Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Archive 9

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Sep 2008 - May 2009
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Requests for Reviewer Status[edit]


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JBFan4 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Hi everyone, I've made the news in June about the rumours that Disney will buy distribution rights to the James Bond films once Sony ends distributed 007. Thank you :-)

JBFan4 (talk) 12:55, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Green Giant (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Hello. I am applying to become a reviewer because I want to help with the other end of the article development process. I'm fairly new to Wikinews but I am a long-term Wikimedian, registered since 2006, and particularly active on English Wikipedia and Commons (where I'm an admin) as well as being an OTRS volunteer. My main activities on Wikinews have been in helping to write about a dozen articles, creating "wanted pages and categories, and cleaning up images (marking duplicates, adding fair use rationales etc). I think I am suitable for reviewing because I am good at writing, am responsive to positive criticism and have an eye for detail. Just a week ago, I noticed that I had contributed to three of the leads and four of the ten most recent articles on the main page. I look forward to making many more contributions to Wikinews. Thank you for your consideration. Green Giant (talk) 21:51, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@14.139.242.195: Could you log on as acagastya and confirm on your user talk page that that was you? As a matter of good form. --Pi zero (talk) 00:05, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Confirmed (and I'm reminded that ping doesn't actually do anything when used with an IP). --Pi zero (talk) 13:09, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Leugen9001 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Hello, Wikinews community; I am here because I am requesting for reviewer privileges. I believe that I have a decent grasp of both Wikinews' style guide and the rules of the English language, having created multiple articles which eventually were published. I have also helped enhance a few articles, removed vandalism from a user talk page, and did other helpful things for the community. Do you believe that I am ready for reviewer rights, or would you like me to create a few more articles so that I would get a better understanding of Wikinews' rules and policies? --Leugen9001 (talk) 00:20, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Could you please utilize Template:Babel box at your userpage, and indicate which language(s) and level(s) you have proficiencies in ? Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 09:01, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opinion I checked the edit counts. Including the deleted edits, the tally is 157 as on 09:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC) Surprisingly, a total of twelve articles out of fourteen the user has created have been published. Edit count never suggest anything, but the article created are in 50 days. Appreciable. But I still believe the user is new. Two months time is good enough to get acquainted with the rules. What I feel is (not to disclose geographical location, we are wise enough to figure out from OR) @Cirt: comes from a place with higher end of UTC, @Pi zero: comes the negative UTC. This is only a vague guess that @Blood Red Sandman: lives very close to UTC 0.
    So if we have a reviewer from a location where UTC is average, reviewing will be quicker. If Leugen9001 (t · c · b) shares UTC with other reviewers, work load can be shared so if one is engaged, other can take in-charge.
    I support the user, after witnessing the tireless contribution. Should I confirm on my talk page? (user:Acagastya)
    14.139.242.195 (talk) 09:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment:I was travelling in a foreign country whose time zone is UTC +8 when I started my activity on Wikinews, but I have subsequently returned to my home, which is within UTC -7.
  • not yet I've been looking through the candidate's edit history. This looks to me like a promising new member of the Wikinews community, and it seems likely they can go on to become a reviewer. However, my sense is they're not there yet. Keeping in mind that a reviewer has to catch mistakes someone else has made that should prevent publication, I see that their articles don't always get through on the first try, and their second-to-most-recent submission (if I've counted right) failed twice, using up its freshness window. --Pi zero (talk) 16:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Pi Zero.--Leugen9001 (talk) 21:49, 24 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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User needs to gain experience, and reputation, on Wikinewsie. --Pi zero (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:35, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Axelhovorka (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Hello Wikinews. I'm here to request reviewer rights. My field of expertise is in History; specifically The American Revolution and the War of 1812. I can keep an eye for vandalism. I can make a basic Inkscape vectors and edit photos with GIMP

Reviewer isn't a thing for newly arrived users. It represents a very high level of trust by the community and specialized knowledge of Wikinews policies and best practices. --Pi zero (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pi zero, when or what should I do to become a reviewer? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Axelhovorka (talk • contribs) 16:33, 7 May 2016‎ (UTC)
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User needs to gain experience on Wikinews. --Pi zero (talk) 02:58, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Commander1987 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Hello, I am a user that has a high level of trust by the users of Wikinews. I have read all of the policies and guidelines. I know what is vandalism and what's not. Commander1987 (talk) 16:48, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Commander1987: You do not have any trust by the users of Wikinews; you've never even edited here before. If you read the policies and guidelines of this project you will find that reviewer on this project is mostly not even about vandalism. If you're interested to contribute here, I recommend you read WN:PILLARS, then WN:WRITE, learn to write an article (it may take you more than one attempt to get one actually published; that's part of the learning process), and write some articles. Don't worry about reviewer privs; if you eventually reach that point, likely veteran Wikinewsies will ask if you would accept nomination. --Pi zero (talk) 17:11, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. --Commander1987 (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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This clearly isn't coalescing on consensus to grant, and has been open for more than five months; and garnered significant discussion. Keeping it continuously open longer isn't going to result in a clear consensus unless opponents change their minds, and when an RFP is open long enough for continental drift in attitudes to play a major role, it's just gone on too long. Best close this now as "not at this time", and if discussions take place elsewhere, let them do so without the distraction of an open RFD hanging over them. --Pi zero (talk) 12:13, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Darkfrog24 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I was going to hold off on requesting WN reviewer status for a while but right now there are twenty-four articles in the hopper and only one or two people to work on them. I feel confident that I can check for plagiarism, remove facts not supported by sources cited, correct English usage and assess newsworthiness. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:37, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

{{flag}} I think this discussion needs just a little more input at the moment from the community. —mikemoral (talk) 07:50, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]


  • I'm thinking, tentatively, it may be good to keep this nom open for a while, give plenty of time for folks to chime in (though perhaps things will go entirely differently than I imagine).

    The current glut on the queue is something that will be dealt with, one way or another. Perspective: these are students; they're aspiring journalists, on the other hand they haven't necessarily already made their mistakes, making them far above the average in some ways yet not in others; I believe they get some sort of class credit for successful publication on Wikinews. It's important, in this sort of glot, to not let things get through that shouldn't; in the past week alone, in addition to a great deal of "copyvio" material (often copied-and-scuffed-up, which requires closer examination to pick up on early in the review process, and is more properly plagiarism than actual copyright violation — pretty clearly not malicious coming from these students imho, but it takes them a while to realize copy-and-scuff is not the way to use sources without plagiary), I've had an article that may have been fake news trying to work its way in from the fringes toward the mainstream press (I discussed the problem in review comments, including warning signs something might be fishy, and asked for more details and stronger sources), and another that was about somebody claiming an elliptical feature on a moon map was evidence of alien moon bases (I discussed the suspicious features of the story, significant features of the sources, and such). It'll probably take a while to clear the glut since, when an article does go stale waiting on the queue, as some of these surely will, I like if at all possible to point out other problems so the author can get some learning out of the submission — not omitting copyvio problems because it's really important for authors to recognize that before they write more articles with the same problem.

    Being acquainted with the nominee from years back on another project, I'm going to wait a bit to write my own vote (I mean to support, but want to think through my brief remarks to go with). --Pi zero (talk) 14:30, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Honestly, in my deeply distracted way (with all the student articles on the queue), I've been slowly forming a thought that I'd like to ask Darkfrog24 a question here, but haven't got to the point of actually framing it clearly yet. --Pi zero (talk) 14:11, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't happen to be in a hurry. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:42, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I know I should be moving faster on this. A remark in the interim: my difficulty is that I have doubts/concerns about your perception of neutrality policy on the project, and would like to ask some really insightful question(s) of you, but since I've been quite open for years about my disapproval of how poorly written our NPOV policy page is, and I've been meaning for a year or two to write an essay on practical news neutrality and haven't gotten to it, I find myself wondering if I should be trying to get the essay written either instead of or at least before drafting questions about it here. Which really doesn't help to make either happen faster. --Pi zero (talk) 13:45, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question Your recent article (though I agree it's interesting science, which is relevance) had only one source corrobrating the focal event, didn't say when the focal event happened, and it turned out to have happened six days before submission. What is your view on your own ability to catch such errors when other people make them, and not-ready those articles? --Pi zero (talk) 03:25, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Response: It wasn't an error so much as a decision. 1) "When" is "in the last issue of MEPS." 2) I expect the next source to cover this will be mainstream news, which tends to lag behind scientific press releases since many of them are updated weekly or less often. 3) This is a report about the release of a paper covering a professional scientific study. Sad to say but if we held them to the normal schedule we'd probably publish very little science news. It's pro journal or conference, then press release, then newspapers. The upside of working from the press release is that we can actually get the information to the public before the Guardian or New York Times. The answer to what I'd do with other people's articles is weigh it on a case-by-case basis. For most kinds of news, no this wouldn't be a suitable choice but if it's a professional paper that hasn't hit mainstream yet? Cost of doing business. Even then, it would depend. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And now that the sun's up, to address what I think you were really getting at, drafting an article and editing an article that someone else has drafted take two very different viewpoints and perspectives. It's easier to see that kind of detail from arm's length instead of elbow length. You and I both worked MoS for years and we've both had other people catch typos in our posts easily. Basically I'd be wearing my "find a reason to say no" hat instead of my "find a reason to say yes" hat. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:00, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I actually composed my comments below at the same time you were drafting the second "now that the sun's up" part of those remarks (yes, it took me a long time to write that comment, as I was trying to give it a sense of nuance and at the same time keep it short, a moderately impossible combination). I've been uncomfortable and hesitating to express my discomfort since this nomination started; and I find myself rather in that position still. The second part of your remarks are good to hear, and if I'd seen them before writing the below I probably would have just been stuck back in my awkward hesitancy. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this. --Pi zero (talk) 14:11, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It was a long night. Any chance you could be more specific about that? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:39, 4 May 2017 (UTC) EDIT: Here's what I've got right now. When you're drafting an article, the time and freshness factors are so pressing that the best thing to do for an article on the bubble is toss it into the review tank and see what someone else thinks. It's just as easy for something that looked like it might be a problem to turn out fine as for something that looked fine to be recognized as a problem. The reviewer, however, must be critical, not hopeful. That's why we don't have people doing their own reviews. It's a pretty big gear switch. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think my perspective on the writing side of the collaboration has been changed by seeing it all from the reviewer's side (not entirely unlike, I think, the difference between listening to a complex piano piece and playing it); indeed, if there were a way to give writers (well, the sincere ones, anyway :-) an opportunity to see articles from the reviewer's side — without compromising site standards, obviously — that seems like it could be a great way to help deepen their grasp of the principles (and of course it'd help prepare them for later reviewership and help us assess when they're read for the review bit).

I would be interested to hear your thoughts somewhat more specifically on how you would envision, as a reviewer, applying neutrality principles to a submitted article; and also, applying freshness and sourcing. Also, still more specifically: You suggest a writer might be more willing to try something and see what a reviewer thinks of it. A day or so ago you submitted an article that, I found on review, had only one source corroborating the focal event, and the focal event had happened six days ago. So, if someone else had submitted an article with those characteristics, and you were reviewing it, how would you deal with that situation? --Pi zero (talk) 16:28, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If it were regular news, I'd probably have said "not ready." If it were science news and the focal event were something like the release of the study, neither of these things would have been a dealbreaker.
There actually is a mechanism by which you could give writers that view. Establish a novitiate. Any prospective reviewer goes through a one-month trial period that automatically expires. The prospective reviewer can then apply for permanent reviewer status no earlier than X weeks after that expiration date, and the application involves a writeup of what they learned. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My (imho appallingly ineptly put) comment below was trying to get at two points both of which are brought up by this example. Both points relate to a basic meta-principle, which is afaik most nearly explicit on-wiki in the quote from Strunk's Elements of Style at WN:IAR — where it comes up in the context of the page's explicit recognition that some rules here are non-negotiable. The meta-principle is that you need to have a really good intuitive grasp of the rules before it's safe for you to start doing stuff that may appear (to a less informed eye) to be "breaking the rules". When you contemplate letting an article like that through, you clearly don't have an appreciation of the magnitude of the policy violation you're talking about, and the fact that you're willing to just do something that extreme one you get the review bit shows not just an unawareness of the weight of that rule but a failure to take the rules seriously enough; review is about enforcing the rules, not making them — you need to develop an intuition before you know when and how to do unusual stuff, you need to be able to tell when you're not yet up to that, and certainly the very beginning of knowing when you're not up to it yet is realizing, to start with, that you're not up to it yet. I don't think you've realized that, and I truly do not know how to communicate the point to you.

I notice you didn't mention neutrality.

It's not safe to give people a temporary reviewership, even if it does expire in a month. You're underestimating the responsibilities of the position. When we publish something, our reputation is on the line, the thing cannot be retracted (the adage that you can't un-say something has become much truer in the internet age), it goes out globally with the same trust-worthiness status in the google news aggregator as articles from BBC or AlJaz — that is, it's counted as news, not blog output), and if somebody ever got sued over something published on Wikinews the targets would be the reviewer and the writer. It's not something to hand out casually, not from anyone's perspective. (I remember a long-ago discussion with Jimmy Wales in which, when he finally realized what we were saying about the responsibility of reviewers, he pretty clearly concluded we were utterly insane; of course, I don't think he ever did really grok that the whole social, and workflow, dynamics of Wikinews is profoundly different from Wikipedia's.)

I do think something might be done... but not a trial period; something more like "training wheels", maybe (although that's a commonly-used metaphor that I think exceeds the reality on which it's based; I once had a bicycle with training wheels fitted on it, and my experience was that it didn't work for any purpose; the bicycle was substantially unusable that way and it wasn't like riding a bicycle). --Pi zero (talk) 18:40, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't ask about neutrality. Would you like to do so now? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:09, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. I guess it is easily missed; it's in there, though, in my now-second-to-last comment, buried between more general remarks and a much more specific question. Although, my remark from about nine day ago is still true: that I'm not really sure how I ought to be scheduling inquiry here about neutrality versus writing an essay on neutrality. Recalling: "I would be interested to hear your thoughts somewhat more specifically on how you would envision, as a reviewer, applying neutrality principles to a submitted article". --Pi zero (talk) 21:54, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I thought about what you said (benefits of the slow pace we have here) and it sounds like your key objection to the science article in question is that you think it would have worked better as a Wikipedia article. You used the term "poaching." Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:47, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say anything about whether it would work as a Wikipedia article; my remark in that regard (on your talk page) was that stuff that isn't fresh is within the purview of Wikipedia. That's just a matter of partitioning of responsibilities, not judgement of viability. Freshness is a basic element of the concept of news, and tbh you don't have enough of a sense of the underlying principles of Wikinews to be contemplating throwing out one of our major policies; moreover you apparently don't have enough of a sense of the underlying principles of Wikinews to recognize which principles are the major ones, and it seems you don't appreciate how weighty the major ones are. Wikipedia doesn't have any principles as weighty as the major ones on Wikinews, which goes hand-in-hand with the fact that in principle there's nothing irreversible on Wikipedia (with perhaps the obscure exception of a history merge); and Wikipedia also socially lacks a concept of expertise as profound as we have on Wikinews, which goes hand-in-hand with the difference between Wikipedia's egalitarian emphasis on treating everyone the same and Wikinews's meritocratic emphasis on accumulated reputation. --Pi zero (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Truthfully, I feel the nominee isn't nearly ready. There was a remark above that a reviewer should take a more conservative approach to what they let through. That suggests thinking of the writer-reviewer relationship as adversarial; on the contrary, the writer should be trying to do the same thing the reviewer is trying to make sure was done right; review should be a double-check that it went okay. Any writer who treats the process as adversarial is generating make-work for Wikinews reviewers, and making it more likely reviewers will miss something else because they were busy fixing things the writer should have known not to do in the first place. This is why it's vastly more work to review an article by an inexperienced writer; an experienced writer is already doing what a reviewer is trying to make sure is being done, and only occasional flubs need to be caught. It can be quite relaxing, as a reviewer, to review the work of another reviewer; but (I'm being very honest here) I don't feel relaxed like that when reviewing the nominee's submissions. Their most recent article, for instance, was submitted the first time without a focal event in the lede; and the resubmission (which set the article way behind schedule — it should be almost unheard of for an experienced writer to require multiple reviews) still had analysis in it, which I fear may have distracted me from properly considering other bias issues in the way the story was presented. I'm seeing a failure to instinctively fall back on the core technique of presenting objective facts for the reader to be more informed, as a way of completely sidestepping almost all "analysis" issues rather than ever trying to "balance" them at all — not even starting to play the game that Wikipedia gleefully spends months or years squabbling over. --Pi zero (talk) 00:32, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

* Support I was about to ask for the permission, but if Darkfrog24 is ready for this, xhe has my support.
acagastya 07:50, 21 March 2017 (UTC) that reason is not enough, I think. I would like to reconsider if it is a support or oppose.[reply]
acagastya 03:06, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose knowing how to write an article doesn't mean one is fit for this role. I don't know when the user would be ready, but clearly it is not now. Crossing swords against project mission and the pillars is not acceptable.
    acagastya PING ME! 05:20, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I think the user has an understanding of the requirements that Wikinews articles must meet. In addition he takes part quite frequently giving his views about the articles and which in my opinion are always quite right. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 20:46, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I feel this user has a good grasp on the requirements of Wikinews writing and would do well as a reviewer. —mikemoral (talk) 06:10, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose To be clear, I consider the nominee a great asset to the project as a writer; I wanted to get that out up front, because I'm not going to gentle my remarks on the nomination. I hesitated at first to articulate my concerns about this nomination (it sounded harsh; still does, but I'm sometimes too reluctant to say harsh things).
Reviewers have to have a conservative approach; and there's also a deeper level beneath that. A reviewer needs a sure sense of the core living dynamic of the rule structure, giving them an appreciation of which are most important and a respect for the 'why' of them. (You can't put the spirit above the letter unless you grok both.) I don't get that at all from this nominee; neither the sense of the rule structure, appreciation of which are most important, nor the respect for why. I think this nominee's attitude toward the rules is one of feeling free to ignore them if they don't like them. That's not the profile of a reviewer. --Pi zero (talk) 13:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm going to try this again, and see if I can actually coherently express some of the important points I failed to last time. I believe (at this time; I'm open to further discussion) the nominee is not at this time ready for the reviewer bit — I Oppose granting the bit at this time. This is not, directly, about disagreement on the specific issue of freshness of articles about scientific papers; it's about attitude toward acting on such disagreement, and underlying attitude toward and understanding of the "rules" (review standards/principles/practices). Exactly because of my accumulated experiences with the nominee, I have no doubts whatever about their integrity and, hence, simply asked what they'd do (above, in the Comments section). I also know they tend to hold strong beliefs and stick to them, which encourages weighing their thinking on review very carefully for this nomination. Reviewers do have to exercise judgement, including judgement about one's own judgement and about precedent and consensus, and I think at this time they haven't grokked in fullness what they'd need to grok. (Yeah, if I knew how to articulate it all, I would.) --Pi zero (talk) 22:47, 5 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]


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Closed as successful. —mikemoral (talk) 07:39, 27 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Acagastya (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I think it is the time when I should request for the reviewer permission. I have been editing this project since May 1, 2015 — 22 months roughly. I agree there are certain things I do not know, or understand about the project, and I have learnt 'why' over the time, but I have gone though many archived discussions, proposals and guidelines.
acagastya 13:18, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • The user is quite active and is knowledgeable about project policies, however, I am not sure if I would have experience reviewing other articles. Before voting I would like to see opinions of other more experienced users. —Alvaro Molina (✉ - ✔) 20:54, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

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Closed as successful, following fast-track principle. Supported by three reviewers. --Pi zero (talk) 15:49, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Acagastya (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Comments[edit]

  • The nominee voluntarily resigned the bit, and has had a change of heart. It seems to me this might reasonably be tried similarly to the fast-track procedure described at WN:PeP#Regaining privileges.

Votes[edit]


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Closed as successful, per fast-track principle. --Pi zero (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mikemoral (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I'm reapplying for reviewer. I was a reviewer, but it was removed due to my lack of activity per the expiration policy. —mikemoral (talk · contribs) 09:13, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

Votes[edit]


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Closed as premature. Consistent feedback from experienced community members. --Pi zero (talk) 12:05, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Micael D. (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Hello, I want the statute so I can help Wikinews English, I believe I have the ability to have the statute in question, since I am sysop in the Wikinews in Portuguese. Micael D. (talk) 13:01, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

@Micael D.: Reivewer here requires much knowledge and experience with English Wikinews. You need lots of accumulated experience and reuptation. The offer is appreciated, but you don't have the history here for reviewer. --Pi zero (talk) 13:21, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Micael D.; though other Wikinews has reviewing model, however each project is unique in itself and you should spend some time for grasping concepts and policies on enwn.
223.237.199.161 (talk) 16:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

  • Oppose I feel this request is premature. In addition to familiarity with local policies, it is crucial for a Reviewer to able to copy-edit in English with a high degree of knowledge of diction and grammar. My advice to Micael D. is to demonstrate such skills as a regular editor and earn the community's support through those efforts before applying. Cheers, --SVTCobra 04:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It is necessary to practice reviewing and copy-editing and fact-checking first. A good way to practice is by performing these tasks to others' submissions in the newsroom. (I welcome you to leave messages on article talk pages, providing a review of the article state similarly to how reviewers do it, even if in a non-reviewer capacity). Gryllida (talk) 05:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'm, somewhat cautiously, closing this as successful. It's been open for a month. It has garnered three supporting votes from established English Wikinewsies, and — despite protracted discussion in the Comments subsection — no opposing votes. That would be marginal support for a non-reviewer requesting the bit under non-fast-track circumstances; however, this is a request for reconfirmation. Since self-nominator was evidently looking for feedback, I might note a subtheme running through much of the discussion is continuing to seek to improve. --Pi zero (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SVTCobra (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I have been on Wikinews since 2006. I was made Administrator in 2007. In 2008, when flagged revisions were introduced, I was "grandfathered" into having Reviewer status, as were all Administrators at the time. My level of involvement with the Wikinews project has been sporadic over several years, but I have never been unreachable via cross-wiki pings. However, I was recently told that I am unfit to be a Reviewer. I certainly hope that is untrue, but it came from a very trusted and prolific member of the community. In light of this, I feel compelled to ask you all if I should retain my Reviewer status. Thank you for your time, --SVTCobra 04:41, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • Well, in my view, you grok the fundamental principles of the project which puts you way ahead. Reviewer is a skill that wants practice, but all reviewers start out without that experience (not that we haven't wondered how we might arrange for "practice" ahead of time, but I digress), and knowing that new reviewers start out grokking the fundamental principles is the best we can do. In fairness to everyone, I should look back over the reviews you've done recently (and atm I'm taking a shot at a review), but that's my starting point. --Pi zero (talk) 05:05, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have compiled a list of the articles I gave a passing review in 2018 (complete as far as I know, but there's no easy way to search this). The possibility remains that my failing reviews are the fault. --SVTCobra 05:35, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Now that you mention it, the way to do it would be to (1) call up your Special:Contributions, (2) select some non-standard number of edits to show, so that the url will include the specification of how many edits, (3) hand-edit the url to specify 5000 edits (I think that's the maximum the software will accept), and (4) do a string search for "easy peer review". Supposing you did all your reviews through the gadget, that should conjure all the reviews of pages that haven't since been deleted. (One would have to look at deleted contributions to pick up any others.) --Pi zero (talk) 06:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean Special:Contributions/SVTCobra, I don't seem to be able change the number beyond 500 or search for words within that result. Sorry, but voters are certainly free to explore my history across all Wikimedia projects. --SVTCobra 00:16, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@SVTCobra: It's a handy trick to learn, imho. Are you using a laptop, with a web browser where the url is visible to be manually edited? (In my experience, all web browsers are like this, on a laptop or desktop, i.e., non-mobile.) The highest it offers you is 500; so, select that, and the url is then some longish string something like
https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/SVTCobra&offset=&limit=500&target=SVTCobra
The important thing to notice in all that is where it says "limit=500". Just manually edit the url by adding a zero on that, so it says "limit=5000", and hit enter. And then wait, because it's going to take a while for the server to provide, and your internet connection to receive, all that information; for me, trying it just now, it took about twelve seconds, though some of that may be a slow internet connection. Then use the browser's string search function (for me, that's ctrl-F) to search the browser tab for "easy peer review". --Pi zero (talk) 00:30, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(Btw, limit=2200 seems sufficient atm to include all your recent reviews, which go back to December 31.) --Pi zero (talk) 00:43, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I found one more article, well probably the New Year's Eve one. And then I added my 2016 review. For deeper history, follow Pi zero's instructions above. Here's the list again User:SVTCobra/RecentReviews. --SVTCobra 01:25, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from the "accuser" which is the bottleneck for this decision, as I understand:

There are two things; I did not ask SVTCobra to stop reviewing articles, or give up reviewer bit; if I could, I would have done that for all those who don't help the project with the rights they possess. Nothing personal, btw; just that if an admin/reviewer is not active; wh let them have special rights? If they start editing again, they can very well request it.

I would not like to stop my peers from helping Wikinews grow as a project, especially those, from whom I learnt how to write, passively. So, I do not understand the point of this discussion; I am not clear. Is a reviewer applying for asking the community for another green flag to continue their operation, or an ex-reviewer, who gave up their rights is re-requesting them?

Of this, if anyone is applying for a reviewer status, I would expect them to possess the qualities which other experienced editors and reviewers don't always show. (They might forget certain things, sometimes -- this is a very subjective matter) One of them is writing for global audience.

And believe me, I know people who do not know president of their own country, can't name more than five presidents of the US (who also forgot that Donald Trump is US president), those who don't know where Philadelphia is or if California is a state, so knowing capital of California, or knowing where Los Angeles is out of question.

(See Talk:US: FBI's work with Orlando shooter's father is not grounds for mistrial in wife's case) The reason why I said "Wasn't wrong when I said you are not fit to be a reviewer" is clearly stated in the later part of the sentence which read "since you don't care for the global audience". I am not saying anyone who did not explain an acronym should step down as a reviewer. There is a lot to learn, and after becoming a reviewer, one learns a lot. They should be open to suggestions, and a straight "NO!" is not at all helpful. There are tonnes of examples where I failed to take care of international audience; but when I realised it, I made sure that problem never repeats.

There are two things, a reviewer ignoring global audience purposefully -- they should not have the rights at the first place. That is not the case with SVTCobra. But when they say "no" for improving further article; that is something serious. Why is it a straight no? And is it important? Well, Wikinews avoid making mistakes MSM makes, and a poor headline or not taking care of global audience is what they love to do. Anyone who says attempts for helping global audience with acronyms is not needed hasn't understood basic principles of Wikinews, and thus, can not be trusted with reviewer rights.

Agree and show signs of improvement, I support SVTCobra. But a straight no; that is not what I am expecting from anyone applying for reviewer.

Others who feel this is too trivial (I don't think they are fit for reviewer rights either) to be even discussed; they can say by what authority am I saying this: I wrote ~35% of articles published in 2017, the same year I learnt to see things from another angle to improve content for global audience. I am not from a first world country and I know people who would not understand such things written for and by people of the first world. Headline is another important thing to mention: Talk:Tennis: Andy Murray withdraws from Australian Open Place where the editor in question did not want Australian Open to be called AusOpen (though the tournament identifies itself as #AusOpen on twitter, URL is AusOpen, and many news orgs call it Aus Open) and then, over here, Talk:Australian cricketers Steve Smith, David Warner banned from 2018 Indian Premier League after ball tampering incident, the whole discussion of why an incomplete headline would be good, just because it is small.

I am sorry, I am not going to explain it. So, instead of listening to my version of the problem, why don't you read it for yourself and then decide?

I repeat, if reviewer is ready for suggestions and to improve instead of a straight 'no', I do not have a problem; but a straight no is not acceptable.

And if I have to find examples from archive to please others about the problems, I am not going to do it -- it is not productive. Dive into the archives to learn something, not to demote someone from their rights.
•–• 13:39, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Reply from SVTCobra: I could perhaps have been clearer in that I am seeking re-confirmation that I still have the community's trust because I was simply given the reviewer status in 2008 and there was never a vote. And I have been absent for long stretches. I took the "you are unfit" comment as a vote of "no confidence" and I thought the best solution was to go through this formality. It is often done in parliamentary systems and I don't think it is uncommon on Wikis, either.
As one can see from the above comment, our disagreements often center around headlines aka titles of articles. The Australian Open article which was reference was one of the first I worked on upon my return to truly active editing. (It got us of to a bad start as far as interpersonal relations.) It and the FBI article are probably the perfect examples to illustrate some philosophical differences. I am a big proponent of keeping titles a reasonable length. Not so short that they say nothing, but also not so long it becomes unnecessary to read the article.
First example Tennis: Andy Murray withdraws from Australian Open, I changed AusOpen to Australian Open. In my opinion, there is no reason to shorten it here. It does not make the article title too lengthy. I have watched a fair amount of tennis over the years, and I have never heard AusOpen spoken, Aussie Open, yes, but never the super short version, twitter handle notwithstanding (but we'll come full circle on that in a bit). I defended my decision (and what I see as the right of a reviewer) to rename the article. It got a little heated, to be sure. But I would also like to point out that Wikinews has never published an article with AusOpen in the title.
Secondly, we have the US: FBI's work with Orlando shooter's father is not grounds for mistrial in wife's case article. I think it is obvious, this is already a fairly long title. When asked if I wanted to explain the use of FBI, instinctively knowing it was about the title, I replied "NO!" (I didn't mean to capitalize the 'o' but the exclamation point was intentional, but I digress). The title could have been better, as Pi zero has mentioned. It should have indicated it was 'undercover' or 'informant' work. Nevertheless, that was not Acagastya's problem with the title. It was that FBI is not known to the global audience. Now, I will say that careful examination of policy shows it is acceptable to say "FBI" instead of "Federal Bureau of Intelligence" if for no other reason than sheer length. Also, articles in Category:FBI show that Wikinews uses that acronym in titles, even throughout 2017 when I wasn't active. And, as I promised, we will mention Twitter here: @FBI is the official handle. Twitter shouldn't have any bearing on anything, but since it was brought up as a point in the comment ...
I thought the use of FBI in a title was so perfectly acceptable, it needed no explanation. It was self-evident, in my opinion. I saw the questioning of the use as needling, perhaps over a grudge. And since the Australian Open article has come back here, perhaps I was right. Despite my initial "NO!", I did go on to explain and defend the use of FBI at length.
I have openly called some of Acagastya's argument hypocritical. That's certainly not a nice thing to say and it was probably unpleasant to read/hear. Sorry, but I feel the role Acagastya is taking as the defender of the 'global audience' is a crutch to needle me. As we see here, how is "AusOpen" better than "Australian Open" for the so-called global audience?
P.S. I have ignored the comments about California, Philadelphia, etc. since I don't think they pertain to any article I worked on. Trump did factor into one article which I authored, but we fixed the title before it came to publication.
I don't know if any of you will read all of that, but Acagastya is a large part of Wikinews, so if I don't have their trust, I need to have the trust of a great deal of others if I shall continue as a reviewer. Personally, I think I am meticulous in my reviews. Reviewing is far more arduous than writing. Thank you for your time. I am sorry if this all seems like "drama" for the sake of drama. Cheers, --SVTCobra 15:49, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
1, 2, 3 — not the best examples of how to write a good headline; but Wikinews did publish headline with “Aus Open”. Well, I am looking for: are you ready to listen to what a reviewer from third world country is saying about global audience, and keep it in mind and reflect when necessary even without needing to be reminded instead of a no for anything asked or requested? That whole paragraph for Philadelphia tgat was primarily for what Darkfrog24 had told me before college tests, and believe me, there are people whom I know on the first name basis who do not know those details.
103.254.128.130 (talk) 16:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I stand corrected. When I looked I was searching for "AusOpen" without the space in the middle because that was what was being debated. Still, I stand by my decision to use the full version because it did not make the title too long. Cheers, --SVTCobra 16:49, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
the article talk has a space between “Aus” and “Open”. But this is not a discussion for if Aus Open is suitable or not; as if you could just answer the question about “Would you listen to, and there upon, try to include the general audience; and listen to suggestions in general instead a straight ‘no’?”
103.254.128.130 (talk) 17:20, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK ... we digress on the 'Australian Open' issue, as you say ... My answer is: "Yes, of course, but ..." and I will elaborate. The question to which I emphatically replied "NO!" was "Care to explain what FBI is?" The question, as phrased, does not express what the concerns might be. The article has a full explanation of what the FBI is, as per WN:SG, and Wikinews has a long (and recent) history of using FBI in titles. In other words, I felt neither a need nor a desire to explain, which is simply what the question asked. I think a better formulated question would have elicited a fuller response from me. As we can all see here, I am quite verbose, and keen to express my thoughts. As I have stated above, I felt the use of FBI was well established and self-explanatory, and especially so when the article is framed as one about the United States. So, no, I didn't care to explain. The question asked nothing more and that was my simple answer. It irked me that the question only came after the article was published when it had been in development for two days with FBI in the title. So, this could be why I was so curt. You all probably have figured out where I am geographically, but I really do think I go out of my way to write articles about the whole world. (See: SVTCobra/MyList) I honestly believe that I do not hold a bias in my writing or reviewing. I do make efforts to keep general audiences in mind. I do answer legitimate questions in full. So there are a lot of "Yes" answers to 103.254.128.130's question. --SVTCobra 17:59, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
<dropping in> Sometimes discussions, such as the one about that headline, can get distracted by questions that aren't quite at the heart of the matter. As noted somewhere above, the headline could have been improved; it seems that what most needed explanation was not "what does FBI stand for" but "what sort of work was involved". Knowing what the FBI is might help with deducing the sort of work, but explaining the work directly might be shorter and perhaps clearer.

Perhaps there are situations where a headline reference to "FBI" is okay because the reader can deduce from the headline as much as they need to know, for the headline, about "FBI", while in other situations it would make sense to spell it out in the headline. I recall headlines that did spell it out, as well as ones that didn't. --Pi zero (talk) 18:44, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I must say I am a bit disappointed in your use of 'perhaps' in this instance. You know I respect you a great deal (and I think most of us do). You, yourself, published no fewer than four articles in 2017 alone with FBI in the title. How can you be so vague? And I defy you to show me a single article with the full "Federal Bureau of Investigation" in the title. --SVTCobra 19:16, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could have sworn I saw one about somewhere, but it does look as if there are no examples of spelling it out in a headline. Distribute "perhaps" across the entire sentence. Anyway, my hope is to find an approach everyone agrees to live with, because in news production there isn't time for side debates. --Pi zero (talk) 19:39, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but why was FBI ok in 2017, but not in 2018? --SVTCobra 20:05, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying it isn't. I'm looking for a solution.

I think my spurious memory of a headline that spelled out "Federal Bureau of Investigation" is because at some time in modern history, during a review, I considered how to construct a viable headline that did that, and ultimately gave up and concluded it couldn't be done. If it can't be spelled out, and the reader is apt not to know what the FBI is — and I'm fine stipulating the latter — that would seem to leave us with two choices: either craft the headline so that all the reader needs to know about the FBI (before getting to the lede) is provided by the headline, or don't mention it at all in the headline. If the no-mention isn't acceptable, the explain-what's-needed must be made to work. (In the article that started this, of course, explanation was wanted, it just wasn't solely about explaining "FBI".) --Pi zero (talk) 20:28, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 Anyway, folks, I think the comments have clearly turned into a Policy debate, rather than a reviewing debate. So, whether you read all of the above or not, it is going to boil down to "do you like me" ... well, isn't that democracy? Nobody has accused me of outright and material violation of policy (sorry, but I did have to qualify that) and the real issue is my reviews and if I am fit to make them. Here's that list again for convenience User:SVTCobra/RecentReviews. I am embarrassed at how long the comments and my replies got. I feel I wasted a lot of people's time.

  • Comment Hi Acagastya. If you have issues with a particular person, such as their lack of care for global audience, these are best placed on their user talk page, where they may be discussed separately from the work on the article. This allows to speed up work on the articles themselves. --Gryllida (talk) 08:19, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly you don’t know where all this happened, and when all this happened. The whole conversation took place after that article was published. But you decided to suggest things without knowing, anyways; SCTCobra, asking why it was okay in 2017 but not in 2018; it is same as asking why slavery was okay a few centuries ago but not now? Archives are full with good examples, great examples and poor examples. I suggest you to pick up good articles for considering and as a case study to improve upon. Two wrongs won’t make a right. My mind throws a headline “WWF creator Vince McMahon says climate change isn’t real”; which WWF would you infer? What kind of organisation’s creator are we discussing about? In any case, I would want an answer about this hypothetical headline and after that, some time to observe how much do they live up to their manifest to take care of global audience.
223.237.203.247 (talk) 16:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
and actually, discussion for article not written in the favour of global audience must happen on the article talk; because it is not something to be taken lightly.
223.237.203.247 (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I go by what I said previously. If a post-publish rename is necessary, it is best discussed on article talk, leaving personal discussions elsewhere (such as a user talk page). Gryllida (talk) 00:01, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

I challenge whoever wrote that accusation to visit this page and voice it here, providing grounds for it. Unless that happens, and the accusation has a valid ground, you have my Support. --Gryllida (talk) 05:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To further clarify to my previous comment: I've not seen SVTCobra outside of the last 2-3 months of their editing. Either they were not here, or -- which is more likely -- I myself was not here and was not looking at what was happening on this site. In these just a few weeks of interaction, I've found SVTCobra to be an intelligent person who reacts to comments quickly allowing newsworthy information to be identified and written via article and user talk pages as well as editing content. Their comments go beyond stating the obvious (their interpretation of the SG and CG) but instead they actively research the surrounding content looking for missing information or information that is relevant to the event being reported. Their judgment is sound. The text they write is clear and concise, both at the talk pages and in the articles themselves. Their expression on talk pages is highly expressive and balanced. The articles they write are sufficiently newsworthy, entertaining, bias-free to be a pleasure to read and edit. They also are a technically advanced contributor who is willing to point out errors in software which prevent adequate editing of pages. They read the water cooler regularly and participate in editing of various entries in the news room, those in the review queue as well as off the review queue. They also are able to coordinate review priorities with other reviewers, and their review comments are clear. They have the ability to follow up on the work done on their previous review. I've not seen SVTCobra err in their reviewing; when they did err in their collaborative work, they were readily willing to admit their mistakes. All of this are valuable reviewer qualities. I commend you to keep up the outstanding work. --Gryllida (talk) 11:13, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Looking in detail at some recent articles, I see a careful, thoughtful reviewer who gets the underlying principles and is making a sincere effort to apply them. Didn't get a sense of stagnation. I've seen the community take away reviewers' privileges for unfitness, and those were ugly cases; I don't see anything like that here.

    This discussion was requested, I note, by SVTCobra. Reviewer isn't a static task, it's a continuous learning experience, and I wouldn't hold it against someone that they find it daunting — I'd be far more worried about anyone who didn't find it daunting. Cf. impostor syndrome. --Pi zero (talk) 13:51, 1 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.



The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • Not yet. Two active reviewers oppose promotion at this time; support has been one active reviewer, one sometime-reporter (non-reviewing), and one inactive Wikinewsie (in good standing, accredited, former reviewer). The opposition here carries significant weight within both the RFP discussion, and the active reviewing community. This is not, in the current era, something to move on with significant opposition to it in the inner community. --Pi zero (talk) 06:05, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DannyS712 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I'm going to have a lot more free time in the coming year, and figured I'd get a start on this. I am familiar with local policies, and have written 28 articles (Category:DannyS712 (Wikinewsie)), in addition to contributions to other articles that I was not the primary author of. I am familiar with the flagged revisions software. I spend a lot of time available on-wiki, and would like to help ensure that all articles receive a prompt review so that they can avoid going stale. English is my native language, allowing me to carry out the copyediting expected of reviewers. Let me know if there are any questions I can answer. Happy new year! Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 23:56, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • DannyS712, thank you for putting your name forward for reviewer. Could you answer the following questions, please? Apologies for reusing the questions from a previous comment.
    • What style of inline references are acceptable for a Wikinews article?
    • There is an article for review, written in French with excellent French sources? How would you review it and why?
    • A new user writes an article about the 2016 US Presidential election and tags it for review. How would you review it and why?
    • An article you are reviewing uses a quotation of three sentences spoken by a famous actor, but the sentences don’t appear in the sources in the WN article. You know of a different source that quotes those three sentences. How would you add it as a source?
    • You’ve reviewed an article about a crucial part of the Brexit process and published it on 28 January 2020, just days before Brexit. A week later someone points out an error in the article. What do you do about it?
    • There is an article to be reviewed. It is about alleged Kremlin interference (ordered by President Putin himself) in the forthcoming US elections in 2020. It is very well written with a dozen paragraphs, in the correct style, with no copyright problems and is very newsworthy, citing articles from the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News and NBC, as well as quoting senior US intelligence officials, the White House, and the Speaker of the House, together with Tweets from President Trump. What reviewing issues might you raise about this article that could be pertinent to WN policies?
    • You have reviewed a new article and found it did not meet WN standards. The user who wrote it leaves an angry message on your talk page alleging a poor review on your part. How would you respond to them, particularly with reference to the five components of a review?
    • Of the articles you have written or contributed to, which one might you select as an example of your best work on WN? Which one might you select as the worst example of your work on WN?
    • I’ve left this issue till the end. Recently you seem to have applied for a number of permissions on various wikis (admin on MediaWiki in August, admin on Commons in September, curator on Wikiversity in October, custodian in Wikiversity in December). How do you respond to allegations that you’re hat-collecting and that you are editing at far too high a speed? Please bear in mind that this question is not in itself an allegation.
  • Cheers. Happy New Year. Green Giant (talk) 00:55, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Green Giant: see below:
    1. Inline references are not used in the same way that they are on wikipedia (for example). Inline references are a form of attribution. They should be in the form of prose (from my last article, US House of Representatives impeaches President Trump: "In the immediate aftermath of the vote, CNN reported Jeff Van Drew was expected to leave the Democratic party." - this serves to provide the reader with information about where the sentence was sourced from, and attributes the reporting to CNN). The relevant guideline is at Wikinews:Style guide#Numbered annotations - sources should just be listed at the bottom. Additionally, inline html tags about what source is used for a paragraph or sentence can be added by authors to aid in reviewing. Such comments are not shown to readers and are not required, but are allowed.
    2. Assuming that the article is indeed "with excellent French sources", I would suggest to the author that it be submitted to n:fr:, since generally only content in English is appropriate for publication here (for example, a foreign-language quote, accompanied by translations, can be included). I would fail the review, but encourage the author to pursue it on the French site and/or translate it to English; foreign-language sources are allowed (several were used in Hungarian state-owned enterprise acquires Hirtenberger Defence Group recently), and the same good sources could be used to support an English article. Were the article translated and resubmitted, I would likely leave review to someone more familiar with French.
    3. Articles about the 2016 election are generally no longer in the news (Wikinews:Content guide#What is 'news'?). However, if there were elements of original research, or new developments were presented, then freshness may be preserved. For example, if the article demonstrated that Russian agents stuffed ballot boxes, or if the author interviewed voters to see if they regretted their choices, or some other new angle, then I would continue to review the remaining aspects, being satisfied that freshness was not an issue.
    4. First, if the author was available, I would consult them; I may have missed the quote in the sources (see Talk:Four teenagers shot at Pennsylvania graduation party#Backyard - I included something from a source that the reviewer missed, but was able to point it out and have it restored). Assuming that the author is unavailable, or cannot point to where in the listed sources the quote is, and does not provide an alternative source, I would then have a few options. Adding a source generally disqualifies someone as a reviewer (c.f. User:Pi zero's comment at Talk:Missing New York City chef Andrea Zamperoni found dead#Edits - "adding a source is in itself a classic example of an absolutely involving act"). As a result,
      • If removing the quote, given that it is unsourced, would result in the article being too short to publish, I would fail the review
      • If there are no other issues that require failing the review, and removing the quote wouldn't cause more issues, I would:
        1. Remove the quote
        2. Finish the review
        3. Sight the publication
        4. Restore the quote, and add a new source for it, leaving that edit for another user to sight
      • If the article has other issues that require failing the review, I would leave the quote in (since the article isn't being published yet), and leave a note in the review that it needs to be sourced
    5. If the error is not a factual error (typos, grammatical mistakes, etc.) then the error can be rectified uncontroversially. Otherwise, a {{correction}} notice is used. If the article has already been archived, then Wikinews:Archive conventions#Post-archival edits provides some more instruction.
    6. As a preliminary issue, I'll note that use of pay-walled sources like the New York Times is discouraged; sources should be accessible to all, and paywalled articles are not. See Wikinews:Cite sources#Published sources must be verifiable, as well as discussions at, eg, Talk:Poland: Thousands of far-right nationalists gather in Warsaw to march for white supremacy, anti-liberalism, and anti-Islam on Polish independence day#Paywalled sources, Talk:Ross Edgley swims around Great Britain for first time in history#Deleted as paywalled, Talk:U.S. House issues subpoena to secretary of state as special envoy to Ukraine resigns#Written, Talk:Donald Trump inaugurated as 45th U.S. president#Review of revision 4281364 [Not ready] (and more). Moving on, the biggest issue is likely to be neutrality - policy requires that articles be written without bias. Without an actual article to read, I cannot give a more specific answer, but the biggest issue, based on the description given, would be neutrality.
    7. Depending on what specifically they object to, I could show relevant wikinews policies that support the position I took, elaborate on unclear notes, or explain the review process in more depth (its not just copy-editing before publication, but rather primarily assessing if an article should be published at all)
    8. Best: I'm proud of series of obituaries I have written. While not individually outstanding, I wrote quite a bit and got a fair number published. Individually, I would go with U.S. House issues subpoena to secretary of state as special envoy to Ukraine resigns or U.S. judge orders release of President Trump's tax records, appeals court issues delay - longer articles that I worked on with other users. Worst (that was published): a lot of my early articles were pretty short, Gillibrand ends US presidential bid especially so.
    9. I use the rights that I have. I edit a lot, and am active on multiple sites, which lead me to having rights on multiple sites. In hindsight, the commons rfa was a pretty bad idea; I was nominated without prior notice, and couldn't figure out a good way to decline. I can give a more elaborate answer if you have any specific concerns.
    I hope my answers were clear; let me know if you have any more questions / if I should elaborate on anything. Happy new year, --DannyS712 (talk) 01:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excellent and detailed answers. Each question was intended to probe some policy/guideline/behaviour. I won’t go over them all but Question 6 was indeed about both paywalls and bias. It would be important to have a balanced and unbiased article. Question 9 is based on my observations of two other wikis (Commons and Wikiversity). I didn’t participate in your Commons RFA but it would not have been helpful to gloss over the issue here. Your answer reassures me that you are not hat-collecting. --Green Giant (talk) 02:11, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have in mind to ask a couple of questions, or so, myself (though I'll need a moment when my neurons have a bit more stretch in them than atm). --Pi zero (talk) 05:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am not completely satisfied with the approach for the 5th question. Reviewer, and the author should go to great lengths to make sure if the supposed error is actually an error, or not. Often times, there are errors in the sources which leads to confusion: the astronomy article published on July 14 2017, about the size of the smallest star, or the date for Zimbabwe's application for the Commonwealth required contacting the Commonwealth and the paper publisher in each case. Best is to ask a veteran what to do, and learn from how they would handle the case.
    •–• 08:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Acagastya: to clarify, I was explaining my understanding of policy. Since reviewers cannot edit archived articles, I would not be able to correct such errors myself, and from what I have seen so far, a {{correction}} tag is only used after discussion. --DannyS712 (talk) 08:47, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, one should, regardless of they can edit or not, strive to check things thoroughly, especially when an objection is raised.
    •–• 08:51, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, regarding answer for #6, sometimes, some information is not available elsewhere. Often reviewers clear cache, use incognito, or use other strategies like using VPN in some cases to bypass the paywall. That is, though not the best way to, but often required when the information drawn from them is very crucial.
    •–• 08:51, 5 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Acagastya, Pi zero: reminder ping - its been over a week since you both expressed an intention to comment here. Any updates? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question What are your thoughts on the role of writer and reviewer relating to the recently raised concern over article Iraqi Parliament votes for expulsion of United States troops (of January 6)? Keeping in mind, this is an article you wrote and I reviewed. What's your assessment of the outcome? Of your part in it, and of mine? If I had written the same article, and you had reviewed it, would/should things have played out differently? --Pi zero (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I realize that I missed a key detail in writing that article, and apologize for that. I wrote that article after reading about the expulsion in the news, and the initial coverage I saw discussed US troops only. I would hope that, if I had been the reviewer, I would have approached the article from an uninformed perspective (i.e. not having read about the topic from other sources before hand and letting those sources color my review) and seen in the sources the disagreement regarding the scope of the expulsion. I think the primary responsibility for the mix up lies with me; the review is, of course, supposed to fact check the article, but ultimately the writer is accountable for the content included. Let me know if you want any further elaboration. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    We're above the "quiz" level of things here; rather than looking for some "right" answer, I've raised a real unfolding situation to simultaneously observe your reactions and attitude, encourage thoughtfulness, and exchange thoughts (because you are applying to become a junior member of the cabal [note: There Is No Cabal], one of the folk who make these decisions).

    I'd agree a reviewer should look for concerns from an uninformed perspective, while noting a reviewer also has to catch concerns that come from an informed perspective (whatever works).

    I would only half agree (and only half disagree) with your assertion that "ultimately the writer is accountable for the content included". In fact both the reporter and the reviewer are ultimately responsible, and both should be trying to have each other's backs, catching things that the other might miss; it's not a symmetric collaboration, but some things about it are symmetric, and both carry a full load. It's been noted that if anyone ever chose to sue someone over the content of a published Wikinews article, the two people with targets painted on them are the reporter and the reviewer. (Slightly nervous? Good. There's this moment, just before clicking to submit a publishing review, when you wonder: Have I messed up somehow?) --Pi zero (talk) 20:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Question @DannyS712: Consider the files used for this article Ireland votes to overturn 35-year-old constitutional ban on abortion. The author of the article did not take the photos. What are the things you would ensure before publishing such articles? Note: please comment for every media in the article body minus the infobox.
    15.211.153.74 (talk) 09:43, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I start by noting that every file provides attribution to the author and states the license that the file is released under. Attribution requires are met. For each file,
    Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 02:12, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, @DannyS712: Nice observation. But is that all you would check? (Trick question. Maybe not.)
•–• 04:16, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I assumed this question was specifically about what considerations were needed for images. Of course, when images are included in the article, they also need to be relevant and timely (i.e. cannot have been added afterwards in a manner in which prose could not be; Wikinews:Archive conventions#Post-archival edits notes that "Images are considered content". --DannyS712 (talk) 04:36, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure you are not overlooking something, @DannyS712:?
•–• 08:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the {{picture select}} files are missing captions (other than basic attribution; i.e. no description of content). Also, the two images on the side include the cc link outside of the {{image}} template, rendering them as external links, while the ones for the picture select have no such styling. Other than that, I don't see any issues specific to the images that would be present at the time of review. As for the content of the images, the numbers given match the prose, though the prose has commas for the numbers and the image doesn't. The "percentage" image needs sources for the claims it includes, but I haven't done a full review of the article, just of the suitability of the images. If I were reviewing the article myself, I would of course go through the sources and verify each constituency shading, but I'm not. --DannyS712 (talk) 17:39, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 I wonder if you had noticed this upload, @DannyS712:. I was hoping that incident would lead to you adding a satisfactory answer for the question.
•–• 09:33, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sure - local copies are kept to avoid images being overwritten. But, I checked each of the commons files, and none have been edited since the article was published, so it hasn't been an issue. If the files are unstable or being updated, a local copy should be created, but no local version was necessary in this case --DannyS712 (talk) 16:51, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have given ample opportunities to get to the point, but yet not received satisfactory response.
We don't wait till the file is changed on Commons. Prevention is better than finding the right version and getting things patched up.
It is totally all right to have a local copy of the file which is very likely to be changed. Feel free to ask Commons' admin @Green Giant: about the map in their recent article.
I will provide the rationale in the vote.
•–• 18:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Is this the established policy (always uploading a local copy even if it is unlikely to be changed)? If "we don't wait till the file is changed on Commons", why do we allow using commons files, instead of requiring local uploads? Of the articles currently on the main page, 1 has a local file, and 2 (here and here) use commons files. Of the 5 published before that, 1 and 2 use a commons files, and only this uses a local file, which has to be local because it is fair use. In short, out of the last 10 articles, 5 used images that could be on commons, and only 1 of the 5 used a local copy. That one file is indeed likely to be updated on commons, but when such updates are unnecessary, either because of the content of the image itself or because of the age of the images, as was the case with this question here: the images are from an event over a year and a half ago and, while they may have been at risk of updates when first used, no longer face such a risk now. I checked every file on commons for updates, and would have pointed any out, but there were none. --DannyS712 (talk) 19:21, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Also, per Wikinews:Style guide#Changing images, "For ongoing news events, such as the spread of a disease or virus (eg File:H1N1 map.svg), the image hosted on commons will be repeatedly updated. This means that the map on Commons is only accurate for a news article at the time of publication. To avoid this issue, the current map must be downloaded, and reuploaded to Commons with a date stamp in the file name." the article in question here was not about an "ongoing news event", but rather a one-time event. --DannyS712 (talk) 19:24, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How frequently do you see a street photograph, a portrait or a panorama shot being modified on Commons vs the frequency at which maps and charts are modified?
•–• 19:46, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Infrequently, and that is my point - they are not frequently modified, and our policy makes no hint regarding uploading local copies. I would have absolutely no objections to doing so, but I resent the accusation that I missed something - it simply isn't a part of policy to, by default, always upload local copies --DannyS712 (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
 Never said to "always upload local copy". You point misses the fact that on Commons, the files which contain geopolitical boundaries or stats are either victims of edit-warring, or frequent update (despite them being a snapshot in time). There is a greater probability of them to be unstable and hence, it is done as a precaution. You would see admins, and reviewers taking some measures for precaution: though guidelines haven't explicitly stated it. Things keep on changing and one needs to take appropriate measure for that. You "missed something" is not an accusation. The guideline on enwn suggests what to do. Does not mean that is the only thing that you do. That does not stop you from discussing and then taking appropriate steps to avoid a possible conflict. Instead of resenting, you should, imho, take it as: "yes, sometimes we don't know all the things. But I will learn what and why."
•–• 05:41, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I don't understand your comment about the guidelines here. Do you believe that the guidelines suggest that a local version be uploaded in this case? If that is the case, what guideline are you referring to? As for missing something, is it "not an accusation" because it is demonstrable true, or because you didn't intend to imply that I had missed something? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:27, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question @DannyS712: For perspective, two questions about this review I did recently of an article you submitted:  (1) Critique my review. If someone else had written the article and you were reviewing it, what would you do the same as, or differently from, what I did?  (2) Critique your writing of the article. --Pi zero (talk) 01:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Part 1:
    Your review looks fine overall. I disagree with the last part about specifying a specific source - I do that after writing the article (Special:Diff/4543213), after finding a source to confirm the specific claim made in the sentence. I do that so that, after the reviewer considers each source, the can more easily fact check each claim. The article is written without using specific sources for specific sentences.
    I left the article as Special:Permalink/4543222. Using dupdet for fox news, I see the following potential issues:
    1. "traded to the los angeles lakers" - there are not many ways to note that a player was traded to a team
    2. "in the first round of the" - same issue re options. I would not count "the", for example, as towards a violation, when it is the most commonly used definite article in English
    3. "mvp and the 2008 nba mvp" - technically, the "mvp" at the start of the phrase, in the source, is part of "two time nba finals mvp". In the article, its "4 times as all star mvp". MVP is a common part of the names, and there are only so many ways to list the awards that doesn't have "mvp" as the end of the second to last entry (which is then followed by "and the")
    4. "kobe bryant and four others" - doesn't meet the threshold for violations, 40% is someone's name
    The similarity with NBC that you found was added in Special:Diff/4543229, after my last edit to the article.
    That being said, I was unable to find such a similarity. `"on their way [...] game"` - I cannot find the word "way" in the NBC article at all
    "Don't say things are true, or have not happened; say they were true, and when; say they had not happened and as of when (and be careful in doing so)" - not exactly sure what this is referring to. I would suspect "So far, the Federal Aviation Administration has said the cause is unknown.", but I don't see the article "say[ing] things are true" - it attributes to a source. I should have said "as of Monday evening" or something to better say when thought.
    "Number of people no longer five; our article says both five people and five passengers, which aren't consistent with each other since at least one person on board (the pilot) would not be a passenger. The first sentence of the lede wants some attribution." - the "no longer five" is an issue of timing, and I couldn't have controlled that. As for the disagreement, I should have clarified "Kobe Bryant and four others passengers".
    Part 2:
    Going passed on the version I submitted for review, I agree that the reason for the traveling should have been included, which it wasn't. The disagreement regarding passengers vs total people on board would indeed have been an issue, and the article could not be published before that was resolved. Taken in combination with the borderline copyvio issues, I would likely have failed the article but watched it for resubmission.
    Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 02:32, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

I'm just slowing down here, to consider events as they unfold. --Pi zero (talk) 01:43, 29 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'm sticking with "wait". I do maintain there are things one can only learn from experiencing what it's like to be on the other side of the review template —which is why we've wondered for years about providing some sort of "practice review" by non-reviewers, which alas we're still not ready to support the infrastructure for, afaict— but in this case, looking at their submitted articles, I'm not yet comfortable. I've a feeling they're not yet ready to take the plunge. --Pi zero (talk) 13:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am going to Oppose. Not yet. It isn't the time. There are some key problems I have noticed. In no particular order, they are:
  1. Promoting selective ignorance for certain sections of sources -- Even if there is a 1000-word news source which is used to provide just a single line of information, a reviewer can not and should not skip the rest of the cited source. The author, while writing the article looks for the facts they want to mention: they might easily overlook those sections where the information could be contradicting other sources. It is the duty of the reviewer to not skip any information in the sources. Special:Diff/4543214 highlights the user is yet to understand why such notes have zero benefit. It is one thing to say "This information was available in that source: the xth paragraph". That helps the reviewer. But the other way around shows lack of complete understanding of the review process.
  2. Failure to identify the issues with chart media -- the most important reason to oppose is the question I had asked above, regarding the image where there is some sort of statistics involved. I asked them to answer for "all the media files", which was as a real life scenario where there are a bunch of images in a news article, and the reviewer has to compete against time and publish things quickly. The editor was stumbling upon the image caption and credit and license links when that wasn't the most important thing. A file is a content and it is important to have that checked as well. I was hoping the editor would finally say something about fact-checking the numbers in the plot. It is crucial that one ensures errors don't flow in from there. It adds a great deal of complexity when reviewing. And even after asking repeatedly, this was never highlighted. Something a reviewer must not overlook.
  3. Not looking at the long term situation -- in the above discussion, the editor said it wasn't necessary to have a local copy of a file because there weren't any newer versions of the file on wmc. However, just yesterday (depending on your time zone), we saw that some files do indeed change over time even when people had their best efforts to make it as a snapshot in time. (Special:Diff/4544806) One needs to consider the case of edit-warring that can cause conflicts. One needs more experience to think and prevent possible conflicts.
  4. Failure to avoid plagiarism -- Kobe Bryant's obit article's first review comments Special:Diff/4543267 points out the editor is still in the phase where they can't completely write a synthesis which is distant from the source. Sometimes, it is difficult, and we think: there is no other way. But with more experience, you find stronger commitment to not have the issue where things are too similar to the source. One of the ways to ensure that is to maintain a journal, write down facts from the sources, and then to write an article: not type, but write. This also helps one connect at a deeper level with the article, that old articles you wrote three years ago: you would still remember significant parts of it (helps when you need to use old articles for a new one). And more importantly, when you write, it is less likely one makes logical errors in the article, which the lede of that article had.
I strongly suggest the editor to communicate with the reviewers in real time when articles are being reviewed: so they learn from the thought process. It greatly helps learning so much about the role. But there are important concerns about the vision which points there are important reviewer traits the user is yet to pick up. The way a user treats the source, the degree of quality check for information in all forms, hunch for the possible issues in future, commitment to distancing from the source and avoiding errors are important assets of a reviewer.
•–• 19:36, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Acagastya: please note
  1. I was not promoting "selective ignorance" - as I explained, I add source notes "so that, after the reviewer considers each source, the can more easily fact check each claim. The article is written without using specific sources for specific sentences." - what I meant was to provide context about what specific paragraphs provide support for claims, not to suggest that the whole article shouldn't be read.
  2. "As for the content of the images, the numbers given match the prose, though the prose has commas for the numbers and the image doesn't. The "percentage" image needs sources for the claims it includes, but I haven't done a full review of the article, just of the suitability of the images. If I were reviewing the article myself, I would of course go through the sources and verify each constituency shading, but I'm not." - I explicitly noted the need to fact-check the numbers in the plot, in contrast with your claim that it "was never highlighted"
  3. Please see my comment above regarding local images - I do not believe your response here that I should have suggested uploading local copies aligns with the style guide's recommendation that files be uploaded to commons and a local copy created for "ongoing news events"
  4. As I noted above, two of the five potential violations were false positives, and a third was not added by me, nor could I confirm that there was indeed a violation ("That being said, I was unable to find such a similarity. `"on their way [...] game"` - I cannot find the word "way" in the NBC article at all"). The other two, I still maintain that the terms "los angeles lakers" being 60% of the first possible violation suggests that it isn't actually a violation in terms of 4 or more words, and that the second phrase is just extremely common.
I'm not going to ask you to reconsider, but (and as I've noted elsewhere) I'm disappointed that so much institutional knowledge appears to differ from the official policies and guidelines. --DannyS712 (talk) 19:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
1. There is a way of saying it. As I mentioned, if you were to say "This line from the article: you can find it here in XYZ source, it was no obvious to find it", that is okay. But saying "only the 7th para of XYZ source was used" implies selective ignorance.
2. The intent to ask about the media was not for the suitability (wouldn't we have thought about it before publishing?). It was to know how exactly would you verify. The comma was the least of the problems, as it is just another way of representing. The question was about how would you make sure the shades of blue were accurate. That is what I wanted to see. How you would verify the shades are not too dark or too light. Alas, I never heard from you the measures you would go to ensure the accuracy.
3. Guideline does not say a lot of things, that does not mean you won't do something that is needed, but not mentioned.
4. Reviewer can see more than the dupdet. That said, I personally think you can do better, and improve in future. We learn every day. There are things we don't know. Happened to me, yesterday. But there is a set of things one should know before getting reviewer bits: and distancing from source is indeed one of those things.
That said, I hope you communicate with the reviewer reviewing your articles, when they are reviewing, to learn about various things, reasons why we do them, and things where the article could be improved on (which we often know while reviewing, but forget while writing review comments).
Take this as "not yet", rather than "not now, never". Few things are missing. Does not mean you wouldn't ever get them.
•–• 05:36, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Re:
  1. That was not my intention, and in the future I'll be more careful regarding my phrasing to avoid others inferring that I was suggesting selective ignorance
  2. It was very much unclear that "It was to know how exactly would you verify" - I noted that the content needed to be verified, but wasn't asked (from what I understood) about how I would perform such a verification. Would you like me to explain how I would verify the content of the images, either for the article in question or for another?
  3. "Guideline does not say a lot of things, that does not mean you won't do something that is needed, but not mentioned." - if the guideline explicitly says to use a local copy in some situations, it implies that no such local copy is needed in others. This doesn't mean that I "won't do something that is needed", it just doesn't appear to have been needed! You yourself wrote that article, after you became a reviewer - if a local copy was indeed "something that is needed", why was no local copy used? I'm not sure how it could not have been needed then, but is needed now?
  4. I agree that there is more to copyright violation detection than dupdet, and only use it to check for the "rule of 4"
I understand that you mean this as a "not yet", but I don't see exactly what you are saying is "missing" - the policy implies that local files aren't needed here and the question regarding verification of the contents was never clear to begin with, and so I didn't answer a question I was unaware was being asked. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


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Seemplez (talk · contribs – Edit rights) (2)[edit]

I am, rather tentatively, putting myself up for Reviewer. I have been editing for three months, have written as many articles that have passed review and mainly do WikiGnome tasks like adding abandoned and delete tags. I know English spelling and grammar rules, and am familliar with enwn policies. Thank you for any comments, support, or constructive criticism in advance. Seemplez 10:08, 18 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • @Seemplez: Thank you for putting your name forward. I like your enthusiasm but you have only been active on Wikinews since September 2019 and have made 176 edits on Wikinews. I don’t feel you have had enough experience of Wikinews to be effective at reviewing. To give you some examples of the challenges faced by reviewers, I’ve compiled a list of questions I might ask a candidate for the reviewer permission:
    • What style of inline references are acceptable in a Wikinews article?
    • There is a proposed Wikinews article put up for review and it is written in French with excellent French sources? How would you review it and why?
    • A new user puts up a news article about the 2016 US Presidential election. How would you review it and why?
    • A Wikinews article you are reviewing uses a quotation of three sentences spoken by a famous actor, but the sentences don’t appear in the sources in the WN article. You know of a different source that quotes those three sentences. Should you add it as a source?
    • You’ve reviewed a WN article about a crucial part of the Brexit process and published it on 28 January 2020, just days before Brexit. A week later someone points out an error in the article. What do you do about it?
    • There is a new WN article to be reviewed. It is about alleged Kremlin interference (ordered by President Putin himself) in the forthcoming US elections in 2020. It is very well written with a dozen paragraphs, in the correct style, with no copyright problems and is very newsworthy, citing the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News and NBC, all quoting senior intelligence officials and the White House. What issues might you raise about this article that might be pertinent to WN policies?
  • You don’t have to answer any of the questions but I hope it gives an idea of what we are looking for, although other users may have further criteria to judge a candidacy against. I think a few months more experience, with several published (and unpublished) articles will prepare you for reviewer. --Green Giant (talk) 23:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Green Giant: Sorry for the wait. I agree, I am more inexperienced than most. I'll reapply in 6months or so. Seemplez 12:33, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Seemplez: I've been thinking I'd tend to add to GG's questions something about WN:Neutrality and something about how to handle the threshold where a reviewer would have to disqualify themselves from review (where the threshold is, how to not cross it, and when [and how] to cross it). --Pi zero (talk) 01:08, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


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Closed as unsuccessful. —chaetodipus (talk · contribs) 20:55, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Seemplez (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I feel that over the eleven months (how time flies!) since my RfP I have gained a lot more experience in Wikinews. I have written a few more articles now and feel that I could be a decent Reviewer now. If you want I can answer the questions GG asked in my first RfP, but times have changed and they may not be relevant. I have had the rollback bit on enwp for a while now, so I am familiar with how it works. Seemplez 10:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • Comment Wikinews needs willing contributors in these times. That said. A reviewer needs to be able to look at other people's articles and see what's wrong with them. Certainly a candidate for the key reviewer task should be able to consistently submit articles with no serious problems. I'm looking at the article you just submitted, and honestly I'm seeing a number of serious problems. This is not a submission by someone who is ready for the review bit. --Pi zero (talk) 12:44, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Pi zero: Could you elaborate on the article's talk page? Seemplez 13:25, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, yes, that's part of review, and I'm reviewing it now. You submitted it for review, thus indicating you perceived it as ready for publication. Just to be clear, the point here isn't about the specifics of that particular article. Being ready for reviewer means being ready for whatever comes your way; it calls for deep, broad understanding of our policies and practices, more as a living coherent whole than as a collection of details (though there's that too). Frankly, after ten years and many thousands of reviews I still routinely encounter new situations in reviews; it's not possible, even in principle, to put together a set of rules to cover every situation that will come up. Whether someone has the breadth and depth of understanding of the principles involved, that's a judgement call, and in some cases a subtle one at that. --Pi zero (talk) 13:52, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment @Seemplez:, you should know we do appreciate the articles you write. One of the signs that you are ready for the reviewer is when your aricles pass the review without a major thing not-readying the article. You could also help other users by copyediting their work. Could you write more articles which are published without being not-ready'd -- that is crucial.
•–• 05:54, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

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Not done. Unfortunately the candidate has not edited in ten days and there have been no further comments from others in those ten days except my change to neutral. The proposed co-review has not taken place because of IRL work. The support from two others is good but it has to be outweighed by the lack of availability of the candidate for the last ten days. Whenever you apply for something like this, you should be available to answer questions. Please do submit a fresh candidacy on your return to editing and when you are unlikely to be busy in the real world. [24Cr][talk] 02:07, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

JJLiu112 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

It is no secret Wikinews, at present, is inundated with a significant, persistent and, as demonstrated, irresolvable backlog only so to the voracity of contributors and relative absence of reviewers, an acceptable, even expected disparity in any on-line site, but terrible to one as dependent on timely publication and feedback as Wikinews is. I cannot emphasise any more how undesirable this present condition is. It has a real, demoralising effect on writers and reporters, who must contend themselves with week-late "sorry, this is stale" notes, and can add unneeded burden on reviewers. Neither side is at blame, but the web site suffers. I hope this is not "news" to anybody.

There is no real alternative. Pressing reviewers simply to "do more" is ridiculous, and I shudder to think of a volunteer-driven effort turning away willing contributors. I therefore nominate myself to this post as an frequently-active, presently-disgruntled accredited reporter who has written over 30 articles, and several OR, who has frequently worked on articles by sheer volition and participated in pertinent discussion, who has given real feedback. I am aware of concerns I may be "caustic", to use such a word. For those past examples I can only apologise, and acknowledge the situations in which such arguments arose. I can provide only my sincere apology such conversations happened at all, and assurance they will not again.

I truly believe in Wikinews, and equally so that we can get over the present situation, a tragedy with no aggressors, which has made it so difficult to stay involved. And I believe that this is how. --JJLiu112 (talk) 03:22, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

  • @JJLiu112:, thank you for putting your name forward for reviewer. Could you try to answer the following questions, please?
    • What style of inline references are acceptable for a Wikinews article?
      • Inline references are not accepted as on Wikipedia articles or academic articles ([1] etc); for example, one could not cite an article in the sentence where information was pulled from it. Instead, contributors should link all sources used in the source template, and provide appropriate attribution: "According to the BBC, data indicates...", with the article linked in sources (of course, with all fields filled properly). If OR, there could be html code that aids in the review process. This view is supported in Wikinews:For Wikipedians and Wikinews:Style Guide. Should a contributor have difficulty, I would guide them through this process. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is an article for review, written in German with excellent German sources? How would you review it and why?
      • This is not a theoretical situation for me, as I have dealt with this before. Though I cannot recall either the page or user's name (and regardless, the first was deleted months ago after being failed for review), I proactively encouraged a user writing a seemingly-legitimate, non-spam article in Russian on the article and user talk to submit it to the Russian Wikinews. I have no issue doing the same again, with German instead. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • A new user writes an article about the 2020 US Presidential election and tags it for review. How would you review it and why?
      • I would first regard the precise nature of the article, as there have been past instances where users attempted to submit news articles with focal points well over a year ago. Should this be a legitimate subsequent development or relevant OR piece, I would review it as usual. New or established user alike, I will undergo the same rigorous process of review, and that means checking sources, verifying information, basic copyediting and providing final judgement and feedback, if necessary. There will also be more reason to check for copyright violations, poor grasp of the English language etc, of course, but the basic process is the same. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • An article you are reviewing uses a quotation of three sentences spoken by a famous politician, but the sentences don’t appear in the sources in the WN article. You know of a different source that quotes those exact three sentences. How would you add this as a source?
      • I would discuss this with the contributor. Should this prove impossible, or they prove unreachable, and the quote is central, I would fail the review and leave a quick summary of why. As explained to me before, no reviewer can add sources manually without explicit permission by the contributor. Should the quote's inclusion prove minor to publication (generally the case if no relevant source includes it), I would remove the quote and approve it (assuming all other criteria are met, of course), then leave a message on the article talk page, encouraging a sighted edit from the original contributor, or someone else. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • You’ve reviewed an article about a crucial part of the next Australian federal election and published it just the day after the election. A week later someone points out an error in the article. What do you do about it?
    • There is an article to be reviewed. It is about alleged Chinese hacking (apparently ordered by Xi Jinping himself) of US President Biden's phone. It is very well written with a dozen paragraphs, in the correct style, with no copyright problems and is very newsworthy, citing articles from the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News and NBC, as well as quoting senior US intelligence officials, the White House, and the Speaker of the House. What reviewing issues might you raise about this article that could be pertinent to WN policies?
      • First, I must check this is in date (though a damned shame if not), in which case all further steps are pointless. Next, both Watpo and the NYT are paywalled sources, which disallows their use. I would speak to the contributor on verifiability. Otherwise, there is the matter of due weight concerns. Wikinews articles are not editorials/advertisements, and both NPOV and the Neutrality essay must be regarded at all times, in case of speculation, misrepresentation or phrase bias, which could plague even the most "well written" articles, style aside. If it is clear the article is pushing one particular view, or at the least grossly misrepresenting or inflating it, this is cause for rejection. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • You have reviewed a new article and found it did not meet WN standards. The user who wrote it leaves an angry message on your talk page alleging a poor review on your part. How would you respond to them, particularly with reference to the five components of a review?
    • Of the articles you have written or contributed to, which one might you select as an example of your best work on WN? Which one might you select as the worst example of your work on WN?
  • You don’t have to answer any of them but it might help my mindset. [24Cr][talk] 03:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Very good and clear answers to my questions. One of the most important components of the review process is the interaction between reviewer and contributor, especially when improvements are needed in the article. You’ve shown that you understand this with comments and suggestions in draft articles as well as the detailed answers to questions here. I look forward to finding out how the co-review goes - in fact this sounds like an excellent way to examine reviewing ability of candidates. [24Cr][talk] 13:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Frankly speaking, I would like to see anyone willing to be a reviewer first attempt reviewing other's articles and to help newbies -- even going as far as showing every single thing how it is done before making the move.
    •–• 04:17, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have "attempted", Agastya, with respect to basic copyediting and the providing of feedback (let alone blanking of spam, proposed deletions and copyvio). One need only go through my contributions to find examples. While it is true I have not sat down and reviewed an entire article for no actualised benefit, instead using eventual feedback on my and others' articles as guidelines, I have definitely endeavoured in both areas mentioned. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I remember at times your assessment was rather too quick to for marking things stale -- so I will prefer to see better sense of judgement in the days to come. And I do appreciate the help you do. I feel you can do it better. Try comparing the changes between your final revision to the one which is published, and how things can be improved -- I feel just a little bit more of finesse is further required. But yes, "reviewing", or at least co-reviewing with a reviewer, perhaps on IRC, while you think out loud how things are done -- that will be a good starting point. If you are free later today, we can review that Phillipines article. Let me know if that works for you.
        •–• 06:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not got much to say here except that I agree with most of your concerns here. It is terribly damaging to such a small project that so many articles are being rejected because we don't have the personnel to review them, and it drives away newcomers who could potentially be of great value to the project to just see "sorry, this is stale". I don't have any questions for you, but I think you could make a very good reviewer, and I'm interested in seeing your responses to these questions. :) --LivelyRatification (talk) 05:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, friend! --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Even though I've been only part of the project since March and contributed here and there, I think that it is justified for you to request reviewer status. Wikinews is in bad shape and active reviewers don't match the inflow of articles. From the point of view of someone who had two articles rejected because they had become stale in the queue, I think that a user like you could fit the role of reviewer. Even though you may not be perfect, Wikinews is based on the collaboration of multiple imperfect volunteer users, and not on a single perfect user. Henrymyman (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just to interject, "From the point of view of someone who had two articles rejected because they had become stale in the queue, I think that a user like you could fit the role of reviewer" is just a really bad reason.
•–• 14:52, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
From the point of view of someone who had over five articles rejected because they had become stale in the queue, I think it was merely a passing remark and relation to the post, not express acknowledgement of all my qualifications: "a user like you", for example. --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! --JJLiu112 (talk) 05:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

Moving to Neutral pending the outcome of a joint review by the candidate and an experienced reviewer, which seems to be not happening at the moment. Additionally the candidate has not edited in a week, so awaiting a return to activity. [24Cr][talk] 15:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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LivelyRatification (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

  • Placeholder for LivelyRatification [I will finish proper formatting later]. She has explicitly expressed interest in becoming a Reviewer.--Bddpaux (talk) 16:21, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm reopening this, as I think I'm ready to renominate myself. In the past month, I've written 12 articles, most of which have had no major issues, and have been published with only minor copyedits. I've been a Wikinewsie now for about 10 months, and in that time, I've gained a good understanding of how the site works, and what is expected in an article. Since this nomination, I have tried to help out new articles in development or review, and I helped review Two US congressmen fly into Kabul; trip reportedly unauthorized with acagastya. I think that generally, I behave myself both on WN and on the IRC in a kind and respectful way that is befitting of a reviewer. If you have any questions, please do put them below and I'll try to get to them. Note the clock on my user page - I may be asleep, but I'll try to answer any questions within 24 hours at the latest. --LivelyRatification (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note[edit]

I genuinely feel it is way too soon, and I would encourage anyone requesting reviewer rights (not just one volunteer in this context) to be first be able to write articles which require little to no significant fixes from reviewer perspective and to attempt reviewing other articles for practice. I haven't seen that happening -- and more importantly, I have not seen helping newbies and showing them how things are done. Other concern being lack of descriptive comments (or even comments) in edit summaries which leaves the viewer clueless what was changed and why it was changed. There are some improvements I would like to see first. Speaking of which, I do have concerns about the way some users handled disagreements (in a moment of heat, one can be caustic, I do have my sympathies) which tbrh, does not go well with their request, and will need to show that they have really improved on that front.
•–• 04:49, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You sure are asking for a lot, pulling from a cluster of volunteers........and we have no shortage of bally-hoo flying around this place, but can't even seem to manage to push out GOOD articles on a routine basis, with so very little Reviewer engagement, but: OK. Let's give it a while. Fine.--Bddpaux (talk) 14:14, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Reviewers do need to have a helping attitude, and also, they should not miss out on important things. I am yet to see it. And that was one of the things we looked at -- the commitment and how much they are willing to help others' artices. Reviewers need to do that, and one way I can know one is ready is by seeing how they interact with others and I haven't seen that. Let's let them have have some practice review articles, and let their articles be consistently the best they could have done, and then would be a better time.
•–• 15:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

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JJLiu112 (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

I am pleased to nominate JJLiu112 to become a reviewer. Today we carried out a co-review of Taliban further restrict women's rights. They asked all the right questions and explained what they would do as a reviewer. They also carried out a thorough copyedit to the article. I feel they have shown the correct level of maturity, patience (about three hours spent on the review!) and knowledge required for a reviewer. I recommend the community support this request for permissions. @JJLiu112:, please confirm your acceptance of this nomination by signing just below. -- [24Cr][talk] 18:56, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I gladly accept. --JJLiu112 (talk) 19:21, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Stats[edit]


Questions and comments[edit]

I have just gave you my support, nevertheless I would appreciate some feedback on these questions:

  • Could you please elaborate on the method by which you examined Taliban further restrict women's rights? What happened during the review, and in what order?
  • Assume an article about an unfamiliar place or process had been submitted. Please pick an unfamiliar subject and elaborate on how and where you would check the background of such a news event.
  • Would you, as a reviewer, suggest sources to the author of a failed article? Why?
  • How do you think reviewing would fit into your timetable?

Thank you for accepting the nomination. - Xbspiro (talk) 06:21, 9 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

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Heavy Water (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]


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I nominate Heavy Water (formerly known as Augusthorsedroppings10, and I appreciate the name change). Heavy Water has been very active and has five published articles and a bunch more which went stale due to not receiving timely reviews. Heavy Water has demonstrated good writing skills, an understanding of Wikinews policy, an appreciation for the archives and general housekeeping. Wikinews sorely needs more active users of Heavy Water's quality. Cheers, --SVTCobra 12:01, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was not expecting this and did not think myself qualified, but I am much honored to accept. I was actually planning to request accreditation today, and have done so anyway, as I believe reviewers should be accredited in order to have scoop access: please see Wikinews:Accreditation requests/Heavy Water.
I should also note that I now have six articles published as SVTCobra reviewed 118th United States Congress convenes; House of Representatives adjourns without electing Speaker for first time in 100 years.
I went more in-depth on my writing in the accreditation request, so I will here explain some more relevant work instead. On several articles, I helped new contributors to understand the style guide and the basics of writing here. Sadly, most of these were not published because of the reviewer issue, so I only have two to list here: Pope Benedict XVI dies at age 95 and Two helicopters collide in Gold Coast, Australia. In both of these instances, the reporter, User:JML1148, was a very good writer (for which I gave them the Exceptional Newcomer Award), but I had to iron out some details in my edit summaries and on the collaboration pages.
I'm more than happy to partake in one or more "apprentice" reviews with a reviewer if any reviewers have time. Heavy Water (talk) 15:41, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Collaboration is partially happening on IRC, you might want to join #wikinews live connect and #wikinews-en live connect when you have a moment. What is your main OS? I can suggest a good IRC chat app that works better than the 'live connect' link shown above. Gryllida (talk) 00:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryllida: Am I supposed to register or is that only if I'm setting up a channel? Simply entering a "nick" and trying to join the channel isn't working. Heavy Water (talk) 17:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You need to register your nick with NickServ to join the channel I believe. Type "/msg nickserv help register" to get instructions, they will open in a new nickserv buffer. Gryllida (talk) 18:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryllida: I am finally on IRC, as HWater. I only saw inactive Wikinewsies on the #wikinews-en channel, though. Heavy Water (talk) 03:51, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Joined the chat just now - not seeing you on it. Gryllida (talk) 04:48, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryllida: Sorry, it was late for me and I had already left. I'll join again tonight. Heavy Water (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stats[edit]


Questions and comments[edit]

  • Oppose Meaning NOTHING PERSONAL against this user. Please cross-check my brain here: SVTCobra actually recommended someone for Reviewer who wasn't yet an accredited Reporter? Am I following correctly here? No, just simply No. This user is smart, articulate and writes very well AND is 100% NON-DISRUPTIVE to this project! Heck, that's some major awesomeness right there, BUT: We need to follow the rational steps. Reporter FIRST, then we will go from there.--Bddpaux (talk) 17:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Bddpaux: did you mean to put that in the votes section? Otherwise it might not get counted. Heavy Water (talk) 18:28, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am just letting it dawdle in comments for a while. We need to get you nailed down as an Accredited Reporter FIRST. I will just count your nomination (no ire toward any specific party) for Reviewer as fueled by a brief brain glitch.--Bddpaux (talk) 21:58, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, there is no hierarchy requiring Accredited Reporter before other permissions. In fact, I have never been accredited in all my years here. Becoming an Accredited Reporter requires people to disclose personal information which some people do not wish to do. This does not preclude people from becoming Reviewers, Administrators or Bureaucrats. Another example of a Reviewer who is not Accredited is User:Cromium. While Heavy Water is also applying for Accreditation, the anonymous aspect does not apply in this case; my point is, it is not a requirement to be Accredited first. Accreditation is merely a tool to be verified to gain the trust of interviewees or gain access to an event. Reviewer is whether the community trusts the user to properly fact-check, verify, and copy-edit articles before they are published. They are entirely two different things. Cheers, SVTCobra 14:27, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:Pi zero was never accredited either. SVTCobra 14:34, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your assessment; furthermore, being in OR does not preclude, nor necessarily aid in, the duties of a reviewer/administrator. But it would behove Heavy Water, upon a successful candidacy, to make arrangements to view scoop and verify OR emails. I'm opposing their candidacy purely on the grounds that I don't think they're sufficiently experienced. JJLiu112 (talk) 16:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Heavy Water some comments have been made about your lack of experience. What is your perspective on this? How would you describe your strengths and weaknesses? In what way would you like to improve over the next year, other than gaining the ability to publish others' submissions? Hope to see your thoughts about this. Thanks. Gryllida (talk) 18:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Gryllida: Yes, I understand and, in fact, agree with those comments; if I were someone else, I would be voting oppose on this nomination. If I nominated myself for reviewership, I would have done so perhaps a year from now. In fact, I ask you to vote oppose if you think I'm not ready.
    Regardless: assessing by review criteria, I would say I'm strong in meeting NPOV (I try, as best I can, to cast off all mental biases or analyses when writing), demonstrating newsworthiness, and avoiding copyright violations, of course. Recently, I began source-checking my articles just before submitting them for review, and that tactic, I find, keeps everything verifiable while maintaining distance (which I would say I do well on). My compliance with the style guide is not quite so good; I can do the easy stuff, of course, like formatting, crediting images, writing in the active voice and attributing actions, but determining what information is important in using the inverted pyramid style is challenging.
    I would most like to improve on my general clarity and inverted pyramid compliance. Usually the only task reviewers have taken on in reviewing my work is some copyediting, so it is especially important to me that I improve in that area.
    To clarify: I'm not here to become a reviewer; I want to help Wikinews, which might include reviewing, when ready. Heavy Water (talk) 20:14, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a reviewer, you are not allowed to publish an article to which you have made major edits. If you see for example five articles in review queue and they all require major edits. What steps would you take? Gryllida (talk) 18:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    To give a better answer, I'll further develop this hypothetical. Let's say when I enter the text of the first article into Earwig, it pulls up an identical and incompatibly-licensed article. I'd remove the article from the review queue, replace its content with the copyvio template, and request deletion of the offending revision(s) at AAA if an admin doesn't do so shortly after they get online; from what I've seen, that's how reviewers handle blatant copyright violations, and that's how I handle them now. If it were just a few words that could use rewording for distance from source, I could do that and remain uninvolved.
    Next, let's say there's an article about some small town cutting its budget. After reading the article, I'd probably find it not newsworthy for a global audience (especially if the sources are hyper-local, but with greater leniency for OR), I'd not-ready it, ping the author, explain that it was unpublishable as-is, reminding them of WN:Content guide, and ask them to refocus it if possible or incorporate material demonstrating its global newsworthiness. I'd also still not-ready it if it meets newsworthiness but that's not clear to a reader, asking the author to fix that.
    Next, let's say there's an article that is sourced, but interspersed with the author's thoughts about the event, in obvious violation of NPOV. I'd not-ready it, ping the author to explain why it could not be published and direct them to WN:NPOV, ask them to remove any violating text, and resubmit. If the problem was a couple of overly positive or negative words, I could fix that myself.
    Then, let's say there's an unsourced article about an actual event. That would clearly warrant a not-ready with a reminder of WN:CS. However, if an otherwise-thoroughly cited article says "She died of a heart attack", while the sources say "stroke" or don't list a cause of death at all (strange for obituaries), I could fix that.
    Lastly, let's say there's an article written entirely in chronological order, with obvious typos and grammatical errors. I'd have to not-ready that, reminding the author to use the inverted pyramid and check for typos and grammatical errors. On the other hand, if there's a typo or a passive-voice sentence, I could fix it.
    Apologies for the text wall. In sum, I would attempt to tread the fine line between being too involved and returning the article to the author, taking the risk they won't be able to complete it in time. I hope this helps, Heavy Water (talk) 23:57, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you please provide example of bias by omission in a draft and how you wrote to the author about it requesting corrections? Gryllida (talk) 10:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Sometimes a draft author is unresponsive. In what circumstances would you start editing the draft yourself directly and ask another reviewer to look at it after your edits? When would you consider that necessary? Gryllida (talk) 10:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Would you say this is a common problem? Gryllida (talk) 10:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I've seen many users create a draft that is certainly unpublishable, and then vanish indefinitely without completing it or addressing review comments. As I said in my reply below, I would take it on a case-by-case basis. Heavy Water (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm, no, I haven't encountered that in a draft. Heavy Water (talk) 17:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, by "that" I meant bias by omission. Heavy Water (talk) 18:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gryllida: It requires balance. If I find the article and ping the author on the talk page right as they're working, and they don't respond in a few hours, I could presume they're not returning to work on the draft.
    If I arrive later, I might give it a day before I try to work on it myself. If the article is just fooling around, I think it's perfectly safe to assume they've abandoned it.
    By involving myself in any draft, however, I would also risk the article going stale if another reviewer were not able to get to it. Heavy Water (talk) 18:54, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    And, if I'm too busy to work on it, a not-ready with an explanation (if it's submitted for review) is about the best I could do. Heavy Water (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you very much. What do you think about the User:Gryllida/welcome a bit software (it runs on its own user account so you can see what it does there)? Gryllida (talk) 10:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    (note that it hasn't been running for a while, after some system upgrade caused issues with my continuing to run it with a new perl release. I am already aware of that issue. the question is what you think about the idea and implementation.) Gryllida (talk) 10:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it was cool, we need to facilitate greater responsiveness by experienced Wikinewsies, especially reviewers, to provide feedback. And talk page messages display that yellow banner at top, so they're not easily missed. Heavy Water (talk) 19:22, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, Question - would you be able to provide an example of something that you have had an opinion about (i.e. 'this is publishable' or 'this is bad' or something else) and then discussed it with someone else and then came to agreement that was different from your initial position? Gryllida (talk) 10:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There usually aren't people around here simultaneously to have a conversation per se, but here's an example of something I learned from. In December, I submitted an article, but I had, in choosing my second source, obliviously absorbed some information from an article I did not cite. This information became the focal point of the article, and only a not-ready illluminated to me that this was unsourced. Through a conversation with the reviewer, I had to refocus the article, by which time it, too, became stale. I was reminded to cite all sources, and I thus learned the hard way that I should source-check myself. Heavy Water (talk) 05:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • How would you describe your existing experience with computers and programming? Many thanks. :) Regards, Gryllida (talk) 18:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I have read about and understand the technical process for completing a peer review and publishing using EzPR. If I were to need to do it manually (that problem, to my understanding, was a combination of the article not being tagged as under review, not being marked as reviewed, and some gadget error), that would be a challenge, but I could probably learn. There are also the Main Page leads, which I have plenty of experience with. I think that covers all the technical knowledge needed for reviewing. I can also write basic HTML or JavaScript, if that helps. Heavy Water (talk) 20:28, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    What programming or computing experience do you have, that is not wiki-related, if it is not a secret? Gryllida (talk) 10:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, not much. I wrote a few localhost HTML/JS/CSS websites and read some books when I was into that. I'm not sure how much programming is relevant to reviewership, though. Heavy Water (talk) 05:42, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pinging RockerballAustralia, Cromium, and Chaetodipus, who have been active in the past few days (although Cromium is semi-retired) and have not voted/commented here. Your input would be greatly appreciated. --Heavy Water (talk) 20:44, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

  • Weak oppose — without discounting the user's exemplary and commendable spirit, nevertheless from my experience they still make some routine errors of a novice editor, which are usually ironed out with time. I have no doubt of Heavy Water's potential, but as a reviewer, I recommend waiting. --JJLiu112 (talk) 07:42, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Closing as successful. It has been a month, if you didn't vote it is on you. I don't like to close my own nominations, but Wikinews really needs active reviewers. --SVTCobra 19:28, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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{{User-rights|Adishhub}

NOMINATING COMMENT HERE -- NOMINATOR'S SIGNATURE WITH TIMESTAMP

Stats[edit]


Questions and comments[edit]

@Chaetodipus: Should this be speedily declined? The user just registered and has been creating not-news articles promoting their website. Heavy Water (talk) 13:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Heavy Water: If I'm remembering correctly the custom even in cases like this is to let it remain an open request for 7 days. —chaetodipus (talk · contribs) 15:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Heavy Water (talk) 15:53, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Votes[edit]

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Sakthivel Azhakiamanavalan (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

NOMINATING COMMENT HERE -- NOMINATOR'S SIGNATURE WITH TIMESTAMP

Stats[edit]


Questions and comments[edit]

Votes[edit]

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Removal of Reviewer status[edit]


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This seems to be excessively focused on one article; I have moved the discussion to its talk page.

Please don't, ever, take article discussions to permissions pages. This drains volunteer resources excessively; we attend to the article talk pages in the copious free time. There is no emergency, or grounds, demonstrated in this request.

As a formal requirement, I recommend to not re-open this request for the next 6 months. --Gryllida 00:49, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pi zero (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

' Remove' User:Pi zero- request removal for gaming the system. Continually states that a source is invalid, despite the source being legitimate a public record. Also continually makes spurious remarks that content does not meet NPOV requirements, which appear spurious, in light of the standard as applies generally in journalisim. I feel the user has some sort of personal issue, and is enforcing the letter of policy without accounting for the intended meaning of policy. See the applicable [1] page for more information. ScruffMcGruff007 (talk) 04:40, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I do not find anything wrong with the review. The article doesn't follow the style guide. The LEDE is poor. Neither it mentions a word regarding when did the event happen, nor does it addresses 5Ws and Hs. As some people may or may not have heard in some other news sources... I would say it is the worst lede I have ever read. Wikinews is not a blogging website. To comment about your original reporting, you must provide notes. I see some e-mail on the talk page. But what is the proof that it is authentic? I notice that you have listed a Wikipedia article in the sources section. Wikinews doesn't consider Wikipedia as a reliable source. Yes, regarding your claims about JumpShare, Wikipedia may claim that it is a free online encyclopaedia, but for the Wikipedia article 'Darknet', Wikipedia is the publisher. The 'pub' parameter of the {{source}} template has to be filled with the website who has hosted the content on its server. If Congress leader tweets, Twitter is the publisher even if it claims it is micro-blogging website. (Now don't come up with no, Twitter claimed that it is now a need service or something)
The article needs several fixes. Please follow the inverted pyramid structure of the article. The reviewer has spent valuable time behind you. Appreciate it and fix the story.
acagastya 05:54, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) : Keep - I've had a look at the relevant article and it's talk page and have come to the conclusion that ScruffMcGruff007 (talk · contribs) has not took the time to look at and/or consider the how's an why's of Wikinews policies and conventions. Xe seems to be more inclined towards how other outlets do things. Wikinews is not other outlets.
I advise the person who submitted this request that other reviewers on this site, myself included, would have failed said article. The Terms of Service, or equivalent, mean nothing to a reviewer checking an article. Ledes are meant to tell the reader the 5 W's and an H in the first sentence or two if it is indeed possible. In the article forming the basis of this complaint it does seem possible to do just that.
ScruffMcGruff007 (talk · contribs) would be well advised to take the advice xe is given and contribute constructively. Links provided on the article talk page would be good places to start. --RockerballAustralia contribs 06:01, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]


User:acagastya Rockerball Collectively, there are a few questions I have for you concerning your comments. First you state with respect to the lede, "...It does seem possible to do just that..." Considering that statement, I have some SPECIFIC questions that I would request that you provide SPECIFIC answers for: (1) Which specific questions (Where,When,What,Where,Why,How) do you allege the lede does not address, which are not more appropriately developed elsewhere in the story? ( From what I see, the "Who" is addressed (Congress), the "What" is obviously addressed or that entire first paragraph couldn't even be construed to make sense with the rest. "When" is developed at more relevant points in the story, "Where" is largely irrelevant, but is also quickly inferred. Finally, It appears "How" and "Why" are largely irrelevant to the story. Your also forgetting that generally speaking, you can't construct a proper paragraph with less than four sentences, based on the proper rules of English.

(2) As to the issue of the legitimacy of the source material, it would be one thing if the veracity of the document itself could possibly be seriously called into question. However, in this particular case, the document bears a signature, and is a government public record, which would make it extremely difficult to say that it isn't true source of information. In reality, this would makes the issue with sourcing a functionally moot point at best, so the question I would pose is are you prepared to offer any specific indicia whatsoever that the document shouldn't be trusted? The main purpose of citing a publisher is for what reason? to be able to LOCATE the larger body of work with which the given material is contained. That is the SOLE AND ONLY FUNCTION of citing a publisher. Websites are NOT publishers within the meaning of the term. Websites are only technological intermediaries, and it doesn't work well to cite them, because URLs can change from time to time. Therefore, that seems to make the point on the matter completely meaningless.

Authenticating a source is best served by locating and asking the original source itself. That said the Wikipedia article is meant only for clarification of, and background information on, the general meaning terminology, specifically the term "Dark Net" which the majority of people are not familiar with, So while technically included as a "source" for the purposes here, it is more accurately described as "reference" material. The remaining sources are outside news publications. and for the record I am MORE INCLINED toward INDUSTRY-WIDE STANDARDS, which have had MUCH LONGER tenure than the entire existence of this site, than to specific "policy" of any one outlet, as I am particularly wary of the policy of an outlet that does not seem to have as much exposure and general credibility as the universally-known outlets. (In essence, I give more credibility to outlets such as the NEW YORK TIMES than I am willing to so much as entertain giving to something like this site, under any circumstance, much less when that outlets "policy" is at apparent odds with industry-wide standards. This is Because the notion that the industry as a whole doesn't hold a reasonably high standard, or has a fundamentally flawed way of doing things is something that merits extreme caution if one is to entertain it.) Therefore, the "policy" itself, if this was the intended meaning of it, (which I'm guessing it probably wasn't intended to be construed as such), especially when given the counter-policy on "gaming the system" which incorporates that the SPIRT of the policy, rather than the letter is what is to be followed, which is exactly what this individual did, cut and dry, as much as you'd like to tap-dance around that fact, has issues in and of itself, that make it blatantly unacceptable to the industry of journalism as a whole- which is a major factor in the reputation of an outlet. One of the reasons one might choose an outlet is because it actually provides "NEW" content, rather than regurgitating another outlet's work, which seems to be the majority of what goes on here. As for authenticating an email, it is appropriate to consider that a scanned copy of that email was also submitted, and that email is subject to verification by public records request at any time. Now unless you want to go to the patently absurd length of saying that anyone would be stupid enough to forge an instrument of the federal government, knowing that the issue is easily discoverable with a FOIA public records request, then I really don't know what to tell you, but to close your blinds, hide under your bed, and consider everything suspicious. That is nothing more outright paranoid thinking. But yes, if you can Specifically address these areas of concern, then and only then, will I be willing to entertain what you appear to be trying to say. ScruffMcGruff007 (talk) 07:59, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A) Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Not even for background information.
B) Paragraphs should not be four sentences long in news stories. In books and other media yes but not news. All newspapers I read use one or two sentence paragraphs. This is what gets taught at universities in Australia
C) The W's and how need to be answered within the first two sentences - the news lede.
D) Paranoid huh? Research defamation. It's something we don't want to get sued for. Some jurisdictions are very strict on this.
E) If you wish to change policies, there are proceedures for that. --RockerballAustralia contribs 09:05, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment URLs may change, I agree. For example, Manchester City's website changed from mcfc.co.uk to mancity.com. But that doesn't change that it is owned by Manchester City. In the terms of website, they mention who owns that website. You don't have to use the website's home page in the publisher which I see, you did in your article. For engadget.com, the pub parameter should contain Engadget. Are we clear about it?
acagastya 11:35, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Green Giant (talk · contribs – Edit rights)[edit]

Dear colleagues,

Sadly, over the last few months I have been finding less and less time for the wikis as a result of the combined effects of lockdown, Brexit and a recent (very much unwanted) promotion at work related to these factors. I don’t think it is fair to wait until I reach the time limit for not reviewing. This request is part of a general reduction in my activities on wikis for the foreseeable future.

However, I think I will have time for some admin work on Wikinews but if that becomes difficult I will be stepping back from that too. --Green Giant (talk) 15:07, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

@Green Giant: I understand it is hard for you to find time to review and publish articles, however, I hope you reconsider your decision. Since you have the reviewer bits, you can edit and sight the archives (to fix typos, remove unnecessary <div>, replace deleted images with {{missing image}}, or upload the deleted files as FU.) Those are the things sysop does, but without reviewer bits, you won't be able to sight those. I am guessing the admin-related edits you do, and have been doing recently (which I appreciate), requires reviewer bits. Do you still want to surrender those bits?
•–• 15:45, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Acagastya: I’m deeply grateful for your message above. It’s not something I genuinely want to do but I don’t want to end up with someone else making a request here and elsewhere to say “not been on for months, unlikely to return, does not need the tools". That incident where several bureaucrats were de-cratted recently is at the back of my mind. I suppose I might reconsider if there is no concern about me going missing for weeks or maybe months. My new "job" was forced on me by the resignation of my line manager. I had a meeting with very senior (and deluded) people, where it was made clear that if I didn’t voluntarily step up, it would cause them to question my level of commitment to the organisation. Ordinarily I might have told them to get lost but I have a family and a mortgage, and in this current climate it is difficult to get jobs on the same scale. Having seen the in-tray earlier this week, it is clear why my predecessor left but I cannot see myself being free for much wiki stuff at least until the UK has collapsed after Brexit. The job itself involves extended travel out of town to regional offices and I may not be able to log in for ages. What has got me equally concerned is my new line manager indicating he might go for early retirement and they might not bother advertising the post but just push it on someone temporarily. The organisation has already advertised and re-advertised my job but could not find willing takers when the full job was explained to them, hence the forced promotion on me. I’ve already informed the other stewards that I am unlikely to stand again when elections happen in February. I will also be asking for my OTRS access to be removed in the next few months. --Green Giant (talk) 16:13, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdrawn - it has been six months since my non-wiki life became very difficult for me. At this point (May 2021) things are beginning to look a little brighter. I think I will have a little bit more time for Wikinews. Not much more but enough. --Green Giant (talk) 21:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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