Wildcat strike at Signpost?

[sashi]

The signpost's last issue was 20 Feb, the next issue was said to be due on the 27 Feb. Could this be due to Ms. Page's brush-up with the WikiLaw?

In other "media" news, yet another Knowledge Graph (WikiLede) manipulation has been discussed recently (over at WIA). The KG on Mumia Abu-Jamal probably should indicate where he's incarcerated and what he was convicted of...

[CrowsNest]

I thought they had switched to fortnightly publication after their last period of radio silence? Although I do recall seeing they had not updated one of their pages to reflect it.

[sashi]

Yeah, they certainly haven't been keeping a weekly rhythm, but this is a pretty long break. I hadn't looked underneath the hood. It looks like publication was re-scheduled for yesterday, so that friendly Chronicle article Poetlister mentioned won't make the cut...

[Kumioko]

The signpost is merely one of the signs of the death and decay of Wikipedia.

[CrowsNest]

Sorry Sashi, I misread your post. This is indeed seemingly a return to their dysfunctional best....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =832449504

Hilariously, I note the weekly schedule is still promoted on the actual paper, the line "Check back for the next SignPost on February 27" appearing at the bottom of the Feb 20 issue.

But my memory was correct, they're definitely aiming for a fortnightly schedule....

Assuming we can keep to a two-week schedule, the next issue should be 6 March 2018. - Evad37 [talk] 14:53, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

They completely missed that target, obviously, and it's not clear why. It seems like however, to be the same old same old, the EIC isn't on Wikipedia constantly, there's patchy progress as far as getting enough stuff written and copyedited for an issue, due to lack of interest/time, stuff they do have gets stale quickly as they wait for the rest of the issue.

And when they finally stumble upon something that is almost OK, they realise they haven't got anyone around who knows how to work the printing press (and this is a surprise, as rewriting and streamlining this was the outcome of the last hiatus I thought). Indeed, I thought all this had been fixed during the reboot and handover to a new EIC (hence why I stopped checking in to see what was going on).

As usual, the delay/outage is being discussed on the /Newsroom, which is pretty obscure and hard to find, leaving nothing relevant on the most obvious page concerned Wikipedians would be looking for updates, at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost (which is where all their talk pages seem to redirect).

Surprisingly, Thayer(WMF) is still naively expecting they're going to get their act together enough that he can reliably produce a timely breaking news style Research Report (which involves more time and effort than producing the other sections, but which is arguably the single most valuable section of the publication).

Unsurprisingly, every blackout ends up meaning the SignPost fails to inform the community of major current events within the cult - yesterday Kupdung filed a comprehensive copy to alert people to the ACTRIAL RfC, but it seems likely that it will have already been closed before the next issue.

There's more examples of what's been missed due to the outage, ironically on their "Suggestions" page....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =831493192

Not sure if Barbara's troubles are directly impacting her productivity, but she certainly seems to be having some difficulties. It is notable that the next Humour section she's prepared is simply a sad look back to a time when the SignPost was good.....(indeed to a time when it genuinely looked like people with talent worth paying for, were going to get on board with Wikipedia's give it away for free model, simply because they were going viral)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =830128592

As reality bit, it all went to shit.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =304012223

These exchanges encapsulate much of what I just said.....

Bri: Can we look into publishing today or tomorrow. That'll leave time for Barbara (WVS) to make an April Fools humor, and for Tbayer (WMF) and company to write a recent research (next publication could be ~March 25. Eddie891 Talk Work 13:44, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I can't do the April Fool's humor and very disappointed about that. I will be more available for the next issue. Best Regards, Barbara ✐ ✉ 18:25, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Wish I could just say "yes", but I don't have the publishing tools. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:25, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Would you object if I request for the tools for you on your behalf? I really think we need a 'co-editor-in-chief'. Are you willing to do that? Eddie891 Talk Work 16:16, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry, Barbara (WVS), Eddie891, Megalibrarygirl, SchreiberBike, and Montanabw: Newsroom team, hoping to make it as easy as possible for Evad to publish when he is able. We still need copyedit of several sections that I feel I've contributed too much to, to do it myself. In the media, featured content, traffic report are "green" just as soon as the copyedit is done. Thanks! ☆ Bri (talk) 17:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I am doing "featured content" right now. Will post back in 30 minutes at most. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Done Featured content. I shortened many entries on the premise that less content would make the whole more readable. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Done @Bri: I did the traffic report and news + notes. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:27, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. I've been trying to get publication of the issue started; not having tools myself this means asking a current or former Signpost ed, I think. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:32, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Overall, it seems to be the same old same old - the Wikipedians claim to care about and value the SignPost, just not enough to get their collective shit together to reliably produce it, not even really to notice when its not being published. The result is that even when it is being published, there's never a consistent and predictable selection of content, and stuff they're talking about is too often already yesterday's news.

There's not a lot they can do to fix people's lack of interest, but if they had the people, I think the ideal format is a weekly edition which briefly alerts people to relevant current events, and a monthly supplement which does a deep dive with features and reviews, and includes the Research Report. Which one the humour section goes in, I guess depends on how depressed the Wikipediots are at the current shit state of their enterprise.

[CrowsNest]

They finally got an issue out.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... 2018-03-29

.....complete with Kupdung writing an op-ed about the possible demise of the "vital" publication unless they raise awareness.

We're trying dude, you Wikipediots just don't seem all that bothered.

[The End]

Why don't they just make a blog and abandon the old Signpost?

[Strelnikov]

Why don't they just make a blog and abandon the old Signpost?

Because I will be their competition (of sorts), and a "real" blog will be outside of the en.Wikipedia site; they would have to deal with Blogspot or Wordpress (or Sina Weibo, if they want to go to mainland China just to be exotic.) However that frigging well means they have to deal with comment spam, insane comments from HRA1924, and me doing the Stalin laugh. Or the Krankor laugh. There is no chance they will leave the Wiki-womb.

[The End]

Why don't they just make a blog and abandon the old Signpost?

Because I will be their competition (of sorts), and a "real" blog will be outside of the en.Wikipedia site; they would have to deal with Blogspot or Wordpress (or Sina Weibo, if they want to go to mainland China just to be exotic.) However that frigging well means they have to deal with comment spam, insane comments from HRA1924, and me doing the Stalin laugh. Or the Krankor laugh. There is no chance they will leave the Wiki-womb.

I figured they would turn off comments or heavily moderate them while allowing only a few chosen to write blog posts. Of course, that goes entirely against Wikipedia's supposed vision of an open, transparent community. But we're used to them being hypocritical.

I thought there was actually an off-wiki Signpost that Pete Forsyth started or did that die?

[CrowsNest]

They're even worse at writing blogs regularly.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Newy ... rkbradblog

You can't really replace the functions of a newsletter with a blog. They're two different things. Arguably the Op-Ed section is already serving the function of an open access community blog. It certainly isn't an Op-Ed in the sense it carries the opinion of the editorial staff.