Welcome to Wikinews

A nice cup of coffee for you while you get started

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The core policies
Places to go, people to meet

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

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

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

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



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


-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 12:15, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

First articles edit

Hi. The first articles submitted to en.wn are the hardest. It takes a little practice to learn how to write for this project; it's common for a new contributor's first article —sometimes their first several articles— to not make it to publication. Hopefully those first few articles are great learning experiences, and once past our initial learning curve, things get lots easier. --Pi zero (talk) 14:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Local government elections held in Balochistan edit

Hi. Please see my new review comments, and history of edits during review. --Pi zero (talk) 18:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

I wasn't able to verify a bunch of facts in the article, see my review comments.
The new lede you provided, after the second review, needed work; take a look at the edit history for what I did to fix it up. Reviewers have to be "independent" of an article in order to publish; basically, the reviewer has to not be a coauthor. So I tried to mostly limit myself to using existing material (though one sentence was actually restored from an earlier version of the article) and removing some parts that were problematic.
Hopefully, this is all an opportunity for you to learn a lot; as I remarked earlier, it all gets a lot easier once you're past our basic principles (many of which are described at WN:PILLARS). --Pi zero (talk) 15:21, 9 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
Published. Congrats! Please see review comments and detailed history of edits during review. --Pi zero (talk) 20:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Congratulations; thanks for continued effort and attention to detail. Gryllida 08:46, 11 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Article?? edit

Sorry your recent article didn't work out! If I can help you in the future......give me a shout! --Bddpaux (talk) 22:38, 11 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

File:Sri Lanka players celebrate with the trophy.jpeg edit

I'm afraid the details cited for this aren't adequate to ascertain if Wikinews can assert Fair Use for it. Firstly, you've given a direct link to the image — hosted on Amazon's cloud service, which makes it extremely difficult to establish where the image was lifted from. Secondly, you're asserting a Breaking News exemption when the news doesn't qualify under Wikinews' rules for such. Those are only for situations where an article is likely to have significant updates in the initial 24 hours post-publication. A sporting match/tournament which is finished doesn't fit those criteria.

Lastly, the angle/position of the photograph is clearly from within the ground, where only credentialled press photographers and ICC officials would be able to take a camera. Only in the latter case, where an ICC official has taken the photo, and used it on their personal website, would it be acceptable to reuse the image under Fair Use provisions. If they've used it on an official site, as part of a report on the tournament outcome, then they're acting as a "competing news agency" which Wikinews' Fair Use policy explicitly prohibits. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)Reply