User talk:Gary
Add topicGetting started
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Welcome to Wikinews
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Getting started as a contributor
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Welcome, Gary! 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. |
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Listed here are the official policies of the project, you may be referred to some of them if your early attempts at writing articles don't follow them. Don't let this discourage you, we all had to start somewhere. The rules and guides laid out here are intended to keep content to high standards and meet certain rules the Wikimedia Foundation applies to all projects. It may seem like a lot to read, but you do not have to go through it all in one sitting, or know them all before you can start contributing. Remember, you should enjoy contributing to the project. If you're really stuck come chat with the regulars. There's usually someone in chat who will be happy to help, but they may not respond instantly. |
The core policies
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Wiki projects work because a sense of community forms around the project. Although writing news is far more individualistic than contributing to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, people often need minor help with things like spelling and copyediting. If a story isn't too old you might be able to expand it, or if it is disputed you may be able to find some more sources and rescue it before it is listed for deletion. There are always discussions going on about how the site could be improved, and your input is of value. Check the links here to see where you can give input to the running of the Wikinews project. |
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-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 18:17, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
My goodness...........
[edit].....you've been the busy little beaver. Essentially, cant exactly see that you've done anything inappropriate or unwarranted (other than fiddling a bit with stale articles, but not a huge felony there). You've certainly dove in head-long into story prep, that's for sure. I've noticed an odd thing here, though: often those who dive in super hot-n-heavy in the first week can't be found for dust a month later. Pace yourself, friend! ....and, welcome by-the-by! --Bddpaux (talk) 02:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
- However, prepared obits are only useful if well-sourced and in-depth. A "he's dead, died of X on Y" is something anyone can knock together in 5-10 minutes.
- From past experience, that's more likely to happen than a prepped obit with no sources and little-to-no content being built upon. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:51, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
A note on article categories
[edit]Fwiw, a few of our categories have quirks about them.
Category:Politicians is an internal category, i.e., it shouldn't be added to articles. (It's for classifying other categories.)
Category:Obituaries is for articles that also contain biographical info about the deceased (there's a usage note on the category page). --Pi zero (talk) 18:22, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
The Assange Factor
[edit]I note you've made a lot of edits to the draft on that. But, there's next-to-nothing content-wise in it.
Virtually all you need to know is in, or linked to, from the {{Howdy}}template above. But, unless you're citing independent sources, and writing more than three paragraphs in active voice using an w:Inverse pyramid style, no amount of edits will get something published.
This ain't Wikipedia, we don't throw crap out there and let it ferment. No matter how many subject-appropriate categories you put something in.
We only published fully-fledged, fully formed, and grammatically correct news articles. We can help with the latter, but we won't write articles on-demand. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:42, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Your article
[edit]An article you wrote, Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm dies at 95, looks interesting, but it is too old to be news. I tried to edit it so it's not abandoned anymore, but I couldn't find any recent news articles that would come up with new details of the event within last couple of days.
I would suggest moving a news article to the review queue as soon as possible once you've finished editing it: the developing tag does not bring as much attention and makes an article easier for others to abandon.
On a side-note, the list of references/sources was huge; you would normally only leave the sources that are actually used in the article and would be necessary for fact-checking, rather than collecting everything that looks related and/or interesting.
Thanks for bringing in the important event here in Wikinews, I appreciate it.
Good luck with your future articles, --Gryllida 13:21, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
- Just a clarification regarding unused sources. A reviewer has to read all the sources, so extra sources can make for much more work for the reviewer. We therefore have it written into policy that unused sources are not allowed. The point of making that policy is to protect reviewers, by bolstering their authority should they choose to object to excess sources. WN:CITE#Considering the review process. --Pi zero (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2012 (UTC)