Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-07-24/From the editor



The temporary editor, actually; I'm just filling in this week and I appreciate the work Ral315 has been doing.

You may notice that we have a special report this week from the German Wikipedia, which I hope you'll enjoy. I didn't give it an acronym (although Robert Merkel had an excellent suggestion, Working On Real Language Diversity—W.O.R.L.D.), the way some of our series have. The feedback we get about the acronyms has gotten a little mixed, and the Wikimania series will run its course in a couple weeks, but there's still The Report On Lengthy Litigation and so far nobody's come up with a good alternative. One critic suggested we have a contest, so I'm announcing that whoever figures out a better name (it doesn't have to be an acronym) will be the winner. What you get is the satisfaction of knowing it was your idea, and maybe a prize if we scrape something together—a free subscription to The Wikipedia Signpost, anyone?

Back to the topic of our special report, whether this is something that can turn into a regular feature is still an open question. The Wikipedia Signpost has always focused on the English Wikipedia, which seems natural and appropriate for this location. If you read German, the German Wikipedia has its own excellent newsletter, the Wikikurier. I don't want to have the other projects revolving around the English Wikipedia, but I also realize there's an unmet need for exchange of news and information across projects, not just within them. Perhaps next week if someone from—to pick just one possibility—the French Wikipedia wants to write a report about that project, a system of rotating reports might work.

We've also received other offers from enthusiastic people who want to help, which are appreciated, and we can use more coverage just for the English Wikipedia alone. On the other hand, for those we don't know well it's not always easy to know what you're capable of, and journalism requires a fair amount of initiative and self-direction. One simple way to help is by dropping notes on the suggestions page or helping collect information about press coverage. Anyone who follows technical issues like MediaWiki software development and wants to help find and organize news in that area would be particularly helpful.

But most of all, what we need are actual reporters, people who can find interesting stories and write about them. One of the comments I have often heard from readers is that they appreciate that the Signpost provides prose, not just a collection of links. While we're not always perfect in that regard, it's something to strive for.

--Michael Snow