User talk:Pi zero

Archive 1  2  3

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Fellowship programme

Have you contemplated the https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships programme?

I know I couldn't throw together a credible proposal in a couple of weeks, but I think there's a real need to investigate documentation and/or toolsets that would work better for newbies - and that falls under their "recruitment/retention" remit.

Working with non-Wikimedians to establish how best to lessen discouragement or the learning curve does seem to fit in their criteria; but, as I say, I've no idea how I'd put that all in a proposal (plus, I'm far from flavour of the month ). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews trophy

I, William S. Saturn, hereby award Pi zero the Wikinews Trophy for his tireless efforts in thoroughly reviewing and copy editing articles, and maintaining journalistic integrity at Wikinews.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Gosh. Thankyou. --Pi zero (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Re:New York firebomb suspect arraigned/archiving

Thanks for reviewing the article and for fixing up all my mistakes. And thanks for pointing out my errors in archiving. I kinda took a long, unannounced, WikiBreak, so I guess I'm a bit rusty. Aye, back when I left, I remember there were about 5-15 articles poppin' out per day. Time to kick it into high gear... Cheers! Cocoaguy^talk_contribs‽ 05:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sensesfail123

Provisional and probational unblocked, suspected sock of Kitties due to confirmed technical data. Check your email. -- Cirt (talk) 16:08, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for all your help and also giving me pointers along the way about the process here at Wikinews! Much appreciated, Crtew (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Francisco Leandro/vector.css

Please delete my user page. It is no longer necessary. Thanks. Francisco (talk) 10:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Done --Pi zero (talk) 12:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The Joe Kennedy Story

Dear Pi Zero, this is what II was trying to do last night but it is way beyond my capabilities: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/8/fourth-generation-kennedy-considers-a-house-run/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS This is pretty much the tact I wanted to take but am too inexperienced. How do I just suggest a needed news coverage or topic if I am not yet studied enough to do it? And, I see by the comments here at your page you were helping a lot of people at an intense level of training and service yesterday. I also read some of your political coverage, or your personally created articles I think. Pretty good. I was impressed. Thanks for contributing your time to our betterment. SpaceRocker (talk) 11:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC) SpaceRocker BTW I just read the Trophy tag line. Congrats. Seems like I am not the first to say 'thanks'!

There is a page on-site for requesting stories; however, as our currently-active writer base is not large, you're better off writing articles yourself. You might find these pages useful: WN:Article layout in a nutshell, WN:Writing an article, WN:Style guide. --Pi zero (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Pi Zero. I am not qualified for this kind of writing but I do have some creative writing experience. I am pouring through the style manuals and can do it I think. What I wrote was a poor Wikishort based on what I have learned so far. With enough time I can probably write an article that will pass muster. Wish me luck! If he declares his candidacy too soon, I won't have a chance - GRIN. Thanks again and best wishes! SpaceRocker (talk) 18:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC) "Rock on!"

Good luck. :-)  --Pi zero (talk)

Story in preparation

Should I have used a different tag when starting the article about National Human Trafficking Awareness Day? Crtew (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem; commented on article talk. --Pi zero (talk) 16:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Concerning my article about "bedrock" lawsuit

Any suggestions and or idea's will and would be greatly appreciated. Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zeddicus Zorander 88 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 12 January 2012‎

Re:Oops

Sorry, my bad... Thanks for fixing it Cocoaguy^talk_contribs‽

RE: Punjab blast ; Phobos-Grunt

I wrote the Phobos-Grunt article too quickly (in half an hour) in a hurry to shut down. I couldn't copy-edit the article well, so sorry for your painstaking efforts to distant the article from its sources. Frankly, English is not my strong-point and that's precisely why I have failed WN:FRRFP twice. Hope to improve gradually as I write more on wikinews :) Srinivas 08:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA blackout article edit

I noticed you deleted the text about Craigslist SOPA protest that I added to the SOPA blackout article http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikipedia,_Reddit_in_%27blackout%27_against_SOPA,_PROTECT_IP_laws

I wasn't sure what your reasoning was? Seemed to be relevant to the list of other sites such as Google that were mentioned in the prior sentence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michael614 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 18 January 2012‎

At first, I treated both pending edits as a unit and rejected both at once, before realizing yours really should have been treated separately (regardless of whether rejected, it ought to have had a separate edit summary). I then went back and did a more thorough review of your edit, but found (not at all to my surprise, given its nature) that it wasn't supported by the sources.

Also keep in mind, at this point, that we aren't allowed to add sources dated after the date of publication of the article (the article was published yesterday, about half an hour before midnight UTC); and that in any case, no substantive changes are allowed more than 24 hours after publication.

Fwiw, imho the article doesn't suffer without it. --Pi zero (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I didn't know the time based editing rules - is there a link to editing guidelines on the site? - I looked but did not see one. Michael614 (talk) 00:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a page Wikinews:For Wikipedians that might be of help. One might also start with the style guide and work one's way outward from there. --Pi zero (talk) 01:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: 6.1 magnitude earthquake strikes southern New Zealand

Thank you for informing sir. BTW, I like your edit summaries a lot. They help me in understanding how to write better and also explain why you have done the edit. Meanwhile, what about the article Gujarat high court refutes Modi's objection to Lokyukta's appointment? It's been in "for review" since yesterday. Seems like nobody interested :) Srinivas 13:54, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you like my summaries; thanks. :-)  It's a technique I started using whilst this past semester's journalism students were coming through.

When the queue starts to build up, I do as much reviewing as I have time and concentration for, which is typically about two full reviews per day but sometimes more (and sometimes less). When I have to choose what to review, knowing what I don't choose may die from neglect (an unpleasant choice all around), I tend to work from the young end of the review queue — both because young articles are more likely to have time to fix problems that have to go back to the author, and because if we're only going to get to publish some of the submissions, we'd like to publish fresher ones.

Right now, I have to go to bed (it's well into the middle of the night, here). We'll see what review situation I wake up to in the morning. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 07:08, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Oops!!

On the drought story you passed just a while ago......the last line should read, "in UNUSUAL locales." .......my error.......can you fix it? Thanks!! 66.76.66.130 (talk) 18:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC) ....um, that was me.Bddpaux (talk) 18:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I honestly read it as "unusual" when I reviewed it. I fixed it, and sighted the fix — either it is a typo, which can be self-sighted, or your request can be counted as submitting an edit (by proxy) so I'm only reviewing it. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

India and China to develop friendly relations

Hello! Just about the article "India and China to develop friendly relations" archived on 25 January 2012. First of all , that's a great article!!! Just about last sentence "The boundary talks were to be held in November, but was postponed over Chinese disapproval of India allowing the Dalai Lama into a Buddhist meet in New Delhi." What about ".., but were postponed.." instead of "..,but was postponed", as "boundary talks" ,plural,is the subject? Thanks a lot in advance! 2.192.230.201 (talk) 06:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Grammar fixes like this are allowed under the archive policy. Done Thanks, and glad you liked the article. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 13:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Occupy group ends Monsanto protest on Maui

I've responded to your review on the talk page. You've questioned the newsworthiness and verifiability, however, your review demonstrates your misreading of the news article. To summarize, the event did not take place "one day ago", it took place 13 hours ago. And while it is true that the the last source was three days old The last source is two days old, not three, and the last protest only just ended. Your attempt to dismiss the newsworthiness outright by puffing up the age of the sources is hereby noted. Also, your claim that the sources "cannot possibly verify the news event" doesn't make any sense. Every word is verified by the sources. Further, your commentary about the nature of the group is completely wrong, as this is not a minor protest by a group unrelated to the Occupy movement, but one of a series of important and newsworthy protests against Monsanto in the news since last week when a shareholder rebelled against the company and protests erupted at their headquarters in Missouri and at their research station in Maui within hours of each other, both of which were covered by the major media in their respective states. And, I have no idea what kind of "POV intent" could be behind giving a public street address of one of the leading biotech companies in the world, an address that specifies the exact location of the protest. I would love to hear your explanation for that one as I cannot possibly figure it out. Viriditas (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I left you a short polite note on your talk page, directing you to the appropriate collaboration page. Where I had provided polite feedback on an article that needed some improvements. You could have responded by attempting to improve the article, which might or might not have ultimately produced a publishable article but might, either way, have been valuable experience toward avoiding similar difficulties with subsequent submissions. You chose instead to respond with apparent belligerence and paranoia, and declared intent to not make any attempt to fix the article. Mainspace is not comments space; if you have no interest in contributing to the project, kindly do not disrupt it. --Pi zero (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Another highly disingenuous reply. As I have repeatedly pointed out to you, you have made and continue to make a number of misleading statements about this news story which you have refused to correct. For instance, you made a number of nebulous, subjective claims disputing its newsworthiness and verifiability. When I disputed the veracity of your claims, and pointed out that they were wrong, you refused to correct them. There is nothing to "fix", and you know that. You designed your review to block publication, not to "help" me with anything. Viriditas (talk) 23:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I've allowed you to rant on my talk page, and to lodge here your accusation of ignoring project standards. Now that you've done so I consider this "discussion" here closed. --Pi zero (talk) 01:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: WNIQ, WNIR

Sorry for the late response. Well, I felt that the 19px images were too tall for the line-height of the text, so I reduced that size to 14px, the same value we set in eswikinews for the same templates. —Fitoschido ^[shout_track] @ 30 January, 2012; 18:42

I see. Thanks. For me, they stand out (which doesn't seem a bad thing, imho), but are not so large as to cause uneven spacing of lines. That could be a peculiarity of the configuration of my display, of course. At opportunity I'll see how they look on a different machine's display. --Pi zero (talk) 19:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

RE: Edits to published articles

Thanks for the reminder - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 01:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The list

I'm not listed at Wikinews:Credential verification......do I list myself or does an Admin have to do it?Bddpaux (talk) 18:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I've never been involved in that side of things. The page is fully protected though. Er, perhaps inquire of Brian McNeil? --Pi zero (talk) 19:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll contact him...thanks.Bddpaux (talk) 22:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Synthetic Marijuana article

.........you know, this brings up a thing that has been pinging around in my brain for awhile. ....again, per my usual I may be over-complicating things. But, I've often struggled with how to put together an article when you have lots of tiny news events occuring over a two-month period re: a big thing [like, say, synthetic marijuana]. But see, even that doesn't really cover it right........the developingstory angle, because some issues sort of bubble up over a long period, which isn't exactly the same as a developing story.....it's more like a developing issue....know what I mean? A declining economy is different from the gradual collapse of a single big bank over a 30 day period. Bddpaux (talk) 22:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggest two approaches to this question.

• Look for inspiration on the question amongst our featured articles. Keep in mind changing site standards if going back more than two and a fraction years, although standards for FAs won't have changed as much as for run-of-the-mill articles.
• Take the question to the water cooler. It's a good question, and deserves feedback from multiple highly experienced authors.

--Pi zero (talk) 23:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

re:Unarmed man killed by narcotics officer in The Bronx

Hi. I see what your saying, the sources don't explicitly say the issues you brought up. But if you see my response at the articles talk page, you can see where my thoughts came from. Cocoaguy^talk_contribs‽ 03:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Please reconsider

Please reconsider your review decision at Santorum neologism still prevalent after nine years. This is extremely current, topical, and newsworthy. Other mainstream press continue to report on it, examples:

• The Canadian Press. "Anti-gay remarks haunt Rick Santorum online" — CTV Television Network, January 15, 2012
• Lee-Anne Goodman. "Nine-year legacy of Santorum's anti-gay remarks a 'frothy' online gross-out" — Winnipeg Free Press, January 14, 2012
• Edward Schumacher-Matos. "Rick Santorum's Google problem becomes the story" — KPLU, January 10, 2012
• Laura Sydell. "How Rick Santorum's 'Google Problem' Has Endured" — National Public Radio, January 6, 2012

I've put a great deal of effort into this article, research, compiling the information and presenting it in an easily acceptable manner.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would please reconsider.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 19:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Prevalent in the news under multiple different searches: [1], [2], [3]. -- Cirt (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've moved some of the more recent and newsworthy bits higher up in the article diff, diff. Please look it over and see if it changes the stylistic presentation of the article from your perspective to a point that you could change your outlook on the review? -- Cirt (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm taking a deep look now. Just to be clear — to say the review gave me "no joy" would be an appalling understatement; more like abject misery, tbh. It was immediately obvious you'd put a lot of work into the thing, and it appears to be very well done of what it is. (/me goes to take that deep look.) --Pi zero (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I really appreciate your kind comments about the work I put into this article. It means a lot to me. :) -- Cirt (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The subject continues to have a current newsworthy impact on ongoing events, please see:

• Jack Cashill. "Dems Mobilize in Missouri for Santorum" — American Thinker, February 4, 2012

Perhaps I should incorporate that source into the article? -- Cirt (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Trying to think straight on this.

What we want is to have something that comes across to the reader as a current news event. Neither "everyone in the maintream media is talking about it" nor "it's been going on for nine years" works for that. However, new evidence it's prominent in voters' minds could work, if it's multi-sourced. I need to reexamine the article and its listed sources with that in mind... --Pi zero (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The article already demonstrates new evidence it's prominent in voters' minds. Are you going to reexamine the article and its listed sources with that in mind, now, to see if you can reevaluate your position, or is there something else that I could help you with? -- Cirt (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I mean to write up further remarks for the article talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 20:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. :) I'm perfectly willing to incorporate some of the above listed sources, if that helps you to see the issue is ongoing and prominent in voters' minds? -- Cirt (talk) 20:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Pi zero, thank you very much for your helpful input on the article's talk page. Please see Talk:Santorum_neologism_gains_prominence_during_US_election_cycle#Thoughts_on_newsworthiness. Hopefully this is satisfactory? -- Cirt (talk) 22:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've done a lot more to directly incorporate your valuable input, and listed the article for {{review}}. Can you please take another look? Thank you so much for your help, I really believe you've helped to make the article much better. -- Cirt (talk) 22:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've just been called to supper. :-)  I look forward to reviewing it. --Pi zero (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright, enjoy! And thanks very much! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much

Thank you, for all of your help with Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle. -- Cirt (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm afraid I didn't quite have the nerve to make it Lead 1 (I'd have shifted On the campaign trail down to Lead 3); but it was a near thing. --Pi zero (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Heh, no worries, -- Cirt (talk) 01:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you seeing this in Google News? I don't think it's showing up there, any ideas? -- Cirt (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the GNews feed is working very spottily. Searching GNews for "Wikinews" produces a list that looks very sparse; there are scattered things from the past month or so, but not much. The top match isn't even on our site (though the Raleigh Telegram does seem to have attempted in good faith to credit us, despite being capitalization-challenged — [4]). --Pi zero (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Any ideas on how to fix that? -- Cirt (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Never been involved in that end of things. Our articles do go up on our Facebook wall reliably — since these days we have to do that by hand, so there's no automatic feed to not work right. --Pi zero (talk) 03:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay I'll ask around ... :) -- Cirt (talk) 03:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible Elfstedentocht marathon

Thanks Pi for your editing on the "Europe cold ..." article. The most current news, and on the bright side, is that a rare marathon called Elfstedentocht could take place if the entire 125 miles of water canal passages freeze enough. Wikimedia Commons has some fantastic historic footage and photos of previous races. Wikpedia has an excellent article with the years of the races. Although the last was in 1997, the race is rare enough to attract enthusiasm. But Elfstedentocht could be good tie in to the sister projects and we could have video posted to a story! Just a thought, do any of the foreign-language Wikinews projects collaborate with one another? Maybe I should ask Brian, too.

File:De 10e Elfstedentocht.ogv

Thanks again for all your hard work, Crtew (talk) 16:50, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Link description

Regarding diff, no worries, I'm happy to defer to your judgment on the link description. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply re Review

Have you seen that so far I've only performed minor copyediting? I thought you would actually find that helpful! ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 16:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It's fine, and I do appreciate. Just making sure you were aware; we have had occasional messy incidents with someone submitting a review while another was reviewing. --Pi zero (talk) 16:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Was never my intention. Wouldn't want to step on your toes. I trust your judgment. Just doing minor copyediting. Hope that's helpful! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Lots of stuff added to article later after publish

[5] = this is really not best practice, to add all this stuff that late post publish. Should really wait for another subsequent article page. As you were the reviewer, I'm bringing it to your attention, and I'll defer to your wise judgment how best to give the advice to the user(s) that added it. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Me, wise?? Well, I did something, anyway. --Pi zero (talk) 23:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much! I agree with your decision, -- Cirt (talk) 23:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course, we complicated matters by having 3 contributors writing at different times. Thank you both, Crtew (talk) 00:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I read your note on the talk page. The next time, we'll try to better coordinate when to press review with multiple writers working on briefs or on which day (UTC) to publish content. It's good to be aware of these issues as they crop up. It required an extra step in planning that we didn't take into account. Thanks again, Crtew (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply re IP

That's w:User:Dantherocker1. That's what he does. See also [6]. Waste of time. And that's his goal. -- Cirt (talk) 09:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Please see my heads up at ArbCom talk page

Please see Wikinews_talk:Arbitration_Committee#FYI:_Heads_up_regarding_Viriditas. Just wanted to keep you in the loop, -- Cirt (talk) 19:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Nice job on sisterlinks template !

Great idea with that template, {{Sisters}}, it's extremely useful and valuable! -- Cirt (talk) 23:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The culture of the review tag

Hi Pi, I have a question. Once the originating author has placed the review tag on a piece, what would be the proper way for another author to signal that the article could be improved and most likely would be rejected by an editor. I tinkered with the Bahraini article on and off today. It seemed to me on the face that it just wasn't ready but could become stale by the time it was fixed with a go over by the editor and a further rewrite and review. So I did my best to fix the problems and pointed to some questions I had on the collaboration page. I'm not sure how this issue was dealt with in the past since I'm a newbie here, but I felt uncomfortable with the review tag up but also with taking it down. I just left it. In Wikipedia, you're allowed to put up a banner if you're working on an article for a day. Can you do that here? I haven't seen anyone do that yet with the exception of editors. Thanks for your help, Crtew (talk) 23:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say pulling to improve is different from pulling as a non-reviewer's not-ready review. We had a non-reviewer a year or more ago who was trying to help out by pulling articles as stale — only that's not as simple a call as they thought, and I had to have an awkward conversation with them about leaving the staleness call to reviewers.

There's a template {{editing}} that may be useful under some circumstances; I found it, remembering there was something of the sort, by reading through the list at Category:Article templates.

The general principle for such situations seems to me to be don't unless you know know that you know enough to not be making a mistake. Which applies to reviewers as well as non-reviewers; I reviewed only synthesis for a very long time (could it have been a couple of years?), because I didn't feel I'd yet enough grasp of the principles of OR review. --Pi zero (talk) 01:26, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

All good to know. Thanks again, Crtew (talk) 01:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle

• Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle

Care to archive this one? I've got another one just about ready ... ;) -- Cirt (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

2nd article note

Regarding the 2nd article, I put a minor note on the talk page. Thanks so much for doing the review, most appreciated! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 01:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Feel up to a recheck, I'd hope it's ready for pass this time? I went through point by point as I agreed with all of your input and made changes to address all of your helpful feedback. Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 03:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for moving the external link out of article text, sorry about that. Think it's passable now? :) -- Cirt (talk) 04:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Just noting I have no objections to your removal of those external links. And also, great decision on retaining the Wiktionary link as the main one, it's really a great community over there!  ;) -- Cirt (talk) 04:35, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Bahrain

I think I covered the concerns that you and Brian had. I listed what I did in collaboration. Crtew (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Afraid I can't do another review tonight.

Though likely what was needed here, in the long run, removing non-English sources is kind of the opposite of what we want: rather than belatedly removing them, we want authors to know beforehand how to submit with them in a form that will support successful review. (Granted, helping people to know what to do the first time is a dream we've had for years.) We'd want clearly written-out straightforward guidelines for that sort of submission. --Pi zero (talk) 05:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)