Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2010/June

Sidebar's "Donate" link goes to obnoxious WP-centric donation page

I've only just noticed that the "Donate" link in our sidebar goes to this page - which screams "WIKIPEDIA!" all over it. This is not appropriate for a project wishing to better distinguish itself from the encyclopedia and disperse the stereotype that it is a sub-project. As such, can we have MediaWiki:Sitesupport-url link to the project-neutral donation page? I'd have done this myself without even asking here, but forgot what the link to the other donation page was, and am not sure how to format it correctly. :[ I'm also going to be whining about this at Meta. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:16, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you surprised??? This is nothing new! Benny the mascot (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

We do choose the link. we can change it. Is foundation:DonateNonJS/en better? (I somewhat think we should save our whining for next fundraiser). Bawolff ☺☻ 15:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes, that was the page I was searching for. I was afraid I'd have to list it as an EL, but "foundation:" does the job quite nicely, so I'll be changing this shortly. (As far as the whining is concerned, well, maybe I won't be that scathing, but I do think this is unfair and needs brought to people's attention.) Tempodivalse [talk] 16:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree. Like really its not that hard to write donate to Wikimedia. They don't even need a separate one for each project, just one for wikipedia, and one for the rest of wikimedia. With that said we should maybe pick our battles and save it for the fundraiser. But feel free to post on meta if you want. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've changed the link in the sidebar, and whined appropriately at Meta, and tried not to be too angry or scathing - although this is, honestly, borderline insulting to me. Please comment if you wish, more input is needed :) Tempodivalse [talk] 16:13, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oh, no. Not again. Please look on the main page talk, or archive thereof, and point them at Mike Godwin getting his head on a plate when we complained about "cultural insensitivity". --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:20, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

{{User Wikinews reviewer}}

I've created a userbox for reviewers, parallel to the one for admins. Previously I'd hesitated to do so, because it felt like making too big a deal out of something that, we've been repeatedly told, is "easy come, easy go" — but lately it's occurred to me that it really should feel like a big deal, because that will help reviewers to avoid complacency about the responsibilities of review. --Pi zero (talk) 14:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for doing this, I definitely think that while we might have reviewer on an easy-come, easy-go basis, it is a big deal.

I also think that a "Reviewer's Pledge" may be in order. The right confers the ability to publish articles in Google News, as well as here. I would like to see reviewers actively working to improve their own English; both spelling and grammar. I'd also say there is a need to point new contributors at appropriate policies and advise them on getting up to a level where they would be suited to having the privilege. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Ten hours? That's ridiculous!

I just reviewed 2 articles that had been waiting for a review for 10 hours and 9 hours respectively. According to the recent changes, several reviewers were active over those 10 hours, so how on Earth can this happen? More to the point, how can we expect to be taken seriously as a news service if articles are waiting so long to be published that they cease to be news? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh, that's about normal actually. I've seen some stories wait for a day before gettign noticed by a reviewer, even that isn't considered extreme (hey, don't look at me, I was busy the entire day yesterday. Trying to get some more time in front of the tube today. ). Tempodivalse [talk] 12:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• It happens. I was in work yesterday, so time is limited, and reviewing well takes concentration. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

• There's a huge difference between being around and having the time to review properly. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I've had articles wait for two days. Trust me -- we've improved. Benny the mascot (talk) 15:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

This article wasn't reviewed in 5 days. --Diego Grez ^{return fire} 14:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

It happens, far too frequently, as a matter of fact. Trouble is, reviewing takes a while, and while people may have been active, they don't necessarily have the chunk of time to devote to reviewing, only to smaller edits. Speaking for myself, I've been known to discreetly edit while in school; at times like that, I can make quick changes (grammar fixes, delete spam, etc.), but I don't have the 15 minutes to an hour it takes to review. C628 (talk) 14:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

btw after 12 hours the bot on irc starts to go nuts to remind everyone. After 48 hours the bot will remind everyone once an hour. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

"5 days" isn't quite right, however. Created 27 Jan and offered for review same day; "review" replaced with clean-up tag same day; retagged for review on 30 Jan, 3 days after creation; I tagged it as stale on 31 Jan as the sources were by then 4 days old; although no new sources were added, it was offered up for review on 2 Feb, and published 3 Feb. So, for most of the time between creation and publication, the article was not sitting awaiting review, but awaiting clean-up. A duller version of events, but more accurate. Bencherlite (talk) 18:53, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I notice that, per HJ's concern, there's a pile of articles needing review, and having been in that state for a while. I can't start a review; I am currently in work and can get a call at any time. That would totally derail the process. What is worse, a significant number of these articles are being heavily overloaded with sources. Please, if an article has something like 10 sources on it, the reviewer will have to read all of them. Keep sources to reasonable numbers, and to credible ones. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems there either aren't enough reviewers, or the current crop aren't able to review fast enough. If news items sit in "review" queue for more than a couple-5 hours, that seems a bit long to me. Safety Cap (talk) 21:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

That's a misordering of the priorities of the project. The high standards of the project are its reason for existing, the sine qua non from which all else must follow. We are either giving out the reviewer bit a little too freely, or more likely we're failing to explain clearly to new reviewers the enormous responsibility that they have to enforce the standards of the project — because I see increasingly stylistically and even grammatically sloppy work getting past review (unevenly, of course), which suggests that some reviewers aren't taking the time and effort to do their job properly. Not allowing anything to be published until and unless we have thouroughly checked that it lives up to our standards is not a luxury that we enjoy if we have time. Timely review is a highly desirable outcome that must, by the fundaments of its nature, always take a back seat to not allowing anything to be published until and unless we have thoroughly checked that it lives up to our standards.

Historically, it has happened that an article goes {{stale}}, ceasing to be news so that ultimately it must be deleted, because by the time a reviewer got to it and flagged it for needed revisions, there wasn't time to make the revisions while it was still fresh. Every such incident has been a tragedy, and if it happens again (it will) it will be a tragedy then too — but tragedies on a scale that's tiny compared to the existential crisis for the entire project that can result from not properly reviewing every article. --Pi zero (talk) 22:56, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Moving On

We need to move away from general discussion on AAA; that's not what it's there for.

Having been absent for a decent period of time and just come back to be greeted by an impending implosion on Wikinews, I thought I would just get my thoughts on the whole debacle down on screen.

Firstly, Wikinews as a community needs to get over this. No blaming other people, no mob witch hunts, no false accusations. Those users with responsibilities on the project who feel they have done wrong and not lived up to the inherent expectations that go with those privileges should be able to resign those by themselves; they know they have done wrong and if they feel they have, it's up to them what they do. Arguing on each others talk pages and infighting is helping no one; not us in the project and not those looking in from outside.

If users feel the need to apologise to Matthew, go ahead on his talk page and do it there. Bear in mind that one minute wanting him gone from the project and the next profusely apologising probably won't do wonders for others opinion of you, but that is up to you. It would be a decent gesture if an official apology was drawn up by the community-this doesn't need to be anything fancy and shouldn't take much time away from anything else, but just a short note apologising on behalf of the undersigned may be appreciated.

Knee jerk reactions rarely ever work out well and so I would advise on hastily drawing up new policies and passing them in the immediate future. Give it a month or two until everybody is able to look upon it objectively.

Now, the more pressing issue for me is the state of Wikinews as a whole, unrelated to this incident. In the past five years, yes we have got in Google News and become a much more reliable source and for that I congratulate Brian for the hard work he has done with regards to that. However, the project is not growing and we're looking crap alongside Wikipedia's reporting on the news. I know that that is Wikipedia's fault, but that's not going to change and so Wikinews must live with that.

We don't have enough editors to be able to cover all the news that outlets like the BBC or CNN cover; maybe one day, but not at this rate. In my opinion, we need to try and change the way Wikinews articles are written and why they are written. Here, each article is basically written by one person and one person only. Someone might do a bit of copyediting but that is rare. Rather than trying to compete in terms of quantity of articles, which we'll never be able to do, Wikinewsies need to focus on writing one article at a time. Each article needs to be a collaborative effort, differentiating itself from the competition by being far more in depth and neutral than anyone else. If you come on Wikinews, wanting to write an article, I would strongly advise against banging out a quick three paragraph effort. Instead, those users who are online at any one time, probably only two or three people, should be working together on one article and making that the best article.

At the moment, anyone who comes to Wikinews from the outside will find a news site not dissimilar to the BBC, but just much worse because a lot of things won't be covered. How does that convince them to come back? Instead, they should be visiting, knowing that they won't find all the news here but being able to read long, in depth news reports that actually look at all the facts. That is what journalism should be, even if that isn't obvious in today's world.

I would really appreciate people's thoughts on these suggestions. If you have a better idea on how to expand and improve Wikinews, let's here it. Now is the time with the crap articles that are being published for us to actually do something and properly put the drama behind us. Wikinews has an unlimited potential, with the ability to take news reporting out of the hands of billionaire media moguls, but it so easily risks falling over the edge of the cliff and never being seen again. We can't let that happen.    Tris   11:05, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a long, in-depth article is more valuable than a three paragraph brief. That may well be a better niche to carve ourselves into. However, we also need to keep article output up. Less than three articles in a day does not look too good, IMO, no matter what the quality. We need to encourage collaboration and get articles as long as possible (an approach better suited to the wiki model than what we currently have), as well as trying to discourage the current culture of article ownership. Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 12:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

South Africa World Cup

Will we write about the World Cup? If so, like Spanish Wikinews did, I propose that everyone could 'adopt' a team of their choice.

• Chile: --Diego Grez ^{return fire} 14:17, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm Scottish, and we didn't qualify. I'm only likely to write about games if England get beaten 24-0 by some obscure country with no history of playing football. :-P --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:17, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

lol --Diego Grez ^{return fire} 17:41, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom

So basically, what we've got is that ArbCom elections are supposed to happen in July, and we've done...well, nothing. Compounding the problem is that at least two (I think that's right, BRS and Brianmc) people won't be running, which leaves us with having to elect at least two new people, and get, ideally, at least four to run so it's something of a contest. So yeah...I don't really know what's going on here, not having been around for the last election, but this has been discussed on IRC, so I figured it might be a good idea to bring it on-wiki. Thoughts, anyone? C628 (talk) 03:04, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I volunteered to serve as election judge. Thanks for reminding me! Benny the mascot (talk) 03:30, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

News from enwiki

Hi, this might interest you guys, since barnstars are also used here. Kayau (talk · contribs) 13:24, 30 June 2010 (UTC)