User talk:ReporterX

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Welcome to Wikinews

A nice cup of coffee for you while you get started

Getting started as a contributor
How to write an article
  1. Pick something current?
  2. Use two independent sources?
  3. Read your sources before writing the story in your own words?. Do choose a unique title? before you start.
  4. Follow Wikinews' structure? for articles, answering as many of who what when where why and how? as you can; summarised in a short, two- or three-sentence opening paragraph. Once complete, your article must be three or more paragraphs.
  5. If you need help, you can add {{helpme}} to your talkpage, along with a question, or alternatively, just ask?

  • Use this tab to enter your title and get a basic article template.
    [RECOMMENDED. Starts your article through the semi-automated {{develop}}—>{{review}}—>{{publish}} collaboration process.]

 Welcome! 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.
As you get more involved, you will need to look into key project policies and other discussions you can participate in; so, keep this message on this page and refer to the other links in it when you want to learn more, or have any problems.

Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
  Used to contributing to Wikipedia? See here.
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
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.

Find help and get involved
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!



It is recommended you read the article guide before starting. Also make sure to check the list of recently created articles to see if your story hasn't already been reported upon.


-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 17:41, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Great to see you're interested in contributing to Wikinews. Some thoughts on this.

  • We ask that a synthesis article — such as this article — have two mutually independent source corroborating the focal event. The focal event here is the publication of the study. This can be challenging for articles about scientific publications, especially when combined with our freshness criterion, but you may find it useful to look at other articles of this sort that we've published. Here's a good example of the genre:
Notice that the focal event — the publication — is identified in the lede, and when it happened is specified — the function of the lede is to briefly summarize the focal event by succinctly answering as many as reasonably possible of the five Ws and H about it, and in the process to establish that the focal event is newsworthy. As noted by the advice on "when" at page WN:Five Ws and H, if the lede doesn't contain a day "word", something's probably wrong. (In that example, the lede contains the word "Tuesday".)
  • If you use an article-creation form to create an article, such as the one at WN:Writing an article, it automatically provides for you all those basic formatting elements that I added to the page you'd created.
  • We require independent review of an article for its publication. Notice that the first element on the article is a status tag. When you create an article, the status tag is {{develop}}. There's a button on it to submit the article for review, and clicking that should replace the {{develop}} tag with {{review}}.
  • The way the project works is compactly described, starting with review, at page WN:Pillars of Wikinews writing.
  • Another good reference for folks starting to learn the ropes here is WN:Writing an article.

Welcome. --Pi zero (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]