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Wikinews interviews team behind the 2,000th featured Wikipedia article

April 13, 2008 This week saw the English-language version of Wikipedia, the collaboratively written online encyclopedia, reach 2,000 featured articles with the inclusion of the article El Señor Presidente. Featured articles (FAs) meet Wikipedia's highest standards for quality, accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style, and thus are considered the best articles on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia team that carries out the assessment and quality control before conferring the status of featured articles promoted five articles to FA status at the same time: Walter de Coventre, Maximian, El Señor Presidente, Lord of the Universe, and Red-billed Chough. With five promoted at the same time, conferring the status of 2,000th on one is an arbitrary decision and in some respects any of these articles could actually make a claim to the honour.

The article El Señor Presidente was created and developed by a University of British Columbia class, "Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation". While an important milestone, the 2,000th featured article is also symbolic of Wikipedia's growing role in the 21st century learning arena.

The professor of the class, Jon Beasley-Murray, began using Wikipedia as a collaborative space where his students could both do coursework and provide a type of virtual public service. Thus, he created a Wikipedia project, Murder Madness and Mayhem, that focussed on creating articles relating to the Latin American literature covered in his class. Not surprisingly, El Señor Presidente is considered one of the most important books in Latin American literature, written by Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan writer, Miguel Ángel Asturias.

The Wikinews team contacted Prof. Beasley-Murray, who agreed to be interviewed for this story. His responses can be found below. Included are sections soliciting responses from three students who took the class and helped create and bring El Señor Presidente to Feature Article status. Thus far the project has created seven good articles in addition to the 2,000th featured article.

Murder Madness and Mayhem
Professor Beasley-Murray, thank you for giving us some of your valuable time and agreeing to talk to us. Can you give some background on what prompted you to start this project?
 * Prof. Jon Beasley-Murray: I should say first that I've written some reflections at the project on Wikipedia itself, as an essay I entitled "Madness".

 * In short, however, I'd done some editing on Wikipedia a year ago. I'd got into that rather by accident--after finding to some surprise that some of my academic work had been written up at the site.  I then spent some time trying to organize and expand articles and categories relating to Latin America, particularly Latin American culture, which is my area of expertise.  I discovered that Wikipedia's coverage of this area was uneven at best.  It was while I was involved in this that it came to me that students could usefully participate on the site.  They use Wikipedia anyway; why not find ways in which they could also participate?  And I'd come to realize that it's only by participating and contributing that you can really understand the Encyclopedia, both its strengths and its weaknesses but above all the way it comes to be how it is.
 * And I've always been interested in using technology in teaching: mailing lists, websites, blogs, and so on. But I've never much liked "educational technology": programs such as WebCT that students only ever use as part of a course they are taking.  By creating something of an educational ghetto, educational technology seems to me to miss out on the most interesting and exciting possibilities of the Internet: precisely the fact that it opens up to the world outside the classroom, and can reconfigure or perhaps even break down the rather limited relationship between teacher (supposed to be the expert and source of all authority) and the student (too often treated as the passive recipient of knowledge).
 * Overall, a Wikipedia assignment offered lots of possibilities, including:

 * teaching students about Wikipedia, an important site that they use (and too often misuse) often
 * improving Wikipedia itself, by generating new content on topics where its coverage is lacking
 * encouraging students to produce something that had relevance outside the classroom, in the public sphere
 * giving them tangible goals that were measured by something other than my own professorial judgement
 * changing their views about writing, by stressing the importance of ongoing revision
 * teaching them about research and about how to use and evaluate sources

Did you consult with fellow academics or students prior to launching this project?
 * JBM: No, not really.  Perhaps I should have!  But off and on last summer I did discuss the idea with a friend who works in educational technology at UBC, who had helped me with the implementation of blogs in my courses.  And this friend, Brian Lamb, was as always very encouraging and supportive of this kind of experimentation.  He looked into the possibility of helping me apply for a grant for the project, but it seems there aren't any for this kind of thing.  I decided to go ahead anyway, essentially on my own.
 * And in January, as the project was getting underway, I signed up with Wikipedia:School and university projects. There were plenty of other previous and ongoing educational projects listed there, so I presumed I wasn't so alone and that what I was doing wasn't so innovative.  It was only much later that I realized just how different and how ambitious this project was: we were aiming to create featured articles, ideally twelve of them, and no other educational project had ever set out to do that!

I would assume the Wikipedia community was in favour of your project, did anyone outwith that community make notably critical comments about your idea?
 * JBM: No, but then as I say I hardly talked to anyone about it!
 * I should mention, however, that it's not necessarily a given that the Wikipedia community was in favour. I've noticed that with some other educational projects, the initial reaction from Wikipedians has not always been so favourable.  In part that's because students are encouraged to write a new article on anything they can come up with, and these are swiftly marked for deletion.  In part that's because they write essays offline, then upload them, and naturally enough they are not in Wikipedia format or do not follow Wikipedia conventions (about "original research," for instance).  Those articles are soon laden with tags, and their talk pages filled with warnings or reproaches.  We managed to avoid that on the whole...  mostly by accident!  But we also avoided those problems, I think, because I'd spent a fair amount of time on Wikipedia already and was aware of some (but far from all) the habits of the site.  And more importantly because we had quite definite aims: students weren't editing Wikipedia for the sake of it.
 * Even so, we did get one "speedy deletion" tag. It was placed, within less than a minute, on an article that I created in front of all the students, during class time.  For one horrible moment, in front of the whole class, I had a feeling that things might go terribly wrong.  The article tagged for speedy deletion was El Señor Presidente... which is now, as you know, Wikipedia's Feature Article number 2,000.

How significant a percentage of the mark you were giving for the class came from Wikipedia contributions?
 * JBM: Originally, the Wikipedia assignment was to have represented 30% of the total grade for the course. Just over half-way through the semester, progress had still been relatively slow, and I was getting worried.  So I proposed to the class that we change the course assessment, and that we scrap the planned final essay or term paper.  This would mean that the other elements (a mid-term, blogs and participation, and Wikipedia) would all come to be worth more.  We talked about the proposal, and I gave them some time to think about it.  We then had a secret ballot, and I said in advance that we would only go ahead with the change if two thirds (66%) were in favour.  In the end, 85% of the class voted for increasing the significance of the Wikipedia project to 40% of the overall course grade.

As a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's communications committee I (Brian McNeil) frequently see both sides of the conflict over how relevant or reliable Wikipedia is. This ranges from queries coming in from students working on their school paper who want a response to their librarian and teachers effectively banning use of Wikipedia, to the other extreme such as a recent case where a teaching surgeon in the UK asking for permission to quote extensively from Wikipedia for a paper on the site's relevance and potential use for undergraduates in medicine. I have a stock answer detailing how to check Wikipedia sources; that Wikipedia is a great starting point for research, and that if you disallow Wikipedia you should disallow Britannica. Is this something you would agree with?
 * JBM: Over the course of this semester, I've come up with a response of my own to this question. If a Wikipedia article is a good one, then you won't need to quote it, as it will have links to all the relevant sources.  And if it doesn't have those links, then it isn't a good article, and shouldn't be quoted in any case.
 * Before this semester, I explicitly banned students from quoting Wikipedia articles in their essays. And I will continue to do so.  I also look askance at them citing dictionary definitions.  And though they don't quote Britannica (I think Wikipedia has now for all intents and purposes replaced Britannica), I would likewise be unimpressed if they were to do so.
 * On the other hand, of course, as you say, Wikipedia can be an excellent starting point for research. I personally use it often precisely for that reason.

Was the experience of using a wiki for collaboration something you would repeat? There have been suggestions for something you might call "EduWiki" for the collaborative development of course material. Would you get involved with something like that? Do you see potential for use of the MediaWiki software in other areas of education? Such a project could be hosted under Wikimedia Foundation projects such as Wikibooks or Wikiversity. Would you favour that over a closed project within academia where contributors' credentials could be verified?
 * JBM: I'm not sure. As is perhaps already obvious, I'm horribly suspicious of almost anything that has "edu" in the title.  And I say that with all due respect to my friends who are in "EduTech"--though I should add that they are often equally suspicious, if not more so!  I've had a couple of other experiences with wikis, in relatively closed environments, and they weren't particularly successful.  I think that was because there was never a critical mass.  The one thing that Wikipedia really has going for it is critical mass.  (Even then, of course, only a tiny fraction of the people who read Wikipedia ever edit it.)
 * The other thing is that too many academics still don't get the wiki ethos. It's hard for them (us) not to be possessive about our work.  This I think is what causes most of the antagonism and frustration when academics do get involved in Wikipedia.  The issue is seldom "expertise," and much more often ownership.  I realize I'm talking in broad strokes here, but for instance a wiki was set up in my faculty, and it proved impossible to edit anyone else's texts.  We might as well have been putting up .pdfs.  It was an exercise in presenting position papers, rather than in collaborative writing.
 * Meanwhile, as for the topic of credentials, which I know has been much debated on Wikipedia, I think that's a real canard. I don't think credentials matter much.  My students don't have much in the way of credentials, but they've done superior work.

Would you describe your students as receptive to the idea of doing coursework where the general public could view their works in progress?
 * JBM: I'd often asked students to write blogs in previous courses, which are also of course visible to the general public. But not too many people bump into such student blogs, except on rare occasions.  Here, the point wasn't so much that the Wikipedia articles were public, but that they were editing one of the Internet's top ten sites.  So one day I'd poked around and found out how many people had visited particular pages that we're editing.  (I compiled and later updated these numbers here.)  And the next class we played two little guessing games.  One involved what percentage of Wikipedia's articles they thought were classified as "Good Articles"; they started at 30%, and it took them a while to get down to 0.15%.  This was just after El Señor Presidente had made Good Article status, so it gave them a sense of the achievement, I think.
 * The other little guessing game concerned how many page views they thought their articles attracted per month. I can't remember exactly the figure they started off with in this case, but I can tell you it was a lot lower than the 50,000 plus that Gabriel García Márquez actually receives.  When we figured out that that article must have something over 600,000 visits a year (I now reckon it's almost three-quarters of a million), the team who were editing that page were somewhat shocked.  But my sense is that the realization was also rather exciting.  And I know that the students who will shortly find their article on the mainpage of the English Wikipedia (it'll be there on May 5th) are absolutely thrilled.  Though frankly I think they (and the other students) are less interested in the fact that the "general public" can see what they've done, than in telling their friends and family to take a look at their work.

Did any students fail to fit in and find themselves unable to work with Wikipedia?
 * JBM: Yes. There was a wide range of responses.  Some were very enthusiastic.  Others took a while to get into it.  And there were a few who never really found themselves at home editing Wikipedia.  I'm not sure of the reasons in each case.  For some the technology stayed too intimidating, or rather (I suspect) they just didn't put in enough time to get past that first hurdle.  As this was group work, however, some of the effects could be worrisome at times.  So it's something I'd have to think over before trying a similar experiment again.

Do you feel that doing this part of the course in such a radically open way encouraged any of the students to work to a higher standard than the might otherwise have? In reflecting on the project, is there anything you would have done differently?
 * JBM: Absolutely.  No question of it.  The most active students, at least, have helped produce articles of c. 4,000-8,000 words that are comprehensively researched, repeatedly revised, and with a meticulous attention to detail.  The standard of every single article is far better than any term paper that they would have written otherwise.  Of course, some students have been more actively engaged, and so have both learned more and been pushed more than others.  But the constant reminders and questions from other Wikipedia editors, particularly the members of the FA-Team who have done much of the copy-editing, has forced them consistently to reflect upon what they are saying, how they are saying it, and what their sources are.
 * JBM: There were aspects of the groupwork that didn't work out as they could have. And we did get off to a rather slow start: I'd have to think about how to remedy that.  Moreover, once the project is over, the FA-Team and I (plus, of course, any students who are interested) plan to have a post-mortem on all aspects of the collaboration.  So there are certainly things that could be improved.  I know I've also learned a lot on this project, and next time would hope to benefit from what I've learned.

You've hit about 6,000 edits personally, have you caught the "wiki bug"? Will you keep editing?
 * JBM: 7,000 now! I'll need to stop editing for a while once the project is over: it has been very time-consuming.  But I plan to be back in the Fall.

In light of the apparent success of your project what would you say to other academics to try and persuade them to try similar experiments?
 * JBM: Absolutely. I don't want to come across as too much of a Wikipedia booster.  I can understand exactly why many academics' engagement on the encyclopedia has proven to be disappointing or frustrating or worse.  But I think that, especially if academics take some time to understand aspects of Wikipedia's culture, there are forms of engagement that can be very rewarding.  We were rather fortunate to run into the FA-Team, a group of experienced Wikipedia editors that had recently been established in order to help others promote articles to Featured Article status.  Their involvement has been an absolute Godsend.  But I see no reason why something similar (or even unpredictably different, and perhaps better) might not emerge in other circumstances.

Before moving on to bringing your students into the discussion, I'd like to close with your thoughts on making this a regular part of the curriculum. Do you intend to do so? Do you feel other institutions should examine your project with a view to emulating it?
 * JBM: I certainly intend to repeat the experiment. The one downside for an instructor is that, if it is to be done right, it is very labour-intensive.  On the other hand, in terms of capital resources it is essentially free.  My university (and many others) pays millions of dollars per year for site licences for educational software such as WebCT.  That's a massive waste of money, as far as I'm concerned; though it's a lucrative racket for the people selling the software.  It's also, I'd say, an abdication of an important aspect of the university's mission: to invest in the Commons.  The trend in contemporary academia is too often towards privatization and enclosure.  (Though I should note that there are valiant exceptions, and my former colleague John Willinsky's work on open access is exemplary.)  The more universities engage with Wikipedia, and the more they realize that they can do so without necessarily dropping the high standards of research and academic rigour that it is also their duty to safeguard, the more they benefit not only their own students, but also the public good.

Good and Featured Articles
In addition to the one featured article, seven made "Good Article" status. How much of an encouragement was that to those of you involved in the project?
 * Monica Freudenreich: I honestly cannot speak for the rest of the class but I think that everyone involved was a little bit weary (Ed: wary?) of this project. None of us had ever embarked on this sort of thing in our undergraduate careers before and to say the least, were unsure of how this would all turn out. Being students, we are prone to leave things to the last minute and with this project that was definitely not a possibility. So, despite a slow start in general, I think the status most of the articles in our project achieved is really impressive and that is a huge encouragement in itself
 * Katy Konyk: I can't speak for the rest of the class but I think seeing so many articles achieve good status proved that he goal was very achievable. I think the only downside was that in class people are going to work at their own speeds so having others reach good article status, if you are not there yet, sometimes added to the pressure.
 * Elyse Economides: I think it was a form of encouragement, but also made the task seem a bit daunting. It was exciting to see that so many of the groups could attain the goal of "Good Article" status at the end of four months, but it also spoke to the amount of time and effort needed to reach that point. Hopefully seeing their classmates achieve "Good Article" status encouraged the individual groups that the same achievement was also possible.

How long were you involved with Wikipedia before you really felt Good or Featured was achievable?
 * MF: I created a user account in January, along with almost all of the class as it was the first time I realized that one could edit wikipedia. The page I believe was created, with the help of Dr. Beasley-Murray on January 15th. After we got a "speedy deletion" tag put on our page, I thought I should get some content up there to make sure that it wasn't deleted, as I have no idea how to create a page. So, we were involved with Wikipedia for about 3 months before we were put up for GA review and then it was just under 4 months when we were awarded the FA gold star. I do not think length of time with Wikipedia is important before achieving Good or Featured articles but rather quality of the content and willingness of other wikipedians to collaborate on the project. I relied on the more experienced Wikipedian users to let us know when Good or Featured Article status was achievable and create checklists for us to complete before getting to either stage.
 * KK: When we were first presented with this assignment in the middle of January I admit we were very determined to get a featured article and I don't think I really realized how much overall work and reworking of the article would be required to attain that goal. In mid-February we spent a couple days trying to read every English source we could get our hands on and we were dumping the contents onto the page. It was at this time that others really started to take an interest by making suggestions and doing heaps of editing themselves. To be honest it felt a little overwhelming, realizing how strict Wikipedia rules are and all the editing we needed to do. While the extensive requirements were overwhelming at first they also made good and feature article status feel achievable because we were able to see exactly what we needed to do.
 * EE: Once Professor Beasley-Murray seriously encouraged us to start working on our articles, by assigning us to make one edit, large or small, to our article, creating an article on Wikipedia seemed slightly less intimidating, although it was still a huge endeavor. Most of the framework and information that carried through the editing process was formed during late February, and that's when the status of "Good Article" became more of a tangible goal. The input from outside contributors and Wikipedia experts also became quiet salient at this point, and it continued on through the entire process.

If you could improve the guidelines for people wanting to take articles up to Featured status, what would you change?
 * KK: I think the guidelines are fair and are what make Featured Articles such reliable sources. My only comment would be that the Manual of Style was extremely inaccessible to lay users, like myself and if there hadn't been professional editors who knew what they were doing I don't know if we could have gotten over that obstacle.
 * EE: Although I probably didn't work as closely with the guidelines as the other members of my group, from what I experienced, there are a fair amount of technical and professional level requirements that is appropriate for the commitment to continuity and reliability, but difficult for beginning users to understand and properly use. The guidelines are a necessary component of Wikipedia, and Wikipedia provides comprehensive resources to explain these tools. Perhaps the best way to feel confident in using the guidelines is to practice making use of them and look at other articles for examples.

Do you feel that having anything you did immediately viewable by anyone on the Internet encouraged you to aim for a higher standard than you might have with a more conventional paper that only the professor would see? Do you believe that contributing something to a 'digital commons' gives you more of a sense of achievement than just turning in a term paper?
 * MF: Not really. I think what pushed us to achieve higher standards were the other wikipedian editors. They were constantly pushing us to find better references and to reference everything. In working towards GA and FA they set the bar incredibly high. Blogs and other internet sites such as Facebook are also readily viewable to anyone and they often have a very low standard, if any standard at all. So, I do not think that it was because the article and our work was being shown on the internet that we worked so hard at this project. The support of the other wikipedians along the way was critical for me to both keep working at it and to set the standard very high indeed.
 * KK: I don't think that it was because our work would be immediately visible that we aimed for a higher standard. Personally, I think what allowed us to aim for a higher standard was the ability to receive feedback and continually rework the page, which is very unlike a paper where you only have the opportunity to submit it once and cannot fix the paper according to the comments. In this sense, Wikipedia was a much better learning tool than a paper, we were actually able to engage with the comments from other editors.
 * EE: I would almost say it has the opposite effect. While many users on Wikipedia are careful about the material they post, Wikipedia is a fairly anonymous resource, which means an individual's contributions may not be directly linked back to that person. Wikipedia is also constantly changing as editors come and go, so the information one contributes is never truly permanent. A paper is always directly linked to the individual and unlike Wikipedia, the information placed within it is permanent.
 * MF: Undoubtedly yes. This page will be read by countless people over the course of its existence. Because I have worked so hard writing and re-writing it, I am extremely proud of the finished result, I almost can't believe I helped write it when I look back over it. Term papers I have handed back end up in a binder than eventually sits under my bed and files sit on my computer unopened ever again. This Wikipedia page will be seen and likely used by others in the future. After all, I am quite confident that the references list is a comprehensive list of nearly everything published in English on the subject. Any student or person looking to read more about El Senor Presidente no longer has to look any further than our references list. Now that is something truly amazing!
 * EE: Yes and no. While contributing to the creation of a "Featured Article" means disseminating that information to a virtually unlimited number of people, the creation of a term paper is also a feat in and of itself that requires a great deal of research and editing. It is true that within the forum of Wikipedia, an exponentially larger amount of people will see and recognize an individual's work, but it is equally impersonal. I find each to inspire a sense of achievement (and perhaps mixed with a sense of relief as well).

Have you caught the "wiki bug"? Will you keep editing?
 * MF: I am not completely sure. I think Wikipedia is a great resource and I have a lot of admiration for all those out there that work to make Wikipedia a thorough and reliable resource but I don't know quite yet if I will keep editing. I would like to say yes but between two jobs and five courses right now I will have to stop or cut back until the semester ends. As for the summer, with three jobs and a couple classes, again I don't know how much time I will be able to dedicate to Wikipedia but I think as I read novels in my spare time or do research for future term papers, I will definitely add references and information about future subjects and topics I study. I do not think I will completely stop editing all together but I will undoubtedly have to cut back.
 * KK: I don't know if I will keep editing, only because I now know the immense amount of work and research that is required to produce quality work. I have caught the 'wiki bug' in the sense that I have a lot more respect for other Good and Feature articles out there. While I may not be able to quote them in my papers I have learned that they are excellent resources and can lead me to other academic papers. Wikipedia will still be my first internet stop for an area that I know nothing about; if it can lead me to other sources than I know it is a good page.
 * EE: I think I will continue to edit, though most likely it will be in the form of minor edits, such as spelling and grammar errors, because that's my strongest area of interest. I think changing something on Wikipedia, no matter how minor it may be, gives the user a tiny sense of accomplishment.

Assuming Professor Beasley-Murray repeats this project in subsequent years, what advice would you give to students following in your footsteps and starting on Wikipedia?
 * MF: I would advise them to start early and start with doing research. Along with Wikipedia, we also had weekly reading responses to hand in. I would advise students to approach Wikipedia as something that is due weekly as well and recommend that they spend at least one hour editing Wikipedia each week or doing research on the topic. To begin, online journal databases work really well but the reality is that many articles published about novels are not online and so consulting the research librarian is an invaluable tool. I think I visited them three times for how to get the information I was looking for. And also, I would advise them not to be too overwhelmed by the process. The wikipedians set very high standards but those standards are achievable. Have faith that even as an undergraduate who is not majoring in English, you can make an incredible contribution and get real results from your hard work.
 * EE: I would also encourage them to begin their research early and get as much information onto the page as quickly as possible. It seems that the veteran and experienced Wikipedia editors and users gravitate towards pages that show substantial activity. I would also encourage them to pace themselves (something I should have practiced more) and look for guidance on other article pages and through other users. Finally, I would encourage them to contact their group members early on and form a plan for the research and editing.

Which would you describe as the harder 'marking authority'? Other professors where you've submitted conventional term papers, or the teams assessing Wikipedia contributions with a view to awarding Good or Featured status?
 * MF: No competition. Our Good Article review was extremely intense and I actually was very overwhelmed by it initially. After working through each bullet point though, I can now see why those suggestions for improvement were both necessary and important. The hard work most definitely did not stop after GA review. In fact, before GA review had even ended another editor went through the article for us, line by line and came up with an even longer list of needed improvements, and once we did that, another thorough copy-edit was done. At times I was very discouraged by the mountain or work in front of me and not entirely confident that I could fix the problem areas but with their continued support and help we did it. Professors on conventional term papers make a few comments and hand it back to you. In nearly four years of University, I have only had one professor hand back term papers and give students the option to revise, rework and re-write problematic areas in the essay. And personally, I find this process of re-writing, clarifying and improving prose to be extremely helpful. Over the course of the last few months I have learned so much about writing I cannot even express... and it shows. I have been a B+/A- student throughout my entire undergraduate career, and my last two papers have been A's! I think the grades speak for themselves.
 * KK: Wikipedia was definitely more intense but I think it was probably a fairer process. I don't have a problem with someone being a tough critique when we have the opportunity to fix the problems. This is exactly what I enjoyed about the Wikipedia process and think this is what made it such a great learning tool.
 * EE: Wikipedia seems to hold more consistent and constant standards across the board, whereas professors can sometimes mark in an unexpected manner. However, in my experience with Wikipedia and my professors, each expect a high quality of work and challenge the contributor to create such work.

Was there significant input from other Wikipedians not taking your course? If so, was this valuable?
 * MF: In the beginning we were mostly on our own but as we grew more comfortable with how to edit on Wikipedia and started doing research on the subject, we found ourselves supported by a great number of other Wikipedians, complete strangers willing to help us on the ambitious goal of Feature Article. This help was extremely valuable, in fact I do not think that Feature Article would have been possible without their assistance and guidance along the way. I cannot thank each and everyone of them enough for looking out for us and pointing us in the right direction when we hit road bumps along the way.
 * EE: There was definitely significant input from other users on Wikipedia, even before our group neared the "Good Article" mark. One of the greatest components of Wikipedia is the sense of community that is cultivated among all the users. When they recognize an area of need, they are quick to offer aid and support.

As a fairly open-ended question, would you see any use for wiki technology in any of your other study areas, or even where you may hope to eventually end up in employment?
 * MF: I think Wikipedia is a great resource to find concise, compiled information and given the fast pace of society today, it will only grow in importance for people needed to quickly check the names of certain people or places when working on projects or reports in the workplace. I already use Wikipedia for quick reference checks, to clarify what something or who someone is that I am not familiar with.
 * KK: I totally see use for wiki technology. Wikipedia is often the first source I go to when I have a question. While I cannot cite Wikipedia in my school papers I have learned that if it is a good article then it can be a great database for other academic works that I can use and if not it is normally a great source to give me some basic knowledge. I think if more and more articles can reach at least Good status Wikipedia might start to be acknowledged as a reliable source.
 * EE: I have always appreciated Wikipedia as a resource to provide me with background information for many of my areas of study. While it is not acknowledge as a strictly academic source, I use it to familiarize myself with a topic before delving in to deeper research. I also find Wikipedia to be a useful resource for non-academic subjects, which is, in essence, the beauty of Wikipedia.

The 2,000th
How did you feel when "El Señor Presidente" was made up to Featured Article (FA) status? Did you have a celebratory drink or a party?
 * MF: I was (and still am) extremely excited. Before this semester started in January, I was not even aware that anyone could edit Wikipedia, let alone create a page and build it from scratch. I honestly did not know if it would make it through FAC but we have had so much help with copy-editing and technical Wikipedia aspects of creating the article that it really would never have been possible to get a feature article if it had not been from the help of a few key other Wikipedians. Unfortunately there was no celebratory drink or party as the work of a student never seems to end but I will admit I have been rather shamelessly bragging about it to family and friends.
 * KK: It was very exciting but to be honest I had gotten used to editing Wikipedia for over 2 months that it was almost a little sad that the entire process was over. Creating a Wikipedia article is such a group process that I did feel a little sad to be leaving after working so intensely with such an amazing group of people. We have not had a celebratory drink, unfortunately it has been overshadowed by all the other work that school entails but I definitely think one is in order once school is done. I also don't think that it has really set in.
 * EE: It was rather a surreal feeling. It's hard to believe an article that was created in January is now deserving of "Featured Article" status less than four months later. Our whole class had a party of sorts to celebrate the end of the class, which I suppose could encompass the wrapping up of Wikipedia editing.

Were you disappointed that more of your articles didn't make FA status?
 * MF: I have not been involved with the other articles so I cannot say that I feel strongly one way or another. Perhaps this question would be better suited for Dr. Beasly-Murray, who has indeed been involved in every article.

Was getting the article up to that status harder than you expected?
 * MF: To be honest, I don't really know what I was expecting. When the project first began I took a good look at other articles on books that achieved Feature Article status and they looked really impressive so I knew from the beginning it was going to be a challenge but I was ready for that challenge and excited to give it a go. Basically, I jumped rather blindly into "editing" and the whole world of Wikipedia.
 * KK: I would not say that it was harder than I expected but perhaps more work. Luckily, we had an amazing group of Wikipedia users and editors on our side who helped make it very clear what was expected for the article. Honestly, without them guiding us I think this whole process would have been a lot more difficult if not impossible. This experience has taught me that if you are willing to put in the work and time than it really is not impossible.
 * EE: It required a commitment of considerable time and effort, but I think that's to be expected for a highly recognized article. We were fortunate enough to be guided at every turn by experienced editors, who most likely the reason the article progressed so far, so quickly.

Does the lack of credit on Wikipedia concern you? Academia is often characterised as "publish or die". Do you believe the educational establishment should embrace Wikipedia or wiki technology as a way of making this publishing requirement less onerous?
 * MF: Not at all. Wikipedia is such a group effort that I think it would be extremely difficult to give credit to only a few people. I may have been one of the principle editors tirelessly working away at this article but at the same time it would never have reached FA without the overwhelming support from other collaborators who helped us out with many aspects of the article. What still impresses me is how thoroughly they were able to copyedit the article and really focus on sentences of weakness so that the finished product is rather remarkable.
 * KK: Personally, it does not concern me because I did this as an assignment for a class. Therefore, only having edited one article any lack on individual credit is not a worry for me, especially because this is such a group effort. What does concern me is the lack of credit Wikipedia is given in the academic community. Many people worked tirelessly on this article, and of course all the other FAs, to make sure it was all properly supported by academic sources yet it still has a bad reputation. I think FAs deserve more credit in the academic community because they are excellent sources of information.
 * EE: Not particularly. The goal of Wikipedia is to share and spread information, not formulate new ideas or pose arguments. Ultimately, users are merely compilers, gathering information and organizing it into a cohesive page. While some users may contribute more than others, all users are working towards a common goal, which doesn't precipitate the need for individual recognition. Additionally, Wikipedia has in place it's [sic] own sort of recognition and awards system that can give credit where credit's due.
 * MF: Being an undergraduate, I don't really feel as though I am faced with this "publish or die" thinking. I do think though that this has been a very valuable assignment and I see a lot of merit in doing it. It is a chance for us students who never have anything we write published to publish something on Wikipedia. I also think there are many valuable skills that one acquires from editing on Wikipedia because one does not write something once and never look at it again. Wikipedia encourages multiple revisions and re-writing or going back to the original research to further clarify points one makes. I think it also teaches valuable writing skills and helps on improve on areas of weakness in his/her writing. So, I do not know if I have answered the question per se but yes, I do think that the education establishment should embrace Wikipedia as a valuable education tool for students. Seeing that a person's name is not directly linked to any given article and one's proper name is not used while editing, I find that it would be extremely difficult for Wikipedia as it functions right now to diminish the onerous requirement of publishing articles.
 * EE: I think Wikipedia should be acknowledge for providing a (in some cases, somewhat comprehensive) background on certain academic subjects. And it would be nice for students of all levels of education to cite Wikipedia as an academic source for papers and projects. However, I recognize the difficulty in allowing Wikipedia to be considered a rigid academic source, since it is open to changes from academics and non-academics alike. I believe Wikipedia should continued to be used as a starting place for research and information and as a stepping stone to further resources.

How has working on getting something to FA status changed your opinion of Wikipedia from that you held prior to the start of this project?
 * MF: As I said before, I did not even know a person could edit Wikipedia before the start of the project, so, my views of Wikipedia have changed drastically. After working on this page for so long, and achieving FA status, I now have so much respect for all of the editors working to improve the information out there. Wikipedia is a great source and I have no doubt that it will only continue to get better. Because I have been told not to cite Wikipedia information in academic writing, before the project began I had the idea that Wikipedia is rather untrustworthy. At the same time, one of my professors this year included in our course readings some Wikipedia articles such as "The Big Bang Theory" and I was shocked. I think the lesson I have learned from this is that Wikipedia can be an extremely valuable research tool and, at least with the Good and Featured Articles, they can provide the reader with a rather extensive list of academic work to references reliably. In the end, I can't say enough how much I respect all those working on Wikipedia articles day after day, compiling resources and information and really doing something remarkable. Whether professors like it or not, Wikipedia is a widely used tool by students to quickly check facts about a person, place, event, or work and I think with the help of dedicated editors, it will only continue to improve and impress.
 * EE: It showed me the draw of using Wikipedia not only to access information, but to share it as well. It also showed me how much "behind the scenes" effort goes into creating, maintaining and editing pages. Wikipedia had always seemed like a resource dominated by experts or at least people fanatic about a certain subject. However, working on an article has shown me that truly anyone can contribute his or her bit to Wikipedia and make a significant impact.

I'd like to thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to help on this Wikinews article. Who knows? It too could end up featured.


text:
Talk:Wikinews interviews team behind the 2,000th featured Wikipedia article

Note
original refers to the intro text, and obviously interview refers to the interview. Cirt - (talk) 11:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I see that original was removed from the Sources subsection, nevermind, I forgot that the interview tag has a bit of text about original reporting in there, as well. Cirt - (talk) 11:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Possible sources
Found some of these at w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem, might be good secondary sources for background/discussion/analysis for this article:

FYI
As a disclosure, I should note that I am involved in the "Murder Madness and Mayhem" project, by way of being the "Good Article" Reviewer for the article Augusto Roa Bastos. Cirt - (talk) 11:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Licensing
For re-use on Wikipedia I would like to request that all contributors dual-license material CC-BY-25 and GFDL. Please follow the given example. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article (mainly questions) under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license. (Though my contributions to this article were mainly minor formatting and stylistic, but oh well.) Cirt - (talk) 18:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license. --Jbmurray - (talk) 01:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article (mainly questions) under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license. -WikiBlue - (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 22:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license.--Katekonyk - (talk) 15:33, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license--Mfreud - (talk) 17:44, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I hereby license all my contributions to this article under GFDL in addition to Wikinews' CC-BY-2.5 license. --Eecono - (talk) 23:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Signpost
I agree that this is suited for the Wikipedia Signpost. But I wonder if it suitable for Wikinews. Is it really newsworthy? Is this such an accomplishment that people should be interviewed? --SVTCobra 17:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe it is notable more for being an academic project making use of WMF projects. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Miscellanious bits and pieces
Monica, the word "weary" appears in your first answer in the section for students. I suspect you meant "wary"? --Brian McNeil / talk 18:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha! Good call.  I was wondering about that word.  :)  --Jbmurray - (talk) 19:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking good
This is starting to look pretty good with the answers coming in from the students. Could it be a Wikinews Featured article? ;-) --Brian McNeil / talk 19:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Heh. Is that a joke?  Are there such things?  We'd have the double!  --Jbmurray - (talk) 19:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Is everything in/done? Cirt - (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * We do indeed have WN:FA. :-) And I think this meets most of the criteria. There's been three Wikinews contributors worked on it (although I was the one wrote most of the questions). The interviewees edited it to introduce their answers, it has pictures and graphics, is in-depth, and although the content may only have a large audience among Wikimedians it covers a significant milestone for a WMF project.
 * There's a list on the WN:FA page of all those that have made it, and the process of getting there is slow, but I'm personally rather pleased with how this has worked out and believe the finished product is something that reads well and is easy to get through to the finish. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Excellent. Thanks for all your work on this.  --Jbmurray - (talk) 07:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Quoting from the Communications Committee mailing list...

Brian, the interview was a great read, kudos to everyone who worked on it.
 * This is from Erik Moeller, the Deputy Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. He has drafted a piece on this to go on the Foundation's new blog, and the aforementioned kudos has to mainly go to you and your fellow interviewees. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

From the blog post: "Wikinews has a fascinating interview with Beasley-Murray and two participating students." Cirt - (talk) 08:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Additions to article past date of publish
This article was published April 13, 2008. Let's try to avoid major content additions to this article past its date of publish. Cirt - (talk) 03:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Featured Article
Since this was voted a featured article (It's been more than a week), somebody should add the "FA" tag to it. --WNewsReporter (talk) 07:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems to have been done--SVTCobra 18:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Typo
editprotected

The article says "it's own". Either the quote is correct and [sic] should be added; or the quote is incorrect and it should be changed to "its own". Van der Hoorn (talk) 22:50, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

 * [[Image:Yes_check.svg|16px]] Done — Gopher65talk 21:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

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


text:
MediaWiki:Filedelete-reason-dropdown

 * Copyright violations
 * Contravention of fair use policy
 * Unused fair use image
 * Deletion request
 * Consensus reached on deletion discussion
 * Administration
 * Duplicated or superseded image
 * Migrated to Wikimedia Commons
 * Migrated to Wikimedia Commons

title: MediaWiki:Filedelete-reason-dropdown


text:
User:Jbmurray

Hi.

Over on Wikipedia, I am w:User:Jbmurray.

title: User:Jbmurray


text:
File:El senor presidente.gif

Fair use rationale

 * 1) This image is being used in an article directly discussing the book, for informational and educational purposes.
 * 2) It is a low resolution image, in an inferior graphics format (GIF).
 * 3) It is not believed that this image will interfere with the rights of the estate of Miguel Angel Asturias, or his current publishers, in the sales of his books.
 * 4) It is also not believed that the use of this image will infringe upon the rights of Macmillan.

title: File:El senor presidente.gif


text:
User talk:Jbmurray

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! --A101 - (talk) 11:50, 10 April 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!

Confirmation
Hi Jon,

Just as a formality can you confirm this is the same Jbmurray as on Wikipedia and then tell your students to do the same if they register here to answer questions?

Just make sure you're logged in on Wikipedia and put a brief note on your talk saying "I have created User:Jbmurray on Wikinews" and sign it. Then note here you've done so. There's an in-the-works technical process to introduce single user logins across all languages and all projects but that is still in testing and only available to administrators at the moment. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I did put something on my talk page. I hope that does!  --Jbmurray - (talk) 12:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You are already fine as far as verification, but if you want you could add to your userbox list at your Wikipedia userpage, and  to your userpage here.  Cirt - (talk) 06:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * And it would probably just be simpler if your students that come over from Wikipedia do the same. Cirt - (talk) 06:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Responses
I just got off the phone with Katy and she is gonig to try and respond over the course of the day. I don't have any pictures of Elise, Katy and I but I could send a few pictures of Katy and I if we need any for this news release... --Mfreud - (talk) 17:44, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Katy and you would be grand, I think! Unless you feel it would be bad to leave Elyse out.  Your call!  Whatever's cool and easy with you guys  --Jbmurray - (talk) 17:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Well I would like to include Elise but I do not think that Elise will contribute to this wikinews article, it seems as though she has been busy with other things since we got GA status. If she has made some indication that she would like to be involved in this in an email to you, I can hold off and we can figure out something in terms of a photo, if not I will go ahead and get Katy's stamp of approval before I send a couple of photos your way. --Mfreud - (talk) 18:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've heard nothing from her, and think you're probably right. --Jbmurray - (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Journalism
Don't suppose your university has a journalism school that we could persuade to use Wikinews like you used Wikipedia? Just a thought mind, but if you mention it to any of your fellow professors in that field feel free to pass on my email address. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:42, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I'm afraid I have no idea. I've not (knowingly) met anyone in Journalism here.  --Jbmurray - (talk) 19:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem, I'm just really keen to see a journalism class pick up on using Wikinews at no cost to themselves like you did with Wikipedia. Oh, what you might want to do is if there is a student publication for UBC then point them at this article as well as your FA. Since you mention the FA is going on the WP front page they could run with "UBC Students Make Wikipedia Front Page" and extract from here and the article. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You have mail. --Jbmurray - (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I happen to know someone that writes for the UBC paper. I will ask him if the paper is still publishing right now. I do know if there is a halt after classes end or not but I will check with him this afternoon and maybe he would be willing to write a piece about it and submit it to his editor?--Mfreud - (talk) 20:57, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * Sounds excellent! I did just write to them, and will forward you my email.  --Jbmurray - (talk) 21:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

 * I got your email on the uni publication, I certainly hope they sit up and take notice of this. If they get back to you and I'm not copied in then remind them they can draw heavily from the interview article here as well as solicit additional comments from you, Katie, and Monica. All they need do is state something along the lines of "Some content taken from the Wikinews article xxxxx. Wikinews (http://en.wikinews.org) content may be freely copied and distributed provided credit is given. For the full article/interview see http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/xxxxx"

 * I have a pile of other things to do today, but later on I'm going to go through the various mails I've got for the Wikimedia Foundation press address. If I can still locate the one from the teaching surgeon in the UK (per one of my questions) do you mind if I pass on your email address? As he seems receptive to Wikipedia being a source his students can start from I suspect he'd agree with you that knowing how to make effective use of Wikipedia is facilitated by actually getting involved enough to learn the mechanics of the creation process. You never know, he may want to try a similar project with medical students. I know it will be several months yet before he's ready and got the paper he is writing ready for submission to academic journals. However, it may be most useful for him to be able to cite your experiences and how students can study a topic, share what they learn on a subject with a wide audience, gain an understanding of how to use Wikipedia, and get the pride that comes with saying, "look at this, I got an A+ for helping with this article." --Brian McNeil / talk 10:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Photos
I uploaded the two photos used in the article to Commons. I labelled them as dual-licensed under GFDL and CC-BY and credited both to you. With both I noted that you supplied them so you may get some comeback on this to verify they're not a copyright violation and that you agree with the specified license. Commons can be very conservative about what they host and the copyright terms under which it is available, Wikinews doesn't always see eye to eye with them as a result of this. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jbmurray


text:
Portal:Bulgaria/Wikipedia

 category=published category=Bulgaria count=8 notcategory=disputed suppresserrors=true ordermethod=categoryadd addfirstcategorydate=true addcategorydatefirst=true

Note. This page is used by the Wikinews Importer Bot to update the Wikipedia Bulgaria Portal Wikinews Subsection.

title: Portal:Bulgaria/Wikipedia


text:
User talk:Qst~enwikinews

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! --A101 - (talk) 11:54, 10 April 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!
 * Thanks! Qst - (talk) 12:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

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

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

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

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:20, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:36, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Qst~enwikinews


text:
User talk:67.52.255.126

Welcome
Welcome!

67.52.255.126, welcome to Wikinews! Thank you for your contributions 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:
 * 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
 * And of course, stories need writing!

Here are some other hints and tips:

 * I would recommend that you get a username. You don't have to log in to read or edit articles on Wikinews, but creating an account is quick, free and non-intrusive, requires no personal information (not even an e-mail address), and there are many benefits of having a username.  (If you edit without a username, your IP address is used to identify you instead.)

 * When using talk pages (the "collaboration" tab at the top of the page), or the comments pages (tab "opinions"), please sign your name at the end of your messages by typing four tildes (~~). This will automatically produce your username (or IP address) and the 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!

Also, please do not copy and paste articles, it violates the source's copyright. --SVTCobra 12:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:67.52.255.126


text:
User:JordanSamuels

I am a newbie to Wikinews. I've contributed in the past to Wikipedia, see my user page there.

title: User:JordanSamuels


text:
User talk:JordanSamuels

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! --A101 - (talk) 13:31, 10 April 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:JordanSamuels


text:
Talk:Olympic torch faces protests in San Francisco

The sentence that starts with "Peter Ueberroth" is incomplete, it says that he "says that the right balance...." but never says anything along the lines of "is needed" 199.190.223.190 13:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "right balance had been reached" is what it should have said. Thanks for catching that. --SVTCobra 14:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


text:
2008 AutoTronics Taipei: Participants from IT industry to participate COMPUTEX uncertainly

April 11, 2008 Since the AutoTronics Taipei was held from 2006, companies from electronic and automobile-related industries steadily made their stages and a good complementary in this.

Before the first holding in 2006, because of the establishment of Car Electronics Pavilion in 2005 TAITRONICS Autumn (Taipei International Electronic Autumn Show), it (the pavilion) ever became a hot topic in these 2 industries. And eventually, Yulon Group recruited their sub-companies grouping their own pavilion to showcase automobile parts, accessories, and applications. Currently, automobile navigation, mobile entertainment, and road safety, were included in modern automotive devices. But in a keynote speech of TARC Pavilion, Jamie Hsu (Consultant of Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Republic of the China) pointed out several threats and opportunities on the automotive industry, his words also echoed a notable quote by Yi-cheng Liu (Chairman of Taiwan Transportation Vehicle Manufacturers' Association): "The automobile industry shouldn't be monopolized by a company or its own industry. If this industry wants to be grown up, it [the industry] should do more optimizations and transformations with the other related industries like IT and electronic."

Although some participants like, , , , and ever participated in Taipei IT Month, CeBIT, or Computex Taipei, but there were varied comments for participation on Computex 2008. Computex 2008 will do a significant growth, of course. But we [Aglient] still consider to cooperate with Intel in a forum rather than showcasing in Computex. We [the MiTAC Group] will appoint different sub-companies to participate in different trade shows by different industries. That's why we showcase the same products in different shows by different sub-companies. Renesas Technology, a participant of Computex 2007, won't showcase in Computex 2008, but Fujitsu and TomTom both declared to participate in the 2008 Taipei IT Month.

Generally in the automobile industry, progressively conformed by the other industries, its success should depend on collaborations between different and similar industries because "not any company can do any monopoly in any industry" even though the automobile industry will become a "trillion industry" not only in Taiwan.


text:
Category:2008 COMPUTEX Taipei

zh:Category:2008年台北國際電腦展覽會

title: Category:2008 COMPUTEX Taipei


text:
Category:COMPUTEX Taipei

zh:Category:台北國際電腦展覽會

title: Category:COMPUTEX Taipei


text:
Template:2008 AutoTronics Taipei

zh:Template:2008 AutoTronics Taipei

title: Template:2008 AutoTronics Taipei


text:
Public consultation on Avonmouth Wind Farm proposal ends

April 11, 2008 The public consultation into the proposed wind farm in Avonmouth, Bristol, United Kingdom closed today. According to a video released by Bristol City Council the proposal was for two wind turbines to be produced to "help power local public services" and "reduce the council’s carbon footprint."

The Energy Director of the Bristol City Council claimed in the promotional video that not reducing the carbon footprint would be a "failure in our [the council’s] duty to tackle climate change." He also said that the council would face fines from the European Union if the targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not met. In addition to this it was also claimed in the video that the amount of electricity used by the council needs to be reduced as they currently spend five million pounds per year for electricity. He finished by saying that one way the council can cut their greenhouse emissions is by producing their own "green electricity."

Councillor Mark Bradshaw of the Bristol City Council was also featured in the video. He explained the proposals by saying that "we [the council] propose to build two wind farms on a former industrial site."


text:
Template:Bristol

 * Newsroom
 * Style Guide - how to write
 * Content Guide - what to write

title: Template:Bristol


text:
User:Riskrunner

I am Camanda and I can be found on other Wikis, primarily the English Wikipedia.

E-mail me or leave me a note on my Talk page.

title: User:Riskrunner


text:
User talk:Natox

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 20:13, 10 April 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!

Renames
Can't rename the Natox nox account into this one, I'd suggest just making the user and talk pages redirect to the ones here. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

title: User talk:Natox


text:
User talk:208.81.184.4

 * The main talk page for editors at this IP address is found at w:User talk:208.81.184.4. Please consider posting comments there instead of here.

Restricted editing from this IP address
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title: User talk:208.81.184.4


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UEFA Cup: April 10, 2008

April 10, 2008

Zenit Saint Petersburg, Rangers, Fiorentina, and Bayern Munich all advance to the UEFA Cup semi-finals on Thursday. Zenit was all but assured of their advancement having won their first leg 4-1 over Bayer Leverkusen, but the other three ties were still fully up in the air. Rangers and Sporting had played a scoreless draw at Ibrox, while Bayern Munich drew 1-1 with Getafe at home and Fiorentina tied PSV by the same scoreline.

Zenit St Petersburg 0 (4) – (1) 1 Bayer 04 Leverkusen
Bayer Leverkusen were knocked out of the UEFA Cup despite winning 1-0 on the road on Thursday. Dmitri Boulykin scored the goal for German outfit in the 18th minute when he directed the ball into the net from Gonzalo Castro's cross. Leverkusen continued to press for more goals, looking to overturn their 4-1 loss in Germany last week, but couldn't find the net a second time.

Getafe 3 (1)- (1) 3 Bayern Munich
Bayern Munich survived two huge scares against 10-man Getafe to advance to the UEFA Cup semi-finals. Ruben de la Red was sent off in the 7th minute for Getafe for a reckless challenge on Miroslav Klose, putting a dent in the Spanish sides chances early. Cosmin Contra, who scored in the first leg, apparently thought otherwise as he cut in from the right side and fired a powerful shot over Oliver Kahn in the 44th minute. Bayern Munich pushed for the equalizer, but couldn't make any headway until the 89th minute when a shot by Toni bounced off a defender and into the path of Frank Ribery, who slotted home. The goal put the scores even on aggregate, and forced the game into extra time. Getafe took the lead only a minute into extra time when Nobrega Braulio cued up a shot for Francisco Casquero, who scored off the post. The provider then turned goal scorer as he turned home Mario Cotelo's, giving Getafe a demanding 3-1 lead. Bayern looked to be going out of the competition as they had trouble breaking Getafe down, but Toni grabbed a goal back in the 115th minute when keeper Pato dropped a cross from Mark van Bommel and the Italian jumped on the loose ball to score. Toni then scored the tying goal in the final minute of play, rising to head in a cross from Jose Ernesto Sosa. The goal put the aggregate score at 4-4, but the away goals rule meant it would be the German side advancing to take on Zenit Saint Petersburg in the semis.

PSV Eindhoven 0 (1) - (1) 2 Fiorentina
A brace by Adrian Mutu sent Fiorentina safely into the UEFA Cup semi-finals. Danny Koevermans had an early shot for PSV which was saved Sebastien Frey before Giampaolo Pazzini had Fiorentina's first chance, a shot saved by Heurelho Gomes. Mutu scored his first goal in the 38th minute off a free kick, his blasted shot going into the top corner of the net. After the break Mutu doubled the visitors lead in the 54th minute. Pazzini took a shot on goal and Gomes parried the ball away, but the rebound fell to Mutu and the Romanian cleanly finished. Fiorentina came close to a third when Riccardo Montolivo hit the crossbar. PSV then wasted a great chance to get back into the game when they were awarded a penalty when Danko Lazovic was brought down in the area. Simons shot the ball to Frey's right, but the keeper guessed correctly and made the stop. Fiorentina held on for the win, and will now move on to face Rangers.

Sporting Lisbon 0 (0) - (0) 2 Rangers
Scottish club Rangers continued their run in the UEFA Cup after winning 2-0 in Portugal. Jean Claude Darcheville had the opening chance for Rangers as a cross made its way to the striker, but Pereira Gladstone made his way back to black the shot. Sporting's opening chance came when Da Silva Liedson headed a free kick by Leandro Romagnoli against the post. Miguel Veloso then had a chance for Sporting with a long distance shot, but his drive flew just wide of the right post. Rangers scored in the 60th minute through Darcheville as he played the ball out wide, sprinted into the area to receive a return pass, and fired home. Sporting had two chances to pull the tie even before Rangers put the game out of reach. Substitute Steven Whittaker made a run from his own half and fired home his shot in the 90th minute. Rangers will now move on to Italy for the semi-final against Fiorentina.

title: UEFA Cup: April 10, 2008


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Talk:UEFA Cup: April 10, 2008

Summary
Watched games/highlights, made notes and wrote article.Dark_Squall - (talk) 02:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:UEFA Cup: April 10, 2008


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File:11April2008.pdf

Wikinews Print Edition for April 11, 2008   Also available in OpenOffice.org SXW format

title: File:11April2008.pdf


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Wikinews interviews Jeremy Hanke, editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine

April 11, 2008

Wikinews held an exclusive interview with Jeremy Hanke, editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine. The magazine, which is free to read online, was started as a resource for the low budget moviemaker and features, , equipment and reviews as well as articles on ,  and.

He says that one of the goals of the magazine is to "connect low-budget filmmakers via a feeling of community, as many.....often compete so viciously against one another in film festivals for coveted "shots" with, that they can quickly forget their similarities."

When asked if films made on a shoestring budget can really compete with those made for millions of dollars, he replied, "no…yes…and absolutely. Allow me to explain." And so he does in the interview below.

Interview
'Why was MicroFilmmaker Magazine'' started? How does it help the thousands of independent filmmakers out there with big ideas and little cash?'''

 * Mr. Hanke: As a budding low-budget filmmaker at the beginning of the new millenia, I found that it was very hard to find anyone who had practical articles on making films as professional as possible with little money.  Most of the video and film magazines would talk about equipment that could range from $10,000 - $30,000 apiece, which clearly was out of the $7K budget for my first film, which had come from scrimping and saving while working as a commissioned computer salesman.  As I did more research, I discovered that statistically, as many as 70%-80% of all Indie films were being made for less than $30,000, which, obviously, my first film’s budget definitely fell into.  Hollywood considers anything below $100,000 to have such a low budget that it’s considered a no-budget film.  Because of that low regard, no one was wasting their time making magazines or websites designed to help these less-than-no-budget filmmakers, despite the fact that they were (and are becoming even more) the majority of filmmakers in the world.

 * With no publicized help, I made my first two feature films over the course of four years with XL-1s and other equipment borrowed from local colleges, utilizing helpers that were of extremely varied experiences and drive. In the process, I learned a pile of things through hard knocks.

 * After these films were mostly completed, I remember looking online for any new sites that might have cropped up devoted to low-budget filmmaking. That’s when I found some devoted to microcinema—a boutique-style of video-making that’s largely composed of home videos and short parodies that are meant to be shared with friends and neighbors.  The term originated in San Francisco and was designed to be similar to the micro-brewery movement, which encouraged home brews that were shared in communities.   The concepts of a community of sharing and the emphasis on low-budgets were an encouragement for us, but most microcinema never tried to look professional or strove for high standards, so it fell short of the sort of help I was looking for.

 * Shortly after that, I found a company called Redrock Micro, which had built a 35mm lens adapter for less than $1K which allowed low-budget filmmakers to get film-like depth of field from $2000-$4000 cameras and SLR lenses. This was about 15 times cheaper than the closest competitor from P+S Technik.  Not only that, but they had such a passion for low-budget filmmakers, that they were offering kits with plans and a key part so you could build your own 35mm adapter for $45.  I was so blown away by an equipment manufacturer caring that much about low-budget filmmakers that it inspired me to create the first magazine aimed specifically to help other ultra-low budget filmmakers who had to struggle as much as I did.

 * As you can imagine, the name “MicroFilmmaker” came from a combination of the word “Microcinema” (with its low budgets and community approach) and Filmmaking (which we specifically chose over “videomaking,” because we feel that filmmaking is able to be accomplished with any medium, since “films” are a product, not a recording medium).

 * As I inferred, I wanted to connect low-budget filmmakers via a feeling of community, as many low-budget filmmakers often compete so viciously against one another in film festivals for coveted “shots” with Hollywood, that they can quickly forget their similarities. (We also wanted to remind them that low-budget filmmakers actually substantially outnumber their counterparts in Hollywood, which can be an amazing source of power if we all work together, rather than in isolated groups.)  The best way we saw to do this was by providing a vast resource library of articles on low-budget filmmaking with a serious eye for stretching a dollar, in-depth reviews of software and equipment specifically evaluated from a low-budget perspective, DIY tutorials on building helpful equipment, listings of special readers-only discounts of different products, and an area for finding fully deferred musicians and score composers for your films.

 * Of course, one of the most unique things at MFM is something no other magazine offers: in-depth critiques of current low-budget films by trained low-budget directors and producers to help filmmakers become better at their craft.  This last piece of our magazine’s offerings is the only thing that we charge any money for, because it is so specialized to a specific filmmaker’s film. (Although there is a charge, the amount is no more than the cost of a submission to a film festival with shorts running $25 and feature-length films running $50, which is used to provide a small reimbursement to the critic for their hard, detailed work and is substantially less than the $300-$500 most film analysis companies charge.)

 * With this publicly viewable critique service, we’ve had films submitted from every continent (with the exception of Antartica [sic]). Filmmakers have ranged from total film beginners to former Hollywood people who’ve become passionate about low-budget filmmaking, which is a really awesome swath of filmmaking humanity.  It’s always cool when we’ll have a filmmaker submit a film that has problems and then, after the critique, change their approach for the next film so that the upcoming film has a much better score.  We’ve had filmmakers jump from relatively low scores with one film to getting our coveted “Best of Show” award with the very next film.

'MicroFilmmaker Magazine'' is free to read on its website. Why did you choose this over the paid subscription route?'''

 * Mr. Hanke: There were so many scams on the internet that were designed to prey on filmmakers, that we didn’t want to make low-budget filmmakers—who had the least money to spend on making their films in the first place—have to pay to get the information to make their films the best they possibly could be.  I and a number of my top writers are believing Christians and we wanted this magazine to be an act of service to the low-budget filmmakers, not a money-making scam.  Clearly our readers have found it to be useful, because many people who have very different beliefs and values than we do regularly frequent our magazine’s pages and have asked for our help with all processes of filmmaking—even on films that are violently anti-Christian.  We don’t turn away anyone that needs help and do our best to help in any way we can.

 * This is also the reason we chose to make MFM an exclusively online magazine. Because of its online nature, our operating costs are lower than they would be if it were printed, which allows us to survive on online advertising without having to charge our readers a dime. Additionally, while printed magazines can be more lucrative (even the ones that are paid for by advertising and not by subscription fees), they would not be able to reach the web’s global population of filmmakers that need help.

'''Today, most of the films we see in theatres cost millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, to make. Do you think it's really possible to make films that can compete with these on a shoestring budget?'''

 * Mr. Hanke: I would say no…yes…and absolutely. Allow me to explain.

 * Can you get the same quality of image on a $5,500 Panasonic HVX200 as you can get off a $120,000 Grass Valley Viper? No, of course not.  There are all sorts of compression and quality differences between the affordable cameras and the ones that Hollywood uses.  (However, this is becoming less and less the case with the extremely popular wild-card camera company, RED.  They’ve made a higher-quality-than-Hollywood camera in the Red One for about 1/10th the cost of a comparable Sony camera that Hollywood use.  Additionally, they’re about to release an even less expensive camera in the Red Scarlet, which will be unveiled at NAB ’08.)

 * Now moving on to the “yes” part. When you take out the image quality differences, the amount of leaps in software and compositing abilities that are now available to the shoestring budget filmmaker are amazing.  For example, there is now extremely powerful greenscren software that’s designed to allow you to key DV and HD footage and yields quite nice results.  (I’m actually in the process of working on a book on this subject, and have found the growth in this area really impressive.)  Additionally, a number of special effects programs either have been created for low-budgets, like VisionLab by FXHome, or have dropped their prices for low budget users, like Apple’s Shake, which dropped from $3,000 to $500.  Many of these programs allows you to create everything from blaster fire to lightning and composite them in one place.  And, for folks who want to use Hollywood quality particle effects, the quite impressive particleIllusion is only $300 and was recently used in the new Rambo film, as well as being used in many other Hollywood productions.

 * In addition to the software improvements, the 24fps recording of cameras like the DVX100 and the HVX200 when combined with the shallow depth-of-field created by the Redrock Micro M2 and other 35mm lens adapters gives digital filmmakers a way to create an amazing filmic look—even if they can’t do it with the really expensive cameras we mentioned earlier.

 * Finally, the “absolutely” part. The most powerful thing that allows low-budget filmmakers to compete with Hollywood films is content.  The fact that so much quality filmmaking gear can be had at such a low prices means that anyone who is willing to put in the work to write a good script and shoot it well can have a film that can gain a following.  Some of the best TV shows I have seen of late could easily have been shot as a low budget film.  (For example, much of CBS’ Jericho, which might have been the most creative show to be introduced in the last twenty years, could easily have been shot on a shoestring budget as a film.)

'''Distributing a movie can be one of the hardest aspects of production. Do you think that today, with the Internet, it's easier to go about doing this and make a profit than it might have been twenty years ago?'''

 * Mr. Hanke: Actually, yes I do.  Today, something like 50% of all Indie films turn a profit.  However, considering that many of the films that are made are still extremely esoteric avant garde art films, you can probably estimate that 70-80% of films that deal with any form of readily accessible narrative can turn a profit.  (This is the huge advantage of shooting a $10,000 no-budget film as opposed to a $200 million Hollywood film.  The $200 million Hollywood film has to sell $400 million in tickets to turn a profit, to cover both the production and advertising budgets.  The $10,000 film often only has to sell $15,000 worth of DVDs, Amazon UnBox viewings, and art house shows to turn a profit.)

 * One of the easiest ways to take advantage of the internet to make your film profitable is to use the CreateSpace service (which used to be CustomFlix and is now owned by Amazon). They allow you to upload your entire film and high-rez cover art and then they just print a copy whenever someone orders it from Amazon.com or your website, issuing you a percentage without you ever having to buy pre-printed copies to sell.  Additionally, they will let you create a rentable or purchaseable download of your film through the Amazon UnBox service, which further enables you to get your film out there and make it profitable.  (Just remember to make a sexy website with a trailer for your film to encourage people to check it out.  If you want a Flash site but aren’t Flash savvy, the new Adobe Encore CS3 actually has some very powerful abilities to create a professional Flash website with only your DVD menu creation skills required.)

Do you have any advice for the amateur filmmakers reading this?

 * Mr. Hanke: Of course. Some of these may sound like blatant plugs, and I suppose they are, but they are the actual pieces of advice I would give (and have given) to a new filmmaker.

 * 1. Audio may not show up in your video monitor, but it is easily the most important part of your film. Make sure you understand that and use a decent shotgun mic to get clean dialogue, or you will be killing yourself in post.  (We have a number of articles on audio, mic positioning, and ADR s at MFM.)

 * 2. Start with a short film. If you have a feature length film you’re dying to do, shoot a scene of it as a short first.  This will allow you to make your mistakes on a film that hasn’t eaten up years of your life.  (For example, if you screw up the audio I mentioned in #1, it’s a whole lot easier to redub a 5 minute film than it is to redub a 110 minute film.  Been there, done that; please don’t make the same mistake!)

 * 3. Read through all of the archives of MFM, as we have tried to cover the better part of four years of low-budget film school for free and have endeavored to make it easy to find things. (Additionally, read the critiques of other people’s films, even if you haven’t seen them, as you can often avoid a lot of first time mistakes by reading our detailed commentaries on these films.)

 * 4. After you’ve done all you can to preplan, just do it—and give yourself permission to make the mistakes you undoubtedly will.

 * 5. Finally, when you’ve edited it to the best of your ability, send in your film to be critiqued by MFM. There’s something about submitting your film to a place where it will be publicly analyzed that proves to someone that he/she really want to grow as a filmmaker.  Once that fire’s in you, you won’t settle for making a film that isn’t an improvement over your last one.