User talk:Blurby
The Signpost: 6 September 2017
[edit]- From the editors: What happened at Wikimania?
Please share your Wikimania 2017 experiences!
- News and notes: Basselpedia; WMF Board of Trustees appointments
Some of the goings-on from Wikimania 2017.
- Featured content: Warfighters and their tools or trees and butterflies
Take your pick of the best of Wikipedia.
- Traffic report: A fortnight of conflicts
White supremacists v. anti-fascism groups, Mayweather v. McGregor, Moon v. Sun.
- Special report: Biomedical content, and some thoughts on its future
Wikipedia's medical and scientific content has come a long way since 2001. Here are some thoughts on how it may continue to evolve.
- Recent research: Discussion summarization; Twitter bots tracking government edits; extracting trivia from Wikipedia
A list of recent research publications on various topics.
- In the media: Google's Ideological Echo Chamber; What makes someone successful?
Plus the latest reports of vandalism and mistakes in Wikipedia.
- WikiProject report: WikiProject YouTube
WikiProject YouTube is a new project on both English and Simple English Wikipedia.
- Technology report: Latest tech news
Syntax highlighting, failed login notifications, watchlist filters, and more.
- Wikicup: 2017 WikiCup round 4 wrap-up
Ships, typhoons, birds, and more!
- Humour: Bots
They do the things you don't want to do (and sometimes things you don't want done).
The Signpost: 25 September 2017
[edit]- News and notes: Chapter updates; ACTRIAL
News from Wikimedia France, Wikimedia Macedonia, and Wikimedia Israel's; Autoconfirmed article creation trial begins
- In the media: Monkey settlement; Wikipedia used to give AI context clues
Also: Jeopedia, Dubaipedia, shaping science, fake quote reused by scholarly sources
- Humour: Chickenz
The best that poultry has to offer
- Recent research: Wikipedia articles vs. concepts; Wikipedia usage in Europe
Plus the latest research publications.
- Technology report: Flow restarted; Wikidata connection notifications
Plus more tech news, and the latest scripts and bots
- Gallery: Chicken mania
Complimenting this issue's Humour about chickens...
- Special report: Two steps forward, one step backward: The Sustainability Initiative
Finally we're seeing some initial successes, but the Wikimedia movement is still far from being environmentally sustainable.
- Traffic report: Fights and frights
Boxing, hurricanes, clowns, and more!
- Featured content: Flying high
Newly featured birds, planes, and high achievers
The Signpost: 23 October 2017
[edit]- News and notes: Money! WMF fundraising, Wikimedia strategy, WMF new office!
The Wikimedia Foundation publishes the latest fundraising report, convenes over the close of the strategic plan discussion, and moves into a new space.
- Featured content: Don, Marcel, Emily, Jessica and other notables
A variety of topics promoted.
- Humour: Guys named Ralph
If your name is Ralph, well sorry.
- In focus: Offline Wikipedia developed at OFF.NETWORK Content Hackathon
Advocates for sharing offline information gather to make content, software, hardware, and social decisions.
- Blog: The future of offline access to Wikipedia: The Kiwix example
A chat with a developer of open source software which allows users to download web content for offline reading, and the future of offline access to Wikipedia.
- In the media: Facebook and poetry
Fighting fake news and plagiarism.
- Special report: Working with GLAMs in the UK
Wikimedia UK's partnerships and achievements working with GLAM institutions.
- Traffic report: Death, disaster, and entertainment
Readers interested in the the death of Hef, Puerto Rico, films and television.
The Signpost: 24 November 2017
[edit]- News and notes: Cons, cons, cons
The first ever Wikidata conference was a con we wanted. Problematic paid editing while in a position of trust: not so much.
- Arbitration report: Administrator desysoped; How to deal with crosswiki issues; Mister Wiki case likely
Arbitration matters from October and November.
- Technology report: Searching and surveying
A new advanced search interface; the Community Wishlist Survey is back.
- Interview: A featured article centurion
Brianboulton talks about featured articles on his 100th promotion.
- WikiProject report: Recommendations for WikiProjects
A novel approach to recruit members for your project!
- In the media: Open knowledge platform as a media institution
Wikipedia seen as flawed but important; conservative think-tank fellow wants his say; volunteer in Madison wants to close the gender gap.
- Traffic report: Strange and inappropriate
Readers intrigued by the Netflix show Stranger Things, and by sexual assault allegations.
- Featured content: We will remember them
War memorials, soldiers, extinct species, and devastating hurricanes are some of the most recently promoted featured content.
- Recent research: Who wrote this? New dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text
And other new research publications.
- Humour: Good faith (but still incomprehensible)
The entertainment value of Wikipedia.
The Signpost: 18 December 2017
[edit]- Special report: Women in Red World Contest wrap-up
Global article creation contest/editathon exceeds expectations.
- Blog: Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind
Astronaut is first to specifically contribute to Wikipedia from space.
- Featured content: Featured content to finish 2017
Seventeen articles, twenty-nine lists, three pictures and one featured topic were promoted.
- In the media: Stolen seagulls, public domain primates and more
The media discuss online copyright issues, Wikipedia's coverage of the capital of Israel and creation of a "reasonably clean, honest and reliable" work on Earth and in space.
- Arbitration report: Last case of 2017: Mister Wiki editors
Evidence phase in Mister Wiki editors case is complete; the community is proposing remedies and the Arbitration committee is slated to make a decision by end of year. Meanwhile, voting has closed on 2017 elections.
- Gallery: Wiki loving
Winners of the international photo competitions Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments.
- Interview: Interview with Charlesjsharp, regular contributor of Wikipedia's Featured Pictures
Looking back on a decade of contributions including over 1,000 images and over three dozen Featured Pictures, Charles shares his wildlife photography experience and tips.
- Recent research: French medical articles have "high rate of veracity"
And other recent research publications.
- Technology report: Your wish lists and more Wikimedia tech
Including improved blocking tools, new user scripts, and the latest technical news.
- Traffic report: Notable heroes and bad guys
We like our heroes and bad guys.
- Humour: On their way to the WMF Incubator
u-nye-loo-lay-doo?Dochvetlh vISoplaHbe’.
The Signpost: 16 January 2018
[edit]- News and notes: Communication is key
Two new WMF Communications department leadership appointments; a new way for Wikimedia communities to communicate their capacities.
- In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media
Wikipedia manipulated and copied – again
- Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics
Historical and pop culture articles promoted.
- Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count
How do you make an average of 3,600 edits a week for over a decade? And what do you learn when you've done it?
- Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers
Plus the latest technology upgrades, tools and news.
- Humour: Why don't we have an article about _________?
Notable missing articles.
- Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018
In deciding to de-sysop an admin for efforts to evade discussion and review of paid edits made on behalf of a PR firm, Arbitration Committee doesn't significantly change the rules around paid editing, and leaves it up to the community whether to apply special restrictions to administrators.
- Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017
A look back at the most popular articles in a tumultuous and intriguing year.
The Signpost: 5 February 2018
[edit]- Op-ed: Do editors have the right to be forgotten?
Should an editor's block history be a permanent "rap sheet", or does Wikipedia forgive and forget? A reform initiative has begun.
- Featured content: Wars, sieges, disasters and everything black possible
Exemplary content recognized between January 12 and January 20, 2018
- Recent research: Automated Q&A from Wikipedia articles; Who succeeds in talk page discussions?
Also: Polish quality, Russian political mythologization, and multilingual analyses
- Blog: New monthly dataset shows where people fall into Wikipedia rabbit holes
The Wikimedia Foundation's Analytics team compiles a clickstream dataset, now available as a series of monthly data dumps for English, Russian, German, Spanish, and Japanese Wikipedias.
- Interview: Interview with The Rambling Man, Wikipedia's top contributor of Featured Lists
Lessons on Creating a Featured List
- Traffic report: TV, death, sports, and doodles
The most popular articles for January 14 to 27
- Special report: Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative
A partnership to improve and update Wikipedia's medical content
- Arbitration report: New cases requested for inter-editor hostility and other collaboration issues
Politeness and collegial behavior about to be taken up by Arbcom, and perhaps a revisit of the infobox question.
- In the media: Solving crime; editing out violence allegations
Also, did UCF really win?
- Humour: You really are in Wonderland
Enjoy the humour of another contributor
The Signpost: 20 February 2018
[edit]- News and notes: The future is Swedish with a lack of administrators
Sweden selected for Wikimania 2019; research report on shaping the future; a scarcity of RfAs.
- Recent research: Politically diverse editors write better articles; Reddit and Stack Overflow benefit from Wikipedia but don't give back
There might be good things about an edit war.
- Arbitration report: Arbitration committee prepares to examine two new cases
Editor in self-imposed exile and infobox wars a thorn in the side of arbitration committee.
- Traffic report: Addicted to sports and pain
The Superbowl, the Winter Olympics, death, and accusations of unspeakable things.
- Featured content: Entertainment, sports and history
An eclectic mix of promotions.
- Technology report: Paragraph-based edit conflict screen; broken thanks
And other recent tech news.
- Humour: Impossible and unexplained traffic report
Stubs get a lot of pageviews.