Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals

To reviewers[edit]

G'day

For new reviewers we need better software and a mentor who is available.

Could you please sign up below if you would like to volunteer. Include your availability (time range in UTC time), preferred means of contact for it (talk pages, IRC chat, email, audio/video chat)? Also what software is on the top of your wish list for easier article creation and review.

Thanks and best regards, --Gryllida (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

List[edit]

availability	contact means	wishlist	signature
8pm UTC on selected days (not Monday and not Wednesday)	live chat (gry) wiki talk pages video chat (Gryllida@GNU Jami)	article wizard with layout guide, fact check tips, and scratch space or another tool which discourages plagiarism	Gryllida (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
18:00–20:00 UTC most Sundays	* wiki talk pages	possibly a Wikidata style interface to enable clearer structuring to new articles; Draft namespace for new articles.	Green Giant (talk) 16:54, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Any more volunteers? -Green Giant (talk) 01:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Not a reviewer... --DannyS712 (talk) 01:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Water cooler for reviewers[edit]

Hi all, I'd make WN:Water cooler/Reviewers, but then I thought it would be more useful to have a place where everyone (not only reviewers) gathers to copy/edit new submissions. Perhaps automatic notifications of new submissions to the developing and review queues to WN:Water cooler/assistance would be appropriate? I am aiming for some space which is on the watchlist of all active reviewers as well as volunteers who wish to be involved in helping to edit new submissions, and email notifications are on. This would be similar to what User:Gryllida/welcome a bit already does at talk pages of selected individuals, however it would mean that the notifications and discussions can occur in one place.

This would make activities easier to track, without visiting articles talk pages perhaps? Or can they be still used like they usually were, but transcluded at the water cooler? Does changing a transcluded page generate a watchlist notification?

Regards, --Gryllida (talk) 02:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Unsorting categories[edit]

I have a proposal in the nature of "having our cake and eating it too". Last summer, as part of upgrading our person categories, SVTCobra added DEFAULTSORT: to all of them, to produce default alphabetical-by-surname listing order. On one hand I appreciate the value of the additional information. On the other hand, I would really like for us to avoid using DEFAULTSORT: for anything, anywhere on the project. I see a way to keep the information and at the same time eliminate the DEFAULTSORT:.

Amongst the disadvantages of DEFAULTSORT:, it creates an additional burden for users maintaining our categories, adding one more thing about it keep track of (which should not be underestimated: making things simple on a wiki is staggeringly important, and a major focus of all our infrastructure efforts on en.wn, both past and present); and it's actually hard to find things when reading a list that's alphabetically by surname but the list entries are in a different order. So the default list of pages in a category should, I think, always follow the actual alphabetical order of the names of the pages.

Solution: Set up a category called, say, Person mainspace redirects, in which to put all the mainspace redirects for people's names. Put in this category all mainspace redirects for people's names. Add redirects for the surname-first variants (for example, Joe Biden would be listed under both "Joe Biden" and "Biden, Joe"). Thus, by looking at the new category, one would see an alphabetical listing of all the variants, and each entry would appear in order consistent with the form of the entry (thus, "Joe Biden" would be with the "J"s, "Biden, Joe" with the "B"s).

If we really wanted a list that would include only the surname-first variants, we could have a subcategory like that, though my inclination would be to keep things simpler.

I imagine we'd want to add a usage note to Category:News articles by person, at the same time. --Pi zero (talk) 16:22, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

That seems like more overhead to maintain. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

It's one less feature ( not using DEFAULTSORT: ), and the (smaller, I'd say) alternative thing to do is more distributed as a separate concern. --Pi zero (talk) 18:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Without having put a great amount of thought into it, I'd say we'd be better off integrating Wikidata more effectively. I guess the difference is thinking like a librarian versus thinking like a computer scientist. But isn't there already an easy way of listing page names alphabetically via a query? Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikinews on Facebook: language merger[edit]

Hello all! Along with occasionally contributing photo stories to Wikinews, I run the Facebook page for the English Wikinews.

Other language projects have their own separate pages. Facebook, however, has the ability to show posts based on the user's language or country. Mikani (t · c · b) of the French Wikipedia has proposed that we merge all the pages, using their Global Pages/Market Pages feature.

The experience for users wouldn't change, so far as I can tell. English speakers wouldn't see French Wikinews articles, and vice-versa, the content remains separate. French Wikinews also will grow on Facebook: they already have 926 fans, and 2300 of our English Wikinews followers speak French.

I'm going to read more tonight, but I like this idea in principle. While I'm essentially the only person to update the page these days, I'd like community consent. Does anyone have any objections? -- Zanimum (talk) 19:59, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

This is all contingent on us even qualifying: "This feature may not be available to you right now. Global Pages are only available to managed Facebook clients." suggests to me that we'd need to be an advertiser. -- Zanimum (talk) 20:30, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Ouch. Advertising being strictly against policy. --Pi zero (talk) 20:49, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, Pi zero (t · c · b), we'd need to pay for ads on Facebook, not place their ads on our project. Given that Wikimedia Foundation doesn't run the account, I don't they'd be writing a cheque.

That said, it's entirely possible that they'd make an exception for us. At one point, Facebook banned pages from renaming, and the museum I work at was going to have to start a new page for its new name. I found a contact in the Facebook for Non-Profits program that was able to change our name, and weeks later they had a formal process for renaming. (We weren't advertisers on the site, either.) While they're a monolith of a corporation, they can make exceptions. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Pay for ads on facebook? Wtf? Facebook benefits indirectly from us using their platform in a way that draws people to use the platform; asking us to pay for the privilege of benefiting them is quite a scam. --Pi zero (talk) 02:24, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Zanimum (t · c · b), what software do you use to post articles to Facebook? Gryllida (talk) 23:30, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Gryllida (t · c · b) I literally just use the web interface. I have an IFTTT script to send me an alert when there's a new article, and then I manually copy-paste the link and the lede (occasionally shrinking the lede, so that it won't be clipped by Facebook. -- Zanimum (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, small update from the discussion. The option is not yet available for all pages. But the day when this is the case, and if the community agrees, it will facilitate the transition to this solution if we have already discussed it. There is no question here of paying for Facebook advertising as I read or becoming an advertiser page. --mik@ni 07:53, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The Facebook social network allows you to create a World Page, these pages allow you to "provide localized versions of their content to customers around the world". That is to say that a French fan will have what we publish in French, a Spanish speaker in Spanish or an English speaker in English. Note, this decision-making request cannot be applied immediately if it is validated, because Facebook only offers this option for advertisers at the moment. This requires a free "Business Manager" page. This page provides access to additional tools that allow merging. One can imagine that the "Business Manager" account is created and managed by the foundation and that it grants rights to local administrators. Above all, it's about being ready for the day when our decision-making processes take a long time to get started and succeed. To complete these "World Pages" are composed of 3 sub-types of pages :

the local pages (this is the one we already have, it is the one that is personalized for the language or the geographic area)
the default pages: it is as the name suggests the page viewed by default if the criteria of language or geographic area have not been met by the Facebook user
the root page: this is sort of the "super page", this is where we find the audiences for all the local pages and where the strategy can be decided by adding the possible countries or languages.

I invite you to take note of this, because it is a great audience booster for all wikinews. A voting page is now launch on the french speaking wikinews to adopt this (here). I made similar requests in spanish and italian wikinews without feedback. --mik@ni 15:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I will contact you again to find out if this proposal may interest you. --mik@ni 16:33, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Maybe, a new main page...[edit]

Hi! I'm an administrator on Spanish Wikinews, where we are working on a new final design to our main page, that is under construction yet. I contact you here for propose, if you want, to use this new design on your main page too. I think it would be an interesting step to unificate different language version of Wikinews and connecting between by following a same pattern. Our new main page will be ready for new modern and responsive design patterns and browsers requeriments, with tablet and mobile specific designs and modular designs for different screen sizes. You can see this proyect on my personal folder here and, if you want, discuss about it here or in the talk page of the proyect. Greetings! --Jorge Abellán (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2020 (UTC)