User talk:Mifter/Signpost/Archives/2014/April

The Signpost: 26 March 2014

• Comment: A foolish request
  April Fools' Day is rapidly approaching. Every year, members of the community pull pranks and make (or attempt to make) humorous edits to pages across the project. Every year, the community follows April Fools' Day with a contentious debate about whether or not it is necessary to impose limits on April Fools' Day jokes for future years. It is a polarizing issue.

• Traffic report: Down to a simmer
  Topics like the 2014 Crimea crisis or the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 eased down the list, making way for such traditional topics as St Patrick's Day, Reddit threads and even Google Doodles, which have reappeared after a long absence.

• Recent research: Wikipedians' "encyclopedic identity" dominates even in Kosovo debates
  Have you wondered about differences in the articles on Crimea in the Russian, Ukrainian, and English versions of Wikipedia? A newly published article entitled "Lost in Translation: Contexts, Computing, Disputing on Wikipedia" doesn't address Crimea, but nonetheless offers insight into the editing of contentious articles in multiple language editions through a heavy qualitative examination of Wikipedia articles about the Kosovo in the Serbian, Croatian, and English editions.

• News and notes: Commons Picture of the Year—winners announced
  Results for the two-stage 2013 Commons Picture of the Year have been announced. This year's winning photograph (above) shows a lightbulb that has been cracked, allowing inert gas to escape—and oxygen to enter, so that the tungsten filament burns. From the flames rise elegant curls of blue smoke.

• Featured content: Winter hath a beauty that is all his own
  Four articles, two lists, and twelve pictures were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia this week.

• Op-ed: Why we're updating the default typography for Wikipedia
  On 3 April, we will roll out some changes to the typography of Wikipedia's default Vector skin, to increase readability for users on all devices and platforms. After five months of testing, four major iterations, and through close collaboration with the global Wikimedia community, who provided more than 100 threads of feedback, we’ve arrived at a solution which improves the primary reading and editing experience for all users.

• Technology report: Why will Wikipedia look like the Signpost?
  As you have probably read on this weeks op-ed, or via various other channels of announcement, 3 April will see the introduction of the Typography refresh (or update) for the Vector skin on all Wikipedias. Other projects like Commons will have this update rolled out a few days prior.

• WikiProject report: From the peak
  This week, the Signpost interviewed the English Wikipedia's Mountains WikiProject.

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:19, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 April 2014

• News and notes: Wikimedia conferences—soul-searching about costs, attendance, and future
  The run-up to the conference has seen the unfolding of two fractious threads on the Wikimedia public mailing list, both of which may serve as background for the last session at Berlin: "Future of the Wikimedia Conference".

• WikiProject report: Deutschland in English
  This week, we visited with WikiProject Germany.

• Special report: On the cusp of the Wikimedia Conference
  The annual Wikimedia Conference is about to start in Berlin, hosted by Wikimedia Germany, which won the bid to hold the event over three others. This will be the fifth time the chapter has hosted the Wikimedia Conference—it did so from 2009 to 2012, with attendance ranging from 100 to 180 Wikimedians. This year 160 people are expected at the four-day event, which is mainly for representatives of affiliated Wikimedia organisations. The conference has been built around two themes: Organisation, structures, and grants and Success and impact.

• Featured content: April Fools
  The Signpost's "Featured content" writers had a bit of fun this week.

• Traffic report: Regressing to the mean
  The mysterious fate of MH370 still tops the list, but in all other respects our readership has retreated from the real world into its pop-cultural happy place: TV, movies, music, Reddit and Google Doodles all made an appearance.

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:02, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 April 2014

• News and notes: Round 2 of FDC funding open to public comments
  Community review is open for the four applications in the second and final round of applications to the WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee for 2013–14. Three eligible organisations have applied for funding under the newly named "annual program grants": Wikimedia France, Wikimedia Norway, and the India-based Centre for Internet and Society, which last November was recognised as eligible to apply for FDC funding purposes.

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Law
  This week, we interviewed the Law WikiProject.

• Special report: Community mourns passing of Adrianne Wadewitz
  "I remember laughing and talking and laughing and talking at Wikimania 2012. I took this picture of her that she used for a long while as a profile pic. Someone on Facebook said it looked 'skepchickal', which she loved."

• Traffic report: Conquest of the Couch Potatoes
  Television has always been a topic of choice on this site, but it exploded this week. Fully six slots were devoted to television shows, as the final episode of How I Met Your Mother, one of the most popular Wikipedia searches of the last few years, coincided with the season finale of The Walking Dead and the upcoming fourth season of Game of Thrones. The number rises to 8 if movies released on video and new TV tech are are included.

• Featured content: Snow heater and Ash sweep
  Five article, five lists, and ten pictures were promoted to 'featured' status on the English Wikipedia last week.

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:06, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 April 2014

• Special report: 2014 Wikimedia Conference—what is the impact?
  The annual Wikimedia Conference wound up last Sunday, 13 April—a four-day meeting costing several hundred thousand dollars, hosted in Berlin by Wikimedia Germany and attended by more than 100 Wikimedians.

• Op-ed: Five things a Wikipedian in residence can do
  Hey you—yeah you, the Wikipedian! Do you want to help a museum, a library, a university, or other organization explore ways to engage with Wikipedia? Great—you should offer your expertise as a Wikipedian in residence!

• News and notes: Wikimedian passes away
  Cynthia Ashley-Nelson, who edited as "Cindamuse" on the Wikimedia projects, passed away in her sleep at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin on 10 April.

• WikiProject_report: To the altar—Catholicism
  This week, we visited WikiProject Catholicism.

• Wikimania: Winning bid announced for 2015
  After just over a month of deliberation, the Wikimania jury has selected Wikimedia Mexico's bid to host Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City, with a proposed date of 15–19 July.

• Traffic report: Reflecting in Gethsemane
  If I were the kind of person who made snap judgments based on flimsy evidence, I'd say our readership is in a funk.

• Featured content: There was I, waiting at the church
  Fourteen articles, four lists, seven pictures, and one topic attained "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:40, 23 April 2014 (UTC)