text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/1

Categories and topic pages
I've posted a proposed policy for categories, topic pages and managing latest news for pages other than the main page. Please see it at Categories and topic pages. I've updated site news too (but the sitenotice is protected, so I can't change the date last updated) -- IlyaHaykinson 10:37, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Use of IRC to set Wikinews policy
I am uncormforatable about a recent trend to rely upon chats in the Wikinews IRC channel as policy-making sessions for Wikinews. There are no written records kept of such meetings and community participation in IRC is sporadic. So in reality no true sense of a community consensus can be gotten from IRC participation. IRC is, on the other hand, a great way to quickly discuss an issue between or among a small group of folks. But as for official WN policy? I hope not. -- Davodd | Talk 00:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I think it sometimes happens that folks discuss things on IRC leading to productive results. However, if proposed policy emerges from such chat sessions, they need to be logged and archived on the site (see Wikinews/IRC_meeting_Oct_27 for an example of a log of a meeting). -- IlyaHaykinson 01:17, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I raised a big stink about setting policy on IRC on Wikipedia, as I am a big proponent of open meeting laws to force policy-makers to allow the community to participate.

 * However, the best I got out of the discussion was an invitation to hang out on IRC. :)

 * (The reasoning seems to be that IRC is open to everyone should they have the desire to lurk there.)

 * However, for those of us who have no desire to hang around in a chat room, I hope if any policy discussions are held on IRC, that someone will do the rest of us the courtesy of posting a log of that discussion (as Ilya has done above), as we need to be careful to prevent the classic small-town phenomenon of town meetings that are only held for show, where it is obvious that a discussion was held somewhere else to organize a block of votes, and the rest of the community members in attendance are left wondering why it appears that everything has already been decided everytime they bother to show up for the official town meeting.

 * I realize that there is no way to enforce this, and if you enjoy discussing Wikinews on IRC, that's your business, but I hope folks will see the wisdom of keeping any policy discussions as open as possible.

 * Regards,

 * — DV 03:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree, while IRC is a good place to talk shop, it's hardly a good place to set policy. I think that any proposed policy new should be listed here in the Water Cooler and discussed, before it's adopted. Lankiveil 03:38, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC).

 * I also agree on this. And those who discuss things on IRC should be encouraged to report the results so that others can join on Wikinews.
 * An exception, sort of, I can think of is that when there is some emergency, for example a wave of vandals or a very urgent deletion request related to privacy& stalking, it is good that administrators or whoever dealing with that decide on things based on discussions with others on IRC than act unilaterally. Tomos 03:47, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I have a major problem with the current model of policy development on Wikinews. For example, this page sucks. There are more than 80 sub-sections. Unless you are constantly patrolling (easier to do in IRC, btw), you cannot keep abreast of the policy discussions. I also have found almost no attempts to develop consensus; instead, divisive polls with, as often as not, nearly deadlocked votes, are used to enforce a "democratic" model of majority tyrany.
 * I do not have a specific solution for this problem, other than to massively cut the clutter, build a more complex but easier-to-navigate system of letting the contributors know about policy discussions. And develop consensus, not majority rules. - Amgine 06:50, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Subject categories
There are categories like Category:Politics and conflicts. But one year from now, it will be not very much interesting, I am afraid. It will become a box in which ancient and latest news sit together, mostly undistinguishable.

I want to suggest that the major subject categories that correspond to the Main page subject classification (Politics and conflicts, Sports, Culture and Entertainment, Science and technology, etc. ) have "Category:Subjectname_Monthname,_Year" format.

How do you think? Tomos 19:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Like "Category: Politics and Conflicts (December 2004)"?

 * It could work, but I can see some problems with the idea. Firstly, there are events that cover more than one month (multi-day news events like elections, battles, and revolutions), what category would they be put in?  The other problem is that at the beginning of the month, the lists would be practically empty, so a new user surfing in would probably conclude that there's not much of anything here.

 * I suppose an ideal solution would be to have a page with all the stories from, say, the last month listed, sorted by publishing date. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an automated mechanism in Wikimedia that will handle such a thing, and having to manually maintain a large number of lists with a large number of items like that would be quite a lot of work.

 * Don't get me wrong, the core of the idea is good, it just needs development. Lankiveil 02:43, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I suggest that pages (like just Politics and conflicts) should be the current events, while categories (like Category:Politics and conflicts) collect events for a month or a year and then get moved by a (not yet made) bot to a "Category:Blah (2004)". This way we can always keep pages up to date; categories are places to get a full list of stories (and in theory down the line we'll be using more specific categories). -- IlyaHaykinson 06:47, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I mostly agree with IlyaHaykinson's idea, though it may not solve problems Lankiveil pointed out.
 * For the events spanning multiple months, the only solution I can think of is to categorize some articles into multiple months. This is not an elegant solution at all, I have to admit, but doable.
 * For the problem of category looking too empty at the beginning of a month, we can simply do what we do at the date category page - to link previous & next months. (An example of date category Category:December 1, 2004).
 * Alternatively, we can use Qarterly category, like Category:Sports_(1Q2004).
 * I have a feeling that categories are mostly for production purposes, not presentation. That is, we need to categorize (index) articles mostly in order to efficiently list them at subject portal pages (like Politics and conflicts), special coverage portals (like Ukrainian political crisis). These pages are for presentation to readers.
 * I also have a feeling that newbies do not necessarily know or care about category feature & how to use it. So it is a work of non-newbie Wikinews editors.
 * These issues are probably best solved by coding like a Mediawiki feature. But what kind of feature is good? I don't know yet. I made a feature request to boolean search pages using categories. It could solve some of the issues, but not all. Tomos 08:10, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * The answer to this is quite simple if you want to have the most-recent story on top. You code the category entry as such: (or or an example:  for a story written Jan 5, 2005) - this will ALWAYS put the most recent stories at the top of the category page (and disregard the alphabetising) - of course the downside is that they all will be listed under a ">" - which may look weird until you realize that without the ">" everything will be listed under a "2." Still this is better than trying to figure out what order things happened than by mere guessing or playing "click all the stories in a category to find the most recent article" which would be maddening. -- Davodd | Talk 09:27, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a brilliant way to resolve this particular issue. Do you have an example which shows this in practice? - Amgine 19:29, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, dang. It lists them by date -- but it puts the OLDEST story on top and the newest story on bottom. Compare Category:Culture and entertainment with Category:Culture and entertainment test. Does anyone have ideas on how to resolve this? -- Davodd | Talk 01:27, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, it is logical at least. The database is ordering by character value. I don't beleive you could reorder without a modification to the sql. Which may be available... - Amgine 05:41, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Local reporting--different policies?
As we start to branch into local reporting, is there any objection to the WN communities that arise around those local areas establish their own policies that may differ from the broader WN ones?Kurt Weber 19:59, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * This could get sticky. I could see additional policies within a bureau in addition to Wikinews policies, so long as those policies do not conflict with the Wikinews policies. - Amgine

Other languages?
Does anyone else have an opinion about the posting of articles in French?

I assume these articles are posted with the best intentions.

However, if anyone can read French, please double-check the contents.

— DV 18:45, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the "en" in "en.wikinews.org" stand for English? I suggest someone knowledgable of such things start "fr.wikinews.org" for French-language news. Any volunteers?
 * Until then -- instead of a complete separate article, how about a subpage for the other language (with a link from the main article)? For example Tsunami Help/Ground Zero Information would be the English version. Then Tsunami Help/Ground Zero Information/fr would be French, Tsunami Help/Ground Zero Information/es would be Spanish. Whereas a German version could be posted on the german site (with appropriate Article name link - since de.wikinews.org exists.
 * By using the "/subpage" for as-yet-unsupported languages it may make it easier to port over archived stories when those other language wikinews sites form. -- Davodd | Talk 20:39, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I don't think that we should allow non-English-language content here. The process for setting up a wikinews site is very simple (I believe it takes 5 people to start a new language site); there is no reason to litter en.wikinews with content in languages that people here might not know. I can read French, but I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails about a story in Tamil: unable to read articles, we won't be able to ascertain their accuracy, and might end up publishing illegal, obscene, or totally inaccurate information.
 * At the same time, I think that we should continue making an exception for the Tsunami Help subpages for the time being. They are a special project in effect, and already get special treatment, as long as the disclaimers of responsibility remain. -- IlyaHaykinson 20:47, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I altered the above proposal to be Tsunami Help specific to illustrate what I mean... -- Davodd | Talk 21:20, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I like the modified idea. -- IlyaHaykinson 21:51, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Several comments. Tomos 00:37, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The subpage idea sounds fine, unless the editors and readers will not experience confusion. For that, I'd like to know opinions of some editors of those pages first.
 * I have read on the Tsunami Help mailinglist that non-English contents are being moved to social text (they offered a place for the Blog team), and had the impression that they think non-English contents are inappropriate for the English Wikinews. But there are about 200 messages posted per day to the list, and I am not a participant of the blog, so I cannot assure anything. I hope someone more knowledgeable can come in and inform the rest of us. My understanding also is that German contents are now in de.wikinews at least in part. They are also selecting a wiki, a server, & a domainname to migrate in part or in whole.
 * It is a nice gesture if they can migrate some pages to elsewhere, because this is clearly English Wikinews. But if it helps our readers to find out some critical information in other languages, hosting a bit of non-English for a limited time period would not be bad, I think. (I also expressed a similar opinion at Deletion requests).
 * I don't think it is clear for the bloggers that they can start another wiki by just 5 people. Where to request, how do they link from one language-wiki to another, what is an administrator, etc. are not so clear. But fr, nl, zh wikinews may start soon if not yet. They may be able to have a space in each wiki, if the Foundation or each community says yes.
 * Just for information here is the page to request new wikinews language edition meta:Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition.

Many policy polls still open - until Jan 20
PLease visit Polls and vote on the following topics: -- Davodd | Talk 21:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Who determined when the polls will close? Why are we doing polls instead of discussing policies? - Amgine 03:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * To answer your first question: I decided to be bold and posted ending dates on the polls. From my past experience with our sister project, Wikipedia, usually in most polls a time of about one or two weeks is given on a poll. In most of the cases of the above polls, they have been active for well over that time. I figured that a poll can't have useful results unless it closes, so I tacked on two weeks to all of the polls so we can foreseeably tally the results. If you think the polls should stay open longer (or not close) to allow us to get an more accurate result from the community, then by all means, feel free to change or remove the deadline.
 * As for polls, I don't know the "official answer" as to why we have them. But I've noticed that polls are integral to wiki projects (Wikinews started as the result of a poll: Wikinews/Vote). As for my opinion, I feel polls don't replace discussion, they are structured discussion. Also, they are useful to initiate debate and to give concrete stepping stones for policy development. As far as I know, results of wiki project polls are never carved in stone for eternity. They usually only result in lasting policy when they lead to a consensus decision. If there is no clear consensus from a poll the results make good reading, but do not become official policy - a simple majority vote does not make a consensus.
 * Lastly, if you don't like polls, you are not alone, see: Polls are evil. I believe if you feel strongly enough, you are are always entitled to ignore the results of a poll. -- Davodd | Talk 05:12, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Global and local views
Could it be stated somewhere prominently (if it isn't already) that Wikinews seeks to get a local perspective whenver possible, while concomitant to this (and interdepenent with it) aiming to prioritize items according to a global outlook? For example, the Tsunami issue, while an awful occurrence for people, is heavily on people's minds, and many are concentrating on offers of donations which is truly wonderful (trancending national boundaries and the like), but there has been a much more serious crisis affecting even more people on an entirely different order of magnitude in the Sudan which gets little attention. From what I have seen, I think http://oneworld.net offers perhaps some lessons for doing this.

If people start wanting to make focus features on cases which fascinate a particular population (e.g., O.J. Simpson or Scott Peterson, etc. in the U.S.), then how about making it a policy to shuffle that stuff off to a Tabloid sectionn or somethin like that. Likewise would I hope that tragic but grisly developments (e.g., serial killer details) could be shuffled off to their own sections and not distract the serious news viewer who wants to know what is really impacting people (admitting of course to some extent that there will be overlap). Brettz9 04:29, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines
Amgine and I created a draft for Policies and guidelines as a result of an IRC talk. Please edit & comment to reflect community consensus better. Thanks! Tomos 05:49, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for doing this. It looks wonderful so far. -- Davodd | Talk 06:00, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Should we follow WP until we have our own policies firmed up?
Since the Wikinews policies and guidelines are in flux, do you think we should just assume that applicable Wikipedia policies should apply here until there is a proper Wikinews community consensus for our own wikinews-specific policies? -- Davodd | Talk 01:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, part of the policy talks about how it mostly develops through accepted practice. I'm assuming that means we do what looks/feels right, and much of that comes from previous experiences on Wikipedia. Plus a healthy dose of common sense (IOW: the WP naming conventions don't all work here, because we aren't dealing with the same kinds of articles. Thus Naming conventions)

Editorial Workflow
What standards should be in place for editorial workflow? Granted, this is very different from a traditional newsroom, but certain things are bound to crop up. For example, how do we deal with an open factual question in an article? If a reporter writes "The website was deleted," an appropriate comment from a copy editor might be "Who deleted it?" (That's fairly common practice when resolving copy written in the passive voice.) The copy editor might be able to resolved the issue by himself/herself, but, if not, a note needs to be made on the article so that someone, either the original reporter or another informed Wikicitizen, can make the proper corrections. Ideas for how to handle this and other common copy editor tasks that might require additional input from the reporters?
 * The collaborative workflow used on Wikinews means that anyone might do any part of the process from researching to writing to fact checking to copy editing, to posting. The joke (which is how a template is inserted normally in a Wikinews article) is a way of saying "you can fix it, so go ahead and do so".
 * In your hypothetical situation, the copy editor might call up or e-mail the people responsible for the website and ask who deleted it. If that isn't an option, they might bring it up on the talk page for the article. Each article includes a talk, or discussion, page where the contents of the article can be discussed, further research planned and dissected, and improvements to the article can be hashed out by the people involved in that particular article. - Amgine 22:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I think in general copyediting collaboration should take place by a concerned copy editor raising questions on the talk pages, or in the extreme cases by using tags from Article development (such as the accuracy dispute one). An editor can leave a message on the page of the user who contributed the first (or most recent) version of the article. Additionally, an editor can list an article on Template:editor tasks as needing copyediting (attracting more attention to the article), or of course just edit the copy to remove the incomplete or inaccurate information. -- IlyaHaykinson 22:22, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Be bold in fixing errors when you see them. Also express any doubts on the talk page. As for content that is not cited or is of dubious authenticity, I suggest removing it from the article page and copying it to the talk page while noting the reason for the (temporary) removal (reason noted in both talk page and on the editor summary). It would be good Etiquette to try popping over to the contributors talk page and telling them why you made any major changes. They can always be restored later - once clarified or corrected. One of the best lessons I ever learned copyediting a daily newspaper is: "when in doubt, leave it out." -- Davodd | Talk 23:01, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Policy
I have created (well, copied from en.wikipedia) a speedy deletion policy. You can see it here: Wikinews:Speedy_Deletion_Proposal. Please let me know what you think about it. Lankiveil 07:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC).
 * Perhaps, since the proposal is so large, se should break it up into bits in a poll. Maybe starting with the most non-controversial speedy deletes - like User subpage self requests, obvious vandalism, test pages and orphaned redirects (redirects that point to a non-existant page and have no other page history). -- Davodd | Talk 19:13, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have moved the page to Policies and guidelines/Deletion guidelines/Speedy deletion [further move by - Amgine 20:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)] and moved all the discussion to the talk page. I think we should run with it until someone objects. Dan100 (Talk) 14:55, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many policy polls still open - until Jan 20
PLease visit Polls and vote on the following topics: -- Davodd | Talk 21:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Copyright Issues
i hope this is the right place. Onymous 81.217.21.244 08:38, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Links to non Wiki Images - are they okay?
 * Related to this, can we take images from Wikipedia and repost to the commons? Is it safe to assume Wikipedia images are GFDL?  It there a better tag that would link straight from Wikipedia rather than having to re-upload to the commons?MikeEdwards 03:35, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Quoted text - how much? accreditation?
 * In the U.S. the press is lucky in that it is the only profession that is named specifically in the Constitution as having guaranteed freedoms that cannot be hampered by any federal or state law. In fact, the concept of legal "fair use," the press also explicitly has protections that other endeavors do not. Specifically we may use excerpts of copyrighted material or trademarked images as long as: 1. Use of the material benefits the readers of our news, and 2. The use resulted in a better understanding or appreciation of the original work. (EX: NBC owned exclusive copyrights to the olympic games broadcasts in the U.S. -- but Non-NBC news organizations showed footage of the olympics taped off NBC without the network's permission. Since it was "news" it was legal.)
 * In your second question, citation of quotes is required in journalism. Do you have any specific examples? -- Davodd | Talk 10:28, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Now that I've had more time to think about this issue, perhaps I could offer some relevant points.

 * First of all, because Wikinews doesn't actually print anything on a "press", or broadcast in any other traditional, established medium, I'm curious where the dividing line is between what is recognized as "the press" and "just another web site".

 * For example, if I were to re-post the Wells Fargo story, along with the logo, on my personal web site, would I qualify for "fair use" rights as well? What threshold does a site, or even an individual, need to cross in order to be legally recognized as "the press"?

 * I believe that anyone should be able to become the "press" once they post their first story, in any major medium, be it print, radio, video, or online. That's the whole concept behind "citizen journalists", right? However, it would be helpful if someone with access to legal archives could point to some cases that would better illustrate where the American legal system has set this dividing line, because the servers are operated by a foundation located in the U.S.

 * However, while its interesting to speculate about what Wikinews' rights may be, the bottom line is that the Wikinews site owners (the foundation?) need professional legal advice to answer this question. If Wikinews is regarded by the legal system as no better than a glorified blog or as a mere aggregator of reports from other sites, (especially given that Wikinews has little or no original reporting of its own), the contributors on Wikinews will need to refer to a firm, qualified legal opinion that says "fair use" is OK. Otherwise, there is a serious risk of exposing the site owners to liability, for any infringements that make it onto the radar of a third party who doesn't appreciate what Wikinews is all about.

 * My two cents,

 * — DV 11:39, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * As I am only a law student, I agree that Wikinews needs to get legal advice from a lawyer. But, my years of experience in the news business has taught me that "press" does not mean you have to use a physical printing press. It deals with intent. -- Davodd | Talk 17:51, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Sources to be looked at:
 * http://profs.lp.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright_6.html
 * http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-a.html
 * http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html
 * http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-c.html
 * http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-d.html
 * -- Davodd | Talk 23:06, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * After reading this story, about Apple filing a lawsuit against AppleInsider, I wonder if Wikinews would be recognized as a legitimate news outlet, or as a blog website? It appears there is a distinction that the EFF is concerned enough about, that one of their attorneys, Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl, is quoted as saying:

 * "Bloggers break the news, just like journalists do. They must be able to promise confidentiality in order to maintain the free flow of information."

 * What is the legal difference between Wikinews and AppleInsider?

 * If there isn't one, then perhaps Wikinews needs to exercise a lot more caution until the case law is better settled on whether or not Wikinews contributors are recognized as journalists, with the legal latitude afforded that profession.

 * To phrase one of my original questions a bit differently - if I were to post the Wells Fargo story with their logo on my personal web site, does that instantly make me a journalist with fair-use rights to use the Wells Fargo logo in that context?

 * If not, why do I magically obtain those fair-use rights by posting on Wikinews instead?

 * After all, none of us are professionals - we're all volunteering our time. So as far as our actions on Wikinews go, none of us are really members of the journalistic "profession", are we?

 * If the Wikimedia foundation doesn't have the funds to hire their own lawyer to answer these questions, perhaps a lawyer at the EFF would be willing to offer an opinion?

 * I guess I'm hoping that someone can speak authoritatively on the specifics of Wikinews' legal standing, as it seems we are speculating until we are provided with qualified opinions about these matters.

 * I find it most interesting that the EFF attorney implies that AppleInsider is a blog. I thought AppleInsider was a news outlet. If they aren't recognized as such, then I'm wondering why Wikinews is any different.

 * Regards,

 * DV 10:26, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Please don't forget that just because someone is sued does not mean what they did was wrong. It just means they pissed someone off who has laywers on staff. Besides, AppleInsider is being charged with stealing documents from private property (breaking and entering) which were not freely available to the public, which is a completely different issue than fair use of information freely available in a news story. As for a journalistic "profession" - there will never be a statutory definition of what is and what is not a journalist in the United States -- because the creation of that definition would be a restriction of the freedom of the press (the government cannot pick and choose who is and who is not a journalist). The fact that we claim we are press and produce a product - pretty much makes us press. :) -- Davodd | Talk 00:11, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Source texts
Is there a policy here on source texts? I think that something like Bush inaugurated for second term speech would belong in wikisource. We could simply link to wikisource instead. This avoids duplication of effort.--Jiang 01:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Yes that should be on Wikisource. In fact you might find it already is and that this is a duplication. Christiaan 07:57, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * The article is currently a candidate on the Deletion requests. Source documents are mentioned in the deletion guidelines, and in What Wikinews is not. - Amgine 04:20, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Wikinews: What Wikinews is" and "Wikinews:Neutral point of view".
As Wikinews grows I feel that we need to establish certain core values to prevent the site becoming a free-for-all, presenting anything in any manner. To provide starting points, I have developed two new policy pages - What Wikinews is and Neutral point of view.

WWI is a basic statement of what Wikinews is about and how articles should be written. W:NPOV is a suitable adapted version of the Wikipedia NPOV policy. Objections? I think that, at some point, these could be voted upon to demonstrate community consensus. Dan100 (Talk) 13:16, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I like the concept. But, I'm not sure I agree with your thoughts that the use of the adjective "American" is inherently POV when being used to refer to U.S. nationality. The same argument can be used for the adjective "British" since people who live in the Republic of Ireland (on a British Isle) are not included in the "British" nationality. -- Davodd | Talk 11:42, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hey, they're not my thoughts :). I just copied that section wholesale from Wikipedia! Dan100 (Talk) 15:44, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I checked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOV#Anglo-American_focus and did not see what you said you copied wholesale. Since it isn't in the current WP source now and you say you didn't write it, I'll delete it from the WN article. -- Davodd | Talk 19:47, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Davodd, that's because you're looking at a version that's been edited since I copied it. Compare this with this and you'll see that they were indeed indentical. Dan100 (Talk) 17:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 *  As a U.S. citizen, the use of the term "American" to indicate exclusively U.S. citizens is annoying-to-offensive. In my experience this is more keenly felt by people from South America than Canadians and Mexicans. However, there are ways to write around it and there is no need for a "policy" about it.  - Amgine 20:02, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Originally, when the U.S. federation was formed, the concept of a federal national identity was a foreign concept to the Continental Congress. To them, "American" was anybody from the Americas. They considered themsleves to be Virginians, New Yorkers, Carolinians and so forth. I believe the first use of the word "American" as specific to being a U.S. possessive or nationality was either the government of France or of England during the Revolutionary War era. (Although I am not sure on that last point). Personally, I'm trying to figure out if I'm an American (U.S.), a Californian (California for the past seven years) or a Hoosier (lived in Indiana for my first 30 years). -- Davodd | Talk 08:12, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I added some thoughts to Wikinews talk:What Wikinews is. Please take some time to review and comment.  My position is that Wikinews won't feel as worthy a project to me as Wikipedia unless the localism issue is looked at. Stevietheman 11:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Political naming conventions
I'm not sure if this will belong in Policies and guidelines/Naming conventions, Style guide, or on a separate page, but I think we should, for the sake of setting some standards, develop a policy statement on what political terms to use and what is acceptable and not acceptable according to NPOV and accuracy, for example:
 * Burma vs. Myanmar
 * China vs. People's Republic of China vs. Mainland China vs. Communist China
 * Macedonia vs. Republic of Macedonia vs. Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
 * Ireland vs. Republic of Ireland
 * North Korea vs. DPRK, South Korea vs. ROK
 * Taiwan vs. Republic of China vs. ROC
 * "American" vs. US
 * Britain vs. United Kingdom vs. Great Britain
 * All three are technically correct, ie are interchangeable Dan100 (Talk) 18:33, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Nope, Great Britain is the island on which are the countries england, wales, and scotland. UK is the political entity of england, wales, scotland, AND northern island, and Britain should be avoided because it can refer to either, OR to the british isles (GB + northern island and the republic of island + other little islands nearby) or the old roman britain, or to the british empire. The bellman 07:17, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * whether to use somewhat contentious terms such as "terrorist", "militant", or "freedeom fighter"
 * disputed territories given different names: Diaoyutai Islands vs. Senkaku Islands
 * etc.

As the discussion at Talk:Beijing plans $242B freeway link to Taiwan shows, some of these issues are hot potato and need to be carefully worded. There are of course some issues that are best left unwritten. I would like some suggestions on where this policy should belong, so it can be proposed and discussed. --Jiang 22:44, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for bringing this up for wider discussion. I think the Policies and guidelines/Naming conventions page is a good place for it. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:45, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * No, that "naming conventions" link goes to a wiki article names guide - not the issue Jiang brought up. -- Davodd | Talk 07:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * According the to Style guide, when such ussues have not been addressed specifically by Wikinews policy or consensus. then we defer to the Wikipedia equivalent. I believe this is the most applicable WP guide for this issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Identity which states,

Identity This is perhaps one area where wikipedians' flexibility and plurality are an asset, and where one would not wish all pages to look exactly alike. Nevertheless, here are some guidelines:
 * Where known, use terminology which they themselves use for themselves (self identification).
 * Use specific terminology: Ethiopians should be described as Ethiopian, not African.
 * Though often a more general name will prove to be more neutral or more accurate. For example, a List of African-American composers is acceptable, though a List of composers of African descent may be more useful.
 * If possible, terms used to describe people should be given in such a way that they qualify other nouns. Thus, black people, not blacks; gay people, not gays; and so forth.
 * Do not assume that any one term is the most inclusive or accurate.
 * -- Davodd | Talk 08:30, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Excellent response, Davodd!
 * Of course, that does not quite address the specific use of value-laden terms, getting away from the identity question somewhat. For example, the United States government uses heavily POVed terms in their reports: "combat patrol that came under attack by anti-Iraqi forces" 1. Al Jazeera, discussing events of the same day, commented "[s]everal rebel groups in Iraq have "declared war" on Sunday's elections," 2. The usual term in the U.S. press is "insurgents" and "insurgency", while elsewhere descriptions such as Intefada, warriors, freedom fighters, towel-heads, etc.
 * What the appropriately neutral terms for any given circumstance may be depends, to an extent, on the circumstance. But we should discuss guidelines to prefer neutral, non-controversial terms. We should also *not* use the language of the combatants, but perhaps prefer the language of the non-combatants in the combat zone, where this is determinable. - Amgine 02:50, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. The core of a neutral point of view is to be neutral. That means we should avoid ad hominem and red herring types of stigmatized words where possible. -- Davodd | Talk 07:47, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, on a related note: in the article Police deactivate explosive device in Andalucía, Spain there is debate (see talk page) over whether to use the Spanish name for the province of 'Andalucía' or to used the anglicized version of the province name which is 'Andalusia'. It is my opinion that the local name should always be used where the Anglicized version is not widely known. There has been a general move in interlectual works in the english speaking world over the past 30 years or so, to use the native word (for example 50 years ago if you read a book on China it would have said 'Formosa' (a portuguese word) instead of 'Taiwan' (a latinized version of the chinese word), it would also have said 'Peking'(a very clumsy latinisation) instead of 'Beijing'(a more faithful latinisation, and prefered by the PROC). You would have to try very hard to find anyone who still uses either Formosa or Peking these days.). I think it is generaly more respectful to use as close to the origanal as the latin alphabet allows. I believe this would follow the same spirit as using british spelling on british related subjects, and US spelling on US related subjects. There is also one further point in favour of my proposal, there are sometimes more than one anglicized version of a word (Peking/Beijing). This however can quite rightly be countered with the argument that there are sometimes more than one 'native' version of a placename (esp when two cultures claim the one thing) ie. Iguaçu/Iguazu. One further argument against the proposal, is that of interwikilinks to wikipedia, however, i am yet to come across a placename that does not have a redirect from it's native spelling, so i dont think this is that important (however others might).

Finally, just to make it very clear, i am not proposing the use of Roma (instead of Rome) or Moskva (instead of Moscow). This proposal is only for uncommon placenames, the type that your average 'man on the street' is just as likely to have heard of the native placename as the anglicized version. The bellman 08:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Forming policy on IRC
I'm not keen on this. Wikipedia has policy against this for good reasons - there is no permanent record and of course only the people present have input. Of course, we don't have to do everything the same as Wikipedia (bar neutral point of view), but it would be nice if we adopted a similar stance here. I suggest that if policy is discussed on IRC (as in naturally going to happen), a summary is posted here covering the main points discussed. Further, nothing should be regarded as firm policy until it has achieved consensus here on Wikinews, where opinions and arguments are recorded for posterity. Dan100 (Talk) 20:29, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikinews also has a "policy" against forming policy on IRC. See Policies and guidelines. Although IRC is often used as a quick way to get a group opinion on things, I don't think anyone is using it to discuss setting policies. (More often it is used for "what the best word for blahblah...") - Amgine 20:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Public Domain
I think that Wikinews should stay as public domain. This way, budding, low-budget, and non-profit newsppapers can include Wikinews articles in their newspapers. --64.10.150.77 04:17, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * im also in favour of staying PD, but i dont think this is a reason, there is nothing to stop 'budding, low-budget, and non-profit newsppapers' to include CC or GFDL (IANAL, but i have been told that you do not infact have to put the whole text of the license in if you include a link, however i have also heard the oposite.), wikinews article. The bellman 08:31, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Public domain means that Wikinews will have NO control over its content whatsoever - including the ability to ask for corrections to false claims or attributions or even ask for a voluntary credit to the original author. -- Davodd | Talk 22:52, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

title: Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/1


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Category:January 11, 2005

de:Kategorie:11.01.2005 es:Categoría:11 de enero de 2005

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Category:January 11, 2005


text:
User talk:210.55.230.17

Welcome
210.55.230.17, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Davodd | Talk 05:46, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
 * And of course, stories need writing!

title: User talk:210.55.230.17


text:
User talk:Nadezhda~enwikinews

Welcome
Nadezhda, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Davodd | Talk 05:58, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Nadezhda. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Nadezhda~enwikinews that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Nadezhda~enwikinews


text:
User talk:Swsnider

Welcome
Swsnider, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Davodd | Talk 05:58, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
 * And of course, stories need writing!

title: User talk:Swsnider


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Category:January 12, 2005

de:Kategorie:12.01.2005 es:Categoría:12 de enero de 2005

title: Category:January 12, 2005


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Category:January 13, 2005

de:Kategorie:13.01.2005 es:Categoría:13 de enero de 2005 pt:Categoria:13 de Janeiro de 2005

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Category:January 21, 2005

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Category:January 22, 2005

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title: Category:January 22, 2005


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User talk:202.88.135.44

Welcome
202.88.135.44, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- IlyaHaykinson 07:31, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
 * And of course, stories need writing!

title: User talk:202.88.135.44


text:
User talk:202.144.86.147

Welcome
202.144.86.147, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Davodd | Talk 09:39, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
 * And of course, stories need writing!

title: User talk:202.144.86.147


text:
User talk:Davodd/archive 2

Please hit the + tab at the top of this page to leave me a message. -- Davodd | Talk ARCHIVE 1

More on copyright issues
I replied to your recent remarks on copyright issues, (which you posted at 23:06, 10 Jan 2005), on the Water cooler subpage. Regards, — DV 10:26, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ratcliffe's comments
Thanks for linking to Ratcliffe's blog entry, which covered a lot of ground.

I replied on the miscellaneous page over on the water cooler. Regards, — DV 11:59, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sysop status granted
Congratulations, you should now be a sysop, which gives you the ability to delete and protect pages, ban users, and quickly rollback vandalism, all in accordance with policy. Let me know if you have any questions, or if there are any problems.--Eloquence 03:31, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

WooHoo!
Congratulations, Davodd! I've asked to be desysoped since both IlyaHaykinson and you have been sysoped. Glad to see you as an admin. - Amgine 05:43, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

DoubleWooHoo
Thanks for volunteering to help administer Wikinews. — DV 07:10, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Same here, congrats and thanks for volunteering. -- IlyaHaykinson 09:41, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Awkward wording
Please double-check the last sentence in Bush nominates Chertoff for new Secretary of Homeland Security. It seems awkward in its current form (he would, "devote all my..." Judge Chertoff said).

Regards, — DV 07:45, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Family law?
Is there a chance you'll be enrolling in a class for Intellectual Property law anytime soon? Might come in handy around here. — DV 08:18, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

http://ru.wikinews.org
Have you any plans for subject(Russian version of WikiNews)? Andrew
 * You may vote to start a new-language version of wikinews here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition -- Davodd | Talk 22:41, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Policies and guidelines/Deletion guideline
Thought you might want to take a look-see? - Amgine 04:54, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Developing stories template
Seems to be causing users problems in Workspace. I've had a couple of them this morning, plus one yesterday. This is a great idea, but is it working? - Amgine 21:12, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Not entirely sure if I have a solution, but let me do a couple of tests to see if I can get something. - Amgine
 * My experiments aren't working out. I suspect the template:developing stories will have to be manually managed, unless you want to write an extension. I'm not up for it, myself. - Amgine

Help about erased pages
Thanks for taking an active interest in maintianing quality in Wikinews. I have been reverting some of your past edits. You have been blanking pages (erasing all content and saving the no-content page). This is not accepted Wikinews convention. In the future, if you do not like a page and think it should be removed, please list it here: WN:DR. -- Davodd | Talk 05:33, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * What pages are you talking about? I do not want to repeat the same mistake again. Thank you.-- Carlosar 09:03, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Potential downtime
There's a hardware upgrade about to happen (1900 UTC) which may cause a (expected to be brief) outage on wikimedia servers. Be prepared. - Amgine 20:41, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Template:welcome
Couldn't unprotect it, could you? I'd link to add a box with a message about the logo vote. Dan100 (Talk) 00:23, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Template:Hello
I noticed one of your usages of the template "Hello" was missing the final closing brace when you first tried to use it for User_talk:81.218.252.128.

Although you later manually pasted in the template expansion, the nowiki characters became corrupted in the process.

I restored the correct template expansion, but left your signature, because you were the original welcoming committee.

Cheers,

— DV 04:11, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Deletion
If you get a chance and agree, can you get rid of Largest passenger jet showcased? I don't want to process my own deletion request. Thanks. -- IlyaHaykinson 20:18, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

English Help
Since you are an English native speaker I would appreciate if you look at the article Suspects of Brazilian player mother's arrested. Thank you very much. -- Carlosar 22:18, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also see my new article: South American intellectuals support arrested FARC leader since I believe it is polemic, maybe. Thank you very much. -- Carlosar 02:58, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK to summarize existing news?
This is a bit more of a question about the overarching mission of wikinews than about simple etiquette. My goal so far when putting up requested articles has been to read, internalize the information, and summarize what I've learned, with a particular eye for facts that make the story extraordinary. This is mostly what every reporter does; however, since all of my sources (to this point, and for the foreseeable future) are secondary, I generally refrain from adding some of the more human-interest elements of a typical story, such as quotes and pictures. This, of course, is due to copyright - am I correct in assuming that these would be copyright violations?

And also, should I be looking to do more than just summarize? - McCart42 01:19, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your welcome
For a moment, I thought my talk page had been vandalized.

Then I realized I was on Wikinews, not Wikipedia. :-D JRM 00:21, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

RE: VOA copyvio
As per http://www.voanews.com/english/disclaim.cfm:

Credit for any use of VOA material should be given to voanews.com, Voice of America, or VOA, and we ask that you not abridge or edit any VOA material which you may use..

RE: VOA copyvio
As per http://www.voanews.com/english/disclaim.cfm:

 * Copyright Statement

 * Credit for any use of VOA material should be given to voanews.com, Voice of America, or VOA, and we ask that you not abridge or edit any VOA material which you may use..
 * That is if the material is represented as being an official VOA report -- and is meant for audio and video mainly. But as the text is public domain ("All text, audio and video material produced exclusively by the Voice of America is public domain."), VOA has no say whatsoever on derivative works. The Wikinews piece, is a derivative work of a public domain document. Therefore, under U.S. law, is not in violation of any copyright. -- Davodd | Talk 10:20, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

logo
Have you seen the discussion about the process on the watercooler? I'm keen to keep the ball rolling towards getting rid of our current (in my opinion) ugly logo, but I'm unclear as to where people think we should go next. I'd appreciate your input! Dan100 (Talk) 19:31, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for the friendly welcome User:Consequencefree 23:03, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why do most other language Wikinews sites have Upload?
I found an interesting difference between the various language versions of Wikinews.

Please see the comments under the water cooler proposal you added that addresses this issue.

Regards,

— DV 10:39, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NYT Magazine reporter trying to get in touch with you
Matthew Yeomans of the New York Times Magazine is writing an in-depth report about Wikinews. He's trying to get in touch with you. Could you get back to him by email? His address is matthew  mateoland com.--Eloquence 20:02, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well... you certainly start things!
argh.. anyway... there are already two comments about removing the xword, and one pm to me about it. On this matter I think you may be mistaken, but please comment about it. Did you note how many people have edited that main page, and the masthead, and this one thing has not been touched? - Amgine 22:48, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * response on amgine's page
 * I suppose we could always put it in 6-point type in the footer of the main page, too. Sorry... I'm a bit upset about this since it has been one of the very few highly successful recruitment efforts, and the back-and-forth arguing about it has cost us one contributor for sure and quite possibly Dysprosia as well. This was not, in my opinion, a disagreement worth having. - Amgine 07:17, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Well that's just silly. Of course it is a disagreement worth having. Inclusion of games in the wikinews site is expanding our mission beyond that of being a news source. No one has yet explained in any way how inclusion of a game falls within our mission statement. Should we also include word searches and anagram puzzles? Should we include stratics for other games such as bridge or ches - or even video games? If we lose contributors whose only interst in Wikinews is creating a space for games, then I do not see how it hurts our mission as a news source, since they were never creating news or developing tools for writers, anyway. -- Davodd | Talk 10:09, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * The contributor who, I believe, has left felt the admins are arbitrarily deletionist and opposed to making changes either to the content or to their personal concept of what online journalism consists of.
 * As for the content you discuss above - if someone is willing to create this content the I can only say, boldly, Wikinews is not paper. There is no specific harm in carrying this content, it does not remove news nor limit it's presentation. - Amgine 15:11, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how my actions were deletionist since I did not delete an article. I simply removed a link to a game that is consistently out of date from the Wikinews masthead. But if the community wants it there, then it should stay. (Notice I didn't revert it back out). -- Davodd | Talk 18:52, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * You added it to a box headered "Browse latest news by" but removed it from a menu bar which had no news links in it? - Amgine 07:41, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I was trying to find a place for the crossword, but as you aptly pointed out, there really is no appropriate place for it on Wikinews. So I guess the place for it is in the masthead banner. -- Davodd | Talk 10:09, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * If you look closely, most mastheads include brief tables of contents to their sections. The A&E section generally gets prominent billing, often simply "Comics". - Amgine 15:11, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * If you look closely, those same publications also have classified ads, display ads, how-to columns, movie reviews, horoscopes, recipies, original reporting, advice columns and the like. As you implied above, Wikinews is not (news)paper. -- Davodd | Talk 18:52, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

More copyright questions

 * 1) Who owns the copyright to a translation of a work; the translator, or the copyright holder of the original source material?
 * 2) Is CC-by-sa compatible with PD? My gut feeling is no - we could not publish an article en masse which was published under CC-by-sa because we cannot guarantee re-users would insist their products be share-alike. (This was my justification for deleting the Google story, which was an exact copy of the contributors blog entry, licensed under CC-by-sa.)

I'm confused by the many variations of licensure... - Amgine 21:42, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Translations - whether to another language (German to English) or another form of media (Print to Wiki markup)are considered derivative works of the original. This means the original (source material) copyright holder's claim transfers with the translation.
 * CC-by-sa is not compatible with PD - since release to PD means that no credit must be given and no restrictions of use can be enforced on material copied from a PD source.
 * Basically, PD means no license or copyrights of any kind are reserved -- the submitter releases claim to any rights and gives up all control of or credit for the work. Putting content with any licensing or credit requirements into PD would be a violation of that license. -- Davodd | Talk 22:26, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

WooHoo!
Thanx Davodd! I've never been called a pita quite so politely! - Amgine 06:43, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Front page layout
Very effective! Such a simple idea yet no-one had thought of it; the main page is much better! Thank you. Dan100 (Talk) 07:41, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Main page header
Can't say I like your test; it looks very squashed and busy - lots of little blue links all very close. Sorry! Dan100 (Talk) 10:45, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You must have read my mind
I was going to ask you to undelete it but didn't have time this morning. Thank you. Dan100 (Talk) 19:33, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

yeah, good call
yeah, i didnt think much of the questions either, esp considering the current size of the wiki. Everyone still knows everyone else, so having a set of questions seems a bit silly. The bellman 02:38, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Questions for admins
Davodd, I simply like to know why someone wants adminship and how they intend to use it before I vote on their candadicy. I respectfully ask you to stop removing them. Dan100 (Talk) 21:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * That type of personal conversation belongs on a user talk page, not a voting list. -- Davodd | Talk 21:47, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You pinged?
- Amgine 03:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for the welcome, this now gives me another wiki project to work on. --[[User:Boothy443 | comhrÚ]] 02:33, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That last IP
Was mass link-spamming, and I have banned it. - Amgine 03:45, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * I hope you realize I was just giving you an FYI... Just realized how brusque I sounded. - Amgine 05:37, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Main page
It used to be perfectly straightforward to put on article on the front page. Now it is well nigh impossible, and I cannot figure hoe to get my new article Proposal to ban VoIP in Costa Rica onto the front page. Why is it now so difficult. HELP! --Squeakfox 16:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Davodd/archive 2


text:
Category talk:January 11, 2005

בתאילנד זוהתה גופתה של מרי פוליטי שנסחפה לים לפני 15 ימים.כזכור,בעלה דוד שרד את הצונאמי כאשר הצליח להאחז אך מרי,לצערנו נסחפה.

title: Category talk:January 11, 2005


text:
Mamdouh Habib to be released from Guantanamo Bay without charge

January 11, 2005

Australian Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, has announced that the US is not charging Australian Mamdouh Habib and plans to release him from Guantanamo Bay, after three years of detention. Mr Habib, accused of aiding al Qaeda by the US, was unlikely to be charged over the accusation upon returning to Australia.

Recently enacted Australian laws could not be applied retroactively, according to Mr Ruddock, quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday. "Those terrorism offences are not retrospective and therefore cannot apply to Mr Habib's alleged activities and associations prior to his capture," he said.

Australian ABC Radio programme AM reported last week of fresh allegations that Egyptian born Australian, Mr Habib was inappropriately photographed in the presence of an Australian Government official, and describing bizarre and intricate tortures it is claimed he was subjected to, which he says caused him to make admissions he now regrets.

Mr Habib's US lawyer Joe Margulies, says in a News Ltd article, that Habib received electric shocks and was beaten, kicked and subjected to water torture while imprisoned in Pakistan and Egypt, and was further tortured in the presence of US and Australian officials at Guantanamo Bay.

According to Philip Ruddock, "It remains the strong view of the United States that, based on information available to it Mr Habib had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks on or before the 11th of September, 2001. Mr Habib has acknowledged he spent time in Afghanistan, and others there at the time claimed he trained with al-Qaeda.

"We have requested the United States authorities to inform Mr Habib of their decision not to prosecute him and of the agreement to repatriate him to Australia."

David Hicks, now the only Australian detained at Guantanamo Bay, will face trial by a military commission in March on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy and aiding the enemy, according to a second Sydney Morning Herald article.


text:
User:Sannse

w:en:User:Sannse

title: User:Sannse


text:
User talk:Sannse

AFAIK IRC logs are public domain, please revert. Onymous 81.217.21.244 13:27, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * The channels #Wikipedia and #Wikimedia have a policy of no public logging. It is also polite to ask permission from those involved before quoting them publically.  -- Sannse 13:29, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Please cite a source for this policy. If your answer is "Jimbo says so", that's OK - he's the ultimate authority, but otherwise it seems strange that prominent Wikipedia contributors making comments in a publically available forum have an expectation of privacy.
 * . HTH, Kate.
 * If folks want to make a stink about this, I'm sure Wikinews will abide by their wishes, but I find invoking "copyright" to suppress reporting on this story rather odd, coming from such prominent proponents of a GFDL project.

 * (And after reading the log, it seems rather counter-productive to raise a stink about this anyways.)

 * Regards,

 * — DV 14:18, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IRC_channels lists #wikimedia as one of the channels that is not to be publicly logged. Although the more carefully explicit prohibition on logging on that page only refers to #wikipedia, there has always been an understanding that the same applied on #wikimedia (and the other channels listed as no logging in the table). It was a mistake not to make this more explicit, and one that I will correct shortly. My own comments relate to the social norms of that channel and basic politeness in not publishing logs without permission rather than copyright - I don't have Jamesday's knowledge of the intricacies of copyright law. I'm sure Jimbo will be willing to make his own views clear on this when he is around -- Sannse 14:40, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the clarification.

 * It's our loss if the page is blanked, as it isn't often we get a chance to gain some insight into the thinking of this project's founder and other prominent contributors.

 * I respect the legalistic and ethical arguments, but I was hoping that the benefit of this log would allow the authors to put aside their objections for the benefit of Wikinews.

 * The strong nature of the request, invoking copyright, wiretapping laws, etc., just seems a bit overkill, when a simple request without invoking all of those threatening terms would have been enough.

 * If there is something embarrasing or otherwise offensive in the log (I don't see anything) I could better understand this request.

 * I hope James and you don't have hard feelings towards Onymous over this.

 * Thanks for stopping by Wikinews.

 * — DV 14:44, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * My request was a simple one, I have only minimal knowledge of the copyright side of this. I certainly don't have any hard feelings here and, of course, this is a lot less about the actual content of this conversation than the whole question of publishing logs from the channels -- Sannse 17:48, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks for patiently trying to clarify what is going with this deletion request. I hope the next time you visit Wikinews, it will be under more pleasant circumstances. — DV 17:56, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sannse


text:
User talk:Jamesday~enwikinews

Sorry you objected so strongly to something that appeared on Wikinews.

I hope you will reconsider your objections in light of my comments on the notes talk page.

Regards,

— DV 14:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Hopefully the next time you visit Wikinews it will be under more pleasant circumstances.

 * Wikinews isn't visited by prominent Wikipedians very often.

 * — DV 17:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Jamesday. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Jamesday~enwikinews that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:32, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jamesday~enwikinews


text:
Jobs unveils new products after cloud of secrecy and lawsuits

January 11, 2005

After months of secrecy and lawsuits intended to suppress reporting on unannounced products by independent news outlets, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, began his keynote address at 17:11 UTC this morning, before an enthusiastic audience.

The keynote, held at Moscone Center in San Francisco as part of the annual Macworld Expo, began with a recap of Apple's retail progress over the past year, media coverage, and a demo of the new Spotlight search technology in the upcoming Mac OS X Tiger, which was announced at the previous 2004 event.

Jobs then made a number of product announcements as he continued his demonstrations:

 * Mail is revamped to include high-speed Spotlight search support.
 * QuickTime 7, a new release with H.264 codec support for future DVD formats, will be included with Tiger.
 * Dashboard will provide miniaturized applications, or "widgets", for controlling iTunes, performing currency conversion, obtaining stock quotes, looking at the weather, and more. Developers will be able to create new widgets using the developer APIs provided by Apple.
 * iChat, Apple's A/V conferencing tool, will provide support for 10 simultaneous participants over an audio-only feed, and four simultaneous participants over a video feed.

 * iLife '05 is a major upgrade with major new versions of three of its included applications:
 * iPhoto 5 now supports MPEG-4 and RAW photo format (for increased control over color fidelity and filtering).
 * iMovie HD now supports video in the High-Definition (HD) format.
 * iDVD 5 now supports both DVD-R and DVD+R.
 * GarageBand 2 upgraded to record up to 8 tracks of audio simultaneously, with "real-time music notation", a new "loop authoring tool", "vocal transformation filters" and other features from Apple's higher-end Logic audio tool.

 * Final Cut Express HD to ship in February.

 * iWork '05 suite:
 * Keynote 2 has new features for animation and self-running kiosks.
 * Pages is a new word processor with PDF support and Apple designed templates.

 * Mac mini is a new $499 "headless", small form-factor Macintosh with no monitor, no keyboard, nor a mouse. Dimensions were given as "6.5 inches wide and 2 inches tall". 1.25GHz G4 CPU, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard disk, FireWire, USB, modem and Ethernet. Upgraded unit with 1.42GHz G4 CPU and 80GB disk for $599. Scheduled to ship Jan. 22.

Jobs then made his final announcement, in his trademark "One More Thing" style:
 * iPod shuffle is a $99, miniature version of the iPod with 512MB of flash memory. $149 for the 1GB version. Shipping today.

Jobs then exited as music artist John Mayer began his live entertainment act.


text:
User talk:Tlarson~enwikinews

Welcome
Tlarson, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( ~~~~ ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! -- Davodd | Talk 18:11, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
 * Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced
 * Introduction - overview of the site
 * Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
 * Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
 * Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
 * The front page lead articles often need updating
 * Developing stories need finishing and publishing
 * Discussions need your input
 * Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Are you going to put that article up?
It sounded fabulous, and I was just checking for sources... - Amgine 03:30, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wrong link to citation
The link at the bottom of the article, "Taiwan’s Blue Camp pays respects on the thirtieth anniversary of the passing of Chiang Kai-shek" is for a completely different story, "Syria Promises Lebanon Withdrawal by April 30" from The New York Times.

I searched on the Voice of America web site, and could not find the cited article.

Is there a link to this story?

It sounds somewhat plausible, but as it stands this story does not have any citations to back it up.

I was only able to find a historical and an indirect piece for the background of this story:

 * Chiang planned to take action to reclaim lost lands
 * PFP CHAIRMAN VOWS TO COMMUNICATE WITH PRESIDENT ON CROSS-STRAIT TIES

If there is only a link to a page written in Chinese, that would help - I can ask someone to read it for me to at least verify its contents. — DV 08:36, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Tlarson. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Tlarson~enwikinews that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:36, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:38, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Tlarson~enwikinews


text:
Bush nominates Chertoff for new Secretary of Homeland Security

January 11, 2005

U.S. President George W. Bush nominated Federal Judge Michael Chertoff as the next Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Secretary Tom Ridge who plans to step down Feb. 1.

Judge Chertoff has been approved by the Senate on three previous occasions and is currently a U.S. Appeals Court judge in Philadelphia. He is considered a "safe" candidate, likely to pass Senate scrutiny, a key characteristic after the White House's previous candidate, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, withdrew after personal information was made public.

At the time of the September 11 attacks, Judge Chertoff was in the Justice Department and became involved as one of the architects of the Patriot act.

If confirmed Chertoff vowed his primary focus as Secretary to be, "promoting our homeland security and, as important, to preserving our fundamental liberties."


text:
Talk:Abbas wins election, offers Israel 'hand of peace'

Can I just say that I love how this article has turned out? My stub was a bit lame, but people have added some nice extra details and references, plus a handy little map. A real model for how WN will work, I think. Dan100


text:
Third case of BSE reported in Canada

January 11, 2005

Another confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease") was reported today to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The infected cow was found in the province of Alberta, where two previous cases of BSE have been reported in the past year. The cow itself was born in March of 1998, mere months after a ban placed by the CFIA to stop the use of any feed which might contain any "specified risk material"-- material that is known to carry the BSE agent. The cow's origin is still unknown.

The CFIA is now in control of the carcass and makes clear that no part of the cow has entered the food supply.

A team of experts from the United States have been sent to re-evaluate the situation and to make recommendations about reopening the U.S. border. The border was closed to beef exports after the first incident of BSE was reported in Canada. The closure continues to cause major problems for Canadian beef farmers who depended on the United States beef market.

title: Third case of BSE reported in Canada


text:
User:Messup~enwikinews

I'll add more later when I have more time, however I live in Toronto, Ontario in Canada, and I love my country. I know we screw up beyond repair sometimes, but hey - that's life.

My first article: 3rd case of BSE reported in Canada Experience: someone was editing when I was writing, which meant that ... I sorta got freaked, if even that? I mean... [boggled]

title: User:Messup~enwikinews


text:
User talk:Messup~enwikinews

Welcome to Wikinews
Sorry, this is a great article you've started, and we work together on articles generally... So you probably had an "Edit conflict" when I started adding sources... Jump in with both feet! And thanks for starting the article! - Amgine 00:17, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Messup. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Messup~enwikinews that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:18, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Messup~enwikinews


text:
User talk:Amgine/Archive1

Earliest messages
Thanks for the quick response to this issue. I fear that since so many revisions are affected, that the article still may have to go through the delete process. You may want to conisider re-starting your project at a new Wikinews namespace - perhaps something like "Special Report: 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami" to both clarify the intent of your article and to mitigate the anonymous c&p vandalism. - Davodd | Talk 21:54, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the IRC conversation on this and the quick resolution. Davodd | Talk 22:36, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I think that it's in the best interests of Wikinews to not include a date in the article title -— especially not one that looks like a large number. Given the fact that the software tracks dates, and that we can easily categorize articles into the appropriate date category, it would be much cleaner to have titles that simply state what the news is. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:55, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying. While you are right that "President addresses congress" might happen many times, that is actually a headline that we should never have — it does not tell anything new. In my opinion the headlines should always be unique because if they weren't, it wouldn't be news that we should be reporting. At times conflicts will happen, and it is at that time that we might want to either change the headline to be unique, or add a day, or year, or whatnot.
 * The problem with the YYMMDD format is that it is undecipherable to most people who see the number (which does show up in the headline), and it's not the current wikinews policy. While I personally don't think always putting dates in the titles is a good idea, if you believe that it is worth doing then you should probably try to build consensus via a posting on the water cooler or the style page, or by creating a poll. -- IlyaHaykinson 08:04, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * For the current revision of the content guidelines see Writing_an_article, as well as style guide and content guide. Those are of course not set in stone, but I think there is some amount of consensus on those at this point in time. I urge you to voice your opinion on the talk pages, and possibly get a poll going to decide this if you still disagree after reviewing those guidelines. -- IlyaHaykinson 11:20, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your wonderful templates
Thanks for helping in the process of creating Wikinews guidelines, how-tos and policies for editors and reporters. Looking at your template skills today, I was wondering if you'd be willing to create a variation with dummy text in it that we could use in one of the user guides. This could be particularly useful for people experimenting with Wikibureaus so they could use them as a starting point. The most recent experiments in the area are rather lacking -- despite the probable future need for localized bureaus. Examples: ( Indiana and Texas) -- Davodd | Talk 08:25, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working on it. I've browsed your sandbox and it looks very good even in initial stages. -- Davodd | Talk 11:43, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

copy-paste case
Hi. I owe many thanks to many things as we collaborated rather intensively, please so allow me not to start listing all those here ;-). I just noticed that you made a comment on Administrators regarding Davodd's self-nomination.

Personally I am not yet supporting him (simply waiting a little more to understand him better), but I thought perhaps your concern there was successfully addressed?

I also wanted to get your opinion, if there is any, on Deletion_requests. I am now thinking that perhaps people do not know about this much, but it is possible to delete specific revisions with Mediawiki 1.4. To do that, an admin will delete a whole page (all revisions) first and restore selected revisions. Tomos 08:00, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your mailing list post
Regarding the main page, there is an effort to rework it going on now: Main_Page/Sandbox and I believe Main_Page/Sandbox2 and Main_Page/Sandbox3 as well, plus a wide version and something else.

Regarding the organization of the water cooler- I really don't think this is where we can help people keep organize, although I agree, a Policies and Guidelines page is a good idea (I actually think we have one somewhere, I'll try to see if I can't find it and link it more promentiatly). Otherwise, I tend to think of the water cooler as the place for people to ask questions- and not ness. somewhere to look things up. Lyellin 16:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Some replies- Firstly, the mailing list is there because some people communicate that way, and use it. I subscribe, but I wanted to provide some wikilinks to you, so I choose to reply here, instead of on the list. Personal preference, not some large scale policy, just what I felt like doing at the time.

 * I agree, the wikipedia page provides a specific purpose. But I question our need or want to become a clone of wikipedia in that regard. We really do not have that many things going on that we need 6 pages for the pump... we just don't have that much discussion yet. On the same token, if someone feels like doing all of that, I won't object- I just don't think it's needed as of you.

 * with regards to the FAQ, I agree, but since many things are still in decision making mode, and not set policy, some of that is premature- and we also have things like the Style guide that serve much of the same purpose, for wikinews specific issues. Those "most questions" you talk about- I believe they are answerable on the water cooler now. I don't see the issue.

 * On the issues of Policy. Please see polls, linked on the recent changes page. There we are discussing policy. There are other examples of this. Again, I agree, there is no central clearing house like a policy and guideline page, but I don't see the utter chaos that you seem to; I see a group making it's mark, just as slowly as any other wiki. We will not be up to WP speed and level of organization just out of the blue- it will take time, just like WP has. If you think we need more policies, or policies about policies, please post on those pages, or start your own, regarding what policies you think we need. Lyellin 20:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * You may also want to try Help:Contents, another page, and Welcome. Lyellin 20:30, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wanna help create the WN community page?
I've started creating a Wikinews commmunity page called The Newsroom and from your recent mail list post, I thought you would, 1. want to know what I'm doing... and 2. add links to some of the Water Cooler reorg pages you are making in one of the sections. Feel free to mess around in it or boldy edit to your heart's content. -- Davodd | Talk 06:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I just want to make sure I get the correct links to the right Water Cooler sections after you are done -- to be complimentary with each other. (and not have dead links) -- Davodd | Talk 07:31, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Water cooler sections
Thanks for pointing out your "sections" design. I like it.

I don't think anyone is so attached to the existing water cooler design that we need Yet Another Poll before your new design can be implemented.

If you want to migrate the existing water cooler page design to the new one you are proposing, I will move the subpages I just created into the appropriate section pages once the new page design is ready to use.

Thanks.

— DV 04:36, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * You know, I look at that "200,000 ROYALTY FREE IMAGES" box sitting on the shelf everytime I stop in Fry's and I always ask myself, "why would I ever need that?"

 * Unfortunately, Fry's closes in 10 minutes, so I won't be able to run out and buy it, return home, and triumphantly provide you with a water cooler icon. :)

 * But seriously, if you can't find anything on the Commons or on Google, and you're not artistically inclined enough to draw one yourself, please let me know and I will draw one in Illustrator and post it in the Commons.

 * — DV 04:56, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * You're hosting the image on your own site before you got permission to use it? If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. :)

 * While you can do what you want on your own site, you may come to regret having Wikinews using your bandwidth to serve that image.

 * If you really want to use that image as a long-term solution, you need to be specific with the owner to get a GFDL or PD license with no extra usage restrictions, so the image can be posted in Commons. Wikinews isn't like Wikipedia - it has stricter licensing that requires unmodified GFDL or PD-style licenses - no fair use or non-commercial licenses are allowed on Commons, because that repository is compatible with use by other sites which may use the images for commercial purposes under the GFDL license.

 * — DV 06:59, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I should clarify that text on Wikinews appears to be in the public domain for now.

 * But Wikinews images aren't hosted on Wikinews - they're hosted on Commons, which has its own licensing. — DV 07:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Minor edits to Water cooler
As a heads up -- I did some minor edits to the watercooler - I changed your (subpages) to /subpages - this allows an automated wiki code to kick in-- inserting a BACK PAGE function to allow people to more easily return to the Water Cooler. Second, I categorized it. Comments are on the Talk page. -- Davodd | Talk 10:20, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Activating the "backpage" feature of wiki code is rather simple once you understand it's only a matter of choosing the correct name for the file - for example:
 * Mainpage/subpage will point back to Mainpage
 * whereas Mainpage subpage OR Mainpage (subpage) will NOT point back to Mainpage
 * Hope that helps. -- Davodd | Talk 18:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I understand the concept, now how do I use it? ? - Amgine 18:07, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I apologize for being unclear or if you felt insulted by my use of the word "understand" in the previous post. When you name a page with this format: Mainpage/subpage, Wiki automatically inserts the backpage function - no additional code is necessary. I just figured out this trick a couple of days ago, understanding the little features of wiki (which constantly change as new updates are released) - including the subpage naming structure, seems to be a continual process for all of us. :-) -- Davodd | Talk 22:31, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I use the MonoBook (default) skin. -- Davodd | Talk 22:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I only "moved" the Water cooler (policy) to Water cooler/policy - which automatically inserted " < Wikinews:Water cooler " directly under the main subpage name. The name of the article does it automatically. (It's all in that slash) -- Davodd | Talk 23:13, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * This feature is a relatively new addition in one of the more recent versions of Wiki software. For existing, long-lived pages like the Wikipedia Water Cooler, the pages haven't been converted to this system yet. But others in Wikipedia have. A further benefit to this is that in the instance of a random page (or Google-type search engine) redirect to a subpage, the user can be directed back to the parent article -- which may not be readily apparant if the subpage is stumbled upon. As for "wikinewsie" -- it was used on Wiki IRC chat a few times and I thought it was cute, although I prefer wikireporter, myself. -- Davodd | Talk 18:54, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IPs and Jimbo
Yeah, I'm aware of the Jimbo CNET Q&A -- and logged them in Making news. I knew the Q&A was coming out within the next few days (a friend of mine works at CNET as an editor) Hence my request last night for admins to clean up some of the speedy delete requests - to pick up some of our mess for when the guests "come a-callin." As for dynamic vs. static IP addresses, I understand I'm shooting in the dark. But following a similar wikipedia policy of welcoming all IPs with red talk pages, the hope is to either catch them as they continue to browse, or hope you got someone with a static IP. -- Davodd | Talk 19:22, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * To clarify .. it's an established practice at WP - not a "codified policy" - but in wiki generally accepted or established practies and policies are the same, really, since virtually no policy is ever set in stone. -- Davodd | Talk

Good Job in the Policy page
In case you didn't read my comments elswhere: I think you've done a great job on the WN policies page - very clear and easy to understand. I don't think we can stress enough that current "policies" are guidelines [not laws] and are constantly evolving. I linked it to the Category:Wikinews page last night. -- Davodd | Talk 19:58, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Amgine/Archive1