JessicalynnoraUOW

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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, JessicalynnoraUOW! 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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-- 01:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Templates vs links

Hi JessicalynnoraUOW, welcome to Wikinews. I've read a few of your drafts and found you haven't quite mastered the wiki syntax and are mistaking templates for links.

{{Japan}}

This is how you include a template: there are templates for a lot of things on Wikinews. The national templates (like 'Japan', 'United Kingdom', 'Germany' etc.) provide a handy sidebar showing other stories related to that country. There are topic templates too like 'Crime and law'. To see how these templates look, take a look at Rebekah Brooks resigns from News International - this story has a 'United Kingdom' template on the side.

Now, in text, you can use two different types of links:

[[Tony Blair]]

or

{{w|Tony Blair}}

The former links to the Wikinews page on Tony Blair while the latter links to the Wikipedia page on Tony Blair. If a page exists on Wikinews, it's best to link straight to Wikinews, but if not, link to Wikipedia.

Hope that helps. —Tom Morris (talk) 10:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! It does help. Wikinews is a little confusing at first! :)

Just a note.

Actually, {{w|Tony Blair}} can be used always, for simplicity: the {{w}} template first looks for a Wikinews page, and links to that if there is one, and only if there isn't a Wikinews page, then links to Wikipedia instead. --Pi zero (talk) 11:54, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

ok, is my Japan utilises renewable energy article templated correctly?

There were a couple of problems with the sources. I noted them on the article talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 13:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, i believe i have fixed the source issues up now. Is it ready for publishing?

I ran into difficulties when starting to move into the rigorous source-check phase of review. Hopefully you can clear up the problems and resubmit; I pulled it off the review queue in the meantime.

Things got a bit tangled when I submitted my review, something to do with the article renamings presumably; I think I've got it straightened out now. --Pi zero (talk) 14:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, i think the reason why those articles don't completely cover my facts int he article is because i relied heavily on the WSJ article for information but didn't realise wikinews doesn't allow that as a source. So is it possible to clarify my facts using the WSJ or will i need to re-write the whole article?

I left another note on the article talk, to try to clarify things. --Pi zero (talk) 18:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

availability for review

Unfortunately, I've gotten busy within the past few hours, so I'm not quite sure whether I can review your article at this time. Furthermore, other reviewers seem to be unavailable or unwilling to review, so I strongly suggest that you and your classmates send messages to as many reviewers as possible and hope they respond. The situation is admittedly getting bad — having 20 articles in the reviewing queue is straining our resources, and we simply cannot guarantee timely review of all 20 articles.

A community discussion is taking place on Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy regarding ways we could reform the current review system. Perhaps it would be helpful for you and your classmates to contribute even one comment to the discussion? It also might help to get a few experienced students from your class to become reviewers themselves — they can apply here. I've noticed that people who are already involved in the community tend to get their articles reviewed more quickly. Ragettho (talk) 03:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

A few thoughts.

• Brianmc hoped there'd be a reviewer or two out of last semester, but tbh that seems more likely this semester than last. I suspect it has to do in part with last semester's students knowing less about what to expect here, and in part with final-year students being understandably preoccupied with graduating and getting on with their lives.
• Note there are lots of opportunities for conflict of interest in UoW students' involvement here. Any UoW-student reviewer would presumably refrain from publishing articles by UoW students. The water cooler discussion is fraught with hazard for UoW students, since the functioning of the project is directly tied to the reason the UoW students are here at all.

--Pi zero (talk) 15:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)