The Signpost needs your help

The Signpost needs your help

The Signpost needs you—just a few hours each week can make a big difference.

Contributing to the Signpost can be one of the most rewarding things an editor can do. The genre is refreshingly different from that of Wikipedia articles, and can allow writers to use a different range of skills. Our circulation is above two thousand for some stories, and reaches far beyond the English Wikipedia, speaking to Wikimedians from many languages and WMF projects. Page view counts show that readers still visit some pages up to months after publication. The need for an independent, volunteer-run Signpost continues to grow, given the increasing complexity and financial expenditures of the global Wikimedia movement.

Writing for the Signpost does require a level of commitment. Although we have all become used to a weekly Signpost delivered on our talk pages, our total number of contributors has faced recent and long-term losses. When combined with the increasingly limited availability of our current writers, the Signpost is in need of additional contributors. Help is sorely needed for "Featured content", a rewarding area that asks editors to recognize content contributors by summarizing their recent featured material and, should they desire, interviewing individuals. The page is influential among the many editors who are involved in featured-content forums, and is particularly satisfying visually, given the rich opportunities for deploying images and other files.

Editors normally contribute to their section on a regular basis or arrange weekly rotations depending on their circumstances. People willing to do only small parts each week, such as adding "in brief" notes to "News and notes", are certainly welcome too.

Internally, the Signpost itself has undergone some recent changes. I will remain in my position as editor-in-chief, but now that I have entered graduate school, Pine, Tony1, Gamaliel, J Milburn, and Jarry1250 have agreed to take on roles as editorial delegates. Rcsprinter123 has ably taken over the WikiProject report, Guerillero is restarting the dormant arbitration report, and Serendipodous and Milowent are sharing the load of the traffic report.

Signpost editors typically find interaction on the job socially rewarding as a close-knit group of editors with a common purpose: to see what is widely regarded as an essential service continue to thrive. We all look forward to hearing from interested editors, either on my talk page or through email.

— The ed17, Signpost editor-in-chief

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In this issue

1 October 2014 (all comments)

From the editor

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I just would like to say that I find it somehow curious that in the Signpost you report about Wikipedia affairs on a weekly basis. We have blogs, and the internet is a 24/7 medium. My suggestion would be to give up the 7-day rhythm of publication and make the Signpost a blog in the first place, featuring blogposts of single stories and notes. If you do not want to follow the example of German Wikipedia running its Kurier as a community-driven kind of blog that everyone can contribute to, you may keep the Signpost a blog written by certain editors, though.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How would that be delivered to a talk page, though? I really don't look at many blogs, but Signpost alerts me when something's new. -- Zanimum (talk) 21:20, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I fear User:Aschmidt's comments will make you feel unappreciated so here is another point of view. A blog includes whatever people happen to feel like putting in, whereas a newspaper involves editorial judgment about what is important. As a reader with limited time, I strongly prefer a newspaper, and I appreciate your efforts in putting one together. Opus33 (talk) 23:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. A blog doesn't feel like a newspaper. I like the weekly updates that are delivered comfortably to my own talk page, like an old, retired man who is happy to have the morning paper delivered right to his doorstep, where he can use to read... and for his puppy to do its business on. Anyway, switching to a blog would probably mean a lot of messages sent, and I don't think that would be desirable, both for the recipients and for the servers. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 23:38, 4 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of things happening 24/7 and I have to commit too much of my scarce time to taking care of them. However, The Signpost arrives once a week, it's quite compact, its location and time of arrival are predictable. It's a much calmer way to learn about what's going on, without being drawn into an Amazon-size current of pieces of information. B25es (talk) 04:51, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relax. ;) You can update a blog format as you go and continue to deliver a summary of news once a week. There are many ways to do that. As long as someone actually does it. And that's what the op-ed was about in the first place.--Aschmidt (talk) 12:28, 5 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Signpost has always been very much like a blog in a sense. Like a blog, anyone can contribute and also anyone can comment on stories as we are doing now. And each week, just as you suggest, the Signpost delivers to our "doors" a weekly summary of the news. So even though this periodical does its best to look like a weekly newspaper, deep down it's just like Wikipedia, in that anyone may get into it and contribute. Do you then suggest that the Signpost should change its appearance to look like a blog? Because in essence, it already pretty much is a blog that just doesn't give the appearance of one. That's my take; I could be wrong. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 03:19, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I write for newspapers (actual paper ones) and blogs, and there's one fundamental difference: the deadline. Do not underestimate its power. If blogs had editors, they would need deadlines. Some do, but they're actually newspapers in terms of professional commitment. Deadlines = expectation, quality, and accountability. Blogs are fun, but with zero expectation and accountability (no deadline), there's arbitrary quality (no editor). Any questions?--~T P W 12:07, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I do not write for newspapers or for blogs, but I have written for newspapers and I'm a blogger editing my own blog. And I prefer blogs over the press because they are more flexible. If nothing happens there is no point in publishing another issue with the whole jamboree of sections only because another week is over. If more than one thing happens over the week it can be reported as it happens. A blog always has a deadline and it is you to decide whether you finish your report or not. Very strange idea to write a newspaper in a wiki and to have an editor-in-chief for that, anyway. I never understood how this could come about.--Aschmidt (talk) 21:19, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We've actually considered this in the past but dismissed it as unworkable. Many of our readers come from the talk page messages we send around the Wikimedia world, and they don't want to be spammed multiple times per week. Having a single edition allows up to do it all at once! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:34, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]