User:WugapodesOutreach/Signpost draft

The Signpost



Signpost draft

Outreach in a time of coronavirus

Optional: Give a short WP:LEAD-like introduction statement here.

The importance of editor recruitment and retention edit

Volunteers are the most valuable resource on a wiki. As veteran editors retire, we need a pool of new and enthusiastic editors to rise to the occasion. Without these newcomers, our mistakes remain, new articles go unwritten, backlogs grow, and our encyclopedia stagnates. While many of our editors join the ranks organically, not everyone is bold enough to explore the editorial side of Wikipedia on their own. Converting casual readers to editors is a vital function of outreach events, and well planned outreach can increase the pool of active editors and help diversify our community with broader experiences and perspectives.

How are virtual events different? edit

A bottle of the Creative Commons-licensed Free Beer.
Free food and drink is often used to attract participants, but remote events need to rely on our shared interest in free knowledge.

A major hurdle in any outreach event is attracting participants. Unfortunately absent from virtual events is one of the main attractions available to in-person event planners: free food. Because we cannot rely on participants' stomachs to lead them to our outreach event, attracting participants becomes one of the more important aspects of planning the event. Depending on the kind of event, sometimes the format may need to be altered or rearranged entirely. When using one-to-many teleconferencing software like Skype and Zoom_, small group discussions and organic peer mentoring become difficult or impossible complicating events like edit-a-thons. In contrast, events which incorporate presentations like lightning talks may not need many changes to adapt to the online format.

Running a successful outreach event virtually edit

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

This page is a draft for the next issue of the Signpost. Below is some helpful code that will help you write and format a Signpost draft. If it's blank, you can fill out a template by copy-pasting this in and pressing 'publish changes': {{subst:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Story-preload}}


Images and Galleries
Sidebar images

To put an image in your article, use the following template (link):

[[File:|center|300px|alt=Placeholder alt text]]

CAPTION
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2
 |image     = 
 |size      = 300px
 |alt       = Placeholder alt text
 |caption   = CAPTION
 |fullwidth = no
}}

This will create the file on the right. Keep the 300px in most cases. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Inline images

Placing

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Inline image
 |image   =
 |size    = 300px
 |align   = center
 |alt     = Placeholder alt text
 |caption = CAPTION
}}

(link) will instead create an inline image like below

[[File:|300px|center|alt=Placeholder alt text]]
CAPTION
Galleries

To create a gallery, use the following

<gallery mode = packed | heights = 200px>
|Caption for second image
</gallery>

to create

Quotes
Framed quotes

To insert a framed quote like the one on the right, use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler quote-v2
 |1         = The goose is on the loose!
 |author    = AUTHOR
 |source    = SOURCE
 |fullwidth = no
}}

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Pull quotes

To insert a pull quote like

use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Quote
 |1         = The goose is on the loose!
 |source    = SOURCE
}}
Long quotes

To insert a long inline quote like

The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease!
— User:Oscar Wilde
— Quotations Notes from the Underpoop

use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/block quote
 | text   = The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease!
 | by     = Oscar Wilde
 | source = Quotations
 | ts     = Notes from the Underpoop
 | oldid  = 1234567890
}}
Side frames

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

A caption

Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1         = Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 |caption   = A caption
 |fullwidth = no
}}

gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like.

Example − Graph/Charts
A caption

For example, to insert the {{Graph:Chart}} generated by

{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}

in a frame, simple put the graph code in |1=

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1=
{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}
 |caption=A caption
 |fullwidth=no
}}

to get the framed Graph:Chart on the right.

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Two-column vs full width styles

If you keep the 'normal' preloaded draft and work from there, you will be using the two-column style. This is perfectly fine in most cases and you don't need to do anything.

However, every time you have a |fullwidth=no and change it to |fullwidth=yes (or vice-versa), the article will take that style from that point onwards (|fullwidth=yes → full width, |fullwidth=no → two-column). By default, omitting |fullwidth= is the same as putting |fullwidth=no and the article will have two columns after that. Again, this is perfectly fine in most cases, and you don't need to do anything.

However, you can also fine-tune which style is used at which point in an article.

To switch from two-column → full width style midway in an article, insert

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=yes}}

where you want the switch to happen.

To switch from full width → two-column style midway in an article, insert

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=no}}

where you want the switch to happen.

Article series

To add a series of 'related articles' your article, use the following code

Related articles
Visual Editor

Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
1 January 2023

VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief
5 August 2015

HTTPS-only rollout completed, proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts
17 June 2015

VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
29 April 2015

Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
4 February 2015


More articles

{{Signpost series
 |type=sidebar-v2
 |tag=VisualEditor
 |seriestitle=Visual Editor
 |fullwidth=no
}}

or

{{Signpost series
 |type=sidebar-v2
 |tag=VisualEditor
 |seriestitle=Visual Editor
 |fullwidth=yes
}}

will create the sidebar on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. A partial list of valid |tag= parameters can be found at here and will decide the list of articles presented. |seriestitle= is the title that will appear below 'Related articles' in the box.

Alternatively, you can use

{{Signpost series
 |type=inline
 |tag=VisualEditor
 |tag_name=visual editor
 |tag_pretext=the
}}

at the end of an article to create

For Signpost coverage on the visual editor see the visual editor series.

If you think a topic would make a good series, but you don't see a tag for it, or that all the articles in a series seem 'old', ask for help at the WT:NEWSROOM. Many more tags exist, but they haven't been documented yet.

Report-specific links and misc

By the way, the template that you're reading right now is {{Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue}}.