Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous
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January 2024 |
The results of voting on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines and Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) Charter is available on Meta-wiki.
You may now submit your candidacy to serve on the U4C through 29 May 2025 at 12:00 UTC. Information about eligibility, process, and the timeline are on Meta-wiki. Voting on candidates will open on 1 June 2025 and run for two weeks, closing on 15 June 2025 at 12:00 UTC.
If you have any questions, you can ask on the discussion page for the election. -- in cooperation with the U4C,
Keegan (WMF) (talk) 22:06, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- The Editing Team and the Machine Learning Team are working on a new check for newcomers: Peacock check. Using a prediction model, this check will encourage editors to improve the tone of their edits, using artificial intelligence. We invite volunteers to review the first version of the Peacock language model for the following languages: Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Japanese. Users from these wikis interested in reviewing this model are invited to sign up at MediaWiki.org. The deadline to sign up is on May 23, which will be the start date of the test.
Updates for editors
- From May 20, 2025, oversighters and checkusers will need to have their accounts secured with two-factor authentication (2FA) to be able to use their advanced rights. All users who belong to these two groups and do not have 2FA enabled have been informed. In the future, this requirement may be extended to other users with advanced rights. Learn more.
Multiblocks will begin mass deployment by the end of the month: all non-Wikipedia projects plus Catalan Wikipedia will adopt Multiblocks in the week of May 26, while all other Wikipedias will adopt it in the week of June 2. Please contact the team if you have concerns. Administrators can test the new user interface now on your own wiki by browsing to Special:Block?usecodex=1, and can test the full multiblocks functionality on testwiki. Multiblocks is the feature that makes it possible for administrators to impose different types of blocks on the same user at the same time. See the help page for more information. [1]- Later this week, the Special:SpecialPages listing of almost all special pages will be updated with a new design. This page has been redesigned to improve the user experience in a few ways, including: The ability to search for names and aliases of the special pages, sorting, more visible marking of restricted special pages, and a more mobile-friendly look. The new version can be previewed at Beta Cluster now, and feedback shared in the task. [2]
- The Chart extension is being enabled on more wikis. For a detailed list of when the extension will be enabled on your wiki, please read the deployment timeline.
- Wikifunctions will be deployed on May 27 on five Wiktionaries: Hausa, Igbo, Bengali, Malayalam, and Dhivehi/Maldivian. This is the second batch of deployment planned for the project. After deployment, the projects will be able to call functions from Wikifunctions and integrate them in their pages. A function is something that takes one or more inputs and transforms them into a desired output, such as adding up two numbers, converting miles into metres, calculating how much time has passed since an event, or declining a word into a case. Wikifunctions will allow users to do that through a simple call of a stable and global function, rather than via a local template.
- Later this week, the Wikimedia Foundation will publish a hub for experiments. This is to showcase and get user feedback on product experiments. The experiments help the Wikimedia movement understand new users, how they interact with the internet and how it could affect the Wikimedia movement. Some examples are generated video, the Wikipedia Roblox speedrun game and the Discord bot.
View all 29 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, there was a bug with creating an account using the API, which has now been fixed. [3]
Updates for technical contributors
- Gadgets and user scripts that interact with Special:Block may need to be updated to work with the new manage blocks interface. Please review the developer guide for more information. If you need help or are unable to adapt your script to the new interface, please let the team know on the talk page. [4]
- The
mw.titleobject allows you to get information about a specific wiki page in the Lua programming language. Starting this week, a new property will be added to the object, namedisDisambiguationPage. This property allows you to check if a page is a disambiguation page, without the need to write a custom function. [5] 
User script developers can use a new reverse proxy tool to load javascript and css from gitlab.wikimedia.org with mw.loader.load. The tool's author hopes this will enable collaborative development workflows for user scripts including linting, unit tests, code generation, and code review on gitlab.wikimedia.org without a separate copy-and-paste step to publish scripts to a Wikimedia wiki for integration and acceptance testing. See Tool:Gitlab-content on Wikitech for more information.- Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Meetings and events
- The 12th edition of Wiki Workshop 2025, a forum that brings together researchers that explore all aspects of Wikimedia projects, will be held virtually on 21-22 May. Researchers can register now.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 23:12, 19 May 2025 (UTC)
(Apologies for posting in English, if this is not your first language)
Hello all! We opened a discussion on Meta about a very delicate issue for the development of Abstract Wikipedia: where to store the abstract content that will be developed through functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata. Since some of the hypothesis involve your project, we wanted to hear your thoughts too.
We want to make the decision process clear: we do not yet know which option we want to use, which is why we are consulting here. We will take the arguments from the Wikimedia communities into account, and we want to consult with the different communities and hear arguments that will help us with the decision. The decision will be made and communicated after the consultation period by the Foundation.
You can read the various hypothesis and have your say at Abstract Wikipedia/Location of Abstract Content. Thank you in advance! -- Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:26, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Sannita (WMF) I do not use wikidata or wikifunctions. My knowledge of Wikidata sums up to "I know that any Wikipedia article has an ugly Q1234 kind of page attached to it in Wikidata, which cinnects it to other languages and if needed then to pages on other sister wikis"; wikifunctions I see as a set of pages about programmimg subroutines, so for example a function that returns z= x+y. What would the abstract wikipedia provide in that example? Gryllida (talk) 15:31, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Gryllida, thank you for your intervention. The scope of Wikifunctions is (also) to provide language functions that can create full sentences in a given language, based on data taken from Wikidata. For example, a simple sentence like "Albert Einstein was born in Ulm". This could - if the local community wants - be used to kickstart new articles or pages, by reusing and reorganising automatically generated text, instead of starting from a blank page. I hope I answered your question. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Please note that our content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, which is known to be incompatible with Wikipedia’s license. How will this affect the proposed project? Additionally, we do not consistently generate or maintain Wikidata entries for our articles. Will this have any impact on the project’s feasibility or implementation? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:21, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Michael.C.Wright, thank you too for your intervention. There shouldn't be any license problem in reusing Wikifunctions' functions on your project, should you want to use them, we made sure of that when we launched the project. As for reusing the abstract content, if your project doesn't see any use in that, you can just turn down the possibility. It's your choice, and we don't want to force any adoption that isn't wanted by a community. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- That wasn't a request to turn it off. I think it'd be better to show a working example with instructions please. Gryllida (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- I know, I was just presenting all the options. As of now, we have some examples of callable functions at f:Wikifunctions:Embedded function calls, but please remember that these are still not usable on any Wikinews project, as we haven't still enabled Wikifunctions for them. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:16, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- That wasn't a request to turn it off. I think it'd be better to show a working example with instructions please. Gryllida (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Michael.C.Wright, thank you too for your intervention. There shouldn't be any license problem in reusing Wikifunctions' functions on your project, should you want to use them, we made sure of that when we launched the project. As for reusing the abstract content, if your project doesn't see any use in that, you can just turn down the possibility. It's your choice, and we don't want to force any adoption that isn't wanted by a community. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Please note that our content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, which is known to be incompatible with Wikipedia’s license. How will this affect the proposed project? Additionally, we do not consistently generate or maintain Wikidata entries for our articles. Will this have any impact on the project’s feasibility or implementation? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:21, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Gryllida, thank you for your intervention. The scope of Wikifunctions is (also) to provide language functions that can create full sentences in a given language, based on data taken from Wikidata. For example, a simple sentence like "Albert Einstein was born in Ulm". This could - if the local community wants - be used to kickstart new articles or pages, by reusing and reorganising automatically generated text, instead of starting from a blank page. I hope I answered your question. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 16:08, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
┌───────────────────┘
Sannita, my concern is that the functions pull content from various Wikis (as directed or guided by Wikidata) in order to compose the Abstract. Therefore the copyright policies of the source wikis must all be compatible for the abstract to be able to legally reproduce and/or remix that content.
Have I misunderstood how Abstracts will work? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 14:45, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- No, the functions will only use data from Wikidata and functions from Wikifunctions to create the abstract text. Nothing will be used from other projects, therefore there is no problem with licensing, since we're talking about license-compatible material. Plus, mind that abstract text could be just a placeholder for something that might or might not be shown by your project, and that could be reused to kickstart a page on your project, again with no problem with current licensing. I hope it's clearer now. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- Great! Thanks for the clarification. I do like the idea of utilizing it here to assist with new content creation. We have been discussing ways to assist with that. Could it be a tool that could be integrated or leveraged along with an 'Article creation wizard' type tool? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 15:04, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Michael.C.Wright That I don't know, at the moment, sorry. I can ask the team, but I guess we're still too early in development to make strong commitments. Sannita (WMF) (talk) 15:07, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- This "abstract Wikipedia" sounds like it could achieve some of the goals of my idea of using something like w:Template:Excerpt to better insert repeatable facts and background content into news stories. GreekApple123 (talk) 16:20, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- "Abstract Wikipedia" can also help in making Wikinews more relevant and resilient in the broader Wikimedia ecosystem, since Wikinews will often be the first to write about real-world facts, and so its content can be partially uploaded to the abstract Wikipedia in order to make it easier for both other projects and future Wikinews contributors to utilize past Wikinews writing. GreekApple123 (talk) 18:37, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Sannita (WMF) can wikidata store infos: who, what, where, why, how, when. for each news article. it would be useful to show that in a abstract. this is routinely already prepared for each news published here as writing in first paragraph and would be easy to add. if you can show how to add this information to wikidata and then pull an abstract from it, this could be probably helpful. Gryllida (talk) 11:25, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Gryllida We can't still show a prototype about this, since it's not ready yet. We have a concept of how to go on this, but still nothing that can be shown. Maybe you can ask for more information at the next Volunteer's Corner? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:36, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Sannita (WMF) A test wiki where I can create a test news article would work, it does not have to be prod ready. Volunteers Corner was at night, I can do at 1730 Sydney time on a working day. Would this work for someone from your team who can chat? 8pm to 10pm I can do via IM messages in text only. Gryllida (talk) 11:46, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Gryllida We can't still show a prototype about this, since it's not ready yet. We have a concept of how to go on this, but still nothing that can be shown. Maybe you can ask for more information at the next Volunteer's Corner? Sannita (WMF) (talk) 11:36, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- @Sannita (WMF) can wikidata store infos: who, what, where, why, how, when. for each news article. it would be useful to show that in a abstract. this is routinely already prepared for each news published here as writing in first paragraph and would be easy to add. if you can show how to add this information to wikidata and then pull an abstract from it, this could be probably helpful. Gryllida (talk) 11:25, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- Great! Thanks for the clarification. I do like the idea of utilizing it here to assist with new content creation. We have been discussing ways to assist with that. Could it be a tool that could be integrated or leveraged along with an 'Article creation wizard' type tool? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 15:04, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
┌───────────────────┘
@Gryllida, for how to add Wikidata to Wikinews articles, see Wikinews:Publish_checklist#3._Creating_a_Wikidata_Entry. It outlines the minimum data we should add to each article at publication. As the Abstracts project develops, we’ll likely identify more Wikidata items to enhance our articles.
What’s critical now, if we’re serious about leveraging this (and I think we should be), is to consistently create a new Wikidata item for every article and, when adding Sister links, connect our data with the corresponding Sister wiki’s data. This ensures that when a function accesses sister data, ours is included.—Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 12:37, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- I have been playing with some of the example functions listed here: [6]. What I'm finding is we would do well to get someone on our team who is well versed in Wikidata and how we can effectively leverage it to get more of our data and articles exposed to other projects through it. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 12:50, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
- Hi
- 1. That was written without consensus. I am concerned. Consensus needs to be achieved before altering a guideline not after. Please don't do that again. Consensus is best sought with a respective post at a water cooler where users are subscribed, and with amble time to get feedback from multiple users.
- 2. I would like to know how Wikidata can support 5Ws, seems important for a news. At least the location part and date part are clearly quantifiable not sure what about others.
- Thanks. Gryllida (talk) 12:54, 24 May 2025 (UTC)
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
- A community-wide discussion about a very delicate issue for the development of Abstract Wikipedia is now open on Meta: where to store the abstract content that will be developed through functions from Wikifunctions and data from Wikidata. The discussion is open until June 12 at Abstract Wikipedia/Location of Abstract Content, and every opinion is welcomed. The decision will be made and communicated after the consultation period by the Foundation.
Updates for editors
- Since last week, on all wikis except the largest 20, people using the mobile visual editor will have additional tools in the menu bar, accessed using the new
+toolbar button. To start, the new menu will include options to add: citations, hieroglyphs, and code blocks. Deployment to the remaining wikis is scheduled to happen in June. - The
#ifexistparser function will no longer register a link to its target page. This will improve the usefulness of Special:WantedPages, which will eventually only list pages that are the target of an actual red link. This change will happen gradually as the source pages are updated. [7] - This week, the Moderator Tools team will launch a new filter to Recent Changes, starting at Indonesian Wikipedia. This new filter highlights edits that are likely to be reverted. The goal is to help Recent Changes patrollers identify potentially problematic edits. Other wikis will benefit from this filter in the future.
- Upon clicking an empty search bar, logged-out users will see suggestions of articles for further reading. The feature will be available on both desktop and mobile. Readers of Catalan, Hebrew, and Italian Wikipedias and some sister projects will receive the change between May 21 and mid-June. Readers of other wikis will receive the change later. The goal is to encourage users to read the wikis more. Learn more.
- Some users of the Wikipedia Android app can use a new feature for readers, WikiGames, a daily trivia game based on real historical events. The release has started as an A/B test, available to 50% of users in the following languages: English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and Turkish.
- The Newsletter extension that is available on MediaWiki.org allows the creation of various newsletters for global users. The extension can now publish new issues as section links on an existing page, instead of requiring a new page for each issue. [8]
- View all 32 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.
Updates for technical contributors
- The previously deprecated
ipblocksviews in Wiki Replicas will be removed in the beginning of June. Users are encouraged to query the newblockandblock_targetviews instead. - Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki
Meetings and events
- Wikidata and Sister Projects is a multi-day online event that will focus on how Wikidata is integrated to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. The event runs from May 29 – June 1. You can read the Program schedule and register.
Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
MediaWiki message delivery 20:04, 26 May 2025 (UTC)
Dear all,
This year, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end [1]. The Board invites the whole movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.
The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff [2]. The Governance Committee, composed of trustees who are not candidates in the 2025 community-and-affiliate-selected trustee selection process (Raju Narisetti, Shani Evenstein Sigalov, Lorenzo Losa, Kathy Collins, Victoria Doronina and Esra’a Al Shafei) [3], is tasked with providing Board oversight for the 2025 trustee selection process and for keeping the Board informed. More details on the roles of the Elections Committee, Board, and staff are here [4].
Here are the key planned dates:
- May 22 – June 5: Announcement (this communication) and call for questions period [6]
- June 17 – July 1, 2025: Call for candidates
- July 2025: If needed, affiliates vote to shortlist candidates if more than 10 apply [5]
- August 2025: Campaign period
- August – September 2025: Two-week community voting period
- October – November 2025: Background check of selected candidates
- Board’s Meeting in December 2025: New trustees seated
Learn more about the 2025 selection process - including the detailed timeline, the candidacy process, the campaign rules, and the voter eligibility criteria - on this Meta-wiki page [link].
Call for Questions
In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise their application will be disqualified. This year, the Election Committee will select 5 questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related. [link]
Election Volunteers
Another way to be involved with the 2025 selection process is to be an Election Volunteer. Election Volunteers are a bridge between the Elections Committee and their respective community. They help ensure their community is represented and mobilize them to vote. Learn more about the program and how to join on this Meta-wiki page [link].
Thank you!
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Results
[2] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Committee:Elections_Committee_Charter
[3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Committee_Membership,_December_2024
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_committee/Roles
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/FAQ
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2025/Questions_for_candidates
Best regards,
Victoria Doronina
Board Liaison to the Elections Committee
Governance Committee
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
This might not only be related to English Wikinews but to the Wikinews project in general. The Wikimedia Foundation's Community Affairs Committee Sister Projects Task Force is planning a public consultation about the long-term viability of the Wikinews model as a sister project. According to the task force, some concerns include the sustainability of community engagement, content quality, and alignment with Wikimedia's goals of knowledge equity and reliability. For now, no new language editions of Wikinews will be created. See a recent discussion related to this. -- Asked42 (talk) 15:14, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- In light of the above comment, I would like to propose that we, as reviewers, take a proactive approach to address these challenges.
- Moving forward, I propose that all reviewers commit to performing full and complete reviews of all draft articles and take no shortcuts in the process for any reason, including speed of publication. While a full and complete review can be time-consuming, it is currently the most reliable way we have to ensure that our content is of acceptable quality, free of unverified or false statements, and fully aligned with our established policies and guidelines.
- By reinforcing our commitment to high-quality content, we can help strengthen Wikinews’s credibility and demonstrate the project’s ongoing value to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem.
- @Acagastya, Bawolff, Bddpaux, Chaetodipus, Cromium, Gryllida, Heavy Water, JJLiu112, LivelyRatification, Michael.C.Wright, Microchip08, RockerballAustralia, SVTCobra, ShakataGaNai, Tom Morris, Tyrol5, William S. Saturn: —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:28, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
- I can see full reviews as problematic, as authors don't keep up with requests. I would suggest making a '5W Brief' format, which should be easier to review. Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous#'5W_Brief'_format has a example. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:03, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Added two proposals below. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 22:15, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Asked42, would you possibly consider writing a tiny copy of reFill, to fills sources templates from any URLs in the 'Sources' section? It presents with a edit box in which the changes were implemented, the user just needs to click 'preview' or 'show changes' and 'save'. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:25, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Reviews/FlaggedRevs were originally instituted as a requirement of syndication to Google News. I don't think it was a thing prior to that. Reviews on Wikinews rub against the wiki model, and, coupled with the shortage of reviewers, make it very difficult to recruit/retain contributors. I think we should seriously consider getting rid of reviews entirely. Ultimately, we're currently making the decision to have no news rather than imperfect news – and I don't think that's appropriate. Microchip08 (talk) 11:20, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Microchip08 I agree with you. What do you think of the suggested "mini" 5w brief format I proposed further down the page? Could you please check the two tiny stories I just wrote in that format? While the effort writing them is similar to writing a normal article, I think they stand out as much easier to review and harder to stuff up when writing them. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 11:46, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hi @Microchip08 further: what do you think of verifying only the 5Ws in the first paragraph, and not undertaking a full review? I did that several times in April when all other reviewers were on holiday. I did not check beyond "yes, it happened there and then; it is not one sided propaganda; pass". Then @Michael.C.Wright strongly opposed this approach. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 11:50, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Since there are seemingly only a couple thousands of readers on this site at the moment, it should probably not be seen as a major catastrophe to go a long time without news being published here. So I would personally lean against being too quick with review processes.
- At a minimum, any article that goes through a 'semi-review' process should have all the unreviewed information visibly flagged and perhaps even hidden from readers until checked. GreekApple123 (talk) 12:56, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Gryllida mentioned that I “strongly opposed” her approach, and that’s correct—but with good reason. The demonstrable problems with the abbreviated reviews are well-documented. Articles reviewed in this manner have too often included falsehoods, bias, and plagiarism—issues we must not tolerate if we wish to maintain credibility and align with Wikimedia’s knowledge equity and reliability goals.
- The Wikimedia Foundation’s Sister Projects Task Force concerns—focused on sustainability, content quality, and alignment with movement goals—should be a wake-up call. Lowering the bar for verification, even temporarily, is not a solution. The mini review format as currently proposed does not produce high-quality, reliable content. Adopting it would risk undermining Wikinews further.
- That said, I agree that the current review process presents significant obstacles, and that the shortage of active reviewers is likely both a cause and a consequence of this[9]. However, a replacement process must not result in higher levels of low-quality content. Any reform must improve efficiency without compromising the standards that are essential to the project’s integrity.
- I’ll also point out a critical conflict between the review process and the archive process: if we were to tolerate more errors out of review (which I do not condone), the current 24-hour window before an article is edit-protected by archiving is far too short to allow necessary corrections. If the community were to shift in that direction, it would require a serious reconsideration of our archiving policies.
- In summary:
- I strongly oppose the "5w mini review" approach and any abbreviated review that sacrifices accuracy and neutrality.
- The review process is flawed, but any replacement must maintain or improve quality standards, not lower them.
- The archive process conflict makes adopting a low-bar review process impractical and risky.
- In summary:
- I welcome further discussion on how we can improve the review process, attract more contributors, and maintain credibility—but it must start with a commitment to accuracy and balance. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 13:00, 3 June 2025 (UTC);edited Removed bold. 15:23, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
- @Microchip08, I agree the review process is a major bottleneck, but it’s also what separates us from Wikipedia and helps prevent fake news. Our archive policy reinforces that by locking content as a snapshot in time. If review were removed, the archive process would need rethinking. What might that look like while still keeping us distinct and credible? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:33, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hello,
- I think we need an online call to discuss this and make a decision. Would @Michael.C.Wright and @Microchip08 be available?
- This subject has been discussed on-wiki many times. For 'fake news' there are processes in place, such as edits within 24 hours, and corrections. I would be interested to try out a shortcutted review process with 'verify only 5W', and see how many of 'corrections' will be issued over the course of 3 months. If there is too many, the discussion can be revisited. To alleviate 'reputation' issues, we can put a banner at the article, which says 'This article was reviewed with a shortcutted process, involving only verifying the "5W" first paragraph and copyright. Neutrality issues and inaccuracies may be present. You are welcome to 'edit' or 'leave a message' about the content.' I am going to make a subsection for this with 'discussion' and 'votes' to see what will be the outcome.
- Thanks. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:52, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I very much want to resolve this quickly and efficiently, but a private call between just three people isn’t the way to do it. This is a project-wide issue, and any discussion about changing core processes like review needs to happen publicly with full community involvement. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 00:58, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hello,
- @Microchip08, I agree the review process is a major bottleneck, but it’s also what separates us from Wikipedia and helps prevent fake news. Our archive policy reinforces that by locking content as a snapshot in time. If review were removed, the archive process would need rethinking. What might that look like while still keeping us distinct and credible? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:33, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
┌───────────────────────┘
Given our current reviewer capacity, we need to affirm that full and complete reviews are currently the only reliable way known to satisfy the mission of Wikinews, as defined at Meta: m:Wikinews
Meta-wiki clearly states: “We cannot rely on the wiki process to improve articles after they are published,” because news receives “very high exposure for a very brief period of time.” Articles must be “accurate and legal at the time of publication,” especially given the added risk from original reporting.
Partial reviews, though well-intentioned, often lead to articles being published with unresolved issues around neutrality, attribution, sourcing, or plagiarism. With so few active reviewers, we rarely have capacity to follow up and correct these issues post-publication.
It’s also worth noting that the mission statement at m:Wikinews does not mention frequency of publication. While I fully agree that improving the regularity of article output is important for the project's future, that goal cannot come at the expense of one of Wikinews' core principles: neutrality. Prioritizing speed or volume over accuracy and neutrality undermines both the mission and public trust.
I stepped back from earlier discussion because it had become a two-person exchange, and I felt the community needed space for other voices. I'm raising this again because the problem remains unresolved and directly impacts our review standards.
Given the risks and our current limitations, we should immediately stop performing any partial reviews until a new, accountable process is defined that satisfies the mission and purpose of English Wikinews. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 01:49, 12 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hello
- I'm afraid I need to disappoint you in your thinking that 'the problem remains unsolved'. The current situation requires full reviews. The proposed changes don't require full reviews; however, they are not currently in force.
- With that in mind, the best course of action for working with high quality and quickly is to get into as many real time comms as possible. My user page has a bunch of them. If you are on any of them, I encourage you to send me a private message and join a Wikinews-related group. Real time communication allows to tag the user and get their response in real time, and reduce delays. Despite Echo existing, with several users its output is delayed by hours at random points. I cannot rely on it every time. It also leaves the user without knowing what's going on with other articles than the one they've written or edited.
- There are ways to make comms kind of similar to a live chat group about Wikinews, but it would require copying messages from all talk pages of all articles into one water cooler. Or copying messages from talk pages of all articles about Australia to an Australia water cooler. The software is poorly adapted to this. The Wikinews live chat (WN:IRC works but is not friendly to beginners. I have setup Wikinews groups in discord and telegram and matrix, and messaging me on this platforms (my username on them is listed on my user page) means I can add you to these groups. Hope this is helpful.
- Next step I would like to suggest to have a routine at least 30 minutes a week. I'm routinely available at 5:30pm on Fridays Sydney time for a contact on any of these platforms. Every day I am contactable from 8pm to 10pm in my local time. The w:Maemo community has had some success with monthly meetings. At a news site it would be ideally at least twice a week. For heaven's sake, this shouldn't be too difficult. Yet the wiki software lacks any kind of a scheduler, a shared calendar, a doodle, or anything of that sort. That's a shame. I welcome any suggestions what platform to use.
- Regards, -- Gryllida 11:59, 12 June 2025 (UTC)
Proposal 1 from Gryllida: shortcutted review with 5Ws and copyright verification only
[edit]
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I am proposing that a trial is done for 3 months to publish an article after verifying the 5Ws and copyright, without verifying neutrality and without verifying the items which are reported in the further paragraphs. I would be interested to try out a shortcutted review process with 'verify only 5W', and see how many of 'corrections' will be issued over the course of 3 months. If there is too many, the discussion can be revisited. To alleviate 'reputation' issues, we can put a banner at the article, which says 'This article was reviewed with a shortcutted process, involving only verifying the "5W" first paragraph and copyright. Neutrality issues and inaccuracies may be present. You are welcome to 'edit' or 'leave a message' about the content.' I am going to make a subsection for this with 'discussion' and 'votes' to see what will be the outcome. I am hoping this trial will show whether reducing review requirements leads to inaccuracies in reporting and whether it increases the comprehensiveness of the reports. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:53, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Discussion
[edit]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) Review the discussion above. Add your 'Proposal 2' (or 3 or 4, etc) if you have another idea.
2) Vote or leave a comment on this proposal.
Thanks, Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:54, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Comment Gryllida stated above that in April she performed several partial reviews, checking only the 5Ws in the lead and not conducting full reviews. The following month, after the articles were published and in many cases archived, we identified plagiarism in five articles, four of which have been corrected:
- Nuclear negotiations between US and Iran commence in Muscat, Oman
- Explosion in Iran's largest port, Shahid Rajaee, heard 50 km away, leaves dozens killed, thousands injured
- Sandstorm in Iraq leaves thousands hospitalised
- South African Civil Aviation Authority attributes helicopter crash to 'unsecured' penguin in the cabin
- A fifth article has yet to be corrected nearly six weeks later:
- All of these April articles were edit-protected when checked for plagiarism, which significantly delayed the correction process.
- One additional article—Competitive local elections held in England—was not yet archived when issues were identified and was corrected promptly for unsupported and biased statements:
- Today I identified and removed plagiarism from one article published in May and issued a correction:
- That brings the total to five plagiarism corrections from April and one so far in May—just among the cases we know about. Do we really need to trial this method for three full months to see that it consistently produces low-quality, policy-violating content? Is this the standard of quality we want to present to the Task Force as justification for keeping English Wikinews running? —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 00:51, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- Let me rephrase this for you. "Gryllida suggests to check for 5W and plagiarism. I will point to instances of failed plagiarism check." Let me reply to this. We have a seemingly working plagiarism checker, this is now less risk. For low quality, unfortunately unlike Wikipedia here articles cannot be editable forever, so those that were not fixed up within 24 hours will be stuffed with a bunch of correction tags at the top. This is not end of world, there is a procedure for this. Let me ask you, why do you think I am proposing this? What will be the advantages? Gryllida (talk, live chat) 13:17, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- I share the concern that the current review process can be a bottleneck and have been exploring ways to improve it. That said, the recent need to correct (not just a little) plagiarism in several published articles illustrates why certain core checks such as fact verification, plagiarism detection, and neutrality review can’t be optional. In that case, a decision to skip those checks created a significant post-publication burden and left policy violations publicly visible for weeks. While I agree the review process must evolve, I believe we should focus on streamlining it without compromising the basic standards that protect our credibility. We don't "have a seemingly working plagiarism checker" unless the reviewer does the checking. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 13:40, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- Two points:
- Quit chatting about the plagiarism, will you do me a favour please? I already unprotected these pages for two weeks and installed earwig link in my face (in each review template) on April 22, and already acknowledged (on that very day) that lack of that facility before was unfortunate and was concerning. The plagiarism checker is unmissable now. Every atom in the world including BigKrow knows of it and chats of it on nearly each article where earwig reports an orange light.
- This proposal suggests to keep checking for plagiarism and placing this discussion here is not constructive. If you want to complain about no check, head over next door to proposal 2. --->
- Regards, -- Gryllida (talk, live chat) 13:54, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the clarification. However, this is not simply a side conversation. It is directly relevant to how we approach proposals to narrow the scope of review.
- This discussion is constructive because it illustrates the tangible risks of minimizing review steps. The addition of the Earwig link to the template is appreciated, but it does not retroactively resolve the issues created before that change, nor does it remove the need to understand why those failures occurred. The link also does not automatically detect or prevent plagiarism. It still requires manual use and judgment by the reviewer.
- The workload caused by incomplete reviews is still being distributed across multiple contributors. That’s not just a tooling issue. It’s a question of process and responsibility. It remains directly relevant to any discussion about how to reform the review system responsibly. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 14:16, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- I disagree. Tooling and awareness improved sufficiently. Having some issues pending is not a sufficient excuse to bring that up here.
- Yes, for fewer checks it will be needed to involve more people to pick them up. Not only one person writing and one person reviewing. Sorry about that. Two people usually do not succeed at finishing to a high standard and quickly, unless they are working in real time. If you want to keep the standard high, you need to be the one sitting in 15 social media and pinging each author on his or her favourite platform to get them alerted and involved. Just sitting on wiki, without a mobile app to buzz the user's ears off, and expecting magical quick work to prevent staleness will not work.
- In short, to get fresher news, in scenario above, responsibility to fix them up quickly will need to be shared. Issues may be tagged and users will then need to fix them. What was not fixed in 24 hours will need to be unmarked and shoved into a correction tag. Gryllida 15:02, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- Two points:
- I share the concern that the current review process can be a bottleneck and have been exploring ways to improve it. That said, the recent need to correct (not just a little) plagiarism in several published articles illustrates why certain core checks such as fact verification, plagiarism detection, and neutrality review can’t be optional. In that case, a decision to skip those checks created a significant post-publication burden and left policy violations publicly visible for weeks. While I agree the review process must evolve, I believe we should focus on streamlining it without compromising the basic standards that protect our credibility. We don't "have a seemingly working plagiarism checker" unless the reviewer does the checking. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 13:40, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- Let me rephrase this for you. "Gryllida suggests to check for 5W and plagiarism. I will point to instances of failed plagiarism check." Let me reply to this. We have a seemingly working plagiarism checker, this is now less risk. For low quality, unfortunately unlike Wikipedia here articles cannot be editable forever, so those that were not fixed up within 24 hours will be stuffed with a bunch of correction tags at the top. This is not end of world, there is a procedure for this. Let me ask you, why do you think I am proposing this? What will be the advantages? Gryllida (talk, live chat) 13:17, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
Votes
[edit]
Support as proposer, as trial for 3 months. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:53, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I would not like to be included BigKrow (talk) 22:04, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hmm, I haven't thought about this myself, and enwn don't lack huser review like some other languages (such as zhwikinews), but I think there is no harm in giving it a try, and has a certain universal significance, so Support ~ Sheminghui.WU (talk) 08:46, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
Proposal 2 from Gryllida (from Microchip08 above): disable reviews
[edit]
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As Microchip08 suggested above, suggest to get rid of reviews entirely. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 22:09, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps article which was published without review can be tagged with 'The article was not reviewed. 5Ws, copyright, and neutrality may be an issue. Use 'EDIT' or 'LEAVE A MESSAGE' as you wish' at the top, until it passed some form of a review. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 22:11, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Discussion
[edit]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) Review the discussion above. Add your 'Proposal 2' (or 3 or 4, etc) if you have another idea.
2) Vote or leave a comment on this proposal.
Thanks, Gryllida (talk, live chat) 22:09, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- @Microchip08 , hi, you may be interested in this https://gryllida.neocities.org/news/writer/v3/index-2, a way to lower entry barrier without binning the beloved "quality" mission for here. Maybe attempting 5Ws discussion there may help with improving writing and reviewing skills for application on wiki. Gryllida 12:38, 15 June 2025 (UTC)
- Wrong URL
- meant to be this,
- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T396948
- regards, -- Gryllida 12:39, 15 June 2025 (UTC)
Votes
[edit]
Weak support, yet as trial only, for 3 months. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 22:09, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- This is somewhat similar to the review system of some Wikipedias ~ Sheminghui.WU (talk) 08:50, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
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MediaWiki message delivery 23:54, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
Hello,
In light of recent discussions about quality of reviews, I'd like to propose a new '5W Brief' format. It would be similar to 'briefs', but would actually include a table and a recommendation to fit less than 200 words. Here is a proposed template: User:Gryllida/template2. If this is acceptable, this can be added to the main page and to WN:WRITE page. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:03, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Example:
- Only 46 words. I'm thinking anything longer would already pose risks with reviewing. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:26, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- To be quite honest filling sources for it was the most time consuming part. And even the table does not click properly, need to double click. Is this adequate software for visual editing...? Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:27, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Maybe easier to work with User:Gryllida/template3-submit that. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:30, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Can you also include "How" (5Ws+H)? The idea is pretty cool, and an added bonus is that it would allow for more reviewers to contribute, since the articles are much shorter and thus there is less stuff to verify; there could also be a system of 'limited reviewership' where people who want to become reviewers can start by being granted the right to review the 5W+H briefs. GreekApple123 (talk) 14:09, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- To be quite honest filling sources for it was the most time consuming part. And even the table does not click properly, need to double click. Is this adequate software for visual editing...? Gryllida (talk, live chat) 10:27, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I think this is a better alternative to performing a 5W mini review. At least this way the 5W briefs would theoretically (hopefully) get a full and complete review.
- However, a 5W brief article would amount to encouragement to read our sources rather than getting much meaningful content from Wikinews. A very brief article basically says; here are the basic details but go elsewhere to learn more. That, to me, does not represent quality and would not be a reason I would frequent Wikinews as a reader or consumer of our content. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:02, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I mean, there are not many takers for the current content anyways; the project is in a death loop, hoping for some intervention which will somehow make the existing model make sense. I think in some ways, it's better to build up some momentum with this 5W+H briefs idea, even if just for a few months, and then see if enough new people show up to do the work of creating longer articles. I think it also makes some sense just as a way to create brief snippets of events and happenings in the world, which can play into both the "Abstract Wikipedia" idea as well as offering something to link to within the Wikinews ecosystem. If nothing else, getting people in the habit of writing the 5W+H briefs would train them to write better articles, and might spark fresh collaborative curiosity. GreekApple123 (talk) 16:12, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- Starting a "Wikinews shorts" section to the site would be similar to how many information companies are offering shorter content nowadays, like with YouTube Shorts or Tiktoks. The difference here is that Wikinews briefs can still be linked within the broader Wikimedia ecosystem, meaning that readers are able to quickly go from a brief overview of an event to very detailed content and details on its various aspects and contexts in any of the various sister projects.
- I think a detail of implementation that might increase consensus for this change would be to limit the number of short articles/force editors to occasionally write a long article, in order to prevent this new feature from overwhelming the site's tradition. But overall, it doesn't make much sense to totally shut down the potential momentum this offers. GreekApple123 (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
- I would frequent Wikinews with the 5W+H as 95% of "news" in mainstream media is vague on these points. They are often missing or wrong. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 13:06, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- However, a 5W brief article would amount to encouragement to read our sources rather than getting much meaningful content from Wikinews. A very brief article basically says; here are the basic details but go elsewhere to learn more. That, to me, does not represent quality and would not be a reason I would frequent Wikinews as a reader or consumer of our content. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 16:02, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Votes
[edit]- Support Gryllida 15:11, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
Proposing to link the 5W+H with Wikidata.The date, who, and when with Wikidata looks easy-ish. And potentially "why" if there is a wikidata object for that. I am requesting your comments, votes, and implementation discussion. If there is a news story then link it to Wikidata item. If not, then generate based on Wikidata and publish as stub, if policies allow it. (See discussion above.) Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
Discussion (merit of the idea)
[edit]- 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) Check this section and leave a comment or a vote. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
- I think it would help to build a more comprehensive catalogue of events. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
Discussion (feasibility of implementation)
[edit]- Going to ask this from Wikidata. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
Votes
[edit]- Support if it doable. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 21:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)
Hi @Michael.C.Wright, you mentioned above that you agree that review process needs to be "streamlined". Please pick only one actionable item for that and describe it here. I and others will hopefully discuss and vote on it. If you need more than one, add as proposal 5, 6, 7, etc. Thanks. Gryllida (talk, live chat) 14:00, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- I’ve already made concrete, actionable proposals. See Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals#Markup for developing articles and the review process, which has been in use and iteratively improved over the past several months. That discussion has been ongoing for over eight months and includes specific, low-impact changes that several contributors are already using successfully.
- Rather than introducing a new set of numbered proposals here, I think it’s more constructive to evaluate and build on the work that’s already underway—and to ensure that any streamlining of the review process preserves core standards like sourcing, plagiarism checks, and neutrality. Recent events have made clear that skipping those checks creates more work and reputational risk in the long run. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 14:44, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- may i get a plot, the orange line which was in "wikinews is dying" post, updated to include additional weeks to now? Gryllida 14:52, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- By the way, I think it is confusing that you state opinions as facts. You cannot write "Recent events have made clear that skipping those checks creates more work and reputational risk in the long run.", for example; that is an opinion. If I had such opinion, I would write "I am concerned that, as recently it happened, skipping these checks may create more work and reputational risk in the long run". Or something like that. It is a concern. It is not an absolute. Gryllida 17:06, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
I’m increasingly concerned that this discussion has become a back-and-forth between two people, and that in itself is becoming disruptive to the project. Our goal here should be to examine how we can streamline the review process without sacrificing key standards like plagiarism checks, neutrality, and proper sourcing.
I’ve already made proposals in that direction, which are currently in use and being tested. Rather than continuing to debate procedural structure in this thread, I’d welcome broader input from others on how those ideas are working in practice and whether they address the core challenges we face.
Ultimately, the focus should stay on quality, sustainability, and collective problem-solving, not on personalities or side threads. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Reviewer) 15:10, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
- So you cannot provide plot. Provide me with the code for it then please. Gryllida 15:34, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
Apps to notify users from Echo for: Android, Mac, iOS, Windows. This should help users edit more quickly. As they cannot always eyeball the wiki. Maybe need to investigate how to setup Echo to email each @mention to a user. Is this setting on by default? App would be nicer as not all users get Notofication to their device for email.
Discussion
[edit]Votes : echo 2 email setting on by default
[edit]Votes: Notifications apps
[edit]- Support Gryllida 15:09, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
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MediaWiki message delivery 01:16, 10 June 2025 (UTC)
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