Talk:U.N. reports Afghan opium production is up again

I started working on updating this article, as an example for Paulrevere2005 early on Sunday. I understand good faith efforts were made to update the article by others, and that it has been listed on Deletion requests while I was incommunicado, but I felt it could still serve as an example so I have posted my updates.

Changes I am making to the article, and why

This is sort of a play-by-play of what changes I'm going to make to this article, Paulrever2005, so you might understand the logic hows and whys:

Removing hotlinked graphics

Under U.S. law, any graphic is copyrighted and must be explicitly released into the public domain or under another license which allows unrestricted use before it may be used on Wikinews (which is Public Domain.) Hotlinked graphics use the bandwidth of the host, and without written permission from the host it is unethical at best to use their resources to support Wikinews.

Create stronger lead sentence.

The most important information should be first, in as densely packed a form as can be written. Everything stated in the lead must be supported or expanded further into the article. This allows readers to quickly discover if the article is interesting or important enough for them to read fully, or if they should instead move on to another article.

Use specific reports

Although the "fact sheet" used covers the information about Afghanistan, the executive summary of the AFGHANISTAN OPIUM SURVEY 2004 is more precise, and has more specific comments relevant to the article title.

Use current, relevant titles for persons

Doug Wankel is the Counter Narcotics Coordinator at the U.S. Embassy (not the "American Embassy") in Afghanistan; what he was is secondary.

Do not use extensive exact quotes from another news source. Cite appropriately.

Quoting an entire paragraph verbatim may be a copyright violation when quoting a news source, if that paragraph is the heart or central element of the article. Rather than taking the risk, find a way to restate the information, especially if it may be correlated or expanded with additional information from other sources. If the original source is not online and verifiable, do not use it.

Focus on a single, specific, event. Do not interpret.

The title of this article, and the citations included, squarely focus this article on the UN's assessment of opium production in Afghanistan. Although the actions of the U.S. administration may be interesting news in their own right, and deserving of an article, this article does not cover the U.S. administration except as they specifically affect or address the UN's assessement of opium production in Afghanistan. The UN's report discusses the destabilizing effect of the trade, so Doug Wankel's comments are relevant. The Superbowl advertisements and Mr. Rumsfeld's comments (out of context) do not address the UN's report.

Citations should be available to readers

Do not use citations which require a membership, fee, or are not actually available. Often an article is available through another source, rather than the original source's restricted archives; search using a good internet search engine, and check the way-back-machine if necessary.

Use the {{source}} template, or create a complete citation which includes the following information:

• Author of the article if known (first three for academic articles, none for "staff")
• Title and link to article. On Wikinews this can be created using "[url Title]".
• Publisher's name, or publication. Initial wire service if an article from a news source (for example, a Reuters article in The Warren Sheaf, a small town press, is published by Reuters. An article from a scientific journal would list the journal name, since a given publisher (for example Sage) may publish several-to-many journals.
• Date of article's publication.

I have put several hours into bringing this article into compliance with some of the journalistic standards expected on Wikinews. I will not, nor am I expected to have, time to prepare each article you wish to submit in this manner. If you cannot put forth the effort to research your article, support it and write it you cannot expect others to do so for you. - Amgine 22:40, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Straw poll

Where would this wiki be without Amgine?

Up shit creek without a paddle

1. The bellman 15:45, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A belated "thank you,Amgine" Paulrevere2005 18:34, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Feature?

I think this article could make a great feature article. Dan100 (Talk) 09:10, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)