User talk:Blood Red Sandman/Archive 6

Email access?

Reset, and password via "email this user"? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• Please. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:08, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, scratch that. I found the password. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:15, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Good. I've had around 8 hours sleep, total, since Sunday. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:35, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

So you qualify as "not dead... yet." Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Replied to your comments at Talk:News_network_Al_Jazeera_America_launches

Just wanted to let you know - not sure if there's a Talkback on Wikinews. Theonesean (talk) 15:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for all your help with the Al Jazeera America article. Unfortunately, it's been more than three days, so unfortunately I can't keep writing it. I do enjoy Wikinews, however, and will certainly be back for more. Thanks, Theonesean (talk) 21:38, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Well I am happy to see someone with a bright outlook :) I am glad you found to like us. Please stick around as we do need all the help we can get! You aren't the only one with articles that ended up stale. I've had more than my fair share. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:40, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome. If you've learned from it (and enjoyed yourself!) then the effort wasn't wasted. Unfortunately it is quite common to lose your first article because our learning curve is very steep (at least it's short). You got close, though, so I'm looking forward to seeing your next submission. :) Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Re

Can you review the page i crated please? Thanks PassaMethod (talk) 11:21, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Red, HELLO! Email me all about WikiNews!

Red, (can I call you that? or should I call you Sandman or Blood?), Email me all about WikiNews, I am a creative writer (fashion journalist) from India, previously Mumbai and now in Calcutta, covered/attended Wikimania HK. I am completely technologically challenged, as most of the top fashion editors of India are/choose to be. Do let me know how to contribute in creative (non-technical) way in WikiNews. Also, the fashion articles about India, wow! Look at them, I wish we could both work on it and make them readable for the fashion fraternity! I see your immense contribution in WikiNews, congratulations for the same. Cheers from India - from Sou Boyy :)

PS: The Indian fashion articles need to be improved, also links to the article you edited, kindly add it, the space is so complicated accordingly to Indian standards (so westernized, non-Indian friendly) for any non-tech Indian writer/journalist, since you are veteran/expert and from a more technologically-advanced place, aid it. Txs -

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

(I tried adding the web links to the article, not sure in the proper format. Experienced Editors, please feel free to edit them like a fashion editor, since it is a fashion article (creative feature) and not a mere political news! Editing means, editing and publishing, not merely putting some tags and expect writers to do editing again! Do proper editing please!)

Hi. Your passion is admirable! Things such as minor source formatting is the sort of stuff a reviewer would fix. However, I have serious doubts about the viability of the article. The neutrality is non-existent and the whole thing reads like an {{editorial}}. You should really read the style guide before writing. Honestly, I question if the article is savable and it might be best to restart from scratch. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Red, Thanks for acknowledging the efforts, it takes a lot of time and effort to write something, and most writers and artists love their work like their own creation. In newspapers and magazines, it is being taught, a Editor needs to edit the piece and publish it, and not send it back to writer to do, writing is like painting and you cannot re-do a painting, as like painting, that you do with brushes, you paint a story/article with your words. Honestly, if you wish, you can edit the article and make it a news story, please do edit it and not merely put some tags (which is so difficult to understand). I mean, if you ever work in a large newspaper or a magazine, you know that writing, editing, copy-editing, proof-reading, releasing, publishing are different departments, a copy moves forward and not comes back to the writer, if it does, that's horrible/terrible editing. Indians as general comes from conventional schools of thoughts, and I would appreciate if you edit and make the article more nice, as I would do, and make it great if I would when I would edit/copy-edit articles of writers. Words that you use are jargons - "minor source formatting", "reviewer", and many others are difficult to comprehend. I appreciate your acknowledging my passion, I and many others Indians would love to write more on WikiNews, provided we are not forced to follow a purely western style. I guess WikiNews is international and not confined to super-developed western nations, hence, urge is to make it more friendly for creative people. Writing is an art! You may also email at sourendra.das@gmail.com. In India, we prefer more emails than chat forums like this, if you come to India you will find it out yourself. Looking forward to not going away from WikiNews but contributing more and helping WikiNews expand more in India. Look forward to more Editors like you coming from India too. Thanks from India. Sou.

Wikinews is not, however, a traditional media outlet. We have a very different workflow here that depends upon writers interacting with, and responding to the advise of, reviewers. That means learning how to provide material that will pass the review process. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Administrative action

I'll explain the action clearly on Jimmy's user talk. --Pi zero (talk) 13:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Again

Could you review my article again please? PassaMethod (talk) 16:28, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

another user has already reviewed. I'm currently giving some thought to how the article could proceed, if I have any ideas I'll comment on the article's talk page. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:08, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Ideas would be nice. Otherwise we end up deleting my hard work. PassaMethod (talk) 17:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you!

My first published article! Thanks for reviewing and editing for me! You're wonderful. Theonesean (talk) 21:52, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for putting such effort into the project! Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Your review

You removed a detail, and I clarified where it is from on the article talk, please take a moment to look. Thank you. Gryllida 13:13, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Barnstar

You are hereby awarded as the wiki member with the best member prize, congratulations! Anonymousnonentity (talk) 01:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Why thank you, oh anonymous person! :p Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:23, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on extension installation request

Could you please comment on Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Install_education_extension_on_English_Wikinews? It is a request to install an extension on Wikinews to ease some of our processes around working with university courses. --LauraHale (talk) 03:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

late image thread

I left a note on Computron's talk page asking for clarification as to what happened. --Pi zero (talk) 11:35, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:39, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Username req

Hello! Can you please change my username from "Guycn1" to "Guycn1 (unused)"? Guycn1 (talk) 19:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Please go to WN:CHU which is the appropriate place to make this request. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:23, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

ok Guycn1 (talk) 21:49, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Edinburgh Wikimeet

There's another Edinburgh Wikimeet, end next month (Sunday, October 27, 2013). They've picked the Malt Shovel as the location — from 12:30 onwards. Don't know if you'd be able to manage that, but thought I'd give you a decent amount of notice. I've flagged it up for the OpenStreetMap folks too, and will probably try to get a couple of local councillors to pop in and say 'hi' to the Wikimedian in Residence at the NLS.

Shame about the TB interview, but I can hardly be blamed for an octogenarian being hospitalised. I'm sure I'll get that one rescheduled, though. With my Windows install currently utterly fsck'd, I've some time whilst I format tools to do a reinstall/rebuild. I'd far-rather defenstrate the damn thing, but corporate sez "No" to that. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully doable, cheers for the decent heads-up. Would involve a coupla trains, which is always 'fun'. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:24, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

File:Yoshihiki Arita.jpg

• File:Yoshihiki Arita.jpg

Could you add a point by point fair use rationale for this one? -- Cirt (talk) 19:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

• File:Mikhael Mazilu.jpg and this one? -- Cirt (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
• File:Kishan Dholakia.jpg and this one ?-- Cirt (talk) 19:16, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

No, because they are correctly tagged {{publicity}} as-per WN:FU; "It should be noted some copyright tags have a fair use rationale built-in". Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:22, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I know it's not required, per se, but could you please add extra fair use rationale anyways? It's really best practice to do so. -- Cirt (talk) 21:07, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

<grin> I'll look into it tomorrow sometime, just for you :p Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:29, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Done Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:08, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! :) -- Cirt (talk) 07:24, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

File:Vaterite Spheres SEM.jpg

• File:Vaterite Spheres SEM.jpg

This one according to copyright notice posted here at the bottom appears to be copyvio, explanation? -- Cirt (talk) 19:18, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License." From the actual URL supplied. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:21, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Done, thanks for that extra info. -- Cirt (talk) 21:06, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I foresaw problems with this one in particular because of the way info was scattered around the place. Hence, my keenness to get them looked at while I remembered. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:31, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, sounds great. -- Cirt (talk) 07:24, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks much

Thank you for your Support of Wikinews interviews New York bar owner on Santorum cocktail for WN:FA, much appreciated, -- Cirt (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Blood Red Sandman/Wikinews interviews physicists on finding Atlantic vortices similar to black holes

Moved this to userspace rather than deleting. --Pi zero (talk) 19:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Kirkheaton and Huddersfield

Wondering whether you have local knowledge on this. I think I may actually remember this issue from the review (if not, there's some other similar case floating around out there); at the time, I observed that multiple sources described it so, and went with it. Thoughts? --Pi zero (talk) 10:56, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia identifies it as a whole three miles east of Huddersfield. I looked at Google Maps and whilst you can't deny they're close and well-connected, there is a distinct gap. The concept that villages should be annexed into nearby towns is mainly a creation of journalists trapped in concrete jungles, and I have a suspicion there's a subconscious jibe at local papers daring to treat them as places worthy of standing alone. It's not helped by Royal Mail, as it's a regular practice to place a large "postal town" on addresses. My best offer on such is to add "nr". BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:53, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm fine with a correction (I'll do that), but wanted to have a clear notion of what was going on, first. --Pi zero (talk) 12:57, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Docudays UA eleventh edition opens

How would have handled this review differently? --Pi zero (talk) 11:36, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I suspect explanations, if you understand the situation, would have been within limits for a reviewer. Leaving only captions as the main problem, they could be added after and left for somebody to sight. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 10:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

What do you feel is inadequately explained? I may have some sort of odd blind spot, here.

(I'm sad things have apparently not worked out well. At the time, I was pleased to be able to handle the article at all; since it can be difficult to recover from an OR article whose reporter didn't realize they needed to provide documentation, and on top of the usual difficulty of negotiating our way out of that hole there was also the prospect of some unknown degree of language barrier. I can see how it would have been good to ask for more captions, once the core problem was smoothed out; something to add to my repertory of techniques for occasional situations.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:39, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The headline talks of "Docudays UA"; the lede talks of the "International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival". Are those the same thing? Presumably they are, but the only mention of Docudays UA in the article body is a sideline mention of a sub-festival. What does UA stand for, if anything? All the DOCs in the article I imagine refer to documentaries. I suspect that would be 100% apparent once the lingering uncertainty about Docudays UA was cleared up. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 15:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Mm. Yes, it would be stronger were that point made clearer. --Pi zero (talk) 16:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews interviews Dr. Michael Mazilu on creating world's fastest spinning manmade object

Just wondering if you've any thoughts on this. I suspect the commenter won't be back, but that's as may be. --Pi zero (talk) 19:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Disruptive user

Hi Blood Red Sandman, a heads-up that the following article was created by a disruptive user who uses IPs from the Olive Hill, Kentucky / Morehead, Kentucky regions of the US. Molly Collins from The Amazing World of Gumball is missing!. I don't have any familiarity with Wikinews, but I'd recommend it be nominated for deletion. I'm not sure if the user has cognitive problems, but most of their contributions have comprised gibberish and talking to themselves, so I neither assume good faith nor competence. I've previously brought the user to Wikipedia's sockpuppet investigation page, with little lasting effect. Please see the SPI report. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Generally, we would leave such submissions to fall into the abandoned realm and be deleted. If they mostly mutter nonsense to themselves then disruption on this particular project should, touch wood, be minimal. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:37, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews analysis finds 4.9% of reported current NHL are concussions

If you have any thoughts on this, I'd welcome them. --Pi zero (talk) 12:18, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

{{topic cat}} tool

I gave up after the umpteenth Error: An error occurred in the OAuth protocol: Invalid signature, so you'll have to settle for copy and paste. Is this useful at all? It's rather buggy. Microchip08 (talk) 01:04, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Let's have a wee play with it... BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I also tried to make another tool that was supposed to check if a mainspace redirect existed, but it turns out that "does a page exist?" is a difficult question to answer (there's a reason {{#ifexist: is marked as "expensive"...), so now it just lists new categories, because Special:NewCategories doesn't exist. Nethertheless, it might come in handy. Microchip08 (talk) 14:14, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the biggest thing I missed was being able to hit preview and then open the links to sister projects to see if they led anywhere useful. I'd do unholy things if you could get a tool running that you could give a list of terms to and it'd redirect them; I appreciate that's likely to be the most difficult bit. The pipe= and the= parameters would be good to have. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:22, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's the canonical version: https://tools.wmflabs.org/mc8/topiccat/. My original intention was to OAuth to redirect/protect mainspace on your behalf, but after a day or so trying to figure out how to get it working properly I gave up and worked on the more useful bit :-). I'll work on adding links to the projects. Microchip08 (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I've added links to the projects in the template markup at the bottom, because I couldn't think of a better place to put it (having them next to the checkboxes seemed wrong, because you'd have to snipe the boxes themselves to select). It's unlikely that any of the ones not automatically ticked are going to be fruitful—but you can always toggle them on if need be. I added the colour coding from that gadget, but I'll probably revert that unless you really like it :). As for |the=, I'm guessing that it's needed so little that you can probably cope with adding |the=the every so often? Microchip08 (talk) 15:33, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Figuring out where to send the sister links is the main burden in setting up topic cats, I think, though there's also fiddly stuff to do with whether there should be "the" in front, whether to lowercase the main link to the name, etc. It can be downright complicated tracking down what page on a sister project is appropriate to link to, involving careful thought about the subject matter. --Pi zero (talk) 14:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

[EC] The tool isn't intended to be used without oversight. If I get OAuth going, I'll change the pre to a textarea and force a "I understand this is what I want to do" checkbox. The description isn't perfect (as it's a computer trying to figure out if it's a or an, for example). However because all the other projects hook into Wikidata, there's a very strong link that the pages it selects are appropriate (try an author: it'll link to s:Author:Cory Doctorow instead of s:Cory Doctorow). Some things won't be automatically there, (e.g. s:North Atlantic Treaty), but the ones it selects are unlikely to be wrong (there's too many Wikidata entries to make vandalism likely). Microchip08 (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I've just taken a close look at one created using the tool, to see what I'd do differently by hand (if I were being careful). Alas, I didn't also go looking at other sister projects in case there was something to be found there... though my guess is there wasn't anything to find, in this case. But looking at the tweaks I made might perhaps be of interest. --Pi zero (talk) 14:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

• It'd be nice to have some way of integrating Wikidata into the template (other than alongside the other sisters as now). I agree that it sits poorly amongst the other links, and is of little value to most casual readers. But it's also Cool as Shit™, not to mention highly useful. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 15:35, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I still don't understand why Wikinews appears to have opted out of Wikidata. That aside, I suppose we could put a icon in the corner with a link. Or maybe link to Manske's insanely crazy Reasonator? Microchip08 (talk) 15:38, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't recall us ever being asked about Wikidata. Less an opting out and more a not yet opted in. But bawolff (talk · contribs) is most likely to know more. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 15:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikidata has been discussed, I think maybe more than once, on the water cooler. Perhaps neither of you was about at the time (or, either time). Myself, I've never been convinced there's any merit to giving up control of part of our project to what afaics is an adjunct of Wikipedia that was created for lack of vision to devise and push through some better way of doing things. But you can hunt down the discussions for yourselves if you like. As best I recall, I was adamantly opposed to some things one might try to impose here from wikidata, dubious of some others, and indifferent to still others. And I suspect you'd find other opinions weren't all that different from mine. --Pi zero (talk) 17:14, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Or maybe I just don't recall them because they were technical. What little I've gathered just skimming through a few of theeir pages is they just sort of collate some stuff while we get on with our work. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:21, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Watercooler discussion: Possible memorial fund?

Hi. I started a discussion on the English Wikinews water cooler at Memorial fund in Ashley-Nelson and Adrianne Wadewitz's honor?. I would really appreciate any feedback you could provide. --LauraHale (talk) 15:03, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

women banned

Er. Yes, women are banned from participating on men's national teams by rule. The rankings in that article are ONLY for men's teams. The women's team rankings are updated in June. --LauraHale (talk) 18:25, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Women are banned from national teams? I've done much Googling and come up empty-handed on that. Wikipedia doesn't, on skim-reads, have any suggestion of this on w:Women's association football, w:FIFA Women's World Cup, w:FIFA World Cup. I can't imagine any form of discrimination legislation that wouldn't prohibit a ban on any woman talented enough to enter a full team. I could find an NHL example and there's been at least one Paralympian told they could compete in the main Olympics, but nothing on FIFA, partly due to relevant searches being swamped by articles on a reversed ban on headscarves etc. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:36, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I think I've tracked down the situation. Women are not banned... and yet they are. FIFA block main teams from hiring women, says yahoo answers, and I found an example of them doing such. "This is laid down in league football and in international matches by the existence of gender-specific competitions, and the Laws of the Game and Fifa's regulations do not provide for any exception," doesn't sound to me like they actually create any ban, either. What a mess. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:41, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Women are banned. I learned this writing Australia national association football team on English Wikipedia. Neither gender can play on the other gender's teams. Gender testing related to this is generally done to women who look like men, because generally people see no competitive advantage that would warrant an intrusive gender test by having a women play on a men's teams. Beyond that, there is a SEPERATE ranking for women's national teams due out in June. There is no women's national team on that list. Many national teams are descibed and men and women. Neutral is listing gender. Non-neutral in this case is presenting the men as the default and women as not. (Would you gender neutral and not mention the gender if this was women?) --LauraHale (talk) 18:45, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it's more subtle (and dirty) than that if you read the links. I'd like to go round some countries and talk to discrimination law experts on that. Non-neutral is calling it the men's team since FIFA are apparently contradicting themselves. In the article body that can be handled with clever wording but the headline is going to need more thought. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:51, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I've ended up going back to the original but I don't like it. After the upcoming cannabis rallies are out the way I'd like to do a big report on this with regards to discrimination law if you'd be keen to help on that. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:58, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The terminology is problematic because Spain's men team is the top ranked one, but FIFA treats the titles as (men) World Rankings, and Women World Rankings. The whole thing is really awful, and I am on an English Wikipedia break because I completely fucking derailed both here and English Wikinews in February over this issue.--LauraHale (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Understandable, I just got a potted summary from PiZ on irc. Well, I'm getting stuck into the review. Nice to see Greece knock England out of the top ten; I was in Greece when they won the euros and although I was young I still recall a damn good party. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:16, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Newsletter copy for this month

BRS, Could you take a look at this newsletter item and see if it is ok with you? You are quoted in this: [5] at Wikipedia Education Program. Thank you, Crtew (talk) 15:43, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry it took a couple of days; have been rather busy. That all looks great to me :) and a very positive report! BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:23, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Broken redirects

<*///>< Trout slap of the day: check for dangling redirects after deleting an abandoned article :-) Microchip08 (talk) 16:17, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

No. I hit BrokenRedirects en masse every so often, which is more reliable as it includes things I didn't delete. I emptied out one of our historic huuuge backlogs there some time ago. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:23, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay (although there's probably a case for clicking on the Special:WhatLinksHere banner when it appears, because backlogs are probably bad). Speaking generally, it seems a tad odd that we push fixing post-move broken redirects, but not fixing post-delete ones :). Microchip08 (talk) 16:30, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I have a link for checking all mainspace redirects that don't already belong to Category:Protected mainspace redirects. Starting with the most recent (and also starting with the oldest). Eventually that picks up the new broken redirects, except I haven't kept up with my general bookkeeping tasks lately (it seems like I should be so close on my tools, that when I have time I feel I should spend it on the tools).

When we set up tools for performing routine operations like this, the tools for deleting (or userspacing) abandoned articles should check for broken redirects. Though this reminds me of additional functions eventually needed on the tools... --Pi zero (talk) 17:53, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

How much backlog does a backlog require before a backlog becomes a backlog? I'm quite happy to power through a few dozen B0rkenRedirects every once in a while. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Depends on which task you think of it as part of. I think mainly in terms of protecting and categorizing all mainspace redirects, by which standard there are probably about fourteen thousand to go. How much backlog does a backlog require before it ceases to be a backlog, and becomes a long-term project? --Pi zero (talk) 18:08, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Reply

Replied at my user talk page. -- Cirt (talk) 14:30, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Image licensing

[template removed]

• File:Peanuts Joke Isn't Funny.png (orphaned fair use?)
• File:GurdianKular.JPG (no source)

Microchip08 (talk) 10:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

• Mikemoral (talk · contribs) would have been the obvious person to poke about the first, given he deleted the page using it. (I note it is also incorrectly tagged as lacking rationale). (I note also the fair use policy is several years overdue an overhaul.) The second cannot yet be sourced for legal reasons, unless done by either a non-UK editor or an editor willing to risk it. It will be sourced at the conclusion of legal proceedings, assuming no foreign hero steps in. See the article and its talk. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 10:36, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Category:Terrorism

Would creating Category:Terrorism be worth looking into? There's a Category:Terrorism alerts, Category:Terrorism convictions and Category:Terrorism laws, but we seem to lack an appropriate one for, say, the currently developing article Terrorists suspected of MH370's disappearance. Microchip08 (talk) 19:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

We're always leery of the word "terrorism" unless either it's someone's opinion we're quoting with attribution, or an objectively defined thing like the things listed above. There's no way to decide objectively whether someone is a terrorist, outside those objective contexts. Therefore we shouldn't try. --Pi zero (talk) 21:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

PiZ accurately describes the problem, and believe me, it's one of the banes of my life. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:41, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Input requested

Your laconic, and amused, input on this character and the discussion to ban would be most-welcome. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:28, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

California passes legislation to ban harmful toxins

Just a note to say that I undeleted an article you deleted, California passes legislation to ban harmful toxins after a request at my user talk page; I read the situation as uncontroversial, being a students' article that wasn't a copyvio (so it's not unreasonable that it would've been moved to userspace at the time, had the user asked), but please step in if you think I overstepped my mark. Thanks, Microchip08 (talk) 09:45, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

"Advice on a story idea"

I invite your thoughts at User talk:Pi zero#Advice on story idea. --Pi zero (talk) 10:30, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Noted. I'll have a think. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

An important message about renaming users

Dear Blood Red Sandman,

I am cross-posting this message to many places to make sure everyone who is a Wikimedia Foundation project bureaucrat receives a copy. If you are a bureaucrat on more than one wiki, you will receive this message on each wiki where you are a bureaucrat.

As you may have seen, work to perform the Wikimedia cluster-wide single-user login finalisation (SUL finalisation) is taking place. This may potentially effect your work as a local bureaucrat, so please read this message carefully.

Why is this happening? As currently stated at the global rename policy, a global account is a name linked to a single user across all Wikimedia wikis, with local accounts unified into a global collection. Previously, the only way to rename a unified user was to individually rename every local account. This was an extremely difficult and time-consuming task, both for stewards and for the users who had to initiate discussions with local bureaucrats (who perform local renames to date) on every wiki with available bureaucrats. The process took a very long time, since it's difficult to coordinate crosswiki renames among the projects and bureaucrats involved in individual projects.

The SUL finalisation will be taking place in stages, and one of the first stages will be to turn off Special:RenameUser locally. This needs to be done as soon as possible, on advice and input from Stewards and engineers for the project, so that no more accounts that are unified globally are broken by a local rename to usurp the global account name. Once this is done, the process of global name unification can begin. The date that has been chosen to turn off local renaming and shift over to entirely global renaming is 15 September 2014, or three weeks time from now. In place of local renames is a new tool, hosted on Meta, that allows for global renames on all wikis where the name is not registered will be deployed.

Your help is greatly needed during this process and going forward in the future if, as a bureaucrat, renaming users is something that you do or have an interest in participating in. The Wikimedia Stewards have set up, and are in charge of, a new community usergroup on Meta in order to share knowledge and work together on renaming accounts globally, called Global renamers. Stewards are in the process of creating documentation to help global renamers to get used to and learn more about global accounts and tools and Meta in general as well as the application format. As transparency is a valuable thing in our movement, the Stewards would like to have at least a brief public application period. If you are an experienced renamer as a local bureaucrat, the process of becoming a part of this group could take as little as 24 hours to complete. You, as a bureaucrat, should be able to apply for the global renamer right on Meta by the requests for global permissions page on 1 September, a week from now.

In the meantime please update your local page where users request renames to reflect this move to global renaming, and if there is a rename request and the user has edited more than one wiki with the name, please send them to the request page for a global rename.

Stewards greatly appreciate the trust local communities have in you and want to make this transition as easy as possible so that the two groups can start working together to ensure everyone has a unique login identity across Wikimedia projects. Completing this project will allow for long-desired universal tools like a global watchlist, global notifications and many, many more features to make work easier.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the SUL finalisation, read over the Help:Unified login page on Meta and leave a note on the talk page there, or on the talk page for global renamers. You can also contact me on my talk page on meta if you would like. I'm working as a bridge between Wikimedia Foundation Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Stewards, and you to assure that SUL finalisation goes as smoothly as possible; this is a community-driven process and I encourage you to work with the Stewards for our communities.

Thank you for your time. -- Keegan (WMF) talk 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

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Being bothered by User:Pi zero

He is bothering me with rubbish each edit. He is never contributing. He deletes articles comments sites here, although the article is existing. Articles under development are clean up articles. I might not write about RB Leipzig. My started articles have interest and he says that other archived articles are which from amateur clubs, university clubs or something else. He wants to rename my name here and is not rename me. My articles are written after the style such as about other proven football match reports. He is psychic unable to name reasons. Please remove him from the board! He neither productive nor socially competent or educated, for a globally representative on public free sites. --Nikebrand (talk) 21:41, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to assume this was dealt with in my absence. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Seasons Bleatings ...

... From the 'Blinking' Ferry Tap.
Image: Brian McNeil.

...And a cold beer in a pear tree? Cheers! :P Merry Birth of That Dude Christ to you too. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews:Story preparation/Commission finds UK mass murder convict may be innocent; orders new appeal

This popped up in the Newsroom story preparation section for me today. Seeing as the CCRC made its latest decision not to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal in April 2012 [6] and the attempt to get that decision quashed by the Administrative Court failed in November 2012 [7], is there any point in it sitting in the story prep section? Just a thought. Regards, Bencherlite (talk) 12:44, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to a shift to userspace. It'll come back round again, this one just never goes away. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 15:13, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

I'll leave it to you to do what you think best. Bencherlite (talk) 21:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Portals

When you change a portal to a redirect, do you check interwikis against those provided for the portal at Wikidata? Sometimes we have interwikis that haven't been entered there, and it'd seem a shame to lose that information (even though I think en.wn doesn't benefit directly because, last I heard, Wikidata does not support interwikis to redirects). --Pi zero (talk) 23:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Update: I did check the Portal:Nepal interwikis, and as a result, added one of them to the Wikidata Portal:Nepal item, and while at it did a lot of moving stuff around (several things under item Category:Nepal belonged under Portal:Nepal, and en.wn was the only Category:Nepal that was correctly under item Nepal instead of item Category:Nepal). --Pi zero (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm mostly not checking redirs. I didn't see any point given that enwn is shutting down portals and our local interwiki markup is, well, local. I am considering a Category:Redirected obsolete portals to keep track given that in theory the content can be resurrected if in five or six or ten years portals become viable again. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:52, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

As you wish. No problem. For my part, I did go back and check some of them, and found two fa.wn portals not listed at Wikidata; I figured adding them should benefit fa.wn, since it gives them more incoming links. (Btw, it looks like we (probably?) do still get the incoming interwikis to the portal.)

Speaking of fa.wn, at request I added this, which seemed to be in line with stuff brianmc had already added there; does that look okay to you? --Pi zero (talk) 01:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It looks okay, but then I'm probably not the person to ask. :P BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Could use your expertise at en.wikipedia ANI thread

Your block of Viriditas has caused some long-held ire, unfortunately.

Could use your expertise at en.wikipedia ANI thread, where the user is attacking myself and Pi zero (t · c · b) :

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Cirt.27s_track_record

Could you please comment there? Viriditas is trying to take this opportunity to attack you and create an ad hominem situation here.

Thanks for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I commented. It's been two (nearly three) years since the ban and I'm woefully inactive on enwp, so I'm afraid I have little expertise to offer any more. My firm advice would be to just ignore, based on a reread of the ban discussion. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll do my best to take your advice, it's good advice. :) -- Cirt (talk) 01:57, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

WMFOffice (talk · contribs)

I agree with your 'tweaked' revert of the changes to Poetlister (talk · contribs)'s talk; although, there is this discussion over on Meta. You probably saw I had to create the user page for Philippe (talk · contribs), so it might be worthwhile getting that statement de-personalised, and translated/put onto all the WMFOffice pages. What they're putting on pages as a template should — in the Poetlister case — follow local admin notes. The discussion over there is obviously going to be heated; so, thoughts? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Some sympathy for Philippe and co; but, interesting that is mixing in non-prejudicing of trials into argument. Not something the US is exactly famed for, and in the same breath they're trying to compare themselves to large US corporations. Personally, I'd have allowed Russavia the chance to get himself blocked by (or be resoundingly popular with) our local community if he had ever decided to come here. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Heh. Going with the "journalism is highly-skilled trolling" philosophy there. :P --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Reply

I must've set it for 2 years and it didn't go through for a few seconds. -- Cirt (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much

Thank you for your comments at WN:AAA in support of me.

Much appreciated,

-- Cirt (talk) 19:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Pricasso paints pleasing portraits with penis

• Pricasso paints pleasing portraits with penis

Thanks for your suggestions.

I've emailed Pricasso for an interview request. -- Cirt (talk) 21:03, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll try to keep an eye on things; am very tired this evening (21:05 here) after a 4:30a.m. start today. No doubt I'll look in tomorrow. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

If he doesn't respond to the interview request, I'd really appreciate any other suggestions or ideas you might have on how this could be an article that could be published. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 21:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Manually creating comments pages

Yes, the gadget hasn't automatically created comments pages for months. I've never been fast enough to capture the error message. I think I mentioned the failure to Bawolff once, and his reaction was fairly fatalistic; I now treat the manual creation of the comments page as part of the routine, and try to think of it optimistically as incentive to keep pushing toward the day when I can rewrite the gadget using dialog tools. --Pi zero (talk) 12:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That's received, thanks. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:37, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Brownie points

if you fix some of the problems in mentioned in the review, I promise to pay you back with some brownie points. I'm sort of desperate that my efforts don't go to waste in a "stale" scenario. I'm feeling slightly mellow (talk) 08:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

India-Pakistan Article

Thanks for briefing. The respective improvements have been made. Pakistan released 173 Indian prisoners at the Wagah border, please suggest further.--Abhinav619 (talk) 02:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Get your ass to Mars IRC

You might've seen the response I got from the DWP on their FoIA the Information Commissioner forced compliance on.

It's unacceptable. Children getting snitty with me, and about to get handed their arses in a sling. Not in a mood to pick apart the legislation right now (Nor Monday, and the same 5'4" redhead is the excuse.) However, they're taking the piss rather than write a handful of SQL queries. I need to get them to answer, or be taken to court, before the election. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:41, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Fb

Should you find yourself pushing an article to fb in a bit, I note the past two articles published have not yet been pushed to fb (the one I recently published, and one published way back on Thursday). --Pi zero (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I imagine I'll schedule them with hourly gaps, then. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I notice last night's Boko Haram article hasn't been pushed to fb yet, either (in addition, that is, to the new Mali article). --Pi zero (talk) 13:42, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Hm, okay, the Boko Haram article has been pushed. I wonder if that was you or Tom. (Sigh. Things were so much simpler before fb drove me off my account.) --Pi zero (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Same as before, I did it and scheduled the next one to go out about an hour later. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 15:03, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see it now. --Pi zero (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Cricket Page

Thanks for all the support.New Editors require guidance. Kindly look at the Collaboration page and suggest further. Abhinav619 (talk) 02:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Five dead after bar attack in Bamako, Mali

Thank you for the review comments on this. I will take this on board. Chandlerjoeyross (talk) 19:01, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Reviewer - CJR

• You want to take a quick look at CJR's recent articles, and give some thought to a third vote and speedy re-grant of priv bit? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:04, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Dozens dead in Connecticut school shooting

At first I'd thought the comma was sufficient and could be self-sighted; but after talking to someone else irl I concluded this is kind of controversial, whether the comma sufficiently clarifies the matter. So I unsighted my edit for you, or someone, to consider. --Pi zero (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I've attempted what I hope is an acceptable watering-down of the {{correction}}. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:30, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

YTN makes retractions following Jung Myeong Seok case

Hello! Quick question--

Recently the article I posted, "YTN makes retractions following Jung Myeong Seok case", was deleted after being listed as an abandoned article.

I had requested a peer review on the article, so just wondering if it is still possible for an article to be considered abandoned if no one reviews it... and if this may have been what happened?

Thanks!! GIOSCali (talk) 21:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

The article was created on August 21st, and was not put up for review. A warning tag was placed on it on the 26th, and ignored; it was deleted as usual two days later. By this time it was incredibly {{stale}}. When it was restored, word for word, on the 29th it was just the same article that had been abandoned since the 21st. There was no sense in reviewing that. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:34, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I was unaware of the four day rule when I originally posted the article, and so had not requested review. I recreated it and then put it up for review with an understanding of the policy. It was the same bc I had just forgotten to request the review. What would be the process going forward in order to get the article reviewed? GIOSCali (talk) 21:52, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

It's gone {{stale}}. Basically, you need a new article or at least a new focus. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

oh okay I see what you mean. In this case, the trial in question occurred in 2009, and the broadcast infractions themselves occurred more than a year ago, so the news would be relevant even if published a week or two later no? As in its not like a single isolated piece of news that took place, but it is part of broader story that has been developing for more than a decade GIOSCali (talk) 12:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Well. The "big picture" events you're talking about serve as background info. We still need a recent development to focus on, from the last few days. So the old material you've already written could be used as ready-made additional info to use on a piece focused on the next new development, whatever that might be. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

CNN

Thanks for adding those articles to the CNN category. Green Giant (talk) 13:30, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

No problem. I'm still working through some of them. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:31, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Kuiper belt

Apologies for poaching on your list of cats. --Pi zero (talk) 20:04, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Feel free. Seems you really were excited we could create that one. :P BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Disappointed

Disappointed at your vote to ban me from Wikinews. I thought I would be able to contribute. I guess not. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey there, hope you are well

Hey there BRS, hope you are well, been a while since we've been in touch.

Perhaps you could take a look at reviewing the new article I wrote -- Texas student Ahmed Mohamed inspires social movement.

Also, I'm not sure but it doesn't seem that articles needing review are always popping up for me in the right corner, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

I'll check to see if I can review any if available.

Cheers,

-- Cirt (talk) 01:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Cool to see you writing again! Work life puts a damper on my availability, but I try and make time here and there for enwn. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey so I ended up copy-editing / reviewing the article Volkswagen engulfed by diesel emissions scandal. Let me know if you can get a chance to review Texas student Ahmed Mohamed inspires social movement. Glad your work life is going good! -- Cirt (talk) 13:23, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Air Asia article

Promoted to FA. --Bddpaux (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Pushing to fb

If you get a chance, afaict we have quite a backlog of articles hoping to be pushed to fb (four, I think). --Pi zero (talk) 17:07, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

• Done Oldest out, next three scheduled. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:17, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

:-) --Pi zero (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

We've got another two, if you get a chance. (For some months I've been asking tommmorris to do it, but am not inclined to bother him just lately.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:05, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

One out, one scheduled. I'd thought I had done the coup one. :P BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

<hesitantly> ...a couple more, as of late yesterday? --Pi zero (talk) 12:14, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Is there any chance you could help out? We've missed pushing a bunch of articles. --Pi zero (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I tried the first of those not long after it was published but as I remarked on IRC fb isn't playing ball. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Yikes! It'd been so "long" — certainly subjectively, since so much has happened on en.wn since then — it had completely slipped my mind. --Pi zero (talk) 20:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. Is it still misbehaving? It's really frustrating to not have the fb feed. --Pi zero (talk) 17:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

No change? :-(  --Pi zero (talk) 01:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Not sure. I don't have much time for fb these days, and like to put my online downtime onto the wiki itself. I'll hopefully get a chance to check soon. I must admit to not really enjoying being the only fb volunteer active atm. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:52, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

I... understand not liking to be the only one around. Can't say I'm fond of it myself. --Pi zero (talk) 13:54, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

It's still tetchy, certain articles it would fail to offer proper image choice for. But, it was usable enough for me to load up a queue. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar

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)

• Thank you very much! BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:39, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Default sort

I wasn't sure about Wikinews guidelines on this, which is why I only sorted one category, to test the water, so to speak. I started off in Category:United States where for example, some people subcategories appear to be sorted by "first name" and others by "last name", which seems inconsistent. I'm not fussed which is used but I generally think it is neater to sort people by surname. Looking at the people subcategories currently under "L" as an example, we have:

• Lamar S. Smith‎ (which I'd have expected under "S")
• Jay Leno‎ (no problem)
• David Letterman‎ (no problem)
• Lou Dobbs‎ (which I'd have expected under "D")

It just feels a little disjointed that there isn't a single rule. What do you think? Green Giant (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd recommend not getting started with explicit default sort of categories, myself. It's complicated since different cultures use different rules for names, and we're mostly focused on accessing sets of articles using DPLs. --Pi zero (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The ones already using defaultsort are exceptions, really. Occasionally when converting old categories to {{topic cat}} I've actually stripped them out. Likewise, I'm not greatly fussed which we use; although, the point that some cultures (especially some Asian cultures) handle names totally differently is a valid point. Another question is if we should be consistent with how far down the regional tree we go. GWAR, for example, are so strongly tied to a specific city they can be sorted into it but at the cost we won't find them in Category:United States; at the other end, Barack Obama obviously can't be sorted any further than the national cat. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:38, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, fair enough. I take the point about DPL and other cultures. Cheers for the comments. Green Giant (talk) 20:58, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikinews 2015: An overview of the year

I think we should start preparing about it. I have just started it in my sandbox. Please help me in selecting the articles and content.
14.139.242.195 (talk) 11:56, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Heh. I'd just left some thoughts at User talk:Acagastya#Year-end articles. --Pi zero (talk) 12:10, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I've got an OR-only overview part prepped at User:Blood Red Sandman/2015 OR. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikinews interviews painter Pricasso on his art and freedom of expression

• Wikinews interviews painter Pricasso on his art and freedom of expression

It took me a while to research, do the interview, and put this all together. It was quite a coup to get a response back from the interviewee.

It's a nice piece related to freedom of speech and issues of censorship.

Do you think you could review it?

Thank you for your time,

-- Cirt (talk) 07:20, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I work long and irregular hours. Maybe (and I emphasise that word) mid-afternoon my time I'll take a stab at it. I've only skim-read it so far but it looks very promising. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 10:10, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words on my article about freedom of speech, most appreciated ! -- Cirt (talk) 17:26, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

archives central landing page

Jotted down some thoughts. User talk:Pi zero/Archives. --Pi zero (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm wondering if the image forming in my mind is similar to, or divergent from, what you'd imagined. I'm starting to picture a sort of third hub of site activity, along with the main page and the newsroom. (Although, come to think of it, I've never quite been happy with the newsroom. I want a busy room with desks and typewriters and old-fashioned phones and newsies coming and going and Clark Kent; and our newsroom has never lived up to my expectations, even when actual project activity levels were up. But that'd be a different design exercise.) --Pi zero (talk) 19:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes. That looks remarkably along the lines I was thinking. Retargeting WN:ARCHIVE is a tricky one I hadn't thought of; a technicality, but an important one. Both pages should have a logical link. Hmmm. As for the newsroom, in more active times I've heard a few users say they did indeed use it as a hub. Personally, I'm never there. Especially post-{{votings}}. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:20, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

True, in reality RC is my home base for the project; never really thought existentially about {{votings}}, probably because it predates me on Wikinews by a couple of years.

In navigational terms, an archives landing page would be another thing that (like these other three, but unlike the archive policy page) would belong on the left-hand nav bar. (Speaking of which, I've been thinking of adding WN:PILLARS there; have been taking plenty of time to consider since we don't want to overburden it.) --Pi zero (talk) 13:24, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

(Ah! Knew I'd seen some such somewhere. Not Wiktionary's RC, their Special:Watchlist.) --Pi zero (talk) 13:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Have actually tried adding 'pillars' to the side bar; not too sure... --Pi zero (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

An archives landing page would certainly need to be made fairly highly visible. Incidentally, a return of the old 'on this day' thing in some form might be good on such. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:09, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think I remember an 'on this day' thing on Wikinews. --Pi zero (talk) 21:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

It's ancient history by now. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:37, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. So it was wired at that time to randomly pick either one two or three years ago. I'd hope for something that doesn't have to be changed from year to year. Also, picking a year might not work so well with output so variable. Interesting technical-and-design challenge. --Pi zero (talk) 13:53, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Archive landing page

The obvious name for an archive landing page seemed to me to be Wikinews:Archives, and I was surprised to find that name already in use, going back to May 2006; a sort of uberportal. Less ambitious than we've been talking about, imho kind of lackluster in comparison; but some points of interest. --Pi zero (talk) 12:39, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I actually wondered about something like Wikinews:Browse our archives!. Still haven't decided which route is better. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much

Thanks very much for your kind comments here about my interview contribution to Wikinews.

Much appreciated,

-- Cirt (talk) 20:02, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Knock. Knock.

Trick? No! We all want a treat. Happy Halloween!

Thanks! To you too! BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:06, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

White House

I have a distant memory of a conversation with you, at some point, about how we would handle links to "White House". Green Giant has created a category and proposed to populate it, so any choices are easier now than they're about to be. GG called the Category "White House"; I renamed it to "White House (United States)". But I'm trying to remember what you said about it. (Maybe about usage?) --Pi zero (talk) 00:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd prefer to restrict category membership to just those articles that are about or involve the building rather than the "office" ( i.e. the office of POTUS). Green Giant (talk) 01:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

@Green Giant: I'm inclined to agree about restricting category membership. A second question is what the term "White House" should wikilink to when it's used as a metonym for the office. --Pi zero (talk) 02:06, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Hmm good question. I think that "White House" as a metonym generally refers to the office of POTUS per the last paragraph in the lead of White House. So perhaps we should have a Category:President of the United States although equally it could be seen as a case for a Category:United States Government. Green Giant (talk) 02:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Iirc my thoughts were a cat should be merely about the building. Stylistically we should try to avoid the metonym but that's easy to say and hard to do. Unsure how to link it. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:31, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I count 70 mainspace links to "President of the United States", 125 to "White House". But when a statement is released "by the White House", it's released by the office of the President of the United States, probably not by the president personally (because if it were from the president personally that would be said specifically). So even if we had a category "President of the United States", it mightn't be the right target for the metonym. "Category:United States Government" seems too broad; we're talking about "Category:Office of the President of the United States", I think, but it doesn't sit well to have separate categories for President and Office of the President. There ought to be a neat solution somewhere in this tangle. --Pi zero (talk) 15:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

review collisions

I do look forward to upgrading the review gadget. It's hard to overstate how valuable it's been to us over the years, but being able to fix little things about it, like not warning the reviewer if they're not-ready'ing an outdated revision, would be nice. :-P  --Pi zero (talk) 12:10, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Raises the question: what then for the text the 'second' reviewer has typed out? BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:53, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

True. The dialog tools are quite capable of providing a semi-automated assistant to help the second reviewer decide what to do with that text... but then, what options should it offer? Calls for some thought, certainly. --Pi zero (talk) 12:56, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for rollbacking your comment Pi Zero, my fingers are too big for my phone. I think a second review should be incorporated as a sort of addendum, and it might be useful to have the extra input. That said I'm still amused by the article I reviewed about the same time as you deleted it and the review still got onto the discussion page! Green Giant (talk) 16:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

That's a good thought, for cases where the earlier edit is a not-ready review. We've never, afaik, had one reviewer pass an article and another not-ready it (that would be a mess); but then it's possible the article could get deleted, as you recall, or in the case a few hours ago BRS set the article back to {{develop}} (on grounds of review concerns not addressed) without going through the review gadget, so there was no template on the talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 17:06, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments:Zayn Malik leaves pop band One Direction after five years

I'm thinking of deleting all the comments there as vandalism — except the one blanked by its author, which I wouldn't unblank without author's permission but would leave a note on author's page inviting such. Because on reflection I don't think any of those comments have any value as discussion of the topic. Thoughts? --Pi zero (talk) 12:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll take a close look shortly. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:17, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Al-Arabiya

I can't access it; pretty sure I've seen this problem consistently since at least last December. --Pi zero (talk) 18:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the published article :) --LegereScire (talk) 14:24, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

You're most welcome. :) BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

fly-by-wire

Wondering what your thoughts would be on the prospect of a [[Category:Fly-by-wire]]. --Pi zero (talk) 23:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Sounds fine in principal, although we're short on articles that (obviously) specifically mention the system. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:51, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Year-end article?

Do you figure on a year-end article? (William did another interview...) --Pi zero (talk) 13:59, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

I was too busy irl. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh well. That's especially likely at that time of year. --Pi zero (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Image copyright

Have you any thoughts on the copyright status of the image on this? --Pi zero (talk) 13:40, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

It's a fairly typical publicity image, like many we've used; but, we can't use it without a fair use rationale. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:51, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Any suggestions for acagastya on what to provide in that regard? --Pi zero (talk) 13:58, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Category:Publicity photos itself holds some useful pointers. You're looking to explain why it's reasonable for us to use this image; effectively, to bypass ordinary copyright protections. In the case of a (genuine) publicity shot it needn't be extremely detailed (see for example File:ClintonAltRightSpeech.png says simply the media was posted publicly by Clinton for publicity purposes and "No free alternative exists of Clinton delivering the speech") but detail does help. A particularly detailed example might be File:Jumbo Hostel interior.jpg. In this case, however, I personally believe we should use a file photo as I'm sure there are wonderful file images that are simply never showcased for this footballer. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:24, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

(note however as an important aside that the fair use stuff needs going over carefully since there's a lot of work to be done there, a lot) BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

fair-use images on userspaced article?

I had inquired whether Bidgee would like his unfinished OR article userspaced, and he has said yes. In your view (as the deleting authority in the case), can the fair-use images be retreived? I.e., is their use on a userspaced upublished OR article sufficient to support their fair-use? --Pi zero (talk) 11:29, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

In the unusual circumstances, the answer is yes, absolutely from a law perspective and probably from an enwn perspective. Bidgee owns the images in question but is prohibited by contract from releasing them under a licence allowing commercial use. I don't see any harm in it, tbh. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:13, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

People cats

Executive summary: as I've got things set up, each person goes into both Category:News articles by person and some descendant of Category:People by occupation; if a person doesn't fit in any other occupational cat, they go in a catch-all child of people-by-occupation, Category:People not categorized by occupation.

Back in April I did some wiki-archaeology and found that categories News articles by person and People were originally representative of two alternative ways of organizing people cats — all in one place, or in smaller groupings by occupation — both of which imho have merits. There was an RFD for People in September 2007 that helped illuminate things for me. I devised a plan for straightening things out, and proposed it at WN:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2016/March#Cat people. It seemed convenient at the time to make people-by-occupation a child of news-articles-by-person, but I can see why one might want not to do that. --Pi zero (talk) 20:04, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Something about these cats doesn't feel quite right. I'll need to put more thought into it when I'm more alert. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:16, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

For one thing, the name of category "People by occupation" isn't quite right, because those categories may use criteria that aren't occupation as such. Although I do think the current arrangement is more clear-cut than what preceded it, I agree it wants further polishing. --Pi zero (talk) 17:42, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Telegram introduces blogging and instant view features

If you are free, consider this article for review.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 19:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I expect to be looking at it fairly soon. I have a major feature coming out today so I intend on dealing with anything else in the queue myself. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 09:52, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Aren't you going to archive news and update the lead article templates?
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 14:48, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

No. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:51, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I'll see to it now... --Pi zero (talk) 14:57, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Judge jails 'monstrous' London serial killer Stephen Port

I was frustrated by some of those last few edits, but as it came down to it some things I just couldn't find. The restoration of those two "alleged"s was irksome, though one could argue that they were alleged at the time in any case. --Pi zero (talk) 12:22, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Javascript

Are things still working for you, with your platform/browser? As of about Wednesday (I think it must be the weekly "update" of the wiki software), javascript never loads properly for me with Firefox, and only very occasionally with Opera. Even dialog occasionally doesn't run. --Pi zero (talk) 13:47, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

This morning, dialog tools was working on Firefox on Ubuntu 16.10. It is working fine on Firefox for Android.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 14:32, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

@AGastya: Good to know. Is other javascript working on those platforms? --Pi zero (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I've traced the problem to a single gadget, "Open links to external sites in a new window". If I turn that off, I have no problem. --Pi zero (talk) 19:31, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, that ties with myself not noticing any issues here. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:20, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Comments?

If by any chance you could you could provide feedback to the user asking advice at Talk:Australian robot lawyer goes online, I would much appreciate it (I've never felt most comfortable giving advice related to OR, and it's an area where I'd particularly like to get as much input from other reviewers as possible). --Pi zero (talk) 12:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

My immediate thought is that it's quite wrong-headed to start trying to learn enwn with OR, especially when we've no reason to trust a new contributor. Iirc WN:OR makes it explicitly clear that it's not a recommended starting point, more of an advanced technique. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:05, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

In depth: Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal controversy

Did you leave this one unsighted for a reason, or was it an (er) oversight? --Pi zero (talk) 17:55, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

There's an image missing in the gallery. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 03:07, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Year end article

From the day after, I will be free. So, shall we begin preparation for the year end article? Let me know when you will be free, though I would try to be available on IRC.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 16:42, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I too will try and be available and to start something in the next day or two. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:11, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

erase page

Hi RBS, you are absolutely right. The Wikinews is not Wikipedia. I think that i writted it in wikipedia. It will be very smart to give me back what i wrote. I will publish it in wikipedia. thanks a lot

You already have it. You proved that just now by recreating it exactly with another account. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:34, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Apologies. You commented exactly as I was dealing with another user, confusing me. I can move the material into a subpage of your userspace (or another admin can do it) if that would help? BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Fair Use

Need to correct the licencing of the images of Indian Currency. Can you help me there? Also, can I upload other photos of Indian Currency under fair use to be used in future (not currently used in any article?)
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 07:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll try to look into it soon, but it should be fine. I'd generally avoid uploading images until we have somewhere to use them, though. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Wikinews 2016: An 'Original reporting' year in review

I would appreciate your comments on the page.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 06:33, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

<nods> Digging into this is very much on my to-do list. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 06:57, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

File:Glasgow. Clyde Walkway. Clyde Street. Graffiti.jpg

Hi, yes Pikachu is not free character, but illegal graffiti is a different thing, if not, we must delete all cartoon characters, for example: Category:Disney characters. This is photo of graffiti, not photo or work of Pikachu, this is only a part of this stencil graffiti, see all graffiti of cartoon characters, graffiti of Mickey Mouse, photos of murals ( Freedom of panorama does not apply to murals in the UK), gallery of Pikachu on Commons, where we can find toys, games, train, planes, graffiti of Pikachu, photos from public space.This is a photo of illegal graffiti in Glasgow.--Daniel Naczk (talk) 12:41, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Derivated work is still copyrighted and does not qualify for a CC license. Since this image does not qualify for de minimis, this is to be deleted. See licensing.

You surely understand that cannot type out the latest Tom Clancy novel and claim it as your own work? Similarly, you cannot copy a copyrighted character and have anything but a derivative work which requires a license from the copyright holder -- in this case, Fox -- to publish. . Jim

This is what I was told when I uploaded photos of Simpson which I drew.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 15:08, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, but this is not my work of this character, this is a some fragment of public space with graffiti, so what about this?--Daniel Naczk (talk) 15:48, 18 December 2016 (UTC) :

File:Graffiti in tunis.JPG

Graffiti in tunis

File:Willy Fog Graffiti.JPG

Willy Fog Graffiti

File:Graffiti in Rome - Quarticciolo 01.JPG

Graffiti in Rome - Quarticciolo 01

File:MickyMaus-Weißeritz.jpg

MickyMaus-Weißeritz

• I'm reluctant to get into debate here. I'll be popping onto Commons while the dr is active, so we can talk on the dr where other users active there can see and add to the discussion. My gut reaction is all those examples are likely to wind up deleted. (Side note: I really must get on and archive this page... Like, a year ago.) BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:52, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The question is not about who drew the graffiti but is the photo copyright violation or not? And the answer is yes!
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 17:36, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@AGastya: It would be useful if you agree (or disagree) with me to make remarks to that effect on Commons:Deletion requests/File:Glasgow. Clyde Walkway. Clyde Street. Graffiti.jpg, like @Daniel Naczk: did. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

That did not ping me. My username is Agastya Chandrakant, not AGastya, I was renamed and I will request again. Sorry, I couldn't participate in the discussion. Btw, in the year end article, if you can cover the stickers about politics it would be really helpful. Civics has been my weak point always.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 04:29, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

You'll need to update your signature; a sig that points to another account implies you're using an alternative account, with the account in your sig being your main account. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 05:11, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I am waiting for rename. But will it be okay for you to manage the politics related article?
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 07:13, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure I could see to that. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:33, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

MIKEL S. SARWONO

btw, the user's account has now been globally locked. --Pi zero (talk) 20:36, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to say I was surprised, or that they'd be missed, or that I was disappointed. All would be lies. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:11, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Topic cat esoterica

A couple of things about topic cat; both are flaws in its ergonomics, to be addressed in the longer term, of course.

• The comma can be suppressed, by specifying a non-blank parameter. I always end up doing a string-search on "comma" in the template documentation to find out what the parameter is called, myself; turns out it's no comma. (I added no comma=shoo at Category:Liberal Party (Australia).) Making this easier seems an exercise in semi-automation, which means I mean to get to it but haven't yet.
• For historical reasons, to omit the Commons link requires an explicit commons=no. I really should change it so the default is either to omit, or to link to the same-named Commons category; right now, the default is to link to the same-named page in Commons mainspace.

--Pi zero (talk) 15:21, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

WN:Attribution

I have this nagging feeling there's more could be done with this; if you've any thoughts. --Pi zero (talk) 00:10, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I feel it must surely be possible to say more in less space. Hmm. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:35, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Time budgeting

I hope to get to your article later in the day, after snow clearing and possibly chauffeuring someone to the dentist on an emergency basis.

Just wondering whether the year-end article is likely to happen. --Pi zero (talk) 14:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Unsure. Acagastya wanted to collaborate, but we had a conversation offwiki in which he implied (twice) he was imminently going to get started and never did. I lost several hours I'd earmarked for something else whilst waiting. So, it has slipped much lower on my priority list. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

On the campaign trail in the USA

After the campaign trail series for the 2012 election, I felt the FA system wasn't a good fit for the articles because, iirc, I was concerned about the "comprehensive" guideline — besides the monthly summary, which would not fit our standard notion of newsworthiness by itself because it's synthesis that doesn't focus on any specific event and all of which is more than three days ago, William decides subjectively which more specific things to cover with some OR mixed in. I'm looking at the 2016 series, and thinking back to the 2012 series, and thinking... something is wrong if we can't give those series, collectively, some form of community recognition. I'm wondering if we should, well, nominate into existence something to fit. Featured Article Series, or something. Devise what to call it and what sort of standards we want for it, send a series through a nomination process on the FAC page, and, presuming it makes it through, cobble together variant templates to tag the articles with.

Thoughts? --Pi zero (talk) 04:42, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I suggested a sort of featured series not too many years ago, and consensus was soundly against it. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:46, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Any idea where that would be — one of the water coolers, for example, versus a user talk page somewhere, or article talk? To narrow down an archeological search. --Pi zero (talk) 17:19, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Probably proposals water cooler; failing that, the policy one. I recall off-wiki discussion as well, however. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:23, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll poke around a bit. It's starting to, well, feel faintly familiar. Like the ghost of a memory. --Pi zero (talk) 17:30, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't cross the datastreams. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

What I've found (fwiw):

• My comment to WSS in 2012:

User talk:William S. Saturn/2012#"I wrote over 200k worth of On the campaign trail, and all I got was this lousy trophy"

• A proposal you made in 2009, that didn't so much get shot down decisively as fail to coalesce into any single coherent concept that would get general support:

Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2009/October#Featured topics

There were some interesting points made there, imho. Suggests to me one might do some deep cogitating on the interplay of article series with categories, infoboxen, and featured status.

A peripheral remark there that caught my eye, from bawolff re creating a Series namespace: "I am of the opinion that the portal namespace was a mistake, lets not repeat it."

--Pi zero (talk) 19:45, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Rather more positive than I recall. Okay, we could be in business. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Yesterday off by a day

diff. If it were my review I'd treat it as a typo and self-sight, I think, but I'm not immersed in the article so I'm reluctant to do that. --Pi zero (talk) 23:56, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

However, I've realized this was bothering me so much I was literally not going to be able to concentrate on anything else. Which is no way to head into New Year's (five hours minus, where I am). So I have broken down and self-sighted it. --Pi zero (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Heh. I thought I'd done it hours ago, actually. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Lately the wiki software seems to be more likely (than it used to be) to overwrite one edit with another, effectively erasing the earlier edit, and not warn about it. --Pi zero (talk) 01:24, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

More people cats

I've shifted Category:People by occupation from being a child of Category:News articles by person (which as you've remarked is a bit odd since each person is meant to be listed in both) to being a sibling, under parent Category:Category (which feels a bit off because we clearly want to minimize direct children of Category:Category).

I've also been thinking about additional occupational categories to draw down Category:People not categorized by occupation. Thoughts welcome:

• A likely one is Category:Businesspeople; we'd have Jack Abramoff, Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett. I'm a bit wary of edge cases, though.
• It seems there should be a category for the likes of Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, and Kent Hovind, but I'm really unsure what to call it or quite how to define its limits. For just those three, perhaps "Christian nutcases"? There's also Sathya Sai Baba, not Christian, and the related existing category whose name/boundaries I dislike, Category:Theologians.
• We've also got I think at least a couple of whistleblowers, might be a cat there.

--Pi zero (talk) 17:20, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure Phelps et al can ever be separated off in a neutral fashion. Much as one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, so too is one man's nutjob another man's saviour. Businesspeople sounds good; although not an occupation per se we might be able to use "Convicts" (we have a serial killers but nothing to cover the likes of al-Megrahi). BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:12, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Putin calls US troops in Poland 'a threat'

How did "Balkans" slip past us? --Pi zero (talk) 14:09, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Like Scandinavia it's easily accepted internally, when parsing. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The first ever child from three parents was born in Ukraine

The first ever child from three parents was born in Ukraine - [8]. 217.76.1.22 (talk) 05:20, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Robben signs contract extension with Bayern

acagastya has made a case to restore the German of a translated quote, which iirc you'd removed during review because of some doubts. Although ideally you would make the call since you're more immersed in it, if you haven't touched it in another hour or two here I'll dive into it myself, in order to clear it off the pending queue before the article's 24-hour mark. --Pi zero (talk) 13:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I've left it because it doesn't address my concern, and I can't come up with another way to explain it. That, and I'd quite like a second opinion. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:51, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah. Okay. I'll see if I can render a second opinion (once I've done a bit of snow clearing, here). --Pi zero (talk) 14:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I plan to write one, then review one. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:24, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Warsaw Uprising

Dang. I thought I'd found three articles for the Warsaw Uprising, and only discovered after creating the cat one of them was for the ghetto uprising, a year earlier. I'm not sure whether to just let it be, or consider replacing it with a cat for the WWII Polish resistance (which would at least justify keeping the image, which I rather like). Of course, if we do have more articles for the resistance, we could have both cats... I'm open to suggestions. --Pi zero (talk) 14:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

We could just leave it be and chalk it up to a slip, not worth undoing. We've done that before on two-article cats. I did create one for Beata Szydlo, but then I was anticipating a third article imminently and she's a current head of state. An alternative would be to combine the uprisings into one cat... WWII Warsaw Uprisings? Not sure I like that, though. Maybe I'll remember to do an anniversary article when it rolls round. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Belarus in Ukraine

I wrote in my journal under fact section, "Went to Belarus in car. Flew to France from Ukraine." There was one news website which mentioned Belarus. But I could not see how Belarus was connected to the other elements and did not think about including it. Few hours later when I was typing the article, I have no idea why I wrote this crazy line. I did not mention it in the draft section of my journal. How could I make such a silly mistake. Super facepalm.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 08:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry. It is not the first silly mistake ever made here, and won't be the last. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

S.E.V.E.N.

The meter:

A barnstar for your contributions to en.wn on January 18, 2017. Out of the seven news articles published, you had a direct involvement in six of them. Trieless contribution in the evening to reach this number.

I believe you had a race with the time for the last article. Six were already published and you got Pavlensky's article fifteen minutes before UTC clock struck 0000. Did we see something extra ordinary yesterday? Yes we did!
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 10:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much! BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for putting my Super Bowl LI as abandoned, but I have edited it and removed it from abandoned. Again thank you for helping out and reminding me about it.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tillbrian2.0 (talk • contribs)

Former NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan dies aged 82

Hi, BRS. Before I forget, thanks for reviewing and publishing this one the other day. Didn't know if I'd gotten to it in time to save it from staleness, but your quick review did the trick! Tyrol5 (talk) 02:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

It was quite a day all told. One day we'll be back to doing that routinely; likely, it'll be a while. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:04, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Hollywood sign modified to read 'Hollyweed'

I've proposed a {{correction}} on the earlier article. --Pi zero (talk) 13:06, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

User rights

See here Do you think that I am sufficiently well-versed around here to be autopatrolled or do you think I should edit more? I won't even post a request if you think it's not going to pass. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:47, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by autopatrolled. I'm familiar with the term from other wikis; we don't have any such thing here, if you mean it in that way. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:03, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Review On certain pages, I get the following message: Your changes will be displayed to readers once an authorized user accepts them. (help). I would like that to not appear. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:35, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you're ready to review articles, no. It requires a close grasp of content policies to do that. Historically, people handed the tools to self-sight more minor edits have abused it, so now we only hand it out to people ready to actually perform full reviews. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:55, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Category names

I have three problems in category-naming, here.

• There should be two categories, one with all categories for individual people in it and one that is the common ancestor of the entire people-oriented branch of the category hierarchy. Right now, Category:News articles by person is having trouble deciding which of those two things it wants to be; and which ever thing it isn't needs a name. I think, looking at other categories called "News articles by <whatever>", that News articles by person wants to contain all categories for individual people; in which case, the one we need a name for is the common ancestor for that entire branch of the category hierarchy.

[On reflection, there isn't a single ancestor for all geocats, below the level of Category:Category; but... maybe there should be, in which case there's the problem of what to call that, too.]

• There should be a category for categories of people. Right now it's called Category:People by occupation, but not all the categories in it are occupations as such.
• There are a bunch of people who are either religions teachers or religious leaders or something between (such as televangelists). A few of them are "theologians". A few are the aforementioned nutjobs. A few are evangelists, and there are probably a few I haven't covered. I don't like Category:Theologians, anyway. But I don't know of a good name for the larger category.

Any thoughts welcome. --Pi zero (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Articles

I can't find any articles to write. Can you suggest me some? I need to write some hard news. Lot of tennis articles is not good.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 18:58, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi. We all largely write what interests us, so you may turn up your nose at all these suggestions, but here's some ideas:

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras pledges 'not one more euro' of austerity

We used to cover Greek finances a lot. Been ignoring it lately. Some sources: [9], [10], [11], [12]

CIA memo reveals 1974 nuclear submarine collision off Scotland

Becoming more history than anything, but you can't deny it's interesting. Some sources: [13], [14], [15]

Rescue helicopter crash kills six in Abruzzo, Italy

There's something poignant when it's a rescue vehicle that goes down. This is right beside an avalanche that killed fifteen, too; it's a tough time for the area all round. Sources: [16], [17], [18]

Germany abolishes law criminalising insults of foreign leaders

International, controversial, underreported. See: [19], [20]

I haven't dug into these sources so you may find them unsuitable. Hopefully one or more of these takes your fancy. Also, there's Jamaica stripped of 2008 4x100 metres Olympic gold; I know you said no sports, but that's fairly hard news by sports standards. [21], [22] BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:23, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I am picking the fourth one. I would probably pick up my pen. It is a gamble, but I want to be connected to the story.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 19:46, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

category=L'Aquila

There's an obscure bug/design flaw/idiosyncrasy/whatever of magic word PAGENAME that it doesn't faithfully reproduce certain characters, notably apostrophe; iirc, they look right but internally aren't, so that for some purposes they won't do. One of those purposes is DPLs. The upshot is that, although ordinarily {{topic cat}} generates its DPL using magic word PAGENAME, that results in an empty DPL if the page name contains any of those special characters; as you may imagine, I had "fun" figuring that out when first I used {{topic cat}} on a category with an apostrophe in its name (might have been Category:Women's sports). The fix was a special template parameter category to specify the actual name of the category rather than the slightly flawed imitation of it generated by PAGENAME. --Pi zero (talk) 02:56, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Review Queue

There are four articles in the queue at the moment, and after four hours, I will be writing at least two more. Hope we can repeat last week's record.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 04:32, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Fwiw, one of the four I'd remarked yesterday was already marginal on freshness at submission, and today I've not-ready'd it on that; and I'm trying my hand at the lese majeste article now. --Pi zero (talk) 13:27, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

One is long, detailed, and uses Spanish sources, keeping me out of review. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Specifically, it's got eleven sources, eight of them in Spanish. I sometimes manage to cope with a Spanish source here and there, with liberal application of elbow grease. This is pretty daunting. --Pi zero (talk) 22:54, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Spelling conventions

Tweaked the style guide. Would appreciate a second opinion. diff. --Pi zero (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I do like that we try to use local spelling, even if it is hard to consistently achieve. IIRC the style guide does note there will inevitably be some minor discrepancies, due to the large number of often minor rules. I try to use USEng where appropriate, though try is definitely the word. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

About the shared IP templates

I was rewording them to make them more similiar to the en.wikipedia versions. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 03:06, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

That's not an explanation, but it is a possible copyvio* since Wikipedia uses a more restrictive licence, and also a flagrant violation of WN:NOT: changes to WP's version for no other reason than its own sake. It also changes the character of the template, and my advice would be that if you wish to change the character of a template entirely you should just create your own, suggest using it in future, and see if it takes off.

* I'm 100% confident there are ancient copypastes of some templates, however, and iirc a blind eye was turned... BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:21, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

There is no need to make it read like Wikipedia, we are not trying to copy them, where the editors just want one silly reason to revert any edit by the IP address. "Interested in contributing to Wikinews? Create an account!" What if the editor just does not want to create an account? 14.139.242.195 is the example which I was using. And I don't think it will be a good idea to tell about the caution in smaller font. (I have faced to problem while using psiphon for proxies)
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 18:46, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Brainstorming on quotation punctuation

Here's a topic I really hope Darkfrog24 avoids like the plague, because I don't know whether en.wp ArbCom would choose to interpret a discussion here as a violation of their topic ban against xem there and I really don't want to mess up xyr position there. Which is why I'm cluttering up your user talk with this (sorry about that) rather than putting it on article talk or water cooler.

I want an alternative to the "quotation styles" I'm aware of.

Final punctuation can be put always inside the quotation marks (in which case one simply loses anything one might know about punctuation/non-punctuation at that point in the original); or it can be put always outside (again losing information); or it can be put inside when it's known to be accurate to the original or outside otherwise (in which case people used to some other style may find it stylistically upsetting). The situation gets messy not because of any disagreement over style, but because of a disagreement over which is more important, style or a small amount of information-content. Alas, some of us are perfectionist enough that the small amount of information involved really bothers us. And I understand the style side of it bothers you.

So I'm trying to brainstorm for some other way of doing things. I was hoping to somehow use square brackets, but they seem to do the opposite of what's needed, in that they're used to editorially remark on what is part of the content, whereas here the final punctuation is sometimes not part of the content (rather it's part of the context, just as the quotation marks themselves are). To denote that we'd need something the reader would know how to interpret. Either the solution is there and I'm just not seeing it, or it's not there. I hold out hope of the former because often things are "obvious" only in retrospect.

Thoughts welcome. --Pi zero (talk) 02:43, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

It is a fundamental misrepresentation of my objection to the use of a mix of both styles to describe it as simply a style issue, which makes a kind of sense since the other part of my complaint is that mixing the two styles makes fundamental misrepresentations of facts. I do not accept there is "a small amount of information-content" to lose, short of telephoning each author of each source during review and asking them to list the styles they used on each quote. Even if one were to do so, I don't believe readers could possibly be expected to pick up on it.

It is in that context I make a style objection; it isn't just ugly and grating to constantly switch between styles, it's consciously doing so in pursuit of nothing tangible. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

It was inept of me to try to describe the problem abstractly (a habit of mine, in this case very counterproductive). I desperately want to find a solution for this. Skip all the abstract representing of positions. Concretely. A source directly quotes an MP saying "I disagree with my colleague, and I oppose the legislation." We might write any of these:

The MP said, "I disagree with my colleague."

The MP said, "I oppose the legislation."

"I disagree with my colleague," the MP said.

"I oppose the legislation," the MP said.

In one of these cases we know our closing punctuation is as in the original; in two cases we don't know for sure; and in one case we know it's different. Is there some way we can distinguish the case where we know it's right from the others? I was thinking of somehow using square brackets, but I don't see how they can do the job. --Pi zero (talk) 15:17, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I neither know of nor can dream up some way of doing that. I would add grammar and I are not friends, however; maybe @Amgine: could help. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:09, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Journalism, alas, is a rule unto itself. I am combing a few style guides, but the basic rule as I recall it (from many many years ago coursework) is that anything within the quotes MUST be from the original source, EXCEPT where the original source is nontextual (audio/video.) But I have a couple recent textbooks, so let me check. - Amgine | t 01:44, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

<grumbles> I cannot find the small number of journalism texts I own, which suggests there is yet at least one box of books out in the garage waiting to be found/unpacked.

Strunk&White (3rd ed, 1979) <turn to the side, spit> expands on Strunk's IV. A Few Matters of Form to say, "When a quotation is followed by an attributive phrase, the comma is enclosed with the quotation marks." My previous sentence also exemplifies the appositive or direct object quote, which should be preceded by a comma. Mr White also added a brief apologetist essay:

Typographical usage dictates that the comma be inside the marks, though logically it often seems not to belong there.

The above must serve as the foreshortened example of the cases where a larger quote, more than a sentence, should be removed typographically from the paragraph and presented without quotation marks.

Multiple lines of verse are quoted as new paragraph, centered text. Most likely this would be inappropriate for prose poetry, and certainly inappropriate for block poetry or similar graphic/typographic works of art.

My personal opinion would be to always recast a quote to fit one of these three forms. The quote followed by an attributive phrase - "It's a lovely night," xe said - will always 'edit' the original quote, and should be deprecated in favor of the appositive or DO form. But in moderation. And the typographically separated form should be preferred, as it has the least editing of the original quotation. - Amgine | t 02:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

<adds "easy to use" to already-overconstrained list of criteria> --Pi zero (talk) 03:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Draft text, to be edited by any/all:

---

Quotations are used to introduce original source material into an article, and inform the reader who said it. Using quotes is extremely important in journalism; it lets the news speak for itself, it shows the reporter is not presenting a point of view, and it encourages the reader to draw their own conclusions from the evidence presented.

There are two primary 'types' of quotations used in news articles: the inline quote of a single sentence or sentence fragment, and the multi-sentence quote. Which is used is largely determined by the length of the quote, but also an element of style which is influenced by the need for clarity.

The multi-sentence quote should be clearly set off from the flow of the article. Usually it is quoted as an indented paragraph, without quotation marks, after having been introduced as a quote. For example, in his First State of the Union Address in 1961, John F. Kennedy said:

I speak today in an hour of national peril and national opportunity. Before my term has ended, we shall have to test anew whether a nation organized and governed such as ours can endure. The outcome is by no means certain. The answers are by no means clear. All of us together--this Administration, this Congress, this nation--must forge those answers.

This style of quote is the most accurate - it does not alter in any way the original source's punctuation or presentation - and therefore is the preferred method. There are several quote templates which may also be used to present an important, relevant quote. One thing to consider is whether an aesthetically pleasing pull-quote is better, or if it divorces the quote from the point it is intended to make within the article.

The single sentence or fragment quote is likely the more familiar quoting style.

• Jane said, "Run, Spot, run!"
• "No comment," the official said.

Notice that the quote from Jane has the comma before the beginning of the quote, the quoted sentence within the quotation marks has normal sentence capitalization and punctuation, and the closing quotation mark encloses the closing punctuation. Because original punctuation is preserved the reader has a more exact quote, although it is still slightly altered by being enclosed within quote marks.

In contrast, the quote which is followed by the attribution to the official alters the punctuation of the original quote, replacing the quote's closing punctuation with a comma. We do not know if the official were emphatic (!) or not (.), although if he were asking the question "No comment?" then the attributive phrase should have been "the official asked." It is possible to use the original source's punctuation within the quotation, . e.g. "No comment!" the official said. However, the reader may be confused as to whose punctuation ends the sentence. Confusion is never good in news writing; prefer to use the comma to end the quoted sentence. Between the attribution before or after the quote, there is a slight preference for beginning the sentence with the attribution.

---

Commons and Geoff Nicholls

I was noting there is an image on Commons self-describes as Geoff Nicholls. I honestly couldn't tell whether it was the same person or not; the two pictures of him provided by sources look very different from each other. (And if there was any evidence of copyright information on the original from which the Commons image was uploaded, I was too dim to find it.) --Pi zero (talk) 12:36, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Ach, I saw no need to clutter things up by listing at-a-glance copyvio candidates. :P BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:05, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah, the copyvio thing wasn't just me, then. <sigh> Yeah, it does seem he got a raw deal. I got the feeling, reviewing that article, that there might be a lot of interpersonal stuff going on under the surface; there was an air of the-full-story-will-never-be-told about it. --Pi zero (talk) 15:53, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I actually have that image on my Commons watchlist to theoretically investigate at some point and see if I can verify a copyvio. Sabbath was... Well, a shitshow, frankly; Dio and Ozzy are/were both genuinely nice people for all their many flaws but that doesn't seem to have prevented frequent meltdowns within the band. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:11, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

DR Congo opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi dies

I hope, supposing someone else doesn't review in the meantime, I can get to this tomorrow morning (as you might have guessed from my creation of Category:Kinshasa... though I don't need too much motivation to create a category for a place with a name that cool). There's a chance I may be called away, which would be for the entire morning and I'd likely get back circa 1700 UTC, plus or minus. --Pi zero (talk) 03:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Btw, you might consider slicing about 120–130k off the top of this page into an Archive 6. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 03:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Alas, archiving has sat unloved on my to do list for at least a year; there's always higher priority items to do. Mainspace wins every time. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 06:50, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Theodor Bastard have released music video 'Selva' under Creative Commons

On the off chance you might be around atm, do you have any thoughts on this? I feel kind of out of my depth. --Pi zero (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

it reminds me of the issues AcG met trying to write about Telegram: Trying to demonstrate relevance on topics (tech, social media, music) where such is assumed by regular sources without demonstration, and there's no need for consumers to ordinarily worry about it. (I'm actually just heading offline.) BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 22:43, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

There is a similarity, yes. I remember we had batted about the possibility, some time back, that we might line up experts in academia on various topics who would be willing to comment on various stories for news articles on short notice; there are some obvious challenges with that approach, but it seems to be getting at the same broad problem. --Pi zero (talk) 02:17, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

(I ought to ask, just in case — any interest in interviewing a member of the group?) --Pi zero (talk) 03:10, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Possibly, probably in collaboration with the original author. Still wondering vaguely about how we do sort newsworthiness out in cases like this; feels like there should a simple trick (or a collection of simple tricks) that I'm missing. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 13:09, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

A collection of simple tricks, perhaps. We don't seem to have collected any of them, though. It's possible we do have some, and we're just not thinking of them because they're unlikely to come to mind unless a concrete case comes up that they apply to. (The ability to collect such things as they come up, and write them into the project in a way that makes them available to later Wikinewsies, is what I want for community-driven semi-automated assistance.)

I'd actually been thinking, earlier yesterday, we ought to have a smoother way of handling the likely case that a contributor comes along, enthusiastic about a particular story they want to cover, and then their first-ever article doesn't get published. (I don't have stats on it, but it seems like the first-submitted article would have to be the single most likely one to not get published since the contributor knows the least about the project at that point.) --Pi zero (talk) 13:20, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Fair use rationale

Since I've almost(?) never done one of these myself; does this look okay? --Pi zero (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me :) BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:37, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Minneapolis Highway 169 Bridge Construction Project 2017 Article

Blood Red Sandman,

I was wondering if I could get your assistance on any article I am working on.

The article is Minneapolis Highway 169 Bridge Construction Project 2017.

I haven't written on wikinews in ages, and I would like to request some assistance with this article.

I can provide more original pictures for this article (or video).

Pizero recommended talking to you.

Thanks,

--Mattwj2002 (talk) 00:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Invited or not, news outlets criticize White House decision to pick and choose their peers

Could use review of an image suggestion, if perhance you're around today. --Pi zero (talk) 13:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions bows out of Russia investigation over contact with ambassador?

20 confirmed dead after Kintampo freak tree accident

I've suggested an image, could use a review of the suggestion.

Btw, we've got a couple of noms for reviewer. --Pi zero (talk) 16:44, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Suggested an image for Impeached South Korean president Park Geun-hye arrested. --Pi zero (talk) 22:05, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Suggested an image for Pop-artist James Rosenquist dies aged 83. --Pi zero (talk) 18:44, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Taken care of by alternative arrangement (iffy, I suppose, but better than pure self-sighting). --Pi zero (talk) 20:06, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Another band

Category:U2. I was hoping for a better image, as that one seems to be used a lot, but I looked through Commons and it seemed to be the best one around. --Pi zero (talk) 14:49, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom

I'd like to nominate you for ArbCom this year. Are you willing to accept nomination, BRS?
acagastya 07:32, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Italics

There's a proposal to amend the style guide section on italics, which you added back in 2013. Your thoughts would certainly be of interest. --Pi zero (talk) 18:57, 26 April 2018 (UTC)