Welcome

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Welcome to Wikinews

 

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
  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.

Mikemoral♪♫ 17:59, 27 March 2010 (UTC)Reply

Barnstar for helping me with the translations

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Thank you so much for helping me translating German to English so I could publish the article, MGA73!  
•–• 18:24, 17 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

WN:Bots/Requests/MGA73bot

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Hello. Sorry for the delay on this. Bot status added. Please proceed with the tasks suggested in the request. If in doubt, please use best judgement. Cheers. [24Cr][talk] 22:56, 22 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Unused files

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Hi. Could you stop tagging these for a moment while we settle this? You seem to have gotten someone else cheesed off, with this. Heavy Water (talk) 17:01, 30 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your notice. I have allready tagged all unused files that does not have a free license. So no more tagging is planned :-) MGA73 (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Audio file uploads

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Could you, in a few words, explain the audio uploads. Were they not on Commons? Cheers, SVTCobra 11:24, 20 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi User:SVTCobra. No, the files in Category:Wikinews audio are here on Wikinews. I just fixed the information template to remove the file from Category:Files with no machine-readable author etc. MGA73 (talk) 14:50, 20 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
OK, great! Thanks! SVTCobra 16:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Hi User:SVTCobra. You are welcome to move the files to Commons. Most of them are there allready in c:Category:Spoken Wikinews - English. I think I made FileImporter do the transfer correct (or alt least fairly good). MGA73 (talk) 18:22, 20 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Images nominated for Speedy

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Hi MGA. The sports images in speedy are, if I am not mistaken, all related to Paralympic events. They were uploaded under a license which is compatible with the main license of Wikinews. These are original photos taken by a Wikinews reporter. This now-vanished user, as far as I know, obtained funding from the WMF to travel to these events. You may consider them "unused" but I do not. There are too many of them to put them all directly in the articles, but the categories in which they sit could be considered companion pieces to the articles and the overall coverage of the events. Why the vanished user did not upload to Commons under a fully free license, is a question we may never know the answer to. I am of the opinion, Wikinews can continue to host them.
The Geneva explosion photos are another matter. I am attempting to contact the uploader to see if they will agree to a change in license so that they can be transferred to Commons. I want to give them a few weeks to respond. Cheers, SVTCobra 17:38, 11 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi SVTCobra! The files were uploaded as "non-commercial". That is not compatible with cc-by-2.5.
So it can only be kept if it meets the requirement of fair us.
I think it would be a good idea to put a notice on Water cooler to get more users involved in how to handle non-free images.
If you can get the uploader to change the license it would solve all problems. But as far as I know there are more than one user that uploaded as non-commercial. --MGA73 (talk) 19:56, 11 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
I am trying to get the change of license for the one set of photos; but the sports photos, the vanished user is not reachable. If I recall, they left amid a bunch of drama in 2019 that got all the way to the Foundation level, but don't quote me on that. I don't mind a project of completing {{non-free use rationale}} for each of them. But they would remain unused, unless we can consider the categories as an accompaniment to the subject. SVTCobra 21:08, 11 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
I didn't realize that you had already elicited a response from Amgine at this talk page until I saw your water cooler post. I was on break at the time. SVTCobra 22:10, 11 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
I am writing here because I don't want to confuse the Water Cooler discussion with this aside. And I am trying to think "outside the box" here, do you think the files/images which I have been referring to as the "sports images" can have their license changed without the original uploader's consent? This user, who I can't name as they are vanished, was operating on behalf of WMF with funding and a clear mandate from the foundation to produce content for the broader wiki community. They were an agent for (akin to an employee) of the foundation. Surely, whatever agreement was made stipulated that they upload under free licenses. I have no idea of who to contact for whether such an option is even possible. A person sent by the WMF should not be allowed to choose the license, imho. It's frustrating that I can't refer to the user in question, but alas. Cheers,
SVTCobra 00:48, 12 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
I just looked at File:Sochi 2014 Sledge Hockey USA Russia DSC6510.jpg and read the "Permisson" part. Now, it seem the IPC was putting restrictions on this. Is there a center to this onion? I just keep peeling layers. As a side note, the WMF vanished user did have minions, as in users that would upload their work on their behalf. Jeg hader alt om dette. Det har intet at gøre om hvorfor jeg begyndte med Wikinews. Desværre er jeg næsten den eneste administrator, så jeg føler et vist ansvar. Sikke noget lort! Cheers, SVTCobra 02:13, 12 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello again SVTCobra! Yes the discussions are a bit spread out and that does not make it easier.
I do not think that we can keep files unless they are used in an article and can't be replaced. Categories do not count as legal use.
I noticed that one user vanished (but user name is still mentioned in the file page). So it will probably not be possible to get a permission from the user. I do not think we can just change the license without asking.
If the restrictions are because of IPC I think it could be a good argument to allow a few extra photos in each article.
Ja ophavsret kan være træls, og normalt blander jeg mig ikke i fair use, ud over at jeg foreslår at slette ubrugte filer og fortæller et passende sted, at man ikke bare kan smide billeder op af levende personer. Men Wikinews er lidt anderledes. --MGA73 (talk) 15:34, 12 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, the vanished user name is scattered all over many projects to this day, but I believe M:RTV prevents us from using the name, even in casual conversations such as this. Anyway, they left a mess behind, especially on Wikipedia. They were operating for the WMF with funded projects, which makes it even more frustrating how sloppy the work was. SVTCobra 20:45, 12 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
It is possible to do a great work without expert understanding copyright. But it would have been great if someone had raised the question about NC and ND long time ago. --MGA73 (talk) 13:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, but it wasn't just the copyright that was the issue with aforementioned vanished user. They created a special kind of mess on Wikipedia. Have you heard of the Fram incident? SVTCobra 16:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
User:SVTCobra no, I have not. --MGA73 (talk) 18:33, 13 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well, it was a special kind of mess. The WMF circumvented all forms of procedure and normal dispute resolution and banned an administrator. This administrator, Fram, had taken an interest in the subpar articles created by the vanished user, and there were hundreds of them. It is my conjecture, that the vanished user used their WMF connections to get Fram banned. The community was outraged. Dozens of other admins resigned in protest. Eventually, WMF relented and let ArbCom handle the situation. You can read a summary here or if you want to do a deep dive there is this. It even got news coverage, such as this article by Slate. I do not know, and I don't think it's ever been officially acknowledged, but I speculate it was about vanished user, at least in part. SVTCobra 18:57, 13 January 2024 (UTC)Reply
User:SVTCobra Wow... Lets hope there is no of such cases. We all want to make Wiki better :-) --MGA73 (talk) 20:06, 13 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Main namespace

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Hi, I see you do not appear to be editing text much here, mostly images. Could Category:Photo essays be of interest to you? Does it often occur that the images that you are uploading are depicting a recent event? Gryllida (talk) 12:23, 9 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi Gryllida! Yes it is correct that I do not edit text here. I'm not a native English speaker. I usually focus on checking and fixing images on all sorts of wikis. Right now I have a crazy project to check files licensed GFDL on all wikis: m:User:MGA73/GFDL files. In most cases I only have a phone camera with me when I'm out so I also do not upload photos very often. --MGA73 (talk) 14:43, 9 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ok, thank you. What is your first language? About photo essays, maybe part of your activity, in the case you are interested and are not doing so already, could be to upload the adequately licensed photos of recent events from Flickr into Wikimedia Commons. When you find some, I'm happy to have a look and write the text for them to explain and publish as a news story. Gryllida (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello. It’s Danish. Yeah I can think about it. And thank you. --MGA73 (talk) 04:20, 10 September 2024 (UTC)Reply
👍 Gryllida (talk) 05:42, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Can you possibly find any photos from flickr or some other of Rio Negro? I am looking for photos of the shallow river. For Rio Negro tributary of the Amazon River experiences lowest water level on record. I did not find anything. Gryllida (talk) 05:43, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello! I could not find any with a free license. If you can use fair use there are some at https://www.google.dk/search?q=Rio+Negro+drought&sca_esv=13f846fdf978515a&udm=2&tbas=0&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:m&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLi87wqPmIAxW9QVUIHTTHMhIQpwV6BAgEEC8&biw=1536&bih=731&dpr=1.25#imgrc=U6vc7GTpgploNM&imgdii=1f3547NULPiysM but even with a filter from last month I get some articles from 2023. --MGA73 (talk) 08:20, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ok thank you. Gryllida (talk) 09:07, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Greetings

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I am looking for help with news writing:

  • Please suggest me a link to something that happened today (from your news feed)
  • I will write the news report for you, it will be very short just to get the main information and ask you questions if needed (as it may not be my main topic area)
  • Repeat the same each two days for two weeks

Then in two weeks we can come back and think what to do next.

It is a 3-5 minutes each 2 days commitment. Are you interested? If so, please share today's interesting news that you noticed.

Regards, Gryllida (talk) 07:04, 7 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hello! Right now I'm focussing on other tasks. But thank you for your offer! --MGA73 (talk) 19:28, 8 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi MGA73! Sure, no problem. You are welcome to link me to anything interesting next time when you're in your news feed. 😉 Regards, Gryllida (talk) 03:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)Reply