User talk:Eloquence

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Revision as of 22:41, 15 May 2005 by Amgine (talk | contribs) (You are in violation of policy.)
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I will respond to messages on this page. Please check your contributions list ("My contributions") for responses. If there is a response, your edit is no longer the "top" edit in the list.

Unlike other users don't archive Talk pages since old revisions are automatically archived anyway - if you want to access previous comments use the "Page history" function. But I keep a log of the removals.

Index pages

I have explained the sense. The point is that Mediawiki does not handle "what links here" properly for interwiki links. I suggest that you undelete these pages until consensus has been reached on how we are going to handle this problem. Anthony DiPierro 15:25, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I suppose using categories until this problem is resolved is acceptable in the cases of the two deleted pages. Anthony DiPierro 15:29, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Apologies for being hasty. My problem is with pages whose purpose is not clear to the first time viewer, i.e. which contain only an interwiki link and nothing else. I have no problem with index pages per se.--Eloquence

I saw your comment on Anthony's page - it would seem to me that national pages are indeed useful - a main page for regional news. Categories serve their purpose, but this isn't a good use for them. Ambi 23:10, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Eloquence, thanks for choosing my logo for the Wikinews demo. There seems to be a problem with the navigation bar on the left; the logo disappears and reappears whenever the mouse pointer enters or leaves the logo area. It seems to reload the image every time. See p-logo portlet class. Can you fix this? --Neitram 13:29, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

P.S.: It may be browser dependent, so FYI this problem exists; I'm using MSIE 6.0 on XP. It does not happen with any of the other Wikimedia project logos, only with the Wikinews demo. --Neitram 12:13, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've heard of problems with logos under IE6 before. I have to admit that I only consider the current logo temporary, so I haven't really looked into the issue yet. I'll ask on the #mediawiki IRC channel if anyone knows a solution.--Eloquence
This seems to be a problem on Wikiquote as well, with no clear solution. I suggest adding a comment to http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=634 .--Eloquence

Please don't use the sitenotice for polls and such

I object to the use of the sitenotice for policy polls. It is inappropriate for you as a sysop to put polls that you wish to emphasize in such a prominent position when others can not. Jimbo Wales 01:42, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's unprotected now. It should probably be protected again when we have a few more sysops though - the first applications have already come in (ironically because the administrator page was announced as a site notice).--Eloquence
Are you sure it is unprotected? I can't edit it. I want to change it to update the status from "not officially approved or launched" which is 2 weeks (or more?) out of date at this point. Jimbo Wales 13:45, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ack, I forgot that you can't actually unprotect MediaWiki: system messages properly (even though the UI indicates that you can) - the protection is hardcoded to prevent vandalism. I can make you an admin, of course, but it would probably be better to go through Wikinews:Administrators first. What exactly should I put in the notice for now? I was under the impression that only the demo had been approved, not the project itself.--Eloquence 14:09, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Please go ahead and make me an admin. That portion of the sitemessage can just go away. "Please not that although this is a demonstration wiki, is is fully functional and will be moved away from demo.wikinews.org to a permanent url very soon." When that move will take place is an interesting question: I would prefer it to be right this instant, but I can imagine that there are good reasons we might want to wait until the site has grown a bit more. The main thing is that the sitenotice should not lead people to think that it isn't time to get to work.--Jimbo Wales 16:59, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Like this? You should be able to edit it yourself now.--Eloquence
Cool. But the change you made to it is great.

Jimbo's changes

What are your thoughts, as founder of the project, on all these radical changes Jimbo's been making? Ambi 03:45, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, first of all, I don't have any special role in this project, nor does Jimbo. If you are unhappy with any of his edits, you can revert them, and ask him to justify them on the discussion page. If there is no consensus, we can hold a poll, as we currently do on Wikinews:Review process poll. From what I see right now, Jimmy wants a very open, chaotic process during the early stage of the project at least, like for Wikipedia. I have some doubts that this is a good idea, and I also think it puts the Foundation in a rather risky position, legally speaking. But I'd really like to talk to Jimmy about what specifically he has in mind, both short term and long term, before making a qualified judgment. It's quite possible that he sees something I do not - after all, he's been longer at this wiki thing than I have.--Eloquence
I just want us to take it really slow with policy, and I tried to make changes to reflect that. I should make this clear: I think that the policies are quite wise and thoughtful, as is everything that Erik does, it's just that I think we should not assume them as a default. Rather, we should stay loose and try to run the site on trust for a little while, and start "locking down" a review process after we better understand the parameters.
Also, I'm interested in -- whatever we do -- keeping the main page vibrant. Jimbo Wales 19:55, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please delete my edit

I would be grateful if you would delete evidence of all four edits made by me this evening (if you are able to do so) on the news article Record_computer_outage_at_UK_government_department. The material is sensitive and may be confidential and, although I thought it should be made freely available, I was dismayed to see that (although I had logged in under the User Name below) my postings were somehow attributed to my IP address, which is now visible for anyone to see. Many thanks. Dissenter 22:12, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You're no longer in the history now.--Eloquence
Thanks for doing that -- I appreciate you going to the trouble. The question of why it happened in the first place -- after I had created the account and w:User_name of Dissenter and understood that I was logged in, is a mystery to me -- perhaps I ought to raise it at the Water Cooler. Cheers Dissenter 23:06, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

broken search facility

The Mediawiki search facility seems to have been broken from the start. This site needs it. --merriam 10:46, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thought you might want to take a look-see? - Amgine 04:54, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[de.wikinews.org]

G'day,

In the little box on the left side of the screen that advertises wikinewses in other languages, there are two listings for de. There are also two listings for en on de. I have looked at all the other sites, and none of them hame the same prob. Also on a side note; i think that consensus has been reached on Wikinews:Administrators that Amgine should become an admin. The bellman 12:09, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Favicon

Was it you who gave us one? Thanks. However, I think it would be nice if we could have one based on our logo, rather than Wikipedia's, so I created . Dan100 (Talk) 13:30, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey, it might be 'a bit boring' :p, but at least it would differentiate from Wikipedia tabs when a user has a number of both WN and WP tabs open (I personally find the identical favicons quite troublesome), and it's a pity we're still using a WP cast-off. Why not upload it for now unti we get something better? Dan100 (Talk) 11:18, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Submit a story

I've replied on the SaS Talk page. Dan100 (Talk) 01:41, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Concerns

Amgine blanked both my talk page and the Workspace talk page, whilst also making a personal attack, apparently to 'prove a point'.

Those actions would've earned him a ban on Wikipedia. Afaik we're applying WP rules here until we write our own.

They're also far below the standards of behaviour expected of an Admin. Dan100 (Talk) 11:09, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Template mess

Yes, I had explained to him that new users do copy and paste their new articles into sections which have [edit] tags, then I gave him an example on the work space talk page ([1], he apparently didn't get it: "Dan100> It appears you've broken the talk page", so I reverted it [2]).

As you may be aware, Dan100 has a history of making bold changes, and not considering the effects of his changes since they are made (imo) for his personal convenience. This is, again imo, the reason for the argument about the section edits. So, to give a further example of why convenience can be harmful, I copy-pasted a message to him about a template he moved without cleaning up after - http://tinyurl.com/6xcvc - over his message page. Pretty much exactly what happened in the developing stories template and has happened on several occasions in the Editor tasks template when the section edits are active in Workspace.

I realize I should apologize to Dan100 because I "Broke [Wikinews] to make a point", but I'm getting a little tired of his thoughtlessness. (I eventually had to clean up after him regarding the template because he did not do so himself.) - Amgine 15:52, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Hey, another personal attack, right here on your Talk page, Eloquence. I strongly object to my changes being called "thoughtless" and "for my own personal convience". I always make a point of explaining why I make any such changes on the relevant Talk pages.
Despite much prompting Amgine could never produce any evidence of the vandalism on Editor's tasks he so describes. Certainly I could not, upon going back through its History.
The so-called "template mess" did not exist; upon checking the templates Amgine said I'd "broken", no such thing had happened. But even if they had been "broken", in some cases I could not have fixed them as Amgine had already protected some articles with no community consensus to do so. Dan100 (Talk) 09:43, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

We gonna get paid?! :)

Have you seen this? "The Wiki people are talking about how, if the project is successful, the organization could, perhaps, hire its own research staff and its own, paid editors. Perhaps from the Associated Press?", from the latest addition to Wikinews:In the news. Any truth in it? Dan100 (Talk) 09:37, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, in the original proposal I wrote that this is something we may want to think about in the future, but it's still very vague, and would open up many concerns regarding its effects on our incentive system. Maybe in a year or so we can talk about that kind of stuff seriously.--Eloquence 00:03, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Could you look this over?

I feel quite concerned at the deletion of the original Google to host Wikipedia article. I do not believe it was a copy-vio as the material was provided by the copyright holder, who in submitting the work agreed to relicense it as public domain. As it says at the bottom of the editing page, "PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!". At least that's my take, I could be wrong. Could you take a look at Talk:Google plans to help Wikipedia? Dan100 (Talk) 10:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry it's come to this

But after Amgine removed my vote on the Adminship page, I submit to you that Amgine should no longer have admin status due his abuse of the privileges it gives. Dan100 (Talk) 21:34, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My request has nothing to do with the edit war; it's all about removing my vote. That's unacceptable. Maybe if Amgine did have admin powers such 'mistakes' (such as blanking talk pages) would occur less frequently. Such behaviour doesn't set a good example for other admins. Dan100 (Talk) 12:56, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Dan, I see no evidence that this was intentional. He even put your questions back in place after I asked him to do so. I'm very sympathetic to your concerns, but as far as I can see, admin status has nothing to do with this whole issue.--Eloquence 16:34, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Administrators for Wikinews Portuguese Edition

I am not finding any administrator for the Wikinews pages at the Portuguese Edition. Some pages at the Portuguese Edition need to be corrected and I think only the administrators can do that(example:the nav bar at the left side). Are there some administrator for the Portuguese Edition? What should we do? We are almost finishing the translation. Thank you.--Carlosar 01:31, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You can get temporary administrator status from a steward (try Angela or Mav, Anthere will be on vacation for a couple of weeks). For permanent access, please create a nomination procedure for bureaucrats (sysop-makers) and admins similar to Wikinews:Administrators.--Eloquence 03:05, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

LanguageRo.php

Hi Eloquence, thanks for everything you've done for the Romanian Wikimedia projects. There were no problems with the change you made to the .php file, since no new changes were made to the ro.wiki messages in the last 9 days. There is a problem though - all of the customisations don't seem to appear even though they are part of the actual MediaWiki:Monobook.css. And we were having a poll on it up until February 20, even though it was only about changing fonts from Arial to Verdana. You told me that "Until then, lots of MediaWiki messages will have to be changed." - now that you've changed the .php file, does this still have to happen. I'm going to apply for sysop soon anyway and then have "an election" for sysops - there are some great contributors over at Ro.wikinews already (having 5 new articles a day in the first few days is something that seldom happens at the Romanian Wikimedia projects :) And another thing - the Romanian Wikinews now has a Submit a story service at Scrie un articol, could you please place this on the Wikinews portal. I will be promoting the site to Romanian blogs, which are now having more and more influence. It would be great to get as many people to contribute. Overall, just have to say that Wikinews is great. Thanks again for coming up with the idea :) Cheers, Ronline 09:34, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Added the portal link. I'm not sure I understand your other problem - which changes in the Monobook.css are not taking effect? Note that the new LanguageRo.php includes some default settings for the CSS. Also note that you'll have to clear your browser cache after any change to the stylesheets.--Eloquence 03:00, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Admin

Thanks! If you notice me making bad calls, please warn me.CGorman 15:57, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Your report

Hi Erik, I just read your latest report sent to the mailing list. This is the first time I've read about Wikinews in any detail, and it sounds like a great project. I'm a Wikipedia editor and have journalistic experience so I'm going to try my hand at Wikinews. Thanks for sending out such a detailed and interesting summary of what you're all doing. Best, SlimVirgin 14:10, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey Erik, just read your state of the wiki report - absolutely enthralling - a joy to read. Thanks for putting in the effort to write it. CGorman 15:07, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, it was quite a bit of work and it's nice to know that some people have read it :-).--Eloquence

Tagline

"BETA" is so techie. Can't we have a more normal-person-friendly way of saying the same thing? Perhaps something like "Project in Testing". -- IlyaHaykinson 00:18, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BETA is what Jimbo wants for now. Best talk to him directly, I can't approve any alternative text myself.--Eloquence 00:22, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ok, email sent to list. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:48, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Administrator status

Well, it's time for me to focus on other projects for a while, so I'd like to have my administrator status removed. I will not have time to provide the support to Wikinews that the job requires, and I've accomplished the initial goals I had set for myself as an administrator.

Let's scrap deletion requests

I'm proposing that we scrap deletion requests, and I'd appreciate your input! Dan100 (Talk) 11:32, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cuban propaganda?

Please, take a look at Wikinews Spanish. --Carlosar 05:11, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It seems the problem was a vandall, already resolved by Amgine. Thank you, anyway.--Carlosar 05:49, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Writing contest question and suggestion

I have a question about the prize funds, and I have made a suggestion to make sure the writing contest eventually ends with a winner. — DV 07:38, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is this a first?

The Taiwanese news outlet Taipei Times is offering a new feature which places extensive Wikipedia links throughout an article:

When you first reach an article from their front page, they have a link in the upper-right hand corner labeled "Wikipedia":

when you click the link, you are taken to a marked-up version of the page with numerous Wikipedia links:

It's interesting that they chose to link to the English Wikipedia instead of the Chinese version, but that's probably because of the better coverage in English.

Anyways, if this is a first, perhaps it's worth a story, but I thought I would check with you first. — DV 13:36, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's interesting, though something similar has already been implemented as a proxy (the site is currently down, it used to be here).--Eloquence 20:34, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Judging

Erik, i've a commitment next week which will probably result in me, justifiably, being knocked out of the Writing Contest. I don't mind too much - as you proably know I write an article virtually ever day regardless. Anyways my point is, i'd like to offer my assistance as a judge. Only thing though - do you mind me judging since i've been a participant in the competition and since it has already started? I doubt these things matter so I will start helping with keeping the log up to date immediately. However if you feel its not fair to have me judging prior oppenents; just tell me to stop (being a judge).

While im at it, I just wish to congratulate you on the intial idea. The writing contest has resulted in a huge growth in stories and activity, its proably one of the best ideas so far for wikinews. Oh, and im looking forward to your next State of the Wiki! Im sure it will show massive growth ;) CGorman 20:09, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your help with the log (please carefully look at the timestamp of the contribution), and I hope you continue writing when you are able to. Thanks for the comments regarding the contest; it will be interesting to see how long we can keep it going.--Eloquence 20:33, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It will be interesting to see how long we can keep it going - Yes indeed, it is a bit early to celebrate - but none the less any boost in article numbers - short term or otherwise - is a good thing. CGorman 21:23, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Custom Wikinews skin being made

See the post here.

What I was wondering is, if I finish this will you implement it? --Noclip 02:11, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea. However, a completely separate skin would need substantial justification, since we would have to keep it up-to-date with MediaWiki feature additions and usability work. Please also keep in mind that Wikinews is multilingual, so all strings have to be internationalizable. I encourage you to finish the skin and submit it to the contest; if it does win, we'll make sure it goes live if there are no issues with it.--Eloquence 02:27, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I could keep it up to date, no problem. I haven't tested any languages other than English yet, but they should work. I'm wondering, do you (Wikimedia) have a test Wiki somewhere where I would be able to upload it and test it (instead of on a completely unrelated Wiki) -- Noclip 16:55, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I want my adminship!

I've decided that, seeing as I should have been granted admin status fair and square under the terms of process, I want them :) Dan100 (Talk) 09:43, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep the vote open for a while, and perhaps you can try to resolve your differences with DV and Davodd in the meantime.--Eloquence 11:00, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh come on, the process is seven days, not a month! Other admin votes have been just the seven days. Are you really now bending your own rules?! That is very unfair and most unlike you. I might well want to vote against other admins nominations now if their votes were still open, but that's not how the system works. Dan100 (Talk) 12:42, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Original reporting barnstar

Thanks. I shall pass it down to my children as a cherished family heirloom.

I might rent Soylent Green over the weekend just to celebrate.

DV 14:20, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contest updates today

No problem - I was actually in the middle of the task as you posted! It should be up to date in 2/3 minutes. → CGorman (Talk) 21:17, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Trophy

I, CGorman, hereby award Eloquence the Wikinews Trophy for his long term work on Wikinews and for instigating the Writing Contest.

You deserve it! → CGorman (Talk) 21:59, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Whee, thanks :-). --Eloquence 18:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NowPublic launches

Thought you may be interested in this: http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/?p=865

It really illustrates the software disadvantage Wikinews has. -- Davodd | Talk 08:27, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Have you looked at NowPublic.com? I have rarely seen a more horribly designed website. It doesn't even work without Flash enabled, the whole site seems to be a big mess of confusing boxes, you can't do anything without being logged in (and get "Access denied" messages if you try), and the amount of collaboration on stories appears to be minimal. It looks like yet another project with too much funding and too few qualified planners to me.--Eloquence 17:59, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

State of the Wiki

In your next (don't feel under pressure!) State of the Wiki, take a good look at Wikinews:Awareness statistics, i've created a new section detailing how many proper news articles are written each month and what the change was on last month, theres also a graph which i'll try to keep up to date. → CGorman (Talk) 16:49, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's quite cool, I'll be sure to mention it (target date for the next SOTW is April 26). Erik Zachte also wants to include Wikinews in the next Wikistats run, which should provide us with a lot more data.--Eloquence 18:22, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That time of the year again

This is a form letter that I am putting on the talk page of every admin: As you may know, we are approaching April 1. In many cultures, this is a time for pranksters to pull w:April Fools jokes on others. Because of the ease of editing, wiki projects tend to fall prey to these types of pranks rather easily. Let this be a reminder to us all to keep a special lookout for hoaxes, rampant fiction and other random acts of content vandalism between now and April 2. Good luck, and hopefully not too much damage will be done. -- Davodd | Talk 06:59, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stats

Great, i'll have alook at them later today. → CGorman (Talk) 11:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Leftovers

On the Wikinews:Administrators page, the sentence, "The first condition will go away as Wikinews matures and accumulates a history of its own." no longer makes sense, because you removed the first condition, "You've been involved with Wikimedia projects for some amount of time".

The new implication is that the condition of "You've done work on Wikinews" will go away.

Perhaps you intended to remove the "first condition will go away" sentence as well? — DV 12:38, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's right, thanks!--Eloquence 12:52, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews:Story preparation

Seeing how well preparations have gone for the Pope story, i've created Wikinews:Story preparation. Instead of users preparing stories on their own computers and saving them on their own hard drives, they can place them here to allow other writers to add to them before the event. This will help eliminate duel coverage of the same story - Teeks99 had spent some time yesterday evening writing a Pope story - but did'nt load it onto wikinews resulting in his version being made redundent. Hopefully by allowing users to collaborate on a story from an earlier date, our article quality will be dramatically improved. → CGorman (Talk) 15:11, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good idea, the German Wikinews has been using something similar for a while at de:Wikinews:Glaskugel.--Eloquence 16:49, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Writing Contest

On April 1 the total number of stories directly resulting from the Writing Contest hit 100. That means somewhere around 7-8% (just doing rough math in my head) of all articles on Wikinews resulted from it! Thanks again for creating it, it was a fantastic idea. → CGorman (Talk) 22:32, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. It would be much appreciated if you could keep an eye on prolific new contributors, and invite them to join the contest (see the example message I sent to Alan).--Eloquence 12:34, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Another little figure

I know im obsessed with our growth! Anyways today we hit 2000 registered users. → CGorman (Talk) 14:32, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's quite nice. On a related note, can I get you interested in Wikinews:Story propagation? It would be especially cool to get a tech story on Slashdot -- that could greatly increase our numbers of contributors with relatively little effort (do note, however, that Slashdot is very picky: 99% of submissions get rejected).--Eloquence 12:34, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking of this today, i'll give it a try someday when I think of it. I've noticed all slashdot submissions from Wikinews so far have been rejected... so it'll have to be a very good article to make it worthwhile. → CGorman (Talk) 20:21, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I will make it a personal mission to get a story on Slashdot. Pingswept 04:30, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An honor

I would very much enjoy both the spirit and the competition of this contest. I thank you for the chance to enter. Two articles a day will be a challenge, but I know all of us work hard to produce a news product here, and I will as well. Thank you again, Eloquence. (Alan) --HiFlyer 02:39, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. You are now officially a contestant. Your first two submissions should be in the April 4 timeslot (measured by your local timezone). Your article debt begins at 14. You can write as many articles as you want on a single day to reduce it, but the minimum is two. Best of luck in the contest!--Eloquence 12:28, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Name change

G'day, i remember reading somewhere that it is possible to change one's user name but retain all your history. However i vaugely remember that dev access or something is required. Do you know the details? i ask because, with a mind to doing some OR somewhere down the track, i think a user name like R J Shannon, is more appropriate than The bellman. Thanks. ~The bellman | Smile 05:17, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The page is at m:Changing username, but it's "out of order", probably because, due to the somewhat weird structure of the database, changing a username requires going through all old versions of all pages (and signatures in talk pages will still not be changed). My suggestion would be to set your realname as a "nickname" in your user preferences instead. It will then be used in signatures instead of "The bellman" from now on.--Eloquence 12:18, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)


The evidence tells a different story re Simeon

Eric, if you look at the talk page connected to the story in question, Simeon writes a copy of a letter he is planning to send...and if you look at the time on the letter it is four hours before he pasted over my story. I doubt he was too surprised by the dup. I think he has a problem with the truth. --HiFlyer 15:29, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alan, please provide hyperlinks to specific pages. You are clearly getting some confusion from a) multiple timezones b) me migrating material from my newer story to your story from the day before. - Simeon 16:06, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
We are in the same time zone, amigo. UTC. Look at the time of your response to my note above. Tell the truth, simeon. And the truth shall set thee free. --HiFlyer 16:29, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, Alan, then you are simply wrong. If you won't provide links to where you say this evidence is then I am not going to dig for it. It's 2.30 am here, and well past my bedtime. I think I've entertained you for long enough. See you later. - Simeon 16:32, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Alan, all signatures are timestamped with UTC. Simeon is in Australia.--Eloquence 17:12, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Eric, that was Simeon's defense: He didn't know because we are in different time zones, two or three posts above this one. But the proof he is lying is (and I hate to use the word lying...but)emailed the American Psychiatric Association <press at psych.org> for alternative viewpoint comment, chance to respond to claims in the Uni of Pennsylvania news release. - Simeon 04:55, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC) at 0455 UTC he was leaving messages to me on a talk page that had been posted nearly 10 hours before.

I agree he is in another time zone, but not that time zones are a defense when we both time stamp with UTC. Simeon has to come clean on this whole issue, Eric. It was wrong, he owes everyone an apology and I deserve to have the article reverted.

Now I have other articles to write for the contest and I leave this to the community to decide. (Alan) --HiFlyer 19:02, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alan, look I don't know the explanation. The page you linked doesn't show any timestamps - it's the discussion page. Content including times mentioned on this page can be manually edited, and copy-and-pasted, which did happen at least once. I suspect you are looking at a timestamp I copied from where I originally posted the copy of the email I sent, on the discussion page of the duplicate article I wrote. When copied-and-pasted, the original timestamp is preserved - for two reasons, one being that the server can't distinguish the timestamp text as 'special', it just copies it literally, second being that sometimes this is what we want to do, which in this case, is what I wanted to do.
But it's not really clear to me. You need to provide the urls that show the two conflicting timestamps on history pages, not in text on content pages. If you don't know what I mean or how to do that, I take that as an indication that you don't really understand the timestamping mechanism enough to level an accusation like this. (Afterthought - perhaps working around #REDIRECT is also a mystery to you .. Amgine has been kind enough to remove the #REDIRECT from my original story, so that is one less confusion for us to negotiate. - Simeon 03:29, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC))
But I'm happy to try to help you understand what you are observing, since I know I didn't act in the way you say you think I acted.
Eloquence also knows this, because as he explained, it was he who pointed out that my article was a duplicate, and it was at his request that I merged the two articles (although I probably would have done that anyway once I knew of the duplication).
If you think I did this deliberately, I think you must have a motive in mind. I would be interested to know what it is.
You can see that I duplicated a different article a few days ago as well, one about a helicopter crash.
Try using the universal 'recent changes' page to explore the order of events. Everything on that page appears in linear order as far as I know, perhaps not included would be deleted work (I don't know either way). - Simeon 03:17, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Here are a list of pages that I can find which are assocated with the articles, and which show machine-generated, unalterable timestamps. Perhaps from these you can tell me the edit times of the edits which you think provide evidence of malice on my part. :: - Simeon 03:29, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC) and amended later with more potentially-evidential pages - Simeon 03:37, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC).


and, lastly, there is no 'deserve to have the article reverted'. You can perform reverts yourself, but people may re-revert them after you. The consensus position is approached by iteration, and the aim is to preserve the content which is 'best', not some particluar users version, or the version approved by some particular user. I wonder if the 'freezing' of articles after some time (I don't know how long it is) is contributing to a perception of 'ownership' here... but that's a discussion for another place. - Simeon 03:32, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See also

DPL announcement

I'll get something together tonight or tomorrow, and will announce on wikinews-l. <forgot to do this> - Amgine 06:02, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I didn't do an 'announcement' as I couldn't figure out where to do it. I don't think everyone reads the Water cooler or the mailing list. I was kinda hoping that it would just filter into people's understanding... The one thing which could do with being highlighted, I feel, is that editors need to include the categories used in the Main Page index box on their stories as well as their own categories, in order for their stories to show up on DPL'd sub-pages. Dan100 (Talk) 09:23, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Column

I have a column I've been working on (starting and stopping, as you can see by the dates). Can I put it on the list or are there any limitations as of yet? I think I can sustain it now, although I did abandon it in February for a while. I was busy... and besides, now I will have more interest (more use of Wikinews now) so I can probably get more comments and ideas from the public. Thanks. Cap'n Refsmmat 22:46, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please do give it a try - just try to keep the opinion level low.--Eloquence 00:18, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Done. I hope you like the column.
Any suggestions on how to get a large audience? Thanks. Cap'n Refsmmat 15:25, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Oh yes, do you think columns ought to be in the Index box on the front page, or should we wait until there are more? Cap'n Refsmmat 17:48, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, perhaps bring it up on Talk:Main Page? I'd have no strong objections, though I'd like to see a few more postings from you first.--Eloquence 17:50, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to go at around one every day, so I don't run out of ideas (rather than going all at once). Currently I'm getting articles from New Scientist, Popular Science, and Discover, although my philosophy of only writing the ones that are interesting or funny means that I don't have many. I'll be doing more this week. Cap'n Refsmmat 00:50, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sounds good. Apologies for being brief - lots of things happening as always :-). I really believe experiments like that are what drives the site forward, so you have my full support in going ahead with this.--Eloquence 03:14, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm not getting much responce on the main page discussion or in the water cooler. I'll bring it up on IRC to see what the people think there as well. Cap'n Refsmmat 20:15, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A challenge for you

Very clever message you left on Diodesign talk page! → CGorman (Talk) 17:47, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Great news for WikiMedia is probably vandalism

This is the second or third recreation of an article saying CNN is going Wiki, never developed. - Amgine 18:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Disclaimers

I noticed that the disclaimers link at the bottom of all pages links to nothing. I've copied Wikipedia's set of disclaimers, changing "Wikipedia" to "Wikinews", fixing up the otherwise incorrect hyperlinks, and removing Wikipedia-specific content and GFDL references. I think that it might be wise to protect these articles as soon as possible. Uncle G 23:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Categories

This message is being given to several people, so please forgive the formality.

I've created a list of categories that must be included in ALL articles to ensure the DPL system works correctly. Adding the revlevent categories from this list will ensure complete site-wide relevent article listing. It is located at User:CGorman/Categories and you can easily cut & paste out of it. I urge frequent writers to bookmark this page to help save themselves time with categorization. Thanks for your attention. → CGorman (Talk) 19:38, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

We want to change the logo to , but uploading is disabled, can you upload the image to wiki.png? Excuse me for the English and thank-you. --Thom 10:38, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Should be done now - make sure to clean your cache.--Eloquence 04:03, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. . .

Eloquence, really sorry it took me this long to get back to you. As you can see by my performance so far, it's not even possible for me to be competitive in the contest. But I'm really flattered that you asked. Good luck in all your WN endeavours! BTW, how did you like SA? Where precisely did you go? Isn't it one of the most amazing countries in the world, from the standpoint of geography/natural beauty? ~ Dpr 03:01, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

We mostly saw one building in SA, namely the one where the conference took place :-(. The wealthy urban regions in Pretoria are certainly beautiful, as is the countryside, though the economic apartheid is visible everywhere.--Eloquence 10:06, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Original reporting.

Hi.

In Portuguese Wikinews, original reporting has started. However we have doubts about the best way to do original reporting. The main doubts are about how to manage reliability and how to create a fact checking system that works.

Should we accept original reporting from everyone or just from those who participate in the community for a minimum time? In this case, how to determine who can do original reporting ?

Do you anticipate any serious problems, once we start having original reporting?

Can original reporting cover any subject?

Can facts be investigated or checked trough e-mail? And by phone?

What we are asking is that you share original reporting experiences of English Wikinews and how do you handle it today.

We already know the page Wikinews:Original reporting, and the category.

Best regards --OsvaldoGago 18:45, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Can I help you any more with this beyond what we discussed on IRC?--Eloquence 04:24, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Till end of April

Greetings from sunny Houston, Eloquence, home of the Lap-Dance Law! Pingswept and Simeon have both agreed to split the prizes. How 'bout they split 1/2 and I take the other half!
But really, there are three winners here and I am honored to be among them. If someone can do the math and divvy it all up (I will yield my share of G-mail invites since I have amassed a few of them already on my own) then I think we should continue thru the end of the month, one article a day as we have been doing. If one of us bows out before then, so be it. If we all survive, we split. --HiFlyer 15:23, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pingswept's offer

I accept Pingswept's division of goodies, and would write one a day through the end of the month. Competition has been fun, but it's time to congratulate each other for a good job and wind down, IMO. --HiFlyer 14:27, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This page was last modified 08:27, 25 Apr 2005. All content of the Wikinews Beta is in the public domain.

rc

G'day,

Could you edit the Recent Changes page to have a link to wikimania a la the wikipedia rc page. There was something else i was going to say as well but i cant for the life of me remember now. Damnit. Oh well. ~The bellman | Smile 14:06, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Done. Will you come?--Eloquence 04:26, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I was hoping to, but it now looks like i cant. :( ~The bellman | Smile 11:20, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While your around Erik,

Last Fridays edition of The Economist magazine had a major story about the future of journalism, intrigingly it mentioned wikipedia.org in very favourably terms but did not mention us. This provides an excellent chance to write a letter to the editor about Wikinews. I am asking a few people to do this before thursday afternoon (5/6pm) in the belief that if they receive several letters about wikinews, they will publish at least one. I have already sent a letter (email). The Economist sells on average 1 million copies a week - thats a lot of readers, so this is worth our while.

It might be worth setting up a little page for coordinating media responses, something like m:Responses_to_the_press.

To do:

  • Read the article (or at least the relevent part) at: Click here
  • Write a short email in the form:
Sir -
(your text),
(Your name)
(your town and country)
(space)
(Your postal address)
  • Send it to letters@economist.com
  • Delete this message.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, this is just a request, not a demand, don't feel underpressure. (p.s. don't quote our article count, as i've already done that and it would look suspicious if they received several similier emails on the same day). → CGorman (Talk) 22:16, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

==Urgent! Your attention and input is needed regarding a crucial issue facing wikinews.== Please go to the water cooler policy discussion at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#creating_.2F_deleting_dispute_flag_templates

Please participate in this discussion,regardless of your opinion. Paulrevere2005 12:59, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

New RSS feed feature

Do you know who is developing this and where I can contact them? It used to list entries by the time the category was added, but now it's listing by time of last edit, which is useless for us. Dan100 (Talk) 09:29, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've responded on my talk page, 'cuz that's where the discussion is. - Amgine/talk 18:59, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your insightful comments on this issue. I replied on Amgine's user talk page. — DV 08:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Putting this here where it'll be safe in case it gets deleted and I get blocked again before you see it

Just shows how paranoid I'm getting.I'm afraid to say anything now; but will put this on the water cooler policy section, and if it gets in there, you can just delete this copy.thanks

DV and Hi-Flyer left + Administrative Abuse

I have tried to hash this out on the talk pages.It hasn't worked; and besides, I think we need to discuss the policies(and their abuse) which were misapplied on this policy talk page. I think we are losing good people and that these policy abuses(imo) are a partial cause of it. None of us are getting paid here and the most important thing,imo, is that we all feel welcome. I have made considerable contributions just in the past 8 days to four different articles; Wal-Mart closes down unionized store, U.S. Navy finds soldier shot wounded Iraqi at Fallujah in self defense, President Bush faces some tough questioning,and 2005 Afghan opium harvest begins...

yet I have been put on the vandalism page; even though the page clearly states;"Vandalism is doing willful damage to Wikinews articles"; which noone has ever even accused me of doing.

The insulting discourse about me there even includes references to anonymous slurs; "It should be noted that only Paulrevere2005 has been noted by name by external journalists as a problem on Wikinews". I feel like someone headed for the McCarthy committee hearings.

Then yesterday I was blocked for something that is not shown as a blockable event and was,infact,just an honest mistake. 23:01, 7 May 2005, Amgine blocked Paulrevere2005 (expires 23:01, 8 May 2005) (contribs) (Repeated abuse of system - recreating article which is disputed, redating)

I was blocked right when I was in the middle of trying to rewrite the Pope article (AFTER the delete request was withdrawn and when it had NO DISPUTE TAG on it) with a new source I had found.I had NPOVed the title and mistakenly ended up with 2 similar titles because I thought Pontiff should be capitalized and was trying to move the page ,and the talk,to the new title; I got a bit messed up with that; but good grief, I'm not stupid enough to try to push extra copies of that story past Amgine and Dan. Besides, the admimistartive status letter that goes out says; Administrators "cannot ban users except in cases of obvious vandalism or excessive edit warring." and this event was neither.

Some administrators need to be reminded that we were all given the following invitation to join wikinews;

"What we want from YOU! We want you to write articles for Wikinews that: You find interesting: If it's of interest of you, it will be interesting to many other people! You feel isn't getting adequate coverage: Do you know of an issue that has been forgotten or is getting enough attention in the rest of the press? Here's your chance to tell the world! If its important to you: The news you write can be about a global event or what's happening in your local town - we don't mind! "

May we please get back to the spirit and letter of that invitation?

DV was clear about his feelings over the past few months. He blamed NPOV largely, but perhaps NPOV is not the problem.

In my opinion, we have 1 or 2 administrators who are enforcing their own pov about what is acceptable on the rest of us and are flagrantly breaking the Wiki rules in the process.

And its not just me !! that they are making feel unwelcome.

Note this exchange earlier today;please research the way the editors of this story were treated "Soldiers sue U.S. government over 'stop-loss' policy"

"This is your first warning for removing a dispute tag without consensus. - Amgine/talk 06:08, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Once again, the article was abandonded in an unfinished state. It was never finished, and therefore was never "frozen." And spare me your B.S. warnings. You don't get to take a side and be a mod, so get another mod to "warn" me. Your warnings will be ignored, especially when you have basically threatened to keep putting this up for deletion until it finally goes through. - TalkHard 07:51, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


While arguing they care about the wikinews platform, some are showing little caring for how the people here are being treated. Paulrevere2005 02:18, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bureaucrat's attention

Please read the first sentence; the words "as a criminal" stick out. I hate to be the one to mention this; but I feel compelled to do so.

"Simeon edits from Australia, a continent populated entirely by criminals! And, as a criminal he would expect that we would not trust him, so obviously we cannot drink from the glass in front of us..."- Amgine/talk 03:54, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Talk:President_Bush_marks_end_of_WWII%3B_reports_circulate_his_Grandfather_helped_Hitler

Paulrevere2005 12:25, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you're still on...

Could use some more input on fair use in #wikinews-en right now... - Amgine/talk 03:44, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You are in violation of policy.

I do not have time dispute you, and will not. Your articles have already been sited by anons for their POV, and by myself. Perhaps you feel you are above the community's guidelines, but I do not. I will return later. - Amgine/talk 22:41, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]