The Signpost

The Signpost is the online newsletter of the English Wikipedia. It is written by Wikipedia editors and covers news about the English Wikipedia. It includes news about important discussions, new featured articles and pictures, Wikipedia technology, and what other newspapers and journals have written about Wikipedia. It also publishes opinion articles by Wikipedia editors and sometimes news about the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedias in other languages.

History
The Signpost was started in January 2005 by Michael Snow. In its first edition he wrote:
I hope this will be a worthwhile source of news for people interested in what is happening around the Wikipedia community.Snow, Michael (10 January 2005). "From the editor: Welcome to the Signpost!". Wikipedia SignpostRetrieved 24 July 2019.

Snow was The Signpost'''s main editor (editor-in-chief) until August 2005. Ryan Lomonaco became the new editor-in-chief, but Snow still wrote articles for the newsletter until February 2008. He stopped when he was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation. In July 2008 he was elected Chairman of the Board. He was the Chairman for two years.Wikimedia Foundation (2019). "History of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees". Retrieved 24 July 2019.

When it started, the newsletter's title was The Wikipedia Signpost. In 2011, the title became simply The Signpost.The Signpost (2019). "About". Retrieved 24 July 2019. From 2005 to March 2016, The Signpost came out every week. Then it changed to coming out every two weeks because it did not have enough editors.. Retrieved 24 July 2019. In March, April and May of 2016 it did not come out at all. As of 2019, it comes out once a month.

On April Fool's Day, The Signpost sometimes publishes joke articles and pictures. Examples of joke articles from April Fool's Day 2015 are "Special Report: Pictures of the Year 2015" (with joke pictures)Gamaliel (1 April 2015). "Special Report: Pictures of the Year 2015". The Signpost. Retrieved 24 July 2019. and "Featured Content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved". Crew Found Hiding In Wardrobe". Adam Cuerden, Xanthomelanoussprog, WPPilot, and Gamaliel (1 April 2015). "Featured Content: Stop Press. Marie Celeste Mystery Solved". The Signpost. Retrieved 24 July 2019.

In other newspapers and magazines
Journalists from other newspapers and magazines have used articles in The Signpost to help write their own articles.
In 2013 "Wiki-PR's extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed", a story about people secretly paying companies to write Wikipedia articles about them,The ed17 (9 October 2013). "Wiki-PR's extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed". The Signpost. Retrieved 24 July 2019. was used by the International Business Times.
In 2015 "Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe", a story about changes to European copyright rules for photographs,Heald, J. (17 June 2015). "Three weeks to save freedom of panorama in Europe". The Signpost. Retrieved 24 July 2019. was used by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the British magazine Amateur Photographer.
In 2016 "New internal documents raise questions about the origins of the Knowledge Engine", a story about the Wikimedia Foundation accepting money to develop a new search engine,Gamaliel (10 February 2016). "New internal documents raise questions about the origins of the Knowledge Engine". The Signpost. Retrieved 24 July 2019.  was used by the German magazine Heise and the American journal Nonprofit Quarterly''.

References

Other websites

 The Signpost homepage
 Wikisignpost– official Twitter account

Signpost