Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2017-01-17

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2017-01-17. For general Signpost discussion, see

Wikipedia talk:Signpost
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Arbitration report: Concluding 2016 and covering 2017's first two cases (1,104 bytes · 💬)

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Featured content: One year ends, and another begins (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-01-17/Featured content

From the editor: Next steps for the Signpost (35,569 bytes · 💬)

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General discussion

I like The Signpost delivered as I currently have it - a table of contents transcluded on my usertalk. No Watchlist/notification disturbance and always where I want it and up to date. --

old fashioned! 11:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

The Signpost
The Signpost
Maybe this is the same thing as Dweller uses, but I get my subscription via the userbox at right. I don't know why everybody doesn't use it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:16, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Personally I like the surprise element of the publication schedule and I really worry that setting a goal or deadline of monthly, with the way it has been going, could lead to even longer lapses. Fortnightly is good for me because nobody (in the US at least)-really knows what that means anyhow. As far as crediting contributors-thank-you for that byline! The idea of offering resume building/recruitment...has me wondering how hard would it be to offer internships? Or if it is a good idea or not? That available social media position isn't going to Tweet itself and it would make a nice resume item, even if offered in shifts like 6 months or so? TeeVeeed (talk) 12:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Signpost is valuable for sharing news within the Wikimedia community, and as a conversation hub, and for providing summaries of wiki culture for the historical record. The Signpost has also published some stories which have been weighty enough to be meaningful to people who normally would not be interested in Wikipedia or think of reading any community newsletter.
Because of the importance of this publication, and because of a trend for the wiki community to more often consider using grant funds in ways that develop the reputation, outreach, and engagement of the wiki community, if anyone had any clever ideas for using grant funds to lead The Signpost to realize its potential then I would comment and support. Anyone can post ideas about The Signpost or anything else to meta:Grants:start in an appropriate place. Ideas which have been raised in the past include development of software for The Signpost', hiring of part-time staff for coordinating In The News summaries of external media mentions (said to be a tedious role), hiring or part-time staff to coordinate interlinks and summaries of other wiki-newletters, including the WMF, WMDE, tech, GLAM, Wikidata, and other ones. If there were a rotating internship program at The Signpost for journalism students then from one perspective it seems controversial to pay for content, but from another perspective for years the international wiki community has major projects with major investment which are almost unknown for lack of journalism. If somewhere were available to coordinate interviews then volunteers would offer them, and a journalism intern could be a way to surface such stories. Top stories in The Signpost get 5000 reads and external media attention after publication. This is wiki's own newspaper of record and if it has problems then I wish we could explore options to support volunteers in maintaining it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:02, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The schedule: if weekly is impossible, fortnightly is a good compromise, especially as monthly could so easily devolve to bi-monthly, then quarterly, then bi-annual ... – Athaenara ✉ 13:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The survey question "What's your preferred way to receive the Signpost?" omits the option I currently use to subscribe: A link to the front page of the current issue in my Watchlist. Funcrunch (talk) 19:22, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    It also omits the way I prefer to receive it: weekly, even if very short. 140.247.0.132 (talk) 21:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I check
    WP:POST once a week for a new edition. Most of the questions asked in the poll are not applicable. —Naddy (talk) 12:30, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]

Thank you all, I'm reading along with great interest, and glad to see some responses to the poll coming in as well. We left some subscription options out of the poll question, not out of antipathy toward them, but because I have no reason to think they will ever go away; in hindsight, that was a mistake, and I regret any confusion we may have caused with that decision. Your comments here (and/or in the "other" field in the poll) are helpful to see. It's heartening to know that at least some of you do value more frequent publication; we will certainly take that into account, and redouble our efforts to publish on a fortnightly schedule (or at least closer to it). Bluerasberry, thank you for the detailed comments; your thinking aligns closely with options we have discussed, and I hope to talk with you about it in greater detail. One area I want to be sure we address is, if we do anything involving money, we need to be sure to have a framework in place that ensures responsible spending and editorial independence; very achievable, I believe, but it takes some work. TeeVeeed, your byline is well deserved -- your unexpected contribution to In the Media was a nice gust of wind in our sails! We would be delighted if you'd like to continue; we'll be in touch. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:04, 17 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]

I forgot to come here. I follow a link to get here but I don't want my talk page cluttered so I don't have a "subscription". That wouldn't get me here since I would just look to see what the message was and then it would be ignored. Since I don't have a lot of time to read, monthly is fine with me.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How important is the Signpost to Wikipedia

Don’t know if others share my view that the fate of Wikipedia as a whole is tied to the health of the Signpost? I found out about the Signpost years ago when the signpost box was a fixture on many of user-talk-pages. I may be wrong, but it seems like fewer editors now participate or even follow the signpost:

ping me[reply
]

What an excellent template, I wasn't aware of it. But, it seems perhaps it doesn't work so well on pages with slashes in the title? That's the only pattern that seems to stand out with a little experimenting. Here's the chart for the Signpost's main page:
I appreciate your broader point. I like to think that much of the Signpost's value lies in its ability to convene people for discussion; even when our coverage is imperfect, it often stimulates conversation that leads many people to a better understanding of various topics. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@
ping me[reply
]
Thanks for the note, Ottawahitech. Perhaps Fixuture might be interested in writing something for the Signpost? An overview of the features of the page views tool, and this template, might not be enough in itself for a story, but perhaps alongside a couple other lesser-known Tool Labs tools? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]

Same graph going back to July 2015, the limit of the data. What happened in July 2015? A lot of people were angry. Other than that, not much change. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:00, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Smallbones, thanks for this. It's interesting, and a view I hadn't looked at; but I'm not sure exactly what it tells us. What are the circumstances that make people look directly at the front page? I wish I knew better. The stats we tend to track more closely are the views of the individual articles (and the single page edition). It might be interesting to sample some of the individual articles around July 2015 (which was shortly after a contentious WMF board election, and also during Wikimania) to see if there were certain topics driving more traffic than others. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]
@
I suggested
to add it to all talk pages by default as it's very useful / interesting and the pageviews feature currently pretty hidden and unknown. This however was opposed with the rationale of potential performance issues (the probably load & computing costs could be investigated) and the existence of a link to the pageviews (hidden and in practice inaccessible to 99.9% of readers).
@Peteforsyth: Thanks for the suggestion! It kinda flatters me to be offered that and would love to in general. However I'm not that knowledgeable in and concerned with the pageviews tool or any other lesser known tools and I'm not sure if I could also write about something else and if so about what. For instance I'm more interested in making already existing useful tools and structures known, accessible and useful/effective. Saying: for example there are many categories and scripts and the like which could be very useful but aren't because the people for which they would be useful don't know about them. I've seen this side of the practical reality often getting neglected in all kinds of areas. Basically it really doesn't matter much how much effort is put into research, development (software development mostly) if said remains unknown. This is also one reason why I'm here editing Wikipedia: research, journalistic efforts and the like aren't worth much if said don't get known to the public. Part of this is putting them into context and basically indexing them in appropriate ways. Mostly this means making stuff findable for those who are interested in it. This is also part of the networking paradigm that has been called "Uberisation" when applied to economic agents: people already offering a service or being open to do so can easily be networked with those who look for one. In the same way information, software and concepts need to be networked with those who look for it.
Here are some pages that I recently created that might be of interest to the Signpost:
  • Wikipedia:Expert help - a page about bringing experts and those who look for experts together
  • Wikipedia:Data mining Wikipedia - a central index of Wikipedia datamining projects and research and for useful help for such (btw analysis of pageview trends is one such method)
  • Wikipedia:Reading infoboxes - relevant to the above and about the potential of making the already existing infoboxes more useful
  • Wikipedia:List of Wikipedia-related websites - a very incomplete index of websites that also gives some insights in the ways Wikipedia can be used for plus aims to be a central index
  • Wikipedia:Threats to Wikipedia - a page about potential threats and countermeasures
  • Also here I suggested some changes that may help getting Wikipedia scripts more known for those for which they might be useful.
  • Lastly I think there are countless potential improvements that could be made to Wikipedia which simply only require developer-time and hence we probably should run some kind of call for developers - such would probably be worth more than any donation-fundraising - and make it very easy for them to get started and implement new features (or fix bugs).
  • And of course I started many other things that I forgot to mention here and am planning for some new similar stuff...
From my view Wikipedia is the largest (single-)structured network of humanity's culture, perception, knowledge and concepts (e.g. also by its linguistic distinctions). By it and methods of data-mining one can gain one of a kind views into the collective mind of humanity. (Note that the Web at large is unstructured and hence it's not really possible / useful on that scale.) So for instance I'd be very interested in visualizations of article linking and categories. Meaning there could be a system that analyses all of Wikipedia's articles that takes all the various metadata into account and evaluates the relatedness of articles by their category-system and interlinking which are e.g. visualized by link-strength and/or proximity. The closest to such is http://wiki.polyfra.me/
--Fixuture (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Readers are potential, future contributors

  • How does the Signpost publicize its existence, so that potential readers are aware of it? I ask because to the extent that the reading population shrinks or grows, that affects the number of potential contributors. Moreover, long-time readers have seen many appeals to contribute, and presumably have decided against that, while newer readers have not. (It would be nice, for example, that when an editor reaches a threshold - say, 500 or 1000 edits, that he/she gets a talk page message congratulating him/her, and suggesting that he/she might enjoy reading the Signpost.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:24, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 Rather than an active appeal to contribute, changing the "Suggestions" link in the summary to "Submit news or ideas" and having it link to a wiki form, might be more welcoming. 140.247.0.132 (talk) 21:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    +2 I would support auto notification of everyone who reaches 500 edits. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:24, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very good points. John Broughton, I believe an automatic notification has been discussed among the Newsletter Extension developers; an edit threshold for the Signpost would be pretty easy, but I'm not sure there's an easy way to do it for topic-specific newsletters like the Bugle. Maybe Qgil-WMF can comment.

And yes, we should tweak our invitation. It'll take a little while to get that one right, as we still have thinking to do about the best tasks to invite people into, and about how to best guide/support them once they come to us. But we'll be sure to revisit the text as we get there. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:39, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, in the context of the Newsletter extension we have (briefly) discussed automatic subscriptions, not notifications. As far as I am aware, currently Notifications (formerly know as Echo) don't have such feature. The closest request I have found is T154228.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 12:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Make the Signpost a blog or an OA journal

  • I have always found it somewhat strange that the Signpost aims to be a journal of sorts, and now you even consider whether your approach to attribution sufficient to serve the needs of Wikipedians looking to build a resume for a career in journalism, communications, or research? Such an approach does not exist in any other wiki project. You may ask yourself: Can you do journalism in an wiki in the first place? If we started the Signpost today, the authors would — no doubt — be bloggers. So, I suggest that you move the Signpost to a blog, or make it even a journal. It's not even listed in DOAJ. Perhaps you should think about the basics in publishing first: Get an ISSN, reference articles with a DOI, get into the library catalogues, become an official part of the blogosphere, or the open access sphere, and use the wiki as another archive for on-site reference only.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, very much like that. You've done that before, so you already know what to do. Also think of the Research Newsletter as part of a Signpost journal. I think both options would work — journal, or blog. But thinking about it for a while I think the WMF blog and the community blogs combined in the blog planet side by side to a Signpost journal would be fine.--Aschmidt (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's any question that the Signpost has been doing journalism in a wiki context for over a decade, and other examples (like Wikinews) exist as well. There's certainly room for debate about the level/quality of journalism, and the unique considerations relating to a wiki platform, but I don't see that debate as existential. We've considered moving to a different platform, but since prompting discussion among Wikimedians and Wikipedians is a primary goal, I think it's safe to say the downsides outweigh the benefits. If we do so at some point in the future, it will probably be a straight mirror, and would not mean leaving Wikipedia. The idea of an academic journal is interesting, but I think it's an idea for another entity; the Signpost has never, to my knowledge, been intended to be an academic outlet. We have not so much thought about ISSNs and library catalogues (though I welcome your further input); rather, we've thought about RSS, Google News, Planet Wikimedia, and the like. Those seem more attainable, and more directly related to our role as Wikipedia's newspaper.

Also, for what it's worth, BobCummings has been developing an academic journal about Wikipedia, and may have insights about that particular intersection.

Further thoughts? It sounds like you've put a fair amount of thought into this. Perhaps a voice call would be in order? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]

Thanks, Pete, for your thoughts. FWIW, I been teaching Wikipedia and blogging and everything around web 2.0, publishing, and the politics of the public sphere in adult education for quite a while. That's why I suggested to free the Signpost from wiki and to bring it either to blogs, or to Academia. Everyone is able to publish nowadays, but most content is hidden from view because it's either behind walled gardens or because the intermediaries (i.e., search engines, social media) hide it from their users. You have to make the Signpost more visible, and there are two ways, basically, to do so. Either you make it a blog you can connect almost anything else to for content syndication and SEO, or you connect to the library sphere which means you have to found an open access journal. Both paths are possible, and they do not exclude one another. You can even keep in on Wikipedia by continuing to update its archive there. The most important point is, you should do something about a phenomenon we call in German "preaching to the choir"... – A skype/hangout call certainly would be fine with me if you think I could help you, but not this week, please, because I am very busy in RL at present. Please send me a wiki mail for details, if you like.--Aschmidt (talk) 00:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the mention, talk. Yes, we're up and running with our OA journal Wiki Studies focused on the intersection of Wikipedia and higher education. Submissions and comments welcome! Bob Cummings (talk) 17:19, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Drop the vanity pieces; delegate or outsource; focus on the irreplaceable

I love The Signpost and consider it an important community vessel and knowledge base. I would hate to see it wither and die.

Thinking about how it can be made more sustainable, my advice is threefold:

1. drop the non-essential pieces. The "traffic report" seems unnecessary to me, in the advent of modern pageview tools. It can be rounded up by bot, and the time spent writing up the narrative around it, adding photos, etc., can be much better spent. It is also of very fleeting value. Who cares what was most popular a month ago? Many (including yours truly) don't even care what's most popular today. There are, of course, legitimate uses for this data (some are motivated by those numbers; and they are occasionally useful in outreach), but the raw data is readily available, and will remain so without The Signpost's dedication.

2. Delegate or outsource. There are certain news-gathering mechanisms and groups already in place across the movement, and they should be left to do their work, with The Signpost either syndicating their content or not. I refer to the Technology Report (already a syndication, I understand; good!), GLAM news, Education program news, Media reports (ComCom), and chapter activity reports (and WMF summarization of some of them in the context of APG periodic reports). Lean heavily on those other collation and curation efforts, and re-use or re-publish unless something prevents it (most if not all is freely-licensed, after all). Perhaps the ArbCom reports (important to the ENWP community, to be sure) can be effectively delegated too?

3. Focus on the irreplaceable roles of The Signpost. To me, The Signpost is at its best when it shines a light to under-discussed or under-noticed topics in Wikipedia and the broader movement. It does so regularly, through interesting Op-Eds, News and Notes features, interviews, and (no less important than new pieces) follow-up. It is these functions that are not generally filled by other organizations or venues of discussion in the movement, and so, in an environment of scarce human/time resources, that's what it seems to me to make sense focusing on.

Finally, while ENWP is not my home wiki and I am, as stated above, not interested in some parts of The Signpost, I do want to pitch in and help if I can, so I volunteer to help curate the Op-Ed section (and very occasionally pen one myself), as I am particularly interested in amplifying thoughtful voices (with both praise and criticism) across the movement. Let me know if there's interest. Ijon (talk) 04:16, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • As one of the co-authors of the Traffic Report, I'll note that this report derives from the
    WP:TOP25, so cutting it wouldn't really free up any of the other editors' time. What was popular 12 years ago interests me as much as what is popular today, but I'm odd that way and also write articles on best-selling books of the 1890s. All that aside, you do make some good points in #3 about the core value of The Signpost.--Milowent • hasspoken 05:24, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]
I love the traffic report personally. I love having it as a feature of every issue. Zell Faze (talk) 23:53, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these thoughts, Ijon -- most welcome. I'll come back to #1 below. #2 is something I've thought about many times, but maybe not so directly, so I appreciate your spelling it out explicitly. I see this as one of our primary opportunities for an "entry level" position; we could scope it out pretty clearly (check this list of sources by this date...) and still leave some leeway for a reporter to exercise some judgment, so it doesn't become mind-numbing drudgery. And I'll second Milowent's thanks for #3; your point about followup is an important one, and probably an area for improvement.

On #1, I do disagree rather strongly, and I think it's worth enumerating the several reasons. First and foremost, Milo and Serendipodous produce it like clockwork, putting us all (with the possible exception of Armbrust to shame in their timeliness and consistency. As editor in chief, I must say that presents a compelling argument in itself; if anyone believes a regular feature is worth presenting to readers, and backs up that belief with consistent and painless work, my hat is off to them. If our readers disagreed, that might give me pause, but they don't; readership statistics for the Traffic Report are consistently on par with other features, and it usually generates interesting - sometimes unexpected and enlightening - discussion. Also, even if you are unpersuaded of the information value, please do consider that our guidelines explicitly direct us to entertain, as well as inform. Many readers, including myself, find the interpretations entertaining (as well as, often, insightful). A final point -- having these folks on the team occasionally yields a worthwhile and, dare I say, serendipitous insight while brainstorming an apparently unrelated story. Those who diligent track readership stats are a valuable asset!

As for your stepping in to help out on a continuing basis, we'd be delighted. Let's discuss further offline. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 09:33, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost is not alone

  • For what it's worth, Wikipediocracy and Jimbotalk are both experiencing parallel attenuation of vigor. WMF is a now a self-sustaining multi-million dollar corporation and we've reached a period of bureaucratic normalcy. Dedicated content people do their thing in solitude. Some of the dramatists have been shown the exit; the rest of the community is getting older and more boring. Better to have fewer issues with excellent content than to fake along for the sake of hitting a weekly deadline. Carrite (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@
ping me[reply
]

Questions

  • What section(s) do we have a lack of contributors?
  • Has Signpost done a survey on what readers enjoy or find most valuable about Signpost, what they would like added or removed, how much time they spend on it? I'm sure these results will help Signpost in the long-term. The Quora question is a good start but needs to be more.
  • Has Signpost done a survey with current and former Signpost contributor to see what they liked and disliked about the editorial process and to document any ideas they have?
  • Do we have any metrics (ex. views) on which Signpost sections are the most popular? (In the news, tech report,etc)
  • Is there a list of "things" (besides more contributors) that are on a to-do list or wishlist? You mention above that a group is working on creating a better publication script... that's great! What else does the Signpost team need to make their job easier? Seems like the Featured section could be more automated or semi-automated.

I forgot to mention, thank you all for your time and hard-work. You all don't get hear that enough. 47.188.47.96 (talk) 00:41, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the questions. I think they are good ones, but not ones for which we necessarily have satisfactory answers at this time. Here are some attempts:
  1. No clear answer here; we could use more skilled news writers for News and Notes and In the Media, but we're not at a point where we have much capacity for training and mentoring those with less news writing experience for those sections. ITM, though, can always use submissions, which is an easier starting task. We have a new WikiProject Report writer, but it could work to have a second or even third writer on that beat. I expect
    GamerPro64 could use some more help in keeping track of, and discussing, ArbCom cases, and I'd imagine Evad37
    could use more input for the Tech Report as well. Occasional contributors are always welcome, as well, whenever they have a news story or opinion piece to contribute. We will probably have a better-informed call for participation in the coming weeks or months.
  2. I am pretty pleased with the more narrowly-focused poll conducted in this edition, and hope to run more polls in the future to inform our coverage.
  3. Not a formal survey of current & past contributors, but lots of informal discussion, which I have found pretty valuable.
  4. Yes, we track our readership pretty routinely; Tony1 usually puts our pages into the Page Views tool. All our sections tend to get decent readership; every once in a while there's a spike, which I attribute more to the specific story than to a section's overall popularity.
  5. Still working on identifying and plotting out projects. The WT:Wikipedia Signpost page will continue to play a significant role in keeping track of such discussions. I'm overdue for a chat with Armbrust about the Featured Content section, and whether they have ideas for worthwhile adjustments, need help, etc.
Thank you for the suggestions, and for the kudos! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would note from long experience

...in universities and corporations, that busy people naturally seek the input and tools to do the job they are called on, or wish to do. If not hungry or thirsty, one walks past tables with food and drink, however nutritious it might in principle be. Hence, whatever else is done with Signpost, it must, in my view, open each issue with some bits, one of more of which will in general be seen as sustenance to active editors new and old. This is a tall order, but there are unarguably vital pieces of organizational information, news, or process or tool information that people remain unaware of, after long periods, and news arising that gets lost in the shuffle (for this editor, major policy changes, and changes in the overall appearance or function of the editing functions or tags fall into this category of vital intel). Hence, after a marketing effort to indicate that a change was afoot, so that people who had grown accustomed to ignoring or unsubscribing to the content knew they needed to look at it afresh... readers, on seeing a "new" such Signpost would, after a small number of viewings, be trained as to its vital importance. (For further support of the notion, think about how round-about a fashion each of us learned the array of practices and tools we use each day, and how we continue, incidentally, to learn about further shortcuts and tools that have long been there, but slipped through our piece-meal training. What is it all should know, and many do not know? Answer this, and you have a draft list of the vital content to begin to include.) Otherwise, as with any communication in a large organisation, if the first or second viewing leads to a communication type being seen as clutter or a waste of time, you can be assured that any busy participant, including yours truly, will soon dispense with it. Hope this is, in its blunt honesty, of some help. Cheers, Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 06:03, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, might I ask you to be a bit more blunt? I think you might be saying that we have missed stories important to our readers. I'm sure that's the case, but what would be most helpful would be some examples of specific policy changes, etc., that you wish you had read about in the Signpost. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:32, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RSS feed

It would be nice with a working, stable (historically, it is regularly broken), and easily findable RSS feed for new issues of The Signpost Mortense (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very much agreed! This is something I'm trying to address. If you have relevant expertise, Mortense, I'd love some help on this one. Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost is probably the best place for a focused discussion. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:34, 31 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]

In the media: Year-end roundups, Wikipedia's 16th birthday, and more (4,871 bytes · 💬)

Discuss this story

  • Quote from above on Buzzfeed's survey of celebrity deaths: "the verdict was that 1977 ... was as bad as 1977 if not worse". That's one useful survey. Andrew Dalby 11:32, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed - thanks! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 11:35, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

'404 no more' Am I blind or did we forget to link to or name such an extension? What a great way to be non-helpful: "there is this cool tool you may find useful. We won't link it and won't mention its name. Go see if you can find it with those vague clues." Fail. Can the author please expand this blurb with something that won't make people waste few minutes trying to find this extension?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

https://blog.archive.org/2017/01/13/wayback-machine-chrome-extension-now-available/ links to it; added. 174.16.120.55 (talk) 17:33, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Piotrus, blind, perhaps? But don't let that slow you down. I've made the link a little clearer, and I will find an intern to brutalize for this transgression. Please feel free to contact our subscription department for a full refund on this edition! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, I still don't see a link to the extension in the old version. Just article about the extension. The blog link is better, but I wonder, is there any reason not to link to the installation page at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak ? I mean, why not make it easy to people? Anyway, thanks for the note, better few hoop jumps needed than no info at all :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 00:28, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Piotrus, your initial comment was quite hostile. I am not personally offended, but I am quite concerned about the ideas that our authors in general might have to contend with this kind of response. Please understand: if somebody were to attack one of your research reviews with the level of hostility you have shown here, I would not tolerate it. This may or may not matter to you, but I'm sure it matters to some of our contributors.
We could use more help in collecting and writing up these pieces. If you would like to take it on, please let me know. If you contribute regularly, you will have a great deal of influence over how things are described and linked. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 01:36, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Peteforsyth You are right I was... a bit too frank, or sarcastic. I usually try to keep my temper, but around that time I was dealing with another wiki problem, and, well, it's no excuse. I hope nobody was offended, it was not my intention, I just wanted to point out that an important link was missing/obscured, and should have done it in a more neutral tone. Once again, I appreciate the time that you and others put towards writing those pieces. Cheers, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for acknowledging. You have no quarrel from me, the initial version was less than ideal. I think now, it's fine; the extension itself is prominently linked in both the blog post and the news story. I appreciate your feedback, and this followup means a lot to me. Thank you, as well, for your excellent research reviews. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 19:26, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Installed the extension. Nice :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please let us know if you find yourself using it for the long term! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 19:26, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interview: What is it like to edit Wikipedia when you're blind? (10,325 bytes · 💬)

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  • A huge shoutout to Graham87 for all the work you've done on Wikipedia! Three years ago you would never have imagined the level of surprise I got when I realized that the person who welcomed me to Wikipedia was blind! I've always been curious as to how you manage to edit Wikipedia with a screen reader, but always was far too shy to ask. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 11:41, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you. An excellent interview with a great Wikipedian. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:08, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many thanks for the article and Graham87's work. I appreciate the info about speed reading while blind. Graham87 has paved the way for other blind editors, and also for editors who are progressively losing sight, his work in making it work for him is an example that losing vision doesn't mean that editing and using Wikipedia is over. It may be easier for someone who has always been blind to use the techniques, maybe not, but this is great news and I hope that more is done to facilitate blind editors.TeeVeeed (talk) 13:50, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Colleagues interested in helping to make Wikipedia more easily accessible to people in Graham's situation can do so by following our
    accessibility guidelines and participating in WikiProject Accessibility. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Great write up Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:23, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've always wanted a perspective like this, thanks for the interview. Keep up the great work Graham, Wikipedia needs to keep up its strong focus on accessibility. Opencooper (talk) 00:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great to see how nothing stands in the way of editing and a great proof that
    WP:ACCESS works. — Iadmc♫talk  00:38, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Thanks, everyone, for the kind words and comments. Graham87 02:16, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I filed phab:T155604 for the problem with diff formatting. Viewing the HTML source of the page seems awkward to me. -- Tim Starling (talk) 02:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Tony, for this interview, and kudos, Graham, for your inspiring work. Ijon (talk) 03:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • –

    In those early days he wasn't able to view diffs properly: "I discovered that by viewing the html source and looking for the CSS class diffchange, the diff changes could be accessed. But this method is problematic when people add/remove line breaks while making edits. In these cases I have to restore the line breaks to figure out what else the editor changed."

    But really, our diff display still chokes on combining two paragraphs (or if an editor simply removes the white space in-between the section heading and the text...) Is there really no better solution for comparing the true diff than re-inserting line breaks? Great piece—hope to read more from the Signpost on accessibility in the future czar 06:50, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yup line breaks are a pain an hopefully our diff viewer will one day handle them better. I too need to sometimes restore line breaks to get the diff viewer to provide me useful information. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Enlightening and inspiring.--
    WP:WAWARD) 16:27, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • One point that needs to be added is that Graham is a unique resource on Wikipedia for anyone testing accessibility fixes. He is always generous with his time and is consistently able to explain how a particular issue is handled by multiple different screen readers. His efforts have made Wikipedia a far more welcoming place for the many visitors who use assistive technology. --RexxS (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Graham87 is somebody I first encountered not long after I started in 2009 - he drew attention to himself in a positive way. His spelling, grammar and punctuation are (almost) always spot on, it's extremely rare that I need to fix anything (maybe three times in seven years). So it was something of a surprise to find an error today - but one which Graham87 self-corrected straight away, so acute are his senses. He also spots things that many people don't. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:33, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Redrose64: Thanks! I have a confession to make: I'm a terrible typist, as can be seen from the edit linked above. and I'm sure you remember this. :-) Graham87 07:55, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good article, very informative. I think something experienced editors should consider when editing. I myself need to pay better attention to the details of
    WP:ALT in particular. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 18:45, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • In an issue that talks about the future of The Signpost, this is an excellent example of how valuable it can be in fostering community. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Graham effect: I am really very very happy that you wrote an article on this on the Wikipedia Signpost. He is an amazing editor and I highly respect his works.
    Let me share something: whenever I am asked this question: "what motivates you to edit Wikipedia? Is it barnstar, is it reputation you get for your works, is it Wikimania or other Wiki-conferences/events? is it . . .?" I reply: all of these might be true, but the first thing which motivates me to edit Wikipedia is "Graham effect". Of course no one understands what I mean by this "Graham effect", and I generally never explain that as well. Now, you may have some idea about this "Graham effect". palm People like Graham, User:Sitush, User:Bgwhite, and a few others encourage me to continue. Graham is an inspiration to many, including me. Thanks a lot Graham, for all your works. --Tito Dutta (talk) 07:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Awwww, thanks, User:Titodutta! *blushes* Graham87 10:59, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you Graham and Tony. I've always been a fan of Graham's work and was thrilled to meet him in person at Wikimania - the first time I realised he was blind was when I saw him in person! Deryck C. 14:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

News and notes: Surge in RFA promotions—a sign of lasting change? (15,068 bytes · 💬)

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A belated congrats to the editors of the Signpost for its 12th anniversary. We couldn't do without it. Erik Zachte (talk) 12:56, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Erik Zachte! We weren't digging for a compliment...well, OK, I suppose maybe we were :) -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:56, 17 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]
  • Having watched those recent RFA's unfold, I will offer advice for potential admins - if you hold right wing / conservative views in US politics, you must never mention them on wiki or let your edits show your POV. Even if you've never let this affect the content you add. In fact, you're probably better off making a few comments about holding left wing political views here and there for the history diggers. Mr Ernie (talk) 15:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I generally agree that the watchlist notices, question limits, and the ORCP were the most helpful improvements. Having been responsible for the 2015 RfC, I freely admit that those changes were not a cure-all (although I would take note of the fact that I am, to this day, the only person in the history of Wikipedia to get any kind of change effected at RfA via the consensus process). The minor alteration to the discretionary range did not seem to do a whole lot a good, because in practice, the old range still seems to be applied in 'crat chats. I think a major problem is the great reluctance of 'crats to simply throw out oppose votes that are not grounded in policy.
But the heart of the RfA issue is really the high and unreasonable personal standards of certain participants. To be fair, the RfC did propose direct restrictions on RfA standards, but I did not seriously expect such a proposal to come anywhere near passing, so it wasn't as well thought-out as it could have been. But I don't think such a proposal would ever pass, regardless of how well-thought out it was—I have differed substantially with Kudpung on a good many issues, but there no doubt that he is correct when he says that people are still simply not willing to give up one of their last free-for-all playgrounds. However, I invite any willing person to attempt a thorough RfC on restricting RfA standards, and we'll see how it turns out.
Ultimately, I still hold to my belief that RfA itself will never be completely fixed, and the only true solution is to scrap it completely. Sometimes I even doubt the wisdom of the whole
worked just fine
a couple of months ago, and has worked in that context for over a decade now.
Biblio (talk) 19:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

I think part of the problem is that RfA is essentially a political process, and selecting people for positions of public trust is always stressful and fraught with difficulties in balancing kindness with the need to publicly evaluate candidates. Go Phightins! and I had discussed the possibility of referencing an article like the following in the article, but didn't get around to it: People are so stressed by this election that the American Psychological Association has coping tips That's not to say that we don't have additional, unique considerations that compound the issue...but it's worthwhile to keep in mind that it's a challenging area for any community with formal positions. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 00:01, 18 January 2017 (UTC) (Editor)[reply]

...the high and unreasonable personal standards of certain participants are actually rarely the reason for a candidate to fail and they haven't moved the goalposts to a higher grade point average. The Major issue with RfA is that potential candidates of the right calibre are reluctant to let thmselves be hung out to dry by such a viscous and nasty minded cult of vindictiveness and PA. That's why your argument is wrong,
Biblioworm - you haven't been around long enough to know. Some of us have closely followed 300 RfA or more over the past many years. Your reforms were very important in that they proved that change can be brought about, and no one disputes that, but they didn't actually change the status quo. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
]
And who comprises that viscous and nasty minded cult of vindictiveness and PA? The unreasonable voters, obviously. The nastiness always breaks out in the "Oppose" section when someone posts some ridiculous rationale for why a candidate shouldn't succeed, and then proceeds to fight tooth and nail against it being discounted as it should be. And by the way, I have also examined many RfAs, including the very first ones from 2001.
Biblio (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Why are RFAs crucial to the health of wikipedia

I am not an ADMIN as opposed to most of those who have been interviewed for this story. However, I try to participate in all RFAs because I am very concerned about Bad Apple ADMINs. I define Bad Apple types as editors who have a chilling affect on those who cross paths with them to the point of losing potential good editors. I realize that many wannabe ADMINs don't want to go through a gruelling process to get the "mop". However I believe those unwilling to stand up to scrutiny, should not be ADMINs on wikipedia. Wikipedia is a vast world with no

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I think Ottawahitech, that my own experience with admins which was bad enough, speaks for itself particularly and especially on my RfA where the prime detractor, whose vicious PA on my RfA caused a storm of pile-on of opposes, is a since desysoped admin with a history of imposing his own version of 'facts' on hundreds, if not thousands of articles which largely escaped detection, again under the premise 'If he's an admin, he must be right'. Despite all this, and what I have witnessed in the ensuing 6 years, I still do not consider bad admins to be more than 1 or 2 percent of the truly active admins. A large number of whom show up regularly at Wikimania and whom I find to be, with only one exception (now desysoped), a bunch of actually rather nice people. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:13, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
even if 1%, it is like rat turds in the raisins. they have an outsized harm. we had a promise to say good-bye to the toxic though productive, which remains unfulfilled. the 1% do not come to conferences or wikimanias, are they trainable? here is a self-diagnostic http://electricpulp.com/guykawasaki/arse/ might want to avoid those habits. Beatley (talk) 21:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Beatly, do you actually know what we are discussing here? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That, Carrite, is a classic example of taking written communication out of context. I would have thought anyone would have perfectly understood why I put the word in quotes. Personally, I think 'promotion' has more to do with the climbing of greasy poles on the one hand, and the world of paid occupation on the other. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:24, 19 January 2017 (UT
Dear Ottawahitech You and I may not be so far apart as you might think. RFA is a process that enables the community to assess applicants for adminship and filter out the unsuitable ones. Your test "editors who have a chilling affect on those who cross paths with them" lacks a little precision, I suspect there may be edge cases where one person thinks the flaw was in the way a speedy was declined and another is more concerned about sloppy deletion tagging. But if you follow that test, look at RFA candidates, check their contributions and give diff supported evidence where you can make a case that the candidate is likely to have a chilling effect on other goodfaith editors, then you shouldn't be contributing to RFA being a gruelling process. In most RFAs I believe you will find yourself happily supporting candidates who do not have a chilling effect on others. In my experience RFA is at its most gruelling where we disagree on our RFA criteria, with some people asserting a candidate is qualified and others looking at the same evidence and saying that they also want x or y. Occasionally that may result in RFAs where we debate whether a particular comment is snarky or sufficiently recent to be troubling. But most candidate should pass your criteria with ease. ϢereSpielChequers 17:32, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Betteridge's law of headlines. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:04, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking as a fairly recent addition to the Admin corps, I would descripe the RfA process AS tortuous and grueling. I would not encourage other experienced editors to go through the RfA process. It was personal, painful and brutal. It was not as if I was applying for super secret access to government documents, just the tools to be an admin. But regular editors have their arbitrary standards and if you don't meet them, well, forget it. Luckily, there were more people who trusted my judgment rather than editors who look at every non-content producing editor with highest levels of suspicion. The craziest thing is that even if I made some unfair and arbitrary judgement on another editor (which I was unlikely to do), another admin could undo or question my decision. Admin decisions aren't carved into stone. Admins disagree with each other all of the time, which I believe is HEALTHY. None of us have "godlike" status. If one admin makes an egregious error, contact another admin and state your case. Please, do so. Liz Read! Talk! 04:17, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Recent research: Female Wikipedians aren't more likely to edit women biographies; Black Lives Matter in Wikipedia (7,131 bytes · 💬)

Female-Wikipedians but women-biographies?

See also:
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  • Two analyses I'd really love to see:
  1. As an extension from the title study above, whether WP editors who check a gendered checkbox (e.g., "She edits wiki pages") in their preferences are more frequent editors of gendered content (outside of solely BLP, but e.g., friendship bracelets, fashion designers, feminist writers). Put another way, how does gender identification correlate to topic area choice? (A question on sociology: Does the "homophily" term/concept extend to the practice of editing within one's own gender norms? Or is there another term?)
  2. Re: @
    androcentric
    bias on WP, I think we'd do well to understand how the category changes were endemic to editor culture, or a specific effort by specific editors. Was the introduction of the "American women novelists" category discussed before it was enacted? What type of on-wiki discussion happened prior to the Filipacchi op-ed? The op-ed's media coverage maps assumptions of questionable intentions onto the involved editors—what were those editors' intentions? Was the goal to separate all women novelists from the "American novelists" category, or did it start as an organic category (a recognition of gender in breakout subcategorization) that spun out of control once picked up by multiple editors? (Spitballing, but in the case of the latter, I could easily see the segregating/"ghettoizing" as inadvertent if editors, confused with "non-diffusing" category policy, did not know whether to categorize American women novelists in both "American novelists" and "American women novelists" categories—or either. But I'm more interested in the actual timeline of events.)
czar 08:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding #1, I independently found a fitting 2016 thesis (“Gender gap on Wikipedia: visible in all categories?” by Paul Schrijver) and only later realized that it was the one covered in the 2016-11-04 report... (Dataset: 75% of Wikipedia articles, 10% of total revision history) 75% of WP cats do not have gender parity (by edit count? by participant editors?), 35% of which is female overrepresentation. Abstract leaves a bunch of questions, so reading now. czar 08:34, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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@Ottawahitech, do you know where the subsequent on-wiki discussions happened? There might be a lead there as to how it all went down czar 21:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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I think what we should have learned about the female author categorisation storm-in-a-teacup is that we need a tool that reports the contents of the categories and its sub-categories (and sub-sub-cats and so on). If we had that tool in place, then the female authors would have appeared in the listing of authors and not appeared in a "ghetto" "different" category (which probably was created with good intentions). It's all very well to say that members of the sub-category are also members of the parent category, but I don't see why that is something likely to be understood by the public. I realise that the risk of a tool that returnes the closure of the category may return a lot of results if applied to some categories, but instead of thinking like technocrats, we need to think of our readers and how things look to them. Kerry (talk) 01:48, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Two things that I think have been missing ever since the female author categorization "problem" was publicized are: (1) a clear and sober articulation of the nature of the harm in the present system, and (2) a coherent alternative that addresses the various challenges that exist (including, among others, the goal of informing the academic study of female writing). I don't think there is anybody who would insist the current system is ideal, or would want to keep if there were a better alternative. I think everybody agrees that something better would be better, and that there are flaws with the present system. What I think the critics miss is that no non-flawed alternative has been identified. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 08:20, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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User:Czar: You can find more about the Amanda Filipacci controversy at: Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_July_13#Category:Women_historians. 70.70.22.22 (talk) 18:39, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply
]

Technology report: Tech present, past, and future (1,111 bytes · 💬)

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An interesting question came in via Twitter: Yurik or Evad37, doesn't it make more sense for complex data to be stored at Wikidata, and referenced by media files? How does a new initiative to store data on Commons square with the emergence of Wikidata? Will it make sense to migrate the data files there in the future? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 01:50, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pete Forsyth, this is probably the most asked question :) The most relevant is this discussion. Basically - "data blobs" and "data facts" are very different, both from technology and from legal perspectives. There has been a lot of requests to allow for non-CC0 licensed data, where as Wikidata is purely CC0 only. --Yurik (talk) 01:54, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic report: Out with the old, in with the new (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-01-17/Traffic report


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