Welcome to Wikinews

A nice cup of coffee for you while you get started

Getting started as a contributor
How to write an article
  1. Pick something current?
  2. Use two independent sources?
  3. Read your sources before writing the story in your own words?. Do choose a unique title? before you start.
  4. Follow Wikinews' structure? for articles, answering as many of who what when where why and how? as you can; summarised in a short, two- or three-sentence opening paragraph. Once complete, your article must be three or more paragraphs.
  5. If you need help, you can add {{helpme}} to your talkpage, along with a question, or alternatively, just ask?

  • Use this tab to enter your title and get a basic article template.
    [RECOMMENDED. Starts your article through the semi-automated {{develop}}—>{{review}}—>{{publish}} collaboration process.]

 Welcome! Thank you for joining Wikinews; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. To help you get started we have an essay that will guide you through the process of writing your first full article. There are many other things you can do on the project, but its lifeblood is new, current, stories written neutrally.
As you get more involved, you will need to look into key project policies and other discussions you can participate in; so, keep this message on this page and refer to the other links in it when you want to learn more, or have any problems.

Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
  Used to contributing to Wikipedia? See here.
All Wikimedia projects have rules. Here are ours.

Listed here are the official policies of the project, you may be referred to some of them if your early attempts at writing articles don't follow them. Don't let this discourage you, we all had to start somewhere.

The rules and guides laid out here are intended to keep content to high standards and meet certain rules the Wikimedia Foundation applies to all projects. It may seem like a lot to read, but you do not have to go through it all in one sitting, or know them all before you can start contributing.

Remember, you should enjoy contributing to the project. If you're really stuck come chat with the regulars. There's usually someone in chat who will be happy to help, but they may not respond instantly.

The core policies
Places to go, people to meet

Wiki projects work because a sense of community forms around the project. Although writing news is far more individualistic than contributing to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, people often need minor help with things like spelling and copyediting. If a story isn't too old you might be able to expand it, or if it is disputed you may be able to find some more sources and rescue it before it is listed for deletion.

There are always discussions going on about how the site could be improved, and your input is of value. Check the links here to see where you can give input to the running of the Wikinews project.

Find help and get involved
Write your first article for Wikinews!

Use the following box to help you create your first article. Simply type in a title to your story and press "Create page". Then start typing text to your story into the new box that will come up. When you're done, press "save page". That's all there is to it!



It is recommended you read the article guide before starting. Also make sure to check the list of recently created articles to see if your story hasn't already been reported upon.


-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 11:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

UoW?

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Hi. Are you a University of Wollongong student? If so, please put a {{UoW student}} template on your user page, like this:

{{UoW student
|year=2013
|semester=Autumn
|course=
}}

--Pi zero (talk) 11:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Michelle Obama adds voice to gun control debate

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Hi. I have reviewed Michelle Obama adds voice to gun control debate. Detailed comments as to why the article was not published can be found at Talk:Michelle Obama adds voice to gun control debate. Please address these and consider re-submitting it. --LauraHale (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hi. I've re-reviewed the article. I'd like to offer some broad perspective on the review process, in addition to specific feedback on this review.
Narrowly focused specific feedback consists of review comments, and history of edits during review.
It's quite common for new Wikinews contributors to not get their first article published. Sometimes even several out of their first few articles. The key is to learn all you can from each not-ready; that learning is what gets you to the point where things 'click', and you can then fairly reliably write articles that will pass on their first review (though hopefully none of us ever stop learning).
In this case, you should be able to get a good deal out of the article, as I see you've gotten three reviews back on it. That's a good deal of labor reviewers have put into giving you feedback. Articles that go round and round the review process like this can be quite rich in feedback, though they often don't end in publication because they go stale and then only have another shot at publication if refreshed (and refreshing an article is hard to do as there's a lot that can go wrong). --Pi zero (talk) 21:17, 14 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Gun background checks a no-go in US Senate

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Published. Congrats! Review comments, detailed history of edits during review. --Pi zero (talk) 22:00, 19 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks so much for all of your hard work to get the story publish-worthy- I really appreciate it!