Update on Wikipedia's categorization under the UK's Online Services Act

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}


OKA Translation Initiative

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Declined
@7804j: Please develop your submission at User:7804j/OKA: grants for translators assisted by LLMs. If it is not burdensome, then submit as much content as you would like, perhaps 500-2000 words. If you want interim feedback, then at least make a few section headings and put a few sentences under each, even if it does not tell a full story. I think you know your way around wiki and have a good sense of how to talk with the Wikimedia community, but this story does hit multiple hot topics including paid editing, inclusion of people in lower middle countries, AI, and putting a process on the table to address decades-old cross-wiki translation backlogs. I am grateful for your submission. Also I want to connect you with feedback before publication, to get some confirmation that you will not be misunderstood. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:43, 11 February 2026 (UTC)reply
Update: the draft is now ready for review 7804j (talk) 20:57, 7 March 2026 (UTC)reply


Contentious populations

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Declined
@Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist: I approve your submission. It is still left to other reviewers to approve the publication. As a next step please copy / start to adapt this to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Essay.
All Signpost articles run with at least one picture in the header template, so please also either you select an image, or expect Signpost editors to do this if and when the piece runs.
I cannot speak for my fellow editors especially on sensitive topics, but I like this piece and want to run it. I totally understand why you decline to name the populations being discussed. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Thank you! I copied it over and added an image. (Un)luckily, the issue described in the piece is so demographic-agnostic and recurring that I don't need to name the population we're thinking of lol. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:10, 5 May 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry Author is blocked nhals8 (rats in the house of the dead) 09:19, 2 June 2026 (UTC)reply
@.nhals8: I am not sure what to do here and would appreciate advice.
From one perspective, I should not have invited the author to submit here. From another perspective, this is a timely essay, and it would have been welcome from someone else, and I do not want the discussion itself blocked for 3+ years or however long until possibly, the original author negotiates limited right to talk in a narrow way about topics that overlap their restriction. I gave an explanation at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment/Archive_136#Statement_by_bluerasberry. The original author is not the sole stakeholder in this discussion.
I am not sure what you know or thing about any of this, but right - obviously nothing proceeds without extraordinary review including probably from ArbCom. This journalism is paused for now for sure. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:23, 2 June 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry It's just me informing as I also don't know what to do at this point. Perhaps we re-inform them that the Signpost is still open for articles regarding this matter ? Otherwise, I don't like this matter being delayed for a few weeks or months. nhals8 (rats in the house of the dead) 23:17, 2 June 2026 (UTC)reply

Declined June 2026

Bluerasberry (talk) 23:27, 24 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Are we embarrassed yet?

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published
@Czarking0: When will you have this ready, or when do you want to submit to Signpost editors? This looks mostly ready to go and could just be chopped with copyediting to submit. I understand that your actual FOIA request may differ a bit if you have not submitted but it would be helpful to publish notice in The Signpost if submission is imminent. I do not want to overcomplicate any of this.
Publication should be this weekend. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2026 (UTC)reply
I just did some further copyediting. I'd like to submit this presently. Czarking0 (talk) 05:17, 20 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Do I need to do something further here? Czarking0 (talk) 14:49, 22 June 2026 (UTC)reply
@Czarking0 I moved it to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Opinion so it will display in the fancy Signpost draft templates ~ In solidarity 🦝 Shushugah (talk) 14:55, 22 June 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry: I wanted to let you know this was moved out of the next issue. I will update the status soon Czarking0 (talk) 23:52, 12 July 2026 (UTC)reply

Follow up to FOIA piece

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published
@Czarking0: Thanks, you and I have been talking about this piece for a while.
I am not sure what happened between your last submission and now but if I can help with something - formatting, getting community review outside of Signpost, facilitating a Signpost process, then let me know. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:00, 13 July 2026 (UTC)reply

The Adventure of the Unknown Corpse

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published
@NuclearSpuds: I see you have not edited for a while. I want to advance this to editorial review. Can you ping me your approval? If we stage this then I want you to be around to observe and approve. Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:01, 26 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Hi @Bluerasberry, I’m happy to advance it. 📻NuclearSpuds🎙️ 23:29, 3 September 2026 (UTC)reply

Published in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2026-09-16 Bluerasberry (talk) 14:40, 16 September 2026 (UTC)reply

Obituary for Gobonobo

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published

Myotus (talk) 00:23, 13 August 2026 (UTC)reply

I have this staged for publication in the next issue. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:33, 24 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Published in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2026-09-16 Bluerasberry (talk) 14:41, 16 September 2026 (UTC)reply

Another Molly Stark Dean Wiki Poem

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mollystarkdean (talk • contribs) 11:30, 24 August 2026 (UTC)reply

I have this staged for publishing in the next issue. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:33, 24 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Yay! *signpost dance*
I'm writing another Serendipity (because of Wiki inspiration lately). I'll look up the next deadline for submission. Molly Stark Dean #NewsNerd (talk) 12:12, 25 August 2026 (UTC)reply

Published in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2026-09-16 Bluerasberry (talk) 14:41, 16 September 2026 (UTC)reply

Wiki Conference India 2026 Report

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published
@Abhinav619, nice recap, I've marked your draft as Ready for copyedit and added an image. @JPxG, @Bluerasberry, will there be any issue that this article is under the "/WikiConference India 2026" name instead of "/WikiConference"? Does the SP publishing software need a pre-existing column name? - Wil540 art (talk) 15:15, 11 September 2026 (UTC)reply
It needs to be moved to the preexisting name to be findable among all WikiConference reports Bluerasberry (talk) 17:27, 11 September 2026 (UTC)reply
Moved. Wil540 art (talk) 18:38, 11 September 2026 (UTC)reply

Published in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2026-09-16 Bluerasberry (talk) 14:41, 16 September 2026 (UTC)reply


Does the country of birth affect the likelihood of having a Wikipedia biography?

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published
I would be happy to have some feedback. PAC2 (talk) 17:03, 7 May 2026 (UTC)reply
The data collection and processing seems reasonable, but the article feels like it's lacking some analysis of the findings. The findings are not particularly surprising--overrepresentation of sports biographies (and to a lesser extent, politicians) are a likely explanation for the prominence of small countries in the biography dataset, which is a hypothesis that you should be able to test with only a small amount of additional work. Meanwhile, underrepresented regions continue to be underrepresented. It would perhaps be more interesting to include analysis of how this likelihood varies between male and female biographies, given the extensive literature and awareness of the overrepresentation of men in Wikipedia biography (again, partially impacted by our sports coverage, and getting clearer numbers on what the discrepancies look like for specific categories of persons could be interesting). Another interesting area for further investigation would be examining results for countries that run counter to the trend, either in terms of going against the grain in terms of their inherent characteristics vis-a-vis sources of bias (e.g., if Africa is underrepresented and small countries are over-represented, how do biographies from small countries in Africa like Djibouti, Eritrea or Eswatini fare? Etc.) or in terms of interesting outliers that pop up in the data. signed, Rosguill talk 17:24, 7 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Thanks for your feedback.
You suggest the numbers are unsurprising, but I believe they are genuinely novel. I am not aware of any study that has computed the ratio of biographies per number of births for each country. What strikes me most is the sheer scale of the difference between the top and bottom of the distribution. A factor of 1,000 is quite remarkable.
Since we are looking at country of birth rather than country of citizenship or residence, I don't see why the proportion of notable individuals would be systematically higher in Monaco, San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Nauru than in any other country.
To dig deeper, I put together a new notebook to browse the list of people born in these countries:
That said, you raise a valid point. I could go further in analysing the results and provide more detail on the differences across the 10 Wikipedia editions included in the study. PAC2 (talk) 05:10, 14 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Update: After more investigation, I think you're intuition about athletes is true. Even in San Marino, it seems that there is a relatively important number of athletes. They may have a biography because they have represented their country in international competitions. PAC2 (talk) 06:49, 15 May 2026 (UTC)reply
I've completed the analysis part with more details. Is that ok for you? PAC2 (talk) 04:47, 19 May 2026 (UTC)reply
I think it's an improvement; I don't object to publication. signed, Rosguill talk 17:42, 19 May 2026 (UTC)reply
Thanks. How should we go now? Anyone to copy edit? PAC2 (talk) 21:19, 20 May 2026 (UTC)reply
@Rosguill can you switch the article as reviewed ? PAC2 (talk) 19:19, 8 June 2026 (UTC)reply
I would rather leave that for an editor intending to actually thoroughly review and stage the article for publication, as my comments were just suggestions based on the general content and direction of the article. signed, Rosguill talk 19:22, 8 June 2026 (UTC)reply
Ok PAC2 (talk) 19:29, 8 June 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry @JPxG I'd be happy to have some feedback and to know if this column could be published in the Signpost. PAC2 (talk) 04:51, 19 June 2026 (UTC)reply

@PAC2: I have your article staged at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/By the numbers. Publication is not set, but may be in 2-4 weeks. It has been a while since you made this submission - can I put this through the editorial process for the next issue? Minor things -

Beside me I need review from other editors. I see you have not edited in two weeks, so if now is not the time, we can postpone longer. Overall I am happy with the submission but I do like to make Signpost stories as clear as possible as we get so many newscomers. Thanks for submitting. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:58, 25 August 2026 (UTC)reply
Ok, thanks for your feedback.
Since April, I have continued working on the project and have been able to collect more data including 18 Wikipedia editions (see https://codeberg.org/pac2/biographies-vs-births).
Also, I have corrected a few errors. For example, the low number of biographies per million births in the Netherlands was due to confusion between the Netherlands and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
I propose updating the figures with the new data.
I'll let you know when it's updated, but given my schedule, it might not be until the end of September. PAC2 (talk) 04:52, 3 September 2026 (UTC)reply
Standing by for your update. There is no deadline but also this is interesting to get out. Thanks for developing. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:37, 10 September 2026 (UTC)reply
  •  Done I've updated all the numbers with the new dataset.
  •  Done I've centered all figures
  •  Done I use {{Cite journal}} and {{Cite web}} for citations
  •  Done I've added a methodology section.
It's ready for a copy-editing . PAC2 (talk) 21:08, 23 September 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry are you planning to release the article in the next issue? PAC2 (talk) 19:22, 5 October 2026 (UTC)reply
@User:PAC2 it is staged for review by other editors, thanks for updating and pinging me. Bluerasberry (talk) 13:40, 6 October 2026 (UTC)reply


Who are our readers?

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published
The essay will define who our target audiences are, how we are responsible for our target audiences and why we are not responsible for non-target audiences, and what we should do to promote the Wikimedia movement to non-target audiences so that they eventually join to become our target audiences. The choice of the broader word "reader" rather than "target audience" in the title is intentional to emphasize the main ideas of the essay: (1) how we should set up our editorial rules and write article content as if our target audiences are the only readers; and (2) how we are still responsible to non-target audiences to some extent in promoting the movement.
There are plenty of existing examples showing that we do not serve readers who have expectations contradictory to our core values and the five pillars, including enthusiastic fans and those who pay excessive attention to breaking news. Using these examples, I will elaborate on why and how we should write articles disregarding non-target audiences, while using those articles as an example of applied information literacy and Wikimedia movement values as a means to advocate for our movement. As a bonus, I will further discuss why there is no exception to the rule that all editors must be readers.
I originally planned this essay for the Chinese Wikipedia, where awareness of target audiences is so low that improper concerns are often given undue weight. However, I decided to first write the essay for The Signpost to promote such awareness across the global Wikimedia movement and to gather more opinions before formally introducing the concept to the Chinese Wikipedia.
(AI usage disclosure: I will use LLMs for minor grammatical, logical and structal improvements, adhereing to the policy on LLMs in article-space usage. No contents will be generated directly. Please let me know if there are additional requirements on the Signpost.)
1F616EMO (talk) 04:34, 19 August 2026 (UTC)reply
@1F616EMO: I appreciate you making the submission proposal and you can use AI in the way that you described.
A minor requirement for submissions is that Signpost articles need more or more images or media files to go with them. I am telling you this now, because for this submission, the choice of image may not be obvious. Please find images.
If you like, you can submit an earlier, shorter draft of your submission for feedback from other editors. Your idea is certainly timely, and I think readers do want this.
Although the focus of Signpost is English Wikipedia, we cover Wikimedia projects globally, and you certainly are welcome to describe, mention, or compare readership of Chinese Wikipedia.
Personally, I really appreciate submissions and stories which address big strategic issues, like future directions and what we should value, so I like your concept. Please draft a bit and let me know how I can support. When you have something, I will bring it to the other editors. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:51, 24 August 2026 (UTC)reply
@Bluerasberry: I consider the current version of my essay (link updated) ready for proofreading. To not overwhelm Signpost readers, I decided not to discuss the topic on editors being readers in this essay, and may submit another one later.
However, I still have no idea on what image should I look for. Any suggestion? 1F616EMO (talk) 17:14, 18 September 2026 (UTC)reply
About AI usage: I did not mark every usage, but most of the time, I commit my own writings before submitting a follow-up minor edit containing AI-assisted enhancements. 1F616EMO (talk) 17:19, 18 September 2026 (UTC)reply
@1F616EMO: I have you staged for further review at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Op-ed. Please change the pictures. They can be anything from Wikimedia Commons. You mention heavy metal music - maybe a band? It is the style of The Signpost to showcase nice images from Commons, even if they are not essential to the message. One image is essential for the template at the top of the article, and I recommend 1-2 more for the body.
For the red link, feel free to just link Chinese language Wikipedia if there is no English equivalent. That is better than a red link. Explain the concept briefly if it needs more explanation. The title of the redlink explains it, but we do not run redlinks usually.
This will be reviewed by other editors and next publication is in 2-3 weeks. Thanks for submitting. Ping me if you have questions. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:18, 18 September 2026 (UTC)reply


WikiConference: Why attend in-person Wikipedia events?

[edit]
Status:
V ?
Published



       

The Signpost · written by many · served by Sinepost V0.9 · 🄯 CC-BY-SA 4.0