User talk:Tom Morris

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Tempodivalse [talk] 20:37, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for doing that :-) wackywace 09:03, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Belief's Page

I just read your Belief's page. It's nice to see another person who knows who James Randi is:). Do you listen to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast? I like it. As for political beliefs, personally I'm closer to Centrist Libertarian than anything else, although I don't perfectly align with what they believe. Gopher65_talk 01:16, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Gopher65. Thanks for the comment. I used to listen to SGU, but I listen to so many podcasts and it was just way too long for me to get through every week, so I had to drop it. I listen to Point of Inquiry, Rationally Speaking, Skeptics with a K and Pod Delusion (which I also occasionally contribute to). As for Centrist Libertarianism? Sounds like it's rubbed off quite a lot of the stuff I couldn't accept in libertarianism. I'm definitely still a civil libertarian, but I'm definitely no longer an economic libertarian (blame an exposure to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in political philosophy class a few years ago). —Tom Morris (talk) 01:23, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Reviewer Promotion

I have promoted you to the Wikinews:Reviewer class, entrusting you with the ability to mark revisions of articles as sighted (review). Please take a moment to read:

• Wikinews:Flagged revisions
• Wikinews:Reviewing articles
• {{Peer review}}
• {{Review}}
• Reviewed article version
• Flagged Revisions extension information, on MediaWiki

You are welcome to use {{User Wikinews reviewer}}.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask for help on my talk page, and thank you for contributing to Wikinews! Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 16:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Congrats.

Another link that could be useful (no official status, but the first place I look for stuff, as it gathers together items and links from all over): WN:Tips on reviewing articles#Checklist. --Pi zero (talk) 17:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to the Wikinews community, and especially Blood Red Sandman, Dendodge, Diego Grez and Pmlineditor! I've added the userbox and approved my first article: Libyan rebels retake town of Brega. I hope I can keep the backlog under control so news gets published in a timely fashion. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

ICANN approves .xxx domain for pornography

Fixed, I believe. Thanks! Mattisse (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

redirected article

How can I regain the edits I lost in the redirect? I saved the article additions, then noticed the redirect. Where is the article I saved? It was almost finished. Is there a way I can get the article back? Thanks, Mattisse (talk) 17:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure, I'm afraid. If they haven't been deleted, they'll still be in your user contributions. If they have been deleted, you'll have to ask an admin. —Tom Morris (talk) 18:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Dates

Just as a FYI, the Style Guide does not recommend use of st, nd, and so. -Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Hyde Park/Miliband

Hi Tom Morris! Just about the article "Thousands gather in London to protest against government cuts". I've some doubts about the following sentence : "..The Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, addressed hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers from Hyde Park,...". Why do you write "..marchers from Hyde Park.."? I saw that in this case marchers were already rallied in Hyde Park and the Labour Party leader addressed them there. I would write "..hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers rallied in Hyde Park.." instead "..marchers from Hyde Park..". Thanks a lot in advance! 109.53.175.167 (talk) 10:52, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

They weren't marching from Hyde Park, they were marching, and he addressed them in Hyde Park. But, yes, the article is unclear. I've updated it. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Female boxer shot before fight by stepfather in Berlin

Hi. Noting mechanical stuff that this was published still needing fixed, I commend to your attention the rule of thumb about always looking for a copyedit, here. --Pi zero (talk) 12:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I bollocksed that one up. Sorry. Will be more careful in future. Thanks for telling me. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Barry Bonds guilty of obstruction

Hi. This was a serious error, and reflects badly on the project. Reminder: It should be quite rare that a reviewer publishes an article without making some improvement(s) to it. Taking the time to find some useful pre-publication improvement(s) helps the reviewer avoid getting careless, and seeing the pre-publication edit(s) is important for project morale all around (of the author, the reviewer, and third parties). See the rule of thumb at the top of this section. --Pi zero (talk) 14:01, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

"Yesterday" on the main page

Re this, just a reminder that WN:ML says "Please remember to not use time-sensitive phrasing in Main Page leads, such as "yesterday" or "today" – the leads are sometimes around for several days after publication, and the phrasing becomes out of date quickly." Regards, Bencherlite (talk) 05:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I'd never promoted something to the homepage before. Glad to know how it is done. I'll try and suck less at it in the future. —Tom Morris (talk) 06:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

One confirmed dead after tornado hits Auckland, New Zealand

Hi. Noting a couple of style failures you missed on this review. The article didn't have a proper lede; and the pull-quote was a quote that wasn't in the article. Neither of these was difficult to fix, but they're fairly basic, and the first (lede) especially is readily spotted and fairly important to fix before passing. --Pi zero (talk) 17:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations!

It took a while to get enough !votes in, but I've just promoted UK Parliament to vote on tuition fee rise on Thursday to well-deserved featured status. Congratulations, and thanks for your hard work on it! the wub "?!" 12:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, the wub. Woohoo! —Tom Morris (talk) 13:00, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

reviewer, NARA Wikipedian in Residence interview

Hey Tom,

Thank you so much for supporting my reviewer nomination! I appreciate the vote of confidence. :) I'm not sure if you've noticed yet, but my interview, which you reviewed, had some issues with a quote possibly taken out of context. The conflict seems to have abated, especially since the quote was just removed entirely, but I just wanted to let you know in case you were interested. Cheers, Ragettho (talk) 02:53, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Aaron Swartz arrested and charged for downloading JSTOR articles

I noticed that someone who had not contributed to the above article added a review tag. Do you agree that the article is ready to be reviewed?--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No. But it's not far off. —Tom Morris (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Explosion in Oslo

No objections to merging, but I'm not familiar with Wikinews workflow and conventions, so I'm just adding Talk page comments so far. --Xover (talk) 15:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Cheers for the review of the Israeli protests article, and for finding those pictures! the wub "?!" 16:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge

The article Train accident in China kills at least 35‎, which you started, was written about two hours after the article At least 35 reported dead after trains collide in China. A suggestion has been placed on the page for a merge.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I started Train accident in China kills at least 35 at 20:39, 23 July 2011. At least 35 reported dead after trains collide in China was created at 18:47, 24 July 2011. But, sure, merge away. Don't care what it's called or who wrote it: I do care very strongly that it is still not published. —Tom Morris (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

My apologies, I did not notice the different date.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:10, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I wrote the other article, didn't realize there were two. Sorry. My sentiments would echo the above: someone had better just pick one, publish the bloody thing, and redirect the other. The important thing is to publish something. C628 (talk) 20:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Scientists complain of death threats over chronic fatigue syndrome research

Did you forget to place the review tag on this article? --William S. Saturn (talk) 15:46, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I didn't get around to finishing it. Without the OR, it's not very interesting. But the amount of OR possible doesn't quite make it interesting enough. It's probably stale now. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not (as) stale if you add OR to it. A bit of OR can save the article from staleness. —Mikemoral♪♫ 04:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Review request

Could you please review BMW announces 7.6% sales rise as US, China demand grows for me? --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 18:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Done I didn't promote it to lead story though: no offence, but it isn't as significant as any of the current lead stories, all of which are pretty fresh stories. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to do that, Tom Morris. (P.S. I did. :) --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 19:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Review

Hi there, i was wondering if you could please review my article "Call for Inquiry into Murdoch pay-offs" please? jessicalynnoraUOW

Might be able to. The Wollogong students have rather overloaded us. I haven't been reviewing as much as I'd like as I've been busy with a new job, but will try and squeeze one or two reviews in before work. —Tom Morris (talk) 07:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

EU copyright extension article

I took the libery of pulling a bit out the 2008 interview article you referenced as related. I didn't have time to research what pressures there had been to harmonise with the US's 95-year term, but thought it appropriate to highlight this was being sought at one time, opposition has been active equally as long, and highlight content that nobody but Wikinews got.

Thoughts? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of OR... :-)

Just wondering, whatever became of the Southampton fluoridation thing? --Pi zero (talk) 13:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't have time to follow it up because of work and family and so on. Which is a shame. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Reminder

Importance of not creating an appearance of rubber-stamping. (I was worried about that other article the other day, too.) WN:Tips on reviewing articles, specifically the note at WN:Tips on reviewing articles#How much to do. --Pi zero (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

First case of euthanasia for severe dementia patient in Netherlands

Hi. A couple of things need clearing up; see review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 12:10, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Knight Foundation and Mozilla send geeks into newsrooms

I got most of it, there were a few specific points left over; I enumerated them. Should be straightforward, one way or another. --Pi zero (talk) 04:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That one sentence I tried really hard to verify off the audio, but still couldn't. Really hoping we can corroborate it and get it back in within the 24-hour window, but decided (after an IRC consult) not to further hold up publication over it. See my review comment. --Pi zero (talk) 19:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Broken record player

Appearances matter. All that can be seen on-wiki about the review of the Hungary homeless article is that it was published with no previous edits at all by the reviewer, with a couple of grammatical errors (one of them pretty serious). That sends a message to observers, including the author, that we don't want to send. This is, after all, exactly the sort of thing that is addressed explicitly by the "handy rule of thumb" at the top of WN:Tips on reviewing articles#How much to do.

Note that the first thing I do when reviewing an article is some basic copyediting, cleaning up {{source}}s, adding cats, fixing problems with the headline. Partly of ocurse that's to make sure I don't forget later, and partly to help me ease myself into immersion in the article — but it's also meant to provide visible on-wiki evidence sooner rather than later that I've started review, so that my review looks, if anything, like it took even longer than it did (should I have stepped out of the room during it, say), and never looks like it took less time than it did. Because for the project to work best, everyone involved (authors, reviewers, readers) should see that review has substance to it. --Pi zero (talk) 23:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Great job!

Excellent work on the article, "Australian woman claims Church of Scientology imprisoned her for twelve years". Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 14:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Author and contrarian Christopher Hitchens dies at age 62

Couldn't find the Dawkins quote, and when it was the only remaining obstacle to publication I pulled it and published. A replacement sentence (or resolution of the verification question) oughtn't be difficult, if gotten to in time. --Pi zero (talk) 19:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I am sure it is in one of the sources, but can't remember which one. Am off to a Christmas party but will try to find source while on train. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Keeping track

Tom, you could always create Category:Tom Morris (Wikinewsie) and make it hidden. That's pretty much how I keep track, and it has the advantage you can use DPLs on your userpage. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Was going to respond the other day, but I've finally Done it! Much better. Plus there's an RSS feed, which is handy. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Userboxen

Personally, I use both reviewer box and admin box, since one doesn't imply t'other. (BarkingFish spent several months without reviewer, about a year ago, then requested re-reviewer at FR/RFP.) --Pi zero (talk) 15:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Image removal

I see you listed on the IRC channel. We were just discussing there the subject of not removing broken images from articles. (I started the discussion with: "B-R-S: What's our standard practice on broken images on articles? My understanding was we don't remove them." Because I'd noticed you removing one (didn't check further back to see if there were others); that's a Wikipedian thing. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 00:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Congrats!

Congratulations on the successful RfA! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! —Tom Morris (talk) 17:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

neologism category

There aren't enough articles for a category. *Maybe* there will be another, but it's a poorish category anyway (we refer cats for places, people, and organizations, mostly, and this would always be awfully similar to the cat for Savage). I really hope you'll be willing to speedy-delete the category, as a nomination for deletion just might turn into a disruptive pain. --Pi zero (talk) 20:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There's been plenty of new coverage in mainstream media about new developments related to this. For example, this development involving Congressman Jared Polis. The category is also useful to show links to sister research such as on Wiktionary. Let's give it some time. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

New sources, post publish of recent article

• Wade Norris. "Rick Santorum's Red Badge of 'Savage'" — The Huffington Post, February 8, 2012
• Dave Thier. "Santorum Can't Beat The Internet" — Forbes, February 8, 2012
• Danny Sullivan. "Why Does Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine Hate Rick Santorum?" — Search Engine Land, February 8, 2012
• Sam Biddle. "Santorum Is Winning Caucuses but Still Losing Google" — Gizmodo, February 8, 2012
• Patricia Calhoun. "Dan Savage made Rick Santorum's name mud...or close enough" — Westword, February 8, 2012
• David Weigel. "The State of the Santorum Google Problem" — Slate, February 8, 2012

Above listed are new sources, all post publish of most recent article. -- Cirt (talk) 00:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Those aren't Wikinews articles. I wish I'd been faster to object; this is the sort of hullabaloo I fervently hoped to avoid. But there's a reason we don't want categories with fewer than three articles (and the threshold used to be higher — five or six, I believe): otherwise we'd be hip-deep in unmaintainable categories. We have to have the moral authority to tell people "no, you can't create a category for the topic of the article you just wrote".

What makes for a maintainable category, and how to make our category hierarchy more maintainable, are questions I've been exploring now for more than a year of large-scale cat work; it seems to me one of the important factors is that singleton categories are hard to maintain, while complete sets of siblings can be far more useful. We have a cat for every country in the world, and therefore know to expect those cats to be there (even though I think there are one or two that have fewer than three articles). We have every state in the US. Every state in Australia. Every province in Canada. I've been thinking for a while now of investigating the merits of having every state in India. These things are far more likely to be populated if complete sets of siblings lead people to expect the categories to be there. But singleton categories aren't like that. How can we possibly expect Category:Targeted killing to be added to new articles when people don't know the cat is there (and it doesn't correspond to a nearly-inevitable wikilink, so {{w}} isn't much help)? And a while back we got a new category Category:Nuclear weapons largely, it seems, because people didn't realize we already had categories to cover that stuff — categories that had ceased to be added to new articles some time back, because people forgot they were there. (The nuclear part of our hierarchy is now high on my list of tangled messes that I wish I knew how to fix.) --Pi zero (talk) 01:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Those 2 categories you mentioned are great! Wikinews is not paper. :) And both those categories have a few good articles in them. And the links I posted above, are sources showing there is great potential for more Wikinews articles. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 03:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Targeted killing is, given our current infrastructure, a dreadful category, because it's unmaintainable. A category is valuable when its content is a good reflection of what our archives actually have on the subject, therefore it's not valuable if people won't remember to add new articles to it when they should. The {{w}} much improved categorization by making it very likely categories would be remembered if they correspond to something almost certain to be mentioned and wikilinked when the article is related to it. But abstract topic categories that might not correspond to a wikilink are still not supported by any technical aid to remembering. That's why I dislike Category:Targeted killing. At some point in the future I hope to build a gadget that's a sort of categorization wizard to help think of categories to add to an article, but I'm not sure yet how it'll work, and depending how it does work there will probably still be some kinds of categories that won't be easy to remember.

BTW, I do appreciate that the neologism category once created cannot readily be removed, exactly because Wikipedians with an anit-Wikinews bias will find it far harder to form plausible justifications for not linking to the category than they would for not linking to any particular article on the subject. --Pi zero (talk) 06:22, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can certainly agree with you that such a gadget would be a very valuable addition to this project! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 06:55, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Anti-ACTA activists protest across Europe

Troubles with fact-checking of the process for ACTA in various countries. reviewer comments. --Pi zero (talk) 06:07, 12 February 2012 (UTC)