As the Signpost has moved from publishing every month to every two weeks every three weeks every two and a half weeks or so more frequently, we've hit our share of snips and snags, including a couple weeks ago, when a rather brashly opinionated technology report spurred about a hundred kilobytes of
discussion, a big-ass thread at
administrators' noticeboard slash incidents, and a
currently-open request for comment linked to from
WP:CENT.
In light of this most recent debacle, I've been going through old Signpost archives in order to find some editorial guidance. What I've found is grim: it turns out this is far from the only time we've made a questionable call on a hot-button issue. In fact, there we have run a great number of ill-advised pieces over the years. But under new editorship, we too have the chance to turn a new leaf. So I'd like to take a few minutes and apologize for some of the times we've gotten it wrong over the years.
Starting from the beginning. [1]
“ | Anyone who wants to write for The Signpost needs to be screened for ideological sympathies and potential fifth-columnism. Fortunately, this is simple. Our process is to ask them what they think of a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. If they say something like "hell yeah!" or "based!" or "that would be nice", that's how we know they are a Communist, or a homosexual, or some other kind of freak, and we start keeping a close eye on them and their associates. | ” |
As the Signpost has moved from publishing every month to every two weeks every three weeks every two and a half weeks or so more frequently, we've hit our share of snips and snags, including a couple weeks ago, when a rather brashly opinionated technology report spurred about a hundred kilobytes of
discussion, a big-ass thread at
administrators' noticeboard slash incidents, and a
currently-open request for comment linked to from
WP:CENT.
In light of this most recent debacle, I've been going through old Signpost archives in order to find some editorial guidance. What I've found is grim: it turns out this is far from the only time we've made a questionable call on a hot-button issue. In fact, there we have run a great number of ill-advised pieces over the years. But under new editorship, we too have the chance to turn a new leaf. So I'd like to take a few minutes and apologize for some of the times we've gotten it wrong over the years.
Starting from the beginning. [1]
“ | Anyone who wants to write for The Signpost needs to be screened for ideological sympathies and potential fifth-columnism. Fortunately, this is simple. Our process is to ask them what they think of a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. If they say something like "hell yeah!" or "based!" or "that would be nice", that's how we know they are a Communist, or a homosexual, or some other kind of freak, and we start keeping a close eye on them and their associates. | ” |
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