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::Regards, [[User:HaeB|HaeB]] ([[User talk:HaeB|talk]]) 20:59, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
:::Perhaps this was dumb. I did post about this to [[Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Technical#Byline_pages|Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Technical]] back in January; perhaps some more discussion would have been good. From the height of a few months, this seems like it would have been a better choice, but at the time, I was just trying to make author search function. What I discovered was that the lack of machine-readable Signpost archives was concealing a [[Special:Permalink/1136012646|bizarre shitpile]] of some 1,212 distinct author fields, about [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Statistics/Authors|300 of which]] were nonsense. For example, sorting alphabetically gives <code>[User:GerardM</code>, <code><nowiki>{{{2}}}</nowiki></code>, <code>§hep</code>, <code>\/</code>, <code>+sj +</code>, <code>2 May</code>, <code>3 July 2006</code>, <code>03 July 2006</code>, <code>3family6</code>, <code>3family6 1 April 2016 19:58 (UTC)</code>, <code>05 November 2007</code>, <code>10 other editors</code>, <code>11 other editors</code>, <code>12 August 2015</code>, <code>14 April</code>, <code>18 August</code>, <code>19 November 2012</code>, <code>22mikpau</code>, <code>24 April</code>, <code>24 Apri</code>, <code>26 April 2010</code>, <code>27 other editors,</code>, <code>28 other editors</code>, <code>32 other editors</code>, <code>38 editors</code>, <code>51 other editors</code>, <code>53 other editors</code>, <code>79 other editors</code>, <code>91 editors</code>, <code>106 editors on the French Wikipedia; translated for The Signpost by JohnNewton8</code>, <code>273 other editors</code>, <code>1233</code>, <code>2008</code>, <code>16912 Rhiannon 15 July 2015</code> (literally all of which are parsing errors except for three); your articles, specifically, were under <code>HaeB</code>, <code>Tilman Bayer</code>, <code>Tilman Bayer</code>, <code>Tilman Bayer 1 April 2016 19:58 (UTC)</code>, <code>Tilman Bayer 03:08 (UTC)</code> (two of those ''appearing'' to be identical strings, but one of them with a nonprinting character). I guess what I am trying to say here is that if you want me to de-alias your name changes, I can do that, but I think that given the volume of work being done it was not something I could realistically post about at [[WT:Signpost]] (I recall that around December/January you had been saying we should be stricter about posting stuff on the right talk pages, which is why it was at /Technical). '''[[User:JPxG|jp]]'''×'''[[User talk:JPxG|g]]''' 23:14, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
::::Appreciate your reply, but my point above was exactly that this is a major content decision (and one affecting authors - and interested readers! - who may not be interested in following the Signpost's technical side). In that repsect, /Technical was the wrong place for such discussions (at least without announcing them in more content-focused locations too, which I don't recall seeing at the time).
::::As for the specific content examples you're raising: Yes, I'm sure there were a lot of uncontroversial fixes among these mass changes, but also a lot of deliberate choices being altered. (I wasn't mainly thinking about my own bylines here, but apart from nonprinting characters etc., these were also not accidentally different.) Lastly, I would recommend to distinguish between building a more systematic, consistent way for handling bylines in future editions (great!) and retroactively changing reader-facing content in old issues. Regards, [[User:HaeB|HaeB]] ([[User talk:HaeB|talk]]) 00:02, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
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