Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
We require at least three paragraphs.
The first paragraph —the lede— should briefly summarize the focus by succinctly answering as many as reasonably possible of the basic questions about it. A good lede is likely to be only one medium-sized paragraph [sentence], perhaps two; it doesn't contain details or background, and if it has needed context, that probably takes a half dozen words or less.
It's likely this can be accomplished here by inserting a paragraph break after the first sentence. If so, I (for one reviewer) would consider it something a reviewer can do during review without compromising their independence for review.
The additional sentence added to the lede is not information that belongs in the lede. I'd already addressed the original problem with the lede, by inserting a paragraph break after the first sentence. The lede should be a lean, to-the-point sentence (occasionally two sentences) whose sole function is to capture the essence of the focus, through very-short preliminary answers to as many of the basic questions as can reasonably be answered there. Most basic questions are likely to get half a dozen words each, or less.
Everything should be verifiable from sources. If you want to include some fact that you found on Wikipedia — which is in itself intrinsically not a trust-worthy source — then you need to provide a trust-worthy source. Sometimes Wikipedia itself cites a source that's available on-line, and you can use that. If Wikipedia doesn't cite such a source, you'll have to find one yourlsef if you want to use the information. Note that recent Wikinews articles (since about 2010) can be used; use a Related news section for those, rather than putting them in Sources (see the WN:Style guide on Related news).
I pulled the bit about the Mumbai attacks being three days because I didn't find it in the cited sources. Could I have found that information someplace, as a sanity check? Presumably, but that's not the reviewer's role, and scarcity of review labor is already the primary limiting factor on Wikinews growth. This sort of thing is way easier for a reporter to take care of when writing, than for a reveiwer to detect, diagnose, and fix during subsequent review.
The worst problem in this regard was the bit about the numer of ceasefire violations; I found nothing remotely like that in the sources. It looked to me as if the sister links to Wikipedia might have been treated as if they were reliable sources. We did recently have a Wikinews article about the ceasefire violations, though, and without that point the whole structure of that part of the article was going to collapse, so rather than not-ready the article (with lots of other articles on the queue) I chose to stretche reviewer's discretion about as far as it can go and added a Related news link to that. In a smaller, but still significant, stretch I also poked around for plausibility of the 2003 year for the ceasefire.
Try to avoid taking a source sentence and rephrasing it. Not only should you be avoiding the same sentence structure, you should look for ways to usefully redistribute information. You choose both which information to include and how to arrange it; different bits if information from a given source sentence might end up in distance parts of your text, and a given sentence of yours might use bits of information from different sources, or distant parts of a single source. Done skillfully, the result can be beautifully crisp clear and coherent synthesis text that's very easy to verify while bearing no resemblance to the source texts (that level of mastery is rare, but it is achievable).
The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.
The additional sentence added to the lede is not information that belongs in the lede. I'd already addressed the original problem with the lede, by inserting a paragraph break after the first sentence. The lede should be a lean, to-the-point sentence (occasionally two sentences) whose sole function is to capture the essence of the focus, through very-short preliminary answers to as many of the basic questions as can reasonably be answered there. Most basic questions are likely to get half a dozen words each, or less.
Everything should be verifiable from sources. If you want to include some fact that you found on Wikipedia — which is in itself intrinsically not a trust-worthy source — then you need to provide a trust-worthy source. Sometimes Wikipedia itself cites a source that's available on-line, and you can use that. If Wikipedia doesn't cite such a source, you'll have to find one yourlsef if you want to use the information. Note that recent Wikinews articles (since about 2010) can be used; use a Related news section for those, rather than putting them in Sources (see the WN:Style guide on Related news).
I pulled the bit about the Mumbai attacks being three days because I didn't find it in the cited sources. Could I have found that information someplace, as a sanity check? Presumably, but that's not the reviewer's role, and scarcity of review labor is already the primary limiting factor on Wikinews growth. This sort of thing is way easier for a reporter to take care of when writing, than for a reveiwer to detect, diagnose, and fix during subsequent review.
The worst problem in this regard was the bit about the numer of ceasefire violations; I found nothing remotely like that in the sources. It looked to me as if the sister links to Wikipedia might have been treated as if they were reliable sources. We did recently have a Wikinews article about the ceasefire violations, though, and without that point the whole structure of that part of the article was going to collapse, so rather than not-ready the article (with lots of other articles on the queue) I chose to stretche reviewer's discretion about as far as it can go and added a Related news link to that. In a smaller, but still significant, stretch I also poked around for plausibility of the 2003 year for the ceasefire.
Try to avoid taking a source sentence and rephrasing it. Not only should you be avoiding the same sentence structure, you should look for ways to usefully redistribute information. You choose both which information to include and how to arrange it; different bits if information from a given source sentence might end up in distance parts of your text, and a given sentence of yours might use bits of information from different sources, or distant parts of a single source. Done skillfully, the result can be beautifully crisp clear and coherent synthesis text that's very easy to verify while bearing no resemblance to the source texts (that level of mastery is rare, but it is achievable).
The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.
