User talk:Michael.C.Wright/Archive 1

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User page deletion

I have requested my user page on Wikinews be deleted. I am not requesting my user account here be deleted. I'm hoping the verbiage on the banner is incorrect.

I have created a global user page with meta.[1] I would like to use the one profile for all wiki sister projects. An example is my profile on commons: User:Michael.C.Wright is actually the global user page transcluded to commons.

Thank you!

Michael.C.Wright (talk) 14:42, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, it is impossible for technical reasons to delete an account, even for stewards/global sysops, so at worst the request would just be declined. Heavy Water (talk) 14:44, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay. That sounds promising. If there are any questions about global accounts, here is the page on meta: Global user pages.

Thank you for the clarification.

Michael.C.Wright (talk) 14:58, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Awards

		The Order of the Humble Pencil For completing 5 edits.

		The Order of the Modest Pencil For getting your first article published!
		A very thoroughly researched one, too! And good to see you're looking through the archives-one can gain a lot of insight into the history, people, and rules of Wikinews by doing that. --Heavy Water (talk) 04:54, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Heavy Water for the awards! Michael.C.Wright (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Category

You can create a Wikinewsie category for yourself to keep track of your articles, if you want, by the way. Also you can add the correct one of these to your user page, if you want. It's just for fun, really. Heavy Water (talk) 16:14, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Will do. Michael.C.Wright (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Senate just voted for 2002 AUMF repeal

FYI. Heavy Water (talk) 17:36, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. I planned on writing something today. Thanks. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 13:35, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

US appeals court upholds ruling lawyer for ex-President Trump must cooperate with federal investigation

This did go stale. I do want to say: please check the edit history and its "diffs" (click "prev" in the history) after each review (including on this article) to see what you can improve in the future. Addressing those things can significantly speed up review. There just wasn't the time to finish this. Reviewing often is, in my experience, actually much more labor-intensive than writing, which did surprise me. You write detailed articles with a lot of background, which I appreciate, and I don't intend to discourage that, but it is a fact they require more time to review (not necessarily a bad thing). Heavy Water (talk) 00:18, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Since it is stale and now needs Gatwicked, I don't plan on continuing work on that article unless another editor or reviewer see's benefit in me doing so. There will certainly be more news on that subject for us to cover in the future.

I do know my articles take more time to review and I am sympathetic to that fact. I actively seek recommendations from reviewers on ways to prepare an article for easier review. I've also proposed technical changes that I think will benefit both authors and reviewers here.

From my brief experience with Wikinews, the review process is one key hinderance to Wikinews being agile and able to produce timely, relevant articles. If we can figure out how to make that process easier and more efficient without reducing the thoroughness of the process, I believe we'd make progress.

Regarding the length of the articles I write; I read through the sources you linked at a recent discussion at the water cooler, specifically other comments at the Meta page Proposals for closing projects/Closure of English Wikinews. There are comments such as "...a lot of these are very short" and "...none of them has any real depth." I generally agree with those comments.

A short Wikinews article that is not original reporting is more than likely, mostly a paraphrase of existing news. In those cases, it provides little value to Wikinews readers above what they'd get from the original news source. The value I try to bring is providing deeper background and synthesis — synthesis of sources to provide a richer background, not in arriving at new or unique conclusions.

I'm not a journalist and won't be doing much, if any original reporting. Therefore, the value I can bring is mainly articles with more depth and cohesion between articles, i.e., tracking news developments regarding AUMFs over the course of multiple articles.

I know you aren't trying to discourage longer articles. I'm offering here a bit of explanation into motive, in hopes of furthering the discussion around improving the writing and reviewing process because I do see that as a core hurdle hindering the number and depth of articles, generally speaking.

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 15:31, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Specialty Coffee Expo

Did you ever end up getting to go to that? If you did and just haven't written it up yet, there's certainly still time per precedent for OR (and the rules are bent more often for OR than synthesis; looking back, the last OR pieces of comparable significance were from about 2014). BTW, I must have been pressed for time when I first saw what you wrote above. I just read it in full, and you clearly grok the problems we face, and offer good solutions. Heavy Water (talk) 21:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I did three on-camera interviews but two of the three were quite coffee-centric and I didn't think that was a good angle for a general audience at wikinews. I thought about doing spot interviews of random attendees but ended up prioritizing other networking while there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 13:54, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

It's understandable to a general audience and interesting (in my view); not as niche as many of the articles in Category:Halloween (specifically, the Haunters Conventions). That could be a great article even with just minimal text introduction (depending on how much time you have to work on it). Heavy Water (talk) 15:51, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for butting in here.

Just wanted to say that I would find such an article of interest. I am saying this as a reader of Wikinews who knows coffee tastes good and that's about all I know, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:20, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Documenting the event (assuming you have additional photographs) and interspersing it with bits and pieces from the interviews surely would be newsworthy WN:OR. The full videos of the interviews could then be linked (if uploaded to Commons) for those coffee aficionados who want to get in deep. Or it could be an article about Indonesia's efforts to gain market share in the US. (Guessing the Ted Fishcer interview would be less applicable for the latter option.). Cheers, SVTCobra 17:42, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

I should have time on Friday to dive deeper into this. I'm pleasantly surprised by the interest! Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 12:43, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Sorry guys. I just didn't have time to do the article any justice. I had other priorities that needed my attention. The good news is that if things pan out the way I hope they will, I will have an opportunity to do some original reporting on coffee production in Africa. Fingers crossed! Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Ah, OK. Well, Africa OR would be extra good, offer something the regular media usually does not (since they practically only cover Africa when something tragic or destabilizing happens). Heavy Water (talk) 15:10, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Coffee quote

Hi again, Michael.C.Wright/Archive 1 I found a coffee quote for you at wikiqote. I hope you like it:

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top. No wonder it costs so much. ~ q:Sarah Vowell

Ottawahitech (talk) 15:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Nice! Thanks for sharing. Wikiquote is a project I've been interested in contributing to, just never have.

One of the coffee quotes I've collected: "Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard." - Anne Spencer

And there's always the very quotable Dave Grohl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=fhdCslFcKFU

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:22, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Advice on getting an article reviewed

Hi @Michael.C.Wright, I really appreciate your contributions here and I wanted to reach out to you for advice on how to get my first article reviewed. I originally wrote it as a prepared story two days in advance of an event on February 16-17, but then I was unable to get a complete review. I have WN:GATWICKed the article several times since then, but I fear this will be its last chance to get reviewed before it goes stale and gets deleted. I've reached out to five administrators and several other reviewers in the last three weeks but all have either said they are too busy to review it or not responded yet.

The article is here: Two world records fall at the World Athletics Indoor Championships. Understanding that you are not a reviewer, do you have any advice for me such as ideas to improve the article and bring it up to Wikinews standards, to make a future reviewer's workload easier and to increase the chances it will be published?

Thank you, --Habst (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad you're sticking with it and really trying to contribute.

Here are some quick tips—things to keep in mind that I've learned along the way (and don't always achieve myself). In some of the tips I provide specifics for you. Hopefully this helps!

• Longer articles with many sources take longer to review.
  • The review process here is pretty stringent and thorough. In my experience, the reviewers seem to read every sourced article.
  • Be sure to remove sources if facts you use are established in another of your sources (I make this mistake frequently)
  • Wikinews definitely benefits from longer, in-depth articles and I personally prefer to write longer articles with a lot of background. However, they are harder to get published. Pick your poison. ;)
• The title states the main point of the article. If your title mentions two broken world records, that's what the article should talk about; who, what, when, where, why, and how two world records were broken. This is the WN:5W&H
  • Based on your title and the lede, how does the last section of the article fit? If you could cut that entire last section and sources associated with it, that could help the reviewer.
  • Similarly with the second section. The second section doesn't mention Bol, Charlton, or the two broken world records.
• In longer, more complicated articles, I indicate to the reviewer my source for a given statement or paragraph. I do this using HTML comments. You can see it in pre-reviewed versions of some of my articles.[2] Look for text such as this: <!--Source: Everytown-->
  • That tells the reviewer that a specific fact or statement can be found in a specific article.
  • The reviewer removes them as they review the article so they aren't in published versions.
  • Not all reviewers see or use those comments.
• Be sure to structure your article according to WN:PYRAMID.
  • Readers get hooked by your title and are reeled in by your lede
  • Your lede should answer the 5w's and summarize the entire article (and should be able to stand alone)

I like the style in which you've written the article. I would recommend looking at past sports articles that have been published on Wikinews to see the format and style they followed. I'm not saying you should robotically follow them, but they will show you what is acceptable. I seem to recall I had an article with sections and the sections were removed as part of the review process...I'll look to see if I can find it.

For whatever reason, things are really quiet here right now. No new articles have been published since January 4th. I had an article go stale without review last month. I just posted another for review today and intentionally kept the article as short and to-the-point as possible in an attempt to make it as easy as possible to get something new posted. Maybe for your first article and given the quietness we're currently seeing, you cut down your article to the smallest size you can stomach so that you can go through the review process and experience it.

Based on the dates of the articles included by the {{athletics}} infobox, we could really use a sports writer!

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 23:16, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

@Michael.C.Wright, thank you so much for your detailed advice. I have changed the title and the lede keeping this in mind, so that the main point is communicated clearly and is reflected in the title and body. I'll work on adding the HTML-comment inline source attributions if anything isn't clear.

It seems like your new article (which I do appreciate) has just been taken out from under review today ― this is the same thing that happened to my article before it went stale, so I fear the same thing will happen to yours. I was wondering if, based on Asheiou's response to your question at Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Asheiou, could you please vote (not asking you to vote one particular way or another)? I think your input is important, because you are one of the two or three active community members who are writing articles this year (technically, there are zero members who have published articles since Jan 4) and the requester is uncomfortable with taking reviewer action without community consensus. Thank you, --Habst (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I do intend to vote but I would like to hear more from Asheiou as well as other editors. I find Bawolff's comments interesting and would like to hear more about that as well—specifically what a new version of the review process might look like.

I like that enWikinews has a stringent and thorough review process. I appreciate the feedback I've gotten from reviewers and feel the resultant, published articles are always better than what I posted for review. But the lack of reviewers to perform that process is effectively blocking new content. One quick and easy solution to that is to simply add more reviewers. And one unintended consequence of that may be reduced quality in the review process.

I am interested in hearing what other editors ask Asheiou and what her answers are. If no one else asks questions, I'll ask more. But right now I don't want to dominate the process by peppering her with my own questions.

Lastly, I've had four articles go stale so far. I've gatwicked a couple and let a couple more go unpublished. As frustrating as that is—to spend the time putting an article together only to have it not reviewed and be deleted—I don't want to rush the process simply to get one article reviewed. I'd like to explore a solution to the current log-jam that is least likely to cause new problems later. If that means another, complete overhaul of the review system, I'd like to hear ideas of what that looks like.

I don't think we're at a stage where we should improvise a solution (but I'm open to be proven otherwise). The way I see it, raw page-views of en.wikinews surprisingly aren't dropping.[3] That obviously won't last without new content. But I think we have some time yet to be intentional.

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 16:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi.

I started a new story hopefully I can get more information soon, thanks, also if you need anything don't hesitate to ask me, thanks!!! BigKrow (talk) 21:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I posted on the Collab page of the new article. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 00:32, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! BigKrow (talk) 01:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Have a good night Michael. Talk soon. Thanks for the helping hands! BigKrow (talk) 01:45, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

PGP??

What is this PGP key business??--Bddpaux (talk) 18:58, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

PGP is encryption software.[4] Individuals can use my PGP key to encrypt messages to me. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 19:36, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

It can also be used to verify identity, sign messages, etc. Unfortunately, it isn't very user friendly, so it never got the broad acceptance it should have. I've used it in some form or fashion for almost 30 years. I used to carry a copy on a 3.5" floppy. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 21:48, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Article???

Palestinians article close to publish or review??? Thnx 64.39.81.54 (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Are you referring to the article titled "12 Palestinians, possibly more, drown trying to get aid parcels dropped into the sea?" If so, work is being done on it to get it ready for review. I'm not a reviewer, so I can only help get it ready prior to someone else reviewing it. You are also welcome to contribute to it. BigKrow started the article and is currently the main contributor. You might check in with him to see how you can work together. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 21:31, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The IP is me Michael sorry for confusing BigKrow (talk) 21:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Ahhh. I thought the three question marks (???) looked familiar.

Whenever you feel it's ready for review, feel free to re-submit it. I just wanted to get some of the basic stuff ironed out before a reviewer maybe rejected it. The orange banner and [Not Ready] can be a de-motivator. ;) Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 23:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

In your opinion do you think it's ready? I'm not sure and I hope it doesn't go stale, lately my articles have been doing better. 64.39.81.54 (talk) 00:36, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it could be published as is. It exceeds the minimal amount of three sentences. If it were me, I'd expand it more. The CNN article presents three points of view that you could write about: Hamas would like the airdrops stopped, humanitarian bodies assert that Israel is using starvation as a weapon, and a US official says the amount of aid arriving by land is increasing. Both articles mention that the airdrops are located in a way that makes it more likely they'll land in the water.

This might be an odd way to look at it; but I'd personally expand the article at least enough so that the sections from "Have an opinion?" and lower all fall below the image on the left. That makes the article look better/fuller in my opinion.

The nonexistent category:Gaza should also either be created or removed from the article. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

FYI, there's already a Category:Gaza Strip. Heavy Water (talk) 14:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Copyrighted

I thought they looked suspicious just saying. BigKrow (talk) 01:14, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah. They all look suspicious. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 01:34, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

If you don't like suspicious, revert to remove copyright violations by editing and not copy-pasting the news, but "Amber Alert cancelled after B.C. infant" and "Rare 4.8 earthquake hits New Jersey and New York" does not like the copyright violations on news, such as the websites that copy-pasted edits, is not suspicious but it's normal. Yay. 199.212.250.163 (talk) 15:42, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi Michael

How's my article looking so far? Thanks. BigKrow (talk) 20:18, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Michael.C.Wright im going offline for now talk soon. BigKrow (talk) 20:26, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Which article? Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 18:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@Michael.C.Wright https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bargi_plant_in_central_Italy_felt_with_explosion BigKrow (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Without digging too deeply into it, I can see there are two broken (red) links. There are line-breaks or carriage returns in the middle of the first and third sentences. Remember also to attribute all images using {{image}} and to describe the image with a full sentence, and mention it's a file image if it pre-dates the story. Those things should be corrected before a reviewer gets to it (to save their time).

If it were me, I'd also expand it with some background. Also, the article states "At least three people were killed and four other bodies are missing..." That implies we know four people are dead (four bodies), but we don't, as of today.[5] You could improve that sentence by saying: "At least three people were killed and four others are missing..." Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 23:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

New article

I submitted a new article. BigKrow (talk) 02:10, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I responded in the article talk page. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)