text:
Talk:Wikinews international report: "Anonymous" holds anti-Scientology protests worldwide

'''We are no longer accepting additions to this article! Thank you to everyone who contributed!'''

Locations
Add / remove as necessary. The ones there at the moment are the ones with any correspondent (even tentative) listed on User:Skenmy/APC. The idea behind this article is that we flesh it out with background info on the protests, and then it is updated throughout the day with location reports as they happen. --Skenmy(t•c•w) 21:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

London
I will be Tweeting all day on my Twitter - please update the story if you can! --Skenmy(t•c•w) 19:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

There were 500 at any one time! 800 total protesting, I headcounted some photos and asked around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.142.90 (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking at the pictures and around the messageboards associated with Anonymous, I'd agree that 500 is a fair number. Fallen-Griever 23:09, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I was there, I don't think 500 protesters were. I'd suggest that it is very difficult to come up with anything meaningful but I'd say 500 is unrealistic. Adambro 23:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

 * There were definitely well over 500 - I estimated there, more like 600 - but less at the second location.84.65.107.183

The BBC said that the city of London police said 200. news.com says there were 500 there http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9869003-7.html --172.189.102.34 01:44, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Sydney, Australia
I added it from an article a new user started: Wazza. I left a note on his talk page as it appears to be original reporting. I am awaiting that confirmation. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, It is OR. Thanks. Wazza 04:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No, Thank You. I am glad you decided to give us your report :-) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Melbourne, Australia
Just found this Melbourne Protest on the net, its about 40 mins. Has a lot of hightlights, is it worth adding? http://annonmelb.blip.tv/

Los Angeles
I'll try to keep things updated on my twitter as well. -- IlyaHaykinson 10:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Breaking
Please leave breaking on the article until further notice. Updates will be happening for a very long period. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Uploading images to commons
Just a quick note to some of the newer users. When uploading to commons Bawolff ☺☻ 08:09, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * State very clearly that it is you who took the picture
 * Add a description. It should say something like Pictures of the Feb 10 2008 anti-scientolgist rally in (potentially also linking to wikinews
 * Fill in other fields as apropriate
 * Add apropriate categories.
 * upload the biggest version of the image you can. The servers will automatically shrink it to an apropriate size for viewing, and this allows people to get a big version if they want.

internet
I know that the internet isn't strictly a location but a lot of events related to the protests are happening on the internet, I hope no one minds if I cover it in this article as a location as it is sort of a location, just a virtual one. If you disagree with this you can obviously remove it. --Anonymous101 Talk RfA 14:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

POV
I have removed the part about Vienna as its POV is disputed and it needs to be republished. This version of the article has the report (as POV) to be improved but we can’t hold publication because of 1 part. Anonymous101 Talk RfA 16:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Disputed section
Disputed Section concerning Vienna - Moving here for disscusion,

On IRC I've asked someone to try and look into this in more detail. At best some officals got nervous it seems, which isn't to me suprising. ShakespeareFan00

Actual Disputed Section
Anonymous protesters faced threat of the police to be arrested for standing there quietly

Noon local time. A group of people (approx. 10-12) met in front of the Scientology Center in Capistrangasse in Vienna's 6th district. Peacefully and quiet did they watch the other people around the place, a bit apart from them: some police in uniform, and people with cameras taking pictures and filming them. A young person came to the protesters, and asked for information about what is going on. Very friendly one started to explain, why they are here. Most protesters were dressed in black suits, with red ties, most of them unmasked with bare faces and in their 20-ies, even without sunglasses. No weapons of course, no signs, no chanting, not even paroles, nothing. Pure best manners from top to toe, all the time from the protesters.

Then a fully masked person (just one eye free) came and handed out fliers to the protesters. The fliers did promote a website, which claims to be critical of Scientology, but true critics are suspicious about it being a fake critical website. (To tell more would create a wiki-war, and the correspondent does want to avoid that). Shortly after that, a man, accompanied by another one, both dressed in allday-suits, did read a note from a paper, which he called an official paper addressed to the protesters. He said, he is an official and from the governmental community and does order them to leave this place in five minutes, otherwise they be arrested. There was no reason for this, because everything was quiet, there was absolutely no disturbance. A protester asked the official, why he does not want the people to stand here and discuss something peacefully and the officer said, that the demonstration has not been announced at the offices and therefore they have to leave, because this is forbidden. The protester asked, what is forbidden? To stand there and talk with each others? This happened on the street, at a small place in front of the Scientology-building. The "official" said, there were fliers and this shows it is more than a normal meeting and threatened to arrest the person, who had asked. He then demanded her to show him her identity card, otherwise she'd have to come with him. She refused. There was no reason for that. No noise, no violence of course, no megaphones, no paroles, nothing, just some people standing there and talking with each other about Scientology.

The group decided to leave. They said, there was somebody, who did announce the event at the police, as is legally necessary, but that person did not show up, so the group did not have evidence that they had announced it correctly.

The group has decided, to continue to peacefully and legally inform society about the dangers of the Scientology-Organisation.

Vienna is the capital of Austria, a small country in the middle of Europe. Austria is part of the European Community.

Austria has a democratic constitution.

Please do not delete this article. If you have questions about it, ask them. Do not vandalize and do not restrict freedom of speech!

Order by timezone?
Should we order the protests by the timezone they are in so the article is appended to? --Brian McNeil / talk 17:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Humor
http://www.unconfirmedsources.com/index.php?itemid=3013 :( ShakespeareFan00 17:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Shankbone photos from NYC
I will have them uploaded in the next hour to two hours. I'm going up to my office where the upload rate will be faster. Unfortunately, they won't be photoshopped, so you will all see what a crap photographer I truly am. --David Shankbone 18:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

partyvan.info protest news
Lots of information here http://partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology/Raid_Archive/2008-02-10 18:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Minneapolis
The Minneapolis section POV is far from neutral. There should be no "our side". 99.233.74.73 19:09, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Actual numbers should be: Largest headcount-75 with an estimated peak attendance of 90-100.

Manchester
The Manchester Org was not closed. People were coming and going frequently and the door was not locked. --81.99.58.0 20:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It was closed by the end of the protest, then, although I saw no one going in nor out all day. Changed the article anyway. Fallen-Griever 20:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Re. the report that the Manchester Org was closed: Not exactly true. I was visting the Manchester org on the sunday afternoon and the doors were open to the public all day. Infact I chatted for a while with some members of the large and lively protest group who were quite friendly and amicable. On the afternoon of the protest, activities within the org continued with courses still being followed as normal with no disruption. The demo seemed to finish at around 4.00pm or maybe slightly earlier). Infact I popped out to buy some chocolate from Sainsbury's on the corner and had no problem re-entering the org. As for the org being closed by the end of the protest...... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.195.239.163 (talk) 13:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Additional point - Anons were told by the police to vacate the area by 3PM to avoid clashing with people leaving the Manchester United vs. Manchester City football match. Feel this should be noted. Apologies if I may have accidentally reverted your edit - we were replying at the same time. --81.99.58.0 20:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought that might have had something to do with it but I wasn't sure. Side note: United played crap... Fallen-Griever 20:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Plymouth
Why is there no mention of the Plymouth Demonstration? It was very significant considering that it took 6 days to organise and that the area being picketed was very small with a large amount of people.

Direct questions to anonuk12345678@yahoo.co.uk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.121.106 (talk) 20:24, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Milwaukee raid info
I suck at the wiki markup, but here's some info and pics from the raid in Milwaukee

United States: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
In temperatures ranging from 0F to -4F, without windchill, several members of Anon. showed up. The group ranged from 10 to 25+, with public response (as they were driving by in their heated cars) mostly positive. Several scifags noticed us, and one flipped us the bird. We were polite and acted in accordance to the Code. Photos: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Anon1.jpg

More at http://www.flickr.com/photos/23675982@N04/

Toronto
What I added to the article was from behing there my self, and my own, rough head count. I was there all day. That was the only altercation with police I seen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rz350 (talk • contribs) 00:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I think the guy with the gun wasn't punished at all, but the cop was pissed at him, at least, thats what someone else who was there told me. The cops were also laughing at our some of our antics, pretty good time for all 76.69.86.87 03:17, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Order of locations needs attention
What's going on with the order on this page? Someone above suggested doing it by timezone, but I think this is not very practical. I think it should either be alphabetical by country and then city, or just city. Dar-Ape 21:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Timezone makes more sense, to me, because the ones in later timezones were probably affected by the earlier ones, and when I was looking through the page I was actually surprised it wasn't that way. Cheyinka 21:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Just do it by City. It's visually the easiest and most obvious.  One Person should put a "Hold On" message on the page to avoid edit conflicts and let us know who you are and when you are done.  --David Shankbone 21:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Surely the cities should be grouped by continent? FredTheDeadHead 21:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * hmmm... maybe alphabetical by continent then city? It would create good broad regional divisions; country might be too specific.  Dar-Ape 21:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. Aside from the fact that these are all large, well-known cities and the article says "worldwide" already, I also think this fits in the category of "Urban culture" and the cities taking place in that are more important than the continents.  --David Shankbone 22:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Show me the money
Where does this "250" come from? Because it looks like partisan wishful thinking to me. The reliable source says 14 countries and dozens of churches. That sounds about right and is a long way from 250. --JustaHulk 21:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

ED info
http://www. encyclopediadramatica.com/Project_Chanology_iRL_Raids_Latest_News 00:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Irritated
The more Scientology/Anonymous articles I see on Wikinews the more irritated I get. This is the first newsworthy one I have seen, but it's no more well written than any of the others. These articles treat Anonymous as a serious, establishes, well-recognised Internet presence when it's really just 4chan; they generally omit any Scientologist side of the story. The only reason these articles exist is because the Internet is the Internet and people who exist in one community will invariably exist in another; hence, Anonymous writes Wikinews. --78.151.109.1 01:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Whether you like it or not, a worldwide protest involving over 9000 (... haha, "it's OVER NINE THOUSAND") people is a major news story. To say otherwise is ridiculous. If you're worried about POV in the article then suggest changes or make them yourself - there have been problems with POV in this article, that is true, but those problems can be eliminated. Fallen-Griever 10:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I would think the fact that they managed to get this many people to protest (That is no small task), shows they are a serious organization. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The article is still very POV; I saw an occurrence of "Scientology thugs", which I removed. It's also overly long; There are photo galleries with over 24 photos, and the article should be summarized into something shorter. 70.79.113.3 02:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably not half as irritated as these people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CIMG0317.JPG LamontCranston 04:59, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You obviously skim-read my comment; I said this was a newsworthy article. --78.151.109.1 15:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Vienna...
Seems there may be more to this than first thought..

Anyone tried contacting: or to confirm that the protest was actually asked to disperse?
 * http://www.wien.gv.at/english/pid/auslandsjournalisten/
 * http://www.bundespolizei.gv.at/wien/impressum.asp (Google Translation: http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bundespolizei.gv.at%2Fwien%2Fimpressum.asp&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8])

Another Wikinews contributor suggestd an enquiry (which I've modified slightly) along the line of: "Dear Sir or Madam, my name is [Name] and I am a freelance reporter from the English Wikinews who is currently undertaking research further to a recent claim that police officers/state officals in Vienna dispersed a recent protest conducted by the Internet group "Anonymous" against the Church of Scientology within the city. Are you able to provide any kind of official response or statement concerning this?"

I am no expert on how Austrian agencies work, so it might need someone familiar with that region to handle the enquiry.

Public orders law in relation to demonstrations in Austria seems to be discussed on this link : http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fno-racism.net%2Farticle%2F1066%2F&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8 It may be relevant.

62.56.64.224 01:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

More pictures
Someone just sent a bunch of pictures from one of these protests to the OTRS photo submission queue. I have put them on commons. See my contribs there. --Raul654 01:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * What country and city? DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Plymouth, UK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.99.199.38 (talk) 02:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Also on OTRS we have submissions from the London and New Orleans protests. I have uploaded the New Orleans pictures. The London set didn't have a license, so I wrote them asking for one. 76.99.199.38 02:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

...And Austin, Tx. 76.99.199.38 07:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * linky? Bawolff ☺☻ 08:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Adelaide, Australia
There's a broken link or two in the Adelaide, Australia section. --199.79.10.117 13:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The first video link (adelraid) should be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEeS4fshtk (I think this is the video it is supposed to link to)

Adelaide has its own dedicated site with gallery of all the pictures of the event: http://www.anonsa.org/v/10-02-08/UserPics - Feb10 Gallery. http://www.anonsa.org/v/Mar15Protest/UserMedia - Mar15 Gallery.

Any other pics/audio/video that Adelaide Anon have can be submitted to the site by registering > clicking media gallery > Clicking the down arrow under the search > clicking My Album > Clicking the down arrow again > Clicking Add Items - David (AnonSA) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.26.122.8 (talk) 03:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Too late for more photos?
I just got permission from this guy on Flickr to use his photos of the Dallas protest. Is it okay to upload them and put them on here, even though it's already been 24 hours? ~Planoneck~ 13:56, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * What the heck, go ahead. --  Zanimum 15:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous as correspondent
I noticed that the Edinburgh, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Chicago sections all credit Anonymous as correspondents for Wikinews. (Do not confuse with Anonymous101). This seems to me to be an unacceptable conflict of interest to have the purported organizer of the protest report on their own protest. --SVTCobra 14:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's neutral, as far as I can tell. I read it as an anonymous contributor, not the actual group itself. --Skenmy(t•c•w) 14:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That doesn't really matter ... would you have members of SeaOrg add their own sections? I warned against this at User talk:Skenmy/APC. You cannot rely on someone with that much of a COI. Even if the language is neutral, it calls into question the factual claims. --SVTCobra 14:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The whole point of people being able to freely edit the piece is that people such as yourself can remove anything which might be considered "non-neutral". If you're so worried about it, make it so only members can edit the piece or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.79.9 (talk) 14:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand Cobra's concerns, but the last comment hit the nail on the head: we are here as news "anyone can write" so we have to accept that people with COIs may attempt to write news.  Wikipedia has the same issue.  The only response is focus on the content, not the contributors.  There is no way we can assure that contributors don't have a COI. For now, we have to just work with it.  Anonymous contributors are welcome (though it would be nicer if your registered). --David Shankbone 15:05, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It is important to differentiate between anononymous contributors — people who do not have user accounts — and Anonymous — people who are members of the group — and I'll include people who were active participants in the protest. We cannot accept contributions from the latter group, though, like David says, it is hard to know who they unless they declare themselves. If on the other hand they are not Anonymous, and just anon users, we should think of a less confusing way to indicate that in the article. (Why couldn't the group just have picked a different name, like Unknown?) --SVTCobra 17:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * They're called that because of the way the *Chans often force people on the /i/nvasion boards to be Anonymous. Also, putting a name is looked down upon as "name-fagging", so Anonymous stuck. Fallen-Griever - (talk) 14:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

A Note of Congratulations to Those Involved With This Article
You should all take a moment to pat yourselves on the back. This was a very interesting "First" (as far as I know) for Wikinews, and shows how citizen journalism can fill niches and holes that the MSM leaves (I had trouble for awhile finding good news articles that gave an overview). But also for the amount of coordination this article took amongst correspondents both seasoned and new. This is a very comprehensive view of the events that took place, an excellent piece of photo-journalism especially. Congratulations to the many hands that came together to create this piece of work. --David Shankbone 01:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Typo
I believe that 'Dianetrics and Scientology Life Improvement Centre' needs to be changed to 'Dianetics and Scientology Life Improvement Centre'. --Credema 05:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Reorder alphabetically by names of cities
I agree with from the above section Order of locations needs attention. Now that this article has been semi-protected, it should be reordered alphabetically by name of city. Cirt 19:51, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm doing it right now. Bjweeks - (talk) 21:46, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Bjweeks - (talk) 22:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, thanks! Looks much better!  Cirt - (talk) 05:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Todo
Bjweeks - (talk) 06:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Cleanup image and video links
 * Write prose for the missing cities based on sources
 * Further cleanup the image galleries
 * Check the status of every image in the article
 * Try to get free use images for the cities we are missing
 * Copy edit all prose
 * Probably should not write any more prose, and just leave the article as is, as it was on the end of the date it was published. The other minor fixes would be fine though.  Cirt - (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Good point Bjweeks - (talk) 06:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Remove Correspondents From Cities With No Prose?
Seems rather pointless having them their if they haven't written anything on what happened. Then again, I suppose photos are still a contribution. I dunno, just putting it out there. Fallen-Griever - (talk) 14:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd favor leaving it as the article appeared on that day. Cirt - (talk) 17:42, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason to remove and agree with Cirt. --David Shankbone - (talk) 18:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Numbers of the protests as reported in secondary news sources
Project Chanology protests, February 10 2008

Check it out. Cirt - (talk) 05:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Commons
Please replace: -- Cecil (talk) 14:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Image:DSC01645.jpg to Image:Scientology protest in Seattle.jpg
 * Image:DSC01663.jpg to Image:Seattle Scientology Protest 2.jpg
 * Image:DSC01671.jpg to Image:Seattle Scientology Protest 1.jpg
 * Image:DSC01673.jpg to Image:Seattle Scientology Protest 3.jpg
 * ✅ confirmed to be identical. But what about Image:DSC016642.jpg? --SVTCobra 15:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems that one was not yet renamed. I've requested it now and as soon as the bot has done it somebody will come here and make a note. -- Cecil (talk) 15:57, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Please replace Image:DSC016642.jpg with Image:Seattle Scientology Protest 4.jpg. Thanks, Finnrind (talk) 18:30, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ In future please use editprotected to highlight requests to change archived articles. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, will do. Finnrind (talk) 19:34, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

FA Candidate
Just because. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:10, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


text:
User talk:Hockeynette44

Welcome
, 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! --Brian McNeil / talk 22:16, 8 February 2008 (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!

Changes to published articles
Wikinews has as part of the project goals an effort to provide a record of what was known at a specific time. I believe we have another, later dated, article on Romney's withdrawal so it is inappropriate to add it to the Super Tuesday one which is a couple of days old. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

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

title: User talk:Hockeynette44


text:
User talk:Meatough

Welcome
, 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! --Brian McNeil / talk 22:25, 8 February 2008 (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:Meatough


text:
User talk:Lutin jovial

Welcome
, 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! --Brian McNeil / talk 22:32, 8 February 2008 (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:Lutin jovial


text:
Comments:Woman attacks aircraft pilots in New Zealand hijacking attempt

"Unknown foot injury"
LOL. -161.88.255.240 23:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Woman attacks aircraft pilots in New Zealand hijacking attempt (comment)
'Bold text''

Hello! this is a a strange occurance. This is a very weird, very strange hijacking attempt. Why do you think this is important to know about. All it does is scare us into thinking that our children will be very violent when they grow up.''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.8.248.88 (talk) 12:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I honestly was not racist until I met Somali people. I have yet to meet one that doesn't piss me off because s/he bitches about one thing or another. Everyone caters to their bullshit, meanwhile you have some Mexican dude standing there going "dude, I'm an immigrant too and I've worked for everything I have." Lazy Mexican stereotype? Bullshit. I really, really would like to be proven wrong about this, but... I don't think it's going to happen. --64.90.84.103 01:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC)


title: Wikinews:CommonsTicker/20080208


text:
Nebraska court bans the electric chair

February 8, 2008

The Nebraska Supreme Court has banned the use of the electric chair in the execution of murderers. The court found that the application violated the Nebraska constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Since July 2002, Nebraska has been the only state in the United States to use electrocution as its only executional method.

The case developed from death sentence of Raymond Mata Jr., who was convicted in the murder of three-year-old Adam Gomez. Mata's sentence was upheld by the court but stayed it stating that when petitioning for a date, the state should establish that it has a "constitutionally acceptable method of carrying out Mata's sentence." With this ban, no states retain electrocution as their primary means of execution; many other states retain it as an option if their primary methods are declared illegal or the condemned chooses them.

title: Nebraska court bans the electric chair


text:
User talk:Dkniffen

Welcome
, 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! DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 23:48, 8 February 2008 (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:Dkniffen


title: File:9February2008.pdf


text:
MediaWiki:Modern.css

/*this depends on js*/ /*absolute url so it works on secure server redirects to appropriate place on upload server*/
 * 1) p-logo {background: url(//upload.wikimedia.org/wikinews/en/b/bc/Wiki.png) no-repeat center center; height:135px;display:block;position:relative;z-index:200}

/* float in the title bar (Ex little FA icons in top-right corner) */ /*! important is to overide legacy monobook stuff */ .float_in_title { position: absolute; z-index: 100; right: 20px; top: 70px !important;}

title: MediaWiki:Modern.css


text:
MediaWiki:Modern.js

/*extern addOnloadHook */ //add an alt stylesheet $( function {   link = document.createElement('link');   link.type = 'text/css';   link.href = mw.config.get('wgServer') + mw.config.get('wgScriptPath') + '/index.php?title=Wikinews%3ASkins%2FDynamicMenu.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400';   link.media = 'screen,projection';   link.rel = "alternate stylesheet";   link.title =  'Dynamic Menus';   document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(link); });

//Make an empty p-logo portlet that can be styled. by itself doesn't do anything (code for apperence at css file). (Maintainer: Bawolff)

var addLogoDiv = function { var port = document.getElementById("mw_portlets"); if (!port) return; var logo = document.createElement("a"); logo.href = mw.config.get('wgArticlePath').replace( '$1', 'Main_Page' ); logo.style.display = 'block'; logo.id = "p-logo"; logo.className = "portlet"; var nav = document.getElementById("p-navigation"); port.insertBefore(logo, nav); }

$(addLogoDiv);

title: MediaWiki:Modern.js


text:
User talk:Aselman/Archive 01

Welcome
, welcome to Wikinews! Thank you for your contributions; I hope you like the place and decide to stay! If you haven't done so already, you may want to create an account.

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! --Brian McNeil / talk 20:29, 8 February 2006 (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
 * Contents - the contents page.
 * Newsroom - The comunity portal
 * 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
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Welcome
Wikinews desperately needs more gutsy reporters; please give the project as much time as you can spare. Neutralizer 18:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Great work on the protest article. There is some questions, however as to how you got your information. Please comment on the talk page: talk:"World Can't Wait" protesters rally outside the White House. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 00:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Congrats
Thanks for the really good original reporting. Great pictures and article! We could use more of it :) sinblox (talk) 01:36, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Valentine's at Vietnam War Memorial
Hey, hi and wow again! The Source your provided is a 'dead-link' and should probably be under the header of an "External link" since your likely drew little or nothing from that web site for use in the photo essay. Secondly, I find the mention of your credit at the last line of the main body of the article crossing the line of self-promotion, which is discouraged here. I think it should be removed. Best regards. -Edbrown05 04:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the comments Ed. Fixed both.  The last line was a suggestion from another Wikinewsie and I have pulled it.  I actually pulled the stats for the visitors to the site and my other basic info from the site before my report.  I will leave it as source as it was just that, a source.Drew 04:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I should have asked you to publish, thinking you were done. My concern was the earlier problem I had with the 'dead-link' under source, and when I found that working I published. -Edbrown05 05:06, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I will look at the article as per request. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 20:01, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Nice Photos! Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 00:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

 * One more comment on the article (and I am not trying to change it, it took long enough to publish, so that's why this is not on the article discussion page). You said you wrote this from the perspectice of a "world reporter", but I don't think that you article reflects that. In particular the sentence "Conceived as a symbol of a never ending reminder of our connection to the veterans of Vietnam, the wall holds strong memories for everyone who visits the wall." has a very American flavour. Let me explain.
 * Having grown up mostly in countries that had either little or no connection to the war, and having visited the memorial a couple of years ago, I cannot say that the wall "holds strong memories" for me. I would assume the same to be true for most of the 6 billion people on this planet, but if you only count the people that actually visit the wall (as you do), then, while being an overstatement, the word "every" is probably reasonably accurate. But I still cannot square with the word "our". You say it has been "conceived as a symbol of a never ending reminder of our connection to the veterans of Vietnam", I find it difficult to find myself in that "our". More importantly however, I have a strong suspicion that the average Viet Cong veteran would take strong offense with that statement. Even if the statement is accurate in a sense that the walls purpose was really to serve as a reminder for the connection of everyone on this planet to the veterans of the war (and I have no idea if it is), this would merely examplify the arrogance of the founders that in that case were not able to see why this memorial cannot fit that purpose for the people of Vietnam.
 * As I said, something to think about... And nice pictures! --vonbergm 23:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Accreditation!
Congratulations, your request for accreditation has been approved! Please contact MrMiscellanious regarding an accreditation image to be printed. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 18:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Be aware of local spelling
When an Australian-based story uses the British word "gaol" in a headline and in the story, don't change just the headline and claim the change was a misspelling. If it were in fact so, then change it in the story, as well. In this case, the word "gaol" is used consistently in the story.

Spelling consistency between headline and story is important - that's why your first story's headline "protestors" was corrected - because throughout the story the word was sometimes spelled correctly (protesters). Before doing so, I made sure the more creative spelling wasn't just regional use. Karen 00:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

mardi gras
I came away with a pretty satisfied feeling from the photo-essay. I wonder for dial-up bandwidth users how the page might load, but I thought the number of pictures was about right. I wouldn't hesitate with a few more words in the picture captions if you felt it would be appropriate (but I am a word-monger, so let that guide you towards my feelings). Best regards. -Edbrown05 05:04, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Photoessay: The Idiotarod: When Good Shopping Carts Go Bad
Were you going to add photos to this article? ironiridis 15:34, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry Ironiridis I have been working for the man. Pics are up and its out of development.  Thanks for watching it.-Drew 03:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No problem. I like seeing articles come to completion, especially cool ones like yours. :) Good work on that one. ironiridis 19:13, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

That was a cool photo essay, neat stuff. -- Zanimum 15:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, by the way, I'd encourage you to upload future photos to Wikimedia Commons so they can be used on other projects? Thx. --  Zanimum 15:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I have been asked to load photos to Wikinews only for the time being until some things are worked out with our sister project. Alos, I cannot use the CC-BY-ND license at Commons and although I don't mind republication, I am not a fan of re-manipulation of news photos.-Drew 16:14, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Admin
Would yopu support me on request for admin on WN:A? Jason Safoutin 03:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry jason, I just can't right now. I would like to see you more calm in dealing with stress and more familiar with Wiki style and world wide sensibilities. Its tough man.  I would support you in another coupld of months. -Drew 03:40, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Photo Essay: Cherry Blossoms Bloom in DC
That's an excellent article! You're kinda like our inhouse TIME magazine guy. I really appreciate what you've written. --Sfullenwider 20:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Hey, thanks for a beautiful article :)

 * I noticed there is a missing on Wikinews. -Edbrown05 05:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm thinking 'District of Columbia' would be the proper naming of the Category. -Edbrown05 05:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

On cropping
In your Washington Cherry Blossoms article's talk page, you said "Moreover, I do not crop photographs as a photojournalist as I believe it is a distortion of what my lens captured."
 * I don't know what paper or other news outlet you work for, but photojournalists crop all the time. I think it would be interesting to see a newspaper with nothing but 3:2 ratio photographs. Furthermore, before zoom lenses, photojournalists would regularly use wide angle lenses on their view cameras to capture as much as possible and then crop heavily. Cropping isn't distorting a picture, it is more like focusing on your subject more tightly. If you didn't want to "distort" your pictures with blurred backgrounds isolating your subject and the like, I guess you could shoot at the hyperfocal point with your smallest aperture all the time, but who would do that? Also, just by using a 3:2 ratio sensor you're already cropping what your lens "captures" because they don't exactly put out oval shaped image circles. 65.27.76.238 13:20, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I should revise the comment. First, it was a criticism of photos that had been certainly post produced and I was somewhat irritated.  But as for the cropping, I work for 2-3 other outlets as a PJ and each paper has asked that we crop in only a minimal fashion.  There are certainly guidelines for doing so.  Mostly what I object to is cropping where it cuts out information or changes the story that the picture is trying to convey.  Certainly the Ann Richards on a Harley cover of Texas Monthly was a huge problem since it was a compostie photo (Richards never sat for the picture).  Cropping when used in that fashion to alter the story is a problem.  I come from a minimalist school.  Crop certainly to focus the story.  But in an environment like Wiki, I feel its key to let the lens convey as much as possible.  To tell the story the way my eye first sees it.  Case in point, a photo was cropped to show only a policy officer beating on a suspect.  The photo was sensational and caused a lot of problems.  It told a story certainly.  But, what the uncropped photo showed, was that the officer was being attacked by other armed criminals at the time.  He was in essence fighting for his life.  Completely different story than what the PJ or his editors allowed.  So this is what I meant to say certainly.  Crop, but don't change the story, no matter how tempting. -Drew 16:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding my RfA
Hey man. I wanted to thank you for supporting my RfA. I really appreciate it. Keep taking those pictures; we need more professional photography on Wikinews. :) irid:t 22:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Ping
Hi, curiousity seeks the cat. -Edbrown05 06:37, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi. Just very, very busy with work these days.  Not much time.  I've a new screenplay in the works -Drew 21:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I would like to have your opinion on this. FellowWikiNews 02:05, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Drew, I noticed on 'recent changes' that FellowWikiNews responded here, and now see your response. Good luck with the screenplay and best regards. -Edbrown05 03:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Aselman/Archive 01


text:
User:Bawolff/sandbox/dan100

{|{|cellpadding="5" cellspacing="3" class="mainpagetable"
 * style="border: 1px solid #FFFFFF;padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; width:60%; vertical-align: top;font-size:larger;" rowspan="3"|
 * style="border: 1px solid #FFFFFF;padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; width:60%; vertical-align: top;font-size:larger;" rowspan="3"|

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, 60, has announced his intentions to "suspend" his presidential bid. Romney spent millions of his own money during the campaign.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win," Romney said during his speech when he announced he would be abandoning his campaign. "And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."

With Romney's departure, most say that the Republican Party will nominate Senator John McCain at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. McCain currently leads in delegate count. There is also speculation that McCain will pick Mike Huckabee, who remains in the race, as his running mate. » Full story

Latest news reports

 * style="width:35%; border: 0px solid #cfcfbf; background-color: #f0f0ff; height:1%; padding: .5em 1em 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;font-size:smaller; border:thin grey solid;"|
 * style="width:35%; border: 0px solid #cfcfbf; background-color: #f0f0ff; height:1%; padding: .5em 1em 1em; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;font-size:smaller; border:thin grey solid;"|

 * style="padding: .5em 1em 1em; background-color: #f0f0ff; vertical-align: top;"|
 * style="padding: .5em 1em 1em; background-color: #f0f0ff; vertical-align: top;"|

 * style="border: 0px solid #FFFFFF; padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #FFFFFF; vertical-align: bottom;"|
 * colspan="2" style="border: 1px solid #cfcfbf; padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #FAF2F2; vertical-align: top;"|
 * colspan="2" style="border: 1px solid #cfcfbf; padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #FAF2F2; vertical-align: top;"|
 * colspan="2" style="border: 1px solid #cfcfbf; padding: .5em 1em 1em; color: #000000; background-color: #FAF2F2; vertical-align: top;"|

Wikinews in other languages Sister projects
 * colspan="2" class="MainPageBG" style="border: 1px solid #cfcfbf; padding: .5em 1em 0; font-size: 100%; color: #000; background-color: #f9fcff"|
 * colspan="2" class="MainPageBG" style="border: 1px solid #cfcfbf; padding: .5em 1em 0; font-size: 100%; color: #000; background-color: #f9fcff"|
 * colspan="2" class="MainPageBG" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; padding: .5em 1em 0; font-size: 100%; color: #000; background-color: #fff"|
 * colspan="2" class="MainPageBG" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; padding: .5em 1em 0; font-size: 100%; color: #000; background-color: #fff"|
 * colspan="2" class="MainPageBG" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; padding: .5em 1em 0; font-size: 100%; color: #000; background-color: #fff"|
 * colspan="2" class="MainPageBG" style="border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; padding: .5em 1em 0; font-size: 100%; color: #000; background-color: #fff"|
 * }

Начална страница Hauptseite Portada Accueil Pagina principale Hoofdpagina Strona główna Página principal Pagina principală Главна страна Huvudsida Головна

title: User:Bawolff/sandbox/dan100


text:
Memorial service takes place for Heath Ledger

February 9, 2008 A memorial service has taken place for Australian actor Heath Ledger, who died January 22 in New York. Hollywood celebrities and many other loyal fans bid farewell to the well known actor. His death has been deemed accidental by the New York City Medical Examiner and was attributed to a toxic mixture of prescription drugs and pain killers. The star died in his Manhattan apartment last month.

The service was held at Penrhos College in Perth, Australia and was attended by over 100 people, although the actual funeral was only attended by Ledger's close family. Before the funeral, Heath's father, Kim Ledger, said that "the funeral will be very, very private and there will only be 10 people there, immediate family and nobody else."

In addition to family, the memorial service was attended by actors and actresses who have worked with Ledger, including Cate Blanchett who starred with Ledger in the Bob Dylan bio-flick, I'm Not There. Blanchett spoke of the times she shared with Ledger in New York and Los Angeles. The Other speakers included his parents, sister and Neil Armfield, a director of Ledger's last Australian film, Candy.

An emotional Williams, was wearing dark glasses and a white dress with black trim, she was not accompanied by her daughter Matilda. Williams walked in clutching the arm of Ledger's older sister, Kate.

Williams issued a statement following Ledger's death saying, "My heart is broken. I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day."

The Ledger family asked the media not to visit the funeral because they claim they will find it easier to cope without the media present. Ledger's father said, "It's a pretty sad time. We're finding it difficult to cope by ourselves, let alone cope with everybody around the world." He continued, however, by saying that the family does, "really appreciate the outpouring and the emotional support from all over the globe."

Ledger starred in the 2005 movie Brokeback Mountain which earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor. It was on the set of Brokeback Mountain where he met Michelle Williams and their relationship began. He additionally starred in the 2000 movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson.


text:
User:Hotridge~enwikinews

When a man wishes to show that he cannot prevent something being done, or cannot himself do something, does he shrug his shoulders, turn inwards his elbows, extend outwards his hands and open the palms; with the eyebrows raised?

title: User:Hotridge~enwikinews


text:
User talk:Sir Lestaty de Lioncourt

__NOINDEX__Lestaty de Lioncourt (Meta-Wiki)

title: User talk:Sir Lestaty de Lioncourt


text:
Wikinews:CommonsTicker/20080209

9 February

title: Wikinews:CommonsTicker/20080209


text:
File:IPod family 07.jpg

Licensing
SAVED AS FAIR USE AFTER COMMONS DELETION

title: File:IPod family 07.jpg


text: File:Unlocked iPhone.jpg

title: File:Unlocked iPhone.jpg


text:
Scotland Yard says suicide bomb blast killed Bhutto, not bullet

February 9, 2008 British investigators from Scotland Yard have concluded that former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed as the result of a suicide bomb blast and not an assassin's bullet. The results of the investigation were handed over to Pakistani government officials in Islamabad.

The findings by Scotland Yard support the Pakistani government's version of how Ms. Bhutto was assassinated after leaving a political rally last December in Rawalpindi. Immediately before she was attacked, Ms. Bhutto was waving to supporters from the roof of her armoured car.

The Scotland Yard detectives concluded that Ms. Bhutto died when the force of a suicide bomb blast rammed her head into the roof of the car. The head of Pakistan's team investigating the assassination, Abdul Majeed, read the findings of the British pathologist who assisted with the investigation.

"The blast caused a violent collision between her head and the escape hatch area of the vehicle causing a severe and fatal head injury," Majeed said.

Television footage of the attack shows a single gunman firing shots toward Ms. Bhutto seconds before the explosion. Investigators determined the person firing the gun was also the suicide bomber.

"All the evidence indicates that one suspect has fired the shot before detonating an improvised explosive device," Majeed said. "At the time of the attack this person was standing close to the rear of Mrs. Bhutto's vehicle."

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf invited Scotland Yard to investigate the cause of Ms. Bhutto's death after some of her supporters charged that the government could be involved in the attack and was covering up circumstances of her assassination.

Officials of Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party maintain she was shot during the attack. Even after the results of the Scotland Yard investigation were released, party spokeswoman Sherry Rehman insists that an assassin's bullet hit the former prime minister.

"We clearly saw even on footage that she recoiled from a bullet and she fell inside," Rehman said. "The issue really is that this gives us all the more reason to ask for a larger U.N. investigation into what led up to the events of December 27 and to what is behind the hand that pulled the trigger and to who are the financiers, sponsors, organizers and perpetrators of this crime."

The Scotland Yard report notes that despite the lack of a detailed search of the crime scene or an autopsy of Ms. Bhutto's body, sufficient evidence is available for investigators to draw what they are calling reliable conclusions.

Detectives relied on X-rays of Ms. Bhutto's head and a detailed examination of video footage of the attack. The British team only investigated how Ms. Bhutto was killed, not who was behind it.

The Pakistani government says an al-Qaida-linked militant chief based on the border with Afghanistan is responsible for her killing.

At least four people have been arrested in connection with the case, including a 15-year-old boy who told police he was among a five-man suicide squad charged with assassinating the opposition leader.

Ms. Bhutto's death led to widespread rioting and protests and forced a delay of nationwide elections currently scheduled for later this month.


text:
Comments:Nebraska court bans the electric chair

Fantastic!
This is fantastic news! No one deseves to be murdored. If people actually want to do that, they are as bad as the criminals! --Mephiles 14:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Keep in mind, they could easily do what most other states do when this sort of thing happens: Move to lethal injection. That being said, they came incredibly close to writing it out of the state code last session, they may just actually write it out this time. 68.39.174.238 01:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I always wondered...
...why Nebraska kept it as their ONLY method for so long; even Florida, which was notorious for electrocuting people, switched years ago. 68.39.174.238 01:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I honestly wonder...
...what Ernie Chambers is saying about this... should be a fun rest of the legislative session. 68.39.174.238 05:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


text:
User:Anonymous101/Not Archived

This is, in theory a list of all non-archived articles which are over 7 days old, however there may be some mistakes. If a published article is listed for 3 or more days in the future and published they will be listed here

 category=Published notcategory=Archived notcategory=AutoArchived notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= notcategory= namespace=0 order=ascending

title: User:Anonymous101/Not Archived


text:
Van Canto's Stefan Schmidt on a capella metal, Wacken, Nightwish, piracy & more

February 27, 2008

"Five singers, one drummer. No guitars, no bass, no keyboards but nevertheless an unbelievable melodic metal experience."

That's how the official website of van Canto describes the band. Hailing from Germany, van Canto are what is called an a capella metal band, the pioneers of this new genre.

The band released their debut, A Storm to Come, in December 2006. Exactly a year later, van Canto announced a global signing to Gun Records/Sony BMG, and their debut was released worldwide on December 14.

Van Canto are now experiencing considerable success. They recently provided support for Finnish symphonic power metal band Nightwish, as well as receiving a slot at the internationally famous Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. The prestigious event sees them sharing the bill with acts such as Hatebreed, Sonata Arctica, As I Lay Dying, Soilwork, Children of Bodom, Nightwish, Lordi and headline act Iron Maiden.

Van Canto's second album will be recorded across this month and next, with famed producer Charlie Bauerfeind, although no release date has yet been confirmed.

In light of recent events, van Canto member and founder Stefan Schmidt has given the band's first interview in English, all previous interviews being in German or Italian. Wikinews now exclusively brings you that interview below.

On the early days

 * How did you decide on the concept for the band?

After the split of my former band Jester’s Funeral I wanted to do something vocal oriented with a heroic attitude. It wasn’t planned to leave out all instruments in the beginning, it was an idea developed in the studio turning out to work great.

 * Are there any similar bands you could say inspired you, or was it an original idea?

We are playing melodic metal, so my inspiration as a composer can be found in Blind Guardian and Nightwish. Metallica has always been a great influence for me, too. I don’t listen to many a capella bands, though. There’s a German a capella band called the Wise Guys which I like, but it’s pop and doesn’t have to do much with our style of singing or performing. Combining the metal style with the performing style a capella is the original part of the idea.

 * In the music world, as with all aspects of life, new or rare ideas often meet with difficulties. How hard was it to get people to take you seriously at first?

It wasn’t that hard because we did not do much for it. We just presented our idea and many people liked it, some others didn’t. We don’t put much time in convincing people starting their argumentation with “you don’t use guitars, this is no metal”. I think everyone who takes the time to listen to our songs or to visit us performing live can see that we really love metal music and love to sing.

 * Before you got your world signing, you changed drummers. Is the previous drummer still involved in any way with the band?

Yes, Strilli is still a friend of the band. Van canto first was planned as a studio project among friends. We didn’t expect it to turn out that successful. So Strilli joined the band for recordings and the video shoot although he had I think 4 or 5 bands at that time. When van canto seemed to demand more time, he decided to focus on other projects. It was not a problem for us, because he told us early and still managed to play all shows with us until we had our new drummer

 * How did you select his replacement?

Bastian is my long time band mate since 12 years now. We played together in all our bands, only interrupted by the first van canto year, when he lived in China for one year. After he returned he was the first and only choice to follow up Strilli.

 * When A Storm to Come was first released, did you expect the rapid success you subsequently received?

To be honest, from time to time we hoped it, but didn’t expect it. If you put that much time in a personal hobby and you notice that the result, the first songs, sound really great, of course you hope that other people like it as well. But the fact that we receive that much positive feedback in shortest time, without any support from a company or management makes us very happy. It shows that metal still works, there are thousands of people out there waiting for new music, fanzine authors working hours and hours on reviews and interviews without getting any money for it. It’s unbelievably great.

 * How did you come to be selected for the Nightwish tour at such an early stage in the band's career? How did they discover you?

We got in touch with our current record company in April 2007. They managed to get in contact with the booking company of the “on a dark winter’s night”-performances. So we weren’t actually chosen by Nightwish themselves, and it was only for two shows, but nevertheless this was great.

 * Do you feel being associated with them has given or will give your popularity a boost?

Of course! We played in front of 15.000 People within 24 hours and every magazine was there to see the first show of the new Nightwish singer in Germany. This was a great experience for us and the audience welcomed us very kindly.

 * How easy or hard was it to get your world record deal? Did you see a lot of rejection beforehand, or was it fairly straightforward having by then shown the industry you were serious?

Unlike the approach we chose with our former bands, we didn’t contact any record company with our self-produced debut, but managed everything on our own. So this time the record companies contacted us after van Canto was recognized in the internet.

 * What about your first video, for The Mission. How has that gone down with the industry?

We did this on our own as well. A friend of ours did all the writing, cutting and effects. We only had to pay a cameraman, a lighting technican and a make-up artist for 13 hours. It was great to see how many professional people have fun doing their work and not demand thousands of euros of a new formed band.

On the new album

 * Are things on track for the recording of the new album?

Yes, everything works fine. We recorded drums in November and January and will record all voices in March.

 * When do you expect it to be released?

That’s up to the record company, I think it will be released in summer, so that the Wacken crowd can sing out the new songs.

 * Can you give us an idea of what to expect from the new material?

If you do something new, you don’t have any references on how to sound. We noticed many things in the year after the recording of “a storm to come”. We now better know which words and syllables sound good in which context of the song. So I think our bass voice will be “more bass” our guitar voices will be “more guitar” and so on. From the songwriting point of view we are still in the melodic metal genre, what we call hero metal. We will also do some covers.

 * What's it like working with Charlie Bauerfeind?

Great. He’s a great guy with a very high musical understanding. Having worked with Blind Guardian he definitely knows how to push voices, and many of them, in the right direction.

 * Do you expect to release any singles this time round? Will there be another music video?

It’s too early to tell, we will first finish the recordings and then see what we can do around the songs.

 * Do you anticipate comparable success with this album?

We wait for nothing but are thankful for everything happened so far and everything that is about to happen. Let’s see.

On Wacken Open Air

 * There are a lot of very big names announced for Wacken, as usual. Do you feel daunted by this?

Not daunted, but really exited. If we can really manage to shake hand with Iron Maiden I’m sure not being able to speak one comprehensible word, haha. But I guess every band playing on this year’s Wacken will try to shake hands with them so I better not too disappointed if it doesn’t work out.

 * What about in terms of style? Wacken is known for the variety, but your music is the most unusual and amongst the lightest at the festival. Is that a worry for you? What sort of reaction do you expect?

On every festival we played so far, people were first irritated, then a little bit amused and not later than the third song we played most of the people were enthusiastic about our songs. I hope this will be the way it turns out to be in Wacken.

 * What are your opinions on the other acts there? Are there any you want to see yourselves?

Iron Maiden of course, Nightwish are there and I’m also looking forward to the Avantasia show.

 * Have any of you ever been to Wacken before as a fan or fans?

Of course. I have been there 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2005.

 * Do you expect Wacken to open up new opertunities for you? Can we expect van Canto at, say, festivals in the US, UK or Japan?

Hmm – we hope so. We also have a great fan base in Brazil and try to get over there in the summer to do some shows.

 * How long is your slot at Wacken?

We don’t know yet.

 * Will we see more new material than anything, or will you perform a mix?

This depends on how long our slot is, but I think the focus will be on the second album then.

On the future of metal

 * Do you expect a capella metal to become a more common genre?

I don’t know. I think it would be great if other bands tried out so we can share our experience and do not have to find out everything on our own, haha.

 * Do you expect other bands to be influenced and encouraged by your success?

I hope so. When we get mails from musicians or metalbands influenced by our style of songwriting our by the courage for doing something new we feel really great. I only started playing music because I was inspired by other bands as a teenager, it would be great if we could inspire other musicians, too.

 * Do you think the industry should be more accepting of fresh or unusual ideas?

I think the term “the industry” is too general for that kind of question. I think that today the chances to get heard are better than 10 years ago. Everybody can produce an “ok-sounding” album and put up a video in youtube. And if it’s done well and the idea sticks out, the industry will contact the band, which is their job, actually.

 * One subject that's been in the news a lot recently is bands complaining they feel exploited and/or by their record labels. Have you found this yourself?

We all had bad experiences with former bands and former record labels, but most of these labels have been one- or two-man-companies that didn’t have much money to invest. That’s why we decided to do everything on our own until we get a partner that is able to do all the things we do, only better.

 * Another common complaint is about illegal downloading "killing" the indutry. What's your opinion on that?

Illegal downloading is not only killing the industry but also the bands behind. You can’t earn much money with music today, so of course I’m not happy when I read a comment under our youtube video saying “who can rip me the record? Where can I download it?”. I think we offer many possibilities for people who just want to check out one song: We have the youtube video, we have a stream player on our website and you can find lots of live bootlegs in the web. So if you really like the music you should buy a CD to give us the possibility to continue. But I think in metal most people act this way, they really buy CDs because they like to own the cover, the booklet and everything. It’s ok for us.

 * What trends do you think we will see in metal over the next decade?

I don’t know and that’s the interesting part of it. Metal has been declared being dead about 1000 times and every year there are new bands with new ideas, great musicians and lots of people listening. I think there is much more to come.

 * What advice do you have for artists of any genre strugling to find acceptance from the industry?

I don’t feel I am in the position of giving advice. We had a good idea, worked hard on it and were a little bit lucky finally. Perhaps it’s the most important thing to make music because you like it, not because you are expecting something. All van canto members have been playing in metal bands for about 10 or 12 years and now it seems as if people start to recognize us. Even if they hadn’t, I’m sure that I would have continued playing metal, because I like it. It’s a very important part of myself, so I don’t waste a thought on leaving that part away.


text:
User talk:67.140.228.101

Hi. Unfortunatly, we had to delete your question as it is not apropriate for this site. However, if I can direct you here, you should find a good venue for people to try and help you. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:67.140.228.101


text:
U.S. entertainment writers' strike may end this week

February 12, 2008 The Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, which has crippled entertainment productions in Hollywood since November, may be over as early as Wednesday.

In an email to its members Saturday, the WGA announced the arrangement of a tentative agreement with the studios. The union's members will vote on the agreement sometime during the next two weeks. However, a decision to return to work could be made as early as Tuesday. The WGA has recommended that its members support the contract, as it provides money to writers whose work is transmitted over the Internet.

There were two meetings held with the writers, one in New York and the other in Los Angeles where the writers seemed to be enthusiastic about getting back into business. Such shows as Desperate Housewives, the American The Office, and Grey's Anatomy will begin again if the votes go as planned.

Executive producers for TV series, sometimes called show runners, are heading back to work before the guild takes a final vote. They are preparing for the writer's return, which is now expected to be as early as Wed. Show runners are also members of the guild. They are allowed back at work Monday under the stipulation that their work only consists of producer related tasks.


text:
American mystery writer Phyllis A. Whitney dies at age 104

February 9, 2008

Phyllis Ayame Whitney, American mystery writer has died yesterday from pneumonia. She was 104.

She was born on September 9, 1903 in Yokohama, Japan.

Whitney wrote more than seventy novels. In 1961, her book The Mystery of the Haunted Pool won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Juvenile novel, and she duplicated the honor in 1964, for The Mystery of the Hidden Hand. In 1988, the MWA gave her a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement.


text:
Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with International Space Station

February 9, 2008

Space Shuttle Atlantis, on mission STS-122, has docked with the PMA-2 docking port on the Harmony module of the International Space Station. Atlantis, carrying seven astronauts, launched on Thursday on a mission to deliver the European Columbus module to the Station.

Soft docking occurred at 17:17 GMT, followed by a hard dock at 17:35. This is the first time a Shuttle has docked to the Harmony module, since its installation in October 2007, during Shuttle mission STS-120.

Prior to docking, Atlantis performed a rendezvous pitch maneuver (RPM), rotating the orbiter through 360 degrees in order to allow an inspection of its heat shield. This was completed between 16:24 and 16:32.

NASA engineers are particularly interested in a loose insulation blanket on one of the OMS engine pods at the aft end of the Shuttle, which was discovered during inspections on Friday. The problem is similar to one which occurred on Atlantis' previous flight, STS-117.

Around three hundred pictures of the heat shield and OMS pods were taken, and transmitted to Earth for analysis.

Other problems under evaluation are reported to include a damaged tile towards the front of the shuttle, and an entire tile falling away from the rear of the shuttle when its engines ignited at launch. It is not believed that any of these issues will threaten the Shuttle or its crew.

Leak checks were then conducted, ahead of the opening of connecting hatches, which occurred at 18:40, and the subsequent boarding of the ISS by the crew of Atlantis.


text:
Talk:Van Canto's Stefan Schmidt on a capella metal, Wacken, Nightwish, piracy & more

OR
Most of the information in the intro sourced from www.vancanto.de. Info on what bands are playing Wacken availible at http://www.wacken.com/en/woa2008/main-bands/billing-2008/ and the description of Wacken as "internationaly famous" and "prestigeous" is common knowledge amongst rock and metal fans. Interview will be conducted via email. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Keep the tone neutral
As you get this interview ready for publication, I'd like the tone of the intro to be more neutral. For instance, I don't like the "Van Canto are now going from strength to strength" sentence. Also, "worldwide" is used twice in a single sentence. --SVTCobra 01:07, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

 * I took a stab at it. I was warned previously that there may be an issue and requested NPOV copyediting at the Water Cooler, but got no response. I'm poor at repairing my own messes, so I can only hope it looks presentable. I'm going to head off soon, so please try and fix it yourselves, people, if there's still a problem as I won't be around for a while. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 07:26, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


text:
Talk:American mystery writer Phyllis A. Whitney dies at age 104

I have unpublished because more than one source is required before publication except in original reporting, local stories and braking news. Also, I think it may be a bit short for publication. However, I want to congratulate the author on keeping POV. If this is breaking news please add to the story to indicate that it is breaking or add  if it contains original reporting.--Anonymous101 18:31, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Please add czech interwiki
Please add czech interwiki Ve věku 104 let zemřela americká spisovatelka Whitneyová --Sevela.p (talk) 12:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC) ✅ Jcart1534 (talk) 03:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


text:
Randall Munroe, writer of xkcd, talks about the comic, politics and the internet

March 4, 2008 is the writer of the popular webcomic. The comic is known for its geeky humor and minimalist drawing style that generally uses stick figures. Munroe worked as a contractor for before writing xkcd full time in 2006.

Wikinews reporter Joshua Zelinsky interviewed Munroe at, Harvard's annual science fiction convention.

Interview with Randall Munroe
'''So could you tell us a little about yourself and xkcd?

RM: xkcd is a webcomic that I started while I was in the middle of more productive things, school and work, that sort of by accident turned into a big thing and eventually became what I did professionally. I quit my job and got out of school and started drawing pictures on the internet. A lot of math and computer people like it, science people. It's sort of nerdy in general.

So, you have a somewhat non-standard style rule for typing out "xkcd" which I know has caused great consternation on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

RM: Well, the first thing is, it started off as a screename and an irc nick, where I’m very used to seeing it all lowercase. There are a lot of trendy things, from, the poet, up through businesses that take that sort of thing. It is a big problem for starting sentences. If you want to start a sentence with “xkcd” it seems very wrong not to capitalize it. But I really grew to dislike capital X, lower case “kcd” because that made it seem like a word or a name more than a string of letters. The whole purpose is that it is a really abstract string. Capitalizing it is sort of saying something about it. If you’re used to treating abstract strings in programming, changing case is not a trivial thing. It's changing what the string is. So when it is in its canonical form, that’s the real xkcd, the other forms look wrong to me. So but on the other hand, I try not to make things too hard on people so I say “ok, all lower case is preferred if you want to capitalize, I prefer all caps. Mixed case is my third and least favorite choice” But to some extent that’s just style. Not for any particularly important reason.

The comic
When did you realize you had a genuinely successful webcomic?

RM: When it first started out there was a brief flurry of people when linked to me with  Boing Boing and it had only been up for a couple of weeks then, but “whoa there are lot of people reading this. This is a cool feeling. I like. It's neat seeing so many people respond and laughing and it makes me want to write more”. That was really the turning point so then I did it for a little while. I stopped for that winter, 2005-2006, and then started doing it again, and at that point I was picking up readers gradually. It was continual slow, sort of exponential climb. And from then on, it was just a matter of ok, we’ve hit a hundred readers a day, ok we’ve hit 500. and then a thousand. And at some I, you know, realized “whoa this is a lot of people.” But it sort of sneaks up on you.

I should actually apologize slightly if there’s much overlap between these questions and questions you got during the panel.

R. When I’ve done this so much I have no memory of past questions. You can ask me the same thing three or four times.

'''Maybe I should and then go back to the same question later and see. So if you had to give advice to someone starting a webcomic what would you say?'''

R. Don’t look at xkcd and think that it means that you don’t have to take care with what you do. There are a lot of comics that have the same general idea, good writers, but they don’t realize that presentation is important. Just because a comic is successful with stick figures doesn’t mean you can make it hard to read; that you should scan it sloppily. It's important to think about it from the readers looking at it, and see from their point of view, like are they going to get it. Another big tumbling block is do not comment on your jokes after you make them, do not write “this is how I feel about this comic” because then they won't form their own opinions and they won’t believe the ones they’ve formed. Pay a lot of attention to the experience of someone reading it, and keep that in mind.

'''I know just from reading the forums on xkcd that some people have been critical as it’s become more of a standardized joke-a-day webcomic instead of a personalized more or less scans of your old pages and artwork. How would you respond to that? '''

RM. I guess only about 2% of the population is going to like the strip in the first place so I always expected that there are a lot of people who don’t like the strip and aren’t going to read it. Frequently people started reading for the more artistic stuff and then now want more of that. I don’t really know what to say to that other than that what I’m doing is what I feel like I have to contribute more of. I feel like there are a lot of people who are good at the kind of art they are doing and you know, have better messages there. Whereas when I’m telling a joke and I get it just right that’s what I’m doing well. I’m just just doing whatever I think I can do well and will be proud of and so if that wanders from one thing to another over time, that’s not something I can control.

'''That’s related actually to the next question. You have a separate forum for discussion. And the forum not only has discussion on the comic but has, ah serious business and news and sections for math and science and pretty much a lot different things. So how is that? Whats your experience with the forums fora, and related to that what made you decide to add the additional, you know, topical to xkcd but more tangential. If you could comment more directly on what the thought process is there?'''

RM: I’m less involved in the forums than some other people. Davean is in the business with me is running the forums with me, and my old roommate Belial.

'''I hadn’t thought of the IRC readers as potentially different from the forum readers so I’m wondering if other than the obvious connection, aside from the obvious correlation you’re going to get from IRC being more technical, a little more difficult to use obviously. Have you noticed any other differences in the types of people on IRC as opposed to the forum users.'''

RM: Really I feel they’re pretty similar. I wouldn’t say that it's more difficult or that there is a higher barrier of entry. We get just as many dumb people on IRC as we get on the forums. Just as many trolls or people wandering in. Every community has its trouble causers and the really good people and everyone sort of mixing. I don’t think that the demographics are all that different really. It's just a matter of which medium you’ve had more experience with and are more comfortable in.

You also have your "blag" which is really a blog.(Comic 148 Mispronouncing) What about that?

RM. The blag is a fun thing. A project for me. as for the community on the blag, I don’t think there’s much of a community. There are people who read it, mainly when it gets linked to by something. There are people who are reading it and commenting but they generally are talking back and forth to me, they’re not talking to each other as much so I feel like that’s just a place to talk about interesting, science technology and funny things. There haven’t been a lot of posts so far. It's sort of a young thing so we’re sort of waiting to see where that goes.

What’s your favorite xkcd comic?

RM: There are some, ones where I feel like I got things right. I’ve always liked the ball-pit one. Hearing about how people like it and how people respond to it makes me like it even more. There have been a lot of new ones where it would be easier to name, but the ones that have been around long enough people have really responded to way back when the answer to this was the comic about the MC Hammer slide, and I liked that one. I feel that one worked out pretty well. There have been a lot in the last year or so, last 6th months that where I felt I got things right. The one with the internet map made it all over the place, and since then there have been a few where they’ve been so well-reviewed that I think of them as high points of the strip. But I don’t know; I have soft spot that’s sort for the silliness of some of them.

'''You've had comics that have included actual people such as. What has been your reaction to meeting people you’ve discussed or mentioned or made fun of, or gently poked in the comic?'''

RM: It’s extremely surreal. And I mean just discovering that my, this is a normal person, and this is someone from my history books and I’m sitting here eating food with them. And that has not stopped being weird. And a lot of the time I feel like I should be having more substantial conversation than I am. I’m almost at a loss because it's such an enormous feeling. It makes me realize why people act so weird when they meet me, because I might be the same to them.

So is there anyone you’ve put in the comics that you’d like to meet but haven’t?

RM: for a while now. My fans have been acting out my comics and I was making them weird and the fans were still acting them out. So I was just like, I’m going to make one that is impossible for you to make happen and then that can be the standing challenge. If someone can do that then I can start worrying about this again. And so I had Janeane Garofalo jumping a motorcycle off of a crashing space station towards a volcanic island with dinosaurs while she is armed with a tranquilizer gun. I figured that would be good. The reason I mentioned her was because I’ve been watching some of her movies and she’s just adorable.

Somewhat on that topic, there was—I don’t know if you saw it—there was a website that had a fake news article about a hundred xkcders commit suicide by imitating one of your comics.

RM: I read that, I forgot exactly what site it was maybe BBspot.

''Note it was BBspot. See ''

'''So that's the sort of thing you're thinking of in terms of people imitating things? '''

RM: I generally don’t worry about you know, that people are going to do something deadly because I mention it. That would be bad but I don’t think that would be my responsibility if that happened. I do sort of wonder about is, people acting out something that has negative effects on the community. If I put some kind of prank that in real life that would be mean-spirited or hurtful and if someone does that to someone famous and would lead to tension and bad feelings, then I would feel bad.

You did say on your blag at one point that “But remember, I am not advocating doing anything dangerous unless it’s really cool.”.

RM: Yeah well, that’s sort of my running thing. That was sort of a response to people who were really concerned about blame and always have disclaimers that say "by the way, we don’t endorse this". I’m like, do you mean that? Do you have to say that? Can you say that? If you say "I do endorse this" does this change things? What if I say I endorse it if it's really cool. And I don’t know. When I do something it's my responsibility; I’m deciding whether to take that risk and if someone gets an idea from me and goes and does something dangerous that’s up to them. I didn’t say well do dangerous things no matter what, so...

'''The man in the black hat seems to at least many readers to be one of your favorite characters. Can you talk about him a bit?'''

R. Well, I decided early on that I sometimes wanted to be an asshole and sometimes I wanted to be sappy and romantic. And unlike the nerdiness and the romance, the asshole seemed harder to reconcile in one character and make that believable. I started putting the man in the hat, when I just wanted to say the most absurd thing. A lot of the time, I’m in a real life situation and I think what’s the most hurtful thing, what’s the worst way this can go, and have someone do that gleefully. That’s just a recipe for comedy right there. Then I have the guy in the hat so I’d put all that on him and then say “but that’s not the main guy, he’s much nicer than that” and, and I took that, the black hat symbolizes that for me because Aram from the now ended webcomic also wore a hat.

So it’s not in the hacker sense?

R. No, it’s actually a black hat because there are only so many articles of clothing you can draw on a stick figure. I realized that I associated a black hat with gleeful asshole and that was a character I liked a lot of a since ended strip.

Specific comics
Regarding Comic 304, "Nightime Stories" - or ?

R. Speaker for the Dead is a much more grown up book. I felt much less of a connection to growing up so I would say Ender’s Game. I’ve read Speaker. I appreciate it some extent. I didn’t feel as personal as Ender’s game. And I didn’t respond to it the same way. I reread Ender’s Game every half a year or so for quite a while. Probably 12 or 15 times now where it just was such an engaging story and such an engaging set of characters. I went back to it over and over. And that’s something I haven’t done with any of the other books in that section of the Ender’s series.

'''That comic made fun of and didn’t mention the final book  at all. Do you have an opinion there? '''

R. I have not read either of those books since high school, and for me that’s getting further and further away. So I haven’t read either of those books in 6 or 8 years. My memories of Children of the Mind are that at least had  had the end of the story there and so at least playing out, and being “ok, that happened.” I don’t remember all the details but that there was something to it. All my memories of Xenocide are a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder and Chinese history for many pages. So I didn’t have very good feelings to Xenocide. But neither of those two did I feel were on the same levels as Ender’s Game or Speaker for the Dead. I just picked Xenocide as the most clear target of them.

Have you seen Orson since this conference started? ''( was the featured speaker at Vericon)

R: I have not. I have a t-shirt though that he signed.

Obviously he’s aware this specific one about Xenocide.

R: Xenocide followed from that joke I decided to make. I wanted her to be reading a book and wanted him (the character) to object to it and I worked out how the conversation should go. And then I asked ok who should I pick on? I ended up with Xenocide because I just don’t have great memories of it. It could be if I reread it I’d enjoy it. But um.

'''But you did say in the alt-text, “cue nasty emails from all 7 seven fans of Xenocide”. So it seems you understood that it was one of Orson’s less popular works at best'''

R: I can’t resist getting in another crack like that. Even if that’s not true, it's funny to say so. It's like whenever you say anything about, about “we’ve offended the persons in favor of what we don’t like here” you can always throw in “fortunately that’s not many people that don’t like that thing”. That’s almost a standard gag.

Did you actually try the 28 hour day?(Comic 320, 28-Hour Day)

R: Yeah. I tried it a couple times in fact. I’m coming off of a 5 day period of doing that when I was rolling my schedule around. So I found that if I do it for more than a week I start to go crazy.

That’s exactly what you said in the alt-text actually.

R. Yeah that was. it gets to be the Sunday mornings where you have to stay up until the afternoon and nothing is happening. And no one is awake. The campus is dead. The apartment is dead. The internet is dead. And you have to stay awake, and you’ve already been awake for 14 hours. That’s when I’d fail at that. And then I’d fall asleep. And then you’re back on the standard college student schedule. And that’s when it always failed for me. And I’d always start to feel really tired in the middle of the day even though from the equations I shouldn’t.

On Wikipedia and Wikinews
R. It is interesting talking to any wikiproject. You aren’t talking to one person you are reading the words of a community and so now I’m almost feel like I’m not talking to you across the table I’m talking to some random internet mass and so you know “hello, internet, what are you doing on this page? Are you browsing this from work?” There’s an odd feeling to it. I’ve also have this urge to play with wikirules. I wanted for a while to find something I could say in an interview that couldn’t be repeated on Wikipedia.

I was thinking something almost like saying making a sentence that in some way depends on the way it's presented on Wikipedia and if you try to present it on Wikipedia with a neutral point of view by virtue of taking that action you are changing the point of view to do something.

I wanted to do an announcement saying that I could threaten to commit a crime or threatening to donate money to a charity. This money will go the charity determined by the placement of this comment in the Wikipedia article about this.

So by making the decision about where to place it you would be making the decision about how the real life event would go and how the rest of the article would go. And if you make it important enough people can’t just cling to the guidelines and say I’m writing it the best way, and if you make it something like a million dollars to either Africa or Asia, hunger relief suddenly you have the responsibility

'''I’m almost worried about including that in the interview, just because I could see some sufficiently rich troll actually implementing that. '''

R: Hey, if you don’t put it in the article, I’m going to talk about this.

'''So in general how has you experience been with Wikipedia? How did you first here of it, and actually have you heard of Wikinews before this interview?'''

R: I’ve been on Wikinews a number of times. Whenever there is a news story where the data is still being sorted out, there have been press releases but no one is really sure what’s going on, it's sometimes the place to go, to see. Information will always be being added. I feel that like if there’s a piece of information that got out there it's on Wikinews, it won’t disappear and be ignored. What will happen is sometimes there will be a couple of different sources. You go to the news sources and you don’t know which of those sources they have. And so then you go the next one, and you have a different sort of information. And so Wikinews is sort of sticky, someone with one source came in and gave their information. Someone from this source came in and gave theirs. They’re all going to build up slowly there.

Yeah. I think very highly of Wikipedia. I think that’s most of the criticisms about it are completely missing the point. The reason Wikipedia is useful is not because it has a similar error rate to Britannica for example. That’s one thing you often see in comparison. I think that a lot of the criticism of Wikipedia misses a key point -- that the way people interact with Wikipedia is fundamentally different from interaction with any other reference source in history. Wikipedia is a system for pooling information. It's where you go to find the consensus of interested parties backed up by citation. Yes, someone can edit an article and cause harm, but someone can also shoot you in the face while you're walking down a street. It doesn't make walking on streets a broken behavior. People use Wikipedia, by and large, properly -- as a glance at the collected pool of information on a subject, to figure out what something is or how it works. It's not a scholarly reference book, and I don't know anyone who treats it like one.

Politics and religion
'''Now we’re going to move on to something fairly controversial, because just I can’t resist. Religion and politics. You criticized and in the same strip (Comic 258, Conspiracy Theories) make a bug report to God. It's not clear how much the strip represents your own religious views but how much does that one? How much do others? '''

R: It’s a hard balance. I try to avoid being preachy because I can just talk endlessly for anything especially when someone is listening to me because it's part of their job. I could go on and on. I’ve avoided making the comic too personal just to avoid people feeling like they are reading someone else's stuff. They should feel "that could be me." If I were like this is the part that represents me and this isn’t that takes away from some of that. But I don’t think there’s any contradiction there. I think that Young Earth creationism is such a fringe idea that this concept that the Earth is young is not representative of anything that’s real spirituality. That’s a misunderstanding. They are looking at science and then convincing themselves that their ideas are scientific and then really thinking we’re doing science here and deceiving themselves. It seems much more like a delusion than anything to do with the validity of religion. And for making a bug report to God- Einstein would talk about God all the time. It's sort of a device. Einstein didn’t believe in God not in the way we talk about it today. But he’d talk about understanding what God did when he made the universe in looking at physics. That’s sort of the same way I approach that. It’s a convenient device. It’s a way to make a joke or something. At one point I referred to the “the gods” as a multiple thing because that works just as well I feel like.

The Ron Paul strip (Comic 367, Fandom) got a lot of interesting reactions particularly on your forum.

R: I just battened the hatches and didn’t listen and didn’t read any of it. I was like ok, I’m going to do a joke here. The joke involves Ron Paul and I like the joke. I’m now going to just hide from any political fall out... but anyone who has looked at Ron Paul at any length probably realizes that there are a lot broken things about our system and want someone who will just up and fix those things. And Ron Paul has a lot of ideas. We should just change this, this is just right, we should sweep away all this argument, all these structures that have built up and just follow the Constitution, and there are some good ideas. At to how practical it is, that’s to be debated in a case by case basis. But I like the freshness of it all, that’s not to say I’d necessarily vote for him that’s I’d necessarily would vote against him. He seems to represent actual “let’s think about this, let’s come up with the best idea. Lets do it because it's right." and I’m all in favor of that attitude.

''Note: Shortly after this conversation, Munroe endorsed Barack Obama, pointing to among other things Obama's consultation with known for fighting for looser copyright restrictions and for making. Munroe said the following in a follow-up email'':

R: Although pretty important, I don't think that copyright, or more broadly internet policy in general, should be someone's main reason for supporting a candidate. I chose it because I think it's a good example of Obama's decision-making and what sets him apart from so many politicians, and because it provided a convenient background to segue into talk about his anti-corruption efforts and to leadership in general.


text:
London's Camden Market in flames

February 9, 2008 The London Fire Brigade are currently tackling what they have described as a "major fire" at Camden Market in London.

Early eyewitness reports state that a "strong smell of gas" and "explosions" preceded the blaze, which reportedly has a number of people trapped.

Local bar patrons have been evacuated away from the danger zone, as over 20 fire engines and about 100 firefighters attempt to contain the blaze, which has shooting flames "30 feet in the air". Nearby houses and flats are also being evacuated, and roads near the fire are also being sealed off.

London Ambulance Service reports no casualties so far.

title: London's Camden Market in flames


text:
User talk:Ethorson

Welcome
, 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! DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:34, 9 February 2008 (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:Ethorson