User talk:Pi zero/Archive 5

Please do not edit the contents of this page. It is for historical reference only.

---

Arbitration committee elections-Election committee

Hello. How can I become a member of the election committee for the arbitration committee elections? Thank you, --Patriot8790 (talk) 05:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi! To volunteer for the election committee,

1. Add your name, as a bulleted item in section Wikinews:Arbitration Committee/2012 election#Election committee members, by entering a separate line

   *{{user|your username}}

2. I suggest you also add a note on the talk page of the election page, here, saying you're volunteering for the election committee and introducing yourself.

There should be no problem with your volunteering. The community could object to someone joining up, but I can't imagine any reason they'd object to you. :-)

The duties of the election committee should be quite light. They authenticate the election results and declare the winners, and sometimes there may be some other decision or other they need to make. The biggest other decision I've seen is how to handle a tie, which typically means declaring a run-off election. --Pi zero (talk) 12:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

All right, thank you very much! --Patriot8790 (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Related news

Hi, I'm writing about your comment when you undid my edit. I added a link to a news dated June 25 to an article dated June 30, so it was «for things that happen earlier, not later». Could you clarify where my fault was, please? --PICAWN (talk) 11:43, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

See the edit immediately after the revert. Although section Related news goes before Sources rather than after, which is what the later edit summary means by "standard sequence". --Pi zero (talk) 12:26, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I see. --PICAWN (talk) 17:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

No idea how often you might check so

Mail :) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:29, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

Pi,

Could I ask you to take a quick look at Day One of Wikimania. I'll be uploading the audio files, but I'm between events and need to run. Or if you could recommend someone else.

Thanks, Crtew (talk) 21:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Right away I see a failing in the lede. It needs to explain the news focus, and the focus's news significance, for an international audience. You can't assume an international audience knows what a Wikimania is; and the significance of even local stories is to be explained for the international audience. --Pi zero (talk) 22:10, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll say that on the article talk, so discussion can be found all in one place. --Pi zero (talk) 22:36, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Question: Article

Hi Pi zero;

You can look at the article: Exploration of The Riese Complex set to begin soon ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leoo512 (talk • contribs) 16:31, 15 July 2012‎

I often wish I could split myself several ways and review every article on the queue at once. --Pi zero (talk) 16:43, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

I appreciate the compliment! Y'know, I don't know what's up with me and IRC........of the scillions of hours I've spent on the interwebs, things chat-wise just never really bit with me......can't say why......it just always struck me as this exercise in attention-deficit-mayhem. I've been on our IRC channel .....maybe 3 times?! --Bddpaux (talk) 20:12, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

It can sometimes be an amazing time-sink. --Pi zero (talk) 20:20, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikinewsie category

Hi Pi zero, I was wondering if you could help me out here. I've just created a Wikinewsie category of my own and I was hoping you could add this category to all the published articles I created [except the ones in the box marked 'Significant contributions']. I'm sorry about how tedious and repetitive this task will probably get but I would really appreciate your help. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 23:22, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps; the task certainly lends itself to division into bite-sized chunks (month by month). Just at this moment, though, I'm too tired even to review the one article left on the queue. --Pi zero (talk) 03:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

• AWB'd the crap out of that. ;-)

Did not include Water main bursts in west Edinburgh; traffic, utilities disrupted, which jumped out at me as not appropriate to claim main author credit for. I would strongly recommend a close check of Category:Ryan Peteranna (Wikinewsie) just in case I've incorrectly added anything. The list of pages to edit was built from the above link, and nearly ended up with the category added to the main page; I spotted that mistake, but may have missed some others. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Question Were there any other articles from that list that you didn't put in the category, Brian? --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 11:07, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I might've dropped a couple of UK shorts, and there's always a small chance AWB misses stuff when you're putting through 20-odd edits per minute. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Anyways, thank you very much for your help Brian :) --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 19:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

New here; how do i change a headline of a story under dispute

I thought I'd give WikiNews some attention; I've been editing on en.wiki for about 7 years. Decided to try helping South Korea flag display Incident at Olympics. I removed one source which doesn't work anymore, and added a source from a competing newswire. I'll start working the text next, but how do I repair the headline? BusterD (talk) 15:28, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The headline is the page name. So, you simply rename the page. --Pi zero (talk) 15:33, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Is that a page move? Sorry to sound dense. Could you point to an example edit where such a rename has been correctly accomplished? I'm rewriting the text now. BusterD (talk) 15:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, page move. I'm not sure what you have in mind when you ask for an "example". --Pi zero (talk) 16:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit spoiled by robust editing tools available on en.wiki; Can you link to the WN page telling me how to move? Thanks for the help. BusterD (talk) 16:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Found it. Sorry. BusterD (talk) 16:09, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Robust editing tools? In this context, I don't recognize the referent. --Pi zero (talk) 17:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I was referring to the move tab my scripts allow me. Lots of tools available in the wikipedia editing window I don't get here yet. Do many javascript tools work in this MediaWiki environment? Turns out rename is in roughly the same place as move. Just an unfamiliar interface right now. Thanks for reviewing the page. I didn't even notice cats until you added them. I'll try editing a few others before I start writing my own. I'll try to do one or two every day for practice. BusterD (talk) 18:27, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Heh. That wasn't a review, just some preliminary copyedits. Full-blown review is a bigger deal, and a bigger task, and if the article passes it's pushed to Google News. I'm hoping to get myself up to doing that later; I need to psych myself into it.

You might try asking your question about javascript at WN:Water cooler/technical. --Pi zero (talk) 18:49, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Good catch on the attribution. Please feel free with any critique/encouragement; I'm hoping to make more contributions here. Seems like a place my efforts can help a tiny bit. BusterD (talk) 21:35, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Please can you review my article

Hi, I would preciate your opinion and help with my first article. Some ask for more sources, but it has already four coming from realiable strong media in Spain and the USAm and Poland. Thanks in advance. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Artur_Balder_awarded_with_the_International_Spanish-American_Prize_2012 --FiloActual (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm uncertain whether or not I can mount a review of it in the next few hours. We'll see.

The difficulty described by the other reviewer is, I take it, with the fact that there were sources written in languages other than English; this presents a major problem for a reviewer unless the reviewer happens to be able to read the language of the source; automatic translation alone isn't good enough for the purpose of review. This is why we have a policy that non-English sources should be avoided whenever possible; see WN:Cite sources#Considering the review process (second and third paragraphs). --Pi zero (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I like your way better

That whole "stable sacral fracture" business was cracking me up.....and I said as much when I sighted the change. --Bddpaux (talk) 18:34, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Cracking you up. Uhuh. --Pi zero (talk) 18:51, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing me

I know it's just part of the WikiNews process, but I'd like to personally thank you for reviewing my first contribution so thoroughly. It is a nice welcome to the community to witness this type of collaboration! I made the changes you requested, including some sources on the background info. One of the sources describes the process of meeting with the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the national assembly. I also made it more neutral, and clarified that Charest has won multiple consecutive elections. Jmajeremy (talk) 18:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Review

Is it okay if you review the article I wrote (and you moved)? Thanks. --Jeffwang (talk) 00:39, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

We'll see. With five articles requesting review right now, the choices are going to get ugly. --Pi zero (talk) 01:03, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Gymnastics story

Hi Pi zero,

I've fixed all the issues you've outlined. Mostly it boiled down to a typo and a source that I managed to not include in the sources list due to being very sleepy. —Tom Morris (talk) 05:34, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Very sleepy, I can relate to. --Pi zero (talk) 10:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting out the review. Very much appreciated. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:02, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for reviewing my news article! You are cool! Guptakhy (talk) 00:42, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't really expecting this article to be approved. I will work more on it and see where I can take it. I thank you for your help :D Guptakhy (talk) 01:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, try this on for size..................

She's the director of a state supported living center (formerly known in Texas as a "State School"), which, frankly is a pretty high level operational position within state civil service (for any state in the US, to be exact). However, I honestly don't want to stretch too much, nor waste my time.......personally, I think, in 2012 a person celebrating 40 years' continous service for any single governmental entity anywhere is newsworthy. Honestly, though, if that doesn't stand on its own merit, I don't want to go much farther. Y'know, I could "twist" the focus around to "State care institution's director hits 40 year mark in civil service" if that would give it a boost. Let me know what you think before I go much farther.....I've got some pretty solid interview material, yet, I didn't intend for this to be a terribly verbose piece. --Bddpaux (talk) 17:45, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• I'm afraid I'm still well-used to seeing civil servants managing 40+ years with one institution.

It has its pros and cons.

An interview with a senior civil servant, upon reaching 40 years service, would trump all objections on newsworthiness if well-done. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:47, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

As always.......

...you're right. I really gotta switch to de-caf!! --Bddpaux (talk) 22:58, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Citizens' feelings, actions throughout Texas regarding West Nile virus threat vary greatly

• I feel, particularly considering you cite earlier articles in related news (i.e. using our coverage as sources) this is an ideal candidate to lift several paragraphs from prior coverage to make this article more in-depth.

That's a common mainstream practice, and generally works well because you've zero copyvio risk, and minimal work to segue from the new material into the older stuff as depth/background. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:14, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• Meant for Bddpaux, must drink more coffee. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Figured.  :-)  'Twas on my list of things to deal with when I finish catching up on activities overnight. --Pi zero (talk) 11:06, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

?

You haven't run off and died on us, have you? When I was a kid, and my mother didn't know where I was, she'd always say, "I had you dead in a ditch in my mind!!" I've often laughed, thinking, "Dead in a ditch is probably a whole lot worse than plain old dead!" I'm not quite that pessimistic about you, though.....you're pretty resilient! --Bddpaux (talk)

Somehow, I just couldn't get my brain started today. Unable to concentrate, I couldn't very well review. So I waited until my mind was up to speed, and it didn't happen and didn't happen, and now the day is coming to a close and it still hasn't really happened. I just now thought I should at least look in and see what horrible fate has befallen the project in my absence. The rioting in the streets is less widespread than I'd feared. After this mini-wikibreak, perhaps I'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning :-). --Pi zero (talk) 00:44, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

All your hard work is appreciated. :D Tried to help out some by doing a review. Not sure how much I helped them learn Wikinews as I made several style changes, but this was easier to do than the Indian nuclear article, which would have taken a complete rewrite. :( --LauraHale (talk) 04:51, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Sweet Georgia Brown!!

Nice to see you're back at it! I went through a litle minor depression there with you in the wind! --Bddpaux (talk)

Colombian President announces peace talks with FARC rebels

Are you too involved to review this one before it goes stale? Thanks. Philafrenzy (talk) 02:00, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

There's a huge review backlog atm (9 articles, at last count). The event is from the 28th, isn't it? That's yesterday, UTC, so there's some chance as it likely won't be stale for another day or day-and-a-half. I'm struggling to achieve sufficient focus for the one "easy" review I'm now attempting, so it doesn't seem plausible I could get to the Colombia article tonight, anyway. We'll see what happens. :-S  --Pi zero (talk) 02:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Doh!

The perils of editing/reviewing at work. Sorry 'bout that. Fortunately, all it reveals is a former name for my employer, used on internally-accessible systems only. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Dates

While the news items aren't from the last few days, the event will happen this week.--Crossmr (talk) 12:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

This did not escape my notice. However, a news article is about something that is verified to have happened in the very recent past. The thing that happened in the past was presumably an announcement, which happened a long time ago, and the announcement was about something that is scheduled to happen in the future; nor would the fact that it was scheduled to happen guarantee that it will happen; see WN:SG#Reporting on future events. --Pi zero (talk) 12:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't say we can't write about future events. It only states a tense change is required. It is far more timely to write this a few days before the event rather than to have written it a month or two ago.--Crossmr (talk) 13:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't say everything there is to say about the subject. I merely provided the link as relevant information. I've already explained about timeliness; there's nothing timely about reporting that something was announced months ago, which is the actually event. Something that might happen in the future is not an event, it's a hypothesis. --Pi zero (talk) 13:26, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It strikes me as strange that genuine newspapers often write about upcoming events. The fact that a schedule event is about to happen is generally newsworthy.--Crossmr (talk) 13:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

One suspects you may not have thought through carefully quite what you mean by "genuine newspaper".

Most news publications also publish op-eds, which we do not. --Pi zero (talk) 13:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Those are two entirely different different kinds of stories. one is based on published the sources, the other is original and unsourced opinion. In fact not even remotely in the same realm. As far as freshness and timeliness goes, you have conflicting information. One gives instructions for writing about the future the other indicates it should have happened in the last day or two. That also runs contrary to common sense, some events are well served with a potential "preview". This helps frame an event to show how sources are expecting it to go, and then after there may be a report about how it actually happened. Convention would indicate that sporting seasons, especially notable ones like an anniversary year, or one in which there are changes are often reported on beforehand. I fixed the date on one source, and added a more recent one.--Crossmr (talk) 14:17, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Since nobody has suggested they were the same kind of story, it seems bizarre you'd spend time and space saying they aren't. Though "not remotely in the same realm" is overstating the case, as they have in common that neither is factual reporting of recent events.

The information you're talking about does not conflict. There are principles followed when making statements about the future, which do not pertain to the status that such statements may hold in the overall structure of an article.

From my years on Wikipedia, I'm acutely aware that the policies, guidelines, and help pages there are inhumanly vast; it isn't possible for a newcomer to read, let alone learn, all that stuff, and frankly it's neither practical nor useful for a newcomer to attempt to do so. However, Wikinews differs both on the size of our policies and guidelines, and their importance. Newcomers who don't read, at least, the style guide and content guide when they first arrive here are putting themselves at a disadvantage. There's a blog written by LauraHale after her first Wikinews publication, around here somewhere... Oh, and there's WN:For Wikipedians. --Pi zero (talk) 14:36, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

You brought it up as defence as to why you don't think upcoming events should be covered here. You made the connection. If you don't think they are connected, why bring it up? An upcoming event is factual. Is it not a fact that the Asia League is scheduled to start this weekend? That's why that kind of language is used. It's verified by a reliable source as being factual. An op-ed piece isn't even close to that, it's factual as nothing more than a personal opinion and can't be attributed to anything outside the author. Thanks for your assumptions, I actually read those guides for some time before creating it..but hey cheers on that.--Crossmr (talk) 15:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

If you think I'm making assumptions, you haven't been reading what I've said carefully enough. See WN:Never assume.

It seems you've imagined I was "defending" my review; this would make sense out of a number of things you said, which otherwise were puzzling. Rather, I have been trying to be helpful to you in learning the ropes here. --Pi zero (talk) 15:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

And you make further assumptions. Newcomers who don't read, at least, the style guide and content guide when they first arrive here are putting themselves at a disadvantage. Why say that unless you're directing it at me? I read them. Making that kind of statement implies I didn't. If one one were generally interested in helping another person they would spend time telling them what they can do, not what they can't.--Crossmr (talk) 23:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Section break

• What appears most-overlooked here, is what is new. The planned event, and the announcement of such, are not new. Is there a recently-emerged focal point to build an article around? If not, then Wikinews has no real obligation to promote, or act as a reminder service, on behalf of event organisers. --212.20.232.220 (talk) 16:09, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

• The article wasn't promotional in nature, it was informative and timely given a newsworthy even that is scheduled to happen. It provided context, information about major changes in the upcoming season, and things of that nature.--Crossmr (talk) 23:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Accumulated evidence now strongly suggests you need to read more carefully and thoughtfully the comments made to you by experienced Wikinewsies. --Pi zero (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I see an IP with no suggestion they're remotely more experienced than me, and you. That makes 1. And I've yet to see any genuine engagement from you directed towards helping me beyond standard tossing out of policy pages and acronyms. You could have spent an equal amount of time telling me how/when I could make this particular story work rather than simply sitting here going "it doesn't work here are some policy pages"--Crossmr (talk) 08:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────┘
Never assume. It just so happens I was the IP editor. What I wrote, and how I wrote it is a clear demonstration of knowledge of policy, so IP-or-not it's clearly from someone intimately familiar with the project.

You've poured more effort into arguing over the newsworthiness, or otherwise, of your submission than into making it comply with the style guide. Your latest source, which we — regrettably — don't have anyone I know of who can fact-check against, is now itself heading for {{stale}}.

The biggest disconnect between here and The Other Place (Wikipedia) is overly-long debates, such as the above. An encyclopedia has that luxury, a news source does not. People who successfully transition don't take a failing review personally, because it is not meant as such. This is why the language is "not ready" and a list of actionable points are placed on the article.

So, I'll ask the question again: What, in the submission, is new? That needs to be the up-front point in the lede; and, if you need to rely on non-English sources, you'll need to do some translation work over-and-above what Google translate manages on the talk page to reassure any reviewer regarding content relied upon from the non-English source(s). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

@ Brian McNeil, yes, that is the failing reviews thing is important. On the other place, many editors are not working with the same clear objective in mind. It makes working together difficult. Once people understand the objective of Wikinews, read the style guide, understand that writing and reviewing is a co-equal relationship where everyone is working towards the same goal of getting things published, it becomes much easier. First articles rarely seem to pass but sticking around and making the effort is well worth it for the opportunities it affords. (Look at me: I've got press credentials to the Paralympics on the strength of my wikipedia and wikinews work. I'm being ASKED to interview people these days.) --LauraHale (talk) 15:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Well you know, it's been an assumption party here. I've had all kinds of assumptions made about what I've done or not done, but I don't see anyone lining up to tell Pi_zero that..but of course I'm the new editor so I should expect that kind of treatment. That's something that doesn't really change between any wiki. "New" is relative and the "newness" of this story relates to an approaching date. That's what's "new". As I said, it would have made no sense to write about this in July or August or any other time. Regardless of when the sources themselves were created. As for being stale, as the event still hasn't come to pass, it's relevance really hasn't changed at all. As I said, some events are newsworthy enough to be served by coverage before they happen. It's done all over the world all over the time by pretty much any news organization I can think of and all the information can be taken from reliable sources.--Crossmr (talk) 12:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Crossmr, I really hate to give up on people, it's painful to me, but I've developed a test, from bitter experience. When someone is arguing with me, and simply listing all the falsehoods in their comments would be essentially a verbose reiteration of their comments, I force myself to walk away. I'd never make it in politics doing that, because a politician can't simply ignore bullshit spewed by their opponent.

Your comments are now passing the test, and I'm walking away from this. It should never have been brought to my talk page in the first place; it belongs on the article collaboration page, and always did. --Pi zero (talk) 13:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

• Nobody, and I repeat that, nobody is attempting to mistreat you, as you seem to imply; nor looking at anything you've done, or not done, beyond the article you submitted for review.

It doesn't meet the style guide's minimum content criteria, it doesn't lead with what is new; and, I can readily tell that.

How/Why? The last two sources added — those which are most-recent, and most-likely to make the article meet the project's newsworthiness criteria — you took absolutely nothing from; not a single fact.

Taking the opportunity to comment on what you have done: You've abandoned the article, and taken to talk-page debating. Doesn't work here, there simply isn't the time for it. There are clear attempts to impart useful information to you above, and to reassure that the project's policies and guidelines are far, far less-daunting and byzantine than those In The Other Place.

It would seem the Wikinews for Wikipedians essay needs to, succinctly, highlight that this isn't the same never-ending talking shop as over there.-Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:55, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually they contained some of the same facts from earlier sources, don't make assumptions right? I provided them because they contained some of the same information as earlier, but were published much more recently, since one of the problems was the sources were from July. See that was me trying to address a raised concern. When I wrote it I took the most convenient source, but he raised concerns about the age, so I found more recent ones containing some of the same info. But apparently that's a problem. I'm not remotely surprised.

As far as being mistreated, I can see two clear spots above where Pi_zero makes an assumption about what he thinks I did or didn't do. When I put the question of one to him, he just ignored it. After you join the discussion he just becomes flat-out insulting. When I point out that I find his discourse to be equally filled with "bullshit" as he so eloquently put it, he calls me a troll, but then again as I said, as the new new user one expects that kind of treatment from entrenched users. I've seen it far too many times on far too many wikis.--Crossmr (talk) 23:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

• Since Brianmc posted his remark here and I let him have his say on the matter, I'm leaving Crossmr's reply to it. But this thread is now closed, and additions to it hereafter will be reverted. --Pi zero (talk) 23:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Date pages, categories

• Now we've got DALEK, this is a job for it to be doing.

Can you give me a quick note of what you create? And, how far ahead you usually run? I could do the job daily, weekly or monthly.

It's a pretty trivial piece of work, as far as I can tell. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 05:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

We'll want to make sure we're doing it right, when automating it. The technical solution I cobbled together at the beginning of January had at least one flaw, which I finally fixed a month or two ago; I'll have to review what I did and see what else might need fixing. And, the current solution is designed specifically to make it easier to do manually. But yeah, with a bit of Proper Prior Planning, it should be fairly trivial. --Pi zero (talk) 05:28, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• Main reason for wishing to automate is I see other language folks coming over and adding interwiki links. They'll then perhaps come back a week after a date is passed and remove the interwiki where they'd zero articles for that day.

It's all a bit haphazard, and cries out for automation. I think I should usurp CalendarBot, and we give very careful thought to giving it admin to allow full-protection of relevant pages. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 07:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

On the Campaign trail

Saw you were missing some scoop emails, pretty sure I've got them - give me a shout if you need them forwarded. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:33, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Suspect I've got 'em too; William left a note they'd been sent shortly after I left my note and suspended the review; I just couldn't recommence at that time. First thing this morning I have to drive someone in for a surgical procedure, then hopefully I can get the review started again around midmorning local (maybe 1300 or 1400 UTC). --Pi zero (talk) 10:28, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Cat image

I'd like to swap out the image at the {{Topic cat}} template for Category:Sandra Fluke with this one, File:2012 May 8 Sandra Fluke and friend cropped to collar.jpg, but it looks too large, is there a way to add an image size parameter of some sort, and reduce it probably to 150 or so? -- Cirt (talk) 06:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hm. The width of the image is currently hardwired into the template (250px). Not sure how the image size may interact with the layout of the other material in the side-bar (sister links, especially). --Pi zero (talk) 13:17, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, no worries, keep me posted if you figure out the best way to do it. -- Cirt (talk) 17:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Care to have a look

• ABC News yanks 20/20 investigation of Tom Cruise and Scientology

Care to have a look at this new article? Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Out and about and away

My flight leaves tonight local London time around 9pm. I will be checking out of the hotel around 8am local time. I likely won't be available for 48+ hours (36 hours to get back to Canberra once airborne I thin. Track QF2 tonight!) so not sure what to do about articles submitted and potential problems. Need transcription assistance on those ones with the Pacific Island nations listed on Brian's talk page. --LauraHale (talk) 06:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Title of link

Regarding diff, really they're not sections, but different articles just located on the same page. That's why I had named it that way. -- Cirt (talk) 18:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I conjectured that for a while, but the earlier heading is much larger and is in fact the title of the page. Moreover, in addition to the matter of disclosure, I even used the earlier material when verifying a minor point in the article. --Pi zero (talk) 18:25, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay sounds good, no worries! :) -- Cirt (talk) 18:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Re: Leads

Oh of course, no worries whatsoever, I'd love to go to Leeds again someday. -- Cirt (talk) 18:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Review needed

Tony Abbott competes in Wagga Wagga fun run is now over a day, in fact it's closing on two days, waiting for a review and will be stale soon, making it rather pointless for me to have wasted my time writing this. Bidgee (talk) 21:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The article claims to be OR, which often does not go stale as fast as synthesis, depending on the nature of the OR.

Articles going stale does sometimes happen; it's happened at some point to all long-time Wikinewsies, including me.

Review is a massive, difficult job, this is a volunteer project, and I am one of the volunteers.

A successful Wikinewsie reporter treats reviewers as allies. --Pi zero (talk) 22:29, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Unwell

I'm feeling quite ill; prospects for review are poor. --Pi zero (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Just saw this, hope you feel better! Have some tea, on me. :P -- Cirt (talk) 03:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much

• ABC News yanks 20/20 investigation of Tom Cruise and Scientology

Thank you for making this article Lead 1 !!! It'll be most interesting to see what further developments play out from all this -- specifically whether ABC News decides ever to air this investigative journalism piece they worked so hard to produce, twice, and then "postpone", indefinitely, so far, without much explanation as to why. Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 03:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

FYI

Please see here, would appreciate your input regarding another user altering a suggested link in an article, 5 days post publish. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 03:53, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Reply

Good question, I could've sworn I saw it, but I guess I was mistaken. I suppose we should append a correction, and question the writer where they got that from? I'll do the latter, if you wish to do the former? -- Cirt (talk) 23:00, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, it's been less than 24 hours, could we just remove that sentence from the article? -- Cirt (talk) 23:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, and Done. I left a note for the user, but nothing yet. -- Cirt (talk) 00:45, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Update: No response from user. I'll be sure to be much more careful next time when/if reviewing articles by this user. If it happens again, we'll have to have a discussion about ramifications for the user and the user's articles in the future. -- Cirt (talk) 20:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

• This user is a "single issue" contributor, in that they want to write news on these anti-nuclear protests in India. Nothing wrong with that as-such, but there's obviously a mild POV bias to take into account. That could-well include them using data points which we'd dismiss as hearsay.

In any case, attendee figures for protests are always contentious. You'll have local law enforcement saying 5,000, those organizing the protest saying 50,000, and local press varying between 15,000 and 35,000. Law enforcement tends to underestimate – unless things go pear-shaped and bigging up the attendees gets them off-the-hook for failing to manage the protest. Protest organisers almost always big-up the figures to make their cause look more important – except for opposite reasoning to law enforcement. And, local on-the-scene press people frequently couldn't count the eggs in a 3x4 box. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:20, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree with your analysis regarding the various factions' assessments of protests. -- Cirt (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, no worries, -- Cirt (talk) 18:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Review request

Hi Pi zero, could you please review my latest article as soon as you get the chance? I'd appreciate your help. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 15:58, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

lede

• I saw a number of edits by you using the spelling "lede" for what (I assume) is "lead." Is this a typo or an accepted spelling?
• Actually, just checked wiktionary:lede#Noun_2 and it does seem to be correct, but using journalistic jargon could be confusing for general users/wikians, do you think it should be changed to the more common spelling? Especially since Wiktionary says that it is specific to just editorial rooms, not a common experience for the average wikian.

Nicole21532 (talk) 20:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

It's "lede". Wikinews is an editorial room (in the relevant sense). --Pi zero (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

lol; it'll still take some getting used to for me at least, my internal spellchecker keeps jumping whenever I read it :-/ Nicole21532 (talk) 20:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, my spellchecker doesn't like it either. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 20:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Exclusive: No-bid contract for security review of IRS facilities mismanaged

I replied to your comment. How do I submit email or audio interviews? Is there an OTRS system? Any suggestion on how to maintain peudoanonymity while attempting to contact real world individuals? Is a pen name acceptable?? - Stillwaterising (talk) 16:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's see.

• There is an email address for original reporter's to submit stuff electronically, for receipt by potential reviewers of OR. It's colloquially referred to as "scoop"; the address is scoop at wikinewsie dot org. We don't use OTRS for this purpose (not that I've ever heard of, certainly).
• We depend for much, including OR, partly on the individual's earned reputation on the project (see WN:Never assume); some aspects of reputation are sometimes judged on factors other than record here, such as repute on other sister projects or even being vouched for by an established Wikinewsie, though of course there are limits to how much we can learn in those ways since Wikinews has its own unique character.
• Pseudo-anonymity while attempting to contact real-world individuals seems an interesting challenge. It is, of course, always possible to create a pseudonymous free email account (gmail, for instance), but you're less likely to be taken seriously that way. Indeed, being taken seriously in email contacts was one of the reasons for the establishment of wikinewsie-dot-org, since the wmf wouldn't give Wikinewsies personal email accounts in the wikinews-dot-org domain: accredited reporters have wikinewsie-dot-org email accounts for use in contacts. Accreditation is an elevated privilege like admin or reviewer, and in any case there's some loss of anonymity associated with it. I suggest you ask this question at the water cooler.

--Pi zero (talk) 17:27, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you so much for your help, you're a star! :) --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 22:09, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Review

Hi, Please could you review my independence referendum article and also my presidential debate article when you get the chance?

Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 77.97.204.100 (talk • contribs) 13:39, 17 October 2012‎

I've not lost track of them. :-)  Given that one, two, maybe three full reviews is all I can generally manage in a day (with the duration and intensity of labor involved), deciding which article to review next can be an uncomfortable choice. --Pi zero (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CalF (talk • contribs) 15:09, 17 October 2012‎

I've left a note at User talk:CalF#Cameron, Salmond sign deal for referendum on Scottish independence. --Pi zero (talk) 19:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about changing the status of the article. I was trying to restore the last paragraph with a source and seem to have accidentally changed the source.

I'm on it. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for all your help:)

Hi, sorry to keep bombarding you ! I noticed your comment on my presidential debate article. Firstly, how do you change a headline? Also, how should I change the source templates?

Thank you:)

I couldn't work out how to change the headline so I've just created a new article.

Hm. It occurs to me your account may be less than 4 days old, in which case it isn't autoconfirmed yet, and you don't have the ability to rename an article. In that case, one way to do it would have been to ask someone to please move it to such-and-such name for you. :-)  Wish I'd thought of autoconfirm before; I'd have offered to move it for you. (Oh well.) --Pi zero (talk) 21:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you anyway!

Check this out

• Exclusive: 'The Scientology Reformation' author examines Tom Cruise and David Miscavige
  • The Background sect is pretty easy to check out, facts aren't in dispute and are noted in the Sources. The rest is either the sole opinion of the interviewee, or if there's some info in the questions or bracketed notes, it's noted on the talk page in detail.

Care to take a look and perhaps review? :)

Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll need a couple of hours or so to catch my breath and eat supper. And then I hope to be all over it; looks very cool. --Pi zero (talk) 20:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Okay, and thanks very much for the kind words! :) -- Cirt (talk) 22:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

FYI, just dropped you a quickie short email. -- Cirt (talk) 23:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Replied on my talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 02:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I'm sure you'll do your best, FWIW the source check stuff should be the easiest part, thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 02:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

You're right

I responded on the talk page, section Disclaimer, your explanation is sound, I'm sorry about the mixup. Please proceed with the review and once again, my apologies for stepping over an edit of yours, it was unintentional. Thanks again very much for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 01:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

:-)  --Pi zero (talk) 01:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Heh, you're sweet, thanks, I'll do my best so that edit-conflict won't happen again in the future. :) -- Cirt (talk) 01:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much

• Exclusive: 'The Scientology Reformation' author examines Tom Cruise and David Miscavige

Thanks for making it Lead Article 1, that was an unexpected pleasant surprise! And thanks again for the review, -- Cirt (talk) 08:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Change Headline

Hi, Could you please change the headline of my article to 'Car bomb hits centre of Beirut' -- CalF (talk)

Done (sorry it took so long). You should be autoconfirmed later today (UTC), at which point you'll be able to perform page moves yourself. --Pi zero (talk) 04:40, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

That's great, thanks:) If you get a chance, could you review this article- http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/How_did_Gaddafi_die%3F. I forgot to sign in before writing it but I wrote it:)-- CalF (talk)

Hi, I have made some significant changes to the Gaddafi article. I have changed the tone and also added new information about the death of Gaddafi's son and the apparent capture of Moussa Ibrahim. If you get a chance, could you take a look at it again as I have put a lot of work into both writing it and making changes to it( I must have spent approx 3-4 hours on it by now)and I would like to see it get published. CalF (talk)

Thanks for reviewing it again, I really appreciate the work you have done reviewing the article. I read your comment about the various sections of the story not coming together properly. I have made some changes to the lede and I will change the headline to prioritise the new information. CalF (talk)

Hi, if you get a chance, could you re-review my presidential debate and also review my Gaza article before they go stale? CalF (talk)16:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Bremer Freimarkt, oldest fair in Germany, reaches its climax

Thanks a lot for your work ! --House1630 (talk) 15:34, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a fun article. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 19:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Flickr pictures

Hi, I was looking for up to date pictures to put into the hurricane Sandy article and I came across previous articles with pictures from Flickr. Are pictures from Flickr allowed to be used and if so, are they just inserted in the same way as photos from wikimedia commons? --CalF (talk) 22:16, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

If a picture on Flickr is under the right sort of license –and if the person putting it on Flickr actually has the right to release it under that license— it can be uploaded to Commons, and then used here.

If a Flickr image can't be uploaded to Commons, but it isn't from a competing news organization, it may be possible to upload it to en.wn as fair-use; see WN:Fair use. --Pi zero (talk) 22:44, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

My First Article

Hi thanks for reviewing my article. I am a new writer and my degree is also in writing. Your words really made me happy and I really do not want my first article to be deleted at any cost. I will try again.

I think what you are referring with WN:NPOV is not to mention anyone's name. Which I can fix right away. Then headline and some stylistic problem which I guess you can help me fix. But I do not agree with your comments related to "newsworthy". I do not know how many time you deleted their site, it could be because they are only 2 years old. That also tells me, they are doing it second year in a row which I believe was possible because they have good insights in the world matters. I was impressed with their Press Release and that inspired me to write this article. Check out their Facebook Fan page, got almost 6000 fans, surely all those people cannot be wrong.

Also with due respect I did not like your comment about "prestigious". I am a new writer and I believe in open writing and that is why I am in Wikinews. I think someone from Time Magazine can very easily say this to Wikinews. Thus, I request if you could help me advice what is that you will require to make it newsworthy? Can you please help this new and young writer in her first ever article? I do not want that to be deleted and I really want to support this great initiative of positive countries. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by KateAubourg (talk • contribs) 04:19, 4 November 2012‎

I have submitted it again for your kind consideration. If you still think it is not newsworthy, please feel free to work on it and I will really appreciate your time.

Oh by the way I also, just realized that they are actually having a presentation ceremony on 25 November 2012. That is also a clear sign that they are happy to face questions if anyone has any doubt. Hope this also helps. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by KateAubourg (talk • contribs) 05:03, 4 November 2012‎

thanks for reviewing

Hello, Pi zero! Good to see you again. I hope you've been doing well?

Thanks for editing and approving Puerto Rican voters support US statehood. As you may have noticed, it's been roughly one year since I was an active Wikinewsie, so it's taken a while for me to recall the site's policies and style guidelines. I appreciate the help! Ragettho (talk) 14:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey there. :-)

(Well, my father died in April, which I'm not getting over any time soon. But exciting things have been going on at Wikinews; see Category:2012 Summer Paralympics.)

I'm trying to think what changes in best-practice might have occurred since you were last a regular here. There's WN:SG#Sister links section. But I'm so immersed in day-to-day here, I'm afraid most such changes are likely invisible to me. --Pi zero (talk) 14:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, another specific development occurs to me... though it's not actually a change in best practice, just an articulation of what's been best practice on Wikinews for much longer than I've been here. With the, er, AGF crowd leaving Wikinews in peace (they got to try their way and left us to pursue ours), we finally got around to drafting WN:Never assume. --Pi zero (talk) 14:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear about your father, but I am glad to see that Wikinews still manages to publish exciting content. As for major changes, I've already noticed WN:PeP, and I was pleased to see that I was within the 12-month expiration period!

As for AGF, I find that to be quite an interesting development. Right now I'm planning to write a public policy thesis on the Wikipedia community, and over time I've become more aware of the cultural differences between the two websites. Ragettho (talk) 15:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I've long felt AGF has done and continues to do terrible damage to the Wikipedia community, a slow potent toxin. I encounter Wikipedians here who agree (a very non-random sample, obviously). Of course, WN:Never assume is customized to Wikinews, and changing something like that on an established project (let along a huge established project) is far more difficult than devising an alternative. I figure the best thing I can do to help Wikipedia is to continue the work we're doing (off-wiki) to develop tools and techniques that will eventually benefit all the sisters, including Wikipedia.

PeP has a fast-track provision for restoration, you'll notice. --Pi zero (talk) 15:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Off the campaign trail...

I cannot thank you enough for the hours/days/weeks you put into reviewing the "On the campaign trail..." articles. I full-heartily appreciate everything you've done, and I hope to pay back that somehow by making my full return to reviewing in December. In the meantime, I'd like your opinion on a matter for future reference: in your view, which month's "On the campaign trail..." articles were the most interesting/informative and/or encapsulated the events of the month most effectively? --William S. Saturn (talk) 07:51, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if you saw this, but in case you did, I'm still awaiting your response. Thank you.--William S. Saturn (talk) 06:24, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I did see it, and have thought of it from time to time, always when there's other stuff going on. :-S Like right now, with a hot OR article burning up the queue. Maybe I'll get a chance to give it some thought later today. It's an interesting question, and surely deserves some careful thought. --Pi zero (talk) 12:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

re Category:World

I think it should be used liberally, especially on topics that apply to the entire planet and global issues. -- Cirt (talk) 05:33, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Whereas I, though I've never been quite able to formulate a precise criterion for it, have always felt it should be applied quite conservatively to topics that apply explicitly to the entire world. The reason I've never attempted to codify this is that it's really quite difficult to define, so difficult that I've always suspected perhaps it really can't be well-defined and should be replaced by one or more ctegories with different names that are more objectively definable — though I've never successfully worked out what those should be.

This is in the intersection of two kinds of categories I really disapprove of:

1. those whose inclusion criteria are highly subjective, which causes problems both for populating the category and for using it (if you don't know what it means for one thing to be in it while another isn't, why would you care what's in it and what isn't?); and
2. those for which there is no keyword that's likely to be linked via {{w}} in most-to-all relevant articles, which could then be made a redirect to the category so that {{w}} would become a reliable aid to populating the category.

Note that the only articles that don't in some sense or other matter to the whole world are those in Category:Local only, which is already a category that's unevenly applied and suffers from both of the above problems.

I do find interesting and thought-provoking the list of subcategories of Category:World:  Category:ICANN, Category:Interpol, and Category:World War I. It seems like this is almost a clue to something.

If I were looking to justify deleting the category, I'd say that in any DPL, one could just say "not Category:Local only". Only, I've always hoped to figure out something more constructive to do with it. I don't feel good about just 'applying it liberally', though; I'd like to find a solution that at least makes it more objectively clear where it applies. --Pi zero (talk) 12:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It does more good and causes zero harm to keep the category. It can be used for example in all articles talking about the United Nations, food shortages worldwide, global warming, etc. -- Cirt (talk) 18:14, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Plausible. Perhaps we should rename it to something that makes that function more manifest. Hm. --Pi zero (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I really like the current name scheme and usage guidelines, anything that impacts the entire world in some way. :) -- Cirt (talk) 18:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Everything except Category:Local only affects the entire world in some way. If one really takes that at face value, it would make Category:World semantically void. Trouble is, if one tries to set a threshold for simply "how global" the effects have to be, I fear it will be impossible to define the threshold in a way that can be applied consistently.

We need an inclusion criterion that can be applied consistently; the judgement for any given article should be reproducible. For example, I disagree with all three most recent articles added to Category:World (most spectacularly the helicopter crash, but I don't agree with any of the three). So clearly the bounds need to be clearer. --Pi zero (talk) 19:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well of course I respect your opinion highly and I'm so glad that we can disagree and yet have such a polite dialog about it, I really appreciate that aspect about you!!! -- Cirt (talk) 20:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If only US politics were like this. :-)

It helps that we agree on strategy; we're merely disagreeing on a tactical detail.

What's wanted here is solution that fulfills both our tactical objectives. I've had the puzzle of Category:World in the back of my mind for some time; high time I gave it some closer thought. --Pi zero (talk) 20:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Wales is considering a "stable" version --- missing image

Hello, I noticed that you marked the missing image in the article Wikipedia's Wales is considering a "stable" version. The image should be here: Image:Jimmy_Wales_2.jpg according to the log: [1]. Unfortunately it seems that I cannot edit the article. --Pabouk (talk) 11:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I see. The image was a redlink, because it doesn't exist under that name; but the reason for deletion was that it was a duplicate of something under another name. So I can just link it to the other name instead. Will fix. Thanks for pointing this out. --Pi zero (talk) 11:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

mixed martial arts event articles

there is currently a considerable amount of debate going on on wikipedia about mma event articles. Part of the debate centers around wikipedia not being a newspaper. I felt that one solution would be to move upcoming articles to wikinews. Do you feel this an appropriate use of wikinews? Obviously the articles would need improvement, one example of an article that has reached "good article" standards on wikipedia would be w:UFC 94. Kevlar (talk) 20:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi!

We may be able to publish something related to this, but what we published would not be the same as a Wikipedia article — news articles are different from encyclopedic articles.

Here are some basic features of a Wikinews article that may help you judge what could be appropriate for Wikinews. Then, if you feel there is some content that may be suitable, feel free to ask questions and I'll try to give you (general) advice on how to proceed; and of course I can do review work on submitted articles (provided I remain uninvolved with the articles, as we do not allow self-publication).

• A Wikinews article starts with a news event. That's something specific and relevant that just happened. Note, it is something that has (just) happened, not something that hasn't happened yet. Although an announcement of something upcoming is sometimes news (the announcement would be the news event, requiring it to have just happened), the announcement would have to be newsworthy; we wouldn't just echo a schedule. It can sometimes matter a great deal how well the significance of an event is explained: there may be significance in an event waiting to be brought out into the open, but an article that fails to do so may lack newsworthiness.
• A synthesis article —if that's the kind of article being proposed— has to be based on two or more mutually independent trust-worthy sources. Every fact in the article has to be verifiable from the cited sources (the reviewer has to check this, rigorously), except really obvious stuff like "Paris is in France". The focal news event itself has to be corroborated by at least two mutually independent sources. There are many reasons for requiring multiple sources, but one of them is to provide a sort of sanity check on newsworthiness.
• The article itself starts with a lede, which summarizes the focal news event by succinctly answering as many as reasonably possible of the basic questions about it. By the time the reader has read the headline and the lede, they should understand what the focal event is and what's significant about it (why it's newsworthy).

So the questions we need to work out are, what would be the news event here, what the sources, and why would it be newsworthy? --Pi zero (talk) 21:34, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

i think i really misunderstood the scope of wikinews. i think it might be best if what i've created today was deleted and i take a fresh look at how to represent news that relates to mixed martial arts on wikinews in the future.Kevlar (talk) 22:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

No problem. :-)  One does want to be sure of one's plan when approaching Wikinews; once the news cycle starts, one wants the advance planning already out of the way. --Pi zero (talk) 22:57, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Sources for News Article About Rocket Attacks Into Israel

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=291678 http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=291859

Mock up for side bar profile...

Template:Damien Thomlinson is a mock up of a potential format for a sidebar template. I might like some option to align it left... but that's the general idea: Some very basic information, no more than say 50 to 100 words to briefly describe the person. It could then be used on an article like Gliders defeat USA in 2012 Paralympic semifinals, providing more indepth, non-news background information to a news article. Any thoughts on this? Idea on how to improve? My thinking is once this is done, we can establish these in advance for events like the Paralympics or sporting events or political events where a series of articles will be done. They can then be selectively inserted. Once passing review, they are then locked. (Because updating the profile would change the newsworthiness.) I'm thinking of doing about 10 of them in advance of Colorado if this works. --LauraHale (talk) 11:52, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm feeling wary about this; I'll have to think about it carefully (looking at the review queue, I wonder when). I get that this is because some of the players may not be notable enough to have and retain Wikipedia pages. But we've always gone to a lot of trouble to avoid accidentally poaching on our sister Wikipedia's territory, just as they oughtn't poach on ours.

I'd really like to get brianmc's thoughts; I'll leave a note on his talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 13:25, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

With a little more time to think about it, and brian's comments, let me suggest an alternative for consideration.

We compose material to be used as background in the text of an article, likely way down toward the bottom of the inverted pyramid. Then we pre-review it. And keep it on file for rapid deployment. Is that workable? --Pi zero (talk) 17:51, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with some other option like having pre-approved text. I basically clobbered together and shortened material from an article I wrote on Wikipedia for that background and pulled, formatted the sources from that. I could almost present it as an article in advance, with "Going to PC Nor-Am Cup and competing in a few days are name names names" and write an article like that with background information on that. A lot of newspapers do material like that for sports, where they introduce players before the start of competition as a way of introducing players to the public. This text can then be re-used. It just would have to be recognised that the newsworthiness is them competing in the future, and the sources about them are going to be dated beyond the OR with who will be there. This material from that article could then be re-used. --LauraHale (talk) 19:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me. I think we definitely need to do something to introduce the names we are going to be featuring as most of our audience will not have heard of them. -- CalF (talk) 19:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for help

tell me how to write a company article? Tnntvn (talk) 19:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

For a description of a thing, such as a company, you probably want Wikipedia rather than Wikinews. Be careful that the company is notable, as defined by the Wikipedia community. Wikinews is for articles about news events — specific, relevant things that have happened within the past day or two. --Pi zero (talk) 20:02, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Pretty easy one

• Sandra Fluke nominated by Time magazine for Person of the Year award

Care to review the new article I've created, at Sandra Fluke nominated by Time magazine for Person of the Year award? Most of it's pretty straightforward because the background info was from previously-reviewed-article that was reviewed by Brian (talk · contribs), as noted on the talk page.

Hope you're doing well, -- Cirt (talk) 03:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd love to, tbh. It'd have to wait for tomorrow morning, though. (I've got a head cold, today; a good night's sleep seems like a good idea.) --Pi zero (talk) 03:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Just getting over a head cold myself, I hope I didn't give it to you! Yeah, no worries, if someone else doesn't get to it by then, it'd be most appreciated! Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 03:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much, good review comments as well! -- Cirt (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Follow-up piece

• Sandra Fluke keynote speaker at women's health event in Nebraska

Here's a follow-up piece to above, also pretty easy as incorporates Background material from previously reviewed article as noted above, article pending review is at "Sandra Fluke keynote speaker at women's health event in Nebraska", care to have a look? :) -- Cirt (talk) 22:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Looking now. As for reviewing, well, I'm about to eat supper. --Pi zero (talk) 22:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay sure, enjoy, hope it's tasty! :) -- Cirt (talk) 22:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to step over you there, did some minor copyedits (avoiding redirects), and now I'm gonna take a break offline for a while myself and visit some family. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

No stepping-over involved. I made a little copyedit, 'cause I'd seen it, is all. I was aware you were doing stuff too, and was hoping I hadn't accidentally stepped on your toes. When I start reviewing in earnest, I'll put up an {{under review}} banner. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 22:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I had drawn for Background on not just the most recent article, probably best to have at least the latest three or four listed in Related news section. :) -- Cirt (talk) 01:42, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Easy enough: I'll pull 'em all back, then keep track of which ones I draw on during review, and if I remember I can snip off the unused ones at the end. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure that sounds perfect, thank you very much! -- Cirt (talk) 02:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

See my talk —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:04, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Sandy Hook

Ready for review.

Help needed to transcribe

Thanks for your help with publishing past articles. I'm having issues transcribing Wikinews interviews Chilean Paralympic skier Jorge Migueles due to the accent/language barrier. Bidgee (talk) 22:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there much more to the interview than what you've more-or-less transcribed so far? Since I imagine I'd end up reviewing it, I oughtn't do the transcription (the reviewer should be checking someone else's work, so there's been more than one person on it), but if the incomplete spots were sufficiently small in total... well, as I say, how much are you missing? I'm not sure anyone else is available; will give it some thought. --Pi zero (talk) 04:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, frankly....honestly............

....I did very little to prepare for the interview short of twiddling around with my iPhone to make sure I knew how to record audio properly! I was then (and am still) at odds trying to determine if I'm going to do an "interview" article or a "group demonstrating" article........I'm still mulling that over at the moment. I passed them, went to the office for about an hour, then had to drive back by them again, and though, "Meh, what the heck.....looks like fodder for an article!" If I were worth an ounce of salt, I'd have taken a few photos! --Bddpaux (talk) 18:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC) Pi zero (talk)

The technical stuff all has to be ironed out too, yeah. This journalism stuff is challenging!

You may be interested to note what brianmc said to me in reply to a query on xyr talk page — looks like xe forgot to log in, but there's no mistaking the style. :-)

User talk:Brian McNeil#Advice on reviewing OR?

--Pi zero (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Listen to this!

I love my classmates, they're da best. You should meet them all, you will love them. There is Nour Hamze, which is SO nice and pretty, she will do everything 4U. Ali, my best #1 friend and Yehia, my best friends. I also have a friend named Joweria who is also very pretty. And Justin, the Annoying one (not 2 me). Abdullahi, the class clown. Muon, Ahmed and Gabriel, also funny. I have a nice friend named Darea who is pretty. The One Direction Minecrafters, Adna, Nimo, Shaniah and Nyahon, those 4 girls are very nice. Nour Elzammer is very nice too, and so as Alyaa. And last but not Least, Kailey, who I do plays with about Harry Potter every day. Have fun editing and creating pages.

174.115.215.150 (talk)

P.S., do U like Mario, Harry Potter and Big Nate Comix?

privs

Busy elsewhere? We understand, but this is a notice of privilege expiry!

Note! Your privileges on English Wikinews have been reduced.

Under the Privilege expiry policy (enacted October 13, 2012) the rights held by your user account have been reduced due to inactivity, or lack of privilege use. You can view your user rights log here.

Point 4 of the Privilege expiry policy provides for fast-tracking reacquisition of privileges. We all understand that real-life commitments can severely curtail the level of commitment you can give to Wikinews; the privilege reduction is in no way intended as a reflection on your past work, or to imply you are unwelcome. The aim in curtailing privileges is to address security risks, and concern that a long period of inactivity means you may not be up-to-date with current policy and practices.

--Pi zero (talk) 23:40, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not a security risk. If my account is compromised, that would be wikimedia-wide. I do not see a risk of any kind stemming from my account. A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

As noted by another user on your user talk page, it isn't just a matter of security. --Pi zero (talk) 13:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Your recent article review

Text was not verified on the whole, but via discussion on IRC with the article writer. I had no reason to believe the interview text needed verifying beyond cursory checks - I apologise in advance if this was against policy - I don't believe there is any reason to doubt the accuracy of the information reported, however.

The lead reads fine to me - it is what I would expect to read at the start of an interview article. We discussed it prior to the review. It flows nicely, and provides necessary background information on the interview, which is introduced in the title of the article. The structure could be altered to have the second paragraph before the introductory background information, but it makes little difference to the flow of the article. Your definition of "proper" lead is entirely subjective. --Skenmy ^talk 14:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

We're a lot stronger on OR notes than we used to be. There should have been something to check against, and we make a big thing in modern times about having a "paper trail". If the interview was by email, the interviewer should forward the email to scoop for the reviewer to use for both authentication (I agree, not exactly a big thing in this case) and verification (which realistically matters completely regardless of the bona fides of the reporter).

The word "proper" is, of course, just a convenient term, to contain a two-to-three-line sentence I've written an appalling number of times in reviews and on user talk pages (hundreds anyway, I suspect over a thousand). But we put a lot of emphasis on identifying the focal news event and its significance first. This article could have been made stronger by not burying the lede; more generally, although I've seen interviews in the archives that work beautifully with the 'we interviewed them' at the end of the first paragraph instead of the beginning, I doubt there's any article postponing the we-interviewed past the first paragraph that couldn't have been made much stronger by moving it up into the first paragraph. --Pi zero (talk) 14:58, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Online Weather

hi. im here to suggest if you want put the online weather of cities (even you want) around the world (like this) and put on in Portal:Weather and somewhere you like, i can do it with robot (hourly update) and is very useful. thanks.--Mahdiz (talk) 18:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

thank you for your answer!!!!??!!--Mahdiz (talk) 19:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

(sigh) Sorry. I'm being pulled in several directions at once, lately.

This question would probably be best placed on the proposals water cooler. --Pi zero (talk) 19:22, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

ok. i done it. thanks Mahdiz (talk) 16:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Thankyou

Thankyou for editing the interviews of Winter Paralympians. It is much appreciated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. They make an interesting set. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 13:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

What happened to "Judge disqualified from predatory lending case involving former clients"?

I see where you changed the all caps style to lower case, sentence style. I apologize for not understanding that that style was used in Wikinews as well as Wikipedia. However, now I'm getting "a page that was previously deleted." Is this just a timing problem? Or ... ??? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 03:39, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh. Heh. After the first renaming for downstyle case, I renamed a second time to add "California" at the front (being more specific, telling international readers where in the world this happened). I'm now trying to clean up a few stylistic points before (alas) turning in for the night. --Pi zero (talk) 03:49, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I found it. Please excuse my impatience. DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Crowdsourcing research and investigative journalism on crony capitalism

What would you suggest I do to try to develop the idea of crowdsourcing research and investigative journalism on crony capitalism?

I believe the US (and the world) needs a platform that will support crowdsourcing research tying the large amounts of money spent on lobbying and campaign finance to the benefits received by the crony capitalists. The Wikimedia Foundation could provide that. However, much of this work seems to violate Wikipedia's policy on No original research. I've received tentative approval from Szelena Gray , the "Campaign Director" and number 2 person at Rootstrikers after the founder Lawrence Lessig. However, I'd like to find a way to get the Wikimedia Foundation to host this for the following reasons:

• The Wikimedia reputation could attract help from the kind of people needed for this to be successful.
• Wikimedia's rules for how people work together, etc., could help immensely pushing people to write from a neutral point of view.
• When an analysis of some lobbying group is completed or substantially updated, if it were housed under the Wikimedia Foundation, it would be easier for people to then translate that work into Wikinews articles. If the updates are not sufficient newsworthy to justify a Wikinews article, they could still serve as sources for articles disseminated via other media. The entire effect could increase grass roots lobbying and more intelligent use of the franchise.

I think I will discuss this idea with the Wikimedia Incubator unless I hear a better idea.

With the right foundation, I think this idea can grow rapidly and have a major impact in reducing the corrosive effect of money in politics, which Lawrence Lessig identified as "the gateway problem facing the U.S. today". Lessig wrote in Republic, Lost, p. 147, that he spoke for many years with members of congress about issues related to copyright and the Internet. Most "members didn't understand that there was another side to the issue" other than what the industry lobbyists had fed them.

Suggestions? Thanks. DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

This goes to some very deep aspects of the differences between, and relationships between, different wikimedia sister projects. I've been making a study of these differences and relationships for several years now.

Here, then, are some miscellaneous thoughts, of varying relevance and specificity, and in no particular order.

• Investigative journalism is an important part of Wikinews's purpose. There are various challenges to it that we, consequently, confront while other sisters do not. Review, and more generally our entire social infrastructure based on accumulation of personal reputation — see WN:Never assume — are geared toward addressing the fundamental problem of how to trust what someone says when it originated with them. One of our biggest limitations is that we receive not-necessarily-benign neglect from the foundation. This is related to the fact that, although there are lots of good folks on Wikipedia who support us or at least have a positive sisterly attitude toward us, there are also Wikipedians who despise us with great passion and would very much like to shut us down, often because, for one reason or another, they oppose the very concept of some people being more trusted than others. We really need to have far more automation than we now have (even though we have quite a bit already), and we're now laboring in our copious free time to write it ourselves, on the realization that's the only way it will ever get written.
• Wikimedia projects don't all uniformly agree about how people go about working together. Case in point: A core principle at Wikipedia, historically, is "Assume Good Faith". Now, there are folks at Wikipedia who swear by AGF, but there are also folks there who believe that principle has wreaked terrible damage to the project. And here at Wikinews we maintain that AGF is incompatible with journalism. Here is my list of three top reasons AGF is a bad thing:

1. If AGF is taken to mean what it says, it's telling people to assume something; and an information provider should not be assuming things. The only reason this isn't as immediately devastating for Wikipedia as for Wikinews is that on Wikipedia, the value of their articles in the long run is what matters; they can gradually improve their articles over time, and if the article is wrong for a while at first that's okay; but it's still bad to be teaching information providers to assume things.
2. Eventually, a veteran Wikipedian learns that AGF doesn't mean what its name literally says. It's more about a manner of framing things, a sort of pretense — see w:WP:ZEN — and that is bad too, because it teaches people to say something different than what they mean. Again, it's bad to teach that to an information provider.
3. A deadly toxin in the long run is, people who basically don't mean well can learn to use AGF as a shield. They can operate in such a way that anyone trying to do something about them can be accused of failing to assume good faith. And sure enough, in the long run Wikipedia has accumulated a subcommunity of nasty characters who cannot easily be gotten rid of, and who sour the atmosphere of the place. One finds folks in the non-wp sisters who avoid wp because of its atmosphere.

Understand, I do appreciate that running a huge project with many thousands of people on it presents challenges that don't arise as severely when running a small project like Wikinews. But I don't think AGF has served Wikpedia well either.

• I really worry about the whole neutrality issue. Wikinews, as I see it, stands for the principle that there is such a thing as objective reality; that it is possible for an individual person to have strong opinions, and at the same time recognize what is their own opinion and what is objective reality, and therefore write neutral news articles. We see a lot of people come here who don't realize there is anything other than opinion, who don't realize neutrality is not exclusively a product of consensus, who think the solution for a biased account is to add more bias, in a different direction. And unfortunately, although there are merits to the Wikipedian pursuit of neutrality through consensus, it doesn't help to dispel this toxic loss of the concept of objective reality.
• Original research is allowed on two sisters that I know of: Wikinews, and Wikiversity. Wikibooks didn't want to allow original research, and so that aspect of book writing split off to Wikiversity. There are two things I would point out about Wikiversity, though.

• Wikiversity doesn't — unless I'm all wet on this, which is always possible — have a neutrality principle at all; they felt they needed to be able to pursue non-neutral research, so they devised an alternative to NPOV, in which people disclose their potential biases, or something of the sort.
• Wikiversity not only lacks the OR-handling infrastructure of Wikinews, it seems to me to lack any clear direction. I perceive it to be, among wikimedia sisters, rather like philosophy among academic disciplines: it is the home of things nobody really knows how to deal with.

--Pi zero (talk) 00:16, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Those are really great comments. I need to look closer at Wikiversity, as you suggested. DavidMCEddy (talk)

California judge disqualified ...

What do you suggest I do if anything to try to get another review so this story can be completed before it ceases to be news? (A squeaky wheel wants a face full of grease ;-) Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:01, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd be reviewing things as we speak, but my siblings are leaving at various times today and of course we're socializing in these last few hours they're here. --Pi zero (talk) 18:34, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Family comes first. Else, you may not have one ;-) DavidMCEddy (talk) 03:06, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Rebel faction arrives in Addis Ababa for peace talks

Please hold on... I just realized a major revision did not save. Can you take the article out of review so I can make the changes again. Janweh64 (talk) 14:36, 30 December 2012 (UTC)