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Propose to install Page Assessments extension at this wiki

This conversation has been marked for the community's attention. Please remove the {{flag}} when the discussion is complete or no longer important.

https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PageAssessments?project=Main&namespace=0&page_title= has an example.

I propose to (mis)use this extension here by supplying class

R submitted for review

U under review

D draft in progress

T has pending tasks specified

...and event date as the importance parameter, followed by "G" symbol for international news like "windows died" or "ubuntu 24.4 released" or "L" for regional news, followed by "m" for minor edut required or "M" for major revision, followed by a custom note

Like: Class = D

Importance = 2025-05-14 G m add location in first paragraph

If submitted for review, importance just says event date and G or L

In the report, article is linked and its class as second column and its importance in column 3.

I think this would make the page assessment page more useful than the newsroom, and help to prioritise reviewing and collaboration.

cc @GreekApple123

Thanks. Gryllida (talk) 16:00, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @George Ho @Wikiwide @BigKrow @Lofi Gurl @Back ache @Md Mobashir Hossain @Almondo2025, @Dsuke1998AEOS, @Ternera, @Monsieur2137 @Asked42, @Sheminghui.WU, @excelblue (if you want yourself removed or someone else added to this list, please inquire here) A revision has been requested. Here is a list of what to do. (If/when you intend to start working on it, please Subscribe to this section and to this talk page, and post reply messages here when you started and finished editing) See below:

Gryllida, RockerballAustralia, Michael.C.Wright, Bddpaux, JJLiu112

Hi all, please check above. I think you could be ones of the first users of this.

Please click "Reply" to the first message in this section to add a vote or a comment.

Consensus is required before the extension is installed here.

Thanks heaps. Gryllida (talk) 16:03, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @George Ho @Wikiwide @BigKrow @Lofi Gurl @Back ache @Md Mobashir Hossain @Almondo2025, @Dsuke1998AEOS, @Ternera, @Monsieur2137 @Asked42, @Sheminghui.WU, @excelblue (if you want yourself removed or someone else added to this list, please inquire here) A revision has been requested. Here is a list of what to do. (If/when you intend to start working on it, please Subscribe to this section and to this talk page, and post reply messages here when you started and finished editing) See below:

1) Please read the above discussion and add your comment or your vote.

Thanks. Gryllida (talk) 11:57, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

It might be advisable to have some kind of measure of how long a news article is, as well as maybe how many facts/events it covers. Some Wikinews readers may want to have the ability to filter out articles that are too long for them to read, and reviewers may like to prioritize articles that are very short because they are easy to publish. GreekApple123 (talk) 18:47, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Usually only one 'focal event'. Ok, I can check how to generate report with length. Gryllida (talk) 10:30, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Votes

Strong support I am guessing the devil is in the details, but something like this will add a lot of context. Hopefully it can be implemented in a way that allows for easy customization later on i.e. allowing readers to select articles based on their level of importance, etc. GreekApple123 (talk) 16:18, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

I support this idea currently as I spent obscene amounts of time every day checking dates of events in news room to prioritize. The easiest approach could be just to have one parameter 'event date' and nothing else. This would already be much better process for me. Gryllida (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support this seems like it would be useful for the wiki. Ternera (talk) 14:11, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
• Support Md Mobashir Hossain (talk) 14:54, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Template requests

I will update this section with more template requests over time:

1. Excerpt (from Wikipedia): allows for essentially transcluding content from one article to another. Perhaps it could be possible to even transclude Wikipedia content to a Wikinews article? GreekApple123 (talk) 17:52, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

2. Would something like w:Template:Category redirect be appropriate here? This way, something like Category:Politics can continue to be empty, but at least exist as a redirect to the currently-used Category:Politics and conflicts.

3. Something like the series of w:Template:R with possibilities templates could be helpful as a way of creating redirects in the moment, but making it clear they can be developed further later. GreekApple123 (talk) 18:09, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

It is needed to understand that there is a scarcity of content writers and reviewers. Your assistance with that editing of articles is very welcome.

Wikipedia articles are written differently. Verb tense and inline citations and they do not do "attribution" as consistently and they do not follow "inverted pyramid". I would not recommend to transclude. They are very different contents.

I have no position on category redirects. It is less effort to just use existing categories. HotCat aurocompletes them anyway.

I have not seen a need in creating redirects. They consume time.

Hope it helps. Gryllida (talk) 20:54, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

There may be a use for transcluding a paragraph or two from Wikipedia (I'm guessing transclusion may not run afoul of copyright license incompatibility?), or at least transcluding between articles on Wikinews. GreekApple123 (talk) 21:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

From Wikipedia I dare you to find examples. Usually information is not included into article unless it is verifiable in sources, unless it is forever ever kkowledge like Paris capital of France. So if you are writing article about new Pope, you cannot put five pages from Wikipedia into a background section. It has to be sourced from something more specific than Wikipedia. Gryllida (talk) 22:03, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

From Wikipedia I dare you to find examples. Well, in the final section of the page I am editing about the India-Pakistan ceasefire, there is background offered on the Kashmir conflict. I think the first paragraph and one of the images from the Wikipedia article on that would offer a more comprehensive overview essentially. GreekApple123 (talk) 23:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are written differently [...] inline citations Just FYI, Excerpt allows for transcluding content while excluding all inline citations and references. GreekApple123 (talk) 04:00, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

That does not solve content. For example, verb tense. Gryllida (talk) 07:29, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

For article bits transclusion, I guess would need to be subst'ed as cannot edit a part of article after archival. Dunno value of it. With such as wars, the context keeps changing a bit too. Gryllida (talk) 21:49, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

@GreekApple123, regarding transcluding content between articles on Wikinews, it's technically possible—usually done by transcluding specific sections. However, since our articles rarely use subsections, this may require structural adjustments.

As for transcluding content from Wikipedia, we legally cannot do so. Our copyright licenses are incompatible: Wikinews uses CC BY 2.5, while Wikipedia uses CC BY-SA 4.0, which includes a ShareAlike requirement we do not support. The same applies in reverse—Wikipedia cannot reuse our content either.

Regarding category redirects, I think that’s a solid consensus compromise and provides a useful tracking mechanism. One concern to keep in mind: many pages here are edit-protected to admin-only. In my view, this often causes more issues than it prevents, especially given how few active admins we have to handle tasks like archiving, deletion, and counter-vandalism. As part of any category overhaul, I suggest we also reconsider our protection practices—possibly lowering some protections to allow editing by reviewers, or even auto-confirmed users, to ease the workload and improve flexibility. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 21:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Changing categories of archived articles is a bit of a problem. I will post here if I find a working solution. I presume content should not be changed. Gryllida (talk) 22:06, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

regarding transcluding content between articles on Wikinews, it's technically possible—usually done by transcluding specific sections. The Excerpt template allows for transclusion by paragraph (e.g. paragraphs 3 through 5), and so since archived articles don't change, it should be possible to excerpt from them in a stable manner.

The same applies in reverse—Wikipedia cannot reuse our content either. This seems to be somewhat contradicted by the WN:For Wikipedians page: ... content from Wikinews may be copied word-for-word to Wikipedia if proper copyright attribution is provided GreekApple123 (talk) 23:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

4. Extending the functionality of {{W}} so that if there is no link found either at Wikinews or at Wikipedia, then the link text instead shows up as regular text. GreekApple123 (talk) 17:31, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

In my common.js there is a script that color codes this. Please check. If you cannot find it, please ping me, I will look at it when I am at desktop. Gryllida (talk) 10:32, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

5. Porting over various templates related to conversion, such as converting between measurements, currencies, indicating language translation and transcription more explicitly, etc. GreekApple123 (talk) 15:33, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Timezone converting is so painful. :-( It would be nice to have a code. Gryllida (talk) 12:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Talk pages indexed by search engines

Today I discovered that our article talk or collaboration pages are indexed by search engines. This is problematic, as these pages may contain discussions about unsupported statements that were never included in the published article, yet are visible in search results. Just as Wikipedia prevents indexing of BLP talk pages[1], I believe we should have NOINDEX applied to of all of our talk pages, given our role as a news site. We'll remain transparent by having it all publicly available, just not (hopefully) indexed by search engines.

The solution seems to involve namespace control[2], but I’m unsure how we would implement this or who to approach to begin the discussion. Suggestions? —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 22:02, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a good idea - is it a bad idea for people to see unsupported statements that are clearly part of a discussion? Leaderboard (talk) 07:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I saw today that unpublished stories are also indexed. How did this work before? Gryllida (talk) 11:58, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I did a search using DuckDuckGo for "Maksim Lepushenka" and it still returns our article (good) plus the article's talk page (bad).

Gryllida, which unpublished stories showed up in a search and what was the search? I just searched for the headline of one of our developing articles "Sound Talent Group employees among casualties in private plane crash at San Diego, California" and did not get our article or its talk page in the search results.

It works through Robots.txt. See also this similar and recent request. {{develop}}, {{tasks}}, {{abandoned}} and {{delete}} all add NOINDEX to individual pages.

I don't believe we've ever explicitly prevented the indexing of our article talk pages.

I do not see the talk page listed in our Sitemap, which is good. That means a crawler probably went from the article page to the talk page through the link.

It could be that we add Disallow: /wiki/Talk: to MediaWiki:Robots.txt. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 12:46, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

It was the union rally story, which is developing. Gryllida (talk) 20:45, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

It looks like Robots.txt is not being applied, even when we use the magic word __NOINDEX__. Do local admins have access to Wiki settings discussed in this mediawiki help page: mw:Help:Controlling search engine indexing to help troubleshoot? If this isn't something local admins can help with, should it be a phabricator request? Thanks in advance. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 23:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

┌─────────────┘
Leaderboard said ...is it a bad idea for people to see unsupported statements that are clearly part of a discussion? NOINDEX won't hide them or prevent anyone from finding them. It should just stop search engines from indexing them and then presenting them in search results. For published articles, it's fine if the article is indexed and the talk page is not. Readers can still follow the "Collaboration" link and see the discussion behind the article. NOINDEX should also prevent AI/LLMs from scraping talk pages and article drafts...should. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 23:42, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

But is it a bad thing to allow search engines from seeing them? Leaderboard (talk) 05:52, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I believe so. Wikinews should index the content we deem as our primary "product," the published news articles. These are the polished, peer-reviewed stories we intend the public to read first. Conversely, Talk pages and collaboration spaces represent the “behind-the-scenes” process of how we produced those stories, including discussions that may reference unsupported or draft ideas. By preventing these pages from being indexed, we signal a clear distinction: the article is the authoritative, intended presentation for the public, while the Talk page is supplementary for those who choose to explore the process. Transparency remains, but we control the first impression that search engines deliver. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 13:27, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

The other way to think about this is SEO optimisation. It may instead be better to put some sort of template on the talk page so that newbies are not confused as to where the article is? Leaderboard (talk) 19:05, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

What would you recommend for verbiage? I can put that together easily enough. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 20:49, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

It is also currently possible to search for unpublished (developing) articles in Wikinews search. Should that be disabled/restricted too? GreekApple123 (talk) 15:38, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe so. We want contributors to easily find stories already started so that we avoid duplicating efforts. It's also an "internal" thing versus an external search engine, where people are more likely searching for news and other 'official' information about a topic.

I assume someone who is using our Wikinews search is more likely to be aware of the difference between a talk page and a published article. Someone doing a Web search for a person's name, for example, may not even know what a Wiki talk page is. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 17:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Draft assistant

https://gryllida.neocities.org/news/writer/v3/

cc @GreekApple123 @Md Mobashir Hossain @BigKrow @Wikiwide

Feedback welcome

Thanks Gryllida (talk, live chat) 20:54, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida, seems complicated for me.... Sorry... BigKrow (talk) 21:48, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Is v3-2 less confusing to you, @BigKrow? Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:18, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

@Gryllida, looks better thanks. BigKrow (talk) 10:21, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. Let me know if you are planning to use it and encounter issues. Thank you! Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:22, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Will do. BigKrow (talk) 10:24, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

The idea of having criterion checkboxes that a writer has to tick off is interesting, because perhaps that can be implemented in the mainstream interface and then writers who claim to have fulfilled certain criteria but failed to do so can be penalized after doing so too many times. GreekApple123 (talk) 23:26, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

I didn't find a convenient way to make tickable boxes on-wiki in a talk page section. Can you help? Gryllida (talk, live chat) 12:48, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

I just asked here. -- Gryllida (talk, live chat) 12:50, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Hiding page images from infoboxes

An article of mine recently got published, and the page image is showing File:Desktop computer clipart - Yellow theme.svg. I think Template:Infobox/p2 needs to be altered to add |class=notpageimage to the [[File:]]. SWinxy (talk) 19:51, 13 June 2025 (UTC)