User:Bddpaux/Archive 2

Lead on synthetics story

Hi Bddpaux,

Could you take another look at that umbrella lead that was deleted and perhaps write a new one or restore the old one? I left a note on collaboration explaining but I didn't know if you would get that. It's good you're taking an interest in this story! Cheers, Crtew (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

3 teens dead following Ohio school shooting, others injured

Left a comment on the talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 19:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Bddpaux/Archive 2. You have new messages at User talk:Rayboy8#For perseverance, if for nothing else!.
You can remove this notice by removing {{replied}} from your talk page.

Our brief visit from an A-Team member

Yeah, DGMurdockIII came into IRC as well.

Lots of spelling errors and typos there, a high degree of frustration at not being able to understand what was needed (verging on 'roid rage). Believed to have left in a minute and a huff. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:50, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews interview Americans Elect presidential candidate, Mike Ballantine

See Talk:...#Question for interviewer. --Pi zero (talk) 23:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Neither........

.....perceiving nor intending any form of offense, I need to step away from the project for a few days. I'll be back some time next week. Bddpaux (talk) 03:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Terry Teen, 1960's Rockabilly artist, injured in collision

I did my best for it. Made it Lead 5 when published. --Pi zero (talk) 16:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggested an approach

at Talk:Wikinews Shorts: March 9, 2012#Recommendations. --Pi zero (talk) 04:52, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

(I'm in the process of turning in for the night, btw. --Pi zero (talk) 04:53, 11 March 2012 (UTC))

It's my understanding, btw, that a shorts article is dated to publication, not to when the events took place (which is subject merely to the usual rules of freshness). --Pi zero (talk) 11:44, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

1960's Rockabilly music artist Terry Teen dies aged 70

You'd written 7:00pm in the OR notes, so I construed the "CST" in the article text as a simple slip (daylight savings time having started early Sunday morning). --Pi zero (talk) 05:14, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Heavy rains welcomed by many in Texas

Needs a bit of work on the lede, a tweak to the headline; hopefully not difficult. review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 04:09, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Re: Santorum

I agree there's other newsworthy stuff. I've written about some of it recently. :) I encourage you to write about other topics you consider newsworthy! -- Cirt (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Off-Project

I really really really am going to be off-project for several days. Bddpaux (talk) 22:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm gonna be away for a little while....apologies to any and all. I've got some professional and personal obligations that require my attention. Bddpaux (talk) 17:50, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm back for the moment, but just barely!Bddpaux (talk) 04:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Texas college student found dead on campus

Questions re sourcing. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 22:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Alas. This would be a great time for them to return your call. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 01:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Reviewer :)

You iz now reviewer. Congrats! There's the standard new reviewer message, which I haven't posted as a template cuz I kinda don't like it (but it still has good info in it), and WN:Tips on reviewing articles is also worth looking at. Enjoy. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Poison control centers educate public on hand sanitizer consumption

I've left a question on the talk page for the publishing reviewer. Not something urgent; I'd say it's a format error and therefore will still be fixable after the archive policy takes effect.

Talk:Poison control centers educate public on hand sanitizer consumption#External sources --Pi zero (talk) 18:19, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Trial by fire

You're taking on an enormous review burden, as a newly minted reviewer, aren't you. I'm impressed. Don't burn yourself out; one of the harder lessons I had to learn as a reviewer was that when things are hopping, there's more demand for review than can be served by the active reviewers (no matter how many active reviewers there are), and sooner or later this means some articles will go stale waiting for review; it's sad and frustrating each time it happens, but ultimately it's not wrong — it's visible evidence of a system that really does take the need for rigorous review seriously.

I do hope you're not squeamish about not-ready'ing for inadequate OR notes. We're being somewhat inundated lately by OR submissions from folks who have practically no past Wikinews contributions and we really need to get them off on the right foot re detailed OR notes; we'd probably be rejecting a lot of it for sheer lack of previously accumulated reputation if not that they're vouched for as students of Crtew (worth double-checking in each case), and even with that they certainly haven't earned any leeway on the verifiability side of things: every fact should be verified from the sources, even if one of those sources is OR notes, and that includes direct quotes (which even local print newspapers these days aren't as careful with as they ought to be be — so we certainly can't assume that someone who doesn't have any proven experience with our site standards knows these things). And of course if the detailed OR notes contain exactly what is needed to verify the OR aspects of the article and no additional information, that in itself may be fishy... Well, you get the idea; I'm sorry I'm not more active right now (making myself a little nauseated writing this), and I worry. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 10:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

U.S. study says Type 2 diabetes in youth is hard to control

I came on pretty strong in my criticism of the review. I didn't want to understate, for the students' benefit. You're learning, don't let it get you down; just, you know, do better next time :-D. --Pi zero (talk) 21:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Inmate nearly defeats President Obama in West Virginia Democratic Primary

Did you tag this {{under review}} and then lose track of what you were doing? I was about to start reviewing it myself, and found the tag there...

I'm going to try to review something else, but then if I don't hear back from you by the time I've finished with that, I'm going to remove the {{under review}} tag (and apologize later, if necessary :-). --Pi zero (talk) 13:07, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Inmate nearly defeats President Obama in West Virginia Democratic Primary

Did I understand, from your review comments, that you not-ready'd the article over whether one of the listed sources should be in External links rather than Sources? I'm wondering if I've missed someting. Keeping in mind that by not-ready'ing the article, which is synthesis, you're guaranteeing it will be less fresh when published and may be condemning it to go stale and never get published (you can't assume an article author is around every day, or even every few days) — is that a not-ready offense? --Pi zero (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, gee....I'm not entirely sure I have some eloquent response. I guess what I was thinking is, "He's here alot....he'll fix it in a few minutes/hours." Frankly, staleness (or the possibility thereof) never really entered my mind. I'd like to think that had this've been submitted by a newer user, I'd probably have just deleted that one source (wrongly so, now that I see there was article content in that source) and probably would've just readied it. Bddpaux (talk) 20:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Heh. Implying you'd overlooked a detail when verifying the article; I've had days like that.

Regarding the source: I can suggest two alternative approaches with some merit.

Look harder to try to figure out what was in that source. This would be my first choice; I'd be concerned it might be a symptom of my having overlooked something during verification — and while it's not that big a deal if an unused source gets included in the list of sources (it'd be nice to avoid, but the overriding reason extra sources are against policy is to give reviewers the right to not-ready an article for putting an undue burden on them), it is a big deal if there's a flaw in my verification-check.

I think I actually had this happen to me once, in the past month or two: I'd failed to check something, and realized it when I looked at a remaining source, and wondered what it was there to verify. William Saturn (though capable of mistakes) is pretty careful about these things and if he includes a source there's probably a good reason.

Leave it in place, publish, and inquire of the author. It could be fixed later; the Sources section isn't article content per se, so isn't subject to the usual taboo against self-sighting post-publish edits. And the worst that would come of it (assuming verification is actually okay) would be a source got left in that wasn't used, which doesn't significantly compromise anything.

--Pi zero (talk) 21:39, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Style Guide numbers

I like the title/idea of the Lego article. But, it also allows me the chance to ask your opinion on a slightly contentious style guide point.

The Guide says Wikinews:SG#Numbers, effectively up to 20, are spelt out. And, round numbers - such as "over nine thousand" should — ideally — also be spelt out.

Give it some thought, and let me know what you think. What are you used to seeing, most comfortable with. And, how do we concisely put it in the style guide? What do you expect/find normal with conventional news sources?

But, just think of this as a Style Guide Shakedown. What's going to be most accessible to our readers, look best in titles and whatnot. Asking someone else's opinion (in this case yours) is something that needs done periodically. If we don't do stuff like this, we'll end up still using three-score-and-ten... --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:56, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Small Texas town hosts large baseball tournament

Shortly after this was published, we had someone dropping by on the IRC channel asking whether you hang out there, and expressing approval as 'nice OR' or some such phrase. Thought you might like to know. I agree with the assessment, btw; it ended up a quite pleasant OR item (the pictures complement it well). --Pi zero (talk) 19:54, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Your ""business smacks of middle-schooler-esque sloppiness"" review

Second thought, I didn't take the review you did of Bidgee's article harshly. Having read it, I see your comments as singularly non-constructive with the idea of helping a writer improve the article for publication. The feedback was not very actionable in terms of improving. The purpose of failing reviews is not to prevent an article from being published but to offer actionable advise to have it more closer towards publication. You did none of that. At the same time, you commented on my talk page, instead of Bidgee's talk page. Bidgee was the primary writer. Can you please revisit the review and offer constructive advice as to how to improve the article? This is VITALLY important as we're going to do need to several reviews over a compressed time period in London and we need constructive feedback to learn how to best write reviews with the idea of getting the published while creating minimum additional work for a reviewer. (And with fully working knowledge that on the ground reporters are absolutely NOT going to be able to provide a transcript.) I look forward to your constructive comments so that the article can be submitted for re-review after we've addressed those ACTIONABLE points. (Because you can't act on "business smacks of middle-schooler-esque sloppiness" no matter how constructively you thought this comment was.) --LauraHale (talk) 23:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

If I didn't know better, I'd think everyone is feeling a tad stressed. I've spent an appalling number of reviews looking for ways to make my review comments educational (regardless of whether there's hope for the particular article being reviewed). If I'm better at it now than I started out, that didn't happen overnight. --Pi zero (talk) 00:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Stress would be it. It is just really hard to figure out what to fix when there are comments like this. "Sentence structure needs improvement. Things are confusing as written." at least gives an idea of what to fix. Middle school comment makes it seem like no desire to see article get passed. --LauraHale (talk) 01:15, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

It is very much clear that they don't want me here going by the comments made on my talk page. It has me upset and pissed off that such attacks seen on en Wiki or Commons is also happening here. 153.107.33.156 (talk) 04:56, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────┘
Having had a good night's sleep, I took another look at how this could be done.

I've created this example because I think things went wrong due to Bidgee feeling pressured to write more than was needed. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Perfectly brilliant. --Bddpaux (talk) 17:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I left a remark on Bidgee's talk page; basically, I didn't want to leave things on a note portraying WN:Never assume as somehow at fault. The remark is meant simply as food for thought; I'm just noting it here against the chance it might somehow be overlooked. (Drafting WN:Never assume was a huge deal, years in the making, and I didn't want its deeper facets overlooked; I guess I was alarmed by the suggestion it's possible to lean too far toward it. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 02:46, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Review

Hi. I do not understand what do you want to mean with "need of sources" with article http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Artur_Balder_awarded_with_the_International_Spanish-American_Prize_2012 I want to improve it, but I do not unserstand what you wrote about sources, since they are realible.--FiloActual (talk) 16:48, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Yanklish

Well, you learn something every day... Bencherlite (talk) 09:27, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Oops

diff. --Pi zero (talk) 12:12, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Phelps article

Is it stale? I'd thought I saw something go by on RC that suggested the author was updating it with developments on the 3rd. --Pi zero (talk) 00:30, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

I can easily imagine I'm just not understanding the situation. (I'd like to, though.) --Pi zero (talk) 03:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

It was a weird one.......it was stale, but not in the traditional sense. If the first article had been published quickly, this discussion would've never come up. But, (since it's a busy guy participating in several events), there was a lot of stuff developing very quickly. So, I've tried to re-calibrate the article to focus on ALL THINGS ACCOMPLISHED BY MR. PHELPS during the 2012 Olympics. By the time I was about to publish, Mr. Phelps had already "changed" his record(s). See what I mean? --Bddpaux (talk) 04:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes I do see; or think so, anyway. Stale in the sense of "things have moved on, too late for that to be a snapshot of how things are". Which goes back to the primordial principles from which the concept of staleness emerges (the other primordial principle that leaps to mind is "someone asking for 'news' would not expect to hear about that anymore"; one wonders in there are any other principles in the mix). --Pi zero (talk) 11:01, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe you were thinking of the second principle I mentioned. Okay, maybe I'm not so sure just what you mean (though certainly staleness can't just be determined from a formula). But I do note, re your reworking of the article, that my big priority today is reviewing William's On the campaign trail, likely to take substantially all my energy today; so don't be surprised if other things on the queue don't get attended promptly. --Pi zero (talk) 11:14, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Drought conditions across much of US impacting fracking activity

I can understand your wanting to give it a try; it's an interesting topic. After meditating on it for a bit, though, I felt in current form it wasn't working. --Pi zero (talk) 03:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Meh, I've been at this long enough now that I can even sense when I try to "stretch" my OR (the whole "turn a sow's ear into a silk purse" adage comes to mind!). The whole mess would make for a good article, but trying to pluck one news event will be tricky. I'll keep fracking away at it! --Bddpaux (talk) 04:52, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bddpaux/Archive 2. You have new messages at User_talk:Jeffwang.
You can remove this notice by removing {{replied}} from your talk page.

Wildfires spread across parts of Oklahoma

I was honestly unsure whether to publish it as-is. The article was, realistically, a victim of the tapped-out state I tend to go through after a marathon review; if I'd got to it a day earlier, I'd likely have not-ready'd it with suggestions for improvements. At any rate, I did offer some criticisms in the review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 04:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks!Is this what you mean with copy-editing?Guptakhy (talk) 02:20, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Don't take things personally

We all have a commong goal here, to produce quality news reports. In the process we hope to provide a service to our readers. You should not take commentary on your articles personally. You should know that Wikinews is not a blog, or a small-town paper.

Tramping about calling people "sport" and "gilligan" is not going to win you any friends. If you are serious about your writing, your pieces should be able to withstand a little scrutiny without you having to resort to childishness. In journalism, it is important to be able to establish a rapport with people. Being condescending is no way to do that.

I am happy to help you in any way I can. Please let me know if I can be of assistance. Tadpole256 (talk) 20:47, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me both of you need to depersonalize this some. And, Tadpole256, the issue of newsworthiness of the article has been discussed on-wiki by multiple reviewers already, so that Bddpaux is alerted in advance to possible difficulties when the piece is submitted — which it hasn't been yet. --Pi zero (talk) 22:37, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Bddpaux, I've registered my continuing lack of certainty on the article talk page, and removed the tag from the article. I reckon you're mature enough to weight the issues for yourself without being beaten over the head with a {{not news}}. --Pi zero (talk) 23:34, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry BDDPaux... While you were chasing firetrucks with your camera, I was chasing something a bit more dangerous in the middle east. Sorry that I cannot spend my every waking moment here, I also serve my country in addition to writing the occassional Wikinews article. That does not make my contributions less valuable than yours, nor does it make your contributions more news-worthy. Someone hitting a 40 year career milestone is not News... Sorry. I was not attempting to declare a jihad on your story, but it is clear I am not the only one who questions it's newsworthiness. You've written a lot of good articles, perhaps I was a bit quick with a tag, but for you to jump in and start calling people "Gilligan" is just down-right childish. There is no need for an apology, I've survived worse offenses, but you should be a bit more considerate of people. If you really want to make it in journalism, or online for that matter, you're gonna have to have a thick skin, and learn not to take things so personally. Tadpole256 (talk) 00:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Heh. I wish you could drub that into a few Wikipedians, Tadpole256. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Dropbox

I saw your email regarding Dropbox this AM, very early this AM.

Assuming you've accepted the invite to share the "Wikinews" folder, that should appear as a sub-folder of your Dropbox folder. Inside the Wikinews folder you'll find "upload_JWS" and "upload_enWN" folders; it is only files placed in these folders that will be uploaded. Where-to should be pretty obvious.

I wondered if you'd sussed that after emailing me, but I see that it was actually Bidgee making use of the dropbox to upload stuff. Once a couple of other people have succeeded in testing out the bot, I'll be rounding up a few folks to vote on giving it a bot flag — unless there's a consensus that we all want to see the uploads in regular RC. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Citizens' feelings, actions throughout Texas regarding West Nile virus threat vary greatly

I feel, particularly considering you cite earlier articles in related news (i.e. using our coverage as sources) this is an ideal candidate to lift several paragraphs from prior coverage to make this article more in-depth.

That's a common mainstream practice, and generally works well because you've zero copyvio risk, and minimal work to segue from the new material into the older stuff as depth/background. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:52, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

and so, I did just that! I'd actually thought to do that while originally writing, but, uh, sorta forgot to do it!! --Bddpaux (talk) 15:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

prezi.com

Well, nasty tech. problems for the workshop - no thanks to a router/switch somewhere in London. But, here's the prezi I put together for it: http://prezi.com/lvarzngx9vrd/wikinews-london-workshop/ A bit rough round the edges, and I'm going to go through a copy of it and make extensive changes to allow it to be repurposed for additional uses. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Review help

Hi. If you get the chance, can you help with the Paralympic article review backlog? The shooting ones should be relatively straight forward. --LauraHale (talk) 10:08, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Review request

Hi. Can you place a priority on reviewing 15 medals awarded on fourth night of track and field at London Paralympics? This is the Oscar Pitrious article, and that is hugely, hugely, hugely popular Paralympic news wise. --LauraHale (talk) 23:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Philippine economic growth slows slightly in 2nd quarter of 2012

Surprised to see this one released with a major factual error in the first sentence that I raised twice on the talk page, viz growth is per annum not for the quarter! Philafrenzy (talk) 22:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

That's the terminology used to describe what happened by three out of four of the sources of the article. Even the Financial Times describes it that way. However, clarity is obviously far preferable. I've carefully investigated your submitted edit to the article, which is supported by being noted in one of the four cited sources (BBC), and being satisfied it's correct (with terminology adjustment for clarity), deemed it acceptable and sighted it.

Calling it a "major factual error" is... I'll be polite and call it "alarmist". --Pi zero (talk) 23:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

There's no need to be polite, if you have something to say feel free to say it. I don't appreciate being patronised. I twice raised this issue on the talk page. 5.9% for a quarter is a totally different story to 5.9% for a year, and a major error in the context of this article. Philafrenzy (talk) 23:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews is, more or less, at opposite ends of two different spectra from Wikipedia: Wikipedia strives to force people to "get along" in the short term, and to achieve quality in the long run. (It'd take at least lengthy essays to do justice to the successes and failures of Wikipedia on each of these counts.) Wikinews strives for quality in the short run and for people to "get along" in the long run. How to get along with others isn't something we enforce here (eg, no AGF), but in the long run you'll be far more useful to the project if you put effort into how you say things — without pulling punches on what you say. I said "alarmist" and I meant it, I just could have made it stronger in a way that would have served no useful purpose other than to gratuitously insult (which I've no reason to do, at this point).

If it seems like I'm being a bit oblique in making some of these points, well, deep understanding though very difficult is still not as difficult as explaining one's deep understanding. I've spent several years of intense study understanding Wikinews; explaining what I've learned is a greater challenge. I'm doing my best. --Pi zero (talk) 00:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, to add at least a drop of entertainment, I read Philafrenzy's comment(s) on the talk page, and I suppose I was too dense 4 hours ago to properly assimilate it/them into my review process!! --Bddpaux (talk)

Thanks

But I'm quickly remembering why I walked away from other wikis after years of service.--Crossmr (talk) 23:29, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Bddpaux, this is not a user worth expending effort on. Rather than read policy, and try to see where perfectly legitimate criticisms of xyr work was justified, they adopted the Wikipedian "I will talk you to death" approach. They then pulled out the "I'm a newbie, you're discriminating against me" shtick.

Just look at the latter edits to the article they tried to put forward; add more sources we, and potentially they, cannot read. Those stuck in without a single character of content based upon those sources, and back to the "I'll talk you to death" approach.

Wikipedia has a hell of a lot to answer for in terms of creating mindless and unbelievably verbose windbags, who achieve nothing more than a handful of words in main namespace. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:21, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Almost there... more requests...

We have four days of the Paralympics left. :) Almost done. (I'm getting as close to tired of writing as I am you're probably getting of writing. Sleep would be nice.) We're backlogged again with 6 unreviewed articles. Help with that would be fantastic. --LauraHale (talk) 08:19, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Always look for more-concise titles

Human Rights Watch publishes documents that alleges the United States cooperated with Libya regarding torture versus

Human Rights Watch publish documents alleging US cooperated with Libya on torture

Managed to drop 28 characters there, which is kinda important for what the article looks like, particularly if used on a main page lead. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Long headlines can also be a problem when pushing the published stories out to Facebook, which has a maximum title length that's no all that difficult to approach or exceed. --Pi zero (talk) 18:22, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Something else bothered me belatedly about this article. The lede appears to be attributed, in its entirety, to one of the sources. That makes the article sound as if it's single-source (actually it makes it sound like the whole article is a rip-off of the Huffington Post), and hopefully it's a misuse of attribution. :-S --Pi zero (talk) 23:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm back!

Hey! Good to hear from you. I haven't logged in since January, but I'm back now! Ragettho (talk) 17:51, 7 November 2012

Girl Car Death

Hi,

I think I found some information about the girl who died: http://www.madisonjournaltoday.com/.

-- CalF (talk) 17:28, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Found an obit; doesn't mention how she died, and surprisingly, disagrees with the MJT article about her age.

http://www.mainstreetnews.com/archives/26455-Caitlyn-Christy-11-13-12.html

The MJT article is, specifically,

http://www.madisonjournaltoday.com/archives/5669-Teen-dies-following-wreck-on-Colbert-Danielsville-Road.html

Haven't found a second source for the accident itself, unfortunately, though did find syndication of the same article in another paper. --Pi zero (talk) 18:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

U.S. employees, customers express disapproval over 'Black Friday' activities

It'd be great to see this brought up-to-date. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:52, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Oregon mall re-opens after shooting leaves three dead, others injured

Besides some too-close-to-source difficulties (which I think I cleared up), I'm afraid I had some verification difficulties. See review comments. This would be good to get published, following the shooting in Connecticut. --Pi zero (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews interviews member of the Texas Nationalist Movement

The interview as a whole doesn't sound, I admit, as alarmingly "softball" as the first question alone looks on the developing transcript (I listened to the audio exactly because I was disconcerted by the first question). Still. How did you prep for the interview, choosing questions? We've got, after all, experienced political interviewers in the Wikinews community, to draw on for advice. In the long run we want Wikinews to become (among other things) a repository of easy-to-access journalistic help. Advance prep can make an incredible difference in the results of an interview. I'm remembering BRS's bipilar/schizo article, where he did a phone interview with one of the lead researchers, and with help from another Wikinewsie he came up with questions so good the interviewee asked him if he was a geneticist. --Pi zero (talk) 13:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

stupid question

Um... just now I saw you wrote that you don't like a sentence written in the active voice. It's probably a stupid question, but is the active voice discouraged now? Before my wikibreak, I was told not to use the passive... Thanks. Kayau (talk · contribs) 06:22, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

No, active voice is still highly encouraged.........I really should've said 'terse style' instead. It's just a wordy sentence.....but nothing to get in a twist over this far after publication. --Bddpaux (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Regarding an old message by you

Just got back, sorry been really busy and stressed Danger^Mouse (talk) 13:08, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Sighting unpublished articles

You inadvertently sighted a couple of unpublished articles in recent times. I caught them (of course, or I wouldn't know they'd happened) and de-sighted them. Just a heads-up. --Pi zero (talk) 19:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Wanna know something funny? I'm not entirely certain that I understand all the parameters re: sighting....! I'm just not! When is it OK/when is not OK? Should I NEVER do it........should I JUST RARELY do it? I need a little tutorial on sighting.--Bddpaux (talk) 03:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

There's mainspace, and then there's elsewhere.

In mainspace, don't ever sight an unpublished article, and don't sight redirects either. When the review gadget publishes an article, it sights the published revision. Once the article has been published, there are two reasons not to sight an edit you make yourself, and if neither of them applies, there's no harm in sighting it yourself. When in doubt, don't self-sight.
1. Sometimes the edit requires independent review — because it's a substantive change, and we don't self-publish. A technically small edit can be substantive, depending on what it is. I doubt anything I say will fail to have exceptions; even what I've already said about this case has exceptions under truly extraordinary circumstances — things that I've only seen happen a few times in the years I've been here. Like the time we accidentally published a blatant copyvio (which led to a voluntary relinquishing of the review bit for several months).
2. Sometimes one wants a second opinion on whether an edit is okay. For example, most formatting changes are usually not considered substantive —in the archives, I routinely change wikilinks and categories, fix capitalization of author names in the Sources, add or modify Sister links sections— but sometimes the changes are potentially controversial, and leaving an edit for someone else to sight can be an effective way to prevent edit wars: If two people make the change (one to edit, one to sight), someone who disagrees may be more inclined to discuss first rather than simply revert.

Choice of image is considered part of the content of the article, therefore we don't replace images with other images once the article passes the 24-hour horizon after publication (see here). However, image captions are in a sort of twilight, between archiveable content and peripheral formatting; one judges on a case-by-base basis how reluctant to be able changing them. They're generally safer to change than the article proper... though in a photo essay the image captions might be the content.

Outside of mainspace, things are usually much more relaxed. Some templates are used in mainspace, but otherwise, non-mainspace pages aren't actually published so there's no question of self-publication. The primary consideration is therefore wanting a second opinion.

--Pi zero (talk) 14:02, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Request for reviewing and other assistance

Hi. Next week is the start of the IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships and two Wikinewies will be attending to cover the para-alpine skiing ahead of the 2014 Winter Paralympics . This is part of an effort outlined at Wikinews:IPC Alpine Ski World Championships. Immediately following this event, there will be a Meetup in Barcelona where Wikinews, the Paralympics and efforts to similar sport coverage will be discussed. At the moment, there are only two active reviewers on a daily basis. Demonstrating an ability to get reviews for these types of events done quickly is important for Wikinews credibility and gaining access to these types of events. I would really appreciate it if you could sign up on the IPC World Championship page to review, promote articles published during this period, assist in translating these articles into another language or attend the meetup in Barcelona. Thanks. --LauraHale (talk) 09:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you :) --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 17:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Partial reviews complete

I did two partial reviews: The article about the Australian Governor General and the death of the person at 82 years of age. Both just require the videos being watch to make sure they support the text. (The 82 year old one would be the second paragraph only.) Once done, they should be good for publishing. --LauraHale (talk) 05:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

In recognition for your help on Country superstar Mindy McCready commits suicide

Thanks for your help with the article. TucsonDavidU.S.A. 15:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC)