Next issue: February 27, 2012
Submission deadline: 4 days' time! Cut-off for submitting finished articles this week is 14:00 UTC, Monday February 27, 2012; publication scheduled for 22:00 UTC.
Once all tasks are complete, the editor-in-chief (or nominated deputy) should complete the publication process.
[edit] Notices for contributors
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- Tuesday–Thursday: start. Start all pages that are to be included in the next edition.
- Friday: draft. A rough outline of topics to be covered should be in place by end of Friday, so that if a regular reporter is unavailable over the weekend, another can follow up their leads. Irregular articles such as interviews and opinion essays should be proposed by this day, to allow for review, consideration and planning.
- Saturday–Sunday: mature versions. Aim to have reasonably mature drafts of all pages for comments by the managing editors, fellow journalists, and other interested editors. Signpost editors recommend any structural changes, reductions in length, expansions in scope, necessary coordination between pages, postponement to subsequent issue. Copy-editors go through the drafts.
- Late Sunday to early Monday: trouble-shooting. Fresh stories added by the "Next issue deadline" (only if sufficiently topical and important).
- Monday: last-minute tweaks and copy-edits; publication.
[edit] Current discussion
For the February 27 edition
Thanks to all contributors this week, I think this is the strongest team of reporters we have had in quite a while, good to have dedicated editors for each of the regular reports although unfortunately I was called away unexpectedly for the 8 hours I'd set aside to write up NAN/ITN. It is also encouraging to have a higher level of newsroom participation and communication—I'd like for this to continue and for more pre-publication discussion especially of mooted irregular features, as the best practices for these are still being worked out. Finally, a special word of commendation to ResMar for stepping up to write us a special report on an issue of pressing relevance. Skomorokh 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Stories
- Education Report: Wikipedia:Education report.--Pharos (talk) 04:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Movement roles: HaeB has proposed an interview with board members on this topic; SJ Klein may also want to write an intro to the topic – discussion needed
- Point of order: (1) Will HaeB be conducting the interview(s) if he is actually a WMF employee? (2) I fundamentally disagree with the public framing of questions and the emailed interview technique. I'll discuss this at the talk page if anyone wants to talk about it. Tony (talk) 05:51, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Just to clarify, the interview was proposed by board members Sj and Bishakha who approached me about it. While I was Signpost editor, I tried several times to get someone to cover the movement roles debates more thoroughly (because it seemed to me that the topic's long-term importance was not matched by the attention it got from the non-chapter/non-WMF editing community). As representative of the movement roles working group, Sj was very supportive of the idea - the questions he posted here in April 2011 were mostly based on questions I had sent him, and spent quite some time preparing such coverage (his June 2011 blog posts, noted here, were written in that context). So I see this as natural continuation of the work I started back then. As Skomorokh mentioned, I would prefer not to conduct the interview all by myself, but to integrate questions from other community members, although nobody has contributed any since his remark - perhaps we will get more in case the interview is postponed to the Feb 27 issue. Tony brings up a legimitate point (although I am a contractor, not employee); however I will be doing this as a volunteer, and of course any conflicts of interests should be clearly noted as usual. (I'd like to remark that much of the "furore" story in the current issue was written by someone with close ties to one chapter, at least two of whose former or present representatives were quoted in the story.) As for the process, Sj has suggested to develop the draft on-wiki and I tend to agree. I'm not sure if I understand the objection (2) - would you prefer a non-public process? Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:58, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- HaeB and everyone, the only reason the Gardner interview wasn't a boring same-old endless question–answer alternation was that I spent a lot of time unmessing it and crafting it into a more engaging, journalistic register (Sko was not well at the time). I know it's been the norm on The Signpost to conduct extended interviews by email, but it doesn't work well for anything more than the selection of short quotations from various people in a larger piece, such as I did last week for the fundraising story. The essence of the interview in print is the ability of the reader to feel they're witnessing a real conversation between two people. This was traditionally done in person, where the journalist scribbled notes furiously while maintaining eye contact with the subject; but over the past few decades, phone interviews have become the accepted way to write to deadline interview-based stories that involve a physically distant subject. The emergence of VoIP (e.g. Skype) has made audio contact free or almost free: it is a quintessentially Internet facility, and we are a quintessentially Internet newspaper.
Presenting a subject with a heap of prefabricated written questions has two fundamental flaws. First, it robs the interview of any kind of personal spontaneity, which shows through in the written product even when you labour to make it seem like a real conversation; follow-up questions are difficult and there's no real interaction of personalities ... yet these are the fundamentals of good, interesting interviews that WPians will really enjoy reading, and that will deliver the kind of news we owe them. Second, to do justice to balanced coverage our interviews should not descend into press-release mode, where the respondent carefully prepares answers in essay-like fashion. And it's particularly difficult to interview more than one person via the disembodied question–answer email model. The notion of developing questions in public on-wiki forums further damages any hope of the professional-standard interview. The resulting disorganised bloat gives the journalists responsible a hell of a task in chopping, cutting, rewording, rationalising, and not least in trying to achieve a smooth, logical thematic flow.
Please consider (i) single-subject interviews, or if two subjects, not asking them the same stock questions; (ii) binning the questioning-by-crowd method; and (iii) if at all possible, arranging a one-to-one Skype interview. Phone interviews are not easy for the journalist, and oh boy they require good research and preparation. But I put it to you all that we need to make more use of them if The Signpost is to evolve with the times. Tony (talk) 12:51, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Fundraising and chapters: this story is likely to continue developing following last week's special report; much controversy surrounds the Foundation's latest memo. Any takers? Skomorokh 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
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- central point for the next issue will be (most likely) the meeting in paris febr., 17-19 2012.
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- Jan eissfeldt has volunteered to write something on this for the coming issue. Skomorokh 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Women and Wikipedia: SarahStierch may be in a position to contribute a special report with interviews etc. on this topic; timing unclear. Skomorokh 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Core Contest: Casliber's proposed revival of Wikipedia:The Core Contest looks to be going ahead, with funding form WMUK, starting March 10. Potential for a special report detailing the history of these initiatives, pseudo-paid editing (i.e. for vouchers/donations), possibly covering the WikiCup, interviewing some FA people. Anyone want to collaborate on this? Skomorokh 22:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Arbitrator voting patterns: An analysis, not entirely unlike this article I did last year, that discusses the ways newer arbitrators vote. For example, arb X may tend to vote for the harsher remedy, while arb Y tends to urge for a lighter restriction. Once I get this started, I will notify the arbitrators named in the article to comment on it to ensure their reaction is included. I am considering including in this a review of the speed at which proposed decisions are finalized - something that will be significantly more quantitative. Any advice, suggestions on this, please feel free to throw them my way! Lord Roem (talk) 01:48, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- You certainly have a lot time to kill don't you, Lord Roem? ;) Looking at all the work that was put into last year's article. I think that this would be a good topic to cover on an annual basis, as it seems that you are doing. I think also a review of this year's cases would be a good idea on top of analyzing this "case study", if you will, of newer arbitrators. Thoughts? Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 01:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, typically it's the busiest WPians who do good stuff for The Signpost. Lord R, it sounds like a good plan. Tony (talk) 02:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you Tony :). Whenaxis, good ideas, I'll look into including that. Lord Roem (talk) 19:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Article status
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In progress |
Together with DarTar I'm preparing this month's survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter. (Previous editions: January. December, November, October, September, August, July, ...). Help is welcome to review and/or summarize the items listed here, as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 09:10, 22 February 2012 (UTC) (HaeB) |
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