Misplaced Pages

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58-532: The Signpost (formerly The Misplaced Pages Signpost ) is the English Misplaced Pages 's online newspaper . Managed by the volunteer community, it is published online with contributions from Wikimedia editors. The newspaper's scope includes the Wikimedia community and events related to Misplaced Pages, including Arbitration Committee rulings, Wikimedia Foundation issues, and other Misplaced Pages-related projects . It

116-641: A vote of no confidence by Misplaced Pages editors against Arnnon Geshuri joining the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. While reporting in February 2016 about controversy and confusion at the Wikimedia Foundation concerning executive director Lila Tretikov remaining in her position, The Signpost illustrated its article with a photo of black smoke emanating from a chimney in reference to the papal conclave used to select

174-462: A "mocked-up newspaper" with a retro style characteristic of Misplaced Pages and "its own special brand of kitsch". In his 2008 book Misplaced Pages: The Missing Manual , John Broughton recommended The Signpost as essential reading for aspiring Misplaced Pages contributors: "If you expect to continue editing at Misplaced Pages for any length of time, by all means subscribe to ... The Misplaced Pages Signpost ." Fortune called The Signpost "Misplaced Pages's insider newspaper". In

232-697: A 2016 article The Register ' s executive editor, Andrew Orlowski , called The Signpost "Misplaced Pages's own plucky newsletter." According to Ars Technica tech-policy editor Joe Mullin, documents were leaked to (and published by) The Signpost about the Knight Foundation 's Knowledge Engine grant for a Wikimedia Foundation search-engine project in February 2016. Writing about the Knowledge Engine controversy, Nonprofit Quarterly editor-in-chief Ruth McCambridge directed technically minded readers to The Signpost "to better understand what

290-555: A WPM PR agent, as named in the FOIA release edited the article on Whitaker, adding external links in the text to both WPM's website and Whitaker's law office"; this was subsequently reported on, and cited, by The Wall Street Journal and Newser . In 2023, a report in The Signpost claimed that there may have been manipulation of several Misplaced Pages pages related to Gautam Adani and his companies, by use of sock puppets . This story

348-511: A few editors. A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles. Community-produced news publications include The Signpost . Other community news publications include the " WikiWorld " web comic, the Misplaced Pages Weekly podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like The Bugle from WikiProject Military History and

406-563: A number of publications referred to The Signpost for further information. The Signpost has been the subject of academic analysis in several journals , and was consulted by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Dartmouth College . It has been covered by several publications, including the 2008 book Misplaced Pages: The Missing Manual , which called it essential for ambitious new Misplaced Pages editors. The online newspaper , first published in January 2005 as The Misplaced Pages Signpost ,

464-545: A particular article, different WikiProjects may assign different importance levels. The Misplaced Pages Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed a table (shown below) that displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Misplaced Pages. If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more WikiProjects, then the highest rating is used in the table and bar-chart. Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via

522-452: A pope. According to Heise Online , the photo indicated pressure on the board to take action. Andreas Kolbe wrote for The Signpost "that the creation of a successful search engine would transform volunteers into 'unpaid hamsters. ' " Go Phightins! and Gamaliel remained co-editors-in-chief until the latter's resignation from Misplaced Pages in May 2016; Go Phightins! would continue until August, when

580-525: A renewable and sustained basis, with their numbers remaining relatively constant at approximately 42,000. The English Misplaced Pages has the Arbitration Committee (also known as ArbCom) that consists of a panel of editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disputes between other editors of the online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of

638-414: A single form of English to creating separate versions of the English Misplaced Pages project. According to a style guideline, "the English Misplaced Pages has no general preference for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation." A 2013 study from Oxford University found that

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696-426: A subcommunity within the larger Misplaced Pages community. In the social-movements journal Interface that year, Konieczny cited The Signpost as part of the "complexity and richness of those organizations" in which people can volunteer their time on the site. Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Dartmouth College relied on Signpost archives to track Misplaced Pages editing outages, presenting their findings at

754-406: A table (shown below) that displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Misplaced Pages. If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more WikiProjects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-chart. The software auto-updates the data. Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of

812-620: A worthwhile source of news for people interested in what is happening around the Misplaced Pages community", and said that The Signpost 's name was suggested by the Misplaced Pages practice of editors digitally signing talk-page posts. He stepped down as editor of The Signpost in August 2005, continuing to write for the newspaper until his February 2008 appointment to the board of trustees. User Ral315 succeeded Snow as editor, writing in his first post: "I'd like to personally thank Michael for his work on

870-408: A year since the millionth Wikipedian registered an account in February 2006. Over 1,100,000 volunteer editors have edited Misplaced Pages more than 10 times. Over 30,000 editors perform more than 5 edits per month, and over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits per month. On 1 March 2014, The Economist , in an article titled "The Future of Misplaced Pages", cited a trend analysis concerning data published by

928-602: Is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by Smithsonian for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Misplaced Pages from around 1,600 to over 5,000". Some Misplaced Pages WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. Misplaced Pages has thousands of WikiProjects, primarily divided between specific topical areas and performing specific maintenance tasks. One task commonly performed by topical WikiProjects on Misplaced Pages

986-452: Is needed for the article to enter one of the quality classes: either " good article ", "A" or the highest, " featured article ". Of the about 6.5 million articles and lists assessed as of April 2022, more than 6,000 (0.09%) are featured articles, and fewer than 4,000 (0.06%) are featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main page of Misplaced Pages. The Misplaced Pages Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed

1044-405: Is the most-read version of Misplaced Pages , accounting for 48% of Misplaced Pages's cumulative traffic, with the remaining percentage split among the other languages. The English Misplaced Pages has the most articles of any edition, at 6,916,921 as of November 2024. It contains 10.8% of articles in all Wikipedias, although it lacks millions of articles found in other editions. The edition's one-billionth edit

1102-507: Is the assessment of the quality of articles that fall within that topic area. In Misplaced Pages and sibling projects, WikiProject pages are located in project space, and the meta information regarding the association between the article and the WikiProject is usually included on the talk page of the article. WikiProjects provide an additional avenue for engagement between editors with similar interests, and have thereby been found to increase

1160-513: The Signpost ; it was a great idea that really helped Wikipedians learn more about the happenings on Misplaced Pages." He conducted a survey for The Signpost in September 2007, estimating a weekly readership of approximately 2,800 Misplaced Pages users based on survey results. In July 2008, Ral315 wrote about transparency for The Signpost , acknowledging that at the request of the Wikimedia Foundation,

1218-565: The 2011 IEEEIWIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence. In her 2013 study of Misplaced Pages and its reputation in higher education in the journal New Review of Academic Librarianship , Gemma Bayliss reviewed the Signpost Twitter feed to confirm the timeliness of her research. If you expect to continue editing at Misplaced Pages ... subscribe to ... The Misplaced Pages Signpost .  —John Broughton, Misplaced Pages: The Missing Manual In 2007 The New York Times called The Signpost

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1276-410: The English Misplaced Pages had over 2,000 WikiProjects, for which activity varied. In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Misplaced Pages introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles. Articles are rated by WikiProjects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review

1334-508: The English Misplaced Pages have pioneered some ideas as conventions, policies or features which were later adopted by Misplaced Pages editions in some of the other languages. These ideas include "featured articles", the neutral-point-of-view policy, navigation templates, the sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories, dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration, and weekly collaborations. The English Misplaced Pages reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007, over

1392-412: The English Misplaced Pages introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles. Articles are rated by WikiProjects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the highest quality classes: either "A", "good article" or the highest, "featured article". Of

1450-496: The Wikimedia Foundation stating that "[t]he number of editors for the English-language version has fallen by a third in seven years." The attrition rate for active editors in English Misplaced Pages was cited by The Economist as substantially in contrast to statistics for Misplaced Pages in other languages (non-English Misplaced Pages). The Economist reported that the number of contributors with an average of five or more edits per month

1508-574: The Misplaced Pages volunteers to review this aspect. CBS News described the role of WikiProject Medicine in content about the COVID-19 pandemic , stating that while "hot topics that get a lot of page views are carefully edited, inaccurate information persists on some of Misplaced Pages's less-read pages". James Heilman told CBS News, "I do not recommend people trust Misplaced Pages blindly. I think doing so would be silly. Yet, you know, people shouldn't trust other sources of information blindly, either." According to

1566-644: The about 4.4 million articles and lists assessed as of March 2015, about 7,000 (0.16%) are a featured article or a featured list. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main page of Misplaced Pages. According to research in 2021, WikiProject Tropical Cyclones has the most quality content in terms of good articles and featured articles. This is unusual, due to the project's narrow scope and member count of only around 100. The articles can also be rated for importance by WikiProjects. Currently, there are five importance categories: "low", "mid", "high", "top", and "???" for unclassified/unsure level. For

1624-401: The chances of an editor becoming an administrator, finding that one Misplaced Pages policy edit or WikiProject edit is worth ten article edits, and concluding: Merely performing a lot of production work is insufficient for "promotion" in Misplaced Pages. Candidates’ article edits were weak predictors of success. They also have to demonstrate more managerial behavior. Diverse experience and contributions to

1682-591: The criticism has been directed toward its content, community of established volunteer users , process, and rules. Critics have questioned its factual reliability , the readability and organization of its articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking , and its political bias . A notable discussion within the English Misplaced Pages community concerns the preference for national variety of the English language, particularly American English and British English . Various suggestions have been made, ranging from standardizing

1740-474: The development of policies and WikiProjects were stronger predictors of RfA success. This is consistent with the findings that Misplaced Pages is a bureaucracy and that coordination work has increased substantially. [...] Participation in Misplaced Pages policy and WikiProjects was not predictive of adminship prior to 2006, suggesting the community as a whole is beginning to prioritize policymaking and organization experience over simple article-level coordination. In 2007,

1798-517: The encyclopedia's military history articles. The International Business Times noted in a 2013 article that The Signpost 's investigative journalism uncovered a link between the Wiki-PR firm and conflict-of-interest editing on Misplaced Pages . After its June 2015 reporting on the likelihood of increased copyright restrictions in Europe involving changes to freedom of panorama , The Signpost

The Signpost - Misplaced Pages Continue

1856-462: The former's resignation in September of that year. Currently, the editor-in-chief is JPxG. In 2018, a Signpost article by writer (and later editor-in-chief) Smallbones broke the news that World Patent Marketing , a company whose advisory board included then-acting United States Attorney General Matthew Whitaker , had likely made inappropriate edits to Whitaker's Misplaced Pages article, saying: "an editor with an account name almost identical to that of

1914-424: The intensive work of a few editors. A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles. WikiProject Medicine was formed in 2004 to improve coverage of medicine-related topics. A 2011 review of the project's efforts praised it for assessing most medical articles on Misplaced Pages (at that time about 25,000), at

1972-560: The monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors . There are a number of publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the Wikimedia Blog and This Month in Education . WikiProject During the COVID-19 pandemic , CBS News noted the role of Misplaced Pages's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention

2030-993: The most disputed articles on the English Misplaced Pages tend to address broader, global issues. In contrast, articles on other language Wikipedias often focus on regional issues. This pattern is attributed to the status of English as a global lingua franca , leading to contributions from many editors for whom English is a second language . The study identified the most disputed entries on the English Misplaced Pages as George W. Bush , anarchism , Muhammad , list of WWE personnel , global warming , circumcision , United States , Jesus , race and intelligence , and Christianity . 2024 research have determined that several groups of connected accounts have coordinated to promote Russian propaganda narratives and state-controlled media sources in articles, related to Russian-Ukrainian relations and Russia's war with Ukraine . There have been reports of threats of violence against high schools made on Misplaced Pages. For instance, in 2008, Glen A. Wilson High School

2088-574: The newspaper depended on collaboration and involvement by the Misplaced Pages community and invited users to contribute suggestions and join the editing team. In their first issue of the newspaper as editors-in-chief, Go Phightins! and Gamaliel wrote about The Signpost 's unique role: "We will strive to maintain our voice and standing as an independent entity, separate from the WMF, Wikimedia chapters, WikiEd, or other entities." In January 2016, Fortune and Ars Technica relied on The Signpost in reporting

2146-422: The newspaper had decided not to publish an article about a pending legal case against the foundation. According to the editor, "I feel this was an unfortunate, but necessary move"; because of the newspaper's affiliation with the Wikimedia Foundation, an article about the lawsuit "might have had a severe effect on the case." Ral315 expressed concern about the future impact of the decision: "I'm still rather troubled by

2204-468: The newspaper in February 2009, in an issue that featured a new layout. Ragesoss resigned as editor in June 2010, and HaeB took over as the newspaper debated changing its name from The Misplaced Pages Signpost to The Signpost . That year, sister Misplaced Pages publications managed by volunteer contributors included The Misplaced Pages Weekly , a podcast , and The Wikizine , a news bulletin. HaeB resigned as editor after he

2262-501: The nominal periodicity was changed to "fortnightly" (every two weeks) due to a shortage of contributors. But in January and February 2017 only three issues were published, and none in March, April or May. It is now published monthly. Readers may choose to be notified of a new issue by email or, with a Misplaced Pages account, on their user talk page. The newspaper informs Misplaced Pages editors about ongoing collaborative projects to improve articles on

2320-430: The number of high quality articles had improved to about 80. The review praised the efforts of the volunteers, but said that participation levels are too low to promise any significant improvements in the thousands of lower-quality articles, calling for more medical practitioners to volunteer. The review also said that readability (complexity) of Misplaced Pages articles may be too high for its intended audience, and encouraged

2378-631: The productivity of such editors. In order to spur participation and concentrate effectiveness, WikiProjects on Misplaced Pages may engage in activities like having a "collaboration of the week", or designating one article to be improved to the point of achieving "featured" status. The WikiProject Council is a group of editors that assists with the development of active WikiProjects, and acts as a central point for inter-WikiProject discussion and collaboration. A 2008 academic study of Misplaced Pages concluded that participation in WikiProjects substantially improved

The Signpost - Misplaced Pages Continue

2436-410: The role was passed to Andreas Kolbe and Pete Forsyth. In November of that year, Kolbe departed, and in June 2017, Evad37 assumed the role of sole editor-in-chief. Between 2018 and 2019, Bri and Kudpung both edited several issues; in March 2019, Smallbones was selected as the next editor-in-chief. In May 2022, he retired from the position, succeeded by EpicPupper and JPxG, who were co-editors-in-chief until

2494-486: The same time remarking that only around 70 have been assessed as high quality. The first use of Misplaced Pages medical content in formal medical education was in 2011. A 2014 study found that the frequency of Misplaced Pages medical topics referenced in medical publications has increased over time since 2010, in spite of recommendations discouraging doctors from using Misplaced Pages, with the majority provided as definitions or descriptions. A 2016 review written by Wikipedians stated that

2552-501: The site and is a location for centralized notices of recent academic studies about Misplaced Pages . The Signpost includes an arbitration report, formerly known as "The Report on Lengthy Litigation", which details proceedings by Misplaced Pages's Arbitration Committee . The Signpost archives are publicly available, facilitating study of the history of Misplaced Pages . In a 2009 article in the peer-reviewed academic journal Sociological Forum , Piotr Konieczny called The Signpost an example of

2610-427: The site. When it was founded, the committee consisted of 12 arbitrators divided into three groups of four members each. In 2022, for English Misplaced Pages, Americans accounted for about 40% of active editors, followed by British and Indian editors accounting for about 10% of each, and Canadian and Australian at about 5%. The free online encyclopedia Misplaced Pages has been criticized since its creation in 2001. Most of

2668-589: The total volume of the compressed texts of its articles amounted to 20 gigabytes . The edition's one-billionth edit was made on 13 January 2021 by Ser Amantio di Nicolao (Steven Pruitt) who as of that date is the user with the highest number of edits on the English Misplaced Pages, at over four million. Currently, there are 6,916,921 articles created with 930,425 files. The encyclopedia is home to 10.8% of articles in all Wikipedias (down from more than 50% in 2003). The English Misplaced Pages currently has 48,330,033 registered accounts of which 851 are administrators. Editors of

2726-492: The very nature of this situation because it was the first time that I've felt pressured by the Wikimedia Foundation not to write or publish a story. This also leaves us with a dangerous precedent that I'm hoping only to keep in the most serious cases." The Signpost published its 200th issue in November 2008. A total of 1,731 articles had been published, written by 181 contributors. Misplaced Pages user Ragesoss took over as editor of

2784-452: Was being planned." In his article for the German magazine Heise Online , Torsten Kleinz wrote: "When official communications ground to a halt, The Signpost ... jumped into the breach, brought unknown facts to light and initiated an informed discussion." English Misplaced Pages The English Misplaced Pages is the primary English-language edition of Misplaced Pages , an online encyclopedia. It

2842-462: Was consulted for information by publications in several languages, including English, German, Italian, Polish, and Russian. Misplaced Pages users Gamaliel and Go Phightins! became editors-in-chief of The Signpost in January 2015. The ed17 noted that during his tenure, the newspaper expanded its scope beyond the English Misplaced Pages to the wider Wikimedia movement. In a January 2015 tenth-anniversary retrospective, Gamaliel emphasized that further improvements to

2900-501: Was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Misplaced Pages's first edition. English Misplaced Pages is hosted alongside other language editions by the Wikimedia Foundation , an American nonprofit organization . Its content is written independently of other editions in various varieties of English , aiming to stay consistent within articles. Its internal newspaper is The Signpost . English Misplaced Pages

2958-462: Was founded in January 2005 by Wikipedian Michael Snow, who continued as a contributor until his February 2008 appointment to the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees . Former editor-in-chief The ed17 noted that during his tenure, from 2012 to 2015, the publication expanded its scope to report on the wider Wikimedia movement in addition to Misplaced Pages and its community. After it reported on the changes to European freedom of panorama law in June 2015,

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3016-409: Was frequently criticized in the 2000s, it has improved over time, receiving greater praise in the late 2010s and early 2020s, having become an important fact-checking site . English Misplaced Pages has been characterized as having less cultural bias than other language editions due to its broader editor base. The English Misplaced Pages surpassed six million articles on 23 January 2020. In November 2022,

3074-523: Was hired by the Wikimedia Foundation in July 2011: "It would make it too much of a conflict of interest if I were to continue to make final editorial decisions for a community-run publication." After three interim editors-in-chief, Misplaced Pages user The ed17 took over in May 2012 as The Signpost 's eighth editor. He previously edited The Bugle , the publication of the WikiProject dedicated to improving

3132-498: Was later renamed The Signpost . It was founded by the lawyer Michael Snow, a Wikipedian who later chaired the Wikimedia Foundation 's Board of Trustees. Similar efforts had been made with Misplaced Pages:Announcements by Larry Sanger on November 20, 2001, Wikimedia News on Meta-Wiki November 14, 2002, and Misplaced Pages-Kurier in the German Misplaced Pages on December 10, 2003. Snow wrote in its first issue: "I hope this will be

3190-401: Was made on 13 January 2021. English Misplaced Pages, often as a stand-in for Misplaced Pages overall, has been praised for its enablement of the democratization of knowledge , extent of coverage, unique structure, culture, and reduced degree of commercial bias. It has been criticized for exhibiting systemic bias , particularly gender bias against women and ideological bias . While its reliability

3248-564: Was relatively constant since 2008 for Misplaced Pages in other languages at approximately 42,000 editors within narrow seasonal variances of about 2,000 editors up or down. The number of active editors in English Misplaced Pages, by "sharp" comparison, was cited as peaking in 2007 at approximately 50,000 and dropping to 30,000 by the start of 2014. The trend analysis published in The Economist presents Misplaced Pages in other languages (non-English Misplaced Pages) as successful in retaining their active editors on

3306-454: Was the subject of such a threat. Additionally, in 2006, a 14-year-old was arrested for making a threat against Niles West High School on Misplaced Pages. A " WikiProject " is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Misplaced Pages. These groups may focus on a specific topic area (for example, women's history ), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). As of August 2022,

3364-457: Was then picked up by multiple Indian news outlets, including The Times of India and The Hindu . The Signpost publishes stories relating to the Misplaced Pages community , the Wikimedia Foundation , and other Misplaced Pages-related projects , and is provided free of charge. The Misplaced Pages community manages the newspaper. From 2005 to March 2016, The Signpost was published weekly. In April 2016,

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