Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost

Interview collumn

I would like to assist in reviving the interview collumn. I have an irregularly high number of connections with notable people and as such could contact them for interview or question. Please advise. (Talk) PHLOGISTON ENTHUSIAST 14:27, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello! Feel free to start on a new Signpost article in the interview column. You may want to check out Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Quick Start to help you get started, and if you need any assistance, leave a message on the Newsroom talk page. Mitchsavl (talk) 10:32, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

@ ~2026-23881-10 (talk) 11:53, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

User group for The Signpost?

@JPxG and Bri: would you be interested in or open to the idea of starting a Wikimedia user group, or some type of formal group organization, for The Signpost?

I'm not so interested in WMF endorsement or funding. Funding from WMF in particular could be problematic because of conflict-of-interest issues.

What could be helpful if there's an organized group is pursuing non-WMF grant funding, similar to how Wikimedians-in-Residence are funded for content production and how some Wikimedia event staff are paid for their organization efforts. Having the editor-in-chief or some similar role paid to keep everything organized, recruit new writers, review drafts, write substantial content, and publish on time would be nice.

One potential problem could be liability insurance and lawsuits for people who disagree with or don't like their coverage in The Signpost. If they have a target to sue then they may go after it whether or not there's much merit to the claim. If The Signpost contributors would like to form a Wikimedia user group some other organized group, liability insurance would be at the top of my wish list, even before pursuing grant funding for the above mentioned work.

What do you think?

↠Pine (✉) 05:10, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Note a previous application was declined in 2024. isaacl (talk) 05:51, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

@Isaacl: thanks for the link. Is there a public explanation for the decline? ↠Pine (✉) 06:38, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

@Isaacl and Pine: My memory of the timeline is becoming fuzzy but meta:Grants:Project/bluerasberry/fund a Signpost publisher might be related. The UG was an alternative to a grant, I think ... ☆ Bri (talk) 19:46, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

As far as I know there is no direct connection between the two. The last conversation about a user group of which I am aware is Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Archive 26 § User group application. Bluerasberry talks about about their grant application as a previous independent matter. No one interested in the user group idea mentioned obtaining grants as a motivating factor (though funding to attend the Wikimedia Summit (formerly the Wikimedia Conference) was mentioned). isaacl (talk) 21:54, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

@Bri and Isaacl: thanks for the links. I would suggest against immediately linking a user group formation with a grant application to WMF. I have more concerns about the latter. Regarding the former, the Signpost staff could start a tiny nonprofit organization without WMF's recognition so long as the WMF trademarks aren't invoked, and wait to decide until later if the groups wants to apply for user group status and/or grants. However, there's a chicken-and-egg problem in that starting a tiny nonprofit in the US typically takes some time and money with time maybe being the bigger problem, assuming that the organization doesn't try to achieve 501(c)(3) status with all of the paperwork and potentially attorney fees. Also, the moment that there's a legal organization, I'm concerned that someone with a grievance or who is simply greedy would target it for lawsuits, maybe more for harassment than a legitimate complaint, but even defending against nuisance lawsuits isn't free. On the other hand, having a tiny legal organization with or without user group status I would hope would unlock some non-WMF funding opportunities. I wonder if instead of having the Signpost have its own tiny organization, integrating the Signpost as something like a "wholly owned subsidiary" of an existing non-WMF nonprofit would be an option, preferably with the host already having the funding and legal framework to defend the Signpost and also to seek new funding for it such as for funding some Signpost work part-time. What do you think about the idea of looking for a willing host organization? ↠Pine (✉) 01:39, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

The Signpost Gap

Hi, I am working on a proposal for a complimentary publication, which unlike The Signpost, will publish items when they are ready instead of whenever the next issue is. My goal is for it to help provide coverage on time sensitive topics, such as an RFC, sooner than can be done on a monthly basis, and providing a place for last minute additions which can't wait for the next issue to go, giving these items a few days to breathe instead of being squeezed into an issue while it has major issues of its own. The page for it can be found here, and feedback from The Signpost community is welcome! Mitchsavl (talk) 01:59, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Interesting idea here. Have you seen the meta:Wikinews Pulse proposal? Perhaps these ideas could be compatible. - Wil540 art (talk) 05:25, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikinews pulse is definitely a good idea, though I think this would still work best hosted on English Wikipedia. If WNP was to go and implement a form of live blog feature, then the Signpost Gap would definitely take advantage of that (unlikely as it is to happen), but otherwise there is no benefit to hosting it there.

Perhaps WNP could have a community section, that could perform similar functions to what it would do for general news items, and linking to all active community newsletters.

Another thing it could do is have some sort of multilingual newsroom to encourage cooperation between different Wikipedia newsletters, though separate from the individual newsrooms for newsletters to preserve their independence. Mitchsavl (talk) 10:11, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Signpost Discord server filled with spam

@JPxG: Looking at the discord server, there are items of crypto spam which have been sitting in there for a month, and there has been no activity that is not related to it. With it being pretty much dead, perhaps it would be better to see if the Signpost can have a channel created on the Wikipedia community server, where it can be actively moderated, or have it closed? Mitchsavl (talk) 09:49, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Moving the Signpost to a channel on the Wikipedia community server is a great idea. - Wil540 art (talk) 17:09, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

It has been a pretty long time since I can remember any activity happening there. It could be possible to maintain something along those lines, and have it be good, but I think this would require a time commitment I am not really willing to make. As for making a channel subsidiary to the WP:DISCORD, the impression I get is that this would involve a fair amount of office politics and require total subsidiarity (e.g. there couldn't be specific rules for it, and if someone went there and acted like a tool, we wouldn't be able to make them cut it out without convincing the server mods to do so).

I think, basically, the talk pages on here (as well as emailing) probably serve all of our current needs for communication, and the 'scord ought to just be closed unless/until there is some future state of additional interest. jp×g🗯️ 09:47, 12 June 2026 (UTC)