User talk:Pi zero/Archive 8

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The Wikinewsie Group News : Edition 6, December 2, 2013

The Wikinewsie Group Newsletter

 Sharing news about the group's activities
 and things taking place on local Wikinews projects.

Key resources
The Wikinewsie Group News
Edition 6, December 2, 2013

If you know anyone interested in Wikinews, journalism on Wikimedia projects or The Wikinewsie Group, please encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter by adding their name to the list.

The Group
  • Aff-comm recommended to the Wikimedia Foundation Board that The Wikinewsie Group be recognised as a thematic organization in early November.[1]
Education
  • Wikinews Education Program blog post was published on Wikimedia's official blog.
  • Discussions were had on IRC and Skype about the possibility of installing the education extension on Ukrainian, Czech and Korean Wikinews. While these could be used to potentially re-invigorate the local communities and provide a cohort of new contributors, the limited contributor base at the moment makes it difficult to implement. Greater partnerships would need to be done with chapters to provide people to assist local projects in running any education initiative.
  • What is news? handout was created to supplement existing training materials as this is an area where new contributors sometimes have issues on English Wikinews.
  • Documenting your original sport reporting was created to supplement Wikinews Original Sport Reporting. Assistance is requested in translating these documents into Spanish and Ukrainian.
Outreach
  • LauraHale attended Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 in Slovakia representing The Wikinewsie Group. She had conversations with people from several chapters about the potential to do things with TWG including the Polish, Estonian, Serbian, Czech and Ukrainian chapters.
Original reporting projects
  • The paperwork was submitted at the end of the month to send five Wikinews reporters to the Sochi Paralympic Games.
  • Attempts were made to secure media accreditation for the Commonwealth Games. The application was unsuccessful.

---

Recent original reporting
Ukrainian
See also: Авторський репортаж. The wiki uses nothing for the publish process.
Spanish
See also: Wikinoticias:Reportajes originales sin notas, Artículos publicados. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Russian
See also: Оригинальные репортажи, Опубликовано. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
French
See also: Reportage original, Article publié. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Italian
See also: Notizia originale, Pubblicati. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Esperanto
See also: Originalaj raportaĵoj, Publikigitaj artikoloj. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Polish
See also: Materiały autorskie. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
English
See also: Original reporting, Published. The wiki uses flagged revisions for the publish process.

Use of uninitialized value $dt2 in string at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.14.2/DateTime.pm line 1780.

German
See also: Wikinews:Originalbericht, Veröffentlicht. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.

Improvement

What should I improve at this article?--FSCEM45212 (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry things didn't work out on the first article. --Pi zero (talk) 14:55, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ill

I'm less available for review than usual just atm, owing to a cold (I'm hoping it's not flu). --Pi zero (talk) 23:11, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly recovered now. --Pi zero (talk) 16:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Economy and business‎

Re this: What do you mean by "*transcluding pages* being in the category"? All this edit does is add any pages tagged with the {{economy and business}} template to the associated category, which I thought should be self-evident; it does not transclude any pages. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was confused.
Actually, though, it's considered good form to explicitly add articles to their categories rather than relying on the infobox to do it, which is strangely at odds with the fact that most infoboxes do add their articles to the associated category, and often to a bunch of related categories as well.
My instinct in this case would be to leave well enough alone. Setting aside the good-form versus common-template-practice thing, it seems better on principle not to retroactively impose a category, sight unseen, on the hundred thirty or so articles that use the template. --Pi zero (talk) 23:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, I'll take your word on that it's good form to do otherwise. Unless of course I forget, which will eventually mean we're back here again... TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 23:33, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oops

In your edit to MediaWiki:Babel-footer-url, you accidentally used Category:Users languages instead of Category:User languages. - dcljr (talk) 23:50, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which rather well demonstrates the error-prone-ness of a page whose effect, and therefore whose correctness, cannot be direclty observed by previewing. Thanks. --Pi zero (talk) 00:03, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shopping carts

Saw the story was just posted. One quick point about the beginning. "Over two decades" refers to the 90 percent increase. Somehow in the editing process after it left us it got stuck up front of 22 seconds. The referents are incorrect. Crtew (talk) 02:23, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked BRS about it — his review — and he checked the sourcing. As I understand it, the change was intentional and he makes a pretty convincing case that it's right. --Pi zero (talk)
  • Similarly, I've just taken a look. The 90% figure comes from annual number of concussion injuries in children under 15, as the percentage increase since 2004. The submitted text conflated that with the 22 minutes figure stated:"[...] and this type of injury has increased 90 percent since 1990," [emphasis added] whilst not specifying the actual type of injury. The (published) article states: "The most likely type of injury is a head injury and accounts for 78.1 percent of emergency care cases involving shopping carts." (again, emphasis added). The given number of injuries per-day is cited in sources as 66, or one every 22 minutes. The number involving concussion would be around 51, or one every 28 minutes; that is the type of injury which increased 90%, but "since voluntary shopping cart safety standards took effect in 2004", not since 1990.
Reporting on studies like this can give a good idea of how tricky presenting statistical data, or analysis thereof, is. You have to remember many readers will just see "trolleys plus kids, bad" and badly confuse many of the data points they might repeat. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:15, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Warhol talk page

Pi Zero, I have tried to created a coherent but well documented collaboration page. We had a number of contributing reporters working on this story. I run through the focus, a guide for the editor to find the evidence in our notes, an initial plan (with strikethroughs for what was perhaps realized but not placed in the article) and then all of the notes we have referenced in the plan. I realize it's complex. Do you need anything else? Crtew (talk) 20:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to see as I get into it, which (obviously) I haven't yet. Given the amount of effort that went into writing the article, your efforts to aid its reveiw are certainly greatly appreciated. --Pi zero (talk) 20:15, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I'll keep an eye out so myself or someone else on the team can react. Crtew (talk) 20:37, 25 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know what happened to me today; I'm only getting in a bit of light stuff in the evening. :-S  --Pi zero (talk) 02:23, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, I am unsure how to make progress on the headline+lede, or maybe I'm not understanding what you want and making it over complicated. If the headline and lede are all about the exhibit, then our readership is going to be small and the story could have been published in the campus newspaper. If we're writing for a global audience, we have, I believe, to tell a larger story about how something about this exhibit affects more people outside of our university and perhaps, like in this story, people all over the United States. Crtew (talk) 01:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Brainstorm: Warhol's legacy spread by university exhibits.

As I understand, you want to say that a specific thing is taking place and is part of a larger context. Right now, the headline only mentions the larger context, while the lede only mentions the specific thing. The current lede is:
This week marked the opening night of a Warhol exhibit at the University of Southern Indiana, which is located in Evansville, Indiana. The USI art gallery celebrated the Thursday opening with its display of Warhol's Polaroids, gelatin silver prints and several colored screen prints. USI's exhibit will run from January 23 through March 9.
Setting aside that it isn't exactly "this week" anymore, I observe that much of this information doesn't actually have to be in the lede paragraph proper. One could almost just insert a paragraph break after the first sentence. In my review comments I mentioned I'd considered reordering the paragraphs; but that is the sort of thing a reviewer would consider, because it's a very minimal change and the reviewer can only make a change if it's unintrusive enough to preserve the reviewer's independence for review. You're not limited that way; you can rephrase material and redistribute it freely between paragraphs for desired effect. The current introduction (four paragraphs) is, in fact, a good introduction to an article purely about the local exhibit, but I agree that the larger context bears on the significance of the local exihibit, a position that should allow the principles of "state the focus up front" and "state the larger context up front" to harmonize. You could pull out a lot of the detail from the first paragraph into a second paragraph, and insert some of the larger context. Schematically, it could read something like "This week this specific thing happened. It was part of this larger context. Wikinews reporters attended, and spoke to the organizers." There's good reason to keep all three parts of that very short; it's the lede, after all. Much of the detail now in the first paragraph can be in a second, the current second and third paragraph can probably pretty much stay as they are, and the current fourth paragraph, giving substantially more detail about what Wikinews did than one would put into the lede, can probably be either left intact or (assuming all that information occurs further down in the article) simply dropped from the introduction, if that seems better for flow.
Reviewers are safer in making specific suggestions on headlines, but I'm struggling with it myself. I do like, about your brainstorm above, that it mentions Warhol first (so much so in fact that I'm quite willing to forgive it for being in passive voice :-), but we're still lacking the specific; it doesn't describe this article, as opposed to an article about some other exhibit(s). <sigh> I suspect a really good solution would look easy; it's not coming to me at this moment, though. --Pi zero (talk) 02:40, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I followed your advice and tried to realize that to satisfy your concerns. Three good things came from this: 1) I do like the synthesis of the three points in the first paragraph; 2) The headline now states up front what will attract many more readers outside of the US to the story, namely Andy Warhol; and 3) I should have been emphasizing the photographic legacy, which is one that people don't think about when they think of Warhol. I also did some additional clean up. Thank you Pi, Crtew (talk) 05:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

thanks

Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton (talk) 19:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sandra Fluke declares candidacy for California State Senate

Hard to believe it's been over a year since I wrote an article, I guess I was busy for a while with Checkuser duties during that time period!

I left a note on the talk page that the Background info for the article was derived from previously reviewed/published pieces noted in the Related news section.

Perhaps you could have a look?

Thank you for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 22:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've been eating supper (just finished). I think someone else has been reviewing your article. --Pi zero (talk) 23:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see! I hope it was tasty! -- Cirt (talk) 03:27, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Page move request

Pi, For instructional purposes, could you move Wikinews Shorts: February 13, 2014 back into Dkmarshall's subpages? As a class, we are going to address the editor's comments about the article and propose fixes to the existing text so that others are aware of the problem. Crtew (talk) 17:29, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done User:Dkmarshall/Wikinews Shorts: February 13, 2014. --Pi zero (talk) 18:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correction at Headline

Hi! Pi zero, I am sorry for my mistake. It is my first attempt to develop a new news with the title bellow

Chinese Co. will create 4,666 jobs by $ 28.30 m investment in Bangladesh

The correction is: the investment amount is 13.64 m , not the 28.30 m. Please, excuse me, I don't know how to edit a news title.

Sorry--- Sufidisciple (talk) 01:18, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ECCO Music Concert in London

I write articles on en.wikipedia. This is my first contribution to wikinews. It says anyone can write so I wrote the story. I thought someone will edit, as is done in newspapers. I do not know how to edit this news story as per your rules and regulations. If it is not suitable for publication, you can delete the page. Thank you. - Uksharma3 (talk) 03:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

715 exoplanets discovered by Kepler telescope

Better now? Jakec (talk) 19:36, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jakec: The noted problem (shortness) has been resolved, certainly. It's hard to tell much more than that without undertaking a full review; so, if you think it's ready, resubmit for review. (It may have to wait a while on the review queue to get reviewed again, since the queue has been busy recently and there's one article still waiting there since yesterday.) --Pi zero (talk) 19:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry

I am so sorry that i could not meet up WIkinews's policy. I will remind those policies from now onward. I sorry for that. -Krozan7 (talk) 04:25, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. en.wn takes some getting used to. We try to help new contributors along. --Pi zero (talk) 11:13, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

main page header wrong

hi pi zero, the Template:Main_page_header has a wrong donation link, it should point here, even if i do not know what utm_medium should be. the difference? why currently its wrong? in europe you get the foundations donation page not the local one. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done, I think. --Pi zero (talk) 02:02, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Name change

Hi Pi zero, could you please look at my request at Wikinews:Changing username? Many thanks. Scott Martin (talk) 10:59, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I did it, but it was a mess. Let me know if things don't get straightened out. --Pi zero (talk) 12:08, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interview

Hello Pi, We are coming back from spring break this week, and so you will be seeing more of my students. During break, I have arranged for my students to conduct an "exclusive interview" with an Indiana newsmaker next week. This politician has been in the news quite a bit during the last month and most likely has political aspirations beyond the currently held political office, according to published speculation. We will be doing an audio interview with this person on the evening of 26 March. We plan to submit the audio file and transcribe the interview, and the turn around time will be quite short that evening, for publication. I wanted to clarify a few points: 1) Is there a template we should use for an exclusive interview that is different from original reporting? Here, statewide, news organizations have been seeking this person out for interviews and so, IMHO, it's quite a big deal that we have the opportunity that other news organizations in Indiana will not have? 2) Will we need to use the Scoop email? We would like to upload the interview as is so that a reader could listen to the full interview. We may not transcribe the entire interview (leaving out icebreakers, disruptions, or anything irrelevant). That's the planned process. So can we just directly upload the audio file or do you want us to also forward it through Scoop too? 3) After possible publication, may we send out a news release to media around Indiana that would point them to a possibly published Wikinews interview and inform them about the Creative Commons license that would permit them to use the content from such an interview (with attribution)? 4) We would like to ask this person about some biographical details and isssues that came up during background research to clarify factual inconsistencies. I know in Wikipedia about a template we can use when there is Wikinews content about a person with an article, but can a Wikinews interview actually be used as a citation in Wikipedia? I'm not clear on that in the case of nonsynthesis. Crtew (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • {{interview}}.
  • I would recommend doing both. Audio can be uploaded Commons (or to Wikinews if there is some reason it can't be distributed under a Commons-compatible license). However, I've occasionally been unable to download the entirety of some audio files from Commons, so by also sending it to Scoop that's a second chance to maybe get a working copy of the file to a reviewer.
  • We're all in favor of our output being syndicated. We even have a template to put on the collaboration page of an article noting where it's been syndicated (though we don't often get around to using it).
  • Afaik, Wikipedia defines Wikinews to be not a reliable source. It's possible if our material gets syndicated somewhere that they do recognize as a reliable source that would put them over a barrel. The reason they refuse to recognize us as reliable is purely political, and they'll pretend otherwise. In my experience, Wikinewsies who've tangled with the politics of that in the past —including me— have found it utterly sickening and sworn off doing so again.
--Pi zero (talk) 21:08, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind, facts in the intro of an interview need to be documented; usually there are one or two synthesis sources on an interview to verify the intro, and also facts for the intro may be taken from the interview itself (when the interview is itself trust-worthy for the purpose). --Pi zero (talk) 21:12, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Pi, Could you please review the intro section before the interview so we don't have any problems with that part. It's currently ready for the transcript and audio files to be uploaded. Which audio template should I use for this interview? Crtew (talk) 16:59, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take a look at it now. Don't know about audio templates right off hand; would have to poke around. --Pi zero (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Crtew, I've finished pre-reviewing the intro content. Changes I made: diff. I won't make further changes to the wording, though I might fiddle with the wikilinks a bit. --Pi zero (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry it took as long as it did, btw. Took me a while to learn to find my way around the material. --Pi zero (talk) 18:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all your work in editing that huge transcript. Just putting the transcript together was unwieldy with each of us pitching in. However, you made it look beautiful. I liked the style of adding first names in brackets. It's already been syndicated on The Edge radio and looking for more outlets. Thank you, Crtew (talk) 16:28, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You have email at scoop! Crtew (talk) 22:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. --Pi zero (talk) 23:33, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Augusto De Luca

This user is global blocked for spam, because this user has used a bot for create 557+ pages in every wiki for promote his photos, 5-6 sockpuppet blocked (ever for spam). You can see also this discussion. bye--Wim b 00:08, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Indeed, that's incompatible with en.wn neutrality. --Pi zero (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks, I am new to wikinews. I wil get myself aquainted with the structure. I may contribute.Rukn950 (talk) 16:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Stabbing at Pennsylvania high school injures 20

I've removed all the close paraphrasing as far as I can tell. Also, I am using all the references, they aren't just a list of links. --Jakob (talk) 22:10, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. --Pi zero (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Watercooler discussion: Possible memorial fund?

Hi. I started a discussion on the English Wikinews water cooler at Memorial fund in Ashley-Nelson and Adrianne Wadewitz's honor?. I would really appreciate any feedback you could provide. --LauraHale (talk) 15:03, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Newsletter copy for this month

Pi zero, Could you take a look at this newsletter item and see if it is ok with you? You are quoted in this news time: [2] at Wikipedia Education Program. Thank you, Crtew (talk) 15:43, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I point out, you and your students have produced two featured articles plus the one under nomination — one this semester and one in Spring 2012. I hesitated to write that in for you as I wasn't sure what sort of emphasis you wanted. --Pi zero (talk) 17:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops

I missed you adding {{under review}}, likely because it happened while I'd navigated to a search page and was about to start populating the new cat. Apologies. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 17:23, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

:-)  --Pi zero (talk) 17:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the assistance.

Thanks Pi zero, but do you mind me asking for suggestions onto where I could improve the article, of coarse being new and all I'm rather blind as to what is and isn't correct. As you said, it's a learning curve, I'm not even sure I'm replying to you right...I'm having an inkling that one issue is with the last bit, with saying that the article has been starting debates, that's the opinion right? --Ying Blanc (talk) 22:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: I was going to say nevermind cause I found the Collaboration section, but I may need a little help, like which sentences from the article are copied from the source and where I can attribute a claim of fact. Also do I need to request to have the page moved to change the title as well? Thinking it over, I think it would be better to change the title to say "15-year-old in custody", it's not asserting guilt but it's saying he's a key character in this article.

Re copied sentences: I realize it can be difficult to fix this sort of problem once it already exists in an article. In the long run, of course, the solution isn not to get into that position in the first place, but that doesn't help with this article. You can probably find most of the problem passages using this tool.
Re moving the article: Request on the article collaboration page to have the article renamed to what you want, and we can take care of it for you. Once your account is four days old, you'll be able to do a move like that yourself (it' should then appear in a dropdown menu at the top of the browser window, over toward the right). --Pi zero (talk) 21:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some more assistance?

Hello again Pi Zero, I was curious about images and such for an article. I haven't seen how to reference an image from a news site or if it's even allowed. I'd like to get like a small basic knowledge on what sort of images are acceptable from other places, like Wikipedia or from news articles on other news sites. Is there like a place I can go to find images that all news sites use, including Wikinews, I mean apart from WikiCommons.--Ying Blanc (talk) 22:13, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We specifically aren't able to use images from other news sites (unless, of course, they're released under a license that allows them to be uploaded to Commons). Our fair use policy for local uploads expressly forbids uploading images copyrighted by competing news organizations.
When at all possible we prefer to use images from Commons, because that gives maximum flexibility for syndication of our articles. Occasionally that isn't possible, as with coverage of the Paralympics (or Olympics), which is funded by selling the rights to commercial coverage, so the images we take have to be under a non-commercial license, which means they can't be put on Commons.
We usually have to settle for whatever we can find on Commons.
I'm not the most knowledgeable here about images, though I know these basics. Possibly you might get some interesting info at the assistance water cooler. --Pi zero (talk) 23:16, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Pi, I was more worried of more, well not breaking news situations, but news situations where images are quite limited to what the media has put out, like in terrorist attacks and shootings and such. That's why I asked if there was like another bank of free images for newspapers, but I would guess there are none. Thanks anyway Pi again. --Ying Blanc (talk) 23:41, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews:Freshness

Something I keep meaning, and forgetting, to bring up; is it really necessary to protect non-mainspace redirects such as this? My understanding of the technical issues behind protection is that they don't apply to such things. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 11:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is it necessary? Not in the same sense, no. However, they're not like the project content-pages themselves (such as WN:Newsworthiness that could be subject to a good-Samaritan copyedit due to a lurking typo, or whatever, even after years of stability. So the benefit in trade for leaving them open to vandals is relatively low. Granted, it's not a burning issue; I mostly just figure, broadly speaking, the fewer targets we offer, the better. There may well be specific cases where a choice to protect is especially dubious. --Pi zero (talk) 11:36, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First arrests made in Singapore for possession of New Psychoactive Substances

Many thanks for peer-reviewing the article and publishing it. I hope I did better on this one compared to my previous attempt at creating an article. I've looked over the article again and corrected some grammar mistakes. If you could review those, that would be greatly appreciated. (Iuio (talk) 20:12, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Thanks. Should the article also be placed in the "Heroin" category? I've noticed that some articles are sorted into categories, despite only having passing references to the subject matter of said categories. (Iuio (talk) 20:34, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
The recommended principle for deciding whether to put an article in a category is, if you looked in that category for articles related to its topic, would you like to have that article pointed out to you as one of them? In this case, I'd say that's a good question. --Pi zero (talk)
Well, I'd say it's related and should be in the "Heroin" category, but that's just my opinion. Would that mean that the decision to put articles in some categories is a subjective one? (Iuio (talk) 20:42, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
The question of 'what would be useful' is practical in nature, but it can't help being a matter of judgement. The more reproducible the better, and in the long run finding ways to improve quality control is desirable — so different users will end up making the same call about whether a given article belongs in a given category. In this case, I think I agree with you: the availability of new drugs similar to heroin is relevant if one were researching what our archives have about heroin. --Pi zero (talk) 20:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. Thanks, that was a very enlightening answer. I was a little bit confused on the inclusion policy for articles in certain categories, given that at points in certain articles in certain categories, the subject of the category is only mentioned once in the article and that's all, and I wonder what merited the inclusion of that article in that category if the category's subject only received such a passing reference. Well, yes, being related is important, but at the same time, some categories, particularly those pertaining to location and genre, can be rather all-encompassing. But in this case, "Heroin" is a rather specific subject, and since this article only addressed heroin in a very passing manner, I wondered if it might be included in the "Heroin" category, given what I'm seen in the past while reading old articles on the site, and also as per the subject of the article, a potential for "synthetic heroin" to one day emerge (if it hasn't already). (Iuio (talk) 20:57, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Heroin having been invented by Bayer. (Ah, the "good old days" of unregulated pharmaceuticals.) --Pi zero (talk) 21:08, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
True, true. By the way, how did I do on this article? I hope I did a better job than the last one. Is there anything that I need to keep in mind/correct when I write any future articles? (Iuio (talk) 21:11, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
I'm sure there must be something; one never stops learning. It's probably worth skimming through what edits I made during review. But the things that come to mind, off hand, are marginal. There were some phrases identical to source, but at least a couple of those I left alone because I decided the wording, which occurred in multiple sources, was probably from the wording used by the police. I suspected one or maybe two of the sources might not have been used, but wasn't entirely certain and several were pretty short so didn't add to the review load as much as big sources would have. It's always harder to review with more sources... yet I hesitate to complain too much about that, because more sources (when legitimately used) can provide more breadth, which increases the value of our articles. --Pi zero (talk) 21:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I sort of stuck close to identical wording because many of the sources also had identical wording, so I came to the same conclusion as you, that the wording was used by the police or some other authority in charge. I did use all the sources on the arrests themselves, albeit, some of the usage was marginal since they were very short and similar/near identical to each other. Since the sources on the arrests were short, and since the illegalization of NPSs happened only two days before the arrests, I thought it beneficial to incorporate information on NPSs themselves along with the illegalization, to provide depth to the article along with some background on the situation, or else readers might shrug and think "So what? It's just a standard arrest for drug possession and trafficking.". I just wanted to show the arrests set a precedent and what said precedent was. I was somewhat concerned that the background information on illegalization of NPSs might overtake the premise of the article, which was the arrests. Is there anything I should keep in mind in future when incorporating additional background information that is related to, but does not directly concern the premise of the article like in this example? (Iuio (talk) 21:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
It's a good idea to break up indentical wording like that when possible, as I did in several cases iirc; partly perhaps just to keep in practice :-), but also because sometimes identical wording in multiple sources is because they all paid for the right to draw some of their material from the same wire service.
Background is great, it's one of the things we can do to give the reader added value. As long as the body is spiraling outward from the focus identified by the headline and lede, rather than having a different focus from the headline and lede. (Mentioned at WN:PILLARS#style, and WN:Newsworthiness#Specificity.) It worked pretty well, I thought, and drawing on the CNB page seemed a nice touch (helping to further mitigate that a good deal of the background was from one source article). --Pi zero (talk) 22:08, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, the background did spiral out from the headline and lede, and I agree with you that it also gives the reader more information and value in a single source, though at the same time, I did not want it to overtake the news of the arrests, which was why I made sure to come back and address the topic of the arrests in the last paragraph, with the sentencing of the suspect, to remind readers that's what the article is mainly reporting on and to provide "bookends" in a way. Since background was an important, but not as major part of the article, I didn't use as many sources on it, but the CNB page was definitely one to include as it was an official source from the organization involved. I think taking more sources in for background may have caused that part of the article to drag on longer than it should, and I already found it lengthy. Of course, we must keep the articles at a manageable length. (Iuio (talk) 22:22, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]
It felt about the right length; I agree. We can do long articles, of course, but they need a more substantial focus to anchor them than 'two guys got busted for drugs'. --Pi zero (talk) 22:29, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think if the arrests were anything but the first ones under this new legislation, it would simply be 'two guys got busted for drugs' and thus not newsworthy, hence the background to keep readers from simply thinking that 'two guys got busted for drugs' is all there is to it. But most articles I've seen on here are about the length of this article or shorter, so I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out. Many thanks for your assistance. (Iuio (talk) 22:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Disambiguation protection

Regarding disambiguation pages: unlike normal redirects, there's valid reasons to edit a disambiguation page – I think we shouldn't use full protection on them; semi-protection would be sufficient. Thoughts? Microchip08 (talk) 18:16, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They must be fully protected, or they mustn't be allowed in mainspace. Overriding technical concerns, not a matter of "there's no reason to change it".
There are two ways to allow editing while keeping the mainspace page fully protected. One would be to use a redirect from mainspace to a disambig page elsewhere; tbh I dislike that option. The other is to transclude, on the fully protected mainspace disambig page, an associated template, providing a link for editing the template. (I'd use template space because that space has flaggedrevs enabled, so can be sighted as an anti-vandalism measure.)
I believe I can see how to construct a single template to put on mainspace disambig pages, that categorizes the page, and handles setup, transclusion, and editing of the associated page-specific template without a clumsy section heading on the disambig page. I'll see if I can't cobble together such a template later today (supposing nothing more urgent comes up). --Pi zero (talk) 18:38, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What are the technical concerns? It seems much easier to add a clause to policy exempting full protection for disambiguation pages than creating a hackish workaround (and the less indefinitely fully protected pages, the better). Microchip08 (talk) 19:07, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Software security concerns which I am not going to discuss on a public forum. --Pi zero (talk) 19:22, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If there's a security concern relating to wikitext content with Mediawiki, then you should report it. If the bug doesn't involve Mediawiki, then surely it isn't our problem, and certainly shouldn't be influencing policy. Microchip08 (talk) 19:27, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've been trying to be polite, but you're evidently assuming I'm incompetent. I'm not. I followed this road all the way to its end (somewhere in the general vicinity of the Gates of Hell) years ago with bawolff. You're taking a deeply wrong-headed position; drop it. --Pi zero (talk) 19:48, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to be so grumpy about it. --Pi zero (talk) 21:00, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Decat for userspace"

Hello, I noticed that you made an edit to an article I wrote with "decay for userspace" in the comment. For future reference, how does one prevent an article in userspace from appearing in category pages? --David Blayney (talk) 14:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are three different kinds of things to do.
  • With the categories, you put a colon before the "Category". So [[Category:Foo]] becomes [[:Category:Foo]].
  • With many templates, such as infoboxes or {{original}}, you add a nonblank nocat parameter. So {{Foo}} becomes {{Foo|nocat=1}}.
  • With a few templates, mainly article-status templates like {{tasks}}, you add "tl|" to the front of the template call (just inside the double-braces), which turns it into a call to template called {{tl}}, which displays the markup of a template call instead of doing the call. So {{tasks|foo}} becomes {{tl|tasks|foo}} (which looks like this: {{tasks|foo}}).
We don't usually move failed synthesis articles to userspace, though. Occasionally we do (it's usually handled by an admin), but usually the failed articles that get preserved this way are original reporting. --Pi zero (talk) 16:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Advice on story idea

Hi Pi zero,

I was wondering if you could possibly point me in the right direction with a story idea.

Last week Australian Seven's Women's Rugby Union organisers were reported to be poaching Jillaroo Australian Women's Rugby League players, in effort to put together a team for the Rio Olympics 2016. I originally wanted to write up a WikiNews report on this story, as the captain of the Jillaroo's team lives in my suburb. However, when I contacted and asked if she would be happy to be interviewed she said she wasn't keen to speak to any more media on the matter as other media outlets had misquoted her or made up things she had said.

This then led me to think I could write up an original report or feature for Wikinews talking about the inacuracies in media reporting on the supposed poaching. Sam, the captain, has confirmed that she is happy to speak to me about this.

However, I just found out that today the Women in League held a luncheon where Sam was a person on the panel. I thought maybe it would be a better idea to take a news angle on the luncheon, talk about what Women in League are trying to do for Women in Australian football and possibly get some quotes from Sam about the event.

Which angle do you think would be more appropriate?

Thank you in advance!

Brittany ( BCarter UOW (talk) 09:25, 14 May 2014 (UTC) )[reply]

  • What media files do you think you can get for these? A report on inaccuracies in the media can, under fair use/fair dealings, use photos/scans of the relevant inaccurate parts of mainstream news articles.
As I found, when I edited together the video clip for the Nigel Farage protest, now that Wikimedia Commons supports the WebM format you could get a lot into the 100MB upload limit (from my upload, I'd guess 15-17 minutes footage).
I wasn't the first to try and do video work on Wikinews, and it is a good-deal easier than when Gabriel interviewed John Key in 2007.
A point that puzzles me is, going from rugby to football. However, if more than one sport is covered you may-well draw more readers. Plus, if Samantha Hammond can point out examples of other sportswomen being misquoted, quoted out-of-context, or having quotes fabricated, I think you'd have a very interesting story angle.
The non-fun part is doing the transcription, but the timeliness of your article relies more on "when it is ready" than when an event happens. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:48, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

North Korean singer thought executed appears on state television

Thanks for reviewing the article. By the way, I took the name of the event that Hyon appeared in from her Wikipedia article, which states that the event is called the "National Convention of Artists". Hope that is ok. (Iuio (talk) 05:12, 20 May 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Wikipedia cannot be used as a source. It is intrinsically not trust-worthy. If Wikipedia claims some fact, and you want to use that fact in a news article, you have to find the fact in some trust-worthy source and use that. And cite it, of course; all sources you use must be listed in the Sources section. Sometimes Wikipedia will itself cite a trust-worthy source. If Wikipedia makes the claim and doesn't cite a trust-worthy source, well, that calls the claim into question and what you need is, exactly, a trust-worthy source.
Btw, I forget if this has come up: Wikipedia's license is incompatible with ours. Copying Wikipedia content to here word-for-word, even with attribution, is copyvio. --Pi zero (talk) 10:36, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are you able to change my article's title?

Hi there, not sure if I'm doing this "talk" thing correctly... I just need to change the title of my story. Someone told me I can't do it myself and I need to get a reviewer to do it. I noticed you've been editing my story (thank you!) https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Eleven-year-old_qualifies_for_U.S._Women%27s_Open Are you able to change the title for me? I just want it to be "Eleven-year-old golfer qualifies for U.S. Women's Open" (the reviewers said it needs the sport listed in the title). Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Misspinkuow (talk • contribs) 00:14, 22 May 2014‎

Hi. :-)
I moved it for you.
You could have moved it yourself, I think, because your account is more than four days old. Up at the top of the page over toward the right there should be a star, and then a dropdown menu. Move (or might be called "rename") should be on that menu (in fact, I suspect it'll be the only thing on that menu).
Btw, when you post on a talk page like this, type four tildes at then end, ~~~~, and they'll automatically expand to a signature for you when you save your edit. --Pi zero (talk) 00:41, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese police arrest six after woman beaten to death at Shandong McDonald's

Regarding this article, I seem to have just discovered a peculiarity with the source from The Australian. Trying to access the source directly from the article itself leads to a paywall asking for a subscription, while if you type "Woman beaten to death in McDonald's" into Google, as I did when searching for sources, and then find the source from among the search results and click it, it leads to the source in full, effectively bypassing the paywall. The source should be on the first page of search results that I linked to. This was how I first accessed that source, since I don't have a subscription to The Australian's website. This happened purely by chance, since I was also unaware that the Australian's website even required a subscription. What can be done about this situation, since I know we aren't supposed to used paid sources in articles. (Iuio (talk) 02:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Hi Iuio, Pi zero seems to not be available at the moment, so I'll respond for him. I could directly access the Australian's article from your submission. For sources like the Australian (who charge money for reading articles after some days or weeks) I recommend you archiving the sources you added so that they are always available for their review on Wikinews. Try adding a bookmark to your browser containing the following code:
javascript:void(location.href='http://www.webcitation.org/archive?url='+escape(location.href)+'&email=INSERT YOUR EMAIL HERE')
I have archived the Australian's article here. Regards, and I hope to have been of help (somewhat) --Diego Grez 02:57, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Diego, I clicked on your archive and ran into the paywall as well. It seems that the only way I can assess the source in full is via Google search results, which is a peculiar problem. I want to stress that the whole thing happened by accident and I had no clue a paywall even existed since I search for sources via Google and got to the source in full without hitting the paywall. It is only through the article I wrote on Wikinews and your archive that I encountered said paywall. I want to know whether or not that means The Australian article can be used as source, or if it needs to be removed. I that article cannot be a source, I suppose I will have to remove the information I used from it (a tedious process) and/or try to find alternative sources with that same information. Thanks for your assistance anyway. (Iuio (talk) 03:14, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
I have just noticed Webcite didn't archive it properly. Well, you can just point out in the article's talk page that the source can only be completely accessed through Google News. Is the Australian article a major source for your submission? Can it be replaced with another one from another news media? Diego Grez Cañete 03:38, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, that source has quite a large bit of the information I used. Other sources have graphic photos of the dead woman that I don't know if they would be allowed to be used as sources, since obviously knowingly linking people to sites with bloody and gory images is not so ethical. I don't know what to do now, except maybe wait for Pi Zero to give an answer, since what you suggested is basically telling people how to deliberately bypass the paywall of The Australian's site, and frankly, I doubt that is something we should be doing or encouraging. (Iuio (talk) 04:19, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Iuio: No, no, that info (instructions on how to access the article and not to be directed to the paywall) is supposed to be for the reviewer. They are going to use the sources for the article's eventual approval, and it would be really helpful if you clarify how to access the article on the talk page. Diego Grez Cañete 04:26, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that, which is why I left that message on Pi Zero's talk page, since I do want his advice. He has been reviewing the last few published articles and he'll likely review this one too. SO I clarified this stuff on this page. But to leave it on the article's talk page where it'll be more widely seen by other people, that just doesn't seem right. The Australian article has important information like the name of the victim and the murderer, which few other sources do, and those other sources have graphic photos of the dead woman, which I am, once again, not sure is allowed, so I guess this matter might be something for Pi Zero to decide. (Iuio (talk) 04:35, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Iuio, as I just told you, it would be better if you share on the article's talk page that the article cannot be directly accessed through that link, but rather by searching it on Google. Pi zero may be the one who will review this article, but there are other 30 reviewers out there who could still review it, and it would be best that you point out all of this on the talk page. As for the other sources, I've checked them, and they are totally allowed to be linked to on Wikinews. Wikinews is not censored. Though you can, for sure, wait for Pi zero's advice later today. Diego Grez Cañete 04:43, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really want to spread this matter all over the place, and Pi Zero seems the most likely one to review the article, so I came here. I'm not sure if linking the other sources with bloody images needs to be accompanied with a warning or not, though I guess that is the case. However, even if I take out The Australian source, and maybe find other sources that have the same sort of information as The Australian source, I fear that the reviewer might say that the article has been "contaminated" with content from the Australian source, since that source was used when the article was first written, so it may be a copyright violation anyway to not cite The Australian source. I fear that the only recourse then would be to completely rewrite the article from scratch without The Australian source, which would certainly be an unpleasant undertaking. (Iuio (talk) 05:15, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
It isn't necessary that you rewrite the whole article, don't remove The Australian as a source. It is not "wrong" to "spread all over the place" on the article's talk page (as a note to the reviewer, actually) that the Australian needs to be accessed from Google News, just leave a note on the talk page, after all, as I have told you... sources are there for the reviewer, and not exactly for (future) access to Wikinews users. The Australian's source possibly may not be available even after trying to access it by Google, in a couple of days... so, I don't see the problem that you point out on the article's talk page how to temporarily access it without reaching the paywall instead. By the way, you don't have to specify that some links contain bloody images, it's totally unnecessary. Regards, Diego Grez Cañete (talk) 05:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness, there's been quite a bit of conversation here while I was asleep. :-)

Any note addressed to whoever reviews an article should be placed on the article's talk page; our review gadget even has a mechanism built into it (which sometimes works) to remind the reviewer to carefully read the article's talk page before submitting a review of the article. On the other hand, asking some particular person's advice is naturally something to do on their user talk, which also has the advantage it'll be easier to find later on. In this case, it'll get archived here, so one doesn't have to remember which article's talk page it was on; and of course we still haven't come up with a good solution for the problem that, in the awful event that an article doesn't get published, the record of discussions on its talk page disappears — sometimes a blessing, but often a curse, and the first community discussion I participated in when I first arrived here was about that problem... I guess about five years ago.

With an article behind a paywall, in the particular event we'll try to muddle through — but then for the future the thing to do is to avoid that source. We don't want to habitually bypass somebody's paywall, as this would be undermining the means they have chosen to try to support themselves financially. Under any ordinary circumstances, it doesn't matter whether we agree with the means they've chosen; journalism is already difficult, as we well know, and we're not out to make it even more difficult for those who do it. --Pi zero (talk) 11:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I apologize for any problems this caused, but once again, the whole thing was unintentional. I had to leave to do something else immediately after finishing the article and submitting it for review, and it was not until I came back hours later that I discovered there was even a paywall to begin with when I attempted to access the source via the article I wrote. As such, if need be, I'm willing to find other sources or do a rewrite of the article if this is a major issue. Also, I was reluctant to use other sources due to the presence of graphic images. Should such sources be used at all due to said graphic images? And is a warning necessary should those sources with graphic images be used? But yes, the whole thing was a complete accident, and I will keep in mind to avoid that website in future and check the sources again so the problem does not re-occur. (Iuio (talk) 15:38, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Don't worry about graphic images. Wikinews is not censored, nor do we issue warnings for content. When there's a news reason for it, we use graphic images and language ourselves.
I realize these paywall problems come up. Sometimes it's because news sites provide an article freely for a little while and then move it behind a paywall. --Pi zero (talk) 15:49, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for publishing the article. I did try to reword some things, but it does seem that when you reviewed it, a few of the smaller details were removed. I'm the sort of person that would like to include as many details as possible, so that may have been a handicap when trying to find other ways to say things. I will also admit I was in a bit of a rush, since I wanted to finish writing the article before I left to do something else. I was also possibly hoping to get it reviewed in that time while I was away so I could then change things if it was deemed unfit to publish. I guess I'm still working out what details to include from sources into the article and what to exclude.
As for The Australian source, I guess it doesn't seem ethical to leave that message on the talk page of the article telling people how to get past the paywall. I mean, telling people how to exploit that just seems wrong. For all I knew, that paywall could have been there this whole entire time and it was a glitch or flaw with either The Australian's website or Google that allowed access to the source in full. That's why I offered to rewrite the article without that source and even do it from scratch if that was necessary to avoid contamination due to that source containing a good amount of information used in the article. I guess months or years from now, however, many of these sources will be taken down by their news agencies and this issue will decrease in relevance.
For the sites with graphic images, I'll keep that in mind for future articles.(Iuio (talk) 19:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Don't take what I did during review as a model of what to do during writing, only as an indicator of where the problems were. As reviewer I was limited in what sorts of changes I could make, and removing things is often the least intrusive thing a reviewer can do. The advanced techniques for synthesis, that really get great distance from the sources, rearrange the material drastically. I remember there was a bit about what color shirt and pants she was wearing, or something like that; well, maybe that information (but not wording) could have been worked into some entirely different part of the article. But I, as reviewer, couldn't do something so drastic without disqualifying myself. This is part of why I tell people not to reword at all; don't think of it as rewording, because rewording implies starting with the way the source said something and then altering that, instead of saying something entirely your own way.
I really want to find a good way to show people what to do; it's one of my major long-range goals for the project. A really lucid... teaching aid... on how to use sources without copying from them would be immensely valuable, well beyond synthesis news writing.
I've learned from Wikinews, and it's true of Wikipedia too but isn't so obvious there, that crowdsourcing an information provider — like any of the wikimedian sisters — is largely about helping contributors learn the expertise they need to contribute. Of course you want to keep down the amount of expertise required, but the current efforts on Wikipedia to get more contributors by lowering the bar to contribute seem misguided because that's not the main problem; once you've got most of the accidental expertise out of the system, spending further resources trying to reduce needed expertise even more is bad because those resources would be better spent helping contributors acquire needed expertise. --Pi zero (talk) 21:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attends Modi inauguration - template wording

The trouble is that even with your wording people will read the headline and think - "hang on, wasn't he installed a while ago?" Then they click through to the article and discover that we are not covering the swearing-in ceremony, or even saying whether the President of Pakistan did in fact attend the swearing-in ceremony - we're just saying that a couple of days before the ceremony (which itself was 7 days ago), he said that he would attend. Wow, how exciting and newsworthy that is, this long after the event! Hence my attempt to focus on the reaction, which is perhaps a slightly less stale point (and yes I know that "stale" is a term of art, but so what?) and at least draws attention to a different part of the original report.

My preferred option, frankly, would be to hide templates 4 and 5 when the "news" on the front page is as old as it currently is - our lead story is something the Pope said 8 days ago (?!!!), and something that was announced 9 days ago. If Wikinews cannot generate 5 publishable stories in a week, then it needs to rethink its front page to hide its limitations. Regards, Bencherlite (talk) 12:29, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the wording can still be improved. However, I disagree about hiding leads. Yes, we need to think about how to present these things, but when things get slow like this the function of the items on the main page changes, not abruptly but sliding along a continuous spectrum, to illustrating the output of the project.
I'll see what I can do about the phrasing of the Sharif/Modi lead. --Pi zero (talk) 12:38, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I tried a different approach to the lead phrasing. --Pi zero (talk) 13:05, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. The function of the main page doesn't appear to change, though, when the project is going through a slow patch - perhaps instead a couple of slots could be turned over to "from the archives" for some FAs to be displayed in the sunlight again. Just an idea. Bencherlite (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's an interesting thought. Though, I'm not keen to put time into engineering adjustments for the main page, likely to get into deep infrastructure as they touch on WN:Make lead, for the express purpose of more smoothly handling slow spells, when the fundamental long-term problem is missing infrastructure that I'm already pouring all my available time into (I've been at it for, what, coming up on three years now? And at this point one massive push may finally see things start to come on-line...) --Pi zero (talk) 21:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

'Living' ear created to commemorate Vincent van Gogh

Hello, I noticed your review on the article, but I would like to inquire what can be done about it. The piece did go on display on May 30, according to the museum's webpage, but no one seems to have written anything about it until say 2 days ago, when I first saw articles about it. What's the policy on freshness in this case? I don't know why there was such a delay between the piece going on display and articles being written about it, so what changes can be made here? It could be conceivable that maybe details on how the piece was made came up recently, and that could be what the sources are writing about, but I'm grasping for straws in that case. (Iuio (talk) 00:56, 6 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]

I looked around on the sources again and found a bit in the source from The Guardian where the artist told the Associated Press on Tuesday that she wanted to combine art in science, her motivation for making that piece, I suppose. Could this count as a "recent event"? I added it to the lede and resubmitted the article for review in any case, since I think with that line, the sources may more or less be reporing on how the piece was made, rather than it first going on display. (Iuio (talk) 01:20, 6 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
I wasn't happy about the case — I hated not-ready'ing it, at the same time I didn't feel there was anything else I could do.
The reason everybody's reporting on it now, probably, is that one news source, probably AP, did a bit of what Wikinews would call original reporting, produced an article, and the rest of the mainstream media followed by a sort of herd instinct. Most reporting by the news sources we use is, in fact, what we would call OR if our reporters did it; calling up the police to ask for confirmation of something, asking somebody for comment, etc, are all original reporting... but if they're done on Wikinews, the big effort that goes into that sort of reportage is out in the open for all to see, whereas it's mostly opaque when AP or BBC or the like do it.
When we do major OR, our reportage is to some extent its own focal event, which is why freshness works a bit differently for OR than for synthesis. But when somebody else does OR, that doesn't necessarily make a focus suitable for us.
I should probably try to look tonight at what you've changed (though I seem to be fading fast, which tends to happen to me in the evenings these days; I used to be able to pull an all-nighter to catch up with review when necessary), and then perhaps sleep on it and see what my back brain has made of the situation by morning. --Pi zero (talk)
Well, I only really added one sentence from the Guardian source I told you. Just to maybe give some "recent" context about the article. If the piece went on display May 30 and the artist only really told news sources how she created it like 2 days ago, I guess that gives them something to write about, number one, and maybe puts things in a more recent context, number two. Maybe, and once again grasping for straws here, the focus is on the artist commenting about how she made the piece, as opposed to the piece itself going on display, which gave AP something to write about. (Iuio (talk) 01:50, 6 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
Okay, I saw your review on the article. In that case, what event should be focused on? Should the article be renamed to maybe say "Artist described how 'living' ear was created to commemorate Vincent van Gogh"? That seems more like the focal event rather than the piece going on display. Apart from that, are there any other means to change the article to make it publishable? (Iuio (talk) 23:38, 6 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
I don't know how to make the article newsworthy, given the interpretation I'm following of how Wikinews principles apply to the situation. Which bothers me, but there it is. --Pi zero (talk) 02:58, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, given that we are at a deadlock on this situation, and I can't think of much of a way wither, I think it's probably better that you delete the article then, since pretty soon, I think even the artist being interviewed by AP on Tuesday would be past freshness. (Iuio (talk) 05:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]
That happens naturally, in due course: when an article hasn't been worked on for four days, it's tagged with {{subst:aband}}, and after two days' warning it's deleted. That's the fate of most articles that don't achieve publication. There's no hurry to delete the thing; after all, what if someone else wanted to do something with it? --Pi zero (talk) 10:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, even if someone wanted to do something with the article, I don't see how it can be salvaged, since neither you nor I can come up with a good solution to resolve the matter. By then, even if someone thinks of something, it'll likely be way past freshness and still unfit to publish, so I don't really see it as a matter with a positive outcome. (Iuio (talk) 18:49, 7 June 2014 (UTC))[reply]

"Never" = "under 5 minutes"

I did enjoy this edit history, sorry! Bencherlite (talk) 23:28, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

:-D  --Pi zero (talk) 23:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let me ask you a serious question..........

I've got it cleared up in my head that people outside the US seek accreditation because its important in EU society etc. OK, I get it. All that notwithstanding, why do you think we have so many people come here and in the 1st or 2nd edit, ask for accreditation.....then never do a d$mn thing again.....? What are your thoughts on that? New editor engagement has REALLY dropped off recently....and I hate that. But, it just seems so weird to me that so many don't edit a little or write a little (or even jump around messing stuff up accidentally!!) and THEN ask for accreditation 2 weeks later. --Bddpaux (talk) 16:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New editor involvement has dropped off because some would-be sororicides over an Wikipedia used a concerted misinformation campaign to manipulate the Wikipedian community into removing the Wikinews link from the "In the News" item on the Wikipedia main page . It's that simple. Afaics we still get traffic here coming over from Wikipedia, at a somewhat lower rate. And I'm still working on our core problem that we need to improve our statistics on retaining the ones we get (hence my interactive tools, which are now on the verge of producing real results... making this perhaps the dozenth time in the past year they've been on the verge; but of course this time they really are :-).
There's a need for accreditation, as you say. Perhaps people assume that Wikinews has no standards, since it's a wiki; yet another way for Wikipedia's problems to negatively impact us. --Pi zero (talk) 17:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Toads defeat University in round seven of Sunshine Coast Rugby Union season

I think I've made the appropriate adjustments to this article. --RockerballAustralia c 17:05, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

re Election Committee

What would I have to do? -- Cirt (talk) 23:24, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Replied on your talk. We have two volunteers for the election committee, including you, and the membership of the election committee is to be settled by today (July 6). --Pi zero (talk) 00:18, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Done, hope I can be helpful! :) -- Cirt (talk) 18:27, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

FIB

Hello Pi zero. I sent information about the press card to scoop. But I don't understand what it changes, because they could be present at the music festival without a press card. Now, the information of the article can be checked with two external sources from other medias. As I said, she did not take notes during the performances. I have another question, because we plan to write a report about the whole festival (the festival ended yesterday night) some days after it with more pictures. Do you think that it could be possitive? Or do we have problems? --Millars (talk) 09:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As for why it matters: documentation is about the whole context of the situation. Original-reporters routinely provide information about how they got to events, what the weather was, whatever. I've read stuff about how difficult it was to find parking at a sporting event, the mood of the crowd, technical difficulties setting up interviews, all sorts of things that weren't mentioned in the article itself but add to the documentation of the circumstances surrounding the acquisition of information. And, besides that general interest in context, it's certainly of interest to know the reporters' relationship with the event, as well as others' attitudes toward the reporters in general.
It's really important for an original-reporter to take notes during an event, in some form or other. Writing stuff from memory the next day defeats much of the purpose, and writing only the article, with no additional context included, is even worse. Handwritten notes are recommended for many purposes, though other forms have been used successfully, and there are situations where other media are superior (for example, interviews are routinely recorded as audio files). Preparation ahead of time is crucial to successful original reporting, as noted at WN:OR. --Pi zero (talk) 11:11, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you. In this case, this was our first collaboration of this kind (for these people) and we found people interested who didn't wrote on Wikimedia projects before. I know that we could do some mistakes, but we learned for next time. I talked with Aparaulart and finally she can upload her notes. --Millars (talk) 11:20, 21 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for your patience and for passing the article. I had a meeting with Aparaulart this morning and we talked about all this. She'll try to send more documentation to scoop and upload an image of her notes (she took some). After uploading that, and linking some external sources, as I said, we wanted to write a longer article about the whole festival, like a final report, with more pictures, and in Spanish, Catalan and English. What do you think about it? Could it be possible? --Millars (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds good. I'm hopeful it could work out well. --Pi zero (talk) 12:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First Article

Hello, I have recently written a news report. This has been my first time. How do I proceed with it. It has been more than 48 hours but it still hasn't been aired. The article is titles India urges peaceful settlement of disputes at South China Sea.

--Abhinav619 (talk) 03:32, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Abhinav619. Okay, here's what's been happening with your article. Executive summary: Things are proceeding now.
  • As first submitted, there were a bunch of problems (which is quite common with a reporter's first submission; there's an initial learning curve, which we try to help folks up).
  • Another contributor, Wikiwide, did a bunch of work on it, much improving it.
  • It then waited for review for some time; that does sometimes happen, as reviewers are volunteers too, and review is a pretty big lump sum of time and effort to donate. Naturally, we get to things as soon as we can. (There was an incident earlier this month where we got overwhelmed and didn't get to an article in time; that does happen occasionally, and upsets us all, so we do our best to avoid it.)
  • A few hours ago, I undertook to do a full review, with optimism that the article will pass to publication. I'm working on it now. If you look at the article now, you'll see there's an {{under review}} tag at the top.
--Pi zero (talk) 03:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pi zero....Thanks for the necessary support. The experience has been entirely different from Wikiepdia. Anyways, Kudos!!! I will get back to you.

--Abhinav619 (talk) 04:59, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And thanks for all the support, please make sure the article is aired.

--Abhinav619 (talk) 05:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indian Prime Minister accuses Pakistan of waging proxy war‎

I have made modifications to the first paragraph. Apologies again...Still new to this world, it takes time to get used to the process. What else is required for the news to be aired. Indian Prime Minister accuses Pakistan of waging proxy war --Abhinav619 (talk) 02:09, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. We stepped on each other's toes. I'd started to review the article, when you started editing. I guess you didn't see the {{under review}} tag; we've tried to make it prominent so it won't be missed, but I know first-hand that when everything about a site is new it's easy to miss things simply because you don't know what to expect to find.
Honestly, that review I started to do was a long shot; I'd been unable to review during the day today, and was hoping against hope I'd be able to do a review this evening. Truth is, though, I'm rapidly falling apart; I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish last night's review, and I probably shouldn't have done that; just a few years ago I could get away with that sort of thing, but I don't bounce back from all-nighters so easily now. Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up in the morning (though I can already see a problem looming irl for tomorrow morning that might throw a monkey wrench into that plan). --Pi zero (talk) 02:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Four arrested after building spire in Moscow painted in Ukrainian colors

Thanks for reviewing and publishing the article. Admittedly, it's been a while since I wrote an article on this site, so I hope it turned out alright. Anything I need to improve on? (Iuio (talk) 19:46, 22 August 2014 (UTC))[reply]

Overall, I thought it well written. If I had to recall details I'd have to consult the edit history. --Pi zero (talk) 20:07, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I admit I used to have the mindset that everything on all the sources should be included in the synthesis article to make it a true synthesis article, but that might be deviating from the point too much. I recall that some of the sources had stuff on the pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, but I sort of left it out in the synthesis article even though it was tangentially related to the incident, since I thought it was too out of place. (Iuio (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2014 (UTC))[reply]
It's not uncommon to list a source in order to get just one fact from it. (Although in that case it's also helpful to leave a note to that effect for the reviewer, either on the talk page or as an html comment.) --Pi zero (talk) 21:01, 22 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interwiki

Something wrong? --sasha (krassotkin) 14:34, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No. We'd been wondering how the software handles interactions/conflicts between Wikidata interwikis and explicit interwikis on a page, so as the most straightforward and decisive way to determine that, I was trying some experiments. --Pi zero (talk) 14:58, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Clear. I check correctness of inrewiki manually. At the same time I try to involve to this work active users (who follow the history of edits) and their bots from other projects. --sasha (krassotkin) 15:08, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An important message about renaming users

Dear Pi zero,

I am cross-posting this message to many places to make sure everyone who is a Wikimedia Foundation project bureaucrat receives a copy. If you are a bureaucrat on more than one wiki, you will receive this message on each wiki where you are a bureaucrat.

As you may have seen, work to perform the Wikimedia cluster-wide single-user login finalisation (SUL finalisation) is taking place. This may potentially effect your work as a local bureaucrat, so please read this message carefully.

Why is this happening? As currently stated at the global rename policy, a global account is a name linked to a single user across all Wikimedia wikis, with local accounts unified into a global collection. Previously, the only way to rename a unified user was to individually rename every local account. This was an extremely difficult and time-consuming task, both for stewards and for the users who had to initiate discussions with local bureaucrats (who perform local renames to date) on every wiki with available bureaucrats. The process took a very long time, since it's difficult to coordinate crosswiki renames among the projects and bureaucrats involved in individual projects.

The SUL finalisation will be taking place in stages, and one of the first stages will be to turn off Special:RenameUser locally. This needs to be done as soon as possible, on advice and input from Stewards and engineers for the project, so that no more accounts that are unified globally are broken by a local rename to usurp the global account name. Once this is done, the process of global name unification can begin. The date that has been chosen to turn off local renaming and shift over to entirely global renaming is 15 September 2014, or three weeks time from now. In place of local renames is a new tool, hosted on Meta, that allows for global renames on all wikis where the name is not registered will be deployed.

Your help is greatly needed during this process and going forward in the future if, as a bureaucrat, renaming users is something that you do or have an interest in participating in. The Wikimedia Stewards have set up, and are in charge of, a new community usergroup on Meta in order to share knowledge and work together on renaming accounts globally, called Global renamers. Stewards are in the process of creating documentation to help global renamers to get used to and learn more about global accounts and tools and Meta in general as well as the application format. As transparency is a valuable thing in our movement, the Stewards would like to have at least a brief public application period. If you are an experienced renamer as a local bureaucrat, the process of becoming a part of this group could take as little as 24 hours to complete. You, as a bureaucrat, should be able to apply for the global renamer right on Meta by the requests for global permissions page on 1 September, a week from now.

In the meantime please update your local page where users request renames to reflect this move to global renaming, and if there is a rename request and the user has edited more than one wiki with the name, please send them to the request page for a global rename.

Stewards greatly appreciate the trust local communities have in you and want to make this transition as easy as possible so that the two groups can start working together to ensure everyone has a unique login identity across Wikimedia projects. Completing this project will allow for long-desired universal tools like a global watchlist, global notifications and many, many more features to make work easier.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the SUL finalisation, read over the Help:Unified login page on Meta and leave a note on the talk page there, or on the talk page for global renamers. You can also contact me on my talk page on meta if you would like. I'm working as a bridge between Wikimedia Foundation Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Stewards, and you to assure that SUL finalisation goes as smoothly as possible; this is a community-driven process and I encourage you to work with the Stewards for our communities.

Thank you for your time. -- Keegan (WMF) talk 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

--This message was sent using MassMessage. Was there an error? Report it!

GTA V PC Cancellation Article

Hello Pizero, is it possible for someone to write the article for me? I don't speak english that well. The sources are there, so are all the information. It just needs some grammar and thats it. Thanks! 98.249.241.179 (talk) 21:18, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

98.249.241.179:
Well, it seemed as if there's a bigger problem with the article; but if you're having difficulty with the language, perhaps there is something about the story I'm not realizing.
There aren't a lot of Wikinews writers around, currently. I can ask around, but that sort of thing often doesn't work out. It's hard to get collaborators together for news, because everything has to happen in a short time. --Pi zero (talk) 21:38, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The sources are there, I have the theme of the article written, can you please try and find someone to publish? I'm using google translate because I cannot write 100% correctly the article. This is a viral topic and would love for Wiki to get a lot of traffic and recognition for reporting this also. Thanks so much! 98.249.241.179 (talk) 01:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

professional consultation

Dear Pi Zero,

I would first like to thank you dearly for the time and thought you have invested in me and in my articles, for your guidance and help with verbalization. I feel that I have come a long way in the site, and much of this is thanks to you and your observations. Every time I strive to implement the lessons I've learned from your previous comments, and they help me improve in style, NPOV and professionalism.

In Palestine, where I live, there are significant events that change daily and affect the lives of many people. This environment has had a great influence on me and my aspiration to become a reporter since I was a child. This is why over a year ago, when I was 28 years old, I decided to try and make my dream come true and started working voluntarily as a reporter, seeing it as a mission.

I chose to do this on Wikinews because I believe in the vision of The Wikimedia Foundation and its importance. The more progress I make in the site, upload articles and improve my abilities, I feel great satisfaction from the privilege to contribute to the project.

I started my path on Wikinews in the Arabic site, where nine of my articles were published. I later moved to the English Wikinews website, where more than 20 of my articles have been published. I have done my best to improve from one article to the next, and indeed over time the number of comments I got has decreased and I managed to publish articles more frequently. During the last few months, with tensions rising in Palestine and the war in Gaza, I feel strongly encouraged to report about what is happening in the region. I have even cut down on my working hours and dedicated more of my time and effort to writing articles and publishing them online.

It should be mentioned that in addition to writing articles based on a variety of new sources, for a while now I have been trying to write an original report for the site. I have tried to initiate interviews with Palestinian politicians such as former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and the renowned politician Hanan Ashrawi, among other Palestinian politicians. Though I contacted everyone on the phone as well as through the email, I have unfortunately received only negative responses and refusals on their and their spokespersons' behalf. I believe that the people I will contact in the future may take me more seriously and agree to take part in interviews with me if I am first recognized as an accredited reporter on behalf of Wikinews and I am able to present a document and an email to prove it. I'd like to hear your opinion on that matter - according to your experience, can I advance in the field of reporting and apply a request to be certified as a Wikinews reporter?

Another issue I would like your comments on is reporting about occurrences outside Palestine. Although all of the articles I've published so far focus on the events that take place in Palestine, you are surely aware that there are many Palestinians living abroad in many other countries, and I am quite knowledgeable in the happenings in those places too. I'd like to know whether you think I should stretch my boundaries to these areas or continue to specialize in Palestine?

With great thanks and appreciation,

Yusuf Alsheikh —The preceding comment was added by Yusuf Alsheikh (talk • contribs) 14:39, 31 August 2014

Yes, I've noticed your improvement over time. I'm glad you get satisfaction out of your contributions to Wikinews; wikis are driven by idealism, and Wikinews moves forward (despite considerable technical challenges, which we strive to find ways to alleviate) because good journalism is an inspiring ideal.
I do have a concern, regarding your plan to use en.wn accreditation for interviews with Palestinian politicians. As I recall, in recent times you've still sometimes had some difficulties with neutrality. Keep in mind, if en.wn accredits you, we are vouching for your conduct. There are some remarks at WN:OR about neutral interviews, and some good examples at Category:Interview (some going back quite a few years); you might also consider posting a query to one of the water coolers — perhaps the assistance water cooler — asking for advice about conducting neutral interviews, and conducting interviews in general. I'm not sure how quickly you'd get responses, but you're sure to get more responses, more quickly, if you ask than if you don't :-).
Pursuing these things would likely help you with a subsequent application for en.wn accreditation.
As for advantages to you from accreditation, the simplest is that, once accredited, you would get an email account at wikinewsie dot org, the non-WMF site maintained for some years now by User:Brian McNeil for various Wikinews-related purposes. Anyone you approach for an interview is going to take you more seriously when you contact them from an address ending with "at wikinewsie dot org" than from an address ending in, say, "at gmail dot com" or "at hotmail dot com". It just looks more professional. And you can identify yourself in your email as an accredited English Wikinews reporter, perhaps in your email signature, and link to WN:Credential verification. There were some efforts made, a while back, toward accreditation cards of some sort; I'm not sure what actually happened, or what the current status of that is, but likely Brian McNeil could tell you.
If you wish to write about Palestinians around the world, I see no necessary difficulty in doing so. As I recall, I had a review concern this summer about one article you wrote about Palestinian protests around the world because it seemed one-sided, which would certainly be something to watch out for. --Pi zero (talk) 16:05, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Writing "for the enemy" is hard. The more you care about a subject, the harder it becomes to not treat those who you tend to agree with favourably. Similarly, the harder it is not to treat those you disagree with with contempt.
Actual accreditation cards fell-through, although I still have the last biz card design templates kicking around somewhere. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:12, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Pi Zero, thanks for your honest and supportive notes. I shall take your advice into consideration. I'll try to consult with the water coolers and do my best to create a balanced OR. Additionally, I'll continue to write articles while striving to achieve the neutrality that is required of every journalist.
Brian McNeil, thank you for your understanding and support.
Thank you both for your guidance and the thorough comments to my last article. I re-edited the article based on your comments, but when I entered the site to upload it I saw it had already been published, thanks to another editor. --Yusuf Alsheikh / talk 16:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Russia

Hey. This sitelink is redundant, because it is redirect to category namespace and it is in this item. Rzuwig► 20:01, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rzuwig: as I remarked at Wikidata project chat, there appears to be a difference between the purpose of Wikidata — building an ontology, if I understand correctly — and the purpose of inerwikis. The purpose of an interwiki is to allow the user to navigate easily to the analogous page on another project. In this case, however, the redirect makes this mapping asymmetric: our Russian portal has, as its effective Russian analog, the Russian Category:Russia, while the Russian Category:Russia has as its English analog our English Category:Russia. It would seem unfair to Russian Wikinews to pretend it has no analogous page, just because the mapping back to English is asymmetric. But what that implies about Wikidata structure, you would know more about that I would. I'm concerned with the interwikis themselves, however they are accomplished. --Pi zero (talk) 20:54, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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