User talk:Jhertel

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--Pi zero (talk) 12:35, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Contributing

Hey there. I see your account has been around for lo these many years, but for that very reason, and because you'd only touched relatively lightly on Wikinews over time, you hadn't received our {{Howdy}} welcome kit. I provided that above. I would also recommend page Wikinews:Pillars of writing, as a compact overview of what we do here. --Pi zero (talk) 12:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits to the caffeine and medicines story. This is old now. Do you have any questions to the researchers? We could do an interview.

To reply please click here. Gryllida (talk) 20:21, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gryllida. Thanks for the welcome, your message and your suggestion. I edited the article a little bit, but then after reading more about Wikinews I remembered why I wasn't very interested in this project in the first place: Articles are being deleted just because they are "old". I don't find that very motivating, as information can still be interesting and useful and even still be news to anyone who didn't hear about it before, even though it's several years old (such as the information about caffeine and medicine found present in blood serum supplies, even though it's just a few weeks old). So I don't like the policy that things have to be new, and if not, it will be deleted. That, to me, is a grave mistake. It seems to have been copied uncritically from commercial news writing. Also, I read that articles should be "entertaining", which I find to be another mistake; to me, information should definitely not be entertaining, as that almost always means untrue and distorted, using exaggerations and half-truths to create the entertainment, or focusing on details that don't really matter just because they are entertaining. Finally, I read a recommendation that when you write an article on Wikinews, you should try to "sell" the story in the beginning to make people read the whole story. I find that to be a third mistake, probably made by some who couldn't quite manage to see outside the box of traditional commercial news writing. In my mind, an article should just state what it states, and maybe the reader will find it interesting, maybe not, but it shouldn't try to manipulate the reader into reading the whole thing if it's simply not interesting to them. There should be no other goal than stating information that is true; we shouldn't try to manipulate the reader into reading it. So, in total, I don't like that everything should be new, and I don't like the manipulation/entertainment part of it. I want a serious news platform with integrity and respect for the reader, and it doesn't quite seem like Wikinews is that. I was quite surprised to learn that, as Wikipedia seems serious and respectful, but well, what can you do. I guess I can't just change the mission statement of Wikinews, so if it just wants to be a tabloid thing for entertainment, that's what it is then. I hope that one day something more serious will show up, because the world really needs serious and respectful news (that don't have to be labelled "old" just because they are a few weeks, months or years old). But thanks again for the warm welcome! --Jhertel (talk) 22:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess "entertaining" can be achieved either by opinions and distortions, or by finding events which are entertaining by themselves because of what happened. I understand at Wikinews it is more leaning towards the latter, which would address your second concern.

The point about freshness is in encouraging people to investigate into events immediately after they occurred, for the purpose of adequately and nearly immediately informing a broader audience. This could be indeed achieved weeks or months after... but in that case the audience has a reduced opportunity of making an impact on their surrounding world because of the delay.

I would be happy to know if you disagree with either of these points or know how to address it sensibly. Gryllida (talk) 22:53, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Allow me to add my welcome. I've been pretty active here for the past three years and I don't remember anything about the news needing to be entertaining. In fact, I have bots hits and misses logged among my attempts to have a bit of fun with the articles.

I personally think the two-day rule doesn't suit science news very well, but as things stand on Wikinews right now, there are two things you could do if you like writing science news: 1) Gryllida's right: you can do an interview, which exempts most articles from the two-day freshness rule. Scientists often list a "corresponding author" or an email address for questions on the press release, so it can be pretty easy. I'd be glad to help you sort out a list of questions to send, and I'm confident Gryllida would be as well; G and I have worked together on such things before. 2) You can hit up my favorite sourcie spot: Eurekalert.org. It has press releases from laboratories of all kinds. Just be careful to get a link to the original paper so you can make sure it was published within Wikinews' limit. (Honestly, I may write up a proposal for a separate set of freshness rules for science papers sometime, but that is not today's work.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:26, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Just started a new science article: [1]. Feel free to dig in as much or as little as you like. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:04, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Checking in

Hi Jhertel

How are you?

I recall that editing an article about caffeine and medicine in blood donations, which didn't become published in time. Your edits showed a most excellent understanding of wiki markup. From that point, you've basically stopped editing. Has the pandemic affected your availability? Are you well?

Perhaps you would be interested in receiving notifications of newly created drafts to see if any of the reported topics are interesting to you? See User:Gryllida/welcome a bit for more information about this, and how to sign up.

Or perhaps you have interesting news to share, without committing to writing a complete article? If the event is sufficiently recent (i.e. today or yesterday), Wikinews:Requested articles can be a good venue for this.

Are you a programmer? If so, what programming languages do you know?

Do you speak a second language?

Many thanks. --Gryllida (talk) 00:11, 7 April 2020 (UTC)