Style: Not ready: Please take a look at the inverted pyramid style, the Wikinews requirement for article structure. (Current article has to be inverted, first.) Inline sources are used, but Wikinews style is sources section below article only. Please fill in {{source}} template for each, and sort fresh first. Red links and broken illustrations are present.
Comments by reviewer:
Quoting you, it happened «today» — this is sufficiently news-like. :-)
Please work on the above and re-submit as soon as possible. Thank you.
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
Style: Not ready: Please take a look at the inverted pyramid style, the Wikinews requirement for article structure. (Current article has to be inverted, first.) Inline sources are used, but Wikinews style is sources section below article only. Please fill in {{source}} template for each, and sort fresh first. Red links and broken illustrations are present.
Comments by reviewer:
Quoting you, it happened «today» — this is sufficiently news-like. :-)
Please work on the above and re-submit as soon as possible. Thank you.
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
Style: Not ready: The problem of what is said where can also be thought of as a style problem. See below.
Comments by reviewer:
This is interesting; it'd be great if we can find a way to make this reviewable for publication. On my first perusal I've spotted two concerns. There's no particular significance to the order in which I explain them.
The focus of the article needs to be something specific, relevant, and fresh.
This article appears to have things in it that are specific, relevant, and fresh. However, this does not mean the article has a clear focus. The headline and lede both should tell the reader about the focus, in different ways, and honestly I had to read the whole article in order to understand why what the article is saying is relevant.
The headline is supposed to tell the most important and unique thing. At present, the headline doesn't make make clear where in the world is involved, or suggest the unique nature of what is being celebrated.
The lede is supposed to briefly summarize the focus, by succinctly answering as many as reasonable possible of the basic questions about it. It should be possible, by reading the lede, to see why the story is significant. Here, though, the lede gave me the impression that this is an article about a nature walk that was held because it's just so nice that this local forest is there. One has to read the entire article to realize there was something specific to celebrate. The larger picture is really the source of relevance, even though the walk is apparently what's specific and fresh. Another way of putting it is that the lede failed to capture the "why". There's an expression, that I'd known for as long as I can remember but didn't really appreciate until I'd been on Wikinews a while — wikt:bury the lede.
There is also a documentation problem here. As part of rigorous review before publication, we have to check everything in the article against the sources from which it came; see WN:PILLARS#source. For this, we need full documentation on where all the information in the article came from. I can immediately see two major documentation problems here.
First, we haven't been given any way to see the Dungog Chronicle article; usually there's a URL provided, or if that's not possible sometimes it can be send to us non-publicly (so as not to violate copyright); for example, a scan of a print newspaper article might be scanned in and emailed to "scoop" (scoop at wikinewsie dot org).
The second entry in the Sources section says "correspondence". We don't have access to that, either. This again is the sort of thing one would sent to scoop.
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
Style: Not ready: The problem of what is said where can also be thought of as a style problem. See below.
Comments by reviewer:
This is interesting; it'd be great if we can find a way to make this reviewable for publication. On my first perusal I've spotted two concerns. There's no particular significance to the order in which I explain them.
The focus of the article needs to be something specific, relevant, and fresh.
This article appears to have things in it that are specific, relevant, and fresh. However, this does not mean the article has a clear focus. The headline and lede both should tell the reader about the focus, in different ways, and honestly I had to read the whole article in order to understand why what the article is saying is relevant.
The headline is supposed to tell the most important and unique thing. At present, the headline doesn't make make clear where in the world is involved, or suggest the unique nature of what is being celebrated.
The lede is supposed to briefly summarize the focus, by succinctly answering as many as reasonable possible of the basic questions about it. It should be possible, by reading the lede, to see why the story is significant. Here, though, the lede gave me the impression that this is an article about a nature walk that was held because it's just so nice that this local forest is there. One has to read the entire article to realize there was something specific to celebrate. The larger picture is really the source of relevance, even though the walk is apparently what's specific and fresh. Another way of putting it is that the lede failed to capture the "why". There's an expression, that I'd known for as long as I can remember but didn't really appreciate until I'd been on Wikinews a while — wikt:bury the lede.
There is also a documentation problem here. As part of rigorous review before publication, we have to check everything in the article against the sources from which it came; see WN:PILLARS#source. For this, we need full documentation on where all the information in the article came from. I can immediately see two major documentation problems here.
First, we haven't been given any way to see the Dungog Chronicle article; usually there's a URL provided, or if that's not possible sometimes it can be send to us non-publicly (so as not to violate copyright); for example, a scan of a print newspaper article might be scanned in and emailed to "scoop" (scoop at wikinewsie dot org).
The second entry in the Sources section says "correspondence". We don't have access to that, either. This again is the sort of thing one would sent to scoop.
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
Requested items have been scanned and emailed to scoop
Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Dungog Chronicle Article has been scanned and emailed to scoop,
Scan of letter from Robyn Parker to George Souris has been emailed to Scoop.
Not sure what to do beyond the email process
1000years (talk) 04:44, 2 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Not all {{source}} are filled in, still; a reviewer can do so manually but taking care of that would ease reviewer labour and make the review faster. Thanks. Gryllida11:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
Relative dating needs to be used. Not September 1. Point to an article on the front page that uses a date like that to indicate when an event happened. This indicates style guide not read.
Article needs a rename. Small town and local forest are vague. So vague I cannot tell if this is small town Spain, Fiji, Namibia, Peru or Myanmar. It needs more uniqueness.
Good news is not neutral. The facts should make it clear why this is good news. The reporter does not tell you this is good news.
Images have no credit.
Sources not properly formatted. Please read the style guide and reference published examples.
Needs more categories. If it is in Australia, it should be in Oceania. Questionable editorial judgement to not include New South Wales category. What was the reason there? Why the editorial judgement to not include topical categories?
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
Relative dating needs to be used. Not September 1. Point to an article on the front page that uses a date like that to indicate when an event happened. This indicates style guide not read.
Article needs a rename. Small town and local forest are vague. So vague I cannot tell if this is small town Spain, Fiji, Namibia, Peru or Myanmar. It needs more uniqueness.
Good news is not neutral. The facts should make it clear why this is good news. The reporter does not tell you this is good news.
Images have no credit.
Sources not properly formatted. Please read the style guide and reference published examples.
Needs more categories. If it is in Australia, it should be in Oceania. Questionable editorial judgement to not include New South Wales category. What was the reason there? Why the editorial judgement to not include topical categories?
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
I've added the OR tag on the sources section, and am moving the OR citations here:
Janelle O'Neill. "[ "DUNGOG RESIDENTS ENSURE CONTINUED PROTECTION OF LOCAL FOREST"]" — The Dungog Chronicle, August 14, 2012
Robyn Parker. "[ Letter to George Souris, Member for Upper Hunter, NSW]" — July 13, 2013
I'm seeing a number of problems here, as we move to a deeper level of the review process. Note: This is a challenging, advanced piece to take on for your first Wikinews submission. I got partway into source-checking this time, which means I encountered problems that wouldn't necessarily have been apparent earlier.
The focal event, remember, is the thing that just happened, which is the nature walk. At present, the lede alludes to this focal event only rather indirectly, and the details of the focal event are at the bottom of the article — which implies those details are the least important thing in the article.
The lede needs to be a lean paragraph, probably just one or two sentences, that explains the focus and why it happened. You might try to introduce the nature walk in the first sentence, with a very few words in that sentence about it's being celebratory and what of, then a second sentence with a very brief further explanation of what is being celebrated. All in all this would say more about the walk and give far less detail of the precipitating events than the current lede. A plausible approach to the following paragraphs might be to put details of the walk in the second paragraph, then overview the precipitating events in the third paragraph, and after that you'd go into the rest of the details.
Neutrality is a problem here. The article doesn't fairly represent the timber industry's side of things. Ainley's evidence, which is ten pages of deeply confusing transcript, is dismissed here in one sentence that says nothing about the concerns he expressed. The proposal, I note, presented rational reasons (whatever one makes of them) for something far more nuanced that "make them available for logging".
From my reading of those ten pages of transcript, it was not clear to me that Ainley proposed to convert national parks to state forests. Did he make any proposals at all? I thought he was presenting evidence of the existence of a problem, but I didn't notice that he said specifically what should be done about it. Is there somewhere specific I should be looking to find this information? I also can't pretend btw to entirely understand the details of his arguments, a problem evidently shared by some the people he was giving evidence to.
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
I'm seeing a number of problems here, as we move to a deeper level of the review process. Note: This is a challenging, advanced piece to take on for your first Wikinews submission. I got partway into source-checking this time, which means I encountered problems that wouldn't necessarily have been apparent earlier.
The focal event, remember, is the thing that just happened, which is the nature walk. At present, the lede alludes to this focal event only rather indirectly, and the details of the focal event are at the bottom of the article — which implies those details are the least important thing in the article.
The lede needs to be a lean paragraph, probably just one or two sentences, that explains the focus and why it happened. You might try to introduce the nature walk in the first sentence, with a very few words in that sentence about it's being celebratory and what of, then a second sentence with a very brief further explanation of what is being celebrated. All in all this would say more about the walk and give far less detail of the precipitating events than the current lede. A plausible approach to the following paragraphs might be to put details of the walk in the second paragraph, then overview the precipitating events in the third paragraph, and after that you'd go into the rest of the details.
Neutrality is a problem here. The article doesn't fairly represent the timber industry's side of things. Ainley's evidence, which is ten pages of deeply confusing transcript, is dismissed here in one sentence that says nothing about the concerns he expressed. The proposal, I note, presented rational reasons (whatever one makes of them) for something far more nuanced that "make them available for logging".
From my reading of those ten pages of transcript, it was not clear to me that Ainley proposed to convert national parks to state forests. Did he make any proposals at all? I thought he was presenting evidence of the existence of a problem, but I didn't notice that he said specifically what should be done about it. Is there somewhere specific I should be looking to find this information? I also can't pretend btw to entirely understand the details of his arguments, a problem evidently shared by some the people he was giving evidence to.
If possible, please address the above issues then resubmit the article for another review (by replacing {{tasks}} in the article with {{review}}). This talk page will be updated with subsequent reviews.
If you were, yourself, involved in the campaign to protest the logging proposal, you should disclose that, at least here on the article talk page. WN:COI. --Pi zero (talk) 04:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Thank You: to all for your patient and helpful editing... I had heard that it was hard to publish on WikiNews, and it's so true, but I am pleased it is only hard because the reviewers are extremely rigorous!
My Involvement: I come from an academic writing background, and am interested in contributing some writing into the wiki community. My interests are in the conservation of the natural environment, which drew me to the issue reported in the article, as environment and community are subjects I am inspired to report on. However I am aware of presenting facts rather than writing a bias piece, as I would like to gain a reputation as an environmental reporter who could be read by anyone. In my local area I have friends who undertake forestry operations, and farm forestry, so I have a perspective from both sides. But the farm forestry here is about sustainable forestry with long-term views for the future of the forest, whereas if you look at the items raised by the Forest Products Association, (e.g. logging in current environmental logging buffer zones etc)the proposed logging increase does not seem to be about much more than immediate financial gain.
The article: Yes it is a complex piece to take on for a first article. I would like to publish it before the end of the week so it is still fresh. Should I perhaps remove anything controversial, simply report that the walk took place, and why the group said they were doing it, and leave the rest out? Then I could do a more in-depth piece about the background when I have more time to expand on it... but then it won't be current news so not so relevant... or could it become a wikipedia entry instead. I don't know, I'm new to all of this OBVIOUSLY.
Please advise. Thank You
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 1000years (talk • contribs) 23:52, 4 September 2013
Sorry if this comes out in somewhat jumbled order.
Wikipedia wouldn't take this, I don't think. It's too small scale for an encyclopedia article; at most, I suspect, the whole business might warrant a sentence, maybe two sentences (if they're short), in some larger article. I think you're right to want this to be a news article.
Time is a-wasting; we need to get this whipped into shape promptly, if we're going to. Original reporting (OR) is deemed to extend freshness somewhat, depending on the nature of the OR, but we can't (as you point out) rely on that indefinitely; if this were strictly a synthesis piece, it would be stale by now. I realize it's very awkward that I'm on almost exactly the opposite side of the planet form you, which slows down our interactions a lot; this also really motivates me to try to write detailed, hopefully clear comments. I'm really hoping I can say enough of the right things now for you to revise and resubmit, and have it pass its next review.
This doesn't need to be cut down, I think; cutting it down could undermine the newsworthiness of the piece, because the relevance of the focus (the guided walk) depends on its attachment to this larger controversy about logging. I can't write this stuff for you without disqualifying myself from review, which we really can't afford to have happen, but I'm doing my best to make suggestions that ought to work and hopefully are specific enough for you to act on. I'm guessing the lede should say that the walk took place and was celebrating getting this reassurance, and then say a bit very succinctly about the background that explains the significance of the reassurance. And then I suggested possibilities for where to go for there; see the review comments, above.
When you find yourself not knowing how to explain something briefly, perhaps because you know too much about it, often the problem is you shouldn't be trying to explain at all. Present just a few facts, presented simply so they can be readily understood, and without creating bias by failing to acknowledge a significant point of view.
I noted the timber industry's position was not being fairly represented. If that were the only problem with the Ainley paragraph (which it isn't; see below), it's possible the problem might be fixed by inserting the word "sustainable" before the word "logging". Seriously. If I'm factually wrong, obviously that wouldn't solve the problem. And by the time that and all other needed changes were made, I'd certainly have to read the whole through from the top to see if it feels balanced. But the addition of that one word really might make all the difference in the the world.
Unfortunately, that isn't the only problem with that paragraph. As I noted, I didn't find, within the indicated ten pages of transcript, that Ainley proposed, well, anything. Maybe I missed it, but I only found that he was presenting evidence of a problem; I didn't see him naming what to do about it. Perhaps that was elsewhere in the transcript? You'd have to let me know where to find it. Or modify what your article says to be something you can point me to so I can verify it. That's not a matter of neutrality, it's a matter of verification. It needs to be resolved somehow.
There were a couple of passages too close to source, and once a news source article was directly quoted. Use your own original sentence/phrase structure, and avoid imitating peculiar word choices or turns of phrase; after all that, double-check you don't have more than three consecutive words identical to a source.
This has really come out looking quite good.
The object is for feedback this time to translate into cleaner copy on first submission next time, vastly reducing development-to-publication time. :-)
The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.
There were a couple of passages too close to source, and once a news source article was directly quoted. Use your own original sentence/phrase structure, and avoid imitating peculiar word choices or turns of phrase; after all that, double-check you don't have more than three consecutive words identical to a source.
This has really come out looking quite good.
The object is for feedback this time to translate into cleaner copy on first submission next time, vastly reducing development-to-publication time. :-)
The reviewed revision should automatically have been edited by removing {{Review}} and adding {{Publish}} at the bottom, and the edit sighted; if this did not happen, it may be done manually by a reviewer.
