Wikinews:Water cooler/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.

Contents

[edit] 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)

[edit] News on Wikipedia Homepage

Who decides what news goes on the Wikipedia front page? Is there a policy regarding it? I haven't been able to find such a policy, and the standards for noteworthiness seem to change over time. 128.151.23.55 (talk) 21:29, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong project, Wikipedia controls that. Wikinews is mostly independent of wikipedia. However, w:Wikipedia:In the news is the page you're looking for i believe. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:32, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Are you referring to this project, Wikinews, or our sister site Wikipedia? We're not a part of Wikipedia, and totally independent from them. If it's the former, then no, we have no set policies on what can and can't go on the front page, although there are some "unwritten" rules about it, such as that the story should not be very local, and that the leads should be kept reasonably fresh if possible. Tempodivalse [talk] 21:34, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] How to peer-review

I'm not aware of substantive guidance on the site about on how to go about peer-reviewing articles. What I mean is that (unless I've missed something, but if I have then there's a decent chance I'm not alone in that) a newly promoted editor has nothing that tells them how much of what kind of work they ought to be putting into the task. Much of their prior experience of the peer review process is that it looks easy; they only see the tip of the iceberg — maybe some copyedits, and a little edit that replaces {{review}} with {{publish}} and puts a template on the talk page saying it's been certified acceptable on several criteria. One might expect to find the primary description of the process in Wikinews:Reviewing articles, but that page doesn't give a real sense of the part of the iceberg below the surface.

As a first step toward figuring what we should tell prospective peer-reviewers about the process — and authors, too, who might find the process easier to appreciate if they had a clearer picture of it — I'd like to ask how other editors go about peer-reviewing an article. I too have only seen the effects of other people's reviews; and I'm not really satisfied that I know how to do some aspects of reviewing properly.

As a starting point, I'll open myself up to ridicule by describing how I go about peer review.

After reading through the article to get a sense of what is there, I open up a second browser tab, and use it to set up a scratchpad copy of the entire body of the article in Special:ExpandTemplates, which lets me edit the scratchpad without any danger of accidentally saving it. Then I scan through each of the sources from beginning to end, and as I find things in the sources, I use <s>...</s> to strike out those facts in my scratchpad copy of the article body; when I'm all done, everything in the scratchpad copy should have been struck out. This also serves several other purposes:
  • Scrutinizing the relationship between article and sources should also detect copyright problems of the "block copy" sort (if such were to occur).
  • Scrutinizing the article piece-by-piece should detect a large percentage of style problems (assuming that the reviewer is likely to recognize style problems when their nose is rubbed in them, this will do the nose-rubbing).
  • Scrutinizing the sources is likely to detect if they're really from the same newsfeed rather than being independent sources.
When I've done all that, which concentrates on the details, I try to step back and look at the whole, a bit (I admit I'm still struggling with this). Like, are all the really important aspects of the story included in the article, is appropriate weight being given to the different aspects, what about categories, picture(s), infobox.

I'd also be very interested in comments on which aspects of an article are most important to get right before publication, versus which aspects aren't such a big deal to make minor fixes to later. --Pi zero (talk) 14:42, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

This is something I haven't really thought about, but now that it's been brought to my attention, yes, I do notice that we haven't much in the way of help in how to publish articles for new editors. Perhaps we could create Wikinews:Tips on reviewing articles or something like that? You're quite right in that most reviewers are left to their own devices when publishing. I don't think we should have a firm policy on *how* exactly to review, but rather just suggestions what to look for.
Anyway, I really like your strategy for verifying articles, i think it's quite efficient but, at the same time, covers all important steps. My method for reviewing is less methodical: I go through the sources, make sure they're not from the same agency, then try to judge their accuracy and reliability (i.e., I'd take info from the Daily Mail or tabloid with a grain of salt, and perhaps try to find a more reputable source to back up the information taken from them). Then I proceed to the article itself: I read the first paragraph, find where in the sources it's verified, make sure it conforms to policy (style, NPOV), then repeat the process with next paragraphs, making incremental copyedits as I see needed. When I'm all done with that, I do a quick read-through to make sure appropriate balance is given to all viewpoints, see if categories and formatting is correct, and then publish. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we want to specify how to do a review. For instance, I read the article, then read each of the sources and can tell if it's been copyviod or some things aren't mentioned. I just copyedit as I go. So no methodical method, but I'm able to do it like that and everyone is different. We could maybe add a bit more in tips, but we want to avoid specific methods.    Tris   15:48, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

My approach seems to differ significantly from those given above. And, I'm the one that spent a couple of years or more fighting to get the process in place.

First and foremost, I copyedit. Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How. Does the article tell a story? Does it do so in a way that flows? Is there actually any point to someone reading what, mostly, are our synthesis versions of main news events reported anywhere else?

Once that's done, and often as a part of that process, I'll correct Wikilinks to be local - eg, United States instead of w:United States. To a lesser extent I'll look for wikilinks that go to redirect pages on enwp; however, I would generally consider this sufficiently low-priority that the only ones to really worry about are where someone's linking to a disambig page on enwp.

You will note, I have zero mention of reading any of the sources yet!

Once I'm reasonably happy the article reads well, I will look at the visual appearance. Are pull-quotes really pull-quotes? Or, omitted from the article? Is there no infobox, and an appropriate one that could be used? Are image captions holding part of the story rather than admitting to use of a file photo? Are images credited appropriately? (On this point, many images on Commons need no attribution but I feel that the people who give these away with no expectation of recognition deserve such. I think it is setting a good example for others utilising Commons and there's less worry about if it is required to attribute reuse. Just do it anyway and be done with it.)

Then, and only then, will I move onto the sources, related news, and external links. Are related news items really related? (Eg, don't just slap the last 3 articles on a country on the article, are they really a continuation of the same story, or a source used in the article you're currently reviewing? If not, cut 'em; this can be a POV-by-association issue if you pick the wrong related news items.

Then, into the sources; sort newest->oldest, fix the perennial failure to cite the BBC as "BBC News Online" (my pet hate), check authors are credited, and agencies where appropriate, try (based on five years on-project) to have publisher names likely to wikilink to the correct enWP article, and curse people who do not use the standardised Monthname Dayno, Year dating standard.

Ensure that there's nothing wishy-washy, generic, undated in the sources; if needed move to external links and cite appropriately for there.

Then, it's time to move on to reading the sources. And, believe you me, I've had some entertaining experiences there. If it's a "publication" from Bumfuck Blogistan I'm not amused. I really dislike dealing with such sources unless I can quickly establish they have some credibility and aren't just cut-and-pasted from a more obscure or behind-paywall source. Other risks you have are stories that originate with one of the wire services and go global in the media echo-chamber. It is really, really easy for someone who isn't appropriately suspicious to pick three sources with vast geographical separation, and even poles-apart politically, to all be regurgitating the self-same Associated Press or Reuters report. I've seen it, and probably most who follow the news a lot have too, a global story, in the first 15 minutes of every bulletin on TV news in a dozen countries, and the thing is actually single-source to AP having a syndication deal with a tiny obscure newspaper in Nowheresville. What can be worse is where all the used sources are different tentacles of the same news conglomerate like News International. There's a right-of-centre to right-of-Attila-The-Hun bias to all their outlets; that can badly bias a story.

You'll note I've not yet mentioned copyvio. I do, sometimes, find this amusing. I've done my copyedit first, sources later, on articles only to find that I've changed the Wikinews story to a closer copyvio than the original author. This, to me, is a little ironic; the author's efforts to avoid accusations of copyright violation are superficial, and they're paraphrasing sentence-for-sentence from a source without realising a critical copyedit will turn it back into what the source they plagiarised wrote. While Wikinews remains a small community you quickly pick up on suspected copyvio authors; others, you learn, can be trusted to put in the effort to render checks for this unneeded.

Naturally, alongside the copyvio item above, you're fact-checking the article. You may find you need to go back and slightly revise the Wikinews article because some point has been over-simplified, or somewhat misrepresented.

Categories, to me, are less important than a lot of things. I believe you should never rely on a category being added via an infobox. An article could be expanded, additional images or pull-quotes added, within the 12-18 hours post-publish and render the infobox inappropriate. As far as I'm concerned the critical category items are at least one geographical category, and one major topic category such as Category:Politics and conflicts. When we do have the sitemap extension sorted, tested, and installed, then the category information will feed straight into Google News. If you don't fix the categorisation on an article before publication it may be unlocatable via GNews.

Virtually all that's needed is in the Wikinews policies - which seem assumed more aimed at authors than reviewers; the critical points I would emphasise are, active voice and near-memorisation of Strunk's. The latter will tell you to rip out every single nonessential word. Almost all copyedits I do need words like "that" dropped because they're just noise. Certain points get slashed back to brutally simple subject-object-verb sentences. Run-on sentences get condemned as "crimes against the English language"; and – both as a writer, or reviewer – the aim is to have a finished piece that someone with college-level English will, if interested by the lede, read from start to finish without feeling taxed, and, from which they walk away feeling more informed.

As you might suspect, I set standards so high even I have trouble reaching them in my writing. To-date Mike Halterman is, seemingly, the only Wikinewsie who appears to have gone from contributor here to paid journalist. I subscribe to the view, "Take the job seriously, but never yourself". And, for aspiring writers, I would commend Stephen King's advice in his book "On Writing" – spend at least one hour each every day reading and writing. Even if you do not intend to pursue a career in journalism or writing books, this is a skill that will serve you incredibly well in any career. Use Wikinews as a place to hone your writing skills and critical analysis of the writings of others; along the way you can help make this a high-quality news source that builds its reputation and proves that writing is a craft, not a "taught" skill. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Time it takes to review articles

I've noticed that articles that need review get marked "Overdue" if it's been waiting in line for a long time - nice idea, but I don't think it works too well. I've seen quite a few articles sit in line for over 30 hours before being published; this article is approaching 48! Therefore, I am proposing that we set a time limit (let's say 24 hours) for an article to be reviewed. If the article sits in line for more than 24 hours, then anyone, including the writer himself, may automatically publish the artcle without a review. This policy would dramatically cut the averge wait time for our articles. Benny the mascot (talk) 00:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think that's a good idea at all. Supposing that someone posts a copyright violation or article that is biased/clearly not up to our standards, not noticed for 24 hours (entirely possible given our lack of users, especially on weekdays), and published. That wouldn't make us look very good, would it? No; I think everything should be independently reviewed by a trusted user. The peer review policy is there for a reason. IMO, it's better to have a good article that's a little old, rather than a more recent article that's badly written. Another difficulty is that the author of an article won't be able to fully publish it by themselves if he doesn't have Editor privileges, given that we have flagged revisions and other anti self-publish measures installed. I don't think this is going to work. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Short response: Nope, Not gonna happen. Longer response: We require independent review of our articles for a number of reasons. Some of which include fun things like spam to more sedate reasons like accuracy. Additionally, We only got listed on Google News because of independent review, pull that and we're gone. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 01:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
My article has been waiting to be reviewed for two days! Are we going to let similar articles get stale simply because people are unwilling to review them? That is completely unfair to the writers! Furthermore, would it help to increase the time limit to 36 hours in order to give people more time to check everything? Benny the mascot (talk) 01:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Do you have any issues over my articles??? If so, then fail them, don't keep me wondering for two days what's going on! The same applies for other articles: we should not prevent them from going stale just because we're too lazy to review! Benny the mascot (talk) 01:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You don't seem to understand, Benny. It sure can be unfair to the writers when a story isn't reviewed in a timely manner (it's happened to me personally, I can sympathise), but there are other considerations as well, which I think far outweigh that. For instance: it contravenes many of our policies, would get us kicked off Google News (a big no-no since we're already struggling to increase/maintain our reader base), and results in the possibility that a copyvio or biased/badly written/inaccurate article would appear in the main page and feeds. That would make us look bad, which is even worse in our situation, since we don't have a great reputation as it is for being the most accurate news source in town. 36 hours - or even more than that - wouldn't guarantee enough time for someone to be certain to go over an article. The negatives far outweigh the positives for self-publishing, I think. Perhaps we should look at ways to encourage reviewers to review more (like having a bot ping IRC when an article has been waiting for review for too long? i dunno). Tempodivalse [talk] 01:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
  1. I do not know the sport of Basketball at all. I do not consider myself qualified to review that.
  2. I loathe reality television with a passion. Particularly where it is related to shallow, insipid, mental-midget faux celebrities.
I'm not the only reviewer. The above two are clear reasons why I'm not devoting my time to these particular article topics, my earlier comment was more general and intended to try and point out why numerous articles languish unreviewed. I'd rather do a good review on something I have some basis to feel qualified to review and not be actively, and aware of, a bias against. --Brian McNeil / talk 02:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a terrible terrible idea. Under no circumstances should we re-introduce self-publication; it would destroy what credibility we have. If your articles are taking too long to get reviewed, then write articles in such a way that other editors will want to publish them. --Killing Vector (talk) 02:02, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
First of all, I write articles that actually interest me, but never only to satisfy the tastes of other editors. That is something I will never do, and I will not let anyone tell me what I can and can't write. As for your comment on self-publishing, I can live with not having it. But I would still like to see a time limit that triggers an automatic publication by another reviewer. For example, let's say that the ITV article stays in line for the next 36 hours. Since I'm not involved in the writing of that article, then I can publish it even without having to formally pass it. Would that work for everyone? Benny the mascot (talk) 02:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
How does that make sense? If time runs out, an article gets automatically published. That is exactly what you said previously and the answer is still no. I'm sorry you feel slighted. I'm not sure if you've ever done it, but reviewing is a fair amount of work and we don't have enough reviewers. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 02:25, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Um, I don't think that would work out well either. The problems laid out with self-publishing above still persist if a reviewer publishes an article without even looking at it - accuracy, neutrality, copyvio, etc will all go through and that's unacceptable. Sorry if you've feel slighted. One suggestion - you're an editor, if you want to help remedy this problem, perhaps you'd like to just review others' articles yourself whenever you have the time? My motto is, you want something to be done right, do it yourself. :-) Tempodivalse [talk] 02:32, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I was actually about to review the ITV article, thank you very much. :) I've noticed, however, that reviewing every other article written tonight won't change the fact that the gadget is counting days instead of hours for my article! I was shocked once I saw the words "2 days" instead of "48 hours" next to my article. Oh well...I suppose it's nice that we've prepared the gadget for these things! Benny the mascot (talk) 02:39, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I've read the archived discussions regarding RockerballAustralia, and I think that since then we still haven't found a good way to clear the backlog. I think the 36-hour time limit I'm proposing would motivate editors to review articles well before 36 hours have passed. I don't think we'll even have any articles approaching 36 hours, since everything would have been reviewed so quickly. Benny the mascot (talk) 03:28, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I understand your reasoning behind the suggestion, that the threat of auto-reviewing would encourage people to review more quickly. But still, I think it's highly risky. Supposing there are no people around willing or capable to review (we do have days when there's practically no activity at all) and a spammy/factually incorrect article does get auto-published? No, I'd rather not have that. I also don't think that system will keep us in Google News, whichis probably one of the biggest factors weighing in this. Tempodivalse [talk] 03:48, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I guess I didn't say it in my comment because I think it to be inconceivable ... but for the record NO on some sort of system that let's article's get autopublished if they are not disputed within 36 hours (or any time-frame). --SVTCobra 03:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Although on an absolute scale, an article dying of staleness unreviewed is a big problem, on a relative scale it is dwarfed to insignificance next to the problem you're proposing to create. You can't force volunteer editors to review articles more promptly by threatening to destroy the project if they don't; there are a couple of flaws in that plan.
Here's another way to look at it: The standards imposed by peer review are a huge step forward that we managed to take in the past, overcoming a challenge that we had to overcome, and removing those standards would be reversing that victory and giving up. We've got another challenge we're facing now, and we haven't figured out yet how to defeat it — so far we're harassing the enemy while we look for weaknesses in its defenses — but we do know that retroactively losing the previous battle we fought isn't going to help. --Pi zero (talk) 04:26, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
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