User talk:DavidMCEddy

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California judge disqualified from predatory lending case

Hi. I assessed the article in its current form not ready for publication, and wrote review comments with explanation, which please see. --Pi zero (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there anything at all on-line that could be used to corroborate some facet(s) of your account of Monday's events? Additional corroboration is highly desirable. --Pi zero (talk) 04:32, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Your request seems so general, it's hard for me to know what more I should say. I'll copy the article into the talk page for that article and add links and other comments to document where I get each claim. DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:48, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Some thoughts.

• The article may well be reviewable as-is; one would find out by trying.
• To be clear, I'm really hoping you'll become a valued contributor to Wikinews; you seem dedicated, a quick learner, and with a different perspective than other regulars here. We have a notoriously steep initial learning curve; so I'm really hoping you don't get discouraged on your first article, which is usually a rough learning experience for any new contributor here.
• There are two different things one might worry about re sources. How to know which part of the article comes from where, and how to verify stuff at all.

• The former is a lesser concern in theory, but it does make review a lot easier if we know where to look for which bit of the article. When writers want to make things easier for us by documenting where which thing came from, a popular and effective technique is to put html comments in the article, <!-- like this -->; they don't show up when readers look at the article, but the reporter mentions on the talk page that they're there, and the reviewer then knows to look for them. That can be fairly useful.
• The latter (reporter's notes), it looks (on quick perusal) as you're doing well on, and I strongly suspect what you have will do fine (though obviously I can't know that without doing a full review, as that's basically what a full review is). We don't require scans of handwritten notes taken at an event; for one thing, there's at least one prominent Wikinewsie who is not willing to provide scans of their handwritten notes; one suspects they don't want others to see how bad their handwriting is, and I can sympathize with that. But it's good when we do have them, both for verification and for "paper trail".

• Scans like this, if provided, can be emailed to "scoop at wikinewsie dot org", and a note left on the talk page that they've been 'emailed to scoop'; or, they can be uploaded to Wikinews or Commons and a link to the image file provided on the talk page.

--Pi zero (talk) 13:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

My diary is a bunch of scribbles in different languages. It's mostly in English, but the dates recently have all been in Japanese, and my "to do" lists appear as "por hacer", in Spanish with occasional noted in German or French -- and only occasionally complete sentences. And I often fill up the middle of the page when taking notes rapidly, then update my "to do" lists in the margins. I can give you the highlights of what I did on almost any day in the past 30 years, but that uses a combination of memory and deciphering my hieroglyphs ;-) I can keyboard an intelligible interpretation of what's there much quicker than I could annotate an scanned image of my notes. If it were absolutely necessary for a court case, for example, I could scan in pages from my diary and annotate them with interpretations of what's there, distinguishing between what I thought about that wasn't relevant from hints that were. I could also forward relevant emails to "scoop at wikinewsie dot org". I may have to do all these things in certain cases. However, most of this story has already been documented at "http://occupy.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=MerrittVCountrywide", as previously mentioned. I hope what I have will be adequate. DavidMCEddy (talk) 20:59, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Congrats. :-)  Published. --Pi zero (talk) 23:24, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank You. DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:19, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Predatory lending and Wikinews

Hi. I read your comment on User:pi zero's talk page. Wikimedia Foundation projects are locally run. Having it hosted on Wikinews does not in any way indicate foundation support. USA law actually means they cannot edit as an organisation.

Writing about predatory lending and having it published on Wikinews, appearing on the front page of Wikinews and appearing in Google News would be fantastic. Getting this done will largely be on you and your commitment to getting it done. I would suggest by reading Wikinews:Writing an article and Wikinews:Style guide and Wikinews:Original reporting. I'd first learn about Wikinews processes by writing a few synthesis articles. See WN:SYNTH for more information and Scottish Midlothian car crash kills three as the most recent example of this. Once you master the Wikinews writing basics, then more on to original reporting. Wikinews interviews United States disability skier Jasmin Bambur and Internet security firm to donate revenue to charity after Anonymous protest of Westboro Baptist Church are two recent examples of these. Look at the talk pages for all four articles to see the types of comments you are likely to get and be assessed on when you're ready to submit.

If you have any additional questions, most of the regulars are generally willing to assist. --LauraHale (talk) 00:01, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Hello!!

Let me start by welcoming you to Wikinews! It seems that you've the potential to become a notable contributor here. I've "earned my stripes" by hard work, grit and old-fashioned determination......and I'd like to pass along a couple of comments: on the judge article.....always try to remember.....the title and the first few sentences of the article should CLEARLY INDICATE what makes this newsworthy. The language should be tight and punchy......Who, What, When, Why and Where. Remember the Inverted Pyriamid style......the imporant stuff comes first! Keep contributing! You're a good writer! --Bddpaux (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmmm...........

There's a little too much "play-by-play" in this paragraph........ask yourself: Why would a "general" reader want to/need to know all this minutiae?? ........

• ' "All Rise" was heard at 9:04 AM local time Monday morning, whereupon Judge Pierce entered the courtroom. Attending by phone were attorneys James Goldberg representing Bank of America and Brian Craft representing First American Title. David Merritt was present representing himself. Goldberg had filed a brief asserting that the Merritts' Verified Statement of Disqualification was served upon Judge Stoelker on August 17 but was not filed, as witnessed by the fact that it was not listed on the docket. Judge Pierce reported that he had checked the files and found that this Statement had indeed been filed, and he didn't know why it was not on the docket. Attorney Goldberg suggested that the fact that the Statement was not on the docket may have contributed to Judge Stoelker's failure to respond within the ten day limit. Judge Pierce replied, "That's a stretch."........' You probably like court-related stuff.....that's cool! But, remember, you're writing for secretaries, dentists, truck drivers, fast food workers, social workers, bankers.......use a "general" tone. Keep at it!! --Bddpaux (talk) 16:16, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Hm. Of course, it's also cool to give those secretaries, dentists, truck drivers, etc. a taste of the court room. --Pi zero (talk) 16:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

United States deportation policies challenged in Santa Clara County, California

I've asked for some improvements, to the lede and to some POV stuff toward the end. Review comments. The recent review delays are unfortunate, but, however we got here, this is where we are. --Pi zero (talk) 16:23, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

You did solve the lack-of-clear-focus problem with the lede. I see problems with verification and neutrality. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 00:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Cutting to the chase: I mean to determine this morning whether all concerns other than freshness have been addressed. If they have, and you then update the article maintaining the same principles, the resulting article would be an attractive target for review, which changes the dynamics of the review queue. I could then reasonably assure prompt review (barring circumstances beyond my control such as internet here being knocked out — but we usually don't lose internet here even if we lose power, a conceivable situation since we're forecast to get a big snow storm here late Friday into Saturday). --Pi zero (talk) 12:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

A heads-up on the interim status of this review. I'm perceiving there may be a somewhat systematic neutrality problem; it's going to be challenging to articulate clearly, which is of course what I need to do (in addition to completing fact-checking as completely as I can). --Pi zero (talk) 14:39, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm optimistic about the feasibility of addressing all concerns with this article. It would need refocus on new developments for freshness, and I identified three issues with the article (one of them very tiny) and a fourth point I asked you about, but hopefully it's all very straightforward. (Every one of the points is under a different criterion; the situation is really much rosier than all those little "not ready" icons on the review template make it look.) Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 17:24, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I hope I've adequately addressed 3 of your 4 concerns. I'll try to address the other one (reimbursement) plus freshness late today. Snow can be very beautiful as long as you are not threatened by it. That's true of many things, like a mushroom cloud ;-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The 2 PM meeting today was a complete nonevent: No public comments were offered when requested by Supervisor George Shirakawa, Chair of the Public Safety and Justice Committee of Santa Clara County, CA. I had been told that supporters of the policy change recommended by the DA and Sheriff had been asked to appear and offer public comment. My wife and I were about 5 minutes late, and we met others walking out of the meeting after the period for public comments had passed without any. I went in about 10 minutes later and took a picture with two pair of public officials standing and exchanging private comments behind the tables where they sit during meetings. There was only one issue on the agenda for today's meeting, not counting this Civil Detainer Policy, for which the agenda said it was, "Held to the March 7, 2013, meeting." I'm not sure what we can do to freshen the story. I'll work on explaining the reimbursement issue, then on adding the photo I have. I still plan to attend the Board of Supervisors' meeting next Tuesday. Then we can discuss the freshness issue. Best Wishes, DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:12, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm an idiot, at least evidently some of the time. I should (ideally) have seen immediately exactly what the single biggest problem with this article was, and explained it clearly. Instead I... didn't. I see it now, and I'm trying to compose an explanation in review comments (while also doing fact-checks on the purely objective parts of the new material). --Pi zero (talk) 20:00, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

No idea why I've had so much trouble seeing this article clearly. I see it now. I should know better than ever to say things like "I maintain these are the only issues with the current version of the article"; it's just setting myself up to look stupid later. (It's great to be willing to admit to doing something stupid, but I'd prefer to avoid doing it in the first place.)

Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 22:06, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It is published. (O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!) And may the Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on our souls.

Note, of course, edits during review.

I'm counting on this getting much easier, on both the writing and reviewing sides, as you get more acclimated to Wikinews (after two baptisms by fire, I'm thinking you're well on your way — or perhaps the more apt metaphor would involve tempering steel). --Pi zero (talk) 17:23, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your patience. I hope it gets easier for both of us also. You may have noticed that my documentation efforts are different and hopefully more to your standards than when we started. I think I've learned other things as well.

By the way, following your suggestion, I've been working to initiate a project on "Documenting crony capitalism" in Wikiversity. A week ago, I created an article by that title, and this morning I created a category for it. The latter reminds me of Churchill's famous remark about the "the end of the beginning" after the Second Battle of El Alamein ;-) Thanks for that suggestion. DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:16, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, which reminds me. The use in this case of long embedded html comments worked, but I'm thinking in the long run it's probably better to put long detailed notes like that on the article talk page, where they're more publicly visible. Perhaps with short references to them in html comments. (There's no prescribed way to do this sort of comment embedding; it's all by the seat of our pants, try things and see what works.)

Now that the article is out the door, I can sit back and admire it; I'm rather pleased with the way it's turned out. (Yeah, I shouldn't tempt fate.) --Pi zero (talk) 18:30, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

I just found a report in the Huffington Post claiming that "only 14.81 percent [of those deported from California under this program were] involved a crime beyond entering the country illegally." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/secure-communities-california-optional-harris_n_2247587.html) This raises two questions:

1. Under what circumstances might it be appropriate to add something like this to a story like this -- assuming it had not already been published? My instincts are that this is marginal, because it's not local. However, when we mention the lawsuit against Los Angeles, it might be useful to add another sentence or two there about this. Elsewhere, I found reports of children of deportees being left with a spouse or put up for adoption but not deported with the parent(s). If I had heard that mentioned directly in the discussion in Santa Clara County, I probably would have mentioned it. Since I didn't hear that locally, it seemed like the article was already plenty long, and this was an unnecessary digression.
2. If you agree that it would have been good to add this to the article prior to publication, what about trying to do that now?

Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:44, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't really seem to relate to the local discussion, which is the subject of the article (as you say). If something had been said, and was covered by the article, that it directly related to, it might go there; otherwise, it would have to go way near the end (per WN:inverted pyramid), but explaining how it relates so it makes sense to include it at all could be difficult and might tend to get into analysis. It's an interesting point, though. Perhaps I'm just not skillful enough to see how to weave it in so it works. --Pi zero (talk) 22:24, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

If were were still working on it, I might add it to the second to the last paragraph to help explain the risks that Los Angeles faces right now: I don't know how many plaintiffs are involved in the current lawsuit, but it could be a major expense if they had to pay, say, $100,000 per person for 86% of the people detained at the request of ICE. However, I have other things I rather spend the time on -- and I suspect so you do. Thanks for the reply. DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikinews:Spread Wikinews

That's using the page as if it were a discussion forum, which seems to me to be contrary to the spirit of the page. Although, realistically, the page probably should have been marke historical years ago. --Pi zero (talk) 18:30, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

What Wikinews is

Just noting User talk:Pi zero#What Wikinews is, which is addressed to our discussions; I know under some circumstances users are not pinged as "loudly" by {{ping}} as they are by leaving a note on their talk page, and I did hope you would have a chance to read over my remarks before whatever discussions take place at Wikimania. --Pi zero (talk) 15:58, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

citation template does not exist but you use it in the net neutrality story. please fix?

--Gryllida 03:54, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Re: interface

In regards to "To accomplish this, Wikinews would need a radically different interface that could be tailored to each user's profile: News articles could be prioritized based on geographic location(s) and political and social organizations of greatest interest to that individual. The landing page for Wikinews could feature links to all the local sources of news in addition to material written specifically for Wikinews, all prioritized to best match the user's profile and browsing history." from your user page.

There is a related task at this section at User:Gryllida/Tasks.

While this does not customize per user preferences. It could already make it easier for people to find the right area. And it could be programmed to make the favourite view bookmark.

Would you agree that such an interface would be an improvement for a start? Are you familiar with any scripts that already do this? If not, I would be willing to implement a script and provide it to you for testing. Gryllida (talk) 00:01, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes. This sounds great.

To make it useful, we would want to post a description on meta:Proposals for new projects and try to stimulate some discussion there.

I'd like also to submit a proposal to discuss this at Wikiconference North America, October 18-21 in Columbus, Ohio. I plan to attend and would love to share a presentation on this with you -- support you presenting or share the presentation with you. The deadline for such proposals is August 15.

I'm on the board of kkfi.org, Kansas City Community Radio. We have a paid staff of 2.5 and local programming produced by a couple hundred volunteers. We've been broadcasting at 100 KW, the maximum power the FCC currently authorizes for new FM stations, for over 30 years. We broadcast 24/7. We have news and public affairs shows but not a local news department. We need a list of news sources plus a tip line that a team of people could scan regularly to find events that would interest the bottom 99% in our service area. This could include minutes of public meetings of local governmental bodies, press releases of local organizations, and access to searchable data bases that could provide local examples of issues in national and international news.

I envision a wiki that would eventually connect with Wikidata to translate longitude and latitude into political jurisdictions and potential sources for local news for those jurisdictions. I like your idea of including categories -- and languages. The goal would make it easy for individuals and news organizations, like KKFI wants, to more easily scan a broader array of source of news for whatever interests their audience.

I own the domain name everyonesnews.org, which currently has nothing, but where I thought I'd post a prototype for this. If the two of us bring up things, we can then discuss them in a presentation at Wikiconference North America in Columbus, OH, in October.

Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Tbh, I wouldn't trust Wikidata for, well, anything. --Pi zero (talk) 03:27, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

To "translate longitude and latitude into political jurisdictions and potential sources for local news for those jurisdictions. " -- this can be done this way, or if there is a group of users around it then it can also suggest what sources other people use who work in nearby areas.. I'm aiming to write a tool to pre-fill source template (#10) as a 'web extension' for Firefox; then I'd be able to use it to facilitate identification of relevant sources and emerging news (#35) which people would be able to use to request story creation or to write a new story. --Gryllida (talk) 06:09, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Re: Growing Wikinews to counter the Balkanization of the body politic

Hello DavidMCEddy,

Wikinews is unlike other news sites.

Its content is released under the free Creative Commons license.

This means once a story is published, any local news paper or any news web site may copy Wikinews content, with attribution, and share it.

This provides a unique opportunity to spread news across the entire planet.

This right to reuse and remix and modify and share content -- which is reviewed for accuracy -- is really unique.

And as Wikinews aims to write without bias, Wikinews results into freedom of knowledge about current events. (to put it in Wikimedia mission words)

Growing Wikinews would indeed help with engaging people into critical thinking and participatory journalism ('counter the Balkanization of the body politic' as you call it)

I think participating in authoring and in copy editing others' submissions would allow you to identify what is difficult in these processes, and propose solutions.

The question is, why don't you just do it? Since you have news making staff already.

It would be interesting to know.

--Gryllida (talk) 01:42, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm confident I don't fully understand your question, but I will give you my gut reactions to my experiences with Wikinews. I think I've submitted 5 articles and gotten 3 published, though the records are unclear to me. If I'm not mistaken, rejected articles are deleted and no longer even available to review, though you may have access to tools I don't know about.

The entire Wikinews process feels to me too tense and adversarial, with excessive focus on journalistic style.

It's shockingly easy for articles to go stale, because the lead author misunderstood something that a reviewer said. I drafted a report from the opening night of the last National Conference on Media Reform in 2013. I checked back a few times and maybe fixed one or two minor things, but the article didn't get published, because I didn't respond adequately to something Pi zero requested; I don't remember now what that was. I was busy trying to get the most I could out of the conference. I was not going to spend half my time or more checking repeatedly for updates and rereading the earlier posts that I had not interpreted properly. After the conference was over and after the article was stale, I reread some of the comments, and realized I had misunderstood something Pi zero had said. Great. I did not bother to try to file anything on Wikinews when I was in Cape Town for Wikimania 2018. I had too much work to do there, and I saw very little benefit for anyone for me trying to file a report with Wikinews.

Last November, I filed a report in advance of a presentation being made by David Barsamian in Kansas City, December 1. I thought the draft I wrote was a reasonable, balanced and measured description of an appearance in Kansas City of a moderately well known author, etc. I admitted that I was part of the organizing committee for that event. My interpretation of Pi zero's reaction was that my "conflict of interest" automatically meant that the said article could not published. A couple of months later, someone noticed that Barsamian was on a nationwide speaking tour to hype his new book of interviews with Noam Chomsky. The article was reopened, and I was indirectly encouraged to recast it into a discussion of one of the other appearances on that tour. I did not know enough about those other appearances to write about them without more work than I was willing to put into it given the other demands on my time.

As I said in my most recent replies to User:Pi zero on Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals#Retaining contributors with compatible projects, I don't know what the numbers from meta:Wikinews mean, "except that it seems that Wikinews is NOT on an exponential growth trajectory in both contributions and readership, as I think it could be and should be."

I believe that Wikinews could make major contributions to many of the most grievous ills facing humanity today -- but that won't happen without some constructive changes. DavidMCEddy (talk) 03:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

You say "The entire Wikinews process feels to me too tense and adversarial, with excessive focus on journalistic style." It's not supposed to be adversarial at all; in fact, ultimately it cannot work right if it's adversarial. One of the troubles we have (amongst others) is people who come here and treat the reporter–reviewer relationship as an adversarial one, which is pretty much guaranteed to prevent good journalism from taking place. In a correctly functioning process,

• the reviewer goes to a great deal of trouble to explain to the newbie reporter what they did wrong, so they can learn to do things right;
• the reporter takes all the advice to heart and learns the basic principles of Wikinews writing, a learning curve that's rather steep but fortunately also rather short, after which the learning process quickly settles down to a gentle upward slope continuing forever into the future (i.e., it gets vastly easier although we never stop learning); and
• once the reporter gets past that initial learning curve, they can write stuff that's pretty easy to review because its problems are sparse and mild. Ideally, the reporter understands most principles (and all the core ones) as well as the reviewer does, so that the reviewer only has to catch those few points where the reporter slips up (which happens to everyone; no exceptions). At that point, the reporter starts to publish a much higher percentage of the articles they submit.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "excessive focus on journalistic style"; that could mean excessive focus on superficial things, or it could refer to aspects of journalistic style that really go to the heart of the core principles that give Wikinews its value — aspects of journalistic style that make Wikinews important to guiding both contributors and readers to a fact-based worldview.

I don't recall exactly how much I've tried to explain to you about my views on the dynamics of Wikinews, the forces that cause people to come and go, to contribute and not; it's a major undertaking, difficult to afford effort for, especially when one is already straining to actually do the things needed both to keep the project functioning and to enable future project growth. It's also not something you should expect to catch onto quickly or casually. --Pi zero (talk) 04:16, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• DavidMCEddy,

Thanks for sharing your memory of story authoring. The publicly visible part is here;

2012.1, 2012.2 were published, 2013 was userified due to difficulties with 5W and H, inverted pyramid, focus (could work on it next 2-3 days after conference; freshness for OR is up to 1 week); 2017.1 was deleted not fresh even though mainstream media ignored it; 2017.2 was deleted - leading paragraph unclear, 'abandoned'; 2017.3 was deleted, context missing, coi, focus issues (addition of context may save relevance - similar to the documentary story which had focus issues also); 2018.1 was published.

Yes, often people misunderstand what needs to be done. I personally recommend using Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance over article talk pages to avoid delays - link to water cooler discussions from the article talk page - as Unlike new article talk page, a few people watch the water cooler assistance page and may be able to jump in. Perhaps if others agree then this link could be added to the review comment box.

In contrast, I do use article talk page to discuss changes which already have been done or are in progress, or changes which involve a quick discussion that would not benefit from multiple pairs of eyes. Also article talk page may be used for raising issues which the reviewer needs to consider in their next review. If I want author to work on the article, personally I also leave them a note on their user talk page, linking to the relevant discussion of the article talk page.

Also if you think you did everything you needed to, you must submit for review immediately (the review comment box asks you to do this) as otherwise others may think you are still working on it. Then you'd get a comment back saying "hi, please fix issue X raised by the previous review". This is a quick way to avoid delays caused by misreading reviewer comments...

--Gryllida (talk) 04:56, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Re Conference submission

Re [1] this is not interesting to Wikinews in my opinion. If you wish to use AI to copy (not move) some of our submissions there, it would be difficult to find it useful for news production... And Wikinews would (in my opinion again) not want to show people that wikisocial exists because it does not fit Wikinews' mission...? Nevertheless a few points:

With "encouraging the 98% of submissions to Wikinews (at least en.wikinews) to move to meta:WikiSocial. " I can not agree. This would not help Wikinews (or news production) in any manner whatsoever. Would you agree? --Gryllida 09:05, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The 98% figure assumed that Wikinews got roughly 50 submissions per day and published only 1 article from that, consistent my interpretation of the data I got from meta:Wikinews, which you and User:Pi zero say are at best misinterpretations and in any event are so questionable to not even be worth looking at. DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps correct the conference workshop submission then, the abstract submission deadline was moved to August 22. Unfortunately I still could not figure out what the data means, it is an open question. Gryllida (chat) 12:10, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

"Millions of local editions" -- why not make it available for international audience? Perhaps a reader outside of local area would be interested in knowing what happened? Is this not better? Gryllida 09:05, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

If Wikinews grew to be publishing millions of stories per day, the vast majority of those would relate to some small local audience, e.g., people who live in a small town or rural community of a thousand people or less, parents with children in a particular school, etc. People anyplace in the world could access that content by specifying a particular political jurisdiction or supplying longitude and latitude, e.g., supplied automatically by their cell phone and maybe selecting something else, e.g., primary education and a geographic radius of 100 km. DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Writing for an international audience doesn't mean a global audience has to want to read any particular article. It means writing it so that a global audience can understand it, including what its significance is. Understanding the significance empowers readers around the globe to make informed decisions about what they want to know more about. And ensuring that everything can be understood by a global audience makes local concerns everywhere visible to people everywhere, shedding global light into local corners, promoting global understanding and mind-broadening, enabling investigations that tie together local information from separate localities, and generally combatting Balkanization.

Btw, millions of stories per day is a pretty steep ambition, if you think about the global population. UN projections around the turn of the millennium suggested world population may stabilize at about ten billion; five million articles a day would be one article per day for every two thousand people on the planet. Theoretically possible? Yes. But as a Wikinews veteran I'm aware there's a set of scaling-up problems that arise from our model of article review starting at around ten articles per day —problems we haven't had to deal with lately, and aren't tackling aggressively now because we've got other basic challenges we're focused on atm— and presumably there are further scaling-up problems Wikinews will face in the neighborhood of a hundred articles a day, a neighborhood we've never approached, then at a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. We're not there yet. --Pi zero (talk) 14:53, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I suppose this could be resolved by making it easier to navigate categories. There would be benefit from these local 'editions' staying at this wiki as people could help each other with creating news even if about a far away area. Gryllida (chat) 12:10, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Aye, if we had a really tremendous number of geographical categories it'd be worth, say, assembling clickable maps for regions, countries, perhaps even smaller areas. (One of the dialog-based tools I have in mind is an editor for assembling and editing clickable maps, because we have a clickable map of the globe that ought to be updated anyway.) --Pi zero (talk) 23:14, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

"developing artificial intelligence and perhaps other tools to make it easier to identify the submissions to Wikinews that are not likely to get published to move to WikiSocial" would this effort not be spent better by creating AI and other tools to identify emerging news in social sites on the internet to assist in writing about them here adequately, as opposed to a social media platform? Gryllida 09:05, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Both could be useful. The book Antisocial Media, which I've cited repeatedly, claims that it's easy and cheap with Facebook to target groups as small as 20 with ephemeral messages that sound consistent with the existing world view of those 20 and disappear without a trace in a few hours, amplifying the most extreme xenophobic world views, pushing people to act against their own best interests and those of society. Political candidates, for example, can potentially be slandered with the most extreme lies imaginable and distributed to only those folks most likely to be receptive to those particular lies. To others, those messages would be instantly ignored as blatant lies. However, to people who already believe something close to that, such lies can make their belief system even more extreme. Unless some of those few people who receive such messages make local copies when they see them and make them available to the person(s) slandered, a campaign can be derailed without the politician(s) slandered ever having a clue what happened.

What can be done to counter that? My answer has been to activate something like meta:WikiSocial in collaboration with organizations specializing in building bridges over the walls created by such extreme xenophobia, thereby lowering the intensity of conflict, etc., DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

If centralised this would require moderation, censorship and possibly lead to the same problems in the end. Gryllida (chat) 12:10, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Do Mastodon, Diaspora, GNUSocial (w/ w:ActivityPub) instances already fit your goal perfectly? There people may ethically post messages, and these software are distributed allowing local instances to be run. Gryllida 09:05, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with these.

Regarding "Mastodon", I gather you mean w:Mastodon (software)?

And "Diaspora" refers to w:Diaspora (social network)?

By "GNUSocial", I assume you mean ghu.org/software/social? "GNUSocial" links to a page saying, "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name."

Those all sound like potentially useful alternatives to Facebook. Then we need research on how to make them more attractive and how to use them to identify and diffuse rather than amplify conflict.

Thanks for mentioning them. DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, their main attraction is in encryption of communications and decentralised hosting and moderation. Gryllida (chat) 12:10, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Workshop format

What is the format of the workshop? Do you first give a presentation? If yes, how long is it? --Gryllida (chat) 10:55, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

My proposal says I "Prefer 50 min.: 15 min. presentation, 15 min. small group discussions, 15 min. report backs, 5 min. wrap up. Will accept 5 minutes, like I had in Cape Town, though I will have more to discuss by October." I don't know their rules for evaluation, etc. And they may not accept your Wikimedia userID. If I recall correctly, I created an account in their system with the same username and password I use for other Wikimedia projects. If you have other ideas, you for sure could put them in the "Discussion" page associated with that proposal.

There is a section for "Interested attendees", but you'd need to ask about facilities for videoconferencing with someone who could not attend in person. DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

You need to write a new proposal as a matter of urgency since the current proposal is based on the presumption that spammers create useful articles too. I think the event organizers wouldn't mind if your scope would be similar but the proposal page changed entirely. In fact I would encourage you to write a new version of the proposal page and provide it to the organizing committee so that when they give out a booklet with proposal ideas to each member of the conference at the registration desk, this booklet does not contain the misinformation which is currently present at the proposal page.

Here is my version of it:

Personally I would also change the title to say "Growing participatory journalism to counter the bias present in modern news media".

Perhaps this is a good starting point, then the abstract could also need to be updated to reflect that...

--Gryllida (chat) 06:50, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

What do you know about the protocol for revising a submission like that? (We are now long past the application deadline.)

The proposal now carries a banner saying, "This submission is waitlisted for WikiConference North America 2018. It was not scheduled in the first round of scheduling, but may still be scheduled after further review, as slots open up, or as a pre-conference session." The revision history page says it was last changed 08:22, 10 September 2018‎ by SuperHamster with a comment, "Waitlisted - stay tuned for an email with more information."

Would you mind taking the lead in revising that proposal -- after communicating with SuperHamster or anyone else you think appropriate about this? I'd encourage you to say whatever you think appropriate including that you and I have discussed this, that you are not likely to be able to attend (assuming that's still true) but would be willing to collaborate with me in preparing for the session and in modifying the proposal any way you and SuperHamster think would be appropriate -- assuming you are willing to collaborate with me in this way.

If you can find the time to first check with SuperHamster about the protocol for such revisions, then making such revisions with my collaboration, I think it could (a) increase the chances for the proposal being approved, (b) increase the likely audience, and (c) increase the likely long-term impact after the conference. However, I think we need to start by checking with conference organizers like SuperHamster to make sure that they would consider any such revision to be more supportive than disruptive.

I'm happy to help you revise this along the lines you suggest AND happy to collaborate with you in preparing for the conference. However, I do not want to take the lead with any such revisions at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestions. DavidMCEddy (talk) 10:07, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi SuperHamster. Please see above. I hope this can be fixed before the conference programme is created! --Gryllida (chat) 22:52, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi again, your proposal was rejected as seen on its page. Do you want to run small 'unconference' session instead? If you plan to give a small talk for an unconference session, possibly create slides and upload them somewhere. Gryllida (chat) 10:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Are they encouraging that? I could do that, but I can't afford to spend much time preparing right now.

If you wanted to take the lead in applying and preparing for that, I could present something.

Whether we do that or not, I think we should plan to submit a joint proposal for Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm. The Wikimedia Foundation has lots of money for travel expenses for lead volunteers like you to attend Wikimania, I think. You probably know more about that than I do. I paid my own way to Wikimania 2017 and 2018, and I think I can afford to do so next year as well.

Doing a "lightning talk" in Ohio could be a reasonable prep for submitting a proposal for a session at Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm.

However, I don't have much time to prepare another application like that from scratch right now. The radio station at which I volunteer, kkfi.org, has been having intermittent problems since early July, and I'm trying to develop software to make it easier to isolate that problem. In particular, our broacast signal goes dead for between roughly 1/5th and 5 seconds at seemingly random times. And we are such a low-budget operation that to swap out a couple of pieces of equipment is a lot of money for us. The station's official engineers have been swapping out equipment like that whenever they can find an alternative unit to swap at a relatively low cost.

I'm trying to write Python code to read audio in from an FM radio tuner and from our live stream. If I can get the signals, I can align them with a cross correlation function, then normalize them to the same amplitude and take the difference: When the system is normal, that difference should be noise at a very low level. When we get a drop out, it will appear huge. Then we can add third or fourth inputs with the signal at different points in our equipment chain between our on-air studio and the broadcast antenna to isolate the problem as quick as we can get this hooked up and see another dropout like this.

I wrote Python for real time monitoring in 2011, but I haven't written Python before or since, and I'm having problems just getting the software installed properly, etc.

If you know someone who can help develop software like that for a modest budget -- or you know how I might be able to find some off-the-shelf software that could do that -- it would be a great help to me and to KKFI radio.

Beyond that I'm scheduled to attend the Grassroots Radio Conference in Portland, OR, Oct. 5-7]: Their schedule advertises some 8 presentations on producing news by other "community radio stations". I'm hoping to learn enough from those presentations to be able to get a regular news program at KKFI.

I'm also interested in experimenting with other social media, like you suggested, but I haven't found time to explore that.

Thanks for the suggestion. DavidMCEddy (talk) 06:15, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps the #python people are able to assist if you upload your code somewhere? --Gryllida (chat) 01:33, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

@Gryllida: Thanks. Re. Python, I got help from "python-list (at) python.org". I think I should post something on GitHub, then ask for help in different places. I've also expanded my search for commercial software that might help us with this. I'm scheduled to speak tomorrow with tech support for iMediaTouch.com. Their software may not do all I want, but it should get me past my biggest obstacle at the moment.

Regarding the future of Wikinews, etc., do you have any suggestions for questions I might ask and / or people I might want to contact at, e.g., Hackthons at WikiConference North America, Oct. 18-21? I'm especially interested in understanding and improving data collection on different Wikimedia projects, especially Wikinews. (At recent conferences of the Online News Association, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and the Institute for Nonprofit News I heard presentation about how people are using data collection to better understand and improve their news organizations, improving the appeal and actual relevance of their news to their audience, selection of topics, writing style, etc., while also enhancing their reputations for quality journalism. One senior presenter said he never writes his own headlines: His data told him that other people write headlines that are more likely to attract a wider audience. Writing headlines is a special skill, and others can often more easily see what will attract more readers than the lead author of the article.)

Beyond that, do you have any thoughts about workshops we might try to organize for Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm? The Wikimania Foundation has offered scholarships to pay expenses for active Wikimedians attending previous Wikimania conferences, and I would expect that an active Administrator with workshop idea(s) might have a good chance of getting expenses paid to participate. DavidMCEddy (talk) 03:20, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

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Hi DavidMCEddy,

Thanks for your hard work towards radio reports and organizing workshops. It is great to see your awareness of the upcoming events.

The purpose of a workshop could be to test software and formulate directions of its development (WN:Tech). Doing this via chat (WN:IRC) could be a lot cheaper than an in person workshop. I personally recommend any interested persons, particularly those interested in organizing a workshop, to spend a considerable amount of time testing at least one article authoring or review pathway, and providing feedback as to how it could be improved. This in my opinion could greatly increase the chances of the workshop being a useful and productive experience.

I understood where the Wikimania 2019 is, but not the deadline for submissions. --Gryllida (chat) 04:59, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I haven't seen a deadline (or even a call) for submissions yet. I was fantasizing that you might know ways of getting that information that I wouldn't ;-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 05:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps other people from KKFI also wish to volunteer here. I recommend you to mention Wikinews at a meeting at your earliest convenience. --Gryllida (chat) 06:42, 24 September 2018 (UTC)