BusterD

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

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Write your first article for Wikinews! Use the following box to help you create your first article. Simply type in a title to your story and press "Create page". Then start typing text to your story into the new box that will come up. When you're done, press "save page". That's all there is to it! It is recommended you read the article guide before starting. Also make sure to check the list of recently created articles to see if your story hasn't already been reported upon.

--Pi zero (talk) 15:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll start small. Hope I can help. BusterD (talk) 15:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

London Olympics organizers apologize after North Korea flag gaffe

Published; congrats! See the review comments, and detailed history of edits during review. --Pi zero (talk) 20:34, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Firstly.......

....a heartfelt Welcome!!!! Good assistance offered on that Korean flag article. Re: widgets and gadgets here, (there are LOADS OF GADGETS both here and at the other place that I'm unfamiliar with), but most scripts should work. Of course, when using Chrome, you should be able to just go to Mr Preferences here (when signed in here) and enable a lot of stuff. I only recently enabled the add Cat gadget(which I've used for a long time at Commons). If you discover something neat, give me a shout.......there are so many "tricks" within the wiki-format that I've still yet to learn. --Bddpaux (talk) 21:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Very nice things to say. I'll do some investigating as suggested, but meanwhile I'll try to help with at least one page a day to get some repetitions. I'd said some things on en.wikipedia which quite aroused the interest of Brian McNeil. I hope I didn't or don't come across as a no-it-all; I feel quite the contrary. But it appears Wikinews could use more editors and I'm willing to make some mistakes in order to learn. I have been around a while and haven't made any enemies of which I'm aware. As I told another editor, please be generous with critique and encouragement. I work best when folks speak plainly. BusterD (talk) 22:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

No worries :)

Hi. I just wanted to offer a note of encouragement. Sometimes, your first article or two doesn't get passed. The writing style is quite a bit different than say English Wikipedia and tends to be pretty structured. It takes a bit of work to figure it out, but once you do, it becomes pretty easy and almost formulaic. The things that I think are key to remember: Stories should have three paragraphs written in pyramid style with the most important things at the top and the least important things at the bottom. For something like sports, first paragraph is who played, where, when and who won. Second paragraph is about the game such as who scored, conditions on the field, how they played. The last paragraph would be where a team stands or when they play again. The next thing to remember is active voice and time specific. On Wikipedia, I would write "The opening ceremonies for the Olympics were held on July 27." On Wikinews, I would write, "Earlier tonight, the Olympics formally started with the opening ceremonies being held in London." The next thing I try to remember is picture: Every article has to have at least one. The last thing I try to remember is sources: Ones for synth or journalist notes for OR. Don't let not passing deter you. :) --LauraHale (talk) 22:14, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Cool. I'll definitely knock some china around for a while. I follow Jimbo's talk page on en.wiki and caught Ryan Vesey's thread mentioning the Aurora shooting. To my mind, this project needs some more eyes. Maybe better for me to work on aggregation at first while I'm learning the ropes. Thanks again for the welcome. BusterD (talk) 22:23, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Some thoughts

To help with some... qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) aspects of Wikinews.

• You were saying it was a 'nice save', my catching the misattribution of that quote. Well, thanks, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful for a compliment, but — that's one of the things review is supposed to do. Stuff like that should stand zero chance of ever getting past a review. I use a gadget to highlight a copy of the article word-by-word as I rigorously verify it from the sources; for a sense of what's involved, you can take a look at WN:Tips on reviewing articles, and down at the bottom of that is a link to the archived water cooler discussion that led to the page's creation.
• I'm aware you ended up here after reading that appalling thread on Jimbo's en.wp talk page. Welcome, and all that; some people have become highly successful Wikinewsies after coming here from Wikipedia (though, alas, far far more have failed to make the transition; Ryan Vesey is one of the saddest cases I can think of, because he came closer than most but still faltered at the end and, of course, I wonder to this day if there's something I might have explained better, or differently, that would have helped). Just keep in mind that that thread was appalling.

• The one remark on the thread by Jimmy was. Um. Let's put it this way. Here's a list of everything right about the first sentence of it: .
• Ryan Vesey alleging that AGF is essential to an effective site. Wow. AGF is antithetical to a news site, directly mocking the very concept of journalism. Actually, that's a little understated: it's lethally toxic to any information provider, and the long-term damage it's done to Wikipedian culture is very sad. I weep for Wikipedia; but even if I considered it more important than Wikinews (I don't; in the long run, I think Wikipedia, if it survives at all, will become a sort of adjunct to the other sisters... 'adjunct' isn't quite the right word) — even if I considered it more important, the only way I know to see its problems clearly is to view them from the vantage of the most distant of its sisters, and that is Wikinews. Wikipedia and Wikinews simply could not be more different, a topic on which I've composed essays in my head that have never been written down in any one place.

Welcome to Wikinews :-). --Pi zero (talk) 14:02, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

PR professionals

Hi. I commented on Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Corporate_participation_on_Wikinews. Can you please comment back and explain how you would like to be involved within the context of the community, its policies, its guidelines and the style guide lines? Until we understand that, the conversation can't really move forward. :) --LauraHale (talk) 04:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)