text:
User:Merriam~enwikinews/availability

Tsunami Help and server problems
This site, en.wikinews.org (but not de.wikinews.org), was down on 30 November from about 08:30 to about 17:08 UTC. This estimate is based on the gap in recent changes:

 * (diff) (hist) . . Tsunami Help/Aid Agencies, Donations & Volunteers; 17:15 . . 131.107.71.224 (Talk)
 * (diff) (hist) . . Template:Tsunami Relief Effort; 17:13 . . Nehavish (Talk)
 * (diff) (hist) . . Tsunami Help/Aid Agencies, Donations & Volunteers; 17:11 . . 131.107.71.224 (Talk)
 * (diff) (hist) . . Tsunami Help/Aid Agencies, Donations & Volunteers; 17:08 . . 131.107.71.224 (Talk) (→Specific Requests)
 * (diff) (hist) . . Tsunami Help/Links; 08:30 . . 195.109.155.71 (Talk)
 * (diff) (hist) . . m Tsunami Help/Tsunami Blog In The Media; 08:30 . . CBasturea (Talk)
 * (diff) (hist) . . New tsunamis to hit India today; 08:25 . . Phoenix (Talk) (Edited dagbladet.no link (which is the actual source for this story))
 * (diff) (hist) . . m Tsunami Help/Tsunami Blog In The Media; 08:24 . . CBasturea (Talk)

Contributors to Tsunami Help were apparently trying to edit during this time. Judging by this experience and other server problems, Wikimedia servers aren't the most suitable for this sort of time-critical activity.

SEA-EAT: "The Wikinews is down rightnow. We are currently working on to move the Wiki pages to a different server. If you have can offer us hosting services and bandwidth, please contact us or post your information here."

The Wikinews Tsunami Help pages are still being edited, but there is also some activity at [http://www.socialtext.net/tsunamihelp/index.cgi? Socialtext].

There was apparently a more general problem with the Wikimedia servers starting at the same time.

From w:User:Jamesday:

The outage on 30 November was from about 08:30 to 10:10 UTC, based on the web server charts. The problem was with memcached, which was having trouble for all Wikimedia hosted projects. It was apparently fixed by restarting memcached. The problems earlier in the week were with the new search, which is currently removed from service. Technically: the new search was refusing all search requests during Java Virtual Machine (JVM) memory garbage collection. The newer Java search been removed from service until it no longer does that.

The problems are entirely unrelated to server load, which was well within the current server capacity. That is: doubling the number of servers would have made no difference at all. The tsunami items had no visible effect at all on server load, so there's no need to wonder whether they are a problem.

The search indexes for the search we're back to using again have typically been updated for all projects twice a week. On my personal to do list is making that more frequent for Wikinews, because of the fast-changing nature of the information here. At the moment, all of the indexes are more out of date than usual - should be taken care of by tomorrow morning (US time).

Some have wondered whether the older search is a problem which allows attacks on the servers. It isn't. It is the highest load operation the database servers perform and we have both load-related controls, which let us turn off a percentage of search if necessary, and an automatic query killer which works for all types of database queries and terminates any which are apparently involved in a denial of service attack on the sites. Because it's the highest load item it's something we turn off temporarily if general load is high enough to cause database slaves to lag or otherwise be unable to keep up. Usually, we're able to keep ahead of load and get more database servers into service before we have to do that - but that wasn't the case in October and November, because two new servers took longer than expected to arrive. That left us having to turn off a fair percentage of search (about 20%) routinely at peak times. With a traffic doubling time of just 8-12 weeks, it can be a challenge to keep ahead of growth if there are delays in getting new equipment. Doesn't stop us from trying though.:)

At present we've largely been operating without the query killer running as we learn what queries it needs to work with on the new MediaWiki 1.4 version. I updated it earlier today to make some changes for MediaWiki 1.4 and that updating will continue as we learn how MediaWiki 1.4 differs from 1.3 in the ability to submit unacceptably high load operations. Most of those aren't search-related. If you'd like to read more about the database load/attack limiter, see Querybane. Jamesday 23:29, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Merriam~enwikinews/availability


text:
BitTorrent tracker site sued by movie studios, will mount defense

December 30, 2004

Loki Torrent, a site that tracks links to BitTorrent files, was sued by the motion picture industry for copyright infringement on December 14, 2004, but has decided to mount a legal defense. The site operators have set up a legal defense fund in order to raise the $30,000 per month they estimate will be necessary to cover legal costs. The suit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Texas on behalf of Columbia Pictures – a major movie studio. The lawsuit is part of the MPAA campaign to crack down on Internet piracy.

The lawsuit did not initially mention the site's operator, Edward Webber — instead, the suit was filed against a set of people named "John Doe" to be identified at a later point.

Loki Torrent's popularity had increased dramatically in recent days after the prominent BitTorrent site SuprNova.org shut down in a preemptive move to avoid a lawsuit.

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


text:
Linux fifth most searched tech word on Google in 2004

According to Google's 2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist report, Linux scored fifth on a list of most-searched technology terms, beating out all other operating systems. Linux was the No. 4 technology search term on Google in 2002.

This ranking follows a banner year for the community-built operating system. The 2.6 kernel, deemed the first enterprise-level release of the software, became available for users in 2004 and made significant inroads into the enterprise computing industry. The IDC recently reported a prediction that the worldwide market revenue for Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008.

"SCO" was the No. 1 company query for 2004 in Google's report. High-profile lawsuits by SCO against IBM and other companies for alleged copyright or patent infringement were filed and dominated Linux news throughout the year.


text:
Wikinews:Style guide

The style guide deals with the ways Wikinews content should be presented to readers. See the Content guide for information on the reporting process. See Editing help for information on the wiki editing syntax.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to English spelling, grammar, and punctuation; it is assumed that the majority of contributors are well-versed in writing for an educated native-speaking audience. A number of the external guides listed in this document are excellent references when seeking to improve your command of the English language.

Purpose
The vast majority of news sources rely upon a manual of style, a collection of agreed-upon guidelines for writing style. A style guide helps writers and editors by providing a standardised way of writing. Style guides help ensure consistency in such things as headlines, abbreviations, numbers, punctuation, and courtesy titles. Style guides therefore are most helpful.

A news style is developed with emphasis on the efficient and accurate imparting of information about events; following our news style suggestions should have the additional benefit of helping you write effectively if you are a newcomer to writing news.

The Wikinews style guide is aimed at producing understandable and informative articles readily understood by the majority of readers. Articles that do not adhere to the style guide are unlikely to be published.

Status
The Wikinews style guide, like all style guides at working news organisations, is a work in progress and subject to change as new issues emerge and the language of news coverage evolves. Changes to the guide are not applied retroactively.

Conventions
Elements of punctuation and grammar are not addressed by exactly the same terms universally. There is no intention to be regionalist in this manual; however, in the interests of causing the least confusion, the following terms are used for clarity:

 * Period: The American term for the dot which punctuates the end of a sentence; also known as a full-stop.

Six tips on better writing
In his 1946 essay , writer devised six easy tips to make anyone a better writer:

 * 1) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
 * 2) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
 * 3) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
 * 4) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
 * 5) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
 * 6) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

Headlines
When naming your article, keep the following points in mind. (Most of them apply also to the body of the article, and are covered in greater detail further down this page.)

 * Make them unique and specific — Due to the way the software of Wikinews works, each headline must be unique; choose specific details which describe this unique news event.

 * Make them short — Headlines are as short as possible. The word 'and' is generally replaced by a comma. Example: "Powell and Annan set international goals for aid" could be written: "Powell, Annan set international goals for aid"

 * Use verbs — A headline is essentially a sentence without ending punctuation, and sentences have.

 * Use downstyle capitalisation — Downstyle capitalisation, also called sentence case, is the preferred style. Only the initial word and proper nouns are capitalized. In upstyle headlines, title case, all nouns and most other words with more than four letters are capitalized.

 * Downstyle: "Powell to lead U.S. delegation to Asian tsunami region"
 * Upstyle: "Powell to Lead U.S. Delegation to Asian Tsunami Region".

 * Write in a neutral point of view — headlines should not be biased in tone or word choice.

 * Tell the most important and unique thing — Article titles should consist of a descriptive, enduring headline. As a series of stories on a topic develop, each headline should convey the most important and unique thing about the story at that time.
 * For example, "Los Angeles bank robbed" is an unenduring headline because there will likely be another bank robbery in Los Angeles at some point. Instead, find the unique angle about the story you are writing and mention that: "Thieves commit largest bank robbery in Los Angeles history", or "Trio robs Los Angeles bank, escapes on motorcycles", or even "Trio commits largest bank robbery in Los Angeles history, flees on motorcycles".

 * Use present tense — Headlines (article titles) should be written with verbs in  tense.

 * Use active voice — News is about events, and generally you should center on the doers, and what they are doing, in your sentence structure. Active voice is "Leader goes to shops" whereas passive voice, to be avoided, would be "Shops visited by leader".
 * A quick check is try to word your sentences to avoid verbs ending in 'ing' and look for 'be verbs', e.g. 'are going to' can easily be converted to 'will' or simply 'to'. Rather than "More criminals are going to face execution in 2005", if we put "More criminals to face execution in 2005" or "More criminals face execution in 2005" a better sense of immediacy is conveyed.

 * Try to attribute any action to someone — "Insurgents shoot U.S. troops in North Baghdad" is better than "U.S. troops shot in North Baghdad".

 * Avoid jargon and meaningless acronyms — Avoid uncommon technical terms, and when referring to a country or organization, use its full name rather than acronym, unless the acronym is more common than the full name (ex: NASA, UK, AIDS) or length is prohibitive. In cases where using an acronym because length is prohibitive, spell the acronym out as soon as possible in the article body.

 * Occasionally an interesting or unusual quotation in the article may be added to the front of the headline to add appeal. Quotes in headlines should use single quotation marks and if used at the start are usually followed by a colon e.g. "'Being this strange rocks': Wikinews interviews interesting person"

 * Consult Naming conventions for more information.

Using the Date template
Articles must include at least the date as the first line of the article. This is most easily accomplished using the date template (if you were not present at the event you are reporting upon), so the first line of each article should include this code:

 * Month DD, YYYY

The template will add the article to the appropriate date category, and put the date on the first line in bold text. The date given on an article should be of the day on which the article was published. The date on which the event happened is not the story's date.

In journalism, the location in the dateline may either refer to the location of where the article was filed from or where the event happened, even if the writer was not physically present. Use this format only when a Wikinewsie is actually present to "file" the story (generally as original reporting), in the following manner:

 * January 1, 2005, —
 * Massive floods soaked ...

which appears like this in an article:

 * January 1, 2005

 * , — Massive floods soaked...

Wikinews does not sign articles as by an author. Articles may be edited by anyone, and are usually contributed to by more than one person, so a traditional byline is inappropriate.

The first paragraph
The first paragraph (known as the ) should summarize the article with at least 100 words, using four or five sentences.

Try to answer the basic questions of who, what, where, when, why and how. Try to fit most of these into the first paragraph. This is known as the "five W's (and an H)", and is the first thing to learn about news writing.

 * Don't feel stifled by this suggestion. Those experienced in reporting learn to determine which of those six questions are the most relevant to the story (and, more importantly, the reader). This gets easier with practice, as does most writing.

 * If you don't have the answer to one or two of them, skip it — but explain if possible why you don't know later in your story.

 * Don't make your first paragraph a boring list of facts — it's the first thing the reader sees, so make it interesting.

Every fact or issue mentioned in the first paragraph should be later backed up or expanded in the main body of the article. You needn't explain everything fully in the intro, but what is mentioned should be fully explained before the reader finishes reading the article.

Article length
Most complete articles should have a minimum of one paragraph with at least one hundred words. Don't submit articles containing only a link to a story on an external news site and no story text. Such pages are quickly deleted.

If there is significant breaking news whose article is likely to be expanded, do go ahead and write a short (but useful!) summary as breaking news, and tag it with breaking review. You can add an expand-tag. This will invite other editors to work on the article. Note that just because a story has just broken does not mean it is in the process of breaking. Try to write at least a paragraph where news is breaking, but beware the pitfall that by the time it is reviewed the story may have already moved on to the point where it is no longer appropriate to publish a minimalist piece without expansion. See Breaking news.

Writing tone and structure
Write to be easily understood, to make reading easier. A key, and strict, policy is absolute neutrality. See the neutrality policy for full details of this.

Beyond the first paragraph, try to stick to the following tips:

 * Prefer shorter paragraphs
 * A short paragraph should ideally be only one or two sentences, or three if they're very short sentences
 * Each paragraph covers a single topic only
 * In longer articles, avoid uniformly very short paragraphs, which may produce a bullet-like effect interfering with article flow
 * Concentrate on the new facts and their known or potential consequence — background information is of lesser importance (aka )
 * Put the most important and newsworthy facts first, with least important and least immediate facts last — this is opposite to development order in typical narratives, and is termed inverted-pyramid style
 * Use plain English
 * Use punchy, active language to intone a sense of immediacy
 * Be balanced
 * Be clear, concise and unambiguous
 * Promote the human aspects of any story, using quotes etc. — this makes the story interesting to a wider range of people
 * Ascribe any speculation to a source — never introduce any of your own

If you find your work is too wordy, try juggling word order to squeeze out unnecessary words. You may be surprised how many you can find! This gets easier with practice. Other users are likely to help you out.

The reason for inverted-pyramid style is twofold;
 * To help the reader, who is usually in a hurry when reading news. Putting the important and new aspects first helps, since they may skip the story after only a couple of paragraphs.

 * To help people who are editing your story later. We appreciate stories with plenty of details, but we still like short, punchy stories are preferable to rambling essays.

Attribution
When adding opinions, unverified claims, speculation and the like it should always be attributed to the person or organisation that said it;
 * Analysts at the University of Cambridge expect market conditions to be tough rather than Tough market conditions are anticipated by experts
 * Doyle said "there were five people in the car" rather than One source put the occupants of the car at five

Verb tense
Articles should be written in the past tense or the present perfect. Headlines should be written in the present tense. Timelines are also written in the present tense.

Reporting on future events
Since we as writers are not in the business of predicting the future and are not psychic (arguably), it is best to stick to past or present perfect tense — especially since future events may change (or be cancelled). When writing about future or ongoing events, change tense as follows:

 * They will meet next Tuesday — change to: They are scheduled to meet next Tuesday or They said they would meet next Tuesday
 * The event will continue through the end of August — change to The event is scheduled to continue through August or The event is supposed to continue through August.
 * The show debuts in July 2014 or The show will open in July 2014 — change to The show's debut is scheduled for July 2014 or something similar.
 * The couple will celebrate their third anniversary next month — change to The couple plan to celebrate their third anniversary next month.
 * The hearing will take place tomorrow — change to The hearing is set to take place tomorrow
 * [...] will say plummeting pound can help manufacturers […] — change to [...] expected to say plummeting pound may help manufacturers [...] see example source below published day prior to speech (transcript here).

Citing your references
Articles may include a variety of links and citations. They generally fall into four groupings: links to external online sources, other Wikinews articles, links to background pages on other WMF sister projects, and websites with background or related information. Each grouping can have its own section; there should be a distinction at least between links to factual support (other modern Wikinews articles and external sources) and links to background pages and websites. The standard sections for these groupings are Related news, Sister links, Sources, and External links (in that order). Only the Sources section is mandatory.

Documents used as source material in the story need to be cited. This is to acknowledge prior art, so that information can be evaluated and verified by readers, and just as a general benefit to the reader.

Sources section
Sources include online articles and, for original reporting, reporter's notes.

Links to online sources should be listed after the optional Related news and Sister links sections, in a section Sources using the wiki markup  ==Sources== . Bullet-point each source using an  *  (asterisk). Do not leave blank lines between sources — this is for technical reasons relating to how the wiki markup is converted into HTML code. Sources should be listed chronologically, from the most recent to the oldest.

Linking sources
Use links to online sources, and include important relevant information about the source.

The important information when citing a source includes the author of the article (a person or organization), the title of the source, who it is published by, and when it was published.

There exists template code which may help you to format the information:

Simply copy and paste the template into your story text, and replace the text after the equals sign in each template variable assignment. If you do not know a variable, for example the author's name, include the variable name but leave it blank. For example,

Would appear as:

Note that the "month day, year" date format should always be used for all dates in sources regardless of how the source cites the date. Do not use leading zeroes on dates between one and nine, i.e., do not, for example, use "March 05." The day of the week or time should never be included. Dates should be according to the timezone of the source.

Citing syndicated (wire agency) content
Many stories are provided by wire news agencies (e.g., the Associated Press (AP), Reuters, or Agence France-Presse (AFP)) that their content through other media outlets. Although the wire news agency writes the story, the carrying news media exercises editorial control in deciding whether or not to publish a story. Therefore, a report written by the Associated Press that appears in should be credited as follows: the Associated Press as the author, and The Guardian as publisher. Where an AP author is cited this should be included. Where the abbreviation for the agency does not lead directly to a Wikipedia page (e.g., if it is a disambiguation page), the full name of the agency should be used. For the BBC online news site, the link BBC News Online should be used.

Whenever possible, choose the wire agency's site if the agency publishes its own stories. If this is not possible, try to pick a site that you think will have the story available online for the longest time, if you have more than one choice.

Articles from news sites which are initially from a wire service should have the wire service added to the author's name, or just the wire service if no author is given. For example, "author=Anne Gearan, AP" or "author=Agence France-Presse".

Numbered annotations
Academic-style numbered annotations or inline sourcing are generally not accepted on Wikinews. Instead list all sources used in the sources section.

Related news section
Events may produce a variety of articles on Wikinews with different angles or covering different aspects of the events. Current events may also benefit from readers being directed to one or two appropriate articles. In addition, earlier Wikinews articles may serve as sources for the current article (see Cite sources for details of this).

These should be ordered with the most recent on top in a bulleted list, using the Wikinews template thus:

And here it is in use:

Related news

Do not overload the related news section, nor add articles published after the one you are editing. Use infoboxes, and other decorative templates, to offer readers collected article lists they may also be interested in reading.

Sister links section
Related and background content on other WMF sister projects may be placed in an optional section Sister links, below optional Related news and above Sources. A single call to template sisters can provide up to six links to pages on other sisters, in a bulleted list. Pages on most other sister projects, including Wikipedia, are not accepted as sources for Wikinews articles.

External links section
External links should not be included without good reason and are rarely used. Link to a central, relevant page, not multiple pages on a single website; do not create comprehensive link lists. Uses of external links include to link to an interviewee's website when doing original reporting or to link to a controversial page which is the main focus of the news story.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations and contractions are handled differently by different dialects of English, and there is no set rule regarding them other than to be consistent throughout the article, and the original contributor's style choice is preferred. Acronyms and abbreviations should always be explained on or prior to first usage. For example, if a story repeatedly mentions the Associated Press then the first usage would be "Associated Press (AP)" and subsequent to that the abbreviation "AP" could be used.

Spelling
Spelling may be contentious because it varies depending on the dialect of English. On Wikinews we generally follow either the spelling patterns of the subject of the article (British English for articles about the UK, American English for those about the US, etc), or those of the article's first author. Wikinewsies are encouraged to try to use the most-relevant version of English for the article they are writing where there is an obvious geographical tie, but as this is an international volunteer project this can be difficult in practice.

Wikipedia has a which may be helpful.

Numbers
Numbers below 20 are generally spelled out but above that actual digits are the norm. Where you start moving into the very large territory and are mentioning numbers such as 10,000,000 you should use the more verbal form of "ten million".

Common sense should be applied here. Where you can use words as opposed to numbers you should, but not in cases where you would be writing "one hundred and forty-two" over 142.

Many 'classic' guides to English cite a rule that any number at the start of a sentence should be spelled out; Wikinews does not apply this rigorously, but it should guide your decision-making, especially in headlines.

Sequential numbers
Numbers indicating sequence follow the primary guideline for other numbers. Spell out first through tenth, perhaps twentieth, but use numerals thereafter. Again apply common sense for large round numbers such as 1,000th being written as thousandth.

 * Note: See how twenty-third is written "23rd" – not as "23d."

Decimal fractions
Either a comma or a point is acceptable, e.g. 1,5 is the same as 1.5; however, in English the latter is the more common and readily understandable format. Exercise caution in choice of format to avoid 1.509 being mistaken for one thousand five hundred and nine.

Large numbers
The decimal can be used to spell out large fractional numbers such as one and a half million to be "1.5 million" instead of "1,500,000" or "1 500 000". In the UK, the US and commas are used as thousand separators and points are used as decimal separators. In other regions (e.g., South Africa) a space is used as a thousands separator and the comma is used as the decimal separator. Either is appropriate, but use first the style used in the region written about, second the style of the original author. Avoid use of the words lakh and crore; these are ambiguous and not understandable to a universal audience.

Currency codes
It is best to avoid regional lingo or specialized monetary or financial jargon that is not in common, everyday use among the international readers of Wikinews, such as "", "" or "". Currency codes as listed in the standard are unique 3-letter codes that identify all internationally known currencies. While technically accurate, they may not be readily identifiable by most readers. For this reason, it may be best to spell out the name of the currency rather than relying upon the ISO currency code. This allows maximum understanding for the maximum number of readers. For example, almost everyone will understand what "1,000 Iraqi dinars" means as opposed to the ISO equivalent, "IQD 1,000." Either way, it is a good idea to wikilink to the currency in question, to allow the reader quick access to information about the currency. Using the previous example, one could use  to yield "1,000 " or   to yield "1,000."

Currency symbols
There are a few currency symbols that are understood by most English-readers.

 * — dollar
 * — pound
 * € — euro
 * — yen

However, they are not always unique identifiers for a particular currency. Also, there are many other less well-known. To aid the reader, all monetary denominations not listed above should be spelled out ("130.50 ") or prefixed with a currency code ("130.50") instead of using a symbol.

For the euro and the, you may freely use the symbol, instead of using a code. But for the $ (dollar) and £ (pound), further clarification may be necessary. Please read below.

$: Use of the dollar symbol
For dollars, only the "$" is used. Please do not use the cent symbol (¢).

 * One dollar and twenty-five cents should be written as: "$1.25"
 * Twenty-five cents should be written as: "$0.25" and not "25¢"

Since the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries all use dollars, it is important to label the type of dollar referenced. Pay particular attention to this because many newswires may report amounts in United States dollars, even if the local currency is different.

Sample dollar notation is as follows:
 * Australia "1.25" or "1.25"
 * Canada "1.25" or "1.25"
 * New Zealand "1.25" or "1.25"
 * United States "1.25" or "1.25"

£: Use of the pound symbol
A number of countries use the as their currency. Among those, only the (GBP), the currency of the United Kingdom,, and most , is consistently associated with the  (£). Occasionally, it is used to refer to the, but here LE or EGP are more common. Therefore, amounts in pound sterling can be referred to using only the "£" symbol.

If you cannot find this symbol on your keyboard, you may either use the HTML code, its button in the character insert box in the toolbar above the edit window, or the words "pound" or "pounds" instead of the symbol.
 * One pound twenty-five is written as: 1.25 or 1.25
 * Twenty-five pence is written as: 0.25 or 0.25, do not use the notation "p"

Therefore, there is no need to further distinguish the pound sterling (GBP) from other forms of currency. It is assumed that when "pound" or the pound sign (£) are used, the amounts are in GBP unless otherwise noted. Keep in mind that "₤" is considered an obsolete version of "£".

€: Use of the euro symbol
The is the common currency for a number of European countries. To denote euro, only the (€), currency code EUR, or the word "euro" is needed. Do not use the cent symbol. If you cannot find the euro symbol on your keyboard, you may either use the HTML code:  or the word "euro" after the number figure instead of the symbol. You should also be able to find "€" in the character insert box below the edit box. Note, the plural of "euro" is officially "euro"; while the pluralization "euros" is commonly found, it is inaccurate.

 * Two euro and twenty-five cent is written as: 2.25 or 2.25
 * Twenty-five euro cent is written as: 0.25 or 0.25; avoid reference to euro cent.

Date and time
When referencing when something happened or when something is scheduled to happen, use the following formats:

Days
If something happened or is happening on the day you are writing your article, state it is happening today. This gives the story immediacy. If it happened the day before, say yesterday. If something will happen the next day, say tomorrow. For example:

 * Tropical Storm Gonu headed toward Iran today, after lashing Oman yesterday with high winds and torrential rains. The storm is expected to continue losing strength by tomorrow.

Beyond yesterday, today and tomorrow, state the name of the day of the week, if it's within seven days. Beyond seven days, state the actual date. For example, if you're writing a story that is filed on a Friday (in this case June 8, 2007), it goes like this:

 * Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Kennedy Space Center today, and will orbit the earth tomorrow before arriving at the International Space Station on Sunday. Atlantis is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center on June 19.

Dates
Wikinews style is to list the month, followed by the day of the month, optionally followed by the year. Single-digit days of the month should not be prefixed by a zero. Thus, for example:
 * July 29
 * July 2024
 * July 29, 2024

Do not use ("-st", "-nd", "-rd", or "-th") in dates. Years, when present, must be separated from the date with a comma unless only month and year is specified. Generally speaking, 'this year' and 'last month' etc are preferable since Wikinews articles are anchored to the date of their publication.

Month abbreviation
Months are generally not abbreviated.

Month/year constructions
No comma is needed in a month-and-year construction. A comma is needed between the date and the year and after the year in a specific date construction.

 * The Santa incident occurred in December 2004 in the newly renovated community building.
 * The Santa incident occurred on December 25, 2004, in the newly renovated community building.

Time
Time can be written in either the 24-hour or 12-hour format. To assist readers who may be unfamiliar with your preferred time format, you may wish to include the alternative format in parenthesis, e.g., "18:30 (6:30 p.m.)". Although this may seem like extra work for the writer, it is best to remember that this style guide's intent is ease of understanding for the reader, not to enforce strict technical regional accuracy.

Use a colon to separate the hours and minutes, except when using Coordinated Universal Time when no separator is to be used.

Always clarify the timezone, which can be either the country/city referred to or the timezone name/abbreviation, and its offset to UTC, for example,

 * 1:00 p.m. New York Time (1800 UTC)
 * 13:00 CET (1100 UTC)
 * 13:00 British Summer Time (1200 UTC)
 * 1:00 p.m. or 1 p.m. (13:00) local time (1600 UTC)
 * Or "All times in this article are Central European Summer Time — UTC + 2 h"

When using the 12-hour format, morning hours before noon and after midnight are designated as "a.m.", both letters lowercase with periods. Hours after noon and before midnight are "p.m." Again, both letters lowercase. Addition or omission of periods in "am" and "pm" follows the same guidelines as other abbreviations.

An exception for times of exactly 12 noon are called "noon" and 12 midnight are called "midnight". Neither is referred to as "12:00 a.m." or "12:00 p.m."

 * Improper time examples
 * 7 o'clock in the evening [should be "19:00" or "7:00 p.m.". "1900" or "7 p.m." are acceptable]
 * 12:00 a.m. [should be "midnight", 0000, or 00:00]
 * 12:00 p.m. [should be "noon", 1200, or 12:00]
 * 5:45 PM [should be 1745, 17:45, or 5:45 p.m.]

Names of people and organizations
On the first mention of a person in a story, write the person's organization, title, and full name. Try to include a local link or a w link to their organization and name.

 * When asked his opinion, President  said puppies were fun and cute.

On subsequent mentions, mention only the person's significant name without it being a wikilink. For Western names this is the last name; many Asian countries use the first name for subsequent mentions.

 * Puppies should be treated with respect and well-groomed, Doe added.

When a person is first mentioned as the source of a quote, a different rule applies.

Here, the order of importance (and order of referral) is as follows:  After that the same rules as above apply. An example:

 * "Puppies are fun and cute,", American Association of Puppy Lovers president, said.

On subsequent mentions, mention only the person's last name without it being a wikilink.

 * Puppies should be treated with respect and well-groomed, Doe added.

If this person has not been mentioned for a few paragraphs, use a shortened title on the next use to remind the reader.

 * AAPL President Doe later responded by...

People's titles in general
Here, again there is a difference between British and American traditions. Either tradition is acceptable, but whatever system is adopted for an individual article, it should be consistent throughout the story.

For titles other than Mr., Ms., Mrs., and Dr., please spell the title in full on the first mention, although subsequent mentions may be abbreviated.

When a person has a title, general rules for capitalization are:

 * If the title is part of the name (listed before the name), it is capitalized. Example: Governor Jane Smith of Milliana.
 * If the title is descriptive, listed after their name, it is lowercase. Example: Jane Smith, governor of Milliana.

Wikinews honors the protocol common in the country of origin of any royalty mentioned.

 * British royalty and anointed positions: use the title plus first name, e.g., "Lady Catherine", "Prince Charles", etc.

Sex, gender, and pronouns
In general, a person's sex may be inferred and appropriate pronouns used. However there are certain cases where there may be confusion, or the subject expresses a specific preference, usually involving transgender/transsexual/transvestite or other sexual minority or sexual health topics.

In these cases, consult the following guide, numbered in order of priority:

 * Use subject's preference, where known or made obvious.
 * Use sex/gender the subject is transitioning toward/has transitioned into.
 * Use sex/gender based on the name the subject is currently using.
 * Use the known sex/gender of the individual.

Where the individual's gender is an intrinsic element of the story, include an explanatory note stating the known facts; do not unduly sensationalize their part therein.

 * Examples:
 * Last term she went home a boy, but over the break she began living as the girl she feels she is, the next step of her transition.
 * Sarah, currently undergoing hormone treatment as part of her gender reassignment, was detained, in the early hours of the morning, following a report of the rape of her husband.

Acronyms instead of full names
On the first mention of a body with a proper acronym or contraction, use a wikilinked full name. If you wish to use an acronym later in the article, place the acronym to be used in parentheses directly after the first mention, where the full name is used.

 * The (EC) announced Tuesday plans...

Thereafter, use the appropriate acronym/contraction sans-wikilink. Full capitalization of acronyms is standard.

 * EC President said...

Names of publications and articles
Italicise names of publications and articles mentioned, including website names. Do not put web addresses into articles. Institutions, such as networks, though they may own publications are not themselves publications, so do not italicize them. Italicize The South China Morning Post but not CNN.

When the publication is something like The Boston Globe, note that 'The' is capitalised, except when using a common, shortened form, such as calling The Boston Globe simply the Globe.

Always use the full name of the publication on the first mention, not a contracted name. Unlike with acronyms, there is no need to explicitly define the contracted form in brackets after the first mention of the full name. Occasional exceptions are possible for extremely well-known acronyms, such as BBC, which can be used as an acronym even on first use.

Wikilinking an article
Do not over-wikify articles. Link only particularly relevant background material. If your article is about a high-speed chase and accident, wikilinking the colour of the vehicle is probably not particularly relevant, but the city or region might be.

Links within Wikinews require no qualifiers. Links to the English Wikipedia ordinarily use the w template.
 * Japan's parliament, the, requested...

Local links often also use the template, which simplifies writing.
 * 's parliament, the, requested...

When linking to a Wikinews category or portal, use a mainspace redirect; thus, Japan rather than Japan.

Do not link to another Wikinews article that would be more appropriately listed in the related news section. Do not link to dates.

It is almost always preferable to link to local redirects where they exist rather than to Wikipedia but individual exceptions may be possible. It may occasionally be necessary to link to other projects; when linking to Wiktionary, use the wikt template, and for other projects use the extra parameters in the w template.

HTML markup within articles
HTML markup should be an absolute last resort within any article. Preference should always be given to wikicode.

Appositives
Appositives are words (usually nouns with modifiers) that explain or identify the nouns they are placed next to. For example, consider this sentence, where the appositive is italicized: My dog, a golden retriever, enjoys peanut butter. (The appositive, "golden retriever," explains and identifies "my dog.")

What is the relevance of appositives to Wikinews? As a news website, Wikinews articles constantly explain the identities of people with the use of appositives. Incorrectly punctuating appositives is a common grammatical error. The following details a commonly accepted rule on punctuating appositives.

An appositive is offset by commas on both sides if the appositive is not vital to the meaning of the sentence.

 * David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spoke at the United Nations today.
 * This sentence would retain its meaning if the italicized appositive were removed.

An appositive is not punctuated if the appositive is vital to the meaning of the sentence.

 * British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke at the United Nations today.
 * Without the appositive "David Cameron," this sentence would not make sense.

Quotes
See Category:Quotation templates for available quotation templates.

Professional news organizations will occasionally introduce errors in punctuation and spelling in spoken quotes. Be sure to proofread a quote before adding it to a story.

You may choose to directly quote or paraphrase a source:

 * "Puppies are fun and cute,", the American Association of Puppy Lovers president, said.

 * Puppies should be treated with respect and groomed well, Doe added.

When editing spoken quotes, or informal texts and transcripts intended for exclusive interviews (emails and text chat logs), it is permissible to correct typos and errors in punctuation introduced in the transcription process as long as the edit still expresses the meaning exactly the way the source intended.

When paraphrasing, be sure to word the statement so that it expresses the meaning exactly the way the source intended.

To exclude a section of quoted material for summarizing or avoiding a confusing section of quoted material, use an ellipsis (...) to replace the removed text. If many lines of a transcript are removed, place the ellipsis on a line of its own where the removed text would have been. Be sure the remaining quoted material is not taken out of context; the text must express the meaning exactly the way the source intended.

To add clarification to a quote or transcript, use square brackets ([]) to contain the words you have added, making sure your additions express the meaning exactly the way the source intended.

It is common practice for Wikinews articles to use straight quotation marks (" ") as opposed to "smart" or typographer’s quotation marks (“ ”).

Italics
Besides names of publications and articles discussed above, a number of other things should also be italicised. The names of ships should be italicised; if a (such as 'MV' for 'motor vessel') is used, it should not be italicised, e.g., MV Costa Concordia, RMS Titanic, USS Forestal. Similar treatment is to be given to spacecraft and aircraft with names other than a simple identification number, such as Clipper Maid of the Seas (destroyed over Scotland in 1988), or Space Shuttle Discovery.

Titles of works of music (to include both songs and albums), literature, films, art, and game releases should be italicised:
 * Jennifer Smith is best known for Really Boring Song, which appeared on her 1992 debut Mindlessly Rubbish Album.
 * Michelangelo's famous sculpture David is to be loaned to Djibouti for a year.
 * Finnish game company CEO Jack Salesman described Random Generic Evil Game Ending in 666 as "the greatest thing we've released since Sliced 'n' Diced Bread." His company has entered administration following poor sales.

Where it is appropriate to use non-English text within an article it should also be italicised: Notice that a translation is provided even for the most well-known words and phrases. The translation is placed in parentheses and not italicised.
 * Firefighter Muhammed Somebody immediately entered the burning orphanage in a bid to rescue those inside with a cry of "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great").

Using images and other pictures
When including pictures with Wikinews stories, they must abide by Wikinews's image use policy.

The most important reason why pictures are used in Wikinews stories is to help convey a clearer or more complete message for the reader. All images must be relevant to the story in which they are included. If this is unclear, then the relevancy must be detailed in a caption. The following code is for including a story image with a caption (Image, Specify box with caption, box size, caption, and image credit) that you may cut-and-paste into your stories:

Image captions
Image captions should try to contain complete sentences. At the end of the caption, image should be used to credit the image.

Changing images
For ongoing news events, such as the spread of a disease or virus (eg File:H1N1 map.svg), the image hosted on commons will be repeatedly updated. This means that the map on Commons is only accurate for a news article at the time of publication. To avoid this issue, the current map must be downloaded, and reuploaded to Commons with a date stamp in the file name. This new version should be used in the relevant Wikinews article(s).

When uploading the time-specific version of the image to Commons, please ensure it is clear on the image page why an effective duplicate has been created. A short note such as "This time-specific version of the image is required to maintain consistency in usage and comply with the archiving policy on the Wikinews sister project" should suffice.

Wikinews categories
You should add category tags at the bottom of each article. At a bare minimum there should be categories for the geographical area involved (one for the country, and one for the region) and for a broad topic such as Category:Disasters and accidents.

The Wikinews date template automatically adds the date category to your article, linking it to a list of all articles from that date.

Perfection
While you should obviously try to comply perfectly with this guide, it is difficult to avoid some small mistakes. Even the most experienced Wikinewsies will sometimes produce articles that do not comply with some of these points. Try to stick as closely as possible to this guide, and remember, if you get most things right, review should catch and if possible correct your occasional slip-ups.

Ignoring these rules
General compliance with this style guide is mandatory for publication, but it is anticipated there will be situations when, for whatever reason, it is best to bend or break one of the rules in it. It is recommended you hold back on doing this until you have some experience, as understanding how to apply the rules is generally a prerequisite of understanding when, why, and how to break them.

Style issues not covered by this guide
If you have a journalism style question which is not answered by this guide, please refer to one of the below professional (and free) online style guides. You may also want to visit the Water cooler to seek more specific guidance on complex issues.

 * — Addresses many wiki-related writing issues
 * The UK Guardian Online Styleguide — British English
 * The Generalized Stylebook by Tameri — American English
 * Online Chicago Manual of Style — Academic American English (Used by many magazines as a general stylebook supplemental to a house style)
 * 's Online Writing Lab guides:
 * Active and Passive Voice
 * Changing Passive to Active Voice
 * Choosing Passive Voice

For general grammar, punctuation and word use issues:
 * Strunk's The Elements of Style — A general guide to improving writing.

title: Wikinews:Style guide


text:
User talk:Blewtooth

My blog is at http://www.visa.com.my

title: User talk:Blewtooth


text:
Talk:Linux fifth most searched tech word on Google in 2004

Suggestions
It is good but I think someone should write a paragraph saying what Linux is. In that paragraph you could say Linux is under the GPL license, etc. -- Carlosar 01:51, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)


text:
Talk:Double car bombing attack in Mosul kills 26

The headline for this article needs to be something else: the article should be moved. I propose: "Double car bombing attack in Mosul kills 26". If there are no objections, I will move in a bit. -- IlyaHaykinson 03:06, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Tomos 06:02, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Done -- IlyaHaykinson 06:56, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)


text:
User:Davodd/sandbox3

Browse Wikinews by category, reference resources, selected articles, alphabetically, or resources provided by our sister projects. For specific queries ask a question at the reference desk or do a search.

Kategorier Wikipedia nach Themen

es:Wikipedia:Cómo explorar Wikipedia fr:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Cat%C3%A9gories ro:Wikipedia:R&

title: User:Davodd/sandbox3


text:
Exeem Annonunced To Be Successor Of Suprnova

December 31, 2004

Yesterday on Novastream, Sloncek announced officially that the Suprnova index for BitTorrent, a program used to download music, video, and program files, and responsible for approximately one third of all transfers over the internet, will have a successor. Suprnova was voluntarily shut down earlier in the year due to threats made by the MPAA regarding copyright violation.

The program to take the place of Suprnova, "Exeem", is a blending of 'the tracker', the BitTorrent client, and its 'decentralized indexing'. As the program is in a state of testing, its current form is only designed to run on Windows. Although currently undergoing a Beta Test, the program will be released some time in the near future. The program also contains a rating and commenting system that, although basic and primitive, seems to be comparable to that of Suprnova in its quality.

There are also unconfirmed rumours that Sloncek is receiving payment from a third party for participating in the Exeem team's efforts. This raises the question: is Exeem actually related with Suprnova and, in turn, can it be said to be its successor?


text:
'Fockers' set to meet another weekend title

With no new competition to speak of, last week's Hollywood fare is set to once again dominate North American Box office receipts over the New Year holiday.

Of the new films opening this weekend, Lions Gate's A Love Song for Bobby Long will have the widest release, playing in eight theatres in Los Angeles and New York. Other openers include ThinkFilm's The Assassination of Richard Nixon, starring Sean Penn and Sony Pictures Classics William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons, both of which will be playing in four venues in New York and Los Angeles.

To be considered in wide release, a film must open or play in at least 1,000 theatres throughout the U.S. and Canada. The lack of any new wide release competition Friday almost ensures that the last week's slate of films will benefit at the box office.

The most likely contender for top-money maker is Universal Studios' Meet the Fockers, the sequel to 200's Meet the Parents starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand. That movie raked in $44.7 million over the Christmas weekend and a total of #108.5 million as of Dec. 29, according to Box Office Mojo.

Fockers is being shown in 3,524 venues over the New Year weekend, six more than last week, making it the second-widest released film for the weekend. Only the Jim Carrey family comedy Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with 3,623 venues has a wider release.

Wide release films for the weekend of Dec. 31
The following films will be playing in at least 1,000 U.S. and Canada venues:


text:
NASA: Hopes raised for shuttle flights to resume soon

December 31, 2004

NASA's hopes of launching a man into space on the shuttle again are one step closer today. The transportation of a new 15-story external fuel tank from the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans today to The Kennedy Space Centre.

NASA plans to spend $612 million repairing the space shuttle system. The main problem that caused the death of seven crew members and the destruction of the Columbia is the reason for the expenditure. All of the money will be spent on the fuel systems. Making a new foam insulation that will not fall off at launch is the reason for the new fuel tank which will not damage the space shuttle, like the Columbia.

There has been no date set as to when the space shuttle will be up and running again but what has to be in the front of NASA's mind is that Russia will start to charge for the use of their rockets to put American astronauts in space.


text:
User:N12345n

Same stuff as here my other home

title: User:N12345n


text:
Talk:Sri Lanka

God bless all the families who lost, or cannot locate a loved one. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Michelle, Pennsylvania

(above message was posted earlier by an anonymous user to page Sri Lanka. Tomos 09:51, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC))

title: Talk:Sri Lanka


text:
Digest/14December2004

Digest for 14-25 December 2004

< 6-13 December 2004 • Index • 26-31 December 2004 >

Articles dated 14 to 25 December 2004 are included in the compilation below.

Articles
Mumbai officials demolish 39K shanties; 200K homeless.

25 December 2004

India government demolishes over 6,000 shanties in a push to eradicate the capital city's slums.

Former Indian PM Narasimha Rao passes away

23 December 2004

Former Indian PM Narasimha Rao passed away after suffering cardiac arrest in a private hospital in New Delhi.

'''Zambian government launches a new agricultural policy

22 December 2oo4

African nation moves to modernize food production infrastructure.

Mozambique's ruling party retains control in elections

22 December 2004

Elections in the Southern African nation Mozambique have resulted in a landslide victory for the ruling Frelimo party.

US army gives medical assistance to Iraq school

22 December 2004

US soldiers provided medical assistance to Iraq children at an elementary school in Bagdah.

Police raids filesharing resources

22 December 2004

The largest BitTorrent and ed2k link sites have been closed by police or went offline voluntarily.

European Union Council to accept software patent directive

22 December 2004

16 Foot Asteroid Passes Between Earth and Satellites

22 December 2004

Earth's scientists discover the latest astronomical near-miss.

Thieves carry out biggest bank robbery in British history

21 December 2004

Thieves have gotten away with $39m or $58m from the Northern Bank.

SEALs say US officer's cover-up was reported by fake SEAL

21 December 2004

US Sergeant Frank Ford has already made several unsubstantiated claims according to VeriSEAL.

Poland made software patent directive stop

20 December 20 2004

Despite all expectations, the EU Council will further discuss the software patent directive.

Battle of the Bulge reenacted in Belgium

19 December 2004

Seventeen American paratroopers jumped out of two old Dakota's who date from WWII.

The Deadliest Fall

18 December 2004

The flu pandemic in the Fall of 1918 killed tens of millions. Can it happen again?

title: Digest/14December2004


text:
Digest/26December2004

December 31, 2004 Digest for 26-31 December 2004

< 14 December-25 December 2004 • Index • 1-10 January 2005 >

Articles dated 26 to 31 December 2004 are included in the compilation below.

Articles
'Fockers' set to meet another weekend title

31 December 2004

With no new wide releases, last weekend's films are set to rule U.S. and Canadian box office receipts once again.

Exeem Annonunced To Be Successor Of Suprnova

31 December 2004

Announced yesterday on Novastream, there will be a Suprnova successor "apparently".

NASA: Hope's Raised For Shuttle Flight Again Soon

31 December 2004

NASA plans to spend $612 million repairing the space shuttle system.

Linux fifth most searched tech word on Google in 2004

30 December 2004

SCO number one most searched company name.

Double car bombing attack in Mosul kills 26

30 December 2004

Twenty-five insurgents and 1 U.S. soldier dead, 15 U.S. troops injured in frontal assault.

False tsunami alert in India

30 December 2004

Citizens flee.

Gregoire wins Washington state's closest ever governor's race

30 December 2004

Republican candidate asks for new election.

Democrats ask GAO for election review

30 December 2004

House of Representatives seeks to investigate the facts behind widespread reports of voting irregularities.

South American Community of Nations announced at Third South American Summit

30 December 2004

South American nations have begun the creation of an international economic and legislative bloc.

Time Warner, Sprint close to mobile pact

29 December 2004

Company would be able to offer voice, video, Internet and mobile services.

Tsunami toll passes 80,000 people as relief effort continues

29 December 2004

Relief agencies expect number to rise further.

Republicans Subpoenaed in Ohio Recount

29 December 2004

Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell refused to appear for the deposition.

Asian earthquake toll nears 60,000

28 December 2004

Countries bury the dead as threat of disease looms.

Connecticut Serial Killer Competent- Waives Further Appeals

28 December 2004

Serial killer Michael Ross told a judge that he wants to die.

Security firm identifies United States as world's top spamming country

28 December 2004

42% originates in the U.S.

Drug-dealers war in Rio de Janeiro

27 December 27 2004

In 2 days 11 people were killed in Rio de Janeiro in gang turf fights between drug dealers.

Yushchenko claims victory in re-run

27 December 27 2004

Ukrainian pro-government candidate refuses to accept outcome.

U.S. and U.K. governments warn citizens against travelling to areas hit by tsunamis

27 December 2004

U.S. travel advisories to last at least one month.

Drug-dealers war in Rio de Janeiro

27 December 2004

Gang drug turf wars leave 11 dead.

Strongest earthquake in 40 years hits Southeast Asia

26 December 2004

The magnitude 9.0 quake rocked the Indian Ocean off Sumatra, setting off tsunami waves.

Australians fast over 2004 Xmas in empathy with detainees

26 December 2004

Members of the public, celebrities and politicians have been fasting in empathy with Iranian asylum seekers.

title: Digest/26December2004


text:
Indian Ocean Earthquake

December 31, 2004

- Over 116,000 are reported dead in the coastal areas of Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and many other regions, following a magnitude 9.0 quake, and the massive tsunami which wiped out entire coastlines.

 * U.N. Secretary General calls Asian quake/tsunami "unprecedented disaster", calls for international help.
 * NY Times calls promised U.S. aid packages "stingy".
 * Recent update of the original story
 * Listing of Tsunami Help pages

Earlier reporting
Tsunami toll passes 80,000 people as relief effort continues 29 December 2004 The death toll from the earthquake and tsunamis that has hit countries in Asia and Eastern Africa continues to rise, passing 80,000 people according to reports from several news agencies.

Asian earthquake toll nears 60,000 28 December 2004 The toll from the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster that affected coasts of a dozen Asian and African nations has risen to nearly 60,000 people reported dead.

U.S. and U.K. governments warn citizens against travelling to areas hit by tsunamis 27 December 2004 The issued public travel warnings, advising United States citizens to avoid travelling to areas affected by the recent Indian Ocean earthquake and the resulting tsunamis.

Strongest earthquake in 40 years hits Southeast Asia 26 December 2004 (Updated 31 December 2004) - A 9.0 undersea   struck off the western coast of, Indonesia on December 26, 2004, at 00:58:50  (or 07:58:50 local time in  and ).

title: Indian Ocean Earthquake


text:
Kenyans win International Race of São Silvestre

Kenyan distance runners Robert Cheruyiot, 26, and Lydia Cheromei, 27, won the 80th annual International Race of São Silvestre (Saint Silvester) in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Cheruyiot won the men's race for the second time while Cheromei won the women's race for the third time.

The first race of São Silvestre occurred on Dec. 31, 1924. Since then, the race occurs every year always on the last day of the year. The 15 KM (9,321 miles) course is by the streets of the city of São Paulo and the start and the arrival occurs at Paulista Avenue, a famous street. The competition is part of the Official Calendar of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the (AIMS).

The race name is a homage to Saint Silvester, a catholic saint who died in December 31, 335. Saint Silvester was pope during years 314 through 335. During his government the Christian religion became the official religion of the Roman Empire under the rule of Constantine the Great. This event was important for the Christians because they have been persecuted by the Roman Empire during 300 years and now they would have freedom to profess their religion without been in risk of been arrested or convicted to death by the government.

For the 2004 race, the number of participants was about 15 thousand, with 13 thousand men and 2 thousand women. The majority of athletes were from Brazil but others came from other countries including Argentina, Australia, Sweden, the United States, Switzerland, Germany, Chile, Finland, Portugal, Luxemburg, Bolivia, Canada, South Korea, France, England, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.

The women's race started at 3 p.m.(local time) while the men's race started two hours later.

Final ranking of Top 5 finishers
Men

Women


text:
User:Improv~enwikinews

I primarily edit on the English wiki, but I may occasionally edit news articles here.

title: User:Improv~enwikinews


text:
User:Ganesh~enwikinews

Live in Huntington Beach, California, USA

 * Software Professional
 * Blogger

For contacting me, please e-mail ganeshk@post.com.

title: User:Ganesh~enwikinews


text:
Talk:Main Page/Sandbox

I set up this sandbox to work on improving the layout of the main page:

 * Section headers appear at the top, to make it easier to navigate to other areas of the site. The "More news" link takes the reader to an embedded anchor where news from each category is summarized (lower on the main page).
 * The "lead" story is right up top, as it is on all other major news outlets. One important departure from Wikipedia is the use of a large photograph from the lead story. This is important to grab the reader's attention and helps the main page to visually communicate that Wikinews is a news site.
 * The "intro/welcome" text is placed in a box off to the right, on a blue field, so it is still highly visible, but doesn't push important content down on the page.
 * The width is narrower, to fit on smaller monitors.
 * Other small changes are made to improve the overall fit and finish.

Please let me know what you think.

— DV 20:17, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

DV I think your design is a great improvement. It makes me feel far more I'm coming here for NEWS first and opportunity to contribute second. The opportunity is v important but if the news function is not OK then the opportunity isn't worthwhile so I think they have to rank with news on top.

You wrote to me using my IP address as I was playing with your sandbox page and yes Ive done a bit if wiki but not wiki tables and I'm not good with css! I do have a good eye for layout though.

 * 1) The "lead" story is right up top, as it is on all other major news outlets. One important departure from Wikipedia is the use of a large photograph from the lead story. This is important to grab the reader's attention and helps the main page to visually communicate that Wikinews is a news site.

Shan: Ive tried reducing the picture a bit. It makes the co,umns work better as the empty spaces close up a lot. I do agree a pic is good but not so huge it takes up the whole of the centre space of my screen and I have to scroll down to find what it's about. (I deliberately use a 17" so I don't design too big for average users) For slower loaders it's also good to have text at top anyway to read while the pic is loading below. So in your draft I put the newer text above and the backup text below the pic. It'd be good for the title to be big too.

QUOTE
 * 1) Section headers appear at the top, to make it easier to navigate to other areas of the site. The "More news" link takes the reader to an embedded anchor where news from each category is summarized (lower on the main page).

Shan: I'd like to see this go even further with the Welcome bit shifted BELOW the category list so all the first stuff in the top bands of the screen is NEWS. Even better put all the editing stuff on the right and the news links on the left see below.

 * 1) The "intro/welcome" text is placed in a box off to the right, on a blue field, so it is still highly visible, but doesn't push important content down on the page.

Ideally I'd like the categories (More News) + Regions to appear on the LEFT under Main Page. Search box at top. Then move ALL the stuff about editing currently under Main Page over on the RIGHT. Then we get a good clear categorisation: look left or centre for NEWS look right for editing.

 * 1) The width is narrower, to fit on smaller monitors.

Yes this is great. Too much stuff aims at big monitors. Thanks.

 * Thanks for the additional feedback. I like your ideas, so if you're not totally up to speed on Wiki page editing, I would be happy to make the changes you are describing.

 * The changes are hard to do with two people editing the page at the same time, so let me know if you want to try them yourself or not, so we don't step on each other's toes too much.

 * Whether you want to try your proposed changes yourself or not, perhaps we could set up a Sandbox1, Sandbox2, etc., to make it easier for other editors (and the Admins) to compare different ideas, and to make it easier for anyone to work at the same time on changes that involve the basic structure of the page?

 * — DV 22:58, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Topic sections
How about just removing the entire section on the bottom with articles relating to topics? That's ANOTHER thing that needs editing each time we have a new article, and can be easily replaced by the topic listings you have on the right here (which I've been wanting to do for awhile, but the holidays have stopped me from doing real work). That might help condense the page... what do you think? Lyellin 23:26, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I just removed the newstories template- cuts down the size of the page dramatically, and we don't really need it since we have the links on the right. Anyone object? Lyellin 18:03, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * I think that's a good idea.

 * However, I noticed that the individual section pages for each category weren't quite synched up with what was in the newstories section, so we might want to synch them up so as to not lose article links.

 * Happy New Year!

 * — DV 19:45, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Good look.
With some very minor tweaks, an admin should put this version up ASAP. Davodd | Talk 01:29, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My Impressions
I do like what you've done, but I think this still needs a lot of further work.

For instance, take a look at this screen-grab that I've done of your shot. In 1280x1024 (sorry about the colour compression, I didn't want a gigantic file):

Link to giant image file

See that giant empty blank horrible space to the right of the image? Yuck! You might want to center that image or do something to prevent that from looking that way. The big empty space underneath the weather graphic (which is compressed so small that you can't make much out anyway) is also ugly.

There also needs to be a "Headline Story" heading there somewhere, so that readers know exactly what it is that they're looking at. Other than that, I dislike how when I load up the page, I only see a single story without having to scroll down. Users hate being compelled to scroll, and having everything hidden down towards the bottom of the page is poor design.

Take a look at the Wikipedia mainpage, and you'll see how these things should be done. The entire page is only two screens "deep", while yours is about six or seven. Try to be more concise - after all, there's no reason why "everything plus the kitchen sink" has to be up there. I'm not saying that the existing page is all that good either, but frankly, I don't really think that this one is much of an improvement.

On the positive side of the ledger, I do quite enjoy the concept of making the news first, at least on the main page, and putting the whole "You can write news!!!" thing as a secondary thing. Your revision does that quite well.

I hope you take this (admittedly, mostly negative) comment in the constructive fashion that it was intended :-)

Lankiveil 06:52, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC).

 * User Shanforest had some alternative ideas that may solve the white space issues you are pointing out.

 * I will try out some more designs to address these concerns.

 * Happy New Year!

 * — DV 19:43, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Developing stories
--Carlosar 00:34, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC) I redesigned the Developing stories here. It is simple and it gives information about the status of the article. It is a general ideal about how the Developing stories could be. Off course it can be improved, the pictures can be changed, etc. The page eliminates the sections:Ongoing disputes and Editing needed (with some effort you could eliminate the Requested articles section too). My idea is about a page which is more informative about the status of the article. I created the following status: Comprehensive text, Writing unchecked, Developing text and POV dispute. Another status could be created or some of them could be changed. The meaning of the status can be discussed, example: Comprehensive text means a final article waiting for review, etc. Another possibility is some mixture: the status would be put only in the Editing needed section, etc.

 * I replied over on the talk page for your New developing stories design. — DV 00:59, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

--Carlosar 12:34, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC) I am not a native English speaker and my articles need to be checked by true English speakers. So I would like to allert other people about this. This was one of the reasons I have redesigned the Developing stories.

Suggestions
Okay, I think this is great. But I have a few suggestions: Other than that, it's great! Cap'n Refsmmat 03:01, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Make the picture smaller, then wrap the text around it. Even a picture half of that size would be good, and then you waste less space and let the user see more on the page.
 * 2) Remove the weather image from the right-hand side column. It's way too small to be useful.
 * 3) The "Special Reports" and "Regions" thing below all of the stories and above the weather is not necessary, and could be consolidated into the side column.
 * 4) There's an empty box right above the weather (I can fix that myself.)(aand... I just did.)

Another attempt
I added Main Page/Sandbox4 — I tried to address what I saw were some existing navigation problems, as well as stretching issues. -- IlyaHaykinson 04:44, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I like this, I like it a lot. The only problem I can see is that the "Widespread Infrastructure Damage" image is slightly misaligned to the blue box to its right, which looks quite odd.  Also, I think "Regions" is a better flowing heading than "Region".  Other than that, top effort! Lankiveil 05:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC).
 * I can't get the image to align (the code to offset it is part of the Image markup, I think). If someone else has an idea, please help. As for region vs regions — it's meant to be "Browse..by: Subject" and "Browse..by: Region". It would seem like "Browse..by: Regions" doesn't sound as good. -- IlyaHaykinson 05:49, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Latest news
Carlosar 12:50, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC) -- Latest news reports is daily based. And if we did it weekly based? My idea is showing a larger quantity of articles at the main page, specially the old ones(3 weeks, 7 weeks before, or even some articles one month before). Because Wikinews developing process is slow, sometimes a good article is not shown because it is old. My idea about Wikinews is a mixture of newspaper and weekly magazine. I think that the larger the quantity of articles shown at the main page, the better.

Calendar
Carlosar 12:53, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)--And about a Calendar like the one in:Current events?

 * I agree --User:Anonymous101 09:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Another Sandbox
I tried out some ideas with Main_Page/Sandbox3 (for our readers with small displays) and Main_Page/WideSandbox3 (for our readers with larger displays). They're a pair that link to each other.

Please see the comments on the discussion pages for those versions as well.

— DV 08:27, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Main Page/Sandbox


text:
User talk:Shanforest

I set up a sandbox for the Main Page to illustrate an improved layout that addresses some of the points you made.

Please check it out and let me know what you think on the Main Page sandbox discussion page.

Thanks for your constructive feedback.

— DV 20:21, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * It appears we're both trying to edit the sandbox I set up for the main page. Let me know if you want me to make another one if I end up stepping on your toes too much.

 * By the way, when you inserted the headline text into the page link, it broke the link.

 * I saw your comment before that you are a web designer. Are you familiar with Wiki page syntax? (It's quite different from HTML if that's what you're used to.)

 * If you want to make major changes to the structure of the sandbox page ideas I have so far, I would appreciate it if you would either copy and paste the page source into a second sandbox page, or ask me to make a second one, as I am waiting for feedback on certain points about the page from other editors, in addition to yourself.

 * In any case, feel free to continue trying out ideas, and please let me know if you have questions.

 * Regards,

 * — DV 22:51, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Main page
DV sorry I did wonder about whether I was supposed to make changes on the page. And yes I only know basic wiki. Thanks for the friendly way you field feedback. (<-- posted by Shanforest)

 * Shanforest, unless a page is protected, you can edit any page on Wikinews.

 * You should feel especially free to try out ideas on pages that have the word "sandbox" in them.

 * I'm going to try out some of your ideas for improving the main page layout today.

 * I will create numbered sandboxes, so we can compare ideas.

 * Happy New Year!

 * — DV 19:57, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

More Main Page layout ideas
Hi Shanforest,

I replied to your comments on the talk page for the main page sandbox version 3.

I'm back to the office today, now that the holiday is over, but I'll be back on Wikinews sometimes after 02:00 or 03:00 UTC to try out more ideas.

Regards,

— DV 13:56, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Shanforest


text:
User talk:62.255.0.7

Thanks for stopping by Wikinews.

Judging from your edits it appears that you aren't a newbie at editing Wiki pages, however, in case you didn't realize it, the main page that is seen by Wikinews readers has its own template for editing its appearance.

The page you just edited is only a sandbox, or "test" page, where I am testing out ideas to improve the layout of the main page. None of our readers will see your changes, as it is nested on a page that is normally not visible to them.

If you are just experimenting, please feel free to continue - I'm interested to see other ideas.

However, I just wanted to make sure that you are not confused or frustrated that your edits aren't appearing on the live main page.

Cheers,

— DV 22:12, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:62.255.0.7


text:
Wikinews talk:Tsunami Help/How we've helped

Can you fill out what you have in mind as the kind of content that would go onto this page?. Thanks. User:Susanlocke 1 Jan 2005

 * I tried - mostly guessing from what's on the page, and the title of the page.. Hope I am not far off. Tomos 12:20, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)


text:
Tsunami deaths mount to more than 120,000

January 1, 2005

Nearly a week after tsunami waves scoured the coasts of multiple countries in southern Asia, the confirmed death count is over 120,000. Indonesia reports it is no longer counting bodies, but merely struggling to deal with the aftermath and prevent a massive outbreak of typhoid.

Local death tolls
Near the epicenter of the earthquakes and tsunami, Indonesia's Aceh province alone may have as many as 80,000 death. Entire villages are gone, with no evidence left of their prior existence. Still, other countries are continuing to report the numbers of dead as best they can:
 * Sri Lanka - approximately 28,500
 * India - more than 7,700
 * More than 300 were killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya.

As many as 10,500 foreign nationals are missing in the region, most of them tourists. Sweden has 17 confirmed dead, but more than 2,500 are still missing.

Reports of death toll

 * AP - "confirmed death toll passed 121,000, and 5 million people were homeless."
 * BBC - "at least 124,000 ... The UN says the toll is nearing 150,000 and may never be known."
 * NP&CP - "The death toll passed 150,000."
 * United Nations - "UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said the final death toll could climb beyond 150,000. About 1 million people are homeless and humanitarian agencies estimate that 5 million people need relief."


text:
Republicans seek to reduce ethics rules

January 1, 2005

Republican members of the House of Representatives are proposing a bill that would reduce the standard of ethical conduct required of representatives. Currently, the House expects a high level of ethical conduct, beyond the minimum required by law. The proposal, backed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), would reduce the expectation to only require the lowest level of conduct. With the new rules, representatives would only be admonished if they actually violate the law.

The current rules were used for the admonishment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). The committee found issue with the appearance that he had provided legislative favors with the Federal Aviation Administration for political donors in a Texas political dispute, and with improperly offering support for another Republican representative's son in exchange for the lawmaker's vote in a Medicare issue.

Democrats and watchdog groups point out that the loss of ethical rules would be a serious blow to the government. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, added, "If House Republican leaders are allowed to prevail, they will have gutted the single most important ethics standard in the House and turned House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's multiple ethics transgressions into acceptable conduct for all House members."

The GOP has previously attempted to legislate rules to protect DeLay. In November 2004 the House Republicans proposed a rule change that would allow members indicted by state grand juries to retain their leadership posts, in reaction to a concern that DeLay would be indicted by a Texas grand jury. The jury had indicted three of DeLay's political associates. A number of House Republicans benefitted from an aggressive redistricting in Texas led by DeLay that led to the defeat of 5 democrat incumbents. The indictment rule had been adopted by the House Republicans in 1993 when they were trying to end four decades of Democrat control of the House.

title: Republicans seek to reduce ethics rules


text:
Americans contribute to relief effort

December 31, 2004

While complaints about the 'miserly' generosity of the Bush Administration have surfaced in recent days, donations and actions at the grassroots level have quietly illustrated the concern and sympathy felt by ordinary Americans.

On Monday of this week,, the UN's chief of emergency relief, said that rich nations like the U.S. were being "stingy" by making small contributions. Egeland later recanted his statement, adding that America's contributions to Asia's tsunami relief was "one of the most generous pledges so far."

The Bush administration has pledged $350 million in aid for the relief effort. Critics have been quick to compare this to the $177 million spent every day in Iraq to conduct war in that country. In comparison, there was a $500 million pledge made recently by the government of Japan.

Independently of the government, individual Americans have been directly contributing money to aid organizations. Amazon.com placed a link for the American Red Cross, collecting more than $8 million from 100,000 people as of Friday, December 31st. 12,000 donors have donated over $1.2 million to the Red Cross through Yahoo.com.

Scores of International aid organizations are accepting donations for helping victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Many major companies including Apple Computer, Microsoft,, eBay, Google, and AOL are helping enable donations through the web.

Related pages

 * 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami Wikinews' special report on the issue.
 * Tsunami Help Wikinews' portal for information for and of the relief effort.

title: Americans contribute to relief effort


text:
DirecTV tunes out Trio, network in limbo

January 1, 2005

The future of the artsy Trio channel became increasingly grim Saturday as satellite TV giant DirecTV dropped the fledgling network from its national channel lineup.

When DirectTV programmers threw the off switch at 6 a.m. eastern standard time Jan. 1, Trio, an NBC Universal-owned cable television channel, lost two-thirds of its 20 million household subscribers. The channel's remaining 8 million subscribers may not give it enough audience to ensure its survival, according to some experts.

The network received critical acclaim for a quirky lineup that includes the series, Brilliant But Cancelled, which took American broadcast networks, including parent NBC, to task for cancelling quality programs.

Canadian roots
Trio originally got its start in the 1980s as a Canadian cable channel owned by the CBC. Its original slate was described as "a general entertainment channel that features the most successful contemporary dramas, documentaries and films from Canada, the UK and Australia. For the last six years, TRIO has been the largest exporter of Canadian TV programs to the US with over 3,000 hours of content," according to CBC press releases.

The channel's Canadian roots were cut in 2000 when media mogul Barry Diller snapped up Trio and sister channel News World International from the CBC and partner Power Corp. for $155 million in cash. Diller saw the channel as a cheap consolation prize after he was outbid by NBC for the Bravo cable network earlier that year. Within months, Diller rebranded Trio, dumped the Canadian dramas and geared it more toward edgier pop culture programming.

Corporate shuffle
Over the next couple of years, Trio changed hands twice. First to Vivendi Universal, then to NBC in a package deal that landed the American TV network a movie studio and the USA and SCI FI cable networks. Trio was seen as more of an afterthought at the time.

In a hint of what may be the fate of the channel, NBC Universal moved most of Trio's executive and programming staff over to Bravo, a now-sibling network, which is seen in 80 million U.S. homes. Some experts predict that Trio will eventually be folded with its more successful programming ported over to Bravo.

"Trio was a refreshing oasis on the dial, with a quirky pop-culture attitude that showed in its programming. Trio leaving is kind of like having a witty friend move out of town," Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, MSNBC television critic said in her weekly column. "It'll be missed."

NBC Universal has not commented publicly on the long-term future or specific plans for Trio channel besides to say it was committed to programming the network for current subscribers as the conglomerate re-evaluates its digital cable strategy.


text:
Talk:Kenyans win International Race of São Silvestre

I have checked the article and it seems ok to me. -- Carlosar 12:11, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)


text:
Template:Copyvio

__NOINDEX__

''To use this template, copy and paste the following. In the indicated area enter the full URL of the website from which the copyright violation comes:''

ar:قالب:خرق cs:Šablona:Copyvio el:Πρότυπο:Copyvio es:Plantilla:Copyvio fr:Modèle:Copyvio it:Template:ViolazioneCopyright ja:テンプレート:著作権侵害 pt:Predefinição:Copyvio ro:Format:Copyvio ru:Шаблон:Копивио zh:Template:Copyvio

title: Template:Copyvio


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User talk:Dominic MacCormac

So much is lost. So much can yet be salvaged. There is a child breathing somewhere. A woman. A man. What can be done to immediately distribute on-hand resources to outlying areas unreachable by land due to road wash outs? Why aren't the global powers prioritizing airlifting and distributing critical supplies by sea as a pressing priority?

title: User talk:Dominic MacCormac


text:
User:Jpt~enwikinews

time lines on natural disasters/

title: User:Jpt~enwikinews


text:
Australian National Archives release Loans Affair documents

January 1, 2005

The National Archives of Australia have, as part of their standard document release cycle, released thirty year old documents from the Whitlam government.

The centre piece of the 1974 archives are a series of documents from the Australian Cabinet and the Treasury pertaining to the attempt to obtain a $US4 billion loan by the Whitlam government from the Middle East. The obtaining of these loans and the scandal generated became collectively known as the "Loans Affair," and contributed significantly towards the dismissal of the Whitlam government by Sir John Kerr the following year.

The documents from Treasury, which include descriptions of both the loan itself and the people involved in arranging them, are scathing. The "Points that might be made" document of December 13, 1974 clearly states that Treasury believed the distinct possibility that the loans might be part of "a confidence trick of major proportions". Minutes from another meeting five days later state the "incredulity" on the part of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York regarding the viability of the loan.

Those documents now available comprise the beginning of the Loans Affair, from the initial offers to the end of 1974. The remainder of the Loans Affair documents, as well as everything else from 1975 will be released on January 1, 2006.


text:
Wikinews talk:Tsunami Help/Aid Agencies/Volunteering and Specific Requests

my niece has made dozens of cards to send to the victims. is there anywhere we can send them so people will receive our wishes. please let us know at doubletake2@hotmail.com

Volonteer to help
I would like directly to help Asian Tsunami victims on the site but I don't know where and to who asking for. I'm actually without job and available.

Please follow this message with my email adress to the good place.

Email: tsunami_help_volonteer@yahoo.ca

Thank you very much for them.


text:
Wikinews talk:Tsunami Help/Help Needed/Indonesia

This is a signed plea, not a work of journalism. Please read Writing an article for ways to write appropriate content for this site. -- Davodd | Talk 15:56, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)


text:
User:Aardvarx

Cultural Menopause Blog

title: User:Aardvarx


text:
Actor Jerry Orbach dead at age 69

Actor Jerry Orbach died in his home in Manhattan at age 69. Orbach was a staple of American cinema, stage and television, with his most recent role being in the NBC police drama "Law and Order."

Orbach is survived by his wife of 25 years, Elaine Cancilla, and his two sons Anthony and Christopher.

Biography
Orbach was born in the tough Bronx borough of New York City in 1935 to a family of entertainers. His father Leon Orbach was an vaudeville actor and his mother Emily Orbach was a radio singer and greeting card writer.

The family moved often to keep up with travelling Vaudeville acts, but eventually settled in Waukegan Illinois where Orbach played football at the local high school. After graduation, Orbach got a summer job at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Wheeling doing odd jobs ranging from stagecraft to small acting parts in plays.

He then studied drama at the University of Illinois before transferring to Northwestern where he studied the Stanislavsky Method of drama acting. In 1955, Orbach dropped out of college and moved to New York City where he got a job as an understudy in The Threepenny Opera.

Orbach continued to work in theater, eventually earning roles in broadway musicals, but by 1961 had grown dissatisfied with being typecast as a musical actor. He tried briefly to break into film without success, and eventually returned to broadway where he earned numerous accolades for his roles in such musicals as "Guys and Dolls" and "Chicago".

Orbach finally broke into television in the 1980s as a recurring character in shows such as the mystery-drama "Murder She Wrote" and the hit sitcom "Golden Girls".

He earned the lead role as the title character in his own short-lived series "The Law and Harry McGraw", a spinoff of "Murder She Wrote". Orbach also scored key roles in a few Hollywood films, including the action thriller "F/X", and the dance-musical hit "Dirty Dancing", but continued to find his mainstay in television crime dramas.

In 1990, he picked up a role in the new NBC crime drama "Law and Order" as the acerbic-witted Lennie Briscoe, a role which soon become a regular job. Orbach continued in this role in addition to movie roles and occasional musical appearances until his death this last week.

Battle with Cancer
Orbach was diagnosed with Prostate cancer in Spring of 2004, a fact he kept private until November when he checked into New York's Memorial Sloan-Ketting Cancer Center for treatment. In spite of the aggressive nature of the treatment, he died on the evening of December 28.

title: Actor Jerry Orbach dead at age 69


text:
Wikinews talk:Tsunami Help/News Updates

The offending text from Guardian has been removed. Please remove this page from the Deletion Requests. Thanks!

title: Wikinews talk:Tsunami Help/News Updates


text:
Main Page/Sandbox3

Hello all. Is this a sandbox?

title: Main Page/Sandbox3


text:
Template:WelcomeSandbox3

Welcome! Wikinews is a free content news source that anyone can edit. In this English version, started in November 2004, we have written articles. Our mission is to create a diverse environment where citizen journalists can independently report the news on a wide variety of current events. Please give us some time to sort out the policies and procedures before relying on Wikinews as a source. Open discussion of policies is at the water cooler.

title: Template:WelcomeSandbox3


text:
Aid pledges rise; Japan promises 500,000,000 USD

January 1, 2005

In an abrupt about-face, the world's wealthiest nations have begun pouring funding into the Earthquake/Tsunami damaged region. Promised funds have doubled in the past 24 hours, to nearly 2 Billion U.S. dollars (USD).

Japan tops the U.S.
After the U.S. increased it's funding donation to 350 million USD, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced a half-billion dollar donation on Saturday, Jan. 1. China has promised 60.5 million USD, after Japan and the U.S., the United Kingdom and Sweden for largest single-nation donation. Norway increased it's funding donation to 180 million USD

U.N. warns of delays
Despite the encouraging promises, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Indonesia chief, Michael Elmquist, warned that logistics of securing the funds, purchasing supplies and shipping them to stricken regions will take time, possibly weeks. In the meantime, the confirmed death toll will continue to climb, as may deaths due to dehydration, disease, and starvation.


text:
Wikinews:What Wikinews is not

Wikinews is an online news source and, as a means to that end, also an online community. Therefore, there are certain things that Wikinews is not.

What Wikinews is not

 * 1) Wikinews is not paper. Thus, Wikinews has no size limits, can include links, can be more timely, etc. It also means that the style and length of writing appropriate for paper may not be appropriate here.
 * 2) Wikinews is not a soapbox, chatroom, or discussion forum. However, we do allow some polite discussion of the topic of the news articles on opinion pages.
 * 3) W ikinews is neither a  "mirror" nor a repository of links, images, or media files. All content added to Wikinews may be edited mercilessly to be included on the site. By submitting any content, you agree to release it into   (however, Wikinews does incorporate many images and some text which is licensed under a more restrictive license into its public domain and CC-BY articles).
 * 4) Wikinews is not a free wiki host or webspace provider. You may not host your own website or blog at Wikinews. If you are interested in using the wiki technology for a collaborative effort on anything other than writing journalistic news articles, even if it is just a single page, there are many sites (such as WikiDot.com or Miraheze) that provide wiki hosting (free or for money). You can even install wiki software on your server. Or you can refer here for a list of web hosts.
 * 5) Wikinews is not a theater of war. Every user is expected to interact with others civilly, calmly, and in a spirit of cooperation. Do not insult, harass or intimidate those with whom you have a disagreement. Rather, approach the matter in an intelligent manner, and engage in polite discussion. Do not create or edit articles just to prove a point. Do not make legal or other threats against the Wikinews project, Wikinewsies, or the Wikimedia Foundation. Threats are not tolerated and may result in a block.
 * 6) Wikinews is not an encyclopedia; that is, it is not an in-depth collection of non-newsworthy information. Just because something is a true fact doesn't mean it is suitable for inclusion here. Try Wikipedia instead.
 * 7) Wikinews is not censored for the 'protection of minors'. Community consensus is never to censor content that may be considered objectionable.
 * 8) Wikinews is not a dumping ground for failed Wikipedia articles. Just because it got deleted from Wikipedia doesn't mean it's likely to be better received here, especially if the original article was not neutrally written, had no sources, and had nothing to do with current affairs.
 * 9) Wikinews is not Wikipedia or any other project; it is a unique and distinct project with its own policies and processes.

What Wikinews articles are not
When you wonder what should or should not be in an article named "whatever", ask yourself what a reader would expect under "whatever" from a trusted news provider. There is consensus that Wikinews articles are not:

 * 1) Wikinews articles are not press releases. There are a variety of press release aggregators who provide this service; check the Reference desk (or try News sources on Wikipedia) for links to some of them. Wikinews articles address the 5 Ws and H where possible, and attempt to present newsworthy articles which are balanced and have multiple sources, which press releases by definition do not.
 * 2) Wikinews articles are not source documents. Our sister project Wikisource is a repository for static documents; articles on Wikinews can and should be edited ruthlessly which would be inappropriate treatment for a source document. Also, many news-related source documents are copyrighted — verbatim copying of a source document could not reasonably be considered "fair use".
 * 3) Wikinews articles are not advertisements. Especially, they are not political advertisements. Excluding opinion columns, which are currently not allowed, an exclusively one-sided article, either pro- or con- the subject of the article, is a form of advertisement.
 * 4) Wikinews articles are not scientific papers or critiques of same. Articles might review or synopsize science, but must be written to be read by a wider, lay audience than that of a science journal — use of jargon must be limited and qualified.
 * 5) Wikinews articles are not encyclopedic articles. Each article relates a specific event in time and all further edits should be to provide more information on that specific event in time or correct mistakes in the article. If the information is on a breaking news story it should most likely be included in the article for that story, however if it is a breaking development in even a day-old story, it most likely belongs in a new article. For instance, criminal cases often last months or even years, but events in the case should not be included in one article but articles on each separate event as it happens.
 * 6) Wikinews articles are not editorials. Articles should restrict themselves to reporting news and not commenting on the news or newsmakers.

Possible measures in response to violations of these rules

 * Changing the content of an article (normal editing)
 * Changing the page into a redirect, preserving the page history
 * Deleting the page altogether if it meets grounds for such action after discussion on the Deletion requests page.
 * Changing the rules on this page (of course only when a consensus has been reached following appropriate discussion with other Wikinewsies)

title: Wikinews:What Wikinews is not