Welcome to Wikinews

A nice cup of coffee for you while you get started

Getting started as a contributor
How to write an article
  1. Pick something current?
  2. Use two independent sources?
  3. Read your sources before writing the story in your own words?. Do choose a unique title? before you start.
  4. Follow Wikinews' structure? for articles, answering as many of who what when where why and how? as you can; summarised in a short, two- or three-sentence opening paragraph. Once complete, your article must be three or more paragraphs.
  5. If you need help, you can add {{helpme}} to your talkpage, along with a question, or alternatively, just ask?

  • Use this tab to enter your title and get a basic article template.
    [RECOMMENDED. Starts your article through the semi-automated {{develop}}—>{{review}}—>{{publish}} collaboration process.]

 Welcome! Thank you for joining Wikinews; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. To help you get started we have an essay that will guide you through the process of writing your first full article. There are many other things you can do on the project, but its lifeblood is new, current, stories written neutrally.
As you get more involved, you will need to look into key project policies and other discussions you can participate in; so, keep this message on this page and refer to the other links in it when you want to learn more, or have any problems.

Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
  Used to contributing to Wikipedia? See here.
All Wikimedia projects have rules. Here are ours.

Listed here are the official policies of the project, you may be referred to some of them if your early attempts at writing articles don't follow them. Don't let this discourage you, we all had to start somewhere.

The rules and guides laid out here are intended to keep content to high standards and meet certain rules the Wikimedia Foundation applies to all projects. It may seem like a lot to read, but you do not have to go through it all in one sitting, or know them all before you can start contributing.

Remember, you should enjoy contributing to the project. If you're really stuck come chat with the regulars. There's usually someone in chat who will be happy to help, but they may not respond instantly.

The core policies
Places to go, people to meet

Wiki projects work because a sense of community forms around the project. Although writing news is far more individualistic than contributing to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, people often need minor help with things like spelling and copyediting. If a story isn't too old you might be able to expand it, or if it is disputed you may be able to find some more sources and rescue it before it is listed for deletion.

There are always discussions going on about how the site could be improved, and your input is of value. Check the links here to see where you can give input to the running of the Wikinews project.

Find help and get involved
Write your first article for Wikinews!

Use the following box to help you create your first article. Simply type in a title to your story and press "Create page". Then start typing text to your story into the new box that will come up. When you're done, press "save page". That's all there is to it!



It is recommended you read the article guide before starting. Also make sure to check the list of recently created articles to see if your story hasn't already been reported upon.

--Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 13:43, 9 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

asking for help

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As a general rule its better to ask for help with an article on irc, or on a single page such as Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance. Sometimes its considered impolite to post the same message to the talk page of multiple uninvolved editors (As it looks like spamming). Cheers. Bawolff 05:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Sorry :) --Adi4094 (talk) 05:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

No worries. Bawolff 05:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)Reply


To keyboards!!

 

Points to remember

The competition page is here. Remember, you'll need to move from the newcomers to experienced section as the competition progresses.

Everyone who's new to Wikinews remind yourselves of the article guide and style guide. And, use the Enter an article tab in this template to correctly start your competition articles.

Getting Help

Possibly the fastest way to get help is to look for the regulars in the #wikinews IRC channel on Freenode. See this page for more details. Remember, many people will lurk, connected long-term, but not regularly checking for messages. Please be patient when looking for answers to queries, it can be annoying to see someone ask a question but leave before you notice it.

The usual places to look
Start here for competition-ready templates

Use this form to create a competition-ready article. Be sure to check the Main page and Newsroom to see you're not creating a duplicate. Please also add your article and point score to the log so that your score can be counted.



Good luck!

Mikemoral♪♫ 15:34, 26 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Don't forget to add Category:Adi4094 (WWC2010) and Category:Writing contest 2010 to the bottom of Seventeen dead in suicide attack on Kabul, Afghanistan and any other article you create for the writing contest. Wikinews articles based on articles from VOA News don't count. See Wikinews:Writing contest 2010 for more info. Good luck! --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 13:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

wwc

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—Message delivered by MikemoralBot on 00:37, 11 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Date formats and BBC News Online niggle

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Thank you for your contributions to Wikinews and for participating in the writing competition. Great stuff.

Whilst I personally don't like the format that has been adopted for dates in Wikinews articles, they should be in the form of MONTH DD, YYYY according to the style guide rather than the 14 March 2010 format you used on the French election article. Also a minor niggle, it is BBC News Online, not BBC online (otherwise the link doesn't work properly).

Keep up the good work. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 11:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Wikinews Writing Contest Newsletter

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