text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2009/June

Ongoing status updates on the Influenza A(H1N1) story
This doesn't fit cleanly in wikipedia or in wikinews. There is a current discussion at w:Talk:2009 swine flu outbreak regarding removing it from the WP article. Would editors here be willing to pick up the topic and run with it doing regular updates? 131.137.245.199 (talk) 22:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Short answer: Yes. The truth is, however, that we do not have enough regular editors for me to say that it will be done. We try to cover as much news as we can with the volunteer editors that we have. Category:Swine flu shows what coverage we have had so far. I cannot make any promises. --SVTCobra 23:02, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

 * We have an update. See Swine flu: recent developments worldwide. Perhaps you were hoping for more regular updates, but we do what we can. --SVTCobra 01:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Pervetually reverted
My edits to this article keep getting reverted, yet none of the other editors seem to want to explain exactly what is wrong with my changes. Why is this? --128.243.253.103 (talk) 19:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Is no-one going to help me? I'm just going to stop editing here at all, because I have no way of knowing why one potential improvement to an article will be accepted and another in a similar vein rejected. --128.243.253.114 (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Sorry, this page is not very well patrolled so it takes some time for folks to respond. Taking a quick glance over your edits, nothing seems to be wrong or out of line with them, so I'm not completely sure why they were reverted. Maybe you should contact the users who undid your edits, they could probably give you a faster answer if you pinged them on their talk pages. Tempodivalse [talk]  18:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

 * The person to ask is . This is not the first problem we've had with him recently... Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 20:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

 * In this case, an article from May 23 should no longer be edited for content. Only typos and minor changes should be made. The football category is a different story altogether. --SVTCobra 02:00, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Yes, but first tried to edit the article less than a day after it was published, well within WN:ARCHIVE time limits (and the changes to the article didn't alter the content, just moved it around slightly). Tempodivalse  [talk]  02:57, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

 * What Tempo said. Just because the article was repeatedly forced back to the old version until past that 24-hour limit and then protected early to force his side of the dispute to be the one used - under the guise of 'archiving' - does not mean that the actual change was made too late to be valid. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 10:22, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the responses. I did ask Dragonman or whatever about his revert because he left a message on my talk page calling my edit a 'test' and I wanted to know exactly what it was about my edit that indicated this, but I never got a response. The reason there was such a long gap between my penultimate and last edits is because I was waiting for one before going back to the article (as one should when there is a dispute), but I guess if you're not an administrator you don't get listened to! --128.243.253.112 (talk) 21:48, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Original Revert, Dragon's Revert and the Third Revision. I can't speak to why DragonFire reverted, but I can speak to why I did so. While I have no objection to post-publish copyediting (I've done it myself), I felt that 's edits (the two that I reverted) while improving the article in some respects, also detracted from the lead sentence too much. The lead is in many ways the most important part of any newswriting piece. I archived early per Archive_conventions. I may misintreped the content of that page. However, other edits this IP address has made seem to be in the same veign and have been good in my opion, especially this edit. If I were to suggest anything it would be that the IP in question create a user account. Generally, I am less likely to see a potential problem with someone that has taken the time to create a user anme name and it's one that I recognize that just some random IP address. Calebrw (talk) 23:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, sorry I did not see this sooner. I missed it, but saw the post below this. I am also sorry DragonFire did not get back to you. Sometimes users are not online every day and might not get messages. Calebrw (talk) 23:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Aha! So your bias against IP addresses is revealed!!

 * In all seriousness that really is my bête noire. I do not appreciate being coerced into registering simply so you can overlook your prejudice. I am a legitimate editor like everyone else - the problem is not the fact you see numbers when you look at my username, it is the fact you do not check edits properly when deciding to revert them!

 * You say you had a problem with my opening sentence but not the rest of my changes - then why revert the whole thing? And why didn't you contact me to discuss it, or at least make your reasons clear in the edit summary? --128.243.253.104 (talk) 23:54, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Incidentally DragonFire has clocked up about sixty edits during almost every day since I left my message, so it's not to do with availability; I'm forced to conclude he is ignoring me. --128.243.253.103 (talk) 00:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

 * As far as Dragon ignoring your questions, it's entirely possible that he somehow managed to miss them (i remember a few times where someone edited my talk page and i somehow didn't see the orange "you have new messages" bar), so it's not completely certain that he intentionally ignored your question. Tempodivalse [talk]  00:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I reverted because it was an edit to an old article. If I was wrong I apologize. I was not ignoring anyone and I really don't like me or anyone else being accused of just being against someone. If you were welcomed, you could have read a few policies too. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:20, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't say that I did 100% the right thing there. I will not claim that my logic is always infallible. Perhaps I made a mistake and if a consensus could be made, I would not oppose a change to the article. Calebrw (talk) 01:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is now far too late to change the article, especially after it has been locked and archived, per the archival policy. Tempodivalse [talk]  01:37, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I welcomed at least one IP address related to this. I can't tell you when though. Calebrw (talk) 01:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no real problem with users editing with no username, but I do think having a username can help all parties: 1) there is no confusion about who you're talking to, for instance your IP address might change, but your username is there forever, 2) there is a continuous edit history admins can look at say, well (I'll use myself as an example) was way off base and he could be wrong. That may not be the case in all circumstances. See w:Wikipedia:Login for benefits to creating a username. I don't appreciate that you think I'm coercing you into creating username. If you never create one, I won't feel bad about it one bit, nor will I intentionally treat you differently because you don't have a username, other than perhaps more scrutinization to your (or any IP edits). I hope we can to some kind of resolution in this matter. Calebrw (talk) 01:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Administrative rollback should only be used when the edit that was made is blatantly unconstructive. Otherwise, your rollback edit might be misinterpreted as something along the lines of "I think your edit was no better than vandalism and reverting it doesn't need an explanation" (see m:Help:Reverting). In this case, I think it might have been more appropriate to simply undo the edit, using an edit summary with explanation. Tempodivalse [talk]  00:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not here to take part in the 'community' of creating and revising new stories. The only articles I am ever going to see are ones that appear on the front page, because I read and consume Wikinews. But since it is also a wiki, I assume that I can change what I read to make it better. I have a Wikipedia attitude to editing, which is that if I see something that looks like it needs changing, I will change it. If that is not the way things are done here (i.e. a published article should never be edited) then I apologise and I will not do it again. --128.243.253.113 (talk) 13:54, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That is not the case. Minor improvements to articles are always welcome, even after an articles has been published or even archived. See editprotected for information on how edit articles after they have been locked from editing. After 36 hours from publishing, WN policy does not allow for major changes to articles. I would suggest reading the following: WN:NPOV, WN:CS, WN:INTRO, Writing an article, WN:CG, WN:SG. Those should help you out with exactly what the WN policies are. See Contents for an interesting collection of pages. Other interesting pages include: Newsroom and Template:Latest_news. In short, please continue to help out by doing copyediting and as long as it is within policy, there will not be a problem, or shouldn't be. THanks, Calebrw (talk) 14:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As Calebrw has said above, it's not that published articles should never be edited, they can be edited, and that's very much encouraged. However, there are some limitations to what can be altered after a certain time period: articles should not be changed for content more than a day after they were published, only for spelling mistakes and minor grammatical corrections (see WN:ARCHIVE and the other links Caleb provided for more info). Wikinews is different from Wikipedia in this sense, because news articles are not works in progress, and should only reflect what was known/written at the time. In any case, your edit to Suicidal man pushed off Chinese bridge was entirely legitimate in this case, and it should not have been reverted back without any explanation. Please don't let this incident dissuade you from contributing in the future, and don't get us wrong, your contributions are much appreciated. Tempodivalse [talk]  14:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Understood; even if I wasn't aware of the policy on content changes before, it correlates with what I would have assumed in my mind. But with such a limited time period in which to make changes, you can see how frustrating it may be when an ordinary user like me is trying to convince an administrator to accept a change. I note that Calebrw hasn't explicitly admitted he made a mistake. It makes me feel like I'm fighting, oh I don't know, some kind of cabal! :D --128.243.253.114 (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is kind of a grey area, and it could go either way. Honestly, I don't feel that I made a mistake, but I am of course bias toward my own actions. I am sorry for the inconvenience it has caused you. Calebrw (talk) 20:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I feel that it was a mistake to rollback instead of providing an explanation why the edit was undone. Rollbacking like that should only be done where it is obvious that the edits should not remain without an explanation why - i.e. vandalism. I'm not saying I've never rollbacked something that I perhaps shouldn't have, as everyone slips up from time to time, but I can say I've never undone major copyediting such as this. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 23:16, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it's very reassuring to know that this entire debacle has achieved nothing and could very well happen again. --128.243.253.111 (talk) 23:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks (though I'm not entirely sure what policies like Neutral point of view have to do with editing past the publish deadline). --128.243.253.114 (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Those are just a list of policies, I didn't mean to imply that you have not read/need to read those policies. Calebrw (talk) 20:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Reading through all this, it sounds like all the confusion could of been avoided if someone left a message on the users talk page explaining why their edit was reverted. (particularly since it was reverted multiple times). New contributors should not have to go to this much trouble to get an answer. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * And as I stated, I apologize for not doing so. I was in a hurry at the time and I would have done it if I had not been (not that I am making excuses). I hope you will continue to read Wikinews and continue to make general improvements when it's allowed. I apologize again. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 03:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Can someone else look at Credit card companies foreclosing without a mortgage note and clue in this user somewhat. I'm at the end of my tether trying to get something coherent out of this. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see that there's much anyone can do. You tried to explain to him of the NPOV problems in the article, many times, but he just doesn't seem to want to communicate. Tempodivalse [talk]  18:08, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

 * This user doesn't seem to stop editing this so it will never get tagged abandoned and deleted under WN:PROD. The next step may be a WN:DR for this. --SVTCobra 23:21, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

✅ -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 02:02, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Interviews on the quiet
As I have time, and as we now have the Wikinewsie wiki, I'd like to start looking into quietly working through some interviews and getting the full preparation done privately - including transcription of audio.

I have Skylook, a Skype plugin that reliably records calls. Their transcription service is expensive, but the less-reliable Call Graph service (as in less reliable for recording calls) offers a cheaper transcription service; calls can be uploaded from local audio for this.

Being back in the UK (and having SkypeOut credit) puts me in a good position to try for some notable UK figures. I felt I was close with Alex Salmond before - might be time to dig that up again.

These would be exclusives to Wikinews, and if we can get government or assembly-level politicians we'd merit mention in mainstream media. I've mentioned this on the Community Portal over on Wikinewsie, if there's any accredited reporters or admins without access who're interested, then let me know. Probably looking at a week or more of background work, the interview, the prep for publication, then the move over to Wikinews proper. That's per-interview. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Something is wrong with GB plc
A piece of news we missed three days ago... There's a story in this that could do with some digging. A great many of these final salary pension schemes have shut down in the UK, and I believe these are one of the "millstones" that US automakers are complaining about too. What isn't told in the articles I've looked at on the subject is that many of these companies took payment holidays; this is where they (the company) make no contributions for a year or two because the stock market investments of the pension fund are above estimates. As you should guess I'm leading up to, the financial crisis has slashed the worth of those investments, the pensions are now hugely in deficit, and companies are scrabbling for ways out of final salary schemes that leave an unpredictable amount per person to pay out (tough luck if they live to 100+ sort of thing).

What got me with poking about with pension calculators was something from the US-centric nature of them, virtually all US schemes are effectively an investment where you retire with a lump to be paid out over the next x years and you're screwed if you live beyond that.

Between BP and Barclays there are stark differences in what's going on here, some that would actually be illegal in other parts of Europe. BP are closing their scheme to new members - no new employees will get into the scheme, so over time those entitled to payment from it will die off and a lower cost (to the company) scheme will take over. Barclays are trying to get their workforce out of the scheme altogether. Yes, a fiddle of terms and conditions to lower the amount everyone will get as a pension. They're not the first, there's a trend to this in the UK, and NATS (UK Air Traffic Control) did the same fancy footwork with their employees.

Here's BP's B.S. on their pension, note the interesting answers are hidden away on their intranet (random gripe, Firefox's spell checker is wrong - it highlights "intranet" and expects "Intranet", the word is not a proper noun - there are many intranets, and only one Internet).

Others to contact are union representatives, I'm prepared to do most of the legwork on this, can we work something up on this? --Brian McNeil / talk 09:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Points to work on

 * Will the UK Work and Pensions people have any data to obtain via freedom of information requests about payment holidays and closure of final salary schemes?
 * Companies that took payment holidays: How much profit did they make those years? Different from contributing years?
 * Surplus to deficit, how much has been wiped from pension scheme worth as a result of the financial crisis? Can we get non-UK figures? US FOIA request?
 * Where are specific types of pension prevalent? Where are final salary schemes getting shut down?
 * Does anywhere else in Europe permit payment holidays?
 * Someone notable commenting on the personality of a corporation being 'psychopathic' would be nice ;-)

Others? --Brian McNeil / talk 09:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Done

 * Fishing email sent to T&G union (becoming or now part of Unite). Asking for a contact for a phone interview. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Still no response. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Additional coverage
This is still bubbling: Uncle G (talk) 22:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This isn't additional coverage - it's the article I wanted to write. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Why there is descrepancy between wikinews and CDC number and the 2009 flu outbreak article
For last few days the number of death in the US have been 10 more on the 2009flu outbreak article than CDC number and the one on the wiki news. Is this a typo?
 * Wikinews should be taking figures from the World Health Organisation, not CDC. CDC does not cover outside the US. Can you point to the article you are referring to and the stats that are odds with it? The Wikinews article may have been correct at time of going to press and we don't update with new details after 24-36 hours. News is a record of what was known at the time. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:04, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia recruitment
A subject that comes up frequently is trying to recruit from Wikipedia.

How about this as one type of approach? Are there other topics with a centrally identifying page that this could be done on? --Brian McNeil / talk 20:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As a way to target people interested in NASA over on WP I suggest we use the wikinews template on WP on the talk page each time there's an article. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

MediaWiki
Hello. I'm Vitorbraziledit from pt@wikinews and i have a doubt about a MediaWiki tools. My doubt is about the MediaWiki that shows the box " Share this " in the noticies. Any body can help me?

Thanks! Vitorbraziledit talk 23:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If you are looking to put this on pt.wikinews you need the template, the graphics, and some javascript. is the one to ask about the techy bits. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The template is social bookmarks and to get it on all en.wikinews articles it is included in the publish template. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:07, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer! Vitorbraziledit talk 17:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
 * For the techy bits, they are not all that important - all it does is make the wikinews url shorter for twitter, and make it open in new window. Just copy the following to the bottom of pt:mediawiki:Common.js:

Bawolff ☺☻ 03:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Note i noticed in the js file over at pt there is some stuff that is en only (like the code to insert the english RSS feed). I made some comments on pt:mediawiki talk:Common.js. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:34, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

»Feasible ‘‘demission’’ of Gunnar Birgisson«
My first page in this so renowned Wikinews was deleted, so I would like to know what a plausible argument for such despicable act.

Wishing well, North Pole Daily News with Bardoð Barkings (talk) 21:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

 * The Deletion log indicates it was deleted after someone added, and to be honest what was there certainly didn't mean anything at all to me. Is English your first language? If not, there are projects in other languages that y u may be more comfortable with.  Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Help with context for article with original reporting

 * User:Irunongames/Sandbox

needs help drafting an introduction, providing context for the original reporting that follows. Secondary sources for this part would help. Cirt (talk) 13:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2009/May

U.S. pork plant in Mexico near confirmed case of swine flu
hello everyone. i hope im posting this in the right place. i uploaded an article last week (U.S. pork plant in Mexico near confirmed case of swine flu), and a number of users contributed to it by criticizing and improving it. i have been addressing their suggestions where possible (some were contradictory or pretty vague) so i decided to put it up for review. no one has commented on it since then (probably due to my attitude :P ) so, despite knowing this a small project with busy ppl, it is becoming really tempting to interpret this lack of attention as a green light to go and write that tag by myself. my main concern here is, of course, that dreaded tag that already ate up the article once.

okay, so i know the answer to that is "no", but how to proceed? i have read that the main problem Wikinews faces is the lack of editors, but when someone new like me comes and reads all those uplifting and friendly guides and tutorials and such, and gets a welcome message with a warm cup of coffee in their talk page, and writes their first article filled with excitement, they get really disappointed to see that the system works the way it does. i am planning on staying, but i think less ppl would be put off if at least they had a warning beforehand. i would like to add some comments to the "writing an article" page from a newcomer's pov, but this article is my current priority :0

ps. are there any statistics on the number of articles users write (what percentage of the users who have registered so far published one article - or had it deleted - and left)? Revoluc (talk) 13:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Valid questions your asking - I'm afraid I don't have any easy answers (and indeed I'd be interested in the statistics you mention as well). Perhaps nudging new users more towards contributing to existing articles rather than flat-out writing a new one...? Regards Sean Heron (talk) 01:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Page Rating
Hello people! I'm Vitorbraziledit, from pt-wikinews and i need a big help!

Times ago, i saw the messege that you can see in all notices: "What do you think of this page?" (the Page Rating). In Portuguese Wikinews, we don't have it. Any body can help me to apply it in our Wiki? Is it a MediaWiki? What should i do?

Thanks! Vitorbraziledit talk 18:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It is part of the flagged revisions extension. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Its not very useful - It more presents long term trends than anything else. Since wikinews articles are only up for a little bit of time, it is rare meaningful data is recorded. (for example, look how many pages are listed at Special:LikedPages) The main page is really the only thing that generates useful data. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Everything that you said i know, but, i want to apply it in Portuguese Wikinews. What should i do? Is it a Bugzilla request? Any body can help me? Vitorbraziledit talk 17:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Please! Any body to help me? Vitorbraziledit talk 03:30, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Sorry. Yes, you have to post a request at Bugzilla if you want flaggedrevs. However, I would advise that you first ask at your wiki if there is consensus to install flaggedrevs first, before making a request. See Flagged Revisions for more info. Hope this helped, Tempodivalse [talk]  03:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Tempo is correct - you'll only get FlaggedRevs if there is consensus on the wiki. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

People, you are not understanding me! We have Flaggedrevs in pt-wikinews. I only want to know what should i do to put the Page's rating ("What do you think of this page?", that you can the in the bottom of any notice) in the Portuguese Wikinews? If anybody tell me about it, i will ask to our wiki to install it! Thanks! Vitorbraziledit talk 21:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Anybody to help me? Vitorbraziledit talk 03:04, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

 * I see I was invited to this discussion on my talk. Unfortunately, I can't help, as I know very little about how mediawiki works, but some of the other editors you contacted will probably know more and be able to help. Cheers, Tempodivalse [talk]  03:09, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Its an optional part of the flagged revs extension (see the docs). Basically, file a bug requesting the reader feedback part of flagged revs be enabled for your wiki. (I think the specific option needing to be set is, but don't quote me on that) Bawolff ☺☻ 06:07, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As Bawolff says, file a bugzilla to get it enabled and ask fellow pt. users to vote for the bug. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:51, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the answer, guys! Now you've help me! Vitorbraziledit talk 13:32, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Replacing dead links?
Hi, i found no informations what should be done with dead links on this wiki. E.g. the archived page U.S. House votes to renew expiring Patriot Act contains a link to http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20050720.html but the content is now available at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ask/20050720.html. Should this simple be ignored, reported on the talk page with or whatelse. I have a botscript which is replacing or reporting those links on many wikis. Can i help at this wiki, too? Merlissimo (talk) 22:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know that there is an official policy, but I would say that it's important to keep links to references available. Calebrw (talk) 03:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In this case, the links should be updated, the document is obviously the same it is just that the GWB stuff has been stuffed on another server. Other cases, perhaps, or more likely not. --Brian McNeil / talk 06:51, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok. I have requested botflag at Bots Merlissimo (talk) 10:42, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

GFDL-CC.by.sa vote
Hi, Everywhere I read about the recent announcement of the vote to move to a cc.by.sa license on Wikimedia project it always says "all wikimedia projects" (including the Foundation's own blog here. I had always assumed that Wikinews was unaffected by this license issue as it has a cc.by license (and the 'share alike' element has been specifically left off. So, just writing to check - is Wikinews swapping to cc.by.sa? or is it just that people are unintentionally lumping wikinews in with the rest of the projects license-wise? Cheers, Witty lama (talk) 04:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * There are bits and pieces of Wikinews that are GFDL - eg, templates imported from Wikipedia. The rest remains CC-BY. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:WNI response
Hello guys! I'm here this time to ask you about the template WNI response. What do it do? What is the funcionality?

I'm asking to create it for the pt.wikinews.

Thanks! Vitorbraziledit talk 20:58, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * If I remember correctly it's used in interview articles, to distinguish the interviewer's questions from the interviewee's answers. Tempodivalse [talk]  21:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the answer! Vitorbraziledit talk 21:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * For instance, see how the template is used in this article, for instance. Basically it's used next to the interviewer's comments. Tempodivalse [talk]  21:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Can you answer me why do it have WNI in the name? Vitorbraziledit talk 21:39, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * I think WNI stands for WikiNews Interviewer. Tempodivalse [talk]  21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks! Vitorbraziledit talk 03:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Vitorbraziledit talk 21:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually it's meant to be Wikinews Interviewee response. There is a WNIQ I intended to be used for questions posed by Wikinews, the given example is Mike doing a little self-promo. Whether or not people should do that is a question and discussion for elsewhere. WNI response is parameterised so that you can put in the interview subject's full name or initials. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Some considerations
Hi to all,

First i wuold appreciate this community that is showing much vitality, and is trying to make a better place to live and inform about what's the meaning of wikinews.

What is missing, however, is not the amount of discussions, but enough articles. The meaning of wikinews, after all.

I am from wikinews.it. There ,and maybe not only there, there is a basic crisis. I was kicked off by the 'serious' admins there, last december. I tried to raise interest in the wikinews's crisis. And it was. Only 126 articles in the whole december, compared with 140 of the previous months. But worse of all, 3/4 wrote by a single author. So you'll understand this: how it comes, in one community there is only one contributor that writes more than all the rest x3 times? It would be not good, what if this contribur was bored and quit wiki.it? And it was so. I had claimed this problem, but nobody moves one inch. On the contrary, i ended in 24/12 in problematic users, and after Xmas i was indefinitevly blocked by one 'serious' admin.

Well, do you know that? I was blocked in december, when there were 126 articles. Seen i was 'the problem', in January the amount dropped at just 58, so in Febrary (around 60), and even worse in March (38..), little raised in April (because the heartquacke) to 45 (around). Now, without cataclyms, guess that? In the last 10 days are reported less than 6 articles. So the average, when i already saw a crisis (and there was), dropped from 4 articles/day in December, to 2 in the next months, to one, to ..even less than one a day now.

Why this happened? Evidently i was 'not' the problem. I tried to raise attention on this question, the fall of wikinews.it, but invain. Admins i talk with, simply DON'T BOTHERED to raise the work on this site. And it was now pratically dismantled. Not that articles were 'qualitatively' good: mere 2 kb average, just few lines wealthy linked to wikipedia. Go figure, if this was 'journalism'.

So, the problems are multiples: admin totaly unrensponsable led to this catastrophe. bitting and whipping everybody that tries to make something, to write something, accusing of POV (aaaarrghh...), and so on, have led wikinews on the dead end. In wiki.en it's a bit better, i see, but not much better.

I take for wikinews, because it's a great occasion, but with this pace it's a lost occasion to build up a wiki suorce of info. What's the point to have 2, 3 or 4 news a day, while wikipedia, as example, got 1.000 articles in the meanwhile, and it's even better informed about 'news'?

So, or the criteria will be renewed and make more flexible, or instead, wikinews has not future.

And what disturbing me more, it's the laziness and unrensponability of many admins, that are aiming only to have lessa and less things to do, not surely to help the site to grow up. Go figure, one wiki.ti admin has even remised by his wikipedia.it adminship 'because he wanted to work better as wikinews admin'. This was happened last months and go figure, he did nothing. So what, wikinews is becaming to be a holliday home for who want to be an admin without do nothing?

Wappi76, a wiki.it admin, is inactive since last year. He should had been decommissoned 'automatically' because the stop of activity for too many months. Instead he is still an admin, because nobody bothered to decommision him. When i asked to do so to another admin, he replied 'I should do this? Go in wikimedia and call for his demise'.

With those guys, not only wikinews is falling down freely, but even they do not bother to discuss this in any form, they simply don't give a damn to this 'little problem'. They were happy enough to ban me, that after that they simply go in holiday until now and more. And other admins (wikipedia) simply admitted i war right, but 'nobody cares'.

Well, if the managing of this project is so bad done, if the admins are so unrensponsable, and if the things are similar in other wikinews sites other wiki.it, and the articles are falling down, the information is not minimally enough (let's take all the wikinews daily production, we'll have half or less of a middle newspaper), the site will be or unseful tool or closed at all. Until the basic vices will be these, there is no hope.--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 22:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Stefanomencarelli, I am sorry to hear of you difficulties at it.wikinews and of the decreasing content at the site. I am afraid, however, that we at en.wikinews are not able to intervene on your behalf. We have no more importance than any other user. We too struggle to keep enough daily stories at en.wikinews to make it worthwhile for readers to come and see. If what you say happened to you is true, I feel sorry for you. Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:43, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

 * But i did not written this, asking to solve my difficulties. I've written this for you. Don't help me, help yourselves, this was my message, and this was the meaning to write this report in the policies section (and not here). What happened in wikinews.it is likely to happen anywhere in this project, wikinews.it is (was?) one of the biggest wikinews, and still is totally failed now. Just check it: last 500 edit: starting from 3 may, wikinews.it had just 26 articles. Never happened before. But at the local bar, do you find any discussion on that issue in 2009? Not. Nobody cares. It's this my message: what kind of future, if there will be a future, is for wikinews? You say that you struggle about enough articles, the problem is precisely this: why so few? My guess: wikipedia will eat wikinews befor or later, except you'll in english wikinews will be able to change things. And one of these is surely the difficults made by 'burocracy'. Maybe it's unavoidable, but the number of newcomers that quit wikinews is very important to check why the project is decaying. Few months ago wiki.en ran at 10 articles/day, now it's already less, while a success site should raise, not decrease. Wikinews.it had last year, around 170 articles in January alone, 95 february, 120 march; August 2008: 240 articles, 199 at september, 140 october and november, 126 december, 58 Janyary 2009, 65 feb., 38 march, 45 april and now less than 30 maybe. So if burocracy is unavoidable, atleast it should be an 'efficient' burocracy and not a whipping out system for newcomers. Wiki.italian burocrats don't bother in that sense, for them is enough to ban users and censor things. Site is closing? Who cares! Evidently.--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 21:18, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Who does what ?
I'm new to Wikinews and there is something I didn't clearly understood and for which I didn't found any help : what is the difference between and  and who has the ability (not technically, but spiritually speaking) to change an article from one state to the other? I created a new article Ban_Ki-moon_hides_facts_about_war_in_Sri_Lanka and it was flagged not neutral and badly written. So it got into. I did many changes and then got stuck. Do I have the right to put it back to ? I tried, let's see! --Fib2004 (talk) 14:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, you did the right thing. If you think you have addressed the concerns listed on the tag, then you can remove it and replace with review again. review says the article is ready to be placed on the main page and requires a review by someone who is an editor.develop means that the article isn't yet ready and is still being written. I hope this clears matters a bit. Tempodivalse [talk]  14:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does, thanks a lot! --Fib2004 (talk) 14:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Page move suggestion
I suggest moving page from Three men who bombed Iranian mosque publicly hanged to Iran hangs three suspects and blames US and Israel for mosque bombing --ReneJohnsen (talk) 14:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅--Brian McNeil / talk 14:31, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

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


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Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2009/September

Question
hi ~where can i find the wikinews of the past months、

 * To see a list of published Wikinews articles sorted by date, you can take a look at our archive lists. Hope this helps. Tempodivalse [talk]  13:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

BP announces "giant" oilfield
This giant oilfield discovery was announced today (Sept 2) and is in a very wide range of media. I came here to update it and was a bit surprised there wasn't already an article on wikinews. The Wikipedia article (newly written) has a lot of information not in most newspapers and may be useful for a wikinews story.

(Crossposted at Newsroom/Collaboration) FT2 (Talk 01:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack the Ripper identified? Handwriting analysis suggests match
History Detectives, a PBS television show, just updated their status line to say "Have you considered submitting a mystery to the skill and knowledge of the History Detectives? You watch the show. What do you think are the criteria for a strong History Detectives story? (Please keep your comments within this post.)"

Mark Potts replied saying "Well ironically I just solved a 121 yr old mystery. Who was Jack the Ripper? It was a Chicago killer named Herman Mudgett, aka HH Holmes. Mudgett's handwriting matched that of Jack the Ripper's "Dear Boss" letter. I found 14 individual perfect matches in the handwriting. Check out my page and see for yourself. Mark"

I've contacted him, and he's agreed to doing an interview. He supposedly stumbled across this connection by accident, initially thinking someone else was Jack.

This certainly isn't the first time someone's proposed that they ID'd Jack, but I'd personally be interested in investigating this suggestion further, perhaps run the evidence past some experts. Would this sort of thing be an acceptable story? -- Zanimum (talk) 01:44, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! This sounds very interesting. Although I don't know anyone off had that we could send such information too. If he has had a independent analysis done on the handwriting and has documentation to back up his claims (i.e. an expert or two to agree with his findings, and maybe if someone on Wikimedia projects knows someone). If he can maybe release some photos of a sample(s) for an article that would be great. I note that this does not need to be an interview per se, this in itself is a news story. I think this should also be discussed on a not so public forum. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Which extension are you using for the news feed on the main page? Thanks!

 * Hi. We currently are not using an extension. the main rss feed is powered by a screen-scraping bot. Some of our other feeds use the toolserver, and are either php or perl stand alone scripts that have access to our database. See also WN:RSS. Hope that helps. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


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Mirrors and forks
I added a couple of mirrors to Mirrors and forks, but then I saw that that page hadn't been updated since 2007. Are people not mirroring content very much any more, or is there a better place to report mirrors? Marnanel (talk) 18:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The formatting of that page is kind of crappy, and not exactly the easiest to report stuff on it (It should probably be simplified). Mostly we just havn't put very much effort into tracking who mirrors us. Feel free to use that page though, however if you stumble across a mirror not giving us proper credit/or doing something that negatively affects us, report it to the water cooler instead so more people see. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Heck, I didn't even know that page existed until Marnanel's post, and I've been here a while. --SVTCobra 03:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

 * I went through that page and found one site with three copyright violations from Wikinews. one, two, three. So... What do we actually do about it? Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 16:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering the stories in question are from 2006 - I don't think its worth it at this point to raise a fuss. They do credit us, they just don't do it properly, with properly being something like: "This article is based on Wikinews article 'Former NHL player Tie Domi alleged to have cheated with Canadian MP Belinda Stronach' at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Former_NHL_player_Tie_Domi_alleged_to_have_cheated_with_Canadian_MP_Belinda_Stronach which is © Copyright Wikinews contributors and licensed under the Creative commons 2.5 License." Considering we don't have a page - How to reuse our content, I can't say i really blame them. (If we were to get mad over this, normally we would write a polite email explaining the proper way to give us credit). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Active again
Hello All. I have become very inactive as an administrator, but will be returning shortly. Thank you and glad to be back! red  - thunder  .  11:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Welcome back, RT. Nice to see you around again. Tempodivalse [talk]  23:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Translation needed
Heyho english Wikinewsiesm, need help to translate a newsarticle to the flagged revisions. Can anybody help to translate de:Wikipedia_auf_der_Suche_nach_Sichtern. Thanks, Conny (talk) 15:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC).

Turkish Wikinews opened
I wanted to announce that Turkish Wikinews has joined the Wikinews family. I request admins to add Turkish wikinews to main page interwikis and Wikinews is other languages section. Srhat (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. I'm about to add it to the main page. Tempodivalse [talk]  16:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Tempodivalse [talk]  18:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


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Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2009/July

Citation guidelines
Do we have anything like this?

I ask because I have a Wikinews OTRS ticket from someone seeking permission to use a screenshot of Wikinews in a book. The ironic part is, this is as a labelled graphic to illustrate how to cite a wiki.

I'd like to see something like the above, and link to it from the Mediawiki:copyright message - perhaps "Citing or copying from Wikinews? See here." --Brian McNeil / talk 09:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree - such a page is needed. One of the original goals of wikinews, was to have third party re-users. It would probably help if there was some sort of guideline on that. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * A Wikimedia project's copyright policy is always at Project:Copyrights (the MediaWiki setting for this previously being MediaWiki:Copyrightpage), and you'll find that in most other projects that's what's linked to from Mediawiki:copyright. Uncle G (talk) 20:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm looking more for something focussed with an opening, "You can copy from Wikinews..." as opposed to rules for contributors. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:14, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Anyone near Netherland?
Anyone going to be near enough to do a report from Netherland if/when Michael Jackson's body is put on display there-rumoured to be Friday? Sounds a bit weird I know! Dotty•• |☎ 12:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The Netherlands is a country to the north of Belgium that is better known to the English speaking world as Holland. Neverland is the warped playground Michael Jackson built for himself and those with the same mental age. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Whoops!    Dotty••   15:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

GLAM -Challenge
On August 6 & 7 Wikimedia Australia is hosting GLAM-Wiki at the supported by the
 * Wikimedia Foundation
 * Australian War Memorial
 * ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
 * Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre

In lead up to the event some of the GLAM institutions(Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) have donated items to be given away, Wikimedia Australia has organised the GLAM Challenge which will run from 13th July until 23:59UTC on the 19th July. This is open to all registered editors in any Wikimedia project, you dont need to be in Australia to win as prizes will be posted to anywhere in the world. Nominate yourself by the 13th July, see GLAM Challenge for more details. Gnangarra (talk) 12:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Umm...
Maybe I'm missing the point, but why does this branch of wikimedia exist? That is, why do we have a website that just summarises news that is readily and freely available from other news sites? I mean, say something newsworthy happens. Then news people write things and put it on the internet, in essence putting themselves between me and what really happened. Why do we need another layer of journalistic agenda to go between us (the public) and the events? Put another way, wikinews seems like those stupid commercials that try to advertise high-definition television on people's crappy televisions! The only way you can see the high definition is by having the high definition. Okay, bad analogy, but does anyone see my concern? 128.194.39.104 (talk) 19:52, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Why does Wikinews exist? To provide a proper framework for news, once which Wikipedia does not properly provide for. Why does Wikinews exist when there are other free (as in beer) new sources? Because they might not be free (as in beer) for very long, and they certainly aren't free (as in speech). Why does Wikinews exist exist? Because we pride ourselves on being NPOV, something you sure as hell aren't going to get from major media like say... Fox.  Another thing you seem to forget, we're not here just to rerun other news - we write our own. As for your analogy, no that doesn't make a damn bit of sense.  Unless you mean that Wikinews is the superior new source and most people are too damn stupid to realize how slanted major media is - in that case it makes sense.  -- Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 20:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. It seems as though my problems lie not with Wikinews, but with the process of journalism in general. (Maybe it would be better if you guys had a big flashy display and a fancy ticker at the bottom!) I'm sure that if I called Fox News and asked them the same questions, they would claim that they had a neutral point of view as well. But I guess you have to trust someone. And that's all I'm going to say so as not to appear troll-ish or whatever it is you call it on these sites. 128.194.38.162 (talk) 16:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikinews should be an attempt to get around some of the issues with mainstream news outlets. Look at the current efforts to dig into the UK's National Portrait Gallery threatening to sue someone in the U.S. There is original reporting in this, and more analysis than sites such as Slashdot give this. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * why do we have a website that just summarises news that is readily and freely available from other news sites? — Given that we don't have that, that is a loaded question that is unanswerable. What we actually have, here at Wikinews, is a free-content news service that provides a mixture of news summaries and original reporting.  (See Mission statement and Content guide.)  And it's a news service that has, right next door, an encyclopaedia, a dictionary, a source text library, and a free content image repository all available for use and linking to, giving us backgrounders, file images, and the like that a standalone user-written news service would be hard pressed to create by itself.  Uncle G (talk) 05:51, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

VOA
Can someone explain the rules with regard to VOA articles? Can we just copy them in wholesale? Is there a template to show we have?   Tris   09:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * There's VOA and VOA-by. The biggest concern is the VOA-POV. They're a lot better than the likes of Fox, but VOA are still US Government funded. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I was just looking for things like the shuttle launch delay etc. which are pretty NPOV.    Tris   11:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Quantity/Newsworthiness of updates lately
There seems to have been a distinct reduction of updates on the Mainpage recently, compared with only a few weeks ago. Several stories I would classify as large have been picked up on by Wikipedia and displayed on the front page In the news, that Wikinews doesn't seem to even have articles on; such as the crash of Flight 7908, the election of the new President of the European Parliament, and the Winter Deaths in Peru.

Further more, several of the handful of stories that have been published recently seem trivial and/or commonplace incidents without total representation; such as Roller skating babies become YouTube sensation, 'Monster' fish killed in Swiss lake after biting swimmers, and Firefighter killed while tackling pub blaze in Edinburgh, Scotland.

What's been happening these past few weeks? Is this the result of a policy change? Or have several of the core contributors vanished? 92.13.86.204 (talk) 17:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

NEED FR->EN translation, help need please !
The recently done interview on fr.wikinews French workers put gas canister around factory's vehicules to get fair extra cash need translation, please help need. If need, Can you copy this help-request post in better place. Tonneins (talk) 00:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC) (French author of this article)

Wikimania 2009
Wikimania 2009 will be here soon and I wanted to get an idea of how Wikinews will be represented. Please let me know/post below if you plan to attend, so we can coordinate our coverage, as well make sure we know who we should be looking for. I am definitely going to be there and unless we have several more active Wikinewsies planning to cover it, I attend to apply for a press badge again.--Cspurrier (talk) 05:07, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Election notice: please distribute widely
Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you may be aware, there is concern that the sitenotices regarding submission of candidacy for the Board of Trustees election were not seen anywhere but Meta after the 11th of this month. Because of the potentially massive consequence of this, and to encourage a full and active election, the election committee has determined that:

- Candidacies will be accepted through July 27th at 23:59 (UTC)

- The period for questioning candidates begins immediately. Candidates that are "late to the party" will, no doubt, be scrutinized by the community. The Committee hopes that the community will work to actively ensure that all candidates receive equivalent questioning.

- The dates of election will not change. The election will begin on 28 July and end on 10 August.

Please know that we recognize the radical nature of altering the schedule in the midst of the election and would not do it if we did not absolutely believe that there was a possibility that others may be interested and qualified and may not have known about the key dates.

For the committee, Philippe (talk) 09:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the notice. :) Cirt (talk) 11:13, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


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Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2009/June

New Wikinewsie blog and wiki
I have installed a new blog on the wikinewsie.org site - http://wikinewsie.org/opinions/

The vague idea here is to do a blog that is not restricted just to accredited reporters, but to all established contributors. Content would be well thought-out opinions on issues in the news. I want to avoid having a run on particular topics, so those given access to post will have to take that into account - Like, don't run dozens of Scientology stories, don't make the blog look like a single-purpose crusade, so on.

First is sorting out a few things from the basic WordPress 2.7.1 installation. As this is distinct from the Editors' blog it should probably have a different theme or colour scheme. I'm open to suggestions on this, and there are libraries of themes on the WordPress site.

After that you have to look at add-ons such as RSS and http-based management/upgrading. Comments on these from anyone who has managed a blog would be welcome.

I also have a support query in with Godaddy to progress getting a Wiki up and running. Current problem is MediaWiki doesn't work with MtSQL v4.x, and for some reason I've not got 5.x on the hosting account. Should have an answer on that sometime today.

Any other suggestions welcome - I suspect when it comes time for the wiki to go up I'll be looking for people to help skin and theme it. Also expect to be putting in queries to #mediawiki on IRC about addons and such, anyone who can give advice on how best (a) to mimic the config on Wikinews, and (b) make it log-in only access with a main page visible please comment on these points. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:54, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Call me confused, but I have no idea what the purpose of this new Wiki would be. What would it be? —Calebrw (talk) 21:14, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
 * mediawiki should work with mySQL 4 (it needs version 5 of php) according to Installation. (wikinews uses 4.0.40 of mysql according to special:version) From what i understand the wiki is a re-incarnation of embargo wiki proposal. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The wiki is now installed, it is intended to be a place where we store obituaries out of public view and other sensitive material. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:18, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Got it. Calebrw (talk) 14:42, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.wikinewsie.org/wiki/Main_Page As you can see, it desperately needs a new logo, that's five minutes with photoshop and a who-gives-a-bleep attitude. Size is 150px square, use png24. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ...it is intended to be a place where we store obituaries out of public view and other sensitive material... Does that mean that it is a closed wiki (i.e. cannot be read by unregistered users, sort of like the OTRS wiki)? Tempodivalse [talk]  17:45, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It isn't... yet. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:11, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, never mind, I missed your comment above where you said you wanted to make it a closed wiki, but haven't managed to yet. In any case, this sounds like a good idea. A few questions, though:
 * 1) How are we going to determine who can access this secret wiki? Do we limit the users to accredited reporters and/or administrators?
 * 2) What sort of information would be sensitive enough to require being on a private-access wiki?

Tempodivalse [talk]  19:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * accredited reporters and administrators covers most contributors. A lot will depend on how fine-grained a security model can be set up. If we can have an "Obituaries:" namespace that anyone can access and a "Embargoed:" namespace with a smaller set of users, that'd be perfect.
 * Apart from obituaries, this should give us a chance to start getting embargoed press releases from organisations and work on stories from them without leaking the release information. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

--
 * On a separate note, as far as making the configuration wikinews like, the two most important extensions are mw:extension:Intersection (aka DPLv1) and mw:extension:parserfunctions. Most of the other extensions on wikinews aren't really used. Whats really important is some of the key templates - source, date, wikinews and the like. Those should probably be imported using special:export/special:import. The mediawiki wiki has some info on restricting access. As for skinning, I'd suggest using something like Datrio's or stw's css so that its clearly visible that it is not wikinews but still noticeable that it is a wiki. Another option is Custom skin however it is kind of abandoned so your millage will most definitly vary with it (I did get it to kind of work on mediawiki 1.11 a very long time ago). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:24, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Great idea on the new skin part. We should defiantly take a strong look at the old skin and make sure that it can be easily updated to the latest version of MW (1.15.x) and to the latest CSS code. From what I saw, it looked pretty good. PS: created account on the new wiki. Calebrw (talk) 05:29, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Import/Export will be vital. Not just for setting up templates and things on the Wikinewsie wiki, but for taking stories ready for publication from the wiki and importing them to Wikinews with full edit history. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Securing the wiki
I've implemented some of the basic security features for the wiki - anon users cannot now browse and anyone wanting an account will have to ask from one of the already established users - myself, Bawolff, Blood Red Sandman, Calebrw, and DragonFire1024. All users will be made sysops - I don't see a need for a hierarchy here. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:50, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that most if not all users should be given administrative privileges - avoids a hierarchy. However, how do we decide becomes bureaucrat? I don't think we should give out 'crat to everybody who has an account, as bureaucrat is a very powerful tool (especially on a non-wmf wiki where they can desysop). Maybe we could limit the bureaucrat group to only administrators and/or have a separate RfB page on the wiki? Tempodivalse [talk]  14:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This is currently the "throw changes into the setting and figure out what will work" stage. Probably right that we need an RfB page - but on Wikinewsie, or here? --Brian McNeil / talk 14:37, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I feel that since the RfBs pertain to the Wikinewsie wiki and not this project, requests and discussion should be made over there. In any case, I've left a few suggestions and notes at the community portal over there on suggestions how we could promote users, comments are welcome. Tempodivalse [talk]  16:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to note, I've created a new page where users can request to be given an account at the cabal wiki: see Request an account at Wikinewsie. I think it's better to have requests made all in one place. Tempodivalse [talk]  21:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Public namespace
Thanks to help from, wikinewsie's public namespace is now available to all.

A project for Wikinewsies to work on is Freedom of Information. I have just submitted a FoI request to test out and document the system for the Scottish Parliament. is working through one at UK level. Someone at least get US level, and I know there's been a dig at one where we were told the data was not covered - please document these. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:32, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

FOX Quoted us
FOX News quoted us recently. I just thought I would make a mention of it for a few reasons. I am not complaining they did, but on their part it was crappy journalism working in our favor. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,523238,00.html

I only mention this because of the problem we had with them with the Chris Benoit story. In the recent post above, they mention the statement WP made when they Blocked Scientology. With a click of one link they could have gotten to that page, but chose to quote us :-D Lazy yes....but good for us! DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 10:50, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

 * Nice. Maybe that's where the Scientology hits came from. Well, whatever works. Calebrw (talk) 13:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

 * That's probably where we got the high traffic on Scientology pages from. I wish they would spell our name right, though. Smile.png Tempodivalse [talk]  14:43, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Possible news
- Law enforcement authorities have apparently been contacted. Thoughts? Cirt (talk) 21:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This is more notable fo' sure?  Ω Janner  21:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * @Cirt: I'm not sure this would meet our newsworthiness guidelines. By looking at the user's IP address talk page, I'd say it's just a twelve-year-old buffoon who has nothing better to do but vandalise Wikipedia. Plus, I can't imagine this is the first time someone has made an threat to kill someone on Wikipedia .... Tempodivalse [talk]  21:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikinews is not the Wikimedia witchfinder-general. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, no worries. I was not sure it would be of interest, that's why I put it up here. Cirt (talk) 01:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It was interesting to see, but I think Bored teen trolls Wikipedia with presidential death threats would be a non-article. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I did laugh at the guy begging to get the FBI uninvolved on his talk page (check the history... there's more than just what's there). I'd say in the unlike event he's arrested or charged then there's a news article, but not otherwise. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 09:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Re to above: Noted, thanks. Cirt (talk) 12:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

What about the other story that Jolly Janner pointed to, though? It was picked up by the Daily Herald (New Zealand), the Independent (London), and the Daily Mail over the weekend. Uncle G (talk) 18:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Profanity warnings
I was looking through some template lists recently, and stumbled upon language. It appears as though it is supposed to be used to warn readers of expletives in the article (although it seems it has never been used). Since we do not censor, I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to have such warnings? If so, should we start using it? Open to thoughts. Tempodivalse [talk]  23:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

 * The template's ugly, mind. I'm more comfortable with the kind of note displayed in Teräsbetoni frontman J. Ahola on representing Finland at Eurovision 2008 & more. We should really try and decide what the standard is, though. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 06:28, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

 * No need to have such warnings on an article by article basis since we already have them in the disclaimers. To add warnings to particular articles would be problematic since what language would be considered to merit a warning won't be straightforward to determine. As a news site, it wouldn't be reasonable of our readers to expect that all of the language in our articles will be universally accepted as appropriate. Adambro (talk) 13:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

howdy
Please see Template_talk:Howdy. Please comment there. Calebrw (talk) 02:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, please take a look at Template_talk:Howdy, a derivative of the same discussion. Calebrw (talk) 05:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

 * I have proposed a "write" tab on the template's talk. Anyone have ideas on squeezing a creation form into a tab? --Brian McNeil / talk 16:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Flood flag poll
There is currently a proposal at the proposals water cooler section to enable a flood flag at this wiki. The poll has been open for almost an entire month and support has been unanimous, do we have consensus to close it and file a request at Bugzilla? Tempodivalse [talk]  20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say so, given this amount of time. I haven't voiced an opinion, but I will look at again and tell you what I think on that page. Calebrw (talk) 14:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews Bulletin
Is anyone interested in reviving the Wikinews Bulletin? I noticed it's not been updated for close to a year now. If not, it should probably be tagged as historical. Tempodivalse [talk]  16:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Tag it. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ Tempodivalse [talk]  02:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Study_says_nearly_every_species_of_animal_engages_in_homosexual_behavior
Looks like there have been some issues raise on this talk page. Thanks. Calebrw (talk) 18:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth: If DGG raises concerns about scientific publication, they are worth looking in to. Uncle G (talk) 03:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

BBC GCSE Literature quiz
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8116627.stm

I scored 5/7. I simply hadn't read some of the works questions were taken from. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

 * Same score, same reason. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 16:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 4/7 and that was through guessing on all. Brits must have it easy. ;) Honestly, I never ready "Jane Eyre," "Romeo and Juliet," "Of Mice and Men" or "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; I have read "To Kill a Mockingbird" and portions of "Macbeth" but still was only able to guess the answers; did see "Much ado about Nothing" as a play 8 years or so ago. Calebrw (talk) 14:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Unless exams have changed radically since I took them ( mutters something about this being about 25 years ago ) the question would not be provided with answers to pick from. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Massacre in Baharestan, Iran
Listen to this YouTube video YouTube.

Then read about this: Baharestan

Get informed. I think we need more people covering what is going on in Iran. Cirt (talk) 13:24, 25 June 2009 (UTC)


text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2009/May

"Eurovision special" almost over! Call for translations
The Eurovision special, which we started in February, is almost over. We have published five interviews so far, two more are currently in the pipeline, and the final interview will consist of a series of vignettes, in which I ask many well-known performers from around Europe what they're doing this year, what their experiences were while at Eurovision, and who they think will win the Contest. The in-depth interviews, we are still taking on a language-by-language basis; if you want to translate, that's fine; if not, that's fine too. Two of the interviews have been translated into German, and one each has been translated into French, Russian, and Ukrainian, making the cross-collaboration a bit of a success.

The final vignettes interview set, I do want to have translated into as many European languages as possible. Would anyone like to volunteer to translate into a language that has a Wikinews? Mike Halterman (talk) 08:39, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've sent out many requests and so far Charlotte Perrelli and Ani Lorak's representatives have confirmed their participation, so Swedish and Ukrainian would be needed at the very least. Mike Halterman (talk) 08:40, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I assume you're making this request on the other language Wikinews sites too. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm doing it as we speak. Mike Halterman (talk) 09:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hanna Pakarinen's label has confirmed her participation. Tajči's husband said she would like to participate too. Mike Halterman (talk) 11:10, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I will try to translate into Russian, if somebody will make RSS service for Russian Wikinews (service «toolserver.org/~cspurrier/rss/rss.php» does not support Cyrillic) =)) --  TarzanASG +1  12:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Jessica Garlick, Kalomoira and Marie N are in as well. Mike Halterman (talk) 21:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Is there a place for people to go to if they are interested? Like a link, perchance. --SVTCobra 21:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What, if they're interested in translating? Commenting here. Mike Halterman (talk) 00:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Mike, I had a hard time finding a link to the articles to be translated too. I suppose the articles are listed at User:Mike Halterman/Eurovision 2009 interviews, right?. HenkvD (talk) 18:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late response. I will do the Ukrainian translation. Just drop me a line at Wikinews or Wikipedia page. --99.241.144.3 04:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I can do this, in portuguese. Alex Pereira 11:12, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I also have translators in Spanish, Polish and Swedish. Mike Halterman (talk) 11:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

For translators:

You can translate any interview you wish, but the one I need translators for most urgently is the one we will be publishing on Monday. Since it's such a large interview, I'm moving pieces over right now so people can start now in a draft and go at their own pace instead of having to do a HUGE block on Monday. The link is Story preparation/Past Eurovision contestants give advice to this year's performers, speculate on who will win. So anyone who is interested can start a draft now. Mike Halterman (talk) 13:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

 * I can also translate something (into German), although some help would - of course - be welcome. ;-) Regards, --Angela H. (talk) 14:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Seven of the nine have participated. I have not copyedited Tajci's transcript yet or moved it over. If Charlotte or Kalomoira do not respond by afternoon tomorrow, we will be going ahead with just the seven. Mike Halterman (talk) 18:26, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Charlotte's answers have been received. I may have to cut Kalomoira out of the interview plans for good because I've only heard from her publicist, who said she would be contacting me directly (and never did). Mike Halterman (talk) 22:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Kalomoira has not responded and at this point, she will not be participating. As soon as I get the go-ahead from Tajci regarding the phone tanscript, I will move her statements over and Charlotte's as well, then I will write the intro and everything will be set for a full translation for everyone. Mike Halterman (talk) 13:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

EVERYTHING IS NOW INCLUDED IN THE ENGLISH ARTICLE. For the translators who were waiting until everything was placed, you can start your work now. Thank you for all your help. :) Mike Halterman (talk) 00:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * List of translators for each language. These people either volunteered on this page or other pages, or we discussed translating in IRC and they have started:

 * Dutch: Groucho_NL ✅
 * French: Otourly, Dereckson ✅
 * German: Aholtman, Eptalon, Prince Kassad, Matthiasb ✅
 * Hebrew: Shimrit
 * Norwegian: noorse, h3st, brik, christel, bjelleklang ✅
 * Polish: odder ✅
 * Portuguese: Alexanderps
 * Russian: enhydra ✅
 * Spanish: SkEmO ✅
 * Swedish: HannesP ✅
 * Ukrainian: Hillock65 ✅

I think that's good enough, at least in terms of how many languages there are. If anyone would like to help the translators, sign up and I will let them know. The interviews ended up being LONG so it's a big task for someone to take on alone. :) Mike Halterman (talk) 09:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

 * Small Update:
 * German:, also supported by Matthiasb.
 * --Angela H. (talk) 11:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Updated. Mike Halterman (talk) 13:03, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Cred
New template, for use on WN:CV. I have put it on Sherujic to test it out. Anyone want to kick about ideas for improving it? I'm thinking we could add a |photo= option.

I know some people might not be totally comfortable with this, but to be realistic if Skenmy's idea for more professional ID goes through I think it should have pictures. There is also the thing that accredited reporters should at least have a chance of recognising each other even if they have never met before. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Tell me more!
I run a village website and I find it incredibly difficult to get local groups to tell me any news and it occurred to me that one way to improve on the local news, the kind that never makes it into the papers, would be to have a "wikinews". So I was very interested to spot this website as this is heading in the same direction.

But what worries me is that I'm talking about the problems of getting local news for a small village of 10,000, whereas from what I can see, this site is having problems getting news for the whole world of 6,000,000,000. Which leads me to think, that even if the idea sounds great, is it really practical even for world news let alone a small village?

Can someone help me understand the project. Is it right that because there are no articles listed under May 5th (and it is 15:30 GMT) that this means that there is currently no news from the 5th? 79.79.220.104 15:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

 * We are a small community - we have only five or six users who are frequent contributors to this site, and a further twenty or so who contribute occasionally. As such, our output is limited, and our coverage of world events is very patchy, as you have already noticed. You are correct in observing that we have no published articles for May 5, although we have several stories that are either in development or awaiting a peer review for publishing in the newsroom. I think this project has great potential, but we are severely hampered by having very few active content writers. You are certainly very much welcome to help us grow, and any contributions you could make will be greatly appreciated. tempo divalse  17:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Parents prosecuted after homeopathic treatment leads to daughter's death
I provided four background sources from scientific journals on homeopathy, but was told they wouldn't be necessary. Then someone went in and simply removed the mainstream medical view fromt he first paragraph.

It wasn't like I said it as fact, I simply said it was "widely considered as quackery" - which it is: to work, it would have to violate basic scientific laws, as explained in the last paragraph. But nonetheless, it would appear that Wikinews is unable to maintain decent scientific standards, nor is willing to let facts stand in articles.

I'm really, really steamed about this. I decided to start editing Wikinews because I thought that science and such were accepted here, and this was an incredibly nasty surprise. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * 1) How is homeopathy described in other mainstream media secondary sources reporting on this news event? We could model after/take our cues from those.
 * 2) If the source(s) is being used for information in the body text of the article, it should not have been removed and should be restored. If it is "background" source, not used to support anything in the article's body text, no reason to have it as a source in the Sources section. Cirt (talk) 20:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * They discuss how it doesn't work, is ineffective, etc, a lot. However, I was summarising much longer reports. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure why these sources were removed as they are clearly from highly reliable sources that were being used in the article. I have added them back . Cirt (talk) 21:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Adam, please read Avoid weasel words about using phrases like "widely considered as quackery". Though clearly it shouldn't have been just removed. Cheers,--SVTCobra 13:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Specific attribution is generally a good thing. :) Cirt (talk) 13:41, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Notice - Discussion at Meta on Global policy
Please see Water_cooler/policy. Cirt (talk) 21:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)


text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2009/September

Reviewers not reviewing
We seem to have a problem with reviewers not actually reviewing. Puerto Rico swine flu death toll now at seven was marked as ready for review on the 22nd. The two reviewers to have touched it in the six days that it has been listed as ready for review at the Newsroom didn't bother to actually review it but simply marked it as stale. Similarly, Canonical releases source code for Launchpad was marked as ready for review on the 24th. Again, it was touched by two reviewers, but the only thing that they did was mark it as stale. Wikinews isn't going to work if reviewers don't actually review. Uncle G (talk) 12:53, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Two answers for 2 articles:

 * 1) The first article was originally unfit to be published, so no one published it. By the time it was fleshed out (by you), it would have needed to have been published within a few hours in order to meet our three day deadline: Wikinews articles must be about events that took place no more than 3 days before publication time. In this particular case it wasn't reviewed within that very narrow time window. If a story is completed in a more timely fashion then the timewindow for completing the review is usually about 2 days, so it doesn't matter if an article sits there for a few hours. It will still be good.

 * The fact that this article had an unusually narrow time window in which to be reviewed wasn't helped by the fact that all of the sources were non-English. Non-English sources usually need to be read by someone who can read the language in question. That significantly reduces the pool of potential reviews. For reviewers who don't read the source language, well, sure Google translate helps the reviewer get the general gist of the article, but personally I have a hard time publishing any article in which I can't verify that the article isn't violating copyright. That's impossible when I'm only getting a very vague, approximate, machine translation of the text. Thus, I can't verify copyright, and I can't pass the article.

 * 2) The second article was stale before it was written. Even if it had been reviewed 10 seconds after it was completed, it would have been deleted. That story was more than a month old when the person started writing it. Hence the fact that it was immediately tagged with Stale. Gopher65talk 16:33, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Newsworthiness
What minimum factors are required for a Original reporting story that makes a newsworthy article to be get published in Wikinews. Zainichi Gaikokujin [talk]  14:28, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It depends a lot on what you're reporting on. Usually, articles that pertain to a topic of at least a local or regional importance are newsworthy enough, but news aimed at a very specific audience might not be. I suggest you take a look at the content guide, which has more information on what makes a newsworthy article. Hope this helps. Tempodivalse [talk]  16:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Announcement
Cross-posting, please see WN:AAA. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:13, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

New daily article record 20 (now ) articles in a day!
I'd like to congratulate all our contributors for breaking a record - on September 12 we published twenty articles. That's an average of one article every 72 minutes. Great work, everyone! Let's see if we can keep up our pace. Tempodivalse [talk]  00:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * BACK TO WORK SLAVES!! -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 00:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Challenge: Let's make 25 tomorrow. :) – Juliancolton  | Talk 00:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * wow. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the record is 21 or 22 actually. Set in maybe 07 or 06. but nonetheless this is awesome! Keep it up :) Oops. I see its 24 for today. Awesome guys. Really makes me happy! DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * not to put a damper on enthusiasim, but category:September 2, 2005 has 24 articles as well (it was day 2 of IWWC). this is awesome. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:23, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow i would have expected the record to have been much later. That is actually quite good for being so early in Wikinews history. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually the all time record it 27 articles on April 6, 2005. That being said, this is a record for us since we've instituted the review system (which is a major change).  And the most we've had in 2009 prior to Sept 12, was 16 articles in one day.  -- Master of article stats  Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 20:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews on Facebook
Wikinews on Facebook is dreadful. Whatever auto-posts (I suspect an RSS scraper) gives the article title twice, no link to the article, and no use of any pictures in the article. It also repeatedly posts stories when the title changes.

What can we do about it? Do we need to drop back to manually posting stories using the social bookmarks? --Brian McNeil / talk 13:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I assume we could improve the script. First step would be figuring out who controls the script (We should really have a page that lists all the various twitter facebook, etc autopost things, and who owns them). Bawolff ☺☻ 17:54, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Another option is to include the Twitter messages in Facebook. That way you only have to add the messages to Twitter and they'll automatically be added to Facebook as well. Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk • contribs) 11:00, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * that seems to be the logical answer, Van der Hoorn. I'll suggest it to SGN. --SVTCobra 00:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The Facebook application can be found here. Cheers, Van der Hoorn (talk • contribs) 18:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have been informed of this issue, it is on my list of things to do. I've looked up information on their external API, but I've never worked with it before and it isn't nearly as simple as Twitter/Identica so it will take me a little bit to get something working.   -- Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 20:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I would be seriously opposed to feeding stories through the 140 character limit of Twitter and then on into Facebook. That's just stupid. Facebook allows far more detail as well as images to be included when posting a link to a story there. What I want to see is the same as you have when you post a story to Facebook via the social bookmarks template. I would also highlight that several people, including Jimmy Wales, have complained that the auto-posted stories on Facebook are effectively useless. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Newsflash Special Report at 5' - Wikinews has been invaded by tabloid editors?
I come onto the site and what do I see? A scrambled mess about random bullshit I don't care about, that looks like it was, and often does in fact cite nothing but tabloid sources. Where's the unbiased reporting of important and controversial issues? Where's the reporting of important news no commercial news service would report? Where's digging out the truth from behind the spin and bias? And what does anybody freaking care who won amercia got idol brother 8?

/rant

 * I agree with you, in a way. I'd rather prefer to see more of the serious, international news on the site, and less of the celebrity/entertainment stuff. However, our users write about the topics they are interested in, we can't oblige them to write on certain topics - this is a completely volunteer site, after all. There's nothing in our policies that says we can't publish entertainment news. And, if you want to do something about it, you can always try writing an article yourself on a topic you think Wikinews needs to cover. Tempodivalse [talk]  12:56, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Lockerbie
Those of you who have and check may be wondering if I ever did go to last night's Lockerbie film screening. Well, I did and I'm working on a special report for Wikinews, so worry not. BTW, know who Richard Marquise is? Google him. I've got his email address :-D - anything you want asked? I also have Jim Swire's and should be able to get Robert Black's, although most legal questions I can get answers to without going to him. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)


text:
Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/archives/2009/August

2009 ArbCom elections
I'v estarted a page for this year's ArbCom elections. People are yugently needed to help organise it. Please see Arbitration Committee/2009 elections. Computerjoe 's talk 13:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

We are now accepting nominations for ArbCom
Nominations are now being accepted for the Arbitration Committee.

The deadline for nominations is Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 23:59 UTC. Elections will commence on Monday, August 10, 2009 and close on Monday, August 17, 2009 at 23:59 UTC. The new Committee will be appointed on Tuesday, August 18, 2009.

Please see Arbitration Committee/2009 elections

Please circulate this notice.

Thanks Computerjoe 's talk 12:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Categories &c - reasonable divisions
I'll pull up Portal:Federally Administered Tribal Areas as an example of some of the stuff that's problematic. Tribal areas of where? Yes, it's Pakistan, but it could be bloody anywhere. How small an area should we cover? Should we cover cities? How do we decide if a city is appropriate to do? For example, we have London - obvious as the capital of England, but we don't have Edinburgh - the capital of Scotland. We have individual US states, and that seems reasonable as many of them are much larger than some European countries. Within the US we don't have Dallas, but we're getting inundated with odd categories that pretty much mean nothing to people outside the countries they're in.

The repeated concern with these is that they'll never be reliably maintained, and long-time users will have seen the headaches with DPLs when categories are added to older articles.

Does someone want to put forward their ideas on how geographic categories are managed? Do we kill stuff like FATA because it is just a notional area defined by a government. We zapped attempts to create Latin America as it is linguistic instead of geographic. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:41, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm of the opinion that divisions should be maintained if there are articles for it (say at utter minimum 3 articles), and that such divisions should be clearly named. I think all cities should be named City, State/province (ex category:Montreal, Quebec) or City, Country if the country doesn't have internal divisions and secondary territorial divisions should be named just its name - category:Alberta, unless its ambiguous than its name should be clarified (ex Category:Georgia (U.S. state), but perhaps should be Category:Georgia, United States instead). Non-unique names - the aforementioned Portal:Federally Administered Tribal Areas should have clear names, like Portal:Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Pakistan, with the unclear name redirecting. (IMHO)  I don't really see the issue with adding categories late (other than  the effort required to do a repetitive task) as DPL's that are properly set up should order by the date that publish was added to the article, not the specific geographic cat. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * A bit of an aside but ugly as it is Georgia (U.S. state) and others like it is phrased that way to harmonise with the tautology at en wiki, which influences the naming of categories at Commons. Humans can tell that Category:Georgia (U.S. state) and Category:Georgia, United States are the same thing, but in my experience the bots which do a lot of the interwiki maintenance are a pretty stupid lot, and it helps if we can keep the naming schemes cross wiki as close to each other as possible.KTo288 (talk) 22:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Bawolff pretty much sums up what I was thinking. Even if some cats are for small geographical areas, but have at least a few articles for them (I'd give five a minimum), then it's worth keeping and maintaining them. There also should be some standardised way to name such categories, like City or other area, Province or State, Country. And also, as Bawolff says, correctly set DPLs shouldn't cause any headaches. Tempodivalse [talk]  23:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I as well agree with the sound assessment given above by . Cirt (talk) 02:36, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed addendum to MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning
There was recently a request to make an addendum to the message at MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning. I decided to decline the request for now as it's a pretty significant change, and probably shouldn't be made without some prior discussion. Please see MediaWiki_talk:Copyrightwarning for the discussion and give your input. Tempodivalse [talk]  20:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
 * IANAL, but doesn't Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Licensing update directly address this issue? I think it makes the suggested change unnecessary. But that's just my interpretation. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Umm, not really. The Wikipedia license update does not affect us in any way. (we're still incompatible if thats what you mean). Bawolff ☺☻ 02:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)