Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom

Calendar: current deadline is highlighted, and current UTC date is 2024-09-27 17:25:15.
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The Signpost currently has 5593 articles, 699 issues, and 13629 pages (4446 talk and 9183 non-talk).

Current issue: Volume 20, Issue 13 (2024-09-26) ·

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

Articles and pageviews for 2024-09-26

Pageviews for 2024-09-26 (V) Subpage Title 7-day 15-day 30-day 60-day 90-day 120-day 180-day Community view Indian courts order Wikipedia to take down name of crime victim, editors strive towards consensus -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Traffic report Jump in the line, rock your body in time -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Serendipity A Wikipedian at the 2024 Paralympics -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Recent research Article-writing AI is less "prone to reasoning errors (or hallucinations)" than human Wikipedia editors -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Opinion asilvering's RfA debriefing -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 News and notes Are you ready for admin elections? -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 In the media Indian courts order Wikipedia to take down name of crime victim, and give up names of editors -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Gallery Are Luddaites defending the English Wikipedia? -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1

Previous issue: 2024-09-04 · issue page · archive page · single-page edition · single-page talk

Articles and pageviews for 2024-09-04

Pageviews for 2024-09-04 (V) Subpage Title 7-day 15-day 30-day 60-day 90-day 120-day 180-day Gallery Luddaites defending the English Wikipedia? -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 Wikimania A month after Wikimania 2024 536 680 752 752 752 752 752 Traffic report After the gold rush 508 721 843 843 843 843 843 Serendipity What it's like to be Wikimedian of the Year 635 866 985 985 985 985 985 Recent research Simulated Wikipedia seen as less credible than ChatGPT and Alexa in experiment 1081 1330 1493 1493 1493 1493 1493 News from the WMF Meet the 12 candidates running in the WMF Board of Trustees election 634 881 974 974 974 974 974 News and notes WikiCup enters final round, MCDC wraps up activities, 17-year-old hoax article unmasked 1044 1591 1919 1919 1919 1919 1919 In the media AI is not playing games anymore. Is Wikipedia ready? 819 1128 1328 1328 1328 1328 1328 Humour Local man halfway through rude reply no longer able to recall why he hates other editor 661 987 1153 1153 1153 1153 1153

Improving The Signpost

Firstly, regarding deadlines, I believe a significant shortcoming of The Signpost is that the editors themselves set the deadlines. There is a reason why teachers set the deadlines for students. It would be preferable if an uninvolved editor were responsible for setting these deadlines. I'm looking forward to contributing to future issues, and my hope is that The Signpost becomes a periodical, published on a regular schedule (such as on the 1st and 15th of each month). Readers know when to expect the new issue, and subscribers can look forward to their subscription template being updated on those two days. Contributors will also know these deadlines and work to them for their submissions.

Secondly, we should take further measures to boost morale. I suggest featuring a piece on the Main page (possibly a big suggestion, but I'm throwing it out there). This can be a new one or one from the archives. I don't know how the main page works (at all), I strongly oppose the idea of editors nominating their own articles, or anyone affiliated with The Signpost getting involved in this. Svampesky (talk) 11:46, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's say you are in charge of 'the deadine'. What happens if the DEADLINE arrives, and half the articles aren't copy edited? Do you publish anyway? Do you sack the writers and hire new ones at the very competitive rate of 0$/hour? Do you demote them?

We're volunteers here, the Signpost isn't an assignment.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:53, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not much of a critic, but it was more about boosting morale. During my time as a reader, I wasn't particularly aware of The Signpost. I try to write my pieces for those outside the Wikipedia community. If we, as a community, collaborate to showcase our work, it may encourage others to participate for the deadlines. Perhaps I'm being overly ambitious... I think the Main page integration is something we should work towards. Svampesky (talk) 12:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Looking through the archives, it seems that The Signpost used to be published on a regular schedule. What was the atmosphere like back then? In 2019, for example, it was published on the last day of each month. Svampesky (talk) 12:08, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It kind of was, and it kind of wasn't. I am glad you mentioned this, because otherwise it would be another useless piece of information stuck in my head and of no use to anybody, which may be of some interest now. Some months ago I was going through the old revisions of the main Signpost page (to extract the subheadings out and store them in the module, which had previously just been lost forever after the page was overwritten each issue). Well, I figured I could just get a list of publication dates, then take the largest diff for each day, and then that would be that day's issue -- but not in the slightest. In reality, they seem to have almost all been somewhat late, ranging from one day to several days (the "date" of publication, i.e. the part of the URL that has the datestamp in it, only occasionally being the actual day on which an issue was published back in the days before SPS.js). jp×g🗯️ 13:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Huh, I would be curious about the details of this data analysis, do have this posted somewhere? It does not match my recollection and certainly not the results of a quick-and-dirty data analysis I did myself a long time ago for 2009-2011, which indicated that during that timespan, publication delays of more than 24 hours were rare. Also, while I really do not want to be one of those former editors-in-chiefs (they exist) who go on and on about how everything was great at the Signpost during their own tenure and has gone terribly downhill since then, allow me for once to point out that I published over 60 weekly issues myself back then, the vast majority of them on time (i.e. at or slightly before the publication deadline). Similarly, while they likewise don't usually mention it, some other team members who have also weighed in in the various discussions on this page over the last two years or so trying to convince you of the importance of taking the stated publication deadlines more seriously (like Smallbones in this section) also have ample previous experience as editor-in-chief. This is to make you aware that they might find the multitude of explanations/rationales/excuses that have been offered in those discussions on why publishing on time is impossible/supremely difficult/a great hardship/unimportant etc. a bit less convincing than you might think. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

If it helps, my memory of being EIC for the weekly editions in 2012–14 is that we were often late by a day or two but we made a strong effort to not fall farther beyond that. As far as I remember, we never moved the URLs for the new date and that would have fed into the issue JPxG mentioned. (I'm sure we skipped an issue + date here or there too.) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 21:57, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Since I was pinged, I'll just add that I edited about 36 monthly issues. I believe one was cancelled, and most of the rest went to the publisher 30-60 minutes after the deadline (remember this was Sunday night). There were a couple delayed by about 12 hours, maybe 1 of two days. The reason I was basically on time all the time was because I thought that this was my job - getting out an issue up to our standards on time. That's how newspapers work. There's enough chaos in this type of work that everybody else needs to have one fixed point that they can count on. It's the time that everybody can coordinate around. If somebody really needs to be an hour late - we can do it -as long as everybody else is on time and not 3 or 5 hours late. It's also good for the readers to know when we are coming out. As far as former editors saying how great things were back in the day - I don't think I'd say that. We had our challenges. But I don't think I have could handled those challenges if everything else was changing at the same time, as happens when the deadline is missed. I do think missing a deadline is understandable in case of wildfires, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, a family down with COVID, etc. but I did manage one of those without missing the deadline. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:06, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a little harsh considering JPxG was recently in a wildfire. I think The Signpost should aim for publication on 1st and 15th. Svampesky (talk) 01:30, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I didn't write this down anywhere, so my memory may be incorrect, but I recall it being the first couple years when subheadings were used on the main Signpost page, so some time in the early 2010s. For example, this diff is of an issue being published on 2014-08-31, but the articles are all dated /2014-08-27/ (and looking at a random userpage where that issue got delivered, the MassMessage is timestamped August 31). Looking through that page it also seems to happen a lot in 2007 (e.g. 2007-12-10 was delivered on 2007-12-12), but also randomly throughout the years: 2012-01-23 on 01-26, 2013-05-27 on 05-31, etc. jp×g🗯️ 07:03, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Considering two of those were during my time, I suspect my memory was a bit rosy when I said "often late by a day or two"... :-) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 17:08, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

On the broader issue of publishing intervals, I wrote about it at some length in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-01-16/From_the_team; there's even a big graph of publication intervals over time. Basically, there was a weekly publication schedule from '05 through '16 or so. During 2016, publication slowed down a bit, and in 2017 it ate shit entirely for several months (there was nothing at all between February and June). The current schedule of publishing every three weeks is, depending on perspective, either a bold step up from running once a month or a cravenly retreat back from running once every two weeks (which we did a fairly adequate job of through '23 and part of '24). I must say, though, publishing every two weeks was quite arduous -- like Headbomb says, it would often be the case that we'd hit deadline and not have any articles. (not just that there was a bunch of stuff that needed copyedit/expansion, there would be straight-up nothing in some of the drafts besides lipsum).

At any rate, on the bright side, I think this is one of the fullest issues we've had in a while, in no small part due to some of the more recent additions. I think that if this energy can be sustained, it bodes well for the paper. jp×g🗯️ 13:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll look at all of this later. I'm pleased that these suggestions (including blue-green user links) have not been perceived as the difficult-newbie telling everyone what to do, but I'm still not going to self-declare myself as the Peculiarity writer on the about page. I have several ideas prepared for upcoming issues. If I can write something good, my next piece will focus on the UK politics. An election is happening today, and I plan to write all my political pieces after. I'm not much of a critic, but I can provide suggestions. I have some notes with ideas that could help with engagement. I don't think anyone at The Signpost should get involved with Main page space; instead, we should continue our efforts and wait for an someone uninvolved to suggest it. I can also offer a non-Wikipedian-reader perspective, as I was only mildly aware that The Signpost existed. Are you able to see the page views from logged-out vs logged-in? Svampesky (talk) 14:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate the sentiment, but it's just hard to reconcile with the day job sometimes. We all have to juggle work and other commitments along with Signpost deadlines. I actually think we are muddling through quite well at the moment. Andreas JN466 14:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm consolidating all my thoughts here: User:Svampesky/Ideas/Signpost. Please feel free to add it to your watchlist. I prefer not to make too many suggestions outside my userspace. My knowledge is limited on technical restrictions and the time required for implementation. Svampesky (talk) 23:57, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's get serious about the deadline

We have to have a real deadline in order to

• let readers know when we a coming out. People want to know when there is new material to read, without checking 2 or 3 times a month
• let authors know when to actually submit their work. If you don't have a real deadline, people will often wait until just before the time when they think you'll actually publish. In my experience, having a deadline is the only way that newspaper production is organized. It's a waste of contributors' time not having a deadline. If JPxG is going to show up for the first time after the deadline, so too will the submissions, but there won't be any any copyeditors around, or any chance to get early feedback on an article. In short it isn't a production process, it is just chaos. "News" is time dependent. If we want to have news in our newspaper, the news writers have to know when it is going to be published. (I'll have more tomorrow or Wednesday)
• Just a suggestion, if the eic consistently is 2 days late in publishing, he should just show up 2 days earlier.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:09, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

• Support to light a fire under JPxG, who is a very competent EiC. I support The Signpost's mission of being the Wikimedia movement's online newspaper. While JPxG performs admirably to support and enhance this mission when active, his first appearance being after the deadline undermines the credibility of The Signpost and its mission. Svampesky (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Quick comment (as an alum from long ago): You can choose to have releases on a fixed schedule rather than to fixed quality. Then every issue is guaranteed to have a few easy-to-compile beats, basic stats, and a reminder of where and how to submit or discuss the next issue. In that case it's fine to have shorter issues published by a broader range of editors comfortable w/ the mechanics of publishing, even if the EiC isn't available. Experience running the shorter routine issues can be a way to get experience editing. Complex stories that would benefit from more review can still get pushed to a later issue. Since the wiki is not paper you can even include teasers pointing readers to drafts in progress if you want public input.

  And you could choose to, say, color the archives [or even the headers of the updates posted to talk pages :) ] to distinguish routine vs major issues, special editions, &c. – SJ + 16:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  Same. One of the things that has been a problem is that deadline will roll around and there will not be a whole lot ready -- but as Sj says, it's not really the end of the world to put out an issue that doesn't have every possible thing in it. Probably Smallbones is right too, and consistently doing this for a while will stop people from thinking that it will be fine to get stuff in late anyway, and this chicken-egg thing will resolve itself. Well, at any rate: I'll be there. jp×g🗯️ 02:06, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

  Well, on this note, we went out merely one day late this time, albeit at the cost of not publishing some of the stuff that rolled in after the writing deadline. This of course feels bad, because there is a bunch of crap left over for the next issue that probably could have been ready with a couple hours of editing and checking, but on the plus side it was a hell of a lot less stressful than the typical process, and it was almost not published late to boot. jp×g🗯️ 10:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

  In case there are anyone here who don't know what Douglas Adams said about deadlines, it's on Wikiquote. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm only a simple caveman, and your electronic boxes with words and sounds frighten and confuse me, but perhaps it would make more sense to publish stories as they are ready, and simply send out a digest of completed articles every month? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:30, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Epic hrrmery -- some five hours to publication

I have been looking over the stuff in the newsroom every few hours: I note we are missing a couple of things, particularly the discussion report. @Svampesky: any update on that?

At any rate, I have stuff I would like to write, and will not get to -- so it goes. I plan to run it with whatever we've got in those few hours, and if the issue ends up being very thin gruel, I suppose it can just be the thin-gruel issue. jp×g🗯️ 16:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I finished it yesterday, but didn't want any inaccuracies in the page history. It will be published by the deadline. See Special:Diff/1235504982. I do all my Wikipedia writing at roughly the same time in the evening (which is now). Svampesky (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Reminder for folks who would like to help out with copyediting that you can go through the list at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Article_status and look for those that are marked "Ready for copyedit".

The top story in News and notes still looks very drafty - @Bri, Jayen466, and Bluerasberry: is any of you planning to wrap it up before the deadline? (to ping the three folks currently listed as authors there)

As usual, I'm aiming to have RR in a publishable state by the deadline.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:13, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Y I have the top story in form which appears publishable but anyone else can edit it further. Bluerasberry (talk) 20:47, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

User:Svampesky/Drafts/Signpost/Trump_raised_fist_photo @JPxG Svampesky (talk) 20:52, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay, well, it's almost midnight here so I guess this is a tomorrow task. Imagine being only one day late. jp×g🗯️ 06:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

20:13 Gallery

I'll take it a bit easy for the next issue and do the Gallery, as I want commit my time to creating a few more mainspace articles, as my two previous pieces consumed all of my 'Wikipedia-time'. The Trump piece was last-minute because I wasn't anticipating an assassination attempt, and the Twitter one was rushed since the move was relisted, and I wanted to use that headline. Svampesky (talk) 13:24, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Still ploughing though Commons with this. It will be completed well before publication deadline, and won't need much copyediting. Svampesky (talk) 20:41, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm fleshing out my draft (User:Svampesky/Drafts/Signpost/Luddaites). Is there a reason why paintings are used in medical articles on enwiki? I can't find anything in the policy or guidelines about it. Svampesky (talk) 19:30, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

From what I can tell, they're used A. for things where a photograph wouldn't do much. A painting of Narcissus at least says something about the origin of the word narcissism. A photograph might risk the old 2000s trend of some person becoming connected with an emotion or thing. (Y'know, Overly Attached Girlfriend, etc.) Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 19:45, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

On the AI image article

I think this one is a cell that the AI gave its own personalised red tumour. That's... just not how cells grow. Or how cancer looks. Cancer cells don't have their own tiny tumours, for easy identification. As far as I can tell, this is based on images of cancer cells with an immune system cell attacking them (which would be the red thing - except that got turned into a tumor on the cell, because T-cells... well, just look up T-cells attacking cancer on Google images. You'll see: They just do not look like that).

This tumour-on-a-cell was in a freaking article! Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 10:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Adam Cuerden, I'll include it. Svampesky (talk) 21:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I added a little context to the other awful cellular images. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 09:48, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

---

The section titled AI-generated images on Wikipedia articles in non-AI contexts mentions that "policies vary between different language versions of Wikipedia." However, I believe this section misrepresents the policies of several wikis, as many of them rely on Wikidata to automatically display images. These changes occur outside of local projects, so editors often don't notice them. For instance, on Arabic Wikipedia, the image for "Dystopia" was promptly removed once I became aware of it. - Anwon (talk) 23:46, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying me about this, I wasn't aware that this took place. I've edited the report Special:Diff/1247372792. Svampesky (talk) 01:04, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the reference altogether Special:Diff/1247373545, as the Spanish Wikipedia one is still live. Svampesky (talk) 01:07, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

• @Svampesky: I sent you a message, but will ping you here as well: do we know what the situation is with the two drafts? jp×g🗯️ 12:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG: I received your message and addressed the concerns you raised. I sent over some notes about the 'In the media' column. Mainly that it's approved for publication, but it's unfinished. It currently reads closed the discussion and authored the consensus statement. In that statement, they ... (more in a bit), but there isn't any more of it in the report. Svampesky (talk) 14:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

• @Svampesky: Sorry, this question got moved to #20:13. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:31, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13 Traffic report

@Igordebraga Is it OK if I expand the write-ups for Linkin Park myself? I feel like the controversy currently surrounding the band also played a part in boosting pageviews for them and Armstrong, so I wanted to address that, as well. Oltrepier (talk) 11:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead, remember to put your name in the authors and remove the byline where I note the short write-ups. (almost considered adding a mention of the discussion raised by putting a female singer; but as made clear, I hate this band and wanted to say as little as possible) igordebraga ≠ 12:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Igordebraga Er, unfortunately, the controversy I was referring to is much more serious than that...

Anyway, thank you! Oltrepier (talk) 13:10, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Expansion

This is not a criticism, just pointing it out so the Signposters are aware. There has been what I'd call noticeable expansion of the draft Traffic report, such that our published version really doesn't match the TOP25 report. The addition in that one edit was almost 10% of the original size of the Traffic report – maybe to the point where the Signpost editor should be added to the byline. We don't usually work it this way, so I'm bringing it up in case it needs discussion. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:24, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bri That's on me, sorry for that...

Aside of the two write-ups on Linkin Park, where I felt like the current controversy surrounding the band was just too notable to get left on the cutting room floor (for further context, look how big is the talk page discussion about it, already), I was just trying to focus on copy-edit the blurbs and add some minor details, so I did not expect my changes to be this evident.

@Igordebraga allowed me to add my name to the credit list, though, so I don't think this is going to be a big deal. Oltrepier (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Note: I've just clarified my involvement in editing both the reports on the article's page. Oltrepier (talk) 16:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Oltrepier Just in future cases, you could've added your commentary to the WP:TOP25 as well. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 06:25, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Vestrian24Bio You're right, I'll keep that in my mind for future occasions. Oltrepier (talk) 09:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to leave this here, I often put what the Signpost corrects or suggests on the Top 25 Report, but again, I preferred to talk little on the subject Oltrepier offered to write about (if you can't say anything nice...), and asked him to put a credit to note his additions. Now, all I want is to see this published. igordebraga ≠ 05:46, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Political concern

This column has had trouble in the past IMHO concerning political views, but I usually let it slide. This time I think there's a real problem that could call The Signpost into question as a source of disinformation. The blurb for the Democrat U.S. presidential candidate includes the statement below:

[H]er rival talked about immigrants in Ohio abducting and eating dogs and cats, as well as transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.

The first claim was debunked almost as soon as it was spoken. The problem for us is that the second half of the sentence, lumped in with the first as if it were equally absurd, is taken by many to reflect the opponent's true characterization of her position in the record. This fact is even elaborated in the last sentence at the section Political positions of Kamala Harris#Immigration, including sourcing to CNN. Just for context, here is Susan Glasser being fact checked on equating the veracity of precisely these two statements made in the debate.

We should carefully consider how we may appear to take sides in this. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:06, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bri, the closest thing I can find is WP:SYNTH, is there anything closer to what you're describing? I also think there needs to be a broader discussion on how The Signpost handles WP:NPOV, which is a Wikipedia policy. I've probably violated this somewhere in my Signpost reports, but a discussion would be useful. Svampesky (talk) 18:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I think we have treated Traffic report somewhat like an op-ed in that there's a great deal of latitude for the authors' opinions and commentary. It would be a pretty dry report without that aspect, and I support making it more interesting and readable, including not following NPOV for this feature. We've hashed this out in the Newsroom before, and I was OK with the outcome. My significant objections in the past came up with some stuff that had let's say a preference for one nationality or one national view of the world. But this one seems different in that it clearly supports one particular candidate in an ongoing election process, and does so with debunked information from their opponent/s. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

We can start by adding the "This report contains the opinions of its writers" disclaimer, and that should address most of my concerns. In terms of making it interesting and readable, the report should aim for a 1:1 ratio of commentary about each candidate. The article about the debate reads Harris also made some misleading and false claims during the debate, including that Trump left the succeeding administration with "the worst unemployment since the Great Depression." Harris also falsely stated that "there is not one member of the United States military who is an active duty in a combat zone", with the United States military's Central Command shortly thereafter issuing a statement that it had engaged various Houthi targets in Yemen within the past 24 hours. It could balance out the report by including something about that, where WP:DUE. Svampesky (talk) 18:48, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I generally do a "tourist view" of this column, just looking for things like this. The idea is that it always hurt my ability to copy edit when I sometimes see something that just sticks out and would have people staring at it, as well as might be against Wikipedia rules or journalistic standards. Ultimately, this job belongs to the EiC, but I just got used to doing it. I'd say it's important every 2-3 issues, so it needs to be done every issue. I'll take a look. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:52, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Well the tourist view of just the Harris and Trump blurbs looks ok to me - for the the part about the pets is just fine. Yes people will just stare with their jaws dropping, but it's just the way it is, sorta like the first time you see the Statue of Liberty, or something else truly amazing. A+ reporting there. The second part is problematic. Is there a grain of truth to what DT said? If so somebody who knows more than I do about the topic should rewrite it, or just take it out. It'll leave more space for the tourists. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:09, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree and thank User:Bri for raising it. We should take the second bit out or rewrite it; Trump was essentially right there. [1] (I am "old enough" to remember the Signpost's 2016 Trump debacle ...) Andreas JN466 21:10, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I take a bit of a severe position with respect to election stuff on Wikipedia as a whole. It is kind of like that old saying -- "if you owe the bank $1,000 you have a problem, if you owe the bank $1,000,000 you have a big problem, if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000 they have a big problem". That is to say, in a political event with as much nonstop wall-to-wall coverage as the US presidential election, the actual influence exerted by Wikipedians making editorializing remarks about the candidates is close to zero, and if there is any reputation being tarnished by our doing so sloppily, it is our own. In this case (and especially given we are a few weeks from the paraoxysm itself) I think it would just be better to, if the ceteris is paribus, stick to saying things that are objective and verifiably true, unless we have some specific reason to do otherwise. That is, if there's an actual journalistic interest being served by getting into contentious political topics, by all means we should do so, but we should try to avoid doing this merely to say that we've got a freakin' cheeto/waffle cone/coconut/etc in the white house. jp×g🗯️ 12:51, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Your edits here are in line with what I would consider good practice for The Signpost. Thank you. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:41, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed.

And as a general principle: While we are not bound to mainspace policies like NPOV and NOR, and give quite a bit of leeway to opinions and investigative findings in the Signpost, we should confine that liberty to stuff that is on topic for the Signpost.

Meaning that there is certainly room for politically sensitive content that may rile up various partisans in culture wars and geopolitical conflicts - but only as long as it pertains to relevant Wikipedia/Wikimedia topics. As soon as contributors start to mistake the Signpost as a forum for venting their general political views on (as hypothetical examples) the misdeeds of Trump/the woke mind virus/"support for genocide" by entity X/"support for terrorism" or antisemitism by entity Y etc. etc., we need to put our foot down. That's not just in the interest of keeping the Signpost's content relevant and avoiding to lose readers unnecessarily, but also important for conserving our energies so we can defend controversial coverage in cases that actually matter.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13 In the media

This might be worth a mention [2]. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:42, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Clovermoss Actually, I've already added it to the "In the media" section, but thank you for flagging it... and congratulations for featuring in the article! : ) Oltrepier (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

We almost covered it twice! I added it too without realizing your link was to the same piece. Has been removed. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:51, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bri No worries! By the way, I did manage to write a short draft for this story, but I don't know if I'll have enough time to complete it; plus, as a Gen Z user myself, it would feel a bit strange, and maybe even braggadocious to report on an article praising young contributors...

Everyone who wants to help expand the blurb is more than welcome! Oltrepier (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

People who use the word "braggadocious" automatically raise suspicions. Just kidding!!! I'll try to weave some non-gen-Z perspective into it later. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:05, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Zionism

Just wanted to flag he rewrite of the Zionism article is creating a bunch of angry emails to VRT. Probable due to articles such as https://www.jns.org/wikipedia-defines-zionism-as-colonialism-sparking-outrage/. I think it is worth a mentionsomewhere this upcoming publication. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 21:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I added it to the existing Bias in religion/ethnicity related articles? bullet at In brief. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore has also criticised the changes to the Zionism article in a tweet; see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions § Suggestion by Ham II (2024-09-17). Talk:Zionism § Bat Signal has a link to another piece of news coverage, in The Jewish Press. With this much coverage I don't think the accusations of anti-Semitism/anti-Israeli bias should be lumped together with the Indian article and the one about Buddhism in a "Bias in religion/ethnicity related articles?" bullet point. Ham II (talk) 16:31, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13 Recent research

As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now in its fourteenth year). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here, as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:33, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13 News and notes

Henna Virkkunen set to serve in the EU Commission

Hello! Sorry for this very belated message, but I just wanted to let you know that Finnish MEP Henna Virkkunen is officially the candidate to serve as the Executive Vice-President for Tech-Sovereignty, Security and Democracy in the upcoming European Commission. I think this might be interesting for us, considering that Virkkunen followed the development of the Digital Services Act for the EPP. It should be noted, though, that her appointment is still subject to official hearings and approval by the European Parliament.

Do you think it would be worth it to squeeze a brief blurb in the N&N section (also considering there are three lead stories already), or should we wait until she finally gets the green light?

I'm tagging Jayen466 and HaeB, since they previously wrote about the DSA. Oltrepier (talk) 09:47, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I would be inclined to wait so we can include the perspective of Wikimedia Europe's policy monitoring report (cf. the comments in their July issue about other EU personnel changes). In any case, as those reports show, there is usually a lot going on in EU policy that is relevant from a Wikimedia perspective, and we only cover a fraction of it in the Signpost, so highlighting a particular still speculative appointment would seem a bit uneven. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:41, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@HaeB Right, thank you for the feedback! Oltrepier (talk) 21:11, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Global bans

On the 1st Global ban reported, there is a link to a proposed WikiNews article. It's a good article, but has not been approved for publication by Wikinews. I don't think that we can link to it. Just like people shouldn't link to, quote or republish our draft articles, we can't scoop Wikinews by linking to their own drafts. "Not published" means that it couldn't possibly be a reliable source and a global ban is a serious matter. I'd say that if the authors want to submit it here, that would be another matter, but they haven't submitted it here and stealing an article from another publication is also a serious matter, so everything would have to be done by the book. I'll write something short using SCMP and Hong Kong Journalist Association Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

FYI: There was a English version press release by HKJA. SCP-2000 08:41, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Smallbones I just wanted to let you know that I've written a short blurb for you about Flamelai's glock, hopefully it's good enough. Oltrepier (talk) 11:29, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Request for review - sensitive - Kolkata

See

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media

I drafted the section, "India high court demands name removal". Part of what I wrote is more objective. Check that out. In the collapsed section, I attempted to summarize pro/con arguments, and while I tried to present both sides in a neutral way, any summary is subjective and to some extent, a matter of opinion. I am submitting this to "in the media" as neutral media coverage and necessary context to understand what is happening, but I would appreciate other people reading this and editing it to make it more neutral if anything stands out as misguided.

Other details here: Supreme Court of India involved, major media issue in India, this is likely to be a case study in Wikipedia/Wikimedia history, the case itself is shocking as an incident and shocking as one instance of a trend of violence, and that there are claims in play about Wikipedia's effect on the offline safety of article subjects and Wikipedia editors. I also posted this with a trigger warning, which I feel is a best practice to separate content about sexual assault from readers who do not wish to expose themselves to this kind of media and information. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:55, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I just saw it before coming here. In general I approve. I may go back and shave a bit off (vs. copy editing), but you are very close to a proper, but delicate, balance. Keep up the good work. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:38, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the trigger warning (WP:TRIGGER is an essay, not a guideline or policy) but otherwise seems OK to me. I suppose we could pre-emptively apply Template:Censor to the talkpage? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:59, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Support hatnote, but oppose collapsed section. In mainspace articles, readers know what to expect based on the title, so a warning isn't necessary. This isn't the case for the Signpost and hatnotes are also common in online news reports. Svampesky (talk) 19:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

• Invited Signpost contributions from talk page - Talk:2024_Kolkata_rape_and_murder_incident#The_Signpost,_Wikipedia's_own_newsletter Bluerasberry (talk) 19:58, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
  • See my comment at "20-13 opinion" below, starting "Let's not try to preempt the discussion on the talk page." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry I have to say that I really like the "India high court demands name disclosure/India high court demands name removal" headings. Some related discussion at Jimbotalk. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:40, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

😃

For Signpost team - I am out till Monday and cannot update the piece before scheduled publication. If Signpost has not gone out, will update Monday. The needed addition is the close of the RfC. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry, should we move all of your work into the 'Community view' column? The story is significant enough to justify a split, particularly if the RfC close is going to be included. I'm unsure about the correct way to copy it over with the correct attribution. Svampesky (talk) 15:22, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Svampesky: I am supportive of anyone else doing that editorial labor but I am spent and do not have much more to give. I cannot set that up and time is running out for anyone else to do so.

I have links including permalinks in the text. Attribution can be done by name-dropping and linking to anyone quoted.

I agree that this is longer than a typical "in the media" column, and also it contains more commentary than is usual, and that having another column including my commentary and the text of the closing statement is a reasonable thing to do. I just do not have the capacity to organize this right now. News and publishing comes fast! Bluerasberry (talk) 23:33, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13 Opinion

I wanted to clarify that this column is already reserved. I've reached out to an editor to write for it, and I'll wait for them to submit it, if they choose to do so. It's unrelated to the Kolkata discussion. Svampesky (talk) 20:32, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Let's not try to preempt the discussion on the talk page. The WMF has asked (on that talk page) for some kind of reading on the community view. We shouldn't have a one-sided opinion piece in that case, we may not be able to get the other side for another month. Maybe somebody involved could present why they agree in part with both sides. Maybe we could use the Op-ed page to present a second view if this page is strongly in favor of one side. Having readers think that The Signpost favors one view is exactly the wrong thing to do right now. BTW, my reading of the talk page discussion is that almost everybody has a very strong view one way or the other, but that the outcome will be "no consensus". This one is not for us to chime in on. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:24, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

The opinion piece for the next issue is Asilvering's RfA debriefing. Svampesky (talk) 22:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13 Community view

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view

Per the WMF statement: It will never be sufficient to just say, "Wikipedia is not censored"... We therefore encourage you to explain clearly why you feel the balance of interests lies one way or the other, in order to reach consensus accordingly. Not only does this enrich and support the functioning and content of the projects, but it allows the Foundation to support and explain those decisions to the extent possible, and to ensure that authorities and Wikipedia readers at large take into consideration the function and purpose of the encyclopedia when they have concerns about content. We should all collaborate on the explanation of our decision in some form. This section serves as a suggestion of how we might respond.

I'm not creating the page because there is currently not a consensus that the community will respond in this way. I also don't want to imply that there's a rush to close the discussion, so the header of this section can be changed to 20:14 Community view or we can push the deadline back a few days to accommodate. Svampesky (talk) 23:28, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Pinging @Chaotic Enby, per Special:Diff/1246457628, to notify them of this section. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to just copy-and-paste your comment over. Svampesky (talk) 02:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I was just about to post a slightly edited version of it, thanks! (I should probably write more but it's 4am right now where I live so I might do it tomorrow) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 02:13, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby, I've now BOLDly created the page, feel free to make your edits there. The page is currently for drafting and is not intended to rush the closure of the discussion, as consensus still needs to be formed on what our response should be. Publishing it in the Signpost, is still only a suggestion. Svampesky (talk) 03:03, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

As one of the participants in the RfC, I support making it clear that, if the closing decision is to oppose inclusion, it will have very much been due to consensus supported by multiple policies and guidelines (WP:BLPNAME, WP:DUE, WP:ONUS have all been mentioned), and that pressure from the Indian government didn't play a role.

Whatever its result, this RfC is explicitly not an invitation for India's Supreme Court to use legal pressure to influence Wikipedia's contents. Although, of course, individual members are welcome to participate in our consensus-building discussions like anyone else. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 02:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby as long as they don't imply nor pursue WP:LEGAL THREATS. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:10, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

20:13

The issue is ready to publish now; I am awaiting clarification on the Gallery (there are two different drafts with different content in them). Apart from that I am ready to push the button and will come back in a couple hours (if I don't hear anything further I will merge the two draft versions and go with what comes from that). jp×g🗯️ 12:15, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Will Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Book review be included this time? Perhaps with an editor's note saying this should have been a few issues ago? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:18, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@Headbomb I was about to address the same, since that article is basically ready to go, too...

@JPxG and Smallbones: I'm tagging both of you just to flag this discussion. Oltrepier (talk) 21:00, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

this should have been a few issues ago - why should it have been a few issues ago? To catch the book's pre-order marketing window?

As a reminder, we also have another review of the same book that had been submitted first. The author of the above linked review then tried to to muscle that earlier review aside in favor of his own, citing unspecified concerns (possibly that it was a bit less positive than his own). This situation calls for an editorial decision on whether to run one or both, (and which one/in which order). It looks like this hasn't been made yet.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:48, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @HaeB:. I hope we can agree to disagree on this, in an agreeable manner. I submitted an article that I though would be better than the alternative, that's all. As far as I know, we've never had a rule that somebody cannot submit an article. It's up to the E-i-C what to do with it. Can we agree on that? Let @JPxG: deal with it. If anybody wants an easy way out of the situation, I'll just say that it would be fine with me to publish both reviews as, say, "Book review 1" and "Book review 2" with mine as number 2 (or even number 1 if people prefer that but in general I'd say that wouldn't help things), either on separate pages or on the same page. I'll also say that I don't see the point in writing "this should have been a few issues ago". If that doesn't help, then I'd rather not discuss it now. Ultimately, it's up to JPxG. Can we agree on that? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:24, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Nobody claimed that there is a rule that somebody cannot submit an article. I explained earlier in detail what I found problematic about your actions instead. But we don't need to rehash that here (hopefully you can still take at least some of that feedback into account for the future).

And I'm not opposed to running your review now that the book has been published. Rather, my points above were 1) that that suggested "editor's note" does not make sense (it seems you agree), and 2) that, as you say yourself, an editorial decision needs to be made about how to handle these two submissions (your suggestions sound fine to me).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:47, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@HaeB: Thank you very much for this note. I've always thought you were a wonderful colleague and it distressed me to see that we disagreed, even though I don't feel that you did anything wrong. On a similar note about "thanks". In In the media How to give away 25 million euros. I like the simple "Thanks Marlene!" much better than "Still:Thanks, Marlene". The "Still:" might be viewed as if we see that she did something wrong, something like "Thanks, but you could have done better". I doubt you meant that, but some people might read it that way. The comma after "Thanks," is also a bit odd, but I don't know the grammatical rule. It looks to me like "Thanks, Marlene!" is what Marlene would write to us in a letter thanking us! But it's us thanking her, so no comma seems more natural.

Thanks,

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:41, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, and of course I have great appreciation for lots of your Signpost contributions myself.

I don't feel strongly about that wording, but since you bring it up: I had added that "still" because the angle of the Wikipedia-relevant part of this New Yorker article is actually a little negative ("Wikipedia" having been the most controversial among the many donation recipients and receiving only a fraction of what others got). Besides, that expression of gratitude also feels a bit odd because a major angle of her unusual action seems to be that she feels that she does not legitimately own that money, and purposefully did not make this particular donation decision herself. So it's possible that in the unlikely case that she reads this Signpost article, she might be less receptive to such messaging than the average multimillionaire philanthropist. (I also just added some Wikipedia-relevant context to the story which also might illuminate that kind of difference a little.) Anyway though, it's not a big deal. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:37, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, both reviews should be published, IMO. As for 'a few issues ago', it's because it Sgerbic's dates from early June 2024, and Smallbones' from mid July. I thought only one of the reviews had been published, hence why an editor's note would clarify things, but since neither have been published, they can both be published alongside each other. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:33, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

• @Svampesky: I noticed you basically wrapped up by 2000 UTC. Would you say that Gallery is done now? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:31, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

  Yes. I was just adding some more images I found on Commons before it got published. I'm expecting it to be published tomorrow (UTC), so I added a hatnote to the section as it won’t need to be updated post-publication. Svampesky (talk) 22:59, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

  Okay then @JPxG: I think everything is ready for publication now. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:28, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

  Can I just say, as a lurker looking in from the sidelines - this issue looks like it will be great! :) Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 08:07, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Josve05a Thank you, I think we all hope so! : )

  I'm particularly curious to see how the ITM column will perform, and especially the lead story about Harrison and his view on Gen Z Wikipedians. Oltrepier (talk) 09:16, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@JPxG: What happened with the book reviews? Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 21:17, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Another issue is in bed. Good job, everybody! ☆ Bri (talk) 21:26, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I just spot checked delivery to 3-4 subscribers, it looks good. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:32, 26 September 2024 (UTC)