Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/Archive/9

Miscellany

See also the archives.

Interview with Jimbo Wales

The wiki movements seem focused on local expertise; people work on things they are interested and expert in. Why is there very little local news on Wikinews, which it seems like it would be best qualified to produce?

Personal comments: I dont see this kind of trouble with Latin Wikinews. In both Spanish and Portuguese Wikinews, for example, there are a lot of good local stories written by local people. The news in Colombia, Brazil, Spain generally are written and revised by people who live at these places. The stories are very detailed, even more then tradictional news agencies who report international news.

I think that the problem with Wikinews in English is that it doesnt have a good support for non English speakers. We dont have this kind of trouble in Spanish Wikinews, for example. Is Spanish Wikinews, almost every user knows English and Spanish. The Spanish and Portuguese languages are not very different, so, Portuguese and Spanish users can contribute and understand each other, without big troubles. Sometimes, even a French or Italian can participate. --Carlosar 13:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The QuakeAID story

The story of the QuakeAID article on Wikipedia is quite interesting. Wikipedians have found evidence that this charity may be a complete scam, but at the very least it has dubious connections and is operated by a company which publishes Holocaust denial. They are also behind the alleged "class action" lawsuit against Wiki[pm]edia.

The problem with the Wikipedia article is that it is chock full of original research which doesn't really belong there. I have proposed on the talk page that this story should be investigated and developed on Wikinews instead until a clear picture emerges, at which point it could be published here and cited on Wikipedia. I'd like to invite your comments on the Wikipedia talk page as well.--Eloquence 06:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I tend to disagree, just because I don't think you should try to make wikipedians write for wikinews by deleting their information. Of course, it would be nice if someone simply took their original research, wrote a complete wikinews story about it, and cited that story when they repeat said information on the wikipedia article. But deleting the information from the wikipedia article to try to get them to write it here before reintroducing it to the wikipedia article seems a bit nasty to me. What I would have done is to leave their article alone, and just start a story focused on justifying their claims. If I ran into trouble, or got lazy, I'd add a sources tag to their article and explain that the wikinews article needed to be the source. Nyarlathotep 12:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Blog mention

I this interesting blog post concerning Wikinews and thought it would be great to share. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 07:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing that Chiacomo. -Edbrown05 18:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

How to approach on ongoing event

I'm not sure if this question is in the right place, but I'll ask anyway: I need opinions on how to cover the ongoing NYC transit dispute (see NYC's_transit_workers_approve_strike_authorization and NYC_Transit_Strike_Looming).

One possibility is to have many articles as more information comes out. This means many writers, small articles, and little to no updating of the content would be required. The other possibility is to have one article covering the entire strike threat in a collaborative effort, but it would have to be updated continuously until the contract negotiations finalize.

Anyone favor one option over another? -- NeoAmsterdam 02:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The Wikinews way has been to create an article every time there's a new development. In this article you can re-use a lot of the content from prior articles instead of rewriting from scratch again, though. If a situation is prolongued enough, you can build an infobox for it, or create a category. If a situation is a huge emergency — like the Indian Ocean Tsunami, or London Bombings, then a single status page is typically maintained in addition to the detailed spin-off articles. Hope this helps! -- IlyaHaykinson 03:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed it does. Thanks! -- NeoAmsterdam 03:22, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Blanking request

Several users from #wikipedia wish for User:Death2Fuhrer to be blanked due to it's libelous and racist content. (w:User:Zscout370) 10:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. What's up with this guy? --Deprifry|+T+ 10:18, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

No clue either. (w:User:Zscout370) 11:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Interview of the month

Check out the meta page on the Interview of the month. We have several people on the list and we are voting. --Sfullenwider 22:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Voting has closed for January and suggestions are being taken for February, please make your February suggestions now.

The top 5 potential interviewee's for January are:

1. Electronic Frontier Foundation (5)
   
2. Roberto Jefferson (5)
   
3. Roberto Jefferson's neighbor (5)
   
4. Christoph Schultheis (4)
   
5. John Seigenthaler Sr (4)
   

Attempts to contact these people by voice will be made shortly. First one who agrees to be interviewed gets the interview.--Sfullenwider 00:56, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

EFF is closed until Tuesday <sigh> But I will be calling people tomorrow. I may be into the lower candidates fairly quickly. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 01:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

We are going to hold two Interviews as two interviewees have agreed to be interviewed. The first one will be Bloggist Roberto Jefferson's neighbor, a popular bloggist on the huge Brazilian government corruption scandal. The second will be Electronic Frontier Foundation. Please post your questions for these two, especially Roberto Jefferson's neighbor as he is first, now. January 2006 Questions --Sfullenwider 03:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

According to a comment passed to me in IRC, the EFF interview this month is on. There's a discussion page on Meta, and I've started using the talk page to build up a list of questions. It'd be nice to, if the EFF agrees, a two-stage interview with some questions by email for in-depth answers, and a followup Q&A in IRC. There should probably be an "upcoming interview" template applied to the EFF page on Wikipedia for this as well, but we might have to vet the questions after that. :) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

are we in for future vanity/nonsense/non-notable articles?

We all know that people often create vanity pages on Wikipedia. While Wikinews is nowhere as popular as Wikipedia, Wikinews will still grow in popularity.

Do you think that we'll get "articles" like "Craig kisses Sarah during lunch" or "George farts in English class"?

I think that it's only a matter of time. --66.122.115.90 18:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

We already get them, but they'll get deleted pretty fast. I think detecting vanity is easier here than at the 'pedia because IMHO News is better defined than the question what is encyclopedic and what's not. --Deprifry|+T+ 18:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the major problem is inbetween articles (like Customer Finds Bizarre Item In Sandwich) Its not clearly vanity, but its not newswrothy (IMO). Plain vanity articles are easy to delete. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:44, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

wording on water cooler

Quote

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Below is a list of all current stub news articles on Wikinews. Please contribute to them before responding to posts here:

Is it just me or does that sound a bit demanding? Bawolff ☺☻ 23:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Question on policy summary availability

Has any sort of concise list of what current policies are and how they are currently enforceable been compiled yet? I have resolved to attempt to join this community as a user once again after a series of contributions, but have yet to come across any definitive statement of policies regulating user and administrator activities. Is there any formally designated component material for such community approved policy itself, rather than its proposal and discussion? Is there any sort of summarised form that may be studied and used to judge the merit of material for contribution before its submission or material to judge the appropriateness of sources or related actions in varied situations by those classes of users (if there are other classifications other than these two that are regulated, please consider the request as expanded to include them also)? 68.210.70.211 22:29, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikinews:Policy. Consult the style guide as well. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 06:22, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

RedBolivia.com

This site is reproducing some Wikinews content in English and Spanish... Julián Ortega 19:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

adding to WN:MF. thank you Bawolff ☺☻ 05:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Interviewing the illustrious "Jimbo" Wales

It has been brought to my attention that an interview of the Wikimedia founder, Jimbo Wales, is scheduled for the 5th of December. The topics suggested for the interview are the Wikinews project of the Wikimedia Foundation, and the upcoming Wikimedia Foundation fund drive. This will not just be of interest to Wikinewsies (where I would hope it can generate an article), but other news organisations will probably be interested in the material as they may not be so readily able to get material on Wiki projects as we can.

Of course, the thing is what sort of interesting — and thought-provoking — questions would people like to see put to the project founder? This is an open call for questions, which the interviewers (Kim Bruning and Mats Halldin) will comb through for material.

The one I'd like to propose as an opener is, "Do you believe that Wikinews, or any of the Wiki projects qualify as a meritocracy?" Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo Interview: Technical

I have noticed on Amgine's talk page that there is a discussion about how to get a conference call together and record this all for further processing. I suggest the service called freeconference.com -- it's free to use. If you want to do recording it can cost a bit of money (you have to do toll-free with that service to do recording), and if nobody wants to pay then there are probably other options that are cheaper. -- IlyaHaykinson 21:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm currently looking to get a permanent conference call facility for Wikinewsies on Telephreak. The conference call system can be accessed with standards-based Voice over IP (i.e. not Skype) as well as through use of direct access numbers throughout the U.S. with a few in Europe. Anyone who is interested in having a play with the Telephreak stuff could go to to the FreeWorlDialup site and download the pulver.Communicator, sign up for an account and have a play. The FWD numbers that should give you access to Telephreak are 75831, 63556, and 61513. Don't be surprised if you get someone without a clue about Wikinews, the guys that set this up and use it are a bunch of phreaks. :-)

Of course, this may not be all done in time for the interview, but it does offer some interesting possibilities. During Katrina Telephreak relayed emergency service radio from the area to extension 5 on their PBX, this has now been replaced with recordings of prank calls. Extension 69 is also worth dialing for a laugh.

If anyone has any questions on using pulver.Communicator, just let me know on my talk page. The one that is most likely to catch people out is dialling extension numbers. You first have to click on the poorly drawn keypad icon and then punch in the extension number you want. Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Story suggestions

I try to scan the news from multiple websites on a daily basis and I usually find several stories that I'd like to turn into articles here on Wikinews. However, I simply don't have the time to write as many articles as I'd like to. Is there a section where users can suggest stories to be written by other Wikinews users? Possibly an "article brainstorming" section? Thanks. Sawran 18:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Just stick in three or four sentences for articles on the ones that really interest you, the worst that can happen is they get deleted as abandoned. On the other hand you can look at it optimistically and hope someone will be interested enough to flesh them out and move them to published. Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That's one way of doing it, yes. However, it seems a bit crude and the risk of having the article being abandoned is most likely high. In my opinion, it would help if we had a section, such as Wikinews:Suggest a story, where users could edit the page and post story ideas on. Then any Wikinewsie could reply and say that they will try to write an article about the topic and give an estimated completion date. It would be somewhat similar to an editor assigning a reporter to do a specific story, but there would be more freedom involved. Sawran 19:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a good start, but I have a much more radical idea that's been kicking around in my head for years. We need a way for the community at large to decide what is important news. It's a horribly complex problem, but one that Wikinews is in a position to address. Basically we need a debating and voting system on "what's newsworthy". Now it's true that what's important to someone in upper Uganda may not be important to an ecology professor in Denmark, so it needs to be categorized. But imagine a simple example. What if we could somehow create a list of the (for example) "Top 10 most newsworthy African ecology issues". How do we do it? We need to somehow combine Wikinews with a sophisticated voting mechanism. That would be something I'd be willing to contribute to. Zero 14:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Chinese Wikinews

I know this isn't really the place for this, but I didn't know where else to put it. Simple question: WHY IS THERE NOT A CHINESE WIKINEWS? Wikimedia has already been blocked so the old logic that "we have to be good boys and girls, otherwise the Communists will block us" is kind of obsolete. Or maybe Wikimedia has become so spineless that we've moved onto the next level: "If we don't start a Chinese Wikinews, maybe the Chinese Communists will stop blocking Chinese Wikipedia and other projects." We're effectively asking "How high?" before the ChiComs ask us to jump. And before anyone uses the "you're-not-Chinese-so-your-opinon-is-irrelevant" line, no, I'm not Chinese, but I speak Chinese and really, really think that the current lack of Chinese Wikinews is a disgrace.

More than the minimum of 5 have expressed an interest in a Chinese Wikinews here: --->[1]

A fully functional pre-launch exists here: --->[2]

If you agree that the refusal to create a Chinese Wikinews is a desertion of Wikimedia principles, please tell Jimbo Wales --->[3] how unhappy you are. Thanks. --Ce garcon 17:08, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I personally think there should be a chinese wikinews (and from user pages I've seen, theres a couple others that agree with you), but shouldn't you be complaining about this at meta:? Bawolff ☺☻ 04:06, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

My initial reaction is to say we shouldn't let any government or set of government policies dictate which language editions we have, but I'd rather this had been brought up here as a request to participate in the discussion on Meta than as a call to harass Jimbo Wales. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: The discussion there is closed, isn't it now just a matter of waiting for the Chinese edition to be set up? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:37, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

"isn't it now just a matter of waiting for the Chinese edition to be set up?" So I have been thinking for months. But where do you see a Chinese Wikinews? 没有了! 为什么没有? --Ce garcon 18:08, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Having examined the dates on the poll I've linked to I'm not too happy about this. It will soon be a year since this poll was started, and there's no Chinese version. Who do I ask why this is the case? If, as Ce garcon suggests, the delay is based on keeping Wikipedia available in China that fact may be newsworthy. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think a Chinese Wikinews is a great idea, however I have equal concerns for it. One - as most media is censored in the PRC, we could be hosting something that is unable to be worked on from the primary location for the language. Two - As it has been shown on other languages of the wikis, the NPOV policy is usually disregarded. This creates a huge problem, especially for a Chinese language Wikinews - in which would be hard for users to not take a POV in most news. I think it ultimately should be started, however I should tell the users to take extreme caution. Now is where it counts more than ever. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 22:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

"...we could be hosting something that is unable to be worked on from the primary location for the language." - A bit defeatist, no? Anyway, what about all the other Chinese people outside the PRC?

"the NPOV policy is usually disregarded." I don't know what tat's supposed to mean! Are you suggesting that Chinese people are more likely to be biased than English users? Why? SInce Chinese Wikipedia is already blocked, there is no pressure to toe the line. --Ce garcon 14:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how many people actually speak Chinese outside of China, and the blocking from the country where most users of the language do speak it could mean very small contributions on that language. Additionally, I said the part about the NPOV policy based on observations from current non-English versions of Wikinews. I do think it would be more prevelent on the Chinese Wikinews, partially because of the government's stance on the press. It is an imperative portion of the wiki. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 17:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Chinese is not only spoken in the PRC. As I know, the zh.wikipedia community consist of Chinese, Taiwanese, people from Hong Kong, Macau, and many oversea Chinese people. Do you think that small contribution shall be ignored? Actually, we are not small as you thought.--Theodoranian 03:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Not at all, I'm just raising some concerns I have about it, hopefully in a non-combative fashion. As you can read above, I'm supportive of the notion, but there are many obstacles I'd hate to have Wikinews in because of the nature of the project. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 03:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

What a wipe out

I look at collaboritive writing... you have let a writer run with the thought. Where there are facts, or spelling, or clumsy sentences to fix, that they ought to be addressed. But [18 killed in U.S. air strike on village in Pakistan|18 killed in U.S. air strike on village in Pakistan], except for the headline, is an awful read. I am as guilty as any one of us for not expanding on the story by creating a new story with a new angle. The story sucks (gonna take another look before I sign off)... I don't know where that new lead came from, but it's "ruin't" -Edbrown05 09:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC) Wikinews still holds on to stories too long as a hangover from Wikipdihaa , how do you say it 'Pediabrotha'. Cut / new story. -Edbrown05 09:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

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Wikinews:Stop_Loss

I put up a little idea at Wikinews:Stop_Loss. Feel free to play with it, rename it, etc. Or just tell me its stupid.  :) BTW, today is my birthday.  :) BTW, its not meant as "policy" as I don't even know how such a thing could be "policy", but if it needs some sort of non-policy disclamer, feel free to add it. Nyarlathotep 17:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't make the short cut active yet, as I'm sure people will want to comment on the name.  ;) Ok, off to drink beer. Nyarlathotep 17:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea and can only think of good reasons why we would want such a page. Oh and, btw:

--Deprifry|+T+ 17:37, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Enjoy your birthday beer, how about WN:STAY for the shortcut? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Great idea! This isn't policy, any more than Wikinews:Welcommittee is policy, but a voluntary group of people working to support/expand the community. And a good idea, imo. (I said that already, I know. I would suggest making a list of users contacted, though, to avoid accidentally spamming people dozens of times with the best of intentions. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 18:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Happy birthday, Nyarlathotep! --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 22:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Google News listing

As those who follow Recent Changes may have seen, I have been doing a bit of archive protection. Assuming I can get all of last year done (help appreciated, I'm working backwards through the months) can we approach Google about having their news service spider our old stuff that is marked as protected? It might not get us visibility on up-to-the-minute stuff, but it may help with being a historical source. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews domains

The current ruckus over wikipedia.de pointing to de.wikipedia.org got me wondering what names have been registered for wiki projects. I find wikipedia.co.uk works, but wikinews.co.uk is "for sale", and wikinews.com claims to be "coming soon", but has no relation with the Wikimedia Foundation. Is Wikinews a registered trade-mark? Should these domains be disputed to get them handed over to the Foundation? Here's the list from one of these awful "flog any domain sites"...

• wikinews.be - taken. Hosts site of Jerril J. Krowen, a Massachusetts lawyer.
• wikinews.ch - taken. "parked".
• wikinews.de - correct, redirects to de.wikinews.org
• wikinews.it - taken. Looks like a web-based email service.
• wikinews.nl - almost-correct. hosts a Wikipedia entry page with various language options offered.
• wikinews.pl - correct, redirects to pl.wikinews.org
• wikinews.co.uk - taken, "for sale" but made to look like a news organisation site.
• wikinews.com - taken, some "coming soon" site that has no relation to the Foundation.

[I hope you don't mind if I add to this list]

• wikinews.net - Taken - parked but for sale. seems to be some company(sedo) that takes domains and sells them
• wikinews.us - taken - parked, same as above
• wikinews.biz - taken - parked same stupid domain hog company
• wikinews.info - taken - whats with these people. I'm just try all gTLD's. who wants info anyways.

[End of things I added. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)]
--Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews is expected to become Wikinews® on February 7 (Details) with registration according to the Madrid system AFAIK pending. Meta had a detailed page on the status of the various Wikimedia trademarks at one point but that information has been moved to the internal wiki. But at least we could do something about U.S. based domains pretty soon. --Deprifry|+T+ 15:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

See [4] and [5] --Deprifry|+T+ 15:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that, some interesting information there. I just don't want to participate in the discussion over whether wikinews.be should point to fr.wikinews.org or nl.wikinews.org. The Flemish versus the Walloons is generally worse than Scots vs English. :-) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

http://wikinews.com has been coming for about a year now. before that it was one of those misconfigured servers just showing the directory structure. At least thay point people in the right direction. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Country wikinews domains (i.e. wikinews.org.au or wikinews.be) should point to a page which links to the portal for that country in all Wikinews language projects. - Borofkin 22:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

As I alluded to in my earlier comment, this would cause problems for some countries such as Belgium where there are three official languages: Netherlands, French, and German. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Why would this cause a problem? The domain would link to a page which linked to Portal:Belgium (or whatever) in the French Wikinews, the German Wikinews, and the Nederlandic Wikinews, as well as the English Wikinews, the Klingon Wikinews, and any other Wikinews which had an active Portal:Belgium. All countries have people who speak different languages. - Borofkin 23:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

IOTM- Feb 06

Voting has closed for February and suggestions are being taken for March, please make your March suggestions now.

The top 7 potential interviewee's for February are:

1. Don Brash: 8
2. Michael Geist: 7
3. Anne Abernathy: 6
4. Dennis Hwang: 6
5. Derek Sivers: 3
6. Steve Mariucci 2
7. Toshiba or Sony: 2

votes

Michael Geist has accepted a request for an interview with Wikinews.

We will be doing research and developing questions at: meta:Wikinews/Interview_of_the_month/February_2006_Questions

Time:Wednesday, 15 February 2006 at 19:00 UTC.

Another interview with Jimbo Wales

I'm the editor of the Wikipedia Signpost on the English Wikipedia. I'm currently working on an interview with Jimbo Wales for the Signpost. Regarding the article, I was approached by a contributor who wanted to know if I could dual-license it for Wikinews. I'm happy to do this, but I know that you did an interview just two months ago, so I'm not sure your opinion on doing this. My question is whether you feel this is something you'd like to be a part of, or whether it's largely irrelevant in the face of the prior interview. What do you think? Ral315 03:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it wont hurt :), so yes I support dual-licensing it for Wikinews. Brian | (Talk) | ^{New Zealand Portal} 04:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure why not. the last one went over very well. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)