Pi zero

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Wikinews is a profoundly collaborative project. Our collaboration is different from the sort most familiar on Wikimedia sister projects, in which multiple users collaborate on a work by division of labor within the single task of authorship. Authorship of a Wikinews article is typically due to a single reporter — but without exception, every article we publish is a collaboration between reporter(s) and reviewer(s). There seems to me to be a very high correlation between contributors who embrace the collaborative reporter/reviewer relationship, and contributors who succeed on Wikinews. Those who see review as a bureaucratic stumbling block on the way to publishing the reporter's contribution are missing much of the essence and richness of the Wikinews experience. Even in the most straightforward review, the reviewer adds immense value by assuring the work has been carefully vetted by someone well versed in project standards and independent of the authorship of the article. The reviewer's copyedits and review comments on a passing review are tools for the enterprising reporter to apply to self-improvement. Feedback on a not-ready review can be, if anything, even more valuable — at least for future articles, but some of the most all-around rewarding collaborations on the project can be articles that were found not-ready, industriously improved by the reporter(s), and ultimately were published as distinctly stronger articles than they started out. To say nothing of the personal growth any review experience affords to the reviewer.

Infrastructure

Structural improvements to Wikinews get done in time spared from the primary activity of the project, and that can easily push them beyond the time horizon for automatic archiving of the water cooler. Here are some things I have in mind. The ordering of the list has nothing to do with importance.

• User:Pi zero/dialog/punch list.

• User:Pi zero/essays/Meta-assistance

• User:Pi zero/essays/What to do when given a not-ready review

• WN:HOW. See proposals water cooler.

• Plagiarism. Key challenge is how to illustrate effectively, so that authors understand at a deep level what it means to not piece together passages from different sources. Have been struggling with a draft at User:Pi zero/essays/How to use sources without plagiary, but there is also a problem with people understanding why. See proposals water cooler, plagiarism talk, policy water cooler, Wikipedia Signpost, Wikibooks.

• Transclusion count: https://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/embeddedincount.py?db=enwikinewss&title=Template%3A<name>

• Upgrade of behavioral infrastructure.

• The old WN:AGI was replaced by WN:Never assume. See proposals water cooler, user talk.
• Past notes from which to glean some value:

• May require two branches, one pessimistic (how to get past problems) and one optimistic (idealistic inspiration, the lifeblood of all WMF projects, to motivate contributors to get past problems). AGI, which didn't work on the pessimistic side, wasn't even in the running on the optimistic side.
• As part of the overall solution, WN:Etiquette needs to be overhauled.
• Also, look at the overall network of such pages and consider what to do about Professionalism/NPA.

• Make page moves of published articles subject to peer review. Was discussed here.

• What to do about portals. One approach would be to resurrect them with leads, mentioned here; seems difficult, but may be possible with help from a publication-assistant. Alternatively, portals may be useful for dealing with things like sets of possibly-small categories.

• Resolve questions surrounding Category:Wackynews.

• Can of worms about review. There was this, and more generally the that.

• Further clarify the responsibilities of reviewers. Obviously this is entangled with article lifecycle.

• Provide a quick-reference checklist of things to remember to consider when reviewing. Also entangled with lifecycle. This is mostly what I'd envisioned for WN:Tips on reviewing articles.

• Work out a proposal for how to deal with the outstanding userbox whitelist remedy. old proposed policy;  DR for that;  motion to overturn remedy;  from the 2010 arbcom gauntlet election, my own (somewhat hyperbolic, but still interesting) comment.

• Look into SG guidance on single quotes versus double quotes.

Trophy case

I, Tempo, award you the Copyeditor's Barnstar for your work copyediting our articles. Keep it up! Tempodivalse [talk] 01:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

To Pi zero, for all the vandalism and other crap he deals with on a daily basis:). Gopher65talk 23:37, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

On behalf of, and in the name of the Cable of Wikinews Incorporated. For doing those jobs that we are to lazy to do Brian 23:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The Original Barnstar I, Bddpaux, hereby award you this barnstar for your continuous and professional input (and output!). Bddpaux (talk) 01:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I, William S. Saturn, hereby award Pi zero the Wikinews Trophy for his tireless efforts in thoroughly reviewing and copy editing articles, and maintaining journalistic integrity at Wikinews.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not here often, but I can see you deserve (yet another) barnstar. Here is the Tireless Barnstar. --SVTCobra 23:50, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I, Bddpaux, award you the Copyeditor's barnstar for your tireless work and all around general greatness at all things journalistic in nature! Hang in there!--Bddpaux (talk) 15:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Congratulations, Pi zero. You have accumulated over 100,000 edits on Wikinews! For this amazing achievement, which I believe is a first in Wikinews history, I award you the Golden Barnstar of the Busy Bee. --SVTCobra 22:01, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I, 14.139.242.195 (talk) (the IP of acagastya) award you the team barnstar for the tireless contribution to keep Wikinews updated! 14.139.242.195 (talk) 02:03, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I hereby award Pi Zero this barnstar for reviewing articles to filter out bias, plagiarism, and other such things from Wikinews' front page. --Leugen9001 (talk) 04:50, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Dealing with the group stage was a pain in the arse. Dealing with my mood swings, I believe, was harder. Congratulations. We have the entire set of the World Cup match reports and we can also have tonnes of categories. Thanks for reviewing 1000000 match reports! Here is a barnstar for that! 223.237.199.112 (talk) 10:46, 16 July 2018 (UTC

A barnstar for you, for helping me keep my promises and commitments, and for the tireless effort! •–• 00:02, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you tirelessly working on the Taliban category which would have been so tedious! •–• 19:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

And one more, for managing to review gigantic campaign trails! •–• 23:06, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I, Acagastya, hereby award Pi zero this Wikinews Trophy for going through so many (!!!) original reports and publishing them. Without pi, none of this could have been achieved. (1 January 2021)

To Pi Zero from Dylan Smithson (J.J.) for your good work. Thanks for all your help with everything. (21 February 2021‎)

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Notice of Appreciation

To Pi zero, for his tireless copyediting and reviewing of articles. You're perhaps the best reviewer we've got and, by some measures, one of the only perpetually active ones. Keep up the great work--it's very much appreciated. Tyrol5 (talk) 19:45, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

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Notice of Appreciation

For your fantastic, relentless contributions to this service, which are on a scale no other user seems able to match these days; for endeavouring to improve my articles through copyedit and review, amongst those of countless other users. I'm sure they appreciate your support too. I undoubtedly do. --Rayboy8 (talk) (contributions) 23:03, 11 May 2015 (UTC)