WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/Newsroom/Publishing

WikiPatrika Publication Process

The Signpost's editor-in-chief is normally in charge of setting and enforcing deadlines for  publication each week, making final editorial decisions about what to  publish, and for carrying out this publication process. When he is unavailable, other senior Signpost editors may take his place.

Handle the actual "publishing" tasks in the following order; it should avoid the necessity of having to purge each  individual article to update the footer.


 * 1) Update the issue contents page (at WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/YYYY-MM-DD, e.g. this Monday: WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/). It should be in the same format as WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/2009-02-16, which should be self-explanatory.  If there is a note from the editor, make that story #0, which will put  it at the top of the page.  Rank the special stories in order of  perceived importance so that the big stories are at the top, and keep  the features at the bottom, in the order used in the newsroom.  The  order of these may be adjust to improve the balance of the two columns  of stories on WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika.Make sure that each section's subtitle (e.g. "Bugs, Repairs, and  Internal Operational News" or a more descriptive title chosen by the section's authors) is reflected on the content page.
 * 2) Semi-protect the contents page, since it is transcluded on a large number of pages and has occasionally been subject to vandalism.
 * 3) Move all the pages to subpages of WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/YYYY-MM-DD; it's important here to make sure that the weekly features retain the same name (i.e. "WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/YYYY-MM-DD/Arbitration_report", "Technology_report", etc.) so that the links to the previous issue will work.
 * 4) Add the footer  to all the articles if it's not already present.If a feature (part of  a series) was not present in the previous issue, be sure to change the  footer to point to the last installment of that feature.  Also, adjust  the footer in the earlier article to point to the new one.
 * 5) Change WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/Issue to the date of publication, and update Volume #  and Issue #.
 * 6) Purge the cache of WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/Issue, WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika ,  WikiPatrika:WikiPatrika/Single, this issue's archive page  and this page
 * 7) Announce the new issue on Foundation-l and WikimediaAnnounce-l, using the pre-generated output below for copy & paste.
 * 8) Post the Signpost on the talk pages of subscribers. The subscribe message is loaded into User:EdwardsBot/Spam for automatic delivery.  See the recent history of the page for proper formatting. Only users which are on the access list can initiate a bot run (as an admin, you can add yourself).
 * 9) Dent/tweet about the new issue, linking to (e.g.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/  as landing page.
 * 10) Blog about the new issue, using the pre-generated output below for copy & paste.
 * 11) Post the Signpost on talk pages of subscribers on other projects, using Global message delivery. The subscribe message is loaded into Global message delivery/Spam for automatic delivery; you can use the pre-generated output below for copy & paste. See the recent history of the page for proper formatting. Only users which are on the access list can initiate a bot run (Meta admins can add themselves).
 * 12) Edit WikiPatrika:Article alerts/News to announce the publication via Article Alerts.
 * 13) Create a new book page for the completed issue, e.g Book:WikiPatrika/, using the pre-generated output below for copy & paste.
 * 14) Initiate the issue contents page Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. Wikipedia Signpost/) for the next issue, with a generic skeleton (using the pre-generated output below), so that editors can begin creating the next issue.
 * 15) Create the archive page Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Archives/YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. Wikipedia Signpost/Archives/) for the next issue, with the template Signpost archive (using the appropriate dates, e.g.: )
 * 16) At least from time to time, check that the archive overview for the current year at Wikipedia Signpost/Archives/2024 is up to date.
 * 17) Clear out discussion and links related to the newly published issue in the Newsroom (using,  with the date of the next planned issue). Leave a note under Notes to  thank this week's contributors and to announce any important upcoming  news and any issues that have arisen with publication.

Mailing list output for this issue
WikiPatrika –  –