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

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This is an archive of past discussions from Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2010. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current page.


Press e-mail for the Department of Homeland Security?

I've written a story on a leaked document from the Department of Homeland Security. I think that before I submit it for review, it'd be good to get a comment from the Department of Homeland Security, but I can only find phone numbers—and no, I'm not phoning the US from the UK—does anyone know an official media e-mail address where I could request a comment?

On a similar note, I'd like to get a comment on the document from, ideally, someone who works in the aviation industry (since the document relates to aviation). If anyone on here is friends with a pilot or is a pilot, I would be grateful if they could supply me with an e-mail address/give me a comment directly. Thanks in advance, WackyWacetalk 17:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at http://www.dhs.gov/xutil/contactus.shtm . —Mikemoral♪♫ 19:26, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Art categories

For the past week, we were running RFDs on Category:Visual art and Category:Fine art. Nobody wanted to keep Fine art. However, the discussion on Visual art wasn't narrowing in on a decision, but instead was expanding to cover the entire organization of that part of the category tree. BRS suggested we close the RFD and move the discussion to the Water cooler.

My understanding of the general issues: For the categories to be useful, they have to be easy to use correctly, and for that, it has to be clear what they're for. Ideally, what they're for would be self-evident from the names of the categories, but that evidently isn't the case here; so we need to figure out just what they are for, and put a sentence or so of description in each category explaining what we've figured out.

My understanding of the categories immediately surrounding Category:Art:

  • Clearly non-visual branches of the arts are placed directly under Category:Culture and entertainment, not under Category:Art. Some examples: Category:Dance; Category:Music.
  • Some art forms that are considered visual art are not under Category:Art. The example that caught my eye is Category:Film.
  • The three other subcategories of Category:Art (besides Category:Visual art, that is) are all visual art, if I understand the WP article correctly: Category:Architecture, Category:Graphic art, and Category:Galleries.
  • There is an admonition on Category:Art that all articles in it should belong to one or another of its subcategories. They don't. Some of that is mistakes, many of which I've already cleared up; but some of it is articles that apparently belong in Category:Art but don't obviously belong to one of the subcategories. If all articles in the category are to belong to some subcategory, the subcategories had better partition the category. Here are the articles in Category:Art that aren't in any of its subcategories:

--Pi zero (talk) 04:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dev testing

I'm about to set up a group of test articles (I might also annexe some old, deleted stuff that was stale/abandoned so they can play with actual user submissions) and sock accounts. This is for the benefit of the devs, so that they can have a play with EzPR. As you may be aware, Jimbo was recently commenting on some issues when en.Wikipedia tested its own version of FlaggedRevs. I got in touch on Brian's behalf, suggesting EzPR should become part of the infrastructure, that it may be of use to WP (and others) - especially in the field of contentious BLPs on The Other Place. Jimbo was enthusiastic, and let the devs know. Therefore, I'm creating socks and articles with No Publish tags for them to have a good play with. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 16:11, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. Diego Grez return fire 16:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Devs generally have accounts (often multiple if these are paid devs), any reason why we can't just give them temporary reviewer privs instead of setting up new sock accounts for them.Bawolff ☺☻ 16:15, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, they'll get Reviewer for this alright. The string of emails has repeatedly mentioned setting up accounts specifically for this test, and nobody has actually said don't bother. If they want to use other accounts, that's fine, but it hurts nobody to have these available specifically for this purpose. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 16:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
btw, for reference in case anyone needs it, the magic to bypass the "does this article have {{review}} on it" check is typing javascript:Bawolff.review.start();void%200 into address bar and hitting enter. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:47, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Main page

is it just my computer, or is the main page exactly the same as yesterday's? And yes, I did purge and clear the cache. Kayau (talk · contribs) 11:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like there were no stories published on the 9th. That's the second time in the last few weeks, I think. --Pi zero (talk) 11:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Only 1 on 13th; none so far today (14th) although at present there are five articles awaiting review: all have been waiting more than 26 hours, with the oldest two waiting for more than two days. Interestingly, there are no pending articles less than 26 hours old, suggesting that people have given up writing stories. For future reference, the current main page stories were added 14:55, 12 September / 12:55, 12 September / 21:53, 12 September / 21:53, 12 September / 05:54, 13 September – i.e. only one story is less than 24 hours old, the oldest two have been there for more than 48 hours, and the other two are just an hour or so away from joining them. Bencherlite (talk) 20:41, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Today's update: only one article published yesterday (14th), two published so far today (15th). Our lead story has been up for more than 72 hours, and another story is approaching that. What's the record, out of interest? Bencherlite (talk) 19:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Behaviour of User:Diego Grez

Hi, I'm sure many of you are un-interested as I'm retired now but before going to stop editing anymore on this project. I want to tell the community that I have caught User:Diego Grez while lying to me. I know its NOT that a big deal but this should be in the knowledge of everybody here. Please see this. He remove my comments several times and later, he archived his talk page to hide from community what he lied. Second, is it acceptable on Wikinews to tell people "you retired; you shut the fuck up" whenever you disagree with them? I thaught civility is one of the core principals of Wikinews. Anyway, I'm sure he will be careful next time. Thank you! --Saki (talk) 20:53, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • He caught those edits after I mentioned them in IRC. We were curious as in to where you lived (or claimed to live) at that moment, so I looked at your recent contribs for clues and pointed them out. Diego then reverted them and explained to you how categories work; presumably you'd missed that in the years you've been on WMF projects. So no, nobody particularly followed your edits. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 21:45, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind if somebody is watching my edits but could you please justify yourself if you were looking at my recent contributions and you found my those edits (I made on September 7) which you later mentioned in IRC and then Diego reverted them. How you caught this edit of User:Wackywace on September 3? Doesn't it means that I'm on your watchlist? --Saki (talk) 22:07, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The same way; Wackywace mentioned in #wikinews that xe'd placed a speedy tag and, in my role as a Wikipedia sysop, I went to deal with it; I've no idea how Wackywace found the duplicate article. FWIW, I watchlisted your talk page at that time so I could follow any discussion, but I've since removed it again. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 22:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@Deigo: Sorry fellow, I was misconceived. Don't mind. --Saki (talk) 22:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    • This is rich. A reincarnation of a previously permabanned user complaining about the attitude of a reasonably well-trusted contributor. People who live in glass houses (or is that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas) should not throw stones. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Saki has not yet perfected their skill at applying AGF (the WP name applies, I think, since the underlying events took place there). Mastering AGF can take years; once grokked, it's a powerful discipline for making yourself a more effective contributor. Very Zen. --Pi zero (talk) 15:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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