User talk:Reflectingscotland
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Welcome to Wikinews
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Getting started as a contributor
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Welcome, Reflectingscotland! Thank you for joining Wikinews; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. To help you get started we have an essay that will guide you through the process of writing your first full article. There are many other things you can do on the project, but its lifeblood is new, current, stories written neutrally. |
All Wikimedia projects have rules. Here are ours.
Listed here are the official policies of the project, you may be referred to some of them if your early attempts at writing articles don't follow them. Don't let this discourage you, we all had to start somewhere. The rules and guides laid out here are intended to keep content to high standards and meet certain rules the Wikimedia Foundation applies to all projects. It may seem like a lot to read, but you do not have to go through it all in one sitting, or know them all before you can start contributing. Remember, you should enjoy contributing to the project. If you're really stuck come chat with the regulars. There's usually someone in chat who will be happy to help, but they may not respond instantly. |
The core policies
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Places to go, people to meet
Wiki projects work because a sense of community forms around the project. Although writing news is far more individualistic than contributing to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, people often need minor help with things like spelling and copyediting. If a story isn't too old you might be able to expand it, or if it is disputed you may be able to find some more sources and rescue it before it is listed for deletion. There are always discussions going on about how the site could be improved, and your input is of value. Check the links here to see where you can give input to the running of the Wikinews project. |
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Write your first article for Wikinews!
Use the following box to help you create your first article. Simply type in a title to your story and press "Create page". Then start typing text to your story into the new box that will come up. When you're done, press "save page". That's all there is to it!
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-- 01:57, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Please cease repeatedly submitting this article for review when virtually none of the points raised in prior failing reviews have been addressed.
The links in the above {{Howdy}} template detail the stylistic aspects of writing an article for Wikinews, and provide a fairly simple guide on producing a publishable article. Your submission still contains sentences lifted near-verbatim from press release sources, and that is unacceptable plagiarism.
The subject is indeed newsworthy, and I would like to see Wikinews carry an article on it. But, as it stands, it would require 2-3 hours of research on my part, followed by a from-scratch rewrite, and this would disqualify me from reviewing it. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
- As you will note here: Historic Scottish island castle wins the lottery, I've done the needed rewrite-from-scratch on this. I think the closest way to compare Wikinews content to that of Wikipedia is when you're submitting for {{review}}, material is near-GA quality. But, the style is markedly different. There were a variety of problems with your submission of the article, but the one that was always going to be a showstopper was that you had cut 'n' pasted from sources. I also took the time to crop the Lews Castle image and tweak it a little. If you check the edit history, you'll see the level of work involved in preparing an article for Wikinews; this is further compounded with deadlines to publish whilst still newsworthy. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)