User talk:Pi zero/Archive 14
Please do not edit the contents of this page. It is for historical reference only.
links
If it is perfectly okay to have external links without source template, (and thus, not mentioning which website would open), let me have links on my userpage. If one can have links to blog, let me have the links that I prefer. (See: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User_talk:Darkfrog24#You_might_have_noticed...)
27.59.51.126 (talk) 04:21, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
- For any third parties observing, the links in question are evil — malware/browser-hacking kind of stuff. I really had thought much better of the user, or I'd have noticed sooner (rather than having to have it pointed out to me). --Pi zero (talk) 04:28, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
- The reason I have added is because you supported Darkfrog24 about not using {{source}}. There are multiple benefits of using the template -- maintaining uniformity, and informing where the users would be redirected to, to name a few. I can bring up pointless questions like "How do you claim it is a malware?", but let's skip that part and discuss what is permitted on the user page. (Note: if you say we mention Wikinews is not responsible for the links to external website, Wikinews is not responsible for the malware links I have on my user page.)
acagastya PING ME! 04:34, 12 September 2017 (UTC)- It doesn't even matter that you're apparently acting on a misinterpretation of what I wrote. Even if I had taken the position you seem to think I did, responding by blatantly violating WN:POINT would still be inappropriate as well as unacceptable. No, you aren't free to do harm just because you're doing it from your user page. --Pi zero (talk) 04:54, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
- The reason I have added is because you supported Darkfrog24 about not using {{source}}. There are multiple benefits of using the template -- maintaining uniformity, and informing where the users would be redirected to, to name a few. I can bring up pointless questions like "How do you claim it is a malware?", but let's skip that part and discuss what is permitted on the user page. (Note: if you say we mention Wikinews is not responsible for the links to external website, Wikinews is not responsible for the malware links I have on my user page.)
Can you prove it was disruptive? Tell me, which policy did I violate to call for WN:point?
27.59.19.27 (talk) 05:07, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
- I am not going to edit my user page, just to let you know. But if you do not explain properly, I need ArbCom to hear this, even if they rule against me.
27.59.19.27 (talk) 05:09, 12 September 2017 (UTC)- If you are who you claim to be, you're block-evading. --Pi zero (talk) 05:40, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Where is AIV on this site?
I want to be able to report spammers and vandals. Quinton Feldberg (talk) 03:36, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
- AIV isn't a three-letter-initialism I know. We have WN:AAA. A likely place to draw attention to an immediate vandal situation is irc:wikinews-en. --Pi zero (talk) 03:39, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
More spam
Please block Jurry565 (talk · contribs) and mass delete pages. Haveperl (talk) 21:57, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
Looks like you've blocked a few more accounts for the same reason. Have you considered making an edit filter? Haveperl (talk) 18:39, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
- The bizarre specialized language of edit filters doesn't happen to be one of the bizarre specialized languages I know. --Pi zero (talk) 21:12, 16 September 2017 (UTC)
Something to think
I don't think it is possible to generate a list of "sportsperson, who are footballers (having CAT:Football (soccer)) but not having a country category". Any plans how to deploy that?
acagastya PING ME! 05:29, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
And how about ex-team players? (Like Neymar and Zlatan's name in a subcategory of Barcelona titled "former Barcelona players"?
acagastya PING ME! 05:58, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: Well, I suppose my not-well-thought-out impulse to add football player's native country cat could be hard to live up to. I may live to regret it, but it seemed worth noting since we rather regularly mention it in articles about them. As for how to find ones it hasn't been done with, you're quite right that there's no good way to do it. The wiki software is notably missing a transitive closure device; if it were possible to specify, when specifying a category in a DPL, "or any descendant of this category", we would in fact not need to add articles about Omaha, Nebraska to CAT:North America, nor CAT:United States, nor even CAT:Nebraska; but, no such luck. The only way to do that sort of thing that I know of is the way we do it on en.wb, where the page is added to the category for Omaha in the first place by a template, which automatically detects the ancestor categories and adds the page to special shadow categories for those ancestors. In addition to requiring all content pages to use a special template for adding to a category, it also requires the categories themselves to always use a special template that provides the first set of templates with the info they need to determine each category's parent(s). It also means that each category becomes a template transcluded in every content page belonging to any descendant of that category, so that e.g. CAT:North America would be transcluded by most of the articles in our archives. All very clumsy; I expect to hold out till we think of a better way.
Again, I don't want to make the category for a sportsperson dependent on what club they're playing for, because I don't want the categories to need updating when a player moves; it already bothers me that politician's pages tend to say "the president of Freedonia" or whatever. We're not an encyclopedia and shouldn't have any significant burden of updating categories to reflect real-world events (or, if we do have some small burden of that sort (and we already have a slightly one), I'd like to have a mechanism that will flag out for us when it needs doing — I am, of course, fundamentally opposed to having it done automatically). That's why the idea of categorizing sportspeople by native country didn't set off any alarms in my head: where they were born isn't likely to change. --Pi zero (talk) 11:44, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- Well, okay, it's not always quite as simple as where they were born. But still, not nearly as volatile as which team they're playing for. --Pi zero (talk) 11:49, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think I explained it properly. See this for example:
- Barcelona
└ FC Barcelona
└ Lionel Messi
└ Ivan Rakitic
└ Past players of FC Barcelona
└ Neymar
└ Zlatan Ibrahimovic - How about that? If we have Player P's category, and ex-club E's category, then we would add it. It would only have additions, not subtractions. Let's say, P goes to A, B and C. We dp not have category for B. So, C will be his current club (which is difficult to maintain, I agree). And A will be his formr club (which we will add if we remember to). Currently, there are categories for very less players, so it should not be hard to maintain for their former clubs, atm. But, someone has to do.
acagastya PING ME! 16:05, 17 September 2017 (UTC)- As I've remarked elsewhere, I'm not really comfortable with anything that needs maintenance on the categories. We have, at least temporarily, effectively lost the entire portal space because it needed maintenance. We've just about got things to the point where the entire site requires almost no maintenance at all, and we need to stay there. We've got day-to-day news production, we've got long-term improvements, and anything else will need to be carefully orchestrated (I have a technique in mind, but it calls for a more advanced stage of dialog use). --Pi zero (talk) 16:22, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- And so we don't improve categorisation (which, by the way is an internal cat, yes) just because it needs effort. I know it is difficult, but not justified. If you see, WP works on the same way. The information is scattered everywhere yet they manage to do it.
acagastya PING ME! 16:52, 17 September 2017 (UTC)- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Keeping up with stuff like that is their mission. It's not ours. And they have, comparatively, huge numbers of people to do it. Any thing what we're doing starts to look similar to maintaining an encyclopedia, we've probably strayed from what we should be doing. I do see a way to keep up with such stuff, but I think it'd be a mistake that does anything that increases unsupported burden of those sorts of operations. --Pi zero (talk) 17:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- And so we don't improve categorisation (which, by the way is an internal cat, yes) just because it needs effort. I know it is difficult, but not justified. If you see, WP works on the same way. The information is scattered everywhere yet they manage to do it.
- As I've remarked elsewhere, I'm not really comfortable with anything that needs maintenance on the categories. We have, at least temporarily, effectively lost the entire portal space because it needed maintenance. We've just about got things to the point where the entire site requires almost no maintenance at all, and we need to stay there. We've got day-to-day news production, we've got long-term improvements, and anything else will need to be carefully orchestrated (I have a technique in mind, but it calls for a more advanced stage of dialog use). --Pi zero (talk) 16:22, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- Well, okay, it's not always quite as simple as where they were born. But still, not nearly as volatile as which team they're playing for. --Pi zero (talk) 11:49, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
┌─────────────────────────────────┘
again, what you are missing is the perks of having a list of news articles of former players of a club.
acagastya PING ME! 23:22, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
And idea how to use mapframe?
acagastya PING ME! 16:52, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
- I know there's an imagemap at WN:Archives. I had in mind, as a target for dialog-based semi-automation, a tool for building and maintaining imagemaps, because it's pretty opaque and the one at WN:Archives wants updating for the new version I started developing at User:Pi zero/Archives; but all that has ground to a halt waiting for me to debug my context-sensitive-parameter device. --Pi zero (talk) 17:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
DPL works for the pages in main space, or does it support namespace pages also?
acagastya PING ME! 05:17, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: You can specify the namespace in which pages will be matched, or you can get a list of pages regardless of namespace. However, there's no transitive closure: you can get a list of pages that belong to a certain category (up to six categories, which is a very small number in practice), but you can't get a list of pages that belong to any category that belongs to a certain category. So you can list all published articles belonging to CAT:Real Madrid (listing all published articles takes up several of the six category slots available for a DPL, demonstrating that six is a small number in practice), or you can list all published articles belonging to CAT:Dani Carvajal, or you can list all categories belonging to CAT:Real Madrid; that third one would atm list the categories of five players — but there is no way for a DPL to list all published articles belonging to categories that belong to CAT:Real Madrid. The fact that CAT:Dani Carvajal belongs to CAT:Real Madrid is, in practice, simply a reminder to human beings about the relationship between the two. If a human being is browsing on the site, it's a reminder to the human being that there's a connection between the player and team. If a human being is adding an article to the category for the player, it's a reminder to the human being that they should consider whether the article also should be in CAT:Real Madrid; the answer might be yes or no. Of course, if we were talking about geocats like CAT:Nebraska and CAT:United States, the answer would always be yes (articles listed under nebraska must also be listed under united states — which is because we want a DPL for United States to include everything in Nebraska; it's how we have things set up, and how we have had them set up for many years). Anyway, as I was saying, we can browse about — and we could have a semi-automated assistant help us browse about — but there are strict limits on what we can directly conjure a DPL to list. --Pi zero (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
Re. abandoning "FOIA attack on 'Restoring Internet freedom'"
On 12:53, 31 August 2017 (UTC), I posted questions, explaining I did not understand your 22:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC) review that the article was "Not ready." I cannot address issues that I do not understand.
Now, Sept. 18, you just marked the article "abandoned". Clearly, that article was abandoned, but not by me. What should I have done to get answers to questions? Should I precede questions with {{ping|Pi zero}}?
Background
I posted the first version of the article on 00:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC), regarding a filing with fcc.gov by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. That filing was made August 21 (Eastern time, US) but was not published on fcc.gov until August 22. I found it there on August 23 and thought it was sufficiently timely, I could write about it. I posted the first draft of the article on August 23 [Central time, US; 00:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC)]. If I understand correctly, per Wikinews:Pillars of Wikinews writing, the key event must have "happened within the past day or two".
So what do you count as the key event here? The August 21 filing or the August 22 publication? People contacted directly by the Electronic Frontier Foundation may have learned of it August 21, but that's not clear.
Later, on August 24, I learned of an article in Techdirt pubished Thu, Aug 24th 2017 6:25am quoting something that "Pai told Ars today". However, it's not clear from that article whether "today" was August 22 or 23 or 24 -- and I was unable to clarify what "today" meant in that context.
For reasons I don't understand, the article I drafted did not get an official "review" until two days later, August 26, by which time the article was over 2 days after the event and therefore no longer "fresh", unless we start the clock from the August 24 Techdirt article. I tried to respond that same day and the next to the concerns identified in that "review", while asking questions about the points I did not understand.
Eventually, it got another "review" on August 30, which only said, "The problem was not successfully addressed." I posted a reply explaining that I did not understand the problem. I'm still waiting for a reply to that question. I would have tried to addressed the problem quickly if I had understood your concerns.
However, that review was already at least 6 days after the event, which meant that it would have failed on the "freshness" criterion even if I had been able to fix all the other issues. That in turn meant that it was no longer worth my time to try to do any more with it.
Still, it would be nice to know for the future if there is a way to get more information about deficiencies you see in a draft article. ????
Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:36, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
So?
What do you think of the article? Quinton Feldberg (talk) 02:58, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Quinton Feldberg: If I attempt a review tonight — the past few years, I'm usually too tired by this time of evening (where I am) to review — I figure on doing one of the really short ones. My first major step in reviewing any article (after perhaps some general copyedits, such as I did to the Trump–Korea one) is to do a preliminary, partially automation-assisted, comparison for too-close similarities to sources. I hope to tackle Trump–Korea tomorrow morning (that'd be about either hours from now, plus or minus). --Pi zero (talk) 03:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks for your help! Quinton Feldberg (talk) 03:27, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
- Now? Quinton Feldberg (talk) 13:20, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
The article has now been rewritten and reorganized and scores 0% on an online plagiarism detector. If any copyvio is still present, please point to specific examples. Quinton Feldberg (talk) 01:40, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
The spambot...
...has returned. Quinton Feldberg (talk) 13:02, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
- Indeed. --Pi zero (talk) 13:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Can you please take a look at this? Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:57, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Koavf: A few things that immediately caught my eye:
- The sources should be listed from newest to oldest (i.e., reverse chronological order).
- The lede is atm quite long. A good lede is quite short, possibly only one sentence; it only succinctly answers as many as reasonably possible of the five Ws and an H about the focal event, often only spending a few words on each, leaving details, more difficult questions, and peripheral information and context for later in the inverted pyramid. Most of the material currently in the lede should move to some later paragraph (sometimes one can simply split the lede into two paragraphs).
- The current lede does not say when the focal event took place (yes, I realize the timing involved). That information needs to be there.
- Before the article is submitted for review, it will need to provide a source (or OR) bearing witness that the focal event actually happened; naturally, atm the sources (which are all some days old) can only corroborate that it was scheduled to happen.
- --Pi zero (talk) 23:34, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Pi zero: I addressed all of the above except the last one. It airs in several minutes, so something will come up shortly and I'll cite that once it literally airs. I'm just trying to do as much legwork beforehand as possible. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:12, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- Do you think it can be published? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:05, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Pi zero: I addressed all of the above except the last one. It airs in several minutes, so something will come up shortly and I'll cite that once it literally airs. I'm just trying to do as much legwork beforehand as possible. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:12, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Can you access this link?
BBC?
acagastya PING ME! 15:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
- It seems accessible to me, yes. --Pi zero (talk) 16:53, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Deletion
How does The_Vulcan_Hello interfere with anything? There is an incoming link from en.wp which will now lead nowhere. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:26, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- A link using {{w}} to The Vulcan Hello goes to a local target if there is one, otherwise to (by default) Wikipedia. In fact, there is such a link in our article. That link should go to Wikipedia until and unless, for some reason, we end up with three published articles about "The Vulcan Hello" and therefore create a category which then gets a mainspace redirect. (It's unlikely we would have three articles about that one episode, but who knows?) --Pi zero (talk) 19:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- I have modified it to conform with the sources plus added the proper
foreign=force|
to the template. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:47, 26 September 2017 (UTC)- @Koavf: I realize you're trying to reconcile the various impulses that are coming from different directions, but I'd rather not use foreign=force with it; what if we did have some reason someday to create a local link for it? That flexibility to automatically allow for future changes is one of the several major purposes of {{w}}. Why should we disarrange ourselves in order to conform to
bullyingcultural imperialism from Wikipedia? (I remember a story from years back about how Sesame Street taught kids to dial 911 in an emergency, and Australians were incensed because they were looking at having to spend a great pile of money to rewire their phone systems, which used a different emergency number than Sesame Street was teaching their kids to dial.)Btw, I've got an {{under review}} tag on that article, asking that people please not edit it directly. --Pi zero (talk) 20:04, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- But "The Vulcan Hello" could never be a news article title... Plus, the event has already happened. It's hardly a bullying or imperialism but quite the opposite: I personally added a link from en.wp and wrote this local story precisely because I wanted to increase visibility of Wikinews. I'm not going to fight you on this (I respect your opinion)--I just want you to understand what is happening here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:09, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Koavf: Yeah, okay. I'm allowing it. --Pi zero (talk) 20:19, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. I hope you understand what I'm going for here--not just pushback for bickering's sake. And thanks for helping me push along the story--I'd really like to get it published. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- I got a bit tangled in the edits made during the review. But, published. --Pi zero (talk) 21:38, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks. I hope you understand what I'm going for here--not just pushback for bickering's sake. And thanks for helping me push along the story--I'd really like to get it published. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Koavf: Yeah, okay. I'm allowing it. --Pi zero (talk) 20:19, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- But "The Vulcan Hello" could never be a news article title... Plus, the event has already happened. It's hardly a bullying or imperialism but quite the opposite: I personally added a link from en.wp and wrote this local story precisely because I wanted to increase visibility of Wikinews. I'm not going to fight you on this (I respect your opinion)--I just want you to understand what is happening here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:09, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
- @Koavf: I realize you're trying to reconcile the various impulses that are coming from different directions, but I'd rather not use foreign=force with it; what if we did have some reason someday to create a local link for it? That flexibility to automatically allow for future changes is one of the several major purposes of {{w}}. Why should we disarrange ourselves in order to conform to
- I have modified it to conform with the sources plus added the proper
There are a ton of abandoned articles
Can you delete them? Quinton Feldberg (talk) 00:21, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
And garbage articles, as well. Quinton Feldberg (talk) 00:24, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
- I see what I can do later this evening, when I'm no longer alert enough for more delicate stuff that needs doing. (No point needlessly spending high-quality time on it). --Pi zero (talk) 00:27, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
Deleted comments page?
In the log it says:
- 01:03, 6 October 2017 Pi zero (talk · contribs) deleted page Comments talk:US rock artist Tom Petty dies at 66 (Test page: (and the only contributor was Quinton Feldberg))
But when I go to Comments:US rock artist Tom Petty dies at 66, it still shows up as being there. Why? Quinton Feldberg (talk) 04:29, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
- The extension we use for comments discussion, LQT (short for Liquid Threads) — which everyone loves to hate but, I understand, actually serves the purpose better than wiki pages of discussion as Wikinews used in Elder Days — is structured in such a way that each comments page also has its own talk page, just as an article has its talk page, a user page has its talk page, a template has its talk page. But the talk page of a comments page is, for the most part, a singularly useless thing, a place where remarks would go to get permanently lost. --Pi zero (talk) 12:36, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
- Oh... it was Comments talk:US rock artist Tom Petty dies at 66, not Comments:US rock artist Tom Petty dies at 66. Okay, that makes a lot more sense! Quinton Feldberg (talk) 15:15, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks
Thanks for your edits to the article I reviewed. I figured that someone else should see which of acagastya's edit's were good to go ahead, because it's always better for a disinterested 3rd party to look at that kind of thing:). It's also been a few years since I did a review, and I appreciate the double check. It looks like I missed a few things, such as double checking interwiki links to make sure that there wasn't a local link that could be used instead. — Gopher65talk 17:00, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Gopher65: Thanks for the review. :-)
The interwikis are not a big deal imho; Darkfrog24 likes to localize them as soon as possible, which is find if that's xyr preference, but there are other plausible approaches such as waiting until an article is archived. The significant thing in acagastya's edits seemed to me to be 1985 versus 2015. --Pi zero (talk) 17:06, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
Good luck; don't worry
I hope you feel better/life stops being out of shape soon. Let me worry about the article timeline. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:55, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
deprecating wiki syntax as the primary input method
I just stumbled across a (now archived) comment you made on this page: From what I hear (I wasn't there, but I believe my source), a conscious —and staggeringly bad, imo— decision was made over a decade ago, to effectively deprecate wiki markup. Opportunities to improve wiki markup have been passed up. --Pi zero (talk) 02:32, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
In case you were looking for it, here it is: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Feature_map. It appears the first public posting was April 2011 by Eloquence. (Yeay Eloquence, sarcasm.)
The VisualEditor strategy plan, before the project was even named:
Rich-text editor: Technology to deprecate wiki syntax as the primary input method used to create content in Wikimedia projects
A few related points, which you may or may not be up-to-date on:
- The WMF has decided to deprecate the current wikitext editor itself. They expect to move us all into the VisualEditor. But never fear! They have a plan! They've been building a wikitext mode inside of VE for us! Errm, well... it has a few problems... and a little tiny unimportant consensus against it. On large pages, VE has all of the nimbleness and performance of a beached whale. The last time I tried the "wikitext mode" to preview the United States article it took over 60 seconds. And because Flow was so hugely successful, they decided to steal one of the Flow's most super-duper most awesomest ideas! Since new "wikitext editor" is built inside VE, who needs real previews?! Just use VE itself for a simulated preview! The WMF has been pretty much ignoring the minor "consensus against it" detail, and they're very very slowly coasting the project forwards. They did figure out how to (at least partialy) fix the fake-preview problem. Simple: They want to change read-view of all pages to use the VE-rendering engine Parsoid.
- Changing read-view to use the VE-rendering engine Parsoid would obviously break countless pages. So the WMF decided to declare certain perfectly-working wikitext to be "wikitext markup errors". They're asking volunteers to spend massive time "fixing" these "errors" on hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of pages... hoping we'll fix much of the Parsoid-breakage long before an eventual switchover.
- As part of "deprecate wiki syntax as the primary input method", the WMF has been doing a stealth switchover of all wikis to "VisualEditor-primary", making VE the default editor for new users. Not only is the new default concealed from existing users, if you log out and create a new account a browser cookie for editing-mode will still effectively conceal the new default from you. The WMF deployed this on EnWiki, and after a rather ugly fight we wrote (but didn't deploy) a sitewide javascript hack to override it. Then the default was changed to Wikitext - for EnWiki only.
- The WMF is moving very very slowly to roll out the new default everywhere. Let me know if you'd like to run an RFC on Wikinews or anywhere else to assert a local choice before this is rolled out. I can supply relevant links and details. Note: Any RFC on this should be styled as a "Wikitext-primary" or "VE-Primary" question, not a support/oppose proposal. A support/oppose style can invite poorly-reasoned anti-WMF supports as well as outright dysfunctional anti-anti-WMF opposes. A Wikitext-primary/VE-primary style better focuses discussion on the available options, and reduces the risk of an unhelpful no-consensus.
- Less related, but noteworthy: In the last few days the WMF's efforts to promote Wikidata on other wikis damn near crashed Commons and several Wikipedias. (Wikis that most heavily used wikidata were most seriously affected.) A database admin jumped into bad-ass mode, grin. They chewed out the wikidata people for nearly "breaking Wikipedia", and announced he was unilaterally taking charge of the situation and rolling back the feature as an emergency action.[1]
For the last six and a half years this visual-tail has been wagging the wiki-dog. The WMF consistently ignores or neglects core wikitext infrastructure because they're too busy chasing visual butterflies. For example one of the big Community-tech projects we asked for was to improve a variety of cases of awful diffs, such as moved paragraphs. The WMF rated it as a high-community-support high-impact project, then dropped work on it to go build a visual-butterflies visual-diff instead. Alsee (talk) 19:32, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Alsee: I'd have to reconsult my source to be sure, but I think they said they'd heard Erik Möller (Eloquence) express the essence of the deprecate-wiki-markup concept in a remark in... 2004? --Pi zero (talk) 19:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- (Implying that deprecating wiki markup has been the Foundation's de facto agenda for as long as the Foundation has existed.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:02, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Ping me if come up with more info. Alsee (talk) 20:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Alsee: Alas, no luck here. The person I remember remarking on this has told me the other person involved wasn't Eloquence, but I didn't get a chance at the time to clarify what was said, and wouldn't be comfortable approaching them again, atm. --Pi zero (talk) 23:53, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
- Ping me if come up with more info. Alsee (talk) 20:59, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Please delete my user page. It will be replaced by Meta's global page. Thanks. --Francisco (talk) 22:14, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
- Done. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 22:16, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Delete page to complete the renaming process
Hello, Can you please delete this page (User talk:مصطفى الاكادورى)? because I wanna complete the usurpation process (i.e I forgot to suppress creation of redirects). Thanks علاء (talk) 12:24, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
- Done --Pi zero (talk) 12:35, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks علاء (talk) 17:25, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Conflict of Interest?
No problem on this end. No more articles. News is news no matter who writs it. Just ask Breibart, or Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch or any of the sources of news that Wikinews cannot come close to competing with. As long as its honest, and truthful and not written for personal gain how can there be a conflict of interest in trying to get a story about governmental corruption out to the public? In reality its Wikinews who has the conflict of interest. I migh just be able to come up with some facts that indicate this.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Codeforepub (talk • contribs)
- Why even argue, when that article (the second one) was not even newsw?
acagastya PING ME! 16:29, 18 October 2017 (UTC)- One suspects that's a typo for "Breitbart". I feel truly sorry for someone who has somehow failed to recognize that Breitbart and its ilk are neither honest nor truthful; but I don't know how to help such a person find their way. --Pi zero (talk) 16:48, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Lupin's famous navigational pop-ups.
Is this working for you? It isn't working even when I added the script in my vector.js Is it broken? (But that works on Wikipedia.)
acagastya PING ME! 03:53, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
- Looks like you are disconnected from IRC.
acagastya PING ME! 14:33, 21 October 2017 (UTC)- Yes, my laptop crashed. I'm in the process of getting things set up again; back on IRC soon. --Pi zero (talk) 15:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: Although I've seen the gadget mentioned in our site configuration, I've never used it and don't really know what it does. --Pi zero (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
- Do you want to try it?
acagastya PING ME! 06:55, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- Do you want to try it?
- @Acagastya: Although I've seen the gadget mentioned in our site configuration, I've never used it and don't really know what it does. --Pi zero (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, my laptop crashed. I'm in the process of getting things set up again; back on IRC soon. --Pi zero (talk) 15:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
You might want to save this link
Why we should not rely on machine translation.
acagastya PING ME! 11:26, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
- Oy vey.
The truly sad part is at the end of the article — he took down the post. --Pi zero (talk) 11:41, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Just to let you know
I am planning to attend a Comic Con in Bangalore on December 2. I have never been to one, and I always wanted to write about it. I could see the archives to get some idea, which I would have to, but I wanted someone to share their first hand experience. I have emailed Bddpaux and Zanimum about it. But I want to know, what are some of the things I should remember for reporting about it? What are required elements, or important things for a Comic Con article? And what are the problems you would generally face while reviewing a Comic Con. Any tips or advice? Also to let you know, my semester end exam is on December 4, so I need to prepare a draft as soon as possible.
acagastya PING ME! 07:56, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Some categorisation work
- Category talk:Dani Alves
- Category talk:Wayne Rooney
- Category talk:Diego Costa
- Category talk:Everton FC
- Category talk:FC Zenit Saint Petersburg
- Category talk:AZ Alkmaar
acagastya PING ME! 07:51, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- I think the best way is to create the category page, dump the list of the articles on its talk, and list that category on Wikinews:Categories and topic pages/Pending. Sounds good?
acagastya PING ME! 11:05, 31 October 2017 (UTC)- @Acagastya: I would suggest using {{editprotected}} on a list like that. That template is meant to draw the attention of the very people whose attention one wants to draw to the list. --Pi zero (talk) 12:20, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Quotation on your talk page
I saw "He writes the words "Who What Where When Why and How" on the blackboard. Then he dictates a set of facts to us [...] We turn in our leads. We're very proud. Mr. Sims looks at what we've done and then tosses everything into the garbage. He says, "The lead to the story is 'There will be no school Thursday.' "" on the top, just now, but due to text shadow, it is difficult to read. Could be due to the blur radius you have used (2px), or because of the typeface (mine shows Comic Sans on Windows, and I assume Chalkboard on iOS, and many people hate those fonts) Try to tweak the shadow (that is the third one `2px 1px 2px #888888`), either 0 or something greater than 5px. It isn't the best thing to fix right now, but it shouldn't take much time. (Also, I think you should archive some comments)
acagastya PING ME! 08:00, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know if you changed it, but the typeface looks beautiful on iPad.
103.6.156.41 (talk) 09:49, 6 November 2017 (UTC)- I haven't gotten around to changing it. --Pi zero (talk) 11:43, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Abandoned
Is there a way to generate a list of articles flagged abandoned and they are supposed to be deleted (meaning it has been there for more than 48 hours)
acagastya PING ME! 07:17, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- I doubt it. We might be able to craft some well-chosen augmentation of dialog's query abilities that would allow it to do that. I would want to think that through very carefully because there are other kinds of enhanced DPL I'd want dialog to be able to do, and we'd want to craft an augmentation for maximum general utility. --Pi zero (talk) 12:04, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- Okay. I assume there is no way of knowing list of pages using a file (say) ABC, if it was deleted from Commons, can we?
acagastya PING ME! 12:06, 1 November 2017 (UTC)- There used to be a bot on Commons, operated by User:Fæ, that notified when an image used on any Wikinews was nominated for deletion. I used to follow that as a way of at least knowing when such deletions happened, and had always figured eventually I should teach myself basic procedure for rescuing such pages before they were actually deleted (rather than simply knowing to add {{missing image}} when they went away, though even knowing when to do that was great). However, the bot broke sometime last year iirc. --Pi zero (talk) 12:59, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- Okay. I assume there is no way of knowing list of pages using a file (say) ABC, if it was deleted from Commons, can we?
Unreviewed paged
What to do about UnreviewedPages?
acagastya PING ME! 07:22, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- Lots and lots of pages from before review era (BRE?) are unreviewed. Just on a quick check I counted at least 5000 there; I wouldn't be surprised if there were twice that or more. We have never had a clear policy, or even a systematic practice, on grounds to sight ancient unreviewed articles. I think BRS has thought a bit about this; I recall once or twice seeing xem sight such articles, though I wasn't sure what criterion xe had in mind for doing it. But in itself I don't think unreview represents a variety of to-do list. Unfortunately, DPLs can't combine with special pages (part of the general gross underpowering of DPLs), so we can't easily produce a list of pages that are unreviewed, published, and fully protected; that's another case we might consider when trying to craft a suitable augmentation for dialog. --Pi zero (talk) 12:43, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
- So, it is pointless to review it now, right?
•–• 18:01, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- So, it is pointless to review it now, right?
Things visible to reviewers
When we have reviewer bits, we can see that box to accept or reject changes. I had noticed there was a CSS class specifying "reviewers-only" on Wikibooks. I am not sure if that is how it works, but can't we implement admin dashboard in that manner?
103.6.156.41 (talk) 09:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
- There are things in the skins that are visible only to admins; likely one could learn how to do that in css by studying the skins. I think there's also a magic word, which would provide the information at a different level. --Pi zero (talk) 11:54, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Have you thought about…
…wikifying and categorising archived articles that were published on that day? Assuming we have 22k articles, we would have to deal with 60 articles a day and even if we spend just a minute, it would take one hour. That is a lot of work.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 02:02, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- now that I have mentioned it, can dialog tools handle date categories?
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 02:04, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Agastya: I envision a tool vaguely similar to HotCat, that would convert hard wikipedia links
[[w:...]]
to use {{w}}, then would find all {{w}} links that have local targets, and examine each one to determine whether it goes to a category that's already on the article (in which case it should offer to make make it a hard local link), goes to a category that's not already on the article (offer to add the category, and then, as a separate decision, offer to make it hard local link), or goes to a disambig (offer to refine the target, and then recurse on the refined link).I've concluded there's a significant mental burden associated with having to make lots of tedious little decisions, and just relieving the user of those might be much more important than just how quickly it's done (within reason). --Pi zero (talk) 04:43, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Agastya: I envision a tool vaguely similar to HotCat, that would convert hard wikipedia links
Ask to re-review an article
Hello sir, A long time ago I have been updated and adjusted an article. However it is not reviewed. Can you check please the news for conformity to parameters? sovomimocd 18.40, 8 November 2017 (UTC) Sovomimocd (talk) 16:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Sovomimocd: Hello. I am aware of the article. While actual review is a major undertaking, so that my opportunities to do reviews are less frequent, I do track the review queue. Hopefully (unless something goes wrong irl, which is always possible), I will have an opportunity to review your article in a few hours. --Pi zero (talk) 17:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Pi zero: Hello sir, thank you for your answer. Can I ask a quesion? Do this article still have chance to be published, when all the updates of an article will be done? --Sovomimocd (talk) 23:29, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Sovomimocd: Unfortunately, I don't see how it can. We would need a more recent development, and since the marathon has already ended, that seems unlikely. --Pi zero (talk) 01:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Pi zero: Sir, I did changes in article (upgraded) some details which you recommend to do. Can you check please the news for conformity the parameters? How I can do it better if need to do it?
Also question about timeline? I did an article the day next after event, because use the new source which found at the same day. It means that my article was created in time. And I only waited more days that somebody will review it. In this reason possible that the article in the end will be published? When I say "published", I means that this article will be in history of Wikinews in the day November 5, 2017 - the day when it was created... Sincerely, --User:Sovomimocd (talk) 20:41, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Interpersonal conflicts
You don't have to get involved. You're not in the way. Your involvement has largely been helpful so far, to diffuse things, but it is absolutely not your job to fix the problems between Acagastya and me and I have been making a conscious effort not to put you in the middle. I don't see Acagastya trying to drag you in either, so bully for him. I don't mind, not at all, but I'm saying right here that it's not your job and you don't have to. Talk when you feel like talking. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Please re-check the news
@Pi zero: Sir, I did changes in article (upgraded) some details which you recommend to do. Can you check please the news for conformity the parameters? How I can do it better if need to do it? Also question about timeline? I did an article the day next after event, because use the new source which found at the same day. It means that my article was created in time. And I only waited more days that somebody will review it. In this reason possible that the article in the end will be published? When I say "published", I means that this article will be in history of Wikinews in the day November 5, 2017 - the day when it was created... Sincerely, --Sovomimocd (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC) Sovomimocd (talk) 18:29, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Sovomimocd: The markup you want, in order to ping me, is like this:
{{ping|Pi zero}}
- When we publish an article, the date that appears on the article is the date on which we publish it, rather than the date that it was first written. We measure freshness at the moment of publication, too. I hope to take a look at what you've done, and offer feedback to you. And you were absolutely correct, at the time, to choose the end of the conference as a focal event, giving reviewers as much time as possible in which to review it. Unfortunately, no volunteer reviewer got to it soon enough. --Pi zero (talk) 18:39, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Pi zero: thank you sir. Will be wait on your recommends and advices. Sovomimocd (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Special:PendingChanges
Is it possible to obtain the number of pages with pending changes for voting/admin dashboard template?
•–• 18:31, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- Perhaps. We have the pieces; I'm trying to cobble something together. We have Special:PendingChanges, which when transcluded is a list. And we have {{evalx}} with which to measure the length of the list. --Pi zero (talk) 22:27, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: Nope. It doesn't work. This is, bluntly, because the Foundation deliberately treats wiki markup as a kludge to be discarded casually rather than an asset to be nurtured as a design priority. Special:PendingChanges doesn't provide data at the wiki markup level; at template expansion time it provides a string that is substituted for later. To see this,
{{evalx|(list (get-arg 2))|{{Special:PendingChanges}}}}
- produces
- ( "'""`UNIQ--item-26--QINU`""'" )
- --Pi zero (talk) 22:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Prototype
Speedy deletion requests: 5 Pages to be protected: 2 Categories to be populated: 13 flagged pages: 11 Abandoned pages: 55 Pages to be wikified: 0 Protected pages to be renamed: 2
Unused fair-use files: 12 Files on Commons: 6 Pages to sight: 0 Add categories: 0 Remove categories: 0 Issue correction: 1 Refresh
Deletion log
Review log
Move log
Links: [[Special:WhatLinksHere/{{{1}}}]]
Looks good? At least eleven more are to be added. Otherwise it would have been one line cute dashboard for the admins.
•–• 20:13, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- This seems like quite an elaborate interface. I'm worried that anything with this complicated a dashboard is likely to be too complicated to use at the request end of things; eventually I would hope to have dialog-based semi-automation to help, maybe, but for now it seems likely you will be the only user able to figure out how to make requests that show up on the envisioned dashboard. --Pi zero (talk) 05:25, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
- It is not that difficult. For example, if there is a page marked for deletion, {{delete}} would add Category: Speedy deletion to that page, and it appears in the category. In this template, there is an element "Speedy deletion requests", which is linked to that category which contains list of all the pages to be deleted. Just like how {{review}} works.
- People might not know about the new templates (so in roygbiv, it will be):
- {{delete}}
- {{makeprotected}} **
- {{fill this category}} **
- {{flag}}
- {{abandoned}}
- {{wikify}} **
- {{moveprotected}} **
- You would get to know once you try it (if you try, because you have admin rights, and you don't need to request anyone else) Consider it like how editprotected works. Those marked with ** are the new ones, and one needs to explain why to perform those edits.
•–• 05:47, 12 November 2017 (UTC)- Um, how about we try it later today? We will deal with one page in each category. Okay?
•–• 06:06, 12 November 2017 (UTC)- Some of them are subsets of editprotected. For example, {{add category}}. It specifies what type of edit is requested for a protected page. (By the way, I realised why editprotected can never be replaced completely -- something we were discussing few days ago)
•–• 07:30, 12 November 2017 (UTC)- Heh. I think you're underestimating the difficulty of keeping track of all these. (I notice in your example you refer to another one that wasn't on your earlier list.) There are a whole lot of templates for noting problems with articles, you know, dating afaik from the earliest days of the project, long before review. In recent years they tended to be used only by some oldtimers, such as brianmc, who were familiar with them. Things moved toward {{cleanup}}, then (I think) toward {{tasks}} which has, or had, a complicated interface that people weren't expected to apply by hand, mostly, it would mostly be set up by the review gadget, and now even that doesn't get displayed, it just refers you to the review template on the talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 14:45, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
- Some of them are subsets of editprotected. For example, {{add category}}. It specifies what type of edit is requested for a protected page. (By the way, I realised why editprotected can never be replaced completely -- something we were discussing few days ago)
- Um, how about we try it later today? We will deal with one page in each category. Okay?
- You would get to know once you try it (if you try, because you have admin rights, and you don't need to request anyone else) Consider it like how editprotected works. Those marked with ** are the new ones, and one needs to explain why to perform those edits.
Category rename
Just now, I checked Category:FC Barcelona can be moved. (Category:Published can be moved too) If someone moves that page, and breaks the redirect, won't that result in serious complications?
•–• 07:40, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
- Well, it would temporarily mess things up a bit. Generally we haven't gone in for blanket protections just because somebody might vandalize a page; there ought to be some reason the damage would be especially egregious, so that it would be insufficient to fix the damage after it happens. --Pi zero (talk)
Categories
You might have noticed I had added categories to Category:Dani Alves before it was populated and revision was accepted. But because of that, Category:Dani Alves appeared in Brazil and PSG's category. I could have commented it, and added it once it was populated, but I want to know if it is possible to display subcategories only if they are sighted?
•–• 17:06, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- Nope. The Foundation couldn't care less about us, so the fact that would be vastly more useful to us, and not having it interferes with our operations, is irrelevant next to it not fitting with the technical priorities they imagine will promote the agenda they imagine will, in turn, promote their (unintentionally volunteer-unfriendly) vision for Wikipedia. --Pi zero (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- What do you suggest? I should comment the categories so that I do not make Wikinews look "ugly"? (I should add a note on talk page that categories were commented, please uncomment it and accept the revision.)
•–• 18:05, 13 November 2017 (UTC)- I suggesting going ahead with adding parent categories to new categories that haven't been populated yet. It's not going to lead a lot of people to the new category; not nearly as much as creating a mainspace redirect would. --Pi zero (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- What do you suggest? I should comment the categories so that I do not make Wikinews look "ugly"? (I should add a note on talk page that categories were commented, please uncomment it and accept the revision.)
Fascist
Is it neutral to use this word? Can it be replaced with far-right? I don't think using a word which suggests that we are making the call something was "extreme" should be avoided.
•–• 20:35, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: "Fascist" has a specific technical meaning. Whether it's appropriate to the case, I haven't studied. --Pi zero (talk) 21:17, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Rancho Tehama shootings
Thanks again, and I'm learning a lot, esp. about what Wikinews means by neutrality. CNN did have the deliberate collision: "also gunning down someone after he purposely crashed into another car". And it was multiple shootings in different locations, so shouldn't it be moved again, to "shootings" or "series of shootings"? Yngvadottir (talk) 05:21, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Yngvadottir:
- Our use of 'deliberately' would require a great deal of scrutiny, at best. Anything that comes close to people's intentions can be tricky, and that on top of trying to even know what actually happened (which often calls for us to report the evidence for what happened rather than asserting as objective fact that it did happen). Even with a source saying he did it 'purposely', the question that springs to mind is, how do they know? Perhaps it's based on a witness account of the incident? If so, we'd probably want to report the evidence rather than assert the intention as fact, which of course would be wordier.
- I agree it would have been plausible to use 'shootings' in the headline; I'll suggest, though, that 'shooting' works too. 'A shooting' can be an incident with multiple shots fired. This might be called 'shootings at multiple locations', but it also seems to me plausible to call it 'a multi-location shooting' since there was evidently just one shooter.
- I tried to provide helpful feedback in my review comments. Thank you for writing the piece. --Pi zero (talk) 12:11, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Haaretz; The New York Times
(Did not know if I should ask you or at WN:WC/misc) These publishers often paywall their content. I need to clear cache, use VPN or access from another device whenever I need to view the content. Should we really use those as source/encourage its usage? I am really against using them as source. Considering there are very few reliable Israeli news source in English (JPost, Times of Israel), I still do not think we should encourage paywalled websites. WHat do you suggest?
•–• 13:41, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: We have an explicit policy that says no pay-to-read sources. I've not dealt with Haartez much lately, so have no remarks on that off hand. I used to be quite aggressive about not-readying for use of NYT sources but doing so created a mess because (1) alternative sources of information almost never really cover all the facts used from the paywalled source, often they're not even close, and of course for reviewers each fact not in the sources creates massive extra work; and (2) risk of copyvio is not decreased by introducing alternative sources. The NYT paywall is, in fact, absurdly easy to get around, and I got so tired of the messes created by rejecting NYT sources that I got lazier and lazier about objecting to NYT. But I should be routinely at least objecting to NYT sources and warning not to continue using them, if not rejecting them outright. --Pi zero (talk) 14:05, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
- If we publish an article which uses paywall source, and there was a serious mistake in it, and the source has paywalled the content strictly, what would we do? As a reviewer, I can not-ready an article if I can not access the source(s), at that time, if the reporter says to follow some steps to access the content, should I do that? (We have done this in past -- remember for UEFA Euro 2016, you could not see the FIFA content in English, so I asked you to switch to French -- though I asked you to replace the source, of-wiki, and said, if you face this problem again, language change would work.)
•–• 16:01, 17 November 2017 (UTC)- @Acagastya: We should not be publishing an article with a paywalled source. We really should not be bypassing a paywall to access a source, as that source is evidently using that paywall as part of their economic livelihood and we should respect their desire to not make their material accessible to us. But, when it comes to marginal cases, well, all details of the situation may matter to how we handle a particular case. One way or another, we must have access to all the sources in order to review. --Pi zero (talk) 16:26, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
- So, you using French version of FIFA website for verifying what happened in a football match if the English version is not working is okay? After all, they are not paywalled, and it is probably due to JS/cookie policy. [We never figured that out, did we?] Though that should not happen ideally.
•–• 16:29, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
- So, you using French version of FIFA website for verifying what happened in a football match if the English version is not working is okay? After all, they are not paywalled, and it is probably due to JS/cookie policy. [We never figured that out, did we?] Though that should not happen ideally.
- @Acagastya: We should not be publishing an article with a paywalled source. We really should not be bypassing a paywall to access a source, as that source is evidently using that paywall as part of their economic livelihood and we should respect their desire to not make their material accessible to us. But, when it comes to marginal cases, well, all details of the situation may matter to how we handle a particular case. One way or another, we must have access to all the sources in order to review. --Pi zero (talk) 16:26, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
- If we publish an article which uses paywall source, and there was a serious mistake in it, and the source has paywalled the content strictly, what would we do? As a reviewer, I can not-ready an article if I can not access the source(s), at that time, if the reporter says to follow some steps to access the content, should I do that? (We have done this in past -- remember for UEFA Euro 2016, you could not see the FIFA content in English, so I asked you to switch to French -- though I asked you to replace the source, of-wiki, and said, if you face this problem again, language change would work.)
I've been pinged about this one. Looks to have the same support as the prior approved accreditation. And, the user in question is interested in attending a ComicCon for Wikinews. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:16, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Brian McNeil: I voted in support yesterday. The last one had four supports and a fifth user (me) who closed (without objecting). I'm willing to close it, but admittedly that won't be quite the same as the previous four-plus-separate-closer-who-didn't-object. --Pi zero (talk) 16:23, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Aren't the interwikis done via Wikidata now? Same display result in this instance. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:29, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Yngvadottir: There is a long discussion about it on my talk. But if you are looking for a TL;DR: even if wikidata maintains IW links, we don't remove which we have added manually.
•–• 16:13, 22 November 2017 (UTC)- @Acagastya: that does explain it, thanks. The one disadvantage that I don't see mentioned is, when the article on another project gets moved, or even deleted, and obviously it's all the harder to keep up with such changes when one doesn't read the other language (none of us read them all). But ok, another thing I'll try to remember (my memory isn't what it was). Yngvadottir (talk) 16:36, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Yngvadottir: Sorry, what? How is that a problem? As far as I know, news articles are rarely renamed/deleted once published. It is a different think about what happens for project pages, but sooner or later, it gets fixed [in theory].
•–• 16:49, 22 November 2017 (UTC)- @Yngvadottir, Acagastya: There is a technical problem with detecting a discrepancy between local interwikis and wikidata interwikis. My long-range plans call for a dialog-based assistant that would compare the two, aid the user in considering what out to be done about it, and aid the user in acting on their decision. There are three main possibilities:
- The discrepancy may be one in which the wikidata version is more up-to-date and the local interwiki ought to be adjusted accordingly.
- The discrepancy may be one in which the wikidata version has gotten corrupted and ought to be updated with the local information. (It's even possible that the wikidata version changed "correctly" because things got corrupted at another local project, as with page-move vandalism, so that a fix should be applied on the other local project.)
- There might be a good reason why the two should not be the same, in which case the assistant ought to be able to tell the current user why past users have chosen to let the discrepancy stand. This can get even more complicated as there may be some circumstances under which the exception should be reconsidered. It's really important, though, when setting up a system to deal with discrepancies like this, to set it up so that it doesn't just keep hounding users about it until somebody changes things to resolve the discrepancy; without a way of tracking reasons for allowing exceptions, and preventing active discrepancy-warnings from constantly popping up, the exceptions aren't really supported.
- --Pi zero (talk) 18:08, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
- At least for news articles, it is impossible (in theory) to mess up. For others, a py bot could inform if the target is dead end -- but for incorrect pages, we can not do anything. Same is true if a vandal adds incorrect information on Wikidata.
•–• 18:20, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
- At least for news articles, it is impossible (in theory) to mess up. For others, a py bot could inform if the target is dead end -- but for incorrect pages, we can not do anything. Same is true if a vandal adds incorrect information on Wikidata.
- @Yngvadottir, Acagastya: There is a technical problem with detecting a discrepancy between local interwikis and wikidata interwikis. My long-range plans call for a dialog-based assistant that would compare the two, aid the user in considering what out to be done about it, and aid the user in acting on their decision. There are three main possibilities:
- @Yngvadottir: Sorry, what? How is that a problem? As far as I know, news articles are rarely renamed/deleted once published. It is a different think about what happens for project pages, but sooner or later, it gets fixed [in theory].
- @Acagastya: that does explain it, thanks. The one disadvantage that I don't see mentioned is, when the article on another project gets moved, or even deleted, and obviously it's all the harder to keep up with such changes when one doesn't read the other language (none of us read them all). But ok, another thing I'll try to remember (my memory isn't what it was). Yngvadottir (talk) 16:36, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
I changed the title of the article to hopefully better reflect what it is about, and I also tried to address your review comments. (Iuio (talk) 04:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC))
- Thanks for your work on reviewing the article. I just wanted to point out that the bit where Time magazine requested the removal of fake magazine covers from Trump's resorts, which you removed because you said you didn't find mention of, came from the CNN source, quoted as "Last summer, TIME asked for the fake magazines to be removed after reports surfaced that at least five of Trump's golf clubs featured the fakes bearing his photo." Hope that clears the matter up. (Iuio (talk) 05:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC))
Emailed you about Pidgin
The screenshots are on Google Drive, and I have emailed you the steps.
•–• 06:24, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Greetings
You must have the patience of a divine being. I don't know how you do it. I did a little dirty work while you sleep (I presume). Cheers, --SVTCobra 07:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Heads up
Kind of "busy" schedule in real life. I would be travelling for most of the week. Expect me on the project after ten days. However, UEFA Champions League Last 16 draw would take place tomorrow -- There is already a prepared story. Hope we can get it on time.
•–• 13:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
- after reading this I think I am finally taking some interest in the conflict which can cause on wiki problems like CoI and neutrality. This is scary on and off wiki. Please let me know if you can sense that in my articles.
27.59.96.154 (talk) 19:39, 10 December 2017 (UTC)- Which aspect — what Turkey's being doing, or what Israel's been doing, or what Israel and Turkey have been saying about each other, or what Trump has done to create conflict? (I recall hearing, several years ago, that one of the beliefs of the US fundamentalist religious right fringe advocates strengthening Israel in order to bring about Armageddon and the Second Coming.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:03, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
- Or maybe I was up too late and needed some sleep.
•–• 22:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
- Or maybe I was up too late and needed some sleep.
- Which aspect — what Turkey's being doing, or what Israel's been doing, or what Israel and Turkey have been saying about each other, or what Trump has done to create conflict? (I recall hearing, several years ago, that one of the beliefs of the US fundamentalist religious right fringe advocates strengthening Israel in order to bring about Armageddon and the Second Coming.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:03, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Can you help me?
Hey. Can you check my news Scientific expedition to the homeland Cus D'Amato was completed with series of discoveries while it's still relevant? -Gartmund (talk) 23:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
- @Gartmund: I'm frustrated I wasn't able to get to this sooner. You are quite right that we have limited time left. I have tried to write helpful review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 02:59, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
- @Pi zero: Thank you. I took your recommendations into account. I ask you to check once again my news -Gartmund (talk) 11:36, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
re review my article!
go and review my article. Take it to the eventual stage! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Idnamesay (talk • contribs) 03:06, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
- In fact, I've done so. It's very late where I am, so I don't expect to do more review tonight. --Pi zero (talk) 03:12, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
re review my article!
well, you should go back an re-review my article! You should pass it to the end stage!
It is logical...
... that people no longer fancy working on an article which cannot be published anymore according to the rules here, having become stale. So the only thing you can actually do is simply throw every article away after 3-4 days if it has not been approved by the reviewers here by then. If you really think that will help to improve this project (honestly, I think just the opposite thing). De Wikischim (talk) 09:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
- Stale articles can not be published. They are not “new” to be news. You can not have it on the project. Imagine getting a hundred articles written each day on your home wiki. And most of them have certain issues. What would you do? Just ina few weeks you would see that happen here.
106.209.147.41 (talk) 09:41, 19 December 2017 (UTC)- Well, what would be wrong about that? On other news sites, you can find all kinds of (very) old news items back too. They are saved not only to keep the the archive complete, but as well because some older news facts may still be important for the actuality. In my opinion, nothing is wrong with that, as long as the news as such can be considered "real" news and is sufficiently verifiable. De Wikischim (talk) 09:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
- Who said that we delete our archives? Only published articles with {{publish}} tag, and sighted by a reviewer can be archived. Consider it like this, Netherlands failed to qualify for UEFA Euro 2016. You might have seen it on NOS when it happened. They will have it in archives, but they would not have written it today -- you can not see the articles under development for a professional news org, so you don't understand the process and what is the meaning of {{develop}} or {{publish}}.
106.209.147.41 (talk) 10:02, 19 December 2017 (UTC)- Our archives are a tremendous asset to the project and to the sisterhood. They are an archive of published articles; successfully captured quality snapshots in time. Nobody here is in disagreement with the proposition that we need to speed up review; the question has always been whether to speed it up by lowering standards or by improving efficiency of review. Lowering standards was tried by a fork, and (unsurprisingly, to me) failed. I've been pursuing a plan for how to improve efficiency, but with zero (or less than zero) support from the Foundation, it's unsurprisingly taking a while. --Pi zero (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
- Who said that we delete our archives? Only published articles with {{publish}} tag, and sighted by a reviewer can be archived. Consider it like this, Netherlands failed to qualify for UEFA Euro 2016. You might have seen it on NOS when it happened. They will have it in archives, but they would not have written it today -- you can not see the articles under development for a professional news org, so you don't understand the process and what is the meaning of {{develop}} or {{publish}}.
- Well, what would be wrong about that? On other news sites, you can find all kinds of (very) old news items back too. They are saved not only to keep the the archive complete, but as well because some older news facts may still be important for the actuality. In my opinion, nothing is wrong with that, as long as the news as such can be considered "real" news and is sufficiently verifiable. De Wikischim (talk) 09:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
- Stale articles can not be published. They are not “new” to be news. You can not have it on the project. Imagine getting a hundred articles written each day on your home wiki. And most of them have certain issues. What would you do? Just ina few weeks you would see that happen here.
Hello, pizero. Just read your mail -- I am really sorry I did not ask clearly. I wanted to know how can I help you make those tools. [OBTW, I have reached home, but I don't think I would be able to write anything before January 5]
•–• 08:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
- I did wonder if that was what you meant. --Pi zero (talk) 12:38, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Quick help
Long story short -- I was reading about a story, but did not start writing in journal -- did I disqualify myself (another editor wrote the story from scratch)? I don't think I did, but just want to be sure.
•–• 06:36, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
- I am reviewing the article. But as always, I will have something to add. And I was wondering if I could ask anyone to sight it but then, it is Christmas and I assume any reviewer or admin would be offline. I never thought about this, but maybe we don't have any non-Christians with special rights [except for me -- I am ignoring atheists, because come on! If theists can be treated in a hospital, why can't atheists take a day off and spend time with family on Christmas? -- I hope we don't have to face vandals today, Dec25 will be the other day to be extra-vigilant after Jul4], do we?
- In my judgement, as evidently in yours, your own knowledge or study of the subject does not in itself disqualify you; you'd have to contribute to the article that's a candidate for review, or —in a different dimension— have an opinion about it so strong as to interfere with your ability to make neutral judgements. Though one does, I think, have to be a bit more careful not to mix up what one verified from the cited sources from what one read elsewhere. --Pi zero (talk) 13:58, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
- It was only one source, and I guess the overall content was the same -- I haven't mixed up [to the best of my knowledge]. Don't forget to sight.
•–• 15:01, 25 December 2017 (UTC)- note that someone should sight the edits from this difference.
•–• 15:12, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
- note that someone should sight the edits from this difference.
- It was only one source, and I guess the overall content was the same -- I haven't mixed up [to the best of my knowledge]. Don't forget to sight.
- In my judgement, as evidently in yours, your own knowledge or study of the subject does not in itself disqualify you; you'd have to contribute to the article that's a candidate for review, or —in a different dimension— have an opinion about it so strong as to interfere with your ability to make neutral judgements. Though one does, I think, have to be a bit more careful not to mix up what one verified from the cited sources from what one read elsewhere. --Pi zero (talk) 13:58, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
User Space
I now think I know where Ottawahitech gets the idea that failed articles can be moved into user-space. Please see the 'optional' parameter at Template:Abandoned. This should be updated for current practices/policies. Cheers and Happy New Year, --SVTCobra 02:58, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: True, making the parameter less inviting would probably be helpful.
It's a wonderful thing to see the review queue cleared; three active reviewers in a day makes quite a difference. Happy New Year, yourself. --Pi zero (talk) 03:05, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know how to redesign templates, but 'less inviting' should be a minimum, don't you think? Perhaps it should be removed as an option. And, yes, I saw the queue at 4 and thought to myself: "wouldn't it be nice if Wikinews could start 2018 with a clean slate" so I did some work. However, I did also add a DR to the list of tasks ;) but I think that's an easy one.
Speaking of working for Wiknews, I added our article on George Weah to Wikipedia. Cheers, --SVTCobra 03:16, 31 December 2017 (UTC)- @SVTCobra: In situations where userspacing is the appropriate measure — mainly for OR — it seemed desirable to be able to keep track of the intended measure, so that someone taking action later could be reminded of it, rather than putting all the burden of figuring these things out on the deleting admin. --Pi zero (talk) 03:23, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, I understand. But the way it reads now, it is like an automatic move to user space. And who is going to tag an OR piece as abandoned? I think only Admins. But who can be sure? But I am going to add a topic to your talk page, just below. Cheers, --SVTCobra 04:13, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: In situations where userspacing is the appropriate measure — mainly for OR — it seemed desirable to be able to keep track of the intended measure, so that someone taking action later could be reminded of it, rather than putting all the burden of figuring these things out on the deleting admin. --Pi zero (talk) 03:23, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- Well, I don't know how to redesign templates, but 'less inviting' should be a minimum, don't you think? Perhaps it should be removed as an option. And, yes, I saw the queue at 4 and thought to myself: "wouldn't it be nice if Wikinews could start 2018 with a clean slate" so I did some work. However, I did also add a DR to the list of tasks ;) but I think that's an easy one.
- @SVTCobra: True, making the parameter less inviting would probably be helpful.
Saw this message today
Templates/files updated (unreviewed pages in bold): Template:InfosectionEnd, File:USA orthographic.svg, File:Flag of the United States.svg.
•–• 07:34, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
This is a vast, sprawling, article. Do you have it under control? It is certainly news, nothing outside our scope. But it is so vast, I don't know how anybody could review it. And I wouldn't want to be the person to delete this passionate project. What I mean to say is, I know this is a real case. I am not suggesting it is a hoax, far from it. It is obviously real, but we don't have the 'staff' to verify. Back in 'my day' when I was very active, Brian McNeil was almost the face of Wikinews. He had a way of contacting legal council from Wikimedia Foundation. I'm sorry, but this shit scares me. I will, nonetheless, wish you a happy 2018. Cheers, --SVTCobra 04:15, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- Duh! I forgot to say why! I see that the article has a 'sandbox' tag on it. The reason I found it however is that it shows up in "Undisputed" in the Newsroom. How is that possible? There's no 'develop' tag. Cheers, --SVTCobra 04:26, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: I have a proposal, on which I invite your opinion. I've been quite concerned about that page, but have had trouble finding time to formulate a course of action (partly because of the review queue). The author claims it's a repository of material from which to excerpt bits needed for particular articles both here and on Wikipedia, and in particular says xe's going to draw material from it for an article in January, but while xe has made a few attempts, xe has thus far not produced an article that could pass review. I think I should require the author to store the material off-wiki instead of in this "sandbox", until such time as they draw on it to produce an actual article (which would then be subject to review for neutrality etc. within a reasonably short timeframe). Thoughts? --Pi zero (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- There is too much for me too really look at closely. However, there appears to be tables of student names; lots of them. And since it is US High School it is the age they go from legally children to adults. I do not have time to parse this information. I do not have time to see if the lists are victims or alleged perpetrators. Either way, I see it as a huge liability. Maybe I am wrong and they are all named in the sources.
If you seek my advice, I suggest the author keep it to initials for the underage people, or even invent their own code number (off-wiki / off-internet) for each individual until such time as writing a Wikinews article on the subject.
I don't know what else to say. Cheers,--SVTCobra 05:04, 31 December 2017 (UTC)- @SVTCobra: I think... maybe... those aren't student names. I'm still quite uncomfortable with the names, of which there are indeed quite a lot, and it would take a tremendous amount of study just to figure out whether all the names are okay to be using in a news article in this context — and it's not a news article, and consequently not being submitted for review, and as you point out it's so big we really wouldn't be able to review it. But I'm not sure there are a lot of student names in it (unless I missed them). At any rate, I've deleted it until such time as we may be willing to briefly undelete it so the author can copy it to some (by recommendation, private) off-wiki storage location. --Pi zero (talk) 05:41, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- I added my own comment and tried to take as much responsibility for the decision as I could. Obviously, we can make the source links available the writer or even anybody. Cheers, --SVTCobra 06:17, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: I think... maybe... those aren't student names. I'm still quite uncomfortable with the names, of which there are indeed quite a lot, and it would take a tremendous amount of study just to figure out whether all the names are okay to be using in a news article in this context — and it's not a news article, and consequently not being submitted for review, and as you point out it's so big we really wouldn't be able to review it. But I'm not sure there are a lot of student names in it (unless I missed them). At any rate, I've deleted it until such time as we may be willing to briefly undelete it so the author can copy it to some (by recommendation, private) off-wiki storage location. --Pi zero (talk) 05:41, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- There is too much for me too really look at closely. However, there appears to be tables of student names; lots of them. And since it is US High School it is the age they go from legally children to adults. I do not have time to parse this information. I do not have time to see if the lists are victims or alleged perpetrators. Either way, I see it as a huge liability. Maybe I am wrong and they are all named in the sources.
- @SVTCobra: I have a proposal, on which I invite your opinion. I've been quite concerned about that page, but have had trouble finding time to formulate a course of action (partly because of the review queue). The author claims it's a repository of material from which to excerpt bits needed for particular articles both here and on Wikipedia, and in particular says xe's going to draw material from it for an article in January, but while xe has made a few attempts, xe has thus far not produced an article that could pass review. I think I should require the author to store the material off-wiki instead of in this "sandbox", until such time as they draw on it to produce an actual article (which would then be subject to review for neutrality etc. within a reasonably short timeframe). Thoughts? --Pi zero (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
@SVTCobra: and @Pi zero:, Please undelete the article for 24 hours so I may retain the formatting. For the record, the wikipedia guys contacted me because of the cross-referenced information, but removed myself from their actions. Still do not know where the undisputed part came up, I did not know that was changed. If it is possible to keep the disputed/sandboxed page, I would happily see to all the names. I was very careful to put in the disclaimer saying it was illegal to publish names of minors and victims of sexual crimes - thus all the Doe names. {{subst:unsinged|17:26, 31 December 2017|AZOperator}}
- @AZOperator: Temporarily undeleted, will re-delete in about a day. I'd really rather not have a great big pile of unreviewed material like that hosted on-site for a prolonged period (on, after all, a pretty sensitive topic, as you are aware). --Pi zero (talk) 20:08, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- Pi, I had already restored the contents to User:AZOperator/Sandbox. Cheers, --SVTCobra 20:09, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
- Evidently the reporter is done with the page, so I've re-deleted it. (It looks, from their last edit to the page, as if they've got some serious misunderstandings about the situation, but there comes a point where they have to decide to take responsibility for learning how Wikinews works; we can't force anyone to want to learn.) --Pi zero (talk) 04:17, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
- Don't forget the sandbox I created for AZOperator. How long should that stay up? Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
"Abandoned"
You apparently use the argument that articles are "abandoned" as a justification to throw them away. However, it's most of the time only you who judges the articles as not ready for publication (as a synonym for abandoned), so this criterium is highly subjective. Furthermore, it is just one thing that you do not want them to be published on the main page, but why must all those articles which have remained unpublished by definition be thrown away without being kept in an archive? I'm very sorry to say it, but in my opinion you're ruining this project from the inside by doing so. I think the English Wikinews will face a real risk of closure if the policy here does not change. De Wikischim (talk) 20:43, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- I try to be friendly and helpful to everyone who comes to this project, but the effort is rather futile with those who (a) don't want to be friendly and/or (b) don't want to learn. We are here to publish news. You seem to think we should blog about past events. It isn't apparent to me that you have sought to learn about this project with an open mind; honestly, it seems as if, when presented with anything that doesn't match your prior expectations, your impulse is not to study it but to complain about it. I would very much like for that to be an unnecessarily harsh assessment. --Pi zero (talk) 22:25, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- Well, whatever you wish to think about me is completely up to yourself, of course. For the rest, in my opinion you should at least try to take my comment hereabove serious. Believe me when I say I made them with good intentions (i.e. for the sake of this project's future). )De Wikischim (talk) 22:40, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- Excuse me for butting in here, but I have a few things to say. I sincerely believe that Pi Zero is the only reason the project isn't completely dead. I do not for a second believe that he wants to see articles discarded. When he reviews articles, he gives long explanations for what needs to be improved. A lot of times, people drop in, start an article, give a malformatted source (or two) and expect Wikinews to magically finish and publish the article. If Pi Zero did all the rewriting and tracking of more sources, who would be there to review his work? Back when I was more active, we had a much larger active user base, and still we only managed to publish 5-6 articles per day.
As for your suggestion to archive articles which never passed review, well, quite frankly, that seems ludicrous. They could potentially contain copyright infringements, factual inaccuracies, propaganda and/or spam. The only thing that can save Wikinews is an influx of new users with an interest in NPOV journalism. In today's world, however, it seems those interested in citizen journalism prefer to have complete editorial control themselves, so they blog or vlog about the news.
Wikinews needs the people who started articles to show some conviction and effort; they need to come back and make the changes/improvements as suggested in the review. To levy your criticism of Wikinews at Pi Zero is, in my opinion, completely unfair. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:28, 2 January 2018 (UTC)- @SVTCobra: I'm hoping we can become an exporter of the meme of NPOV journalism. I think there would be enough folks to grow the project if we could just get things working more easily; note that however much review we can provide, these days, demand on the review queue responds by increasing until it exceeds our supply. I want to use community-driven semi-automation (essay) to make en.wn work better. I was aware when I started this effort that it was going to be a problem to develop the technology while keeping the review queue moving the whole time.
@De Wikischim: Speaking seriously. The danger I see is that Wikipedia, by teaching de facto bad information-consumption habits, will help to pull down global civilization — this is not a simple thing, not at all a "Wikipedia-bashing" thing, but a really profound and intractable consequence of the fundamental contrast between the core journalistic impulse to publish nothing wrong and the Wikipedian strategy of publish instantly and fix it later. Wikipedians tend to appreciate the advantages of their strategy but be blind to its fundamental flaws, and its fundamental flaws are especially prominent if one tries to apply it to news; which leaves en.wn on the front lines wrestling with challenges the Wikipedian community have barely (if at all) started to notice yet, and the effort I put into en.wn isn't "just" for the sake of en.wn but for the entire sisterhood and, through it, for the global community. I hope to implement and apply technology to make en.wn work better, and hopefully aspects of it that apply to other sister projects can be exported; I'm not trying to keep en.wn as it is, I'm trying to change the entire world. ("The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world." — Pinky and the Brain) --Pi zero (talk) 23:57, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- If articles really do contain copyright infringements, inaccurate information, spam and all such things, the sooner they are deleted the better, of course. But that's not my real point: I'm absolutely not convinced this was the case too for all the articles which I saw being deleted here yesterday (an example of an article which in my view surely had no neutrality bias, copyright violation or other serious flaws is United States: Amtrak train derails near Olympia, Washington which was started by user:Ottawahitech). About the mission you're talking about, this sounds very good and I really hope you'll succeed in it (though it seems to me just a little too idealistic). De Wikischim (talk) 09:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, you are right, but if there's no time to evaluate them, Wikinews doesn't know what they contain. If they didn't get published, what's the point in reviewing it? So it can be in an archive of failed articles? To be viewed by whom? One of the main problems of Wikinews is that everyone wants to write news, but nobody wants to sift through that news and do the reviews. I could write 5 articles in the time it takes to review 1. It is hard work. And yes, it has been a struggle to meet the mission, but thank you. --SVTCobra 23:30, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- If articles really do contain copyright infringements, inaccurate information, spam and all such things, the sooner they are deleted the better, of course. But that's not my real point: I'm absolutely not convinced this was the case too for all the articles which I saw being deleted here yesterday (an example of an article which in my view surely had no neutrality bias, copyright violation or other serious flaws is United States: Amtrak train derails near Olympia, Washington which was started by user:Ottawahitech). About the mission you're talking about, this sounds very good and I really hope you'll succeed in it (though it seems to me just a little too idealistic). De Wikischim (talk) 09:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: I'm hoping we can become an exporter of the meme of NPOV journalism. I think there would be enough folks to grow the project if we could just get things working more easily; note that however much review we can provide, these days, demand on the review queue responds by increasing until it exceeds our supply. I want to use community-driven semi-automation (essay) to make en.wn work better. I was aware when I started this effort that it was going to be a problem to develop the technology while keeping the review queue moving the whole time.
- Excuse me for butting in here, but I have a few things to say. I sincerely believe that Pi Zero is the only reason the project isn't completely dead. I do not for a second believe that he wants to see articles discarded. When he reviews articles, he gives long explanations for what needs to be improved. A lot of times, people drop in, start an article, give a malformatted source (or two) and expect Wikinews to magically finish and publish the article. If Pi Zero did all the rewriting and tracking of more sources, who would be there to review his work? Back when I was more active, we had a much larger active user base, and still we only managed to publish 5-6 articles per day.
- Well, whatever you wish to think about me is completely up to yourself, of course. For the rest, in my opinion you should at least try to take my comment hereabove serious. Believe me when I say I made them with good intentions (i.e. for the sake of this project's future). )De Wikischim (talk) 22:40, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Suggestion
I think you should check for accidental multiple links when you are dealing with wikifying and protecting redirects. You could import User:Acagastya/double.js -- it would add golden background and red border to the duplicates. You can tweak the colours if you want to.
•–• 08:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Leaving for Mysore tomorrow at 11 AM (IST), and would reach on Sunday, January 7 6 AM (IST), if the train is on time. Since I need to update articles on the channel, if you publish any article, email me about it since I would not be monitoring RC.
•–• 09:26, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Not obliged to, but promised [not machine readable, but now that's someone else's problem]. I guess you know what to do (after creating a template)
{{<template name>|date = December 2, 2017|source=Own work|author=acagastya|permission=Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 India (CC BY-ND 2.5 IN)}}
. The basic work is available on {{testing}} as of 02:40, 7 January 2018 (UTC). --2605:3E80:700:10:0:0:0:320F (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Easy review gadget and {{Infobox}}
Hi Pi zero. When I published England: Multi-storey carpark in Liverpool gutted by fire, 1,300 vehicles destroyed with the Easy Review Gadget, it put the {{publish}} tag in the middle of one of the sources. See this diff. Do you know why? Secondly, every time I save changes to a page with an infobox, I get the message "Warning: This page calls Template:Infobox which causes a template loop (an infinite recursive call)." So, same question: Do you know why? Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra:
- The review gadget is known to sometimes misplace the publish template by skipping over only some of the sources section, especially (I think) when template calls occur in parameters to {{source}}. The trouble is probably a "regex" buried somewhere in the javascript of the gadget. The javascript of the review gadget is scary — I seem to recall even bawolff who wrote it saying so — and we've been mostly putting up with its quirks while we look forward to the day when we can replace it with a dialog-based semi-automated assistant.
- The WMF has the (imo direly misguided) notion that nontrivial template functions should be shifted out of wiki markup to Lua or the like, and in support of that... agenda, they produce that warning. It's moderately useless without an associated way of finding the problem in an advanced template such as {{infobox}}, and I'm not even certain whether the warning is true, let alone whether the condition it reports is actually a flaw when it occurs in that particular template or simply is something doing what it ought to do.
- --Pi zero (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Okie dokie. I am not enough of a technocrat to know what half of that means, but at least you are aware of it. PS I am trying to encourage a contributor who accused you of being a deletionist to do more work on their articles before submitting for review. Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: Well, deletionism is a position I dislike that only makes sense in the context of Wikipedia-style entitlement. When a user comes to en.wn with an assumption that whatever they write is entitled to be published, they're not looking for a news site, they're looking for a blog, and it doesn't end well; I try hard to help folks who come here willing to try hard, but there's a point where I've done as much as I can for someone, and I feel that, however it happened, they are trapped in a mindset that cannot allow them to fit in here and I don't know how to help them out of unless they want to be helped. Perhaps you, coming fresh to the problem, can do better than I. --Pi zero (talk) 23:14, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
- Okie dokie. I am not enough of a technocrat to know what half of that means, but at least you are aware of it. PS I am trying to encourage a contributor who accused you of being a deletionist to do more work on their articles before submitting for review. Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:55, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry
The 'drama' surrounding my review of the tennis article somehow continues. I should perhaps have ignored some of the messages, but, alas, I replied. I tried to make amends by populating a requested category. It flared up again, however, early this morning. The overall experience has been unpleasant. I have interacted with a number of other users in the past few days and it has been pleasant and collaborative, but this one user seemingly hates everything I do. I am not asking for you to take any action; I just want you to be aware. Cheers, --SVTCobra 09:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: you have been doing the don't and not doing the dos. I have the right to voice it.
- Not properly source-checking
- not using important templates
- not protecting redirects
- opposing author's style of writing (and I remember conversation about various versions of English)
- self sighting newer edits
- not protecting articles post-publish
- telling me I was triggered by your edits
Looks to me that when I told you what you were doing wrong has triggered you.
•–• 09:39, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- You have officially triggered me now. Are you the resident LOLCOW? What is actually wrong with you?
- False; don't even know what you on about here
- False; we already talked about {{under review}} and how that is optional.
- False; There is no policy to protect pre-publishing redirects. The policy is to protect them when articles get renamed after publishing.
- False; I did not change any part of the article for dialects of English
- False; what policy says I can't self-sight a minor typo or add a stock photo?
- False; I protected the article 2 minutes after publishing
- True, somewhat. I asked if you were triggered, which is not an unreasonable inquiry after your deluge of complaints
- Now tell me again what I did wrong (other than interacting with you). --SVTCobra 09:55, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: A project like Wikinews is a balancing act. When you're dealing with folks who haven't grokked the basic principles, you try to help them learn. When dealing with other Wikinewsies who do grok the principles, you behave another way. We don't go in for a lot of bureaucratic red tape, so negotiating with other Wikinewsies is more a matter of exchanging tips on what we do. I would not say to a colleague (note, SVTCobra is most definitely an inner-circle Wikinewsie) about some fine point such as the things on the above list, 'that's wrong, this is how you must do it'; on especially simple things I might say 'btw in recent times we have consistently done such-and-such', and on most points, if I felt the need to remark on them at all (which I would tend to minimize), I would would go about it something like this:
- @SVTCobra: Regarding images and self-sighting, common practice has had a complicated history in recent times. Historically, I would simply add an image to an article that didn't have one, typically as part of the review process. It's one of a class of intermediate-sized changes that I might well allow myself to do during review but hesitate to self-sight after publication; after all, we're quite clear that image choice can't be changed for archived articles. Part of my attitude is that a large part of the time for the past few years I've been the only reviewer around on a given day, so that anything I couldn't self-sight couldn't be sighted. My attitude changed a bit a year or so ago when BRS told me xe prefers to treat addition of images as a substantial addition of information, which would mean not doing it as part of review and never self-sighting. I had some doubts about that as a practical approach for times when I was the only reviewer around; however, while BRS was around too it certainly wasn't a problem, and some months later acagastya became a reviewer.
- Acagastya: Perhaps you've gotten a bit set in your ways because, after all, you learned it all from me — it's always a danger, when much of the lore gets passed through me, that however I try to faithfully represent best practice, one person cannot easily convey the variety of a living tradition of many voices. I on the other hand have operated on Wikinews at times when there were a whole bunch of reviewers all operating here at once and many of them probably doing things I wouldn't agree with if I could keep up with it all; and I couldn't nearly keep up with all they were doing. There was a time that I would look at what was going on and when I saw a reviewer publish an article without making any changes to it first I would try to leave a gentle suggestion on their user talk page pointing out various advantages to trying to always make some copyedit before publishing (I believe that remark eventually found its way into WN:Tips on reviewing articles). Occasionally one the folks I made that remark to would get mad at me for it. After experiencing those times, I suppose I have a heightened appreciation of the give-and-take needed to maintain a large pool of thinking reviewers. --Pi zero (talk) 14:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- Let's see;
- @Acagastya: A project like Wikinews is a balancing act. When you're dealing with folks who haven't grokked the basic principles, you try to help them learn. When dealing with other Wikinewsies who do grok the principles, you behave another way. We don't go in for a lot of bureaucratic red tape, so negotiating with other Wikinewsies is more a matter of exchanging tips on what we do. I would not say to a colleague (note, SVTCobra is most definitely an inner-circle Wikinewsie) about some fine point such as the things on the above list, 'that's wrong, this is how you must do it'; on especially simple things I might say 'btw in recent times we have consistently done such-and-such', and on most points, if I felt the need to remark on them at all (which I would tend to minimize), I would would go about it something like this:
- at 14:21, you had created the talk page of the tennis article, meaning you were okay with the last revision. Here, you had added the period within the quotation, while it was not, per the sources. I saw, and there was no {{under review}} or {{editing}} template to caution me, that it was under review, and I changed it. That is, what Darkfrog24 has said, the style used in English (US), and it clearly violates accuracy, and personal choice of style for the article.
- This revision of WSS's article which you had published has information which was abbreviated at the first instance. Parenthesised information is to be avoided, and the article should be for general audience. Not doing it, you had approved an article which violated the project mission of global audience [frankly, it could be understood by only US audience]
- Not using {{under review}} is like driving a vehicle without a rear view mirror on a highway with noise cancellation ear plugs -- you might think you did not meet an accident, but you are just making it harder for others to drive. We know what happened last night. And when I tried to tell you on your talk, inform on the article page, you held on to oppose everything that I said. You did not take precautions and then said, "Well, you messed it up by changing things. Now I have to look it over again." You blamed me for something that was not my fault. I had just asked a simple question. " Is the article published or not?"
- When I asked for the article to be moved back to "Aus Open", you reacted as if your ego was hurt, saying you would not change it even though many sourcereliable news orgs are okay saying it "Aus Open" in the title. If you have not heard about "Aus Open", it is not my fault, or problem. You should do your homework before reviewing. When I don't know certain things while reviewing, I ask. When pizero was reviewing the triple talaq article, I explained them about 'sati pratha'. But, here, there was no sort of willingness to listen or see from someone else's perspective. Instead, you recommended "AusOp: Murray Out" -- That style does not inform readers which sport, which Murray, or why out? Saying things which would not help.
- half an hour gap between publishing are protecting the article even though I had already informed you about it on your talk.
- Tennis:_Andy_Murray_withdraws_from_Aus_Open A mainspace redirect of a published article should be protected as a precaution. You did not do it.
- [2] You added an image and self-sighted it. It is a serious violation of policy against self sighting. It brings significant difference to the article, enough to leave it for other reviewer. When I tried to remove it, you reverted the edits and sighted it again. I was not trying to have an edit war, I left a note on your talk.
- By putting that period within the quote, not only it was not accurate, it was against the English (UK) style.
You asked me whit what authority I can ask you to do things; an admin is supposed to help editors, understand why they are asking certain things to be done [which was told to you], and to improve the project. And you lost your cool, telling me I was triggered, instead of actually helping. You said I wasted your time, if telling you to make certain edits that would prevent things from damage is wasting your time, I don't know what to tell you. All of this might look small things, but as a reviewer, one should be careful about smaller things. Apart from Darkfrog24, Gryllida and Pi zero, those editors whom you have interacted with [and had pleasant experience] are newbies, some not from this project, and who do not understand the project policies, mission, and pillars. Evidently, someone talking about how small actions which you were expected to do, but did not, has triggered you, making things unpleasant. Do you realise, all of it would have been avoided if you had used the precautionary {{under review}} template. (Well, most of it).
•–• 14:44, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- @Acagastya: You're being hyper-critical of someone with much longer experience on the project than you have. Take it easy. Note that, while you might speculate on what would have happened if SVTCobra had used {{under review}} for that article, one might also speculate on what would have happened if, instead of telling them they were wrong not to use it, you had said something like 'Sorry we edit-conflicted; btw there's a template {{under review}} that is handy for warning others that a review is going on.' --Pi zero (talk) 15:10, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- Do you mean the same experienced editor who questioned if {{Under review}} would have stopped me, blamed me for the problem, said I made the article worse, called me “lolcow”, said I was triggered, and what not, instead of addressing the problems? The same experienced editor, who chose not to listen to, and prefer author’s choice of title? The same experienced editor, who, instead of acting on the neutral remarks decided to conclude that I wasted people’s time? Experienced editors should be able to deal with it, not make things chaotic. Voicing my views triggered them. Why don’t you see the discussion and see for yourself? Don’t tell me that they are not aware of newer policies, PeP exists to take care of those situations. An admin is supposed to be the one supporting other editors, not saying a “No!” For the things they did not know for what they are reviewing.
223.180.0.155 (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)- I've been following these discussions all along, and I have tried to offer you advice, from my own experience, on how best to approach these sorts of situations. --Pi zero (talk) 15:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- This is utter nonsense. For the past 24 hours, this user has done nothing but bitch about the passing review I did for their article, no, the article they started. On Wikinews we do not own articles. I do not intend to make any rebuttal to the absurd accusations, lest someone else asks me to explain. I am sick of the stupidity and it is disruptive to the project. --SVTCobra 17:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- True. That is what I did. But your reviews revealed that as of today, you are not good enough for being a reviewer. You have done in that 2020 election article, and now for the tennis article. You don’t do all the things a reviewer is supposed to be doing.
223.227.100.56 (talk) 18:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)- I have tried to remain neutral on as much of this stuff as possible. But you're mistaken about SVTCobra's fitness as a reviewer. I've made quite a few points today (most of them on this page, but perhaps a few were scattered about elsewhere) that bear on this; I'm not going to try to repeat them all. You really need to slow down; getting along with others on the project needs to be learned, just as Wikinews policies/principles/practices do. --Pi zero (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- True. That is what I did. But your reviews revealed that as of today, you are not good enough for being a reviewer. You have done in that 2020 election article, and now for the tennis article. You don’t do all the things a reviewer is supposed to be doing.
- This is utter nonsense. For the past 24 hours, this user has done nothing but bitch about the passing review I did for their article, no, the article they started. On Wikinews we do not own articles. I do not intend to make any rebuttal to the absurd accusations, lest someone else asks me to explain. I am sick of the stupidity and it is disruptive to the project. --SVTCobra 17:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- I've been following these discussions all along, and I have tried to offer you advice, from my own experience, on how best to approach these sorts of situations. --Pi zero (talk) 15:42, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- Do you mean the same experienced editor who questioned if {{Under review}} would have stopped me, blamed me for the problem, said I made the article worse, called me “lolcow”, said I was triggered, and what not, instead of addressing the problems? The same experienced editor, who chose not to listen to, and prefer author’s choice of title? The same experienced editor, who, instead of acting on the neutral remarks decided to conclude that I wasted people’s time? Experienced editors should be able to deal with it, not make things chaotic. Voicing my views triggered them. Why don’t you see the discussion and see for yourself? Don’t tell me that they are not aware of newer policies, PeP exists to take care of those situations. An admin is supposed to be the one supporting other editors, not saying a “No!” For the things they did not know for what they are reviewing.
┌─────────────────────────────────┘
bracketed information, opposing title name without any good reason, self sighting, that too, twice…guess everything is acceptable when an older Wikinewsie does it.
106.209.223.132 (talk) 19:58, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- Most, possibly all, of the concerns you've raised have been discussed seriously in response; you're not absorbing it all atm. --Pi zero (talk) 20:11, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- and yes, the “formal review” even though article was flagged with tasks. Every single time, ah well what is worth speaking. Good luck with those who remain.
223.227.38.138 (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)- I don't know what that meant; too abbreviated, perhaps. --Pi zero (talk) 22:05, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
- and yes, the “formal review” even though article was flagged with tasks. Every single time, ah well what is worth speaking. Good luck with those who remain.
Mistake, indeed
You're right, I should have addressed SVTCobra instead. Apologies. However, it is most of the time you who does the review process here, so I was somewhat confused by that. De Wikischim (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
- @De Wikischim: I quite understand how it could happen, and take no offence (nor I think did SVTCobra); only meant to give you a heads-up, so you would realize it had happened and thus would have a better chance of not repeating that particular goof. (We all generally find enough new mistakes to make, don't we? :-) --Pi zero (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
{{Cover}}
This is what I have come up with. It is basically identical to what they use on Wikipedia, though they have separate ones for almost every type of publication imaginable. It will suffice for a cover page or an inside page (though hard to imagine why that would be necessary). Also, I see someone is back, after just retiring last night. I swear, I have never seen this type of drama. And I have seen a lot. Let me know if I should move forward with {{Cover}}. Cheers, --SVTCobra 02:06, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- @SVTCobra: Xe has been immensely helpful both in writing (about 100 articles last year, was it?) and in reviewing (I'm comfortable that xe understands the deep principles like neutrality). Methinks xe has the news bug, that makes it hard to stay away. I realize you've had challenging interactions with xem (on occasion I have too, relationships between people are generally uneven), but fwiw, I have found xem to be, ultimately, friendly. --Pi zero (talk) 02:27, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Well, methinks this user does not understand copyright, nor licenses. Look at the speedy tag on this very template. --SVTCobra 02:30, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Meh, copyright and licenses are appallingly complicated topics. (I admit, I want to try to finish this review and get to bed.) --Pi zero (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Well, methinks this user does not understand copyright, nor licenses. Look at the speedy tag on this very template. --SVTCobra 02:30, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks
Thanks for the review. I have extended my olive branch. But if this continues, especially as an IP, I will lose my patience. Anyway, good night. --SVTCobra 03:56, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
But why, P0?
I like Rwandan streaming platform music. {Insert sad face emoticon} --SVTCobra 15:29, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Alas. --Pi zero (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- You said WMF does not hold the copyright on those pages; the users who wrote it do, and any use of it by the WMF is subject to permission of the authors in your response. What "pages" do you mean? --SVTCobra 16:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- The pages I was discussing, that are in various namespaces. --Pi zero (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- OK, thanks, but you do realize once you click the "save changes" button you don't own any copyright anymore. Basically, the most you can hope for is an attribution, and that will come in the form of "Courtesy of Wikinews", if you are lucky. It is not yours, it's part of the project. Just like the comment I am writing right now. These are Wikinews' words at best, but probably Wikimedia's words, at worst they are Jimmy Wales' words. Cheers, --SVTCobra 16:16, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- "Attribution will be to Wikinews" is a phrase I see. The more I think about it the more I suspect you're at-best oversimplifying the copyright situation; my best guess would be that you're outright mistaken about who holds copyright. Drawing a crisp line between copyright-holding and authorship for various wiki pages seems to me likely to be strongly needed only if there were a horrific meltdown in relations between the Foundation and the volunteers — which seems an entirely possible development, looking at the superprotect mess that I don't think the Foundation ever apologized for nor ruled out doing again. Note, sister projects I've seen generally consider request-of-sole-author a reason for speedy deletion, and the authors are in my experience universally agreed to be the stakeholders all of whose permission would be needed if one ever wanted to loosen terms of copyright.
Keeping in mind, this is a side issue to the current question... I think. --Pi zero (talk) 16:45, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- "Attribution will be to Wikinews" is a phrase I see. The more I think about it the more I suspect you're at-best oversimplifying the copyright situation; my best guess would be that you're outright mistaken about who holds copyright. Drawing a crisp line between copyright-holding and authorship for various wiki pages seems to me likely to be strongly needed only if there were a horrific meltdown in relations between the Foundation and the volunteers — which seems an entirely possible development, looking at the superprotect mess that I don't think the Foundation ever apologized for nor ruled out doing again. Note, sister projects I've seen generally consider request-of-sole-author a reason for speedy deletion, and the authors are in my experience universally agreed to be the stakeholders all of whose permission would be needed if one ever wanted to loosen terms of copyright.
OR files
I tried to, but could not upload all the OR material locally due to unstable internet (duh!) connection. Two audiosand notes — I grant you to release it under ND license (there is one in the drop down menu for FU upload) So add the material and have a link on the talk, might be useful to others. Also, I have opted out from Email service. You might need to change the format of audio files, perhaps.
•–• 16:10, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Even-t
Got to leave at even — that is terrible; odd seems to be the right number for me. Well, it is how it is. I started on odd, and m ending on odd, though have even articles x_X
•–• 06:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
- I do not understand. --Pi zero (talk) 13:01, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
- I see you started to write something last night (my time), which explains part of it. As for the other part I don't understand, I am still game for you to try to write, say, 300 articles in 2018. Or 301, which (if I'm understanding the other) would put you at an odd number. --Pi zero (talk) 13:21, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Hi there! TheRumbler (talk) 15:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)