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Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2019/October

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Bulgarian Wikinews hard-closed and soon to be deleted

For the heads up, Bulgarian Wikinews was technically closed/locked and will be deleted per Meta-wiki proposal discussion, the first Wikinews language project to be closed since Hungarian Wikinews in 2010. A lot of rationales for deletion were made there, including potential bias content, very tiny community, attempts to exclude non-Wikinewsies, etc. Please feel free to comment. --George Ho (talk) 00:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sure looks like the WMF enthusiastically book-burning. --Pi zero (talk) 00:45, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The techs have decided to remove the bg link from wikinews.org portal (phab:T233896). What will you do about the link at Template:wikinewslang? --George Ho (talk) 18:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If they want to compound the obscenity of closing it with the further obscenity of erasing the record of what they've done, I'd have no desire to aid their cover-up. However, the purpose of the template is to provide links of use to people viewing the site. So the question is going to be whether there is anything useful we can provide re Bulgarian Wikinews. I think we need to wait and see what the situation becomes, before we can answer that question. --Pi zero (talk) 19:08, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If it's deleted, there is no value in providing a link to it. If it's locked, there could be but that would be no use at all. —Justin (koavf)TCM 03:33, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If it's deleted, and we wanted to provide something of value, that something would presumably have to be something other than a link to what has been deleted because, as noted, a link to what isn't there would not have value. --Pi zero (talk) 03:57, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Pi zero: E.g.? —Justin (koavf)TCM 04:59, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is hypothetical. Off-hand I can think of three functions one could imagine being performed by an entry at the Bulgarian position in the template, if the Bulgarian project has been incinerated. One could, I think, readily write huge volumes of text about further issues raised by these; just listing the further issues raised would be a daunting task, which goes back to my observation that this is hypothetical.
  • Informing the user that it was there and has been destroyed.
  • Directing the user to the archived discussions leading to the decision to destroy it.
  • Directing the user to where they can make official inquiries regarding the decision.
--Pi zero (talk) 13:23, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any known mirrors of bgwn? Not that I think linking to off-Wiki sites is a solution. --SVTCobra 19:17, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Good question. Though I can only agree, it wouldn't be appropriate to link off-wiki in the template. --Pi zero (talk) 19:23, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see value in linking to Russian disinformation propaganda. —Justin (koavf)TCM 19:27, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing I've heard has convincingly indicated that's what the site is. --Pi zero (talk) 17:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The deletion discussion explicitly says that. Why do you find that unconvincing? —Justin (koavf)TCM 17:41, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reddit AMA with an investigative journalist

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dbtthv/im_a_reporter_who_investigated_a_florida/Justin (koavf)TCM 17:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

15:34, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

GIJN on how to find sources

https://gijn.org/2019/10/07/how-to-dig-into-businesses-that-prop-up-criminal-networks/Justin (koavf)TCM 22:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What to do if Alan Dershowitz calls you and keeps on breathing

https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/alan-dershowitz.phpJustin (koavf)TCM 22:43, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ProPublica is expanding local coverage

https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-will-fund-more-local-news-investigations-in-2020Justin (koavf)TCM 00:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone interested, I worked on producing a new print edition issue. Link. It would almost work to produce it as a Wikinews Weekly sort of thing, though, it was rather time-consuming to produce, and I am remembering why my previous attempts at producing any editions died quickly. It's sort of in a magazine format, though, I loosely based it on a newsletter sort of format. I know Acagaatya worker also on PEs, and produced prettier editions than my sort of plain jane style. —mikemoral (talk · contribs) 07:58, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, this takes me back. —Justin (koavf)TCM 09:01, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

23:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Feedback wanted on Desktop Improvements project

07:14, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

14:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

16:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)