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6 million articles

re:Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#6_million_articles @Valereee: Never fear - The Signpost is on the job - well sort of. I've been half-way tracking this for a month or two. ETA for 6,000,000 articles is January 4, 2020, plus or minus a week, by the back of my envelop. So The Signpost has to have something for the November 30 issue or we'll be missing the story. I did email the WMF yesterday to see if they are doing anything special, but no reply yet. Any suggestions for a story or who to ask? Anybody at a total loss of what to do can send a (fifth, quart, liter, and/or gallon) of a single malt scotch to me. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:01, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't have any brilliant ideas, I'm afraid! :) --valereee (talk) 23:42, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones: You meant Signpost has to have something for the November or December issue, right? Are we scheduling both?
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-28/News and notes covered the 5 million mark, if we want to use it as a guide. I put a placeholder at News and notes for upcoming issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:05, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: Any interest in doing a remake of Wikipedia:Five million articles? ☆ Bri (talk) 01:11, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
@Bri: I appreciate the thought, but see what I wrote to Smallbones on Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost. ↠Pine (✉) 01:13, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
80 hours?! Wow, don't settle for a fifth of scotch for that much work ☆ Bri (talk) 01:16, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
@Pine and Bri: Yes, a mention on WMYHTM would be good. I was surprised by the earlier coverage linked to by Bri. It was pretty short so maybe we don't have to go overboard on it, but just try to replicate that. The timing might be bad though. I'll suggest an "it's coming up" piece (short in N&N) and a longer piece copy deadline Dec. 26 that will work whether or not we're over 6,000,000. Maybe I'll contact WP:WikiProject Statistics to see if they have any ideas. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:59, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Suggested essay

@Smallbones, Bri, and Kudpung: See Wikipedia:Adminitis. ↠Pine (✉) 19:33, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Pine, a very good suggestion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:31, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Seems like both the "community critics" and "complexity critics" here could be explained as symptoms of burnout. In other words, burnout is the description given to those who feel these negatives outweigh the positives of remaining, which accounts for ~50% of the departures. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Community reporting conundrum

Contributors to The Signpost might be interested in a parallel situation the writers for a college paper, The Daily Northwestern, found themselves in. I'd say they have gotten some harsh criticism for deciding they should self-censor regarding the actions of members of their community. According to The Hill, "The online reaction to the paper's apology was swift from across the spectrum, with most arguing that Northwestern, a university with one of the top journalism programs in the country, was abandoning the basic tenets of reporting." A communication professor from another university said (to Fox News) "community censorship can and does intimidate the student press". ☆ Bri (talk) 15:30, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion for "From the archives"

@Smallbones and Bri: would you like to republish this in "From the archives"? Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-07-18/WikiProject report. ↠Pine (✉) 19:21, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

It's certainly interesting and has a real grabber of a headline. I want to say yes immediately, but you can see, I hope, why I'd want to read it through 4 times. @Bri: whadayu think? Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:27, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
I would be happy to see that essay run. An introduction by the author or the interviewee would be appropriate, if they would be willing to provide it–maybe reflecting on how things stand versus 2011 when it was originally written. I suspect MER-C has an opinion on the efficacy of the mandatory paid disclosure rule slash ToS update in effect since 2014. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:39, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
It's a good thing that I actually read the articles sometimes. Yeah, I missed @MER-C: in there. If they want to update the situation or do a before/after article (half of which is already written) that would be great. Maybe we could use the headline "Son of Earn $$$ free pharm4cy WORK FROM HOME replica watches ViAgRa!!!" Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:37, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Certainly. I'm not committing to any deadline at this stage. MER-C 17:19, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I suggest a new WikiProject report (that is, interview) discussing the current state would be better; it can link to the old one for context. isaacl (talk) 22:33, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Status update

"On the bright side" is ready for copyediting. @Smallbones and Bri: are you planning to publish the two pieces that I suggested above? ↠Pine (✉) 05:14, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: I tried copyediting "On the bright side" and it all looks ok, but I'll leave it for others to look at. @MER-C: The interview looks fine as is. I can write a 1 paragraph intro/update, but would prefer MER-C write the intro - at least 1 paragraph. The WP:adminitis article leaves me with mixed feeling. Humor is probably always that way - some people like it, others are indifferent or don't like it. If anybody wants to include it, please do. We need humor in The Signpost, and I don't see anything wrong with it. It just doesn't grab me. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:27, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I copied in the recommended essay at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Essay. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks @Bri: Pinging @HaeB and Pine:. I'm now done with my main writing tasks - though there are 2-3 other things I could write before Friday. I'd like to get reactions from people to User:Smallbones/draft2. It's not the usual Signpost article, though it's not that different from the German vs. French articles we had about 4 months back. It's hard for me to judge whether other people will be interested in it - and if nobody but me is interested in it, I'd still be glad I wrote it. I just wanted to know about US and UK editors.
For that matter, I'm interested in knowing what people think of the 1st section in ITM ("Revolution"). It's a bit of a departure from the usual, but something I've wanted to get at for a long time now. The point, if you miss it, is the request for comments near the end.
I may write up a "From the editor", similar to something Bri mentioned above. We also need bits and pieces for N&N. More later. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Smallbones I took a brief look and I think that what you wrote is good material for the Signpost. I recommend including the piece as a "special report". Thanks for your work. ↠Pine (✉) 00:57, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I'll do the markup and move this to a Special report, unless I hear a "stop" before Sunday morning. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:06, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

From the archives

I wrote up the "intro" to compare and contrast. It is long, but the primary messages is that spam has grown up a lot and we're fighting both the WMF and the spammers. MER-C 21:06, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I have this about wrapped up. @MER-C: you may want to have a look. Also, if there's more introduction you'd like to see of you as an editor, let me know. I just said "veteran editor" in the blurb, without adding an explanation. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:52, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Looks fine, although it should be mentioned somewhere that I have since become an administrator since the interview was published. MER-C 08:00, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration report

Just started a brief Arbitration report, plan to complete it this afternoon slash evening. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:19, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Technology report

@Evad37: is the technology report ready to copyedit? - Bri.public (talk) 19:05, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

It is ready now that this week's tech news has been published - Evad37 [talk] 03:13, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Marked finished! ☆ Bri (talk) 04:42, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

News and notes

I highlighted several incomplete items in the News and notes section. If anybody can pitch in here, even just for a sentence or two introduction for a section, it would be great. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:43, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I will have a Gallery ready this evening. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:00, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Bri: It would be nice if there was at least one image or acknowledgement that its the opposite season for the southern hemisphere - Evad37 [talk] 02:40, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
I actually was looking for one. But didn't want the cliche fireworks in Sydney Harbour. Got any suggestions? ☆ Bri (talk) 04:31, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
Possibly c:File:Werrimull Christmas Decorations.JPG? - Evad37 [talk] 05:00, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
I found another possibility – File:Cola de mono en Navidad.jpg. There was also File:Chapel of the Snows interior.jpg, an OK image of the interior of Chapel of the Snows at McMurdo during December (displaying both US and Aus flags by the way) which I didn't select, seeking something a bit more secular. Why don't you go ahead and pick one, add to the gallery. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:04, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

In focus

Should there be an introduction of the authors of In focus? Were they at the conference where these documents were prepared, or involved in some other way? - Bri.public (talk) 20:39, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Special report

Pie graph render error on mobile

The pie chart doesn't get drawn correctly on my mobile device. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:47, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

The same pie chart is at English language#Pluricentric English, I'm just wondering whether it displays correctly there? I could just describe the graph instead of messing with it - I essentially did that for the Spanish language since that article gives much of the same type of data, but not the graph. Some readers might be wondering why I didn't do both the same way. On the other hand, if this just affects a subset of mobile users ....? Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:10, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it's messed up there as well. BTW I'm using Chrome for Android version 78.0.3904.96 ☆ Bri (talk) 23:11, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

From the editor

I'll have something up in that space within ten minutes. I'd love feedback on it. Maybe keep it until next month. Maybe just dump it if people don't like it. I'm mixed. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:10, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

First question: do you want it to be from the editor, or editors? ☆ Bri (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
I'll say - singular. "From the editor", that is unless I'm sure that other's agree with it, the "editors" would work as well. Send me an email if you'd like. Most of it - I don't think people can really disagree with the actual content, buy my questions are - so why do we need to tell people this, doesn't it make us look weak? and - is it going to have the effect we're looking for, or perhaps the opposite (especially the near the end)? Feedback encouraged. BTW, Thanksgiving dinner was great. Don't interrupt yours for this! Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:55, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
The part on submitting an article first says start a draft in your user space if you'd like and drop us a note at the newsroom talk page. and later says Submitting the article via Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions at least a week before the next issue is best. Should just one method be recommended for submitting an article? isaacl (talk) 00:52, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

News for NAN

FRAMBAN denouement - WMF statement

Is The Signpost going to comment on this WMF wrap-up statement? In a month's time it might be stale. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm copying it to news and notes pretty much the way you had it here. If anybody wants to elaborate or turn it into a top-level item...? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:26, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Publishing on Thanksgiving?

@Smallbones: Just asking you to confirm the countdown clock ... we are publishing on Thanksgiving afternoon/evening in the U.S.? - Bri.public (talk) 19:29, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@Bri.public, Bri, and Chris troutman: - Short version, publication expected Friday (day after Thanksgiving). I'll just repost a discussion from this page from November 2.
Last month we had a discussion about the timer. IIRC we decided that the publication date would be 23:59 on the last Friday of the month. I'm ok with that for November 29, the day after Thanksgiving, but the copy deadline would have to be the 27th. I'm ok for publication deadline of December 27, copy deadline December 26 as well. Who sets the clocks? Or better yet, how do I set the clocks? Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:34, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
You should be able to click the "E" in the timer box and twiddle the dates/times. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:26, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Sorta done. I wanted to set the copy deadline for Nov 27 - the day before Thanksgiving - and the only way I could do that was to set the publishing deadline to Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving). But I don't want to publish on Thanksgiving, I'll likely have too many things going on that day. So publication date will always be the last Friday of the month (with extremely rare exceptions, e.g. if it falls on New Years Eve - which it doesn't this year) @Chris troutman:. I'll just set the timer from now on for the copy deadline and the publication date will always be the last Friday of the month, unless you hear from me well ahead of time. I like deadlines, and will rarely miss one (I know, in October I did) Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:07, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Ok, I should be ready Thursday/ Friday to hit the button. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

ps - note the new "In focus" submission. It just needs a light ce IMHO, but I did ask Risker to check for any damage that I did with my usual "heavy copyediting". Yes, I'm still writing "From the editor" (expect it sometime tonight) Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:58, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

IIRC we decided that the publication date would be 23:59 on the last Friday of the month - was that the outcome? From this thread, I was under the impression that the last Sunday of the month is seen as a good option. As mentioned there, a weekend writing deadline (not necessarily publication deadline) would make things much easier for me as editor of Recent research, and also for many of our contributors to that section. (I'm typing this during a work break right now.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:52, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
OK, I just want to get this on a regular day of the week at the end of the month. Let us decide next Monday what that day of the week will be. @Chris troutman: This month we will publish on Friday about 41 hours from now. December will be pretty much impossible for me (I'll be with family at the beach a long way from home) the last week of December. I'll check with @Bri: to see what he can do. Any other volunteers? Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:40, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry and Montanabw: There's six sections waiting for copyedit, if you have any free time before Friday afternoon. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:27, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: estimated publication time publication time today will be 19:00 UTC.

I've been copyediting some of the articles that I've authored, which is never a good practice. So any copyeditors reading this might want to recheck these. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:53, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Ready to publish

@Chris troutman: ready to go, sorry for the delay. Thanks to all. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:44, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Done. I'm going to handle twitter and the mailing list shortly. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: Thanks, looks good. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:19, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
permalink to pageviews (8 articles) Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Chrome rendering bug

Carrying over from November's newsroom... I opened https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T239515 to track the pie chart rendering issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:59, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Future Featured content

A reader commented on the missing Featured content article in November's issue. I'd stopped working this because it's a lot of effort to put together an exhaustive list that it seemed nobody was interested in reading. However, if there's reader interest, maybe it's worth restoring. A few comments:

  • Exhaustive lists and manual collation don't work well together
  • Automated tools to create the initial list would be great
    • Manual effort to add extra decoration and images to the report would make a nicer report
  • A non-exhaustive report is also an option, as mentioned by Evad37

Any thoughts from Newsroom? ☆ Bri (talk) 19:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

  • Have you considered turning it into an interview piece on asking featured content authors about their craft? E.g., the challenges that went into researching, sourcing, writing about the topic. Could still append a short, automated list of all featured content at the bottom. czar 19:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    Sounds interesting. I just found a script on my PC fcimporter.py but I forget who wrote it. I'm not sure if I've ever invoked it either. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:03, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
    Okay here we go: https://github.com/ResidentMario/fcimporter is four years old but maybe it works? The author seems to have retired from both The Signpost and Wikipedia. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I used to edit a WikiProject newsletter and so from the occasions where I had to put together the lists of featured content, I appreciate the high effort-to-benefit ratio. I like Evad37's suggestion of just linking to the weekly goings-on pages or say a monthly log (for example, featured articles log from November 2019) and highlighting a selected few. isaacl (talk) 21:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm skeptical about a "complete solution" given that it's very time consuming. That means we should be selective - we won't be able to mention everybody who got a FA/FP/FL every month. It's been about 6 months since we published a Featured content article, so it's not as if it was sorely missed. How about we come up with a list of select items that the writer should include (they can adapt it as they go along). Let me give an example of what a list might look like, discuss what might be better, and then see if we can find a writer for it.
    • 5 selected new FAs with at least 1 sentence comment on each.
      • A "lede story" or 2 among these with comment from the main author(s) and the rest similar to "In brief" in other stories
    • 5-6 FPix each with an informative caption
    • A featured list or 2
  • If we can give a link or 2 to the "complete lists" that's ok too at the bottom. As I said, I'm not married to such a list of tasks, only that we come up with one that the writer can adapt as they go along. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:36, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Holiday plans

I'll be on the road when our next issue comes out, which means that I really won't be able to participate as editor-in-chief. I've asked @Bri: to do the final approvals and everything that the EIC would do in December. He's likely to be unreachable himself during parts of the 1st half of the month. (I'll fill in as needed!)

I will be writing some ahead of time. If others are in a similar position, I'll suggest doing some "year in review" stories. I'll also be puttering around here doing things I've been meaning to do for a while (see next section). Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:48, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Smallbones, I'll be here to make sure an issue comes together. Will let everyone know before I go incommunicado due to travel. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:37, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

WMF schedule

Can anybody comment on WMF's schedule around the end of December? Just want to make sure we factor that in for the column(s) contributed by staff. Bri.public (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Bri.public, the Foundation has staff holidays from December 24 through January 1, which I imagine the majority of staff will be taking off. Hope that helps. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Can you provide the WMF blog portion by December 23? Chris Troutman (talk) 19:47, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Chris troutman, I personally can't because I don't know what it is. :) I'm just letting you know when our holidays are scheduled. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

When resetting the newsroom

Please leave a space for "On the bright side". Pinging Chris troutman in particular. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 19:54, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: As noted in the source of Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom, the list is populated from a template on reset, namely {{Signpost assignments}}.
Given that "On the bright side" has been a regular presence in the last several issues, I think you should feel comfortable adding it to that template yourself. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:22, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
@HaeB: thanks for the information. I edited the template. ↠Pine (✉) 20:27, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Six million

WP Stats v2 says we netted 700 articles per day in 2018. Based on count today of 5,981,918, we should hit six million c. 26 days from now = January 8. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:57, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

WMF schedule

Can anybody comment on WMF's schedule around the end of December? Just want to make sure we factor that in for the column(s) contributed by staff. Bri.public (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Bri.public, the Foundation has staff holidays from December 24 through January 1, which I imagine the majority of staff will be taking off. Hope that helps. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:20, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Can you provide the WMF blog portion by December 23? Chris Troutman (talk) 19:47, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Chris troutman, I personally can't because I don't know what it is. :) I'm just letting you know when our holidays are scheduled. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Slate article

Slate is impressed by how civil Wikipedia editors are. The Very Respectful Wikipedia Battles Over “OK Boomer” Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:52, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Hawkeye7, I'll post this as a brief note to the In the media section, unless you want to take it further? We'll be a bit short-handed this month. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:00, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure how one takes it further... In the meantime, I was reading this article in the Canberra Times about trouble in a local school, and the bit about an "all-out editing war on the school's Wikipedia page" caught my eye. Sure enough, the Brindabella Christian College article has been gutted, reduced to a start. Nearly everything has been deleted, with enforcement by admin K6ka. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:24, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Same day-of-the-week, end of the month publication date.

I'd really love to get a consistent publication date based on the same day of the week at the end of every month. I'm just a creature of habit who likes deadlines because I can fit the rest of my schedule around that. The finalists seem to be publication on the last Friday of the month, last Saturday of the month, or last Sunday of the month. Let's just make this a straight vote. As publisher, @Chris troutman: can count the votes and even say "no I can't publish on that day of the week".

  1. Last Friday of the month is good for me for any month (nothing is good in December). For the 4 summer months Sundays can be bad for me, but certainly not impossible. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
  2. I like to spend Fridays more or less offline, but if publication happens on Friday, I can work around that with my contributions. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
  3. I can accept the last Friday of the month or last Saturday of the month. The last Sunday of the month would be less optimal for the weekly schedule of "On the bright side". ↠Pine (✉) 19:53, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones, Bri, and Chris troutman: what do you think about publishing on the last Saturday of the month? ↠Pine (✉) 20:21, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones and Bri: Would Saturdays work for you? They're fine for me. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

"Recent research" section in upcoming issue

@HaeB: Will you be able to work on Recent research for the Signpost's cadence? I contributed one bullet item & plan to expand it a bit. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:25, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

@Bri: Yes, I should be able to put together something publishable by the writing deadline. (Unfortunately our usual outreach to contributors has been delayed because of a technical problem with the process to import new research publications for review, which I didn't get to fix in time earlier this week. So this issue might become a bit shorter than normal.)
Looking forward to your writeup of the acoustics item.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@HaeB: that's excellent, thanks for whatever you can contribute ☆ Bri (talk) 19:05, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

"How the 1% Scrubs Its Image Online" from The Wall Street Journal

Hi Bri, you might find my analysis at WP:COIN § "How the 1% Scrubs Its Image Online" from The Wall Street Journal useful for writing Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media § Firm accused of whitewashing articles for one-percenters. — Newslinger talk 10:36, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Newslinger for the tip. There's a lot of detail in the COIN filing, I'll be struggling with summarizing it in a readable format. Did you look into the published claims, and do you find them credible? ☆ Bri (talk) 15:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
No problem. In my opinion, the report is credible. In 2015, the WSJ published "Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology", an exposé that set off the chain of events leading to Theranos' shutdown. Jppcap did indeed remove negative coverage from the Theranos article, including:
List of diffs collapsed for readability
From this, I can only conclude that Jppcap whitewashed the Theranos article. According to former employees of Status Labs, the Jppcap account was operated by Status Labs, a reputation management firm owned and operated by the co-founders of Wiki-PR. The WSJ previously covered Wiki-PR at "Wikipedia Probes Suspicious Promotional Articles" in 2013, so they do have experience covering Wikipedia-related issues. Noticeboard participants consider the WSJ generally reliable, and I see no reason to doubt their new report.

I haven't looked too deeply into the other articles yet, and I'm concerned that Jppcap's 3,000+ edits may have damaged the neutrality of articles that weren't covered in the WSJ report. For now, Theranos is clearly the highest-profile subject of the bunch, and you might want to highlight it in The Signpost report. ​— Newslinger talk 20:02, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The Omeed Malik case doesn't involve many edits, but it's interesting because the Wikipedia article was used to push down unfavorable search results on Google, "displacing news articles". — Newslinger talk 20:10, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Newslinger would you like to present this in a Special report this issue? We can make it pretty brief, i.e. more or less a copy of what you have written here, or you can go into more detail. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Bri, that sounds great! I see that the writing deadline is 26 December, but when would the submission be due for copyediting and review? — Newslinger talk 21:16, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Do you think you could have something in a week, December 22? We could provide feedback at that time and keep the final writing deadline of 26. Note that those posted times/dates are UTC. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:27, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
​Sure, I can make that deadline. Thanks again! — Newslinger talk 21:31, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
@Newslinger: Great! Note that Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom#Article status has your name in the Special report box. You can click the "Start article" button there and it will preformat a page for you. We suggest you do it this way, but you can also write a userspace draft and one of us will move it over for you when you are ready, perhaps on 22 December. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2019 (UTC)
Got it, I'll use the preformatted template, although I'll start this in a word processor. — Newslinger talk 21:43, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Newslinger: I started the item for you, hope you have some free time as the RfA winds down. You can edit here: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Special report ☆ Bri (talk) 19:32, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Bri! I'm working on it right now and still aim to have the first draft done by the end of today (UTC). — Newslinger talk 19:50, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
​I've added an introduction and a completely different "Background" section, but I understand that the list format is not ideal for the "Theranos" and "Other articles" sections. I'll continue to work on the report, and convert the lists to something more prose-like. — Newslinger talk 23:36, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
I saw that come in. Good work. If you have the link to the relevant Enable Diversity piece maybe I can help get it via Internet Archive like this to add to the article? ☆ Bri (talk) 23:42, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Wayback Machine didn't archive the page for the specific post on "Enable Diversity", but they did archive another page with all of the articles from the month, and I've added a link to it. I'll be finishing up the report now. — Newslinger talk 06:20, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
@Newslinger: I know I approved this once, but looking it over again, I have a bit of a reservation about some unreferenced things. In the section titled Meet Status Labs, are these things – the pinata store, specific clients – backed by the WSJ story? Or is that in your own voice? Also, do you think there ought to be a mention of the community ban? There's a diff for it on WP:PAIDLIST if you need it. ☆ Bri (talk) 08:19, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
​I'll add external links to all of the parts of the report that aren't based on the Journal story. The clients (DeVos, Griffin, Gottlieb, and Theranos) are all mentioned in the Journal story, while the piñata store incident is not. Thanks for the link to the community ban discussion; I'll add that in, too. — Newslinger talk 08:28, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Newslinger, I fully realise that whitewashing is the focus of your article, but as one of the users worried about unpaid editing in general, especially users who make a career out of it, I would be interested to know your thoughts on the Wikimedia Foundation staff who do some moonlighting without declaring it. Is that morally acceptable, and should they be able to keep their adminship on their en.Wiki community account? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:02, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
    Hi Kudpung, since I don't follow WMF staff activity very closely, could you clarify what you mean by moonlighting? Are you referring to staff members who edit articles related to the WMF itself? Also, are these editors using their official WMF accounts, accounts that are traceable to their identities, or accounts/IPs that are not traceable? — Newslinger talk 04:12, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi Newslinger, I thought 'moonlighting' was a well known expression. At least it is in British English. One doesn't need to follow the WMF staff closely. One instance was a mega scandal of a staffer editing Wikipedia for pay and widely reported, but for some reason the user was allowed to keep the admin bit on their Wikipedia account. What more do you need? How rotten to the core is Wikipedia/Wikimedia in reality before we start talking about the others? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:14, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
After some searching, I think I found the incident you're referring to ("WMF employee forced out over 'paid advocacy editing'"). I was not aware of this incident before you brought it up, but it looks like the person in question left the WMF after their undisclosed paid editing became known. The incident occurred after the Wiki-PR revelations, and before undisclosed paid editing was forbidden in the Wikimedia terms of use. Both the WMF and the community consider undisclosed paid editing "morally" unacceptable, and that's currently reflected in the terms of use and the corresponding policy.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't think undisclosed paid editing was unequivocally forbidden before 16 June 2014. Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure was first written in August 2015. The conflict of interest guideline on 14 June 2014 said that paid advocates "should provide full disclosure of your connection", but didn't explicitly require it like the current terms and policy do now. I assume that the editor in the incident remains an administrator because they didn't technically violate any policies at the time, and the rule change was not enforced in an ex post facto manner. However, any undisclosed paid editor who gets discovered today would surely be subject to serious repercussions regardless of whether they are an administrator. ​— Newslinger talk 07:40, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

"Undisclosed paid editing was not unequivocally forbidden before 2014"? I would not say this. ToS has always prohibited acts against U.S. law. Covert advertising by insertion of undeclared paid advocacy editing may fall under this definition. I think this is discussed in Widefox's WP:BOGOF. ☆ Bri (talk) 07:54, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Like Catholic priests who are caught in the vestry with the choir boy, and moved to a new parish, that person obviously left the WMF under a very big cloud and it's not even necessary to say if they went voluntarily, or was pushed, or was fired. This is why institutional memory is important and why it worries me that such a person was allowed to rebrand themselves and keep their admin bit. Bri is right - it's never been approved, even declared paid editing is barely tolerated by this community because it rides on the back of all the hard work the volunteers have done to provide the very platform these rogues are exploiting.
No one knows or can measure the extent of it and whitewashing now. It's probably too late, and if anything leads to the demise of Wikipedia as we know it, it won't be the slanging matches between the self-righteous FA writers and the admins who are only doing their job (well, most of them), it will be paid editing (which whitewashing comes under) that will make laughing stock of Wikipedia's claims to accuracy and neutrality. The Signpost is the one organ than can help do something about it, but it's investigative journalism will only begin to have some real impact when the magazine is finally hosted on a server independent of the WMF and its writers are freed of the possible harassment that comes in the comments column. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:16, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I'm not defending the editor involved in the incident, but just trying to come up with a rationale for why the community took no action after the undisclosed paid editing was revealed. Since I wasn't here during the time, I'm not familiar with community norms in 2014 and I'm not the best person to explain why nothing happened. I agree that more editorial independence is a good thing, although I doubt that the comments would be any friendlier if The Signpost moved off Foundation servers. An off-wiki Signpost has the potential to become a reliable source (with a Wikipedian bias) if it establishes a reputation separate from Wikipedia (RSP entry) itself. — Newslinger talk 13:17, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Newslinger, That incident is the same phenomenon as the FA writers and other highly prolific content providers. Their 'good hand' does (or has done) so much good that the community is prepared to overlook the project-destructive activity of their bad hand. For example, one extremely prolific content contributor did more on their own to damage the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia (and incidentally the RfA process) than anyone else. It took years to get rid of them, and their legacy lives on among a handful of others who believe themselves to be above the law due to the importance they believe themselves to be to Wikipedia. It would make an excellent exercise for some Signpost investigative journalism. It won't happen though until The Signpost goes off-Wiki and is freed from its detractors and the restraints and restrictive policies that govern our mainspace articles.
One of the very reasons why The Signpost survives (barely) today is that it has been reduced almost to the level of a bland newsletter; everyone is reluctant now to introduce any opinion or magazine-style content into the columns for fear of pre- and post-publishing censorship and personal attacks which have recently become quite prevalent. The so called editorial board has become intimidated by the broader community and become its puppets. Fully understandable and not a criticism, and Smallbones and Bri for whom I have the greatest respect are aware of this. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:16, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Frankly, I don't think that anybody has mistaken The Signpost for a bland, intimidated, newsletter for quite some time. That doesn't mean that there aren't times when people try to intimidate us, but there are ways to best handle that. Anybody who thinks that I'm outing somebody by linking to the Washington Post should be given a chance to fully explain that nonsense to ArbCom. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:39, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Special topics for December

We will have a number of special articles for the December issue. As acting Editor-in-Chief I am approving these.

  • Newslinger has agreed to do an in-depth look at the COI editing reported in The Wall Street Journal in a Special report
  • Jess Wade (Jesswade88) has agreed to tell what they experienced regarding attempted deletion of women's biographies in the Op-Ed
  • Another editor (not ready for public announcement) may do an article related to another matter in the public interest for In focus
  • I am planning a brief op-ed (re)introducing the content manipulation problem in From the editor

Just telling people in the newsroom so they know this is on the way. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:55, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Add in @Puddleglum2.0: at User:Puddleglum2.0/Signpostwork via the submissions page. This is for "Project reports" and is a good basic group interview. I will say that I suggested this project and the part about "same questions as 8 years ago", strikes me as distracting. So maybe work on the intro, interview itself looks fine on a first quick reading. Thanks Puddleglum. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:29, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Moving it to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report in a moment. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Nice to see the WP Report coming out of mothballs. While I appreciate the callout from years ago, I agree that it's a bit distracting. Is there any appetite for reviving this column on a regular basis? –Mabeenot (talk) 20:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
@Mabeenot: Yes I'd love to see the WikiProject report come back. Are you volunteering? Actually @Puddleglum2.0: volunteered first so we can see how they like it, or maybe you 2 can work together on it.
I've been meaning to set out a strategy for how a modern Signpost might work. I think I've been EiC for 10 months and my strategy has been "make it to the end of the month alive." So far that seems to have worked, but I don't see much future in it. More to the point, I think we need a few more good writers - if they write well, there will be people to read them. Next is to fairly slowly expand to say 15 consistently scheduled well written articles per monthly issue. With 15 regular articles, most Wikipedia editors will be able to come to the Signpost, get 3-4 of their regular articles that they are always interested in, plus another 3-4 that draw their interest that month. Right now were getting 5-10 good articles per month, but are fairly inconsistent. To attract good writers we can focus mostly on what the writers want to write. We do have to consistently get those articles like News & notes, and Discussion report going. If you are into that, we need you. Once we work ourselves up to 15 good consistently produced articles per month, all editors will know when and where to come for the best information produced about Wikipedia. Does this sound like a plan? Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:54, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi Smallbones and Mabeenot! I would love to write the WPR on a regular basis. I could write it by myself, but I think for at least the first couple issues it would be good to have a collaborator. I'm definitely willing to take out on though! That strategy looks good! Thanks, Puddleglum 2.0 23:19, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
My guess is that Mabeenot would love to take on WPR again, but after many years many things have changed. Both of you should "go for it". Puddleglum, you're more than qualified. Mabeenot, you're more than welcome to join in. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:44, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I could be convinced to pitch in an interview segment on the craft of WP writing and bibliography (e.g., editors working on extended projects in specific topic areas, learning about their reference works and news sources, current gaps in accessible literature, on-wiki collaborations).
Smallbones, re: your plan, as a longtime newsroom lurker watching editors come and go, I think burnout is unavoidable. My unsolicited opinion is to focus on quality over quantity by keeping the existing contributors happy. Writing for an insular community seems really defeating, especially if it's compiling a report without feedback as to its importance, but I wonder whether having some kind of syndication outside of Wikipedia wouldn't make the work more purposeful by increasing its external impact. czar 06:00, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
@Czar: this sounds very good as I understand it. It would have to be different than WikiProject reports, but as I see it you are proposing something about how editors work more-or-less by themselves to accomplish specific goals using specific skills, whereas WPR is how groups work together. Both types of skill sets are needed for the encyclopedia. Could you have something ready for the January issue? What would it take to convince you? Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:04, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
Not sure if it would be that different from the WPR with that kind of turnaround but I had something more long-term in mind anyway (à la Paris Review interviews). If anyone has suggestions for good interviewees, I welcome them at User:Czar/Craft. czar 20:21, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
Take your time and put out something you can be proud of. OTOH, opportunities to publish interviews with a lead-time of over a full month are pretty rare. As far as giving advice on interviewing, I have a single piece of advice based on my mistakes: Let the interviewee say what they want, don't lead them by the nose to say what you want them to say. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:16, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
In focus is postponed till January, the planned topic isn't quite ripe yet. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:42, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones: I would be happy to regularly write the WPR every month. (Or as needed). You can count me in! p.s. my watchlist is large due to counter vandalism so please can you ping me so I can see a reply? Thanks! Puddleglum 2.0 04:46, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@Puddleglum2.0: - sounds perfect. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:11, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones: Fantastic, let's do it! :) Puddleglum 2.0 05:17, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm thinking of adding something compiled by @Seddon (WMF): to "News from the WMF". The "story" is at m:Fundraising/Donor_Thanks, but the real text is here. I'm also thinking of adding something at the end from myself and/or The Signpost. As is, the article is about people thanking "Wikipedia" - presumably both the community and the WMF. These folk are donating money that will eventually go to our use. This does seem a bit backwards to me. Would anybody mind if I/we thanked them for their donation? One or 2 short paragraphs. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:41, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

They're two sides of a coin: volunteers in the community like to see that their efforts are appreciated and thus seeing grateful messages from readers is motivational. Volunteers like to express their gratitude for the support shown by readers and so thanking donors is satisfying. Both are important messages to convey. isaacl (talk) 17:11, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanking either group is foolish, in my opinion. First, there is no reason to thank WMF for anything. The Fram thing comes to mind, as does Flow, etc. SanFran would kick us all off the platform if they had AI to write the articles. Second, the fools that donate money to WMF create a perverse incentive: WMF collects money for work it didn't do further distancing WMF's goals from our goals. If anything, I would add a template to the Main Page telling everyone not to donate so misguidedly. EFF does more to protect editors than WMF does; donate to them. If we're going to thank anyone, we ought to thank Wikipedia's readers for making us, the editors, feel like our writing on this website matters, because that's what this is really all about. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:25, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure where the template m:Template:FR-DonorThanks2019 is used (the two pages that include it don't seem to be linked from anywhere), but to me the text in the template does exactly what you are suggesting editors should thank Wikipedia's readers for: it provides feedback from grateful readers. isaacl (talk) 04:50, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
@Isaacl: Did you not read it? "Dear Wikimedia, With Thanks, Donors. Over the last 2 months of fundraising, thousands of our donors have given notes of thanks; expressing their gratitude, love and appreciation for the contributors, volunteers and staff who give the world the joy of free and open knowledge and make Wikimedia possible." That drivel thanks donors and staff, neither of which are helping us. The quotes are problematic, too, as some of them praise the WMF or the act of donating money. One quote asserts that everything on Wikipedia is cited, which is false. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:19, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Yes, of course I did. As you know, I was referring specifically to the feedback from readers regarding how useful they find Wikipedia, and not the opening paragraph, or any other topics they chose to address. I think of "Wikipedia editing community" wherever the quotes thank Wikipedia, and I see a lot of quotes grateful to Wikipedia. Since these readers are expressing their thanks, of course they are emphasizing Wikipedia's positive attributes. I don't expect anyone to craft a message specifically targeted at what I'm interested in; I am appreciative of the relevant messages of thanks wherever I can get them. isaacl (talk) 16:26, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
"I think of "Wikipedia editing community" wherever the quotes thank Wikipedia" hence the problem. You cannot read some words on the page and ignore the others. While many readers are thankful for the work editors do in writing articles, the WMF conflates their office and the donations that feed them with what volunteer contributors write to establish value in their lives which otherwise are without meaning or purpose. I don't think The Signpost should un-critically regurgitate WMF's greed. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:46, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
I made no comment on what the Signpost should refer to (I have no issue with not including any mention of the page in question). I was just saying that I see thanks in that message that I appreciate, and I am personally free to ignore anything that I'm not interested in. isaacl (talk) 16:50, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Seems newsworthy to me. Readers can decide for themselves whether it is genuine thanks from WMF to a partner (editors), or something else. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:01, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
    • @Chris troutman: thanks for the Christmas card. It really meant a lot to me, especially because we disagree on this. I certainly don't want to be angry at you - you're one of a very few people on Wikipedia, who just keep on doing me big favors every month and ask nothing in return. Why am I so lucky to have run into you? But we do disagree here, I just don't see the folks at WMF actively trying to be jerks. I'll suggest we both leave this up to Bri and accept whatever he wants to do. I might also suggest the Gallery being made into "Belated holiday cards". There's the series {{Subst:Xmas}} through {{Subst:Xmas6}} and every Signpost contributor can make up their own card if they want and send it to our readers. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:04, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Op-Ed

Jesswade88's editorial landed in the Featured content section. Is someone able to move it to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Op-Ed? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:40, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Smallbones and I have sorted out the placement issue. Next step is editing with a light hand – perhaps adding some policy links. Help on this is welcome! ☆ Bri (talk) 19:54, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

@Smallbones and Bri:This article should carry the byline at the top:

Jess Wade BEM is a British physicist in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London. Her research investigates polymer-based organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Her public engagement work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), champions women in physics, and tackles gender bias on Wikipedia.

I think this is the least you can do to give some attribution and respect to this extraordinary woman about whom there is also a Wikipedia article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:30, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I think you were composing this while I was independently updating the byline. Feel free to copyedit me. ☆ Bri (talk) 06:02, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

In the media

UK's Telegraph report on editing of Starmer article

The Daily Telegraph is a conservative newspaper and reported (sorry, paywalled) that the article on Labour Party politician Keir Starmer had been edited to remove a statement that he was a millionaire. However, this Twitter thread says the Telegraph report is nonsense.--A bit iffy (talk) 08:18, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

There are layers of nonsense in all of this, but that doesn't mean that a non-nonsensical statement couldn't be made. There was an edit war with multiple participants going on for a couple of days inserting/deleting "millionaire" many times. I haven't read the paywalled Telegraph. Maybe if somebody else were to publish the story, we could put something in. I like some of this type of story (but many readers don't) when it involves an obnoxious sports reporter (who I might suspect of the original vandalism) saying that some jerk has committed vandalism on-Wiki and wasn't he smart? Perhaps sports reporters can be forgiven - they've got several hundred stories to write every year about one team of adult men (usually), with bad haircuts, who run around in short pants playing little boys games. Quite often they win about 50% of the time. For the individual games, the winners are happy and the losers aren't and everybody says you got to play 'em one game at a time. So I like saying "sportswriters can be real jerks, encouraging vandalism like that." But some of our readers tell me "you shouldn't go on encouraging vandalism like that." So I'm mellowing out a bit for sportswriters. Now for political commentators caught vandalizing Wikipedia so that they have a story to write about a team of adult men (usually), with bad haircuts, often caught with their pants down, who win or lose about 50% of the times... That is much more serious and proof is hard to get - but I'd love to run another of these stories. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:56, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
We are evolving an editorial policy of being very choosy about reporting on article vandalism. Does this meet the bar? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:29, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
I'd strongly suggest you don't, unless you want to point out how the Telegraph is printing nonsense. The "millionaire" quote was unsourced (i.e. [3]) and was persistently re-added by IP socks of a banned editor (i.e. [4]). The Telegraph has been sold a pup there. (Incidentally, it wouldn't surprise me if Starmer was a millionaire - he was after all a high-ranking lawyer for 20 years - but, y'know, verifiability.) Black Kite (talk) 17:44, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
The Evening Standard has an article on it now [5]. Note that their article does not say that Starmer is a millionaire, but does correctly state that there has been an edit war where "millionaire" was mentioned in the article. If there was to be a policy built around this, I'd say a) the story should be freely available on the internet, so that people can see it themselves; b) we criticize the vandals (people who put in "millionaire" without a real source) rather than those being the target of the vandalism. Vandalism is not funny, and we shouldn't suggest that it is.
There's a parallel that I'd like to emphasize. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a rash of streakers and similar on US TV during baseball games and other sports. The TV networks and team owners finally discovered that if they don't put the streakers on TV then there won't be as many copycats. That's a good rule to follow. But I do think that we should feel free to tell the media who publicize the vandalism and say "oh, isn't this cool" that we don't appreciate their encouragement of vandalism. And when it does look like the vandalism originates the with the media who first publish it - then I'll feel free to tell them what I think, even if, in the short-term it publicizes vandalism. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:04, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
Vandals want attention. I don't see why we should help them out in that regard. Black Kite (talk) 15:54, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Newton Dunn article edits

Additional odd edits, this time to the article for Tom Newton Dunn, the Sun's political editor:

https://scramnews.com/tom-newton-dunn-wipes-controversy-sun-political-editor-wikipedia-page/

--A bit iffy (talk) 20:11, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Details sketchy, something about a conspiracy website added at Tom Newton Dunn. I'll follow up with details if I can make them coherent. ☆ Bri (talk)

Okay, this sort of makes sense now. Morning Star mentioned page protection of the article Tom Newton Dunn. Dunn is political editor at another UK paper, The Sun. From the talkpage it looks like all was resolved as a good demonstration of Wiki process, and protection was lifted. One editor with the name tnewtondunn was soft blocked which is totally normal process for a username that looks like a well-known figure. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
I could see both this article and the Starmer article briefly mentioned in In the media. I think the takeaway would have to be something like "UK newspapers are going bonkers, dragging Wikipedia into their squabbles." Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:37, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
Except they're not, are they? They're merely reporting on vandalism of articles that fits their particular ideology. We generally redact tabloid-style journalism here, it would not be a good plan to become one ourselves. Black Kite (talk) 16:15, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Home Alone

Not planning to cover Newsweek's article on Trump related page vandalism, but am willing to discuss if someone thinks it is noteworthy. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:00, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Bri: we could bring it up in the context of the Newsweek RFC. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 18:15, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for tipping me to that RfC, I just added it to the discussion report. However, adding a link to WP vandalism might look like non-neutral commentary, so I think I'll just leave it alone. Bri.public (talk) 19:19, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

That thing we can't talk about

placeholder @Smallbones: it's in at least three notable media now Bri.public (talk) 20:26, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

4 including today's WaPo. I've rewritten it without talking about that which we can't talk about. The ending might need some work. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:34, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
If this is going to be published and if limitations remain in place on what can be discussed, I strongly suggest that some guidance is offered on what editors can discuss. I had a specific thought when reading something, and if this were a published article, I'd like to post it but it would be much clearer if I were to directly quote something and although my thought is not related to anybody, I have no idea whether I could mention it. Hence why I'm being so circumspect. Note that this comment is not a comment on the rights and wrongs of anything simply pointing out the situation could be confusing to a lot of people even those familiar without our policies and guidelines. Nil Einne (talk) 11:41, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

I liked Smallbones' idea above for the holiday cards. I've created a gallery section which all contributors are invited to add their favorite image/text to. This should be fun! The more the better, so if you are an occasional contributor/copyeditor/whatever, consider this an invitation. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:54, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

RfA approvals

Anybody want to take a stab at explaining why we are seeing 98%+ approval in the last two RfAs? And before that, 93, 86 and 98. Is this a trend? Coincidence? ☆ Bri (talk) 02:11, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

No trend AFAICS, Bri. Just a sudden bunch of RfA on which the usual trolls were either not able to cause a stampede of pile-on oppose votes, or simply got bored and stayed away. Undeniably however, most potential candidates won't run nowadays unless they have a very, very strong reason to assume they'll pass. Of course, we nominatotrs don't get it right all the time, but nobody is perfect. This year has seen a few more new admins than what has become 'normal', but on average I don't see it as bucking any trends. Perhaps remind The Signpost readers of the RfA trilogy I wrote last year. Despite what one or two trolls have been saying, I worked bloody hard for the magazine, my contributions were not all bad, and none of them were withdrawn. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:30, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
PS: WereSpielChequers maintains the important stats on RfA and like me has been monitoring the process for more than a decade, maybe he's got some ideas. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:34, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi Bri, and thanks Kudpung. I see two trends here, a very longstanding one that those who pass usually do so uncontentiously, and a newish one that unanimous RFAs are now rare. The community is rarely ambiguous at RFA, this year two out of twenty two successful RFAs were so close as to involve cratchats, whilst 12 ended with fewer than 10 opposes. RFA is almost like an inverted bell curve, with most results being very clear rejections or very clear passes and very few being borderline. That's why the lowering of the discretionary band has had little effect, there just aren't many RFAs where the community is undecided or close to being undecided. The newer trend is that unanimous passes are now a thing of the past. In a quick skim I think the most recent may have been May 2015. By contrast in 2014 nearly half (10 of 22) of all the successful RFAs were unanimous passes. I'm pretty sure that the older trend, that those who pass usually do so with little or no opposition, is partly down to RFAs reputation, most successful candidates don't run until many months or years after they were first ready to be admins. The end of unanimity I believe to be down to a small number of individuals with particular non standard criteria such as "must have an FA or GA". RFA is a dynamic process, it doesn't have an agreed criteria such as we have for Rollback, account creator or other individual tools. Sometimes an RFA !voter will come along with a new criteria such as must not be a self nomination, must have created new articles or must have a certain percentage of manual edits; Over a series of RFAs the new test usually fades away, sometimes after a phase as part of our default expectation, sometimes as a test that never attracts more than one or two adherents. But the odd thing about the last few years is that we no longer have unanimous RFAs, not that most successful RFAs are almost unanimous. ϢereSpielChequers 16:11, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
@WereSpielChequers: OK if I quote you on that in the issue? - Bri.public (talk) 18:59, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
Sure, but having double checked that and noticed two I missed, can I correct myself to I see two trends here, a very longstanding one that those who pass usually do so uncontentiously, and a newish one that unanimous RFAs are now rare. The community is rarely ambiguous at RFA, this year two out of twenty two successful RFAs were so close as to involve cratchats, whilst 12 ended with fewer than 10 opposes. RFA is almost like an inverted bell curve, with most results being very clear rejections or very clear passes and very few being borderline. That's why the lowering of the discretionary band has had little effect, there just aren't many RFAs where the community is undecided or close to being undecided. The newer trend is that unanimous passes are now a thing of the past. There have been none in the last two years and only three in the previous three years. By contrast in 2014 nearly half (10 of 22) of all the successful RFAs were unanimous passes. I'm pretty sure that the older trend, that those who pass usually do so with little or no opposition, is partly down to RFAs reputation, most successful candidates don't run until many months or years after they were first ready to be admins. The end of unanimity I believe to be down to a small number of individuals with particular non standard criteria such as "must have an FA or GA". RFA is a dynamic process, it doesn't have an agreed criteria such as we have for Rollback, account creator or other individual tools. Sometimes an RFA !voter will come along with a new criteria such as "must not be a self nomination", "must have created new articles" or "must have a certain percentage of manual edits"; Over a series of RFAs the new test usually fades away, sometimes after a phase as part of our default expectation, sometimes as a test that never attracts more than one or two adherents. So the odd thing about the last few years is that we no longer have unanimous RFAs, not that most successful RFAs are almost unanimous. ϢereSpielChequers 20:19, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Calling out for copyeditors

@Bluerasberry, ProgrammingGeek, Megalibrarygirl, MJL, and Pine: It's time to start thinking about copyedit again. We have two three sections marked ready and some more on the way soon. Thanks – and if I don't say it again, happy holidays :) ☆ Bri (talk) 23:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Bri: 2/3 are now done. :D –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:57, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
I did the third one, too. Time to see if I can write a decent article about Visium Asset Management for us to be able to link to in the Special Report. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 21:29, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for going over the special report, MJL! @Bri: Am I still able to make significant changes to the report after it's considered ready for publication? I'd like to refactor the "Whitewashing Theranos" and "Other articles" sections, and also add some pictures and external links throughout the article. — Newslinger talk 01:38, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
@Newslinger: Of course! Just make sure to mark it as needing a copy edit again. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 01:49, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Great, I'm on it. I'll also add some content to Draft:Visium Asset Management when I have time. — Newslinger talk 01:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Go ahead, be sure to uncheck "ready for publication" so I take another look after your edits. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:00, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
​​ All done with editing! I hope it was worth the wait. — Newslinger talk 17:21, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
@Newslinger: Can't wait to check it out tomorrow! :D –MJL ‐Talk‐🤶 17:31, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
@Bri: Just a heads-up that I made one last change for accuracy. — Newslinger talk 16:51, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

On the bright side

@Pine: You haven't edited On the bright side for a few days. Is it ready for copyedit? Bri.public (talk) 20:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikispecies

Would it be possible to note the milestone of 700,000 articles on wikispecies? See discussion at Species:Wikispecies:Village Pump#700,000 articles on Wikispecies. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 01:20, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I added it to news and notes. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:12, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Breaking news

Turkey

Turkey's supreme court has announced that it will give a decision on the constitutionality of the Wikipedia block. It should be released Thursday U.S. time. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:55, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Alright! . Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:32, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: I'm going to see if I can put this issue to bed today - but not sure that I can. Bad connection (and rain) at the beach. Otherwise Bri should be able to do it tomorrow. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:36, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
I'll be standing by. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:41, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
At least you aren't snowed in, like Los Angeles [6] (LOL) ☆ Bri (talk) 16:06, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Added this at News and notes & In the media. If someone can expand the super brief News and notes entry, they are welcome. Bri.public (talk) 18:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia among Mother Jones' Heroes of the 2010s

The full list, "Heroes and Monsters of the 2010s" is at [7] and includes group chat (heroes); and "men on Slack" (monsters). Bri.public (talk) 22:13, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Bri - obviously got to include this in In the media under It's alright Ma, I'm only bleeding" [8] and [9] Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:11, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Handing back to Smallbones

It looks like Smallbones is back online so I'll hand back the reins to him. I believe I saw that publication was extended for Recent research, but he should confirm that here. Smallbones, you might want to edit the text at the top of From the editors because it says you were not available at publication deadline. Bri.public (talk) 19:01, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, LA looks a bit funny, but nothing like the failure of my hot beach spot! This handing back and forth is probably confusing everybody, but the main folks of importance now are @HaeB and Chris troutman: I'm comfortable with almost everything now (thanks, Bri) HaeB's got about 20 hours to make his schedule. Let us know if there is anything we can do earlier.
Copy deadline for all issues in 2020 is the last Saturday of the month, 23:59 UTC, e.g. January 25, 2020 Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:19, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones: Thank you, appreciate the extra time (as mentioned above, our usual outreach for contributors was hampered by technical issues this time and indeed seems to have fallen mostly flat, so I'll try to write a bit more myself now). Should have something publishable in less than 12 hours from now. In general, as mentioned before, rest assured that I am aware of the writing deadline once I have posted the customary notice in the newsroom. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Recruiting a replacement for "On the bright side" and "What's making you happy this week?"

@Smallbones: I enjoy working on these publications for The Signpost and for Wikimedia-l, but I have more on my agenda than I think is good at the moment. I would like to continue to contribute to "On the bright side" and "What's making you happy this week?", but for the foreseeable future in my volunteer capacity I would like to be a periodic contributor rather than the primary person for these publications. I would like to create a request for someone to replace me in these roles. May I add a recruiting notice in this month's "On the bright side"? I can un-mark the piece as "ready for publication" until after you have a chance to review my recruiting notice. (I will continue to organize two other initiatives, NavWiki and the Wikimedia Café). Thanks! ↠Pine (✉) 03:18, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: Absolutely, we're all volunteers and need to coordinate our time as we see best. Please be ready for publication in about 8 hours. Thanks. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:23, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones: thank you. The addition is ready for you to review in the current draft of "On the bright side". ↠Pine (✉) 04:58, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: . Thanks. It's all ready to go. I'll send you something a bit longer next week. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Introducing myself

Pine suggested I introduce myself here, so here I am! I created my account in September 2018 and I have done a variety of things during that time. I like writing articles, fixing typos, adding short descriptions and patrolling recent changes. I'm a Canadian grade 12 student with a bunch of interests, some of which are history and writing. I've always found journalism to be interesting and I read my local newspaper every day. I also consider myself to be a fairly optimistic person, and I look forward to collaborating with Pine for In The Bright Side. I enjoy reading the Signpost and am excited to help contribute to it! Clovermoss (talk) 00:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The sun (RL, non-news) is out

Heck of a vacation! I've been properly trouted by Chris, and the above, umm, notice of insufficiency. nolo contendre Work for the next publication, on Saturday, January 25, is liable to start anytime ASAP. Thanks again. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:23, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Page views, 10 articles Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:21, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

In the Media

Year's top articles "released"

Medium is reporting the top articles of the year, and the article has been tweeted by WMF. NBC News said the list was "released by Wikimedia Foundation" and linked the Medium story [10]. Oddly, the official TOP25 page isn't out yet; Medium links to a user page. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@Bri, West.andrew.g, and Doc James: might as well just ping everybody and link his [11] and say hello. Andrew, I'm Small Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:58, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
I indeed produced that raw "year-end" report (minus a couple of days, obviously), as I do for all weekly reports (which are the basis for the editorialized Top 25 effort). In prior years it has been common for this to be both consumed by: (1) the en.wp community, who produces a list in the style of the weekly top-25, and (2) Ed Erhart, who works for WMF communications, who blogs about it in that capacity. These outlets are picking up on #2. I just produce the data, I don't make commentary, and I don't take sides. The pages live in my user-space because they are edited by bot/code. West.andrew.g (talk) 13:58, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Andrew: no chiding was intended, I hope it didn't come across that way. I'm just puzzled that a) WMF is treating volunteer-compiled data on Wikipedia as "official" in some sense b) the list is kept at a user page, rather than, say, Wikipedia namespace; and c) it struck me as odd that mainstream media are reporting on the contents of a user page. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:59, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit notice for Signpost talk pages

Deleted the edit notice czar 01:31, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Smallbones: do we need Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost for anything? Currently we get blank notices when starting to edit Signpost talk pages. ↠Pine (✉) 02:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I tried to find out what this is and probably failed. The complete text is " ". Not knowing what this is or does, I am reluctant to suggest that it should keep on being or doing that; but equally reluctant to suggest that it change. All the best " " Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:02, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
@Smallbones: I can't edit the content of the notice, possibly because I don't have the template editor permission. Would you be OK with me creating a deletion request for that template? ↠Pine (✉) 21:48, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
I can edit it, but I can't delete it. What do we want it to say, if anything? ☆ Bri (talk) 21:52, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Probably best to leave it as is. Maybe on April 1, you could make it read "Boppa-u-mow-mow-mow, boppa-u-mow-mow-mow." And include a picture of Ghoulardi. Other than that, I have no idea. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:18, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Not sure if you have read Wikipedia:Editnotice? Some times empty edit notices are created to prevent a group edit notice from a page further up in the hierarchy from appearing, but this isn't the case here. isaacl (talk) 00:48, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Isaacl: thanks for that information. @Smallbones and Bri: if the editnotice will not be deleted then I think that it should say something useful instead of making the reader wonder whether there has been a technical error. How about "Hello, you are editing a talk page for The Signpost. Signpost articles are different from Wikipedia articles. Please participate civilly and calmly. Thanks!" ↠Pine (✉) 06:25, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Edit notices ought to be reserved for critical information, in order to reduce the effect of banner blindness. isaacl (talk) 07:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
isaacl what do you think about the proposal to delete the notice entirely? We could try this and if we later discover that it causes a problem then we can restore the notice. ↠Pine (✉) 07:28, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
If we need to do something, then delete seems to be the best choice. Could somebody contact somebody who has the right to delete it, and then ask them to do it? Thanks. Smallbones(smalltalk) 09:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Bagumba: would you be interested in deleting Template:Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost, as per the discussion above? isaacl (talk) 00:15, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
@Bri: can you delete the non-breaking space from the edit notice? Perhaps that will cause it to stop appearing. ↠Pine (✉) 19:37, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 Done blanked ☆ Bri (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ready for publication

@Chris troutman: All set to go - it's all yours now. Thanks everybody. I'll be back in 10 minutes just to take a look and check the page links. Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:52, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Technology report has highlighted formatting instructions that need to be resolved, first. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:12, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: I was taking those instructions to be instructions to the reader! Chris - if you know how to fix those, please go ahead and do it, then publish. If you don't know how to fix it, please delete the article, then publish the remainder. Back in 10 minutes. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Just checking in. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:44, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 Done email sent, tweeted out. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:45, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@Chris troutman and Bri: and everybody. Thank you all, ever so much (especially Chris!) . Happy holidays. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:02, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Looks great! Do we need to turn on watchlist notifications? ☆ Bri (talk) 14:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Nevermind, I see Chris's request at MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:22, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Watchlist notices are now appearing ☆ Bri (talk) 16:25, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: I haven't seen an email come through. Perhaps WMF people are all on vacation, but at least one of them sent an email yesterday. I would think that someone would be around for time sensitive messages. Signpost content can get stale quickly for fast moving discussions, so I think that there should be a goal of the email being published within 48 hours of it being submitted. This might be something to discuss with WMF staff. Perhaps they would be willing to allow a small number of volunteers to approve messages to WikimediaAnnounce-l. ↠Pine (✉) 19:41, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: I can confirm I sent the email at 7:40am on the 27th. If the WMF mods running the list aren't paying attention, there's little I can do about it. Based upon past Signpost issues, I guarantee they won't let us approve our own messages though they should. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:37, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: perhaps Smallbones would be willing to contact GVarnum-WMF about this. A delay on a holiday or weekend is understandable, but four days of delay is a bit long. Some news gets stale within days or even hours. ↠Pine (✉) 06:31, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikiproject Series Idea

Hi all! I had an idea for a WPR series, and just wanted to get some comments before I go around asking for interviewees. I was thinking that I could do a 4-6 month long series on different city wikiprojects. (i.e. Wikiproject San Diego.) I can elaborate as necessary, comments would be appreciated. Thanks much! Puddleglum 2.0 03:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

For the first 3 months, it would be interesting seeing the similarities and differences between local projects. About month 4 though, it could start seeming very similar. Maybe go every other month with cities after that while seeing if you can establish interest in a different series (maybe types of music, or perhaps modes of transport?). Just a couple of ideas. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:13, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikicup

Obviously, I have a CoI in suggesting it, but perhaps announcing the WP:Wikicup winners for 2019 before the new round gets off too far? Could be bundled in with the announcement of the new round. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.4% of all FPs 06:54, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Traffic report

Will the year-end top 50 report (Wikipedia:2019 Top 50 Report/sandbox → Wikipedia:2019 Top 50 Report eventually) replace the usual week-by-week lists? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess if somebody could explain it to me and the authors, we all could listen and decide. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, cool, that sounds good! I think I'll start that. Thanks, Puddleglum 2.0 04:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
The Top25 page is based on these stats compiled by West.andrew.g. Something that might merit special attention: one of the top articles is Kayden Boche – right under The Mandalorian (!). It was deleted by community consensus. Not usually having looked at the raw list, I'm not sure if it's unusual enough to make a point of discussion in the Signpost report, but maybe Puddleglum would like to investigate. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Strategy discussion from 2015

Hi @Bri and Bri.public: if you will write an article about the Wikimedia 2030 strategy this month, then you might include these notes from a discussion that I facilitated at WikiConference USA 2015:

↠Pine (✉) 02:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

See below, I'll be tied up with RL obligations during January. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for interviews

Hi Smallbones, would you or Bri be interested in doing some interviews for The Signpost? Some people that I think would be good to interview would be Nicole Ebber (WMDE) and Rosiestep regarding the WMF strategy process, and Christina Koch regarding the reports that she edited Wikipedia from the International Space Station. ↠Pine (✉) 19:10, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

It's not a good month for me, sorry ... I'll be off the grid starting next Friday. I'll be off Signpost duty till February. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:22, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Absolutely, especially Christina Koch - can she do an interview from space? We had a 1 or 2 paragraph blurb (News & notes?) but I knew that that wasn't enough. I'll try to contact the NASA guy by Monday. And there is always room for @Rosiestep: in The Signpost (just let me know what you want to discuss and how many questions you want or write up an opinion piece on your own). I don't know Nicole Ebber (WMDE) or what to ask, but I'll try to check it out. I've also been considering an interview with Ashley Feinberg(!). BTW, for what made you happy this week - please see [12] (no COI declaration needed) I'm not sure about the connection with Wikipedia, but it certainly made me happy this week!
We have a bigger issue to consider, literally. The 15th anniversary issue of The Signpost is coming out in 3 weeks! I've got a guest op-ed that I'm almost sure of (already written), and Mer-C sent in some nice statistics - I'm always a sucker for a good stats article. The data is at User:MER-C/AdminStats but he doesn't think he'll have time to write it up. I don't know what all the categories are yet. Maybe @Newslinger: would like to write this up?
I've been checking around for a Signpost historian, but haven't found anybody yet to writeup the last 5 years. There's the 10 year history (from 5 years ago) that can be reprinted "From the archives" - the last 5 years might be a bit controversial. Now I know why my US history class in high school stopped at WWI. @HaeB:?
More on this issue by Monday. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:02, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-01-21/Anniversary ANNIVERSARY A decade of the Signpost Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:11, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

OK. Also, English Wikipedia is approaching its 6 millionth article. I plan to mention this in "On the bright side" after the milestone happens. ↠Pine (✉) 20:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, Pine, and kind words, Smallbones. Let me think on it and I'll get back to you. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Smallbones, and thanks for inviting me to contribute again. For the AdminStats data, the only format I can come up with is a set of bar graphs accompanied with short summaries: something like "China’s Year in 10 Charts", but with all bar graphs. Is this what you had in mind? Also, is historical data available? — Newslinger talk 16:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Six million

A puzzle globe logo derivative for the celebration of the six millionth English Wikipedia article – now 6,916,913

WP Stats v2 says we netted 700 articles per day in 2018. Based on count today of 5,987,577 we should hit six million c. 18 days from now = January 14. This is later than my last distance/time calculation (January 8), due to contributor slowdown around the end of the year holidays. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I've created a quick and dirty six million logo. It looks like there was a concerted effort to create good ones for the last milestone – Wikipedia:Requests for comment/5 millionth article logo → Commons:Category:Wikipedia logos for 5 million English Wikipedia articles. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:17, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Millionth article FAQ has some interesting info on the counting methodology that might be worth including in the upcoming writeup. Also, the prediction by Mercurywoodrose (made in 2014) looks like the winner of the betting pool. Maybe an interview??? ☆ Bri (talk) 20:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
There is a nice counter at WP:Six million articles. It currently produces text like this:
There are currently 6,916,913 articles on English Wikipedia. Only -916913 left!
If we continue at the current rate, there are -1731 days until we reach 6 million articles.
Note that the text may not quite match due to caching. Bri.public (talk) 22:00, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
Predictions and extrapolations seem to be converging on January 19 as the magic day for the six millionth article. The daily net has been wobbling between 400 and 600 recently. Bri.public (talk) 21:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

The lunatics are running the asylum

(Here's my article if you want to publish it)

I started wiki about 15 years ago, quit about 10 years ago. Recently came back to check things out. It's a ghost town. The wikiprojects I knew are dead.

I checked out an AfD. "Not notable". I searched google news, using quotation marks, and found 2,000! (thousand) results. I provided a link to the search. "Doesn't count, provide 3 specific references" I started going through and finding them, then stopped. "I will not be blackmailed into work because you want to delete this" I said.

One could copy/paste "delete not notable" on one hundred AfDs a day with ease. The same amount of ease that one could deletion proof one article.

The problem is that the 100 deletions will drive away a plethora of editors forever, and the article improvement will only keep a few editors around for a few days. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:13, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. This is it. This is the article. There is no more. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
@Peregrine Fisher: I obviously misunderstood. This is a pretty well defined topic - AfD. There are lots of people who have opinions on this and a lot of people who work hard at it and have different opinions. If you're up for some work on the topic to cover it in more detail, to address what are the likely reasons that people might disagree with you, make it a bit more well-rounded - then go for it. It would likely take at least 500 words. Please take a look at the op-ed in the December issue. It's 600 words. I'd say the topic is narrower than "AfD", though some people might disagree. There's some conflict in the topic which makes it interesting to read (among other things). Of course AfD has some conflict as well. I do like the "Rip van Winkle" aspect of your case. But at about 140 words, no - it just doesn't cover the topic well enough. But send in 500 words and I'll reconsider. BTW we all know that the lunatics are running the asylum. That's what makes it fun working here for free. But you'd need to be more specific - which set of lunatics, and define asylum. And please, no jokes about those with mental illness. We're all easily offended. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I like the words that are coming out of your mouth! (English motherfucker! Do you speak it!) I did not know about the 500 word minimum so I will take that into consideration. I'll have to look up that thing you mention, and start a subpage. Or not. Thanks. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:05, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I spent 60 seconds looking for that old AfD article. I give up. Could you provide it? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:08, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
This one? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Murray (comedian) Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion report

WikiProject Medicine

Something odd's going on around WikiProject Medicine; best starting point is probably WP:AN#An update on and a request for involvement at the Medicine MOS. An uninvolved administrator said he thinks it is likely to escalate to an Arbcom case.

If I'm understanding the situation correctly, two of the parties who can't get along are M.D.s and both strong contributors. Another frequent contributor said If we were all together in a physical workplace then the human resource department would bring in a social worker to provide emotional mediation at this point. Another comment on the state of the project was We used to be focused on writing brilliant articles filled with precisely delimited claims and superb sources. Then we went through an anti-woo phase: almost anything's okay, as long as it hurts the spammers and alt-med proponents ... Now we seem to be talking more about issues of health policy, which is a more approximate subject area with a focus on practicalities, like approximate prices. Which is naturally going to frustrate both of the previous groups, because it's not up to the standards of the first group, and practicalities sometimes don't produce the proper anti-woo signals.

Worth a note in the discussion report, maybe. It's unfortunate because I've always looked up to that project as an example of what a good WikiProject would look like, especially their ability to hold article content to a strong standard of evidence. It looks like this is exactly what is breaking down. - Bri.public (talk) 18:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I was pinged to the section just above this, and saw this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:38, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
WikiProject Medicine History

WLM winners to be announced

The winners of WikiLovesMonuments will be announced over the next 2-3 days. There will be 25 separate announcements(!)

According to their mailing list "The top winner will be announced at 3pm GMT (January 15?).

Please follow the announcement on our social media [1] https://twitter.com/wikimonuments [2] https://www.instagram.com/wikilovesmonuments/ [3] https://www.facebook.com/WikiLovesMonuments/ Please help us spread the word about the winners and competition by sharing them through your social media, news outlets and local news if you have access.

WMF will also publish a post on this year's competition once the top winner is announced."

I think this would make a wonderful Gallery article for our 15th Anniversary issue. We'll be "10 days late" in publishing it - so it won't be a "scoop", but I think what we can add to the story is great access to our readership, perhaps a small interview (2 paragraphs?) with the winner or an organizer. I'm sure there will be an official page on Commons which we need to link to. We also need to do something different than the WMF story. I suspect the 10 top winners pix, in decent but not overwhelming size. Prominently mentioning the winners names and the location of the pic with links to the location's article if possible.

It should be a fairly easy story to write up. I've got an e-mail address for an organizer (but don't want to out him). Any volunteers? I could ask somebody from their mailing list to write this up, but sometimes I think a slight "outsider's view" works better to explain everything to people who haven't been living and breathing this for 4 months now. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:03, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones and Clovermoss: the winners can go into "On the bright side" for next week, or in to "News and Notes" if you prefer. I'm not going to take the time to set up a gallery with a lot of explanation, and I don't think that Clovermoss has a lot of free time either, but we could probably include a simple gallery in OTBS or NAN. ↠Pine (✉) 19:20, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
I just copied the top 15 winners from the WLM Winner pag on Commons into the Gallery. From there it's just some reformating and add an into paragraph. REaders might be able to find it better there, but if you really have anything more creative you want to do just let me know. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:16, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: @Pine: I think I could do a gallery arranging the top 15 winners. I might be able to write a few sentences about how that's something I'm thankful for this week, as it wasn't something I knew much about and Wiki Loves Monuments is interesting. I think something like an interview would probably be better-suited to a different Signpost feature, though. Clovermoss (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, no interview. If your really want to use the pix for OTBS instead, that's ok too. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: Well, I haven't done anything quite yet. If you wanted to include the gallery in News and Notes, I don't mind. Clovermoss (talk) 23:13, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Clovermoss and Smallbones: I have a suggestion. Clovermoss could write a paragraph about her learning about Wiki Loves Monuments in OTBS, and link from there to the Gallery page, but not copy the entire gallery into OTBS. What do you think? ↠Pine (✉) 01:56, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss and Pine:. yes that sounds fine. BTW, I'll try to format the Gallery tonight and get some of the articles started from sources that I asked for submission to this special issue. I've got 2 whole days for working on this this weekend and I'd like to see how it's coming together. Copyediting, including Traffic report, and any other work on articles - including News & notes if anybody has blurbs for that would be appreciated. Please let me know if you think the soon to be uploaded humor article is ok. Thanks. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

"On the bright side" for 25 January 2020

Week 1 discussion

Week 1 discussion. I am archiving this because it's long and doesn't need to be edited more, but may be used for reference. ↠Pine (✉) 20:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Clovermoss: here is a place where we can discuss the upcoming issue. I'll help you to get started.

  • Do you see the countdown bars near the top of this page? They show deadlines for the upcoming issue.
  • In the main newsroom page at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom, you will see a list of possible articles for the upcoming issue. I suggest that you read through that page.
  • When you are ready, click the button to start the next issue of "On the bright side". This will take you to a page that has default starter content for a Signpost article, and you will see a warning that the page has previously been deleted. The deletion happened when the previous issue went from a draft in the newsroom to publication. I suggest that you save the starter content to the page so that you can see what it looks like.
  • Next, replace the starter content with my starter content that is specific for "On the bright side". This content is at User:Pine/SignpostOTBS. Copy the text from that page into the new page in the newsroom, following the guidelines at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. I do a lot of copying from one Wikmedia page to another, and I recommend that you read through the guideline page if you have not already done so.
  • Please let me know when you have finished with these steps. After you have gone through these steps for this month, you can skip some of the steps or do them with less thinking in the future. ↠Pine (✉) 02:06, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: Done! [24]. I also did an extra step [25] by adding my username, so it reads "By Pine and Clovermoss". Clovermoss (talk) 02:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: that looks good. Now you can change the dates in the draft so that there are headers for the weeks of 29 December through 19 January. After that, please choose a point to make for the week of 29 December. If your point has some relation to a language other than English, then please change both the translation and the language link in the 29th December content header. A list of available translations is at meta:User:Pine/WMYHTW translations. If you copy a translation then please follow the guidance for copying within Wikipedia. Alternatively, you can try Google Translate. As a last resort for languages that Google Translate translates poorly or not at all, you can request a manual translation by contacting a user who appears to be active and has an indication that they know the language, or by sending an email to https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/translators-l. You can do some verification of automated or manual translations by comparing the translated words to the definitions that you expect to find in Wiktionary. Please ping me when you are ready for me to look at the changes that you made, and also ping me if you think that you need a manual translation before you request one. I am logging off of Wikipedia for today but I will be back in the next day or two. Thanks again for volunteering. ↠Pine (✉) 02:58, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Welcome aboard, Clovermoss. Glad you can help out.
If you will be doing a lot of page moves, you can request the pagemover permission. Then you don't have to request deletion of the original page. I don't think you need it right away, though. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:35, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi Clovermoss, have you had an opportunity to make more progress on the draft? I try to publish "What's making you happy this week?" emails to Wikimedia-l between 12:01 AM on Sundays UTC and 8 AM on Wednesdays UTC, although occasionally the publication slips later than that. Please try to have your part of the draft ready, including the translation, by 8 AM Tuesday UTC so that I have at least 24 hours to review it and discuss my contributions or requests with you before sending the email to Wikimedia-l by 8 AM on Wednesday UTC. Thank you. ↠Pine (✉) 06:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: I'm still trying to decide what I'll do for this week. I'll have something by the end of the day. Clovermoss (talk) 17:01, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: I added an image to the draft. I have to think about what my bullet point for what I'm thankful for this week shall be. From a formatting perspective, do you think I did okay? I've been looking at previous On the Bright Side issues to try to get a feel for what I could write while still being myself at the same time. Wait... I know what I'm thankful for! I'm going to go add it now. Clovermoss (talk) 18:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: I added the bullet point for what I'm thankful for this week! Do you think that it's okay/suitable? Clovermoss (talk) 18:56, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Hi Clovermoss, you made an excellent start. Here are a few points to consider.
  • I recommend linking to articles about places that you name, such as Fallätsche. English Wikipedia doesn't have an article by that name, but there are other articles that mention it, so you could link to one of them by using [[actual article name|Fallätsche]], or you can link to the category on Commons by doing this: [[:commons:Category:Fallätsche|Fallätsche]], or you could link to an article on another language wiki such as German by writing [[:de:Fallätsche|Fallätsche]]. In this case I recommend either of the latter two.
  • When you mention a user such as Domob, I recommend that you link to the user's normal user page on the relevant wiki unless that user doesn't have such a user page. In this case Domob does have [[:commons:User:Domob|User:Domob]], so I recommend that you link to there.
  • Your content has at least three important associations with the German language.
  1. There is the article on German Wikipedia regarding Fallätsche.
  2. Fallätsche is located in Switzerland, which is a country where German is an official language.
  3. Although User:Domob doesn't show a list of their linguistic capabilities on their Commons user page, you can see through CentralAuth that they have a user page on German Wikipedia on which they write in the German language.
So, I recommend that you use the German translation for this week's entry. You can find it on meta:User:Pine/WMYHTW translations, under the native name for the language, which is ‎Deutsch, or by appending the language code of "de" to the end of the URL from the translations page. Again, please remember to follow the guidelines for copying within Wikipedia when you copy the translation.
Please ping me when you have completed these steps. Thanks for your good work. ↠Pine (✉) 19:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: I have followed all of these steps! Clovermoss (talk) 20:07, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: thank you.
  • I changed the link to Domob's user page so that it is an interwiki link, and I added section headers so that readers will know who contributed each section.
  • This week I can send the email to Wikimedia-l, and I can introduce you there, unless you would prefer to send the email yourself. I would like to introduce you, and then next week you can send the email. Does that sound OK to you?
  • Please let me know what you think of my content for this week. I am familiar with Star Trek but readers may not be, and especially if you are not familiar with it then I would like to hear what you think about the video clip that I included. Do you like the clip, and do you feel that it is appropriate for this week's publication?
  • If you have not already set up an email account for Wikimedia activities then I recommend that you do this. I recommend that you use it exclusively for Wikimedia activities so that people cannot use it to find you off wiki if they know the email address. I also recommend that the email address have your username in the address, in a format that is similar to clovermoss@<domain>, and that the email address show your user name in what are ordinarily the first and last name fields for when you send emails, such as "Clover Moss" or "Clovermoss Wiki". After you do this, then please subscribe to Wikimedia-l so that you can see the email that I send this week and so that you can send an email for next week. I also recommend that you subscribe to Translators-l so that if you want to request a manual translation then you will have the option to send an email to that list.
  • Please ping me when you reply. I will return to Wikipedia later today or tomorrow. Thank you. ↠Pine (✉) 21:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: I already have an email address like that. I tried to subscribe to the mailing list, but I'm not sure I did it right. I'll email you my email in case you need it. As for Star Trek, I'm fine with you including it. My Mom is a fan and I used to watch it with her when I was younger. We watched a different Star Trek series together, though. I'll see if I can find out which one. Clovermoss (talk) 21:49, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: Also, I don't mind if you want to introduce me. Feel free to do so. Clovermoss (talk) 22:12, 29 December 2019 (UTC) Fixed ping. Clovermoss (talk) 22:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
@Pine: Also, if you need to use pronouns to refer to me, please use she/her. Usually people say "they/their or he/she" if they aren't sure, which is fine, I just thought I should let you know. Clovermoss (talk) 00:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
I took a quick look at the item under development for January issue. The note to readers still says they should ping Pine with translations. You might want to change that. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:33, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Week 2 discussion

Week 2 discussion. I am archiving this because it's long and doesn't need to be edited more, but may be used for reference. ↠Pine (✉) 21:54, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  • Hi Clovermoss, happy new year. When you are ready, please add content for this week. After I have added content as well, then we can talk about sending the weekly email to Wikimedia-l. You can follow many of the same steps that you did last week. Hopefully the steps will become faster and easier as you get experience with them. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 20:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Happy new year to you as well! I'm going to busy for a few hours, but I'll see if I can think of something to add this evening. I already started seperate subsections for each of us like it was done last week. Clovermoss (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Clovermoss, thanks for your contribution. It looks good. Can you think of a second language that is relevant for this week so that we can use its translation for the title? FDans (WMF), who wrote the email that I quoted, says on his userpage that he likes to study Japanese, so what do you think about using a Japanese translation for this week? ↠Pine (✉) 19:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Clovermoss, it would be good for you to get more practice with translations, so please do this one. Eventually I would like you to try a language that is written from right to left, such as Arabic, because those require different handling. After you copy the translation for this week, then please check the work of both of us for errors, such as broken links, and fix them. Then please draft the WMYHTW email for this week in the format that I used for last week. You can see previous emails in the Wikimedia-l archives. When you are finished with the draft email then please email it to me so that I can check it. Thank you very much, ↠Pine (✉) 02:39, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your work this week. I think that some subscribers to Wikimedia-l will appreciate reading your comments.
The indent formatting didn't make it into the finished version on Wikimedia-l, but that is OK.
When you are ready, you can write something for the week of 12 January in "On the bright side". It would be nice if you could include a topic that has a relationship to a right-to-left language script, because I think that learning how to write in RTL format would be good in this week's subject lines for The Signpost and Wikimedia-l.
You learned a lot in the past few weeks, and I think that writing for "On the bright side" and WMYHTW will be relatively easy from this point forward.
Congratulations regarding your first email to Wikimedia-l, thank you for lightening my load, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with the Wikiverse. I like reading what you write. ↠Pine (✉) 05:50, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Week 3 discussion

Archiving week 3 discussion. This may be used later for reference. ↠Pine (✉) 01:58, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  • Hi Pine. I'm going to start working on it now. I meant to start earlier, but I fell asleep and took a nap. Would you like me to send out the email again? Is there a specific time you would like me to do so? Clovermoss (talk) 02:02, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Pine. I added my content for this week (I accidently placed it as part of next week, although I fixed that once I had realized my mistake). I'm kind of stuck on what would be a good translation for this week, since our content this week mostly focuses on the English Wikipedia, and I was wondering if you had any advice? Clovermoss (talk) 03:47, 14 January 2020 (UTC)·
  • Hi Clovermoss, your content looks good. I added an image from an article that is in the scope of Wikiproject Women in Red, along with a caption that explains the image. Please let me know what you think of that addition. If you like it, then do you think that using a French translation for this week would be OK? Also, would you like to create a gallery of two images for the logos of Wikiproject Women in Green and Wikiproject Women in Red? ↠Pine (✉) 05:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I was thinking of a gallery and added the two logos. It messed up your subheading, though, and I'm not sure how to fix that. Numerous line breaks don't seem to fix the issue, according to preview, anyways. Thank you for the adding the image, Pine, I appreciate it. Also, I'm absolutely okay with French. :) Clovermoss (talk) 05:25, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Clovermoss, one way to address that problem with formatting is to use the {{clear}} template. I suggest you look at the diff that I created. Then please look at the gallery that I created in my section for this week, and use the gallery tag to create a gallery with captions for the logos in your section. After you do these, then I think that we should we collaborate in a Google doc for this week's WMYHTW email. All of this can wait until tomorrow if needed. I would like to have the email first draft finished by the end of tomorrow, and to have the email published before 11:59 PM UTC on Wednesday. Thank you. ↠Pine (✉) 05:36, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @Pine: I fixed a typo with a missing bracket a few hours ago, but now that I have more time I'll start working on the draft more. Clovermoss (talk) 01:11, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I've made some changes to the Signpost draft to add a gallery similar to yours and I think that the result looks a lot better than yesterday! However, when it comes to the email draft, I'm not sure how I would use hyperlinks. Last week I figured it out by using Gmail in desktop mode like you suggested but I'm not sure how I would do so in Google Docs. Clovermoss (talk) 03:57, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Clovermoss, thanks for the updates. I changed some of the sizes of the images to make them be more proportionate. Please look at my diffs and let me know what you think. Regarding links in the email draft, I will show you an example of what I have in mind in the doc, and I will ping you with a comment in the doc. ↠Pine (✉) 05:32, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Week 4 discussion

Week 1 discussion. I am archiving this because it doesn't need to be edited more, but may be used for reference. ↠Pine (✉) 05:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  • Hi Clovermoss, my section of OTBS is finished for this week. Please see the separate discussion on this talk page regarding Wiki Loves Monuments. If you decide to write a paragraph about WLM, then I suggest using Polish for the language, because a photo from Poland was the overall winner. After you have written your section and added a translation, then would you please draft an email for this week? You can put it into the same Google doc that we used previously so that we can look at it together. Thanks! ↠Pine (✉) 04:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Pine. Sorry it's been taking awhile. I've been really busy this weekend. I'm probably going to be busy most of the day as well. I noticed the Wiki Loves Monuments discussion and I think that I'll follow your suggestion. Also, something in real life has made me really happy this week! I received a conditional offer of admission to the university I want to attend! I'm not sure if that's too personal to include on WMYHTW but regardless, it's something that has made my week. Clovermoss (talk) 14:33, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Clovermoss, regarding WLM, please go ahead with that. Regarding the second point, as exciting as that is, I think that it's best to be careful about what personal information you share and I wouldn't recommend sharing that point. I'll send you an email with a few comments about the latter, and I'd also like to introduce you to a couple of admins who may be able to provide good advice on this point and others. Please ping me when you have updated OTBS for this week including a translation, and when you have drafted at least your portion of the email. Feel free to draft my portion of the email also, if you wish. This week's email will probably be relatively simple and easy to draft. Thanks! ↠Pine (✉) 02:00, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Pine, should I link to the userpage of the contributor who took the photo if their userpage is a red link or should I do something else? Clovermoss (talk) 04:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Clovermoss, that's a good question. There are a few options. Linking to a vacant userpage is OK, but if their userpage is empty then I prefer to link to their contributions or to their user page on another wiki. You may already know some of this, but I'll walk you though a few steps. When you're on a Wikipedia such as English Wikipedia and you click on a media file, you'll be taken to an English Wikipedia page that has the image file, such as File:Stawiszyn Nieczynny Kościół Tył kościoła.jpg. Next, click "View on Commons" to see the Commons page. The author's username is a red link, but further down the page you will see the upload history for the file, which includes the author's username again and this time includes additional links for their talk page and their contributions page. Click on the "contribs" link. It's fine to link from OTBS to that contribs page, but I suggest going one step further. Click on "CentralAuth" at the bottom of the page. Here you can see all of the wikis where the user has made contribs, including Polish Wikipedia. Click on the author's edit count for Polish Wikipedia, which is currently "1". Here you can see that the author created a userpage on Polish Wikipedia. I recommend linking to that page. Please let me know if you have further questions. My comments here are a recommendation and you can do something that is different if you have a different preference. ↠Pine (✉) 04:48, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ready for copyediting

Hi Clovermoss, thank you for enduring four weeks of learning how to write "On the Bright Side" and What's makking you happy this week?. The Signpost currently publishes on the final Saturday of the month, so we've finished the content for this month's Signpost issue. I have marked this month's OTBS as being ready for copyediting. After you publish this week's WMYHTW, please feel free to take a break for several days. I hope that you have a good rest of the week. You have learned a lot, and I think that this collaboration is going well. Please let me know if you have any feedback for me regarding how I'm doing or if there are any changes to the process that you would like to suggest for consideration. Regards, ↠Pine (✉) 05:44, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pine and Clovermoss: You have two authors this month. Should the intro paragraph say "we" instead of "I"? ☆ Bri (talk) 06:06, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Bri: good catch. I made this change. ↠Pine (✉) 06:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss and Smallbones: One issue here that I am trying to figure out is how to decrease the amount of time that we spend on this. I think that we're faster than we were when we started, but I very much want to get our total time down to at most one hour for Clovermoss and I each week. I think that the time surge this month while training a new person is understandable, but any suggestions regarding how to increase efficiency while maintaining quality would be appreciated. ↠Pine (✉) 06:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Well, I think I should probably start writing my portion earlier in the week. That way it will be easier for me to have it finished by the actual deadline. I'm sorry about today, by the way. I'm starting exams soon and there's been a lot of my mind and I feel really bad about forgetting to send the email this morning. Clovermoss (talk) 01:28, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Also, thanks for the congratulations. I appreciate it. It was a lot to take in but it was also easier in the sense of you were really good at providing instructions for how to do stuff. I'm also glad that I got to contribute to this (and plan to keep doing so), as I've been a fan of On The Bright Side for awhile and it seems also surreal to be able to contribute to it. Clovermoss (talk) 01:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Hi Clovermoss, I'm happy that you like how things are going. I will be very understanding if you want to take a break for any reason. I would appreciate advance notice of you taking a break, but one of the good things about being a volunteer is that you have a lot of choices about how much time you spend on Wikipedia and what types of activities you do. I appreciate your collaboration but you don't owe anything to The Signpost and your exams are important, so please feel free to prioritize those, especially in the short term. If you want to start to think about next week early and come up with a draft, one option is to put a draft in your sandbox, but it's also fine for you to not think about Wikipedia for several days or to skip next week you prefer. Thanks for your good work. ↠Pine (✉) 02:10, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm happy that

@Pine and Clovermoss: There's a type of advice that I try never to give to people - "That's a worthy goal, but I don't think you'll ever accomplish it. Quit now, before you even waste your time." I just feel that it is not my place to tell people that they can't do something. Who am I to say what good things people can't do? One example, while teaching at a state school in the middle of the Great Plains a student told me that he wanted to become an investment banker. I did warn him that investment bankers almost always are only recruited from schools like Harvard and Princeton, and that he had a long row to hoe. We did talk occasionally about his quest, but I'm sorry that I didn't have much help for him. He did it all on his own, getting a job with a reputable regional investment banker. The next year another student told me he had the same goal. I reacted in the same way. This time it almost worked out, he got a job in the treasury department of a large corporation who would be interacting much of the time with investment bankers. This is pretty much how I felt about the proposal for your column, you had, and still have a long row to hoe.

There are several reasons why this column is very difficult and time-consuming to write.

  • Readers are not used to this type of column in a newspaper, so readership is hard to gain. The individual items seem small and personal, so they must take the time to realize that the ultimate message is the overall column - they can have faith that there are good things happening in the Wiki movement. That's a very important message. BTW, the readership numbers are fine with me and are growing.
  • All these "good little items" can appear almost anywhere. I'm pretty sure that none of your examples have come from ArbCom or ANI, but they might sometimes appear even there. You've got to scour everything to find the best examples, rather than just go to the discussion noticeboard (for the Discussions column) or a few Arb pages (for the Arb report).
  • Formatting, translations, and putting together many small items can be time consuming as well.

OK, how can we make the situation better? Some suggestions - but I still don't have a complete fix.

  • Narrow the topic a bit. The column reminds me in some ways of a religious column, e.g. Billy Graham had a successful nationally syndicated column that said a lot about many good things. Not that I think you should write a religious column! But get a regular beat going. Maybe just look at Women in Red, WLM, GLAM, conferences, international groups, or certain parts of the WMF, or any of your favorite topics. That choice is all yours. But you've got to get it to fit within the time you have to write it (that's an order - nobody enjoys seeing a writer sacrificing themselves on the alter of The Signpost).
  • Get more writers involved on a regular basis, either in the actual column or in the comments section. Four regular column writers would not be too many for the column and would allow people to take a month or two off occasionally.
    • That of course involves some training time - can't get around that.
    • Everybody will develop their own voice, but they have to develop it within the frame of the whole column. You have a very distinctive voice and people will be able to adapt to it. Clovermoss will develop her own voice and you should be prepared to accept that.
  • I'll try to help, but I've got my own difficulties along these same lines!

If I may, I'll write my own "I'm happy that ..." in the comments section right after publication. Please suggest edits and tell me if I'm going too far.

I'm happy that Pine has found a co-author for this column. Now he can get a life outside of The Signpost. This is a very personal column, but I have no doubt that Clovermoss will help in achieving the its ambitious goals. Few readers who haven't worked in journalism can appreciate the massive amount of work that is required for a column like this, finding representative examples of all that is good, great and small, in a project the size of Wikipedia.
I have asked Pine to narrow the scope of the column a bit to let him fit the amount of work required into the time available. I'll also ask that readers add more good things to the column in this comments section, which will help accomplish the column's goals.
This month's column has made me happy because it reminded me of 2 audio/video resources that we have available on Wikipedia. "Fred Rodgers testifies before the Senate" - who would think that a 50 year old recording of that could be so moving and optimistic? Who would have thought that the committee chair would end the testimony with "Well, it looks like you have my vote for $20 million"?
Rogers testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, chaired by John Pastore, on May 1, 1969. As part of his testimony, he recites the lyrics to "What Do You Do with the Mad that You Feel?"
External audio
audio icon Dr. King's speech begins at 1:30, 8/28/1963, Educational Radio Network[1]
This week I hadn't done anything to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day until I was reminded by this column that we have the full "I have a dream" speech available through an external link to WGBH's special collections (in association with the Library of Congress and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting). Dr. King's speech begins at 1:30 of the tape and lasts for 16 minutes, 30 seconds. It's well worth hearing all the way through.

Pine, before I include this in the comments section could you let me know whether this fits into your view of where the column should go? Is it too personal? Not necessarily right away, we have time.

Other comments and copyediting are welcome. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:11, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Hi Smallbones, that's more feedback than I can absorb at the moment. Feel free to write in the comments section what you think is best. I feel bad about saying this, but I have several other issues that I want to address this week and I can't get to everything quickly. If you leave this feedback here in the newsroom talk page then I'll probably read it over the weekend or next week. Thanks! ↠Pine (✉) 02:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, will do. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:03, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Special Collections, March on Washington, Part 17". Open Vault. at WGBH. August 28, 1963. Retrieved September 15, 2016.

Taking a break

Hi @Smallbones and Clovermoss:

I have decided that I should take a break from What's making you happy this week? and "On the bright side". I have been spending a minimum of two hours each week on these publications, even with the help of Clovermoss. Also, in the past few weeks, Clovermoss and I spent a lot of time learning how to work together. For at least the next few weeks, two hours each week is more than I can afford to spend on these publications.

I can help Clovermoss to finish the content for the week of 26 January, and then I should probably be on break from these publications until at least the following issue of The Signpost. If Clovermoss is comfortable writing on her own then she is welcome to do that, and if not then perhaps she would prefer to take a break also, and she and I can later decide if and when we would like to return to writing these publications together. Perhaps we can return, but instead of having weekly publications we could slow to every other week or once per month.

As much as I enjoy writing these publications, they don't pay my bills or help get NavWiki done. I hope that you understand. I will remain involved in Wikipedia, and probably in a few weeks I will become more active again, although I'm not sure that I will return to The Signpost because the amount of time and effort required to do a good job for What makes you happy this week? and "On the bright side" is surprisingly high. I would be comfortable being an occasional contributor to these publications, but leading them and contributing to them every week is currently too much for me on a volunteer basis.

Regrets,

↠Pine (✉) 04:38, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: I understand. You have a life and you deserve a break. :) Thanks for teaching me all this stuff the past month. I'll try to cover for you the next two weeks. I know what to do, so I should be able to handle it. When you're ready to write for it again (or if you don't think you'll have time to take it up again), a heads up would be nice. Anyways, it's always good to step away when you need to. Do you want me to help you finish this week's content? I could probably finish writing what's in the placeholder notes. Clovermoss (talk) 04:46, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: thank you for understanding. I did some editing of this week's content on the draft page to combine the content from you and I, and I added a postscript regarding me taking a break. The content for this week is almost ready for publication to Wikimedia-l. Please see the talk page of User:Rosiestep where I requested a Serbian translation. Once you know who the translator for Serbian was, then you can copy the translation into the OTBS draft and from there create WMYHTW for Wikimedia-l. The Wikimedia-l version should include a credit for the person who did the translation into Serbian. Does that sound okay to you? ↠Pine (✉) 04:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Yep, it does! Clovermoss (talk) 05:01, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: great. Thank you for relieving me of some pressure. As a volunteer, you're free to take a break too, of course. I'll be around but I'm going to try to take a break from the Signpost and "OTBS". If you need any support, Smallbones or Nick Moyes may be able to help, or you can ping me or contact me by email. Best wishes, ↠Pine (✉) 05:15, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Just to confirm something

...the last time you guys ran a featured content section in the post for the year 2019 was April, correct? No one has taken up the cause of featured content since then? TomStar81 (Talk) 15:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

That's what the archives shows: we ran featured content in January, February, March, and April 2019 and none since then. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Damn. Thats gonna make my last 2019 project even more difficult. Anyway, thanks for the reply. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
@TomStar81: After a reader noted its absence in November, I asked for a discussion of the Featured content report at the newsroom. The discussion is now in the archives ("Future Featured content"). You might want to check it out. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:36, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
@Bri: I see. My interest in it stems from a semi-annual occurrence; once every so often I'll go through the featured content we had promoted in a year in and compile a "year in review" list from which I tabulate awards for editors who have - with or without their knowledge - edited within the jurisprudence of the MILHIST project in the last 12 months. According to my records, last last year the Signpost featured content list helped to generate awards for 62 different users and accolades for half a dozen or so additional awards to both individual editors and projects. Without that list, making a go of it this year will be frustrating - but fortunately, not impossible. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Bri, I know that I've been completely inactive for a long time on The Signpost, but I would be willing to do FC again, particularly if we could automate the hard work part (filling in The '''[[ARTICLE]]''' <small>''([[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/ARTICLE/archiveX|nominated]] by [[User:X|X]])'' part</small>.)
As far as the suggestion regarding interviewing writers on their craft in the archives by Czar, I did a brief series a while back on Brianboulton (sorely missed, wish my questions were better) Charlesjsharp, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, and TRM, with the intent of making a 'from the experts: tips on writing featured articles' a sort of handbook, a project that I would happily pick up again if people enjoyed reading them Eddie891 Talk Work 23:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
[26] czar 02:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
TomStar81, If you would like help with that, I could help out... The Bugle lists MILHIST promotions every month. Maybe Hawkeye7 has an idea how to automate the article lists, as I see MilHistBot does a similar task for The Bugle.Eddie891 Talk Work 23:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
Eddie891, Gog the mild is helping too, but if we are getting a few more people on board we could go further with it and collectively cover everyone who got stuff promoted last year. So many people expressed such surprise that they had earned awards that they didn't even know they had gotten, and I like to think it helps with editor morale and retention. As I noted here, our members are "...notoriously [stingy] about handing out our in house award (or any other award for that matter)..." so I try and do what I can to offset it. As for milhistbot, it may list the articles, images, and lists, but it lists only those that are explicitly part of milhist, whereas on a standard check you're apt to find things that are obtusely a part of the project and would therefore be overlooked otherwise. Take Nigel Williams (conservator), an article worked on by User:Usernameunique. Independently its not a milhist article, but when you look through it there's enough in his career to justify inclusion for a milhist shout out. Thorium is another example, its not a milhist article, but its application includes milhist related uses, so User:Double sharp and User:R8R both got a shout out for that. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
@TomStar81, can use Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Featured content's diffs in the future for this, though won't be help for right now. The WP 1.0 bot is supposed to track FC promotions too, but that tool's been up and down. czar 02:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

If the featured content section is going to make a return to Signpost, I think it would be worth mentioning that Brian Boulton passed away. It was mentioned above that he is sorely missed, but I can't find anything anywhere to indicate that this news made it into the last edition of the Signpost, though I see that the passing of Angus McLellan was noted at News and notes. How regularly does the Signpost report on deceased Wikipedians? Carcharoth (talk) 13:47, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Obits?

@Carcharoth, Smallbones, Bri, and Bri.public: I had a thought along similar lines. How about starting an regular "Obituaries" section, or something similar, in "News and notes"? ↠Pine (✉) 21:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: I don't know how many obits we'd get in a year. Let me guess, 5? Let me try a few back of the envelope calculations. 3,000 Wikipedias who are fairly well known to each other. Maybe 1,000 of those over 65. Maybe 3% of those go to the big 'pedia in the sky each year? That would be 30. I guess we could handle it. Is there an aspiring obit writer out there? We could list him/her on the page to make sure that people know who to go to have somebody properly sent off. Omitting somebody by accident, or for any reason, would be taken as quite an insult so we'd have to have a rock-solid, sure-fire reporting system on this. I'd be all for it if we have that set up, and 100% against it if we don't. We'd be completely dependent on another user, or perhaps family member, reporting it to us.
That said I'd prefer a fairly low key, standardized format. If one person got 5 paragraphs and another got only 3, we'd upset some people who should not be upset at that time. There would be some exceptions of course - maybe 10 editors/WMFers who would get a full write-up (I'd rather not mention names, but most of those would already have an article about them.) We could start with BrianBoulton as an exception to the standardized format and announce how to get an editor listed and verified (if we were to go ahead - ask readers if we should do this, the answer will likely be yes). First draft of the standardized format:

User:Example1, who began editing in 20xx and made over x,000 edits and created xx articles, was reported to have died on Month xx, according to User:Example2 One sentence on death details if desired. Example1 edited in the areas of x and y, according to Example 2. "He/she was summarize career in 1 sentence or 2 short sentences" said example 2.

Yeah, it could be longer and obviously the exact wording would have to be a bit flexible, but doing much more that that would either be very difficult, or get very flowery or over the top. Feel free to add to the standard format - IF you are volunteering to write this series without making any mistakes (which could be viewed very seriously by many people, including myself)
So who could do this? Maybe somebody who knows everybody? @Ser Amantio di Nicolao: or how about @Megalibrarygirl:?
Sorry, I can't be more positive, but this would need to be done right.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:46, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: for what it's worth, I occasionally send emails about passages to Wikimedia-l, and no one has complained about them. Usually my emails are fairly short. Two recent examples are here and here. I suggest using a similar format in The Signpost. I think that 1 to 3 substantial paragraphs would be a good length for obituaries. ↠Pine (✉) 23:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Those Wikimedia-l emails look pretty good, not that much different or much longer than what I proposed above. If you can keep up the coverage, go ahead with at least the 2 obits in the emails. Please contact SandyGeorgia and ask for her take - after not publishing the obit last month we handled her complaint pretty badly. I'm serious about making this a concerted consistent effort. If we can't do it well, I'd prefer not to do it at all. I will back you up on suggestions reported on the suggestions pages, but the lead on it should go to you. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia, SchroCat, and Alison: please read the above discussion, and the emails that I sent to Wikimedia-l at 1 and 2. Do you have any comments regarding including obituaries in "News and Notes" in the way that is being discussed here? ↠Pine (✉) 04:46, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm perfectly fine with this, and the short factual account that Pine produced above looks perfect. I like the idea of mentioning edits, GAs, FAs, etc - Alison ❤ 04:56, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
This looks good. (While I'm here, I'll comment on the section just below.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
PS, thanks Smallbones. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:43, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • As a guideline to the number who have died in any particular year, Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians gives a good idea (c. 10 a year listed there) I doubt that page captures half those who have died, but it does give an indication. As it happens I was discussing something for Brian Boulton with Tim riley yesterday. He is going to produce a draft for the RIP page and I suggested putting it Signpost too, so the timing of the ping is fortuitous. I'm sure he will be able to draw up at least three good paragraphs on Brian for inclusion in the next issue. Thanks for the ping. - SchroCat (talk) 09:20, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi @SchroCat and Alison: the obituary for Brian on that page is currently unstable, and I am too short on time for this month for me to monitor that page for signs of stabilizing, so I'm not going to use that obituary in The Signpost. I'll use the version that I sent to Wikimedia-l instead, and for simplicity's sake I would like to do the same for Angus. Please {{ping}} me here if you have any objections to this. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 02:28, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Pine, I'd rather it was this version, which was written specifically for the Signpost and also used elsewhere. If someone has censored that second version on a different page, it makes no difference to the original. There is a slight flippancy in my post that you quoted in the mailing list that wouldn't translate to a wider audience. - SchroCat (talk) 07:41, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi @Smallbones: usually obituaries of people who are notable enough to be included on the Deceased Wikipedians page require only a few minutes for me to write. Please see what I wrote to SchroCat above. ↠Pine (✉) 21:09, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Also, @Smallbones:, who is writing NaN this month? Bri may be away. If you are writing NaN then would you please start that page and copy the notices that I sent to Wikimedia-l onto that page, and ping me when you have finished doing that? Thanks! ↠Pine (✉) 19:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
    • @Pine: Bri is definitely away - nothing to do about it. I've got a lot on my plate for this issue. We need something more for 6,000,000 articles, though we have a humor column about it almost done, I have another idea as well - I just need to get it started and invite the staff and community to nominate some "most important articles" (to them - clearly "most important " is subjective). So I'll get N&N started before the weekend, but not sure I can handle anything else at this time. We'd need something on ArbCom reports and/or discussions as well. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:44, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @Smallbones: I am unlikely to have time to do much work for NaN or other articles. This is a busy month for me. As has commonly been the case in the past, there may be more stories that are worth covering than The Signpost has the resources to cover. ↠Pine (✉) 02:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Countdown to six million articles

Shortcuts

The English Wikipedia has reached 6,000,000 articles with
Maria Elise Turner Lauder,
19th-century Canadian school teacher, writer and philanthropist,
created by Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (User:Rosiestep) on 2020-01-23 at 18:59 UTC.


Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – 6,000,000 articles
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – 6,000,000 articles

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.

— Jimmy Wales, co-founder

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 as a project to build an online, free-access, free-content encyclopedia entirely from scratch. Since then, it has grown to be the largest encyclopedia ever created, comprising more than six million articles in English, while still relying on the contributions of volunteers.

The English Wikipedia community thanks the millions of users whose edits over the past nineteen-plus years have made this remarkable accomplishment possible.

Articles created near the same time included:

There's much more to see and do

However, 6 million articles on English Wikipedia is only a small portion of human knowledge. Did you know that within the Wikimedia ecosystem, we have:

Wikipedia has revolutionized our access to knowledge, but there is still lots of work to do:

  • Did you know that only 18% of all biographies in English Wikipedia are about women? This is something the Wikimedia community is studying and addressing with projects like WikiProject:Women in Red.
  • Only a small fraction of Wikipedia's articles have multimedia of any kind. With video sites like YouTube being one of the most popular in the world, less than 0.2% of Wikipedia articles contain video. You can help at WikiProject Wiki Makes Video.
  • Just 1 in 150 of our articles are marked good or featured, which indicates that they have passed a review to check that they are broad, detailed, well-referenced and satisfy our other content policies and guidelines. Find out how to help at Wikipedia:Content assessment.

How can you help?

We are currently working on the future strategy for the movement for the year 2030, which you can read and provide feedback on. Join us!

Transcluded from Wikipedia:Six million articles. ↠Pine (✉) 04:47, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Six million threshold crossed 23 January

Just noting here, the milestone was hit around 18:59 23 January UTC. The mainpage banner was changed following the discussion Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Promotional banner for the 6 millionth article?. There was another discussion at Wikipedia talk:Six million articles about which article to actually credit as "the one". Bri.public (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

News and notes

Citizendium

"exporting any useful content to Wikipedia" raises a lot of questions. Who is going to be doing this? It's already CC-BY-SA so why haven't our editors already imported the "useful content"? Maybe it's not so useful after all? Or there's a labor shortage for discerning what's useful? Not getting it. ☆ Bri (talk) 06:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

There was/is Wikipedia:WikiProject Citizendium Porting; the list there seems to indicate that most imports happened in 2010 or earlier.
I would not advocate automatic importing (cf. User:HaeB/Citizendium approved errors) but there could surely be cases where a CZ article with "approved" status has higher quality than its Wikipedia counterpart. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:02, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: This doesn't have anything to do with Citizendium, but maybe something about this could be added into news and notes? Clovermoss (talk) 20:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view

I'd almost started the Community view column 10 days ago, but never was able to get very far until @Indy beetle: gave me a KITA an hour or so ago. I think this will work, but it demands input from the Signpost staff, and other editors as well, but only 110 words or fewer. Please invite folks who you think might enjoy this. It is a serious topic, but should be fun to read too. There's only about 3 days to get this done. If there aren't a dozen entries by tomorrow night, I might announce it, e.g. at Jimbo's talk page. Less than a dozen entries on Sunday, I'll probably just delete it. @Clovermoss, Pine, Bri, Indy beetle, Chris troutman, Megalibrarygirl, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, and Doc James:.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:23, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: - hi there, I've just added one. I've used two small twinned photos as it demonstrates the point - can you take a look and let me know if that's okay. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:35, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
About "but please recognize that this is not the most important" I wonder if "not only the most important" would be a bit neater? WhisperToMe (talk) 06:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

An explanation regarding Harry Potter

@E @CaptainEek Since my post has confused some, I will try to explain in greater detail what I was getting at then that very small word-cap allowed. Evidently, the point isn't clear to those that don't already know. The Cursed Child play is sold as the "eighth story" of HP, a series of books that sold many hundreds of millions of copies and defined the childhood of a generation, but the plot of the play is radically incompatible with the rules/plot of the books. Yet critics and the few fans who can afford to even see the play clapped anyway and lavished it with awards and honors because it was titled "Harry Potter", and because J.K. Rowling slapped her penname to a play actually written by some playwright bigwigs.

I was attempting to get at something deep, that the (generally childhood) dreams of the hundreds of millions of people who read the books about "what came next for Harry, Ron, Hermione, etc" after the books ended, were crushed by the overtly grotesque cash grab that was/is the Cursed Child. The play has great stage effects, but everything else is absurdly and unreconcilably incompatible with the rules/plot of the books. It's the eighth story of Harry Potter just as much as "Donald Trump was a stunningly successful billionaire business mogul before becoming the best president ever". Yes, it really is that stark, and given the enormous cultural importance of the Harry Potter franchise, I thought this occurrence befitting of being mentioned. Because the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child article was slightly to old for inclusion (the play itself came out about a year later), I had to do this through the 2017 Laurence Olivier Awards. Feel free to edit the original statement if you think there is a way to make these points clearer, while staying concise and true to what I am getting at. Newshunter12 (talk) 22:11, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, that makes sense. I fear, however, that I am sufficiently disconnected from the world of Harry Potter and its fans that I know not how to fix the blurb. This brings me to a general observation about the whole page: enough of the blurbs assume that the reader shares particular points of view or sentiments with the writer of the blurb, that perhaps the page should carry some kind of opinions-are-those-of-the-author–type disclaimer. EEng 22:34, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@E Thank you for your feedback. Being connected to the world of Harry Potter meant I was in a bubble about understanding these points and not recognizing that others such as yourself did not. I will rework the original statement to try to make it clearer. You are definitely right about the blurbs benefiting from an opinion disclaimer. Newshunter12 (talk) 23:01, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
NM. The editing phase just closed. Newshunter12 (talk) 23:02, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
[27] EEng 23:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@E I have updated my entry and believe I have rectified the previous issues, insofar as is possible with such a small word limit. Your feedback on the new entry would be much appreciated. @Smallbones I greatly appreciate the opportunity to submit an entry and your defense of the original, but the two editors who posted concerns about it were right. Someone not already topic knowledgeable would have been mystified by what I was talking about. I think the updated version is much clearer, and invites readers to read further on Wikipedia and beyond about the topic in a way the original didn't. Newshunter12 (talk) 23:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

{{od}Ok, now everybody please leave Harry Potter/Olivier alone, I've got a deadline to meet. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:22, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, copyedited before I saw this. Might have helped if you'd posted a closing date, or given some warning of impending closing. Your work on Signpost is very much appreciated, BTW. EEng 00:41, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia Signpost coverage of women

I found this category, and it hasn't been updated since 2015. Digging through tbe archives, I've found several articles that could be included:

It's very possible I missed stuff, as I mostly skimmed through these archives on my evening study break. I thought about adding the category myself but 1) not sure if messing with the archives is a good idea and 2) categories seem to be more complicated than just categories, they appear to be added with template somehow? Anyways, I'd love some input if anyone can offer some. Clovermoss (talk) 02:36, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: When you're less busy, do you think you could offer some advice? Clovermoss (talk) 21:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Deadline +1 day, 6,000,000 likely already written

I've added 1 day to the deadline. @Chris troutman: I expect to publish noonish Sunday New York time, though ther is still lots to do. It's certain that tomorrow the main page will say 6,000,000+ edits, but it may take some time to track down the symbolic 6,000,000th article. If anybody knows how to best do that (perhaps on a Saturday!) please let me know. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:49, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: We hit 6,000,000! Puddleglum 2.0 19:42, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-en 6m articles.png available. — xaosflux Talk 19:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: Ok, I'll be standing by Sunday. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
On the related matter at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view, of choosing a "most important" article of the last 1mil WP articles, I have to both abstain from such a vote and as well as suggest that this is a poor idea. It is by definition highly subjective (i.e., a PoV matter), and this is really obvious when looking at the nominees so far, which are almost uniformly from a feminist, environmentalist, or feminist–environmentalist angle. While those are socio-political viewpoints I align with, there's no question that they're viewpoints. Beyond this problem, encyclopedia articles per se are not important at all; the underlying topics are. PS: The nominees are mostly recent news matters, so the feeling that they're unusually important is WP:RECENTISM. If this piece is going to go forward, I would suggest that appropriate nominations are major historical (not biography) subjects that we somehow lacked real articles on until some time within the last million. Something with lasting real-world and present-day relevance that was not generated by news headlines within the same time frame as the last 1mil articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏¢ 😼  21:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Thanks for the input. To some extent I agree - it would have been better if I could randomly sample active users. I think there might be a "select random user account" function somewhere on Wikipedia but I don't know where it is. It wouldn't work well though for this, giving me 100 inactive editors for every active one. It sorta reminds me of a criticism I once got on The Signpost when I once covered the equivalent of a train wreck. Now when covering a train wreck, you clearly don't want a random selection of people on the street or anything like that. The people you want to talk to are people who were in the train wreck or saw it or are treating the victims, or safety experts, etc. but certainly not random people. Since I couldn't get a random sample of active editors for this issue's article, I just picked Signpost staffers, people who commented on Signpost articles, people who I know would likely have interesting ideas, and a haphazard (not random) method I'll call talk-page hopping. When I dropped off 1 invitation I looked on that talk-page and selected somebody there who looked like they had something interesting to say about a subject different from "why did you delete my article" or similar. In retrospect this was as far from a random sample as I could get.
But I do think you are taking the article's topic a bit too seriously. Yes importance can be very subjective - that's right up front in this article. Yes, if this was a mainspace article, contributors are breaking all the rules saying IMHO this is important. But I do think that this is a fun article that highlights a range of what people think we've accomplished since 2015. It is important in that sense. I'll write a paragraph in a while that I'll add in explaining that the sample wasn't random, but others are invited to add in their "nominations" in the comments. And we should limit the conclusions we draw from this. Thinking as I write, this looks a lot like a "Person on the street" sample. That type of article has limited use, but is kinda fun, isn't it? Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@McCandlish: sorry this took so long. I've add/reworded the last paragraphs in the main text. Please let me know what you think. Also please copyedit if you have the time. Or, if you really want to, in 110 words or less, add in why you don't like the idea of this article. Please put it third in the list after the reader gets the idea what the list is all about.

Note that the editors who added their most important article were not randomly selected. To get this started I invited the Signpost staff, folks who commented on previous Signpost articles, and a few others who haphazardly (not randomly) popped into view. To get a better sample of Signpost readers, please add your own most important article in the comments section. Just follow the format of the example, putting the name of an article created since November 1, 2015 and explain, in 110 words or less, why you think it is the most important. You may add a 180px photo if you wish, with a short caption.

Just to clarify, I wasn't objecting to being included in the "would you like to join in?" list; it's just that the exact nature of thing wasn't appealing to me. I'll go look at the revision you mention and give it some more thought, but tomorrow. I'm out of steam for today. (I suffer a deficit of coal and water.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:47, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

With more examples we can view a wider range of what Signpost editors view as the most important article out of the last million new articles.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: According to the email Pine just sent out consensus agrees that the six millionth article is Maria Elise Turner Lauder. It's a bit disappointing that neither of my approximations were right, but I'm also glad that there seems to be a more concrete agreement about which article is actually the six millionth! A quick glance at the article in question seems awesome, and I look forward to reading the rest of it. Thank you, Rosiestep for creating this! Clovermoss (talk) 21:37, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Maria Elise Turner Lauder
Thank you. I really appreciate that the honor of the 6,000,000th article is a biography of a 19th-century Canadian woman writer. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@CaptainEek and Clovermoss: So this was a political decision? Chris Troutman (talk) 22:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, no it wasn't. I'm not sure why you would think it might be one, maybe I'm missing something context-wise? Clovermoss (talk) 22:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Chris troutman I would not call it political no. Since the software does not tell us exactly what the six millionth article was, it was a combination of art and science. We narrowed it down to the fact that it was one of the articles created at 1859 UTC. Of the 15 or so articles, my math led me to believe that Lauder's article was within a confidence interval of 3 articles of 6 million. You may read the entire process at Wikipedia talk:Six million articles. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 22:47, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Chris troutman, I understand your concern though. We don't know for certain what the six millionth page was, as the software does not exist. Perhaps before 7 million, WMFlabs will develop a tool. But we knew for sure what minute it happened. Then we did the math, but at the end we had a few articles to choose between. I and a few others suggested Rosie's as the best (and still in my mind the likeliest to actually be 6 million), since we felt that we wanted to put a good article forward as the 6 millionth. The other alternatives including two articles on trolling by Pharos, which we thought in poor taste, a Lithuanian article that was good and was nearly chosen, as well as some others. We have recognized the runnersup, and they should be added to the 6m page soon. You can see the list on the 6m talkpage. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 00:16, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@CaptainEek: Thanks for your answer; that clears is up for me. Of course, I'm deeply disappointed with your "we wanted to put a good article forward" sentiment because I thought the correct article was definitively objectively determined by the software. Now I know this is a nonsense, rah-rah event to put a good spin on what's actually going on with this website. Stuff like this is why I stopped editing in the main namespace. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:41, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Chris troutman, Regardless of what we wanted to put forward, the 6M article was going to be non-representative anyway. It's unusual nature was predetermined, as several editors (Rosie, Casliber, etc) were all trying to get the 6 millionth. And that's a good thing in my mind. That means content creators are involved and invested. Casliber spent the hours leading up to it doing nothing but writing bunches of new articles on sea snakes to get the counter up to 6 million. Esoteric yes, but it's helping to build an encyclopedia. And having the community examine the article also ensured that vandalism or other hootenanny would be kept out. Having six million is cool! And while yes, the 6 millionth is not an exact art, it still celebrates an incredible accomplishment of millions of people building something thought impossible 30 years ago. So yes, perhaps this is a feel good event, but why shouldn't it be? We've done something awesome, and honoring the creators and articles behind it all is ensuring that Wikipedia keeps going. To be blunt Chris, staying out of the mainspace is no way to fix the problems you see with Wikipedia. Wikipedia is what it's editors make of it, projectspace and mainspace, and they can't exist without the other. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 00:56, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Like Chris, I too find it "problematic" that a group of Wikipedia Insiders™ picked another insider (notable for being an insider, no less) to receive the blessing of the six millionth article. Personally I'd rather have had it be, say, a precocious sixth grader writing the article, or a brand-new contributor, or even better, someone submitted an AfC that was just accepted. Let some people outside the club have some fun, too. Maybe at least one of the candidate ten articles fits these criteria, which IMHO are just as laudable – and public appreciation displayed for them does more good. Bri.public (talk) 01:47, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
BTW, this is already starting to get press [28] Bri.public (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
@Bri.public: This is what happens when the process isn't objective. The deciders won't get utility from praising a new editor who likely won't be sticking around. Instead, they're sure to ingratiate themselves by speaking our current pieties, which is why I asked if this was a political decision. If the objective 6 millionth article was self-promotional spam, it would be a good lesson for all. But this website, like all institutions, is more concerned with keeping up appearances and leading the sheeple. My practice of "staying out of the mainspace" passes Kant's categorical imperative by starving the cancer cells in San Francisco. Some editors get too much joy from validation and are more than happy to spout empty pieties to keep that joy. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, if it's entirely up to me (and it's up to you to convince me I'm wrong since I don't see anybody else trying to write this up in News and notes), I'll outline how I'll write this up below. It's been obvious to me, probably from the first 1,000,000 write-up in The Signpost, that his is not a scientific or software driven process, but that consensus plays a role. You'll note that for the last month I've often used "the symbolic 6,000,000th article".

But first what do we all agree on:

  • there's no exact answer - the software doesn't work that way
  • interested volunteers watch closely and get an estimate of the time by watching the software update the count to say, 6,000,089 at a specified minute.
  • Counting backwards the volunteers estimate the minute and then list all the articles created in that minute (15 in this case at 18:59 UTC January 23, 2020). This is probably a good estimate of the time to the minute, but only an estimate. [29]
  • Volunteers look at the quality of the articles and then decide by consensus which one should be the symbolic 6,000,000th article. It seems impossible to judge what the motives are of the volunteers, but since this is Wikipedia, we assume good faith.

Does everybody agree that these are the facts? Then I'll write it that way. Cut it down a bit - it's not a Ph.D. thesis.

I'll tell you what we are definitely *not* going to do. Cast any aspirations on @Rosiestep: or the other volunteers (@Fuzheado: as a representative).

If anybody wants to do the research and gets good sources and can prove that this process was fixed? Well, that's another story in another issue, and you better be able to prove it to me. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:27, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Please see News and notes for the full article. There are a couple of facts on this in the 1st paragraph and later.
"How was the identity of the symbolic article decided exactly? The new pages software produces an article count and can be updated in practice about every minute. Volunteers watched the count go over 6,000,000, and then counted back on the list of newly created articles to 6,000,000 giving an estimated time of 18:59 UTC. There were 15 articles created during that minute. The articles were screened for quality and one article was chosen from among the highest quality articles by consensus. (pretty clunky prose here) The entire decision process may be viewed at Wikipedia talk:Six million articles."

Feel free to copyedit and add important facts, though I think if it is any longer folks might think we're trying to suggest impropriety. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:21, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

So out of a couple of million articles created since we passed the five million mark, we have a photo finish between a dozen contenders for the title of six millionth article. If that troubles people, perhaps we should have an alternative metric, every millionth article created in or moved to main or draft space. We would by now be somewhere beyond the ten millionth and several of our winners would long have been deleted or redirected. But we should be able to do that precisely. However the more interesting metric for people is how many articles we have, and that inevitably leads to photo finishes as articles are continually being created, moved and deleted. ϢereSpielChequers 15:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict)WSC: "yes, but". It was a photo finish. But is that the message to the public? It seems ... odd that there was by my count a one-hour limited discussion, after which a winner was chosen from among the photo finishers. And a worldwide broadcast about that winner, who just happens to have a Wikipedia knighthood (literally), was immediately picked up by media, at least Tech Crunch and Slashdot and syndicators including Yahoo news. It gives the impression of a rigged process. And I understand that it's the result of a non-process, but the world sees what they see. That's all I'm saying. - Bri.public (talk) 18:55, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
So I've been writing this article with almost no help except from the kibitzers in the peanut gallery. I'll put a very simple question: how would you change the article to reflect objective facts? Please see, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/News and notes and then make concrete suggestions here. If anybody wants to write an op-ed that the philosophy of the "award" is all wrong, please prepare that for next month's issue. I answered above about any accusations of "fixing." If you want to make actual changes to the article, though, please just give me concrete suggestions. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Positive contribution

@Smallbones: per your request.

We recenty reached 1 in 150 articles of GA or FA quality too, was 1 in 200 not that long ago. So we're getting bigger and getting better at the same time. Amazing potential as a resource but a long way to go, we're really only getting started of course. Dr. Blofeld 19:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC) (Jimbo's talkpage)

This might be something worth quoting in the writeup. - Bri.public (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

maybe in News and notes Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:44, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Also, the press coverage is increasing. Here's a sampling of international sources Indonesia, Japan, Turkey, Nigeria -- Bri.public (talk) 22:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC) - -put in In the media. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:44, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
One more: India's Economic Times - Bri.public (talk) 20:09, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

In focus

The In focus column needs a copyedit pass. Recommendation to whoever is able, please turn down the volume on the dashes used by the writer. I count 30+ in the article as it sits. Many times, you can just end a sentence where the dash exists and start a new one. - Bri.public (talk) 20:07, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Author here - every dot of that article has been carefully tuned to multiple audiences over the past two weeks. It's not like I'm getting paid for this - David Gerard (talk) 20:23, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Bri meet David; David, Bri. David is a paid editor - in he real world that is. You might even call him a professional! And he has kindly answered my request with a pretty good article. He's also been an admin on Wikipedia since about 1968. He does have a tremendous disavantage here though - he thinks he is humourous - dash it all. I'll check the dashes before publication. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
I'll try a quick dash-reduction exercise - David Gerard (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
some dashes had done their dash, but the rest are doing work. The style's a bit tabloidy, but that's deliberate, because this is 100% going to be read by outside audiences - not just Wikipedians - who need to be hit over the head with its messages. Just wait till the crypto press get hold of this one and interpret it in truly bizarre ways! I shudder for the article's comment section. Likely to make the Financial Times too, or at least Alphaville - David Gerard (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Fiddling with the actual content is an issue; please don't do that, particularly at the very last second. I mean, I could just put it on my blog and there could be a link to that, though that would be an unfortunate outcome this late in events - David Gerard (talk) 12:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, David. BTW, all hands on deck for copyediting. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:35, 26 January 2020 (UTC)


Brian Bolton obit

MJL, a very nice editor wrote up a very heart-felt obituary for Brian Bolton and asked me to publish it. I have mixed feelings about obits in general, but did not want to say no. My feeling has nothing to do with Brian Bolton, but obituaries have to be handled very carefully. I did tell the author that I was very busy and might not be able to get to it, but I have now.

He requested a copy-paste move from his User:MJL/sandbox3, and it looks legal to me, he's the only one to have edited the sandbox. I added an Obituary rubric and moved it up. Hopefully that will work correctly

  • If anybody here objects to obituaries on The Signpost in general, please let me know here.
  • If any of the arrangements I made above don't work, I'm sorry to say that I don't have any more time. We'll have to remove the obituary if necessary.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Special report

In Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Special report, one of the pull quotes (and corresponding text) says "Effectively, Wikipedia decision-making and has been ceded..." I don't know if that's a stray "and", or if a noun has been omitted (and the verb given the wrong tenseconjugation). Can someone with access to the original source please verify it? isaacl (talk) 13:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The typos was in the original, but it's clearly a typo. I removed the "and" in both places. Thanks. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:00, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Arbitration report

Given that the tentative date to post a proposed decision for the RHaworth case is January 28, I don't think it is fair to say that "the proposed decision has not really opened," nor to speculate it is "perhaps due to limited participation by RHaworth." In the past few years, proposed decisions are rarely posted ahead of schedule by a significant amount of time. isaacl (talk) 23:18, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll rewrite it. ArbCom's not my usual beat. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
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