Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2013/March

Protected pages

Hello people, i notice that when i click on the "Random article" tab on the left, i see that most of the pages i see are protected from editing -- is there a list on this english wiki-news where there are pages that are un protected? Because i need a page that i can edit please. Thank you, and i look to your reply. Curtaintoad curtain or toad 08:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

News is news. Once news is done being news, which for our project is three days, then it is indefinitely protected from editing except for maintenance things for adding categories or minor typographical fixes. If you want a page you can edit, please consider reading our style guide, learning our pillars and then writing your own news stories. Otherwise, you can contribute to articles in Category:Developing or Category:Review. --LauraHale (talk) 09:13, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you . :) Curtaintoad curtain or toad 10:42, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

• Did you manage to find what you were looking for? The protection of published articles once they're a few days old is now a very well-established policy; and, you're going to run into Flagged Revisions on anything in main namespace which is not yet archived, that might be a little interesting if you've never encountered this particular MediaWiki feature.

And, although the vast majority of main namespace articles are protected, there is a mechanism to request changes which do not alter the "news content". Where a handful of articles are impacted, you can use {{editprotected}} on the article talk pages. If you're talking about something that impacts 10-20+ articles, a request on WN:AAA would be more appropriate. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Question

Hi, think that news publish by sources, after how many days we can publish it in wikinews? Is there any limitation about it? or expire time for publishing news? Let me explain it better, for example news published by sources 7 or 10 days ago can we publish it today in wikinews? Please refer me to its certain Policies about it in wikinews? Sincerely. --H.b.sh (talk) 21:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

On en.wn, although it can vary for some stories (a story may be made prematurely stale by a new development, for example), usually for a synthesis article we want the event to have occurred within two or three days of publication. There's more at WN:Fresh. --Pi zero (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

block of EdwardsBot

I am surprised to see User:EdwardsBot blocked here. The bot is a global delivery bot that is widely used through the WMF wikis, and operates in project or user talk namespace. I find its use helpful through a range of wikis, and it has suitable controls in place to prevent its abuse. Seems interesting that not only is not being used here, but it is actively blocked. Billinghurst (talk) 06:31, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see Wikinews:Bots#EdwardsBot_.28talk_.C2.B7_contribs.29 for the reason why. While helpful, it does not comply with local policies and there appears to be no desire to see it made compliant. The bot developer appears to have little respect for local community consensus, which aggravates the problem. It would be great if an alternative could be found to deliver messages to the project which may impact us. --LauraHale (talk) 06:38, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Laura. Wouldn't have put that here if I had known. Billinghurst (talk) 06:40, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

No worries. We would honestly like such a bot because I know we miss out on some announcements, but until modifications are made to the code to allow an opt out, it is a non-starter. If the WMF has another bot with an opt out that could deliver WMF news (not focused on English Wikipedia) created by another developer who does not troll the project, it would almost certainly be welcome and given bot status. --LauraHale (talk) 06:46, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

The news site that's unable to receive news. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 06:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• Says the bot operator who is a plonker.

Please go somewhere that you're constructive Mr McBride and stop trolling here. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:02, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

<3 --MZMcBride (talk) 08:28, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

---

Ignoring Mr McBride, who obviously wants blocked for trolling and editing the comments of other contributors, let me address this issue a little-better:

1. Wikinews opted out of global bots. You can thank Commons for that.
2. Wikinews has a fairly straightforward bot policy, it includes simple-to-implement requirements around shutting off any bot. We also insist that the function of a bot be well-defined, and explained in terms a layman can understand.
3. This particular bot has never been presented to us in such a manner, nor made technically compliant.
4. A bot which works for the Foundation should, in my opinion, be owned and controlled by the Foundation.

We'll probably miss the odd announcement because of Mr McBride's hubris, but by-and-large WMF staff do try to make sure we are informed of messages delivered elsewhere by the bot. That's, apparently, a whole lot easier to deal with than answering questions about why they trust someone who trolls (see above) to perform work for them. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:50, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Would you like to take over the bot(s)? It's two Python files hosted here. Both files are in the public domain and the bot no longer requires Toolserver access. It needs Python, cron, and a stable server. I've been running EdwardsBot for three or four years now (the bot is coming up on 300,000 edits). I certainly don't need to run the bot forever. You should take over and add the features you'd like to see the bot have. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 08:57, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• Hey! A constructive response!

That's a bit mean, but most-firmly said as tongue-in-cheek. I'd far rather have an explanation of the functional specification of the bot. Python isn't amongst the dozen-or-so programming languages I know and use; I do have a mostly-complete set of PHP classes for bot work on MediaWiki, we've reliable hosting - wikinewsie.org - which doesn't suffer from the same 'issues' as the toolserver.

But, we'd then end up with me ("Mr Popular", as you enjoy pointing out) running a bot that does work for the WMF. I doubt, no matter how professionally and reasonably, I were to present such a bot it would be granted global rights. There are still far-too-many people who'd throw up issues where I've been grossly uncivil, despite those all being over two-years in the past. The fork of enWN that came out of that is now well-and-truly dead, complete with its eulogising obituary in the Signpost. Quality journalism, that.

There may-well be other Wikinewsies suitably familiar with Python to take on the bot; but, my understanding of the high-level functions it undertakes still brings me to the conclusion it should be WMF-operated, or the functionality build in to MediaWiki itself.

I also lack the time to really resolve the issue. I'm working on several projects at the moment for telecoms clients in the UK, Europe and Maryland; that's why I've been rather inactive here recently. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:28, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

MZM may have a bit of an ego and an attitude, though it would seem that he is not alone with that. Re bots by WMF, umm, they have none, zero, zilch, nada. All the bots have been developed and managed by users, be it CommonsDelinker, COIBot, interwiki bots, wikidata bots, etc. Good luck with waiting for wishes, may they serve you well, and develop your community; I prefer a more reasonable and practicable approach. Billinghurst (talk) 11:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

A big ego isn't necessarily a problem. Wikinews participation involves a lot of putting up with colleagues' idiosyncracies; it's kind of the opposite of the classical Wikipedian approach of pretending everyone is the same. A big ego combined with a chip on one's shoulder about Wikinews and a propensity for trolling — that's a problem.

A bot run by the foundation is not the only possible foundation-based solution to the problem. I can think of a couple of alternative foundation-based strategies right off hand. --Pi zero (talk) 12:00, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I think in some ways, Wikinews collaboration is even more important than collaboration on English Wikipedia. Articles do not get published here and pushed out to RSS and Google News without being approved through the review process. Reporters here can and do have egos when it comes to our work... but no matter how big the ego, it needs to be willing to collaboratively work with reviewers towards a common goal of getting an article published based on a set o reporting guidelines that the community has worked on. (This also involves the reviewer having an ego too. No one wants to screw up a review.) from what I have observed, MZMcBride does not come to this community to collaborate. He has not shown an evidence that he is willing be partners with others to work towards a common goal. It is his way or the highway. All he had to do at one point was to stop participating and the bot he runs would almost certainly have been approved. He put his own personal desires to be right above his desire to work towards a common goal. (You know how people always complain that people are not left alone on English Wikipedia to actually produce content because of all the people bringing the drama? We excel at doing the producing the content without that much drama.) --LauraHale (talk) 12:11, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Related: bugzilla:35306. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Pi zero: same offer to you, of course. You all seem to think that I want to deal with this shit. I'd be thrilled to have someone else run global message delivery/EdwardsBot. Would you like to? :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 18:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Does it seem as if we think that? Odd. I for one had no such thought.

Sorry, no, I don't run bots. --Pi zero (talk)

• I think, .. gasp, .. we're almost all on the same page as the bot operator. The bot is useful. But, there are certain issues with it which cause problems here on Wikinews. Those on Wikinews who know me well, and know that I've never taken one iota of shit from the Foundation, prepare yourselves for a little "cognitive dissonance". I, based on contributions here, thing MzMcBride is a jackass. But, he probably thinks much the same of me. I would absolutely hate running the bot he does. It is, frankly, an opportunity for every wiki community to have a "hate-on" about you as an idnividual. Been there, done that, and told Jimmy to fuck off when he suggested I resign my privileges. There is a part of me dearly wants to get people like MZMcBride to throw away their Wikipedia perspective and see Wikinews for what it could be.

Wikinews struggles, it stuggles seriously because we refuse to be puppets of the likes of Rupert Murdock. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:59, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to close all language Wikinews

Please see Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#Proposal_to_close_all_language_Wikinews. -- Cirt (talk) 01:11, 29 March 2013 (UTC)