The Signpost facts for kids
The Signpost is an online newspaper for the English Wikipedia. It is written by people who edit Wikipedia. This newspaper shares news about what is happening on the English Wikipedia.
It tells readers about important talks and new, excellent articles or pictures. The Signpost also covers Wikipedia's technology and what other news sources say about Wikipedia. You can also find opinion articles from Wikipedia editors. Sometimes, it shares news about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedias in other languages.
The Story of The Signpost
The Signpost began in January 2005. A person named Michael Snow started it. In the very first issue, he wrote:
I hope this will be a worthwhile source of news for people interested in what is happening around the Wikipedia community.
Michael Snow was the main editor of The Signpost until August 2005. After that, Ryan Lomonaco became the new main editor. But Michael Snow kept writing articles for the newspaper until February 2008. He stopped when he joined the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. In July 2008, he became the Chairman of the Board for two years.
When it first started, the newspaper was called The Wikipedia Signpost. In 2011, its name became shorter, just The Signpost. From 2005 to March 2016, The Signpost came out every week. Then, it started coming out every two weeks. This change happened because there were not enough editors to write it weekly. In March, April, and May of 2016, it did not come out at all. As of 2019, it is published once a month.
On April Fool's Day, The Signpost sometimes publishes funny articles and pictures. For example, on April Fool's Day 2015, they had "Special Report: Pictures of the Year 2015" with silly pictures. Another joke article was "Featured Content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved".
The Signpost in Other News
Journalists from other newspapers and magazines often use articles from The Signpost. They use these stories to help them write their own articles.
- In 2013, The Signpost wrote about "Wiki-PR's extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed". This story was about companies secretly paying people to write Wikipedia articles for them. The International Business Times used this story.
- In 2015, The Signpost published "Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe". This article was about changes to European copyright rules for photographs. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the British magazine Amateur Photographer used this story.
- In 2016, The Signpost wrote "New internal documents raise questions about the origins of the Knowledge Engine". This story was about the Wikimedia Foundation taking money to create a new search engine. The German magazine Heise and the American journal Nonprofit Quarterly used this information.
Images for kids
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Wikipedia community members working on The Signpost at a conference in New York City, 2009
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2015 reporting by The Signpost on changes to freedom of panorama copyright restrictions in Europe was covered by publications in several languages, including German, Italian, Polish, and Russian.
See also
In Spanish: The Signpost para niños
