User talk:Geo Swan

Welcome

Geo Swan, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Re: Style

hi Geo Swan, wikinews articles are to conform in style to the Wikinews:Style guidelines. note that these can be quite different from the Wikipedia guidelines. — Doldrums(talk) 16:33, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay. But why replace Colonel with "Col."?

Is there a reason why references shouldn't be tied to the paragraph they reference? Why they shouldn't be numbered?

the wikilink is not needed, because the WP description of the rank is not particularly relevant to understanding the article. i preferred the abbreviation as it is shorter, feel free to revert this. wikinews, being a news source, does not use an encyclopedic citation style with numbered references tied to the statements they reference. wikinews citation style is meant to encourage readers to read thro' the article and then look at the sources, if they wish, instead of leaving wikinews for an external site midway via a footnote reference. — Doldrums(talk) 16:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for the explanation.

FWIW, I think I may go back and fill out things like Col. to Colonel. While Col. is fewer letters to read, I think it requires more thought to parse. And I think short-forms can be more geographically limited than authors realize. I see many Americans who are convinced that EPW is the preferred synomym for prisoner of war.

What do you think needs to be done to put the article into a finished state?

Cheers -- Geo Swan 17:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Can you tell me what I am doing wrong?

I started Former Guantanamo detainees convicted in Morocco. I put a {publish} tag on it. Shouldn't that have put it on the main page?

Thanks! -- Geo Swan 18:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Doldrums appears to have marked it for clean up. Go in to the article and rewrite the sources with the source tag he has demonstrated. Once you've got as many of the news sources like that, remove the cleanup tag on the top of the page, and it will be published. -- Zanimum 19:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

RE Gitmo

Well all the sources are not formatted properly. And we need to go through all of them and fix them and also make sure they work. Something that will take a while to do. I fixed the first 2 sources, so if you would like to fix them following our format then great :) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

We use this template for sources: *{{source|url=|title=|author=|pub=|date=}}. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. Your attempts at correction removed the page numbers. Several of those pdf files are several hundred pages long. Without the page numbers they are completely useless. Geo Swan 21:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

If you look in the history, you can still see those changes and the pages. Sorry but I didn't know. And yes thanks for fixing the sources, it looks great. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Great minds think alike...

US seeks death penalty for detainees who confessed under torture, we should probably try to combine the two into one. I personally prefer my opening, focusing on the torture -> execution aspect of it, gives it a bit of a "medieval law" sort of feel. I'm also a fan of listing the laundry list of charges against KSM under torture, giving context to the claim that he "confessed" Sherurcij 23:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

have merged, pending your approval. Could use your help fleshing out the story a bit on the other four, focusing on the current charges, rather than ARB/CSRT findings. Sherurcij 23:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Nice work!

I just read the article on the prosecutor that resigned, and I thought it was really nice work! The perspective on past resignations was quite informative, and the article read quite well, thank you :). Sean Heron (talk) 11:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/General_supervising_Guantanamo_Prosecutions_the_subject_of_two_ethics_probes

Sure, needed pictures and I suggest adding and if you see the main the maps... add a USA map or something like that if you can find it on commons

)

—116.71.55.134 14:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC) aka iDangerMouse

General who oversaw military tribunals at Guantanamo is being investigated for abuse of power

If you seek collaborative efforts for your contributions here at Wikinews, I would suggest that you be less glib. I am just saying. --SVTCobra 03:02, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Inadmissible confession

I see that you are on a break from Wikinews. I noticed you left a first draft of Guantanamo confession inadmissible due to coercion abandoned from Nov 1, and it never got published to the Main Page. Rather than see it deleted, I have saved your work for inclusion a possible summary article, at User:InfantGorilla/Guantanamo military commission roundup. I hope you don't mind. --InfantGorilla (talk) 00:58, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Editor confusion

Thanks for pointing out the double meaning of the word "editor" in some of our templates. That hadn't occurred to me before. I'll fix those as I come across them from now on. Gopher65_talk 17:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Attitude

I am sorry if you think I am not being civil to you. I never meant to be mean or angry. I should have been more polite in how I approached your issue. For that I apologize. No hard feelings? DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Apologies are an odd thing. Hardly anyone is any good at them. They can be really unpleasant. And they can be even more unpleasant when our interaction with the person we are apologizing to has grown tense, and we have a reasonable concern they won't accept our apology, or they will lord it over us. That can make apologizing tough.

There are times when one is in a position where the bad interaction was a mixed responsibility, but there is some reason why the other person doesn't have to apologize. When we apologize in that situation it can also be very unpleasant.

So, let me state, right up front, that was a handsome apology.

When I was at University an administrator I admired was caught up in one of those situations where something went weird, that was only partly his fault. But his role compelled him to apologize, to the other party. He offered a very handsome apology. I notice that it wasn't a full apology. He also started looking for a new job, and when he left the program he administered fell apart.

Some years later I was in a position where I was the one who had to apologize in a situation where the other party bore a pretty big measure of responsibility. I followed the example of that administrator, gave the fullest apology I could, while remaining honest, and looked for a new job.

If I am in the position where I could compel someone to give me a reluctant apology, I prefer not to do so. In my observation those reluctant coerced apologies backfire, they are so unpleasant for the apologizer that they end up sitting with a lot resentment. If I have a choice in the matter, if I think there is some way to get the other person to understand my concern, and amend their behavior, while saving them from apologizing that is my choice.

I am going to repeat -- yours was a very handsome apology, and I honor you for it. Geo Swan (talk) 17:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

This would make a lovely essay somewhere. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk) 00:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Treatment of Newcomers

Thank you for your comment on Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy -"Too many of wikinews existing contributors treat this project as a closed club, with no newcomers welcome." (Geo Swan, 10 March 2009). Refer my comment on Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy under section (24): Abysmal treatment of newcomers - Wikinews as an Orwellian state. I reproduce the comment here because it may well vanish from the water cooler (and its history obliterated).

I recently (4 May 2009) submitted an article called "Thin non-biodegradable plastic shopping bags banned in South Australia". It was blocked from publication with minimal and inadequate explanations, then altered by another contributor who didn't bother to comment on their changes. Now THIS NEWS ITEM HAS CEASED TO EXIST - it doesn't even remain as a disputed, unpublished article. All record of it on my "my contributions" page has vanished. This is straight out of George Orwell's "1984"! Wikinews, it seems, has been annexed by some Owellian Ministry of Truth!

--Miropolitan (talk) 15:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that it seems a huge mistake that contributor's failed drafts should be deleted, when they could be moved to an alternate namespace, one not searched by search engines like google -- but still accessible for contributors to cannibalize and re-use useful elements. If unsuccessful drafts were moved to an alternate namespace, not searched by search engines, then they would still be accessible for new or occassional contributors to refer so they could learn from their mistakes. Geo Swan (talk) 11:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Apologies

Hi. I apologize regarding any past behavior. I was not part of it. I am not aware of any back story involved there. I was looking through Commons for contributors who have uploaded images they took in the past day or two, and trying to encourage them to put their images to use. I can tell you that now we are trying to give much better feedback (though like every project, we always have room for improvement). I would humbly request if you have an opportunity to take pictures that might be newsworthy, that you consider trying a photoessay. I will assist you as much as I can in getting it publish ready so any past problems can be avoided. We really do want Commons photographers here doing photoessays. It is good for Commons (because it makes it easier for photographers to get media accreditation) and it is good for Wikinews (in all languages) because we get new content and higher quality photos for our news stories. --LauraHale (talk) 21:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

State of the health

Have you tried to quantify it? See http://stats.wikimedia.org as source of information, there is heaps but analysis needs some thought. --Gryllida (talk) 21:40, 5 August 2019 (UTC)