Template talk:Main stories

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Local only[edit]

Perhaps nocategory=local only should go in there somewhere? — μ 11:25, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    • Local only is unintentional misdirection. Please ignore this section; the exclusion of super-local stories from the main page only becomes relevant when project output consistently exceeds 10-15 articles of international interest per day. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose of this template[edit]

The intent with this template is to allow self-published articles, or those a third party believes meet project criteria, to be rapidly listed on the front page. But, to be clearly distinguished from those which have been formally reviewed.

Such articles may:

  1. Be marked as disputed, or nominated for deletion.
  2. Revised until suitable for a more formal review.
  3. Date-bumped and further developed as new information becomes available.

Obviously, such articles should not:

  1. Be pushed out to Google News.
  2. Be distributed via the social networking sites where Wikinews is registered.
  3. Easily spread 'hoax' information through featuring the social bookmarks template.

The hoped-for result of changing to using this template is to make starting out as a contributor far easier. The "carrot" of writing to a reviewable, and publishable, standard still exists. However, the "you write, we delete" image the project currently has is softened. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Technical issues[edit]

A wizard will be along shortly to fix this such that unreviewed articles do, indeed, appear in red. ;-)

  1. The current published template is not really appropriate for unreviewed articles; the nature of the article should be clearly highlighted, social bookmarking should not be readily available, but a route to 'proper publication' should be available.
  2. I've chosen to prioritise today and yesterday's formally reviewed articles over unreviewed stuff.
  3. As initially formad, the template will only list two days of unreviewed news; this being part of the carrot-and-stick to push articles to a formally publishable level.

Questions that need resolved are:

  1. Use of per-day DPLs may cause the list to become excessively long. Can conditional code exclude older articles and/or unreviewed articles when those to be listed reaches a given threshold?
  2. How should a {{Published-unreviewed}} template be laid out?
  3. What do we do around archiving policy on unreviewed articles left unchallenged on the main page for a day or two?

Now, these are just starting points for some substantial project changes. Please keep discussion manageable by avoiding excess verbiage, and being courteous enough to introduce section breaks where any one point of discussion runs on. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Red[edit]

The color red is an attention-grabber, presumably intended here either as a warning or as "needs attention". On the main page, though, it seems plausible the attention-grabbing color would be more likely taken by outsiders as "especially important article, read this first", steerinng them away from the peer-reviewed articles. That seems likely to give visitors a bad impression of the site, and drive them away; surely getting involved in improving the unreviewed articles is an activity for a little later than first impressions.

Not to be purely negative, here's one possible alternative, to consider: how about grey? Making our best work the ones in black, and therefore most inviting for a first-time visitor, and flagging out the unreviewed ones as being there with something different about them. --Pi zero (talk) 11:02, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • That'd be fine by me; besides, as mentioned elsewhere, regular wiki contributors think of red links in a quite different manner. Problem is, I keep fiddling with the CSS in MediaWiki:Common.css/Template:Main stories and fail to get any good effect. Actually seeing the template as it will appear on the main page is going to be the best solution; then we can figure out how to sort things with GNSM - if ever finalised. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How should a Published-unreviewed template be laid out?[edit]

I thought I'd give this a section header of its own because I expect a few suggestions and comments to fly around. I hope you don't mind.

I think we should use something in a similar vein to {{review}}, since the template's job is, and should be, still to request reviews (hence, it will still add articles to Category:Review, as well as Category:Published). However, it should be clearly differentiated from it, hence the different colour scheme. I also thought it would be a good idea to include a note about how information may be inaccurate (with the obligatory link to WN:GD to go with it). So this is what I came up with:

This article has not yet been reviewed by an uninvolved reviewer (one not substantially involved in writing the article).
Information in this article may be inaccurate or incorrect, and Wikinews cannot be held responsible for any errors in its content. If you spot a mistake, please correct it.

Note, only qualified reviewers may review and publish articles. To request this right, apply here.
Reviewers, please use Easy Peer Review per these instructions
4496119Article last amended: Jul 31 at 18:56:30 UTC (history)
This article has not yet been reviewed by an uninvolved reviewer (one not substantially involved in writing the article).
Information in this article may be inaccurate or incorrect, and Wikinews cannot be held responsible for any errors in its content. If you spot a mistake, please correct it.
Note, only qualified reviewers may review and publish articles. To request this right, apply here.
Reviewers, please use Easy Peer Review per these instructions
4496119Article last amended: Jul 31 at 18:56:30 UTC (history)

It could maybe do with some improvements, but it's a start. Δενδοδγε t\c 16:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I considered getting rid of the guide to reviewers at the bottom, since this template is made mainly for reviewers, but I wasn't sure if that might get shot down. Is this better?

This article has not yet been reviewed by an uninvolved reviewer (one not substantially involved in writing the article).
Information in this article may be inaccurate or incorrect, and Wikinews cannot be held responsible for any errors in its content.
If you spot a mistake, please correct it.

This article has not yet been reviewed by an uninvolved reviewer (one not substantially involved in writing the article).

Information in this article may be inaccurate or incorrect, and Wikinews cannot be held responsible for any errors in its content.

If you spot a mistake, please correct it.
If you don't like that, we could try putting the other stuff in a collapsible box, but I'm not sure it's really necessary to have it at all, TBH. Δενδοδγε t\c 17:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This one?
Hmm, I'm not sure. Maybe negative is a good thing, because the point is to make sure people don't trust everything they read. Maybe turning it blue and using the picture to the right would help? Or do you think it's more of a wording issue? Δενδοδγε t\c 18:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly both. There's a clear balancing act - it needs to be such both that people understand not to trust it, and that people who have their work reach that state view it as a positive. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, any ideas on wording? I'm completely stumped. Δενδοδγε t\c 18:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cursorily checked[edit]

A version with updated wording will shortly appear below:
Δενδοδγε t\c 22:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a big improvement. I'm tempted to say it should be a question mark instead of a tick. But, that's not going to be suitably encouraging for new contributors. Might be food for thought though. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We could use this, but I don't like it so much.
I'm not sure a question mark looks quite as nice as the outlines tick. We could try File:Symbol question vote.svg, but I prefer the tick. Δενδοδγε t\c 22:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The checkmark would send a more positive message to a new user than a question mark. The more encouragement, both up-front and implied, that we can provide, the better. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

┌──────────────────────────┘
 I agree there's a need to give encouragement to contributors. There is also a need to assume many readers will blindly trust the tick. BRS may have a point above - two symbols may be better. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the outlined tick adequately conveys the half-way stage the article is at - it's checked, but not yet complete. Maybe we should use the question mark as part of the redesign of {{review}} that will be necessary when this is implemented (that template will be used to request a cursory look-over, which this template indicates has occurred, then this template is used to ask for a full review—at least, in the way I imagine the scheme working). After all, it will be weird going from a full green tick to a partial blue one. Δενδοδγε t\c 23:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Remember how gullible some people can be; perhaps the tick being more yellowish? And, surely it should be possible to access "Review" from the pull-down menu when this template is present. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:30, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's the point of it. It's just asking for a full review.
If we use a yellowish tick, we should use a yellow colour scheme to make it match, but that won't look as friendly. I imagine the bold text and the link to the disclaimer will cover us, any anybody who still chooses to believe it does so at their own risk. They can't blame us because they relied on a picture of a broken check mark. Δενδοδγε t\c 23:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If someone is so inattentive as to believe a tickmark is equal to an approved article, I'm not sure its colour will matter. Our current {{review}} template also features a tick even though it's used for articles that also haven't been approved. We could try using an exclamation mark, for instance, as a compromise between a tick and a question mark. (I'm just throwing ideas out here.) Tempodivalse [talk] 19:05, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, exclamation marks should be reserved for notices that require immediate attention - as an informative notice, the image used for this template should probably be somehow related to the message's purpose. One could argue that a question mark should only be used where user input is required, rather than for purely informative notices such as this. Δενδοδγε t\c 12:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Dendodge about the bang and query punctuation marks.
The outline-of-a-checkmark works pretty well, imho, indicating lack of certification while orienting the indication relative to success rather than failure. (Notwithstanding this is a milder sense of potential than the sense intended on es.wp.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:51, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For comparison, here's the message with the various possible images:
I couldn't find the exclamation mark in the same shade of blue as the others, and I think the version with two icons looks too cluttered is too big. I don't approve, personally, of the question mark for the reasons above, either. However, those are the proposed options so far. Which looks best? Δενδοδγε t\c 17:37, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The first one is the best IMO, both in appearance and in the message it conveys to a newbie. The question mark just looks wrong.
Another random thought: could we use a magnifying glass instead of a checkmark, if there's concern that the checkmark might imply "approved-ness"? I know that there are many .svg files of magnifying glasses/binoculars available to steal from Wikipedia templates. That might be the most neutral symbol. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Like this?
That actually looks pretty good. Δενδοδγε t\c 18:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like it. I don't know if it's better than the checkmark though; I'd support either one over the others proposed. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:21, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also: might we remove "lack thereof" in the template. It's not really essential to the meaning, and takes up a whole new line on my screen resolution. I'm of the opinion that shorter is better. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what screen resolution you're using, but it fits neatly on two on mine. However, you're right that verbosity is a bad thing, so I've gone ahead and taken it out of the actual template (the one at the top of the section, though it will remain in the subst'd ones above for comparison and historical record). Δενδοδγε t\c 00:25, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What about a combination of a tick and a cross? I don't think the magnifying glass is perfect, because it often means 'investigation'. Kayau (talk · contribs) 06:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cause and effect[edit]

The equation is very simple, at its heart.

  • Reward effort to write news, and the project will flourish.
  • Reward writing crap, and the project will die.

Self-publication, as such, rewards writing crap. There are ways to go about the first rather than the second; a promising one was raised by on the water cooler thread — by someone or other, and apparently was lost in the implosion of the discussion.

All ways to go about rewarding effort to write news, so far as I can see, cry out for the technical ability to put articles on the main page, "publishing" them, without sending them to GNews etc. (They'd also go in the archives, of course, but that part's technically easy, and not remotely as personally satisfying to a new author.)

It ought to be obvious that what's needed is to do better at rewarding effort to write news. This was, in its essence, the point of my first water cooler post, over(?) two years ago. The really promising idea raised then by someone, and rejected, was raised again in the recent thread.

  • Late publication is the technical heart of it: publication of stuff that under current rules would never reach publication quality because we'd delete it as stale. Without GNews etc., of course. I say technical heart because it should be accompanied by social measures to be more supportive to those earnestly trying to write news.

--Pi zero (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • There are two levels of review. Let's use the initial level for a basic check - out to main page if it isn't spam, vandalism or obviously flawed. Second level of review is the full monty, which we currently use the first level for. After a Full Monty Review™, out it goes to GNews. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 14:50, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's the essence of a thought I've been struggling to articulate for a comment on Brianmc's thread below about workflow.
  • It's not self-publication, because someone qualified has identified the article as not obvious crap. (Horrendous problems may still exist, of course.)
  • There is still an important role for a {{review}} stage, because an author has to be able to say that they do, or don't, consider the article worthy of someone's effort to do a full peer-review on it.
  • No article should ever be archived unless it's been published: as long as it's not yet up to publication quality, it should be open to further work (on top of which, the archives oughn't be diluted with it).
--Pi zero (talk) 15:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why are hundreds of words being devoted to being negative about this? Change is needed, and we're not talking about letting any old "crap" being published.
I'd strongly dispute one point noted above: archiving. Of course articles published in this way should be archived. They're a record of what was known at the time. The project managed perfectly well for quite some time without a strict review process, and all articles published in that way were archived.
Now, rather than shooting down this proposal in such a manner, might I suggest consulting people who worked on the project prior to formal review? --Brian McNeil / talk 17:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WTF? I'm being positive and I'm not shooting anything down. I'm pointing out a very simple tweak to the proposal that makes it work very well indeed. --Pi zero (talk) 18:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem we are trying to solve is that if an article is never reviewed it goes stale and gets deleted. If we never archive articles not fully reviewed, and insist on a review first, then articles will go stale and be deleted. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 17:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Once an article has been allowed onto the main page, it should be immune from being deleted for staleness. But it also should be immune from being frozen, because however much time has past it might still be improved. What should not be allowed is introducing any information/sources from after the end of the freshness horizon of the news event. --Pi zero (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to point out that we did very well for years without need for independent review. Indeed, our {{correction}} rates were not higher than they are now. We still routinely make mistakes in our articles. My conclusion for comparing articles written in the early days is that peer-review hasn't done much to make content more factually or stylistically correct. "Reward writing crap, and the project will die" seems like an overstatement. Self-published material is not equal to "crap". Is that what you call the 10k+ articles written pre-2008? Tempodivalse [talk] 18:37, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm suggesting a small tweak to the proposal, that's all. All non-self takes is that articles don't go on the main page until someone has verified they aren't what BRS called "spam, vandalism or obviously flawed" — and I trust BRS meant really egregiously flawed, bordering on speediable. Note, I've invested a lot of time in categorizing pre-2008 articles. --Pi zero (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
While I wouldn't dream of disputing with you, Pi Zero, I would like to know on what you base the statements? - Amgine | t 05:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bot (section break)[edit]

How about articles wait around for a while so we can check for the obvious stuff? That can either be a first level of review, or simply waiting in the queue for an hour or so in the hope that somebody will notice it. I would recommend a mixture of the two, so:
  1. An article can be marked as "checked" by any reviewer at any point after creation
  2. If it has been waiting more than a set amount of time to be marked as "checked", a bot does it automatically (maybe with the addition of a template saying it has not been looked at by a human yet, but that would probably just be overly bureaucratic); maybe the bot should review breaking news after a shorter amount of time, but that's not necessary
  3. Once an article is marked as "checked", it gains a {{published-unreviewed}} template (see above) and appears on the Main Page, but not Google News
  4. At any time after this, an article can be marked as "verified" (i.e., the second level of FlaggedRevs) - this is equivalent to publication currently - it appears on GNews, etc, without the big red disclaimer at the top.
How's that for a compromise? Δενδοδγε t\c 19:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With two provisos, works for me.
  • The bot concept is only meaningful if a lower-level-reviewer has the power to somehow spike the bot per-article. Certainly most lower-level-reviewers won't be admins, so they couldn't spike it by deleting the article even if they wanted to.
  • I'd think two or three hours would be the better part of valor; it may light a fire under reviewers so the bot never cuts in.
--Pi zero (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I imagine marking an article as disputed would be enough to stop the bot. The time period is up for debate - we want a balance between timeliness and making sure stuff doesn't slip through the net. We would probably have to experiment with different times to find out what works best. Δενδοδγε t\c 20:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Exeriment, yes. My suggestion for what to try first is largely based on the idea that if too much slips through, first-level-reviewers will be discouraged from trying to keep up. If first-level-reviewers do keep up, that means all articles destined for the main page get moved there sooner than the bot would. --Pi zero (talk) 21:39, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Workflow(s)[edit]

At present, the 'idealised' workflow for an article is as follows:

This would still be a viable workflow with this proposed change. However, a couple of alternate workflows would then be viable:

The highlighted section in the latter of the above workflows is where an article is self-published, or published without full review, and then put through the more formal review process. In such circumstances, a date bump on the article may be possible as it would change from being hidden behind a nofollow DPL to being pushed out to Google News and social networking sites. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My tweak to the proposal has {{published-unreviewed}} be
  • not self-imposed, but instead essentially a "not vandalism or spam" certification by someone authorized to do so — a vastly easier authorization than needed for full peer review.
  • an optional and technically unintrusive state-change that can happen, or not, anywhere in the ideal workflow between developing and published.
-Pi zero (talk) 18:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd contemplated proposing use of the second level of FlaggedRevs where we currently use reviewer. That might not be needed right now but, if a lot of copyvios, advertising, or vandalism is being pushed to the front page it may be a way to strike a balance. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re using lower-level review for the main page, see #Bot (section break). --Pi zero (talk) 01:34, 14 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Late review[edit]

The unreviewed and idealized workflow patterns should complement each other, building each other up rather than competing. Late review makes that happen, by guaranteeing there is always a motive to strive for peer-reviewable quality. (That's not the only advantage of late review, but it's an important one.) Imho, late review should have been implemented when it was proposed nearly two years ago, but lacked specific solutions to difficulties (here).

Minimum constraints I'd suggest:

  • not to be piped off-site (GNews etc.),
  • not to include any information or sources from outside the freshness horizon of the news event,
  • when peer-reviewed, the date is the date of the freshness horizon rather than the date of the passing peer-review.

Beyond that there are lots of details to work out; below. --Pi zero (talk) 17:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Questions to resolve[edit]

  • Is there any limit to how long development can continue past the freshness horizon?
  • Do unreviewed articles get frozen (fully protected), and if so, how does that decision get made? Vote (flip side of RFD)? Timing? Some combination of those?
  • Even if they do get frozen, is there a way to allow further efforts to bring them to peer-reviewable quality? Perhaps a fork on a subpage, and if it passes peer-review it gets folded back into the main page?
  • Must the story have been started within the freshness horizon? If not, how long after the freshness horizon would be permitted?
  • Should there be some provision for causing such an article to appear on the main page when it late-passes review, even though the horizon date may be beyond what is listed in "main headlines"?
  • What additional rules should be in place to limit reviewers from running roughshod through the archives second-guessing past outcomes?
  • Can measures be taken to help protect late review from changes to sources made after the freshness horizon? (This is already a problem under the existing idealized flow.)
  • How can/should we protect late review from bias in perspective caused by knowledge of what happened later? (Or is this just another aspect of neutrality?)

--Pi zero (talk) 17:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Answers to the questions[edit]
  • I don't see what's wrong with what is above. If an article is "casually reviewed" and published, then it may be updated and date-bumped. Ideally, it is updated to a quality level that gets it through formal review. However, we can't have pages sitting around unarchived forever. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree; indefinite unprotection would only invite encyclopedism. --Pi zero (talk) 02:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We may have overlooked something vital. Is late review a game changer? If an unreviewed article is good enough we don't want to delete it, why wouldn't it be good enough for someone to fix it up and resubmit it for late review? Conversely, if nobody thinks its worth fixing up, why aren't we deleting it (even if we have to go through a formal RFD to do so)? Perhaps, instead of {{archived-unreviewed}}, all we need is {{late review}} plus {{abandoned}}. --Pi zero (talk) 07:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You make little to no sense here. If a story is started when an event is just coming to people's attention, and then expanded on over the next 48 hours, new sources being added, and new information incorporated, why should it not be date bumped? The point is that when something is more formally published and pushed to agregators it is that "snapshot" of what was known at the time. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:21, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Non sequitur. Could you have missed the topic of the subthread? This is about late review, in which getting the article into adequate shape for publication takes too long for it to be published within the freshness horizon, even including any updates that bump the freshness horizon. For an example of this phenomenon, see WN:Water cooler/assistance#International Womens' Day. (Again, the earliest proposal of it I know of was by Bawolff in May 2009, here.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:45, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have late review, or you have archiving having only been cursorily checked.
  • In many cases, you can't do a late review as late as you seem to envision; the sources are stale links, or the news site has tweaked their article with new information.
  • You have, hopefully unintentionally, conflated writing with hindsight and checking an article's correctness; this is why, to me, you're not making sense.
  • Nobody should be able to start what we'd currently deem a stale article. I'd go as far as listing cursorily reviewed work on the Main page for a shorter time.
  • Now, can we get on with this? It's been subjected to more analysis than the millenium bug. --Brian McNeil / talk 02:25, 22 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Needed components[edit]

Right. This isn't going to progress until the people from the show-me-state see what things will look like.

Here's a tweaked review template:

And, the unreviewed publication template:

Once again, the review template was getting overly verbose. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally, the above replacement review template would have a hyperlink to switch to published unreviewed. My preference would be for this to go through a 'lite', but non-enforced reminder of a few brief points that anyone pushing an article to the main page should consider. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like it, and endorse getting this approved as soon as possible. (Ideally, I want to have the new rules in place by the time the new competition starts, I'm not sure how realistic that goal is.) Tempodivalse [talk] 14:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re {{Published-unreviewed}}.
  • Does it go at the top of the page, I sincerely hope? So the page can't be mistaken for peer-reviewed on first arrival.
  • Short is good. But shouldn't it have a button to request review?
(You've also reminded me, after we fixed {{review}} we didn't propagate the changes to {{breaking review}}.) --Pi zero (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I do not like this 2nd template. It encourages spammers to post anything on behalf of their company, and it would be instantly viewable and increase its potential to be permanently archived with zero review. -- Cirt (talk) 18:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree. There needs to be some kind of cursory check performed, IMHO—rather than everything getting pushed out instantly, we check them first. Obvious copyvios, hoaxes, press releases, etc, can be deleted/not published, without ever appearing on the Main Page. Things that look like a real news article, and read well, can be published within minutes (because timeliness is key to news), and then thoroughly verified later. That way, we get decent news in a reasonable timescale, excellent news in our archives, and we can weed out the chaff. DENDODGE 15:59, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Dendodge has a point, but there is no cursory check even built into this new suggested change is there? -- Cirt (talk) 16:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I can tell at the moment, there are two different proposals being batted around and mixed up on this page: One is for self-publication (which I would not support), and the other is for making use of the second level of Flagged Revisions to allow a cursory check by a reviewer (a proposal that I would strongly support)—the required infrastructure is basically the same, which is probably why nobody has brought up the differences thus far, but maybe now it is about time we settled on which route we are going to take. DENDODGE 16:55, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah. In that case, I strongly agree with Dendodge. I would support the 2nd proposal, and oppose the 1st. -- Cirt (talk) 21:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure what scenario we're describing. What happens to the cursorily checked article if it never achieves peer-reviewed status? If cursorily-checked status is simply a variant of developing, that's one thing (and there are one set of followup considerations); if it's the start of an "unreviewed workflow", then we're back to the problem that the two workflows can't coexist. --Pi zero (talk) 22:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I will disagree with anything that does not involve a review process, or self publish. I and several others worked too hard to get us into Google News and recognized on there. All news sites have editors and a review process. We should too. If we cannot take the time to properly review an article, we may as well write satire news. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I completely agree with the above. All news sites have editors and a review process. Otherwise, this site would become a blog where anyone can publish whatever they want and wikinews would lose credibility. Mattisse (talk) 01:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, there still would be some restrictions. Any stories would have to be superficially checked to make sure they're not spam or obvious hoaxes, so it's not a total free-for-all. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    To me, POV and inaccurate reflection of the sources are the greatest dangers to wikinews credibility. Would that be checked? Mattisse (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    From what I can tell reading some of the current proposals, no. Checking sources vs. content easily consumes 95% of review time, NPOV and newsworthiness fall into place by themselves from there, so it's hard to separate one facet of review from another. Pretty much either you include everything, or nothing. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:29, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sources MUST always be checked. If we are not going to even check sources, then why even put them in articles? It may consume time, but to just say oh well lets just not check the sources, is irresponsible and lazy. Yes sometimes there are a lot of sources, but users who have been contributing long enough, know that sources should only be added if information from them is used in the article. With that said, it is rare, aside from breaking news, that there are so many sources that it "consumes" time. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 11:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────┘
 POV is non-negotiable. What those opposed to self-publish seem to forget is that if an article is not pushed to GNews or any other social media, it can be unpublished and removed from the main page.

As stated elsewhere, please, please go to BugZilla and vote for GNSM (Google News Site Map). This utterly changes the game here if implemented. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:46, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link me to the bug report. I had it in my email but cannot find it. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 11:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BugZilla[edit]

Looking for the report... --Brian McNeil / talk 12:29, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Voted :D DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 12:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we can come up with any ways in which this development might suit other projects, then we've grounds to petition their contributors to throw weight behind this.
For us, it means stories which get updates are reflected in GNews, we can categorise the veracity/reliability of reports, and we can withdraw stuff if needed. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As a side note, this is the second time in a few days that bug has been mentioned, and a link provided. The first time was at WN:Water cooler/policy#Wreckage, victims of Air France Flight 447 found. --Pi zero (talk) 12:44, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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