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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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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]
Discussion:I'm reading Hans Rosling's 2018 book, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. It says a few things that Signpost readers might find of interest: 1) Hans Rosling loved Wikipedia, and uses it a few times in his footnotes. 2) Rosling looked into using Wikipedia as a database of terrorism deaths and found it significantly underreported terrorism in non-Western countries. This isn't really "News", so I'm wondering what you think of having a new regular section about how Wikipedia is used and perceived, called "Wikipedia in the World" or "What Wikipedia Readers Say" or something like that. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:18, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Clayoquot: Thanks for submitting to The Signpost! I can’t seem to find your submission in your contributions, so could you please provide a link to your submission? (Unless you haven’t started it, then obviously you can’t link to it.)
As for where it would go, it would probably be under a header of “Book Review” because The Signpost has run book reviews in the past. We have an In the Media section, but it’s typically devoted to news on the topic of coverage of Wikipedia in off-wiki sources, rather than reviews or other opinion pieces. There was no In the Media section this month because there wasn’t enough material that people found for it. If you want to write for that, you’re welcome to; it currently does not have a permanent writer. If you don’t want to, though, that’s okay too.
I’ll take a look at your review once you finish it. And if you want to get more involved with The Signpost, head over to the newsroom. — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:28, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Yup, I haven't drafted anything yet. I'll draft something and bring it back here for discussion. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:45, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: This piece is about what we know we don't know about editor demographics, what we haven't measured in the past, and hopefully, what we should be measuring in the future. GMGtalk 23:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Looks okay to publish to me. Would publish under "Op-ed". Is this finished? — pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 15:21, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's fairly well finished aside from perhaps a few additional tweaks. I've been working on it on and off for about a month now. GMGtalk 15:49, 8 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Good catch. DoneGMGtalk 11:37, 10 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not totally sure why this is still marked in progress. I'm fine with it. I was never planning on making major revisions once I submitted it. GMGtalk 22:40, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenMeansGo: I was not sure on your intentions. I've moved it to the next issue Opinion column, without the "new new " section on top. If you really want that you'll have to work it in. It could use a good copyediting. Please check my headline switch (it seemed a bit mysterious) and try to write a blurb. Smallbones(smalltalk)
Discussion: This piece is a gallery submission that tries to briefly highlight the question "Do Wikipedia editors need to be stoics?"... DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 21:25, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is very interesting, very creative work. Thanks for submitting this. I'm not sure if it fits in with our usual gallery format, but I'd like to explore what people think of making the gallery format into a "photo essay" (or "image essay" in this case) instead of a simple collection of related pix. I'm not sure I'd call this humorous, but it certainly is ironic at points. There is one mention of somebody beheaded by ISIS - can I call this "gallery humor? It would not work this month with the New Zealand massacre and our serious humor problem. Perhaps with other comments you might figure out changes that can be made and how far we can go down this path. But for the upcoming issue, no. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comment and taking the time to go through this carefully. I think the "unreviewed" tag can be changed to "rejected" for now. I have no issues with that. I also can't find the time to improve this submission and fix the issues raised, so all the more reason to reject it. Regards. DiplomatTesterMan (talk) 09:05, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've set the status to "Declined". Thanks for trying DiplomatTesterMan, and sorry it didn't work out. Please have another go at writing a submission when you have some time, creative proposals are always welcome. - Evad37[talk] 02:55, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think this could be reworked as a humour column for the next issue (not this one, but the one after). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:03, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: This is a short essay I wrote in February 2019, partly because I kept running into "This is an essay, not a guideline" / "This is a guideline, not policy" / "Policies are not rule!" meta-arguments, where people seemed more interest in having an outcome based on the categorization of our alphabet soup, rather than actually debating the merits of the arguments represented by the alphabet soup. I think this would make a good submission for a republished essay, maybe with a bit of commentary on why this essay is relevant (as well as its shortcomings). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:21, 2 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Too short, too new. I'll suggest that this space should be reserved for well-read, often-quoted essays generally nominated by someone other than the author. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:24, 11 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: This piece is about how to make the best use of Citation bot to save you some headaches.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:52, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: This piece is about the significant improvements that occurred at the Signpost to make getting involved easier than ever. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:35, 7 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
2019 Wikimedia Summit gathers movement affiliate representatives to discuss movement strategy
Discussion: This provides an overview of Wikimedia Summit 2019, which I attended. It's my first Signpost submission, and I'm looking for whatever advice you may have. Some of my concerns include overlinking and overall style. Let me know what you think. Previous conversation regarding this piece is on my talk page. Airplaneman ✈ 00:20, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: Greetings to everyone at The Signpost from an avid reader but a first-time writer. My recent first wikibirthday coincided with the controversial deletion of the article on Clarice Phelps, and it made me wonder about Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Panned in the press and restrictive of articles on subjects underrepresented in media coverage, they have been the target of much criticism over the years. This piece will examine their history, weigh their benefit to the project and discuss any changes that may be necessary.
Currently, I have only written the introduction (I hope that's OK), but will continue to expand. Honest and constructive feedback is invaluable; please inform me of any problems, even if it is "editor is too new" :) – Teratix ₵ 14:01, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Teratix: Get to work and get a full draft! It looks fine so far, but we really can't tell until a draft is finished. It's a huge topic for Wikipedia, but maybe you can cut it down to size. What I'll be looking for is the "argument" - what are the assumptions, can a reader follow the logical steps in your thinking, does the conclusion follow? But it's not just a matter of Logic 101, does it grab people? So send a finished draft! Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:44, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Smallbones: apologies for the late reply. Real life being what it is I haven't had much time to contribute to Wikipedia recently beyond simple activities. Obviously, I haven't expanded on my initial draft yet, but I haven't stopped thinking about the piece. I've come to the conclusion my opinions aren't sufficiently interesting for a full article (essentially reflecting the status quo), so I intend to make it more of a project history piece. In the coming weeks I anticipate my time available to contribute will diminish, so I doubt this will be finished for at least a month. However, I may be able to write up a reasonable draft on the weekend. – Teratix ₵ 09:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: This piece is a report about the results of the 2019 affiliate selected board seats election. Can someone place this? There is already a special report for June. Should this be a second, or go elsewhere? Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:11, 1 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Special report is fine. A few questions: @Bluerasberry: - you were a facilitator? that should be mentioned. Could you emphasize board seats election more? This is real important but seems to get lost in the details. What will you do if the results aren't ready by deadline? "The most important election on the internet" caught my eye. What other elections are there? Who gets second place? Was there some controversy with the change from chapters to chapters + user groups? Chapters' votes really got deleted diluted. And user groups are all over the map, e.g. the Women's user group represents in some way 50% of the world's population, but some others seem very small, specialized groups. Why was that particular voting method used? Well, lots of questions, but yes the results do need to be published. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:43, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Smallbones: Thanks all good questions. I will work this some more to clarify these things. Thanks for putting this in queue for publication in the next issue. I am a facilitator and I will get review from the other facilitators too. Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:37, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The author should acknowledge that he is an election official (facilitator, I think is the title?). Or we could add this as Signpost's non-author introduction in the piece. I'm boldly changing status to approved by E-in-C per Special:Diff/903788670 ☆ Bri (talk) 16:05, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'll boldly agree with @Bri:. Please keep on doing whatever you'd like (except final approval for publication). I'm available now and will be working through the night if possible. I'm not worried about conflicting edits or anything like that. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:18, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
More "Reflections" op-eds regarding "What's Making You Happy This Month?"
This would be more accessible than the email list, it is already an idea which has encouraged people to submit content, and people seem to like it. Migrating or cross-posting this content to The Signpost seems like a nice idea. Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:38, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So far, so good. I wonder if it would be best to keep the chronological order except have the most recent events first. Or perhaps try to integrate all the pieces into one big column without the dates being the dominant format. BTW I wonder the same things about the Traffic report. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Smallbones: I prefer chronological order in the same order that the Traffic report uses. Using chronological order allows me to keep the translations for each week as the headers, and I think that the translations may be interesting for readers. One issue that I haven't settled on is how I'm going to use images, and my guess is that I will vary that from week to week and/or from month to month. The amount of content that I write each week is variable, and some content is better suited to images than others. Another issue that I am keeping in mind is that I was surprised by the amount of time that I took to convert one week's worth of content from email format to an on-wiki format; I don't want to spend that much time every week doing the conversions, so that may affect what I do in future weeks. I'm not anticipating any major negative feedback but I may make adjustments based on both feedback and the amount of time that I'm willing to spend on this. Thanks for being willing to publish this. I think that most Signpost readers will like it, or at least accept it. --Pine(✉) 19:13, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. BTW, I often comment just to see whether contributors, in general, have thought about things. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:52, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ian Furst and Doc James: Sorry if I haven't gotten back on this. I like the whole idea but have only skimmed it. I'm worried that we won't have enough room, or editorial time, to include it this month. (I think 20 articles per issue should be a max number). It may sound silly, but could Ian do a short video of the article he's writing? Next month seems more likely than this month. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:58, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sure next month is fine aswell. No hurry. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:06, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No rush at all. Do you want a summary of the article video? The dengue article is linked. Ian Furst (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: This article is about 1) an introduction to what the WikiJournals have been doing so far and 2) the proposal on Meta for a new sister project to house them. Any opinions ideas and edits welcome. In particular is anything unclear to a wikipedian reader? Any ideas on the title and blurb? (initial suggestion post). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 00:53, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Evolution and evolvability: Make that "tentatively accepted", a lot of articles are arriving right now and I'm not sure about the space for this issue or column name it will go under. It *might* need to be delayed until next month. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Smallbones: Thanks for the update. Obviously, I think the timing would be more relevant this month, but I totally understand if you need to bump it back. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:07, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Commentary on the 2019 WMF Board of Trustees election
Discussion: This piece is a companion commentary to an article I submitted for the June issue, Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-06-30/Op-Ed. It relates to the election. I am in the process of seeking feedback on this but I wanted to prose it now for potential publication in a few weeks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to see a discussion of who chose the STV/Droop method, and especially why they chose it. What are the supposed benefits of this system as applied to WMF? Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:01, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Smallbones: If a few people ask for this then I think a few people would contribute to writing that story. It could be a full story on a complicated issue which recurs in every wiki election. Also, I think that the Wikimedia practice will set the norm for what other online communities adopt in their elections. A few more sentences could be possible in this article, maybe, but the full story has lots of voices. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]