I make the changes and improve my articles as soon as I receive the sometimes 'interesting' feedback. By the time the follow up review arrives, the story is apparently no longer newsworthy.

I am not the only one out of the 100+ students attempting to publish on Wikinews that are having issues with the same kind of thing.

In my humble opinion, the problem is not the writing ability of students, it's more so that the chosen stories don't fall into the personal interest of the reviewers.

I don't think "there is something wrong with this article, but I don't know what it is, sorry" is an acceptable level of detailed feedback that you describe.

I am sorry if this is not the right place to be venting these frustrations, I'm somewhat new to the workings of Wikinews.

Uowpjr19 (talk)07:11, 12 April 2013

We are volunteers. Thus, while we work as fast as we can, other things may be going on and many students are not making a clear effort to speed the process along by reading the style guide and looking at other examples of articles already published to see how their writing should look. Every delay in doing this means newsworthiness becomes a more pressing issue. Thus, students who know they are up against a deadline really, really, really should be focused on reading the style guide so they get it right the first time. And looking at articles that clearly have been written by students not modeling and not reading the style guide is pretty unmotivating. Academically, it is the equivalent of an instructor giving you a list of assessment criteria your assignment will be graded against, and students saying "Meh. We'll do the assignment based on what we think the criteria broadly is instead of against the assessed criteria." I´ve done that in courses before, and I know the grade you get most often on such an assignment: An F.

Your are welcome to your humble opinion, but never assume is a better idea. Being able to verify that is also a good idea. You are making an unfounded accusation that serves your personal interests. It is patently untrue. Look at the diversity of articles that pizero has reviewed, that I have reviewed and that I have published. If your opinion makes you feel better and justifies the annoyance you and your classmates have at your inability to write to assignment criteria, more power to you.

And when it is stated that it there is something wrong but it is not easy to explain, yes, detailed feedback is offered to provide that explains that more. I do not think there has been a single time when that was the only feedback given. Please cite which article had the feedback "there is something wrong with this article, but I don't know what it is, sorry" . Please then cite the student response to this feedback where they asked for clarification as to what this meant. I can tell you how often a University of Wollongong student has wandered in this semester to the IRC chatroom and requested assistance (not once) or how often students ping a reviewer asking for more detailed feedback to speed their article being published ready (rarely). I can tell you the frequency of students ignoring feedback, not responding to feedback, ignoring reviewers is much higher. Wikinews is a symbiotic relationship between writer and reviewer. The student writers like yourself do not appear to understand that.

LauraHale (talk)07:33, 12 April 2013

Your advice is noted and is appreciated.

I can only speak for myself when it comes to the speedy turn around of review/improvements.

While Wikinews may be an every day activity for the reviewers, it is totally new to student writers. It is a daunting thought to have to run the gauntlet that is the process of being published, and many students have been put off after hearing from other student's experiences in the last month.

I find the process interesting, so I will keep attempting to publish.

Uowpjr19 (talk)07:50, 12 April 2013
Edited by 0 users.
Last edit: 02:21, 15 April 2013

Good on you Uowpjr19. I'm just dropping in from Wikiversity to take a look at progress. I can see why some of the others are put off. The big red cross on the reviewers notes, all out for everyone to see, and sometimes some pretty poor comments from the reviewers, that don't rightly make sense. But I doubt this experience is any different to a normal news room, all be it behind closed doors. From my perspective, this looks like some valuable lessons to be learning... keep on chugging

149.144.137.13 (talk) 02:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)02:21, 15 April 2013

Whoever you are (if you have a registered account, you've forgotten to log in), you appear to be deliberately sowing dissent in order to try to prevent constructive communication between students and reviewers. You could learn something from Uowpjr19, who appears to have recovered from their momentary lapse; indeed, you could learn by carefully reading the above discussion. I don't know if you have some sort of beef with Wikinews, but encouraging students to heckle more successful writers, instead of encouraging them to learn to become successful writers themselves, is reprehensible.

A point mentioned above but worth restating anyway: If a student doesn't understand a review, they should ask for clarification. A not-ready review is an opportunity to learn, and reviewers are volunteers who are putting in a lot of labor to review students' work. If it weren't so absurd to describe Wikinews reviewers as "behind closed doors", I would think that was what the above comment was saying; as it is, I'm not sure what the comment meant "behind closed doors" to apply to.

Pi zero (talk)04:27, 15 April 2013

Oh my goodness! I'm sorry you see it this way Pi zero. Please, pause a moment and 'assume good faith' while I explain what happened my side. I see that Laura Hale has jumped to a similar conclusion, so clearly I went wrong here, I hope my explanation goes someway to soothing both your concerns.

I saw Uowpjr's latest comment on it's own, not realising it was part of a longer discussion. I came to it via their Contributions log. I thought it was a message with no response, left my encouragement (not to the heckling but to keep trying to get an article up and that Wikinews is probably like any other news room). I then realised not only that I was not signed in, but that the comment was was part of a larger thread! Isn't Liquid Threads just glorious! When I saw that I wasn't signed in, I tried 3 times to correct my signature, but the software failed! You may notice via the Contributions on both my Username and the IP Address that the majority of my time around that comment was spent trying to capture all the student work thus far, into an up-to-date Category page.

I assure you, I have no beef with Wikinews. ANd when I said behind closed doors, I was referring to traditional news rooms - not Wikinews! That would be absurd. On rereading my comment, I can see how it mislead. My only excuse maybe that I had some heavy news about family land on me this morning, and my mind was partly elsewhere.

Like most of the other projects, I see them as having potentially significant value to formal education, and that the resources of formal education may be of use to the WM projects. You may be interested in looking at the work and the publication of the UoW project from 2011. Brian McNeil seems to be not available to support the UoW/Wikinews project this year, and a slightly concerning amount of discontent is coming from the student cohort this time around. On reviewing their work and reviews, I saw that a "UoW 2013 student work" category wasn't being used. I can see that you and Laura are doing the majority of the reviewing thus far, and that some of the comments (like mine here, and yours back) are too easily leading to conflict. Left unchecked, this may result in significant blow back on the all-too early stages of attempting to get UoW supporting Wikinews and other projects. I've asked David to communicate to his students to use the Category on their submissions, and to remind them of the volunteer nature of the reviewers work.

I hope my work to build a 2013 category is helpful, and that David's reminders will help ease some of the conflict. I hope my explanation here goes some way to reassuring you of my motives.

Leighblackall (talk)06:13, 15 April 2013

Several things to mention in reply to that. Sorry this is going to come out verbose.

  • I didn't want to leave the IP comment unreplied because of how it came out sounding in the context where it occurred (not a matter of the intent of the speaker but of its effect; I addressed my remarks to appearance rather than intent).
  • The broad context is that we'd concluded what we needed to do was try harder to actively encourage students to interact with reviewers and think of not-ready reviews as an opportunity to learn rather that some sort of penalty. Many newcomers go through several reviews on their first article and never do get it published, but if they come away from that first article with the ability to submit a second article that's better on its first review, they've benefited from the first experience. And students have mostly not asked questions of reviewers, probably because they didn't think of that as being within the parameters of their interaction with reviewers (I've been down that road myself, feeling socially constrained in how I'm allowed to interact with someone, especially in an academic setting — but in the classes I've dealt with in New England, the people you could interact with were the Teaching Assistants, and I consider that to be one of the hats reviewers wear).
  • The specific context was the entire thread of comments, leading up to the one that received the IP response. The incident started out as heckling someone who was better at writing articles that would pass review, by the end of the thread things had gotten (one hopes) straightened out, and then the IP comment seemed in danger of messing things up again.
  • Liquid threads (LQT) can be pretty confusing, yes. The IP comment makes a lot more sense if one supposes it was written without being able to see the rest of the thread. It would still call for a reply, because of its potential effect, but, yeah. LQT is something we love to hate, except that it turns out to work a lot better than expecting people to write their comments on a wiki page, which is what we did before LQT.
  • I point out that Wikinews does not have AGF. We have instead WN:Never assume, and have had that for many years though it took us many years to find a satisfactory articulation of the long-standing principle.
Pi zero (talk)12:31, 15 April 2013

Thanks Pi zero, to a degree you are right with regards to visible learning outcomes for students - SOME students. But you would agree that different people have different thresholds and teachable moments, and your design requires a very high threshold level for the numerous stresses engaging Wikinews, added to the various dynamics of being asked to do it as an assignment for credit in formal studies. The assignment in formal studies need not be your concern, other than it being a potential driver of Wikinews growth, but not before the review process can accommodate the diverse skill levels, expectations and intentions that new comers bring. How easily this forum went very badly is evidence of both technical and cultural inclination. The graphic presentation of the reviews, with their red crosses and blunt language, and the tendency of reviewers not to get involved in stories that have obvious new-worthiness and importance to the Wikinews profile of coverage is also perplexing. Leading by example, helping a new comer over the line and generating that high sense of accomplishment may be a crucial ingredient to developing and sustaining contributor growth. Apologies if you've already considered these points and arrive at your position non-the-less.

It is also interesting to note that the level of dissatisfaction with UoW 2013 students is significantly higher than it was in 2011. This is what lead to my attempts to intervene and try and preserve the project through the semester. It looks as though it may fail, and the project will be halted.

I hope this experience has been a learning experience for you and Laura also. Rest assured we all appreciate the voluntary work you are doing, and the passion you give to the project. It remains a question for me, as to whether bringing formal education to interface with Wikimedia projects is a viable proposition, given the complex dynamics on either side.

Leighblackall (talk)05:27, 17 April 2013

Leigh, you sound like an anti-Wikinews extremist. Perhaps you have allowed yourself to be indoctrinated by some of that crowd over at Wikiversity. The sort of person I'm talking about speaks with authority about what's wrong with how Wikinews operates without thinking it appropriate to first learn how it does operate, takes as an axiom that Wikinewsies must be too clueless to have thought about how the project works rather than reckoning people who have devoted thousands of hours to the project have probably thought about all aspects of its operations, and choose their words to sow as much dissent on Wikinews as possible.

Please note that this is not, and never was, an appropriate venue for a discussion of Wikinews operations. This is the comments page of an article; it exists for readers to discuss the topic raised by the article, and this entire thread, from its start, does not belong here. Are you aware that you are the problem here? The student who started this thread is not longer a problem, but you are making yourself one.

Pi zero (talk)06:37, 17 April 2013
 
 
 

double comment.. realised now I have to refresh page to see them!!

Leighblackall (talk)06:17, 15 April 2013
 

test reply. having no luck here!

Leighblackall (talk)06:25, 15 April 2013