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Welcome to the Water Cooler

Shortcut: WN:WC Don't forget to flush! Welcome to the water cooler, a place to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikinews. This is divided into five sections; please use the table below to find the most appropriate section to post in, or just use the miscellaneous section. The water cooler is not the place to make lasting comments, as discussions are removed regularly to make room for new ones. Please sign and date your post (by typing ~~~~ or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

Policy To discuss existing and proposed policies (Add new message - Archive)

Technical To discuss technical issues (Add new message - Archive)

Proposals To discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related (Add new message - Archive)

Assistance To post requests for assistance not covered elsewhere (Add new message - Archive)

Miscellaneous Discussions and questions which don't fit elsewhere (Add new message - Archive)

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Get help using Wikinews					Help contents
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Policy

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Archives

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.

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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

This is an open poll listed on the Water cooler and Wikinews:Polls. Please remove the {{poll}} flag when the poll closes. Please discuss your poll ideas with the community before polling, and don't vote on everything as voting is evil.

• Wikinews:Featured article candidates - Candidates should not be nominated for consideration until after they have been archived. In this manner, the actual article being considered will not be one that is itself subject to change, perhaps rapidly in the case of a breaking story, but rather is a page that is complete and finished, and has afterwards been archived and fully-protected as per WN:ARCHIVE policy. It is only a wait time of Seven Days. Cirt (talk) 21:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Note: This would only apply for future nominations, not retroactively. Current noms would of course be grandfathered in. Cirt (talk) 21:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

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Comments

• Neutral does it really matter that much? If it makes a difference, why not just have the article stay on WN:FAC an extra week. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's kind of silly to debate the merits of giving something this consideration while it is still being edited, especially if it is a breaking story, and such an easy change to make, and would make things a lot more appropriate, IMHO. Cirt (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• I don't really care all that much either way, although there is a certain logic to this. One point - after 24 hours an article shouldn't be edited for content, so perhaps we should make the limit 24 hours instead of the full week? Tempodivalse [talk] 21:24, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The full week is best to make this more in line with the already existing policy of WN:ARCHIVE, and this way, when the article is being considered as a candidate, it will already conveniently be fully-protected. Cirt (talk) 21:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

But really, what difference would it make? If someone alters the article for content after 24 hours, it's going to be reverted per WN:ARCHIVE. That's almost the same thing as locking up the article so no one can edit it in the first place. *shrugs* Tempodivalse [talk] 21:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There are cases where things could be changed, or at least where people could argue that things could (or perhaps should) be changed or tweaked. There have been situations at WN:FAC where people have proposed changing parts of articles specifically so that they could be better candidates. Making this seven days, would effectively remove all those arguments as a possibility from the WN:FAC page, and help to better focus FAC discussions in the future. :) Cirt (talk) 21:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but those sort of suggestions can be made after archiving, as well as before, you said so yourself below. I still don't see much of a difference between a 24 hour and 1 week limit, and i like the former because I think it's more practical (e.g. allows an article to be nominated quicker while it's still reasonably fresh). Tempodivalse [talk]

Better not to nominate an article quicker, rather per Brian McNeil (talk · contribs), below, it is better to take the time to reflect on the article prior to proposing. Cirt (talk) 02:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. Support, as proposed above. Cirt (talk) 21:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
2. Support Verily. No point to FAC'ing something that's been published for 2 hours. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
3. Yep. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
4. Support—sounds like a good idea to me. Dendodge _T\^C 22:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
5. Support because this is much better than not taking time to reflect on the article prior to proposing. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
6. Support although I would rather see either 24 or 48 hours, since it is quite possible to say, for example, 'could we budge that image a bit, its messing the formating up? Thats better' and then support. True, most or all of these things can be done post-archiving, but not everyone is an admin. We in the cabal cloakroom must bear that in mind. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

   I would agree with you that those are minor things that can be done post archiving, per WN:ARCHIVE. Cirt (talk) 23:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

7. Support I think a week is just fine, though, I don't think we need to mold this as per archive. I think at the least, 72 hours may suffice. Though if its any number lower than archive period, I say we make a separate policy regarding FAC/FA. If not, then just go by archive. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 03:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

   Yeah, I just don't think it is worth the bother to do that, it is simpler to just modify it as per existing policy of WN:ARCHIVE. Cirt (talk) 03:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

8. Support Logical idea, although I still prefer a shorter limit, like 24 or 48 hours. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

   I just don't see the overwhelming urgent need for an emergent desire to nominate articles to become FAs faster than waiting seven days. Cirt (talk) 03:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

   And I don't see the need to have to wait an entire week before being able to nominate an article. I really don't have a strong opinion on it either way, as this is a relatively minor issue, wiki-wise, and won't significantly impact anything. I won't object to it regardless of which time limit is agreed upon, that's just my preference. It might be best to agree to disagree. :-) Tempodivalse [talk] 03:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

   Okay, no worries. :) Cirt (talk) 03:58, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

9. Support Yeah. No reason to FAC a recent news. Pmlineditor ∞ 09:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose Articles that later become featured articles are going to become archived anyway, so what's the point? After all, we should be getting things done quickly, not waiting impatiently for about a week while the article that could become featured just lies there doing nothing. Rayboy8 (my talk) 07:02, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

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)

Technical

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Archives

Twitter

Guys, check the application that sends new articles on the twitter account. The links are not even links ;) 88.218.137.160 (talk) 13:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

It's been fixed now. the wub "?!" 17:21, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed Yea. My bad. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 17:27, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Google News

Are we still being regularly listed in google news? According to this, not all of our articles are being listed. Tempodivalse [talk] 16:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

No. We're not. Google requires we have a 3 digit number with each article, which is where curid came in. For the last many lengths of time, any link to ?curid= are nobot/index. The only links that will show up on Google are leads (Links on the main page not DPL) with at least 3 numbers/symbols. Sometimes 2 numbers is enough, but it is supposed to be 3, so I dunno. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 17:29, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Amgine is working hard to try to get a solution for this. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20818 Bawolff ☺☻ 00:50, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Note we now have a temporary really ugly kludge of a solution in place. Hopefully the bug will be fixed soon. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:25, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Articles bumped to top of main page DPLs if {{published}} is removed

I've noticed that, every time a vandal blanks a published/sighted article, and it gets reverted, it bumps the article to the top of the main page DPLs - even if it's several days old. I've had to add Category:Archived to one article today to get it off of the lists. I see a potential for abuse here - a vandal can easily disrupt the display list by removing the publish tag on old articles. Even if the edit remains unsighted and is reverted, it will stay on the top of the DPL. One way to bypass this is to do what i did - add the archived category, despite the article not being archived - but is there a more convenient solution to this? Tempodivalse [talk] 03:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• I believe there is a bug outstanding for this - something Flagged Revisions doesn't quite yet handle. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 03:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Flagged revs should have fixed this (this is a long standing issue though) See bugzilla:20813. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ugly Ass central site notice

Apparently the WMF likes to rub it into everyone else face that we're not Wikipedia. I've got nothing against raising money, because we cost money to stay on the air, but that thing is fucking hideous. No offense to whom ever "designed" that concept... For those of you who don't appreciate the giant mess on your screen, add the following to your personal CSS files:

#centralNotice { display: none !important; }

Really, if I had my druthers, I'd make some "adjustments" to Mediawiki:Common.css to help fix that fugly banner. Here's what I was thinking:

#centralNotice { font-size: 60%; }

#center-logo { display: none !important; }

I was warned that futzing with the banner could end "poorly" (not that I've ever cared about the consequences), so here's one better. What does the community think? Should we keep it as it? Should be make it less annoying (smaller) or should we remove it all together (until _they_ make it less annoying)? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Shaka, it's broken. I'm using IE on Windows - the world's most common combination - and the link is unclickable. On that basis, it needs to come down right now and I'd do it myself if I knew/understood MW well enough. Once, and only once, they fix that issue with it we put it back for the vote. BTW, I vote for removal when that time comes. We cannot have our site paraded round with a broken link being the very first thing that greets people. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 07:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Seconded, can't be clicked, looks awful; please remove as quickly as possible. It's not even our logo for crying out loud. Until they make a nice one, get rid of it.    Tris   10:09, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm whinging to ComCom on your behalf. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh god. I saw the proposed banner on meta and thought it was awful, but I assumed they would take account of some of the feedback there. Or at least use the right logo and a working link! I'll back completely anyone who removes it, Foundation permission or not. the wub "?!" 11:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• Hacked ;-) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

#centralNotice { font-size: 60%; font-variant: small-caps; } #center-logo { image: url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Wikinews-logo.svg/50px-Wikinews-logo.svg.png"); }

That keep everyone happy? Someone tell me what the 'standard' css is for the fugly one and I'll do something better. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• Noticed one little problem - the "hide" button is microscopic. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not working for me, it still shows the Wikipedia logo despite plenty of hard refreshing/purging. :( the wub "?!" 12:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't see the banner, Brianmc's fix must have worked for me. Isn't this is something like what the banner looks like? Utterly hideous, it was a good idea to take it down. I wonder if the folks from the foundation are going to complain. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• My attempted fix didn't work. I was trying to figure out the CSS to substitute the image in my userspace when someone took the central notice down. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

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Discussion moved to Wikinews:Fundraiser and Wikinews talk:Fundraiser

This needs to be sorted out and made damn sure never to happen again. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Redlinks where they shouldn't be - WTF?

I opened up an old article just now, only to find that links piped to Wikipedia were instead formating themselves as local redlinks. The page was Driver hits median strip, rolls vehicle in NSW, Australia. Anyone else see this? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki's broken. Known issue. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 18:49, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

First I've seen it. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Seems to have been fixed. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposals

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Archives

Vector Vote - Now with 50% more drama

I don't think I need to explain what Vector is, most everyone uses it. We voted previously, the results were fairly positive, though somewhat mixed. Mostly people were concerned about it being "too beta" and too many changes being made to it. Well it is stable now, and everyone likes it. If you go to Special:PrefStats/skin you will see that 93% of all people who've turned on Vector, have left it on. Of the 7% who turned it off, most did so within the first few hours. So, once again, we shall vote to make Vector the default skin for enWikinews. (Reminder: If you don't like it, you can change you personal preference, this mostly effects what newbies see).

WN redirecting to Wikinews

Result

100%

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)

Featured topics

We currently have a featured articles process, for individual superduperamazinglyspifilicious articles, but what we lack is something similar to Wikipedia:Featured topics. We often have a particular story where we repeatedly cover various developments over a length of times. Usually none of the articles are FA quality but overall they add up to very high-quality coverage. To be clear, I'm talking developments on a particular story, so to blow my own trumpet with the first example that springs to mind "Garuda Indonesia Flight 200" would be suitable since the crash was one story which developed over time but "Scientology" wouldn't; there are many separate stories intertwined to make up that topic.

Thoughts? We obviously need a better word than 'topic' but I'm out on that one. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Why don't we call it Good topics, to indicate that not all the articles in the group may be WN:FA, but the group as a whole is very good quality. Cirt (talk) 21:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Instead of the word "topics", I would suggest "series". Cirt (talk) 21:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea, although I agree with Cirt that "series" might be a more appropriate word than "topics". Tempodivalse [talk] 22:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

At first i thought this was a stupid idea (As it stands no one really cares about FA, why should we make more featured processes). but now that I read the comments, this does sound like a good idea. (other examples that come to mind of series of articles would perhaps be the Chili Finger Incident and some of the australian stuff). Bawolff ☺☻ 15:30, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

(<—) Sounds like a great idea. I can think of plenty of series we could create (with a sidebar for each). It would be more useful than the current sidebars we use (if you're interested in one event, you won't want to read about that whole country, but you might be interested in reading other articles in the series to see what has led up to this event). Dendodge _T\^C 18:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I created an example of what a series infobox based on my most recent article might look like at User:Dendodge/Series infobox mockup. I ahve transcluded it here, to see what you think. As it is, it is virtually identical to normal topic infoboxes, and I would rather differentiate between series and broader topics, but I'm not sure how (Edit: I made it use colours with a reddish hue instead of bluish ones for now). In order for my template to work properly, two things would be needed: A category with the same name as the series, and a page for the series (I suggest a new "Series" namespace, but a portal would work too). In its most basic form, this could just be a limitless DPL, but it could be expanded to include all sorts of relevant content. Dendodge _T\^C 19:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this should go on the main article page space, but rather the talk page space, similar to what is displayed at w:Talk:Confessions (Usher album). Cirt (talk) 01:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree—when reading about news, people will want to read the events that preceded the one about which they are reading. This infobox, while spawned from the Wikipedia "topic" model—would be, essentially, an aid to interested readers. The amount of casual readers who check the talk page is a small fraction of the number who read the article, and of the number who would be interested in reading more. Dendodge _T\^C 20:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

• First, where's this "Series:" namespace idea coming from? I see zero use for that. A regular portal should be just fine - if you really want to see "Series:" it could be made a synonym for "Portal:".
• Second, I don't see a reason not to have additional categories to make filling infoboxes like your example - but it might be a very good idea to have them hidden. For your example it could probably be done with 2 regular categories - one for the 'thug' in question, plus one for the bosnian-serb conflict. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that the portal namespace was a mistake, lets not repeat it. (A caegory should work fine). I like the yellow infobox. We should make these infoboxes use css hopefully... Bawolff ☺☻ 16:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: Brian's first point:

I agree with you, despite it being my idea. I was suffering from a lack of sleep at the time, and didn't think it through. Dendodge _T\^C 20:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I think "Good series" sounds good. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Okay so it seems we will go with "Wikinews:Good series". However I still must disagree on having these templates in main article space - it is not the purpose of main article space to do that - that would be the purpose of an infobox, not a template trumpeting the quality of an article. The {{FA}} star is quite enough for that. Cirt (talk) 21:18, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The template is a parallel proposal for series in general, with no inherent reflection on the quality of an article or series. Featured series can be denoted on the talk page of their relevant portals, and/or with a small star somewhere in the template (I would prefer the former only, but the latter has its merits). Dendodge _T\^C 21:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The subsection header of this thread is Featured topics. This is a thread about that topic. We already have a process for templates of "series" on article main space, this is called infobox templates. Cirt (talk) 21:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

• I think, for the focus you're putting here, this isn't something we're qualified to judge. That's a historian's job. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Simple English Wikinews.

It has come to my attention that i know this wikinews is good for experienced authors but what about esl people and younger kids seniors disabbled people what can they do? Proposing a simple english wikinews for those people i mentioned but it really can be for anyone who likes to write simple news. Does anyone Support this idea or Oppose of it?

• Support I support this very much so... Seabanks (talk) 23:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• Comment It's my understanding that no more Simple projects are being created by the WMF project approval board. Apparently, in order for a wiki to be created, it has to be in a language that has its own ISO code. Simple English is not a "real" language and doesn't have its own ISO code, so no projects in that language will be created, even if there's overwhelming support to create them. As such, a proposal to create a Simple English Wikinews will probably not go far. Also, this isn't the right place to request to make a new wiki, that should be done at Meta, not locally. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
• Comment even in light of Tempo's comment, I wouldn't support the incubation of a simple WN, nor would I attempt to contribute to such. My opinion is that writing a news report within a "simple" (i.e. restricted) vocabulary would make NPOV compliance impossible. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

  I wouldn't say that it's impossible to be NPOV with a "simple" vocabulary, it's just harder - projects like Simple English Wikipedia seem to have managed to remain pretty neutral even though they have to use a limited word bank. Even if simple projects were allowed, I would still not be very enthusiastic to support, as I feel we have enough trouble gaining extra contributors and expanding our coverage without having to be distracted by another English version. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

  They have an advantage - time. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm of the opinion that simple projects are a "bad" idea in general. plus we have voted on this before (twice before i think), and the overwhelming opinion has been no. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose—I have never seen the point of Simple English projects, and en.wn is small enough as it is, without diverting potential editors to a different project. Dendodge _T\^C 21:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose I am not totally opposed to simple projects, simple Wikipedia is useful; in the last project-wide election I was following the private discussion about the presentation of the election, the biggest problem was the voting method. As the enwp article was difficult to understand, and headaches were emerging getting it translated, I suggested a simple article on the voting method. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
• Comment For the love of god, this is the second time in RECENT HISTORY that this suggestion has come up. For the love of god, No --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 19:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
• Strong oppose It's not going to be created by Meta, and secondly, there are hardly any editors who'll be interested in editing yet another Simple project. Can anyone mark this as resolved? Pmlineditor^Talk 15:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

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Per above request, I hearby mark this as resolved! OTOH, life is not a vote (as if it was, life would be evil, and thats a weird weird moral system... and we can't have that ;), so feel free to continue discussing this if you really feel like it. Sufficed to say, it is rather unlikely such a project will be created. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Liquidthreads on Comments namespace

I've encountered liquidthreads on the strategy wiki. For those of us more used to working in 'normal' MW talk pages it may take a little getting used to. However, for people from a non-wiki editing background might be happier with liquidthreads.

What do people think of getting that set on the Comments: namespace?

Are there any serious technical issues with this?

General ideas? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Hm, interesting idea. While I generally don't like LiquidThreads very much, there may be an advantage to using it on comments pages (but not talk or user talk pages), as it auto-signs comments and makes automatic indents; that would be easier to use for people who aren't familiar with the mediawiki editing interface. I don't see any serious issues that might result from implementing it, so i generally Support. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:40, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near ready to be turned on at a live content wiki, at least from a technical standpoint. See mw:Extension:LiquidThreads/Notes. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I strongly think using it on comments is a good idea. I also tend to agree that on a talk page, it might not be as useful. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:27, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

That's sort of unfortunate. I mean, liquidthreads is meant for normal talk pages. Is there something that could be improved so that it would be possible to use for talk pages here too? (at the moment there are too many bugs for it to be deployed here I think) Skalman (talk) 23:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not to up on the bugs that might exist, but Wikinews' comments namespace itself is rather 'experimental'. It's an add-on to the core goals of the project and perhaps an ideal place to try this out. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm game for it, it LQT at least works and doesn't crash pages, I don't see too much harm in using it. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 00:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how many bugs there are, but I would support the eventual use of LQT on all (user) talk/comment pages, but we should test on comments pages, which are the least used of these (as well as the ones casual readers are most likely to use), first. Dendodge _T\^C 08:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't want liquidthreads on regular talk pages - I guess i just don't like the "feel" of it, it's complicates things too much. I'm much more comfortable with the regular indenting system. The reason i support it for comments pages is that it's probably easier to use for people not familiar with the mediawiki editing interface (auto-indenting, auto-signing and all that) - plus it looks more like the commentary systems other news sites have, which makes us look more professional. :-) Tempodivalse [talk] 13:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] to respond to Skalman, my opinion is roughly the same as Tempo's for use of LQT on talk page. I don't oppose it do to any bugs, I just think that the current system is supperior (in terms of concept). Talk pages should not be a fourm, while they are a forum, but they are an unstructured forum meant to develop the article. Adding threading comment structure to them is just not a good idea imho (thats not to say that LQT is bad, on the contrary, i think its quite an amazing piece of work, just not the right tool for the job.) However comment pages are meant for discussion/arguments as oposed to constructive collaberation and thus LQT is the right tool for the right job in that context (At least imho). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:23, 1 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)

Assistance

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Wikinews Importer Bot blocked

This conversation has been marked for the community's attention. Please remove the {{flag}} when the discussion is complete or no longer important.

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)

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)

Miscellaneous

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Citation

Is there a way to cite a book? I can only find URL cites. Marx01 (talk) 00:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The closest we have to that would be {{cite journal}}; however, we generally don't cite books, so there's no real "book citation" template. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:28, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The issue I'm having is that I want to use a textbook for getting facts about things not addressed in other sources. I have not found a more reliable source so far. Thank you for your reply and I'll hunker down and finds me some sources! Marx01 (talk) 00:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

{{apasource}}, {{papersource}}. As well. However they are generally discouraged if the information is readily available online, as they are hard to check. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:03, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Millbot-VoA

I've finished the bot for VoA in general. It added articles from Africa and Americas... I am waiting for your comments until turning it on. Note that there will be always some errors. My parser is extremely cheap (in a couple of hours I've solved generically VoA for all languages) and thus it makes errors from time to time. However, I think that the level of errors (1 in 5 articles need manual garbage deletion). However, if you don't think so, please let me know. Other comments are welcome as well. --millosh (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Created articles are: --millosh (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

• Talks on Fate of Deposed Honduran President Stall
• Meatpackers Agree on Amazon Deforestation Moratorium
• IOM Launches New Campaign to End Human Trafficking
• Hurricane Rick Strongest Pacific Storm Since 1997
• Rio Drug War Erupts; Police Helicopter Shot Down
• 'Dangerous' Hurricane Rick Reaches Category Five
• Zelaya: Honduran Coup Talks Suspended
• Hunger Casts Dark Cloud Over World Food Day
• Honduran Businesses Suffer as Political Crisis Continues
• Zelaya Sets Monday Deadline for Agreement
• Paris AIDS Conference Confirms Modest Protection by Trial Vaccine
• Zimbabwe Cabinet Meets Without MDC Ministers
• Zimbabwe PM Begins Regional Tour
• El Niño Rains Begin in East Africa
• Watchdog Says Media Freedom in Europe Plummeting
• US, East African Nations Begin Major Military Exercise
• Guinea Military Defends Chinese Mineral Deal
• Africa to Adopt Refugee/IDP Convention At Kampala Summit
• New Sudan Referendum Deal Raises Fresh Challenges
• ECOWAS Suspends Niger in Dispute Over Constitution

Some of them are already fixed. --millosh (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks good! I've already published one of the bot's articles. This is much easier than manually copy-and-pasting from VOA. One suggestion though, perhaps {{develop}} should be at the top of the page, not at the bottom. Also, i've noticed the bot adding continent templates such as {{Africa}}, which aren't generally used outside of portals - maybe that shouldn't be included. Tempodivalse [talk] 21:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, the dates are wrong on some of those; many are days old, while the bot imported them under October 20. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 21:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that {{develop}} should be at the top, not at the bottom. Cirt (talk) 22:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Everything is fixed. (Juliancolton, I didn't realize that I fixed date during one phase of bot development. Dates for the most of already added the news should be manually checked; new news will have valid dates) In this moment sections "TopStories", "Africa", "Americas" and "Arts and Entertainment" are included in scheduled bot tasks (every 10 minutes). I'll be adding other categories during the next couple of days because avoiding instant pressure for editors who are working on developing articles. --millosh (talk) 09:29, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

• Per Tempo's comment, we could probably do with looking at where we're inconsistent with infobox template naming. I assume Millosh has some criteria to 'guess' the appropriate infobox, that just needs clarified, and then infoboxes reviewed to make sure the right ones pop up for these articles. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Would it be feasible to have the bot automatically delete its articles if they haven't been edited by anyone after a week (or some other period of time)? That way, the newsroom wouldn't be overcrowded with hopelessly out-of-date VOA articles. I've been manually deleting the stale articles myself, but it's rather time-consuming, and I thought perhaps it would be more efficient to have a bot do it instead. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:17, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

  This is why we have admins; to use human judgement in making decisions. And why the job's symbol is a mop; it's not a glorious position, it's work cleaning up. - Amgine | ^t 18:43, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible to make a bot which would delete stale articles. I am working now on a new engine, which should do a number of other things (like categorizing, adding some images, making wikilinks and so on) and when I finish it, I'll make a bot for deleting staled articles. However, if it is necessary to do it immediately, I may do it. --millosh (talk) 08:30, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews being used at other news sites

I was looking around Google News earlier today, and found it interesting that at least one news source, Jackson NJ News, has been reproducing a lot of our content (this, this, and this, for instance). I know that blogs copy us fairly frequently, but this is the first time that i've seen a news agency cite and copy our stuff. Just thought someone would find that interesting. Is there any other news outlet that reproduces our content? Tempodivalse [talk] 19:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a news agency. The list of contributors is interesting, I think the local police and fire people have access to what seems to be a WordPress install. I couldn't find a contact address, so I posted a comment on one of our articles they've copied saying thank you, and politely asking them to 'shape up' in terms of how they credit us. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:33, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Found a contact email. "Send your letters, comments, press releases and anything else Jackson related to news@jacksonnjonline.com." --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 05:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Emailed. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:07, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Starting an article - FAIL

Up-front on the main page are two links where a newcomer would expect to find an opportunity to start an article. The newsroom, and the Report Breaking News link in the header. Only the Newsroom has a edit form to enter an article title and start a new page, and that is 3-4 screenloads down - not exactly obvious. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:26, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It has to be fixed. Srinivas 10:23, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The whole newsroom needs a complete overhaul with a serious focus on news production. I'll have a go at putting together a basic/primitive in my userspace. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:31, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

• I have made the template at the top of the Newsroom a sub-page (see here). I would welcome feedback on that (apart from Shaka's mega-dislike in IRC). I want to see all the sort of links like this that are above the crease or in the main page header making a significant effort to try and get people to become involved and edit things. I started this section because the two most obvious links someone would click on from the main page to do this don't have an article creation box up-front and in your face. Ideas? Comments? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:07, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Article distribution list

I have an intention (and interest) of updating this though the page is marked for archival purposes? Is there anyone who can nod the approval for me to update it? Ali Rana (talk) 04:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Have fun. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 04:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

We always need more Africa stuff. Cirt (talk) 04:29, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, update if if you want. I think it would be a useful page. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

current Sitenotice

Am I the only one who cannot make any sense to the current "Are you Wikinewsie on Twitter?" notice? The "Twitter" wikilink doesn't expand on what is "The list", if all "wikinewsies" can join or only those reporting news there, etc... Is it possible to either only display such items in plain English or to keep them on the noticeboards where you can use more than 140 characters to explain what you mean exactly? Lucasbfr (talk) 11:12, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

It makes perfect sense. If you contribute in any way to Wikinews and are registered on Twitter, fire off an @reply on there. 'The list' is in inverted commas. I'd advise you to learn what these are. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:40, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Interviews

*Copied from Tempodicalse's Talk Page*

I have been able to get an interview with the CDC regarding the swine flu pandemic, but now I am at a loss of which question to ask. Could you possibly help me? Thanks, The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, let's see. Just a few ideas, off the top of my head: 1.) What measures are going to be taken to combat the swine flu? 2.) Are current anti-flu vaccines effective? How much supply of vaccine is there? 3.) What can you advise us to do to reduce our chance of being infected? 4.) Just how deadly is swine flu?

There are probably better questions, but that's the best i could come up with for the moment. Why don't you ask about this at the water cooler? You'd get a larger audience that way, perhaps someone will think up something. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll copy this to the water cooler also. I'm hoping this interview with Mr. Dimond goes good. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 05:00, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

What I have as of now:

  1. How does the CDC feel the media has handled the H1N1 flu pandemic?
  2. What measures are the CDC taking to combat the swine flu?
  3. What areas around the world are affected most by the swine flu?
  4. Are the current anti-flu vaccines effective and how sufficient is the current supply?
  5. How can one avoid infection and how deadly is this disease?
  6. What efforts have the CDC made to insure vaccines are available for those with no or poor health-care?
  7. If someone suspects they have swine flu what would the best course of action be?
  8. When will the swine flu die down and cease being a pandemic?
  9. Besides the CDC, what other entities, governmental and private, are involved in stopping this disease and how?
  10.Is there a significant risk of H1N1 mutating with other viruses and becoming stronger? 

--The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 05:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

My question:

1. What efforts will the CDC make to provide A (H1N1) vaccines available to those who have little or no access to healthcare? I'm thinking of huge areas of Africa and Asia so this question probably needs to be formulated a little better. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 11:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I added one and it sparked another. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 23:53, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

One suggestion, about question number three: since swine flu has spread to very many places in the world now, maybe a more specific question would be "what areas around the world have been affected the most by swine flu?" or something like that. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I think it is almost done, --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

My question:

• Is there a significant risk of H1N1 mutating with other viruses and becoming stronger?

–Juliancolton | ^Talk 00:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. That makes an even ten, so that should be good. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• Well, I love the good, in depth answers emailed to scoop!    Tris   20:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Back in black

Hi all, just wanted to drop by and say I'll have more time for Wikinews now. Over at en:wiki there was a thing called the WikiCup that ate up time for most of the year (more time than expected). It's over now, which is Wikinews's gain. Cheers all, Durova (talk) 15:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back! Nice to see you around and editing again. Cheers, Tempodivalse [talk] 16:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Want a review that'll make you chuckle? Olympic condoms auctioned: "faster, higher, stronger". :) Durova (talk) 18:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Happy 5th Birthday Wikinews

Today, November 8th, 2009 marks the 5th anniversary of the English Wikinews (the first and most awesome of all Wikinews). So happy birthday to us, and here's to 5 more years of pain and sufferingJournalism! --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

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)

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)