User talk:Stillwaterising

Still around??

I like to keep up with newbies. You still around?? --Bddpaux (talk) 20:41, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've been on Wikibreak due to health reasons.- Stillwaterising (talk) 06:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Bddpaux I've changed my username to Technophant on enwiki and I'm writing a new article about Austin and water quality, Water-supply in Austin contaminated with toxic run-off. I'm going to switch back to this username because it seems more suited for an article about water quality.

Archivebot

I have converted your bot archive destination page from User talk:Example to User talk:Stillwaterising. Thanks, — revi^☏ 12:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Water-supply in Austin contaminated with toxic run-off

Afaics you never succeeded in getting anything published on en.wn. We've gotten far more reluctant than we once were to userspace failed synthesis articles, as it gradually emerged that some users would start to treat the project as a webhost, rather than a project focused on our published output.

I do recommend reading WN:PILLARS, which I think I was still calling a "draft" when you were last here. --Pi zero (talk) 18:51, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi again. I'm concerned about this article. I'll offer here a few thoughts, that might help guide things in a useful direction; I'm limited in how specific I can get, because I have to remain independent so that I can review whatever article you submit: reviewers are only allowed to review an article if they remain independent of its writing (basically, the reviewer mustn't be a coauthor).

• I'm unsure whether you have in mind here synthesis or original reporting (OR). It's generally trouble to tackle OR on en.wn without first learning the ropes through synthesis. I see you were involved in one article that's been published here, back in 2010, though not as solo author; that realistically wouldn't be enough even if it weren't nearly a decade ago.
• Is there a news focus here? The focus should be something specific, relevant, and fresh, those three things being the basic elements of our newsworthiness criterion. In this case, I'm not fundamentally worried about relevance (though it's not impossible some late draft might want rephrasing to bring out the relevance properly; that's not a concern yet, though). However, I'm not seeing a specific event here, without which there is nothing to be more, or less, fresh.
• If the article is synthesis, freshness requires the focal event to be very recent indeed. If the article involves OR, depending on the nature of the original element, freshness might be extended by a few days, or longer; although I suspect, as remarked above, you could get into trouble with OR because your experience on Wikinews is limited and quite a long time ago (goodness, how did 2010 get to be such a long time ago?).

(Attn: User:Gryllida.)

--Pi zero (talk) 23:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see a fresh event here after October 2018, but last couple days there was a strong storm. Authorities said the lake from which drinking water is collected is safe.

• "No Boil Water Plea: Austin Drinking Water Safe Despite Heavy Rain" — Patch, May 9, 2019
• "LCRA urges residents to prepare for release of water" — Fox 7, May 9, 2019

I would love to find which days it stormed on, but this source has no precipitation data. I understand you live close by, and perhaps you know what is the best local source of weather history? Gryllida (talk) 00:03, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is one more recount of what is happening:

• "Tornadoes, damaging wind and deadly floods leave trail of destruction across south-central US" — AccuWeather, May 9, 2019 Gryllida (talk) 00:05, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Pi zero, this will be original reporting. If you search paraquat and austin texas you will find nothing except the testing results. I'm very busy working on this. I've been calling news outlets, trying to get funding for independent testing from multiple households, and trying to work with authorities. It may take a few weeks before this article is finished, or until a local news source does an article on it. If you look at the colab page I've reposted discussion from Nextdoor that are limited to the neighborhoods in central east Austin. Certainly, there needs to be more awareness and input from other authors. BTW, the plane crash article was a team effort, however I was the primary contributor. How long ago it was shouldn't matter. Stillwaterising (talk) 15:12, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

As I've already alluded to somewhat indirectly (but I'll now say more clearly), I anticipate difficulty and potential disaster from someone attempting OR without having first acquired a firm grasp of how en.wn works. OR is the most advanced, most difficult thing we do here. By the time a user undertakes OR we suppose they will have written plenty of successfully published synthesis articles, by which the reporter learns the principles of our content, writing style, and review process, and we learn about the reporter, that is, the reporter earns a reputation with us which informs our dealings with them when later they may choose to move up to OR.

I did see you were making a bunch of claims on the talk page. You've got no prior reputation here, nor have you demonstrated understanding of the project through past works. What documentary evidence do you mean to offer, beyond claims written on the article talk page, of your original work? The material on the article talk page fails to explain the context, fails to explain the means of recording. Are there emails? Audio recordings? Handwritten notes? Or, what? --Pi zero (talk) 17:02, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Look Pi, you've gotten off to a really bad start with me and I don't take shit. You're a review, admin, bureaucrat - so what? You're immediately condescending and you double down with whatever nonsense you just wrote above this. This is a HUGE news story (interesting, national importance, and zero coverage from any sources, yet) and you're just trying to get in my way and intimidate me I won't allow it. You are not independent and I will not allow you to be my reviewer. You should encourage all new writers, not puff out your chest and declare your greatness while **biting** into their lack of experience. I have all the skill and talent needed to write a professional and comprehensive article. I started out tongue-in-cheek because I don't know all the details yet so I wanted to throw in some humor.

I don't know what kind of issues you have in RL that you feel like you need to bully people around for fun and tout your "reputation". I see nothing but fluff pieces in the latest articles, nothing ground-breaking or original. Either help me write this article or get out of my way. Stillwaterising (talk) 06:35, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I am also interested in knowing documentary evidence for this story. If it contains confidential information, it may kindly please be delivered to scoopwikinewsie.org, which all reviewers have access to. Gryllida (talk) 07:18, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I've been trying to be as supportive as I could, given the circumstances. Reviewers can provide lots of help with finding your way around project standards. I've offered guidance. Wikinews can be a great tool for publishing high-quality articles, but only if you learn how to use the tool. One thing is, the tool will not work well for you if, as a reporter, you choose to make your relationship with reviewers adversarial rather than collaborative. As reviewers, we want to be helpful, we want a successful collaborative relationship, but we are also responsible for vetting articles, for not allowing articles to be published that don't measure up to project standards. And, because vetting is important (it's at the heart of what journalism is), you don't get to choose who reviews an article you submit. --Pi zero (talk) 07:38, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Pi zero, I'm sorry for snapping at you. I have severe chronic pain and it's been flaring lately. Of course, I should support everybody here. I rewrote the article and removed the unprofessional language, added a composite map I made using kml files that required hours of tedious editing, and waded through mud to find the manhole cover in Boggy Creek. Too bad the storms had washed the sewage away, so I'll put it in for now but it's not really an effective photo without the muck. Water testing data is very hard to come by. The river authority in the area of the oil drilling only puts out less than minimum basic chemistry and doesn't let you search for previous months. I'm not good at publicizing and admittedly challenged at collaborating, so any help for anybody is appreciated. Stillwaterising (talk) 00:19, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

┌───────────────────────┘
Here's the best advice I can give you atm, based on my understanding of the situation. This is not just advice about submitting an article to Wikinews; it's also about your personal situation. That's because I care about three separate things, here: I care about Wikinews, I care about journalism (if there's an important story, I want to see it published), and I do care about individual people, which includes you.

• There are two different obstacles to publishing this article on Wikinews. These imo probably cannot be resolved.

• The lesser of the two problems is that you do not appear to be providing us with evidence we can use to authenticate/verify your claims. Step into our shoes for a moment. We seek to do good in the world by publishing news. The value of publishing that news depends on readers knowing that when we publish it, they can rely on it to be accurate and neutral. So our ability to do good rises and falls with our reputation for consistently delivering accuracy and neutrality. All this means that, before publishing your article, we would have to be sure of both you and your facts; we'd need to get from you sufficient evidence to authenticate and verify.
• The greater obstacle is conflict of interest. You're not an independent reporter covering the story; from what I understand, you're part of the story. You have an apparent conflict of interest in telling the story. It's likely impossible for you to look at it objectively, exactly because you're involved.
• As a minor afterthought, there are some stylistic things that would have to be fixed about the article, nothing that likely couldn't be done, if there weren't those two big obstacles in the way.

• What you apparently need, it seems to me, is a reporter. In all seriousness. You need to have somebody —else— report about your situation. It can't be you, because of your apparent conflict of interest in the matter. And it has to be somebody who has the personal status to publish their report in some venue (TV station, Wikinews, whatever) that has, in its turn, a reputation that will cause people to take the report seriously; in other words, a reporter. It could, in theory, be an accredited Wikinews reporter reporting on Wikinews; we're pretty thinly distributed, though — someday, hopefully, we'll grow, but right now Wikinewsies are few and far between.

--Pi zero (talk) 03:56, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

{{help me}}

User:Pi zero, I was going to remove the person part and update it however it's deleted now. How did all my contributions get removed and how do I view the article again? Stillwaterising (talk) 06:05, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm skeptical — looking at my final remark above, I did note at the time the difficulties likely could not be resolved. However, I'm giving you a shot at it; page undeleted, for now. --Pi zero (talk) 11:00, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

{{help me}} What are my options to save this work and graphics to start working on a draft of a new related article covering a larger region? Stillwaterising (talk) 19:59, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Have you yet copied your draft into Google Docs, Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, or any other? That way, it won't get lost. Alternatively, how about blogging (definition)? --George Ho (talk) 19:12, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I support the comments of Pi zero and Gryllida here, for what it's worth, and think they're really making an effort to help both you and the story. Blogging might indeed be an option "to get the story out" - and then avoid COI, as I try to when deciding to either be a participant *or* a reporter on an event. --Gwyndon (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Images

Just letting you know that you also can upload images to Wikimedia Commons, c:Main Page, in the case their licencing allows commercial reuse. This is usually the preferred option, unless the information is unavailable from other sources. The images uploaded to Commons become available here at Wikinews, and there becomes no need to do a local upload. --Gryllida (talk) 00:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I did at first but I noticed they don't approve of Earth images because they aren't licensed for commerical reuse. They only way to apply the CC-BY-NC is to upload here. Thanks for the info though. Stillwaterising (talk) 00:10, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello. Can I ask where the cc-by-nc license is from? As far as I understand it, Google Earth does not issue such licenses. I have removed the license from File:Map of oil basins that intersect the Texas Colorado River watershed.png and added a non-free rationale (a fair use tag). Please could you complete the fields of the rationale? Green Giant (talk) 21:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)