User talk:009o9

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Welcome, 009o9! Thank you for joining Wikinews; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. To help you get started we have an essay that will guide you through the process of writing your first full article. There are many other things you can do on the project, but its lifeblood is new, current, stories written neutrally. As you get more involved, you will need to look into key project policies and other discussions you can participate in; so, keep this message on this page and refer to the other links in it when you want to learn more, or have any problems. Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation   Used to contributing to Wikipedia? See here.

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-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 12:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I read.......

....your user page over at Wikipedia. Sorry you got banned. Don't get hung up over it!! Any-hoo: We're always looking for good writers here. Wanna contribute?? Let me know if I can help in any way!! --Bddpaux (talk) 15:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bddpaux, thanks I have looked at the platform and first-person reporting policy(?) looks encouraging. The advocacy rules at the Wikipedia project are just too ridiculous, WP:COIN resembles a witch hunt. Once somebody starts writing about an artist, or a product, one is bound to develop a pov towards the subject and in some cases a paid relationship. Staying on top of a subject is time consuming and the only subjects with a static history are the dead ones. 009o9 (talk) 16:35, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi 009o9 (pardon my dropping into the conversation). We do have a conflict-of-interest policy here, but everything is pretty different from Wikipedia. (Come to think, we have a page Wikinews:For Wikipedians.) A difference easily overlooked is that "neutrality" means something very different in practice here than there (I keep meaning to write an essay about neutrality, as our NPOV page isn't well written); it's entirely likely a Featured Article on either project would violate the neutrality policy of the other project, for example.

We strongly recommend folks start by writing synthesis (another difference from Wikipedia — I think the words "analysis" and "synthesis" may effectively swap meanings between the projects) before moving up to the more advanced original reporting (yes, "OR" stands for something different here than on Wikipedia, and is a good thing rather than a bag thing; gee, I wonder why the two projects sometimes have trouble communicating).

I usually recommend to folks to start by reading WN:Pillars of Wikinews writing, a compact overview of what we do here, then turn to WN:Writing an article which is a good tutorial for writing a first article. --Pi zero (talk) 16:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Pi zero thanks for the link to WN:COI, I see that it, like Wikipedia project, does not conform the Foundation's Disclosure Policy in the TOU and that the alternative policy disclosure requirement has not been developed and published as required by the TOU. As far as the Foundation's is concerned, the only requirement is that the editor write neutrally and disclose the paid arrangement/COI in ONE of the three prescribed methods.

In the real media, the journalist simply discloses her COI in the article and allows the reader to gauge the neutrality of the content -- in the Wikis, the disclosure is hidden from the reader -- the hidden disclosure was a point I argued against in the paid editing TOU discussion. As I was being put out of the Wikipedia, a student from a notable High School (high 90% plus college placement rate) wrote a beautiful article about the school and then was chastised in WP:COIN. Thankfully, the editor did not cave and the Wikicops chased off yet another promising editor.

The way I see it, the Wiki already has safeguards builtin, anybody can edit non-neutral content including a commercial venture's competition -- if non-neutral content sustains, it is generally because nobody is reading it. Asking good writers, to volunteer their work, to abstain from taking remuneration, and then to be subservient to dozens of other editors (who as a rule, contribute very little to the article space) is asking a way too much. Thanks again for the links. -- 009o9 (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

We voted as a community on the terms-of-use thing, and there was some question after the voting was well under way as to whether the phrasing was what was called for. I think it may be possible to present the results of that vote in terms that will make it both clear and valid that we are opting out of the Foundation's terms-of-use thing about disclosure, but I've been procrastinating about trying (partly because I hate red tape and am thoroughly depressed by the Foundation's resolute determination to cluelessly destroy the volunteer communities by inches). We do not see the Foundation's terms-of-use provision as a safe-guard, we see it as a threat aimed directly at us, that the Foundation has positioned itself to interfere, either for purposes of censorship or of sororicide; that's why we held a community vote. The terms-of-use thing is (as I recall from when I last read it) unless the local community has a policy that covers the issue, and our policies already covered stuff like that years before they got themselves set up to steamroller us. --Pi zero (talk) 19:09, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Pi zero My understanding of the paid edit TOC was to comply with the various laws around the world concerning disclosure, not to torpedo the "volunteer community." Further, the Foundation wanted inclusion of Whitehat editing -- as expected, outing the editor has failed miserably and only added volunteer overhead. I didn't see a grandfather clause and really don't see a problem with complying with the TOC, simply put it to a vote in RFC and list the page here.

As I stated above, writing about a High School, a favorite personality or perhaps a work assignment to maintain the company article (i.e., non-neutral pov) is often the way that volunteer editors get started and the learning curve is impossibly high now with proliferation of arbitrary wikicops who ignore policy. I'd say the vast majority of Wikipedia first experiences are poor ones that discourage new editor from returning. 009o9 (talk) 00:31, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think the Foundation intends to destroy the volunteer communities; it's failure to understand the basic dynamics of the system they're interacting with. The Foundation's solutions to things predictably involve the Foundation accumulating more centralized power, though, and power eventually gets misused. Censorship and sororicide are potential misuses that particularly come to mind. I'd heard the paid editing stuff was ostensibly meant to give Wikipedians a new tool with which to combat the problem; but we have had policies and practices in place for many years to deal with the problem and don't need a "new tool" even if it didn't come with disastrous strings attached. --Pi zero (talk) 01:32, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@Pi zero so you are contending that editor disdain and moving the goalposts for certain types of articles is not censorship? For years, stub article were not problematic to anyone, the framework was there for busy editors to improve on a drive-by basis. Some articles got developed others deleted without controversy. Then, instead of developing their own platform, a goofy bunch of editors got together and tried to make Wikipedia something it can never be with open editing, a reliable source. 009o9 (talk) 17:45, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't recall saying anything whatever about censorship on Wikipedia, one way or another; I believe I mentioned censorship only as it might be wielded against Wikinews. --Pi zero (talk) 18:04, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@Pi zero My bad, I guess I'm not understanding what you mean when you use the term "sororicide." I'm taking it to mean the killing off of sister projects. Anyway, from what I did read of WN:COI, this project also has an aggressive policy toward professional editing. I'll be refraining from contributing -- my experience has been that these policies only get more restrictive. 009o9 (talk) 20:55, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Not sure how much I need to (or DON'T NEED TO) wade off into this convo, but I'll say this: Seems you got a bad taste in your mouth for most-things-WMF related....sorry. If you just want to function as an unpdaid journalist and report stuff on a platform with high editorial standards, you can do that here. I've reported work-connected stuff before (I'm a social worker) and simply made the potential COI public on the talk page......has never really caused much of a kerfuffle for me, if that helps. --Bddpaux (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks @Bddpaux, my pro-bono time goes to worthy artists who are also living hand to mouth -- invariably a coi or advocate relationship develops. Going with declared-paid on Wikipedia was an experiment for me, I was advised not to go white-hat, but that's not who I am. Additionally, I'm not a journalist, nor a descriptive writer, I'm a technical writer, so Wikipedia was a better fit for me. 009o9 (talk) 22:33, 9 December 2016 (UTC)