Checklist

Hi, are we going to keep the essay staged, or are we going to unstage it, after the author had a 1 week block for violating their topic ban over the article? Mitchsavl (talk) 10:29, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It was a contentious discussion among the arbs. And I need to re-read it to see what they think, as a group, the violation was. It is possible that only the final paragraph of the essay, the part that I removed as bear baiting (presciently, maybe), triggered the tban.

I'm pretty sure there was no consensus to restrain any individual from speaking about the fact that they are under a tban, nor from speaking about the wisdom of tbans generally, amd the impact they have on groups of editors.

Maybe it is a chance to revive the Arbitration report for an analysis… ☆ Bri (talk) 14:19, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@.nhals8: You commented about this draft at the submissions board. Can you please here join this editorial discussion about what to do next? Do what feels right, but perhaps talk through pros and cons of publishing this piece. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:01, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• I processed this submission and staged it for editorial review. I did not solicit or invite this publication, but I definitely tell people to publish here. This submission also overlaps with my interests in demographic analysis in Wikimedia projects and anti-harassment procedures by demographic, and I said this at the ArbCom trial which resulted in them getting a one-week block as punishment for violating their ban on discussing transgender topics. For a variety of reasons, I do not want to touch this particular article further. I would like to say that I was not expecting this Signpost submission to be an issue where ArbCom would intervene and I do not think the author imagined that either. I do not want to cross ArbCom and publish content which they have prohibited. It seems that Wikipedia:Contentious populations stands, so as best as I understand, the author bias disclosure was the arbcom-restricted content. The uncertainty here makes me uncomfortable. One view could be that this piece could inappropriate to publish due to being prohibited content from a restricted editor. Another view could be that the problem was my behavior and the user's behavior on that disclosure, and not the editorial views in the essay / article / Signpost submission itself. I apologize to my fellow editors for inviting a contributor into a restricted situation. This is not something that I have previously put thought into. I feel like if I had been more careful in how I welcome submissions then could have gone through without the user getting an ArbCom review and block on their record. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • BR, hate to contradict you but this is more complex than content that they [Arbcom] have prohibited. Two facts: One: Any prohibition is on the author, not on us, and the cat was out of the bag when they started their userspace essay. Two: Arbs said, and I quote, editors have leeway to write constructive critiques of Wikipedia, and particularly, critiques of ArbCom (Arb 1); [an essay a particular arb disagrees with is] not sanctionable, and I think that a topic banned editor talking about how topic bans could be better and clearly doing her utmost to avoid directly discussing her own topic is, if nothing else, something I'm more (but not always) willing to IAR on. (Arb 2). At the least, I think we can say that the content itself is not prohibited. Perhaps the behavior resulting in its generation, or more narrowly, the generation of the final "bear baiting" paragraph was prohibited.

Whether we exercise the option to nuke the essay I think is in our court now, and depends more on how we see its disruption by violating a tban outweighing the informational and reform-oriented content utility for the community. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:10, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

5W PR has a press release with some startlingly weird writing like "Wikipedia hygiene is now reputation infrastructure" and "win the AI surface", I guess by pumping out native advertising or something. On the one hand I don't want to give them free PR via The Signpost. On the other hand, it is appropriate IMO to call out companies trying to pimp leverage the information commons for their own ends. Any thoughts on how to treat this?

Oh, just why is this on my radar in the first place? Found it when scanning Google News for "Wikipedia" stories and this popped up. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:51, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia and Entity Infrastructure — Notability assessment, entity establishment, ongoing accuracy governance, and dispute management — handled through the platform’s editorial channels rather than against them. I interpret this to mean We will perform paid edits on Wikipedia by converting money into notability, and using this to win over disputes! Perhaps we should try to find out if this actually means editing Wikipedia, and if so, do they disclose any paid editing. Mitchsavl (talk) 07:44, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

According to their chatbot, they help generate "third-party coverage", and don't edit Wikipedia directly.

from https://www.5wpr.com/practice/geo-optimization.cfm:

[...] We clean up Wikidata, Wikipedia, Crunchbase, LinkedIn, and other foundational entity sources so the brand is uniquely identified and accurately described across the AI ecosystem. This seemst to suggest that they may make no content-related edits.

[...] The single biggest GEO lever is third-party authority — what trusted publications, Wikipedia editors, and Reddit communities say about a brand. That’s PR work. SEO agencies don’t place stories in Bloomberg. PR agencies that don’t understand semantic retrieval can’t structure the content for LLM extraction. 5W does both. This supports them using third party sources to "generate" notability. Mitchsavl (talk) 08:30, 5 June 2026 (UTC).[reply]

PR Newswire ha released an article covering this, as well as BreifGlance. Mitchsavl (talk) 10:25, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The PR Newswire placement is what appeared on the first page of Google News search results for "Wikipedia". And it is a press release by 5W, not a real news article (as usual for PR Newswire). ☆ Bri (talk) 14:08, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We can focus on the points that Wikipedia and Reddit has been cited more in AI generated responses, and leave out direct mentions of the company and the services they provide. I wonder if Wikimedia Enterprise has picked up on that and 'milk' some money from it. – robertsky (talk) 17:01, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri and Mitchsavl: I have boldly named this section in the newsroom talk page to "22:8 In the media", and added a subheading for 5W PR. ↠Pine (✉) 03:16, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See https://medium.com/regarding-wikipedia/the-most-predictable-edit-in-history-967956076b11 by Jake Orlowitz. ↠Pine (✉) 20:40, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

News tip: see this comment on Jimbo's talk page regarding "1,000 English Wikipedians 100,000 edits". ↠Pine (✉) 20:37, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Related:

Hi, an idea for mentioning in the next issue. English Wikipedia now has 1,000 editors with 100,000, a nice round number event. The thousandth to reach the milestone (or, some say, signpost) was user Ecangola. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:00, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Randy Kryn: This is neat, thanks for the post. I'll forward this to the newsroom :) jp×g🗯️ 06:18, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Partly done: I decided not to include the username, as I don't think it is necessary to draw more attention to a user than needed. Mitchsavl (talk) 09:14, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a neat thing to cover. jp×g🗯️ 06:19, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote this Quarry query to confirm the 1,1000/100,000 figure. Since some users (such as me) operate more than one legitimate account, the sum across human users could be higher. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:28, 9 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

FYI, I have an outline of content for this. I added a placeholder for this column in the newsroom. There was already a corresponding line in the SQL statement in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Newsroom database report. ↠Pine (✉) 03:13, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

@HaeB: You may be interested in this article, covering a research study. It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search, Research Suggests. It looks at how user generated sites, such as Wikipedia, reddit etc. can be used to manipulate LLM based searches. Mitchsavl (talk) 10:12, 16 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

I have decided to get this section started early, the Tech Team layoffs will likely be the biggest story this issue. I invite other Signpost editors and uninvolved to contribute, but seeing the levels of contention that has already arisen, I think it would be best if involved editors, such as those significantly engaged in resulting discussions, those connected to the union, or WMF staff sit this one out. I welcome comments and suggestions from involved editors, especially since their engagement will help us find newsworthy items. Mitchsavl (talk) 23:05, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for getting this started: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Technology report. I'd like to help but haven't contributed to a Signpost article before. I might share some ideas on the talkpage. I will ping you if i do. - Wil540 art (talk) 01:23, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Barkeep49: I just saw Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Data_on_Wishlist_work, where you mention your intent to write a Signpost article. This data is a central point to this argument, so if you would like to include it in this Technology Report, that would be great. Mitchsavl-on-public-wifi (main|talk) 04:41, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Could somebody else please pick up this article? Every time I've tried to look at the discussion, I have found it completeley overwhelming. Mitchsavl (talk) 11:50, 13 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Mitchsavl, @Bluerasberry, @Bri I recommend trying to make the Community Tech team disbanding article accessible to both experienced Wikimedians and a more general public who aren't very Wiki-literate. This could be a great introduction to the history of wishlists/wishtlisting on Wikipedia for those who are not informed.

I think it would be informative to explain simply:

• Brief history of the process of taking in wishes and responding to Wikipedia editor community needs on Wikipedia/Wikimedia
• What is/was Community Tech? What came before it?
• What is the Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC)? What came before it?

I see you are already beginning to cover the WMF responses and the editor responses. I also think it would be worthwhile to share ideas for the future of the wishlist that have came about because of the discussion surrounding this re-structuring. The path forward. I'd be interested to help collect the wishlist ideas shared. - Wil540 art (talk) 15:49, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Wil540 art: Thanks for the comment and welcome to exploring The Signpost. I moved your comment from the draft to here - editorial conversations go here and that original space is for readers after publication.

We have very little labor for journalism or requests for articles. Your ideas are good, but in practice, if any article will be written, then it takes recruiting a volunteer journalist to create it. If someone actually writes a draft then Signpost editors can review it.

This does not need to be one story. It could be several smaller stories with different writers who do not coordinate. For example, the "wishlist" story goes back 10+ years with multiple developments, and anyone could tell that story without the recent news, and either or both with numbers or with human narratives. Community Tech is its own newer story, as is PTAC.

Signpost tends to attract reports of recent events by Wikimedians who already are following day to day updates, but contextual journalism for the more general public is very welcome because it brings new users into important social and ethical conversations, and also cools conflicts and makes way for progress. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:17, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the welcome and the insight. I'm not 100% clear on how things work here, so thanks for the patience. I will start by trying to write a short about the history of Wishlists of Wikipedia. If that already exists elsewhere, I couldn't find it and please point me to it. - Wil540 art (talk) 19:37, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Wil540 art: Here are some events in the story of the wishlist. Thousands of Wikipedia editors went through all of this together.

VisualEditor - 2013

• VisualEditor#Opposition
• User_revolt#VisualEditor
• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/RFC (closed by user:Fram / WP:FRAM

Wikimedia Deutschland makes a wishlist - 2013

• https://www.wikimedia.de/2019/en/themen/technical-wishes/
• "user:raymond - Why did you start the Technical Wishes project? - When the Visual Editor was introduced a few years ago – basically a Word-like what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface – a lot of criticism was coming from the community. In order to start a constructive discussion, I set up a page called “Technical Wish List”..."
• meta:WMDE Technical Wishes
• File:White Paper Technical Wishes 2018.pdf

Wikimedia Foundation makes a global wishlist - 2015

• successful, so WMF copied it - meta:Community Wishlist Survey
• meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2015 ... meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2023
• routine Signpost report - Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-02-27/Technology_report
• File:Wikimania 2023 - Room 310 - 19 August - The Future of the Wishlist Survey.webm

Proposed end of the wishlist to redesign it as "Wikimedia Opportunities registry" - 2024

• https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/01/04/shaping-the-future-of-the-community-wishlist-survey/
• meta:Community Wishlist Survey/Future Of The Wishlist/Redesigning the Wishlist
• meta:Community Wishlist Survey/Future Of The Wishlist/Renaming
• meta:Community Wishlist Survey/Future Of The Wishlist/Renaming/Voting
• meta:Community Wishlist

This brings the story to summer 2024. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:32, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this timeline. Are there any particularly impactful examples where the wishlist worked well? Where a wish was made, granted, then well implemented and with positive effects? - Wil540 art (talk) 23:45, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bluerasberry: That's a great timeline. We should add it to the News and notes feature that I have just started. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Wil540 art: There are a lot of good wishes that were implemented. I'm probably gonna barrage you with a SEAOFBLUE, but here goes. IABot (started as a community-WMF collaboration), PageViews tool, XTools, CopyPatrol, WhoWroteThat, Global Preferences, LoginNotify, user-right expiration, Editor syntax Highlighting, Pinging users from edit summaries, Watchlist expiry, Template Wizard, SVG Translate, improvements to NPP workflows, Wikimedia OCR, VideoJS integration (the video interface on Wikimedia sites), Edit recovery, Live Preview, the ability to share QR codes, Multiblocks and probably some more that I've missed. Heck the Wishlist even provided early impetus for the DiscussionTools project. Sohom (talk) 01:25, 29 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There are attempts of analysing the wishlist, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Data_on_Wishlist_work and m:Talk:Community Wishlist#Statistics about the implementation of wishes. Do note that MikeZ (WMF) had just commented as well. Further assessments may be required. – robertsky (talk) 16:44, 29 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist