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Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/6

Wikinews:Audio Wikinews. Again.
We've got people writing their own script, recording it, then posting in on the front page all by themselves. This is totally unacceptable, and has to stop. If they want to put it on their own website, fine, but this is Wikinews. Dan100 (Talk) 2 July 2005 20:11 (UTC)
 * The scripts are fully editable, and you can help edit them if you really want to see them edited. NGerda July 3, 2005 08:18 (UTC)

That's not what's happening though - people are writing their own scripts then recording it themselves. What's the point in editing the script when it's already been recorded? Dan100 (Talk) 3 July 2005 12:57 (UTC)
 * Since it's open to edit, it's just fine and I guarandamnteeya that the contributions there will increase dramatically as time goes by. Paulrevere2005 3 July 2005 11:59 (UTC)
 * If you have a problem with it, edit the script and rerecord it yourself. -- NGerda July 3, 2005 23:52 (UTC)

?! Why should I have to? That's just a little bit more work than changing some text in a page... Dan100 (Talk) 4 July 2005 09:00 (UTC)
 * My point is, if you or anyone else wants to be involved in this project as a community member, you are more than free to contribute in any way, this is a wiki. -- NGerda July 4, 2005 09:02 (UTC)

Except I have no recording facilities. How do you suggest I contribute? Dan100 (Talk) 4 July 2005 11:50 (UTC)
 * Edit scripts, comment on recorded material, and re-edit recorded material. NGerda July 4, 2005 11:53 (UTC)

Hmm... "From the studios of Robinson Telephone Company in Arlington, Virginia..." - isn't it a bit of self-advertising? Anyway, the whole idea is to write a brief as a subpage of an article (e.g. Article name/Brief, and then include them all in one transcript before getting recorded. --Dcabrilo 4 July 2005 22:17 (UTC)
 * I dislike the fact that we even announce who is doing the recording, it is kind of unfair to everyone else who works on Wikinews. We do not list everyone who works on a story on the story page, so we should not list who worked in the recording. Keep this to the audio Wikinews page and out of the actual audio. --Cspurrier 4 July 2005 22:50 (UTC)
 * True, especially if we aim to have several people recording the same brief/report. --Dcabrilo 4 July 2005 23:26 (UTC)

and re-edit recorded material - as I said, I do not have the facilities. Editing scripts after they've been read out is a little pointless. Dan100 (Talk) 5 July 2005 11:31 (UTC)
 * Dan, if you knew the definition of re-edit, possibly you'd understand. All that re-edit means is to edit the already recorded material. -- NGerda July 5, 2005 22:32 (UTC)

All the "facilities" you need are Audacity (a free sound recording program), a computer, and a $10 microphone. --Munchkinguy 6 July 2005 17:08 (UTC)
 * And a soundcard and speakers and at least 'desktop category' CPU power. You'd probably also need a broadband internet connection to do anything meaningful with pre-recorded material. (bearing in mind wikinews itself can be edited using a set-top dial-up box.
 * So can Audio Wikinews. We have voicemail set up where users can read off a script.  Besides, with Wikinews you need a compliant browser, which singles out a population still.  Saying some people don't have resources to doesn't mean they necessarily have enough resources to update WN either.  --Mrmiscellanious 17:53, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

These audio-reports actually seem rather out of place on wikinews due to the fact that they seem to at best 'sensationalise' what is supposedly NPOV reporting with fancy 'jingles' and sometimes over-excited inflections in the reporters voice. The scripting often wavers into editorial as well. I'd have to agree with Dan100 that they would benefit from having their own independent website but I wouldn't complain about someone linking to them from an article foot. --Pvtparts 08:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. But the main problem with these pieces is that they are not presented in a wiki-editable format to the end user and this is a wiki site. -- Davodd | Talk 11:03, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * If you guys aren't going to provide specific examples in where a host voilated the NPOV policy, why is this discussion still going? We have links to FREE audio editing tools on our page - anyone can make their own release or edit those already released.  But AFAIK after listening to almost all releases, there is no violation in the NPOV policy.  I wish some of you would listen to them before bringing them under fire like this.  --Mrmiscellanious 15:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I would also like to point out that the official Wikinews RSS feed is owned and operated solely by Dan100, which, by the above comments, would be way more POV than the collaborative Audio Wikinews project. -- NGerda 17:35, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * The main issue for me does not involve NPOV. (Although the use of byline-type identifying of individuals appears to violate Wikimedia policy.) It's more fundamental than that. It is doubtful that the audio product process - as it exists today - falls under the aegis of the Wikimedia Foundation's goals; namely, "goals of the foundation are to maintain and develop free-content, wiki-based projects..." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/About_Wikimedia#The_goals_of_the_foundation) The recording, editing and presentation of thee audio product definitely does not use wiki technology. The audio, once completed, is not easy for any listener to edit, improve, move or change at will using their browser or wiki-editing tools provided on this site, which is a hallmark of the wiki way. That being said, I view this as a in-progress test of this proposal, not as true wiki project content. -- Davodd | Talk 17:53, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * We are not encrypting these files. We are not discouraging the editing of them at all.  To say they are not wiki is incorrect.  As I stated above, not everyone has a compliant browser and can edit this site - where's the the controversy over that?  --Mrmiscellanious 18:54, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

 * See Wikinews/Audio_Wikinews_briefs for a proposed method for an INTERNATIONAL based collection of Wikinews stories to incorporate into the Audio Wikinews News Briefs. The members of the French Wikinews also have their own version of Audio Wikinews, and would like for collaboration there so that our releases are close to verbatim translations in different languages. --Mrmiscellanious 19:20, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I think one problem is that the people involved in Audio Wikinews (a bit) and "Wikinews Network" (a lot) are somewhat stubborn. The latter has, in particular, come in for sustained criticism, but they just ignore it. . Dan100 (Talk) 20:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Dan, why are you calling us stubborn? That's not moving us forward.  -- NGerda 20:22, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * Dan, I believe the proposition above could solve all this controversy. Still, I'd like you to be a participant in the FutureTalk2 which will cover this event next weekend.  --Mrmiscellanious 20:31, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Front page pictures
I'd like to suggest that we protect any pictures that will be going up on the front page as a matter of policy. It's only a matter of time until someone vandalizes one. Wikipedia usually protects their images before they go up on the front page, then unprotects them when they go off; unfortunately one of them wasn't protected recently and I noticed some vandalism to the first image I saw on the front page. Is there currently policy to protect/unprotect as an image hits the front page? I suppose image protection wouldn't do much if someone added their own picture though... - McCart42 (talk) July 5, 2005 00:20 (UTC)
 * They already have been the victim of vandal attacks :-(. As you say, protecting them doesn't really help - the vandal only has to change the Image link to point to his image, and job done. Our only weapon is vigilence! Dan100 (Talk) 5 July 2005 11:33 (UTC)
 * This has not been too much of a problem. Unlike Wikipedia, we usually revert vandalous edits within a matter of seconds. -- NGerda July 5, 2005 21:04 (UTC)

Non-commercial use images on Wikinews
An issue has arisen that needs cleared up by community discussion. In the past few days, images that were not taken by WN contributors in both the recent London bombings and San Francisco riot have been uploaded to the site. Some of the images are limited to non-commercial-only distribution. Some of the images have been deleted as not complying with Wikinews policy. But, Wikinews is a non-commercial site. It seems that we should be able to publish the photos as long as the image page makes its non-commercial status clear. I believe the confusion stems from a similar issue at WP. Although this announcement from Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales gave specifcs on why CC:non-commercial images are not allowed on Wikipedia, the same issues he raises do not apply here. On-scene CC:non-comercial cannot be replicated after the fact - as is the case with the Wikipedia images Jimbo referenced. What does the community think of this? -- Davodd | Talk 19:18, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I personally think that we're a bit too lax on our image-use policy in general. Wikinews advertises its articles as being public domain, meaning someone could reproudce the articles in full for commercial purposes if they felt so inclined. By posting images that are not PD, we're misleading any potential distributors of wikinews material. --RossKoepke 19:20, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * But doesn't a commercial reuser of wikinews content already need to be careful about which images they reuse? GFDL or CC images from commons obviously can't be used by many potential republishers of our text. Can someone point me to a page with guidelines for reusers of wikinews content, similar to (but hopefully much shorter than) the w:Wikipedia:Verbatim copying page? Leif 01:58, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikinews functions as a free news source, therefore we must adhere to strict rules. The reason we do not use non-commercial-only images is that there are restrictions on its use.  We want Wikinews to remain freely distributable and modifiable, therefore these rules are necessary. Also, please discuss and get consensus for changes to official policy before you make them yourself.  -- NGerda 19:22, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Entirely agree with NGerda. Wikinews must remain free to use and to reuse by *anyone* even for commercial needs. As is, non-commercial images are problematic. Anthere
 * That would ban us from using corporate logos of any kind, and force compliance with regional copyright restrictions - for instance if there was a night time news story concerning the Eiffel Tower, we would not be able to upload that image - even if a WN contributor took an original picture - since the night lighting design on the tower is copyrighted under French law. -- Davodd | Talk 19:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Err, as I understand it, if I took a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night, I could sell that picture as much as I wanted and no one could sue me. Am I correct? (If so, I think that analogy is bunk.) --RossKoepke 19:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * We could out an "External Images" section on the bottom of some pages and link to good/cool images. --RossKoepke 19:41, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a good idea.-- Davodd | Talk 19:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews is a free news source, but sometimes we cannot have certain images under a free license even if we wanted to: publicity shots, corporate logos, screenshots of commercial software — all these cannot be public domain but are nevertheless often required to be used by a news organization. If the license permits their use by news organizations, we should allow their upload to Wikinews if the image is important for a news story. This includes fair-use images like logos, screenshots etc, and also includes publicity shots, and other images to which we have an implicit or explicit license. -- IlyaHaykinson 23:50, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Images from competing news organizations are strictly prohibited in the Image Use Policy ratified by the Wikimedia Foundation. -- NGerda 23:51, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Correct. Those would not be images to which we have explicit or implicit licenses, and they are not fair use. -- IlyaHaykinson 23:56, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, that depends on the copyright status of the image. For instance if Competitor.com has a photo of a hurricane satellite shot from the NOAA on it - the photo is Public Domain siince it is a product of the U.S. government. We can use that photo (as long as there is no Competitor.com logo on it) with no problem. -- Davodd | Talk 00:42, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Correct, which excludes non-public domain images from Indymedia. -- NGerda 23:57, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * I believe the Sf.Indymedis.org image you are referring to was originally published by the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (www.indybay.org) - where Indymedia got it. Their copyright says, "Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere." And in that case, there was no "otherwise" statement from the photo's owner. So, WN, being a non-commercial site, has permission to use the majority of photos on indybay.org. Now, whether we are goin to restrict ourselves from using that content is up to us. ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 00:48, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, it includes traditional-copyright images. Other things, like cc-nc-nd images, are not any more restrictive than the corporate logos we use here: they're simply images with a more restrictive license that we choose to upload to Wikinews (and not the Commons). It should be discouraged, but not forbidden, because the most important thing for Wikinews is to report the news, without violating licenses. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:20, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * There is a major legal difference between a fair use image and a non-commercial-only image. For fair use - no consent is given for Wikinews to use the image by the copyright holder, we are in essence justifying our stealing of it. Fair use is a legally dubious - and precarious place for the Wikimedia foundation. But, for CC:By, non-commercial, Wikinews, being a non-commercial operation, *is* given consent to use the image by the copyright holder, we are not stealing the image from the owner in any way since we have permission to use it. -- Davodd | Talk 00:30, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * My point is this: if you want to use non-commercial-only images, make a proposal, and if you get support, you can modify the image policy and only then can you use non-commercial-only images. It is my job as an administrator to make sure this process is adhered to.  -- NGerda 01:17, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * I suggest you read Image use policy - under "Grants of license." CC-BY-NC falls under that - not fair use. -- Davodd | Talk 05:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I think we should not be comparing the cc-nc-nd images to fair-use ones. We should be comparing them to fully-copyrighted publicity shots. Those are OK with the Wikinews policy, currently. -- IlyaHaykinson 02:18, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Indeed, actually the image use policy already talks about non-free images with a grant of license being OK to upload here. -- IlyaHaykinson 02:24, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * That's true. Right there in plain sight. LOL -- Davodd | Talk 05:32, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, take a step back for a second. The Wikimedia Foundation, which has overriding authority over our policies, approved the current Wikinews policy with the condition that we not upload images from other news sources.  When Davodd made a change to the policy without notice or consent, a Wikimeda board member voiced her disagreement with the changes.  Davodd, unfortunately you'll have to talk to the Wikimedia folks themselves to settle this issue.  They can be found at #Wikimedia on IRC.  -- NGerda 06:44, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Please keep this discussion on policy issues and address personal notes to me on my user talk page. -- Davodd | Talk 06:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Why don't we side-step this problem entirely, and start using a decent non-commercial CC license? Dan100 (Talk) 17:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

 * It is a fundamental part of Wikimedia philosophy that our content can be used commercially. From a website with banners to a local newspaper sold at a low price, we want to maximize the availability of our content. Any restrictions of that are neither desirable nor acceptable in terms of Wikimedia's mission and project-wide policies. CC-BY-NC photos can only be used as fair use, and only if they meet our fair use policy requirements.--Eloquence 19:43, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Corrections
Does wikinews have a policy regarding corrections? (I couldn't find one.)

For the last ~12 hours we've had a bogus story tagged "developing" about NASA data being "leaked by hackers". Although it wasn't "published", it was still on the front page, and numerous people (including myself) read it last night and were thus entirely misinformed. I think simply deleting the article without issuing a correction is a bad idea, because wikinews has facilitated misinforming people and has the ability to issue a correction and thus should do so. But obviously corrections need be handled in a consistent manner... What I decided to do was rewrite the article to be a correction, and then renamed it Correction: NASA corporate directory not leaked and put it in Category:Corrections, a new category. What do people think about this? The first problem that comes to mind for me is that bad people might fabricate bogus stories just to get the correction about some preposterous thing kept on wikinews. Obviously we need to be careful about what is and is not worth a correction. I'd say that when a significantly inaccurate article has remained on the site for longer than some (short) specified length of time, then a correction should be issued. The corrections don't necessarily need to be on the front page, but their portal/category should be linked from there. Thoughts? Leif 20:24, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * We do not need to correct stories we do not publish. If the entire story is false, it may be deleted onsight by an administrator. -- NGerda 20:27, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually - it qualfied as "patent nonsense" or "vandalism" (if it was intentional) for speedy delete. -- Davodd | Talk 22:05, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I see that while I was writing my original comment, NGerda deleted the article with the reason "Wikinews does not report on itself; article was not published, so no reason to correct". As I said above, I think that there is a reason to correct it, as it was on the front of the site for 12 hours and likely misinformed hundreds if not thousands of people. The original article SHOULD have been deleted, but because it was left for as long as it was, I think we should must issue a correction. I certainly don't think that correction articles should be listed the same way as normal articles on the front page, but I still think they need to be published. The correction article that you deleted provided factual timely information to wikinews readers who have been misinformed. That you saw fit to delete it without waiting for discussion at deletion requests strikes me as very unwiki. Leif 20:38, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I also want to add that I doubt most casual wikinews readers expect any higher level of accuracy of the "published" articles on one part of the front page than the "developing" articles on another part of it. Knowing that any single user can add a "publish" tag to any article and have it stay published until when or if someone else reverts, I certainly don't. So though this article wasn't "published" with the "publish" tag on wikinews, it was most certainly published here in the broader sense of the term ("Publishing is the activity of putting information into the public arena."). Which is why we need to issue a correction. Leif 20:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a case where an anonymous user uploaded an incorrect story and we later found it to be false. We do not need to publicize our vulnerability to such malicious story contributions, which is why I am against issuing a correction.  Any other thoughts?  -- NGerda 21:24, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * My thoughts are that there is a major problem here. I read an article on wikinews last night, and believed it was as reasonably likely to be true as any other poorly written article on Wikinews, and if I came back looking for it now and didn't know it had been deleted I would have no way of knowning the claim had been determined to be false. Wikinews must strive to be accountable. As long as wikinews allows anonymous users to post (eg as long as it's a wiki), it should document somewhere the articles that are found to be wholly misinformation. If someone inserts bogus facts in an otherwise good article, then that article's page history is the documentation. When an article is entirely bogus, and is deleted, there is no such record. We certainly don't need to draw attention to our vulnerabilities in our headlines, but we do need to document them somewhere. And this particular vulnerability isn't something to be ashamed of; it's what makes wikinews what it is. Instead of being ashamed that wikinews got trolled, we should strive to handle it responsibly by giving returning readers an opportunity to check for major corrections somewhere.
 * I don't necessarily think that a seperate article needs to be dedicated to each correction, the way I did this one, but for lack of a better framework for issuing corrections it seemed a logical thing to do at this time. And until other editors have commented on the matter, I still think you are in error to leave the factual correction I wrote deleted without having had any prior discussion. Leif 21:43, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It's possible that developing stories may not need to be listed on the main page -- appearance on the main page indicates some level of veracity. I could easily create an article titled, "Great Danes taught rudimentary human speech" and cite something -- though it would never be ed someone might believe it. I'm being only half-serious. We shouldn't have to issue corrections or errata for anything that's not actualy  ed. If there are other steps needed to prevent the public from becoming misinformed, perhaps we should explore those. --Chiacomo  (talk) 21:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I am re deleting the article. No correction needs to be issued, as the original article was patently false and may be deleted onsight according to our Speedy Deletion policy. -- NGerda 21:27, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree that there is no need to Correct a Developing article, though we may (if people are concerned about legalities) want to put a stronger disclaimer about the possibility of untrue stories being in the DS area. I do think there is a case for following Leif's proposal in the event of incorrect stories being published as we do need to show we are accountable and willing to highlight mistakes when they occur, a more open method than just deletion. ClareWhite 08:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

We do need a correction policy. I highly recommend this resource from the Poynter Institute:
 * -- Davodd | Talk 09:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
 * -- Davodd | Talk 09:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

While I agree with the need for any news organisation to have a clear corrections/clarifications (c/c) policy and preferably a column, I have some questions about how this would work in practice on a Wiki. These are the ones that come to mind right now: Finally, out of curiosity because I'm sure there's an established answer: who gets sued if we make a mistake here? Is it the Foundation? ClareWhite 15:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Who would write the correction? What if nobody wanted to? What if it was subject to dispute: we have no one editor to make the final decision
 * Do we log c/c every time? at the moment they are just corrected (this could lead to an automatic way of logging them)
 * Can we show that we learn from mistakes when we have constantly new writers?
 * To what extent should we say error through ommission is 'a mistake' when we see all our stories as developing and ommissions can be corrected by adding to the story, in fact, that is our very method?
 * Are we a rolling news organisation that should be correcting mistakes as we go along or are we an historical record that should be putting c/c on the record too?
 * The answer to who gets sued depends on the local laws of the one who is suing. -- Davodd | Talk 06:30, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Big hairy tags on developing stories
I think it's UncleG who's been taking the lead in adding extra tags to developing stories to tell people to add more content or sources. Although they're quite obtrusive, I think this is a very good way for new users to be shown how they should develop their stories. Having lured my work experience student onto Wikinews (an outrageous abuse of power, I know), I've seen the way that new users aren't always as tentative as I was, especially now that the process is easier, and it's useful for people to be shown how stories can be improved clearly rather than assuming they will read the guidelines. It is a good way both to let people have their wiki way and nudge them towards accepted standards. May it carry on! ClareWhite 16:22, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I like them too, especially now that the stop sign has been changed to a cation symbol. That really helped. -- NGerda 16:39, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Talk page comments
A huge amount has been said about the London Attacks accross all of the media. Over the past few days several unregistered readers have used the talk page about the attacks to vent there fustration, a quite understandable thing, and to also insult the "cowards" who should "rot in hell". Now im rather concerned about this. Should we be letting opinions creep into the website through the backdoor (i.e. talk pages)? I think the "Im sorry to hear the awful news" type of posts are fine; but we should stop the "hope they burn in fucking hell" type of posts because they belong in blogs not here. → CGorman (Talk) 20:40, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There are currently 7 sections on the talk page that are not particularly relevent including one particularly distasteful ones - An apology for the morons who run American news programming. Althought I would agree with the idea that american media is lacking - this is not the place to discuss it! → CGorman (Talk) 20:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a very difficult decision to make. We should not decide on anything until the full community has had a chance to comment.  -- NGerda 21:02, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thats why i've put it here! Sometimes Nick....! → CGorman (Talk) 21:34, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey, all I wanted to make sure is that we really give this a lot of thought - and time - because this will profoundly affect the way Wikinews operates. -- NGerda 21:37, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

 * Talk pages are used, the way I understand it, to discuss the actual article, and not debate about politics. Of course, opinions on news are likely to sneak in one way or another, but I don't think we should allow people to use talk pages as blogs or discussion forums. Primary reason is that such entries may easily insult anyone and also are sort of guiding readers of news who happen to check out the talk page as well into forming a certain opinion and possibly attributing that opinion to us. --Dejan Čabrilo 21:45, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I would tentatively suggest to leave it where it lies...as far as talk pages are concerned, unless something is blatant vandalism which is destructive to the purpose, I don't think we ought to remove it. On the other hand, if the sole purpose of talk pages is to discuss the article and how to improve it, then venting or offtopic discussions can be removed.  It's a decision which should be codified in policy when we do make it, so anyone who removes such content from a talk page has something to point to. - McCart42 (talk) 01:08, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

The sole purpose of talk pages *is* to discuss the article, and in my opinion any comments that are not about the article should be removed on sight. This is more important with high-profile articles such as Coordinated terrorist attack hits London, because the extra clutter makes the talk page difficult to use. - Borofkin 02:06, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

For cases where we think discussion is inevitable, a good stopgap solution may be the creation of "/Forum" subpages, e.g. Talk:Really big event/Forum. We could have special templates for these (including a direct "add a comment" link) and link them from the regular talk page. Personally, I do believe discussion about the content of news articles is something we should allow -- it ties readers to the site, who may eventually become editors themselves. But it should be separate from editorial discussions, and may require new software such as LiquidThreads.--Eloquence 02:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

 * People like to discuss the news. Heck, I like to discuss some news. I think it should be encouraged, as it brings more passionate people to the site. -- IlyaHaykinson 03:03, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

I support the creation of a separate space for discussion of news. - Borofkin 03:39, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

 * How about /Discuss? -- NGerda 05:46, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

 * The problem with subpages is that anything that's not linked to by a tab at the top will not get click on, or created, by new users. -- IlyaHaykinson 05:51, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * But a tag at the bottom of the page will. ;)  -- NGerda 05:54, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

How about a template for the top of the talk page advertising the /Discuss page -- it could have two talking heads and a brief explanation of the purpose of the page... --Chiacomo (talk) 05:53, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ilya, people want to discuss the news and it beings them into Wikinews. I would prefer to see such comments archived after the event or during if they are interfering with getting the story sorted out, but I don't think they particularly do. If you have 'Add comment' at the top of a page, you can't be surprised if they do just that and they're very unlikely to follow another system, i don't think they would follow a tag at the bottom and then we'd get annoyed at having built a system that people don't follow. ClareWhite 08:46, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree with Ilya; I like to chat about events and I love Eriks idea of a /fourm or /discuss section - but my point is that currently some of the sections on the talk page in question are not meerly chatting about the incident - but outright inflamatory comments "the morans that run American media" - that sort of comment would not survive in a real fourm never mind wikinews. → CGorman (Talk) 10:22, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I have to say with that particular one I don't find it particularly distasteful. Indeed it is often irritation with mainstream media that brings people to WN, it certainly has been with me and if people are finding a better sort of news here then isn't that a good thing? But, sticking with policy: perhaps we need a deletion policy for comments that are disagreeable? I think we'd have a hard time implementing it though :) ClareWhite 10:56, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Eloquence's suggestion of /Forum is right on. I don't think using /Discuss is a good idea, as it is too close to the current "Discussion" tab and would be confusing for users. Many online news sites have a "TalkBack" section in which they let almost anything go. I think that as long as we post a disclaimer that the views in /Forum reflect only those of their posters and not Wikinews, we should be golden. All non-editing-related threads can be moved to /Forum from Talk (the Discussion page). - McCart42 (talk) 17:20, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

 * Please don't mess with the talk page. In my opinion the wilder and freer the better.

 * It 's not the article ! and needs not be controlled/censored like the articles must be.

 * It ain't broke.So what if people put way out stuff there..that just makes it a great place to vent; what's wrong with that? Let freedom ring.

 * One of the fantastic benefits of wiki is to activate those sublime subconscious creative juices that only collective thought/input can access...and wild-west talk pages help in that regard. Paulrevere2005 12:56, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Generally I agree with Paul when he says "It's not the article, and needs not be controlled/censored like the articles must be" and "it ain't broke". I just can't see how we could possibly implement any kind of "censorship" of comments on a talk page. And I don't think creating new rules just to deal with the only time this has happened - the talk page of the London bombings article - is worth it. Dan100 (Talk) 15:35, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, there was another incident of this kind... I think we should start doing something about that, as this can get rather disturbing for many people. --Dejan Čabrilo 17:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

 * It may be that we are entering an era where the newsmakers themselves are making semi/rascist and inflammatory comments; U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo clarifies 'nuke Mecca' comments Jack Straw,"Almost certainly they are evil people who will claim — wrongly — to have done this in the name of Islam."in which case the news article may itself be about "nuking" some country.I actually believe that will be the next phase of WW 3, a thinly veiled morphing of anti-Islamic fever with "fighting terrorism" by western leaders. President Bush, history major with an 88 average(in history) at Yale, knew exactly what to say right after Sep. 11th.2001; "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism"[](the first seedling of the morph; Bin Laden constantly refers to western forces as "the Crusaders"; so the spiritual leaders of the 2 sides(fundamental Christians and Muslims) are already on the same page) to set the stage for what was and is to come; a systematic tapping into the fiery energy of religious and racial hatred in order to motivate the people to "stay the course" and expand WW3...and I think they are well on their way. Be honest, would that Brazilian guy had been killed on a subway platform if he had been a white guy instead of "Asian" looking? Canada has had a "hate" law for many years now. I don't like it(free speech thing) BUT; I must admit it seems to work without going overboard. They use it sparringly but effectively (Ernst Zundel). I'm not suggesting we pattern something after Canada's "hate crimes" law; but if we feel it gets to the point something has to be done, it's about as good an example(with a track record) to copy as any. Paulrevere2005 23:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

 * news is news. and discussion is discussion. Most"news" is controlled and censored (you already know that)But wikinews discussion pages are one of the last bastians of freedom of speech. If we start censoring them (controling them more than they are already controlled); the nazis have nailed the coffin shut; imo. + our growth rate may be showing that thinking people are coming here for our unique collaborative (and creative)process. F.=false, E.=evidence,A.=appearing,R.=real.... just look past the facade to the reality; "we have nothing to fear but fear itself"..FDR...to hell with the censors and security merchants..to hell with "weapons of mass destruction" and the "anglo saxon way of life" and the "crusade" and the "axis of evil" and "support the troops" and "remember 9/11"(shouted out most by the same freaks that supported and engineered Osama's rise to power and who still fund terrorism(via; the wide open afghan opium trade))[]and "remember the alamo" and "remember the maine"and "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" and "God is on our side" and all the other nazi aka communist propaganda. This is the internet! This is Wikinews! This is Freedom ! Paulrevere2005 21:15, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Inherent PoV at Audio Wikinews
The Audio Wikinews reports are now being recorded with "the most important stories of the day". These are chosen only by the person recording and of course are completely PoV. What to do? It's depressing that we manage to maintain the neutral point of view so well in articles yet seem to throw it away with anything recorded. Dan100 (Talk) 16:15, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Dan, do you think that Audio Wikinews is POV? I don't.  What exactly is the POV you see?  Are the articles that are chosen POV?  -- NGerda 16:35, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * I think his point is that by chosing articles as the "most important" someone is setting a POV. My most important could be all baseball stories, and for you, stories about pens. Who's to say which is more important? In this regard, I tend to agree with Dan. Lyellin 16:49, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I understand Dan's point -- but we make value judgements for lead stories as well... --Chiacomo (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * *nods* hard to make a view either way... I think for me, it's just the phrasing. Perhaps "A collection of stories from the day" would work better? Lyellin 16:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The phrasing might be better, yes. This why I've hoped we could adopt a standard script for briefs and full reports. I think we can safely say something is a lead story if it's a lead when the brief or full report is recorded. --Chiacomo (talk) 16:58, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the current system, but when I did Audio Wikinews, I just chose the three lead stories. That's not POV, it's the community's choice. -- NGerda 19:44, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

I think it could be POV. But just like anything on Wikimedia, if it seems POV, change it: record your own version, upload it as the latest. -- IlyaHaykinson 02:18, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * As I've pointed out before, not everyone has the skills or equipment to do this. Fixing PoV in an article is easy - you just edit it. PoV in a recording is a much tougher job. Dan100 (Talk) 16:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree with IlyaHaykinson. When we start getting enough audio versions to have actual competition and fighting as to which should be the latest, then we can start to vote on which stories should be recorded.  Until then, since NGerda's putting out the effort to record these, I think it should be up to him which stories he chooses to record; why force him when he's doing all the work? - McCart42 (talk) 02:53, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

 * The NPOV policy is non-negotiable. Dan100 (Talk) 16:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Here's a good spot to follow. Right behind McCart, a writer. There is nothing, repeat NOTHING, unless somebody writes it. I remember NGerda soliciting his nomination for admin when I warned, "It distracts from writing." And NGerda said, "Fear not Edbrown05, I am writing more than ever." Yeah right. I haven't seen a single story from NGerda since he's become admin. It all spins from the writing. You can take your silly audio stuff and spin in the direction of a typhoon as far as I am concerned, unless you write a story. -Edbrown05 03:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Uh, Ed, I've written a lot of stories since I've become an admin. Note Abbott labs ends dispute with Brazilian government over AIDS drug, Meth use now USA's top drug problem, survey finds, G8 expectations not met, Mothers, teachers air more concerns about leukemia cases at California elementary school, and Steve Jobs gives opening keynote to WWDC 2005. But I don't want to get in a fight over this.  Peace out, NGerda 03:38, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry NGerda, I used you for context of the point I was trying to make. -Edbrown05 03:48, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, no harm done. ;)  Just wanted to make that clear. :)  -- NGerda 20:42, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Nick, that's not a lot of stories. This is. Dan100 (Talk) 16:24, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I ditto Ilya's comment. Paulrevere2005 17:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

 * In this regard, it would have to be enforced that when one user starts an article, he could come under fire for not writing another. I apologize if the initial wording of the policy did stir this debate, I have reworded it.  --Mrmiscellanious 16:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Deletion of Proved-Wrong Articles?
Relates to: this deletion request

Do we want to delete articles that have been proved wrong but published at some point?

Some things to consider: Suggested Solution: Creation of a new tag to the effect of "Warning: Since publication of this article, other facts have come to light revealing some or all of the information in this article to be false."
 * 1) We often send articles back to that are POV, factually inaccurate, or insufficiently comprehensive.
 * 2) Future researchers might stumble onto one of our factually inaccurate articles and take it as fact, including it in their papers, articles, etc.
 * 3) We might look better if we delete false stories, because taking those stories off the record would make them unavailable to news analysts who might be forming judgements of WikiNews.
 * 4) We might inadvertantly be contributing to someone's misinformation campaign by extending the effects of the misinformation by holding onto it.
 * 5) We might look bad if someone brought up point #3. (Think "Scandal: WikiNews Coverup!")
 * 6) We might look bad anyways if we keep factually inaccurate articles.
 * 7) Intentionally reporting false news is irresponsible.
 * 8) A date can get put on an article way before its published. It's conceivable to imagine a timeline such as this:
 * Day 1: Article created, wrong, biased, etc. 'ed.
 * Day 1: tag added.
 * Day 3: Information comes out that proves article wrong.
 * Day 2-8: Article is revised, expanded, pictures added etc - ending up in a very nice looking article...except it's still all wrong and was proved wrong days ago.
 * Day 16: Someone comes around and reviews the deletion request, and seeing the date as "Day 1", says that at the time of "Day 1" the information was thought to be true - but the information was written after Day 3. So the Date tag is not necessarily when the information was written down.

-- Ross Koepke Talk 20:34, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This should fall under the Correction policy .. which as been kicked around for some time - and is getting enough srgument/debate we should actually get around to making one. -- Davodd | Talk 20:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad people have noticed this debate on WN:DR and are thinking about the issues involved. As you can see, personally I'd rather they were simply deleted, at least if they haven't been published yet. Hopefully something that is proved wrong (or is going to be) won't get as far as being published in the first place. PS please go and make some input into the deletion debate on that article, if you haven't already done so. Dan100 (Talk) 10:52, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

 * PPS I like Ross's idea of a warning tag. Dan100 (Talk) 15:35, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

As lonng as the story has not not yet been published, I see no problem with deleting it. If it has been published already we should not delete it --Cspurrier 14:38, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The question regards published articles. -- Ross Koepke Talk 00:06, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

 * It would be great if we could have some more input into the deletion debate that kicked this discussion off. Dan100 (Talk) 16:26, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

"Moreover, the point about the fact that we now know the sources to be wrong is exceedingly ironic. We also now know that the sources were completely wrong that told us on 2005-07-07 that the bombs detonated 5 minutes apart and that there were 33 people killed, too. By the "but we now know" logic that you are propounding here, we should be having a deletion discussion of Coordinated terrorist attack hits London on that basis. This article, datelined 2005-07-08, wasn't about what we know now. What is in the article is a report of what the sources said on that date." -- Uncle G

 * In favour of the warning tag. The article should possibly not delete if the article was "correct" at the time it was written. Suppose for instance a football match. The a team win and b loose. Then a team is desqilified some day later. The article saying how finished the match should stay where it is. I have never seen an editor of a paper newspaer to came in at my home to cut away one article becouse the team was desquilified. AnyFile 16:46, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Dan100
I believe abuse of deletion powers occurred here(see below); what does the community think?

Dan is unilaterally deleting an article; London eyewitnesses: Police tackled Asian, held a gun to his head and " unloaded five shots into him"

in "developing stories" that 5 editors had been working on. No discussion either. Dan also deleted the talk page which was important re; an admin nomination (Mrmiscelanious)

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete

Deletion log); 12:23 . . Dan100 (Talk) (deleted "Talk:London eyewitnesses: Police tackled Asian, held a gun to his head and " unloaded five shots into him"") (Deletion log); 12:22 . . Dan100 (Talk) (deleted "London eyewitnesses: Police tackled Asian, held a gun to his head and " unloaded five shots into him"": title factually untrue - deleting)

Paulrevere2005 12:27, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * My understanding was the proper place to put a story like that was on the 'Deletion request' page. -Edbrown05 12:58, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I have undeleted it, it met none of the requirements of speedy deletion. Since it did not meet those requirements I believe Dan acted outside policy, abusing his adminship. --Cspurrier 15:02, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

First, it would have been nice someone had the common courtesy to notify me of this. Second, I have already explained to Paul why his "article" was deleted:

''Paul, these events have been covered in Armed police shoot man dead on London Underground, therefore I redirected to this existing article. However the remaining redirect's headline was factually incorrect and served no purpose, therefore I deleted it.''

All users should uphold the policies of presenting a neutral point of view and making sure all information is referenced and verifiable. These policies are non-negotiable - if you disagree with them, leave the project. Dan100 (Talk) 16:03, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Cut the deflective proprietorial rhetoric Dan, you don't own wikinews and you have to follow the rules like the rest of us. The way you embarrassed Amgine on the policy page was meanspirited and unacceptable. Don't start-up with more personal attacks; it won't work this time. Paulrevere2005 18:15, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

This is not a personal attack, just a reminder that certain policies are not up for debate and must be obeyed. If you cannot accept that, leave. Dan100 (Talk) 18:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

 * If you can't stop abusing administrative powers; it's much more important for the project that you leave. Paulrevere2005 19:01, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to raise the issue of Dan's edits to this article, which is now here:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Press_freedom_watchdog_%27outraged%27_by_closure_of_Burundi_radio_station/Temp

The article has been placed in the deletion-pending list. As far as I understand it, Dan (and another user, Cspurrier) claim that the piece violates copyright by quoting from a "Committee to Protect Journalists" press release (the quotes are explicitly indicated). I do not believe that wikinews policy forbids us from quoting organisations like the CPJ, so long as the quotes are properly attributed. Dan has stated that the quotes in the article are not properly attributed, but I'm not really sure where he's coming from on this. I've been quite careful to include "said the CPJ, in a press release" or "RPA's director Alexis Sinduhije told Reuters" where appropriate. I'm concerned that Dan may be making these kind of judgements without reading the article properly. I would support a review of his admin status. I would also welcome input from others on this particular article. Rcameronw 10:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * You can't just copy and paste a copy-righted article and then surround parts of it in quotes. You also directly copied and pasted parts of the article without even doing that - you are attempting to palm off someone's elses work as your own. As it says in below the text editing field, "You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!".

 * I have also deleted your copy and paste to the temp page. If you want to look at that version of the article, just use the page history.

 * You could've re-written this article to remove the copyvios by now, and it would have been published and on the front page. Why don't you do that? Dan100 (Talk) 11:11, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Repeat; Dan; why didn't you re-write(edit) it? This practice of erasing entire articles and leaving it for less experienced contributors to search back through article histories is inconsiderate,imo. Paulrevere2005 17:46, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Dan, I don't recognise the article that you're talking about. Writing in capital letters is no substitute for reasoned argument. Have you actually read my article, or do you just get a buzz out of kicking over other people's sandcastles? Can you be a little more specific about the sections you claim have been copy-pasted without attribution? I have no interest in passing other people's stuff off as my own. I don't believe that any further major edits are required. I think you've got the wrong end of a rather large stick.

 * Please explain why you deleted the temp article. I thought that the purpose of the temp article feature was to enable the story to be developed in a neutral environment.

 * I'm starting to think that whatever changes I or anyone else makes to this article you're still going to have objections to it. [rcameronw, meant to 'tilde' this yesterday, but forgot. Sorry!]

 * Just to add that I've now received a reply from the Comms coordinator of the CPJ, confirming permission to quote from the CPJ press release. I can provide more details on request. I will now rehash the article one more time, trying to accomodate the the further objections to the story that Dan has raised. I'm doing this only because I actually do feel that the issue is an important one, that deserves to be aired. I still have serious doubts about Dan's judgement over this, and his competence to make these kinds of decisions.

Rcameronw 07:42, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Rcameronw, I applaud your persistence; keep up the good work. Paulrevere2005 18:59, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Davodd
Davodd has abused his deletion powers, too:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Special:Log/delete

''# 00:58, 23 July 2005 Davodd deleted "Resolution of Inquiry on GannonGate" (3 days with no content? Headline spam.)

''# 00:38, 23 July 2005 Davodd deleted "GOP candidate calls for impeachment" (4+ hours w/o a single sentence = probable headline spam.

''# 03:50, 22 July 2005 Davodd deleted "Guantanamo detainees refuse food" (empty of content after 12+ hours."

as has been mentioned above, that's what deletion requests are for. even before that, that's what abandoned articles are for. admins are not supposed to simply delete things. they cannot decide to delete things on their own. they must be asked to. this is an abuse of power - that is, a use of power that in priniciple one does not even have. Kevin Baastalk 13:16, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Davodd did not violate policy, please see our Speedy deletion guidelines. All three of these pages were blank, and can be deleted as "Very short articles with no context" or "No meaningful content or history" --Cspurrier 14:45, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * In the interest of full disclosure, there is a fourth:
 *  # 00:02, 23 July 2005 Davodd deleted "Summer Institute for the Gifted has Staff Meltdown" (3+ hours nary a sentence -> content was: 'July 22, 2005In Development== Sources ==**{{source|url=|title=|author=|pu...' (and the only contributor was '69.145.76.14'))
 * -- Davodd | Talk 15:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Not a lot to say here - Davodd was completely correct in everything he did. Dan100 (Talk) 16:04, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

No big deal in deleting blank articles -- one could always recreate if one wanted to develop an article. --Chiacomo (talk) 19:38, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Hotel1.jpg
Hi. I'd like to hear your comments about the above. I believe Fair use can be applied to it, while User:Sblive does not. Our arguments can be seen here. Thanks for your responses. --Deprifry 16:43, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * I am also waiting for the response. Sblive 21:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * This is clearly fair use. -- Davodd | Talk 10:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Human rights vs. copyrights
Hi, I would like to make a suggestion. Please read my comments on this page:

[http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Talk:Execution_of_two_gay_teens_in_Iran_spurs_controversy]

Thank you for your attention.

My point is, that human rights are more important than copyrights, always, in any case. There is a public interest in what is going on in countries like Iran. There is a public interest to make these images available for educational purposes. If the concept of wikinews/wikimedia does not allow the use of these images, it needs to be improved. You could add a category of media which is copyrighted, and in which there is a public interest because it concerns serious human rights issues. And media in this category could be used as long, as the so called "copyright holder" complaines, or kept regardless of the "copyright", if the copyright holders are criminals or mass murderers like the Iranian authorities. --131.130.124.71 13:03, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * We can provide links to the pictures on other sites, but Wikinews cannot steal the copyrighted work of other, competing news sources. You may want to view it as supporting the journalistsic efforts of the true creators of those pictures. It is not "fair use" per se since, if we publich the photos here, it harms the original copyright holder since people are less likely to use their product. -- Davodd | Talk 18:30, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Solution to the Audio Wikinews conflict
See Wikinews/Audio_Wikinews_briefs for a proposed method for an INTERNATIONAL based collection of Wikinews stories to incorporate into the Audio Wikinews News Briefs. The members of the French Wikinews also have their own version of Audio Wikinews, and would like for collaboration there so that our releases are close to verbatim translations in different languages. --Mrmiscellanious 16:00, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Policy needed for "Deletion Requests" Nonsense
ok; I admit it; this one's got me stumped. How can people vote on a deletion request;

2.2.8 London eyewitnesses: Police tackled Asian, held a gun to his head and " unloaded five shots into him"

for a story that the voters can not read (because Dan has completely erased it)London eyewitnesses: Police tackled Asian, held a gun to his head and " unloaded five shots into him" with a title that has been redirected to a totally different storyArmed police shoot man dead on London Underground. Are we now voting on whether to deleteArmed police shoot man dead on London Underground? And if not, how can anyone have voted to delete a story they couldn't read? Isn't this what is referred to as patent nonsense? Paulrevere2005 17:06, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Please see my reply on the DR page --Cspurrier 17:23, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Go to: WN:DR and vote there. -- Davodd | Talk 18:31, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Speedy delete addition - Cut & Paste copyvio
I propose we add an additional speedy delete criterion to Speedy deletion guidelines: Cut & Paste Copyvios. My proposal:
 * 11. An obvious copyright violation that is a cut-and-paste exact or near-exact duplicate of content from a copyrighted source. Speedy delete does not apply for public-domain sources, when public domain reprint permission is granted from the original source and specified in the article talk page, or to articles with a third-party edit history.

We are getting a slew of these things and the WN:DR wait is too long since they are being listed on news feed like google news as seen here. We need to nip these obvious copyvios in the bud before they hit the feeds. -- Davodd | Talk 04:53, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree. ClareWhite 07:41, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I propose not that these articles be speedy deleted, but that they be tagged and given a 24 hour period since their creation to develop, and if they are not developed, they can be deleted on sight. This way, legitimate stories that users are willing to de-copyvio can't just be deleted immediately.  I've heard the excuse that it is Wikimedia policy to delete the history of a page if there was every any copyrighted material, but what I have to say back is that Wikipedia articles get tons of copyvios to their articles every hour, and they don't have any plans to wipe those article's histories clean because of one vandal.  -- NGerda 07:47, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
 * We would still need to delete the copyvio version from the article history. -- Davodd | Talk 15:14, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Davodd - delete at once. However, we should probably also leave a note on the talk page of the user to let them know what happened. Dan100 (Talk) 08:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

 * We could move the copy-vio on their Talk page with an explanation that they need to work it into a sourced story before re-submitting it? That should make the point and people can follow the trail if they wish. It won't be on the news space then. ClareWhite 08:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I like that additional guideline. It also could apply to many other speedy deletes. -- Davodd | Talk 15:13, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Agree with all this - allow editors to deal with it in the quickest way so we don't get copyvios showing up on Google News. - McCart42 (talk) 15:18:23, 2005-07-28 (UTC)
 * (I moved this thread to Wikinews_talk:Speedy_deletion_guidelines) -- Davodd | Talk 21:56, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

title: Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/6


text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/technical/Archive/5

Timestamp needed
At some point, we need to add a timestamp to our stories as well as a datestamp. There are two headlines, right next to each other today: Without reading through both articles, one is not sure what the current launch status is. While the relative order of the articles gives a clue that the topmost one is the most recent, you're not sure how much more recent it is. Just a thought. - McCart42 (talk) 20:45, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * Shuttle launch called off due to faulty fuel tank sensor
 * Shuttle launch on schedule despite launch pad accident

Articles in Category listings
I've discussed this with Amgine in the Future talk discussion and on both our talk pages. The way articles are listed in categories currently leaves a bit to be desired. They can be sorted by date, but individual date headings don't appear; only the first letter or in the case of dates, first few numbers, show up. I believe the best way to fix this is either by adjusting the MediaWiki software or deprecating category listings for DPLs. However, even with DPLs, there exists the problem that I currently don't know of a way to list the article's date beside the entry in the DPL. See Pennsylvania and Florida for examples of what I mean - the dates listed in PA aren't right, and the sorting in FL is off because of the order the category tag was added to each article. - McCart42 (talk) 22:04, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

 * Actually, having an article's date is now an option using DPL (See Add first category date on meta). The option lists the date the first category in the DPL list was added to the article; usually the publication date. Does this do what you were looking to do? - Amgine/talk 22:13, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * No, sorry, Amgine - take a look at the two states I listed; the date the first category was added is often inconsistent with the publication date, particularly for older articles. Notice that the same article can actually have two different dates on the same page (in the PA page). - McCart42 (talk) 22:47, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * The date the Category:Published is added is the unofficial publication date, now, even if the article were published before we used this scheme. The list will show the date the top category in the DPL was added; to be consistent the top category should always be Published.

 * Because we're still getting the old articles fully integrated into the current publication scheme there will be some oddities, old article popping up as recently published as they are found and the category added. Once that is completed it should answer most of the items you have mentioned, but it will still not be the way items are listed in the categories themselves. To get the categories sorted this way will require figuring out what changes would be needed in the Mediawiki software, and offering a date-sorting method to the development team as a software enhancement. - Amgine/talk 22:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. Maybe we should look into putting that into policy that Publish should be the topmost category; many times I've seen people putting all the cats on one line at the top of the article, which I thought was weird but didn't realize until now was harmful. - McCart42 (talk) 01:05, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Additionally, does it make sense that two of the stories in the Pennsylvania section, when cited in two different categories, have different dates? See the Robot Zoe detects life in Atacama Desert listing at Pennsylvania for what I mean. - McCart42 (talk) 01:07, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

 * Oh, that isn't a problem, just how they line up at the bottom. I mean in the DPL call... like this:

 category=Publish category=Pennsylvania category=Politics and conflicts
 * The publish category must be first, because that is the one the date will be from. If you put Pennsylvania first, it will figure what day the Pennsylvania category was added, not the published date. That's probably the situation for the Zoe story; they aren't all using the same first category. - Amgine/talk 01:17, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Aha. My mistake; I didn't realize which Publish you were talking about.  I've fixed the issue on the Pennsylvania page.  Thanks again Amgine. - McCart42 (talk) 02:47, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Article naming
Originally brought up at Future talk, though I wasn't at the discussion itself. I was wondering if there is any thought to changing the way articles are linked in case we find ourselves rehashing similar headlines. A good example is with sports stories. It's not inconceivable that Team A might win a match over Team B by the same score on some different date. Right now, I guess we'd just look up our thesaurus and find a synonym for "defeat" - which admittedly isn't that difficult. But it seems as though maybe articles should be linked to by a combination of their date and their title. That would eliminate any reasonable possibility of having two articles with the same name. Maybe I'm being naive about this and it isn't a big deal though. Has anyone thought about this (non)issue? - McCart42 (talk) 22:09, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * Aactually this was brought up un November, 2004.. And the consensus was - no one could agree, so we left it alone. -- Davodd | Talk 03:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Link? Or was this on IRC? - McCart42 (talk) 15:03, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Link:Dateline Poll -- Davodd | Talk 00:13, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmm...it seems as though most people did believe it was an important issue, but no one could come up with a technically sound method of putting the date in the article name/link. I think we should continue to think of options for this, especially now that the "article date" issue is unambiguous.  That was a major point of contention in December 2004, but now that we actually have a separation between Developing and Published, dating an article is no longer ambiguous.  Personally, I'm thinking we could make some sort of adjustment to the software so that article links look like "YYYY-MM-DD/{Article Name}", and the date and title are both picked off from that link.  That would be a fairly major change, however, and definitely something we should discuss.  I don't even know that it's a good idea, it just seems like the best way to incorporate the date into the link.  Someone else mentioned an idea very much like this in the original discussion, but was mainly shot down because article dates were ambiguous back then. - McCart42 (talk) 15:14:38, 2005-07-30 (UTC)

Template:Copyvio
There appears to be a problem with the current copyvio template in that it can not handle the "equals sign" (=) in URLs... so that

generates a page where   is displayed in the copyvio notice in place of the actual URL cited. Try it yourself in a page -- Show Preview and you'll see what I mean.

I don't know what the problem is, but I think we could probably fix it by changing the line in the copyvio template that says:

to:

Of course we'd have to change the current pages that link to Template:Copyvio and amend them such that the links look like this:

I hope I'm putting this in the right place -- it seems technical to me! --Chiacomo (talk) 03:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I think the problem somehow has to do with URLs that have question marks or ampersands. Just put copyvio|1=http://blah and it'll work. -- IlyaHaykinson 16:54, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Also, an ampersand should be entered as &amp; instead of & by itself, even in a url. -- Scott Hibbetts July 29, 2005

Commons are at it again (they want to block the WeatherBot)
See Village pump. They're an enthusiastic bunch over there, aren't they? Dan100 (Talk) 15:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Beasts! SAVE THE WEATHERBOT!! Even if they don't have the weather in Britain... Seriously, news organisations should tell you what the weather's like. They just should. ClareWhite 16:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Tell'em to get a life. Paulrevere2005 19:52, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Can the WeatherBot images be uploaded to WikiNews workspace? If no other wiki project is using weatherbot images it would seem that Commons might have a point; if 50% of the images there are old weather images, maybe we ought to use our own site instead. - McCart42 (talk) 03:07, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Can't we just modify the bot to upload new images to just one location, like CurentWeather.png? -- NGerda 03:39, July 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds nice. We needn't keep all (once used) images. --Aphaia 04:00, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I forgot to say - no we can't. This was tried right at the start, but due to cacheing issues it doesn't work. Dan100 (Talk) 21:11, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

 * To McCart42, it isn't acceptable from my view: As far as I know, De and Ja use it. Perhaps more. By the way I would like to have "Eastern Asia" weather map including Japan, Korea, China Mainland (specially its eastern half, including Beijing and Shanghai) and Hong Kong. who should I talk with? --Aphaia 03:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Good point Aphaia - I hadn't thought of the other languages. - McCart42 (talk) 21:04, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Automatic spell checking
It seems to me that there should be some sort of automatic spell checking, and new edits should pass through it. The results of failing edits could be displayed in the same format as Recent Changes. Then people could check those pages and fix them up if necessary. Reading pages on WikiNews and seeing glaring spelling errors is irritating to me, and probably looks somewhat unprofessional to most other readers. Comments? -- Unknown

 * This is already an outstanding feature request. See 1677, and vote for it if you want it to be implemented, plus try to convince developers to work on it. I like your suggestion. -- IlyaHaykinson 06:23, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

 * excellent suggestion, i always make spelling msitakes or typo's.--Ryan524 06:32, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Today I spelled "Chicago" as "Chacago" in a headline and didn't catch it for a couple hours. *blush* -- Davodd | Talk 07:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

From 1677:

``The idea is to give to contributers if they want to, the ability to use a simple spell checker, in order to give more credibility to wikipedia. The idea is to make the configuration file of such tools in wiki so that it could be updated and enhanced easily for all languages``

 * I think that 1677 (which would be a good start, but to really take advantage of Wiki's collaborative self-correcting characteristics, it would be better to place the burden of corrective action on the whole of Wiki's readership. This is especially true for non-native speakers of the language in which the article is being posted, where even if they were to opt to use the spell checker, it may not do them any good (ie. they write "leef" and are offered "leave," "leaf" and "lief"). -- Unknown

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


text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/Archive/6

Wikinews RSS
What is the address of the Wikinews RSS XML page? --Munchkinguy 04:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * You can find it here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WikinewsLatestNews

Is it possible to have the feed contain the actual articles rather than just links?

 * No. Dan100 (Talk) 6 July 2005 15:33 (UTC)

Developing Stories Automatic list
How does the "Automatic list" of developing stories differ from the "Manual list"? Shouldn't there just be one list? How does the "Automatic list" work? --Munchkinguy 30 June 2005 02:32 (UTC)

 * The automated list finds all articles which include the, which is a part of the  template. It's a proposed system to make the process of building articles easier, although that "easier" bit is not agreed to by all WN contributors.

 * The manual list is the same as it always has been, a list of article links edited by users. - /undefined 30 June 2005 02:40 (UTC)

I would like to be a columnist for wikinews
how's that possible? how does that work? graytooth
 * Wikinews doesn't have "columns" in the dedicated-area-for-a-single-journalist sense that paper newspapers have them, for reasons relating to our fundamental NPOV and copyright policies. If, however, you would like to be a Wikinews contributor, writing and contributing to stories, then simply read the welcome message that is already on your talk page, which has full instructions. Uncle G July 3, 2005 06:28 (UTC)
 * Columns on wikinews would have to be limited to a periodic story on a specific topic using a similar theme. But it would have to be as NPOV as possible. (See: Columns) Possible columns that are NPOV compatible would be:
 * Weekly recap of debuting films
 * Daily highlights of stock market performance
 * Daily synopsis of legislature actions
 * Weekly synopsis of serial drama plot developments
 * Quarterly earnings report highlights of a big-name company
 * Weekly/Daily briefing on major news events concerning labo(u)r.
 * Daily "This day in History" column.
 * Monday's Weekend sports wraup-up.
 * Weekly mergers and acquisitions report
 * Periodic "IPO Spotlight"-type of report.
 * -- Davodd | Talk 00:31, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

confused.
in the section called "What Wikinews articles are not" it says, 6. Wikinews articles are not editorials. Although opinion columns are likely to be an element of the Wikinews site, articles in the main namespace should restrict themselves to reporting news and not commenting on the news or newsmakers.

---

so opinion columns are likely to be an element of the site? or not? if so, when? there seems to be conflicting information about this. on other pages it says Wikinews will not have opinion columns? which shall it be?

 * That was a bit of wishful thinking an editor slipped in in January. Thanks for catching it! Editorials are not going to be happening on Wikinews - blogging already provides a publishing platform for such things. Dan100 (Talk) 4 July 2005 09:07 (UTC)

(thanks for the clarification, Dan100. i was a bit confused. ...graytooth)

But editorials are permitted within the user namespace. :) NGerda July 4, 2005 09:08 (UTC)

 * No they're not. Please don't suggest things that aren't true. Dan100 (Talk) 4 July 2005 10:51 (UTC)

 * As far as I'm concerned, people can publish whatever they want on their userpage. NGerda July 4, 2005 10:53 (UTC)

 * This is a bit of debate that has never been solved... although the general opinon is that user's namespaces are their own usage, so they can write whatever they want. Now, linking to those written things is another story. Lyellin 4 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)

It is worth noting that other editions of Wikinews -- notably the German one, which is also the second largest -- do have editorials. Users have also experimented with them in the user namespace here in the English version. I doubt, however, that anything POV is going to survive in the long term. I personally think something like Debates may be both more interesting and more NPOV.--Eloquence 5 July 2005 01:46 (UTC)
 * Editorials in the main name space are un-wiki in that they are both POV and uncollabrative. -- Davodd | Talk 04:59, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Noted Davodd. That's a thorny point. -Edbrown05 05:24, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * And typoed, too. (Ahh. my calling card, of sorts) ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 05:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The debate here is over the user namespace. -- NGerda 07:44, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

"Original" Inside info from Aruban reporter(Holloway story)
Saw a well known(in Aruba) Dutch/Aruban reporter on CNN last night. She got in a verbal skirmish with Nancy Grace. I sent her some info today and she responded with some details she says the US press is choosing not to report. I don't think I can handle this. Anyone want to take the ball? I'll do the email introductions. Paulrevere2005 00:05, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Category
I set up a new Quakers category and the link worked and the DPL recognised the category in the story but it's coming up red in the test story I created and the Category page. Can someone help me connect them up? ClareWhite 15:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * After you create a category, you need to edit the category text (i.e. follow the link and write at least something) before the category stops showing up as a red link. I've gone ahead and transcluded your Quakers page into Category:Quakers. -- IlyaHaykinson 15:25, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you - it was the transcluding I didn't quite get :) ClareWhite 15:47, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Political crisis in Brazil
I live in Brazil and I can write about the political crisis right here. I would like to receive suggestion, so we could write an original article. Example: you might send me a questionaire and we might write a original story using it. Do you have any question about the crisis? The story is not very discussed by the international media, so we could do what others dont do, writing original, detailed articles. This crisis is a very important subject for Brazilians, because it is the most severe political crisis I have ever seen. So I think that this story could be interesting for other people too. What do you think? If you have any idea, you can try to contact me. Thank you very much. --Carlosar 18:32, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There is this story about Bitain defending the 'shoot to kill' policy. How does that resonate in Brazil? -Edbrown05 19:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The only thing that is under discussion in Brazil is the political crisis. Some local newspapers published the story about the London incident but the case got very little repercussion (exception only for friends and family) because of the scandals of corruption. Brazilians only are talking about the scandals in Brazilian goverment. --Carlosar 01:58, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Why Brazilians cannot be too hard with Britain police: --Carlosar 11:58, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Chinese is detained and killed during session of torture by Brazilian police (In Portuguese) - 2003/12/Sept
 * Chinese Embassy complains (In Portuguese)

Interview with Hiroshi Ishiguro
Wikinews: The man behind the robot - an interview with Hiroshi Ishiguro

I'd like the English community to collaborate on this. I already emailed professor Ishiguro and he was interested in this interview. Datrio 17:42, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

 * ''It would be great if we could do an interview for Wikinews World Report. -- NGerda 03:43, July 30, 2005 (UTC)