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Welcome to Wikinews
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Getting started as a contributor
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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. |
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
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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
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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!
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UoW student?
editHi. Are you a UoW student? If so, please put a template on your user page, like this:
{{UoW student |year=2013 |semester=Spring }}
and you can fill in the missing field too, of course. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 04:34, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Australian mass killer considered for release
editI have reviewed Australian mass killer considered for release and left comments at Talk:Australian mass killer considered for release. I highly suggest thinking about the inverted pyramid when rewriting and make sure you have the lead nailed down to answer all key facts, including the killer's name. --LauraHale (talk) 07:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
I have reviewed Pakistani President convinces Prime Minister to put all state executions on hold and left feedback at Talk:Pakistani President convinces Prime Minister to put all state executions on hold. The article has problems with source verification. Not all the facts match with the article text. It is difficult to figure out how to remove these facts without losing most of the major text. Please check to make sure all the facts match the text. --LauraHale (talk) 08:22, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Screencasts of some of today's reviews
editThe six videos are screencasts of reviews done today. As a whole, all the articles have improved tremendously from when they students first submitted. Now, they have infoboxes. They usually have a relevant picture, most of the time giving credit to the photographer. They more often than not have categories. The external links are not in the body. The sources are more consistently and better formatted. These little changes make a huge difference for motivation when reviewing because they show reviewers students are listening to feedback and attempting to get things published according to community standards.
That said, the current issues get to the more difficult spot of issues with making sure inverted pyramid style reporting is done, plagiarism and very close paragraphing need to be better avoided, facts need to match facts conveyed in sources, and relative dating needs to be better done. These are on one level the much harder part of doing good reporting on Wikinews. The screencasts of reviews included from the batch I reviewed this morning are more so you can see that what we are (I am) thinking when we are (I am) reviewing. This may not be educational in terms of teaching you how to report, but it might give you insight into what we are looking for. Hopefully that can be a little bit helpful in terms of understanding what we as a community on Wikinews are looking for in publishable works. --LauraHale (talk) 11:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Screencasts of some of today's reviews
editThe six videos are screencasts of reviews done today. As a whole, all the articles have improved tremendously from when they students first submitted. Now, they have infoboxes. They usually have a relevant picture, most of the time giving credit to the photographer. They more often than not have categories. The external links are not in the body. The sources are more consistently and better formatted. These little changes make a huge difference for motivation when reviewing because they show reviewers students are listening to feedback and attempting to get things published according to community standards.
That said, the current issues get to the more difficult spot of issues with making sure inverted pyramid style reporting is done, plagiarism and very close paragraphing need to be better avoided, facts need to match facts conveyed in sources, and relative dating needs to be better done. These are on one level the much harder part of doing good reporting on Wikinews. The screencasts of reviews included from the batch I reviewed this morning are more so you can see that what we are (I am) thinking when we are (I am) reviewing. This may not be educational in terms of teaching you how to report, but it might give you insight into what we are looking for. Hopefully that can be a little bit helpful in terms of understanding what we as a community on Wikinews are looking for in publishable works. --LauraHale (talk) 11:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)