Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2017/April

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Category to populate

This is a common problem at Wikinews: I would like to add/diffuse categories but I cannot edit old articles since they are archived. Is there a solution to this other than asking for an admin to help? In this instance, I've made Category:U2 which should be populated with several stories:

And several related to Live 8 seem plausible to me, since they were headliners:

Possibly even:

And it's certainly plausible that more stories can/will be written as they continue to be an extremely popular group. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:40, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Koavf: Either this list will to (add this to the talk page of the CAT, and notify an admin) or you need to place {{editprotected}} template on the individual articles, requesting an admin to edit the archived articles. (I guess Pi zero might have seen it, or will see it, but, just in case, @Pi zero:)
acagastya 07:49, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Acagastya: Adding dozens of {{Editprotected}}s is simply too cumbersome for me and for the admins here. I'm sure that PZ or BRS will see this sooner or later as well but the problem is that I would like to edit here more doing maintenance tasks but that is virtually impossible due to the nature of archiving and the fact that I don't have advanced user rights. I don't know what the solution is but I'm not sure that the community wants to give me a demotion to admin for this (altho if it's willing, I'll happily take it and start diffusing). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:55, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Koavf: Two things:

I know adding the template to each article is tedious, although I have done it, probably form 14.139.242.195 and one of the alternatives is making a list. For example, here: User talk:Pi zero#Neymar, I found all of the articles, that I thought should have CAT:Neymar. I also remember for Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City, I added the list to the CAT talk. (YOu might want to read Pi zero's reply for Dortmund's list)
You can request for administrator rights, or we can nominate you at WN:RFP.
acagastya 08:29, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A list, in one place, is much more convenient to deal with. The editprotected list is still clogged, more than a year later, from a previous occasion when we all tried to go the mark-individual-articles route.

We've been adding categories slowly for some years. Back in the old days — before {{w}} transformed the whole character of the process — we largely discouraged creation of new categories, because it added so much curational burden. We're better at it now, but I'm not 100% convinced we need to do it all that much faster than we do — yet. There are a lot of factors in doing it well, and so far we have mostly done it well, but in doing it faster I'd like to get some community-driven semi-automated assistance going so we can continue to do it well — and with some assistance, admins should be more able to handle the operation, how much more able is an unknown... Of course, I'm a known conservative much of the time, except when I'm not (I think it was Ambrose Bierce who suggested a conservative is someone enamoured of existing evils, whereas a liberal wants to replace them with new ones).

(Thinking forward to what one might want in semi-automation for adding a cat: start with a proposed category name and proposed list of articles for it; remind of various issues in nomenclature, parentage, and future linkage for the new category, allowing revision of the proposal accordingly; set up its page (sister links, image, intro, usage note, etc.); vet its list of proposed articles, and add them — which may involve a lot more than just adding them to the category, not sure on this point; set up redirects after category population (it's not desirable to set them up before it's populated, and mildly preferable to get its page set up first); and, either before or after redirect creation, check for additional candidates for membership both by redirect use and by search string. All that should integrate with semi-automated assistance for categorizing individual articles, which when implemented may suggest additional considerations.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:00, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Pi zero: If you can, please populate this category. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:35, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

With about twenty three articles on the queue, it's not impossible I might be delayed getting to it (though it's also not impossible I might fit it in at some point while resting up between reviews). If I haven't gotten to it in a few days, feel quite free to lightly ping me again, just so it doesn't slip my mind. --Pi zero (talk) 18:40, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Pi zero: consider yourself lightly pinged. — Jeff G. ツ 17:17, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I added the category to one article, but I forget I'm not a reviewer and so I can't populate the category without creating lots of pending changes. —mikemoral (talk) 08:30, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All added, including the possibles, and one other I noticed. Set up {{topic cat}} for the category page, added to Wikidata, created mainspace redirect. --Pi zero (talk) 14:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OR help

I am a parishioner of the New Apostolic Church. I regularly receive threats to blow up our church. We want to state this publicly, that God sent us salvation, but Wikinews requires proof of news. I have screenshots of letters where they threaten to blow up our church. Will this work as evidence? We can also collect signatures or record video appeal. God bless you. SashaFAQ (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)-- SashaFAQ (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@SashaFAQ: This is awful from a humanitarian standpoint and definitely newsworthy from a journalist one. One function of Wikinews is to publish original reporting and I think this could definitely constitute that. Would you like to email me directly? You can use the "M" in my signature: —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]