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Proposed changes to Template:Signpost-subscription

I've proposed changes to {{signpost-subscription}}, which many editors have on their user- or user-talk pages (over 1700 uses across Wikipedia).

These are to restore the "single-page" and "book" views to the line at the bottom and to split that line into two lines. See Template talk:Signpost-subscription#Edit Protect - restore single-page and book views, split the bottom for the discussion. If there are no objections, the change should go live in the next day or two (I've requested a 24-hour wait, to allow for discussion).

Also, I've requested that the page protection on Template:Signpost-subscription be changed from full protection to template-protection, so that template editors can edit it, freeing up administrators for other duties. Respond at Template talk:Signpost-subscription#Edit protect - change permission to TemplateEditor in the next 24 hours if you have any objections to this. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:42, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Crossword

I think that the Signpost should include a weekly crossword based off of the other content included. What do you think about this idea? StudiesWorld (talk) 14:15, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I hate crosswords, but I think it's a great idea. Are you volunteering to provide either (a) the content (i.e. the clues and answers), or (b) the formatting, or (c) both? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:29, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
That's the sticking point, as I'm already certain that none of the regular contributors have the time to put something like this together each week. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:10, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I might be able to help with it. StudiesWorld (talk)! —Preceding undated comment added 16:37, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I also wrote an op-ed submission on this at User:StudiesWorld/Signpost/Crossword. StudiesWorld (talk) 16:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
We don't run op-eds like that; I think you may be misunderstanding the term? Also, how would the crossword be done? Any Wikimedia table hack would be rather ugly. An image each week? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:56, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Oh Good to know about the op-eds. The way the crossword would work is via an image that would have the blank one and a solution. StudiesWorld (talk) 10:56, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Washington Post's method seems to work nicely. Perhaps a bigger difficulty is getting a wiki-related puzzle contribution written every week or even every month. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Don't forget the challenge of making it an ENGVAR neutral puzzle either. Nthep (talk) 15:06, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
@Jim.henderson: That would be hard to put together on Wikipedia. StudiesWorld (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
A great opportunity cleverly disguised as a difficult problem. Identifying ENGVAR becomes part of the puzzle, right? Truly clever composers will use both; one variety for down and the other for across. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
@Jim.henderson: That's a great idea! StudiesWorld (talk) 22:31, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Volume 1, Issue 0

The Signpost banner says this at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost. Doesn't seem right. -- GreenC 15:16, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not. I'll look into this. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
It got fixed in the next issue. StudiesWorld (talk) 11:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Jimi Hendrix was promoted to FA

You guys missed Jimi Hendrix as a newly featured article. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 03:01, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey Gabe, that was promoted on the 5th, so it'll be covered in the next week's edition! Thanks, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:19, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Featured content in Jan 15 edition

Where did the featured content section go? Is the section scrapped or just missing from this week's? czar ♔ 00:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's been postponed until next week. Tony (talk) 00:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

SP delivered for a second time on my talkpage

Has the bot gone wrong? Tony (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

A second time to everyone's talkpage :( It's because EdwardsBot malfunctioned, so Ed (The_ed17) started the backup procedure (which is about to become the first-choice procedure), MassMessage. Then EdwardsBot belatedly started working again and the request for a Signpost delivery run was still in its request queue, so it leapt (irreversibly) into action. An unfortunate series of events, all in all. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 12:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for leaving an explanation, Jarry, while I was at work. My apologies to all who were affected. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:14, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Let's be clear here: EdwardsBot should not be used any longer. EdwardsBot is unambiguously end-of-life and all bot users have been explicitly warned to discontinue its use to avoid exactly this type of issue. MassMessage is a drop-in replacement for EdwardsBot that is fully supported and recommended for deliveries of this nature. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, we realize that, which is why (as Jarry said) MassMessage is about to become the default for the script. Unfortunately we're all rather busy and Jarry was not able to fully update the script before now. Thanks, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Shouldn't somebody rollback the double delivery? Snowolf How can I help? 20:21, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not so sure—it'd only give two useless notifications, rather than just the one... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:32, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
I actually had the same idea and asked Ed off-wiki, but I do agree, especially since a majority of users have probably seen it, so they'll just get another notification. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 21:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
(Ed, MZMcBride) Just to fill in some blanks, the MassMessage API only goes live to Wikimedia wikis later this week. I didn't have the time (nor indeed the inclination) to convert to a load of screenscraping code, then convert again to a proper API less than a month later. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 23:14, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. I don't believe anyone was encouraging the use of screen-scraping. I do actively discourage the use of EdwardsBot, though. While I understand that it doesn't yet fit in with the Signpost's larger workflow, Special:MassMessage can be used manually. I'd personally prefer that. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Which of course Ed did use this time :) Perhaps I should just have blocked EdwardsBot when I noticed the error; is anyone else still using it? - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 23:31, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Hrmph, seems so. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:32, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

"Volume 1 Issue 2"

Is that correct? -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

The template wasn't set up properly to handle the beginning of Volume 10(!). That's 9 full years of Signposts ticked off, quite an achievement. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 01:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
Erm. I fixed the issue manually. Not sure how I missed the volume. Nice eyes, AnonMoos. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:32, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
Still happening, on new issues... Ijon (talk) 02:26, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Template:Alarm clock

Signpost editors and teams may find this helpful in tracking personal or team deadlines. Template-writers may be inspired to create Signpost-specific templates modeled after this. I created it so I could make a "to do list" for myself at the top of my user talk page. Disclaimer: Yes, I'm shamelessly promoting my own creation. After all, should I be the only one using it? And no, I'm not suggesting this be a news item in the signpost. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:27, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, David! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:15, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Image

The front page image is bleeding in to some of the text. StudiesWorld (talk) 18:13, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is a perennial problem for me. — SMUconlaw (talk) 14:09, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
I missed this before. I'll start with making the image smaller; if it continues bleeding, please let me know. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
OK, thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:42, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Layout

I prefer the previous layout, where you list headlines at the top of the page for each article. Also, the font seems smaller which makes me less inclined to read the articles. And I've got regular eyesight, I can't imagine those who have difficulty reading online text. If it matters, I should add that I read every Signpost and look forward to its publication. Liz Read! Talk! 16:29, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Liz, what page are you referring to? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Technology report

I have put myself up for the Technology report in the hope to bring the news that I so miss. There is plenty to report about; the weekly MediaWiki updates, and its unavoidable bugs. These need to be translated to Human, and I hope to do just that. I frequent WP:VPT and am subscribed to the wikitech-l mailing list and even make the occasional contribution in Gerrit. There is plenty to tell about... If you will have me. — Edokter (talk) — 11:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Edokter. Ed is unavoidably offline today, and has decided that we'll have to wait until mid-week for the next edition. He should be online soon. Tony (talk) 11:28, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Yay, thanks! Real life caught up with me so I didn't have time to keep writing it. Ping me if I can help out in any way! Legoktm (talk) 18:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
That's great, Edokter—we'd love to have you. Please feel free to ask me any questions. Legoktm, thank you for your hard work, and best of luck with real life. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:15, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Should I write a small introductory? — Edokter (talk) — 01:20, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
If you'd like to, that'd be great. We have a very non-technical audience, so most things need to be explained in triplicate. ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:32, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
Next week then (too late now). My main intention is to filter the information down to stuff that matters to our own readers and editors. But if a broader scope is desired, then that is fine as well. — Edokter (talk) — 13:17, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
You don't need to go overboard, but a bit of background would help us all (me included) understand the tech world better. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:22, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

5th Feb Signpost

Where is last week's Signpost? Simply south...... disorganising disorganisation for just 7 years 17:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I decided to push publishing back by a week, similar to November. Many of the regular beats were not ready for publishing last week (including mine), and it's too late to publish an edition for last week. Thanks, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I was wondering this myself.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:32, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Great work, Ed! The story on affiliates is very interesting. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be better to display the featured pictures each week in a gallery rather than as a text-only list, as is done now. That way, readers could quickly see what all the newly featured pictures look like rather than having to click on each file name. The information about nominators and photographers could go in the captions. Taking a quick glance into the archives, I see that it was done this way in the past [1]. Thoughts? --Albany NY (talk) 17:58, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

For the benefit of those with bandwidth issues, keep the text version but have a separate gallery page for each issue and link to it. Keep the gallery itself out of the single-page edition, again, for the benefit of those with bandwidth issues. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Bandwidth issues haven't stopped us from using image galleries on numerous Wikipedia articles. Why should the Signpost be any different? --Albany NY (talk) 02:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

The Onion

Hi, Ed! Some time ago, the Onion has published a story on the daily traffic of the article L.A. Law. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks NaBUru, we didn't decide to include it, but posting links here or on our suggestions page is always appreciated! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

RSS working now

From Archive 6#RSS not updating: Just wanted to say it's working now, I just got today's post in my feedreader. Thanks both of you, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 11:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not actually sure who got it working, but you're welcome! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Test?

Why is the bot that is delivering the newsletter this week marking it as a test? Simply south...... disorganising disorganisation for just 7 years 12:49, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

As I put at the top of "News and notes" this week, we're working out the last remaining kinks in our new automatic publishing script. This is by far the most high-profile error we've had, and amusingly it should also be the last (cross fingers), as everything else worked correctly. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Any chance of a Quiz page ?

OK So I know it's not exactly news coverage, but I would like to propose that some form of quiz page be started.

With that in mind I asked another contributor to come up with some questions on topics from his region, they are currently on the talk page for my other account. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Page hits for last week's edition

  • Typography op-ed 17,800 1
  • NAN 2611
  • Tech report 1967
  • Comment (a foolish request) 1882
  • Recent research 1696
  • Traffic report 1340
  • Featured content 1281
  • WikiProject report 902

1 I wonder whether this is accurate: 11,897 on 4 April alone, but that was the day after implementation, right?

Total of 11,679 for all pages without the op-ed, and 29,479 with.

It is typical for hit rates to rise by at least a further 50% over subsequent months.

Click on 90 days in each case on the page counter.

Tony (talk) 02:30, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost article was linked at the top of everyone's watchlist on the day the font change went live. Those of us who logged in and couldn't read the page, went there first. The discussion was not there, or at the main page or at MOS, where there were also queries, but at the village pump. —Neotarf (talk) 03:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah yes, that would explain it. Thanks, Neotarf! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Late

I have seen the signpost late but never 5 days late. What's up? StudiesWorld (talk) 10:15, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

We've been five days late before! Unfortunately, given our real life work schedules, it's not always possible to send/receive emails and write entire stories on time. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm eager to read you next edition. It's been a while. Mohamed CJ (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Mohamed CJ. If you would like to contribute to the Signpost I'm sure Ed would like to hear any offers of help! --Pine✉ 06:38, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Seconding Pine here—sometimes our real lives interfere with getting a Signpost out, and we are occasionally forced to skip an edition. Thankfully, that extra time led to a very good edition this week! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:38, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

April 22 issue

Very good issue this week. Thanks The ed17, Tony1, Mabeenot, Pete Forsyth, Serendipodous, Adam Cuerden and PresN. --Pine✉ 06:40, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Pine! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:38, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Feed non-functional

The feed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Subscribe#1.3 RSS feed appears to be non-functional.

The script itself seems to work, but the rewrite rules and the database update seem to be broken. -- Rillke (talk) 09:04, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Rillke. Yuvipanda, are you still maintaining this? :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:53, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Cracking Wikipedia

Hello, I've found this. It's worrying. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:27, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

@NaBUru38: Thanks for the link, but could the video be a fake? I can't find the edits in question—Super Bike Series doesn't even exist! I also can't find the images on Commons. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
I also found this, which looks real. But I can't tell for sure. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) At first glance I don't see any evidence of the described practice on the Pirelli articles in English or Portuguese (where "Pirelli Brasil" would be represented). It seems odd because I can't see a legit company advocating a practice they don't seem to have done. Even if they had as matter of competitive advantage, why would they advertise it? Of the first couple dozen Google Image results for "Pirelli Racing", none are hosted in Wikimedia. This doesn't add up. While we're on the subject, if companies would make their images public domain that would help on many articles. I wouldn't bet on selling more tires based on getting promotional pictures into articles, though. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Hello, thanks for the help. The account seems legit. It might have been hacked, of course. The video looks like a tremendous effort to frame them.
The video is "private", which means that only people with the link can see it. And it's in English. This suggests that the Brazilian subsidiary might have done it to show it to the headquarters. I don't know, it's really odd. --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:14, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps a hoax that was already found out? It seems possible that somebody could have taken an existing file that existed on Commons, and uploaded a different photo under the same name to Portuguese Wikipedia. I'm not an admin on Portuguese Wikipedia, so I can't look to see if that happened; but I suspect if it did, it would have been caught pretty easily through normal processes. I agree with Chris, it's a strange thing for a major company to brag about; but perhaps some ambitious youngster working for an ad agency that did some work for them....? -Pete (talk) 01:17, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Here is a still-frame of the image that is supposedly in the Portugese Wikipedia. You don't need to be an admin to see the edit history and deletion logs of the PT page (see history, click on logs to see the logs - there is nothing there). This looks like a mock-up or perhaps a fake-out, using an "un-real" example to either promote something they want to do or "demonstrate" something they have done "250 times" in a way that won't lead to them getting caught. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:13, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
That's the conclusion we're coming to, but we're waiting on a couple people to get back to us just to be sure. Sorry that I haven't been more communicative here; full Internet service at my new place should happen on Wednesday. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:38, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Identi.ca RIP

Identi.ca appears to have bitten the dust. https://identi.ca/wikisignpost is now producing only a database error - sad times. I've removed mention of it from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Subscribe/Header, but I was unable(!) to discover which of the maze of Signpost templates is generating the footer that links to it, so could someone please fix that too? Thank you. — Scott • talk 16:56, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

@Scott: Check again, it's working for me. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
You're right, it's come back. Pretty flaky. I've restored it to the header, then. — Scott • talk 19:12, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Scott! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Deadline

Ed, what is my deadline for ITM's triumphant return? I think it is pretty much me; most of my emails have not been replied to, so it will not be quite as comprehensive as I'd hoped, but I would still like to add a couple more in briefs, depending on how much time I have. Go Phightins! 01:08, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Noting for others that we have been discussing this over email. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Is the opinion desk still active?

^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Risingrain (talk • contribs) 18:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

@Risingrain: Yes, it is. There is also the option of emailing me first, just so I can make sure the topic is one of relatively wide interest to the Signpost readership (as opposed to you taking the time to write something without knowing whether I'll publish it or not). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Single-page view for archive

I pretty much always read the signpost in single-page view. I find looking at each section separately quite disruptive. Once a signpost has been archived and is no longer the current week's edition, the single-page view option is lost. Seeing as it is just a simple transclusion of the content, is there a simple way in which single-page views could be rolled out for the archive too? SFB 20:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure how useful this would be—I assume that most people go into the archives to search for a specific story, not to read everything the Signpost published on a specific week. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
The bot has actually been doing this for a while (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2014-04-30), but it's difficult to know where to link it from. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 23:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
@Jarry1250: Next to "book edition", dividing them with a bullet? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't have the time to look at it, but I've certainly got no objection. Of course, some old editions might not have them (can't remember if I had the bot go back and generate them all?) so you'll want to use an #ifexist test. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 09:42, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
@Jarry1250: You're speaking Latin to me. ;-) If you get a free moment, can you look into it? There's no hurry. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:16, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Duplication on Single-page view of 28 May 2014 Signpost

Just got the 28 May 2014 edition. On Single-page view, the Interview is duplicated on the page. — Maile (talk) 14:00, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Fixed by purging the page. Graham87 14:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
There was a duplication (via redirects) of sections at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-05-28, which I've now fixed (and re-purged). –Quiddity (talk) 17:34, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I think that was my fault: I hadn't reslised the pages had been combined at first. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, the bot will pick up everything underneath /2014-05-28/, including redirects. I've been tripped up by that at least once before! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:51, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Report

I propose that the Signpost publishes a new Wikimedia Report to report generally on Wikimedia. StudiesWorld (talk) 22:43, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Is that not what "News and notes" is? :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:48, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Transcripts of audio interviews

I've been reading some of the comments and discussions on-wiki and off-wiki related to the interview with Lila Tretikov, and I'm making some general comments here rather than on the talk page of the interview itself.

  • Firstly, I'd like to thank Tony and the Signpost for conducting and publishing the interview.
  • Secondly, I'd like to thank Keilana for producing an unofficial transcript. That was invaluable to me, as being deaf myself (using hearing aids) I would not have been able to comprehend the interview otherwise (at least not without a great deal of effort and replaying of the sound file).
  • I noticed that the original intention had been to publish a transcript a week later and that Tony said that "We are very happy to make available a transcript for the hearing-impaired". However, a delay of a week, as others have noted, does end up disenfranchising the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Also, the best practice for accessibility requirements is to provide a link to any transcript together with the audio file - placing a link on the talk page is not really good enough, the link to alternative formats has to be prominent and visible.
  • I see there is to be a "second interview later this year". Could I ask that the Signpost and its editor please make a commitment to make that interview (and any other audio or video interviews) as accessible as possible at the time of publication, with co-ordination and co-operation between the interviewer and others as needed before rather than after publication. I realise Signpost interviewers and writers are volunteers, but if funding is needed for transcription or subtitling services, maybe that possibility could be explored?

On a personal note, I'm deaf myself as I noted above, and what prompted me in part to post the above was reading what Cullen328 posted here. On reading some of the comments made here and elsewhere (some of which were remarkably and in some cases surprisingly insensitive), I felt the same pain he does. It is difficult to put across just how important it is to have transcripts available to keep those who are deaf and hard-of-hearing engaged in the debate on the same level as those who are hearing. I rarely involve myself in accessibility concerns, but if more audio interviews are to be done then it is important to speak up on this matter. Hopefully transcripts can be produced in future with less of the drama that occurred in this case, and more time can be spent discussing the issues raised in the interview. Carcharoth (talk) 23:51, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: Thank you. It's really heartening to hear that people wanted and benefited from this transcript, and I'm glad you found it useful. :) I'm committed to accessibility and want to do everything I can to make sure that everything's accessible. Keilana|Parlez ici 03:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
I too would like to thank Kielana for seeing what needed to be done, and just doing it.
I wonder if a library of recordings--along with a library of their transcripts--could be made. I'm sure that this is more than an accessibility issue, and it would find a wide variety of other uses. Just as one example, the "holy-shit slide" and Sue Gardner's talk about editor retention is often referenced, but where can you find it easily? What if you want to grab a quick quote from the talk? You can't, because there is no transcript, only an outline, and it's not with the video, you have to google for it. And if you are in an area with poor connectivity, you won't be able to view the video either. Now imagine that you want to access a particular speech, a particular speaker, or a particular topic. Where do you go? There is no area for this that I know of, and nothing technical, no area set up, for people who might be willing to work on transcriptions, and yet this seems like an area where newbies might be able to fit in very quickly. —Neotarf (talk) 04:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Neotarf, this seems like someplace that Wikisource could fit in? Not sure. Sumana Harihareswara 05:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not that familiar with Wikisource, but a lot of people aren't real comfortable with Commons these days. I can't figure out where the current file is hosted, probably Commons. There is a copy with rewind function at Internet Archive, but I don't see any way to link to transcripts there.
@Charles Matthews: can probably answer that better than me, but, I would be more than willin to help in that.John Carter (talk) 15:34, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
Transcripts of interviews do not fall clearly within the scope of what Wikisource allows as content. Generally, content at Wikisource must have been previously published elsewhere, or must have some historic significance (e.g., presidential telephone calls). Original content is generally considered to be outside of the scope of Wikisource, and interviews like the one being discussed feel more like original content. It would probably be necessary to hold a discussion at Wikisource to decide for certain whether such content should be hosted there. Failing that, Wikibooks would be the only other possibility besides Commons where something like this might be hosted, but I can't see that as being a very satisfactory option. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
This is obviously a major proposal, in terms of need and importance, but needs more expertise to figure out the details. Maybe a link on Jimbo's talk for more input once the initial brainstorming phase runs its course? Does the WMF have a place for its official files?
Good thing I checked back, for some reason that ping didn't work. —Neotarf (talk) 12:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
The file is hosted on Commons. It would be worth developing a template, I think, for all items in c:Category:Audio files of interviews to denote their transcription status (and create an automatic category for untranscribed interviews that volunteers could address). — Scott • talk 13:24, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
@Carcharoth: Thank you for starting this topic here. I am in favor of providing captions and transcripts alongside audio or video recordings of speeches and interviews whenever possible; they help deaf people like you, and, as a stenographer for the deaf notes, captioning "is also useful for English language learners and people with dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, or ADHD". I would extrapolate to say that transcripts would be helpful for those populations as well. Transcripts also massively help us quote the speaker (example), translate the work, search the speech or interview for specific topics, and generally bring to bear all the textual tools at our disposal. And, as Neotarf notes above, transcripts take far less time to download over a poor internet connection. Finally, I have seen person after person breathe a sigh of relief that a talk of mine is available in textual form, because they have 5 minutes to read it but not 30 minutes to listen to it, and thus discussion of Wikipedia and Wikimedia gets a larger audience.
As for cost: I have been able to get thirty-minute talks transcribed at the rate of about $2 USD per spoken minute, and the transcripts required maybe 5-10 minutes of touchup and wikifying before I could put them onwiki. So that's one data point. I live in New York City in the USA and costs elsewhere may differ.
I agree with Carcharoth that including the transcript, or a link to the transcript, for all readers -- not just those who ask -- is more respectful and inclusive. As the stenographer I mentioned says of her work (computer-assisted realtime transcription for lectures and events), "When the CART display is available to every audience member, no one has to feel singled out or as if they're demanding special privileges. Everyone benefits."
Thanks again to all who are making this discussion happen. Sumana Harihareswara 05:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree no one should have to come forward and identify themselves as hearing impaired in order to get access to transcripts. That is way too intrusive. I am surprised and grateful at the people who have come forward. —Neotarf (talk) 12:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I want to echo the thanks to @Keilana: for putting in the effort to publish the transcript. Also, there's a related point -- transcripts for video files are important too, and with our current technology, they take a whole lot more effort. With videos, the transcript needs to be tagged with times, so it can be displayed as captions, in order to be useful. Here's an example I've been working at recently -- I have this 4:30 video captioned to about 1:30: commons:TimedText:Multimedia vision 2016.webm.en.srt You should be able to see how the format works from a quick look.

I hope there is some effort afoot to develop better software tools, to make this process easier. We curate and generate a lot of videos in this movement, and it would be great if we could start to make them more widely available to those without full hearing, across language barriers, etc. -Pete (talk) 16:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

And before you can even tag the captions you need to have them first. I think it took me like three times watching that video to even make sure I got all the text right. I don't know of anyone working on a tool to make the job of transcribing audio and captioning video easier, but if I had to suggest an interface, I would split the audio/video into 1-3 second chunks with: a Play button, a text box, and Previous and Next Chunk buttons. Working on a file a few seconds at a time is generally how I generate transcripts of audio files, and by sectioning video as such the software can tag the captions as belonging to the correct sections with relative ease.
Also @Keilana:, I also want to thank you for making the transcription. I'm not hard of hearing, but I have a much much easier time comprehending audio and video if I can read along. I usually miss quite a bit if I can't read while I listen. (Automatic captions on Youtube, no matter how awful they are at times, are the best thing ever still) Zell Faze (talk) 17:04, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Unlike Carcharoth, as someone who also has a hearing disability I dont want or require any commitment from the Signpost to try and provide transcripts. Wikipedia is a crowdsourced project. There are plenty of people like Keilana who are more than happy to do it with no prompting (thanks btw Keilana!). The recent problem was not that there was a lack of a solution to the accessibility issues, the issue was that it was being actively prevented and not in line with either wikipedia's stated editing goals, or its commitment to creative commons media. The only thing I would like to come out of this is that the Signpost makes a resolution to never deliberately hinder accessbility solutions for any reason. If that reason happens to be that someone has conditions that their 'art' is only experienced in the form they want it to be, I want the signpost to stand up and say 'No thanks, we can find someone else to do it'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Get off your high horse. I have a disability too, but I don't moan about it, and I certainly don't use it to attack other people. The transcript was available shortly after publication, if you'd bothered to look. I'm at the end of my tether with the personal abuse, so lay off with your moralising. I don't buy it under the circumstances: it's just bleating. Oh, and I haven't seen you standing up for alt text in captions: so don't you care about the sight-impaired—just yourself. Tony (talk) 23:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
You seem to see a request for the Signpost editorial staff to commit to not hindering accessibility concerns as a personal attack. I take it this means you have no intention of making such a commitment? Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Are you making a commitment to improving WP's alt text in captions? Or are you just going to be selfish? Tony (talk) 00:07, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
The correct response you should have made there was 'Are you making a commitment to not hinder improvement in WP's alt text in captions?'. And as you cannot clearly see the difference between the two is why I require the signpost to do one and not the other. I dont require my disability or any other disability is catered for. Its impossible to promise in advance that all minorities (myself included) will always have the same access and availability and its an unreasonable expection of others to do so, especially on a volunteer basis. However I *require* that its not actively and deliberately discriminated against. If you genuinely cant see the difference then a discussion cannot be had with you on this issue. And if you refuse to or are unable to make such a commitment I will be penning a note to the WMF and requesting that they not give interviews to people actively hostile to accessibility concerns. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:20, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Get a life. It's despicable that you carry on this tirade of abuse. I've snapped. I'm sick of this toxic environment that you're fuelling. Let me tell you and everyone else:

MEMO TO COMMUNITY: if you bully, insult, bellittle, or abuse me further, I will bite back."" Tony (talk) 00:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

And the above interaction (for the rest of the signpost editorial staff) is why I would prefer the Signpost makes a firm commitment to enable and not hinder on accessibility issues. No backroom handshake deals in order to get content. No edit-warring when someone does something helpful. Just a promise that you have taken on board the concerns and will not be repeating the same mistakes in future. Said my piece so if anyone wants to interact with me further they can at my talkpage. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:48, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Have you finished your soap-box piece? Tony (talk) 01:15, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe wikinews could host a transcript. Let me ask them. John Carter (talk) 00:12, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Amazingly, what seems to be lost in this chorus of bleeting is that a transcript has been linked since almost the start of publication. What are you talking about, John Carter? Tony (talk) 00:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Dealing with the broader topic of transcription of interviews in general. There evidently have been other cases in the past so this one interview is not my only concern here. Petulance on its own isn't particularly beneficial. John Carter (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
If you're calling me petulant, I'd call you idiotic. Tony (talk) 01:14, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

It is my believe that such works can be hosted at Wikisource. The scope of Wikisource is stated as Wikisource, as the free library that anyone can improve, exists to archive the free artistic and intellectual works created throughout history, and to present these publications in a faithful wiki version so that anyone may contribute added value to the collection. I will admit that the plain language component that follows in the body does not explicitly state this type of work (post-1922) for inclusion, though it would clearly include it if it was a pre-1923 work. It is not the main content that was envisaged when the policy was written, however, in the scope of Wikimedia Foundation, and having an approach to one's own history, I don't see how we could exclude it. Clearly it belongs at one of the WMF sites, and if you asked which, then "Wikisource" is my answer for the transcript, and Commons for file content.

All that said, there are caveats. To the licensing, form, completeness through validation, however, that is process not the acceptance. As has also been noted, this would allow Signpost to be Signpost, and volunteers to do transcription work. If we want it, we have to do it, we cannot whine that others have that responsibility. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:34, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

The best way to promote accessibility is to make it easy to do. Signpost is written by volunteers who go to class, hold down 4 jobs, and then produce the paper on the side. They do it each week by the seat of their pants, and each week it is a new miracle when it comes out at all. Make a format that they can use easily--categories for works that need transcription, tutorials for using particular resources or whatever, or better yet, approach Ed to write a feature about it--and the volunteers will use them. —Neotarf (talk) 05:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

A couple more points (and thanks to everyone who has engaged in calm discussion):

  • I agree with 'Only in death does duty end' that once such interviews have been published, the Signpost doesn't have to commit to providing transcripts, merely not to stand in the way of such transcripts being produced. The question is whether those providing the audio file (it has been noted that the audio file could have been hosted off-wiki and only linked from here, rather than released under a free license) include restrictions allowing transcriptions or not and whether such restrictions are (or should be honoured). There is a long tradition of unofficial transcripts being made in such cases. Ideally, though, it would be better for accuracy and professionalism if such transcripts were official. This is why I was hinting that funding (maybe from the WMF) could help official transcripts be produced before publication, so the audio file and transcript can be published simultaneously. Would those who are active in wikimedia circles and mailing lists be able to say whether such an approach would be possible?
  • Going the volunteer route, using Wikisource to host transcripts, sounds promising as well. I'm glad billinghurst has said it should be possible. It would still be ideal if those producing the interview provided a transcript, as that would likely be more accurate. Moving from audio to audiovisual, Billinghurst, do you know how feasible it would be to store captions (subtitles) associated with video files? Does anyone know if we have any (properly) captioned videos at the moment on Commons? No need to reinvent the wheel here - there are several industry standards available to follow here as far as I know, though how easy it is to use those standards in a free licensing environment, I don't know.
    @Carcharoth: I have no idea about adding subtitles to audiovisual files, though Google shows lots of links and help. I will note that a subtitled AV file would be a derivative work and when at Commons, and we would need to have an adapted licensing, one that takes in the original and the volunteer effort to transcribe and subtitle, though that sort of adapted licensing is not strange to any of us. With relation to accuracy of a transcript, I am not certain that an official transcript of a recording is any more accurate than a volunteer effort, it is the skills of the transcriber, not the officialness of their status. It is about availability. For a twenty minute interview, ten people can take 2 minutes each, and join them together and then validate the whole transcription which for me would give quickness and accuracy. So getting early access to a file and having the vols available is the limiting factor. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:49, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
Sub-Station-Alpha has been of use to me. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:10, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Tony, you say that a transcript was available. I think the main concern people have is that you intended to withhold your official transcript for a week and/or selectively provide it on request rather than make it available to all immediately, which is what led to someone else jumping in and providing an unofficial transcript earlier. What people are looking for is for such transcripts to be provided at the time of publication. I know it has been a difficult few days for you, but would you consider providing transcripts to future audio interviews at the time of publication? As you can see from what people have said, it really would help immensely and you would be providing a service that would be greatly appreciated.

On discussing this further, maybe the accessibility project's talk page? Carcharoth (talk) 07:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Here's a thought: next time just put out a video with subtitles. There doesn't need to be actual recorded video, but just a video format to allow for subtitles. If we do that, then there is no immediate need for a transcript.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 14:06, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
That's an idea. It sounds like it is not that easy, though. You might well end up needing to produce a transcript anyway, unless there are automated subtitling facilities. Billinghurst's comments above are useful (and 'Only in death' has linked to an example of software that can be used). I've also now played through the file linked above by Pete (commons:TimedText:Multimedia vision 2016.webm.en.srt). That is a good example of the sort of thing that would be useful. Does anyone have a link to an example of the format where an audio file is presented in video format with subtitles (captions)? Carcharoth (talk) 07:00, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Audio interviews that are free licensed belong on Commons. Commons is where we have millions of files and will put millions more, and it's the place for these. Transcripts to the Commons interviews can be put one of two places: in the file description text, or in Wikisource. The file description is the place for a more informal effort (example), whereas Wikisource is usually a place for serious projects to proofread every word. Subtitling might be a supplement, but it is not a substitute for transcripts for impatient readers who have a low tolerance for video dribble i.e. me, and I doubt the deaf readers are much more patient than I am. Wnt (talk) 19:18, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
FWIW, for current and future audio trascripts, and maybe even older ones, wikinews is another possibility. John Carter (talk) 22:04, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
I asked Jimbo on his talk page about where transcripts should be placed, and he basically indicated Commons, wikinews, and wikisource would all likely be acceptable from the WMF's viewpoint, basically, as long as one of the does host them. I personally do more at wikisoure than the others, and I think it might be the more intuitive place for people to look for older transcripts, although that is clearly just my opinion. Any other opinions? John Carter (talk) 00:02, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
Just chiming in to note that, while I am not hearing impaired, I appreciate having transcripts available. If I don't have time or don't feel like listening to an audio talk/interview, I still may want to read a transcript. I support the inclusion of transcripts with as many recordings as possible for my own sake, not to mention for the sake of maximum accessibility. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:43, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Hoax redux

Probably is a good time to write up another article involving hoaxes on Wikipedia. Especially after reading this story: I accidentally started a Wikipedia hoax. GamerPro64 16:44, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Hey GamerPro64, I'm actually planning to write up at least a short article later today (UTC), using that Daily Dot article as a base. Do you have any suggestions on items I could add? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:59, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Another example I can think of is someone on Reddit confessing to making up an alternate name for Chicken Korma. Now if you google search the other name it directs to Korma itself. [2] Its funny how people are confessing to making hoaxes these days. Makes one wonder if it'll be a growing trend. GamerPro64 12:54, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The slashdot entry on the Amelia Bedelia hoax [3] also links a Wikipediocracy article from last week recounting other hoaxes.[4]. And the comments to the metafilter post about the Bedelia hoax[5] includes a confession to fake ghost stories in the Golden Lion (St Ives, Cambridgeshire public house) article, as well as a 43-day old hoax in the Vertical Horizon entry [6]. I've not brushed up on the status of possible full implementation of Wikipedia:Pending changes to IPs and new users, whatever happened to that? As I said in the Daily Dot article, I am not sure anyone knows how many hoaxes of this kind are out there. It should not be satisfying to just assume that over time all hoaxes are caught under our current processes. With 4.5 million articles now, a bit more focus on quality improvement among the vast majority of less-viewed articles seems like a good idea.--Milowent • hasspoken 13:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration Reports

Just curious, whatever happened to the Arbitration Reports section? I haven't seen any updates in months. GoodDay (talk) 13:08, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

We haven't had a writer for the section since Neotarf left. I have a person lined up to take over, but they are not immediately able to start writing it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 14:10, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Okie Doke. GoodDay (talk) 14:22, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Access criticises Wikipedia Zero

Hello! Here's an article by Access that criticises the Wikipedia Zero project. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Dear TPSers: help wanted

Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom#Current discussion. Best, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:05, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

News coverage

Mike Huckabee does commentaries three times a day in the style of Paul Harvey. Just now, he said Wikipedia is edited by nerds who are mostly male and have way too much time to spend on the Internet (okay, not exactly like that, but that's how it sounded). He said the federal government with its $17 trillion debt was spending $200,000 to find out why there aren't more women editors. Wherever he got that, is this something the Signpost is covering or is that in the past?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

This is old, but it's been picked up again recently by conservative news outlets thanks to the Washington Free Beacon. They are grants from the National Science Foundation, and the research report covered one of them here, although it lumps both investigators into the $132k grant? [7] [8] cc Tbayer (WMF) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Ed, I haven't found time to look into the details again, but it seems that there are indeed two separate NSF grants - our coverage back then relied on this press release which said "their [Brückner's and Adams'] project — "Collaborative Research: Wikipedia and the Democratization of Academic Knowledge" — is being funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation." Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 16:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Featured Content

In the weakly featured content report, do WP:FTs that were promoted from WP:GT get mentioned? Four Freedoms (Norman Rockwell) just got promoted in this way and I am not sure if it will be included in the report or whether the report is just for FTs that were promoted as a result of a discussion at WP:FTC.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:07, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

They should be mentioned. When I did FC I remember neglecting FTs a few times, since promotions didn't happen all that often. When reminded, we always caught up, even if a week late. Tony (talk) 12:05, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
As long as they appear on WP:GO, we get them, and the FT director has been very good about that. I think that FC used to be done from logs, as I think the Signpost hadn't realised there was a centralized place to find the information. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:22, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Not having ever heard of this page, how frequently is this maintained? It seems like an awful large amount of work to keep up to date by hand. --NickPenguin(contribs) 19:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
It's part of the closing instructions of every featured content process, and I haven't not seen it used in some time. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Broken link, can't figure out how to fix

I found that the "previous issue" link on the last issue is broken -- it's black instead of blue. I just spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out what's up, and in the end I can't navigate the template code etc. Hopefully somebody else knows how to fix it:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Archives/2014-08-27

The code on this page seems weird to me (#2 is a different format than the other 4 items) but I'm not sure if that's related or not: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Issue

-Pete (talk) 19:40, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Pete! Don't spend so much time on things that take an instant to fix. ;-) The bot has been screwy recently, so it didn't automatically create the page. All of the archives use {{Signpost archive}}! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, puzzling out wiki puzzles is one of the weird things I do, so... no worries ;) Thanks for zapping the bug. -Pete (talk) 01:20, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 September 2014

Rahulkumar161 (talk) 10:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
If the request is factual, please also cite reliable sources to back up your request. - Arjayay (talk) 10:26, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Wednesdays

Every Wednesday update by Sunday/Monday is like Ryan Seacrest's American Top 40! LonelyLaura (talk) 12:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

User talkpage delivery before actually written

The Message-Delivery notification for the September 24 Signpost went out around 05:50 on the 28th, but that edition didn't get article summaries until half a day later. I think it would be better to delay publicizing the new edition until after its main page is actually completed. DMacks (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

We would ideally have everything perfect before publishing, but publication was already several days late, and we all have extremely busy real lives. For instance, I'm in graduate school, so you can typically find me writing papers. We'd welcome any help if you'd like to come on board! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposing changes to The Signpost's logo as used on all of its project pages

Hello, all. I would like to propose that The Signpost's current logo be replaced with its SVG variant on all of the project's pages to accommodate for users browsing with screens of varying resolutions and pixel densities. Feedback or commentary of any sort would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. —zziccardi (talk) 05:27, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi Zziccardi, I don't have a problem with this, but the logos aren't the same; the SVG is slightly smaller and thicker than the PNG. This is why we didn't change it two years ago. Do you have some experience with images? If so, could you make the necessary change, and I'll be happy to hunt down all of the templates that use the current PNG? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I've updated the SVG to more closely match the original PNG file. --— Pretzels 10:37, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Hello, Pretzels. Looks good to me; lovely work. I've removed the surrounding border again to more closely match the dimensions of the original PNG. What do you think, Ed? —zziccardi (talk) 15:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
To see the latest version of the SVG in action, check out my sandbox. I've replaced the PNG currently used in the {{Signpost-subscription}} template with the SVG to give you a good idea of what it'll look like in practice. —zziccardi (talk) 15:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Ah, Pretzels, you're a godsend, and Zziccardi, it does look better without the border. I've updated Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Template:Signpost-header/Normal to use the SVG. Where else is it used? I've tried to check the global useage, but we'll have to wait for Wikipedia's cache to catch up. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I've created a template-protected edit request for the {{Signpost-subscription}} template I mentioned earlier. I'll let you know if I find any other places where it's used. —zziccardi (talk) 19:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Perfect -- thank you very much! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:27, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Featured content report

@The ed17:, exactly what dates should the Featured content report cover this week? — NickGibson3900 Talk 04:41, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi NickGibson3900! We go by the dates at WP:GO, so it's the 28th to the 4th. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:27, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for summarizing the articles and lists, NickGibson3900. Are you willing to do this often? :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:40, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
@The ed17:, I'm happy to help out maybe once or twice a month, but I can't commit to more than that — NickGibson3900 Talk 04:15, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
@NickGibson3900: Alright, sounds good. We'll be happy to have you whenever you have the time! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 15:49, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

A missing story

I've encountered a story that somehow never made it to the Signpost. The fact that it was never covered is almost a bigger story than the story itself -- & says some disturbing things about the Wikipedia community.

Does anyone remember the 2013 Wikimedia Fundraiser? How much money it raised? Did it even happen?

I'll confess that I purposely ignored it, so up until an hour ago I couldn't answer one of these three questions. But I've been poking into WMF finances for my own reasons I won't bore anyone with, & had a devil of a time even confirming that there was a fundraiser in 2013. There wasn't anything about it in the Signpost -- which reported on all of the previous ones -- which I found surprising. And only after determined digging thru the Press Releases on the Foundation website I found an announcement that it had taken place[9] -- none about how well the campaign had done. I don't want to sound as if I'm attacking anyone at the Signpost, but I guess the average Wikipedian no longer has any interest in whether the Foundation will be able to pay its bills. Which is a surprise to me; I'm not interested due to being jaded with how Wikimedia runs things, but just assumed I was atypical.

As for the second question, I found this. The campaign raised USD 18.7 million in the campaign, bringing the Foundation a total of USD 32 million in donations for the year. Which, according to the latest WMF 990 financial report, is less than the USD 35 million it raised the year before -- not a good sign, & maybe why the Foundation didn't bother to release a PR about it. -- llywrch (talk) 06:15, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

(P.S. I notice that you're scrambling for content for the next Signpost. If this sounds halfway interesting, feel free to include it. Because the fact no one seems to have noticed this story went unreported by everyone involved -- the Foundation, the Signpost, even the average Wikipedian -- is the big story. -- llywrch (talk) 06:15, 17 August 2014 (UTC))

  • llywrch, would you be willing to write something up (for next week's issue)? I could co-author. I'm no bigwig around here but I sense its very newsworthy. Bad news being buried until someone notices it is the way of the world. It may be "late" news, but we can tie it into planning for the next one, whenever that happens (December?). They're probably wishing they could co-opt the ice bucket challenge already.--Milowent • hasspoken 15:26, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Before calling it a bad news story, find out what the fundraising goal was for the year; if that was met, then it's a success story for a fundraiser that had so little impact on the editing population that we barely noticed it. There were major changes to the methodology of fundraising last year, with a split in fundraising by regions/projects, and as I recall each unregistered person only saw the banners a few times, and logged-in users not at all. (I never saw a banner at all except the one time I looked something up without logging in.) The key contact would probably be Megan Hernandez. Risker (talk) 19:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be some serious confusion here. Firstly let me reassure everyone that our fundraising has consistently reached or surpassed its targets, and there is no funding gap for the Foundation!

So the 2013 December Fundraiser definitely did happen (I would know from the long hours I worked during it) and yes it did raise approximately the $18.7 million mentioned here. You may not have noticed this fundraiser for a simple reason: we no longer show banners at all to logged-in users. Unregistered users always made up the vast majority of donations, and we know and appreciate that many logged-in users are generously donating to the projects in the form of time and effort. (Of course there are great unregistered contributors as well, I'd love it if we could hide the banners for them too, but unfortunately it's not technically feasible.) Personally I was still surprised just how little attention this fundraiser received from the Signpost and external media, I guess partly because the banners are less meme-friendly than in previous years (xkcd did have some fun with them though).

Now that page also mentions "Year-to-date, approximately $32 million has been raised from online fundraising banners". Year-to-date is the important part, the WMF's financial year runs from 1st July to 30th June. So the $35 million dollars mentioned from the year before was for a whole 12 months, whereas the $32 million was just from 1st July 2013 to 10 Jan 2014 (when that message was posted). It also doesn't include donations from emails (a growing portion of our work) or the amounts raised by Wikimedia Deutschland or Wikimedia CH.

The above ties into something that Risker pointed out: unlike in previous years we no longer do all our fundraising in December. The December Fundraiser discussed above was only running in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, and only in the English Wikipedia. Since then we've been running campaigns focused on other countries and languages. This allows us to devote more time to translations and localisation for them. We've also been running some "low-level" testing year-round, where banners only show up occasionally and are limited so that a user sees no more than (e.g.) 1 banner per month. The results from both of these have been good, and in June we hit our goal of $50 million for the 2013-14 financial year.

Our final report on 2013-14 fundraising should actually be out within the next week or two. If you have any more questions about fundraising then I'd be happy to answer, or at least point you to someone who can. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 23:20, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Peter, thanks for your response. The Signpost does need to provide some coverage of fundraising, but it's a complicated, multi-faceted issue. My only foray into fundraising inquiry was two years ago, to ask by email why the fundraising department's budget went up significantly at the same time the projection for takings was 2% less than for the previous year. No answer, apparently because the head of fundraising was about to take a job outside the WMF, which hadn't been announced at the time (a short reply to my email would have been nice).

Risker's lead looks very useful. llywrch, are you prepared to write a "Special report" for the next edition, with Milowent's support? If so, please let me know; it should be prepared offwiki. Tony (talk) 01:54, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I was planning to take up @Milowent: on his offer, but I'm limited to using my cell phone this weekend. I hope to have something written & submitted tomorrow night, my time (+8h). And Tony confirmed one part of the story I had planned to tell. -- llywrch (talk) 05:12, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Sounds good, llywrch and Milowent. Capturing and putting into perspective the various dimensions and views will be interesting for our readers. Tony (talk) 06:45, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I've written up the belated story, which can be found here. Although I don't know, now that I've written it all out, if the story is worth publishing. -- llywrch (talk) 06:47, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

@Llywrch: As pointed out above, your numbers are simply incorrect. The 2012-13 WMF 990 covers 12 months, looking at it I'm not actually sure where you got $35 million from, the total given for that year was $45 million.
The $32 million on the meta page was the total over approximately 6 months, I've now amended the meta page to make this clearer. For the full 2013-14 fiscal year, the total raised was a little over $50 million, which is the target that was set out in the Annual Plan. Our final report on 2013-14 should be out in September.
The lack of a press release after the December English fundraiser is simply because our fundraising didn't end there. We continued to fundraise in other countries and languages, and a press release saying that fundraising was over would undoubtedly have confused people.
@Tony1: Sorry to hear that you didn't get a response to your email. If you take a look at our audited financial statements, you'll find that in fact we have continued to raise more year-on-year, in line with the growth of the Foundation:
2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
$6.2m $14.5m $23.0m $35.1m $44.7m
Yes, there have naturally been increases in the department budget as we seek to raise more, and to make it easier for people in many countries to donate. However as a proportion of overall spending, fundraising has remained low at around 10%.
It does seem like there's a lack of community awareness on fundraising matters. This is something that we're going to actively work on improving, keep an eye on m:Fundraising. I would also be keen to participate in a Q&A article either in an upcoming issue, or closer to the December campaign. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 18:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Llywrch that this story is not really worth publishing until it takes into account and properly details the statistics given by WMF representatives in this thread. Simply saying "There are some further details in the relevant thread, and provide another interpretation to the facts as I have told them" is not enough, and would be a poor op-ed at best. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
That's what happens when I try to use my cell phone to consult Wikipedia while ostensibly on vacation with my family: it's much too easy to missing things skimming text displayed in the area of an index card. When I got home Sunday & -- after attending to things like fixing the CD player on my wife's car -- could use a much better sized screen that I actually read a lot of stuff in this thread. I had to completely revise my conclusion on the fly to salvage my point. :-( llywrch (talk) 20:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
@Pcoombe (WMF): my spies also tell me that the fundraising department did a presentation at Wikimania, and even had a temporary fundraising event/test that was visible to various people during the event. If my spies are correct, a signpost article about this could perhaps give an update about what you learned from that event/test as well? A Q&A article for the signpost sounds like a great idea. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:41, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
@Demiurge1000: We did indeed! Still waiting for the video from it to be put online though, I'll post here when it is. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 19:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
An interesting vignette from @Llywrch:; it would be nice to see something in the Signpost to take some of the mysticism out of fundraising. I have always found Tony's finance writeups to be quite substantial, and illuminating, but a series of shorter pieces might be of general interest to the public as well. —Neotarf (talk) 20:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
@Demiurge1000:, what is a Q&A article? @Pcoombe (WMF):, please let us know when the vid will be available. I've emailed Llywrch concerning his draft. Tony (talk) 01:56, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
As Peter mentioned, we will be publishing a report for the entire 2013-2014 fiscal year in September. I think that report will have the info you're looking for. We typically also create a blog post around the annual report. You can see monthly updates on fundraising activities, in the monthly Foundation reports. Thanks & we'll keep you posted when the report is out. Meganhernandez (talk) 10:23, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Meganhernandez, thank you very much. A number of dimensions in the WMF's fundraising may need to be explored (I'm unsure as yet)—perhaps to make up for our past neglect! Tony (talk) 12:04, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
@Tony1: I am apparently blind. The video of our talk is already on YouTube [10] (we're the first 30 minutes). Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 13:48, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Tony1, Llywrch, and Demiurge1000: The fundraising report for the 2013-14 fiscal year is now up on meta. I hope you find this informative! Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 13:19, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Image overlapping text

More often than not, I find that when I view the Signpost using Mozilla Firefox, the image overlaps the text that lies to its right. I don't know whether this is because of the font size I am using on the browser, but isn't it possible to, say, place the image at the top right corner of the page and have the text flow below the image? Right now the image seems to be in a middle column, which is perhaps contributing to the problem. — SMUconlaw (talk) 08:25, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It does that for me too, this week (Safari for Mac). Perhaps it only happens when it's not a thumbnail. Tony (talk) 10:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Isn't it usually not a thumbnail? — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
It's doing the overlap for me on Mac Firefox both before and after the change of the thumb setting. DMacks (talk) 18:57, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
It happens when the page is too narrow; it is a three-column table. Time to switch to a real column layout? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 19:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
I'd be happy to switch, but I have no clue how to code it. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
I went ahead and acted boldly, changing the format to two columns with the image in the top right corner. Does this work better? At least the image no longer overlaps with text in the rightmost column. — SMUconlaw (talk) 03:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@The ed17: I notice you switched back to a three-column layout again for the latest edition of The Signpost, which caused a recurrence of the image overlapping the text in the rightmost column that I mentioned above. I went ahead and changed it to a two-column format again. Are you working off a draft page, and if so would you like me to tweak that page so that it has only two columns? — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:28, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It's actually a bot-outputted format that the editors edit, but I think we need to stay with the three-column format. Having an image in two columns is asymmetrical and not viable, to me. I've made the image smaller to avoid most overlapping. Edokter, do you have the time to code a better solution? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Sure, no worries. I hope you find a lasting solution. With the reduced image size, the page looks fine now. However, I suspect the problem will recur if the image used has a landscape rather than a portrait orientation. — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:59, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I'll be happy to look into it (once I know where the bot-generated code lives). I think dynamic columns are the best option, much like how most reference sections work. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Pinging in Jarry1250 here. Edokter, the bot saves a basic framework each week with content pulled from the various pages (ex [11]). If you could code something quickly for us to paste and use in the interim, I'd be very appreciative (and if it's not quick, don't worry about it!). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:40, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
OK, here's a quick demo for dynamic columns (by no means 'finished'): Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/sandbox. Vertical stripes just for illustration. The columns may not 'balance' themselves as they do when done manually, but it is responsive to different window sizes. Resize your window to see it. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:05, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
It looks fine for me, and in fact I previously suggested a two-column format with the image on the top right corner. However, I gather that ed17 prefers the image to appear in the centre of the page. The difficulty with that is getting the text to flow around the image. I don't know if there is a convenient technical fix for that. In the current edition of the Signpost the image once again overlaps the text on the right side when I view it in Mozilla Firefox. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:31, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Signpost sending failure

Hello all, The Signpost: 15 October 2014 edition is send with two big errors, as you can see here. The Unexpected use of template error I fixed on all wikis, the not existing red link of the Discussion report I saw too late to fix it everywhere. Please make sure that the message is send correctly. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 16:40, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

@Romaine: Thank you very much—I greatly appreciate the time you put in here. I was so worried about getting it fixed on en.wp and the mailing list that I forgot those don't apply to other wikis. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:33, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
@The ed17: No problem, I am happy to help out with such problems. I am pretty handy with solving such and have done such before. Greetings - Romaine (talk) 00:45, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Signpost quotation template nominated for deletion

Hi all, the quotation template used by the Signpost, {{Signpost quote}}, has been nominated for deletion. Please add your thoughts and !votes to that page. Best, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:43, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Moving publication day

Why don't we move the weekly day of publication to Friday or even Saturday, to take the pressure off FC a little? That always seems to be what's dragging us behind. Rcsprinter123 (indicate) @ 08:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Why do you believe that changing the official day of publication will make any difference with the Signpost's long term difficulties in meeting its self imposed deadlines? The publication day was changed to Wednesday on 1 June 2013. Discussions leading up to that change included doubts that a new publication day would actually help the Signpost come out on time (Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Archive 6#Changing the publication schedule in the newsroom). Wouldn't another change in publication day just shift the delays to a different part of the week? --Allen3 talk 10:34, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Support this. Maybe this can bring some stability to our publishing schedule. We seem to be publishing on Friday-Sunday anyway, as we might as well make it official. We wouldn't even have to do much differently, just quietly change the dates of future issues. If we still have problems getting FC out the door after this, then we can reassess our systemic issues. Gamaliel (talk) 17:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Allen3 outlines the problem I would have with moving the publishing date again. As long as the deadline remains fluid (and in most cases, it must be or we'll be extremely short on content), we'll have a problem with delayed issues. Something we could try is leaving the publishing date and simply changing the date to appear one week early. When we publish on our typical Friday or Saturday, we'd be merely four days ahead. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:04, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Hmm, maybe we could leap ahead a week with the new year. Gamaliel (talk) 23:55, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
You know you're going to miss Christmas, and probably Thanksgiving as well. —Neotarf (talk) 00:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Reordering

Adam Cuerden, why have you reordered the FC report this week? - NickGibson3900 Talk 23:18, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

It makes it easier to edit if I don't have to scroll through the short sections to get to the big one. I'll switch it back once it's done. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:47, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
And it's done and it's back in place. Think we have a very strong FC this week. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

RSS feed

Hi, the RSS feed for the signpost doesn't seems to work. --Kimdime (talk) 10:29, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

FIA Formula E

Please see here. --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Pumpkin?

That orange fellow would've been more appropiate for the October 29, 2014 edition, don't ya'll think? GoodDay (talk) 16:52, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

A Tumblr feed of interest

I just found a Tumblr feed entitled firstdraftsofhistory.tumblr.com, created from excerpts/screen-shots of the earliest existing versions of Wikipedia articles. Quite fascinating to read -- even if it doesn't merit a mention in the Signpost. -- llywrch (talk) 05:14, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Weasel word detection

Check this academic paper on weasel word detection. Have fun! --190.64.49.26 (talk) 17:54, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Distribution delayed

So it looks like we're published for this week, but why is the MassMessage not delivering to people's talkpages yet? Rcsprinter123 (parlez) @ 15:05, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Pine, your thoughts? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:51, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Paddlefish

"Fossil records of paddlefish date back over 300 million years ago, 500 millons years elder than dinosaurs"? Can someone who knows where to do so please fix this. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:28, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

  • Got it, thanks AndyTheGrump. You can edit Signpost articles the same as you would any other page. Changes are subject to review by other editors, especially Signpost article primary authors and management. Copyedits by any good-faith editors are very much appreciated. --Pine✉ 21:37, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
It is certainly possible to edit it - but that takes figuring out where to do so first. This is less than obvious, particularly if starting from the single-page version. I've now found it, though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:48, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Iberoconf 2014

This week it's the Iberoconf (Spanish-Latin American Wikimedia Meeting). Thanks! --190.12.99.243 (talk) 23:08, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

The Traffic Report

The traffic report looks at absolute page traffic which is certainly quite interesting but I wonder if it might also be interesting to compute (possibly via a toolserver project) and examine peaks above a certain factor of the moving average of the previous week's visitation rate. I suggest this after failing to find a suitable news event that could cause a spike such as this one that goes rather high above the base-rate on September 11, 2014 for the article Egyptian vulture - http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Egyptian vulture Shyamal (talk) 06:54, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

An interesting note

I don't know that this is newsworthy, specifically, but it may be a humorous observation that needs to be made to explain a certain strange quality in this year's top ten most edited articles (per [1): [2]. All, ResMar 01:08, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Tenth anniversary coming up

The very first edition of the Signpost was published by Michael Snow on January 10, 2005; so now is a good time to start thinking about whether and how to celebrate the occasion. (One somewhat obvious idea might been to interview the former editors-in-chief, but that was already done in 2012.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:14, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe a greatest hits issue? I'm not sure what criteria we'd use to select the articles though. Gamaliel (talk) 21:41, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
I suggest selecting the most popular articles the paper has published by page counts and using them to write up a synopsis of the paper's progress. ResMar 01:08, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Timing's heavily ironic. Tony (talk) 03:29, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Numbering...

Volume 10, Issue Negative 1?Naraht (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Monumental fuck-up

Pine, I emailed you the other day to alert you to the existence of News and notes this week. A huge amount of work went into it. You acknowledged my email, saying that Ed would publish this week.

The whole edition needs to be sent out again. As soon as possible.

T

Fixing this now Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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: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)

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)

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/Templates/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/Templates/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)

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/Templates/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)

New content page

As I mentioned in my discussion with Ed, above, I've put together a heavily revised and updated version of the old content guidelines and inserted them into the (also partially refurbished) sidebar. I hope you will all find it appropriate, and fix it up or add to it where it is not or could be improved. Elsewhere I've finished cataloging a lot of the old materials that was not properly kept track of amongst the desks. ResMar 22:17, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Looks great, Resident Mario. Thanks for all your help with this. I appreciate it. Go Phightins! 23:25, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Internal discussion

There has been plenty of support and encouragement for a editors- and edits-based supplement to the Traffic Report. Bamyers99 has automated the production of such a report which you can see here except for the NFC images which would be allowed outside of userspace. Do the editorial directors prefer that this appear below the Traffic Report or separately? I prefer the former because I believe the interests of readers should be considered above the interests of editors. For similar reasons, while I strongly support, encourage, and enjoy editorial content concerning entries in the reader traffic report, it is completely unclear to me whether editorial comments are necessary or advisable as part of this top-20 by editors and edits. I do note that spikes in editors and edits apparently precede spikes in readers, depending on how you look at them (e.g., the edits and editors list was inundated with Super Bowl articles a week before the readership list was. However, that could be an artifact of calendar dates.) EllenCT (talk) 22:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Pinging Milowent, Serindipodous, and Gamaliel for comments on this. My initial inclination is to include the information as a table below the regular traffic report, probably without commentary, but I have no strong opinion and will defer to you three. Go Phightins! 15:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Fix ping for Serendipodous. Go Phightins! 15:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Tangent: Phightins, it's my understanding that pings only work when there is a signature in the same edit. So in the case above, you'd only need to fix the ping and paste over your signature with four tildes. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. If people take to it I might add commentary later. Serendipodous 16:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
@Bamyers99: you mentioned here that you would need to file an approval request for this to move forward. I don't know what the time frame on those are, but presumably you can create the pages in your userspace for Serendipodous to copy manually below his usual report with or without commentary as he sees fit for the time being? Could you please work with him to figure out what to do about the NFC images issue? Maybe you can make easily convertible blue links to NFC images while they are in userspace? I am super-busy with work this week but I want to reiterate my thanks. I looked a little closer at the spike timing, and it's not an artifact of dates; the edit(or)-driven list is definitely a few days ahead of the readership stats in many but not all cases of articles showing up on both, so this may make the TR a little "newsier". Cheers! EllenCT (talk) 17:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Re: non-free images outside article space, it appears that others disagree about them being allowed in the Wikipedia namespace per this edit and this edit.
If Serendipodous doesn't mind grabbing the new report from the bots user page, then WP:BAG approval is not needed. I just need to know what day of the week to run the report on. --Bamyers99 (talk) 18:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, NFC images would not be allowed in the Signpost or anywhere outside of the mainspace . Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
The Traffic Report captures Sunday-Saturday views each week. The WP:5000 is usually updated each Sunday sometime with the prior weeks data, and is used to create the Top 25 and Traffic Report.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I have no objection to adding it as a section of "Most Edited Articles"(?) of the Traffic Report. As for comments, it could go either way or have an intro mention of any key findings. I've not thought too much about the value of the editing data, but I suspect some editors would have an interest in it. It might also highlight editing disputes that need a hand.--Milowent • hasspoken 04:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
A new Most Edited Articles report is available. --Bamyers99 (talk) 21:18, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
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