Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2023/January

Something needs to be done about the lack of reviewers

I digged around and it seemed that a user User:Pi zero used to do most of the work, but then died. Seems like along with that the English wikinews itself started dying as well. I'm wondering if maybe the review system could be modified so that currently 1 normal reviewer is needed for an article, or two active longtime users can also review an article. I'm not sure if it would lower the quality standards though. RPI2026F1 (talk) 15:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yep. Pi zero was the most active reviewer, although the project was losing reporters before that.

I think that's a difficult discussion, but one we need to have, so thanks for opening it.

Yes, it would in some instances lower the quality of our articles, but extending the freshness guidelines over the summer was something we didn't want to do because it looked like we were sacrificing quality and professionalism for churnalism. But we needed to do it; most of the articles we've published since couldn't have survived the old freshness guidelines.

But...all our experienced contributors are reviewers-except for @Rubbish computer, who has 706 edits since 2015, so they might be considered experienced-so I don't know if this would help. Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 16:08, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi Augusthorsesdroppings10 (t · c · b), I would love to review articles; it's just a question of if I'm considered experienced enough yet or if I should wait a bit longer. I enjoy writing content but haven't done any recently. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 16:13, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah. If you feel you're ready, @RPI2026F1 or I would be more than happy to nominate you. At the very least, it would jumpstart a community discussion about our lack of reviewers. Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 16:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I'll be glad to help. RPI2026F1 (talk) 17:05, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi RPI2026F1 (t · c · b) Augusthorsesdroppings10 (t · c · b), I'd be happy to be a reviewer. Is it something that requires a formal vote or is it informal? Going through a busy time offline at the moment - college, moving, etc - but I'm sure I could look at articles that need reviewing once a day most days. Rubbish computer (Ping me or leave a message on my talk page) 18:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

It's informal. Basically you nominate yourself or someone else nominates you, and then for "at least a week", other editors leave comments, concerns, questions about policy, things like that, as can be seen here. If consensus is gained, an administrator will close it and grant you reviewership or not.

I would highly recommend you read the "Before a request" section here; I've noticed that in successful requests for reviewership, the nominee is an experienced reporter and has served as an "apprentice" to an experienced reviewer to review at least one article together.

Once a day most days would be awesome, you'll probably only find a couple legitimate articles submitted for review per day. Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 19:12, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I wonder how it's possible to mentor to reviewers when the reviewers themselves are lacking. RPI2026F1 (talk) 19:44, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Well obviously reviewers have to be here for that, yeah. As I mentioned below, although all other reviewers have been absent for at least two days, Bddpaux was here this morning. Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 19:48, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the reality is that Wikinews is probably the only outright failure of a project at the Wikimedia Foundation and Pi zero was trying to personally keep it alive for a long time (along with a lot of work on Wikibooks as well). I definitely still believe in citizen journalism and the wiki model, but there are simply not enough users interested in writing and reviewing work here at the moment, nor any clear pathway to finding more. The only prospect I can think of for recruitment is journalism students who may publish using this platform, but that wouldn't fix the issue of a lack of qualified reviewers, which by their very nature need to be more seasoned and familiar with our policies. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:37, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Another thing I've been thinking about was an aggressive recruitment campaign across Wikimedia with banners and talk page messages for, e.g., Wikipedians interested in current events, stuff like that. Of course, that would require the approval and facilitation of the WMF, but...if the Commonists get to do it, then why shouldn't we, just because we've long been ignored as "one of the irrelevant ones". Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 16:54, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Most of the Wikimedia projects outside of Wikipedia are a failure. The problem is that most of them cannot be read in a wiki style. Wikibooks for example is most likely the second-most-potentially-successful idea, but a book cannot be read on the internet in wiki form, and needs to be compiled into an ebook form with a reader which is then what Google et al shows. Honestly the problem with most of the sister projects is poor searchability, since honestly the internal search sucks (although to be fair the internal search for almost every website is way worse than Googling with the website name in the query with the exception of searching documentation). Some projects like Wikiquote feel way too niche in my opinion. RPI2026F1 (talk) 17:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I would say that Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Commons, Wikidata, and maybe with a caveat, Wikispecies are more-or-less successful. I would say that Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, and Wikivoyage are marginally successful and they keep on humming along with some useful content added in, etc. Wikiversity is only a success to the extent that Wikijournal exists and has actually had some interesting publications. Wikinews has been just shy of dormant for several years and really does not function as a place to get news, even as part of a larger news diet. Just my two cents, of course, for all that's worth. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:47, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Very true about Wikinews. I don't read the news here - I read the news, then I come here and try to write it. Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 19:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikinews doesn't work well for any news that isn't original research. I think there is value in having a reviewed place to publish original research news that isn't found anywhere else but until you start paying people to write news for here then you can never use this as a place to get news. RPI2026F1 (talk) 19:50, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I think therefore maybe it would be a good place for journalism students to practice writing articles? RPI2026F1 (talk) 19:51, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

It has been precisely used in that very way, with great success in the past.--Bddpaux (talk) 22:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

100% agreed, per above. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:06, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, @Bddpaux (a prolific reviewer and reporter) popped in briefly this morning, so perhaps he's returning. I also forgot to mention @Xbspiro, who has 1,365 edits since 2010 and seems to have a very good grasp of policy and the process of improving articles that have been submitted for review by less experienced reporters. Augusthorsesdroppings10 (talk) 17:49, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Note: the final count for 2022 recorded that the English Wikinews published 135 articles, 10 of which included OR. --Heavy Water (talk) 18:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I've been here for far over a decade. I both agree and disagree with some of the comments found here. When these discussions start, I like to quickly jump to: Get the news, write the news, submit it here. One of our problems here HONESTLY, REALLY is that we need a steady stable of reporters getting, writing and submitting news. If an article goes stale (and it does... has happened to me a few times), that story should be VERY EASY to freshen up and re-submit (most of the time). I know a Reviewer here (whom I respect) that has patently, and ardently refused to do that very thing, even following my encouragement. That is what you call FALLING IN LOVE with your article. Good journalism IS NOT built on attitudes like that. Ours words are NOT dipped in Egyptian gold...they aren't. If you want to be a Reviewer, put in a request and let the wheels turn as they do. And: we are all volunteers here. Thank your for your thinking AND for your writing.--Bddpaux (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Agreed about the gatwicking and the "get it, write it, submit it, move on" ethic. Heavy Water (talk) 23:11, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to keep it in mind but it's very disheartening that your very first contribution was rejected not because of anything your did wrong but because there just wasn't an active reviewer. If it was my fault that the article didn't make it through I'd be more accepting of it but it is very deterring to lose an article that you invested time in due to no fault of your own. RPI2026F1 (talk) 04:35, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I actually agree with that too. It was easier for the Wikinewsies who joined in the olden days; the community operated in real-time and the standards necessary to be met for publication were low (or practically nonexistent, in the very early days), although I don't think the latter is a good thing. Every time one of my articles has expired because a reviewer didn't review it, it's been crushing. I continued because I liked writing here and I didn't want to risk the total death of the project by leaving. Heavy Water (talk) 05:06, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Wikinews Interlingual Association idea Contact

Hello. I am a senior user from Chinese Wikinews. I want to strengthen the links between the Wikinews language communities and develop an excellent citizen news platform. Does it include the possibility of setting up a Telegram group to communicate with each other? Original reports or news about different languages, and news reports of news value are published in the group, so that everyone can know and translate each other. I also hope to strengthen contacts with projects in various Wikinews languages for a long time, and even establish a Wikinews Association to help our journalists facilitate the development of our projects, which may include applying for funding from the foundation, writing reports better, including original reporting projects, for public welfare, and better. Let our news agency reporters go to other places to interview, including bonuses, travel expenses, transportation expenses, and meals? In fact, I hope that if these reporting expenses can receive a foundation subsidy, in fact, journalists may focus more on original reporting, and they should do so! I thought it might be better to open a Wikinews Association across languages. I use Chinese as my mother tongue, so there may be some mistakes in English. If you don't understand, you are welcome to communicate, especially in simple English. Thank you very much!

Original reporting is in fact what media organizations should do more, because now many journalists' associations and experts criticize everyone for doing real-time news, and I do real-time news, which results in the lack of room for public attention or news stories that should be reported in depth, so this mentality is unfavorable to the media environment and the public.

Establishing an association to help Wikinews can provide more room for the platform to be upgraded and make it more convenient for our journalists to move. The establishment of associations can further unite the community, hold activities, vigorously develop Wikinews projects, and even launch a series of reports, so that we can no longer have a single report, enhance the credibility of our media from the public, and be more popular.

Wikinews is a very suitable project for cross-language associations, because we are all doing the same thing and reporting around the world. It is one of the purposes of public broadcasting organizations to focus on diversified reports and public interest reports.Kitabc12345 (talk) 12:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea, and we could certainly use grants. Translation of pages is much more common on Wikipedia, but Wikinews projects are more separate. Most Wikinews projects only have original reporting from the country/countries that speak their language (so Russian Wikinews covers Russia, etc.), so bringing the projects together could help with global coverage. Heavy Water (talk) 16:10, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@Kitabc12345. Heavy Water (talk) 16:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, thank you very much for your comments. Kitabc12345 (talk) 17:29, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

However I don’t know how too get the grants. It is important thing but I don’t know, but I very need it in news origin story work. Kitabc12345 (talk) 17:41, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Would be delighted to communicate about it on-wiki or at IRC at #wikinews ^{live connect}

I speak Russian and English.

There is https://wmtran.toolforge.org/ tool, I find it more helpful than Wikimedia's official translate beta feature, personally. Gryllida (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@Kitabc12345: Gryllida (talk) 17:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh, IRC is great somethings too. I use UTC+8 in Hong Kong. I will go to the wikinews IRC cart room say be delighted to communicate about. Thank you very much. Kitabc12345 (talk) 17:38, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

A new writing contest

It's obvious to anyone who's been here since 2021 that we're seriously hobbled with inactivity. Since mid-2022, this has become far more serious. We lack both active reviewers and active writers. While this situation slightly improved in early January, it is still critical.

I thus propose that Wikinews resurrect the writing contest for the first time in a decade to encourage writing and reviewing. This can be structured as the 2010 and 2013 contests were (they basically had the same rules), and an informative message requesting participation can be left at the talk page of every user active in the last two years (excluding those sadly deceased, of course).

Any ideas, like when the contest should begin, would be great. If there are no major objections, I'll go ahead and create the page for it. Heavy Water (talk) 17:08, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I think this is a fine idea, but I'm not sure about timing and if there's any more or less opportune time. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

For timing, I thought: as late as February 1, perhaps as early as Friday (to account for weekend writing), and perhaps extending into the summer. Heavy Water (talk) 18:39, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@Koavf: It looks like the 2010 and 2013 contests ran for three months each. Heavy Water (talk) 18:41, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Probably best to model this one on those if you decide to go forward. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:44, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

For all who are interested, please leave your username or make improvements at Wikinews:Writing contest 2023. Heavy Water (talk) 03:23, 26 January 2023 (UTC)