Checklist

Checklist

Since my name isn't in the byline, I'd suggest incorporating some images that aren't wintry, especially considering one of the guest writers for this issue is Australian. Commons has a category with plenty of options to choose from: c:Category:Nellie Murrell Collection Christmas/New Year greeting cards and postcards. Svampesky (talk) 20:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've put in a second Australian card (They're right below the "Religious carols" heading). The problem is that Australian cards are pretty typical and many are wintry. No shrimp on the barbie. There are more ships in the Australian collection, though I have no idea why. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:00, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have an idea for something and will have it posted before the deadline. It's Christmas-themed. Svampesky (talk) 20:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

Checklist

Anybody know what this supposed audit is all about? I've never heard of the company, nor the audit itself. There's more about the company and what they do here (dated 2022). ☆ Bri (talk) 21:50, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've got some stuff. I saw the same businesswire press release and it checks out. The audit is more or less published at the WMF website. It might have some interest for the conspiracy theorists who think that the foundation conspired with the feds to steal an election, but not really. Please don't push that. I suppose I could write a paragraph right now for ITM, but there's some more digging to do. Does anybody want to take this over and write a full Special report? I'll send you my "notes". It might not be that special though. 1 sentence take-away. Following EU regulations, WMF and 16? other large websites need (non-financial) audits to confirm that they are following EU regulations and HolisticAI did the work for WMF saying everything is more-or-less ok, with 1 mild shocker recommendation. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is challenging to summarize the audit and I'm thinking of not even doing it. Smallbones What did you find to be the "mild shocker"? Only this popped out to me, and I'm not sure it's newsworthy: acknowledged WMF cooperation with a US intelligence-slash-law-enforcement entity: WMF, being based in the United States, is a private sector partner of the NCRIC [Northern California Regional Intelligence Center], which handles international escalations for platforms within its jurisdiction through the US State Department directly into appropriate national law enforcement partner workflows of foreign jurisdictions, including EU countries. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:34, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The consultants suggested that it might help to have another set of terms of use for some people - presumably those effected by EU regulations, which might include those who write in any European language. Whoops! that includes maybe 90%+ of all editors. The WMF's stiff non-reaction to that suggestion says to me that they see the same probable reaction from users and others that I'd predict. Perhaps a small reaction from our readers would give the WMF enough to say, "no that doesn't sound like a good idea." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, I saw where they recommended completing translation of the ToU to all the official EU languages (which is kind of a no-brainer IMO), but didn't see the other recommendation. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the Foundation said "The Wikimedia Foundation will review the ToU to make it less US-centric and to ensure contact information is easily accessible." I'm not sure that that means nation-specific editions of the ToU (probably not) so I'll just quote that in the writeup. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri I think I'll actually manage to sneak in one last article about the EU and Wikipedia, so that might solve the problem, I guess? Oltrepier (talk) 09:33, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reserved for a guest writer. Svampesky (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

As per the email invitation by Svampesky, I've put together a draft debriefing about my recent RFA at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Opinion. I for one am fairly happy with it for now, but I'll probably be making little tweaks to it until publication. As for the accompanying image, I can't really have an opinion on that ... there is the image on my user page plus File:Graham at the piano, Siegfrieds Mechanisches Musikkabinett, Rüdesheim.jpg ... or we can use something else. I hope this message is in the right place. Graham87 (talk) 14:21, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the submission, Graham87. I'll sort out the formatting. Svampesky (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Checklist

Checklist

The inclusion of newsletters will be a valuable addition to The Signpost. They will promote the creation of newsletters and allow readers to discover parts of Wikipedia they may not have been aware of previously. They should be sorted from earliest publication date at the top. Some newsletters don't have dedicated pages, so section translcusion can be done with {{#section-h:PAGENAME|SECTION}}, if anyone wasn't aware how to do it. I collected the newsletters from Template:Newsletters, but some are not listed in the template. I've also wrapped <nowiki> tags in the newsletters that haven't been published yet. Svampesky (talk) 17:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Svampesky That's such a nice idea! Wouldn't readers be at risk of being a bit intimidated by that wall of information, though? Oltrepier (talk) 21:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Svampesky and Oltrepier: I guess I don't understand the proposal. Is it this: somebody goes to a few of the newsletters and then creates a newsletter article in The Signpost by doing a section transclusion? What else? What do we expect that will do for our readers? Before checking out the newsletter template, my feeling was that most of the newsletters are either defunct or only sporadically published. After checking, it looks like there are other problems as well. Some are poorly written or badly translated, and our readers will end up thinking "what was that nonsense all about?" I still feel that way if all we do is transclude. It would not be fair to our readers and sister publications to just pick something at random and post it here. So how can we do something with those newletters in a way that both their writers and our readers will feel is a quality effort? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Svampesky and Oltrepier: ok, not fully understanding the proposal, I didn't want to impose a structure on it that I think would work. Here goes though, I do think something is possible with it.

• A regular editor, or somebody who commits to publishing an "Across the movement" (or whatever) article once every 1-2 months, takes charge of it, selects specific reports, writes a couple of 1-2 paragraph intros, and then copies the newsletter reports over to the story and copy edits their text(!). That could work. Include a story from the GLAM or Military History newsletters at first to get people started reading it. Just make sure that readers don't run into a "what the heck" moment. It could work well if somebody is committed to getting it done. Other suggestions on how this might work are welcome. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Smallbones That's a good point, considering that not all projects have the depth and the top-notch organization of, let's say, Women in Red and WikiProject Medicine...

Your idea sounds quite promising! I'm not involved in a lot of key projects, unfortunately, but I'm sure there's someone who's more familiar with them and very much willing to report the news on a regular basis, apart from @Svampesky himself. Oltrepier (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Smallbones and @Oltrepier for the feedback. The idea is for it to serve as a bulletin board for WikiProjects, this is a common feature in newspapers. Svampesky (talk) 19:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

my feeling was that most of the newsletters are either defunct or only sporadically published. In the upcoming issue, the idea is to only include newsletters published in December 2024. Svampesky (talk) 19:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I don't feel that subscribing to the Signpost should become a defacto subscription to every newsletter published by every WikiProject. isaacl (talk) 19:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Isaacl I don't think that was Svampesky's plan, to be honest: it could just be a nice way to catch up with the latest updates from the most structured and important projects. Oltrepier (talk) 19:58, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I just think that's the net effect. While I appreciate that might be of interest to some, I think there's a significant risk that many readers will think they don't need to subscribe to any specific newsletter any more, and yet ignore most of the newsletter section in the Signpost, thus decreasing the reach of the newsletters. I think a roundup of WikiProject news to help remind people of their existence might encourage more people to participate in them. isaacl (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a hatnote to each newsletter so readers can subscribe to each of them. Svampesky (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]