Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/1

Categories and topic pages

I've posted a proposed policy for categories, topic pages and managing latest news for pages other than the main page. Please see it at Wikinews:Categories and topic pages. I've updated site news too (but the sitenotice is protected, so I can't change the date last updated) -- IlyaHaykinson 10:37, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Use of IRC to set Wikinews policy

I am uncormforatable about a recent trend to rely upon chats in the Wikinews IRC channel as policy-making sessions for Wikinews. There are no written records kept of such meetings and community participation in IRC is sporadic. So in reality no true sense of a community consensus can be gotten from IRC participation. IRC is, on the other hand, a great way to quickly discuss an issue between or among a small group of folks. But as for official WN policy? I hope not. -- Davodd | Talk 00:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think it sometimes happens that folks discuss things on IRC leading to productive results. However, if proposed policy emerges from such chat sessions, they need to be logged and archived on the site (see m:Wikinews/IRC_meeting_Oct_27 for an example of a log of a meeting). -- IlyaHaykinson 01:17, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I raised a big stink about setting policy on IRC on Wikipedia, as I am a big proponent of open meeting laws to force policy-makers to allow the community to participate.

However, the best I got out of the discussion was an invitation to hang out on IRC. :)

(The reasoning seems to be that IRC is open to everyone should they have the desire to lurk there.)

However, for those of us who have no desire to hang around in a chat room, I hope if any policy discussions are held on IRC, that someone will do the rest of us the courtesy of posting a log of that discussion (as Ilya has done above), as we need to be careful to prevent the classic small-town phenomenon of town meetings that are only held for show, where it is obvious that a discussion was held somewhere else to organize a block of votes, and the rest of the community members in attendance are left wondering why it appears that everything has already been decided everytime they bother to show up for the official town meeting.

I realize that there is no way to enforce this, and if you enjoy discussing Wikinews on IRC, that's your business, but I hope folks will see the wisdom of keeping any policy discussions as open as possible.

Regards,

— DV 03:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree, while IRC is a good place to talk shop, it's hardly a good place to set policy. I think that any proposed policy new should be listed here in the Water Cooler and discussed, before it's adopted. Lankiveil 03:38, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC).

I also agree on this. And those who discuss things on IRC should be encouraged to report the results so that others can join on Wikinews.

An exception, sort of, I can think of is that when there is some emergency, for example a wave of vandals or a very urgent deletion request related to privacy& stalking, it is good that administrators or whoever dealing with that decide on things based on discussions with others on IRC than act unilaterally. Tomos 03:47, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have a major problem with the current model of policy development on Wikinews. For example, this page sucks. There are more than 80 sub-sections. Unless you are constantly patrolling (easier to do in IRC, btw), you cannot keep abreast of the policy discussions. I also have found almost no attempts to develop consensus; instead, divisive polls with, as often as not, nearly deadlocked votes, are used to enforce a "democratic" model of majority tyrany.

I do not have a specific solution for this problem, other than to massively cut the clutter, build a more complex but easier-to-navigate system of letting the contributors know about policy discussions. And develop consensus, not majority rules. - Amgine 06:50, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Subject categories

There are categories like Category:Politics and conflicts. But one year from now, it will be not very much interesting, I am afraid. It will become a box in which ancient and latest news sit together, mostly undistinguishable.

I want to suggest that the major subject categories that correspond to the Main page subject classification (Politics and conflicts, Sports, Culture and Entertainment, Science and technology, etc. ) have "Category:Subjectname_Monthname,_Year" format.

How do you think? Tomos 19:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Like "Category: Politics and Conflicts (December 2004)"?

It could work, but I can see some problems with the idea. Firstly, there are events that cover more than one month (multi-day news events like elections, battles, and revolutions), what category would they be put in? The other problem is that at the beginning of the month, the lists would be practically empty, so a new user surfing in would probably conclude that there's not much of anything here.

I suppose an ideal solution would be to have a page with all the stories from, say, the last month listed, sorted by publishing date. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an automated mechanism in Wikimedia that will handle such a thing, and having to manually maintain a large number of lists with a large number of items like that would be quite a lot of work.

Don't get me wrong, the core of the idea is good, it just needs development. Lankiveil 02:43, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suggest that pages (like just Politics and conflicts) should be the current events, while categories (like Category:Politics and conflicts) collect events for a month or a year and then get moved by a (not yet made) bot to a "Category:Blah (2004)". This way we can always keep pages up to date; categories are places to get a full list of stories (and in theory down the line we'll be using more specific categories). -- IlyaHaykinson 06:47, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I mostly agree with IlyaHaykinson's idea, though it may not solve problems Lankiveil pointed out.

For the events spanning multiple months, the only solution I can think of is to categorize some articles into multiple months. This is not an elegant solution at all, I have to admit, but doable.

For the problem of category looking too empty at the beginning of a month, we can simply do what we do at the date category page - to link previous & next months. (An example of date category Category:December 1, 2004).

Alternatively, we can use Qarterly category, like Category:Sports_(1Q2004).

I have a feeling that categories are mostly for production purposes, not presentation. That is, we need to categorize (index) articles mostly in order to efficiently list them at subject portal pages (like Politics and conflicts), special coverage portals (like Ukrainian political crisis). These pages are for presentation to readers.

I also have a feeling that newbies do not necessarily know or care about category feature & how to use it. So it is a work of non-newbie Wikinews editors.

These issues are probably best solved by coding like a Mediawiki feature. But what kind of feature is good? I don't know yet. I made a feature request to boolean search pages using categories. [1] It could solve some of the issues, but not all. Tomos 08:10, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The answer to this is quite simple if you want to have the most-recent story on top. You code the category entry as such: [[Category:Title|>YYYMMDD]] (or or an example: [[Category:Politics and conflicts|>20050105]] for a story written Jan 5, 2005) - this will ALWAYS put the most recent stories at the top of the category page (and disregard the alphabetising) - of course the downside is that they all will be listed under a ">" - which may look weird until you realize that without the ">" everything will be listed under a "2." Still this is better than trying to figure out what order things happened than by mere guessing or playing "click all the stories in a category to find the most recent article" which would be maddening. -- Davodd | Talk 09:27, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This sounds like a brilliant way to resolve this particular issue. Do you have an example which shows this in practice? - Amgine 19:29, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, dang. It lists them by date -- but it puts the OLDEST story on top and the newest story on bottom. Compare Category:Culture and entertainment with Category:Culture and entertainment test. Does anyone have ideas on how to resolve this? -- Davodd | Talk 01:27, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is logical at least. The database is ordering by character value. I don't beleive you could reorder without a modification to the sql. Which may be available... - Amgine 05:41, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Local reporting--different policies?

As we start to branch into local reporting, is there any objection to the WN communities that arise around those local areas establish their own policies that may differ from the broader WN ones?Kurt Weber 19:59, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This could get sticky. I could see additional policies within a bureau in addition to Wikinews policies, so long as those policies do not conflict with the Wikinews policies. - Amgine

Other languages?

Does anyone else have an opinion about the posting of articles in French?

I assume these articles are posted with the best intentions.

However, if anyone can read French, please double-check the contents.

— DV 18:45, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't the "en" in "en.wikinews.org" stand for English? I suggest someone knowledgable of such things start "fr.wikinews.org" for French-language news. Any volunteers?

Until then -- instead of a complete separate article, how about a subpage for the other language (with a link from the main article)? For example Tsunami Help/Ground Zero Information would be the English version. Then Tsunami Help/Ground Zero Information/fr would be French, Tsunami Help/Ground Zero Information/es would be Spanish. Whereas a German version could be posted on the german site (with appropriate [[de:Article name]] link - since de.wikinews.org exists.

By using the "/subpage" for as-yet-unsupported languages it may make it easier to port over archived stories when those other language wikinews sites form. -- Davodd | Talk 20:39, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that we should allow non-English-language content here. The process for setting up a wikinews site is very simple (I believe it takes 5 people to start a new language site); there is no reason to litter en.wikinews with content in languages that people here might not know. I can read French, but I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails about a story in Tamil: unable to read articles, we won't be able to ascertain their accuracy, and might end up publishing illegal, obscene, or totally inaccurate information.

At the same time, I think that we should continue making an exception for the Tsunami Help subpages for the time being. They are a special project in effect, and already get special treatment, as long as the disclaimers of responsibility remain. -- IlyaHaykinson 20:47, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I altered the above proposal to be Tsunami Help specific to illustrate what I mean... -- Davodd | Talk 21:20, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I like the modified idea. -- IlyaHaykinson 21:51, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Several comments.

The subpage idea sounds fine, unless the editors and readers will not experience confusion. For that, I'd like to know opinions of some editors of those pages first.
I have read on the Tsunami Help mailinglist that non-English contents are being moved to social text (they offered a place for the Blog team), and had the impression that they think non-English contents are inappropriate for the English Wikinews. But there are about 200 messages posted per day to the list, and I am not a participant of the blog, so I cannot assure anything. I hope someone more knowledgeable can come in and inform the rest of us. My understanding also is that German contents are now in de.wikinews at least in part. They are also selecting a wiki, a server, & a domainname to migrate in part or in whole.
It is a nice gesture if they can migrate some pages to elsewhere, because this is clearly English Wikinews. But if it helps our readers to find out some critical information in other languages, hosting a bit of non-English for a limited time period would not be bad, I think. (I also expressed a similar opinion at Wikinews:Deletion requests#Tsunami_Help_Id_and_Template:Tsunami_Help_Id_and_Template:Tsunami_Relief_Effort_ID).
I don't think it is clear for the bloggers that they can start another wiki by just 5 people. Where to request, how do they link from one language-wiki to another, what is an administrator, etc. are not so clear. But fr, nl, zh wikinews may start soon if not yet. They may be able to have a space in each wiki, if the Foundation or each community says yes.
Just for information here is the page to request new wikinews language edition meta:Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition.

Tomos 00:37, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many policy polls still open - until Jan 20

PLease visit Wikinews:Polls and vote on the following topics:

Open polls

Closed polls

Polls ended February 20, 2005:

Should Wikinews have crosswords? Wikinews:Crossword poll

Polls ended January 20, 2005:

Should British or American-style English be used in Wikinews, or a combination of both? – Wikinews:English spelling poll
How should headlines be capitalized? – Wikinews:Capitalization poll
Should Wikinews allow opinion columns? – Wikinews:Opinion articles poll
What should the function of the Main Page be and what should it include? – Wikinews:Main Page poll

Results: Wikinews:Polls

-- Davodd | Talk 21:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Who determined when the polls will close? Why are we doing polls instead of discussing policies? - Amgine 03:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

To answer your first question: I decided to m:be bold and posted ending dates on the polls. From my past experience with our sister project, Wikipedia, usually in most polls a time of about one or two weeks is given on a poll. In most of the cases of the above polls, they have been active for well over that time. I figured that a poll can't have useful results unless it closes, so I tacked on two weeks to all of the polls so we can foreseeably tally the results. If you think the polls should stay open longer (or not close) to allow us to get an more accurate result from the community, then by all means, feel free to change or remove the deadline.

As for polls, I don't know the "official answer" as to why we have them. But I've noticed that polls are integral to wiki projects (Wikinews started as the result of a poll: m:Wikinews/Vote). As for my opinion, I feel polls don't replace discussion, they are structured discussion. Also, they are useful to initiate debate and to give concrete stepping stones for policy development. As far as I know, results of wiki project polls are never carved in stone for eternity. They usually only result in lasting policy when they lead to a consensus decision. If there is no clear consensus from a poll the results make good reading, but do not become official policy - a simple majority vote does not make a consensus.

Lastly, if you don't like polls, you are not alone, see: m:Polls are evil. I believe if you feel strongly enough, you are are always entitled to ignore the results of a poll. -- Davodd | Talk 05:12, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Global and local views

Could it be stated somewhere prominently (if it isn't already) that Wikinews seeks to get a local perspective whenver possible, while concomitant to this (and interdepenent with it) aiming to prioritize items according to a global outlook? For example, the Tsunami issue, while an awful occurrence for people, is heavily on people's minds, and many are concentrating on offers of donations which is truly wonderful (trancending national boundaries and the like), but there has been a much more serious crisis affecting even more people on an entirely different order of magnitude in the Sudan which gets little attention. From what I have seen, I think http://oneworld.net offers perhaps some lessons for doing this.

If people start wanting to make focus features on cases which fascinate a particular population (e.g., O.J. Simpson or Scott Peterson, etc. in the U.S.), then how about making it a policy to shuffle that stuff off to a Tabloid sectionn or somethin like that. Likewise would I hope that tragic but grisly developments (e.g., serial killer details) could be shuffled off to their own sections and not distract the serious news viewer who wants to know what is really impacting people (admitting of course to some extent that there will be overlap). Brettz9 04:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines

Amgine and I created a draft for Wikinews:Policies and guidelines as a result of an IRC talk. Please edit & comment to reflect community consensus better. Thanks! Tomos 05:49, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you both for doing this. It looks wonderful so far. -- Davodd | Talk 06:00, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should we follow WP until we have our own policies firmed up?

Since the Wikinews policies and guidelines are in flux, do you think we should just assume that applicable Wikipedia policies should apply here until there is a proper Wikinews community consensus for our own wikinews-specific policies? -- Davodd | Talk 01:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, part of the policy talks about how it mostly develops through accepted practice. I'm assuming that means we do what looks/feels right, and much of that comes from previous experiences on Wikipedia. Plus a healthy dose of common sense (IOW: the WP naming conventions don't all work here, because we aren't dealing with the same kinds of articles. Thus Wikinews:Naming conventions)

Editorial Workflow

What standards should be in place for editorial workflow? Granted, this is very different from a traditional newsroom, but certain things are bound to crop up. For example, how do we deal with an open factual question in an article? If a reporter writes "The website was deleted," an appropriate comment from a copy editor might be "Who deleted it?" (That's fairly common practice when resolving copy written in the passive voice.) The copy editor might be able to resolved the issue by himself/herself, but, if not, a note needs to be made on the article so that someone, either the original reporter or another informed Wikicitizen, can make the proper corrections. Ideas for how to handle this and other common copy editor tasks that might require additional input from the reporters?

The collaborative workflow used on Wikinews means that anyone might do any part of the process from researching to writing to fact checking to copy editing, to posting. The joke {{sofixit}} (which is how a template is inserted normally in a Wikinews article) is a way of saying "you can fix it, so go ahead and do so".

In your hypothetical situation, the copy editor might call up or e-mail the people responsible for the website and ask who deleted it. If that isn't an option, they might bring it up on the talk page for the article. Each article includes a talk, or discussion, page where the contents of the article can be discussed, further research planned and dissected, and improvements to the article can be hashed out by the people involved in that particular article. - Amgine 22:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think in general copyediting collaboration should take place by a concerned copy editor raising questions on the talk pages, or in the extreme cases by using tags from Wikinews:Article development (such as the accuracy dispute one). An editor can leave a message on the page of the user who contributed the first (or most recent) version of the article. Additionally, an editor can list an article on Template:editor tasks as needing copyediting (attracting more attention to the article), or of course just edit the copy to remove the incomplete or inaccurate information. -- IlyaHaykinson 22:22, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Be bold in fixing errors when you see them. Also express any doubts on the talk page. As for content that is not cited or is of dubious authenticity, I suggest removing it from the article page and copying it to the talk page while noting the reason for the (temporary) removal (reason noted in both talk page and on the editor summary). It would be good Wikinews:Etiquette to try popping over to the contributors talk page and telling them why you made any major changes. They can always be restored later - once clarified or corrected. One of the best lessons I ever learned copyediting a daily newspaper is: "when in doubt, leave it out." -- Davodd | Talk 23:01, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Policy

I have created (well, copied from en.wikipedia) a speedy deletion policy. You can see it here: Wikinews:Speedy_Deletion_Proposal. Please let me know what you think about it. Lankiveil 07:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC).

Perhaps, since the proposal is so large, se should break it up into bits in a poll. Maybe starting with the most non-controversial speedy deletes - like User subpage self requests, obvious vandalism, test pages and orphaned redirects (redirects that point to a non-existant page and have no other page history). -- Davodd | Talk 19:13, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have moved the page to Wikinews:Policies and guidelines/Deletion guidelines/Speedy deletion [further move by - Amgine 20:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)] and moved all the discussion to the talk page. I think we should run with it until someone objects. Dan100 (Talk) 14:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many policy polls still open - until Jan 20

PLease visit Wikinews:Polls and vote on the following topics:

Open polls

Closed polls

Polls ended February 20, 2005:

Should Wikinews have crosswords? Wikinews:Crossword poll

Polls ended January 20, 2005:

Should British or American-style English be used in Wikinews, or a combination of both? – Wikinews:English spelling poll
How should headlines be capitalized? – Wikinews:Capitalization poll
Should Wikinews allow opinion columns? – Wikinews:Opinion articles poll
What should the function of the Main Page be and what should it include? – Wikinews:Main Page poll

Results: Wikinews:Polls

-- Davodd | Talk 21:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Copyright Issues

i hope this is the right place. Onymous 81.217.21.244 08:38, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Links to non Wiki Images - are they okay?

Related to this, can we take images from Wikipedia and repost to the commons? Is it safe to assume Wikipedia images are GFDL? It there a better tag that would link straight from Wikipedia rather than having to re-upload to the commons?MikeEdwards 03:35, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Quoted text - how much? accreditation?

In the U.S. the press is lucky in that it is the only profession that is named specifically in the Constitution as having guaranteed freedoms that cannot be hampered by any federal or state law. In fact, the concept of legal "fair use," the press also explicitly has protections that other endeavors do not. Specifically we may use excerpts of copyrighted material or trademarked images as long as: 1. Use of the material benefits the readers of our news, and 2. The use resulted in a better understanding or appreciation of the original work. (EX: NBC owned exclusive copyrights to the olympic games broadcasts in the U.S. -- but Non-NBC news organizations showed footage of the olympics taped off NBC without the network's permission. Since it was "news" it was legal.)

In your second question, citation of quotes is required in journalism. Do you have any specific examples? -- Davodd | Talk 10:28, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Now that I've had more time to think about this issue, perhaps I could offer some relevant points.

First of all, because Wikinews doesn't actually print anything on a "press", or broadcast in any other traditional, established medium, I'm curious where the dividing line is between what is recognized as "the press" and "just another web site".

For example, if I were to re-post the Wells Fargo story, along with the logo, on my personal web site, would I qualify for "fair use" rights as well? What threshold does a site, or even an individual, need to cross in order to be legally recognized as "the press"?

I believe that anyone should be able to become the "press" once they post their first story, in any major medium, be it print, radio, video, or online. That's the whole concept behind "citizen journalists", right? However, it would be helpful if someone with access to legal archives could point to some cases that would better illustrate where the American legal system has set this dividing line, because the servers are operated by a foundation located in the U.S.

However, while its interesting to speculate about what Wikinews' rights may be, the bottom line is that the Wikinews site owners (the foundation?) need professional legal advice to answer this question. If Wikinews is regarded by the legal system as no better than a glorified blog or as a mere aggregator of reports from other sites, (especially given that Wikinews has little or no original reporting of its own), the contributors on Wikinews will need to refer to a firm, qualified legal opinion that says "fair use" is OK. Otherwise, there is a serious risk of exposing the site owners to liability, for any infringements that make it onto the radar of a third party who doesn't appreciate what Wikinews is all about.

My two cents,

— DV 11:39, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As I am only a law student, I agree that Wikinews needs to get legal advice from a lawyer. But, my years of experience in the news business has taught me that "press" does not mean you have to use a physical printing press. It deals with intent. -- Davodd | Talk 17:51, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sources to be looked at:

-- Davodd | Talk 23:06, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

After reading this story, about Apple filing a lawsuit against AppleInsider, I wonder if Wikinews would be recognized as a legitimate news outlet, or as a blog website? It appears there is a distinction that the EFF is concerned enough about, that one of their attorneys, Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl, is quoted as saying:

"Bloggers break the news, just like journalists do. They must be able to promise confidentiality in order to maintain the free flow of information."

What is the legal difference between Wikinews and AppleInsider?

If there isn't one, then perhaps Wikinews needs to exercise a lot more caution until the case law is better settled on whether or not Wikinews contributors are recognized as journalists, with the legal latitude afforded that profession.

To phrase one of my original questions a bit differently - if I were to post the Wells Fargo story with their logo on my personal web site, does that instantly make me a journalist with fair-use rights to use the Wells Fargo logo in that context?

If not, why do I magically obtain those fair-use rights by posting on Wikinews instead?

After all, none of us are professionals - we're all volunteering our time. So as far as our actions on Wikinews go, none of us are really members of the journalistic "profession", are we?

If the Wikimedia foundation doesn't have the funds to hire their own lawyer to answer these questions, perhaps a lawyer at the EFF would be willing to offer an opinion?

I guess I'm hoping that someone can speak authoritatively on the specifics of Wikinews' legal standing, as it seems we are speculating until we are provided with qualified opinions about these matters.

I find it most interesting that the EFF attorney implies that AppleInsider is a blog. I thought AppleInsider was a news outlet. If they aren't recognized as such, then I'm wondering why Wikinews is any different.

Regards,

DV 10:26, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Please don't forget that just because someone is sued does not mean what they did was wrong. It just means they pissed someone off who has laywers on staff. Besides, AppleInsider is being charged with stealing documents from private property (breaking and entering) which were not freely available to the public, which is a completely different issue than fair use of information freely available in a news story. As for a journalistic "profession" - there will never be a statutory definition of what is and what is not a journalist in the United States -- because the creation of that definition would be a restriction of the freedom of the press (the government cannot pick and choose who is and who is not a journalist). The fact that we claim we are press and produce a product - pretty much makes us press. :) -- Davodd | Talk 00:11, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Source texts

Is there a policy here on source texts? I think that something like Bush inaugurated for second term speech would belong in wikisource. We could simply link to wikisource instead. This avoids duplication of effort.--Jiang 01:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes that should be on Wikisource. In fact you might find it already is and that this is a duplication. Christiaan 07:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The article is currently a candidate on the Deletion requests. Source documents are mentioned in the deletion guidelines, and in What Wikinews is not. - Amgine 04:20, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Wikinews: What Wikinews is" and "Wikinews:Neutral point of view".

As Wikinews grows I feel that we need to establish certain core values to prevent the site becoming a free-for-all, presenting anything in any manner. To provide starting points, I have developed two new policy pages - Wikinews:What Wikinews is and Wikinews:Neutral point of view.

WWI is a basic statement of what Wikinews is about and how articles should be written. W:NPOV is a suitable adapted version of the Wikipedia NPOV policy. Objections? I think that, at some point, these could be voted upon to demonstrate community consensus. Dan100 (Talk) 13:16, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I like the concept. But, I'm not sure I agree with your thoughts that the use of the adjective "American" is inherently POV when being used to refer to U.S. nationality. The same argument can be used for the adjective "British" since people who live in the Republic of Ireland (on a British Isle) are not included in the "British" nationality. -- Davodd | Talk 11:42, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey, they're not my thoughts :). I just copied that section wholesale from Wikipedia! Dan100 (Talk) 15:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I checked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOV#Anglo-American_focus and did not see what you said you copied wholesale. Since it isn't in the current WP source now and you say you didn't write it, I'll delete it from the WN article. -- Davodd | Talk 19:47, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Davodd, that's because you're looking at a version that's been edited since I copied it. Compare this with this and you'll see that they were indeed indentical. Dan100 (Talk) 17:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

<note to self: read more and do less> As a U.S. citizen, the use of the term "American" to indicate exclusively U.S. citizens is annoying-to-offensive. In my experience this is more keenly felt by people from South America than Canadians and Mexicans. However, there are ways to write around it and there is no need for a "policy" about it. <and having spoken pompously on the subject, Amgine goes off to read the offending text.> - Amgine 20:02, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Originally, when the U.S. federation was formed, the concept of a federal national identity was a foreign concept to the Continental Congress. To them, "American" was anybody from the Americas. They considered themsleves to be Virginians, New Yorkers, Carolinians and so forth. I believe the first use of the word "American" as specific to being a U.S. possessive or nationality was either the government of France or of England during the Revolutionary War era. (Although I am not sure on that last point). Personally, I'm trying to figure out if I'm an American (U.S.), a Californian (California for the past seven years) or a Hoosier (lived in Indiana for my first 30 years). -- Davodd | Talk 08:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I added some thoughts to Wikinews talk:What Wikinews is. Please take some time to review and comment. My position is that Wikinews won't feel as worthy a project to me as Wikipedia unless the localism issue is looked at. Stevietheman 11:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Political naming conventions

I'm not sure if this will belong in Wikinews:Policies and guidelines/Naming conventions, Wikinews:Style guide, or on a separate page, but I think we should, for the sake of setting some standards, develop a policy statement on what political terms to use and what is acceptable and not acceptable according to NPOV and accuracy, for example:

Burma vs. Myanmar
China vs. People's Republic of China vs. Mainland China vs. Communist China
Macedonia vs. Republic of Macedonia vs. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Ireland vs. Republic of Ireland
North Korea vs. DPRK, South Korea vs. ROK
Taiwan vs. Republic of China vs. ROC
"American" vs. US
Britain vs. United Kingdom vs. Great Britain

All three are technically correct, ie are interchangeable Dan100 (Talk) 18:33, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nope, Great Britain is the island on which are the countries england, wales, and scotland. UK is the political entity of england, wales, scotland, AND northern island, and Britain should be avoided because it can refer to either, OR to the british isles (GB + northern island and the republic of island + other little islands nearby) or the old roman britain, or to the british empire. The bellman 07:17, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

whether to use somewhat contentious terms such as "terrorist", "militant", or "freedeom fighter"
disputed territories given different names: Diaoyutai Islands vs. Senkaku Islands
etc.

As the discussion at Talk:Beijing plans $242B freeway link to Taiwan shows, some of these issues are hot potato and need to be carefully worded. There are of course some issues that are best left unwritten. I would like some suggestions on where this policy should belong, so it can be proposed and discussed. --Jiang 22:44, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up for wider discussion. I think the Wikinews:Policies and guidelines/Naming conventions page is a good place for it. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:45, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, that "naming conventions" link goes to a wiki article names guide - not the issue Jiang brought up. -- Davodd | Talk 07:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

According the to Wikinews:Style guide, when such ussues have not been addressed specifically by Wikinews policy or consensus. then we defer to the Wikipedia equivalent. I believe this is the most applicable WP guide for this issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Identity which states,

Identity
This is perhaps one area where wikipedians' flexibility and plurality are an asset, and where one would not wish all pages to look exactly alike. Nevertheless, here are some guidelines:

Where known, use terminology which they themselves use for themselves (self identification).

Use specific terminology: Ethiopians should be described as Ethiopian, not African.

Though often a more general name will prove to be more neutral or more accurate. For example, a W:List of African-American composers is acceptable, though a W:List of composers of African descent may be more useful.

If possible, terms used to describe people should be given in such a way that they qualify other nouns. Thus, black people, not blacks; gay people, not gays; and so forth.

Do not assume that any one term is the most inclusive or accurate.

-- Davodd | Talk 08:30, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Excellent response, Davodd!

Of course, that does not quite address the specific use of value-laden terms, getting away from the identity question somewhat. For example, the United States government uses heavily POVed terms in their reports: "combat patrol that came under attack by anti-Iraqi forces" 1. Al Jazeera, discussing events of the same day, commented "[s]everal rebel groups in Iraq have "declared war" on Sunday's elections," 2. The usual term in the U.S. press is "insurgents" and "insurgency", while elsewhere descriptions such as Intefada, warriors, freedom fighters, towel-heads, etc.

What the appropriately neutral terms for any given circumstance may be depends, to an extent, on the circumstance. But we should discuss guidelines to prefer neutral, non-controversial terms. We should also *not* use the language of the combatants, but perhaps prefer the language of the non-combatants in the combat zone, where this is determinable. - Amgine 02:50, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The core of a neutral point of view is to be neutral. That means we should avoid ad hominem and red herring types of stigmatized words where possible. -- Davodd | Talk 07:47, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, on a related note: in the article Police deactivate explosive device in Andalucía, Spain there is debate (see talk page) over whether to use the Spanish name for the province of 'Andalucía' or to used the anglicized version of the province name which is 'Andalusia'. It is my opinion that the local name should always be used where the Anglicized version is not widely known. There has been a general move in interlectual works in the english speaking world over the past 30 years or so, to use the native word (for example 50 years ago if you read a book on China it would have said 'Formosa' (a portuguese word) instead of 'Taiwan' (a latinized version of the chinese word), it would also have said 'Peking'(a very clumsy latinisation) instead of 'Beijing'(a more faithful latinisation, and prefered by the PROC). You would have to try very hard to find anyone who still uses either Formosa or Peking these days.). I think it is generaly more respectful to use as close to the origanal as the latin alphabet allows. I believe this would follow the same spirit as using british spelling on british related subjects, and US spelling on US related subjects. There is also one further point in favour of my proposal, there are sometimes more than one anglicized version of a word (Peking/Beijing). This however can quite rightly be countered with the argument that there are sometimes more than one 'native' version of a placename (esp when two cultures claim the one thing) ie. Iguaçu/Iguazu. One further argument against the proposal, is that of interwikilinks to wikipedia, however, i am yet to come across a placename that does not have a redirect from it's native spelling, so i dont think this is that important (however others might).

Finally, just to make it very clear, i am not proposing the use of Roma (instead of Rome) or Moskva (instead of Moscow). This proposal is only for uncommon placenames, the type that your average 'man on the street' is just as likely to have heard of the native placename as the anglicized version. The bellman 08:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Forming policy on IRC

I'm not keen on this. Wikipedia has policy against this for good reasons - there is no permanent record and of course only the people present have input. Of course, we don't have to do everything the same as Wikipedia (bar neutral point of view), but it would be nice if we adopted a similar stance here. I suggest that if policy is discussed on IRC (as in naturally going to happen), a summary is posted here covering the main points discussed. Further, nothing should be regarded as firm policy until it has achieved consensus here on Wikinews, where opinions and arguments are recorded for posterity. Dan100 (Talk) 20:29, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews also has a "policy" against forming policy on IRC. See Wikinews:Policies and guidelines. Although IRC is often used as a quick way to get a group opinion on things, I don't think anyone is using it to discuss setting policies. (More often it is used for "what the best word for blahblah...") - Amgine 20:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Public Domain

I think that Wikinews should stay as public domain. This way, budding, low-budget, and non-profit newsppapers can include Wikinews articles in their newspapers. --64.10.150.77 04:17, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

im also in favour of staying PD, but i dont think this is a reason, there is nothing to stop 'budding, low-budget, and non-profit newsppapers' to include CC or GFDL (IANAL, but i have been told that you do not infact have to put the whole text of the license in if you include a link, however i have also heard the oposite.), wikinews article. The bellman 08:31, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Public domain means that Wikinews will have NO control over its content whatsoever - including the ability to ask for corrections to false claims or attributions or even ask for a voluntary credit to the original author. -- Davodd | Talk 22:52, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)