Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/From the editor

Apart from reporting on the English Wikipedia, The Signpost routinely covers stories from elsewhere in the Wikimedia world (for example, see this week's "News and notes" on activities of the French and Dutch chapters), and is read by many Wikimedians from other projects. Starting this week, we are offering a global subscription service that can deliver each new Signpost issue to user talk pages on any Wikimedia project (example). You can subscribe (and unsubscribe) on the Sign-up page on Meta.

This is an extension of the existing talk page delivery on the English Wikipedia, which has over 1,000 subscribers and is carried out by MZMcBride's bot EdwardsBot, which has reliably distributed more than 47,000 Signpost copies since October last year, in addition to other newsletters. The new global message delivery service is also based on EdwardsBot, and is open to others who need to establish subscriber networks across other Wikimedia projects.

Another new feature we are introducing with this issue is a "Share this" list of links on each page, enabling readers to easily share our articles via email, Twitter, Facebook and other social bookmarking sites. Although it is standard practice on many news sites to arrange them into a conspicuous icon bar, we tried to keep them unobtrusive – click "show" to expand the list in the top right corner. Suggestions and problems can be reported here.

In related news, The Signpost's Twitter feed (inaugurated 18 months ago and also available on Identi.ca) surpassed 1,000 followers last week. Apart from announcements of each new Signpost issue, it contains notice of Wikipedia- and Wikimedia-related news in advance of more detailed coverage in the next Signpost issue. And for a few weeks now, the official Wikipedia page on Facebook has been featuring highlights from new Signpost issues.

To serve this expanding readership, we still need more good writers, especially for the following two beats:
 * "News and notes": News and reports about the English Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, the Foundation itself, and its chapters
 * "In the news": Reports coverage of Wikipedia and Wikimedia in the media, other publications, and online – for example, relevant blog posts and recently published academic research might be covered here too.

One possibility for helping out is to write up suggestions from our tip line – even if it just becomes a short note in the "Briefly" part of a section. Or you could scour the sources listed on our resources page, which has an overview of each section's scope. For more advice, participate in the Newsroom, ask regulars in our IRC channel #wikisignpost webchat, or contact wikipediasignpost@undefinedgmail.com.

We hope all readers are enjoying The Signpost, and we welcome feedback and questions.