Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/14

Bringing matters to "Admin Alert" page

I find the appearance of the restrictions at the top of the "Admin Alert" page quite arbitrary and without community consensus. There is no discussion on the talk page at all. What's the problem with leaving itmes there for at least a couple of days so that our less active admins have a chance to decide if they feel the alert has merit? I feel as though the site is being completely controlled by less than 25% of our admins who have no community consensus nor wikinews policy to back up their actions (which sometimes seem quite arbitrary, at least to me) and that the result is increasing arrogance and hostility being shown in deletions and also in profane edits. Neutralizer 23:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to contact administrators individually. There is no established policy for WN:ALERT. We could easily delete the page and not use it and fall back to the Water Cooler or individual admin notifications (on admin talk pages). --Chiacomo ^(talk) 23:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with giving the other 75% of admins a chance to get involved? Neutralizer 23:49, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Why does WN:ALERT have a tlak page then? I'm confused, is Chiacomo saying that the Admin Alert page is beyond wikinews community control? Neutralizer 23:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Admin Action page; not part of wikinews?

The edit above by Chiacomo indicates that the admins and not the community control the Admin Alert page;

• 1. Is this true?

• 2. If true, where is the discussion amopng admins as to how they want to deal with the Admin Action Alerts page? Were all the admins notified of the restrictions some of our more present admins want to invoke?

Neutralizer 23:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

1) depnding how you phrase that question, in a word — yes.

Your posting something there everyday, and the same thing always happens. its hard to follow real (stuff that a different action because of it) alerts with all the stuff your posting. Most of the stuff you post there is not the responsibility of the administratrators of wikinews to decide. Whats wrong with posting it here anyways. more people as well as the admins will see it. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

As for the discussion part, this is how it works:

admin x doesn't like what admin y did to WN:ALERT

Admin x tells y that

They work out a comprimise

Be Bold!

(By the way, by extention, if any admin/(or ordinary user) doesn't like what I said there, tell me so) Bawolff ☺☻ 00:02, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

If administrators don't like the changes, they should remove them. The page exists to provide a centralized place to notify administrators of certain types of events. The use of the page has evolved and is evolving. I'm not aware of a discussion about the most recent changes -- I suspect one admin had what he thought was a good idea to reduce clutter and shunt improper requests to other places and he simply made the change. Admins will only use and read the page if it is useful to them, by the way. It should be easy to use and straightforward. Perhaps there is another way -- create a page and see if admins use it. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 00:05, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm pretty sure some admins, like User:Ryan524, are not aware of this. Is this a bad thing? Look at his last to edits (pay close attention to the date):

• 18:33, 13 January 2006 (hist) (diff) m Wikinews:Deletion requests (→Super Bowl 2006 - closed deletion request)
• 00:06, 17 September 2005 (hist) (diff) m Wikinews:Deletion requests/Archives/Deleted Archive 6 (archiving...) 

Bawolff ☺☻ 00:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion the paragraph I have added to the top of the "Other alerts" section of WN:ALERT is not a change, but rather a reflection of current practise by admins regarding blocking, and that current practise is in accordance with Wikinews:Blocking policy. In other words, the new paragraph does not define rules for WN:ALERT, rather it reminds users of the contents of Wikinews:Blocking policy. - Borofkin 02:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

A deletion decree from Messedrocker

Being the Deletion Requests manager, I've noticed that many duplicate articles get nominated for deletion. deletion requests are supposed to be used to get an administrator (me) to do administrator actions on articles; mainly deleting them. Duplicate articles, however, do not, and should not, be deleted. In the event that you have a duplicate article that is inferior to a better article, I request that you merge the content and make a redirect to the better version instead of bringing it up on Deletion Requests. Deleting inferior duplicates may present copyright issues (if facts came from that article and you're merging an article), plus it is simpler to create a redirect. I therefore declare that any duplicates that get nominated for deletion will be declared speedy-keep by me and made into a redirect, unless you can provide a very good reason. Seeing as it's not policy, other administrators may approach the manner differently, however I will speedy-keep all duplicates nominated for deletion. My decree shall be effective for deletion requests from May 26, 2006 00:00 UTC onward. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 02:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you, this is very important. Especially in situations where there are multiple duplicate articles, it can be useful to go back through the history of one of the old dupes to be sure that information was not left out, or to trace where information came from, who submitted it, etc. Deleting articles and keeping their content elsewhere is a problem as the history/contributors are not preserved anywhere. Merges should be clearly denoted in edit summaries as well. - McCart42 20:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews:Archive conventions

These seemed to become "policy" out of some very brief discussions. The are a number of reasons why pages should not be protected by default after a certain period of time. It excludes non-admins from categorisation, link fixing, spell checking, grammar checking, image replacement etc. Vandalsim is a problem inherent with every Wiki, but we already have our ways of dealing with it (semi-protection, for example). While articles here are obviously different from an encyclopedia, this is a still a Wiki, and an open project of the Wikimedia foundation. Clearly stories shouldn't be re-written a long time after the event, but protecting everything is too heavy handed. Ed g2s 17:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

There was quite a bit of disscusion, it was just at the start (~2 years now). The problem is one change goes unoticed, and the vandalism is there for 6 months before people notice again. Also We don't want people changing images, we want the content to stay the same. If an anon user who doesn't know this, sees an article from about a couple months ago, and thinks another section would be good, he'll proably add it. Its just not wroth all the policing effort for one little link change. If you need anything changed, the admins are more then happy to do it. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I've seen the discussions, and they were very brief - without much of a conclusion. The whole point of the wiki system is that it self-heals vandalism. To assume that everyone is a vandal until proven otherwise is very un-wiki like. Having a template with "this news item is archived" would work just as well - and I'm sure you could cope with the small amount of extra vandalism (that's what recent changes and watchlists are for...). Ed g2s 10:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews:Don't disrupt Wikinews to illustrate a point

I have ported WP:POINT to WN:POINT, not sure what "proposed policy" lede to put on it, but I believe we need this policy point made clear. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

We have long used this policy linking to the pedia version, I 100% support making this a WN policy. --Cspurrier 20:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not a proposed policy really -- just an explanation of existing policy. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 20:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Format

Is “45” preferred, as opposed to “forty-five”? I’ve notice a few instances of the latter being converted to the numerical form? MyName 21:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

The wikinews style guide as a section on this. --vonbergm 02:50, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. MyName 02:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Sports game recaps and breaking sports news

I understand why my recent article on a sports game was sent back to development; it had very little content and no sources whatsoever. However, one thing that I think we need to do is allow some leeway for breaking news having to do with sports. Baseball, for instance, is a game which is played almost every night, and does not lend itself to lengthy articles about every game (at least not when only a handful of sports writers exist here). Most newspapers do feature box scores for games, with only a few sentences (unless it's the local team playing) regarding the game itself. The unique situation of game recaps is that they are needed immediately after the game ends and are pretty much irrelevant after several hours or a day have passed.

So, what I propose is that we have some special area for scores, separate from news stories, but prominent on the main page, as the Sports page is a major component of most papers. There's plenty of room for innovation here, too; a user could set his region (favorite teams, etc) to allow sports stories from that region to appear in lieu of sports stories from other regions. See also ArmchairGM at armchairgm.com (spam filter won't allow me to link) for another sports article source we can perhaps crib from, since their license is CC-by-sa 2.5. I'm not sure if this is compatible with our license, though. - McCart42 14:20, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Ealturner 17:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the seperate place for sports stories. One of the first things I notice here was there wasn't one.

I disagree about publishing scores without reference. If someone wants to know the result they can look at the stories in development. Save the front page for the finished articles.

Discussion about term "terrorism" and NPOV

There is a discussion at Talk:Terrorists seize 50 in Iraq regarding how Wikinews:Neutral point of view applies to terms such as terrorism. Because this affects how such terms are used in all Wikinews articles, I've flagged it for the communities attention. If you have any general comments regarding this issue and NPOV policy, feel free to raise them here. - Borofkin 01:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Is ArbCom growing in responsibilities without any discussion or voting from community?

I find it wrong that ArbCom goes over its authotity and chosing itself as responsible for checkuser request on meta. It sets a bad precedent and should be left undone. I fear that ArbCom may turn to something we didnt created it for, something more than a tool for dispute solutions when anyting else dont work. See this page. If wikinewsies whant these users, which I dont object to, be the formally responsibles for checkuser requests then they should get users 'vote ' for it. Or why dont use the bureaucrats. international 16:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see the current WMF CheckUser Policy, specifically:

On a wiki with a (Wikimedia-approved) Arbitration Committee, only editors approved by the Arbitrators may have CheckUser status. They should be at least two so that they can mutually control their activity. After agreement, simply list the candidate on Requests for permissions.

It's not underhanded or anything devious. This is simply the proper procedure (we didn't actually have to put a notice on this wiki, I think, but I thought it best to provide some confirmation to the Stewards that the Arbitration Committee did in fact agree) defined for selecting and granting CheckUser permissions. Sorry for any confusion. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 16:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok but who have nominated and elected these users now in subject of arbcom approving? Have I missed some concesus voting somewere? international 16:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee selects user for CheckUser permissions. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 16:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I disspute that, The Arbitration Committee approve and even that is not in our policy. But the important thing here is that ArbCom dont have the authority to select user for CheckUser permissions acording to Wikinews policy afaik. international 17:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that we did. Do you have any objections to thoose users? The only beurcrats who wern't apointed to checkuser were Eloquence (Mostly because s/he is not as active anymore) and Jimbo (well jimbo doesn't edit here for the most part, except for a bit at the begining). Chiacocomo was the only non-beurcrat apointed (although I personnally think he's on the road to becoming a beurcrat). I think this is almost inline with use the berucrats. Do you have any objections to these users having this power? Bawolff ☺☻ 02:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have objection to the users...but I do object to the fact that this process was done with total and utter disregard for what the community might want to say. Jason Safoutin 02:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I want to point out that these policies if you will have been created, by the committee to which has no power to create, at least without a community concensus...that is per Wikinews:Polls/Arbcom→official a poll conducted on 13 April 2006.

The Arbitration Committee does not create policy, they simply interpret it and when necessary direct the community in its application.

The fact that the community was not allowed to participate, is what disturbs me. Please also note that although I was an opposer of the poll, note that 85% supported it and the rules they voted on. Do we need to vote again? Jason Safoutin 03:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

There is no "policy" being created here, only an attempt to bring into the community a tool to help enforce policy created by the community. -Edbrown05 03:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Really? who nominated and voted for the users? Who is creating the policies of checkuser? Who is accepting them? As far as I know the community had no roll whatsoever in this. Jason Safoutin 03:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation Policy (which applies to all WMF projects including Wikinews) is very specific -- and I did consult with board members and others requesting clarification on the selection of users for CheckUser permissions. It is the Arbitration Committee's responsibility to select users for CheckUser permissions. The Privacy Policy and the CheckUser policy dictate how the tool may be used. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 03:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The committee has the right to nominate a user, the community has the responsibility to grant a concensus on one. Jason Safoutin 03:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Chiacomo, it is not for Wikimedia Foundation to make our policys. They though have the power to reject our selected for CheckUser authoriced if ArbCom dont approve them activly. Thats all in this case. international 13:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It is absolutely a right of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation to make/apply policy for us. The own the site (except the actual content, which is just licensed) as part of this ownership they legally have the right to do what ever they want with the site as long as it not prohibited by the CC-BY. They very rarely use this right, I can only think of maybe three policies that have been 'forced on us' by the board. Each of these policies were created by the Wikimedia community as a whole, with opportunities for members of any project to have their say. --Cspurrier 13:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I am suprised that you by lawering dismiss my concerns. I dont think Wikimedia Foundation have anything against concensus decision before ArbComs eventual approval. It looks like you joining a tendence here on Wikinews that try to build a goverment style someting above my and otherwikinewsies head. Since when did we discussed to make wikinews a representative democracy?international 15:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It is by principle important that ArbCom work as a tool for community, with the specific authority community give it. The less the better. It is created by some practical needs. I would say that this CheckUser approve in itself, or the nominies, is not a matter of greate dispute. It is more a question of proper decisionmaking. Only if this CheckUser 'election' turns into a conflict its ArbComs duty to find a solution and maybe select those. Thereby I propose, and strongly advice involved to put the becomming CheckUsers to a voting by the community at WN:A and then let ArbCom approv them. To refuse this process is a bad precidente and possible open up for future missuse of ArbCom or creation of another more authoritarian entety that make decisions obowe the heads of users. If we cant handle this small thing I would go so far that I would ask community to dissolv the ArbCom and recreate it when it is needed again for dispute solution. Thats how serious I see the future implications of this in itself not so dramatic situation. international 13:09, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It's already been done Hasn't it? Please see [1]Redman 14:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If your curious about it being done - this is a better link: special:listusers/checkuser. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Noted international 15:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there any log available to see what checkuser requests have been done? I don't think it is very important just who has checkuser authority as long as there is some transparency on its usage. --vonbergm 02:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser logs are available to every other CheckUser on any Wikimedia project. For example, I can view CheckUser requests made by those with the permission on Wikipedia (though I cannot see the results or perform CheckUsers myself on Wikipedia). Likewise, all those with CheckUser permissions from other Wikimedia projects can see the logs covering the use of CheckUser on Wikinews -- it's one long log file. This is part of the reason that the Wikimedia Foundation CheckUser policy requires more than 1 user with CheckUser permission on a project -- so they can "check up" on one another. The logs are not public due to privacy concerns. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 04:07, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense. How about making a monthly report on the number of checkuser requests maded on wikinews users. (Not sure how checkuser works but I quess one should lump many requests made on the same user in short succession together and count this as 1.) This does not compromize privacy but give some kind of transparency and gives confidence that there are no "dragnet" checkuser requests. --vonbergm 05:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I would be glad to do this -- weekly even, as I wouldn't have to scroll through such a long log file (the folks at Wikipedia CheckUser people *all* the time). I suspect Ilya and Craig would be agreeable as well. By the way, I've not checked since returning from supper, but before I left, there had been no CheckUsers initiated by Wikinews editors with CheckUser rights. Of course, requests made public on WN:RFCU are obvious. I'll create another page for CheckUser usage reports if you wish. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 05:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, as a local guideline. Of course, the requests for checkuser page is probably a good measure as well, since the majority of requests (assuming other projects are a good guideline) will be instigated by people who do not have checkuser access.

One thing to keep in mind is patience. Based on my experiences requesting checkuser checks on this site and many others, it takes time for the checkusers to get to the list of requests, to validate that there is justifiable basis to make the check, and then to juggle their way through the many stages of coming up with a response to the request. The same will be true asking them to make reports on how many checks are made, etc. I suggest monthly, Chiacomo, because weekly stats aren't really useful. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 05:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Monthly will work for me if everyone else is agreeable. I want to make certain you understand, Amgine and others, that, except for the information revealed on WN:RFCU, we should not reveal the target of CheckUser investigations. Sometimes replies to requests will be vague. There are very real privacy concerns -- in some countries deadly privacy concerns -- which must prevent us from revealing too much information. I will personally pledge to provide the number of CheckUser investigations that I perform and where reasonable to identify the time and date (even that might reveal some private information, so I reserve the right to provide only aggregate data in some cases). --Chiacomo ^(talk) 06:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Monthly should be just fine. Before you go through the trouble, we should make sure that this also alleviates the concerns of other users that have raised objections to various issues regarding checkuser. --vonbergm 06:05, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Policy change for ArbCom

I have done a change in ArbCom policy [here]. Feel free to discuss or revert. Or be bold and edit it it in a better way that reflect discussion abowe. international 01:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

May I inquire what the difference is from before? The addition does not seem to change much. Checkusers is a tool to be used in disputes. Whats the difference? Bawolff ☺☻ 01:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I reverted that policy wording international, because your use of english got away from my understanding of it... so please carify if you wish to pursue it. -Edbrown05 08:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think he wants to make certain the Arbitration Committee doesn't take action against a user or group of users without there first being a dispute or some question to resolve. This is understandable, though I think the current policy makes this clear. The Arbitration Committee was created to arbitrate -- not to set policy or impose its will on the community. Much like any other judicial body, the arbitration committee can only involve itself in a dispute when a case is presented to it -- it cannot initiate investigations. This is, I believe, the current interpretation of the existing policy by the community and the members of the arbitration committee. I am reluctant, however, to add to policy (any policy), for fear of "instruction creep". --Chiacomo ^(talk) 08:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I interpreted current policy as Chiacomo wrote above but still something happend and ArbCom didnt ask community to select the users to be allowed to use Checkuser function. I like to have it clearer writen in ArbCom policy that ArbCom is a help to community as a last way of solving conflicts. Nothing more, no selections of user with commission of trust, not to be representatives for Wikinews in whatever situations whithout consulting wikinews community. Please help to formulate this in good english. international 11:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I never thought much about whether editting on wikinews was a right or a privilege, but the more I have, the more it becomes apparent that it is a privilege. The checkuser tool is so new to wikinews that it doesn't yet know what to do with it. That will be solved with time. -Edbrown05 12:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The question is with or without the commuity's say...and by who? Jason Safoutin 12:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Ed , this is two diferent things I involved myself in arguing about. This ArbCom policy is about ArbCom. You and the other ArbCom members selected, elected and approved user to be 'trusties' without involving the WikiNews community. I dispute that is within ArbComs authority (exept maybe approving, whith Wiki Foundations requirements in mind, in this case) and I fear it sets a bad precident. The Checkuser policy is another thing discussed below. Btw interesting thoughts about editing priviledge but i dont understand what it have to do with ArbCom international 12:46, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Policy for Checkuser requests

To avoid that those user allowed to ask for Checkuser become "wikicops" I suggest that policy says that Checkuser request only is allowed to be done after decision by community. The Checkuser authorised will then work more like the bureaucrats do. Like deletionrequests work with some modifications. That help us make it transparent and hopfully avoid missuse and suspicions of missuse. international 13:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I personally see no problem with, just ads a bit more beurcracy to the mix, but doesn't really seem to change much. In my opinion (Note I'm speaking as a user here, not as an arbitrator) I'm neutral, and really don't care one way or another. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

What about a specified time between the request from a wikinewsie and the actually request to Wikimete by those who are allowed to request them. That make time to see if there is any controversity in the request and possibility for wikinewsies to object. I cant see scenarios where a day or two make a big difference as other means of recognicing socks is recomended in first place. international 12:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I note that the WikiMediaFoundation did extend the checkuser tool to Chiacomo, who is currently not a bureaucrat [maybe soon he will be]. This sends the signal to Wikinews that it can decide who it wants in the Checkuser role(s). But for now, the focus should be on developing a policy to support its use. -Edbrown05 09:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

As I understand the question here, International would like for there to be a specific request, only from the community, before a checkuser may be performed. I believe that has been the case thus far (I asked for a checkuser on a user as an admin.) But it would be silly for this to be written into policy; I can think of no request by the ArbCom which would not be on behalf of the community, except those which should be rejected by CheckUsers already under current policy (whether they come from a contributor, an Admin, or the ArbCom.)

This suggestion seems to me to be instruction creep, and without any benefit to the community. It certainly fails the AGF test. If we're interested in transparency, we should request transparency, like reporting how many checkusers were performed and on requests from whom, rather than adding polls to a tool which is time sensitive. - Amgine 16:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC) (editing not logged in)

Okay, so it's a time sensitive tool... so darn, I gotta get this person while the gettin' is good, like before they vote again or interfere with "community processes" or something like that... anybody sees that crap coming from the alleged malfeascent, and the checkuser tool lacks the capability, so it's left to judgement anyway. -Edbrown05 05:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I mean look at this guy, [Nyarlo trip over your shoes... http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User_talk:UofT], block person for what? -Edbrown05 05:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Log post disappearing on this wiki... user edit histories uncomplete, f**king bullcrap, can't go back and substantiate something from 6 months ago because the recollection of this site lasts for 3 months when then only 5 years after the internet was moving nobody cared about two weeks ago..... get real....

Edbrown05 05:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

You want some solid shit, put some solid shit down. -Edbrown05 05:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

UofT blocked over editorial content... no direct article contributions (that's sick) -Edbrown05 06:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia Privacy Policy updated

As announced today on Foundation-l, the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy has been updated. This policy applies to all users of all Wikimedia Foundation projects -- including Wikinews. The Privacy Policy is linked at the bottom of every Wikinews page. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 02:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Renaming of articles policy

Just wondering if there is any sort of policy regarding the renaming of articles? One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people seem to decide that a title is wrong, and rename it straight away with any concensus. This then seems to cause problems with people renaming the title all over the place.

If there is no policy, would it make sense to have a policy that a concensus should be reached in the Talk page prior to it being renamed? (Unless its something as simple as a spelling mistake) R2b2 22:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Article titles are required to follow the style guide and neutral point of view. You shouldn't need a process as a prerequisite to rename an article, because it's good to be bold. However, if you disagree with the renaming, you should, like with all conflicts, discuss on the talk page of the article instead of escalating into war. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 22:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Captcha help and login for watercooler edits

What's with these controlfreakcreep stuff? Is everyone accepting this junk(imo)? Neutralizer 00:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Huh? I'm not sure what you're talking about... :D I've not seen a captcha since I tried to edit something on meta without logging in... --Chiacomo ^(talk) 00:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I get captchas every day..sometimes 2 before an edit goes through. Neutralizer 03:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you certain you're logged in when you get the captchas? --Chiacomo ^(talk) 03:04, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you tend to make a lot of non-logged in edits, which are followed by "oops wasn't logged in". —this is messedr͏ocker (talk) 03:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

That's true, very true. Ok, I'll work on that. Neutralizer 14:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ango-american-centric POV is dominating our Middle East coverage

This edit says it all; "I agree, but the subtle diffrence is, as you said, Israel is not TRYING to hit innocent civilians while Hezbollah IS trying to target civilians. Its a subtle diffrence but an important one.TiB 14:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)" followed by; "TiB, I agree with you 100% but Neutralizer is right we don't need to use the word targetted. I've changed the word to "hit." Ealturner 14:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)"

Would our more experience editors please pay more NPOV attention to these important articles about events in the middle east please. This a good talk page and article to review to see what I'm talking about. Neutralizer 14:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I am obviously not the best person to be monitoring and trying to prevent anglo-american-centric POV in these articles so I hope more of the old-timers will step up to the NPOV plate on these war articles (as several already have,btw, e.g BrianMc; thanks Brian). Neutralizer 16:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I give up. If the community wants to sit back and allow our lead stories to be written by editors applying their own overt pov "Hezbollah started the conflict, they should be mentioned first." then so be it. I'm not continuing with it as it is too close to continual edit warring. Neutralizer 13:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews' NPOV policy and war coverage are mutually exclusive

All our articles present Israel as the responder rather than instigator(note; 1st."kidnapping" was on June 25th.; AI statement was 4 days earlier. Perhaps for the sake of credibility we should simply suspend our pretense at NPOV when covering wars. For 2 reasons;

• 1; we rely almost exclusively on western media sources (I don't know about you but I am scared to even try to locate "enemy" sources for fear of being "associated with suspected terrorist sympathizers and/or facilitators")
• 2; Most of our editors are anglo-american and it's reasonable that we would have pro-western(including Israel) personal povs (whether we realize it or not).

I think the facts show we have become (maybe always were) just another click to US/UK/ISRAELI government news spin/propaganda. Here is my reasoning which I base upon the Occam's Razor method;

• More civilians in Lebanon and Palestine have been killed by Israel in the past few weeks than were killed in either the London "terrorist" bombings or the Madrid "terrorist " train bombings. Western media(including ourselves) have not referred to Israel in any of our articles as "terrorists" even in a quote.

• There were only 8 children killed in the 9/11 attacks; many,many,many more than that have been killed by Israeli bombs in Lebanon; western media has largely ignored the deaths of those children. 4 small Canadian children were blown up by an Israeli bomb yesterday have you even read about this anywhere? "Yesterday, all four children -- Salaan, 1, Ahamed, 3, Zeinab, 5, and Saja, 7 -- perished during the summer visit, in the ancestral Lebanese town of Aytaroun, near the Israeli border. So, too, did the children's mother and another female relative." Our sanitized article left out the children's names and ages; and it's actually pretty hard to find them anywhere in western media; it's as if they were never born.

_____

• Here is the way we inject the typical pro-western slant into our articles; all of these justifiers and qualifiers are in our published articles right now; and none of these are quotes from anyone other than our editors.

A;"Israel stands firm on its position to strike Hezbollah and Hamas targets in Lebanon until its two kidnapped soldiers have been released from captivity."[2]

B;Israeli Air Force attacks militant bases in Lebanon

C;"The attacks came after Israeli planes dropped leaflets[1] on the evening of July 13, warning residents in the mainly Shiite south suburb of impending attacks to Hezbollah property."[3]

D;"The crisis began when Hezbollah militants made an incursion into Israel, capturing two soldiers patrolling the northern border."[4]

E;"The deaths occurred on the fifth day of Israel's military attacks in Lebannon, instigated by the capture of 2 Israeli soldiers and killing of 8 others by the Shiite Hezbollah in a cross-border attack."[5]

F;"Israel is continuing its offensive in the Gaza strip against Hamas after a soldier named Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a raid, June 2006."[6]

G;Israel called their military action "Operation Just Reward".[7]

H;;"On July 15 Israel commenced air strikes on targets in central Beirut, the Lebanese capital, in an attempt to damage the infrastructure used by Hezbollah."[8]

I;"A private house was hit by a missile in southern Lebanon when it missed a Hezbollah site."[9]

Neutralizer 01:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Answer to 1; we rely almost exclusively on western media sources :

I would love to use "alternative" sources, but I just can't do that; I don't know arabic. I tried reading what english Lebanese newspapers had to say, but their articles weren't updated well. I took a look at Aljazeera.net as well, but quite frankly; they aren't providing much more information that I find at BBC etc. The language is the barrier in my case.

Answer to Western media(including ourselves) have not referred to Israel in any of our articles as "terrorists" even in a quote :

I don't think the majority of people would be able to see Israel as "terrorists" because they are a state. I think most people think of "terrorists" as being a violent group of people. You could call it a "terrorist state", but if you're concerned with POV, you don't use that word when talking about an internationally recongized state.

Answer to western media has largely ignored the deaths of those children :

Sorry about the language, but that is pure BS.

Regarding the slants:

A: It's a summary of Olmert's speech. Any analyst would consider Olmert's speech at the Knesset as important.

B: I might be missing the point, but it's hard to make it more NPOV when nobody took responsibility for launching the rockets.

C: What's wrong here? Israel have several times dropped leaflets warning citizens to stay out of the Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut and hours after doing so they actually did strike. How is it POV to report that they dropped leaflets?

D: No matter how you spin it, the Israel-Lebanon crisis in 2006 started 12 July with Hezbollah's raid. As I wrote somewhere else, you need to be able to differentiate between the various crisis in the Middle East.

E: Ditto. But the "Shiite" wasn't necessary in this sentence.

F: Ditto.

G: They did. Blame the IDF, we can't help that the military give their operations stupid names.

H: Israel claimed they used the airport for transports. It is mentioned in at least one of the sources.

I: BBC reported that an Hezbollah site of some sort were nearby, making it an apparent target for the misfired missile. See source.

--Jambalaya 01:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Of the who, what, where, when, why and how of news reporting, the why is the one that will get a journalist in trouble. Any attempt to answer "why" intrudes on the perception of the reader. I could find myself arguing that "why" doesn't matter, only "what". Eliminate why, in favor of what happened, eliminates bias.

If somebody has a problem with the reporting of what happened, then report what else happened that has a bearing that news. -05:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well said. Neutralizer 03:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem lies in word choice that in one way or another characterizes events/entities/people in a POV way. Fact-only reporting reduces many problems, but not all. Also, there is always a possiblity of bias from selection of what to write as a relevant facts and what to exclude as irrelevant. Tomos 10:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

To comment on the suggestion of suspending NPOV - I don't agree with it, though I cannot suggest a solution.

For one thing, I think the suspension should be limited to a real difficult case. Not being able to read Arabic is not something we can change easily. But blanket suspension like "any POV is okay when it comes to this war's coverage" is neither what you intended nor what should be supported.

Regarding the fear of being targeted as terror suspect - I don't know what to say. I cannot say you are paranoid, or you have no reason to worry.. But it sounds like not reporting at all could be sometimes better than reporting something you know is biased.. Bad for Wikinews and bad for readers, I mean.

I thought, for a moment, that left media within the U.S. or some international NGOs would offer much different takes than the mainstream ones. But is it more neutral - treating those views found in left media as if they carry the same weight as the mainstream media views? That sounds like NPOV violation to me.

But if there is a widely-shared perception regarding the mainstream media's bias, then it is appropriate to distance the Wikinews from them by saying "mainstream media reports," "mainstream media characterizes," and etc.

Again, it might be too obvious, but NPOV policy exists in part so that we do not assert minority POV as if it is true, right, or mainstream. That means we possibly share the error inherent in the mainstream view. And that is better than trying to be accurate & right by leaving mainstream & relying on our own judgment. Or worse yet, we start fighting over who is accurate or right..

If an article is published with an admitted bias, perhaps it should carry some notice linking to a page explaining the difficulty, so that readers are informed of the Wikinews' committment for NPOV and the particular difficulty regarding the reporting of this war.

I am not informed of this issue well, but I think NPOV is sacrosanct, and this proposal needs more discussion before implemented.. Tomos 11:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up Articles

There should be clear policy how to mark and link follow-up articles so that it is clear that the new article merly fleshes out an existing old article. The need for such articles arises when at first only little information was available and a couple of days after the publishing date more important details emerge.

I would suggest creating a template that links the articles in question and displays clearly that the articles all report on the same event. That way the historical record is kept in tact and the relationship between the articles is transparent to the reader. For a recent example where this problem came up (and may not be resolved completely yet...) see the original and the follow up. Any thoughts? --vonbergm 00:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Revision to deletion policy

Seeing as I am one of the most prolific deletionists on Wikinews, it should be fairly obvious I like clearing the trash from Wikinews. A problem I have found, though, is that some things don't get cleared when they really should. For that, I'd like to propose that articles with datestamps five days earlier qualify as "old news" and therefore can be nominated for deletion. Additionally, copyvios should be a speedy deletion criterion, seeing as there's no purpose of keeping them online (particularly when no one makes use of the temp pages — some go straight to making new articles, as is the case of the Subic Rape article). How would that sound? —this is messedr͏ocker (talk) 04:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Subic Rape should go to 'Prepared' if there was/is interest in keeping it alive. -Edbrown05 04:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Uhm okay, that wasn't really the case, but what do you think of my proposal? —this is messedr͏ocker (talk) 00:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

On the frist point, I agree with you.

• Old news "could" be listed for deletion, but merits some discussion. Some old news deserve reporting for a few reasons:
  1. News is relatively unknown in mainstream media, but coverage on Wikinews serves the public interest.
  2. News' central event has happened more than 5 days ago, but the story covers its consequences, debate surrounding it, etc. following the event. So the date has only nominal meaning.

On the second point, I don't have a strong opinion either way.

• Copyvio "could" be deleted upon detection, if it is clearly a violation - but often times, things are not so clear because of factors such as:
  1. Copyright holder might have posted the material.
  2. The external site might have copied our content.
  3. The ultimate source of external site's story is US Federal Government's press release, Voice of America, or some other materials that could be posted on Wikinews without infringing anyone's copyright. But we mistake it is from some copyrighted source.

At least someone should notify the contributor whose content has been speedy deleted so that he can point out mistakes and ask undeletion. I think that is not a bad idea. But I think it is not a bad idea that people discuss suspected copyvio case.

In a way, the issue I see here is the balancing of due process that contributors and contents deserve, and efficiency of deletion. The more carefully we inspect potential infringement, the more likely that we can rule out those potential mistakes. But that takes people's time and attention. How big of a deal mistakes are if that happens? Does a mistaken deletion offend contributors and make him leave? Is this something that deserve community attention? I don't have a good answer.

By the way, the current Wikinews:Deletion guidelines includes a phrase "If in doubt... don't delete!" but Wikinews:Speedy deletion guidelines says that copyvio of the kind you are talking about could be deleted on site. Is this an inconsistency?

Additionally, I guess that the more we talk about copyvio, the more people become aware of it. That's kind of good so that we have greater chance of spotting them.

Tomos 10:15, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

How about applying the copyvio-speedy provision exclusively to obvious cases of copyvio, such as plagiarism from AP — well-known commercial websites that are known to hold onto their content. —this is messedrocker (talk) 01:37, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally would support it. Tomos 12:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that when nominating an article for deletion, the author should be warned with a template. This is common procedure on Wikipedia but I didn't find it here. Personally, I think it's kinda rude not to do so.--Stevenfruitsmaak 13:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense. —this is messedrocker (talk) 18:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If anyone opposes the following additions to the deletion policy:

• Articles with datestamps older than five days can be nominated for deletion via WN:DR
• Articles that are clear-cut and obvious copyright violations can be deleted on the spot

Please speak now. —this is messedrocker (talk) 02:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I kind of oppose, as it is instruction creep. We already have a policy that says copvios can be deleted on site (in {{copyvio}}?), and we have no need to try to say that datestamps have anything to do with its ability to be listed on DR, we should use common sense like we normally do. Stories that are old, that are no longer news should go to DR and stories that are old but are still news should be published. The datestamp should have nothing to do with it other then old stuff may become notnews. --Cspurrier 02:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews events at Wikimania

If you're coming to Wikimania 2006 in Boston, please register for the Citizen Journalism mini-conference and join us on Saturday for a discussion about wikis and the news (with the first half focusing on Wikinews). Dan Gillmor, one of the pioneers of citizen journalism, will be present at both events. If you can't come, please feel free to edit the second page and suggest topics that we should discuss.--Eloquence 23:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Government sources are not NPOV

I am wondering whether we need to do something systemically to avoid publishing various governments' propaganda. In many of our articles we have repeated the IsraelGOV and US GOV propaganda that the current conflict between Israel and Lebanon-Hezbollah began in July when Hezbollah kidnapped 2 soldiers. That assertion is quite debatable and is just one example of my concern. The statements of the governments of Iran and Russia and the militant organizations are not to be relied upon either.

My point is that all these participants lie and/or mislead so often and blatently that we should no longer take their statements as being of any concrete use whatsoever. For example; our article yesterday has this title; "Israel suspends air strikes after deadly strike on Qana".

Were we dealing with reliable information from reliable sources then that headline is just fine... but with all of the doublespeak and conditional promises today's governments engage in; the headline was factually wrong. Israel did not, in fact, suspend the air strikes.

I propose that we must start framing every single non-quote that comes from governments in the form of "claim" "state" "allege" "promise" "said" etc. in order to retain our NPOV committments. Neutralizer 20:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand your concern. And i have no good answer. You want to quote government announces, why not. but in this case we need to quote more or less everything. All the sources we use, are more or less related to fincial institution or government not neutral at all. Newspapers, tv ... all the same ...

Personnaly i always mentaly quote governmental announces.  :)

If sources tell lies, wikinews too, it normal no ? BUT the BIG differences with others news media, Wikinews could be corrected if obvioulsy wrong.

I do not know if real neutral source of news exists, or even could exists without some analyse and access to governmental archives before, but THIS is the job of Wikipédia, not Wikinews. Even lies are interresting for historical analyses. Remember El Chile, even more 30 years after, it's difficult to talk about. I do not even know if today US citizen accept the truth.

(the same with Algeria in France, still very difficult to speak about, the first historical movies was from UK, not France,...)

I think that first we need to access official government press release in order to read something not distorted by journalists.

About Israel and the air strikes 48H stop, you forget one point, Israel ALSO announced that it'll bomb if needed even during this ceased fire.

Last point, i think (hope :) we know all the usage made by firms and governments of the press releases, we are more or less all interrested by the Wikinews because of this problem, because we feel it's possible to have right and intelligent news (i prefere to Neutral, too WASP for me even i alone think that.

Jacques Divol 20:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A proposed change for NPOV

I have been thinking that certain clarification on NPOV policy would be nice. The issues I have in mind deal with two questions.

1. If I cover a pro-Zaire story (i.e. the kind of story that shed light to facts that would make many people favorably of Zaire), in NPOV-way, would that be okay?

I think the answer is yes, but it is not clear for a newbie.

1. If I cover a lot of pro-XYZ story and never anti-XYZ story, but abide by NPOV, would that be still okay?

I think this is not as clear a violation of NPOV, but the cumulative effect could be somewhat troubling. It is not quite in line with the spirit of NPOV.

The actual proposal is at Wikinews_talk:Neutral_point_of_view#A_proposal_for_a_change so please comment there.

Double-dated article

In doing some archiving I've uncovered Bush uses his first veto ever on stem cell bill, which has two date templates on it. I've protected the article, but I think this approach to an event should be discouraged. I'd welcome suggestions on what to do with this article, and what policy should be on updates. Personally I'm inclined to say that contributors who believe they will make later contributions should defer adding publish.

For this specific case I'd like to create a new article for the 20th with details of the failure of the Senate to overrule the veto. It'd be very short, and I'd put a related news link on both articles cross-linking the information. Thoughts? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally don't see anything wrong with double-dating, as long as updates are excusively kept in separate Update sections and not incorporated into the article. While making separate articles would be a good idea, it's not quite ideal for short, one-sentence updates that would generally warrant the Minimal tag. —this is messedrocker (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

While I don't much like the idea of an update section, I favor it over a one-liner story. Wikinews could be viewed as well suited toward taking on aspects of magazine-style reporting (meaning lots of content debate before publication), as well as the fast fact-driven reports found with the Israeli-Hizbollah news. I think the contribution base here has to become stronger yet for cutting off a one-line update. -Edbrown05 03:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Until we get more people, we have to make with what we have. Perhaps we can code it into policy that update sections must be made separate from the main text of the article (without any changes to the main text), and they can only be used when the update is one paragraph or less. —this is messedrocker (talk) 07:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

pls review

i've done a substantial rewrite on Wikinews:Writing an article. i would like someone to review the changes, to ensure that it reflects polices policies (it was a typo. no, really.) ...etc properly. Doldrums 14:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

looks good and more thorough, thx Doldrums. time will hone all policy pages. -Edbrown05 07:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I remember a comment made about the inception of Wikinews by I believe a New York City newster who said something to the effect that, "running a news organization is hard <emphasis mine>."

"Okay," with a shrug to that sentiment now. -Edbrown05 07:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Content guide discussion

I'm having a discussion on Talk:Dogs_smell_lung_and_breast_cancer#develop about wether this article meets the "criteria" of Wikinews:Content guide, and more precisely if it meets it's definition of "news": "News stories focus on a single current event or phenomenon". The article is about a study published in March, but the media picked it up in January 2006 -but not WikiNews. I argue that it's not the kind of news that get's old rapidly and is still of interest to our readers, and that there is actually no formal restriction stipulated by the Content Guide. You're kindly invited to throw in your two cents on this matter!--Stevenfruitsmaak 21:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Your opinion is also welcome at Wikinews:Deletion_requests#Dogs_smell_lung_and_breast_cancer.--Stevenfruitsmaak 11:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

request for review

i've changed the title of a long-published story: Blogger.com made website called Liverpool Evil Cabal as the title was unsupported by sources (Blogger.com did not "make" anything, just hosted the blog) to Blog about Liverpool city council causes stir after Tomos raised a flag on the article talk page. i would like the change to be reviewed, with ref. to Wikinews:Archive conventions. shld we instead retain the old title and post a correction? Doldrums 12:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

the old title has also been listed at DR. Doldrums 12:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I would support the change, of course, given a possibility that such an unsourced factual statement, if untrue as I imagined, could possibly harm the reputation of the company.

The practices of professional news media and academic publishing include retraction and correction. I see changing a title a reasonable way to deal with this issue without retracting a story.

I would not oppose at all regarding the issueing of a correction. And a correction could indeed be placed on the redirect page which I listed for deletion. Tomos 12:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Oversight

I'd like to start a discussion on the topic of oversight. I asked Brion about getting a "check all revisions" box on the restore deleted versions page, I was informed of oversight as an alternative for copyright violations and erasure of sensitive personal information. According to the above page, the ArbCom may put forward people to get this privilege - which should be used most cautiously. Revisions removed via oversight powers can only be restored by developers. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we should consider the idea but cautiously. I would also would be able to volunteer to have oversight if needed. Brian | (Talk) | ^{New Zealand Portal} 04:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know If we really need this. Currently in the history of wikinews, we've had one valid need for it. (which was actually semi-valid, as it was a paranoid guy who made a comment annonoymously and then was scared that his IP showed up, which is slightly personal info, but not really.) Bawolff ☺☻ 04:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I heard a roumour that something might of happened on the liberal candidate ex wife speak out article talk where oversight would have been usefull, so that brngs the total to two incidents (if thoose rumours are correct), I geuss it would be a good thing to have if we needed it in the future.

Ack, don't remind me of that article. Anyways, the purpose of oversight is when someone posts intimate details of someone, the page can be deleted, everything but the specific revision can be restored, and that one revision will never come back. That ex-wife article is never coming back, so I don't see a real need for oversight. —this is messedrocker (talk) 17:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I geuss so, but admins can still see the article (I assume, but I was wondering what all the excitement was about, and I couldn't find it). Not that that matters as the admins are pretty trustworthy, but still. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

We could implement it but would have to regulate the actions of those (oversight) users very strictly. In the wrong run though it could prove to be a wise decision. PVJ(Talk) 14:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

• The "ex-wife" incident is a perfect case where oversight should have been invoked. Administrators can still access the deleted versions of those pages, and we have a pretty relaxed attitude to granting admin status. Oversight deletions should be an option in such cases. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Request for a review

There may be a need to edit an archived page. I suggested a solution, but some of you may know a better way. Please see Talk:Relativity turns 100#Deleted photo. Tomos 02:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sources Policy

I think that a small policy should be written in how many sources an article should have before being published. To make sure that there is no CopyVio and that facts can be properly identified, I propose a policy be written that articles, unless using original reporting, should contain a minimum of at least 2 to 3 sources. Jason Safoutin 16:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we need this. Good idea. FellowWikiNews (W) 16:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. It upsets me when one-source articles get published. —this is messedrocker (talk) 17:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

So lets write the policy and have a vote on it? Jason Safoutin 21:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to consider: this might then prevent original reporting being published. There is community tradition to allow limited sources for extremely local stories, but requiring more corroboration for larger stories. I'm not sure this is a serious problem requiring a policy statement. - Amgine | ^{m | en.WN} 22:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Well the policy would outline the use of sources, if any in original reporting. Since Original Reporting requires original notes, I don't think that would be a problem. The issue is, on old articles, I still see some with one source. It also helps to rule out copyvio as well. Jason Safoutin 22:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

amgine, i would suggest a multiple sources "strongly encouraged" kind of statement in the content guidelines (it can even include possible exceptions - such as local sources, OR). i think it is required because i see many stories which are widely covered in the press, but which still have only one source, and that is not something i'm comfortable with. i've been encouraging (asking, actually) editors to add more sources for some time, and having a guideline to back me up would be nice. Doldrums 03:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

<nod> Oh, I quite agree with that language. It is flexible, and allows for exceptions. I am more concerned that a hard-and-fast "Articles must have 1.2 sources minimum for every 500 words of content"-type of instruction creep will result here. Let's not bog ourselves down with rules which we don't really need. Instead of rules, try teaching new contributors with friendly messages on their talk pages. - Amgine | ^{m | en.WN} 03:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

When I first came to Wikinews it was expected that all stories have at least two sources -- there was no rule, but stories were regularly "unpublished" for lack of at least two sources. This shouldn't be a rule or a policy, but rather an encouraged behavior. Unless, as Amgine, suggests, a story is extremely local, there should be at least two sources available. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 04:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Two would be a more realistic minimum than three IMO, and I also prefer this as a guideline.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 23:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Correcting published articles

If "Wikinews articles are not works in progress," then what are we supposed to do if we need to correct an article that's been published and possibly archived? People shouldn't have to accept poorly written (or, worse, factually inaccurate) articles just because they're old and have been put away; this would detract from (or at least hinder the improvement in) Wikinews' reputation for quality and go against the spirit of a wiki as I understand it. If someone wants a news story in its old form as a "historical document," that's what the history tab is for. (Indeed, old versions of articles are frequently used for 'historical' discussion on Wikipedia.)

Therefore, I think anyone who can correct the spelling, grammar or factual accuracy of an article, or improve its style and wording, should do so. To prevent anyone mistaking the current article for the originally published version, we could make a template with a link to the oldid and the diff-cur, saying, "This article has been corrected or rewritten since it was published and archived. Compare it against the originally published version." If there is a factual change or clarification, a diff link on the Main Page and the appropriate portal might also be justified for a while, under a "Corrections" heading. The great thing about MediaWiki's history functionality is that we can have both a historical document and an up-to-date, polished article both under the same headline. Seahen 12:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this is a problem, I've also faced this. But I'm not sure that would be the right solution, is there no way to automate this more?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 23:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The only post-publication edits that are allowed are for grammar and maintenance reasons. If there's inaccuracies in articles published and it's no longer the day of publication, a nice {{correction}} tag at the top of the article will do. —this is messedrocker (talk) 08:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose that Amgine should not be allowed to block Neutralizer and viceversa (if Neut becomes an admin) It is clear that they are constantally in dispute, and I think this unofficial policy would help with the tensions around here. All in favor say "I" 209.18.49.14 16:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Amgine blocked him twice in one day. Once for one hour and again for two hours. FellowWikiNews (W) 17:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"I" 65.78.87.120 19:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Annan demands Hezbollah free abducted soldiers & Israel lift blockade. FellowWikiNews (W) 19:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It is ridiculous to suggest sanctions against Amgine for a total of 3 hours blocks against this user. In case you missed it, he's been blocked before. Progressive blocks are applied when people refuse to modify their behaviour in response to earlier blocks. Wikilawyering and POV-pushing are detrimental to the project and to be actively discouraged. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Although I am not very happy at Amgine's actions, he is still an Administrator in good standing. Placing such a sanction on him would be tantamount to questioning his capabilities as a sysop, and so would be an over-reaction. PVJ(Talk) 14:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Date format.

Most countries including the U.K, India, and several others use the Day/Month/Year format, whereas only the U.S uses the Month/Date/Year system. I suggest we start using the more common dd/mm/yyyy form or the ISO (yyyy/mm/dd) format to avoid confusion. PVJ(Talk) 09:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not fixing that, I'm sorry but this is one of these things we're stuck with. I believe it is only confusing when numeric values are used for the month. There are thousands of articles this would need fixed on, plus all the structure in Categories to make date navigation possible would need reworked. Looking at the fact that I've protected over 2,500 articles there's probably 5-10K edits in fixing the date throughout the wiki. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not asking that we change what is already there, I would like to have it adopted as a new policy. Also, we need not use the numeric values, we could just write 8 September 2006 instead of September 8 2006. PVJ(Talk) 14:17, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be a consistency requirement that we do so, otherwise you'll end up with a real mess. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I don't think screwing arround with the date is a good idea. From a technical stand point we could do it (bots). but I think its a bad idea, when if we do it then where just not following some other countries standards. Also US is not the only country who does that, Canada also writes it out that way (but the shortened number formats different from US). Most people understand it if its written out either way, and I think the status-quo is fine. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's not get into who-uses-what; we'll all waste our time and in the end it doesn't matter. We should stick to one uniform format, because everything is neater that way. We could technically all switch to a different uniform format, but that would take too much messy-work to integrate. And who says it's US-style? Why can't it considered Wikinews style? —this is messedrocker (talk) 05:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

A few times when I have stated an article I have used the NZ date format; which I prefer; however since the start of the project we have used the US style; let’s stick with that Brian | (Talk) | ^{New Zealand Portal} 07:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)p

Me Doldrums and MessedRocker came up with a solution to this problem. We have two templates for discussion - template:altdate and template:altdate/link

• altdate is exactly like date template, just you can put a day month year date in and the category will be standard format, but the bold date will be the day first format. Only problem is consitancy. some pages would have US dates and some would have the other form. Things look better if they're all the same across the site.
• altdate/link is close to date template. It will format the date based on your preferences in special:preferences (if you don' set, its US). It uses meta:Dynamic dates. differnce/drawbacks from date template is that the month and day is linked to the month day page/cat (September 5) and year is linked to year (2006). Unfourtanatly we can't make them go directly to the exact date page (Wikinews:2006/September/5). Also there is some infostructure changes needed to be done by bots. (364 pages need to be redirected to categories) Any page thats a valid date in the form of month day, and does not exsist in the main namespace, but does in the category namespace, needs the page in the main namespace to be redirected to the category page. Bawolff ☺☻ 10:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The point is that far more readers are likely to be familiar with the Commonwealth systems, not because one system is better than the other but simply because the UK had a huge colonial empire, as a result of which many countries do British things like spelling things differently, using the metric system and driving on the left side of the road. PVJ(Talk) 15:03, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

As a citiczen of a commonwealth nation (known as Canada), I can assure you we do not use the date format you're suggesting. (we use for long Month day, year and for short, it varies depending on who you ask). Also thats whats great about that template, if the user specifies in there preferences that they want the date in whatever format, they can have it in that format. The user would then make date decisions, not us. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)