Wikinews talk:Research Desk

IRC bot NewsWire

We have a news ticker on IRC, but you don't visit there anymore. You should come back to look at it. TheCustomOfLife - (talk) 19:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

News ticker? Wha choo talkin' bout? --David Shankbone - (talk) 00:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You'd know if you went to chat. :) TheCustomOfLife - (talk) 09:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

NewsWire is an IRC bot that can be made to subscribe to any RSS or atom feed from a news site and will post the latest stories as it finds them. This is actually faster than checking Google news which I believe runs with a half-hour delay on posting new material. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

http://www.breakingnews.com/ is also a good source for breaking news. I find that they are usually very fast at posting information. Alexschrank (talk) 02:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting

I really like this idea...the links are mostly ones that are perfect for what we do. Excellent Idea! DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

i agree. good idea :) Jacques Divol - (talk) 20:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I love this page! It makes me want to search for something to write for Wikinews. ;-) Cbrown1023 talk 23:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Inauguration of the Research Desk

I wanted to create a page where people could go to find original raw news, but also look for news ideas. I gave thought to where people could go to find press releases, or find a different perspective, or could go to find data to include in their articles. This is, by no means, a complete list. I did not want it to be overwhelming, though, but a place for high-quality links - few, but they pack punches. I also tried to incorporate our portals, to show where stories could go, mixed with links to our policies and guidelines, will help conceptualize the site more to new users. For all of us who want to write something, or are bored, and just want to explore what's out there, there are plenty of places to get lost. Lastly, I wanted this to be a place where some basic reporter information could be found, such as photography rights, and publishing rights in English-speaking countries. This page is open to be played with. I think it's a good place to direct people when they are staring out as a place to get ideas of what sorts of things they can write about. --David Shankbone - (talk) 22:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Page Hit Counter has February Results Live

We are pleased to announced that the Wikipedia page hit counter is found on the research desk under Wikimedia tools, on the right-hand column. I noticed that only starting today it had February numbers live. Go here to see Wikinews Wikipedia page hits. Whereas Wikinews was referenced 14456 in the month of January, it has been referenced 18003 in February for the first three weeks. There are also improvements to the tool, such as not needing to re-enter the search month and search topic every time. --David Shankbone - (talk) 05:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You do realize that means pretty much nothing. I highly doubt there is any useful correlation between hits at the article on wikinews, and hits at wikinews. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think it is only useful in looking to see how many people are curious enough about us to try and find an NPOV source of information on us, that's all. I think it's merely interesting; the main point of this thread was to alert everyone to the February Wikipedia page hit figures going live. --David Shankbone - (talk) 15:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikileaks Research Alert: NPR Story about Wikileaks falls flat

Somehow this seems like a rare NPR story that approaches its subject with little understanding of the complex issue. It somehow slaps together the guy who coined the phrase Streisand effect with the recent Wikileaks legal wranglings. Worth listening to because it sounds like hollow reporting forcing together two separate stories; it's doomed by scant understanding of the wiki movement and what it portends for the future, not what it means today. Not to say it can't be examined, but our own site feels totally different than it did six months ago...am I the only one who thinks we have culturally shifted somehow, made a leap forward in the last six months, gradual yet significant? When AzaToth introduced his new design, it was like, "Of course!" and we all were on board and all worked on it. I would like to moderate some of my earlier statements criticizing us for not progressing; I think I just did not witness how our organic growth is powerful, but not always perceptible. --David Shankbone - (talk) 09:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe we now have original reporting every day (or nearly every day). The front page has been vastly improved, and if you go look at it now there's already a good number of stories up for today. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

We are also taken seriously, evidenced by how we are finding interesting stories that are relevant (e.g Anonymous protest) but under-reported, and we also have had two different organizations look at our site and decide we were worth spending thousands of Euros to fly one of our reporters around the world, on junkets alongside Businessweek, Slate.com, USA Today, et. al. When Sandy returns from her Wikibreak in March, we will begin working on PR. I think we are moving in the right direction; although I still think we should undergo some integral soul-searching about "What is citizen journalism" "How NPOV and original reporting seemingly contradict each other" and "How do we expand our readership and contributor base, and "Planning for growth and how we will adapt the site (e.g. layout) if we succeed in our goals." We should have a plan waiting to implement if we find ourselves suddenly overwhelmed with contributors and readers. For instance, what if suddenly 5 stories a day were business, five were Australia-related, and 7 were entertainment-focused, mixed with a variety of other topics, such as sports. Our current layout would be impossible to maintain, and we should consider developing a multi-dimension site like CNN with the portals taking more responsibility for presenting content. Things we need to discuss; perhaps via teleconference at Wikimania. --David Shankbone - (talk) 10:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

RSS feeds

Someone please add some info on using RSS... I dunno how ;-) but I notice even governments now have RSS feeds of their press releases ... maybe wikinews could even have a built-in aggregator? I'm trying to figure out hwo to get historical data out of these types of feeds, and it looks like there is no way unless you were already aggregating them, so this function (or a link to an external clearing house, wikimedia?) would be great. Simeon (talk) 07:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)