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This is an archive of past discussions from Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2009. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current page.


Simple English Wikinews.

It has come to my attention that i know this wikinews is good for experienced authors but what about esl people and younger kids seniors disabbled people what can they do? Proposing a simple english wikinews for those people i mentioned but it really can be for anyone who likes to write simple news. Does anyone Support this idea or Oppose of it?

  • Comment It's my understanding that no more Simple projects are being created by the WMF project approval board. Apparently, in order for a wiki to be created, it has to be in a language that has its own ISO code. Simple English is not a "real" language and doesn't have its own ISO code, so no projects in that language will be created, even if there's overwhelming support to create them. As such, a proposal to create a Simple English Wikinews will probably not go far. Also, this isn't the right place to request to make a new wiki, that should be done at Meta, not locally. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:12, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment even in light of Tempo's comment, I wouldn't support the incubation of a simple WN, nor would I attempt to contribute to such. My opinion is that writing a news report within a "simple" (i.e. restricted) vocabulary would make NPOV compliance impossible. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't say that it's impossible to be NPOV with a "simple" vocabulary, it's just harder - projects like Simple English Wikipedia seem to have managed to remain pretty neutral even though they have to use a limited word bank. Even if simple projects were allowed, I would still not be very enthusiastic to support, as I feel we have enough trouble gaining extra contributors and expanding our coverage without having to be distracted by another English version. Tempodivalse [talk] 01:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    They have an advantage - time. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I'm of the opinion that simple projects are a "bad" idea in general. plus we have voted on this before (twice before i think), and the overwhelming opinion has been no. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—I have never seen the point of Simple English projects, and en.wn is small enough as it is, without diverting potential editors to a different project. Dendodge T\C 21:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I am not totally opposed to simple projects, simple Wikipedia is useful; in the last project-wide election I was following the private discussion about the presentation of the election, the biggest problem was the voting method. As the enwp article was difficult to understand, and headaches were emerging getting it translated, I suggested a simple article on the voting method. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment For the love of god, this is the second time in RECENT HISTORY that this suggestion has come up. For the love of god, No --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 19:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose It's not going to be created by Meta, and secondly, there are hardly any editors who'll be interested in editing yet another Simple project. Can anyone mark this as resolved? PmlineditorTalk 15:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Per above request, I hearby mark this as resolved! OTOH, life is not a vote (as if it was, life would be evil, and thats a weird weird moral system... and we can't have that ;), so feel free to continue discussing this if you really feel like it. Sufficed to say, it is rather unlikely such a project will be created. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:52, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Liquidthreads on Comments namespace

I've encountered liquidthreads on the strategy wiki. For those of us more used to working in 'normal' MW talk pages it may take a little getting used to. However, for people from a non-wiki editing background might be happier with liquidthreads.

What do people think of getting that set on the Comments: namespace?

Are there any serious technical issues with this?

General ideas? --Brian McNeil / talk 13:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, interesting idea. While I generally don't like LiquidThreads very much, there may be an advantage to using it on comments pages (but not talk or user talk pages), as it auto-signs comments and makes automatic indents; that would be easier to use for people who aren't familiar with the mediawiki editing interface. I don't see any serious issues that might result from implementing it, so i generally Support. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:40, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near ready to be turned on at a live content wiki, at least from a technical standpoint. See mw:Extension:LiquidThreads/Notes. –Juliancolton | Talk 13:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly think using it on comments is a good idea. I also tend to agree that on a talk page, it might not be as useful. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:27, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's sort of unfortunate. I mean, liquidthreads is meant for normal talk pages. Is there something that could be improved so that it would be possible to use for talk pages here too? (at the moment there are too many bugs for it to be deployed here I think) Skalman (talk) 23:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not to up on the bugs that might exist, but Wikinews' comments namespace itself is rather 'experimental'. It's an add-on to the core goals of the project and perhaps an ideal place to try this out. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm game for it, it LQT at least works and doesn't crash pages, I don't see too much harm in using it. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 00:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how many bugs there are, but I would support the eventual use of LQT on all (user) talk/comment pages, but we should test on comments pages, which are the least used of these (as well as the ones casual readers are most likely to use), first. Dendodge T\C 08:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't want liquidthreads on regular talk pages - I guess i just don't like the "feel" of it, it's complicates things too much. I'm much more comfortable with the regular indenting system. The reason i support it for comments pages is that it's probably easier to use for people not familiar with the mediawiki editing interface (auto-indenting, auto-signing and all that) - plus it looks more like the commentary systems other news sites have, which makes us look more professional. :-) Tempodivalse [talk] 13:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
[unindent] to respond to Skalman, my opinion is roughly the same as Tempo's for use of LQT on talk page. I don't oppose it do to any bugs, I just think that the current system is supperior (in terms of concept). Talk pages should not be a fourm, while they are a forum, but they are an unstructured forum meant to develop the article. Adding threading comment structure to them is just not a good idea imho (thats not to say that LQT is bad, on the contrary, i think its quite an amazing piece of work, just not the right tool for the job.) However comment pages are meant for discussion/arguments as oposed to constructive collaberation and thus LQT is the right tool for the right job in that context (At least imho). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WN redirecting to Wikinews

Result

100%

In wikipedia, if you type WP:Article, it will automatically redirect to Wikipedia:Article. That means WP is an alternative name Wikipedia namespace. It is not so in Wikinews. E.g. WN:WC which redirects to Wikinews:Water cooler. The shortcut exists in article namespace and not Wikinews namespace. Suppose if we have the facility that Wikipedia has, we can create Wikinews:WC which will redirect to Wikinews:Water cooler and assume that WN:WC doesn't exist. Then also WN:WC will redirect to Wikinews:Water cooler. This will happen because WN is an alternative of Wikinews namespace and automatically all WNs will redirect to Wikinews. Please vote for the proposal below. Srinivas 15:29, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews major contributors

I had cause to fiddle with my user page some today, and I have some degree of pride in the number of articles I've done, and length of time working on the project. There are others have done far more articles that I, and most of the core contributors who do Original Reporting and similar have a fair list of contributions.

I would like to propose a user-related category structure. Yes, it serves very little towards the project's goals, but it is - to me - a better recognition than your username in the page history. All proposed categories would be hidden, but users would be able to construct DPLs on their user pages to highlight articles where they were major contributors.

  1. A top-level category Category:Major contributors
  2. User-specific categories, eg Category:Contributor Brian McNeil, Category:Contributor Jason Safoutin, Category:Contributor Jon Davis, &c.

To stress, these would be hidden and for use by contributors. It would be great for people involved in things like the London bombing article to get their name on it in a discreet way, and where they've worked elsewhere build lists of such - for example, to me it would be really good to have a list of all the South Thailand insurgency articles I worked on; I spent a lot of time on that topic. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this a good idea. It would be easier than manually adding articles to my user subpage --RockerballAustralia (talk) 00:47, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting idea. One question though, wouldn't this involve having to edit lots of archived pages just to add a category for an article one has written? For instance, i've written 300 articles. It'd take a lot of effort and time to add Category:Contributor Tempodivalse to all of them. Or are you suggesting we should only implement this for articles created in the future (i.e. don't bother adding them to archived articles)? Tempodivalse [talk] 01:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I might suggest a bot of some sort to add such categories to archived pages--RockerballAustralia (talk) 01:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great idea! Commons has a similar system including user-specific hidden cats and it has worked quite well there. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Glad to see this wasn't shot down in flames. I've not thought about archived articles other than in a selfish manner. Most people who care enough to want the attribution have admin privs and can do this. If there's some way we can factor in use of a bot, that'd be great; it's not urgent, we can probably cope with this via {{editprotected}} until we firm up criteria a bot would work from. --Brian McNeil / talk 05:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Bot would be difficult, I'd think... but I'm not opposed to the idea. I was actually just thinking about this very same thing the other night. It is kinda "unwiki" but let's be honest, everyone has a list of articles they've worked on a significant amount, on their user pages. For me, filling my cat wont take by a few minutes, but Dragon's will be... painful. The real question though, do we do it by real name or wikiname? Simply because some might not be AR and not want to be "outed", but still want to have a cat. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 05:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will this be opt in or opt out? Cirt (talk) 07:27, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say opt in --RockerballAustralia (talk) 07:52, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea, but what would be the criteria for adding the category? Does a user just have to consider themselves a major contributor, or would consensus be needed? Dendodge T\C 22:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obtaining and determining consensus on hundreds of articles would be too time-consuming, I think. I'd say we should have a "3 medium-sized paragraph" limit to consider oneself a "major contributor" (the same amount as the minimum size for an article). Tempodivalse [talk] 22:49, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense to me. Dendodge T\C 22:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like it to be far less formal. I say we trust people to do it; after all, you can add a list to your userpage by yourself. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 22:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • BRS seems to be nuancing this in the right way. If someone comes along, writes 2-3 minimal articles, then starts slapping themselves as a 'major contributor' on everything they fix grammar/typos in, is not going to get a pleasant reception. We can't afford spending the time heavily policing this, so it's not something I'd particularly publicise. To answer other points - you choose between real name or pseudonym; the main function is internal, I know a hell of a lot of contributors real names and how they match pseudonyms, they decide how this categorisation might impact them. So, I suggest for the most part, we maintain ourselves and discuss as it progresses. Maybe later this week I'll start setting up a few test categories. I think DragonFire1024 has to be one of the up-front people to get part of the treatment (as well as doing myself) - if he agrees I'll see what I can do. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do have to be totally up-front about one item I'm interested in seeing from this. It might upset some people, I would hope it would encourage them to work harder and to higher standards. I list a little over 100 articles on my user page where I consider myself not just a 'major contributor', but enough of one to claim a nebulous ownership over the article. I think there's at least three or four FAs in that; something I'm very, very proud of. Given that, and me planning to add a "FA's I'm a major contributor to" DPL to my userpage, does anyone change their mind or stance on this? --Brian McNeil / talk 23:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I add the pages I feel that I have significantly created to my userpage, and being able to add a hidden category would simplify this. By significantly created, this for me means that I either wrote the article myself from scratch or that (in one instance) I worked on a duplicate article which I later merged into another. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 11:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Abolish the Portal: namespace

I was randomly browsing through some Wikinews pages today, and I came across Portal:New Zealand. I was quite surprised to discover that all the lead articles on the portal were way out of date - the most recent story listed was half a year old. A look through several other portal pages indicated that this was the case for many other portals. I got to thinking: the portal namespace is, for all practical purposes, an exact duplicate of the corresponding category namespace, except with a (usually out-of date) lead article and without the category lists at the bottom. IMHO, the portal does not have any additional benefits to the category: to the contrary, it's just another page that requires maintenance, and it takes a lot of effort to keep all the leads on them up to date (given that there are what, over 100 of them?). Take a look at Portal:Africa and Category:Africa. They're practically the same except for the topic boxes (which could easily be copied).

In short it seems like unnecessary effort to keep the portals around. As such, I propose to completely get rid of the namespace. Some ideas for how we could go about this:

  1. All portal redirects (i.e. UK, Russia, etc.) will be pointed at the corresponding category instead, possibly with the help of a bot.
  2. The different topic sections/boxes on portals (i.e. "Crime and law", "Politics and conflicts") can be copied to the corresponding category pages. We could have a bot do this as well, I don't think it should be terribly difficult to program.
  3. The "lead article" part will be completely removed, and will instead be replaced by a DPL, which would automatically keep everything up-to-date with the latest articles, instead of having to do it manually.

I understand that this might require a bit of effort, but my overall feeling is that removing the portal pages will be better for us in the long run. Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 17:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. I once promised (was it Shakataganai? Bawolff?) that I would bring this up myself, but never did. I didn't know the future I predicted this morning was going to be set in motion by this afternoon! Seriously, these are far too much work to maintain and are a distraction from the main newswriting process. Sprucing up the category system is a much better aproach. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the English Wikipedia, the portal namespace works. It uses encylopedic content, which rarely goes out of date, and is more regularly updated. On a news site, however, especially one with such a small user base (in comparison), it fails due to the excessive speed at which news stories become no longer relevant. I think we should abolish the namespace, as it can never serve any purpose here. Dendodge T\C 18:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
kill kill kill Portal namespace is, and always was, a solution in need of problem imho. Historically we seemed to have some people with a rampant hatred of the alphabetical category listing (edits like this come to mind). Personally i don't see anything wrong with having both a DPL as well as the alphabetical list. Well we're at it, I strongly suggest we shoot {{geo-portal}} repeatedly. This template is used on all sorts of portals of extremely small places, that have roughly 10 articles, and then tries to split them up into different categories + a lead template, and just generally doesn't do a good job. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Has any thought been given on how to handle portal:Australia. To date, it is effectivly the only portal that has actually been used as a portal, and such has all sorts of interesting subpages - ex: Portal:Australia/in depth header among others, that do not fit into the category namespace. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to the issue i mentioned above, here is how I think we should proceede. Declare the portal namespace deprected, redirect all the portals to their respective category pages (we can do this slowly as we see links, or we can get a bot). Leave all the portal subpages (mostly stuff for wikinews importer bot and a couple of other odd pages, such as the various Australia subpages) intact. Slowly move any link to the portal namespace thats not to a subpage, to the equivelent category page, and just not create any new pages in the portal namespace. We will also have to move some subpages of mediawiki:Common.css and mediawiki:Common.js. We will also have to figure out how to deal with portal pages that don't have a specific category associated with them (Portal:North Korea nuclear proliferation and some of the weather pages) We could probably leave them where they are. (In case of the weather portals, some of them should probably be deleted) Bawolff ☺☻ 02:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. In the two years I spent on Wikinews as an active contributor, they never really got much use. And for the things that are there, a good majority of them are no longer maintained. --Thunderhead 21:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Had Wikinews been first - instead of Wikipedia - it might have been the case that a sufficiently large contributor base could, and would, maintain Portals. Twenty or so of us can't. I will state I am opposed to the complete deletion of the namespace, but agree fully that there is no point in the foreseeable future where it will be reliably maintained. The majority are country portals - the most embarrassing of which are those with dedicated lead articles that are years out of date. Why not replace such with a "generic" country portal template if not updated in the last week? Yes, there are the topical portals - somewhat less simple - but for, say, Crime and law a continent/region generic template could be used.
Kiwi and Auzzie contributors kept their respective portals going for quite a long time. Right now, that's a distraction; but, not a chance we should here and now deny to people. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral If people are willing to keep portals up to date then we should not deprive them of that. Some though are horribly out of date though (two of the top articles on the United States portals are the death of Patrick Swayze and Barack Obama being elected as President). Yes, SOFIXIT is an appropriate reply to that comment, but personally I have other priorities. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 10:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In response to Alexandr and Brianmc: If the portals are merged with the category namespace, then this would not necessarily deprive users the ability to use lead articles. We could easily make an optional lead template to add to the category instead; the only difference is that one would have to edit the category namespace to do so (since the portal stuff will be merged into the category). This seems like a more effective solution than keeping it on portals and using it there instead, because, as mentioned above, they are practically identical to the corresponding category pages and so are redundant. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:31, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews private fund

We have several times floated the idea of having our own little private fund for OR, advertising etc. My understanding of what the Foundation will require from us is very limited, but assuming someone is willing to negotiate with them I'm willing to draw up the actual proposal in my userspace.

My basic idea is that the Foundation agrees to give us up to $500-1,000 per anum, on the understanding we likely won't use anything like that much but it is there for a big project. Whatever amount we agree upon is the cap for our fund. At year's end, anything we haven't spent is rolled over into next year's fund, and the Foundation tops it off back to the agreed total.

The community would have to individually approve each request for funding before it was doled out. You can either spend first and run the risk we won't pay out later, or get advanced approval. Records should be obtained of all costs (i.e. get a receipt). I'd imagine the Foundation would want them.

There is a lot to be worked out, such as axactly when and how much we should pay as a guidance, and how to deal with foreign currencies, but how does this asic proposal strike people? Bearing in mind there is plenty of oppertunity to play around with the idea if I do start it up. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 17:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea and would be useful. I wasn't aware that the wmf allowed projects to set up their own funds? If it's possible, though, I say do it. US$500 thereabouts seems like a reasonable sum annually. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:18, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is, indeed, a lot to be worked out.
  • Any "general" fund will be a potential source of contention
  • Is use, for advertising, ever going to be appropriate - and effective?
  • If for reporter expenses, what is acceptable?
Any proposal to the Foundation is going to get seriously looked at such that it might seem under attack. There are some important issues to consider. The third point above could be a real can of worms for the WMF; imagine Wikipedians looking for expenses to do research, imagin how a community as small as ours could be overwhelmed. This last point might not be worth any general vested interest scheming for a mere $1000/year, but arguments over use of such could be "great copy" for more mainstream media - or those such as the wiki-watchers who log IRC channels and publish logs on the web. Yes, I have found #wikinews transcripts online. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Us having money isn't a bad idea, but more importantly, how would we (the community) approve the spending? We cannot have a group vote for every item, every time. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 18:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I actually don't see why not. It's not like we do vast amounts of stuff that might warrant it. That said, we might do much more if the money was there. Perhaps we should agree that accredited reporters are allowed to spend up to $15 travel/parking/entrance expenses per article without individual approval? Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is the sort of thing that concerns me; set a point like this and you have to backtrack the process of getting to WN:AR so we know everyone is working to certain standards, performing due diligence, and working within a code of ethics.
We've had our 'visitors' in the past who've pushed that point because it supported their goals; so I would say there is more of a priority to have that framework before we have an expenses budget. There is — for Wikinews — a probable need to seek outside guidance on drawing up - say - Wikinews:Journalists' code of conduct, Wikinews:Legitimate claims for expenses, and others. The $15 guestimate does seem reasonable, but it has to be overseen in some way; this is less-contentious if there is a clear route to being a qualifying recipient, and specific standards that must be worked to, and apparent, to continue holding that privilege. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds reasonable and, more importantly, do-able if challenging. I'm happy to mock those up if we move ahead with this. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 20:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
<- IMHO, I still think the vote thing needs to be considered. If I were to apply for money from Wikinews, it'd be small amounts, for say paying admissions to some event I'm covering. Lets say we've got $1000usd a year and a pricey admission is $50. That's 20 votes a year. Personally, I think the votes should be left to 'crats only, allowing for comments from admins. I'm not suggesting this because I'm a 'crat, because frankly I don't want 20 more votes a year... but that is neither here nor there. --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 21:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How active are we crat-wise? If it's not too bad - and they actually do it - then I wouldn't have an issue with that. We can afford to take time about this, but something sitting around for weeks because there ain't many crats could kill the system. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 21:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well I know there are 3 or 4 of us that are regularly active list --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 21:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of talk has been on how to make this whole process accountable. How about, if there is serious concern about misuse in breach of the future proposed stuff up there, we let Arbcom decide? Arbcom would have the power to ban someone from using the fund again. We could also perhaps order people to pay stuff back if they don't want barred altogether, and lose their autoprivilage. Instead, from then on they would just be expected to absorb most travel etc. expenses. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 21:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think putting any disputes/concerns through ArbCom is the best idea, as we have more arbs than active bureaucrats (six versus about four). We'd be able to reach consensus much more effectively and quickly, as BRS points out above. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • My raising of a code of conduct, and an "expenses policy" was what I consider a precondition to asking for money. And, that we should have advice on that. As in, some of that 'discretionary sister-project spending' drawing up these policies based on professional journalistic experience and our input. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then, what would be required is a summary of the points to be covered in each, plus considerations that have to be taken in light of the all-volunteer nature of contributions. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:24, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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