User:Asked42
Hi, I am Asked42. As the Board of Trustees has made their final decision to close Wikinews for good, and as of May 4 all Wikinews editions will be read-only, I am leaving my user page here with a few final words about Wikinews; a k|ind of historical preservation.
I joined Wikinews in mid-2023. I was surfing through our sister projects, looking for another interesting project to participate in, when I found Wikinews — specifically Bengali Wikinews, which was at that time, and still is, and I suppose now forever will be, in the Incubator. I thought Bengali Wikinews could use my help, and I worked very hard to keep it alive and active for years. During that time I also started editing on English Wikinews.
Over these three years, I primarily contributed to Wikinews by creating different tools, scripts, and gadgets. On English Wikinews I also did some technical maintenance work. My article writing was not much. Do I wish I had created more articles during my time here? Yes, I do. But I am also happy with all the other aspects of the site where I contributed.
Now, at the moment I am writing this, it is April 2026, and soon all of Wikinews will be read-only, as the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees has decided to close Wikinews down. That was really sad news. It was very hard for me when I had to leave Bengali Wikinews for the same reason — after contributing for more than three years, I suddenly one day got informed that Wikinews would be shut down, and with that, all of my edits and time felt like they had just vanished. And indeed, it is very hurtful now. Sometimes when I look back, it feels like all of that time, those edits, those scripts: all of it leads to nothing. And the thought often comes to my mind: would it have been better if that day I had found a different sister project instead? Maybe then, four years later, I would not feel like I had lost all that time.
Perhaps. Whatever. I don't think we can do much by being sad about it. I guess this is what change is. But I will say that in my time contributing to both English and Bengali Wikinews, I have met some amazing users. That experience is indeed something valuable.
I am going to roam around some of our sister projects again to find somewhere new that I can call home. Until then, I suppose I am technically homeless. That is why I cannot point you to any specific wiki where you might find me. You can, however, contact me on Meta-Wiki. Thank you. And thank you, Wikinews, for everything.
My created/authored articles
- Heatwaves surge worldwide as researchers' analysis indicates global temperatures reaching new highs
- India wins T20 men's cricket world cup against South Africa
- New Zealand defeats South Africa to win 2024 women's T20 cricket world cup
- Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah sworn in as Namibia's first female president
- India wins 2025 Women's Cricket World Cup, defeating South Africa by 52 runs
My created Tools/Scripts/Gadgets
- Easy Peer Review (2025 version): A reviewing gadget, an upgraded version of the legacy Easy Peer Review. It allows reviewers to perform many tasks more efficiently and easily. It includes various features such as post-publication tools, collaborative review, user notifications, and sentence issue marking.
- SubmitWizard: Provides a user-friendly interface to simplify the article development lifecycle and review process on English Wikinews. It includes many actions, such as submitting an article for review, performing a pre-review, and copy-editing an article (see {{review}} and {{develop}}; those button actions are powered by the SubmitWizard).
- Lead Manager: The Lead Manager script is designed to update lead templates and create new ones. It offers various methods for updating leads, including sequential shuffling of all lead templates instead of updating them one by one.
- SourceHelper: SourceHelper is a tool designed to streamline the process of adding sources to Wikinews articles. If you've used Wikipedia's auto-citation generator, where you simply enter a URL or ISBN to automatically create a properly formatted citation, you'll find SourceHelper familiar.
- QuickCat: This script is designed to make the creation of date and month categories, as well as date and month list pages, quick and easy.
- TagLet: Taglet is a JavaScript-based tool designed to help Wikinews editors organize and manage unpublished articles more efficiently. It enables editors to tag articles with three essential pieces of information: Event date, Assessment category, and a Comment.