Howie-test

Welcome

Welcome to Wikinews

Getting started as a contributor How to write an article Pick something current? Use two independent sources? Read your sources before writing the story in your own words?. Do choose a unique title? before you start. 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. 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   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 Neutral point of view Cite sources Writing an article Content guide Style guide Reviewing articles

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 The Water Cooler The Latest News The Newsroom Articles for deletion Audio Wikinews Recent Changes

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.

Brian McNeil / talk 13:56, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Miscellaneous notes

• See our snazzy tabbed {{Howdy}} template above - I made this! You can even start an article from within it. (See cautionary note below.)
• I mentioned DPL in the email I sent you, see Template:Main headlines for what this looks like (view the source). The "stablepages=only" parameter is what makes sure the listed articles on the front page have all been sighted by someone with the editor privilege. Note the explicit exclusion of items in category no publish; when you're playing with FlaggedRevs always make sure this is present on the page in question.
• Requesting editor status is done here, the project page on editor status is here. (aside, exceptions to this policy have been made for some noticeably non-native English speakers. This is, generally, where they're trusted with administrator access and can grant themselves editor status. The agreement is they'll then restrict use of editor status to within the non-main namespaces where Flagged Revisions is in effect - avoid reviewing bad grammar or misspelling and publishing it; it might be nice if they can easily make an edit that is not automatically sighted)
• The "critical" reviewing template is here.
• Enabled the following on user preferences under Gadgets:
  • Wiktionary Hover (unrelated to FR, but try double-clicking any word that isn't a link)
  • Hot Cat (again, unrelated, tool at bottom of an article to quickly add categories)
  • Easy Peer Review (This is the important one)
  • ENWN magic button (unrelated, adds a "Short URL" link to the toolbox - creates an enwn.net shortened URL for any page on a Wikimedia wiki) Alternatively, if your browser permits creating a javascript bookmark, paste in this code: "javascript:win=open('http://enwn.net/api.php?m=create&url='+escape(document.URL),%20'_new','width=300,height=100');history.go(0);" - yes, you can use this on Wikipedia. The email containing the password to this account includes an ENWN.net url for this page!
• Point I forgot in my email: If you have editor status and create a page in a FR namespace, it is not automatically marked as sighted; if you edit an unsighted page, your edit does not automatically sight it. Only when the current revision is sighted, and you have the editor privilege, will your edits be automatically sighted. [And, from re-reading this, we could probably change that to automatically sighted on page creation in the non-main FR namespaces.]
• A "beta" revision status maintenance tool can be seen here.

Having a play

Feel free to use the tab in the Howdy template above to experiment with creating articles but keep to the following rules:

• Always start the page name with "Sandbox"
• Always, as one of the first edits, add Category:No publish
• When you're done with a test page, add the template {{delete}}. It will be listed on WN:AAA automatically (via DPL) and an administrator will get rid of it for you.

I've created an initial test page for you: Sandbox:Howie test 1.

You'll notice that Beta (Vector) is now the default skin for English Wikinews. Based on some of the gadgets I've enabled in your user preferences you will see two little arrows pointing down in the tabs at the top of this page. The first is for speedily adding a template to a user's talk page (so unrelated to Flagged Revisions). The second is default in Vector, but we've customised it ;-) In this second drop-down you will find a "Review" option when looking at a main namespace page. Click it to run the easy review gadget.

NOTE! If you pass a review on a page you will automatically be redirected to our main page lead-maintentance utility. Feel free to have a look, but don't click any buttons you even remotely suspect might update one of the lead templates. Use a link in the sidebar to navigate away from this.

The EZ-review gadget, on a successful review, adds a completed {{peer reviewed}} template to the article talk page, removes any {{review}} template from the article, adds the {{publish}} template in the right place on the page, and sights the reviewed revision. This puts the article in Category:Published (thus eligible for selection in a DPL of published articles) and includes our social bookmarks template to allow people to share stories on places like Twitter and Facebook.,

Scratchpad

• Several people trusted to adhere to the rules laid out above have been given the password to this account.
• If the password and email attached to the account is changed, the account will be blocked permanently.
• Leave comments and questions below on your experience with Wikinews' use of Flagged Revisions. (It might be better doing that with your 'regular' account). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)