What we've left behind, and where we want to go next: The Signpost staff on achievements of '24 and hopes for '25.
I'm happy that we've been able to keep The Signpost running on a more-or-less continual basis throughout 2024, marked by 18 issues. There were some rough patches in the past, including the 2017 shutdown of the whole affair, occasional publishing hiccups since then, and even now Signpost staff's feathers can get ruffled from difficult interactions with each other or with the readership community. It feels like we are back on a solid footing for the future and have even onboarded some new regular contributors in 2024.
My favorite contribution may have to be the successful outcome of the administrator elections experiment, which maybe-just-maybe was influenced by a number of items I've written in The Signpost highlighting the seriousness of the decline in the number of active administrators.
My favorite contribution to The Signpost is Are Luddaites defending the English Wikipedia?, written with Adam Cuerden. Our report was mentioned by a media organization. As a longtime reader of Wikipedia, I have been always been interested in its verifiability, which naturally led to my interest to hoaxes. More recently, I have been interested the use of generative artificial intelligence on Wikipedia, so I hope to write more about those topics in The Signpost.
Reading the comment sections of published Signpost reports, including those I've written, I've noticed concerns about a lack of neutrality in reporting. Moving forward, I aim to focus on maintaining neutrality in its coverage.
I don't think I'll ever forget 2024. I learned the ropes as a new admin, interviewed many people for editor reflections, and became Wikimedian of the Year. My favourite Signpost piece would probably be the one I wrote reflecting on that experience. I don't write much for The Signpost these days, so my favourite contribution this year also happens to be my only one. I have ambitious plans for 2025, but only time will tell if I manage to fulfill them. We're definitely going to reach the seven millionth article milestone this year, so I'm looking forward to that as well.
I'd also like to give some recognition to Elli, Significa liberdade, and Sohom Datta. I was honoured to nominate you all for adminship last year. I'm sure you'll go on to do great things (especially since one of you is already on ArbCom!).
Writing the Disinformation report for The Signpost seldom makes me "happy" in the usual sense, but I often feel a sense of accomplishment. My best story this year was How paid editors squeeze you dry. After about four months of research, gathering small pieces of the puzzle, I felt ready to publish. Putting the pieces together, though, resulted in a scattershot text rather than just one arrow in the middle to the bullseye. Sometimes, I just have to go with what I have.
It started with a mystery - a non-notable person issued a press release saying that the Wikipedia article about themself would be published soon. Why would somebody issue such a press release? They were being ripped off by a company that suckers in a thousand or more victims each year. The company takes their money and doesn't even try to publish the article on-Wiki. On the way to solving the mystery I learned about several Wikipedians who are trying to stop this scam. I also learned about some of the victims - who turned out to be real people with goals and strengths and foibles similar to those of most people. Boy, were some of them pissed off when I informed them how they were being scammed! The twists and turns of that story were certainly worth it. It will be even more worthwhile when we figure out how to protect others from the scam. Don't worry, we will.
My other favorite articles were a two part series by Roy Smith about The long road of a featured article candidate. It's always a pleasure to read a well-written article about something interesting that the author has worked hard on. This case was a triple pleasure with the two Signpost articles and the featured article that Smith wrote about, Fleetwood Park Racetrack.
I'm not a betting man, but I love to see the horses gallop, or trot, or pace as the case may be. The piece I most enjoyed writing this year was about a pacer named Wikipedia who came from near the back of the pack in the stretch to win the race. Of course we need another Wiki-racehorse. Rumor has it that a Hawiian-bred thoroughbred with a similar name will be ready to race next season.[Citation needed]
The future? The answer is always the same.
From a personal point of view, I must confess that 2024 has been a mixed bag for me, with some good memories, but also several low points. From a strictly "Wikipedi-esque" point of view, however, I couldn’t be happier of my achievements, not just because I've been working on a monthly column for Wikimedia Italy – and yes, you can expect to read more about that from me very soon – but also because I’ve joined the staff of the Signpost on a fairly regular basis.
It was very hard to pick my favorite contributions, but in the end I've decided to celebrate three "first times" I'm quite proud of: the first time I ever tried to be funny (and it got a surprisingly good response!); the first time one of my articles got cited by another media outlet; the first time I ever interviewed someone for an article, and for a very good cause.
I think 2024 has made a lot of us realize that we don't really know what the world is coming to, and 2025 might be a similarly challenging year for Wikipedia and the rest of the Internet. Still, I hope that I will keeping learning a lot from my peers at the Signpost, and that its team will be there for you to report on the most important bits of news with even more energy and professionalism than ever.
2024 was not exactly an easy year, but working on Wikipedia remained to be gratifying, and by getting my first two Good Article promotions in 7 years, it was a reminder that in 2025 I should make a return to extensive page improvement. My favorite contributions were probably the annual reports, as me and the rest of the jokers doing the Top 25 Report that is transcribed at the Traffic Reports put some extra effort in discussing popular subjects. Although I always get happy seeing positive feedback to the Traffic Report, for both the validation of our liberal usage of jokes and song lyrics, and the fact many editions just get no comments at all. Hope that in the new year both the Signpost and Wikipedia as a whole continue the good job even as the world seems to make less sense by the day, and that after missing a few Signpost editions I ensure the Traffic Report is always present.
I'm not quite as motivated by journalism as the rest of editors here. I started contributing to The Signpost because we could use more coverage of news from enwiki and across the movement. We still can; so I hope other editors contribute to the same. Being better informed is the first step to being better engaged. I also hope the issues we write help our readership become more involved in the movement at large. I am not sure how much impact that had in 2024, but I hope it increases in 2025.
I had planned to write a very long and heartfelt soliloquy about how much I'm glad to be a part of the Signpost and how being the editor-in-chief allows me to more fully appreciate the magnitude of brilliance that comes in every issue, and how grateful I am that we're able to put together something decent and worth reading that does its part to keep people informed while laying down sediment that will one day form the historical record, but instead I got a very long and heartfelt virus (you know, the one that they had all the politics about) and I mostly spent a lot of time fully appreciating the magnitude of my sinuses and putting together a pile of cough drop wrappers and laying down in bed.
Pretend I said something profound about the duality of man.
TWENTY MORE YEARS!
TWENTY MORE YEARS!
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