Next steps for the Signpost: Building toward better recruitment and retention
Since joining the Signpost team and assuming the role of editor in chief in August 2016, I've struggled with two competing thoughts. I'm honored to help continue the important work of this publication; but I'm concerned about our future, as a volunteer-produced work covering an increasingly complex network of projects and organizations.
On the one hand, the Signpost team, and our occasional contributors, continually impress and inspire with their work, whether it be relevant and carefully-researched stories or a badly needed technical fix. The opportunity to work alongside them, to help present their work to our readers, and to learn from them, is a source of great pride and satisfaction.
But on the other hand, the problems we face—and that all, or most, of my predecessors have faced—are stark, and the solutions are not readily apparent. Our core team is small and overtaxed; we miss publication deadlines; and we are not as diverse, by any number of measures, as we should be.
The Signpost, since its inception in 2005, has built a strong and important legacy. While I, and my colleagues and predecessors, have made some mistakes and omissions, the publication has consistently played a central role in helping Wikipedians and Wikimedians understand our ever-expanding world, track important developments, and engage with various initiatives. Many of our stories—coverage of WikiLeaks in 2010, and of the Knowledge Engine in 2016, come to mind—have documented stories whose importance goes beyond the ranks of Wikimedians, and have filled gaps left by media entities that sometimes struggle to engage with the complexities of the Wikimedia world. I recently asked for perspectives on the Signpost's value on the website Quora, and have enjoyed reading through the answers; I hope to see more there, or in the comments here.
But much of our process and technology is "legacy" in the less agreeable sense. Inefficiencies tax the limited time and attention of our personnel, and impede our ability to present a superior news product. Our format, news offerings, publication schedule, and delivery mechanisms are not as consistent as we, or our readers, would like.
Most of my discussions about these issues, whether with "Signpost insiders" or occasional readers, have pointed to "R&R"—recruitment and retention—as the key issues. I agree with this assessment—to a point.
But as we begin 2017, rather than focus entirely on R&R, we are going to focus on some of the issues we believe impact R&R.
When volunteers come forward to work with us, do we offer clear roles and assignments, so they can quickly contribute in satisfying ways? Do we give them the support they need to succeed? When writers or other contributors do leave the Signpost, can future employers in communications or research see the value of what they've done here? These are some of the questions demanding our attention.
We have already made some "under the hood" changes that will make things easier going forward. My predecessor Gamaliel had the foresight to bring in a team member with a professional background in human resources, Rosiestep, whose insights have helped us think more clearly about R&R. We adopted Slack to serve as our "newsroom"—a discussion platform that lets both regular and occasional contributors discuss and refine stories and longer-term planning. We have begun using the open platform Hypothes.is to support more sophisticated editing of stories submitted on-wiki.
Already this year, TheDJ updated the CSS for our pages, making us readable on mobile devices. And we have been exploring the Newsletter extension, currently under development by Qgil-WMF and others, which may allow us to offer more useful subscription options in the future. A team of volunteers has emerged to plan for a revamp of our publication bot, which will greatly simplify our work when complete.
As we move forward, we want to continue to expand our coverage to more thoroughly cover the international, multi-project, multi-language totality of the Wikimedia world. We hope to make our content more accessible via RSS, which should in turn improve our exposure outside Wikipedia, via services like Planet Wikimedia and Google News.
Did you know the Signpost's name is a pun? I only discovered this recently, when reading Michael Snow's initial announcement in 2005. A core feature of the publication, that distinguishes it from most wiki content, is that our posts are signed; attribution is a key feature. But is our approach to attribution sufficient to serve the needs of Wikipedians looking to build a resume for a career in journalism, communications, or research? Perhaps not. We will be looking to tweak the way we approach attribution in our pages, and to improve the visibility of the Signpost in places like LinkedIn, to help those who have substantially contributed to our work more effectively communicate their role to the wider world.
Could formal, clearly-defined roles help us build a team that's more consistent, or more inviting to (say) non-native English speakers? That's another angle we're exploring; we may even take steps to create a formal internship program.
Even as we experiment and make improvements, we will of course continue to publish regularly. Full disclosure, though: we might strain your expectations of "regularity." We explicitly changed from weekly to fortnightly publication in 2016, and we've found that even the new schedule is challenging to sustain. We are considering changing to a monthly publication schedule, partially in recognition of the various communication channels that have sprung up around the Signpost over the years. We're especially interested in your thoughts and wishes about our publication schedule.
Many past "from the editor" notes have broadly called for new contributors; and of course, we welcome those who want to pitch in. If you want details on how you can contribute, the framework offered in this October 2015 still applies. But for the moment, we're not actively pursuing contributors, beyond those who have a clear idea what they want to do, and are pretty capable of forging ahead with limited guidance. If that's you, please let us know; but if clear guidance is important to you, give us a little more time. We expect to put out a more comprehensive call in the near future, when we're better prepared to work with new volunteers to find the best fit.
We do want to stay in touch about our progress, and about our plans as they evolve. I plan to use the Signpost's main talk page for occasional updates on what we're working on; please keep an eye on it for the most up-to-date information. Please chime in there, or in the comment section below, if you have thoughts about our priorities and next steps.
Would you like cream with that? How about some sugar?
We expect to have some new options available for subscribers in the coming months. Please fill in this poll to help inform our decisions. (It's based on a Google form; if you prefer not to use Google, just leave us a note below instead.)
Some background information, and the full poll questions, are available here.
Discuss this story
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. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost
2024-11-18
Volume 20, Issue 16
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]
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:
Ottawahitech (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)please ping me[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]
Readers are potential, future contributors
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]
Make the Signpost a blog or an OA journal
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]
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]
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
Questions
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]
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]
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]