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Deadlines (UTC) Current time is 2026-06-01 11:33:22 ( v t e ) Writing: 20 June 01:00 (19 days left; 65%) Publishing: 21 June 01:00 (20 days left; 66%) There are 18 days, 13 hours, 26 minutes and 38 seconds until deadline. (refresh)

Calendar: current deadline is highlighted, and current UTC date is 2026-06-01 11:33:22.
May 2026 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 27 28 29 30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31	June 2026 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 01 02 03 04 05	July 2026 Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun 29 30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 01 02

Hello, does The Signpost have a documented procedure for what to do for when the editor-in-chief has been away for a period of time, such as a week, and the publication process or other actions that the EIC should execute are not happening, and the EIC has not publicly delegated who should take the EIC's place for a temporary absence?

Also, in the event that the EIC is inactive in The Signpost for a longer period of time, such as a month, is there a documented procedure for how and when to replace the EIC? ↠Pine (✉) 19:02, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To your first question: Yes, in recent years we have informally developed a process for this kind of situation and successfully used it to get several delayed issues out; search the archives of this talk pages for "EICAWOL". (That said, maybe it's time to document it more formally, IIRC Smallbones also suggested that earlier this year. I could take a stab at that next week.) Note though that right now we are not quite in this situation.

To your second question, yes, kind of, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Coordination#Editor-in-Chief. (I'd caution against the temptation to come up with overly formal rules like "after a period of X days of inactivity, the Secretary of the Council Of Regular Signpost Editors will invoke Clause 43b to start the Voting Period, to be administered by the EIC Appointment Subcommittee ...". It's more about gently setting expectations and creating legitimacy for those - like you here! - who raise the issue and propose solutions, and it's informed by the only real near-death-experience this little newsletter had in it over two decades of existence, where there was too much hesitancy to call out a dysfunctional situation with a respected but negligent - and long since departed - EIC.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:32, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think i agree with @HaeB: on just about everything here. I'll try to briefly add some practical suggestions.

• The deadline is a very practical method of organizing a newspaper. It lets everybody know what's expected and when. Publishing using fake deadlines is very unprofessional and just doesn't work very well IMHO. That said, we've had some very good issues in the last 3+ years that I'd entirely given up on - so sometimes it has worked. But we need consistency as well.
• There are some decisions that only the EIC can make. I've needed feedback on 3-4 of these in the last 3 years and haven't gotten adequate responses. Even "yes" or "no" would be adequate most of the time.
• The real problem is that being EIC is a time consuming task with no letup. Burnout after a couple of years should be expected and planned for.
  • Maybe we should just always schedule a feedback/review session for EIC's on their 2nd anniversary.
• The really difficult part is finding a new EIC to replace the old.
  • Perhaps we can redesign a few things about the job to make it easier or to make succession a more natural task. (ideas requested)

I'll leave it there for now. I'd also like to thank JPxG for all his work as EIC. I twisted his arm to get him to take the job. Now I'll give him a little nudge to take a few steps to make a dignified exit (whenever that is). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:31, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Agreed about the importance of reliable publication deadlines in general (we've been over this topic many times on this talk page; I'm wondering if it might be useful for someone - e.g. a friendly LLM - to compile and summarize those past discussions to help reduce repetitiveness). I also think people may overindex on the fact that we've still muddled through, this ignores the costs and damages we incur from this unreliability (just speaking for myself, it has definitely made keeping up RR - as I've done for the last 15 years, more or less - more difficult). On the other had, it should be said that this was much less of a problem in some recent issues.
• I think there is a connection between your second and third bullet point that you might not be fully cognizant of: The more often contributors impose difficult decisions on the EiC, the harder and more time-consuming that role becomes. Now, I certainly don't want to discourage potentially controversial but valuable stories (like many of your Disinformation reports), but I think this is also why I'm a bit less enthusiastic about the increased frequency of opinion articles, and wary about creating the impression that the Signpost is an open forum for every angry Wikimedian's rants (see also the discussion above about submissions and some team members' frequent, energetic solicitations of opinions from our readers). Conversely though, this also means that we can help make that job easier by e.g. weighing in on such decisions, e.g. raising problems in submitted pieces, following up with their authors to fix them, etc., before the EiC has to make the final call on them. Of course that is among the many things facilitated by a reliable publication schedule.
• Like Pine, I disagree that JPxG should feel compelled to step down. He continues to do lots of good work as EiC and I hope he stays on. But yes, by now there is no need to politely ignore this particular shortcoming. I'm also a bit confused how subjecting someone to a (public, I assume) "feedback/review session" in that role would help with burnout, but then again that's what's already happening a bit here. One concrete thing that would be useful for JPxG to do more often *without* having to spend more time and energy is to delegate more often (but I'll stop here before I start sounding like an executive coach).
• On that matter, and considering the continuing progression of time, I have now proposed above to invoke the aforementioned EICAWOL protocol to get the current issue out and get us back on track.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:49, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not intending to suggest that JPxG should step down. :) The Signpost is a team effort, and perhaps with someone to fill the publication & newsroom manager role and/or if someone volunteers for an "Assistant Editor in Chief" role as backup, JPxG will be okay with continuing. There's a real risk that if an EIC steps down, and no successor is lined up, there will be an EIC vacancy which may be a bigger problem than having an EIC who is competent but has limited availability. The EIC, like most people involved with The Signpost, is a volunteer, and there are limits to how much can be expected from every volunteer including the EIC. ↠Pine (✉) 00:59, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. I do think that @Bri: has essentially filled the role of "Assistant Editor in Chief" even though I don't think it was entirely voluntary and done mostly without notice. So we need some practical steps. Can we find a volunteer to be "Assistant Editor in Chief"? That might be enough for now, but I can't see the current situation continuing for another year. Another thing we might do is recruit a copyediting corps - but that takes time and effort and has no guarentee of success. Perhaps something like "guest EICs" or rotating EICs. It might help having a separate publisher and EIC - that worked pretty well during my tenure. I'll strongly suggest an automatic procedure to publish what we have ready 2 hours after deadline, unless the EIC is present and saying something like "We're waiting for the article from X, which should be ready in an hour". I do think that we should have a strategy for ongoing recruitment for all positions (reporters and editors). Let's get the ball rolling on this now, if not we'll have to do it later from a worse position. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:19, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About has a list of 18 EICs over the 20 years of publication. Eight of those served less that 1 year. We need to be realistic. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:32, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Back in '22 I was stoked as hell to be publishing every issue, although at the time I dragged my feet on it for a while because it sounded like a gigantic amount of work and I was concerned it would be too much for me to commit to doing on a regular schedule forever. At the time, this was resolved by having a co-EiC, who was Frostly, and with whose heavy lifting it was very easy to put out gigantic quantities of very good stuff on a regular basis. After a while he called it quits and it was just me. For some time this was basically fine; various factors in my life led to my being unemployed for a rather long period, and there was not really a whole lot to do, so I was happy to spend a lot of it on Wikipedia.

At the time I was very excited about taking a leadership position, about the Signpost, about journalism, about Wikipedia, about developing the MediaWiki ecosystem, and about my role in all of these things. I cannot really say I see a bright future for all of these things. Now it is 2026 and I have not really written an article in a very long time (either a mainspace Wikipedia article or a Signpost one). Mostly I log in on the publication date and then try to put out something that's not going to be false or have grave errors or create liability or get anybody screamed at or get me doxed again by that deranged guy on the message board (the left-wing one) or the deranged guy on Twitter (the right-wing one) who sends death threats under my name to random influencers. It is really impossible to overstate how much of the result of my interacting with Wikipedia is that weird assholes want me to jump off a bridge or call me woke or a Nazi or whatever. I pretty much never get an email or a talk page message from somebody who read an article I wrote and thought it was good, or funny, or whatever. It's not that having some random guy I've never met tell me I suck is some terrible fate worse than death, it's just like having a rock in your shoe: what's the benefit? Why would you put a rock in your shoe on purpose, if it didn't have one there to begin with? That is the question I ask myself when I log in. Well, if it was changing the world, then it'd be worth it. If I had to go invent the printing press, and I had to wear shoes to do it, and the only pair of shoes I owned had rocks in them that you couldn't get out, then I would just have to deal with it because the printing press is too goddamned important and changes the world so much and helps so many people and stops so much injustice that I couldn't stomach the idea of passing it up to bitch about rocks in my shoes.

But I am not 100% convinced that we are still trying very hard to be inventing the printing press, or write the Encyclopedie, or whatever. Definitely we are not doing that, but I'm not sure we are even really trying to be doing it anymore. I signed up for making the greatest and most comprehensive reference work in history. It feels like what we as a project are doing is too often random pointless mumbo-jumbo, and occasionally random pointless mumbo-jumbo that is directly inimical to that goal. Sorry to do a tl;dr soliloquy about life the universe and everything, but that is kind of how it feels sometimes.

An issue every two weeks was a very ambitious goal that was only possible with either two EiCs or one with drastically more free time and motivation than I've got available to me. I think the only practical thing to do is go back to once a month (which is what we did for many years previously) because anything faster is going to kill me.

I think part of the reality of the situation is that we just don't have as much stuff to publish as we used to; the old situation was that Frostly would do a bunch of posting and outreach to get people interested in sending stuff in, which would cause a bunch of high-quality stuff to come in. We do not really have much in the way of that now, which means all we have is a few sections; I don't really feel good about publishing this one just now because all it had was the bare skeleton of what you could possibly say was an issue.

I am really glad that people have been doing so much stuff to get things ready for publication, and specifically Bri who has done a very large amount of it. As far as I can tell he refuses the crown now and has done so in the past, or else I would insist upon his being listed as a co-EiC. I think the reality of it is that I am sometimes just not very good at this; I have previously said a few times that I would be open to and happy about sharing the role, or having some of its formal duties carved out, or whatever. As a first step I will set the next issue date to a month because I think picking at a scab every four weeks is less painful than every three weeks. jp×g🗯️ 07:36, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG I feel your frustration, and I gotta say we should show way more appreciation than we usually do for the care you're trying to put into this newspaper, even when you have limited time and low motivation.

I also agree that we should stick mostly to a one-per-month schedule for now, as it will allow us to gather more interesting bits of information, recruit new writers/reviewers (hopefully) and improve the overall quality of our articles. Oltrepier (talk) 16:04, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG: Aaron Swartz, Wikipedian and activist, said, "What is the most important thing I could be working on in the world right now, and if you are not working on that, why aren't you?" I submit to The Signpost because I sincerely feel that it is the best and most intelligent use of my time. I have been submitting stories since at least 2015, and your executive decisions as editor-in-chief have been an entirely positive experience for me and made major improvements in this publishing social machine. I am immensely grateful and appreciative for your technical contributions to The Signpost, including making the timer countdown for publication, sorting metadata for the archives, reforming the submission room templates, doing something that enables publication to be better staged and delivered to readers, and making that tool which identifies popular discussions in Wikipedia talk pages. I appreciate your editorial will to make executive decisions which conform the submissions and editors into a coherent tone, which allow plenty of room for controversial hot takes but also intuitively draw the line to a standard of respectability, restraint, and shared consensus. Editorial control is probably the least of your time commitment but also the most human and irreplaceable thing that you personally do, and that is what is putting you in the growing club of Wikipedians with crazy violent stalkers. I went to counseling for years only to talk about the threats and harassment I experience in Wikipedia, and there are lots of other people in Wikimedia LGBT+ and many other demographics who similarly experience this vulnerability and violent insanity. I say that I especially respect your editorial choices the most, even in the context of my recognition that your technical contributions are something that we or the WMF could not have hired a contractor to accomplish if we had $100,000 to spend. I also appreciate your submissions, like the recent description of the self-hacking incident, and while people may not be thanking you for that, I wish that you could interpret all the comments the article got there and in the social network of discourse to be an indicator of appreciation.

I want you here. I like writing under you. I hope you stay for as long as you feel that this is meaningful and satisfying. If you leave, I would love to do an exit interview with you to record your values and intents and wishes for this publication, because The Signpost is a bulwark against existential threat to Wikipedia and the the concept of freedom in the digital world generally. I think you are one of the most influential newspaper editors who ever lived. If it is not fun anymore then I understand that, but please believe me when I say that I appreciate a lot, and I think you should be proud of this publications dedicated readership and the esteem that this news source has. I take it seriously. Thank you. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:12, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @JPxG: Agreed that one might expect more gratitude than people get around here, both in The Signpost and Wikipedia content activities in general. Around here are risks, complaints, arguments, power plays, and activities that feel a lot more like work than a fun hobby. The technical contributors are at least doing things that look good for their resumes. I'm not sure that anyone doing content activities will get gratitude or benefit unless they're part of an education program or GLAM. I feel that decades ago the world was a more optimistic place where there was slow but observable incremental progress over the course of years and decades, in many domains. These days technology is moving fast ahead but everything else feels painful when looked at with a wide-angle lens. This is my long way of saying that I think I feel similar to you, and my guess is that many other people do too. Hopefully we all make a little positive difference here. We can at least say we tried. ↠Pine (✉) 03:16, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Seconding what Pine said. I think JPxG should continue as long as he wants to. It's not an easy job; several of us here have held it with varying degrees of longevity. @JPxG: If you know in advance you want me to handle publication for some time period, just say so. I'll make arrangements to be there. It's difficult to do at last minute, and like I said for April, I have been busy lately with the 420 Collaboration, especially now that (partial) U.S. rescheduling is happening.

For everybody else: I've contacted JPxG offline to offer commiseration/encouragement/acknowledgement of potential burnout, and encourage others to do so if they feel so moved. We regulars should treat each other kindly, as comrades at least. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:20, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You guys are all way wiser than me, so I could not agree with everything you've said right above...

@JPxG Just know that you can count on us in these stressful times. Oltrepier (talk) 19:44, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

JPxG is, by some margin, the longest-serving EiC the Signpost has ever had. Kudos!

I second Bri for Co-EiC or Assistant EiC or whatever title he prefers while taking some of the pressure of JPxG. Andreas JN466 20:26, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@HaeB: thanks for your comments above. Have you had time to work on the EICAWOL policy draft? ↠Pine (✉) 01:30, 7 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping! I have just added this to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Coordination (also seeing that we are already invoking it again this time).

As discussed above, this is just reflecting the procedure as we have already used it several times before, with the exception that I added a 24 hour grace period between pinging the EIC (in case of a deadline in jeopardy, with a request to update it or advise otherwise) and carrying out publication without them. This is likewise also what we ended up doing in practice anyway (and what Bri did earlier this week), so adding a formal requirement might seem a bit bureaucratic. But I think it's worthwhile for avoiding a potential loophole that someone could be attempted to exploit sometime in the future.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:34, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To the extent that this needs any kind of official ratification, I propose that we do that, perhaps by putting some kind of big damn wax stamp on it that says "Officialus Certificus" on it. jp×g🗯️ 14:35, 25 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions#We_say_Wikipedia_isn't_a_battleground._So_why_does_it_feel_like_one?
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Drafts/Opinion 202604

Can I get additional reviewers, comments, and evaluation on this opinion piece? I have staged it for publication in the last two issues but there have been some light blocks to running it.

Can anyone speak up if they have objections to running this in the next issue? Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:26, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I read this when it was in draft form. It came across as unobjectionable. If it were mine, I'd punch it up a little bit. I think the second-to-last paragraph has points that should be made up front. Especially this one – explain reverts, instead of just making them; ask for reasoning, instead of jumping to conclusions. Just my opinion but I think modern readers (even sophisticated Wikipedians) need something to grab their attention or they will drift away. Bri.public (talk) 14:58, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Gosh, I didn't even realize it wasn't included in the latest issue! To be fair, apart from the slight corrections @Bri has already suggested, the article looks perfectly alright to me, and I did copy-edit it myself. Oltrepier (talk) 19:22, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Am planning to include this when I publish issue 7 (today). ☆ Bri (talk) 15:39, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled across meta:Association of Structurist Wikipedians. What do others think about using this essay in the Essay section of the next Signpost issue? ↠Pine (✉) 04:17, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This looks interesting. It may need some tweaking to suit the Signpost, though, or perhaps a more general essay about structure derived from it. Mitchsavl (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't look hugely active as a group – I see one person added themselves in 2025, and one in 2026 [1] – but an interesting essay. I'd say "let's do it". - Bri.public (talk) 19:29, 4 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Mitchsavl and Bri: there might be more essays under meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies which are in good enough condition to be published as they are or after some additional work. What do you think about publishing them as a recurring "Wikimedia Philosophy" series of essays in The Signpost? And Mitchsavl, would you please briefly describe what you think should be changed in meta:Association of Structurist Wikipedians for inclusion in The Signpost? ↠Pine (✉) 01:06, 7 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure what to change, as I sort of went off vibes. I think elements from "Useful tools and resources" and beyond should be excluded, but other than that I am not entirely sure. Mitchsavl (talk) 09:25, 7 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• @Mitchsavl: OK, thanks for the feedback. At some point one of us, possibly me, can take up that suggestion, create a draft, and see what we think. If we have enough content for the May issue then I'm fine with following up on this idea for a later issue. ↠Pine (✉) 04:46, 8 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have started thinking of a follow up to these pieces published by @Bri, Smallbones, SashiRolls, and Jayen466: regarding the DOJ Weaponization Working Group and Ed Martin. I am considering a FOIA request to find out if there is more to the story. If you would like you can see that draft here. @Bluerasberry: mentioned that it could be good to publish the request if I decide to go through with it. Czarking0 (talk) 03:33, 5 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I can’t wait for this report, and the topic it covers is vital for the encyclopedia. If you manage to get the documents, I’d love it if you can make them available to us (to the fullest extent of the law) so me and the fellow Signpost editors can assist in the development of this report. Mitchsavl (talk) 05:05, 5 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, agreed. Czarking0 (talk) 05:12, 5 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Have we already reported about this post in a previous issue? It's a nice (and kind of worrying) breakdown of recent drops in page traffic by topic, and I think it would make for a pretty interesting lead story. Oltrepier (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I can see from the external links search tool that it has not been covered before. - Bri.public (talk) 22:57, 11 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri Cool! I hope I can help with that myself in the next few days. Oltrepier (talk) 19:38, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this could be written as a standalone column, as this is certainly very interesting and detailed, and highly relevant to the project. The author of the article appears to have a Wikipedia presence as User:LuisVilla, who we can talk to for input on this. Mitchsavl (talk) 23:23, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to talk about it. The blog and images are CC BY 4.0, so also feel free to just reuse. Happened to be in the process of publishing the source code when I got this ping. —Luis (talk) 23:34, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Mitchsavl If you want to start writing a short draft, go ahead! I'll try to add something more in the next few days. Oltrepier (talk) 14:01, 13 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll be a bit busy, and may not have the time to get it done before publish. If I do it, I’ll probably need to wait for the June issue at least. Mitchsavl (talk) 05:01, 14 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If it's cc-by then I can just import the whole thing into a column, then we can do some copyediting (hopefully light). Is that a good option? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:50, 14 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri Sounds good! I guess "Community view" could be the right slot to place that in. Oltrepier (talk) 19:02, 14 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Got it started at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view. Graphics need to be copied over, I'll do that soon if someone else doesn't get it first. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:38, 15 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Charts added. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:55, 15 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@anybody: Is the author this Luis Villa? ☆ Bri (talk) 01:01, 15 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Lu.is is his personal blog. Mitchsavl (talk) 04:40, 15 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the part mentioning Jmail over potential WP:BLP and WP:V concerns. Using AI to summarize a person's present in the Epstein Files could be considered to be disallowed as per WP:BLPCRIME, as AI is not considered a reliable source. Mitchsavl-on-public-wifi (main|talk) 23:41, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The current image used for the cover is an AI-generated Dall-E image, with the relevant story only links in the "in brief" section. This would not go down well with readers, so we should probably replace it with something less likely to get negative reactions. Mitchsavl (talk) 08:29, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken the liberty to replace it. The column still needs a title if anyone has a good idea for it. Mitchsavl (talk) 12:17, 20 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to your edit here (this was not a great illustration anyway IMO). But in general we should make such decisions based on our judgment of what's best for illustrating our articles rather than how it would "go down" with a hypothetical group of readers who cares more about fighting larger battles about AI than about the Signpost's quality per se. As a reminder, the Signpost has used numerous AI-generated illustrations before (incomplete list), and there is no policy or community consensus preventing us from doing so. Also, speaking as someone who wasn't very happy about the quality of some of AI-generated illustrations we used earlier (like 2022 or 2023 or so, also the time which the rather crappy image you removed is dating from btw), I'd also like to point out that the quality of AI image generation has improved immensely since then.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:41, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I’ll try to better find an image to represent it in the future. Mitchsavl (talk) 21:06, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I copyedited it and fixed various factual errors and other things (many of them spotted by 5.5 Thinking). I should refrain from formally approving the whole thing for publication since I contributed part of the "poisoning" story, but I can take responsibility for declaring the rest ready. Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:26, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@HaeB Have you already reported about the LLMpedia project in previous issues? I don't remember coming across that, but it should be quite an eye-catching, albeit disturbing, experiment to write about. Oltrepier (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the tip! No, not yet. We'll see to cover that paper in some form, but I was a bit confused about the project's purpose when I first saw it (and apparently wasn't the only one), given that it does not seem to be a serious attempt to generate useful Wikipedia-like articles (unlike say the project we covered here, or this more recent paper). Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:54, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @E mln e: I noticed your recent addition to this Signpost article included broken link formatting. Could you please fix the remaining formatting issues, as I wasn't able to correct it? Thanks. oops, forgot to sign earlier Mitchsavl (talk) 02:19, 9 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@E mln e: We are past writing deadline. There is a highlighted note saying "to be developed" in the section. Can I just remove that and publish as it is? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Mitchsavl - sorry I missed your ping

@Bri - I'm working on it today - sorry my understanding was the deadline is in 8h or so? E mln e (talk) 17:15, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for quick reply! In 8 hours or so is publication. We should be copyediting and tidying the material now in preparation. Bri.public (talk) 17:23, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bri and Mitchsavl,

thanks for looking out for this. As has been our custom for well over a decade now, I'll take responsibility for having RR in a publishable shape by the deadline (if it's not, then feel free to postpone it to the next issue). In this case this will include making any necessary edits E mlne e's review, which we had been coordinating about offline (I had actually reminded E mle e about the deadline earlier today already; and as you may have seen I made various edits to the existing draft earlier this week).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:25, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

PS, @Mitchsavl: Were you planning to work on the todo item you added here? (No worries if not, but usually we try to organize papers to cover in the customary Etherpad instead; generally findable via Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Content_guidance#Recent_research).

By the way, the second article you had linked there is quite clearly fully AI-generated (Pangram score 100%) - not a criticism (we'll all need to get more used to that I suppose), but noting it here since you have recently expressed concern about another link to an AI-generated web page in the Signpost.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:45, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'd forgotten about the article completely, and I won't have the ability to go through it. As for the AI-generated one, I was just quickly looking for things that appeared interesting, without doing any analysis at the time. In future, I'll try to notify on the Etherpad, and assess if I will be able to complete it or not. Mitchsavl-on-public-wifi (main|talk) 02:16, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Commons seems to have a shortage of imagery of recent events in the Strait of Hormuz which are from organizations other than the US Navy. Additionally, it would be informative if the gallery could include one or more photos or videos of recent UAV activities in the Strait. Can anyone suggest a source for these photos or videos which would have a Commons-compatible license? ↠Pine (✉) 02:39, 7 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard flickr has a large library of Creative Commons licenced photos, but I think you may need an account. Other than that, I'd expect images from other sources to potentially be unbalanced, especially considering factors such as press freedom in some countries in the region. Google also allows you to filter images by usage licence, under the "tools" dropdown. You may want to check out Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial for more guidance. Mitchsavl (talk) 09:21, 7 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks, Mitchsavl. Unfortunately, Google image search was not helpful when I looked yesterday. I found a few more images on Commons. I may reduce the number of images from US DOW/DOD sources to reduce the proportion of the gallery from a single government's images. ↠Pine (✉) 04:50, 8 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  One thing to consider is that a gallery can be taken as a representative sample of available media, and reducing the proportion could affect how it is perceived. The media could be accompanied by a brief explanation of the imbalance, and with the readers aware of this, would be able to get an insight into the current balance of information in the region more broadly. Mitchsavl (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For others' information: if I don't finalize a selection of images on the topic of the Strait of Hormuz crisis which seems adequate to me, I'll change the topic for the gallery, and postpone the Strait of Hormuz topic. ↠Pine (✉) 06:04, 9 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Hi @Mitchsavl: FYI, I swapped subjects. The gallery page for the next issue will be about Earth Day and Mother's Day. Maybe next month there will be more Strait of Hormuz photos that are suitable for a Signpost gallery. ↠Pine (✉) 01:28, 11 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  Nice selection. When linking to a language, be careful it doesn’t link to a disambiguation page, the title is often in the form of X language. Mitchsavl (talk) 05:16, 11 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing this thread spurred me to do some file organizing on Commons. Apologies if you've already considered this (I'm more familiar with Commons than Signpost galleries), but: Category:Reactions to the 2026 Iran war may have some images that would fit. For example, most reporting on the c:Category:April 2026 visit of Keir Starmer to the Middle East mentions the Strait of Hormuz crisis. c:Category:2026 Philippine energy crisis also has images related to the effects of the Strait of Hormuz crisis. Wracking ^talk! 06:49, 11 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Wracking: thanks very much. I will save those links. If I create a gallery in a later Signpost issue then I may refer to them. ↠Pine (✉) 03:35, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I know it is already summarised in the news and notes section, but should we run Wikimedia Foundation Secured Government’s Commitment to User Safety, Privacy, and Content Integrity Ahead of Administrative Registration in Indonesia in this section? Mitchsavl (talk) 02:18, 9 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia at 25: The Encyclopedia That Might Not Last.

Dariusz advertised the piece today on Wikimedia-l. Not sure where it should best be covered. Andreas JN466 20:02, 12 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Recent research I think. Mitchsavl (talk) 00:48, 13 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's a bit on the opinion side, but given the format and publication venue, it does fit into RR. If anyone feels inclined to contribute a writeup or review, please go ahead; otherwise we'll just list it under "Other recent publications" in RR. (NB: Last week I had raised two issues about the paper [2][3] - the first of which reiterated a point already previous covered in the Signpost - but I might not get around to contribute a review myself here.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:43, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/Community_view

This is an amazing piece on Wikipedia traffic in what is shaping up to be a really good issue. We have some powerful pieces here. Bluerasberry (talk) 22:32, 15 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I shall link the notable author's name in the byline to his Wikipedia article. Is there anything else we should do to call out his bona fides? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:35, 15 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have worked up something I'd like a second opinion on. It is genuinely intended to reflect things that made me chuckle or raise an eyebrow, not to draw attention to the editor(s) who did silly things. Is this a good idea? ☆ Bri (talk) 00:06, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would steer away from anything that singles out individual editors. This has the risk of much more negative outcomes. I looked at the rest of the items, and nothing stood out to me as a "must add to humour section". But that's not a big deal, not every humour section needs to be funny for everyone. I would suggest trying to make something more than "Look at all these weird things" out of it though. Soni (talk) 04:31, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for feedback, Soni. I think I'll hold onto it as the kernel but look for ways to remove the potential trouble and add ... something. Not sure what yet. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:30, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Publishing deadline is Thursday evening in the U.S. How do people feel about that? Should we push a few days and publish on a weekend day? ☆ Bri (talk) 14:33, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

On the Corgi/theinsurer.com news thing, I haven't read it, but from what I could glean I worried about if there was WP:OUTING in it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:44, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri That would be great for me, because I would have more time to help you finish the issue! Oltrepier (talk) 15:48, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The gallery is in good condition. @Bri: would you like to walk through the drafts and start pinging authors as needed to ask about readiness for publication? ↠Pine (✉) 01:42, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm leaning towards sticking with the Thursday publication, which I can support as emergency publisher if necessary. @JPxG: any objections?

I did a cleanup pass on In the Media and on News and notes. NaN is a little thin though probably publishable. If anybody wants to put in additional commentary on the election (was there anything out of the ordinary?) or on any remaining highlighted items, go for it.

Will request copyeditors to come do their thing at end of day (Pacific Time). ☆ Bri (talk) 15:12, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Gerald Waldo Luis, Headbomb, Isaacl, and Adam Cuerden: Copyeditors listed on Signpost's about page -- could you take a look at article status and help out where needed? Publishing deadline is coming up. Thanks! ☆ Bri (talk) 05:01, 20 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind either Thursday night or Friday publication even if I'm a bit behind. (I'm just getting ready to post the 2 major sections of the Disinfo report and have a so-so intro too, but there are a couple of minor sections that I'd like to do something with) After Friday evening, I'm off to the Memorial Day holiday. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:33, 20 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Smallbones: It looks like maybe you finished the Disinformation report; is it ready for copyediting? ☆ Bri (talk) 13:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri: All but the final section is ready for CE. I like the new piccy and blurb better. In 10 minutes I'll have my own CE done, then another 30 minutes for the conclusion. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:13, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri: Ok, sorry for the delay, after a short break I'll look at CEing News and notes. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:58, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the comments or lack of comments, I'm going to plan to publish this evening Pacific Time, probably after watching the Starship test flight. If you are reading this, you are eligible to copyedit (hint, hint). ☆ Bri (talk) 13:17, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a reminder that under our usual EICAWOL procedure (which I just codified per the earlier discussion above), regular team members should start approving sections for publication standing in for the EiC, preferably not those they have been involved with themselves. I'll try to chip in myself (besides focusing on getting RR into shape, as discussed above earlier today).

Alternatively, we may just want to go ahead and appoint Bri Co-EiC, as Andreas already suggested above.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:43, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be better to stay in a backup/emergency position. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:07, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It comes to the same thing in practice. As always, thanks for your service. Andreas JN466 23:16, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I actually don't think it does, even not "in practice" (happy to explain further after this issue is out, in case you still disagree). I do understand a reluctance to fully commit on a permanent basis of course, but if Bri wants to use the additional authority that comes with the EiC position, even if only as "backup/emergency" EiC, then we need to formalize that at some point. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:47, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we keep hinting as such, but I think we have tried and found wanting all normal methods of suasion short of tying him to a chair and whacking with a rubber hose — he is too smart to say "yes". jp×g🗯️ 14:40, 25 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Taking a break. In the interest of peace in the newsroom I've backed off the approval for the Essay, which is exactly why I'm considering myself publisher at best, not co-anything. I do think we should have a better way of handling stuff like this. This leaves a pretty full issue of material ready to go:

• In the media
• News and notes
• Comix
• Disinformation report
• Gallery
• Opinion
• Recent research
• Serendipity
• Forum
• Community view
• In focus
• Special report

Additionally, if the Op-Ed is copyedited when I get back in ~1 hour, I will include it. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:47, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Issue 7 is published. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:19, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have run the script to populate the index and make the single-talk. jp×g🗯️ 08:57, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2026-05-22/Opinion, I am a bit surprised that this got published; I spiked this twice because the text was entirely AI-generated. jp×g🗯️ 09:05, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG I did copy-edit it, though... Oltrepier (talk) 11:37, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@JPxG: I accepted the submission and pushed the piece. I did not realize that there were AI concerns. Each time you sent it back I got the author to further edit it.

Going forward, I will push again to develop a Signpost editorial policy on AI. We can all discuss, but one possible change we can make is asking every author if and how they used AI in submissions, and reacting by our policy.

I apologize for the misconnect here but now that I understand the issue, I can change going forward. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:49, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Feel like I was part of that mixup too. Maybe when we decline the sub it should go back to user space, then through the whole Signpost approval cycle? In other words: maybe leaving declined drafts in Signpost space is causing problems. I dunno. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:48, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is my fault; what I am pretty sure happened is when I declined the submission I noted it in some stupid place like an edit/move summary instead of the section on here. It should have been in the newsroom talk section, and then everyone could have seen it. Ironically, despite the general tendency towards furore and imbroglio among the editoriat on this topic, nobody seems to have noticed at the talk page for the article itself, or indeed anybody here besides me, so I guess maybe it does not matter and our society has crossed the threshold of being able to distinguish or care. Who knows. jp×g🗯️ 14:38, 25 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This confusion could have been avoided just by using Template:Signpost draft as intended for such cases (i.e. adding status = rejected instead of just moving the draft, which understandably left Bluerasberry and others a bit confused about why it hadn't been included.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:49, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And great points regarding AI. Indeed this submission is extremely likely to be fully AI-generated, and a week after publication, the article has received only positive reactions from readers, including enthusiastic praise from the Wikimedia Foundation's Senior Director of Movement Communications (when was the last time a Signpost story elicited such reactions from WMF management?).

I'm not sure society has crossed that threshold yet, but yes, it's definitely been getting closer recently. With regard to our deliberations about how we should handle this at the Signpost, I think this example supports my point above that we should make such decisions based on the quality of the content rather than by trying to predict how it would "go down with" a hypothetical group of readers who cares more about fighting larger battles about AI than about the Signpost's quality per se. That said, as also mentioned before, I'm concerned that AI might exacerbate the recent problem of some folks putting effort into maximizing the number of opinion articles about arbitrary topics in the Signpost (as opposed to factual, journalistic reporting about current news). In any case, Signpost team members should consider creating a Pangram account (one currently gets 4 checks/day for free).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:58, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Just came over to make a similar comment and found HaeB beat me to it. There's ~7.5 kB of comments and none mention AI. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:53, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This late submission is still being edited a bit but will be done tonight.

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Op-ed
• from submissions desk

I copyedited the piece already and clicked on all the links.

• ✅ links all work and are relevant
• ✅ story flows all makes sense to me
• ✅ it is mostly an opinion piece but the claims pass fact-checking
• ✅ as an op-ed it does not need Signpost formal copyediting

I would appreciate review from someone else also. Even if I am not in the edit history I did process the submission.

@Sadads: we are scheduled to publish in two days so please try to respond if someone pings you to react. Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:34, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, I am going to keep tweaking tonight and add illustrations, Sadads (talk) 23:44, 19 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

All good, its up and edited with images, -- happy for some other recommendations if you have some! Sadads (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/Serendipity

There are quotations here without attribution which is normally not a good practice, but I think that is okay. One reason for no attribution is because the top of the article links to a single archival page which contains these statements, and they are easy to track. It is clever, fortunate, and interesting to quote various people all from one place in 2004. I clicked through to find the quotations and the editors quoted have not edited in about 20 years, so I see little value in drawing personal attention to their user accounts by naming and linking to them. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:58, 20 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This submission looks fine to me per se, but I disagree with Bluerasberry's decision to publish it as the "Technology report" for this issue. As a reminder, this section is meant for independent reporting akin to ITM and N&N; it covers news and developments in the technical platforms used by the Wikimedia project (to quote from Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Content_guidance#Technology_report).

Articles such as this, where someone promotes their own project instead of covering news, should run under a different section title - I may move it to "Forum", but open to other suggestions. (Also, such pieces should clearly state the author's affiliation and connection to the subject, but of course the author already took care of that, given that as a Signpost EiC emeritus he is very familiar with such journalistic standards. ;-)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:23, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@HaeB: I moved it to "forum".

Correct, it is not Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Content_guidance#Technology_report. It does not match Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Content_guidance#Forum either. If anyone else sees fit for another categorization, then I support moving it again, but it seems that "forum" passes for us two. Bluerasberry (talk) 23:00, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Agreed, "Forum" isn't ideal either (if someone has time to look more into it, we could conceivably rotate further with some other section lined up for this issue that fits "Forum" better), but it takes care of the main concern above. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:39, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw the June deadline occurs in the middle of a three day weekend in the United States. This may hamper people's ability to be present at or near deadline. Would June 13–14 be better? Then four weeks later, July publishing could be 11–12, avoiding Independence Day weekend. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:14, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No issues with me. On my side, I am supposed to be slogging through till August anyway. – robertsky (talk) 14:42, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support moving it to June 13-14, yes.

Apropos, I think last week's issue illustrates how assumptions that every four weeks is less painful than every three weeks may backfire. We ended up with an issue of >20k words (reading time over 90 minutes), and too many submissions having piled up to review in the allocated time (you did a ton of work and I tried to chip in as well by reviewing several sections, but still we e.g. left some unpublished).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:46, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• I would suggest a soft deadline for writing be a Wednesday, a soft deadline for copyediting be the Friday of the same week, and a soft deadline for publication on Saturday of the same week. Publication days seem to be very busy around here. If there are last-minute things to do, the EIC can address them on Saturday, and if the EIC is AWOL on Saturday, an EIC AWOL procedure could be immediately invoked on the Sunday and concluded by whenever the EIC substitute wishes on Sunday. ↠Pine (✉) 17:45, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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]

@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]

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/From the editor by request Bluerasberry (talk) 16:28, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Someone asked me how they can contribute to The Signpost. Here are some ideas.

Bluerasberry (talk) 21:00, 26 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like something we can add to the next Signpost issue, possibly, with blessings from the editor, in the "From the editor" section. – robertsky (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Robertsky: Sure, I formatted this as "from the editors". This column requires support from other editors to proceed though. It is posted to help discussion over the next few weeks. I invite anyone to revise. Bluerasberry (talk) 16:30, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! I have added some stuff there. Honestly, I had been asked to by others on contributing. Hopefully, this would make a quick primer. – robertsky (talk) 17:06, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I will see if there's anything I can add from the Signpost contributor Quick start I created some time ago. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:06, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Now that there are three of us on the byline, should it be moved to "From the editors"? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:39, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I was starting to write up some text on the "long-term roles" but decided to back off and start here instead. I think that the Publication manager, Outreach manager, and Designer roles outlined at the Quick start really would work better if the person got consensus to do them from other editors, versus simply putting on the hat and starting – which I think is fine for everything else now listed in the From the editors report. Any ideas on how to put this forward, assuming I'm right about that? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:45, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Wiki Workers United solidarity

This is currently the second-most popular and signed petition in English Wikipedia history. The story has appeared in international news media. User revolt events are fairly common in Wikimedia projects because we have a democratic process here, but this event is on track to become a high consensus community demand.

Compare this to some previous petitions, like meta:Community open letter on renaming, where there were wiki community organizational supporters. I have information that some wiki community organizations are voting on whether to sign support as an organization.

I propose that The Signpost sign onto the solidarity petition as an organization.

We do not have a process for this, but here is what comes to my mind:

• Regular editors and contributors who watch this talk page and speak up make the call, just as this is the place for other organizational decisions.
• Editor-in-chief / chiefs have veto power and need to participate, as is usual here.
• We could do an accompanying "from the editors" piece because we are a newspaper but for other petitions, organizations usually do not give a reason.
• We are a Wikipedia community newspaper and signing on would not be surprising, as obviously this is a major English Wikipedia / global wiki social movement by and for the demographic we represent.

Thoughts? Bluerasberry (talk) 00:30, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not, and it's disappointing to see yet another failure of you to recognize how basic journalistic principles might be in tension with your attempts to use the Signpost as a tool for whatever activism and advocacy you happen to be interested in at the moment. (Like COI principles, when you used News and Notes to write glowing praise about an organization and its work that you happened to be centrally involved in, without even so much as a disclosure. Or just this month when - for the second time - you thought it would be a good idea for the Signpost to run an advocacy piece by a particular editor with a problematic history of community sanctions in the same broad topic area, in this case involving what in my and various other people's view was clearly an attempt to use the Signpost to criticize their current topic ban. Apropos, that editor was just fully site-banned by ArbCom for a week in connection with that Signpost submission which you had wanted us to run.)

Even if you share this petition's goals, you should take a moment and think about which of these two roles is more likely to result in the Signpost having a bigger positive impact on this situation: As an independent publication that our readers trust to report on these matters factually and neutrally? Or as a publication whose credibility in such matters will be tainted from the beginning as a de facto "party newspaper", because critical reporting on the topics in question might be attacked as violating this absolute commitment to stand in solidarity with Wiki Workers United that you want the Signpost to sign onto here? And in the longer view: Suppose that things go well from the petition's perspective - WMF staff does fully unionize, and WWU becomes a powerful force at WMF and in the Wikimedia movement (maybe even with a few seats on the WMF Board, as has been proposed by some in the past IIRC). In that case it would absolutely become important to report on potential missteps and scandals at WWU, or also just to highlight cases where its goals might conflict with the view(s) of the community - just like the Signpost has long done with other influential organizations in the movement. This too would be incompatible with the blind solidarity commitment you're advocating for here.

Likewise, I oppose a pre-commitment to cease publication of the Signpost on the say-so of WWU functionaries (the other thing that the petition would ask of us in case we sign: engage in collective action if called upon by WWU, up to and including staging an editorial strike). To the contrary, maybe our independent reporting would actually be especially valuable in such a situation.

Of course individual Signpost team members should feel free sign the petition (although, as another Signpost contributor already pointed out in case of the related signature list on Meta, they then might want to refrain from working on our factual coverage of the matter in N&N etc). Also, we of course have some room for separate opinion pieces advocating for signing the petition and in favor of unions in general, which already seem to be in preparation. (Although we should also have some room for well-argued opinion pieces criticizing WWU, even if they fail to "stand in solidarity" or disobey a collective action decision made by WWU's functionaries.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:28, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@HaeB: You have a lot of opinions and evaluations about me personally. I am not avoiding personal evaluation, and I would answer for my biases, faults, and shortcomings publicly or privately as you like, on this board or elsewhere, but not in this thread where it is off topic.

Here I want to discuss editorial positions of The Signpost.

We are a community newspaper. This union petition is one of the most popular organizing efforts the Wikimedia community has ever convened. The Signpost's bias is toward community interests, so it should be standard and non-controversial practice for The Signpost to support any petition that achieves this level of consensus.

There is no need to view community organizing as negative or a conflict. User organizing is constructive, advances our shared goals, and is the source of our success. Wikipedia is the only major media and tech platform which is self-governed by its own user community. Petitions are not a failure of governance, and are instead exactly the kind of civic engagement we designed the Wikimedia Movement to create.

While opposing views are welcome, we have arrived at the point where our data shows a pattern. As seen with meta:Superprotect, the removal of the CEO, the rebranding, and fundraising messages, we experience massive community demonstrations regularly. In these and the many others, we get hundreds of Wikipedia users signing on to the position, but WMF staff do not. The Signpost reports the community's voice, yet we routinely face silence from the Wikimedia Foundation. I am not sure why WMF staff never join these petitions or speak to The Signpost, or speak anywhere else in record. If they are prohibited, then that seems like an error, but if they are just the kind of people who would not sign community petitions, then that seems even worse. I really, really would like someone representing the WMF to end the one-sided conversations and speak frankly about why we do this repeatedly. That conversation could have started 10 years ago.

There should be no dividing line between the WMF and the community, and I think The Signpost can help convene productive new approaches to conversation and collaboration. I want to break the loop of major chaotic user demonstrations happening and then never getting any record of meaningful two-party conversation which follows.

The Signpost represents the community, so standing behind massive community demonstrations should be The Signpost's default, expected position.

Briefly - this position has nothing to do with favoring or disfavoring the union. The union is for WMF staff and the petition is for Wikimedia community, so this petition is not about being loyal to a union which staff may form in the future. I would have written this same position statement for whatever flavor of mass protest was going to happen this summer, and if it were not the union, then it would have been any other issue on the to-do protest list. The demonstration is not about the union particularly, there is just a recovery time between community demonstrations and it is time again. The grievances being raised are hardly about WMF staff labor conditions, and more about every issue that our user community has ever raised.

So again - I propose that The Signpost sign onto the solidarity petition as an organization. Why would we not join Wikimedia community consensus? I take it for granted that if we asked our readership, they would tell us to do this. Bluerasberry (talk) 21:38, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Op-ed from contributors who want to sign onto the WWU solidarity petition makes more sense to me. I don't think The Signpost itself has taken a position on community driven change slash community-WMF conflicts before, including stuff like "A constitutional crisis hits English Wikipedia" which I wrote in 2019 and remember getting kudos for doing so impartially. Not sure why we should start NYT "From the editorial board" type writing now. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:10, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Lane, I have nothing against you personally, but with respect: I am astounded at your utter lack of understanding of journalistic objectivity / journalism ethics and standards. Coming on top of this fundamental lack of understanding what a COI is, I have to wonder if you should still be writing any non-opinion article for the Signpost. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 03:07, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A key question raised by HaeB remains unanswered: is the community best served by the Signpost pledging to do whatever an outside organization tells it to do? Personally, I agree with the concerns that this would compromise the Signpost's neutrality in covering related news. isaacl (talk) 06:17, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To correct just one of Bluerasberry's new claims: Why would we not join Wikimedia community consensus? / It should be standard and non-controversial practice for The Signpost to support any petition that achieves this level of consensus (my bolding) - leaving aside the Trump-like logic here that newspapers should be obliged to adhere to supposed majority opinions and promote them: This petition (and any open letter like this, regardless of how many hundred signatures have been canvassed for it) is not an expression of community consensus. As Bluerasberry should know but apparently forgot, that term has a particular meaning in our community. See in particular Wikipedia:Consensus, which clarifies right in the lede that Consensus on Wikipedia [... is not] the result of a vote; Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion goes a bit further into this.

In fact, the petition's main organizer explicitly acknowledged this issue at the bottom of the petition, contradicting Bluerasberry's claims above: this is a petition of editors expressing individual intent to participate in something, not a community consensus-building effort (my bolding). In particular, the organizers have gone through extensive activities that would be prohibited as WP:CANVASssing if it had been such a consensus-building effort, by selectively mass-pinging editors they could assume to be supportive to the effort, while making no such attempt to invite potentially dissenting editors. (And while this thread is not the best place to debate the specific pros and cons of the petition and surrounding proposals, I have seen skeptical reactions from many experienced editors, ranging from polite expressions of surprise about some incompatibilities with opinions that are also widely held in the community to deep discomfort with various central claims; this new essay by Thebiguglyalien describes some concerns.)

WP:PETITION has for many years pointed out fundamental problems with these community demonstrations that Bluerasberry seems so fond of:

Petitions are even more problematic [than regular polls] since they not only encourage the community to avoid meaningful discourse and engagement, but also limit their scope to only one initially-stated opinion or preference with little or no opportunity for discussing and reconciling competing or opposing points of view.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:12, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. While I'm sympathetic to the desire to support the cause, I would not suggest that The Signpost as an organization take a position on this, per the concerns about journalistic neutrality. However, if an individual who happens to be a Signpost regular contributor wanted to write an op-ed and invite other contributors to sign onto it as individuals, I possibly could be fine with that approach, which if it got enough support could turn into an "Editorial board" type op-ed and which would be necessary to separate carefully from objective reporting about the topic. I would want to have a high wall in The Signpost between the news reporting and the editorializing. In particular, I disagree firmly with the statement "The Signpost represents the community, so standing behind massive community demonstrations should be The Signpost's default, expected position.", which is incompatible with my opinion that the The Signpost should be trying to provide objective information in the same way that any mainstream American newspaper would, I hope, try to provide objective information about a mass political movement without itself tilting its coverage to favor whichever way the political winds are blowing at any particular moment. This is my long way of largely agreeing with User:Bri. My comments here are not intended to be disrespectful of User:Bluerasberry's good intentions, and as someone who considers him a friend and also a supporter of Wikipedia I appreciate his efforts here, but there are important reasons to decline this proposal. I thank everyone for their interests in considering how The Signpost as a publication should handle this important topic. ↠Pine (✉) 06:41, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]