Wikisource:Maintenance of the Month/Newsletter relaunch

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Maintenance of the Month Newsletter relaunch

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Planning and organisation to relaunch Wikisource:News.

Main page	General discussion	Suggestions	Subpages	Completed maintenance

Overview

Wikisource:News has been dormant for a while and relaucnhing it has been suggested. We need to decide how it will work from both a technical and organisational perspective. This project will also need volunteers to act as newsletter editors and possibly others to assist in running the newsletter.

Discussion points

To participate:

Add new sections below for new actions or points of discussion.
Discuss existing points.

Frequency

Other Wikisource projects run on a monthly schedule; it would make sense for the newsletter to follow this. Wikipedia's Signpost is weekly but I'm not sure if we have enough activity to support that. (The Bugle, the newsletter of Wikipedia's Military History project, is also monthly). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree for a monthly schedule.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Technical structure

If the page Wikisource:News is filled with a template that updates automatically (like the featured text template on the main page), it would help in preparation and archiving. Pages like Wikisource:News/2012-12 (for this month) can be worked on ahead of time and the template would be able to pick them up automatically on the very beginning of the month—then move on to the next page at the very end—without having to wait for a user to do anything manually. When the page has expired, it will remain on the system and can be easily linked to from an archives page.

It may also help to have a template for each month, to at least start with a standard structure of the page. Depending on how we choose to do this, users could choose to keep to the structure or amend it as appropriate each month. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My idea consists of:

the main page (Wikisource:News),
an "Issues" subpage with links to all
the issues' subpages.

The main page will include—like a template—the current month's issue.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at Signpost, we may need one or more administrative pages as well. We can have a separate page for suggestions or use the talk page of the (main?) admin page. On the subject of talk pages: Signpost appears to transclude talk pages (of the subpages) into the article pages for use as a comments page. I think that's an interesting idea. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:12, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikisource talk:News may be used for general administration. However, users should be encouraged to write post, not just to suggest them. Comment pages are a good idea, but would they be actually used? They're slightly used even on Wikipedia. An initial draft for the newsletter is here.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Content

We need to discuss what news will actually be reported in this newsletter. What regular, "filler" material can it use? (The most obvious being a list of new texts, based on the main page box, preferably with comment otherwise it would just a duplicate existing pages). Will it have opinion pieces, interviews or other material? If so, is anyone volunteering to actually contribute these items. In some cases, we can possibly steal items from Signpost for Wikimedia-wide issues. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The newsletter may include:

news concerning Wikisource and the Wikimedia projects in general,
links to pages of online medias who have written or talked about Wikisource,
reports of important discussions which have taken place on wiki pages, on mailing lists, elsewhere on the Internet, or in real meetings,
comments on featured texts, community collaborations, and monthly proofreads,
requests for comments, including administrator's nominations, major proposals, and surveys,
"milestones" and notable statistical data,
news to be shared with all contributors.

Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Monthly projects (started and completed) and the featured text for the month

Not everyone comes through the Main Page or reads it all. In my case, I don't see anything below the Featured Text on the left side when I'm at work, because of monitor scaling. Folks with smaller-screen Mobile devices will likely have a similar problem. So, Main page information that rotates could be included in compact form somewhere in the News. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we are summarising the main page (and that's a fair idea), to what extent should we repeat items from Scriptorium. Should the newsletter assume that everyone who wants to know would have already read that page instead or can something be summarised and repeated on the newsletter if it is of widespread interest. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anything should be summarized on the newsletter if it is of widespread interest.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Format

Would we want this to be a page of news, just a series of wikilinked headlines with the content on other pages, or "summary style" with most of the material on other pages and a headline with summary for each item on the newsletter itself? Any of these could work. Personally, I would avoid creating too many additional pages if they are unnecessary, especially for the first few issues. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I'd have all posts on the same page, with a second-level heading for each post.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Final publication date

I can't think of a better heading at the moment. I mean, will a month's newsletter be "live" (edited and new things added) or will it be fixed (by page protection or consensus) once it is on the main news page? I can see three possibilities at time of writing:

The newsletter is edited up to the end of the previous month (ie. the February issue is written in January, with edits up to the 31st of January) but once it is transcluded into Wikisource:News it is left as it is.
As above but any errors or updates are allowed as long as they are clearly marked as such.
New stories and edits can be made through out the month (ie. new items could be added to the February issue up to the 28th, or 29th, of February).

Personally, I prefer 1 or 2 because it is more like a "real" news publication. On the other hand I can see that 3 might be useful if we are using a monthly schedule and newsworthy things happen during the month (especially if early in the month). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 00:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most posts will be written before the beginning of the month, but I prefer for the newsletter to remain open to new posts until the end the month. Example: on January 10 the community decides to organize a survey from Jan 15 to Jan 30. When should the news appear on the newsletter? At the time of the decision, of course, not on February.--Erasmo Barresi (talk) 21:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]