User talk:Svampesky/Ideas/Signpost

Retire signpost.news website
It's not a duplicate -- it's a web frontend. It loads all its page content directly from the enwp articles; for example, if you make an edit to a signpost article and then change the URL to be a signpost.news article, it will show up instantly. The only thing that's ever actually duplicated is that there are a few rules in common between Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/external.css and Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/master.css -- but this is necessary because many of them are different, and the styling is different between the two sites. jp×g🗯️ 01:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm unsure about this one, it feels unnecessary. What is the traffic to the domain? If the Signpost had it's own namespace that would be a step better for growth. Then have a website if it outgrows the namespace. Svampesky  ( talk ) 01:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know, I will have to check the server logs. Unnecessary as opposed to what, though? The maintenance overhead of this site is zero, it doesn't add any burden to the writing/publication process, so for it to not be worth it, there'd have to be some kind of negative impact of it merely existing. The main benefit it brings is that it can be linked to people in a way that does not immediately alienate and confuse them; normal Signpost pages either don't generate preview cards or generate actively misleading ones from different pages, due to the way that MediaWiki handles page metadata (and this can't be overcome without rewriting teh software) etc. There's also stuff like, for example, Signpost pages are Wikipedia project pages -- every person who's not an editor I've linked a Signpost page to has no idea what it is, and say "is this a Wikipedia article?" or, e.g. "is this some kind of template?" etc. jp×g🗯️ 02:12, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Create usergroup 'Signposter' and restrict viewing of some Signpost page
I too think it's somewhat weird and obtuse for draft articles to be worked on in public, but I think creating a new usergroup is extremely outside the bounds of our social power lol. This would basically require a modification to how MediaWiki works, or at a minimum, to how it's implemented sitewide. I previously entertained notions along these lines -- it would be extremely convenient if it were possible to attach structured data or embed tags in articles to indicate preview card, tag, title, etc metadata -- but what I learned is that there is basically no chance that the whole site's functioning gets modified to suit us. jp×g</b>🗯️</b> 01:26, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem particularly difficult to implement a new usergroup from what I'm reading on the MediaWiki website. Svampesky ( talk ) 01:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Technically no, politically yes; usergroups on the English Wikipedia are created very rarely. Since this is one of the most popular websites in the world, any change to the software it runs necessitates many layers of approval and signoffs, and it's astronomically unlikely that a new usergroup is created solely for the purpose of letting people draft articles that nobody else can see. I mean, for someone who isn't in this usergroup, it brings basically no benefit. There's no other usergroup that has the ability to write privately onwiki (even arbitrators and checkusers can't do this -- they have a separate website they use for internal business). <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 02:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * To be fair, the benefit of having some Signposts private isn't worth the effort. The page views show that no one really views these pages before publication. Svampesky  ( talk ) 02:25, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I do have a vague idea for how to do this onwiki, but I'm not sure if it is a good enough idea to be worth coding it. We'll see, I guess. <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 02:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Because The Signpost is the Wikimedia movement's online newspaper, I also don't see it as too ambitious to improve it with things such as the namespace. I would see something like the signpost.news website as too ambitious, had it not already have been implemented. Svampesky  ( talk ) 01:49, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think would be the go-to namespace addition knowers, it seems extremely unlikely to me that we would get our own namespace (versus setting up the website which was a couple days of work and none afterward) <b style="font-family: monospace; color:#E35BD8"><b style="color:#029D74">jp</b>×<b style="color: #029D74">g</b>🗯️</b> 02:23, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it's better to keep readers on the Wikipedia site. This is why I suggested When the webpage of a piece loads, similar to a section redirect, jump down to have The Signpost header appear at the top. The reader can scroll up to view the Wikipedia header if they wish.. Keeping readers on Wikipedia is what I would prefer. Svampesky  ( talk ) 02:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does seem highly unlikely which is why I'm doing this all in my userspace... Svampesky  ( talk ) 02:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Making some pages not publicly visible while still being stored on Wikipedia is just not done. See Security issues with authorization extensions for problems people run into when they try to do this sort of thing. I also don't see the motivation - as much as possible being openly viewable and editable is the fundamental dogma of Wikipedia.
 * Creating a namespace for the Signpost is trivial technically and I don't see why it would be politically difficult either, but again I don't see the motivation. Perhaps that's just because I'm so actively involved with Wikipedia that knowing what the Signpost is is second nature to me, though.
 * any change to the software it runs necessitates many layers of approval and signoffs isn't true - patches submitted in Gerrit generally only need to be approved by one person to be deployed, either in the weekly deployments or ad-hoc. Large changes like deploying an entire new extension do generally need multiple approvals though. I agree the Wikipedia technical community can be hostile/unaccepting at times, but the reason doesn't have to do with how many people sign off on something. * Pppery * <sub style="color:#800000">it has begun... 03:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)