Wikinews

Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions

< Wikinews:Flagged revisions
This is an official policy on English Wikinews. It has wide acceptance and is considered a standard for all users to follow. Changes to this page must reflect consensus. If in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.



Requests and votes
Accreditation
ARBCOM
AWB
Bots
Functionaries
Reviewer

Please use this page to request the Flagged Revisions permission, putting new requests at the top. Requests will generally stay open for at least a week (unless fast-tracked), after which an administrator will read the comments made by other users and decide whether or not to add the flag.

I
Before a request

Before requesting this permission, you must be familiar with key policies, particularly the style guide and neutral point of view. Prior to review of any article, and its subsequent publication, you will be required to copyedit the article for any style issues. This requires a very good understanding of English grammar to maintain the quality of the project's published works.

You should have written many published articles with which no major problems should have arose during review lately. It is best if you have already helped to review articles and gave feedback to the author – either on your own, or together with an established reviewer. If you wish to practice under supervision, subscribe here, and reviewers will try to reach you on IRC before review sessions start.

II
Create the request for permission:
  • Users can submit their own requests (self-nomination), or
  • Other users can nominate a candidate.
  1. Add the candidate username in the box below and click the Add a request button.
  2. Complete the questions on the resulting page and save it. Please highlight if you are nominating someone who has not yet accepted the nomination on-wiki.
  3. Transclude the request page at the foot of the section below by adding the title of the request page, enclosed by curly brackets e.g.:
    {{Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/YourUsername}}
  4. Then inform the Wikinews community of your request.

III
Questions

You may be asked questions by other users so they can review your request. Please try to provide full answers.

IV
Community decision

The request must remain open for at least seven days. An administrator will close the request and will also add the flag, if there is consensus. Closed requests are moved to the Archives.

Note If a request has been open for over a week, please leave a note at the talk page of an administrator.

Requests for reviewer edit

Note for this section, "{{Support}}" means "support the request", and "{{Oppose}}" means "oppose the request".

Asheiou (talk · contribs – Edit rights) edit

It's clear to me that there are now a severe lack of reviewers who are able to contribute to this project. I know I'm relatively new to the community, but I really don't want to keep watching Wikinews die. If you grant me permission to be a reviewer, I will do all I can to ensure my reviews are thorough, fair, and to the same standard as the current review process. If you have any questions, please write them below with @Asheiou. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 10:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stats edit


Questions and comments edit

  •   Comment More than 7 days has passed since the opening of this request. I will report this to an active admin. MathXplore (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @MathXplore, I have already reported it to five other admins: 1 2 3 4 5. No individual person is of course obligated to help, but it seems like there is an admin inactivity problem on the English Wikinews. Is there another venue that we can escalate this to? --Habst (talk) 23:55, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @MathXplore, @Asheiou: What do you think about using meta:Steward requests/Permissions to request adminship for some experienced more active user (i.e. you or Asheiou or someone else)? I understand the page says it's only for wikis that don't have a local permissions procedure, but I wonder if one could explain that other admins are not available, a case could be made. --Habst (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A case may be made by explaining the admin status of our project. But first, we need local consensus for each request, and we must also contact our local admins before the stewards. In general, I do not recognize any version of Wikinews that opens RFA for those without previous successful article submissions. MathXplore (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    MathXplore is correct. Habst, frankly you're trying to direct a process which you clearly don't understand. This or any other request for permissions does not need to be and must not be rushed in circumvention of local procedures. Heavy Water (talk) 06:49, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Heavy Water, thank you, I agree with you and MathXplore right now. I don't think we are at a point where such a procedure would be necessary, and if we were to undergo it, we would have to post it somewhere and gain community consensus among the few non-administrators first.
    At what point would you consider such drastic actions necessary? I think the issue with WikiNews specifically is that WN:RECENT is important for the articles, so unlike e.g. Wikipedia, if admins and reviewers are inactive, it would result in a complete blocking of content. The last published article on the home page is from about two months ago, far beyond the ten days required for recency (I understand this requirement is for publishing and not being kept on the homepage, but ideally there would be enough articles every 10 days to rotate out those that would be stale from the front). --Habst (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment I share Habst's concern that the inactivity of all reviewers on Wikinews creates a bottleneck, hindering the platform's ability to deliver timely and relevant news. The absence of new content for over eight weeks contradicts the very essence of "news." Nevertheless, it's crucial to maintain the integrity of the review process to avoid compromising content quality for the sake of increased publication, which could harm our reputation as much as inactivity. Although Asheiou, recognized by Heavy Water as an Exceptional Newcomer[1] shows promise, hastily adding new reviewers without proper mentorship from seasoned reviewers could diminish review quality. Without experienced guidance from active reviewers, new reviewers will struggle to learn the process effectively, potentially impacting the credibility and quality of Wikinews content. Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 18:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The exceptional newcomer reward was given to me 9 months ago now, since then I have published a decent amount of articles with the project. It's not as if I've published 2 articles and then ran for permissions. I'll admit I definitely jumped the gun on my accreditation request but that's because of how important it is and how passionate I am about this project. I do really believe in the potential of Wikinews to be great. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:05, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Um...I think awards like that are just supposed to be informal encouragement of a promising person; certainly that's all I meant it to be. Other than that, I think Michael is spot-on, and I know because that inexperienced new reviewer was me about a year ago. I had about six months' experience before becoming a reviewer and once I did I made a lot of serious mistakes out of ignorance. Heavy Water (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Question @Asheiou, in your request you stated: "I will do all I can to ensure my reviews are thorough, fair, and to the same standard as the current review process." What is the current review process and how will you ensure it remains thorough and to the current standards? Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 18:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikinews reviews primarily serve to ensure neutrality, distance from source material, and verifiability. The current process involves checking each prospective article against the easy review criteria (as you can see in the Collaboration tab in any article). From my own article publishing as well as looking at other articles that have been published, I believe I've developed a good sense for the tone of Wikinews articles, and can accurately assess against the review criteria and provide adjustments and feedback when necessary. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And style and newsworthiness are equally important, of course. I assume you've read the basic content-related documentation: WN:Pillars, WN:ARCHIVE, WN:Reviewing articles, WN:CG, WN:Newsworthiness, WN:SG, WN:Copyright, WN:CS, and WN:Neutrality. (WN:Neutrality is "only an essay", but that doesn't mean at documentation-light en.wn what it means at en.wp — it accurately captures what en.wn neutrality is, while WN:NPOV, a policy, promotes vague and outdated notions about "balance".) Have you seen WN:Tips on reviewing articles? It offers a lot of practical advice for reviewers from the late master of it, and a pre-publishing checklist that I use every time and that's been vastly helpful to me. Heavy Water (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Done. However i think wikinews should get rid of the review process in its current form. It basically killed all forward momentum of the project and i think was a terrible mistake in retrospect. Regardless it is up to the next generation to decide how they want to proceed. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bawolff: I have to object to this. Only one person had voted, and I think you will agree they are not experienced enough to meet the threshold to have a vote in this matter. Additionally, the request has only been open about two weeks; in recent times requests have typically run for months to gather a more complete consensus one way or the other. I ask that you consider reversing granting the privs. Thanks. Heavy Water (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The last article published here was from Jan 4. That is two months ago. A wiki where nobody edits defeats the point. I'll certainly revert if that is what community consensus is, but at this stage where the project is at death's door, I think we should give reviewer rights to any non-blocked user even remotely active. Quite frankly, if Wikinews wants to stay open as a project, it needs to start writing content ASAP. Bawolff ☺☻ 11:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I said elsewhere, in relation this very request, "the burden of proof lies with supporters to demonstrate there is a consensus in favor". It would be frankly ridiculous to require me to demonstrate there's a consensus against violating the basic norm of procedure for reviewer requests that reviewer is granted by community support rather than unilateral action, nearly as old as the modern review system itself. Handing out reviewer to everyone would ultimately lead to the project's demise, but that's not relevant to either the out-of-process action here or this reviewer request (unless this action is itself part of such a scheme, which I really hope it isn't). Heavy Water (talk) 17:46, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree. Giving review status based on one vote is an extremely dangerous precedent to set. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 20:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not comfortable taking any reviewer action without sufficient community consensus. If the permission is to remain on my account, I'll still wait for more votes either way. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 21:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The lack of active reviewers and the need to revisit our review process merits a wider conversation. I believe there is consensus on that amongst currently-active Wikinewsians. Bawolff and Heavy Water, would it be more appropriate to start that conversation elsewhere and link to it from here? I think we have both an acute problem and a chronic problem to fix. Maybe we can find a compromise between your positions. Asheiou's input in that discussion would also be useful in this request for reviewer permissions. Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 15:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see a chronic problem that might necessitate revisiting the review process. But I agree this isn't the venue for discussing that, and that Asheiou's input would be useful. Heavy Water (talk) 02:54, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Question: @Asheiou: Sorry for the delay. Cromium has used a set of questions for aspiring reviewers (there's one for aspiring admins, too), slightly modified each time, as I've done here.
  • What style of inline references are acceptable for an en.wn article?
  • There is an article for review, written in Hindi (this, specifically, happens from time to time) with excellent Hindi sources. How would you review it and why?
  • A new user writes an article about the 2020 US presidential election and tags it for review. How would you review it and why?
  • An article you are reviewing uses a quotation of three sentences spoken by a famous politician, but the sentences don't appear in the sources in the en.wn article. You know of a different source that quotes those exact three sentences. How would you add this as a source?
  • You've successfully reviewed an article. A week later, someone points out a problem with it. What do you do about it?
  • There is an article on the review queue about an alleged recent war crime committed by Russian forces on territory Ukraine has since retaken from them (this is just a fictional example). It is very well written, with a detailed chronological examination of the alleged crime and its aftermath, correct style, no copyright problems, and definite newsworthiness. It cites articles from the Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald, and quotes senior US intelligence officials, the White House, and No. 10. What issues might you raise about this article?
  • You have reviewed an article and found it did not meet en.wn standards. The user who wrote it leaves an angry message on your talk page alleging a poor review on your part. How would you respond to them, particularly with reference to how the problems can be fixed? (For your reference, I think most of these, particularly the ones I've got, accuse the reviewer of not caring or even not wanting the article to be published.)
  • And two questions of my own:
  • What would your procedure be for detecting copyright violations, both blatant copy-and-pastes and subtle similarities? And when is a phrase identical to a source phrase too long to be acceptable?
  • You're reviewing an article and have just about run up against the end of the freshness window. En.wn hasn't published an article in a couple weeks, the review queue is empty (at least, of articles that you figure have a good chance of passing review), and there's no one else around to write or review. You haven't reviewed the last, say, two-sentence-long paragraph yet. Is it alright, in light of these circumstances, to publish the article first, and then review the paragraph immediately after, submitting any substantive edits — as defined by WN:ARCHIVE, so dealing directly with the choice of image, or the text of the body or the headline, in a more major way than correcting typos and links and maybe some grammatical errors — for review as needed? Heavy Water (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • In general, we don't use inline sourcing in Wikinews. The only time you would do anything like an inline source is attributing a quote in the article's text itself. Eg. In an interview with ITV, John Doe said "this is an example quote".
    • I would ask if the writer could translate their work into English. If the article were written in one of Wikinews' other languages I would redirect the writer to submit the article for publishing over on that language, but unfortunately Hindi isn't one of the languages we currently offer on the Wikinews project, despite a 15-year-running Request for new languages on Meta. If the writer doesn't speak English and/or can't translate it, the article can't be published, unfortunately, and I'd have to communicate that with them.
    • Unfortunately, an article for 2020 is now far-stale and I would review it as not ready and communicate our policy on freshness.
    • Because of WN:ARCHIVE, substantial edits to an article can't be made after 24 hours. I would listen to the problem pointed out and ensure that I keep it in mind in future reviews, as well as thank the person who pointed it out.
    • From what you've described, the article sounds ready to publish. I'd be wary about the fact that it's an allegation, as we don't cover media speculation, but considering the quotes from governments, it can be covered as "UK, U.S. allege [specifics]".
    • I can understand the feeling of rejection that someone might feel when one "rejects" their work. I'd respond civilly and constructively, explaining steps the author could take to bring their work up to a publishable standard. I'd explain my thought process and how I came to the decision to not publish.
    • As a first check, I'd use Earwig's Copyvio Detector as is standard for Wikipedia's good article procedure. I'd also be sure to fully read both articles to look for plagiarism, including more subtle things like "the cat sat on the mat" -> "the cat laid down on the carpet". Identical segments should generally be entirely avoided wherever possible (excluding quotes, of course).
    • With the current state of Wikinews, a few days past a freshness window we invented should hardly be our primary concern. I would find time to sit down and review the article in full before publishing it, because there's no guarantee that I would be able to finish a review post-publish pre-24 hour window. Our ultimate goal should be to turn out high quality articles. Timeliness, while important, is not currently something we can achieve reliably, and we shouldn't be turning people away because we missed the window by a couple of days.
    These are my answers based on my own opinion as well as reading existing Wikinews guidelines. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:21, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Votes edit

  •   Support: I am new to Wikinews but I agree there is a lack of reviewers problem. Of the current reviewers, it looks like there are only two with more than three edits this year. Since Wednesday I have been trying to line up a review for my first article for release February 17, but I'm not sure that it will be gotten to in time before it goes stale and gets deleted. I have great respect for the reviewers, but it is too big a burden to place on just two people. Thank you for volunteering your time. --Habst (talk) 15:24, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Reviewer status edit

Post requests here regarding any user who you consider has abused reviewer status. Provide a justification for the removal, preferably with examples of where the permission has been abused.

Note for this section, "{{Remove}}" means "support removal of permission", and "{{Oppose}}" means "oppose removal of permission".

Blood Red Sandman edit

After being de-sysopped, this person is still a reviewer. More than two years have passed, and he's been twice notified about his remaining tools and inactivity. However, not one review log has been made for two years, and I'm unsure how tracked his use of Easy Peer Review Tool has been. I doubt he has used the Tool, but I can stand corrected. Per WN:PEP, he shall no longer be a reviewer. --George Ho (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stats edit


Questions and comments edit

  •   Comment: I moved this from being a subpage of RfP to being a subpage of FR/RfP and changed where it was transcluded accordingly. This one does trip people up a lot. I don't know what we're to do with the redirect, though. Heavy Water (talk) 20:47, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Votes edit

  •   Oppose: I agree it's highly unlikely they've used EzPR since. But as I stated at the request for TUFKAAP's desysopping: PeP is both something the community can choose to apply, with discretion and common sense, and a measure to prevent compromised admin accounts or admins unaware of now-significantly changed policy, not a punitive one for simple inactivity. It shouldn't be taken as "better revoke any permissions as soon as the letter of these requirements is met." (Well, compromised reviewer accounts are also something of concern but I've mainly heard Wikinewsies talk about compromised admin accounts when speaking of PeP's security dimension). I believe my comment is even more applicable here, as BRS was heavily active and at the cutting-edge of policy formulation years more recently and has, a few times, vanished off the face of the earth only to return and resume working productively. I didn't know this during the desysopping (which I didn't partake in as I was too inexperienced with Wikinews), but per this it seems they configured Special:EmailUser to send to their wikinewsie [dot] org email address (wikinewsie being defunct, of course), so they're not getting email notifications from talk page messages. Heavy Water (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support He has essentially gone away. That does not demean past contributions -- far from it. But this week is this week -- know what I mean?--Bddpaux (talk) 16:31, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Since you voted and no other bureaucrats have been active at this point, is a steward instead needed to decide on this? George Ho (talk) 07:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Any admin or crat can action a reviewer-related request. Heavy Water (talk) 13:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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