Beta version of signpost.news now online
- https://signpost.news — the website of tomorrow,
today!in about a week when I am back from my vacation and get around to finishing it!
Over the last twenty years, much effort has been made to provide a wide variety of diverse ways to read The Signpost. Through the diligent work of industrious minds, we've crafted for ourselves the ability to stay in touch with our readers through notifications via email, feeds for RSS, posts on Facebook, tweets on Twitter, toots on Mastodon, glorbs on Kaffr, plovs on Quimbl, zelps on Frangus... kids these days don't know what it was like to while away the days Zelping on Frangus. And that's sad.
Anyway, all of these roads lead to the same place, which is https://en.wikipedia.orgview_html.php?sq=&lang=&q=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost.
But really, must this be the only way to read it? Try showing a Signpost article to someone who isn't an English Wikipedia editor.
My personal experience is that the conversation starts out with explaining the difference between a "Wikipedia page" and a "Wikipedia:" page — by the way, normal pages are called "articles", the term "page" just refers to all namespaces — what do you mean, you don't know what namespaces are? — we will get to that later — anyway, no, these aren't Wikipedia articles — well, they are articles, and they are on Wikipedia, they just aren't Wikipedia articles because they aren't in mainspace — oh, that is just what we call the primary namespace where the page title has no scope specified — no, the stuff in Signpost articles is not the official opinion of the whole English Wikipedia — yes, even though it's hosted there — well, okay, we can get brought to noticeboards or have pages deleted at MfD — that stands for "miscellany for deletion" — yes, M-I-S-C-E-L-L-A-N-Y — no, that's the official name of the process — wait, hold on, let me link you a few more things — yes, you'll be prepared to read the Signpost article in a few minutes...
In the last few months I have been giving some serious attention to the way that newspapers are run, and the way newspapers are structured — it turns out the answer in 2023 is usually "on the computer". But so long as we're on the computer, it is worth taking a look at the specifics.
Whether it's the New York Times, the Washington Post, Le Monde, Gawker, the Daily Mail, or the Wetumpka Herald, most news sites are easily recognizable as what they are; they provide some basic features like headers, navigational bars, sidebars, and overall purposeful website design to surround their engaging high-quality journalism. Well, okay — to surround their article content. But even if it is trash, it is trash on a fancy plate with shiny utensils.
The Signpost has accumulated a pretty decent collection of flatware over almost the last nineteen years, and — at least in my admittedly-biased opinion — the entreés are top-notch. But there are some shortcomings.