Herb

As on other Wiki projects, we do not change spelling from American-English to English-English, or vice-versa. We just leave that stuff alone in the form the original writer had it. Examples include "colour" and "color". --SVTCobra 01:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome

Herb, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these!

• Wikinews:Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
• Wikinews:Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced

Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews:

• Wikinews:Introduction - overview of the site
• Wikinews:Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
• Wikinews:Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
• Wikinews:Contents - the contents page.

There are always things to do on Wikinews:

• Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
• The front page lead articles often need updating
• Developing stories need finishing and publishing
• Discussions need your input
• Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
• And of course, stories need writing!

By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes (~~~~), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Great contributions!

I wanted to thank you for making such awesome contributions. You've already started two articles that are very impressive. One thought I wanted to pass on to you was that generally, we don't create articles with {{Publish}} right off the bat. Generally, we let the story stay as {{Develop}} or {{Ready}} until some people have taken a look at it and maybe done some copy editing.

Keep up the great work, and thanks for your contributions. irid:t 00:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

When to publish, and when to wait

For the sake of argument, we must assume that no article is "perfect" on the first try. Almost all articles need copyediting, and it's also important that at least one other person other than the original author can look over the article. I'm sure you know, as well as I do, that when you write something sometimes you miss things that you wouldn't have missed if you were looking over someone else's work.

In a perfect world, using {{ready}} on your article would flag it for immediate attention by other editors, and it would be reviewed in minutes, if not seconds. Our world not being perfect, few people actually monitor the "ready" articles, because there are so few at any time (if any at all). So flagging your article as "ready" may be just as good as ignoring it altogether and leaving it as {{develop}}.

Because the system isn't perfect, and some of the tools aren't used as much as others, your best bet is to flag as "ready" when you think it's ready to go (and from what I've seen, most of yours are!) and wait. If nobody touches it for 30 minutes, yes, go ahead and publish it. Sometimes, the best way to get attention for your article is just to publish it anyway.

Some day this will change, I'm sure. You saw that there were a number of people floating in the IRC channel, and I wonder if eventually articles marked "ready" would send a message to that channel, like "please review" or something similar.

You write great articles, and I'm not worried that you're going to publish something unpublishable. The system is designed to discourage people from writing my dog deid 3 yrs ago and publishing that. Since you're pretty literate, I'd say, don't worry about it. :)

Keep up the great work. irid:t 22:36, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources

It's just a VERY minor point but 3 sources is the normal number - better than just the two. good work apart from that though. Welcome. --MarkTalk to me 14:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

thats fine, we all have to learn including me!! Keep up the good work!!--MarkTalk to me 14:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Two words.

"Preview button". :) irid:t 20:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Atttributation

Firstly sorry it took so long to fet back to you. I removed the attributation for that comment as it was commonly cited. i.e. it was not just her saying it and therefore is factual. these dont really then have to be attributed. things only really need to be attributed if they are disputed or only one person is saying it i.e. Christmas day is Dec 25 doesnt need it but if i was to say it was the 26th then it would need attributing. It's just a minor thing and not something to worry about but it's stuff like this that you will pick up. Also i appologize if i came over wrong, it wasnt a moan just a description of what i was doing. --MarkTalk to me 09:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Correct spelling is "stabilised" don't forget the redirects.

Subject says it all, keep at it on the Greek fires story, but fix the spelling oops. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Greek Fires

There is a video which shows a man wearing a white shirt and another one torching these are propably the men who lighted up the Ymittos fire.

No I will search. But there is another video which shows anather two men who seem to be the lighters of Ileia(?) because they are torching too. I will search for these two but I don't know if I will find them.

I didn't find them but greek channels show them in their livestreams. Also thanks for the advice.

Another man is dead.--ZaDiak 22:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Wrong information. Sorry.

I found the video!

Image information

Please put the url where you got the image from on the image description page. (referring specifically to commons:Image:Sept8at8.gif) This is important as without it the image tends to be deleted. For images on commons, it is also appreciated if you categorize them, and use the information template to format information about the image. Thanks. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

IRC

Actually there should be an option in your mode tab. If not, then use the client you were using, some back in the channel, and I will ask someone who is more knowledgeable in setting up a server. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 01:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Ugly Betty

Thanks for setting that back into development, I've deleted it. -- Zanimum 16:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Images

I didn't - someone else did that edit. Images dislike me ;) Lyellin 22:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Paragraphs

When writing, try to think in paragraphs. You are a good news writer, but sometimes there are too many one-liners. :) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 12:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: thanks

No problem. Glad to see you back. One note though, about the writing in US presidential candidates gearing up for Super Tuesday, it had the following wording: "dishing out some big bucks", "...the votes they need to put them over the top", and "delegate-rich", which are obviously not NPOV. Please do try to stay away from this type of wording while writing. —FellowWiki Newsie 19:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

RE: Al Qaeda leader in Iraq arrested article

Yes it was on Wikipedia...but its linked to from commons :-P So I just pasted in the image link :) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)