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This page is for suggesting news to be covered in the next Signpost. For general discussion, comments or questions regarding The Signpost, please see our feedback page.
Via Slashdot: Motherboard reports users are uploading content - often in violation of Commons copyright policies - so users in Angola, where data is extremely expensive, can access them through Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Free Basics. --Kakurady (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I read the piece "Is an interim WMF executive director inherently notable?" by Josve05a.
We've had some other related types of deletion debates on Wikipedia over the years where users use the term "navel-gazing" as part of their argument.
I've created the essay, WP:Navel-gazing which so far brings together fifty (50) case studies of use of the term in deletion debates.
There's hundreds more results at search link for occurence of "navel-gazing".
Could be interesting to for someone to analyze those for The Signpost.
Good luck,
— Cirt (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Would you like a paragraph or so on editor numbers? The 2015 rally in editors saving over 100 edits a month in mainspace that I broke on the signpost last year has continued for 14 months now. User:WereSpielChequers/100+_editors#as_per_Feb_16_stats On the flipside the number of new autoconfirmed editors may be down, but the figures there are unstable and possibly inaccurate. ϢereSpielChequers 14:38, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Many academics spend their time telling students not to use Wikipedia in their coursework, but one university has taken a different approach.
Lecturers on some modules at the University of Sydney are setting students the task of editing and authoring entries for the online encyclopedia instead of getting them to sit exams or write essays."
— Cirt (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"In the early 2000s, Encarta briefly outsold the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica, historically the top seller in the field. But by 2009, despite being backed by the richest company in the world, Encarta had been discontinued. It was unable to compete with Jimmy Wales’ user-generated, user-audited Wikipedia, which had become and remains the predominant model for sharing knowledge.
...
Instead, he suggested, managing relationships between countries in the 21st century will be most successful when it focuses on “analog diplomacy in a networked world”—what Mr. Barzun jokingly called “Wikiplomacy.”"
— Cirt (talk) 03:02, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"A university student working on a project about police brutality says he uncovered how someone inside the Saskatoon police station deleted the section on "starlight tours" from the department's entry on Wikipedia.
The deleted section referred to cases of the Saskatoon police taking aboriginal men and women to the edge of the city in the winter and abandoning them, a practice known as "starlight tours.""
— Cirt (talk) 02:20, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"When the faceless editors of Wikipedia decide an article is not fit for public consumption, it’s gone, only accessible to the site’s top editors—at least, it was. After a brief interlude, we’re back sucking up Wikipedia’s detritus to give you the best of what Wikipedia has deemed the worst. And this week’s set is very, very good."
I'd never happened upon this Gawker feature before.
It's really neat !
— Cirt (talk) 02:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
m:2016-2017_Virtual_Reality_Fundraising_campaign
Jseddon (WMF) (talk) 10:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See this thread at the Teahouse - Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions#User:Uchu_RRFisher_and_an_apparent_requirement_for_applicants_to_be_in_Wikipedia - is the position being approached where being the subject of a WP article is necessary to be considered for an appointment? In this case the AIAA (presumably the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) commented on the fact that the applicant for a place on an advisory committee does not have a WP page about him whereas the other applicants do. Nthep (talk) 12:24, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A short summary of the new extendedconfirmed user rights and the 30/500 page protection; with links to the relevant ArbCom decisions, RfCs etc. May possibly include: a very brief history; a couple of short quotes from the Arbs explaining the whys & wherefores. I may be able to draft something. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:25, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be a good idea to follow up on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-09/Technology report with a brief announcement of the new dates. There is information in m:Tech/Server switch 2016, and the official schedule is at wikitech:Switch Datacenter#Schedule for Q3 FY2015-2016 rollout. This will start at 14:00 UTC on Tuesday, 19 April and Thursday, 21 April, which is mid-afternoon for many of our European editors and morning for North American editors. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
...and admits it to Buzzfeed. Two news reports state that David Jolly's PR firm has been editing the article on him. He is a candidate for the US Senate in Florida. See Buzzfeed and The Hill. A staffer with a similar user name has said s/he made edits to Jolly's page. They have only 2 edits, which look quite POV. They have disclosed in the Buzzfeed story, but not yet on-Wiki, per WP:PAID. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:28, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
By the notable Wael Ghonim.
— Cirt (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting passage:
"The entry for Stump was one of them, with Wikipedia's reason being that the game's not notable enough. But Jimmy Fallon and Elijah Wood played it on Late Night in 2010, so here's hoping more attention will raise its profile enough to keep the page alive."
— Cirt (talk) 23:44, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this one could use some more digging and investigative journalism as an in-depth story by the talented people at The Signpost ?
Just a suggestion,
— Cirt (talk) 23:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"The Wiki Education Foundation (Wiki Ed) has announced the 2016 Wikipedia Year of Science, an initiative to improve Wikipedia’s potential for communicating science to the public. Through its Classroom Program (where students write Wikipedia articles on class-related topics in place of a traditional research paper) and with collaborations from Wikipedia editors, Wiki Ed will engage scientists to improve the breadth and depth of scientific content on Wikipedia."
— Cirt (talk) 18:50, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"To help editors in different linguistic communities identify important missing articles, computer scientists at Stanford and the Wikimedia Foundation have created a recommendation tool that identifies the most important articles not yet available in a given language. Editors can use these recommendations and, if they are multilingual, find an article in a second language familiar to them and get other help in order to translate the article for local Wikipedia readers.
— Cirt (talk) 18:52, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"I consider myself to be an Odia Wikimedian. I contribute Odia knowledge (the predominant language of the Indian state of Odisha) to many Wikimedia projects, like Wikipedia and Wikisource, by writing articles and correcting mistakes in articles. I also contribute to Hindi and English Wikipedia articles.
1st day at Odia Wikipedia meetupMy love for Wikimedia started while I was reading an article about the Bangladesh Liberation war on the English Wikipedia after my 10th board exam..."
— Cirt (talk) 18:55, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See https://torrentfreak.com/harry-potter-publisher-goes-on-a-bizarre-anti-piracy-rampage-160414/ (coverage of DMCA takedown notices received by Google). Some other media coverage: [2], [3] (in French), [4] (in German, observing that such "absurd" takedown notices against Wikipedia have only become frequent recently, since the end of 2015). Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:46, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
via User:Fuzheado: One Easy Way to Make Wikipedia Better - article in The Atlantic - mention how it would be difficult for a user to follow the citations for verification of WP articles, and proposes a verifiability meter which could serve as an indicator. - kosboot (talk) 16:12, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost isn't your typical Newspaper. Some papers still do, but in the past, beyond the informational value, Papers offered an entertainment value. The Raven by Poe was first published in New-York Mirror. It would be nice to see something like this. If not with each addition then perhaps as either a Quarterly or Yearly addition. Works that in someway encompass something of an encyclopedic benefit. Perhaps poetry that demonstrated dactylic or iambic pentameter. Perhaps some Haiku. My main example would poetry but that is not anything to limit it to as there are various forms of art to consider. I think this would certainly be an interesting addition to the sign post. Thanks for you consideration.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 11:00, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up development to previously reported in The Signpost, at:
Cheers,
— Cirt (talk) 23:53, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
and
Sounds exciting !!
— Cirt (talk) 23:55, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
