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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) at 13:48, 10 January 2020 (→Just to confirm something: add note). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This page is to discuss the upcoming issue of The Signpost. For suggestions of a topic to cover, see Suggestions. For proposals for a feature, see Submissions. For general or technical issues, praise, queries, or complaints, see Misplaced Pages talk:Misplaced Pages Signpost.

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Six million

WP Stats v2 says we netted 700 articles per day in 2018. Based on count today of 5,987,577 we should hit six million c. 18 days from now = January 14. This is later than my last distance/time calculation (January 8), due to contributor slowdown around the end of the year holidays. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I've created a quick and dirty six million logo. It looks like there was a concerted effort to create good ones for the last milestone – Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/5 millionth article logo → Commons:Category:Misplaced Pages logos for 5 million English Misplaced Pages articles. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:17, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Millionth article FAQ has some interesting info on the counting methodology that might be worth including in the upcoming writeup. Also, the prediction by Mercurywoodrose (made in 2014) looks like the winner of the betting pool. Maybe an interview??? ☆ Bri (talk) 20:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

There is a nice counter at WP:Six million articles. It currently produces text like this:

There are currently 6,931,879 articles on English Misplaced Pages. Only -931879 left!
If we continue at the current rate, there are -1762 days until we reach 6 million articles.

Note that the text may not quite match due to caching. Bri.public (talk) 22:00, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Predictions and extrapolations seem to be converging on January 19 as the magic day for the six millionth article. The daily net has been wobbling between 400 and 600 recently. Bri.public (talk) 21:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

"On the bright side" for 25 January 2020

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Clovermoss: here is a place where we can discuss the upcoming issue. I'll help you to get started.

• Do you see the countdown bars near the top of this page? They show deadlines for the upcoming issue.
• In the main newsroom page at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/Newsroom, you will see a list of possible articles for the upcoming issue. I suggest that you read through that page.
• When you are ready, click the button to start the next issue of "On the bright side". This will take you to a page that has default starter content for a Signpost article, and you will see a warning that the page has previously been deleted. The deletion happened when the previous issue went from a draft in the newsroom to publication. I suggest that you save the starter content to the page so that you can see what it looks like.
• Next, replace the starter content with my starter content that is specific for "On the bright side". This content is at User:Pine/SignpostOTBS. Copy the text from that page into the new page in the newsroom, following the guidelines at Misplaced Pages:Copying within Misplaced Pages. I do a lot of copying from one Wikmedia page to another, and I recommend that you read through the guideline page if you have not already done so.
• Please let me know when you have finished with these steps. After you have gone through these steps for this month, you can skip some of the steps or do them with less thinking in the future. ↠Pine (✉) 02:06, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: Done! . I also did an extra step by adding my username, so it reads "By Pine and Clovermoss". Clovermoss (talk) 02:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: that looks good. Now you can change the dates in the draft so that there are headers for the weeks of 29 December through 19 January. After that, please choose a point to make for the week of 29 December. If your point has some relation to a language other than English, then please change both the translation and the language link in the 29th December content header. A list of available translations is at meta:User:Pine/WMYHTW translations. If you copy a translation then please follow the guidance for copying within Misplaced Pages. Alternatively, you can try Google Translate. As a last resort for languages that Google Translate translates poorly or not at all, you can request a manual translation by contacting a user who appears to be active and has an indication that they know the language, or by sending an email to https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/translators-l. You can do some verification of automated or manual translations by comparing the translated words to the definitions that you expect to find in Wiktionary. Please ping me when you are ready for me to look at the changes that you made, and also ping me if you think that you need a manual translation before you request one. I am logging off of Misplaced Pages for today but I will be back in the next day or two. Thanks again for volunteering. ↠Pine (✉) 02:58, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Welcome aboard, Clovermoss. Glad you can help out.

If you will be doing a lot of page moves, you can request the pagemover permission. Then you don't have to request deletion of the original page. I don't think you need it right away, though. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:35, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Clovermoss, have you had an opportunity to make more progress on the draft? I try to publish "What's making you happy this week?" emails to Wikimedia-l between 12:01 AM on Sundays UTC and 8 AM on Wednesdays UTC, although occasionally the publication slips later than that. Please try to have your part of the draft ready, including the translation, by 8 AM Tuesday UTC so that I have at least 24 hours to review it and discuss my contributions or requests with you before sending the email to Wikimedia-l by 8 AM on Wednesday UTC. Thank you. ↠Pine (✉) 06:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: I'm still trying to decide what I'll do for this week. I'll have something by the end of the day. Clovermoss (talk) 17:01, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: I added an image to the draft. I have to think about what my bullet point for what I'm thankful for this week shall be. From a formatting perspective, do you think I did okay? I've been looking at previous On the Bright Side issues to try to get a feel for what I could write while still being myself at the same time. Wait... I know what I'm thankful for! I'm going to go add it now. Clovermoss (talk) 18:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: I added the bullet point for what I'm thankful for this week! Do you think that it's okay/suitable? Clovermoss (talk) 18:56, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Clovermoss, you made an excellent start. Here are a few points to consider.

• I recommend linking to articles about places that you name, such as Fallätsche. English Misplaced Pages doesn't have an article by that name, but there are other articles that mention it, so you could link to one of them by using ], or you can link to the category on Commons by doing this: ], or you could link to an article on another language wiki such as German by writing ]. In this case I recommend either of the latter two.
• When you mention a user such as Domob, I recommend that you link to the user's normal user page on the relevant wiki unless that user doesn't have such a user page. In this case Domob does have ], so I recommend that you link to there.
• Your content has at least three important associations with the German language.

1. There is the article on German Misplaced Pages regarding Fallätsche.
2. Fallätsche is located in Switzerland, which is a country where German is an official language.
3. Although User:Domob doesn't show a list of their linguistic capabilities on their Commons user page, you can see through CentralAuth that they have a user page on German Misplaced Pages on which they write in the German language.

So, I recommend that you use the German translation for this week's entry. You can find it on meta:User:Pine/WMYHTW translations, under the native name for the language, which is ‎Deutsch, or by appending the language code of "de" to the end of the URL from the translations page. Again, please remember to follow the guidelines for copying within Misplaced Pages when you copy the translation.

Please ping me when you have completed these steps. Thanks for your good work. ↠Pine (✉) 19:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: I have followed all of these steps! Clovermoss (talk) 20:07, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: thank you.

• I changed the link to Domob's user page so that it is an interwiki link, and I added section headers so that readers will know who contributed each section.
• This week I can send the email to Wikimedia-l, and I can introduce you there, unless you would prefer to send the email yourself. I would like to introduce you, and then next week you can send the email. Does that sound OK to you?
• Please let me know what you think of my content for this week. I am familiar with Star Trek but readers may not be, and especially if you are not familiar with it then I would like to hear what you think about the video clip that I included. Do you like the clip, and do you feel that it is appropriate for this week's publication?
• If you have not already set up an email account for Wikimedia activities then I recommend that you do this. I recommend that you use it exclusively for Wikimedia activities so that people cannot use it to find you off wiki if they know the email address. I also recommend that the email address have your username in the address, in a format that is similar to clovermoss@<domain>, and that the email address show your user name in what are ordinarily the first and last name fields for when you send emails, such as "Clover Moss" or "Clovermoss Wiki". After you do this, then please subscribe to Wikimedia-l so that you can see the email that I send this week and so that you can send an email for next week. I also recommend that you subscribe to Translators-l so that if you want to request a manual translation then you will have the option to send an email to that list.
• Please ping me when you reply. I will return to Misplaced Pages later today or tomorrow. Thank you. ↠Pine (✉) 21:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: I already have an email address like that. I tried to subscribe to the mailing list, but I'm not sure I did it right. I'll email you my email in case you need it. As for Star Trek, I'm fine with you including it. My Mom is a fan and I used to watch it with her when I was younger. We watched a different Star Trek series together, though. I'll see if I can find out which one. Clovermoss (talk) 21:49, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: Also, I don't mind if you want to introduce me. Feel free to do so. Clovermoss (talk) 22:12, 29 December 2019 (UTC) Fixed ping. Clovermoss (talk) 22:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pine: Also, if you need to use pronouns to refer to me, please use she/her. Usually people say "they/their or he/she" if they aren't sure, which is fine, I just thought I should let you know. Clovermoss (talk) 00:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Clovermoss: thank you. After thinking about my content for this week, I made some changes. You can see them here. I will follow up through email regarding this week's publication of WMYHTW to Wikimedia-l. ↠Pine (✉) 07:27, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Clovermoss, happy new year. When you are ready, please add content for this week. After I have added content as well, then we can talk about sending the weekly email to Wikimedia-l. You can follow many of the same steps that you did last week. Hopefully the steps will become faster and easier as you get experience with them. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 20:51, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Happy new year to you as well! I'm going to busy for a few hours, but I'll see if I can think of something to add this evening. I already started seperate subsections for each of us like it was done last week. Clovermoss (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Hi Clovermoss, thanks for your contribution. It looks good. Can you think of a second language that is relevant for this week so that we can use its translation for the title? FDans (WMF), who wrote the email that I quoted, says on his userpage that he likes to study Japanese, so what do you think about using a Japanese translation for this week? ↠Pine (✉) 19:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• @Pine: Japanese is fine. Do you want to add the translation, or should I do it? Clovermoss (talk) 01:55, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Clovermoss, it would be good for you to get more practice with translations, so please do this one. Eventually I would like you to try a language that is written from right to left, such as Arabic, because those require different handling. After you copy the translation for this week, then please check the work of both of us for errors, such as broken links, and fix them. Then please draft the WMYHTW email for this week in the format that I used for last week. You can see previous emails in the Wikimedia-l archives. When you are finished with the draft email then please email it to me so that I can check it. Thank you very much, ↠Pine (✉) 02:39, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• I finished copying the translation. I put it in the wrong week at first, but I fixed it. I'll start preparing to send you the email. Clovermoss (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
• @Pine: I'm heading off to bed now, but I emailed you the second draft for the email a few hours ago. I know that you said you'd be logging on later, just thought I'd give an on-wiki update before falling asleep. Clovermoss (talk) 06:09, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Clovermoss,

Thanks for your work this week. I think that some subscribers to Wikimedia-l will appreciate reading your comments.

The indent formatting didn't make it into the finished version on Wikimedia-l, but that is OK.

When you are ready, you can write something for the week of 12 January in "On the bright side". It would be nice if you could include a topic that has a relationship to a right-to-left language script, because I think that learning how to write in RTL format would be good in this week's subject lines for The Signpost and Wikimedia-l.

You learned a lot in the past few weeks, and I think that writing for "On the bright side" and WMYHTW will be relatively easy from this point forward.

Congratulations regarding your first email to Wikimedia-l, thank you for lightening my load, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with the Wikiverse. I like reading what you write. ↠Pine (✉) 05:50, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Strategy discussion from 2015

Hi @Bri and Bri.public: if you will write an article about the Wikimedia 2030 strategy this month, then you might include these notes from a discussion that I facilitated at WikiConference USA 2015:

↠Pine (✉) 02:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

See below, I'll be tied up with RL obligations during January. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Traffic report

Will the year-end top 50 report (Misplaced Pages:2019 Top 50 Report/sandbox → Misplaced Pages:2019 Top 50 Report eventually) replace the usual week-by-week lists? ☆ Bri (talk) 22:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess if somebody could explain it to me and the authors, we all could listen and decide. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, cool, that sounds good! I think I'll start that. Thanks, Puddleglum 04:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The Top25 page is based on these stats compiled by West.andrew.g. Something that might merit special attention: one of the top articles is Kayden Boche – right under The Mandalorian (!). It was deleted by community consensus. Not usually having looked at the raw list, I'm not sure if it's unusual enough to make a point of discussion in the Signpost report, but maybe Puddleglum would like to investigate. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikicup

Obviously, I have a CoI in suggesting it, but perhaps announcing the WP:Wikicup winners for 2019 before the new round gets off too far? Could be bundled in with the announcement of the new round. Adam Cuerden _{Has about 7.4% of all FPs} 06:54, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Just to confirm something

...the last time you guys ran a featured content section in the post for the year 2019 was April, correct? No one has taken up the cause of featured content since then? TomStar81 (Talk) 15:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

That's what the archives shows: we ran featured content in January, February, March, and April 2019 and none since then. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:21, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Damn. Thats gonna make my last 2019 project even more difficult. Anyway, thanks for the reply. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@TomStar81: After a reader noted its absence in November, I asked for a discussion of the Featured content report at the newsroom. The discussion is now in the archives ("Future Featured content"). You might want to check it out. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:36, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bri: I see. My interest in it stems from a semi-annual occurrence; once every so often I'll go through the featured content we had promoted in a year in and compile a "year in review" list from which I tabulate awards for editors who have - with or without their knowledge - edited within the jurisprudence of the MILHIST project in the last 12 months. According to my records, last last year the Signpost featured content list helped to generate awards for 62 different users and accolades for half a dozen or so additional awards to both individual editors and projects. Without that list, making a go of it this year will be frustrating - but fortunately, not impossible. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Bri, I know that I've been completely inactive for a long time on The Signpost, but I would be willing to do FC again, particularly if we could automate the hard work part (filling in The ''']''' <small>''(] by ])'' part</small>.)

As far as the suggestion regarding interviewing writers on their craft in the archives by Czar, I did a brief series a while back on Brianboulton (sorely missed, wish my questions were better) Charlesjsharp, Ser Amantio di Nicolao, and TRM, with the intent of making a 'from the experts: tips on writing featured articles' a sort of handbook, a project that I would happily pick up again if people enjoyed reading them Eddie891 _Work 23:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

czar 02:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

TomStar81, If you would like help with that, I could help out... The Bugle lists MILHIST promotions every month. Maybe Hawkeye7 has an idea how to automate the article lists, as I see MilHistBot does a similar task for The Bugle.Eddie891 _Work 23:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Eddie891, Gog the mild is helping too, but if we are getting a few more people on board we could go further with it and collectively cover everyone who got stuff promoted last year. So many people expressed such surprise that they had earned awards that they didn't even know they had gotten, and I like to think it helps with editor morale and retention. As I noted here, our members are "...notoriously about handing out our in house award (or any other award for that matter)..." so I try and do what I can to offset it. As for milhistbot, it may list the articles, images, and lists, but it lists only those that are explicitly part of milhist, whereas on a standard check you're apt to find things that are obtusely a part of the project and would therefore be overlooked otherwise. Take Nigel Williams (conservator), an article worked on by User:Usernameunique. Independently its not a milhist article, but when you look through it there's enough in his career to justify inclusion for a milhist shout out. Thorium is another example, its not a milhist article, but its application includes milhist related uses, so User:Double sharp and User:R8R both got a shout out for that. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@TomStar81, can use Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Military history/Featured content's diffs in the future for this, though won't be help for right now. The WP 1.0 bot is supposed to track FC promotions too, but that tool's been up and down. czar 02:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

If the featured content section is going to make a return to Signpost, I think it would be worth mentioning that Brian Boulton passed away. It was mentioned above that he is sorely missed, but I can't find anything anywhere to indicate that this news made it into the last edition of the Signpost, though I see that the passing of Angus McLellan was noted at News and notes. How regularly does the Signpost report on deceased Wikipedians? Carcharoth (talk) 13:47, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for interviews

Hi Smallbones, would you or Bri be interested in doing some interviews for The Signpost? Some people that I think would be good to interview would be Nicole Ebber (WMDE) and Rosiestep regarding the WMF strategy process, and Christina Koch regarding the reports that she edited Misplaced Pages from the International Space Station. ↠Pine (✉) 19:10, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

It's not a good month for me, sorry ... I'll be off the grid starting next Friday. I'll be off Signpost duty till February. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:22, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: Absolutely, especially Christina Koch - can she do an interview from space? We had a 1 or 2 paragraph blurb (News & notes?) but I knew that that wasn't enough. I'll try to contact the NASA guy by Monday. And there is always room for @Rosiestep: in The Signpost (just let me know what you want to discuss and how many questions you want or write up an opinion piece on your own). I don't know Nicole Ebber (WMDE) or what to ask, but I'll try to check it out. I've also been considering an interview with Ashley Feinberg(!). BTW, for what made you happy this week - please see (no COI declaration needed) I'm not sure about the connection with Misplaced Pages, but it certainly made me happy this week!

We have a bigger issue to consider, literally. The 15th anniversary issue of The Signpost is coming out in 3 weeks! I've got a guest op-ed that I'm almost sure of (already written), and Mer-C sent in some nice statistics - I'm always a sucker for a good stats article. The data is at User:MER-C/AdminStats but he doesn't think he'll have time to write it up. I don't know what all the categories are yet. Maybe @Newslinger: would like to write this up?

I've been checking around for a Signpost historian, but haven't found anybody yet to writeup the last 5 years. There's the 10 year history (from 5 years ago) that can be reprinted "From the archives" - the last 5 years might be a bit controversial. Now I know why my US history class in high school stopped at WWI. @HaeB:?

More on this issue by Monday. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:02, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2015-01-21/Anniversary ANNIVERSARY A decade of the Signpost Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:11, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

OK. Also, English Misplaced Pages is approaching its 6 millionth article. I plan to mention this in "On the bright side" after the milestone happens. ↠Pine (✉) 20:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, Pine, and kind words, Smallbones. Let me think on it and I'll get back to you. --Rosiestep (talk) 23:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Smallbones, and thanks for inviting me to contribute again. For the AdminStats data, the only format I can come up with is a set of bar graphs accompanied with short summaries: something like "China’s Year in 10 Charts", but with all bar graphs. Is this what you had in mind? Also, is historical data available? — Newslinger talk 16:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion report

WikiProject Medicine

Something odd's going on around WikiProject Medicine; best starting point is probably WP:AN#An update on and a request for involvement at the Medicine MOS. An uninvolved administrator said he thinks it is likely to escalate to an Arbcom case.

If I'm understanding the situation correctly, two of the parties who can't get along are M.D.s and both strong contributors. Another frequent contributor said If we were all together in a physical workplace then the human resource department would bring in a social worker to provide emotional mediation at this point. Another comment on the state of the project was We used to be focused on writing brilliant articles filled with precisely delimited claims and superb sources. Then we went through an anti-woo phase: almost anything's okay, as long as it hurts the spammers and alt-med proponents ... Now we seem to be talking more about issues of health policy, which is a more approximate subject area with a focus on practicalities, like approximate prices. Which is naturally going to frustrate both of the previous groups, because it's not up to the standards of the first group, and practicalities sometimes don't produce the proper anti-woo signals.

Worth a note in the discussion report, maybe. It's unfortunate because I've always looked up to that project as an example of what a good WikiProject would look like, especially their ability to hold article content to a strong standard of evidence. It looks like this is exactly what is breaking down. - Bri.public (talk) 18:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The lunatics are running the asylum

(Here's my article if you want to publish it)

I started wiki about 15 years ago, quit about 10 years ago. Recently came back to check things out. It's a ghost town. The wikiprojects I knew are dead.

I checked out an AfD. "Not notable". I searched google news, using quotation marks, and found 2,000! (thousand) results. I provided a link to the search. "Doesn't count, provide 3 specific references" I started going through and finding them, then stopped. "I will not be blackmailed into work because you want to delete this" I said.

One could copy/paste "delete not notable" on one hundred AfDs a day with ease. The same amount of ease that one could deletion proof one article.

The problem is that the 100 deletions will drive away a plethora of editors forever, and the article improvement will only keep a few editors around for a few days. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:13, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. This is it. This is the article. There is no more. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Peregrine Fisher: I obviously misunderstood. This is a pretty well defined topic - AfD. There are lots of people who have opinions on this and a lot of people who work hard at it and have different opinions. If you're up for some work on the topic to cover it in more detail, to address what are the likely reasons that people might disagree with you, make it a bit more well-rounded - then go for it. It would likely take at least 500 words. Please take a look at the op-ed in the December issue. It's 600 words. I'd say the topic is narrower than "AfD", though some people might disagree. There's some conflict in the topic which makes it interesting to read (among other things). Of course AfD has some conflict as well. I do like the "Rip van Winkle" aspect of your case. But at about 140 words, no - it just doesn't cover the topic well enough. But send in 500 words and I'll reconsider. BTW we all know that the lunatics are running the asylum. That's what makes it fun working here for free. But you'd need to be more specific - which set of lunatics, and define asylum. And please, no jokes about those with mental illness. We're all easily offended. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)