Wikinews:Water cooler
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Miscellaneous |
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Wikinews news
- The new members of the Arbitration Committee were announced earlier this month. See here for its newest members.
- There was another irc meeting on Sunday, April 24 (log). See Wikinews:IRC workshop for more information and future meetings.
- There was an irc meeting on April 10, prompting lots of succesful discussion. See logs.
- Discussion taking place about Speedy Deleting some article redirects
- Things needing doing:
Accreditation requests: 2 Requests for permissions: 0 Flagged revs requests: 2 Bot requests: 3 FA candidates: 3 Deletion: 0 Articles needing review: 3 Developing articles: 7 Flagged discussions: 3 Quiz: Fix me! Edit
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Policy
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Policies and guidelines and the Style guide contain or link to most of the current en.Wikinews policies and guidelines, however policy is based on the accepted practices of the day on Wikinews, often these might not be written down. This section of the Water cooler focuses on discussions regarding policy issues.
You may wish to check the archives to see if a subject has been raised previously.
Accreditation and Google News listings
This thread is, effectively, a placeholder to invite discussion from other language versions of Wikinews. At-present only the English-language version of Wikinews has a listing on Google News, and the majority of accredited reporters are from this language version of the project.
I am actively seeking to expand both. To achieve such I am canvassing input from other language versions of the project. Please make every effort to keep the discussion positive regarding requirements for GNews listing, and the advantages that come with being accredited. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- Ad accreditations: For the Czech projects, association Wikimedia Czech Republic offers help with aquiring accreditations. We do not know whether there are any problems with that, as there was not any interest after WMCZ offered this (although there was some before...).
- Ad Google News: Yes, that was a thing that we were looking after, but did not find any good clue how to obtain the "Google News" status. However as we are a small project, we probably cannot run the official process of reviewing... Okino (talk) 12:53, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
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- Okino, thank you for the prompt response. The primary point for listing in GNews is review of submissions by an uninvolved editor.
- If you have an editor who is not involved in the creation of an article carry out fact-checking work and employ flagged revisions to pass/fail review, then it is relatively easy to get listed in Google News. If you need any help whatsoever with that, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. My 'gut' feeling is that non-English versions of Wikinews have far more to gain from such listings in terms of exposure.
- I'd also be keen to know more about your accreditation process, and any constraints on that. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
- Well, with a community of about three to four people, the news would be often listened many days after being published. Anyway thanks for Your hint. Okino (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
As a Turkish Wikinews user, I think that it is still too early for the project to have an accrediation policy or some kind of review policy. Only the two sysops, including me are permanently active. The community is actually not independent from Turkish Wikipedia, they are Wikipedians sometimes writing a Wikinews article. Although there has recently been some improvements, we have not yet achieved a permanent activity. Thus, the project can be considered as a "seasonal" project, it usually becomes active when a user regularly contributes to it, which attracts other users. Under these conditions, a review policy might cause further problems. One of them is that, until the time it is reviewed, a breaking news article might become outdated. So, currently, users are actually encouraged to publish articles without review, and if there is any problem, it is fixed within a few days.
For accreditations, as a person living in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, I do not know much about the process in Turkey, where most Turkish speakers reside. For the TRNC, I can easily say that no one is going to take you serious with just a Wikinews accreditation. To be taken seriously, a press card is needed, which is quite impossible for Wikinews users to get, as it requires a signed contract and a social security document. Additionally, there is no Wikimedia chapter in Turkey, which might make the process in Turkey harder.
Turkish Wikinews users have applied to Google News twice before, and this seems the reason why it was rejected each time. So this means that for a long period of time, we are still not going to have a Google News listing. --Seksen iki yüz kırk beş (talk) 16:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
- I'm from Italian-language Wikinews. I lazily borrow almost each word of Seksen iki yüz kırk beş about the editing situation of the project. However, there is a project (named Wiki@Home) of the Italian Wikimedia chapter, which publishes interviews on Wikinews, maybe it could be of your interest — they could have some accreditation policy or practice. -- Codicorumus « msg 18:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Breaking news?
[If this has been covered previously, my apologies].......in regard to "breaking news" here, I've just had this topic on my mind lately, as I think (in my opinion, at least) that this project should not be too wrapped up in sythesis articles, but should have alot of original reporting. Is the 2 other news sources rule pretty hard-and-fast here for a true breaking news story, especially if the OR reporter just happens to stumble into something hot and wants to submit it hastily? [Not sure exactly what the hell it is I'm asking.....if someone else figures it out, then I guess we'll both know!!!]Bddpaux (talk) 04:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
- Short answer: If there is OR, no. If there isn't yes.
- Long answer: If you've got Original research, you don't require an external source - as long as you OR notes back up everything you've written. This applies to breaking news as well as the non-breaking news. --RockerballAustralia c 05:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
webcitation - not as primary link
The question has come up of whether and how to use webcitation at Wikinews. On more careful consideration of the nature of news, my conclusion is, no. At least, not as the primary link. Maybe not even as a secondary link, but that does require some thought.
News articles get corrected, and by using webcitation as the primary link, the reviewer wouldn't know they'd been corrected. Sometimes they may even be taken down entirely due to some major problem (like libel), and by using webcitation one might not know.
There might be a use for webcitation to secondarily preserve the form of an article that the author used when writing; one might have an additional parameter on the {{source}} template for this — but even that would have to be used carefully by reviewers, and considering who brought the idea here I'm inclined to examine this wooden horse very closely before taking it inside our gates. --Pi zero (talk) 14:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Technical
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Required: Userspacing gadget
Looking at use of Wikinews for education projects, such as the UoW ones, there is obviously a need to quickly and easily move articles to userspace. Deletion as stale/abandoned means that examples of not-up-to-scratch work are being lost, and the educational value from failing with them.
I would like to see a gadget developed to deal with this — possibly also being included as a button from within the {{abandoned}} and {{stale}} templates. The required functionality is, I believe, covered by the below:
- Retrieve the article's edit history, this is to be parsed for possible target userspace to put the article in.
- As-default, offer the most frequent contributor prior to the first addition of the review template. (Identified with edit summary: Please review this article. (moved using js via button)).
- Then, ignore edits by the same editor leading to a failed review (Identified with edit summary: Not ready when reviewed: article needs improvement(s). Add article flag. (Using easy peer review)) back to the next differing editor. With the remaining revisions, offer contributors in order of how many contributions.
- Lastly, offer option to open edit history in new Window/Tab next to a box to manually specify the user whose space the article should be moved to.
- When "Userspace article" is clicked, article is moved with a redirect left behind.
- Once article is in userspace:
- 'Deactivate' {{date}} templates (insert the tl| to avoid category inclusion)
- 'Deactivate' any infobox template (method as-per date template, but assume any template within the 1st 3-4 lines is an infobox).
- 'Deactivate' categories by prefixing the Category: with a colon (":").
Saving failed articles in this way will allow a great deal more to be learned from submissions which don't end up published. And, with a single automated edit, the most troublesome work of userspacing an article is automated. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
- We'd likely want ability to manually specify a userspace by a parameter to the template, which when present would settle the question of whether to move to userspace and obviate the elaborate automatic search for a choice of destination. Conceivably, we might want to limit the move-to-userspace option to articles marked in some way (either the parameter, or otherwise).
- When an article's problems include (non-blatant, hence non-speedy-able) copyvio, moving to user space on a permanent basis may be the wrong approach (though the article talk page may be less problematic).
- Though {{tl}} disables thoroughly, it may also obscure what the template was supposed to look like; a parameter (perhaps nocat=1 ?) might be better if supported. --Pi zero (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Notification of review
This would likely be an added function of EZPR (terrifying thought). When a review is submitted, the gadget would automatically identify users who have done nontrivial work on the article, and would put a notice on each of their user talk pages.
- This function should probably be optional, so a reviewer can choose not to do it.
- We'd need to hammer out the automated criteria for who to inform. (To get fancy, should the reviewer be able to adjust the criteria, or even remove and add users to the list to be informed?)
- The notice would go in a section titled "[[Name of article]]".
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- If there is already a section on the user talk page with that name, the notice should probably be put in that already-existing section.
- Here's a likely form for the notice:
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- * This article, [to which you have contributed/which you created], has been [published/found not ready on review]. See: [[Name of article#anchor|review comments]], {{plainlinks|{{fullurl:Name of article|action=history}}|history of edits during review}}. <small>—review via easyPeerReview by ~~~~</small>
- where the anchor sends the link directly to the particular review section for that review.
--Pi zero (talk) 18:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
- What about also a nice Congratulations! or Job well done! when a review is successfully completed? -- Cirt (talk) 19:15, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
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- These little extra messages should probably be manual customizations, or at least manually customizable. This also highlights that we don't want review notifications going to users whose contributions to the article were vandalism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pi zero (talk • contribs)
- Just a thought, maybe the tool could give a list of all users who contributed, and then allow a check off list to only notify the users manually selected by the reviewer. Cocoaguytalkcontribs‽ 19:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Support If we can do it, let's do it! —Tom Morris (talk) 22:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)- Support If technically possible. Cocoaguytalkcontribs‽ 04:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support provided we can add the customizable options as specified, above. -- Cirt (talk) 04:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support Sounds like a really good idea. --Cspurrier (talk) 04:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Support If we can do it, let's do it! —Proposals
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Comment section
Has this wiki ever considered comment sections on news articles like several new sites around the web have? I don't know about everyone else but I enjoy seeing what other people think about a news subject. CRRaysHead90 | We Believe! 03:53, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
- There's a comments page associated with each article. It's available on a tab at the top — first tab is the article, second is the article's collaboration (i.e., talk) page, third is the comments page. There's also a "have your say" template on each article, which links to the comments page. --Pi zero (talk) 04:00, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
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- I didn't see that, it needs to be more obvious, maybe a link at the end of each article. CRRaysHead90 | We Believe! 05:53, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
- What, like this:
- What, like this:
- I didn't see that, it needs to be more obvious, maybe a link at the end of each article. CRRaysHead90 | We Believe! 05:53, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
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- That, usually, is at the end of every article. What did you read that lacked this? --Brian McNeil / talk 09:01, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
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Never mind me, I'll just be overhere...in the corner...looking like an idiot. *facepalm* CRRaysHead90 | We Believe! 22:24, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
- /me chuckles. Sometimes we all overlook the obvious, so get out the corner and participate ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 00:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Assistance
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Any suggestions or ideas would be very welcomed and appreciated
I'm working on my first article and all the pages I've tried to create have been deleted for reasons that can't be given. If anyone can please help me write this article so that it won't be deleted or questionable I'd be ever so grateful. I'm more than willing to share writing credit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zeddicus Zorander 88 (talk • contribs) 17:31, January 12, 2012 UTC
Miscellaneous
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This is mainly just a note that will be of use to people on the list of admins for Wikinews' Facebook page.
I've, frequently, wondered "how do I post on the page as me, not as 'Wikinews'?" Well, here's how:
- Log into Facebook
- Go to the Wikinews Facebook page
- Click "See all" in the Admins section (where the avatars are shown)
- Select "'Your settings" in the left-hand menu
- Uncheck "Posting preferences"
Now, whenever you go to the Wikinews Facebook page you will, by default, post as yourself.
- If you need to post something as Wikinews first select "Use Facebook as Wikinews", which appears just under the admin avatars on the right of the Wikinews Facebook wall. Then, you can post stuff like a newly-published article, notification of a just-promoted FA and so on.
One more Facebook tip for page admins, and I know I've not been the only one to encounter this… Sometimes, when you paste a link into where it says "What's on your mind?", or go to post a link, you're offered a summary that is out of date, or even not offered the full set of thumbnails from the article — Facebook have stale data cached goodness-knows-where.
- To force the absolute-latest version of the page be posted, you need to resort to the "raw" page link. For example, our Main page:
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- https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page
- When anyone clicks on the link, the URL will be rewritten to the more normal /wiki/ form.
And, do remember to edit titles on posted articles (strip the " - Wikinews, the free news source"), and you can tweak the posted text description if it cuts off at a bad point. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
14 pound baby!!!!!?????
It's a little stale now........I heard on a local radio station (tonight) that mom is a graduate of LeTorneau University in Longview, Texas.........not too far from my town (although I'm pretty sure she lives in another state now).......man, we missed that one!! Yowza!Bddpaux (talk) 03:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Wikinewsie.org moving hosting
After one last irksome problem with Godaddy, I'm moving the wikinewsie.org domain's hosting to another provider — based in Amsterdam.
New hosting will mean new email accounts, so please make sure you clean out what's on Godaddy. The good news is the new host, ITEC, offers mailing list support. So, there will be a wikinewsie.org list (at long last). Plus, the email accounts use SpamAssassin.
Initially, you'll probably see a couple of hours outage as DNS is re-pointed; you may lose some emails during this changeover! Once switched, I will start setting up accounts for people on the new host. You will still be able to download email from Godaddy, but new emails will come in to the new accounts.
I'll post another update once the site has transitioned. At that point, I can start switching over emails. Something is bound to break, so when it does contact me on brian dot mcneil at o2 dot co dot uk. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
- <grumbles about finally having to do something about all the emails xe stores online> Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 16:23, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
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- The Godaddy email store won't go away immediately (read, you've about a month to sort shit), but new emails will come in and need retrieved from a new server. --Brian McNeil / talk
Facebook: only comments, not new posts
Hi all: In "Posting Ability", I've unchecked "People can write or post content on the wall". That way, people can still comment on our (the admins) posts, but not start their own. I feel this is the only easy way for us to keep the spam to a minimum. -- Zanimum (talk) 00:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
