Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin

This page is for discussions related to Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin.   Please remember to: Sign posts using the four tildes (~~~~) Remain civil and polite during discussions. Place new comments below in existing sections or start a new section.

Great idea

A regular bulletin is a great idea, thanks for starting it. I've signed up and hope it will be supported on a permanent basis.

One quick suggestion: to make navigation easier for non-WMF readers, I'd suggest exploring other approaches to categorizing updates instead of relying on categories of the annual plan. For example, from a bystander's point of view it's not obvious why Wikimania is grouped under equity (even if it makes total sense internally). AntonProtsiuk (WMUA) (talk) 12:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with the overall praise and the critiques. The other thing I'd mention is that I'd prefer there not be too much redundancy with the Signpost. "In the news" is something the Signpost already covers (and with editorial independence), so I don't see a need to expend energy on that. Sdkb ^talk 19:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sdkb, thanks for reading and sharing this thought. I agree and think maybe we should be more focussed specifically in the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin on sharing news stories where the Foundation worked directly to get a mention, connect a wikimedian to a journalist or provided comment. We have seen past requests from users about knowing how the Foundation's external communications team was working with journalists. In terms of effort/energy - there is none required as these articles would be ones that team would have already worked on. We'll think more about a better section title so it does not overlap with the Signpost. मयूर Mayur Paul (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

This is a really helpful point @AntonProtsiuk (WMUA). We'll explore different ways of grouping / categorising the articles over the next few issues. मयूर Mayur Paul (WMF) (talk) 13:47, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I wrote an article in the German Kurier (like en wp's Signpost) about this new bulletin and got good feedback, esp. via the thank you function. --König der Vandalen (talk) 12:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

@König der Vandalen Thank you, your majesty. मयूर Mayur Paul (WMF) (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

This month's bulletin was delivered twice

Hi, just letting you guys know that you delivered the bulletin twice for the 08-01 version. I recommend having your own talk page subscribed (or something similar) so it's very clear when the newsletters are being sent out.

Pinging @RAdimer-WMF, not sure who else is in charge here Soni (talk) 14:41, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Soni, hi! I'm really sorry about this; I'm not sure what's causing it to send duplicates. I opened phab:T369179 the last time this happened, and added a note about this occurence. There is only one log entry, though it sent it twice. I'm currently going through and undoing the duplicates. RAdimer-WMF (talk) 14:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

All duplicates removed, save for zhwiki (where I hit a filter) and frwiki (where Salebot reverted it). RAdimer-WMF (talk) 14:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I removed the one on zhwiki. SCP-2000 16:30, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Signature

Please consider giving Special:MassMessage a five tilde (~~~~~) signature, so that the delivery bot doesn't sign its own name at the end of the newsletter. You could also add a fake "signature" from a group, like "from the Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin team" or "from the Wikimedia Foundation Communications department" if you wanted it to have some name or link to contact at the end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing so nice to hear from you and that is a great suggestion! I'll talk to colleagues see if we can make it happen for second issue in October onwards (this week's one is already with the translators). P.S: sorry for the delayed response, had missed the notification. मयूर Mayur Paul (WMF) (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, "MaPa"! No worries about the late reply. I hope all's well with you and the team. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

While this might be a good idea, please be aware that a signature requires an userlink, so the software can recognize it as a proper signature. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 16:39, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Cookai, I agree with you in general, but I'm not sure that it's desirable, in this particular instance, to signal to the Reply tool that someone should be able to reply to an announcement. One doesn't necessarily want to encourage local replies to high-volume MassMessages, because the person sending them might not see the reply. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't know how often people want to reply to the MassMessage sender, but people can discuss about the newsletter with each other. Also, a user might subscribe to a community page and expect to receive a notification when the newsletter arrives.

I don't oppose the idea of having a team signature, but I don't see why showing the bot's signature is a bad thing.

With or without the bot's signature, there's many ways to have a custom proper signature. Cookai🍪 _(💬talk) 01:42, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Giving people a link to User:MediaWiki message delivery is not going to help them figure out who to contact, and there's no point in 'pinging' a bot. When a signature is desirable, then it's easy enough to add one, but it should link to a non-bot account. (For example, I always signed the VisualEditor/Newsletter with someone's name, usually my own). If a signature is not obviously desirable, then it shouldn't be the bot's. There are no circumstances in which "@MediaWiki message delivery" is useful, and adding the bot's sig will not only "enable" it, but also make it seem like a useful/intended action. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi @WhatamIdoing! I hope you're doing well. Aiui it's standard for MassMessages to be signed by the MassMessage delivery account, though I've modified the last line in this week's and future issues to be clearer about where to go with questions:

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcac@wikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

Best, RAdimer-WMF (talk) 19:59, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

That's the most important thing. I don't believe there's an actual rule against it, even if hiding the origin of the message is not an ideal practice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Global message delivery suggests to mimic a signature, including the five tildes for a valid timestamp. Johannnes89 (talk) 06:04, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Language

Hi there. I would prefer to get the bulletin delivered in English, despite I subscribed with my deWP user talk page. Some of the Grman translations are incomprehensible and they always lack the original flair and cultural subtext of the English language version. TIA --h-stt !? 20:43, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's possible. When sending multilingual mass messages, users automatically receive a translated version corresponding to the project's language version where the talk page is located. You'll need to subscribe with your enWP talk page (or meta/commons/wikidata...) to receive the English version. Johannnes89 (talk) 05:25, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Newsletters to mention

Hello! It is a good initiative, I am very happy to discover this newsletter, and wish you the best.

I am the main editor of Actualités du Wiktionnaire, the French Wiktionary monthly newsletter that started in April 2015 and have now 114 published issues. It is sometimes translated in English and always tagged for translation at least. I would appreciate to see this publication mentioned on the footer of the Bulletin.

There is also the Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia published monthly on French Wikipedia since July 2011, with 273 issues today, and Wikimag published weekly on French Wikipedia since October 2007, with 864 issues.

And also the newsletters of the Chapters, I now Wikimedia Canada and Wikimedia CH edit a monthly newsletters in several languages. Wikimedia France have a blog with irregular but interesting publications. It is nice to gather them and to make all this long-term work more visible 🙂 Noé (talk) 23:17, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

@Noé Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! I've added those 3 into the upcoming edition, although I'm just a stand-in publisher for this week. The main publisher will need to decide on the best permanent way/structure to include those, and any other newsletters that folks suggest.

Relatedly, I suggest you might like to add all of those newsletters you mention into the lists at Newsletters and at Internal news media. Best wishes, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I did so. By the way, Tech News was not mentioned on Internal news media before I added it. And there is so much inactive newsletter, some cleaning could be nice. I am not sure about the best permanent way to structure this network of publications, but I am happy to see something getting alive 🙂 Noé (talk) 18:53, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

More time for translation

Hello, currently the bulletin is published soon after it is created on the metawiki, and there is only a little time for translation (only around a few hours). It is suggested to give more time, such as 2-3 days (similar to the Tech News), for volunteers to translate it into more languages, and it can also be announced in Translators-l mailing list to let volunteer translators know. Thanks. cc @Ericliu1912 SCP-2000 03:45, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi @SCP-2000, thanks for your suggestion! We're having conversations now about what we'd need to shift in our internal timeline in order to support this change, and will get back to you soon on this. RAdimer-WMF (talk) 21:47, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@SCP-2000: Thanks again for the suggestion. We've shifted our timeline to post new issues on Meta-Wiki on Fridays, and send it via MassMessage the following Monday. I've just posted the latest issue :). Best, RAdimer-WMF (talk) 16:43, 22 November 2024 (UTC)