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• too lazy to replace {{developing}} with {{review}}. Now we have a button to magically do it for you on {{develop}}.
• Google news now indexes us sort of. Please do a hard refresh before reviewing your next article.
• {{topicon}} should now make icons that go by the title bar (like on FA articles), that work with vector/all skins.
• We're now using vector, and the enhanced edit toolbar!
• Users who come directly to Wikinews from Wikipedia, and edit something immediately (That is not old), get {{Editintro from wikipedia}} while editing. Users who edit an old article get {{Editintro notcurrent}}.
• The number of articles on the main rss feed has been shortened. If you don't like this change, please raise a fuss.
• If you are using {{Latest news}} in a main page re-design, you have to switch to using {{latest news/old}} as {{latest news}} has changed significantly.
• [edit lead] links on main page is now invisible to anons.
• Easy Peer review gadget now bumps {{date}} automatically
• bugs (affecting Wikinews): useful categories, old request to switch to dpl2, RSS feed extension, DEFAULTSORTKET: causes articles to go to top of DPLs, Blanking page causes article to be most recently published
• things needing doing: Accreditation requests: 2 Requests for permissions: 0 Flagged revs requests: 0 Bot requests: 1 Articles needing review: 0 Quiz: Ok ^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.

Strategic Planning

The Wikimedia Foundation has begun a year long phase of strategic planning. During this time of planning, members of the community have the opportunity to propose ideas, ask questions, and help to chart the future of the Foundation. In order to create as centralized an area as possible for these discussions, the Strategy Wiki has been launched. This wiki will provide an overview of the strategic planning process and ways to get involved, including just a few questions that everyone can answer. All ideas are welcome, and everyone is invited to participate.

Please take a few moments to check out the strategy wiki. It is being translated into as many languages as possible now; feel free to leave your messages in your native language and we will have them translated (but, in case of any doubt, let us know what language it is, if not english!).

All proposals for the Wikimedia Foundation may be left in any language as well.

Please, take the time to join in this exciting process. The importance of your participation can not be overstated.

--Philippe

(please cross-post widely and forgive those who do)

Wikinews:Featured article candidates - should not be nominated until they are archived

Newsworthiness - how to define it?

I've recently noticed that, while we frequently mention newsworthiness and have a {{newsworthy}} template, we don't have a policy on it, or anything in the help/policy/guideline pages that describes how much newsworthiness a story needs before it can be published. This was especially brought to my attention when a new user created Benet Academy students raise money for leukemia patient, a very local news article, and was a bit confused as to why it wasn't newsworthy enough for publication. See also the thread on my talk page. The closest we have to newsworthiness criteria is at WN:CG as far as I can tell: "News must be relevant", which is very vague and subjective. I'd like to suggest we create a policy page (or at least guideline) that gives pointers on what our minimum standards for "newsworthiness" is. Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 03:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I steered clear of that particular article less-so for notability, more because the sources were crappy and of questionably credibility. I think newsworthiness could be a particularly contentious issue to try and nail down as a policy. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Well we all agree that something like User:Edbrown05/Grass in Uncle G's back garden continues to grow is not news worthy. But where the line is, is a very good question, and one i think that would be very hard to figure out. In many ways this is similiar to Wikipedia's issue of what is notable, perhaps we can maybe look there for some ideas how to define newsworthiness (as in to see how they go about defining it, there definition of notability obviously is not a good definition of news worthiness). Bawolff ☺☻ 13:25, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought there was a newsworthiness policy — a very flexible and subjective one, which I think are probably beneficial traits, at least at the size and stage of development where we are now. Template:Newsworthy refers to WikiNews:Content guide, which says:

• News is relevant. Being Wikinews — global and Internet-based — stories about local news may need to have their relevance explained for our international audience. Stories should appeal to a large number of people.

This doesn't actually say no local stories, although it does seem somewhat discouraging of them. And even that could have unfortunate long-term consequences. There is a deep question here about possible directions for the long-term evolution of WikiNews. Perhaps what we should be doing is providing more guidance on how to include local stories, making them as comprehensible and interesting for a wider audience as may be, and at the same time providing some sort of additional/modified infrastructure so that they don't become annoying clutter for those readers who aren't interested in them. Imagine a future in which Wikinews is a major source of news, both local and non-local, for myriad (English-speaking, in our case) localities around the world, with orders of magnitude more throughput than we have now. It's not that different a concept from Wikipedia providing lots of specialized articles, that might be looked at by anyone, but are only likely to be relevant to people with certain interests. --Pi zero (talk) 16:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

One thing I often make reference to is the fact that a traffic accident is typical local news. If the article is of similar 'importance' (in a news sense) to articles like Driver hits median strip, rolls vehicle in NSW, Australia, then it is newsworthy enough for inclusion without doubt. Just to throw that out there. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• This is why I'm leery of trying to formulate a 'hard' policy. Perhaps the biggest problem we face is ultra-local or "microinterest" stuff that is questionable. The usual problem with things like this is that the contributors working on them are involved and have a likely COI. The kill on sight ones are those you see using SEO techniques to promote their project or interest; yes, a lot of them are gamer sites pushing how they've got the latest news on something. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:27, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
• I think we need some kind of guideline, even if it's reasonably vague. "Significant coverage in other mainstream (non-local) news organisations" would be the best criterion, in my opinion, but I'm reasonably happy with what we have now. Dendodge _T\^C 20:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• "non-local"? enwp style? You want to ban local news? No way from me. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Not ban local coverage, just not include anything that hasn't made its way onto the BBC or CNN or similar. If they don't consider it newsworthy, we can probably also do without it. All it serves to do is clog newpages with stuff people outside of that region are unlikely to read. Perhaps "of interest to people outside of a certain geographic area" would be better? Dendodge _T\^C 20:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• To me, not including anything that isn't on national news sites pretty much is a ban on local news. It's often quite haphazard what does and does not end up there and the best sources would tend to be the local ones anyway. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:33, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Limiting what we can report on to international news sources is not a very good idea, i think. We'd miss out on a lot of legitimate local news that way. My idea was not to create a "hard" policy on it, but to make some mention that "micro-local" (i.e. not very significant even at the local level) stories, such as Benet Academy students raise money for leukemia patient, are probably not going to be accepted. Tempodivalse [talk] 20:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• I think you're probably right. A vague guideline is better than an en.wp-style hard policy. Cases should be assessed on their individual merits, not against a checklist of bureaucratic criteria. The last thing I want to do is ban local news. I think the hard part comes when we try to set a dividing line between acceptable and unacceptable local stories. I don't think, having thought about it more, that my proposals for a hard line are very good, and think a simple recommendation (with examples) would work better. Dendodge _T\^C 21:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Methinks it be the story, not the paper that reports it, that makes the difference. Rabat Chaîne Inter reporting on bus strikes on the 55B bus route between Kenitra and Rabat doth not a good story for an international market make. OTOH, should Sa Majesté Mohammed VI be killed in a terrorist explosion, I'd use them as one of the sources (yes I know, the BBC would probably report on that, but I think you get my point). --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey guys, sorry if I essentially opened up Pandora's box when I wrote that Benet article, but this discussion does bring up a point: how should "local news" be defined? Benny the mascot (talk) 22:11, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

"Local news", from my perspective, is news that's only concerns/is of significance within a relatively small area or population (i.e. a town, small city, city district, etc. etc.), and isn't relevant to many people outside that area. (does that make sense?) I don't think there's any strict boundary between "local" and "national/international" news, it's pretty subjective and really depends on one's definition of "local". Tempodivalse [talk] 22:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a reason for Category:Local only. Were Wikinews contributed to by as many people as Wikipedia there should be absolutely no reason to stop doing the legitimate local news. This — in theory — is the point of the Portal: namespace. If we end up with 20-30 people reporting from Pakistan and India, then those contributors can have a portal where they pick the leads for their geographic audience.

If you take the time to really explore something like the BBC News and Sport websites you'll find lots of interesting coverage that rarely makes the front page. A real gem to look out for hidden there is BBC Monitoring.

Wikinews can have authority by depth; well put together local news is a part of that. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I forgot we had "Local only"! I have nothing against any news, no matter how narrow its scope, as long as it does not push more important (in a news sense, not in the sense that students with lukaemia are unimportant, as that is obviously untrue) news off the DPLs and Latest News listings, while still allowing people who are genuinely interested to access it (through categories and/or portals). Dendodge _T\^C 22:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Aren't school related articles, therefore, to be considered as local news? A school is essentially a community of kids living in the same region. Benny the mascot (talk) 23:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps. But it does not make it a venue for you to publish your school newsletter. There are issues with contributor conflict of interest, self-promotion/PR, not to mention verifiability. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I would be fine with banning articles on trivial topics such as schools' extracurricular organizations, but since when did supporting a leukemia patient become NOT newsworthy? Benny the mascot (talk) 04:42, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• • When you 'only' raised $205. I appreciate that's a very worthwhile result, but newsworthy? That is where this kind of discussion starts. Actually, we've needed to have this one for a while, so whatever we decide, the article did *something* important. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 07:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes, just providing intuition with more raw data can jump-start it. So in that spirit, how much would they have to have raised to make it newsworthy? We can probably agree that it would be news if they'd raised $205 million; and the boundary between the two is presumably fuzzy, but roughly where would that fuzzy boundary be? Would it be newsworthy at $205 thousand? $20.5 thousand? What about $2050? --Pi zero (talk) 13:32, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say it's contextual; it can depend on the total annual income for the charity, the annual charitable donations by a group, or how it compares with the local GDP. Each case would need considered on merit. Perhaps better trying to build a list of questions; the story submitter reviews them and lists data for where there's a "yes" answer as a list of 'newsworthiness criteria'. $500 might be a lot in one case - if it was something like a village in Africa locally raising the funds to buy a small computer or a server for their OLPC users. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:06, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I find myself in complete agreement with Brian. Context is everything (c.f. my comment above). I like the idea of a list of questions: we could have a number of them, and an article may not have to fulfil every single one, just use it as a general guide as to the sense of newsworthiness (I don't believe in too many hard and fast rules or ticking every single box; sometimes things come down to judgement). I think one of the things that defines newsworthiness to me, is a story being out of the ordinary or being a notable achievement (though this introduces more fuzzy notions I fear). Something that is the exception, rather than the rule for example—a recent story on the BBC springs to mind, where an Indian schoolboy, after finishing his classes, went back to his village and was headmaster in a makeshift school for over 300 or so slightly-younger students, who otherwise would have had no education. Another thing maybe to bear in mind is the list of categories currently set up as guiding factors: whilst of course we can create new ones, they give a broad idea of what sort of articles we currently publish. Obviously these will develop over time, and I'm all for change. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 05:51, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Based on the gedankenexperiment about quantities of money raised, I was thinking that unusual-ness contributes to newsworthiness; and, thinking that that can't possible be all there is to it, I decided that having impact on a large number of people contributes to newsworthiness. But then I came across this story: London Lord Mayor's Show draws crowds despite bad weather. I loved this story. Why is it newsworthy? Yes, there's an historical connection between that culture and mine, but I'm pretty sure I'd similarly enjoy an analogous story in a different cultural setting... unless we got glutted with them. So maybe unusual-ness comes into play; but if so then, it seems to me, unusual-ness has such sweeping breadth to it that different aspects of it need separate explanation. And there's some sort of local-interest floating around here, of a sort that, I think, has some appeal for an international audience. Can stories be of equal local interest, yet not of equal newsworthiness by our standards because of how they'll play to a wider audience? And, is there something wrong with a notion of newsworthiness that would cause local stories to become less newsworthy simply because the number of them increases? --Pi zero (talk) 14:54, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• I tend to agree about the issue of newsworthiness relating to the Lord Mayor story. It's a long-held tradition, most people in the UK will know about it - if not seen one of the stagings of the event on TV - and there were topical items in it; the new Lord Mayor having a finance background, and linking him to the RAF. It, also, doesn't qualify as the same sort of crass commercialism as a multinational spending similar sums to make people by something. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Yeah, when writing that article I was really surprised how little coverage it got elsewhere this year - it's normally quite a big event. More generally, I wouldn't like to shut out articles that are seen as "local" if they are sufficiently unusual and well-written. I don't think we can, or should, try to define hard criteria. But perhaps we could keep a list somewhere of articles that were deemed un-newsworthy to give people guidance. the wub "?!" 23:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

{{breaking}} and {{breaking review}} abuse

This, 40th H1N1 swine flu death recorded in Scotland, by no stretch of the imagination, can be considered deserving of an urgent review.

All the — oft-repeated — expert opinions are that H1N1-A is no more deadly than the general annual flu season. There is some difference in the groups where serious illness and death occurs, but it is not new, it is not killing thousands, and it is well-understood.

Not to mention that when I just looked at the opening of the above article it started, "A Adult".

I'm sure there's a few other people might like to give an opinion on use of {{breaking}} and {{breaking review}}. I don't think we should follow the Fox-style dramatisation of news and attention-grabbing tactics splattering things like that over everything entails. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I've also noticed that {{breaking}} seems to be used as an excuse to to hash out a mediocre article. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree too. In my opinion, the {{breaking}} and {{breaking review}} tags should only be used when the story is about something that has happened just minutes ago, or when it's an event that's actively ongoing and likely to change dramatically within a short period of time - e.g., stuff like the Fort Hood shootings or the Hudson River jet crash. Maybe we should create a guideline page to give suggestions and explanations for when the breaking tags are appropriate? Tempodivalse [talk] 17:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to have slightly more leeway with the {{breaking review}} template. My reasoning behind that is that sometimes when a story unlikely to change breaks (EU Presidency, for example) it is nice to throw the article out in a timescale to match the newswires. Julian raises a good point though: the excuse behind a crappy article. We can have crappy filler articles if no-one writes anything better, but we should be careful not to do that purely because that's all we have to do. Wikinews at its best os going above and beyond. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a narrow window of opportunity where, for the new EU Pres story, we could have beat the NYT twitter feed. It is never an excuse to submit something for review that, within the first sentence, breaks rules of English you should learn before nine or ten. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

My feeling concerning the use of the breaking review template is that either: (i) the information is hot off the press (so to speak) and we can position ourselves as a provider of the latest news (the EU Presidency article was a good example); (ii) the news is being updated regularly and so we don't want the article to sit around forever for review (Food Hood shootings spring to mind); and perhaps, and to be used sparingly, (iii) when the article is about an event that is to take place in a few hours (the celebrations for the anniversary of the Berlin Wall spring to mind). On the other hand, if the information is not going to change substantially in the next few hours, we should try and review the article as quickly as possible certainly, but we should not use the breaking review template as a means to draw attention to an article one would like to see reviewed quickly. That should come about through us (and I include myself here as being guilty of leaving articles up for review too long) clearing the backlog quicker. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 09:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Another point I'd like to raise is that sometimes it's unclear if we should use the template or not. I've been guilty, for example, of deeming based on my sources and the general spread on Gnews that the article is breaking, and therefore sticking the template on it. Of course, such articles rarely get updates and I find myself wondering wether it was appropriate to use the template. Just to throw that out there: When is breaking news not breaking news? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Archiving time

I've recently undone a rather large edit at Man misdiagnosed as being in coma for 23 years because it was made more than a day after the article was published. However, when looking at WN:ARCHIVE, it says that the limit for adding new info is 36 hours, not 24 or 31 hours as I had thought. Since the 1-day limit seems to be the current practise, perhaps the policy page should be changed accordingly? Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 15:14, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

• What I tend towards is substantial edits/additional sources within 12-24 hours, up to the 36 hour limit I prefer much less large edits (a sentence; possibly two) and absolutely no new sources. So, yes, 24 hours from review/publish seems okay. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Brian's stance is actually a tweak to the current, but it sounds sensible and it is mostly how we've done it. Just to throw something out there, though: We should never issue information from a date beyond the one it was published, even if it became available within 24 hours. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:50, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Technical

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New RC patrolling concept

Hello, is there any needs to add the site in https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21517? JackPotte (talk) 15:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't we already have that? Something very simlar, anyway. I'm not sure anybody even uses it. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• We have it. However, it is tied to Editor status. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:37, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

We've got FlaggedRev's for the articles, and don't have that much other vandalism... because we don't have that many edits. I think we're good w/o. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 16:43, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Odd bug when trying to edit an article marked for review

This has happened to me a number of times: when I click on the Edit link next to the title on an article tagged {{review}}, instead of allowing me to edit the body text, it opens up the Sources section. I have to use the Edit tab on the top of the page to edit the entire article instead. System Win XP SP3 with Firefox latest version. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Strange, that has never happened to me. Quick question: are you using the "edit link to edit lead" gadget in Special:Preferences? That might have a few bugs in it. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this re-producible? (can you give me a page where this always happens? and the url that the link in question directs you to when it goes to the wrong section). The gadget does what is does in an extremely convuluted way, (It creates a new link element thats a copy of another link item, than tries to insert it early in the document, and than changes the url of the copied link. If i was doing it, i'd just create a new link, and set the url apropriatly). This could do this if for some reason it copied multiple links instead of just one. (not sure under what circumstances this would happen. maybe if there was a link in the sources header). Bawolff ☺☻ 22:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes to Tempodivalse, and if it happens again I'll report the exact circumstances (links etc.) for Bawolff. It was driving me nuts for a couple of days, but has been behaving itself since. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 09:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Social bookmark - bug

Just got a bug with the {{social bookmarks}} template...

• http://imagebin.ca/view/a9rMGRqq.html

This article (Orange Telecom and the €160,000 bill) also gave problems with WN:ML, so it may be its formatting. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Facebook has crappy utf-8 support. Its probably choking on the € sign. This is probably not a bug on our end (there was actually a wikitech-l thread a while back about this issue) . If you use a url without the euro sign in it, [1] it seems to work fine. Theoretically we could try to detect when we use unicode characters, and send an alternate form of the url to facebook. Bawolff ☺☻ 12:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Twitter has the same problem. The en_wikinews feed came up with a "?" for the Euro symbol on the same story. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thats more likely an issue with ShakataGaNai's bot than twitter, since twitter definitly works in non-ascii languages. Bawolff ☺☻ 12:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• Welcome to Wikinews; this is not the bot you are seeking. :-P --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Bawolff is correct, the problem is in my bot. It doesn't handle anything outside of ASCII with any grace. Welcome to PHP, it doesn't do UTF (easily). Eventually I'll fix it, but a stray questionmark in one entry out of every 100 or so... isn't high on the priority list. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 18:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

type=breaking in leads

I've noticed that some people have been complaining on the RC that putting a lead with type=breaking (And i assume by extension, type=urgent and similiar things) messes up spacing on the main page. Should i disable use of the type parameter in WN:ML? Bawolff ☺☻ 04:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

No. Tell them to screen shot it and report it somewhere. Here, or my talk page. I'll check it out and fix the templates as needed. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 18:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

MakeLead generic image list

Wikinews:Make lead now tries to determine what image it should use for an article, if the article has no images, by what categories/infoboxes its in. It takes any category directly specified (aka [[category:Foo]] is recognized, but a category thats on the page as a result of a template being included is not). It considers any template without parameters to be an infobox. infoboxes currently take precendence over categories. The current map from infoboxes to category is very sparse, and is as follows:

Bawolff.leadGen.imgMap = { 
 "UK" : "Flag of the United Kingdon.svg",
 "United Kingdom": "Flag of the United Kingdom.svg",
 "United States": "Flag of the United States.svg",
 "Canada": "Flag of Canada.svg",
 "Mexico": "Flag of Mexico.svg",
 "Computing": "Computer-aj aj ashton 01.svg",
 "Google": "Google logo png.png",
 "Obituary": "Wikinews tag obituary.png" }

So for example, the first entry on this list, namely:

"UK" : "Flag of the United Kingdon.svg",

will associate image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg with any article (provided it doesn't have any other images) if the source of the article contains one of: {{UK}}, {{uK}}, [[category:UK]], [[Category:uK]] [[category:UK|foo]] etc (obviously there is no category UK, but for many of these entries, the category and infbox name are the same, so i thought it'd be better to just have one list).

I would really appreciate help with making this list more complete. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, where's the list? I think WN:ML is infrequently enough used that the list can be a separate page. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The list is currently in User:Bawolff/sanbox/leadGenerator.js (near the top). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Just as a note, to anyone who edits this: Make sure that every line (except of the last line) ends in a comma, and that the template name starts with a capital letter. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposals

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WN redirecting to Wikinews

Result

In wikipedia, if you type WP:Article, it will automatically redirect to Wikipedia:Article. That means WP is an alternative name Wikipedia namespace. It is not so in Wikinews. E.g. WN:WC which redirects to Wikinews:Water cooler. The shortcut exists in article namespace and not Wikinews namespace. Suppose if we have the facility that Wikipedia has, we can create Wikinews:WC which will redirect to Wikinews:Water cooler and assume that WN:WC doesn't exist. Then also WN:WC will redirect to Wikinews:Water cooler. This will happen because WN is an alternative of Wikinews namespace and automatically all WNs will redirect to Wikinews. Please vote for the proposal below. Srinivas 15:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

• Support—I have wondered for a long time why this doesn't already exist here, but never bothered to bring it up. Dendodge _T\^C 15:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support seems like a good idea. Tempodivalse [talk] 16:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
• I didn't realize wikipedia did this. I'm all for making WN: an alias of the wikinews namespace. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support Yes, as being the poll starter! Srinivas
• Support What Dendodge said Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:09, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support Useful. Adambro (talk) 17:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support Cirt (talk) 17:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs; I don't think people need instructions on how to vote in hidden comments, and people should be encouraged to discuss proposals to ascertain if they believe they are useful and beneficial. In this case, the proposal description did not make sense to me until I saw Bawolff's remark - that it is an alias. Having installed and configured MediaWiki, that made sense to me, so this is something I support. The more correct description of what people are rushing to vote for is, an assigned name (technically 'alias') for any given wiki's project namespace. "Project:" should always work, we've got "Wikinews:" set as an 'alias', or synonym, this would make "WN:" a second alternative. However, getting this done in the database will not change shortcuts like WN:WC to being in the project namespace. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support -- the wub "?!" 10:09, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support Yep. Pmlineditor^Talk 14:42, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I think this is ready to be closed as successful. Could someone with experience handling bugzilla: file a request? Tempodivalse [talk] 14:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Done as bugzilla:21428. Dendodge _T\^C 14:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

• Do we have details of which pages are in the main namespace and start WN: ? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

  Special:PrefixIndex/WN: Dendodge _T\^C 22:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews major contributors

I had cause to fiddle with my user page some today, and I have some degree of pride in the number of articles I've done, and length of time working on the project. There are others have done far more articles that I, and most of the core contributors who do Original Reporting and similar have a fair list of contributions.

I would like to propose a user-related category structure. Yes, it serves very little towards the project's goals, but it is - to me - a better recognition than your username in the page history. All proposed categories would be hidden, but users would be able to construct DPLs on their user pages to highlight articles where they were major contributors.

1. A top-level category Category:Major contributors
2. User-specific categories, eg Category:Contributor Brian McNeil, Category:Contributor Jason Safoutin, Category:Contributor Jon Davis, &c.

To stress, these would be hidden and for use by contributors. It would be great for people involved in things like the London bombing article to get their name on it in a discreet way, and where they've worked elsewhere build lists of such - for example, to me it would be really good to have a list of all the South Thailand insurgency articles I worked on; I spent a lot of time on that topic. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this a good idea. It would be easier than manually adding articles to my user subpage --RockerballAustralia (talk) 00:47, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting idea. One question though, wouldn't this involve having to edit lots of archived pages just to add a category for an article one has written? For instance, i've written 300 articles. It'd take a lot of effort and time to add Category:Contributor Tempodivalse to all of them. Or are you suggesting we should only implement this for articles created in the future (i.e. don't bother adding them to archived articles)? Tempodivalse [talk] 01:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I might suggest a bot of some sort to add such categories to archived pages--RockerballAustralia (talk) 01:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Great idea! Commons has a similar system including user-specific hidden cats and it has worked quite well there. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

• Glad to see this wasn't shot down in flames. I've not thought about archived articles other than in a selfish manner. Most people who care enough to want the attribution have admin privs and can do this. If there's some way we can factor in use of a bot, that'd be great; it's not urgent, we can probably cope with this via {{editprotected}} until we firm up criteria a bot would work from. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 05:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Bot would be difficult, I'd think... but I'm not opposed to the idea. I was actually just thinking about this very same thing the other night. It is kinda "unwiki" but let's be honest, everyone has a list of articles they've worked on a significant amount, on their user pages. For me, filling my cat wont take by a few minutes, but Dragon's will be... painful. The real question though, do we do it by real name or wikiname? Simply because some might not be AR and not want to be "outed", but still want to have a cat. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 05:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Will this be opt in or opt out? Cirt (talk) 07:27, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say opt in --RockerballAustralia (talk) 07:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea, but what would be the criteria for adding the category? Does a user just have to consider themselves a major contributor, or would consensus be needed? Dendodge _T\^C 22:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Obtaining and determining consensus on hundreds of articles would be too time-consuming, I think. I'd say we should have a "3 medium-sized paragraph" limit to consider oneself a "major contributor" (the same amount as the minimum size for an article). Tempodivalse [talk] 22:49, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Dendodge _T\^C 22:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd like it to be far less formal. I say we trust people to do it; after all, you can add a list to your userpage by yourself. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

• BRS seems to be nuancing this in the right way. If someone comes along, writes 2-3 minimal articles, then starts slapping themselves as a 'major contributor' on everything they fix grammar/typos in, is not going to get a pleasant reception. We can't afford spending the time heavily policing this, so it's not something I'd particularly publicise. To answer other points - you choose between real name or pseudonym; the main function is internal, I know a hell of a lot of contributors real names and how they match pseudonyms, they decide how this categorisation might impact them. So, I suggest for the most part, we maintain ourselves and discuss as it progresses. Maybe later this week I'll start setting up a few test categories. I think DragonFire1024 has to be one of the up-front people to get part of the treatment (as well as doing myself) - if he agrees I'll see what I can do. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I do have to be totally up-front about one item I'm interested in seeing from this. It might upset some people, I would hope it would encourage them to work harder and to higher standards. I list a little over 100 articles on my user page where I consider myself not just a 'major contributor', but enough of one to claim a nebulous ownership over the article. I think there's at least three or four FAs in that; something I'm very, very proud of. Given that, and me planning to add a "FA's I'm a major contributor to" DPL to my userpage, does anyone change their mind or stance on this? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
• I add the pages I feel that I have significantly created to my userpage, and being able to add a hidden category would simplify this. By significantly created, this for me means that I either wrote the article myself from scratch or that (in one instance) I worked on a duplicate article which I later merged into another. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 11:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Abolish the Portal: namespace

I was randomly browsing through some Wikinews pages today, and I came across Portal:New Zealand. I was quite surprised to discover that all the lead articles on the portal were way out of date - the most recent story listed was half a year old. A look through several other portal pages indicated that this was the case for many other portals. I got to thinking: the portal namespace is, for all practical purposes, an exact duplicate of the corresponding category namespace, except with a (usually out-of date) lead article and without the category lists at the bottom. IMHO, the portal does not have any additional benefits to the category: to the contrary, it's just another page that requires maintenance, and it takes a lot of effort to keep all the leads on them up to date (given that there are what, over 100 of them?). Take a look at Portal:Africa and Category:Africa. They're practically the same except for the topic boxes (which could easily be copied).

In short it seems like unnecessary effort to keep the portals around. As such, I propose to completely get rid of the namespace. Some ideas for how we could go about this:

1. All portal redirects (i.e. UK, Russia, etc.) will be pointed at the corresponding category instead, possibly with the help of a bot.
2. The different topic sections/boxes on portals (i.e. "Crime and law", "Politics and conflicts") can be copied to the corresponding category pages. We could have a bot do this as well, I don't think it should be terribly difficult to program.
3. The "lead article" part will be completely removed, and will instead be replaced by a DPL, which would automatically keep everything up-to-date with the latest articles, instead of having to do it manually.

I understand that this might require a bit of effort, but my overall feeling is that removing the portal pages will be better for us in the long run. Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 17:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. I once promised (was it Shakataganai? Bawolff?) that I would bring this up myself, but never did. I didn't know the future I predicted this morning was going to be set in motion by this afternoon! Seriously, these are far too much work to maintain and are a distraction from the main newswriting process. Sprucing up the category system is a much better aproach. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

On the English Wikipedia, the portal namespace works. It uses encylopedic content, which rarely goes out of date, and is more regularly updated. On a news site, however, especially one with such a small user base (in comparison), it fails due to the excessive speed at which news stories become no longer relevant. I think we should abolish the namespace, as it can never serve any purpose here. Dendodge _T\^C 18:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

kill kill kill Portal namespace is, and always was, a solution in need of problem imho. Historically we seemed to have some people with a rampant hatred of the alphabetical category listing (edits like this come to mind). Personally i don't see anything wrong with having both a DPL as well as the alphabetical list. Well we're at it, I strongly suggest we shoot {{geo-portal}} repeatedly. This template is used on all sorts of portals of extremely small places, that have roughly 10 articles, and then tries to split them up into different categories + a lead template, and just generally doesn't do a good job. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Has any thought been given on how to handle portal:Australia. To date, it is effectivly the only portal that has actually been used as a portal, and such has all sorts of interesting subpages - ex: Portal:Australia/in depth header among others, that do not fit into the category namespace. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

• Bumping thread to bring it to the top of people's watchlists and ensure that it doesn't get auto-archived, this discussion seems to have stalled. We need some more input to reach a decision. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

In regards to the issue i mentioned above, here is how I think we should proceede. Declare the portal namespace deprected, redirect all the portals to their respective category pages (we can do this slowly as we see links, or we can get a bot). Leave all the portal subpages (mostly stuff for wikinews importer bot and a couple of other odd pages, such as the various Australia subpages) intact. Slowly move any link to the portal namespace thats not to a subpage, to the equivelent category page, and just not create any new pages in the portal namespace. We will also have to move some subpages of mediawiki:Common.css and mediawiki:Common.js. We will also have to figure out how to deal with portal pages that don't have a specific category associated with them (Portal:North Korea nuclear proliferation and some of the weather pages) We could probably leave them where they are. (In case of the weather portals, some of them should probably be deleted) Bawolff ☺☻ 02:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. In the two years I spent on Wikinews as an active contributor, they never really got much use. And for the things that are there, a good majority of them are no longer maintained. --Thunderhead 21:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• Had Wikinews been first - instead of Wikipedia - it might have been the case that a sufficiently large contributor base could, and would, maintain Portals. Twenty or so of us can't. I will state I am opposed to the complete deletion of the namespace, but agree fully that there is no point in the foreseeable future where it will be reliably maintained. The majority are country portals - the most embarrassing of which are those with dedicated lead articles that are years out of date. Why not replace such with a "generic" country portal template if not updated in the last week? Yes, there are the topical portals - somewhat less simple - but for, say, Crime and law a continent/region generic template could be used.

Kiwi and Auzzie contributors kept their respective portals going for quite a long time. Right now, that's a distraction; but, not a chance we should here and now deny to people. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• Neutral If people are willing to keep portals up to date then we should not deprive them of that. Some though are horribly out of date though (two of the top articles on the United States portals are the death of Patrick Swayze and Barack Obama being elected as President). Yes, SOFIXIT is an appropriate reply to that comment, but personally I have other priorities. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 10:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
• Comment In response to Alexandr and Brianmc: If the portals are merged with the category namespace, then this would not necessarily deprive users the ability to use lead articles. We could easily make an optional lead template to add to the category instead; the only difference is that one would have to edit the category namespace to do so (since the portal stuff will be merged into the category). This seems like a more effective solution than keeping it on portals and using it there instead, because, as mentioned above, they are practically identical to the corresponding category pages and so are redundant. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews private fund

We have several times floated the idea of having our own little private fund for OR, advertising etc. My understanding of what the Foundation will require from us is very limited, but assuming someone is willing to negotiate with them I'm willing to draw up the actual proposal in my userspace.

My basic idea is that the Foundation agrees to give us up to $500-1,000 per anum, on the understanding we likely won't use anything like that much but it is there for a big project. Whatever amount we agree upon is the cap for our fund. At year's end, anything we haven't spent is rolled over into next year's fund, and the Foundation tops it off back to the agreed total.

The community would have to individually approve each request for funding before it was doled out. You can either spend first and run the risk we won't pay out later, or get advanced approval. Records should be obtained of all costs (i.e. get a receipt). I'd imagine the Foundation would want them.

There is a lot to be worked out, such as axactly when and how much we should pay as a guidance, and how to deal with foreign currencies, but how does this asic proposal strike people? Bearing in mind there is plenty of oppertunity to play around with the idea if I do start it up. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea and would be useful. I wasn't aware that the wmf allowed projects to set up their own funds? If it's possible, though, I say do it. US$500 thereabouts seems like a reasonable sum annually. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

There is, indeed, a lot to be worked out.

• Any "general" fund will be a potential source of contention
• Is use, for advertising, ever going to be appropriate - and effective?
• If for reporter expenses, what is acceptable?

Any proposal to the Foundation is going to get seriously looked at such that it might seem under attack. There are some important issues to consider. The third point above could be a real can of worms for the WMF; imagine Wikipedians looking for expenses to do research, imagin how a community as small as ours could be overwhelmed. This last point might not be worth any general vested interest scheming for a mere $1000/year, but arguments over use of such could be "great copy" for more mainstream media - or those such as the wiki-watchers who log IRC channels and publish logs on the web. Yes, I have found #wikinews transcripts online. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Us having money isn't a bad idea, but more importantly, how would we (the community) approve the spending? We cannot have a group vote for every item, every time. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 18:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I actually don't see why not. It's not like we do vast amounts of stuff that might warrant it. That said, we might do much more if the money was there. Perhaps we should agree that accredited reporters are allowed to spend up to $15 travel/parking/entrance expenses per article without individual approval? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing that concerns me; set a point like this and you have to backtrack the process of getting to WN:AR so we know everyone is working to certain standards, performing due diligence, and working within a code of ethics.

We've had our 'visitors' in the past who've pushed that point because it supported their goals; so I would say there is more of a priority to have that framework before we have an expenses budget. There is — for Wikinews — a probable need to seek outside guidance on drawing up - say - Wikinews:Journalists' code of conduct, Wikinews:Legitimate claims for expenses, and others. The $15 guestimate does seem reasonable, but it has to be overseen in some way; this is less-contentious if there is a clear route to being a qualifying recipient, and specific standards that must be worked to, and apparent, to continue holding that privilege. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable and, more importantly, do-able if challenging. I'm happy to mock those up if we move ahead with this. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

<- IMHO, I still think the vote thing needs to be considered. If I were to apply for money from Wikinews, it'd be small amounts, for say paying admissions to some event I'm covering. Lets say we've got $1000usd a year and a pricey admission is $50. That's 20 votes a year. Personally, I think the votes should be left to 'crats only, allowing for comments from admins. I'm not suggesting this because I'm a 'crat, because frankly I don't want 20 more votes a year... but that is neither here nor there. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

How active are we crat-wise? If it's not too bad - and they actually do it - then I wouldn't have an issue with that. We can afford to take time about this, but something sitting around for weeks because there ain't many crats could kill the system. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I know there are 3 or 4 of us that are regularly active list --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

A lot of talk has been on how to make this whole process accountable. How about, if there is serious concern about misuse in breach of the future proposed stuff up there, we let Arbcom decide? Arbcom would have the power to ban someone from using the fund again. We could also perhaps order people to pay stuff back if they don't want barred altogether, and lose their autoprivilage. Instead, from then on they would just be expected to absorb most travel etc. expenses. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I think putting any disputes/concerns through ArbCom is the best idea, as we have more arbs than active bureaucrats (six versus about four). We'd be able to reach consensus much more effectively and quickly, as BRS points out above. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• My raising of a code of conduct, and an "expenses policy" was what I consider a precondition to asking for money. And, that we should have advice on that. As in, some of that 'discretionary sister-project spending' drawing up these policies based on professional journalistic experience and our input. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah, that's what I said at the start. If we wanna go ahead I'd get to drafting stuff up. Pro help would be good though. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Then, what would be required is a summary of the points to be covered in each, plus considerations that have to be taken in light of the all-volunteer nature of contributions. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:24, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

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Wikinews Importer Bot blocked

Please see here. Yes, I blocked the bot. It's posting the wrong stories under the wrong dates and has been for some time. Recently it suddenly caught up and I thought it was fixed, but no, it started doing it again. Check out w:Portal:Current events. Bot operator Misza13 said the bot itself was working fine some time ago, so I'm guessing it's up to us to track down the problem. So... Anyone know where we go next? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

/me looks into it. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

For some reason the importer bot is not updating the page. Why this is occuring, I'm not sure, but i tried to change a couple things that might be causing it.

• Caching. The page is based on a template in a template, based on a parser function. All the levels of indirection could cause the bot to get a cached version of the dpl perhaps (but thats inconsistant with the &action=purge the bot uses)
• Something weird to do with the <noinclude>. The pages on wikinews the bot uses, uses weird noincludes, but that shouldn't make a difference. However this shouldn't really matter.

Other possible issues:

• Vector maybe? As far as i can tell, that should not matter.

So I tried to change these things, maybe it'd make it work (unsure). Bawolff ☺☻ 19:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Scratch that. I don't think those changes will do anything —The preceding unsigned comment was added by bawolff (talk • contribs)

Well we should really get this fixed soon, as it feeds into w:Portal:Current events. Cirt (talk) 20:10, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

We're working on a new theory - bot operator disspared off the face of the earth, and his bots dissapeared with him for a short time period. It may or may not work now.Bawolff ☺☻ 20:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The trouble started before he left; that was how he could tell me the bot itself seemed to be okay. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems to work now. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Has the bot been unblocked and is this back to normal? Cirt (talk) 05:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the bot has been unblocked. No, it still doesn't work. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 07:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it is working for me. Cirt (talk) 07:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Are we looking at the same w:Portal:Current events? There is no way South African Vipers win Singapore Rugby Sevens is hot off the press today, yet the bot claims it is the latest article. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, someone must have edited it post publish, changing the DPL output. Cirt (talk) 21:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Eh, no. It was like posting every article from that date as 'todays'. However, since last I commented here it's done another run, and that one worked. Fingers crossed it keeps working now. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly not working today. Wrong articles once again. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• It appears to be a caching issue, that we didn't notice, as dpls are only cached for anons. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The issue at hand

Just to clarify. The bot is not posting wrong articles, it is just not upating the templates. Portal current events works as follows

• There is a template, all articles wikinews published today, another one, all articles published yesterday, and so on up to 6 days ago.
• w:Portal:Current events uses {{#time}} to write the current date, and than includes the template, articles published by wikinews today
• Bot does not update templates
• Portal:Current events assumes that the template all articles published by wikinews today is up to date, where really it was last updated several days ago. All articles published today as of several days ago, is really all articles published several days ago. This template is transcluded under todays date. Thus it looks like the bot is pulling the wrong articles, where really the bot just is letting the all articles published today template become outdated.

Bawolff ☺☻ 21:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

[2] = seems not to be a problem with the bot... Cirt (talk) 02:23, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

(this is based on stuff i determined after writing the above) Actually its sort of is -ish - its a problem with DPL that the bot should take into account. We cache dynamic page lists (which is a bad thing in general as the caching method isn't paticularly good, and stale content can easily get served up. However it stops the servers from commiting suicide, so thats a good thing) The bot should take this into account. historically the bot added &action=purge to the url, but when it switched to the api, it stopped doing that. (or at least this is my current theory on what is happening). Compare [3] when logged in, and when not logged in. When not logged in, that page shows (or at least for me) shows the latest news as of november 5th. when logged in it shows the actual version. Some other queries [4] seem to avoid this problem in both cases. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Appers to be working now. Everyone give Misza13 a big wiki-hug. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:37, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Benet Academy students raise money for leukemia patient

Please see the talk page of this article. We need some outside opinions on whether this article is {{newsworthy}} enough for publication. I'm advertising the discussion here to get a bigger audience. Tempodivalse [talk] 04:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Questions to help with Wikimedia Strategy

Hi, good people of Wikinews.

I've come over from strategy.wikimedia.org. We're interested to know two things about how you work here on Wikinews.

First, do you have any competitions? On en:wp there are quite a few different competitions that seem to help motivate editors to do good work and more of it.

Here's an example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CUP

More can be found at:

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_awards_and_rewards#Contests

Does Wikinews run anything like that?

Also on en:wp there are a number of WikiProjects which help editors to bond as smaller communities within the larger one.

Here's an example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history

More can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WIKIPROJECT

Can you point to any sort of sub-communities within Wikinews which help editors bond as a smaller group within the project as a whole?

Answers to these questions will be valuable to us as we work on Wikimedia Strategy. I will be grateful for any information you can provide. --Bodnotbod (talk) 18:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

TempoDiValse ran a writing competition earlier this year (or was it last year?), I believe, but that's the only competition I've seen. There's Wikinews:WikiBureaux, our equivalent of WikiProjects, but they don't seem to get much use, unfortunately. Dendodge _T\^C 18:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

We don't have much in the way of contests, IIRC we've only had four or so to date. I ran one in March this year (user:Tempodivalse/Writing contest). Probably time for another one soon. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Over the years there's been at least three big writing contests. I won a cash prize in one. For all we don't really have subprojects, we have a small, tight-knit community such that makes the psychological 'bonding' benefits of WikiProjects redundant. All the regulars know each other, and we have a good friendly atmosphere which allows people to come in and quickly fit in. Ive watched both Dendodge and Tempo from above arrive and come to fit in here - that seems to be a good motivation to people.

Seeing as it's motivation you're after, with Wikinews most of it comes from work satisfaction. You have around 48 hours after the event to create a fully fledged article, totally complient with every policy. The reward? You feel you've achieved something; the work appears on the main page and is syndicated by Google News. Those are the biggest motivators on WN. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

We've had several contests (typically about one per year). Some of which have had cash prizes (however typically the cash prize was not the motivator). Some of them (paticularly the earlier ones) have substantially boosted the article count. Most are modeled on meta:IWWC2. We also had meta:Wikinews design contest, but it didn't really work that well. People tried to create things like Wikinews:WikiBureau Australia in a similiar spirit to wikipedia wikiprojects, however we currently are not of a size where such sub-projects are beneficial, and such sub-projects tended to suffer from a loss of interest. I geuss you might be able to call WN:AW a sub-project. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

• I ran/funded one of the previous writing competitions; the amounts of money were quite small, but it was enough of an incentive to get some people to put the extra effort into becoming better contributors and more able to enjoy the "competition" with other writers. Specialisation, such as Bureaux or Projects? Not really, the community isn't large enough for long-term specialisation. The Australasian contributors who did manage that for a year or so have all ended up with less time in their lives (college &c.) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses thus far. That's all very useful information. I have some follow up questions; what are your thoughts with regard to community health? That's to say, are your best editors content with the set-up here? Or are there ongoing frustrations with certain things that you would like to see resolved, even to the point that some committed contributors have already left the project? --Bodnotbod (talk) 16:25, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Our "community health", I think, is quite good. No major contributors have retired in the recent past, and those that did retire usually did so due to real-life personal issues, not due to a dispute here. Most users seem pretty content with how things are run; we're quite drama-free and there haven't been any serious disputes for months (ArbCom has only been used twice in its entire history). Tempodivalse [talk] 17:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The "community health" is reasonable - not great, just reasonable. There is a need for at least a doubling of the regular contributor base before I'd say we've a good, healthy community. The biggest frustration most people see is getting WMF developer time; personally, I hope the fundraiser brings in enough to hire at least two more developers. I'd nominate our own bawolff (talk · contribs) for that, he'll admit to being new to a lot of the codiing, but he "gets it" about the project's needs and is fairly quick to respond to suggestions. If we could clone him a couple of times....

The other developer-related issue is that, to some extent, enwn is happy to be a guinea pig for late-beta stuff. We got Flagged Revisions after dewp ran their trial; we were asking for it before they got it, there was the perception that giving it to enwn was a convenient way to test out under different usage conditions. That can happily be overlooked because we had the ear of a couple of developers for the first couple of months with the extension and tweaks were forthcoming in short order. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:02, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Cricket articles

I am not sure about Wikinews supporting sports catagory I have mainly created this account on adding ongoing Cricket Tests or any matches. Just as the one which was between Ind and SL which India won. It was also their 100th win. Do you think such articles are permitted in wikinews? --Discovery (talk) 11:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, articles on sporting events are most certainly permitted. Category:Cricket exists for you to categorise the articles in, and there are a number of templates to help standardise formatting. Dendodge _T\^C 11:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, as Dendoge points out, there's a category, the sport has been covered in the past. Have a look at the more recent articles in the category to get an idea of how to present stuff, and give it a go. What might be most disheartening is the time constraints of Wikinews; you really want to get an article on a match up within 12-24 hours of its end, and effectively 90% done. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

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Audio Wikinews

I have noticed the Audio Wikinews pages is extremely disorganized and since it it linked in the Main Page, I thought it would be best for a group of editors to fix up the mess that is Audio Wikinews. I'm willing to help also. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 04:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• It's new content is the issue. I'm looking at the Wikimedia Radio concept again; for that a really short brief put out regularly (like at least 2 times a day) would be ideal. I'm running a test on http://1radio.org on Monday (0200 - 0400 UTC). If you hate The Grateful Dead, then suggest some other music to play. I'm interested in using live stuff like bootlegs while I get some experience with this. Yes, anyone else interested in doing this can bug me for a how-to in setting up Ubuntu to do it. Windows/Mac? You're on your own. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I am still working on a show idea. I am working on setting up my Windows for broadcasting. Maybe later this month I can produce my first test run. How did the broadcast go? Which software did you use to stream? I like the Wikimedia Radio idea and may use that as a template, but of course change it up a bit. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 03:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The broadcast was a breeze. I'm using Ubuntu Linux with some "tweaks", I ran a two hour show, and I had zero dropouts. Given Wikinews' current contributor levels though, the thing is to look for content syndication. If Wikinews can have a 5-10 minute bulletin updated ever 12-24 hours then places like http://1Radio.org will 'syndicate' it. Part of the lead-up to establishing that sort of use is Wikinewsies running broadcasts on such freebie/trial stations with these news items as insets. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 04:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Add adding these to iTunes and Archive.org work well too. I think I could use Wordpress also. Maybe that weekly news thing could also be revived. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 04:52, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately I didn't see this thread until too late-Brian, is the show going to be a regular? Do you have a recording of it-I'd quite like to have a listen. 1Radio sounds like a really cool idea-how long has it been going?    Tris   08:22, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how long 1Ragio has been running; it's the PRS registration that makes it interesting. You can play mainstream music. As long as the tags on the file are correct and sent when broadcasting, you're fine. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Unblock request from User:Poetlister

UNBLOCK REQUEST

Can you please reverse your block on Wikinews. I believe that the block is unjustified because I have done nothing whatsoever wrong on Wikinews. As you may know, I have no global ban. For example, I am not blocked on Wikisource. I have never heard of another case in which someone was blocked on a wiki solely because of a block elsewhere. Have you? On the contrary, there are cases in which someone is blocked on one wiki while holding high positions elsewhere; Aphaia is a good example.

In any case, can you please remove the block on my e-mail on Wikinews to make it easier to contact people rather than having to do it via other wikis.

Poetlister

I got the above email via Wikisource. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 22:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Right. Ask around. This is a user with an — ahem — previous elsewhere. Realistically, they would be better starting off with a new username to avoid importing enemies or getting undue attention because of the issue. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:10, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Do we usually block users based only on negative actions elsewhere? Imho, barring another Grawp or JarlaxeArtemis, users should only be blocked on wikis they've abused. I agree with Brianmc though that this user might be better off creating a new account. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Do we? Yes. If someone is a problem everywhere they show up, I see no problem with preemptively banning them, and I do, on occasion. Not for little shit, but for big issue people. I dont know anything about this user and I didn't ban them, hence the copy/pasta here. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:37, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• The instant "case against". I have little interest in trawling through Wikipedia's dirty laundry. History of talk page prior to that was not unreasonable - but large gap up to the block. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 01:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
• Not appropriate to unblock at the moment, given their previous history of disruptive actions on other projects. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 01:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd tend to agree here with Juliancolton (talk · contribs), but I'd rather simply defer to community consensus about this. Cirt (talk) 21:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
• The user should be unblocked, imho. I disagree with blocking users based solely on the fact that they have had a bad history elsewhere (unless it's someone like grawp). The blocking policy doesn't say we can block users just because of bad behaviour on other projects. Poetlister has, in the past, been a constructive and even helpful user: Special:Contributions/Poetlister. I think he should only be blocked here if/when he makes inappropriate/disruptive actions here. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what the community thinks about it, but there was this [5], [6], [7]. Cirt (talk) 23:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I got a new email today:

Thanks. I note you say "I dont know anything about this user and I didn't ban them". The reason I contacted you was because of this:

http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User%3AQuillercouch

04:47, 24 September 2008 ShakataGaNai (Talk | contribs) blocked Quillercouch (Talk | contribs) with an expiry time of indefinite (account creation disabled, e-mail blocked) ? (Sockpuppetry: Cato/Poetlister - per User talk:Poetlister and http://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiquote:Requests_for_adminship&oldid=820302#Cato.2C_Poetlister_and_Yehudi)

If you are saying that the Quillercouch account is not connected to me, all the more reason for you to reverse the ban!

Cheers

I read that as "Yes, I'm an asshole, and that is my account but I'm not gonna cop to it". So, IMHO Stay Banned --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Just as a note, I received the following unblock request via Wikisource from Poetlister (I don't check that email account often, so I only noticed it today, but it was sent yesterday):

UNBLOCK REQUEST

I note your comment "I agree with Brianmc though that this user might be better off creating a new account." I can only say to you what I said to him. Were I to create a new account without being unblocked, that would be block evasion. I'm not going to do that.

Meanwhile, can you please allow me to e-mail on Wikinews. It's pretty pointless having a block since i can just use Wikisource but it is irritating.

Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 23:33, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Despite what Shaka rightly sees as assholishness, I think we can let the guy have a chance. It might be wise to run a quiet CU every few months, though. First sign of trouble and he ain't coming back. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I concur. He hasn't been disruptive here (yet, at least), so he shouldn't be blocked. A checkuser could be made at the first sign of suspicious activity. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:42, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved FT2

I don't often post here, but do so as a WikiNews occasional editor, and the Wikimedian most familiar with the case.

One line version: Poetlister was, in his time on Wikipedia, one of the most unscrupulous of the serious sock-users we have had. I'm aware that is a damning verdict.

Poetlister edits profusely and indeed (often) positively. However his edits were often socked, stacked, often POV pushing, and on minor projects (after his ban on Wikipedia) often used as a bridge to facilitate a stepping stone somewhere else.

For example, when banned on one project he tried to return by positive editing via another minor project - in that case WikiQuote. He had previously gained adminship on Wikipedia, he has run a large number of sock-puppets on multiple sites; he knows how to play games "behind the scenes" and play people off against each other or manipulate the impressionable and unaware; he knew how to edit in a way that got him high approval at Wikiquote. Gaining sysophood and later cratship there, he leveraged those to a campaign that he was wrongly banned elsewhere, and (partly because there was no obvious misconduct recently) was given a second chance in May 2008.

It didn't last long. By August 2008 I was in contact with WMF, checkusers and stewards on 5 projects, and external persons Poetlister had impersonated on Wikipedia and elsewhere, ascertaining the extent of his sock ring.

Wikiquote, the smaller project he had used to return and that had trusted him, was by that time riddled with 3 admin-accounts and a checkuser-sock of his. And a new sock ring of almost a dozen socks on Wikipedia. The checkuser sock had been used to check his own sock run through selected proxies would be unlikely to be identified as a sock, at Wikiquote RFA. So much for trust.

Until conclusively challenged, Poetlister tried to use his stance on those projects to argue that anyone else was against him for no good reason and seek others to battle for him.

His stance right to the end (in email at that point) was completely unrepentant. He affected care and self-pity - where useful for his own benefit - and affected the attitudes and personas needed to convince others to enable and trust him, but so far as I could assess under the surface, he at no time showed any actual genuine care regarding harm done to any wiki-project, any users falsely accused, any third parties impersonated or potentially harmed, his own family who suffered as a result, or indeed anyone - except himself.

John Vandenberg (enwiki Arbcom) and Aphaia (wikiquote Checkuser) are worth speaking to if this last area needs discussion.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Unblock Poetlister would be a very bad idea, and I think previous incidents indicate that. Tiptoety ^talk 06:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Article published with massive factual accuracy problems

Please see this. Whoever reviewed - I've made a point of not looking - made a serious cockup on this one. The issues are serious enough to raise them here - are people taking reviewing seriously enough? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I certainly take reviewing very seriously, and I'm sure most other reviewers feel the same way about it. I think inaccuracies like these are going to happen once in a while, as we're only humans, and even the most competent reviewer might forget to check for a key detail, due to distraction by other things, fatigue, etc. (e.g. I published an article with some VOA-POV problems recently and didn't notice it until later due to being tired.) One way we can help reduce the chance of this happening again is to have two people, not one, check the article and only publish it if they both think it's OK. (That would significantly increase already long waits in the review queue, though.) Tempodivalse [talk] 15:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

We all screw things up, it was the amount of mistakes packed into such a short article that made me bring this up. I don't think I blame the reviewer as such - well, obviously the reviewer bears the blame, but there's more to it. This article should never have slipped through the net. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I reviewed it, and none of the teams ever made it to the top, as it states by NASA. Actuallyt to be honest, I thought I had fixed all that. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 00:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The 2nd para from NASA states that the team managed it four times in the first two days. It was only on the third day that no-one managed. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:00, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Interview with Jimmy Wales on AP, Wikipedia and (briefly) Wikinews

This may be of interest to people: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=173537 the wub "?!" 19:41, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

FTA "Wales: Wikinews has struggled for years, and you identify one of the key reasons for it. Wikinews remains an experiment which has yet to fulfill its potential."

Well yea we've strugled because Wikipedia wont (As Per Usual) enforce its own rules. Oh, and because no one wants to even attempt to help us (Those that claim otherwise: Google News, nuff said) --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 20:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Task Force: Expanded Content - Thinks Wikinews is useless

"Topical information (Wikinews): Given that Wikipedia already provides topical content, does its presence precludes the need for Wikinews? If not why not? If so, what should be done with Wikinews?" FTFA. Sigh, I hate people. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 22:20, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• Strategy:Thread:Talk:Task force/Expanding Content/Wikinews is useless, huh? - I rage
• Strategy:Thread:Talk:Task force/Expanding Content/"Concerning" language in reference to Wikinews BrianMc rages --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

  I was trying to be somewhat diplomatic while extremely pissed off. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I've had my say too and I invite everyone else to post their views --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 23:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Me too. I see now I wasn't the only person who read that as "Wikinews isn't useful". Tempodivalse [talk] 23:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

(<--)I may not be the most active user, but Wikinews, useless!? That makes me sick. And here I am am planning on resurrecting Audio Wikinews in a new format, when the WMF says this project is useless... --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 05:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Rant #1

• Really, what the hell is it with these people? "Policy wonks" is the polite label. I don't doubt the WMF staff are making a well-meaning contribution to the stratergy (sic) concept; but, every 'tard from Wikipedia who has been beaten about this crap before seems to have found a home where they can demonstrate why they're the slimy little *****bleeeeeeeeeps***** who used to be dropped in Usenet killfiles for wanking instead of moving things forward. I even saw the name River in some of the associated pages. Is that the bitch that stood for board on a platform of closing everything but Wikipedia? I tell ya, 'some people are only alive because it is illegal to kill them. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

  Struck per request; N.B. Comment is a quote from a comedian whose name currently escapes me. This was intended as an expression of frustration and anger — not an intent to kill, or wish for others to do so. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If i recall, she proposed closing only us (she's active with toolserver and dev side of things I think). It was someone else who wanted to close everything. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• • See, it's not all the WMF staff, it's just a select few vocal screw ups. People like Jimbo (granted he isn't WMF any more) simply don't help our cause. What they should be saying instead of "lets shut down Wikinews" is "Lets see if we can get the Wikipedia people to put the news in the CORRECT location" and get the WP Cabal to crack down on their own and send them over here. I know our system isn't the same, but it isn't that fuckin difficult. The reason why we struggle to gain momentum is that we have to KEEP WORKING and not slack off like the fucks on Wikipedia. WP can boast about it's 3 million articles, because they are all "relevant" (Depending on what you're looking up). WN, all people care about is how many articles we publish in the last 24 hours. It's hard work people, but for the fact that we put out (on average) 1 article per day for every 3 active users, we don't do such a bad job. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 23:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That (above comment) does seem about right... I mean Wikipedia is a great project, but so is Wikinews, so is Simple English, so is Wiktionary, and so are all the WMF projects, but all projects are volunteer work and do require effort to maintain. I’ve been doing some audio at Wiktionary for pronunciations, and that’s effort for the most backed up Category I’ve seen since Wikipedia’s Clean-up. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 05:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a disgrace. WMF should apologize to us IMO. Really I don't know what to say here, but I did reply to the thread above. What an insult to us. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• Jason, please stop mixing up the Wikimedia Foundation with random plonkers from Wikipedia. Remember, even Jimmy isn't really WMF anymore; he's more focussed on Wikia and the 'rubber-chicken circuit'. Wikipedians do have a tendency to just see the one project; they are not expressing WMF policy in doing so, just ignorance, stupidity, selfishness, and any other grab-bag of adjectives you may care to append. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I think it important to point out that despite the presentation as "WMF should apologize to us..." or "Wikimedia says this project is useless", the WMF didn't say that. It's a QUESTION. The very idea of those questions is to stir discussion. It appears to be working. WMF has not said Wikinews is useless. I have tried over and over to get Wikinews folks to participate in strategic planning, with multiple posts here and personal approaches. User:Tempodivalse is a valued contributor who has given countless hours to the strategy project and has represented you well there, but the only way to have a voice in the process is to show up. I hope that those of you who have ranted will choose to remain engaged. I really, truly do hope so. Philippe (talk) 13:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

    With less than 20 people active every day it really should be understandable why there is less Wikinews participation. Wikipedia has the luxury of being able to see contributors take a break long enough to give the strategy process the attention it deserves. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Infobox DPL issue

I created {{Football}} today from the corresponding sport infobox. It would appear many infoboxes haven't been updated to handle Flagged Revisions, or to restrict listed pages to the main namespace.

If you're using an infobox, please check the Wikicode to see the DPL uses stablepages. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm more suprised to hear that any of the infoboxes/portals use stable pages only. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Seriously, without it there is an avenue of abuse. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Obituaries - some thoughts

I'd been blissfully unaware a remake of The Prisoner had been done, but finding out prompted me to look up w:Patrick McGoohan. The one point that caught my attention was one of the sources Wikipedia uses - http://www.palisadespost.com/content/index.cfm?Story_ID=4587 - this is an obituary nine days after the man's death. Certainly, there are some elements within it which might not fit within Wikinews, but it is more what people expect when they read an obit.

How could Wikinews do similar? We do already get comments on noticeably older articles - this is an example where the subject's Wikipedia article needs the news story, and the news story stands distinct. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you suggest? Cirt (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

An initial obit - "(Wo)man dies aged xy" - should show up within the standard timeframe. However, we can gather a week of comments together while putting in more background to report "Tributes paid to man" or "Woman remembered". That would end up as roughly the sort of thing you link to. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I like it! :) Cirt (talk) 20:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Me too, this sounds like a good approach. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Time for some Deops/Decrats?

I dont think we've got a solid policy on idle-ness, but I just happened to be looking through the list of 'Crats and noticed Eloquence (talk · contribs) was still on there. I checked, he's had 4 edits in 2008 & 2009, I'd say that calls for decrating/admining. There is no point in us having a ton of admins/crats, who are never around (plus this will help with the argument of "we've already got enough 'crats" that we go through every time one is up for election). Anyone have any problem with putting admins & crats up for rights revocation who haven't been active in the last year? I could even be convinced to warn them first.... --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I say just do it. Worst that happens is the community shoots you down, but I doubt it somehow. You should email them, though. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say send them an e-mail first. If they don't intend to become more active just deflag. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with desysoping inactive admins/bureaucrats and WN:IP. But if we're going to consider deflagging, it should go through WN:RFP. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

• Sure, through RFP, but Eloquence does not need the rights on this project any more. Even having them could be seen as a conflict of interest for the Deputy-CEO. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes to the RFP. I guess I should have specified that specifically, I just thought it was worth feeling out here briefly first. Most projects have an inactive policy that is fairly well enforced. Commons it is by actually admin actions, not just edits (though it is fairly easy to find 5 files to delete on Commons). --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Writing competition

Some of you will remember that I held a writing contest a few months ago. I wasn't very satisfied with its outcome, however, as only eight users signed up and barely 50 articles were generated. I'm thinking of starting another writing contest again in the near future - but this time, I'd like to advertise it more to get better participation (i.e., perhaps a sitenotice or watchlist notice). We could offer barnstars or something as a reward to help encourage/motivate editors. I've tried to think up a few rules for the contest based loosely on the previous one, see what you think:

1. Contest will last a predetermined amount of time. During that period, users will receive one point for every article they created or added to significantly (we can set a limit, like 1.5kB). At the end of the time period whoever has the most points will win.
2. We can have a separate contest for reviewing articles. For every reviewed/published article, you receive one point. It should be stressed though that this doesn't in any way encourage sloppy reviewing.
3. I'd prefer that we don't have an "elimination-style" contest because fewer and fewer users will participate as the contest progresses, and we might not get as many articles that way. If we allow everyone to remain in the competition to the end, people might be motivated to write more to increase their standings.

Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 18:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Hm, it's been pointed out to me over IRC that this is probably not the best time to host a writing contest, with the holiday season approaching in a few weeks - I didn't think of that. Might be best to start this sometime after the new year to get the best possible participation. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Personally I am of the opinion that elimination contests tend to generate more content than non-elimination contests. However i do not have any evidence to back this up. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree with New Year. Also think that people are likely to write more if they will get eliminated otherwise.    Tris   08:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, we've settled for sometime after new year. I'm still not sure if elimination contests will produce the most articles, but I'm okay with using that if a lot of people prefer them. I'd however want the restrictions for staying in the competition to be fairly low - like a minimum of one article for every two days. Meanwhile, perhaps we should advertise this discussion elsewhere in the upcoming weeks to the new year? I'd like to get as much participation as possible, so we don't end up with barely 6-7 contestants like last time. Maybe we could also link to this on other wikis (Strategy, perhaps?) to attract new contributors. (Also, feel free to sign up at User:Tempodivalse/Writing competition if you're interested in participating.) Tempodivalse [talk] 15:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

• Just as an update, there's been some more discussion on this at my talk page: User talk:Tempodivalse#Writing comp in case anyone's interested in Brianmc's idea. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Rough proposal

I believe a competition needs run over a reasonably long period of time so that there is a sustained increase in the number of published articles. So, an elimination-style comp. is likely inappropriate. If it is based on points per article, then people will self-eliminate if not in the top 10-20% of those competing after a certain period of time. Thus, there is a need to try and get new contributors enjoying working on Wikinews even if they can clearly see they won't win the competition.

For a points system, I don't think one point per article is particularly good. If a certain minimum size is set for an article (eg 1,800 characters when published. And, a minimum of, say, 2,000 when initially submitted for review) then award five points for basic publication of that. Doing this, with a competition that runs 2-3 months, will see people well into three figures for their score; psychologically, I think this is better and anyone who's chasing to hit 1,000 points has more of an incentive than trying to reach 40-50 points where only one is awarded per article.

There should be consideration of other projects; by this I mean if someone gets a new photo or other media file for Commons which illustrates an article in the competition, this should gain additional points. Fair-use media hosted here would be more problematic; new contributors could well be discouraged if they inappropriately take an image from a 'competing' news source and it is deleted. However, things like doing new maps should be encouraged; a lot of these don't display well at sizes suitable for inclusion in a Wikinews article so more focussed maps with a pleasing look could be very useful long-term.

Original Reporting is quite difficult to work into a competition of this type. Thus, I prefer seeing it not included for new contributors during the early stage of the competition. Most of us have to rely on a degree of trust dealing with people's OR, so it makes sense to be to encourage competitors to establish a reputation and get comfortable with the fundamental policies of Wikinews before trying OR.

Ideally, the competition would not just be restricted to English. However, we need to be sure that any other language involved has certain minimum standards. To me the simplest metric for that is that they meet the criteria to be published in Google News. This then makes Google a potential source of prizes and publicity. That might not work out in the proposed competition and be something for later on, but Google are already sponsoring a competition for one of the African Wikipedia languages.

I totally agree that cash prizes does smack of paid editing. This is another reason I'd prefer to limit it to very new contributors - to avoid the appearance of arranging to have ourselves paid. If I could pick a physical prize for the overall winner instead, I'd like to see it be something useful for contributing to Wikinews, such as a netbook. Alternatively, if we could arrange with Amazon to make Wikinews available to their Kindle owners, that would be a nice prize.

Again with the new contributors focus, I would want to recruit Bawolff to help develop some Javascripty templates to make taking part simpler. Someone has their article ready to submit for review, they're guided through a form to submit for review, and detail the points they think the entry should get. It'd be good to also have an automatic "standings" table for the competition; that'd drive page views and is an additional incentive to those competing.

To those of us in the West, a prize pot of $500 spread across the top 3 or 4 competitors isn't really a lot, but is beyond most current Wikinewsies discretionary spending to put up. So, we do need a well-constructed competition; then outside parties might be encouraged to put up prizes. I have a few ideas of where to ask about that, but I'm playing them close to the chest for the moment. Don't beg anyone for anything right now, we need a fairly firm 300-400 word summary of rules to pitch when begging for prizes. It needs thought out such that the prizes can go to anyone anywhere in the world. It also needs to allow people to contribute under a pseudonym, but identify privately to get a prize.

If, as I would hope, such a competition were to attract 50-100 entrants, then we're really going to need all the current regulars doing reviewing and helping people get up to speed; this is another reason why I'd prefer to limit the eligible entrants. Most regulars with 10-20 or more articles have done the work to find rules and policies they need to know; the competition should have as a secondary goal improving the interlinking and publicising of this information to make life easier for future contributors.

Lastly, and coming back to my theoretical $500 prize fund, this is only a newsworthy amount of money depending on who puts it up. If it is a well-known journalistic figure, or a journalist's union/organisation, that should do the trick. Perhaps better yet if competition entries can be 'syndicated' to them and gain even more publicity. If we work from the assumption that this will be a recurring competition then longer-term I'd want to aim for an independent judging panel to pick the top entries from the entire competition and award additional points once it's closed; for that, I'm thinking, again, journalist orgs/unions or senior editors from more heavyweight publications or public service broadcasters using criteria such as 'most comprehensive coverage of a news event'.

Now, that's a lot to digest. Think carefully before responding. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:39, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

This sounds quite exciting, actually, if implemented. If we could get even 40-50 new entrants, that would give a massive boost to article production, and if a portion of them went on to become regulars, that would expand our user base substantially. The key to getting as many participants as possible is in the publicity.

A few thoughts about how we could score the contest:

• One-point-per-article is probably not the best way to do it, i agree; e.g.: an in-depth OR piece and a three-paragraph synthesis article would receive the same score, despite one being obviously much more difficult to write.
• We could establish a points system something like this: You receive a base score of 3 points for each article written and published up to 2 kilobytes in size. For every additional 1kb of material added, you receive an extra point. If a significant part of the article (let's say one mid-sized paragraph) consists of OR (but not broadcast report) you receive an extra five points, plus one point for every relevant image you add to the article. This would encourage users to go out and do some first-hand reporting, and write longer, more in-depth pieces. OR, though, as Brian points out above, needs to be restricted somewhat, because newbies could have some difficulty establishing credibility and trust.

Another issue is how to divide the two groups, if we're going to create a two-section tournament. I'd suggest setting the line at who doesn't have Editor status at the time of registration versus those that do - that would remove most COI in the newbie group associated with allowing users to review each other's articles. If someone receives Editor status during the competition, they have to promise not to use it to review articles written by others in the newbie category. The two groups would be completely separate, in terms of standings, prizes etc. Most of the focus would be on the newbie group - but I'd like established editors and admins to be able to participate in some way, so they can help boost article count and have some fun too. The "regulars" group would also be more informal, e.g. no judge panel, fewer or no prizes,

If we're indeed going to have upwards of 50 contestants, we're looking at an output of at least 30 articles per day, assuming conservatively that each contestant will write almost one article per diem. That's way beyond our current paltry output of 5 articles a day, and we, even if being "all hands on deck", would probably will be over our heads trying to review all of the articles in time. Might be a good idea to see if there are any more users we could promote to Editor status in the time before the contest, to give us more reviewing power.

Not sure if monetary prizes are the way to go, it does seem too close to paid editing. A small laptop or some other electronic gadget might be better - but those are still fairly expensive, we'll need a way to fund it.

Tempodivalse [talk] 15:03, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Scoring system

• From above, per Brian McNeil (talk · contribs) & Tempodivalse (talk · contribs)

As basic, I propose:

• 3 points for a synthesis article; must be > 2KB (2048 char) when submitted and still above 1800 char when copyedited/reviewed.

• +1 point per extra 768 char (I have concerns this may lead to encyclopedisation).

• +2 points for a new image uploaded to Commons and used on an article (subject to loss if removed).
• +1 point for local fair-use images (with very strict sourcing requirements &c.)

For original reporting:

Broadcast reports explicitly excluded.

• 8 points per OR article (with above 1800 char requirement).

Press releases permitted, minus a point for each 'standard' and current source building on the article.

So, where are we missing points issues, should these values be tweaked in any way? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

768 characters-per-point would be a headache to calculate, methinks. Could we use nice round numbers, like 2000 characters for the base article and 1000 characters for every additional point? Tempodivalse [talk] 15:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

As per my comments below (copied from Tempo's talk page), I think extra points should bw awarded for every third paragraph. --RockerballAustralia (talk) 00:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree because there is too much variance in what a paragraph is; it can even be as short as a single-line sentence. This, I think, is an area that could be disputed if a copyedit merges paragraphs and the submitter is unhappy to get less points.

Per Tempo's point, I chose 768 as ¾ of a kilobyte. I'm happy to see the figures reworked; remember, though, a lot of submissions will be copyedited quite strictly. "Noise" words like "that", "the", "and", "or" should be trimmed out where appropriate; this is why I suggest an eligible submission limit and a publication limit - allow for copyedit. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

• I still think round numbers are better, they're much easier to calculate and make things simpler. (I had forgotten that one kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes, not an even thousand.) One other consideration: there probably should be some proviso that content imported from other compatibly-licensed sites (such as VOA) doesn't give you extra points, you only receive points for original prose. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

  Yes. So 2000 -> copyedit -> 1800. And, based on not allowed as entries (eg VOA counted as a copyvio for terms of the comp). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 02:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Contest length/format

Then there's the question of how long to make the contest, and what sort of system we should use. Off the top of my head, a few ideas for this:

1. The contest lasts a predetermined period of time, at the end of that, whoever has the most points wins.
2. We have a set "goal" of a certain amount of points; when someone reaches that goal the contest is over and they win.
3. We use a knockout system, eliminating contestants until there is only one left. We could do this by splitting the contest into rounds; after each round, we eliminate half of the contestants that have the least points.

Does anyone have other ideas? Open to thoughts. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

My choice has to be option 1. There is a fixed, known, period and definitive end-date. My suggestion is a three-month competition, and if done as two-tier for n00bs/veterans, that noobs be excluded from OR for an initial period. I'm easy if that's X articles, or Y weeks, or both expressed as 'whichever you reach first'.

Option 1 has no limit to the number of articles generated; 2 does and, 3 will see volume drop noticeably as the competition tails off. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I too agree that option one is the best, just thought I'd throw some other ideas out there. Three months sounds like a reasonable time length. If, assuming conservatively, we have 30 total participants and each submits about one article per day, we're looking at 30x90 days = 2700 articles. That sounds almost too good to be true. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions copied from Tempo's talk page (to centralise discussion)

When I read your original proposal, I immediatly thought of a single elimination tournament with weeklong one on one contests. A person who has the editor tool could look over each of said contest.

Also, count articles from the contests beginning--RockerballAustralia (talk) 04:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Some random suggestions:

1. I would prefer two groups (newbies and established editors) as (i) it is unfair to lump them someone who has never written an article with someone who has 100+ articles published under their belt (ii) it would be a shame not to include 'established editors'. Don't ask me where the 'bright line' should be drawn though (I wrote 30+ in one month: does that make me a newbie as I recently joined or established because of the number of articles published?) NB: I will no longer be 'new' by any stretch of the imagination by the time the contest starts, but there could easily be someone else in a similar situation.
2. I think that an uneven number of jurors should oversee the allocation of points (three seems a good number to me). I'd happily act as juror to whichever group I am not in.
3. Concerning reviewing, editors who choose not to participate should be encouraged to make an extra effort to review articles. Editors from the 'established' group can naturally review the 'newbie' group.
4. One point per article is a little unfair: a three paragraph article that just passes requirement for publication is not the same as an in-depth piece, let alone OR which takes much longer to prepare. I'd set up a points system (which the jury would apply), based on various criteria: length, bonus for particularly pertinent images, OR. I'd happily work with a group of you to write the rules.
5. An elimination contest on points seems OK to me, maybe with number of weeks reducing as the contest progresses. The first round would allow more time, especially for the newbies, to get the hang of it. Maybe three rounds (3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 final week—to be tweaked could be 2 weeks, 1.5 weeks, 1 week). Have a set limit of people passing to the next round with the jury able to select by vote one or two of those who didn't make it to continue (à la Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals). Being knocked out in the first week, especially in the 'newbie' category, is going to be very disheartening, and it only takes a contributor to be away for a long weekend to effectively scupper their chances. If I knew that I was likely to make it to the final, I'd make sure I was available, so fair's fair for the last week. Besides, the longer this goes on (but not eternally), the more articles Wikinews will have to publish!
6. I'd prefer products and/or services rather than cash donated by companies as rewards for the winners (screams "paid editing!" a tad). That said, it's a preference and I'll not refuse $, € or dirhams.
7. We could use the Wikipedia Signpost to publicise this. They recently advertised the results after announcing the start recent WikiCup and reporting on progress (can't be bothered to find the links for the latter).
8. We should take note of the lessons learned at this year's WikiCup. The most important lesson I can see is the importance of getting the rules agreed upon from the start, and not changing them as the competition progresses.
9. I'm not convinced that we should require OR in the final round, but if we adopt the points allocation system I suggest, it would de facto encourage it.

Voici my musings du jour. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:40, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

On the points side of it, I think there should be

• a point per atricle
• one and a half if it incorporates OR with referenced sources
• two if it's all OR
• half a point for every third paragraph from the sixth onwards.--RockerballAustralia (talk) 09:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should have any elimination at all. Contributors, especially newbies, are likely to stop writing articles if their chances of winning the competition are lost. Also, receiving any kind of prize, whether it's cash, services, or products, seems to be paid editing to me. Perhaps we can allow the winner to donate the money to a charity of their choice??? Benny the mascot (talk) 21:59, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing would stop someone from donating a prize to charity; and, yes, I know it smacks of "paid editing". However, a prize-pot of $500, on a 12 week competition, 20 competitors, minimum 3 articles/week; that's 720+ articles. If the prize is split to 1st, 2nd, 3rd..., and the winner does 8 articles/week to win $150, that's $0.64/article. (/me makes note to have this bit of the discussion deleted before starting the competition ;-P). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)