Submission Desk
Please propose Signpost stories you want to write (or have already begun writing). Submitted stories are published subject to the approval of the Editor-in-Chief, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Editor(s) in chief. We value the involvement of Wikipedians, and appreciate your submissions. If you have ideas or questions that don't fit neatly into this framework, don't hesitate to address us on our user talk pages, by email, or as a last resort, on the general Signpost talk page.
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The criteria for publishing opinion pieces are quality of argument, originality, and relevance to the community, as judged by The Signpost. Similar to newspaper op-eds, opinion pieces should be accompanied by an extended byline (suggestion: one to three sentences), that briefly introduces the author and indicates why his or her opinion about the topic might interest the reader. The purpose of publishing opinion pieces is to provoke thought and discussion in a productive rather than antagonistic fashion, and so submissions should be well-researched and not factually misleading or unnecessarily inflammatory. A related set of submissions that address the same issue but from editors' different perspectives are especially encouraged.
Unlike the weekly news reporting focus of the standard Signpost articles, and the investigative and evaluative focus of its special reports, opinion pieces are primarily editorial in tone. As The Signpost does not have a house point-of-view or political agenda, it does not endorse the perspectives of opinion pieces, which express only the views of their authors.
Formatting
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Daty Wikidata Editor: alpha release
Hi everyone,
I have released the alpha version of a Wikidata editor called Daty, which of course I think would be of great benefit to Wiki* communities among others; the project development has been supported by Wikimedia CH, too, so I thought it would be appropriate to have its release inserted in the news.
I have already made a release post on your Village Pump and on IRC, where an user suggested me to write a short article on the Signpost for maximum visibility. Ogoorcs (talk) 04:16, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @Ogoorcs: you were a bit late for the January issue, which we are busy finalizing. This will be reviewed for February's issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:31, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @Bri: Thank you for the quick reply! If everything goes well, next month this could be about the beta release announcement. Ogoorcs (talk) 04:34, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Sure, and in the meantime I'd suggest writing a standalone page vice referring to the village pump discussion. You can also decide how you want to "pitch" it to the readership. Informative only? Call to action? Background on what's missing with existing Wikidata interface(s)? ☆ Bri (talk) 04:43, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Opinion: Firearms
- Submission: User:Dlthewave/Signpost_Opinion_Firearms
- Submission type: Opinion
- Author: Dlthewave
- Discussion:
This op-ed describes a long-term pattern of disruption at Wikiproject Firearms, where editors coordinated to keep information about mass shootings out of firearms articles for over 10 years. –dlthewave ☎ 16:29, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- As an editor who was involved with at least some of these events I think this is a very one sided OpEd article. Claiming there has been a "long-term pattern of disruption" is a bit like asking the left if the right has a long term pattern of resisting laws the left thinks are good. The external articles it cites are basically three sources parroting the same story. That story is easily shown to be poorly researched and quick to jump to conclusions. The OpEd here can be boiled down to a disagreement regarding what is DUE and UNDUE that has yet to be cleanly resolved. Perhaps it is a good topic but I would suggest a joint authorship debate article rather than one that accuses editors the author has disagreed with of disruption. I will close by saying I do believe Dlthewave is a good faith editor but I think this is a poor summary of a long term debate related to the topic. Springee (talk) 20:20, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- ...And this is why it’s an opinion piece and not a news article. If you want to write a rebuttal and submit that, you can of course submit it. I make no guarantees about it being put on the same page as the above submission. (COI: I have participated in discussions on this topic.) — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 03:43, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- This is a perfect example of Wikipedia:Advocacy. I only want to help Wikipedia! What I am writing is true! The public needs to know this! Articles on X should be written or edited by believers in X and not Y.--RAF910 (talk) 20:34, 2 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: RAF910 is one of the editors who was involved in these events –dlthewave ☎ 13:23, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, and Dlthewave has portrayed himself as the epic hero fighting the forces of darkness.--RAF910 (talk) 19:09, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Coming from a country which has the strictest gun laws in the world and where most people of my generation have never seen a real gun close up unless they have been in the army (even the police don't wear them), and where gun crimes are very low compared to the US; and with the US having what I understand to be the most liberal laws on gun ownership, I am not qualified to comment on this draft other than my gut feeling tells me that it is more advocacy than opinion and probably will not attract many readers who will stick through the article to the end. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:34, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- The AOAV article appears to be something published by an anti-gun group. I'm not sure they are likely going to be an unbiased source of information.
- I previously addressed the flaws with the Verge article on a user talk page ([[1]]search for the paragraph starting, "So I have a bit of time and thought I would share my take"). The OpEd author read and appears to have agreed with my criticisms of the Verge and Verge parrot articles.
- The shortish version is this was simple a confused mess regarding where information should actually go, not a conspiracy. In 2005 the "AR-15" article was created and it talked about the Armalite AR-15 and it's derivative rifles. "AR-15" is actually a trademark of Colt and at some point the article became "Colt AR-15" and editors wanted to limit the scope of content to only that which specifically involved "Colt" rifles, not AR-15 clones. At the time AR-15 -> Colt AR-15 the Armalite specific material was spun off into its own page. Generic discussions of AR-15 clones appear to have been moved to the already existing Modern Sporting Rifle page. At the time the MSR page would include AR-15's as well as semi-auto rifles that aren't based on the original AR pattern, for example some versions of the Mini-14. When the AR-15 page was split into the brand specific Colt and Armalite pages it appears no one created a generic location for "AR-15" searches. Thus editors who searched for "AR-15" found the Colt AR-15 page (as mentioned in the OpEd).
- Not unreasonably, involved editors said the page should only cover material involving "Colt" manufactured rifles. Consider that "Coke" is often used as a generic name for cola drinks (get something out of the "Coke machine"). It certainly wouldn't be OK to include a generic discussion of say removing "cola" from schools on the "Coke-a-cola" page. A similar situation had developed with editors trying to add "AR-15" material that didn't specifically involve a Colt product to the "Colt AR-15" page. My first involvement with the area was in these discussions. Editors suggested this could be addressed by creating a generic "AR-15 clone" page. Being as this is Wikipedia, pages only get created if someone actually takes the effort to make it happen. Editors who wanted to avoid the constant fights trying to keep generic AR-15 crimes out of the Colt article could have created a generic page sooner. Editors who wanted a place to put such information into an AR-15 page also could have created the page. In, I think 2017, someone did take initiative and, incorrectly, redefined the scope of the MSR page. Rather than saying AR-15's are a type of MSR, they changed the definition to MSR=AR-15 (Colt and clones). This still wasn't a complete fix. Editors such as the OpEd's author were rightly confused when a search for a generic AR-15 article went to the Colt AR-15 page which lacked any of the generic topics they felt should be included. It didn't help that some felt the "generic" page had an obscure, euphemistic name. So after debate in March 2018 the MSR page was changed to the generic AR-15 page and gained a section talking about crimes and mass shooting. It should be noted that as a result there is no page for the broader topic that used to be called MSR.
- What should be the take away from this?
- 1. If you are constantly seeing editors pushing back and saying that content doesn't go here perhaps the correct solution is figure out where it does go. While the current solution didn't come about easily it was actually both "sides" working together that made it happen.
- 2. Sometimes it isn't a conspiracy... unless you consider a bunch of editors waiting for someone else to fix the problem a form of conspiring. This is where the Verge article got it so wrong. They assumed the reason for any content rejection must be due to coordinated censorship. They didn't consider that sometimes insertions are just low quality or the information really doesn't fit in that article.
- Final note, the OpEd suggests that a change in Project Firearms guidelines opened the door to fix these issues after a "landmark" RfC but also suggest that editors are still defying the outcome of that RfC by mentioning the Smith & Wesson M&P15 article. In fact many were critical of the landmark RfC due to the muddled and confusing nature of the questions being asked. In the end the changes to the guideline were slight and really just removed a single sentence (rightfully in my opinion) that had been part of the article for less than a year. The outcome was actually in line with some of the previous discussions of the subject. The OpEd mention of the M&P-15 page was given as sort of a "more work ahead". In 2017 a RfC resulted in a consensus to exclude some crime coverage into the article. A little over a year later, an editor attempted to insert nearly identical information. Editors in favor of insertion argued that the landmark RfC negated the previous RfC citing that some editors (but not the closing editor) had cited the project guidelines. This was covered by the OpEd which also lamented that the material is, to this day, not in the article. It failed to mention why. A new RfC again found a consensus against inclusion. I hope this sheds at least some light on the issues with this OpEd article. Springee (talk) 03:12, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- I’m not making any judgments about the quality or neutrality of the above articles, just letting people know they exist. — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:20, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Epistolary Of Arthur 37
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