Welcome to Wikinews

A nice cup of coffee for you while you get started

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The core policies
Places to go, people to meet

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

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

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

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



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


-- 05:05, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Published. Congratulations! See the review comments, and detailed history of edits during review. --Pi zero (talk) 00:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I thought I had done a decent job on my first article, then noticed how many edits you had done. Guess I still have some ways to go on getting things down better. Enfcer (talk) 01:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
Heh. You did a more than decent job on your first article. Your article passed on its first review; for a first effort, that's exemplary!
That said, yes, yes, learn! You've got a ways to go; we all do, and hopefully we never stop learning and improving on Wikinews. That's why I've taught myself to break down my edits during review into small increments, to explain each change specifically in its edit summary, and allow each to be seen clearly by a diff. My hope is that authors can learn lots by studying just what I did and why I said I was doing it (and perhaps I can learn from it, too).
As a rule, the better an article is, the easier it is to review. Yours was a pleasure to review, quite a contrast with what very many of our first-time contributors produce; you're one of two first-time contributors in recent times who actually did "Read The Fine Manual" before contributing. I was also able to write review comments at a distinctly more sophisticated level than is usually fruitful with first-time contributors, because you were already at a much more sophisticated level than most of them. Suggesting use of direct quotes from witnesses would be an absurd thing to bother saying to most newbies. --Pi zero (talk) 02:53, 18 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Congratulations!

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Enfcer,

I just saw your first story up and I wanted to congratulate you! It was nice to see something about Indiana, too. There is a whole class of students here in Evansville writing news for Wikinews. Welcome, Crtew (talk) 00:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, and that's cool. I had gotten bored with things on en.wiki, and was poking around some of the other projects, and stumbled across this one. I am hoping to get the hang of things here, and start publishing more articles. Enfcer (talk) 01:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)Reply
Great, I hope you like it here. Have fun, Crtew (talk) 03:12, 18 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Minor

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A very minor problem, and barely a problem at that: when you put the 'minimal' template on an article that's being developed, (the stolen Nazi prison uniform article) it bumps it (in the Newsroom) from 'In Development' to 'Disputed'......(which, when you think about it, is really a coding issue). While developing an article, I generally tend to do gobs of edits in getting it ready, so it often looks like poo while I'm doing that. The minimal template (thought this isn't a concrete requiremnt) would usually be put up by a reviewer. That's the usual flow. If I had (or anyone else had) changed it's status to "review" then your action would be alot more appropriate, because it wasn't anywhere close to being ready for review with what little bit I had up there. Wikinews is a great place and there's a bit of a learning curve regarding policy (and unwritten policy)....hang around.....you'll catch one. Keep contributing!! Bddpaux (talk) 20:48, 28 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

When I had looked at it it had been close to two days with no other edits, and I thought that, that was the most appropriate tag. Since it had not been more then four days for the abandoned, and when I was looking at the deletion reasons, that seemed most appropriate. But like you said there is a bit of a learning curve, and I am trying to get the policies and such down. Enfcer (talk) 23:49, 28 March 2012 (UTC)Reply