User talk:Davodd/archive 3

Please hit the add comment tab at the top of this page to leave me a message. -- Davodd | Talk

ARCHIVE 1 | ARCHIVE 2

Wikinews Trophy

For all your edits (1500+) and particularly for welcoming so many people to wikinews through the welcommittee greeting. Thanks. CGorman 21:00, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Blush! -- Davodd | Talk 06:42, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You deserve it! CGorman 11:15, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews writing contest launched

Dear Davodd,

thanks for registering for the Wikinews writing contest! It now begins officially. Every day, I will try to make a tally of who has and who has not managed to fulfill their story/day requirements. If you do, however, believe I am missing something, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best of luck in the contest!--Eloquence 06:20, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Article Presentation Advice

Thank you for it. I will be trying to implement the suggestions.Also, thanks so much for the work on Texas baby unplugged. It is much less pov now and still has the data. Paulrevere2005 19:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews:Speedy deletion

There's a speedy which could be taken care of... also, see Category:Speedy deletion which may have one or two more (haven't looked.) - Amgine 21:15, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Got it. I must have "unwatched" the Speedy Delete page. -- Davodd | Talk 21:27, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nah, I just added that one a couple minutes b4. Was very surprised he posted that in the main namespace. - Amgine 21:34, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Killer beds

I thought about Wackynews, but it didn't seem right given the fatalities. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. — DV 23:57, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

howdy

hey, how did you edit your sig so that you have "davodd | talk"? It looks funky The bellman 13:35, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks ~ The bellman | Smile 02:18, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Waterman

Kind of surprised that Amgine never got around to protecting that one.

Are older articles still being protected to keep a stable archive?

Just curious.

— DV 08:05, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Say Hi to you

I corrected some content of the "Taiwan Demonstration" yesterday. Today I create a new account, and say hi to you. Thanks for your greeting. I am from zh.wikipedia.--Theodoranian 16:58, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

---

Thanks for the welcome. I have been on wikipedia for a while, tho with only occasional edits. I was trying to be just a little humorous with my post (in the bit about the marketing person). Tell me if you believe it to be not appropriate. thanx. RayKiddy 00:07, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NPOVing...

Could you keep an eye on Template:Second lead and China and Taiwan react to "326" rally? I don't know what User:Ran is doing, and I'm really distracted or I'd follow up myself... - Amgine 20:17, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tsunami (or lack of)

Davodd, there are no tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. The quake occured at 1610z; as the PTWC point out, if nothing had been observed by three hours later, nothing was going to happen. Please do not add to hysteria by publishing incorrect information. Dan100 (Talk) 21:17, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The fact that thousands of people are evacuating despite the reassurances is news. Please to not blank out valid reporting in the future - it is borderline vandalism. -- Davodd | Talk 21:25, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So why did you immeadiately remove my content, which is exactly what you just accused me of doing?! The headline of the article was "tsunami fears rise...", not about the mass evacuations. I would have changed the headline too but for some reason the move tab wasn't appearing on that story. Dan100 (Talk) 12:24, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Redirect to Wikipedia talk page

Many thanks - that will be very useful! Grutness 00:01, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In part it came from ...

Massmedia and modern journalism, an old textbook. - Amgine 05:33, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's only for articles with bylines from a specific and named reporter. For wire-type collaborative stories, a dateline simply tells where the event happened. -- Davodd | Talk 05:41, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks

Please refrain from calling anyone a Nazi. That is not the wiki way. Dan100 (Talk) 12:21, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It was not meant as a personal attack - but a (failed) reference to behavior reminesent of Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi." -- Davodd | Talk 14:14, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image click link / image redirects

Hi Davodd,

I wrote up some notes in response to your request for "image click link" or what I call "image redirects", over on the technical section of the water cooler.

I really enjoy adding images to Wikinews, so image redirects are the single most important feature I would like to see on Wikinews. I'm glad to see other contributors asking for this feature. I would also like to use it for some nice typography and background graphics for the subject and region links, if we eventually start breaking up the "Latest news" section into sub-sections, like they use on CNN. (I think someone proposed this general idea somewhere already, but I can't find the link at the moment.)

By the way, that scrolling box on your user page made it much easier to navigate the contents. I might steal that for my rather lengthy user page.

Cheers,

— DV 17:04, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

P.S.: I promise not to invoke Godwin's law on you. :)

1. ROTFL at the P.S.

2. It would be intuitive to make a story thumbnail image directly link to its accompanying story - or category. I don't know how many times a week I click on the image instead of the link.

3. I believe the subject headers proposal you mentioned is here: Wikinews:Water_cooler#Sorting_out_Latest_news

-- Davodd | Talk 17:26, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Slow down, Davodd!

<grin> It was a tester, showing it to their boss. You're quick this morning! coffee? <need some myself> - Amgine

See? that shows how totally unconscious I am still... I hadn't even thought about the possibility of April Fools. <goes to make instant, now> Thanks for all the hard work; you've been doing fantabulous the past couple days. If you get a chance, can we chat sometime before the weekend? I'll be in IRC much of today. - Amgine 18:35, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah - it's probably temporary - I'm on Spring Break from law studies. Next week when classes resume, I'll be up to my a$$ in aligators again. and less active on WN ;-) -- Davodd | Talk

<Chuckle> Ah, the care-free life of the scholar... not. I do have questions, though, about an upcoming event I'm going to be attending about journalism/ists. So, if you have time before the end of the week... - 24.86.201.239 18:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And on another note: South America has been turned into a test platform (again), using the dynamic page listing extension. Feed back?

Maybe I'm missing something, but I am not sure what to look for here. -- Davodd | Talk 22:11, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The lists of articles are being created by the dynamicpagelist tag. They are the most currently edited articles in both the categories Category:South America and their topic region. The only thing which would need manual updating is the Major News box. - Amgine 22:27, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I forgot to mention, if this extension remains, we could add Category:Published to articles we think are ready to be published, and then we'll be done with updating everything for the main page. In theory, at least. <grin> - Amgine 22:29, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Heh. maybe I should READ your messages .. LOL. OK you (and Ilya?) win the hero award for that one! -- Davodd | Talk 22:48, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism alert

User:213.224.186.120 just vandalised the source template (check it's history). I believe a 24hr ban could be in order... Dan100 (Talk) 09:16, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Support. Banning for highly destructive vandalism is better than protecting the template. I left some additional reasons for considering this approach as feedback to the proposal to protect this template. — DV 10:37, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Google hits

You seem to just go to google and search for wikinews. This is the wrong way to do it as it includes our own namespace. Please follow the link provided to get the correct search. Todays count should only be 100,000, not the 119,000 or so you would get. → CGorman (Talk) 20:32, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nope. I excluded the appropriate sites. I think when you check, you'll see that the results fluctuate from hour to hour. -- Davodd | Talk 20:41, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well if you think its correct I won't alter it... 19,000 seems to be a big gap though! I'll leave the task of updating the google hits to you. I just wanted to check before I go off and do another chart. Just for your own interest, you may have noticed that we grew our article count by about 44.5% this month. I did a little bit of work in Excel and found that this is what would happen if we keep growing at this rate:

• March - 354 articles - 44.5% growth
• April - 512 articles - 44.5% growth
• May - 739 articles - 44.5% growth
• June - 1068 articles - 44.5% growth
• July - 1543 articles - 44.5% growth
• August - 2230 articles - 44.5% growth
• September - 3222 articles - 44.5% growth
• November - 4657 articles - 44.5% growth
• December - 6730 articles - 44.5% growth

Its a bright future is'nt it! More realistic figures below:

• March - 354 articles - 44.49% growth
• April - 499 articles - 41% growth
• May - 684 articles - 37% growth
• June - 862 articles - 26% growth
• July - 1009 articles - 17% growth
• August - 1149 articles - 14% growth
• September - 1299 articles - 13% growth
• November - 1454 articles - 12% growth
• December - 1585 articles - 9% growth

Still not bad though! Thats 51 a day by december! → CGorman (Talk) 20:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I put a note on CGorman's talk page about why you guys might be seeing different results for Google searches Dan100 (Talk) 22:17, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

April Fools

It was an error perhaps to leave that redlink so long... World prepares for April Fools Day pranks has become a "go to wikipedia" advertisement. - Amgine 22:21, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Source

Thanks for the source on submit a story. → CGorman (Talk) 20:21, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pope

NB: Im giving this message to the 10 or so people I suspect may be on Wikinews when the event occurs.

I've created a story announcing the Popes death - when the Vatican or BBC/Reuters announce he is actually dead please insert the date & time and publish - we will be the 1st news group to break this story (besides our source)! The story is located here User:CGorman/Sandbox. Whilst waiting please improve the story. → CGorman (Talk) 22:39, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews:Story preparation

Seeing how well preparations have gone for the Pope story, i've created Wikinews:Story preparation. Instead of users preparing stories on their own computers and saving them on their own hard drives, they can place them here to allow other writers to add to them before the event. This will help eliminate duel coverage of the same story - Teeks99 had spent some time yesterday evening writing a Pope story - but did'nt load it onto wikinews resulting in his version being made redundent. Hopefully by allowing users to collaborate on a story from an earlier date, our article quality will be dramatically improved. → CGorman (Talk) 15:13, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

Hey, Thanks for the welcome to the site. I have been contributing to wikipedia for a little bit and thought I would try my hand at wikinews as well. So thanks for the warm welcome, I plan on contributing more in the future. --Jake 20:39, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't throw around "Copyvio" if you don't understand copyright.

Title 17 of U.S. Code defines copyright protection in the US.

Section 102(a) generally lays out the protection:

Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression ...

Before I go any further, lets take a quick look at "fixed", shall we. As defined in section 101:

A work is "fixed" in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration. A work consisting of sounds, images, or both, that are being transmitted, is "fixed" for purposes of this title if a fixation of the work is being made simultaneously with its transmission.

So, why is this important, say, in the context of congressional testimony?

Well, who is the "author" of testimony? That would be the speaker, right? If the washington post makes a transcript of what the speaker says, under normal circumstances can a reasonable person be lead to believe it was done "under the authority" of the speaker? What about CSPAN's recording -- is that "under the authority"?

No. Not even basic copyright protection attaches to testimony.

And, as if that wasn't enough for you, section 105 states:

Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government ...

Now you may not have known the precise legal basis for why congressional testimony is not copyright protected, but you either (1) had a gut feeling that it wasn't protected, or (2) had an incorrect belief that it was protected.

If it was (1), the you are simply dishonest for bringing it up. After I challenged you here http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Talk:Memo_shows_Gen._Sanchez_perjured_himself_to_Senate , you knew you were wrong, but you persisted because your ego got in the way.

If it was (2), then you really shouldn't flag someone's work for "copyvio" because you don't have a clue. Let someone who has a better understanding of copyright make those calls. If someone challenges you, then apologize and explain you just thought someone who actually knows the law should look at it. How egotistical is it to stick to your guns when you know you don't have a clue?

So, which was it? Did your ego make you knowingly assert falsehoods, or did your ego make you pretend that you knew what you are talking about?

Pencil Pusher 19:14, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I just saw on your user page that you are a law student. Well, I guess that answers the question of (1) or (2). You knew damn well that congressional testimony isn't copyrightable. Pencil Pusher 19:53, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I withdraw my previous comments (you can delete above if appropriate). Pencil Pusher 03:08, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In the spirit of Wikinews:Etiquette, I will disregard your personal attacks as things said in the heat of the moment that you (hopefully) regret.

To avoid such misunderstanings in the future, when you are using Congressional testimony, be sure to cite it as the source in the first paragraph of each new speaker. It was unclear in the article where the quotes were coming from. No where did it say that the quotes used in the article by Mssrs. Sanchez and Reed were, indeed from the testimony (it may have been implied, but it was unclear). How is the reader to know they were not from interviews with other reporters - the work of other writers? Our job as journalists includes not relying upon the reader to do our work for us via guesswork or gruntwork to track down the sources of quotes we use.

Finally, let me turn to the writing style (plese review WN:SG). Perhaps we all should try to look at our stories through the eyes of someone who is unfamiliar with the situation. If the writing was confusing to me, a professional journalist for almost 20 years, there is a good chance it was confusing for others. Imagine being from the United Kingdom and you have family or friends in Iraq and stumble across the article. Sure, you may be interested in the story. But, are left to your own devices to figure out the following:

1. What does ACLU mean?
2. What does "DR-I" in "Jack Reed (D-RI)" mean?
3. What is Snachez a "Lt. Gen." of? Army? Navy?

Our international audience may not get what you mean when you use too much American-specific jargon. -- Davodd | Talk 00:48, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bay Bridge

So, just to save a little money they took shortcuts on the welds. Who needs terrorists when our own contractors are making sure stuff falls down all by itself?

I hope they get to the bottom of this before the whole thing falls down on some boater out on the bay. I won't be driving on that bridge anytime soon.

Thanks for the story. — DV 07:39, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah - the joys of the living la vida South Bay - no need for a bridge commute unless you're going to Napa. ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 07:42, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Something you might be interested in being aware of...

I've been trying to get a better rede regarding fair use, etc., on Wikinews from the wikimedia foundation and commons, and have submitted a question to the newly-formed juriwiki-l mailing list. In doing some research on this, I found the new legal page as well, and realized this might be something you'd like to know of. - Amgine 18:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[[Category:Film]]

Didn't you have an experimental category regarding film? - Amgine 05:17, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Responding up here, I hope you figure it out.

<nod> I remember the concept about multiple movie reviews. We actually did produce a movie review which was neutral enough to pass muster on Wikinews, I will try to find for you. The concept of movie (or game, or theatre, or music) reviews is really removed from the question of editorials, imo. Still, I'm not sure if there is much likelihood of it gaining acceptance at the moment despite nearly identical writing occurring in the sports articles with regularity.

I believe the reason I asked this question was a small collection of different film/movie-related categories, which I was attempting to merge. There's also, apparently, both an "Athletics" and a "Sports" category, which overlap. I haven't gotten to either issue, obviously. - Amgine/^talk 00:05, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Categories

This message is being given to several people, so please forgive the formality.

I've created a list of categories that must be included in ALL articles to ensure the DPL system works correctly. Adding the revlevent categories from this list will ensure complete site-wide relevent article listing. It is located at User:CGorman/Categories and you can easily cut & paste out of it. I urge frequent writers to bookmark this page to help save themselves time with categorization. Thanks for your attention. → CGorman (Talk) 19:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Simeon's changes

As you have probably noticed, Simeon is intent on competely re-writing almost all the Wikinews namespace articles. I object to this on a number of fronts: there's no consensus for such changes, the pages have existed as they were for a long time which I believe is a sign the community accepts them as they are; the existing pages have all been carefully written and constructed by several editors to be the best they can be; and Simeon's changes are to make them grossly longer and harder to read. And I must be honest - a couple of the pages were written by me. I obviously don't mind people altering them, but I do object to them being destroyed. Dan100 (Talk) 08:34, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Letter to the editor

Last Fridays edition of The Economist magazine had a major story about the future of journalism, intrigingly it mentioned wikipedia.org in very favourably terms but did not mention us. This provides an excellent chance to write a letter to the editor about Wikinews. I am asking a few people to do this before thursday afternoon (5/6pm) in the belief that if they receive several letters about wikinews, they will publish at least one. I have already sent a letter (email). The Economist sells on average 1 million copies a week - thats a lot of readers, so this is worth our while.

To do:

• Read the article (or at least the relevent part) at: Click here
• Write a short email in the form:

Sir -

(your text),

(Your name)

(your town and country)

(space)

(Your postal address)

• Send it to letters@economist.com
• Delete this message.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, this is just a request, not a demand, don't feel underpressure. (p.s. don't quote our article count, as i've already done that and it would look suspicious if they received several similier emails on the same day). → CGorman (Talk) 21:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

==URGENT! Your attention and input is needed regarding a crucial issue facing wikinews.== Please go to the water cooler policy discussion at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#creating_.2F_deleting_dispute_flag_templates

Please participate in this discussion,regardless of your opinion. Paulrevere2005 12:55, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

wheredja' go ??

just missin' ya. Paulrevere2005 20:17, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Studying law - things should lighten up in about a month for me... -- Davodd | Talk 05:10, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

<grin>

Exams over yet? - Amgine/^talk 02:06, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As I recall, I did say that was way, way more than I would ever consider taking... but then, I'm lazy! <laugh> I hope you are rested and relaxed, ready for a summer of reading, and editing, and writing... - Amgine/^talk 02:21, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back, Davodd. -- IlyaHaykinson 03:20, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

whu?

I've not blocked anyone - ? Dan100 (Talk) 4 July 2005 11:43 (UTC)

<Ahem> [1] -- NGerda July 4, 2005 11:46 (UTC)

Category:LGBT

Do you think we can come up with a bit more descriptive name than Category:LGBT, such as Category:Gay and lesbian? -- NGerda

Hello - when adding a category to a talk page for discussion - be sure to add a colon after the first set of brackets like: [[:Category:LGBT]] so it will print as "Category:LGBT" instead of just listing the talk page in the category. As for a more descriptive name - you probably know that w:LGBT news includes bisexuals, the transgendered and intersex folk - who are neither gay nor lesbian clinically or in self identification. We would have to have a category that read something like: Category:Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex - which is way too long. From much discussion in the other Wikimedia Foundation projects, the wiki category acronym "LGBT" has become the usual project consensus as a workable, less-controversial compromise. -- Davodd | Talk 5 July 2005 00:51 (UTC)

Thanks for creating an LGBT section on Wikinews. I am very interested in creating more stories for this category as well as others. As for the title, I have seen and given the issue much thought and agree "LGBT" is best - and it is the most popular according to search numbers on Google and Yahoo!. I don't believe we need to keep adding to the current title and feel it is inclusive of all communities. A discussion can be found on Wikipedia w:Talk:LGBT - Tdempsey 5 July 2005 06:16 (UTC)

An invitation...

I appear to be completely brain-dead, and failed to invite you to join a petition for another English edition of Wikinews. You'll have to pardon my error... lots of stuff happening very quickly.

Anyway, if you have an interest, I would be very pleased if you would join in on the petition. - m:User:Amgine/^{m:User talk:Amgine}

Anti-local?

Hello Davodd,

on Meta, you wrote:

Under the current en.wn system - it would be unthinkable for a mom from Peoria simply to write an article about her local city council meeting - without being attacked as being irrelevant and/or too Americentric. (Although I would prefer a rise-up of the little people to overthrow the current en.wn anti-localism cabal that has entrenched itself as de facto annointers of what is - and is not - news and systematically attempt to force out admins and other users they either dislike or who refuse to adopt the approved, clique-like party line.)

I'd like to know where these beliefs come from. I was under the impression that Wikinews today very much welcomed, indeed glorified, local original reporting. Stories like 109th Boston marathon takes place and Mothers, teachers air more concerns about leukemia cases at California elementary school have been written and are considered by many to be examples of what Wikinews should be doing. Is there any specific story that has been unfairly rejected? What do you think is going wrong? I am honestly puzzled by this comment, but perhaps I have not been paying close enough attention.--Eloquence 6 July 2005 03:26 (UTC)

I shamelessy decried Pingswept's story on the opening of a Boston sandwich shop when my own story on a Trivial Pusuit game at that time was labeled 'not news'. I know there was a distinction between the publishability of the two stories, but I think that somehow digresses from the true point. -Edbrown05 6 July 2005 03:51 (UTC)

The fact that we have to defend non-international stories at all is a shame. -- Davodd | Talk 6 July 2005 21:52 (UTC)

Davodd, more empirical data would be helpful to get an accurate view of the problem you perceive. Edbrown05 admitted to tagging a local story with Notnews, but I haven't seen this done to any other stories recently. For example, yesterday we published Three killed in Tennessee vehicle crash. I'm strongly in favor of local stories, and if anything like this is happening, then we should more clearly state in our policies that we want such stories. We also need people like you to step up when this happens. Even if the problem exists, a separate project may well have exactly the same problems unless it is ruled by fiat by someone who agrees with you.

We've also been discussing yesterday the possibility of making highly local news portals, similar to what sites like backfence.com are doing. The idea is that something like Portal:Dyer, Tennessee could be created, with some information about the location, and a customized "create an article" box as in Wikinews:Writing an article, but automatically putting the story in the right location category.

Finally, stories are deleted regularly as copyright violations, irrideemably POV, and similar. This has nothing to do with an anti-local attitude, but simply with maintaining a standard of quality and neutrality.

As it is, you are supporting a separate project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, coexisting with Wikinews, which would cause total confusion to readers, writers and Wikimedians alike, drain resources, and make all of Wikinews look like a farce. I strongly urge you to reconsider that support. Instead, I would like to invite you to participate in m:Wikinews/Future Talk, an open chat where we can discuss this and other topics.--Eloquence 7 July 2005 07:30 (UTC)

I read the first sentence of the Eloquence comments and stopped, being compelled to reply. I never placed a tag on a story. -Edbrown05 7 July 2005 07:48 (UTC)

Apologies, I understood your above comment to mean that you had tagged Pingswept's stories with "Notnews" after your story was labeled the same way.--Eloquence 7 July 2005 07:58 (UTC)

No apology necessary, only clarifying. I don't see the point of another wikinews project either. What's broken? I know I run my mouth too much. So does my neighbor next door. -Edbrown05 7 July 2005 08:01 (UTC)

The software isn't broken. -Edbrown05 7 July 2005 08:09 (UTC)

So it must be a people thing. -Edbrown05 7 July 2005 08:12 (UTC)

Half an answer to that is 99% the cure. -Edbrown05 7 July 2005 08:16 (UTC)

There is no answer to that. -Edbrown05 7 July 2005 08:23 (UTC)

I cannot make the chat. But I posted issues on the m:Wikinews/Future Talk talk page. As for empirical evidence, unlike some other folk here, I don't make a habit of keeping evidence handy to lob at others as weapons. But I guess this weekend if I have the time, I can go through article histories and find a few dozen examples of anti-localism for you. -- Davodd | Talk 7 July 2005 08:49 (UTC)

I'll keep the running list here: User:Davodd/List of Anti-localism on Wikinews -- Davodd | Talk 7 July 2005 09:31 (UTC)

newest Hurricane Dennis story

You published Dozens left dead in Caribbean after hurricane moves toward U.S.. Do you think another story besides that one should be written as it moves up the gulf? Or should the story cited above be more developed? -Edbrown05 9 July 2005 18:58 (UTC)

Yes. I fear that this important non-U.S. Caribbean local story will be marginalized in the main article. -- Davodd | Talk 9 July 2005 19:18 (UTC)

Indymedia Image

Thank you very much for clarifying the copyright status of the Indymedia image. Best regards, NGerda 07:21, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

A Wikimedia board member has expressed opposition to your Noncommercial image template. Many administrators are upset at your unilateral modifications to our Fair use policy. Please discuss this at Wikinews Future talk. -- NGerda 19:10, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia board members have to follow the same rules as everyone else. They are not individual dictators, so they also must discuss and justify their actions to the community - or individual users. If an issue is not clear in current WN policy, then it should be discussed before decisions to ban certain types of content are made. As for the policy - it is a "proposed policy" that invites WN individaul members to make changes and mods to it. We are in beta, afterall. ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 19:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews uses a 'whitelist' approach to images. We can only use image the board has aproved. Only publicity, logos, and screnshots are curently allowed by the board --Cspurrier 19:12, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

If this is true, then it needs to be clarified very clearly in our policy pages so that we know this for sure. I have seen such policies that apply to WIkipedia and Wikisource. I do not understand the reasoning for applying this rule - which is meant for a different type of wiki concept altogether. Unlike wikipedia, which is not time sensitive, it is not really possible for us recreate non-commercial images of a news event - unless we have a wikitime machine no one has told me about. :-) It is my understanding that traditional wiki content rules sat that if something is not specifically banned, then it is allowable. -- Davodd | Talk 19:29, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

From the fair use page "Any use not covered by this whitelist is not allowed. If you feel that the whitelist should be expanded, please comment on the discussion page." --Cspurrier 19:38, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

There is a major legal difference between a fair use image and a non-commercial image. For fair use - no consent is given for Wikinews to use the image by the copyright holder, we are in essence justifying our stealing of it. FAir use is a legally dubious - and precarious place for the foundation. For CC:By, non-commercial, Wikinews, being a non-commercial operation, *is* given consent to use the image, we are not stealing the image from the copyright holder since we have permission to use it , copy it and distribute it. A non-commercial-only image is not a fair use image, therefore there is no need to expand the fair use policy since we already have consent to use the photo. The problem exists when a commercial enterprise wants to syndicate our content. THEN, the image is not allowed by that commercial syndicator, hence the tag that says the image non-commercial. -- Davodd | Talk 19:46, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

About the image use...

The board really did say we aren't supposed to host anything except Fair Use images, and it was pulling teeth to get even that. I know it's kind of weird that we should fit the criteria for those images, yet not be allowed to host them. I just don't know how else it could be read, unless we can talk to the board about adding non-fair use images.

As for the non-competitive; in order to fall under the Fair use the use must be transformative or non-competitive. Using a news image on a news site is not going to qualify as either. - Amgine/^talk 05:41, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

1. <blush> Oops, forgot about that...

2. Well, you were the wedge that opened the door! but we did lose out on the "other fair use" front. We aren't supposed to have anything hosted which might restrict its downstream use, other than the fair use.

The logic supporting this came from the Legal team, and I didn't quite understand it at the time, and will have a hard time trying to defend it, but I guess it goes something like "you have a special case for fair use, but everything else has to follow WMF goals". And that means using Commons. <sigh> - Amgine/^talk 06:10, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

That is bizarre - since fair use is basically stealing, where as CC:NC is not. Makes me very dubious about WMF goals. -- Davodd | Talk

Davodd, please bring this up to the Wikimedia folks at #Wikimedia. Thanks! -- NGerda 07:08, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

I don't use IRC since it messes with my firewall. Anyway, I'm not hiding anywhere and each of the board members has my personal email address - and my talk pages so they know where to find me if they want to talk to me. ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 08:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

<chuckle> Well, I think there was a strong dose of "let's not have Wikinews cutting into the purview of Commons" involved in the decision, plus the argument of liability if Wikinews is still under the PD licensure and at the same time hosting not-free images. Since all images are supposed to have one of three fair-use image tags, and only those image tags, the legal team felt the there was little possible misinterpretation. - Amgine/^talk 00:00, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

California meetup

Hi Davodd,

I'll be in Mountain View for a few days. Perhaps a chance to meet up? I've also invited DV and have set up a page at Wikinews:Meetup/California.--Eloquence 01:02, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Missing pictures

Two images in San Francisco anti-G8 rally turns violent have only captions left, it looks like because of copyright problems? Do you know if these or alternate images can be obtained on a free-license basis? If not, shouldn't we delete the floating captions that look so odd? Or put in a "Image not available due to copyright issues" disclaimer? Right now, it just looks to the casual reader like something is malfunctioning or poorly assembled. -- Beland 03:59, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

James Doohan, 'Trek' actor dead at 85

Hey! Thanks for merging the two Doohan articles. I took a look at the developing stories section but somehow I didn't see that you already started an article about it. Sorry for that. --Deprifry 17:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Hey there

Been meaning to sign up here for a while. Finally got around to it. This is just too useful to not be involved. - Texture 18:25, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Link on Kevin's talk page

You've linked to Wikimedia:Administrators, which doesn't seem to exist. Is that the link you meant? Dan100 (Talk) 16:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Execution of two gay teens in Iran spurs controversy

Hi, you have been quickly with removing the images. Do you think we should be concerned about the copyrights of the fascist regime in Iran? Could you please also read my comment on the discussion page of this article. Do you think there is a way to keep these images? Thank you. --131.130.124.71 11:31, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Audio Wikinews

Just a small comment:

Nothing on Wikinews has been approved by the board other than adding file upload. Nor has it any need to approve it directly. The community has been empowered to develop its own goals, methods, and processes. It is doing so, through the innovation of its contributors.

Wikinews does not cover all the news. Instead, it covers what interests its contributors. That means the coverage is inherently POV, entirely and totally. But the stories themselves attempt to maintain an NPOV approach to their article writing. And the whole project is Beta.

The same is true of Audio Wikinews.

There are no "Proposed Projects" on Wikinews. There are projects of contributors. Some are large ones, like Audio Wikinews, worked on by people who care about it. Others are smaller, like Country of the Week. The smallest ones are individual articles. To declare, arbitrarily, that any one of these is "Proposed" in an obviously pejorative manner is itself POV. It also implies you have the right to make that judgement.

I'm sure you have some idea of how I feel about things, since I am not actively involved in the community because I feel some individuals have decided they personally are the judges of where and how the project is going without discussing it with the community. But to be utterly clear: I feel you are creating roadblocks by "tagging" anything you are not actively involved in as a "Project".

- Amgine/^talk 03:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Template: Audio

There is already a template for Audio Wikinews (see {{AW}}). --Mrmiscellanious 19:05, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Template:Audio is for a different purpose... (more on his talk page) -- Davodd | Talk 23:28, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, I forgot to strike that out when I saw the addition to Audio Wikinews :) --Mrmiscellanious 02:49, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Page move

Hi Davodd, can you explain the page move to 'EU judicial review'. it may be that it does indeed make it clearer but equally maybe the story as it has been written isn't clear. The review was brought in the light of the European Human Rights Law, but they have been incorporated into British law and the case was at the UK high court, indeed it will become an EU review if they do take it to the court at Strasbourg. I didn't want to change it before discussing it. Thanks ClareWhite 08:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

PS I hope you'll add more to Wikinews:Local proposal (if indeed that is where it is now) if you have the time and help get it up to scratch! particularly i'd be interested in what you think at policy level - should a local story be as fully sourced, NPOVd etc as a 'main' story or can we be more relaxed on local pages? That may be the sort of thing that could cause problems if it's implemented without being fully discussed.

Thank you

Thanks a ton Davodd. This trophy means a ton to me. It really does. User:RossKoepke/Awards ----RossKoepke^Talk 05:49, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Clarification

Could you explain the rationale of http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews:Audio_guide&diff=0&oldid=116078 to me? I'm not quite sure whats going on there. ----RossKoepke^Talk 20:02, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Blocking users

Can I ask you really really nicely to take more care checking diffs before blocking users? This morning you blocked the guy rv'ing the spammer, and not the actually spammer himself! He came into the IRC channel and we sorted it out, so no harm done. Dan100 (Talk) 08:13, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Developing Icon

You are replacing this image: with this one: - which is a much more confusing graphic. Can we please discuss this? -- NGerda 08:51, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

answer on his talk page. -- Davodd | Talk 09:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

60th VJ Day

Thanks for removing the anti-US stuff. I was just about the replace it when you did :-) Take care! SoLando 21:19, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Just realised you only removed the photo, sorry :-D SoLando 22:17, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, pictures say 1K words.. I got that first. -- Davodd | Talk 23:48, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Abuse of Admin Powers

you did it again! Kevin Baas^talk 23:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

You are going to have to be more specific and less vague. If I made a mistake, I can;t fix it because I have no idea what you are talking about. -- Davodd | Talk 01:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

ya, i got to work too, so when i find something good, i'll get back to it, but if someone else takes a grab at it, that's what wikis are for. if it is sitting there too long, that's what "abandoned articles" are for, and i'd have no problem if you listed it on there. At the same time, i'd have no problem if someone (besides you) listed it for speedy deletion, and hence you deleted it. howvere, lacking an article sitting as an abandoned article for a reasonable duration, or it being listed on speedy deletion, there is no justification. And btw, this is a story like the downing street memo, in that we can sit on it for a month and it will still be "breaking news" when it's published. thanks to the liberal media. Kevin Baas^talk 04:00, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

How about I do what you suggested, except I do it in a shared workspace, such that everyone can help write the article? Otherwise, i'd have to go around leaving notes on everyone's user talk pages about where the article is, and everyone else would have to do the same. I think the same could be accomplished if we had some sort of central category for these things, oh wait, we do! Kevin Baas^talk 00:12, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Purty. I take it you just made that. It's on there. I left a msg on the talk page of some election fraud experts on wikipedia, they might come over and work on it. Kevin Baas^talk 00:35, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Why were you deleting content from Wikinews?

Hello. With this edit: http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Fiddle_Legend_Vassar_Clements_dead_at_77&diff=124828&oldid=124804 You removed a big chunk of a Wikinews story without explanation as to why the content was deleted. Another editor has reverted this deletion since it appeared unwarranted. -- Davodd | Talk 21:26, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe I did explain it in the comment. The part that was news (his death) was left in the news article. The part that was NOT news (his life story) was moved into a Wikipedia entry and a link was added under his name. This way all that info will still be available after the news story fades. It is also important to avoid redundant entries under Wikinews and the Wikipedia, as this would require each change take place in two places. StuRat 21:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

'Evergreen'

There's no reason why "non-time dependent" stories can't sit in developing stories along with everything else. I also can't understand the point of the "evergreen" thing - if such a story isn't "ready to be developed by the community", then what's it doing on the wiki? Dan100 (Talk) 17:17, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Yes there is - they will will be nominated for deletion and/or speedy delted. -- Davodd | Talk 21:47, 18 August 2005 (UTC)