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.


Malfunction

edit

Hi, I've had to block AvicBot as it is malfunctioning. Special:BrokenRedirects is not an area for a double-redirect bot on this wiki; it is doing damage by removing chains of intentionally-broken optional redirects from what is essentially a deletion queue used to allow deferment and monitoring of tedious tasks. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 13:23, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Blood Red Sandman: Duly noted. I've disabled EnWn from AvicBots redirect work. Sorry about that, and thanks for the heads up. Do you want me to go back and revert the fixes? -Avicennasis (SWMT) 13:30, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'd prefer the bot goes back to fixing double redirects, as was its function, and leaves broken redirects alone. Double redirect bots are convenient to have around. But yes, if you could please rebreak any "fixed" broken mainspace redirects, that would useful. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 13:32, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Blood Red Sandman: Hmm. Can you point out an example of one of these ""fixed" broken mainspace redirects"? Looking at AvicBot's mainspace contribs doesn't show any recent edits, unless they've already been deleted? -Avicennasis (SWMT) 13:37, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
Here, talkpage for a mainspace redirect, which would have showed up in BrokenRedirects (and simultaneously alerted one to its orphaned counterpart; I am one volunteer, and cannot monitor every queue). Both 'halves' of the redirect (main and corresponding talk) fall to be deleted, much like the talkpage for a deleted mainspace article is tied to that article. The bot broke a second chance to find it, and it was by sheer luck I noticed. BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 13:47, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Blood Red Sandman: Hmm. AvicBot doesn't process broken redirects. It looks like at the time AvicBot made that edit (16:54, 29 January 2017) it was a double-redirect, which was fixed in that edit. It would have become a broken redirect at 18:36, 29 January 2017 when you deleted Talk:U.S. federal judge halts Trump's ban on refugees, people from Muslim countries entering the U.S.. So in this case, AvicBot just did his job of only fixing double-redirects. -Avicennasis (SWMT) 13:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
<scratches head> That leaves me wondering... Why is the bot working on articles that aren't published, and hence have potentially unstable titles? BRS (Talk) (Contribs) 14:00, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Blood Red Sandman: AvicBot processes anything that shows up at Special:DoubleRedirects, whether it's published or not. The MediaWiki software makes no distinction on redirects there. -Avicennasis (SWMT) 14:03, 30 January 2017 (UTC)Reply