User:Gryllida/welcome a bit/for helpers

This is an essay by one or more individuals on using and contributing to Wikinews. It contains their advice or opinions, not necessarily those of the Wikinews community. Community essays can be found here; links to official policies can be found in the Wikinews introduction.

This is an user essay, suggested by its author(s). It's not a community essay, nor a policy or guideline.

These unofficial instructions by complement the experiment and the supporting software at User:Gryllida/welcome a bit. I find these steps useful to me personally in editing others' submissions effectively. If you have a way to improve these steps, please leave me a message. Thanks, --Gryllida (talk) 01:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

After signing up for the welcome a bit message delivery, when you receive the notification about a new article, here are the steps that I suggest to follow; they are untested and unofficial, please use with caution (QIFAM):

QUICK CHECK: Read the article once. Identify, from the reader's perspective, one or two things that could be improved -- based on pillars of news reporting at Wikinews.
This can be a question like "Could you please give me sources where this information is from? It would be great to add them to the story"

This can be an action item for them to edit like "Where did the parade occur? This would be a great addition to the first paragraph, see here for reference."

This can be a question about the story like "In the first paragraph you say it happened in India but in the third paragraph you mention Sri-Lanka. Are these two places related?"

This can be a question about the background like "I see the name 'Foobar' sharing an important part in the story but this person is not introduced. Do you know who they are?"
INITIAL FEEDBACK: Write the article author a message about these one or two things at their personal talk page. Make it sure you are willing to help if they want it. Add it to your watch list.
FACT-CHECK: While the author is responding to you, read the sources and fact-check. Either at Special:MyPage/sandbox or at the talk page of the article, leave your "full review": take notes of everything that could possibly be wrong or need correction in the article; list any additional sources you find useful; list any corrections that could be desired inside of the story; write some paragraphs that could be added. Once you've finished reading the sources and the article, rearrange your notes to put the more important ones at the top.
ASSIST: If they engaged in a continuous conversation with you, success! Assist them in understanding your first one-two items, and if they ask for help it is OK to do these things for them (leaving as much work for them to do as they are comfortable with). And as they progress, provide them with the next task to do.
MERGE: If the conversation with the author is not successful, within 12 to 24 hours of their walking away, merge your content with the article and submit it for review, and notify the author of your change.

Always

WATCH: Continue to watch the author's talk page and the article in case there are any further edits that require following up, or feedback from another contributor or reviewer.