost (via discord message), but i'm not sure where to start, or what would be most helpful... anyone have any suggestions of things that need doing? ... sawyer * he/they * talk 04:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media links some news items that still need a (possible quite brief) writeup, and (as discussed above), this could too. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:37, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

i can definitely try my hand at blocking down some summaries for In the media :) ... sawyer * he/they * talk 04:39, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

i've written a blurb about Lucy Moore/women on Wikipedia (although i wasn't sure what to put for the subtitle), and added the sources about alleged anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia mentioned at Wikipedia:Press coverage 2024#March - i haven't written a blurb or anything for that topic though. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 06:25, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks good! I added one sentence. Someone still needs to find a catchy subtitle for each.

Two other recent news items that seem worth covering in ITEM if you're interested: [2] (see also our earlier coverage: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-09-16/News_and_notes#A fork in the Roads WikiProject), [3]. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

i recall discussing the roads wiki fork with other editors on discord - it's something people are interested in. i can write a little something about both! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 07:20, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @HaeB and @Sawyer-mcdonell - I hope that I am posting in the right place and tagging the right users; if not, please forgive me. ;) My question is whether it is possible to include more caveats about the World Jewish Congress (WJC) report that is covered in the In Brief section titled "Accusations of bias"? The Foundation takes allegations of bias on Wikimedia projects seriously, so several staff have reviewed the report. They found that the WJC report makes a number of unsubstantiated claims of bias on Wikipedia. It lacks adequate references, quotes, links, or other sources to support its purported findings. Further, the report misunderstands Wikipedia's NPOV policy, as well as the importance of anonymity for user privacy on Wikimedia projects. Thanks! LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 00:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

having read the WJC report myself, i completely agree with the WMF's conclusions here about the poor quality of the report - as a very new contributor (mentioned above) i'm unsure of the best way to include such caveats, so i'll ping @JPxG (who himself added to the blurb) for some more input. i also wonder whether it might be better to move this to a full story rather than an in-the-brief blurb? currently we only have 1 lead story at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media ... sawyer * he/they * talk 00:48, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there is certainly room in ITM (and other Signpost sections) to include context and informed criticism about the covered publications.

I just made this into a full story, taking Lauren's note above into account and adding other context and links to previous related coverage.

@LDickinson (WMF): thanks for the input, and generally speaking (i.e. without having formed a conclusive opinion about this specific report myself) it is great to see the Foundation pushing back publicly against shoddy research and defending Wikipedia against unfounded bias accusations. (As you might be aware, we too have been doing this at the Signpost at various times, including for some pretty egregious examples.) My only feedback would be that criticism of such faulty research is even more useful (for our audience and probably also for the criticized researchers) if it is concrete and substantiated itself. Are the reviews by WMF staff that you mentioned public, or could they be made public? It would be great to be able to link them in our story.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:08, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@LDickinson (WMF) Out of curiosity, has the WMF published any comment/response to the WJC report somewhere? If not, do you intend to? For the interested, I used it as a ref at Wikipedia and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and another editor added some more. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @HaeB, @Sawyer-mcdonell, and @Gråbergs Gråa Sång, thanks for updating the write-up to include the Foundation's assessment of the report. I’d like to add an important point: The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes research that can help improve the quality of content on Wikipedia. We strongly recommend researchers to do so in accordance with the policies and best practices that researchers and the Wikipedia volunteer community have developed (e.g., Research:FAQ). We are committed to further examining any additional information shared about or related to this research. Could this be included in the story?

As is our typical practice, we will respond to any relevant media inquiries with our assessment and comments on the report, rather than posting a public statement. Thanks again! LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not sure how much our readers would benefit from reading through generic PR truisms like The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes research that can help improve the quality of content on Wikipedia (I mean, it would be quite surprising if *discouraged* such research). I know that these have value in other text genres like press releases, but the Signpost, like most journalistic publication really, usually tries to focus on the actually newsworthy information.

As for We strongly recommend researchers to do so in accordance with the policies and best practices that researchers and the Wikipedia volunteer community have developed (e.g., Research:FAQ): As a general statement this is likewise commendable but not very newsworthy. However, if included in this story, many or most readers may, not unreasonably, perceive it as an insinuation that this "strong recommendation" was not followed in case of the present report. And that brings me back to my above feedback about your earlier (already included) statement, which I don't see you addressing: Criticism is more valuable if it is concrete and substantiated (after all, unsubstantiated claims was one of the problems you raised yourself about the WJC's criticism of Wikipedia). So which policies and best practices did Dr Lir violate concretely in her report, in the Wikimedia Foundation's assessment? Again, I'm not against calling out researchers' failings and am not defending this report. But we do have some responsibility about what kind of negative statement we highlight and publicize in the Signpost. And sometimes academics who have made mistakes hit back aggressively instead of addressing valid criticism (see e.g. this very extreme recent example, smaller versions of which exist in many places), so we need to be prepared to defend this coverage if needed.

By the way, the FAQ you recommend is essentially unmaintained, and horribly outdated in various parts and incomplete in others (notwithstanding the very commendable efforts of one staff member back in 2021 to fix several other parts, as a side project at the Wikimania hackathon). E.g. related to the policies and best practices part, it makes no mention of the WP:NOTLAB policy that enwiki instituted in 2017.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:04, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @HaeB. I take your point. Stated plainly, I’ll refer back to my first note: The report lacks adequate references, quotes, links, or other sources to support its purported findings. While we take claims like these seriously, we found them to be unsubstantiated. Without adequate sources and adherence to our standard research guidelines, it’s difficult to comment further on their veracity. LDickinson (WMF) (talk) 03:00, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

@Jayen466: Were you still going to write up the UCoC item you added to N&N? Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• I am going to head out in a couple hours, and that is probably the last time I'll be online today. So far it looks like we have most of a usable ITM, traffic report and N&N, a couple light columns (humor and comix) and an interview due to be uploaded in full on the 28th. I don't see anything for recent research; I had hoped to have more time for a discussion or arb report but did not. I think that it might be better to hold back for a day or so; if we just ran on the 28th we could probably have a full RR and interview as well as enough time for a discussion/arb report. jp×g🗯️ 12:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the update (but, broken record, please also have the deadline template reflect such information for the benefit of everyone contributing to this issue; I just tried do to that myself, again).

  It sounds like you were saying that we won't publish before the 28th (UTC?) in any case because of that interview. As always, I'm committed to not have RR become the bottleneck that holds up publication, I'll now aim to have it in a publishable state in about 24h, which I assume will still be well before the new actual deadline. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  To highlight a few other still open tasks besides those discussed above, in case Sawyer-mcdonell or others would like to chip in on those:

  • Copyediting and drafting headlines, as per the list at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Article_status. (The lead story in N&N has actually been available for copyediting since Sunday already, but I hadn't marked N&N as "needs copyedit" yet since some other draft items there are not yet done.)
  • Fleshing out or removing the remaining missing items in N&N and ITM

  Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:48, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  i can definitely work on those! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 21:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  speaking of headlines, i'm not sure i'm familiar enough with how we do headlines to be confident in that - i looked around for some kind of guideline about it, but couldn't find any. i did do some copyediting & fleshing out, though. i think the graphs story for N&N is pretty well-written, from the perspective of someone who is not very technically-inclined; i could start something for the UCoC story if no one else has something cooking up. also, are we thinking there will just be one main story for ITM? ... sawyer * he/they * talk 02:52, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Re UCoC, we haven't heard back from User:Jayen466 since the above ping, so yes, it would be great if you could start writing that up (a brief item instead of a full story would still be better that nothing).

  There isn't really a guideline about headlines as far as I'm aware. So I would just say go with your sense of what you might find most informative and interesting as a reader yourself. (Some current team members love to indulge their personal sense of humor with these, but we're getting some reader pushback on that.) In N&N, NightWolf1223 has already helped us out in the meantime.

  Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  sounds good! ... sawyer * he/they * talk 04:58, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  @HaeB@Sawyer-mcdonell Thank you both very much for your work on this. I've added a link to the user comments to that section, added a Wiki Loves Monuments section and added the affiliates' annual reports to the In briefs. News and notes should be publishable now. Andreas JN466 15:35, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  lovely! the WLM pictures are great :) ... sawyer * he/they * talk 19:12, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Lots of progress since yesterday but we still have quite a few checkmarks missing in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Article status, and it seems nobody has yet followed JPxG's invitation above, more than three days ago to help out with the submissions (see things that need to happen still) . Perhaps Sawyer-mcdonell is interested in trying out their hand on these as well? As mentioned above, I'm skeptical about running all four at once; my vote would be to focus on the first two only (the NPP update and Maryana's op-ed); the annual plan one seems unfortunately a bit outdated already and the wishlist one consists of lorem ipsum so far. Also I'm myself behind with RR, but will have something publishable in a few hours.

@JPxG: Regarding the graphs extension piece: I'm fine with splitting it out from N&N now that we have other content there. But I think "Technology report" would be the best rubric for that, will move it there if you don't mind. (It's actually where I had intended to put this in the first place, before deciding to use it to fill the void at N&N instead ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that is good. I also agree about not running too many of the WMF submissions at the same time; I think we could run the Maryana one this issue and the NPP one the next (or both in this issue) and leave the rest. jp×g🗯️ 01:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

i can try transferring the Maryana op-ed to the actual op-ed section & maybe give it a little copyedit ... sawyer * he/they * talk 05:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The last good place

Just came across this study yesterday. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 06:30, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, we covered it extensively in November already. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:53, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

We got mixed up on the publication dates – the online journal had published a year ago, but the print edition ran it just last month. Therefore I included it again in the Recent research draft thinking it was new, but fortunately HaeB noticed. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:23, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Vami IV last FAC

Last issue contained a moving obituary from his colleagues to Vami IV. On 5 March 2024, Boundary Fire (2017)—his final Featured Article Candidate—was promoted. Here is the FAC discussion, which saw Volunteers Premeditated Chaos and Guerillero shepherd the piece through the closing stages of the usual robust review process to achieve for Vami the final, finest accolade a Wikpedia writer can earn.

Acta est fabula, plaudite.

——Serial Number 54129 12:59, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

An update and new deadline

Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I should be able to help you all again for the next issues, starting from next week!

Speaking of new issues, when is the next deadline going to land? And, most importantly... why did the Deadline table got so angry that it started zapping green laser? Oltrepier (talk) 14:49, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Since our cadence is now first Sunday and third Sunday of the month, I set the next issue to 21 April, jumping over the first Sunday which is only 1 week from past issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I commit to completing Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report. If I don't get more participants, I will fill in more trivia/look back at some of the accomplishments/other quirks of the Wiki Projects and their early days. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:54, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

• I am also back from the shadow realm, as of today, and will be trying to follow up on a bunch of stuff that has gone undealtwith the last while. jp×g🗯️ 18:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Next "In the media"

@Bri and Oltrepier: Would the "blind faith" part not go under Recent research, since it was discussing a study? QuicoleJR (talk) 12:17, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@QuicoleJR I didn't add it myself, but I agree: it would serve as a nice opener to the RR column!

@Bri By the way, I think the entries about the ban lift in Pakistan and edit wars on articles about San Francisco politicians both have lead story potential: I can try to work on and expand them in the next few days, if you'd like to! Oltrepier (talk) 17:02, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

It would be great if you did that! Consider expansion of ITN items a "go" at any time in the future. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Good find, and yes, feel free to move the coverage to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Recent research. Let's make sure to cite the study itself too and not just the media article. In any case I added the paper to the usual to-do list for RR, which otherwise still needs to be updated with new publications; I hope to do that within the next two days (we are bit short-staffed this month). Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Just want to note here that the Pakistan thing [4] is from last year. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:10, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Oh boy, 2023. Thanks; I removed it. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello everyone! I've finally got the job done for all the lead stories I committed to: sorry for the wait... I've already noticed that Smallbones is working on the Ruviki article, so thank you for that! On the other hand, while working on the San Francisco story I realized how little I know about US political divisions (as a foreign), so apologies in advance for any kind of blunders; plus, I feel like the ending I wrote is pretty weak, so feel free to improve it, as well... Finally, the After Midnight entry should be already fine, but another pair of eyes is always welcome! Oltrepier (talk) 06:54, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Next News and notes

I've added a couple of headlines:

1. The long-awaited draft of the white paper on research ethics and privacy is up on Meta-Wiki, with community feedback invited (this was one of the outcomes of the Grabowski/Klein ArbCom case on the Holocaust in Poland)
2. Former Steward User:Mardetanha has been SanFran-banned

Anyone who'd like to have a stab at writing these up is welcome. I am still under pressure with work and am grateful for any help.

Incidentally, mentioning Shira Klein, she has another, more recent claim to fame now, as one of the authors of the Academics4peace open letter titled "Genocide is plausible; stop arms to Israel". For more see [5] --Andreas JN466 14:40, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

There's been no discussion of what brought about the SanFranBan, right? I can't help but wonder if MENA was involved. Note, the user is still listed as one of the two primary contacts at Iranian Wikimedians User Group (on Meta). The concern stems from this WMF announcement from December 2022 and our coverage from January 2023 which stated the roots of the December 2022 bans lie in concerns expressed to the WMF about the Farsi Wikipedia some years ago. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:26, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, Mardetanha (Mohsen Salek) was mentioned by name in 2019 articles by Radio Zamaneh and Open Democracy.

Note that there is no conceivable outing concern here. Mohsen was a very prominent movement figure for many years and fully out with his name, see Meta-Wiki, Commons categories etc. Andreas JN466 08:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bri Do you need some help to complete the column? I can work on some smaller parts, if needed! Oltrepier (talk) 19:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Let's assume I won't be able to complete this column, so please do whatever you can with it. If I can contribute more this month it will probably be with small things like copyediting. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bri I don't feel comfortable enough to elaborate on the two existing lead entries (being totally unfamiliar with the subject), but I'll try to sort the brief notes at the bottom out! Plus, I'm working on another last-gasp lead blurb, since there has been a significant update on the "Public Domain Wars" over here in Italy. Oltrepier (talk) 12:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I just wanted to let you know I've finished working on my last blurb and submitted it into the column.

Like I wrote before, though, I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the two other subjects to take over those lead stories... Is there anyone else who might be able to save the day? Oltrepier (talk) 15:31, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Request assistance in staging report of WikiConference North America

I submit this for publication in the next issue.

• User:Bluerasberry/signpost_wikicon2023_draft

The conference was in November 2023, but just this month I got a collection of conference videos published, and also the event photographer uploaded their images in February.

I have some conference organizers reviewing this right now and I am not ready for copyediting, but can someone stage this with the Signpost markup, or give me a suggestion for how to do that? I could do it with brief instructions. Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:51, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I can set up the skeleton of a WikiConference report for you. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:14, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The article status roster has a blue "Start article" button for you now at WikiConference report. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I should have looked at your draft first. It looks like it's already in Signpost markup. Do you just need it moved to Signpost page space? ☆ Bri (talk) 20:21, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Assumed this move is what was really wanted, so I did move it to WikiConference report. The page is listed in the article status roster. These links might be useful later:

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/WikiConference report
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-08/Special report

The latter (2023) is the latest Signpost article I could find that is just about any WikiConference; the former (2015) is the latest titled "WikiConference report". ☆ Bri (talk) 21:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, everything is now as I wanted it.

Yes, I wanted this moved to Signpost page space for publication in the next issue.

It is unfortunate that only two WikiConferences are covered here, with one of these in India and the other in the United States. These are annual by region in a few places. I will discuss with others. Whatever the case, I am happy to present this one this time. Bluerasberry (talk) 12:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue immediately after 20-5 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)

@HaeB: I didn't forget about you, I promise... Since we'll likely delay publication for one-two days, I'll try to help you out a bit! --Oltrepier (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls - re:K.Maher

@Bri and JPxG: Bri often reminds me not to feed the trolls; I'm afraid that I take the bait much too often, e.g. in January where I defended Maher after she was trolled upon the announcement that she was being named CEO of NPR. She (and Wikipedia) are being trolled again now that she's assumed the CEO position. I think I'll remove a 2 liner about Maher in ITM from Bri, because I think it's just trolling. But please feel free to put it back (anybody), if you consider the following.

• 3 days after KM took up her new role, Uri Berliner, longtime NPR editor, published off-NPR, a strong criticism of NPR as being super-liberal. No surprise here, but almost nothing to do so far with KM or WP.
• After strong reaction from NPR staff to Berliner's piece, KM suspended him (based on off-NPR publishing policy) for 5 days without pay. Berliner then resigned. Nothing to do with WP.
• Fox, NY Post, The Federalist (website), City Journal (both right-wing publications) came in with trolling based on KM's past statements (mostly at WP) or old social media posts. So far -it's just the same stuff as January. I don't see a need to feed the trolls again.
• But there is one interesting accusation - the accusation that WP took orders from the feds to censor right-wing content in the 2020 election. IIRC, we covered that a month or 2 before the 2020 election, and have done so since. It's an old puffed up story.
• So I don't see where there is anything new here, with one possible exception. Larry Sanger is interviewed by City Journal, with a follow up by Fox. No, that's nothing new either. But ask me for links if you want to go ahead (but I won't write it myself). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
  • @Oltrepier: just removed your new version (once I got over there). I do think others as well as @JPxG: should weigh in also. I don't think that we should be saying that Wikipedia secretely censored right-wingers during an election when we know that they were very open about needed procedures for countering known disinformation (via the community). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
    • Here is one mention linked to from ITM on [6] in November 2020. Me feeding the trolls is in the January 31, 2024 ITM. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

    @Smallbones No worries at all! I just tried to expand the blurb with general bits of information, to be honest... Oltrepier (talk) 16:57, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What is the point of ITM if you choose to ignore outlets that don't support the political Left? Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello Chris. Thanks for responding - I do think we need to have some agreement on how to deal with this one, and you know you are always welcomed here. I think in general I do take conservative sources seriously enough to respond. The question is when to say seriously - they're going to far and just trolling. One example here is The Federalisat (website). Their second major criticism of Maher is that, while she was WMF CEO, the article about them was nominated fro deletion. Seriously. (The first major criticism is the BS about WMF taking orders from the feds during the 2020 elections. Then there is Fox seriously saying that NPR is just off the chart left-wing. You do understand that FOX is off the chart right-wing. Enough for now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we go wrong when we characterize sources as left or right wing and then determine trustworthiness based off that. It used to be that a reliable source was an entity that had paid reporters and an editorial board, regardless of slant. We can attribute statements to the outlet and let the reader decide. Was Katherine Maher one of many "tech people" who met with US Government employees to squash some online activity? Maybe. I don't think Signpost needs to uncritically re-state what The Federalist says, but perhaps just mention that because she is now the CEO at NPR and WMF is on her resume, outlets like Fox are drawing conclusions about leftist institutions and the people for whom they provide care and feeding. I'll agree that outsider outlets often mis-characterize what little editorial impact a WMF Executive Director has on en-wp articles short of OFFICE actions. If Signpost feels like it has to cater to an audience of leftist editors, that's a separate problem. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

You did note the afd was in 2014 and Maher became executive director (CEO was later) in 2016? Fwiw, my view is, since it's in the media, mention it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

My edit summary here, when adding this item, was with the knowledge that it will be a "damned if we do, damned if we don't" decision. I think a brief mention that there is some controversy involving our ex-CEO, related to her actions while nominally in charge of this project (yes I am aware that nobody is really in charge), would be appropriate. I think we're smart enough to do this without either embracing, or dismissing, those making the allegations. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:34, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I do think I'm being out voted here, so I'll accept that. I strongly urge @JPxG: to take this under his direct control and spend 2 or 3 hours going over what I think will be a 2 or 3 line story at the bottom of the page. It is imperative IMHO that we do not suggest that we believe that feds took control of Wikipedia's 2020 election coverage, when we have no evidence of that. I also believe that we cannot in any way disparage KM in any way in the story. The Signpost coverage at the time of the election included Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-12-28/News from the WMF (and 2 press stories from before the election that I mentioned in the comments there) and it's pretty clear that the WMF talked to the feds about possible disinformation campaigns, but not much if anything beyond that. FaceBook, Twitter, etc. also seem to have been involved, but this has been covered in many other places (was one called Twittergate right after Elon Musk came in?) Perhaps @GorillaWarfare: can comment here since she was mentioned in one of the stories. As for advice on how to write it. Well there are lots of old saws and cliches. Don't mud wrestle with a pig. Don't get into a pissing match with a professional pisser. Which all seem to say "keep it short." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:34, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

A short line to acknowledge this campaign against Maher seems fine, I suppose. It seems in the past day or so it's growing to support the usual complaints about Wikipedia (or "Wokipedia", in Elon Musk's parlance), which could be mentioned — though I'll be surprised if it develops into more than the usual whingings on Twitter. There's certainly a lot of misinformation going around that could be debunked for a non-Wikimedian audience, though the Signpost seems a poor venue to reach such an audience. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 22:06, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Keep it light, keep it bright, keep it... Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:11, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there are a couple possibilities here: some of them are embarrassing for Maher and Wikipedia, some of them are embarrassing for Maher, and some are just goofy. Here is the actual quote from that Atlantic Council thing:

1) We took a very active approach to disinformation and misinformation, coming into not just the last election, but how we supported our editing community in an unprecedented moment where we were not only dealing with a global pandemic but a novel virus, which by definition means we know nothing about in real-time. And we're trying to figure it out as the pandemic went along.

2) We really set up, in response to the pandemic but also the upcoming U.S. election as a model for future elections outside of the U.S., including as number happening this year.

3) The model was around how do we create a clearinghouse of information that brings the institution of the Wikimedia Foundation with the editing community in order to be able to identify threats early on, through conversations with government, of course, as well as other platform operators to understand what the landscape looks like.

This follows well in the fine tradition of vague corporate buzzwords, such that it could mean any number of things, and I think to even understand what the hell it's supposed to be saying (to say nothing of what it actually is saying) requires several years of attentively (and perhaps unhealthily) paying attention to extremely online politics nonsense.

I suspect there is no way for me to have a comment about this without saying what my actual opinion is, and I'm pretty sure my actual opinion has something in it to piss off everybody, but there's no way to move forward unless I just come out with it -- so here it is:

This seems like the same general type of thing as the events prompting Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-11-28/Disinformation_report (perhaps even regarding the same events). Broadly speaking, at any given time, there are many people attempting to fuck with Wikipedia articles (either for the lulz, or out of anger, or out of political/religious/etc zealotry) -- this has been happening nonstop 24/7 since the year 2001, and we have pretty robust features in place to deal with it and figure out what the truth is, or at least figure out what a decently-written mostly-neutral encyclopedia article on a topic should look like. People on here will regularly spend entire weekends reading through dense and obscure texts in order to determine what the deal really is about something. I personally spent a few hours figuring out whether an uninhabited 20-foot-wide strip of dirt in the middle of a river was called "Dynamite Island" or "Powder House Island". You could call this "being an obsessive nerd", or you could call it "fighting misinformation", and either would be technically correct.

Secondarily: the idea of "misinformation" (i.e. people saying and believing and repeating stuff that is either incorrect or disingenuous or total BS) has been around for quite some time, the phenomenon itself has been around for as long as humans have communicated using language, and there is no partisan aspect to this whatsoever. In the broadest sense, anyone who writes or assembles or distributes correct information is fighting against incorrect information.

Thirdly: starting some time around the middle of the 2010s, we had this politician who achieved remarkable success and rose to the rank of President of the United States, and had an astonishing capacity for talking out his ass (astonishing even for a US politician at the national level which is really saying something); between this guy and some other guys (male and female) and the general omnipresence of algorithmically-amplified social media websites as a source of (or at least presentation medium for) news stories, there exists a phenomenon where large swaths of political discourse are literally just fiction that came directly out of somebody's ass. Well, maybe this was always true, maybe not, that's a wholly separate discussion, but it is indeed the case that there exist a lot of posts online which are both a) about politics and b) wildly incorrect. Hell, it is even sometimes the case that c) the person making the posts knows they're wildly incorrect and is posting them anyway for the sake of having a negative impact anyway.

Anyway:

The present saga involves the part of the saga where, starting some time around the middle of the 2010s, these concepts were incorporated into a sort of operational and philosophical framework that was used in a couple different ways. On one hand, people used phrases like "trust and safety" or "misinformation and disinformation" to refer directly to the boring scutwork that people like us always did to distinguish between fact and fiction -- list of common misconceptions my beloved -- and prevent people from pushing an agenda -- WP:SPI my beloved -- and deal with the background noise of abjectly godawful sludge that every big website ends up having to deal with (like LTA harassment and doxing and gore videos and ISIS propaganda and child porn and etc etc etc).

On the other hand, these buzzwords (they did refer to a real thing after all) were also quite commonly used as a crude bludgeon by nakedly partisan hacks, a dizzying panoply of policy wonks, thinkfluencers, pundits and think tanks responsible for a massive cavalcade of often imbecilic and occasionally authoritarian takes about how we just needed to find somebody who was smart enough to decide what was true and false, and then [et cetera -- long rant excised]. I think that by now, this type of stuff is mostly on the downswing, which rules (certainly we are past the highest fever-pitch crest of it). But it was indeed the case that there was (perhaps still is) a kind of sleazy intellectual undercurrent of what if we gratuitously undermined press freedom for the unspecified-but-trust-me-bro greater good. Well, at the Signpost we are (I believe the words I'm typing are physically stored on a disk in California) the heirs of a culture of free press whose centuries-long tradition was based firmly on vociferous independence, a noble and sacred tradition of freedom in thought and speech running nearly uninterrupted from Voltaire and Rousseau through Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine through Upton Sinclair, Rachel Carson, Neil Sheehan, Daniel Ellsberg, and countless hundreds of brave souls through to the present day who put their necks on the line to say the truth, and left us better off for it. It's true that the people who wrote the First Amendment and gave us the foundation for this tradition had "conversations with government", but if I recall correctly, these consisted of them saying "kiss my ass" and the government trying to shoot them.

Now, with all of this in mind, I will begrudgingly admit that think tanks and pundits and Congressional lobbyists are probably not reading the Signpost alongside their morning coffee and biscuit at Beltway Bob's Burgers and Bill Signings, so maybe it doesn't matter a hell of a lot to the important big people what we have to say about anything, least of all not what the lady who NPR hired to be in charge of NPR and who happened to some years before that be in charge of the organization that hosts Wikipedia thinks about whether or not the Donald is a "freakin cheeto" or etc. But I do think that it is condign for us, as whatever we consider ourselves: Wikipedia editors, obsessive nerds, citizens of an international World Wide Web, the unofficial-but-also-only keepers of record for the largest and most diligently-updated reference work ever assembled in history serving as the unofficial-but-also-only comprehensive encyclopedia of the human species -- I am damn proud of all of them for what it's worth -- to be able to respond in some way to claims and implications that impugn the foundational integrity of our project.

That is to say, if random nonprofit executives genuinely are having secret conversations with random government bureaucrats, and what's said in these conversations is used to inform content decisions on Wikipedia, well, this sucks. It sucks even more if the content is political in nature, and the nonprofit executive is someone who has strong personal opinions about the political issues in question, and also we're not allowed to know what the conversations are or what is being said during them -- the best-case scenario is that these comments are a sort of vague handwave, and these conversations never really amounted to anything substantial, and they didn't culminate in any action being taken, and so the whole thing was some kind of empty political posturing. That is to say, it was a bizarre contortion to make it seem like the WMF was colluding with the government to influence the content of Wikipedia articles... when they weren't. This really doesn't make any sense at all, so I am not inclined to believe it for any reason besides it apparently being true. I cannot even begin to fathom what might motivate somebody to think this was a good idea: all the disadvantages of having people think you sold out, without actually getting the check. The only thing I can come up with is that in the year 2021, there was some kind of notion floating around the nonprofit-thinktank-pundit-clickfluencer wonkosphere where having the government decide what posts people could read on the Internet was seen as being really smart and cool, and it made you sound cool and "with it" to claim that you were part of this process, even if you weren't. Well, whatever: the understanding I have here in 2024 is that basically none of this stuff being alluded to actually happened in a real sense, because the Wikipedia editoriat would have rightly raised absolute hell in a handbasket if it had, and there's no sense in just rolling over and saying "okay sure whatever" when people accuse a volunteer project which has busted its hump for twenty years to achieve neutrality and independence (and done a pretty darn good job) of being government shills. It doesn't sit right with me and I feel like we should at least say something.

Anyway, this is what the case seems to be. What do you guys think? jp×g🗯️ 23:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The WMF has, in my opinion, been pretty transparent about the various things they've been doing with respect to disinformation. As for "zomg, WMF people meet with government bodies", my response is a resounding "well, duh". If various government entities are going to do anything policy-related with respect to the Internet, they would be foolish not to meet with people from massive platforms like the Wikimedia projects; and, conversely, if the WMF wants to see responsible policy, they would be foolish not to participate. Then, of course, there is the routine and hardly secret coordination between various teams at the WMF and law enforcement type groups, as a part of T&S challenges that come part and parcel with running a prominent site that hosts user-submitted content. My understanding regarding the activities the WMF undertook (and continues to undertake) with respect to disinformation is that they are focused on supporting the editing communities in combatting disinformation — not themselves intervening in content decisions or community activities. See the explanation of the Disinformation team at meta:Trust and Safety/Overview, for example.

I've not seen anything that suggests that there was some mustache-twirling collusion between government groups trying to control a narrative and the WMF, nor any suggestion that the WMF has in concert with them or independently tried to influence content. Having seen the suggestions that Maher "is CIA" because she traveled to Tunisia or served on the Foreign Affairs Policy Board (which I've seen characterized as "working for the State Department"), this reads to me as conspiracizing rather than anything real. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 01:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure that the pathos to her weekly >hello world was cobbled with the best of extensions. Sharing openly and freely of one's own intentionality always seems retrospectfully risky, all things conceded.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 03:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

This comment might be of interest: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#What's_going_on. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:09, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Delay (pt. 2)

I'm so sorry for asking this at the last minute, but still... would it be okay if we put off the publication for one-two days?

I feel like it would allow us to finish the job with some of the columns (mainly "News and notes", "Recent research" and the "WikiProject Report") more calmly, as well as solve the Maher situation. Oltrepier (talk) 07:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I was actually deliberating on this a few hours ago and regretting that it had gotten so close to deadline, because I'd prefer to put it forward a couple days also. If nobody else has any objections, I think we should put it a day forward or so tomorrow morning. jp×g🗯️ 09:04, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and updated the deadline template accordingly (seeing that nobody had objected here). As discussed several times before, it would be great if we could steer things back to a more reliable publication schedule again; with the last issue things were again quite dysfunctional in that regard.

On my end, I'm as always working to have RR in a publishable state by the deadline. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2024 (UTC)