A new goose on the roost
I don't really like writing about myself, but I guess there is no way out of it this time. As EpicPupper has left Wikipedia and resigned their position with The Signpost, I am now the official bull goose looney of this joint.
What does this mean?
Well, my first job is to decide what it means. I would be remiss to simply read the Wikipedia article and call myself an expert – especially not when I can simply read the Signpost and call myself an expert instead. There are 3,528 talk pages, and 7,960 subpages of The Signpost, of which 5,935 are articles (give or take a few). They go from January 2005 up to today: I have gotten through one year already, which means there are only 16 left until I catch up to when I started publishing last November. I am taking notes during this process, so by the time I get through I should be able to write a fairly comprehensive history of the paper. By the time I get caught up, I expect to have a clearer idea of what the hell has been going on for the last two decades, what is currently going on, as well as (hopefully) some galaxy-brain ideas for how to make it be even more going on.
For now, I am going to be continuing to fix things on the backend, like updating and improving some of the Signpost templates – those couple illustrated issues we had just now were the result of me manually adding images to each article item on the front page because the template can't embed images or bylines. Whoopsies daisies!!! As you are probably already starting to realize, most of this stuff is fairly boring, but my idea is to make the whole experience a little better, while lowering the amount of effort required to read, write, and comment on Signpost articles. I am also going to try to implement (or get out of the way during the implementation of) some galaxy-brain ideas that wiser people than myself have come up with.
Before I get to that, though, I must apologize for some errors: my proofreading was rather lazy throughout the publication of the September issue, and the Gallery was an incomplete draft not meant to be published. I gave you a crappy Signpost, and for that, I am sorry. This issue will be somewhat thin as well: I have spent most of my time in the run-up working on technical issues (like documenting the confusing ecosystem of internal templates) instead of writing and editing and soliciting submissions. I have a few diabolical schemes in the works – which you will see more of as they unfold – so keep your eyes peeled.
Anyone looney enough to want to help with any of this is invited to pop on over to the newsroom talk page, where more detail can be found on most of these goings-on.
Discuss this story
At least two articles got missed from publication this month, despite being ready weeks in advance. This should have been delayed until it could have been published competently. No apologies have been forthcoming. One of these was an obituary for a dead Wikipedian. However, we do have two seperate articles that attack the WMF, so at least we got everything important in. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 22:51, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Good on you. scope_creepTalk 17:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Even Elon Musk takes some time to rev up to speed, so it's nice that an editor has taken on the task of editing The Signpost. Adam Cuerden, can you link to the two articles, and hopefully they will be printed next time. I'm assuming one is on deceased and missed editor BeenAroundAWhile. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- @Randy Kryn: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/Obituary (which isn't even on the list for next month), and Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/CommonsComix Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs 16:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks Adam Cuerden. Not for user:BeenAroundAWhile, who also should have an obit. Neither of the two stories seem ready (especially the second link, I'm not sure what it is about), so this seems like a good editorial decision on the part of the new Signpost editor. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- @Adam Cuerden: I've responded to your comments on this subject at the newsroom talk page -- not sure if you didn't see them, or if the ping didn't go through or something. If you want to help with fixing the template bug that prevented those articles from being visible on the newsroom index this month, I could use some opinions and suggestions (there is a new thread at the bottom for this). jp×g 17:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good luck reading all the Signpost pages. Saying that's a massive undertaking is almost an understatement. The idea has popped into my head before but I've never tried to actually go through with it. Let me know if you think it's worth it? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]