User talk:Pi zero/Archive 17

Please do not edit the contents of this page. It is for historical reference only.

---

Sorry

I was created a page with "User name policy".Opologies for that.

I will start the discussion about "Prohibeted user names" on the following page .Thanq

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_talk:Username

(Tricorner (talk) 07:16, 11 May 2019 (UTC))

dd

https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User_talk:UZSET - 89.236.232.84 (talk) 09:14, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Google discontinues cooperation with Huawei

Hi. Whilst lurking in the background, I came across what I think was an error by the abuse filter: Special:AbuseLog/10562. I might be wrong but it looks like the user was trying to create a genuine article and was prevented from doing so. I have created the article and left them a note, but I thought it might be worth sharing with you. —Green Giant (talk) 06:04, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Green Giant: I've never been fluent in abuse-filter-ese. Curiously, the entire article was afaics a copyvio of the second source; I've removed the offending text, tagged the article, and written up reviewer comments on the article talk. --Pi zero (talk) 13:20, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Ah, it didn’t occur to me it might be a copyvio. As for the filter, I think we should keep an eye on it and if anything like this happens again I’ll ask at Phabricator. Cheers. Green Giant (talk) 14:10, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Thankyou

Thankyou Note: Thankyou Pi zero for helping me out by providing me with the pillars of Wikinews. Much appreciated!--FightingForRight (talk) 07:08, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

delete my account

Hi, can you permanently delete my user page and also the discussion page ?? User:Massimo Jorge Chiacchio 20:12, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@Massimo Jorge Chiacchio: Seeing no difficulty in principle, deleted. --Pi zero (talk) 19:25, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

thank you (Anonimo) 22:5, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Accreditation request: Deh Saaduddin

Hi! Thank you for your comment and vote on my accreditation request. I am willing to contribute to Wikinews with passion. However, in my early request, I have not mentioned interests relative to Wikinews but if you are able to check my user ID in Wikipedia, it proves that I am sincerely and willing to contribute to WikiNews and all projects of WikiMedia Foundation. I truly love Wiki community. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dehgel (talk • contribs) 13:50, 10 June 2019‎ (UTC)

How you read news

I would like to read news every day, and am looking for help. How do you read your news? What software do you use? (I use mPages RSS client for Firefox, but I would be happy to learn what you use.) --Gryllida (talk) 00:22, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

@Gryllida: I subscribe to some blogs, but only one of them is at all systematically related to news (it's about journalism). I semi-watch some TV news. It used to be, when I went looking for news stories to cover on Wikinews, and looking for sources for those stories, I'd use the Google news aggregator — but as I've been trying to get back into writing here just recently, I find the gnews interface is almost useless compared to what it used to be, because instead of listing all the articles available on a story, they seem to have decided to provide just one article on each story. I've been experimenting with DuckDuckGo, but if there's a way to get good news-ish results from that engine, I haven't figured it out yet. --Pi zero (talk) 01:48, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing this, Pi zero. I didn't get the thought about google news. Please give me example search query and example result (and how it would be better to have it differently) Gryllida (talk) 02:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Well... now that you ask, I'm looking again at gnews output and not finding the problem I had last weekend. So I'm not sure what the difficulty was, there; I'm wondering if I could somehow have effectively disabled javascript. --Pi zero (talk) 02:37, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Counter-nomination

Not sure if it is permitted by the election rules but I’d like to counter-nominate you for ArbCom, if you are willing to stand. — Green Giant (talk) 06:03, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

@Green Giant: I am indeed willing to stand. I'd be honored if you would nominate me. I see no obstacle; even self-nomination is not terribly uncommon, the de facto basic need being for confirmation of the nominee's willingness to stand. --Pi zero (talk) 06:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Can we get a bot that reports latest news on special page?

I think the title says it all, I was thinking of keeping up withsources of news by fetching links and putting them on a special page, and that in theory should help the working of Wikinews. Let me know if there's any complication (note: maybe this is the wrong place to place a suggestion.) --Hoo lee sheet (talk) 13:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Asking the question here doesn't bother me. As it happens, bots aren't my thing; perhaps Gryllida might have a thought on this? --Pi zero (talk) 18:37, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

There is a news feed at ##news (and there was another one at #wikinews-feeds ) at the chat that may be of interest.

• http://www.kiwiirc.com/client/chat.freenode.net after connecting, move your mouse over 'freenode' and click the '+' sign, there specify the channel name with one or two hashes as needed (this is important to have the correct number of hashes)

Let me know if you'd like to resume the one at #wikinews-feeds, I think the original bot owner disappeared and I can run a replacement.

Alternatively I think that it is possible to output this to a special page, if IRC is not convenient for some reason. If so, I would also like to know this. Gryllida (talk) 23:53, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. as for the channel ##news, I think it's enough, but for convenience maybe it's better to make one specifically made for wikinewsies.

IRC doesn't bother me as it was ported to all major platforms. The main concern here I think is whether ##wikinews-feed should continue or not. Let me know if the effort worth the benefits otherwise ##news is enough. --Hoo lee sheet (talk) 13:50, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

my page

i a sorry about the page i posted it is my first time posting and i tryed my best.please dont be mad at me. also the page wont be resubmitted for review Conor200673 (talk) 16:32, 8 July 2019 (UTC) Conor200673

@Conor200673: Not to worry. Starting out at Wikinews, one has to learn the basics, to get to where one can write simple articles and they'll pass review. Once you reach that point, things typically get much easier (not that we ever stop learning). --Pi zero (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Special permission?!

Hi Pi zero,

Can you grant me a special permission to insult one of the wikinewsies. --Don't call 911 (talk) 19:46, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Lol. Folks can sometimes get on each other's nerves, especially in the intense environment of a newsroom. Which wikinewsie do you wish to insult, and why? --Pi zero (talk) 21:46, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Not anyone really. I was thinking if you grant me an insult attack, I can hang it up in my user page to intimidate whoever wants to challenge me (Something like "Weapons: Insult (x1)"). Now that I think about it, I shouldn't have played that game for +5 hours straight. Btw do you issue insult permissions? --Don't call 911 (talk) 23:17, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

@WhaatTF: We ask people not to make things unnecessarily personal. Note that, instead of Assume Good Faith, we have Never assume. That page did not exist in the early days. We had no AGF, but no explicit replacement for it either. And we found out the hard way that an explicit replacement is needed — the social stability of the community requires it. It's not an accident that our Never assume page emphasizes civility. "Treat people as well as circumstances allow, even when (as will sometimes, sadly, happen) it becomes necessary to escort them to the exit." --Pi zero (talk) 00:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@Pi zero: And hence the saying "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me." Thank you for your tolerance. you really doing an awesome job running this community! --Don't call 911 (talk) 00:56, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Interview's transcript

The transcript of the first thirteen minutes of the audio is now available. The plan is, I will email you the markdown file. I would hope you copyedit the markdown file and send me in the morning, my time (before you go to sleep). I will put it on GitHub to compare the differences, and hopefully, finish the entire thing tomorrow night.
•–• 21:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea whether I'll be able to meet this schedule; we'll see. --Pi zero (talk) 22:52, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Alas. I chose to review the tropical-storm article, which seemed a plausible choice as it was obviously going to go stale very quickly, and it chewed up my evening (the review didn't turn out to be as easy as I'd hoped). --Pi zero (talk) 03:45, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

?
•–• 15:44, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Trying my best. --Pi zero (talk) 15:45, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Just wanted to know if you were on it, or chose not to.
•–• 16:32, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Newsroom

Hi. What is with the section "In Category:Published without formal review" in the newsroom? I looked at a few of them and they looked fine. Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:57, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Huh?? There shouldn't ever be anything in that section... <goes to look> --Pi zero (talk) 00:01, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I'd say they have just released an "upgrade" to the software platform that fucks up by failing to exclude sighted pages. I wouldn't dare point it out to them, because I wouldn't trust them not to just make things even worse. But we should disable that section of the newsroom for now, since with the DPL not working right the output is worse than useless. --Pi zero (talk) 00:08, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, I just uploaded a screenshot, but I'll delete it again since it seems you see the problem. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:12, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Empty dated categories

Why are empty dated categories kept? --DannyS712 (talk) 02:51, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

The infrastructure is set up on the expectation that all date categories exist. It's easier to be able to rely on them all being there; which is in contrast to the situation with topic categories, where adding more of them increases the administrative overhead of maintaining the topic hierarchy (though we're very careful, when creating new topic categories, to minimize this increase). --Pi zero (talk) 02:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh. Also, I took a look at Category:United States and as wondering if I could try to reorganize it to decrease that overhead - eg separating out categories related to the government to Category:United States government, or creating a new category for all of the individual people categories. Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 03:15, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I've thought about that possibility myself, but haven't acted on it because it would make that part the hierarchy a lot harder to maintain. More complicated = a lot harder to maintain. Keeping everything very simple is a priority. (It used to be we were very hesitant to create new categories at all, before deployment of the {{w}} template, whose interaction with the category infrastructure is multi-faceted.) --Pi zero (talk) 03:27, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Is there a better place to suggest this? There is also Category:2007 Cricket World Cup that I just found - other than Bob Woolmer not murdered, says Scotland Yard detectives, which in my opinion doesn't belong in that category, the other articles should be removed from the parent categories (cricket and 2007). Where is the best place to discuss this? --DannyS712 (talk) 03:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't follow you. I've explained in broad terms some of the primal reasons we mostly don't do intersection categories. Cases where we do are generally grandfathered, case where it was done in the very early days of the project before the reasons not to were fully appreciated. I'm not sure what point you're making about the 2007 Cricket World Cup category. (Looking at that article, it does seem to be connected to that event, btw.) It's a specific event; we do have categories, sometimes, about specific events. We a separate category for each US presidential election. There's a tension, btw, between our desire to avoid interaction categories which tend to make the category hierarchy unmanageable, and the inadequacy of the formal intersection of two categories. As a small illustration of the latter, we have a Category:Politics and conflicts, and a Category:Canada, but an article may properly belong to both of those categories yet not belong in a hypothetical Category:Canadian politics category. The difference between those two is really quite subtle — and whenever possible we want to avoid introducing into our category infrastructure any subtle considerations that aren't already in there. --Pi zero (talk) 03:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

I think I understand. Can I propose a category, Category:United States government, to subcategorize multiple existing categories (remove them from Category:United States, add them to the new category?) The list of categories I would move over is below. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 03:10, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Category:Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
• Category:Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Category:CIA
• Category:Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Category:Environmental Protection Agency
• Category:Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• Category:FBI
• Category:Federal Aviation Administration
• Category:Federal Election Commission of the United States
• Category:Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Category:Food and Drug Administration
• Category:NASA
• Category:National Institutes of Health
• Category:National Security Agency
• Category:National Transportation Safety Board
• Category:National Weather Service
• Category:US Congress
• Category:US Supreme Court
• Category:US White House

Each of these is a part of the US government, either an agency, department, commission, branch, etc (rather than merely being associated with it). Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 03:10, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

That's an interesting notion. I'd like to think about that for a bit. --Pi zero (talk) 03:18, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

News articles by person

It took a while, but y'all broke me and now I am obsessing about categories, too. I need some guidance before moving forward on categories for people. I have started a discussion at Category talk:News articles by person. I have a few questions about standard protocol. Cheers, --SVTCobra 14:27, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Another question. Should media files ever be in categories typically used for mainspace articles? --SVTCobra 18:22, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I'm actually not sure, off hand, what we've been doing in that regard. --Pi zero (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, I have removed a few which were categorized as Category:Wackynews and Category:Internet. Cheers, --SVTCobra 18:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: If there are some, I think I would be inclined to accept the practice, keep them and perhaps add others when it seems appropriate. I don't think images in any topic category would cause any problem for the DPLs. --Pi zero (talk) 19:51, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

No colon in UTC time

Ah, yes, I knew it was familiar. It goes back to a pair of very bold edits by 192.85.50.2 back in 2005. The wording "Use a colon to separate the hours and minutes, except when using UTC when no separator is to be used." has stood ever since. Crazy. --SVTCobra 20:32, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

We may be the only people on the planet who don't use a colon separator in UTC times. --SVTCobra 20:41, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

As a matter of curiosity: Those two IPs (differing in the last two bits) are now assigned to somewhere in Kansas; but, looking at their other edits, I'm guessing then they were assigned to somewhere in Scotland. --Pi zero (talk) 21:00, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

If you are thinking it was McNeil, I think you are on the wrong track. He would not have asked this. And just as a matter of trivia, he was based in Belgium at the time. Cheers, --SVTCobra 21:16, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Hm. Well, I don't insist on Scotland; I'd still guess not North America, though, with a reasonable likelihood of someone in or connected to the UK. Agreed, the particular edit you reference wouldn't be him (though there's a reason IPs are called "anonymous"). Also not him, the first three edits in this history. --Pi zero (talk) 21:36, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

But yes, I do agree, it's the rare American who would involve themselves in only non-American articles (Bali, South Asia, South Africa, England, Ireland). Also, there is the spelling of internationalised without a 'z'. Nevertheless, what should we do about the style guide? I'd rather not sift through the archives to make a change, but should we make the colon optional just as it is for the 24 hour clock? I also don't like that 12:00 a.m and 12:00 p.m. are essentially outlawed (I guess they thought people would get confused which was noon and which was midnight? Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:11, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

There's no reason to change it. We've done it the way we do it for many years, and it's simple. --Pi zero (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorting within {{Topic cat}}

Are you serious with this? This is a thing? I have just been dropping parameters (such as wikidata) into the template and relying on it sorting it out. Please tell me I don't have sort the parameters by hand when I edit a {{Topic cat}}. Cheers. --SVTCobra 02:47, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: You don't have to. I find it's easier to keep track of which parameters have been used for a given topic if the sister links are kept in "order" (the order used to display them, that is, which is alphabetical not counting the wiki- or wik- prefix if there is one.) It's kind of like writing a {{source}} citation with one parameter per line: you don't have to, but it's easier to deal with later. --Pi zero (talk) 03:45, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Political parties

Should Villepin be added to the UMP category? He formed his own party in 2010, but he was a prominent member since 2002, and notably when all our coverage of him was written. This is in the same theory how we handle presidents and prime ministers. The association is always there, even when you leave or retire. I say yes, he should. But it is notably different in the way sportspeople are being handled. Cristiano Ronaldo is probably the prime example. We have coverage of him with at least three clubs for which we have categories. He is, however, only listed with his current club. I think his association with those clubs should be permanent, especially when we have coverage. I think we know Acagastya (t · c · b) feels very differently about this. --SVTCobra 19:32, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: A compromise, which I've been mulling over, might be to categorize the person only by their current affiliation but mention Wikinews-relevant past affiliations, perhaps in the usage note (because I'd rather the intro stays very short). --Pi zero (talk) 19:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't want it in the intro (nor a usage note for that matter). You often emphasize future researchers when talking about categories. If one is researching Real Madrid via Category:Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo does not come up as an associated person (subcategory) even though he holds numerous club records and won multiple Ballon d'Or while playing for them. His achievements at Manchester United are also significant. But are you saying political parties should be the same as sports clubs? Cheers, --SVTCobra 20:10, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I have not read the entire thread, but what I said about football clubs: I think I did not mention about politics on the talk page of Cristiano Ronaldo. I would not conflict those two. I have two different standards for them? Yes. If the politician found the party, that category should be there. Similarly if anyone were to own a club, they should be in the category. If we had the category for Roman Abramov, it would be under Chelsea F.C.
•–• 23:28, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree, he could be there as owner. And he could be in a Russian political party at the same time. (I have heard the name, of course, and know film characters have been based on him, but my off-hand knowledge of Roman Abramovich is quite limited). But, as you acknowledge, the two different standards is the core of the question. What is the fundamental reason it should not just be one standard? Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:37, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

PM or President

I am not a Francophile but which is more important in France? I think there's a definite imbalance (and they are one of the few Western nations to have both afaik). --SVTCobra 02:04, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Presidents of France is next; I'm working on it now. Some countries have just one, or just the other, and if they have both it can be kind of random which is more significant. When I started on this vein earlier today I didn't even recognize the face or name of the current PM of France, whereas I knew both for the current president. --Pi zero (talk) 02:11, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I jumped the gun on Category:The Republicans (France), but it is one of the largest parties in France, so I hope we get a few (3) articles before we have to delete. Cheers, --SVTCobra 02:32, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: When I occasionally create a category and later discover that it doesn't have three published articles, I usually just leave it be. --Pi zero (talk) 02:37, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

The current PM is Édouard Philippe and he's part of The Republicans. So I've got that going for me, which is nice --SVTCobra 02:44, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Media in cats

At the bottom of Category:Canada you will find ten images from a user who resigned in the wake of w:WP:FRAMBAN. It is about Team Canada at the Paralympics in London 2012. I intend to remove the category "Canada" from them. I hope that is uncontroversial enough. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I don't understand. Why do you want to remove the category from the images? Are they not related to Canada? And what does resignation have to do with it? --Pi zero (talk) 00:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The resignation has nothing to do with it. I just didn't know if you were aware of all the drama over at our bigger sister and this was just an awkward way of bringing it up in passing.

Category:Canada and the like are too broad for images, imho, unless it is literally of a national symbol. It sets a bad precedent. Any or all of the media files we host could be tagged for a country, state, or city. Media in categories ought to be spot-on, such as Category:2012 Summer Paralympics or Category:Canadian paralympic team. Would we be having the same debate if these images were in Category:Sports? Also, one of the photos is of photographer. --SVTCobra 00:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Oops, I just looked at Category:Sports and there is a ton of media. It either invalidates my point or describes it as a wider problem. I think it is the latter. They should be reclassified to their specific sport. --SVTCobra 00:41, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Re sports images, moving them to narrower categories seems reasonable; I have no objection. Re the Canada images, I take it they're about the Canadian representatives at the Paralymics, so Canada as a whole is the right area. Again I've no objection to shifting them to narrower categories. There are, I think, some situations where we'd tend to use a general category at first and shift to something narrower at later opportunity.

I'm somewhat aware of a major disaster playing out on Wikipedia, due, afaict, to the Foundation's fundamental failures. I've known about those failures for years, of course, but didn't know a way to fix them, so have concentrated on problems at Wikinews and Wikibooks that are far smaller (though vast on the scale of what an individual person might attempt). --Pi zero (talk) 02:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019

I believe you have already seen the results, but well, I should formally inform who has been elected and, well you are. And the new term begins on August 4.
•–• 04:57, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Reviews

Are you going to make time for our pending WN:OR? Cheers, --SVTCobra 16:10, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes. And there's another OR piece at an earlier stage of processing I desperately need to get to. And I need to grocery-shop today. And I need to fix the slipped belt on the mower. And I need to — well. Yes, I'll get to it. --Pi zero (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I am not pushing you. I just think you are much more diplomatic than I. My opinion of it is, well, to be kind, not favorable. I tried to elicit improvement of the article to minimal effect. Cheers, --SVTCobra 16:34, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Is this the upcoming OR you were alluding to? If so, well, damn! This is a big story. I won't mind stepping up and being the 'bad guy' on the other piece. --SVTCobra 23:08, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: No, actually, the Russian piece is a complete surprise to me. I'm concerned about some possibly-fundamental problems I see with it, which I'm trying to write up a comment on now. We'll just have to see what happens next. --Pi zero (talk) 23:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I really enjoyed the tutoring of paid contributors openly at Wikimedia events. That was a nice touch. And, then, to think these are the people complaining of a problem ... well ... --SVTCobra 23:45, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
I know I took the easy review today. I am a bit rusty, so I didn't want something too challenging. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:00, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

After I agreed to accept the review bit — I didn't claim to be ready to actually do reviews, but conceded I probably understood enough not to use the bit for things before I was ready for them — it was iirc several months later I used it for my first review (pushed into it then by someone who was concerned their article would go stale on the queue). And quite a long time after that before I started reviewing OR. Easing cautiously into review makes sense to me. --Pi zero (talk) 23:08, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I was grandfathered into the 'review bit' as it was created after my admin, but I did review quite a few articles under your tutelage a few years ago in my other spurt of activity. But I was thinking today's nominees, the other of which is the tragic shooting with a lot of sources. The OR piece, I felt was lazy. I would have bounced it. It is not hard to say who in the lede. FFS, Paul was there. All he had to do was write "it was attended by a mixture of people who run haunted houses for Halloween and families with kids who wanted to see the frights and makeup". And he talked about how he was finally going to use his credentials and sounded all excited on the water cooler. Sometimes, we have photo-essays from events like this which have very little text, but at least the photos are high-res and plentiful. If I avoided it was because I didn't want to fail OR, not because OR is a difficult review in cases like this. And frankly, I don't care if Paul sees this. I was disappointed.

Well, after that vent. I'll just reiterate I was talking about the El Paso story when I said I took the easy one. Cheer, --SVTCobra 00:18, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Truthfully, I wasn't happy about the who-in-lede deficit. If I'd gotten to the article a bunch of days earlier I might have bounced it for that too, but I didn't feel it was worth losing the article over, and because things were running so late I wasn't comfortable giving it a revise-and-resubmit by then. --Pi zero (talk) 00:47, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Revert?

Did you mean to revert the archiving bot with this edit? Cheers, --SVTCobra 15:24, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

No. Fixed-I-hope. --Pi zero (talk) 16:03, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Peter MacKay

FYI: I didn't skip him. I added him to Category:Conservative Party of Canada incidentally as I populated the cat I added a few days ago. (Pro tip, don't add Canadian political parties unless you want to parse national parties from provincial parties which carry the same name but are autonomous.) I have never been happier about the US two-party system than when I populated that category ... I'll get to Peter when I reach the 'P's ... Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:52, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I guessed you'd get to it later in alphabetical order, but since I was there, I added the template. I didn't do the sort key, though, and also figured you could check for whatever I didn't think of when it came to you in order. --Pi zero (talk) 23:57, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I am using Category:News articles by person. I am on the second page of 3 (200 on each), but since people move back and forth as I alphabetize them, I figure if half go forward and half back, I am actually more than half way through all the people. I think this theory is valid as I encounter more and more people I already updated (and when I do I try to add a caption as I wasn't doing that early on). Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:25, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I'd guessed you were doing it that way. A few days back I think I discovered a person category that wasn't in news articles by person; so there may be a few of those, and eventually we should try to pick them up, somehow (will have to give it some thought when the time comes).

Back-of-the-envelope. Suppose the total number of people on the list is $n$, the personal and family names are all uniformly randomly distributed through the alphabet, and when you started they were all alphabetized by personal name (which I get the impression is pretty close to true). When you finish the letter M, you're halfway through the alphabet, therefor you've done ${\frac {n}{2}}$ people. Half of those, ${\frac {n}{4}}$, got realphabetized into the second half of the alphabet. So, at that point, you should have ahead of you ${\frac {3}{4}}n$ people, one third of which you've already done once. --Pi zero (talk) 01:06, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Right, so my theory, I was exactly halfway (well this morning when I started page two) is bogus? Well, I am on 'M' but it is really early on page two. But names aren't random (a lot more Johns and Joes than Erics and Xaviers). And with just 600 people, random will leave a good amount of error. But I am confident I will complete this before I need another Wiki-break. I also discovered a straggler, I forget who I was updating, but it took me to Category:Politicians and I saw Angela Eagle and I knew immediately she was not in news articles by person (because I was past A and E. That in turn led me down a rabbit hole on Commons and I finally encountered Fæ, which really isn't here or there, but previously you've been surprised I didn't know Fæ.

I know I resisted the captions and credits, but once I turned them into "newslike" items instead of encyclopedic "file photo of John Doe" I started enjoying doing them. Plus, I see it as a benefit if we don't have the same generic profile pic as all the sisters do. I have to thank User:Acagastya for this. Let's show the people in Category:News articles by person as they are when they make news, just as the sportspeople are in action in Acagastya's choice of photos. It may not be as exciting as a sliding tackle in football, but it sure beats what amounts to a passport photo. Cheers, --SVTCobra 01:45, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Making it even more fun, family names may be non-randomly distributed in a different way from personal names. For example, if first names are weighted toward the first half of the alphabet, and last names are weighted toward the second half, then disproportionately many names that started in the first half would end up in the second. [That's supposing the two names are independently distributed, which I s'pose they might not be.]

I like this phrasing, "Let's show [...] people [...] as they are when they make news". --Pi zero (talk) 13:06, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

The answer to a question you didn't really ask

wikt:religiophobia ... a good word for a Sunday. Cheers, --SVTCobra 14:42, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Lol. As a logophile, I love it. Though we wouldn't use it here as it's a non-medical use of suffix -phobia. --Pi zero (talk) 14:48, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Is this non-medical use? --SVTCobra 00:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Yes. We should fix that. --Pi zero (talk) 00:20, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Check user

I am glad I don't have check-user privileges because I surely would be unable to resist checking all those new account creations (locally created, btw) which look prepped to hit us with more spam about mobility scooters or SEO. I'd get banned because I don't think it is supposed be used proactively. --SVTCobra 18:31, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Commonwealth

I have to disagree with you on this. The w:Commonwealth of Nations is not the same as the w:Commonwealth realm. Only the realm share the Queen as head of state. Indeed there are twice as many countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, including India, for example, which has its own head of state, namely the w:President of India. Cheers, --SVTCobra 02:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

As understand it, the two terms have very different meanings. The Commonwealth of Nations is the collective term for the fifty-odd nations, each of which is a Commonwealth realm. Australia is a Commonwealth realm, meaning it belongs to the Commonwealth of Nations. --Pi zero (talk) 02:25, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Only 16 of the fifty-odd are realms. But it's still not correct to refer to the 16 collectively as the Commonwealth realm, afaics. I don't think there is any term for the 16 collectively. --Pi zero (talk) 02:32, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I suppose the current version works. I just think it might be a bit confusing to bring up the Commonwealth of Nations at all, as it seems to be little more than a club for countries with no higher purpose or objective than to promote democracy. Whereas, for Commonwealth realms, the head-of-state is an integral part of the nation-state structure. All the realms happen to be members of the Commonwealth of Nations, but as far as I know, it is not a requirement. Cheers, --SVTCobra 13:40, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Afaik you're correct, it is not a requirement. I wondered about not mentioning the Commonwealth of Nations, but it is potentially useful to clarify the difference between "Commonwealth nation" and "Commonwealth realm", which evidently we've had to put some significant effort into sorting out ourselves. I've taken another stab at it. --Pi zero (talk) 16:09, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

question

where is the admin postboard on this wiki? i've never used wikinews before. Computer Fizz (talk) 04:06, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

@Computer Fizz: WN:AAA --Pi zero (talk) 04:09, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Category:Benazir Bhutto

I saw that page in RC, and thought, do we have a straight forward way, by using DPL or anything otherwise, to compile a list of all the deceased politicians?
150.129.88.45 (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Presumably we'd need a category for dead people. --Pi zero (talk) 19:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I thought of creating a category, then I thought "isn't that encyclopædic?" Then I thought "It is also newsworthy for research." Then I thought maybe we have a way to. Then I asked.
150.129.88.45 (talk) 19:27, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

People die without us noticing all the time. If they have been out of the news for a long time it just happens. However, I don't know how strong our cross-wiki integration is, but such data should be possible to pull from Wikidata as they have both date of birth and date of death. --SVTCobra 20:01, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

My hope, sooner or later, is to keep locally whatever information we choose to keep, and have a semi-automated assistant that can compare what we have (for some specific category, say) to what wikidata says about it and, if it detects any discrepancies, offer the human operator various choices of what to do about it. --Pi zero (talk) 20:07, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Well, they change citizenships and political alliance, and we update it. Question is, it it worth categorising?
150.129.88.45 (talk) 20:26, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

sorry

to bug u but i started a user space for a florida man castrating another man he was arrested. again apoligizes Baozon90 (talk) 14:54, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

@Baozon90: I made some edits to your page, setting up basic elements of the page format. Set up the framework for the source citations, and did one of them for you to demonstrate how it's done. --Pi zero (talk) 15:31, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Merging histories of pages

Previously, I've left this task to you, but I think I've figured out the mechanics. Delete the undesirable page. Then move that deleted page after it has been deleted so that only the history moves. If that is correct, I will proceed with a 'duplicate' category I apparently created in 2007. Cheers, --SVTCobra 16:00, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: That doesn't sound right. Just a moment and I'll write up some notes about merging histories. --Pi zero (talk) 16:20, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• Caveat administrator. History merge is the foremost example of an admin operation that can be effectively irreversible on-wiki, because it destroys the wiki's explicit record of which revision came from which of the merged pages. Regardless of whether anyone would ever actually want to undo the operation, the missing information can make life more difficult for some later wiki-archaeologist who, for whatever reason, wants to reconstruct just what happened.
• We never do history merges involving published articles, exactly because it can permanently screw things up. Rarely we've done history merges on unpublished articles, when the situation is especially straightforward.
• Moving a page does not affect deleted revisions.
• Here's the procedure I prefer; which is not, as I recall, what en.wp recommends.

Let's say the two pages are called "keep" and "retire".

1. Before I start, I look at the histories of both pages to make sure I understand how much possible confusion will be caused by the merge. Best of all is when all the edits to "retire" took place before "keep" was created. Other obvious possibilities are that it's not a big deal and you're fine going ahead, or it'd be a nightmare and you decide on some other course of action. On one occasion on Wikibooks, I think, I actually left a note on the talk page explaining how to reconstruct which revisions were which if one ever wanted to.
2. Move "keep" to "retire". Whether or not you leave a redirect on this move may depend on circumstances; more on that immediately below. The software will balk at performing the move because the target page already exists, requiring you to check an additional box that says, yes, go ahead and delete the existing target page. Go ahead and do that, deleting the old "retire".

   Pros and cons of leaving a redirect:

   • If you don't leave a redirect, anyone looking for "keep" during the operation will not be redirected to where the page content is. This may be the least-bad alternative if the pages are in category space, since the contents of the category will stay at "keep". I tend to just get it over with quickly to minimize the chance anyone will look for "keep" in the middle of the operation.
   • If you do leave a redirect, then at the end of the process that redirect will get deleted and will be a bit of extra cruft permanently retained by the wiki platform. My own neatness-reflex doesn't like this, so I usually don't leave a redirect.

3. Call up the revision history of "retire", and undelete the deleted revisions of it. This is the actual merge operation, creating a mishmash of all the revisions from both pages. Gulp.
4. Move "retire" to "keep". Without leaving a redirect (reminder: we never do this with published articles).

• Iirc, long ago when I read Wikipedia about this, they recommended to move "retire" to "keep", deleting "keep" in the process, then undelete the revisions of "keep" and edit the page to bring the latest revision of "keep" to the top.

There's more to that than I realized when I started writng that, and I'm not even sure I remembered to mention everything. --Pi zero (talk) 16:57, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh yeah, here's a twist: there might already be some deleted revisions of "retire" before you start. If that's so, then when you move "keep" on top of it and the existing revisions of "retire" get deleted, the wiki software will lose track of which revisions of "retire" had previously been deleted and which were only just now deleted. Fun. --Pi zero (talk) 17:02, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, in light of what you have said, I will explain the situation and the categories involved and await your recommendation. Perhaps there's nothing worth keeping, categories usually have precious few edits (until the last month or so 😉). So here it is:

1. Category:Chris Dodd was created by Zanium on 1 June 2007.
2. Category:Christopher Dodd was created by yours truly on 18 December 2007.
3. I cannot recall if it was because I was unaware of the previous category or if I felt the more formal name was appropriate. It is probably the latter (although it is a notion I no longer hold) because within 20 minutes, I redirected the old (Chris) category to the new (Christopher).
4. Regardless of my motivation, it was the wrong thing to do, since it should have been moved/renamed.
5. The Chris Dodd redirect kept pointing to the Category:Chris Dodd which is how I discovered this, however, no articles are in that category (for how long I don't know).
6. I fixed the double redirect last night, so the question is what to do with Category:Chris Dodd. Well, delete of course, but should the histories be merged?

I await your advice. Cheers, --SVTCobra 17:20, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I'd merge as above, thus catching up the revisions by Zanimum and Zachary. --Pi zero (talk) 17:37, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, I will move ahead with caution, but as there's no overlapping history besides the redirect, and only two previous edits involved, I think this will be a good way to get my feet wet. Cheers, --SVTCobra 17:47, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I need the For Dummies version. I deleted Category:Chris Dodd (retire). So now I move Category:Christopher Dodd to Category:Chris Dodd? And then back? --SVTCobra 18:03, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Move Category:Christopher Dodd to Category:Chris Dodd. Then look at the revision history of Category:Chris Dodd; it will say that there are some deleted revisions. Undelete those. Then move it back to Category:Christopher Dodd. --Pi zero (talk) 18:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I did it! I think I deserve a cold beer on this fairly hot and humid August afternoon. Thanks for you help! Cheers, --SVTCobra 18:48, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh, if you ever formalize these instructions, there's a "review revisions" button that needs to be clicked. Cheers, --SVTCobra 18:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

ASPIZZA

You should probably just indef them, it's an xwiki lta. :) Praxidicae (talk) 14:42, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Ah, well. We do try to sow good will; but, since they've self-identified that way on en.wv. Saves some steps. --Pi zero (talk) 14:48, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Nonstop spam

The spam is incessant today. How often does it get this bad? BTW, are you interested in a cheap Breitling watch? I know where you can get one. --SVTCobra 19:06, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

OK, it's reaching stupid levels. I can't keep up. In the last hour I have done nothing but block and delete. Have the spam filters completely broken down? Who do we ask for help? --SVTCobra 20:23, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: When I got up this morning I spent a substantial time cleaning up spam, not from the whole of overnight, but from since the last time you'd done a sweep. It's been this bad a few times. Last time, Green Giant set up a new abuse filter to cover it, but evidently it doesn't cover the current deluge. --Pi zero (talk) 20:46, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

It's slowed down since you came back online. But that hour was crazy. I'd block and delete one, and there'd be two more in RC waiting for me. I checked the log. I have blocked over 75 this calendar day. --SVTCobra 20:52, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Btw, you can see from the Special:AbuseLog, the filters are doing a lot. --Pi zero (talk) 01:29, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

User page in News by Region

Hi. I cannot figure out what it is about User:Anti-Quasar's page which makes them show up in Category:News articles by region. Maybe you have an idea. Cheers, --SVTCobra 20:43, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, I tried. --Pi zero (talk) 21:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, it worked. Thanks. --SVTCobra 21:08, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Working towards reviewer

Hi Pi zero. First, thank you for your dedication to this project. I was wondering if you would be willing to assess the likelihood of me being able to successfully request reviewer rights. I have had 8 articles published (including 3 of the 5 currently on the main page), and just finished writing my ninth (Gillibrand ends US presidential bid). I know that reviewing is a time-sensitive process, and have seen articles go stale simply from not being reviewed fast enough, so I want to help out. What do you think? I've been trying to help review other pending articles (copyedit, etc.) to help save reviewers time, and would like to take the next step. --DannyS712 (talk) 17:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

I will think on this, especially as I review this next article you've written. --Pi zero (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Any updates? --DannyS712 (talk) 22:23, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

truck crash

could someone contact reporter maybe find out more info??? thnx Baozon90 (talk) 15:26, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

@Baozon90: We have no information. The page has no sources listed; we require at least two mutually independent trust-worthy sources. And the page doesn't say where or when it happened. --Pi zero (talk) 15:29, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

sorry Baozon90 (talk) 15:32, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Block notices/tags

This is why I like to put the tag on the user page instead of the talk page. If they appeal, it still links to their talk page for the unblock request. Cheers, --SVTCobra 18:42, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

My instinct is not to mess with user pages. It's a message to them as well as to others. Removing it is likely to qualify as abuse of talk page privs. --Pi zero (talk) 18:47, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Wish list item

Is it possible, well, I should say easy, to add an optional parameter of "image size" to {{Topic cat}} to resize the main image, as can be done in {{infobox table}}? If it is just a matter of copy-pasting a line or two, I would like to request it. Sometimes, the only available image is just too awkward and needs to be downsized a bit. I don't think we need all the things infobox can do (padding, etc), just a simple "image size" to set the width in px. Cheers, --SVTCobra 18:52, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I wondered whether it would confuse the width of the whole right-hand panel generated by the template, and studying the markup brought me no closer to an answer on that, but eventually it dawned on me that it couldn't confuse it any worse than not specifying an image. --Pi zero (talk) 19:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I was wondering why that was needed. @SVTCobra: any specific page/file in mind? Because allowing to customise CSS: well, that is giving too much power in the hands of someone who might not know how to use it, or worse, to someone who knows exactly what they are doing. (I hope you don't read this in a wrong tone, that is always missing from the internet.)
•–• 21:20, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@Acagastya: You know I did my darndest to find square or horizontal photos for Category:News articles by person going from cropping to finding new free images to upload to Commons. There were a few for whom that wasn't possible. I can't name them right now, but I'll find them again. And I think it will be useful for members of SCOTUS, which I have barely touched yet. Oh, and there was one logo which was impossibly tall which I uploaded some days ago. This is, as far as I know, not anything cascading. It only affects the specific category on which {{Topic cat}} sits. --SVTCobra 21:43, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@Acagastya: I found my first victim and it was Category:Frank Lampard. Reducing the image width from 250px to 200px made a big difference in reducing whitespace, imho. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:33, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Community Insights Survey

Share your experience in this survey

Hi Pi zero/Archive 17,

The Wikimedia Foundation is asking for your feedback in a survey about your experience with Wikinews and Wikimedia. The purpose of this survey is to learn how well the Foundation is supporting your work on wiki and how we can change or improve things in the future. The opinions you share will directly affect the current and future work of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

This survey is hosted by a third-party and governed by this privacy statement (in English).

Find more information about this project. Email us if you have any questions, or if you don't want to receive future messages about taking this survey.

Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 14:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I expect nothing but misrepresentation of the outcome of such a survey, regardless of whether we do or don't respond to it. I therefore choose not to lend legitimacy to it by participating. --Pi zero (talk) 16:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Organizing sub-categories

Some countries have a very large number of sub-categories. Would you object if I organized some of them into {{Internal cat}}s? --SVTCobra 19:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Depends what you have in mind, I s'pose. You know I've been deliberately... deliberate, about slowly mutating the category hierarchy in favorable directions. I did create Category:US states and territories to sort those things out of Category:United States. (Btw, in that regard I find myself wondering about Category:Guantanamo Bay.) --Pi zero (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's the type of thing I had in mind. As I worked through the various sub-categories in England, it occurred to me to create Category:Counties of England and Category:People of England, for example. I would not use a bar as low as three, but perhaps more like ten, qualifying members before creating any such internal category. --SVTCobra 19:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Sounds reasonable. --Pi zero (talk) 19:41, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Another one which I have been mulling for a while, though it would not be a sub-category of any country and members would stay in whatever geo-cat they are in now, is something like Category:Law enforcement and intelligence agencies. --SVTCobra 19:46, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

An interesting thought; conveniently avoids trying to parse the difference between those two sets. I've been wondering about an intelligence-related occupational category, but wouldn't be sure of either its bounds or its name; I think of it as Category:Spies. --Pi zero (talk) 19:51, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I felt there was too much overlap with some of the big ones like FBI, FSB and MI5. And even traditional police forces get themselves involved in intelligence work when they do counter-terrorism stuff. So, yes, it seemed too hard to separate them. How many "spies" do we approximately have? A number of CIA directors come to mind, but outside that? Livitnov and Snowden? --SVTCobra 20:02, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Was going to say Valerie Plame, but turns out our category is for the scandal rather than the person. --Pi zero (talk) 20:06, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit filter

Do you think you could take a look at restricting the addition of [[File:Croppv.jpg]]? The edits to User talk:Yann just now, and to User talk:MusikAnimal a while ago, which are just spamming the image, are purely disruptive. (Also, would revision deletion as too disruptive be called for?) Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 01:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I might look into the edit filters, in my copious free time. (I loathe the interface design of that extension.)

We're quite reticent about hiding parts of revision history, though in recent times we've cautiously eased into treating some limited classes of edit summaries and log entries as deletable spam. Content of a reverted edit generally doesn't show up unless one goes well out of one's way to fetch it, so we generally don't hide it unless it contains inappropriate personal information, or presents a legal problem (such as libel or copyright). --Pi zero (talk) 01:48, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Internal cats for navigation

As I was working on updating sub-cats in Category:England, it occurred to me it is difficult to find cities when browsing through categories. One might be looking for Middlesbrough but not know that it is found in Category:North Yorkshire. While Wikinews almost exclusively has categories for cities, I noticed Shoreham is a town. So, stealing inspiration from Commons, I am seriously considering creating Category:Settlements in the United Kingdom. This way it could cover everything from the biggest metropolis (through cities, towns, villages) to the smallest hamlet. And if it ever becomes too cluttered (when Wikinews explodes in popularity) each of those could be created as subcategories. Similar "settlements" categories would be useful for any country where we have divided into geographic subcategories. I'm thinking the United States, Australia, Canada, India. Do you think such a thing would be useful? Cheers, --SVTCobra 17:18, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I want to think about this, carefully. Additional infrastructure is an administrative burden; and there are both changes to those parts of the category hierarchy I (and partly separate, BRS) have been contemplating, and multiple strategies for aiding curation of various kinds of additional infrastructure. I.e., it's complicated. Changes I've been considering to the categories may also be necessarily coupled with creation of a new class of pages in, possibly, portal space. --Pi zero (talk) 17:38, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Go ahead and think about it, but it wouldn't create any day-to-day burden. There's no change to structure, either. Category:Settlements in the United Kingdom would be in Category:United Kingdom and, I guess, Category:Settlements for tracking. Once it is populated, it's done and the only burden would be remembering to add it to any new city category which are created in the future. I guestimate the population to be around thirty. Cheers, --SVTCobra 18:01, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I point out that we already have infrastructure specifically for finding city categories and the like, namely, our mainspace redirects to categories.

Regarding burdens, making ordinary tasks difficult is lethally toxic to a wiki. (Yes, believe it or not, on en.wn we've made things remarkably easy to do, or we wouldn't still exist; I go on about how we have to make them even easier, but say less about how well we already do on that score.) It worries me that we're making category-setup more and more complicated and difficult. --Pi zero (talk) 02:47, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikinewsie categories

Should Wikinewsie categories be in country categories and thus visible when browsing a country category? I think it looks strange to browse subcategories and see cities, counties, topics and then suddenly a username with (Wikinewsie) in parenthesis. --SVTCobra 14:19, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Well, the (Wikinewsie) on the name makes clear what you're looking at when you see it there. That information about a Wikinewsie is significant to their role in news production. So, I guess, yes, it's right that they be listed there. Presumably if one reduces the clutter in a country cat by shunting associated people into a subcat, the Wikinewsies would also be shunted there. --Pi zero (talk) 14:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'll leave Category:Brian McNeil (Wikinewsie) in Category:Scotland but remove him from Category:Europe. Unfortunately, that category also revealed that he has created local pages for over a thousand images on Commons whether or not they were used in a Wikinews article. The ones I found when updating Category:Tony Benn four weeks ago was only the tip of the iceberg. --SVTCobra 14:41, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Hmm. That's... thought-provoking. --Pi zero (talk) 14:53, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi, it's me, again. Back with more fun stuff. I have a problem with several of the sub-categories in Category:Edinburgh which are for individual streets or landmarks. --SVTCobra 01:45, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Oho! If I'm reading that right, these categories have been created to allow identification using local categories. Interesting indeed. --Pi zero (talk) 01:51, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

That's the generous view of it. The good news is, the images are in fact used in articles. --SVTCobra 02:37, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Review

As we know, scientific studies get reported on in media at a slower pace, leaving the timing of the focal event somewhat arbitrary, and I think we have discussed also having a more generous window for such articles on Wikinews. New developments don't occur at the same pace as other news. With this in mind, I'd like to review Astronomers find water vapour in atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b, but don't want to waste the time if you think it is stale. Let me know if you think I should proceed. Cheers, --SVTCobra 15:42, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: It's not stale today, because the event has two parts, the second of which was on Wednesday, three calendar days ago so within freshness range at reviewer's discretion. There are, btw, a couple of passages I see there that don't face the past as they might (not every use of present tense is necessarily a problem, of course, but imho such passages are always worth pausing to ponder possible improvements); and my eye also caught a bit on the use of "expects" in the last paragraph (often a symptom of anonymous claims). --Pi zero (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'll pay extra mind to the tense and if things need attribution. BTW, I realize you have probably asked DF to establish the focal event as the "reported on" and since we need two sources, it became a two-part event. Would you mind if I change that to "reported on this week"? I can add a note inside which breaks it down into Tuesday and Wednesday for those who want to sniff around like we do for other relative dates. BTW, I am first going to do a quick update on the Saudi story and resubmit it (reports on damage/effects seem to have come out). --SVTCobra 16:48, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: The lede should explicitly name the day(s); that's needed to establish freshness. The two-part-ness of the event doesn't bother me, as it still seems to me specific. --Pi zero (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Are you planning to use {{translation note}} for the entire Russian interview? This seems excessive and a monumental undertaking. The Russian version will be forever linked for anyone who wants to verify the translation. If you fear that isn't permanent or it might get altered, just copy it into a sub-page here and lock it down. I don't blame you for running it through a translator to verify for yourself before publishing, but all these notes will take forever and I don't see great value in it. --SVTCobra 23:21, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: The value in the long run is the reader having the original at their fingertips when looking at each remark (otherwise it'd be really hard to hunt down the original of a particular passage). I did consider just leaving it at this-is-just-a-translation-of-some-other-project's-article... but with any translation one may wonder how well it's translated and the remedy for that is to have the original available for each passage. Very much in keeping with our open approach (I remember a professor of journalism, who was sending students in their class to us at the time, describing it as an experiment in radically open journalism, or some similar wording); it does give me satisfaction to provide the originals of translated quotes, as a sort of added value that BBC etc. don't supply. These passages need close individual scrutiny, I can see that; I suspect a couple of them got cut short, even, which just goes to show the need to go through them one at a time. Reviewing a big interview is often a gigantic task.

All that said, this isn't going to be completed today; there's missing documentation, and I need to write up review comments explaining the state of things, what's needed, what I've done, what still needs to be done. --Pi zero (talk) 23:47, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Still it's a gargantuan task and I don't expect there to be many 'fingertips' that make use of all this work. There's got to be a better way. Like, for instance a PDF file where the two interviews are lined up next to each other in two columns or something. Mike is working on an article which also will be a large review. Well, it's your time, you can spend it as you see fit. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:00, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

The effort to set up the translation-notes is really a good deal smaller than the effort to do the checks on each one. But, as I said (or tried to say), I don't expect to do it all now. --Pi zero (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

UK television presenter sacked after "golliwog" comment

If I replace the illustration with a local upload it is because it was deleted at Commons. I have already downloaded it to my computer. No reply needed. --SVTCobra 17:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Do we still have room for "wackynews"?

Pi, I think we are both in the same boat with regards to Category:Wackynews. It ought not be used for things that seem unusual or unexpected on the surface, but which have tragic outcomes. I've depopulated it of some stories over the years. They can be caustically cynical. Most recent was Alleged ghost hunt in Toronto ends in death, which you sighted. But I don't think this should be the death of Wackynews. As you may already have seen, I would like to write an article about w:Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us. But I'd also like to write in a style that is a little less formal than what we do for regular news. Let me know what you think. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:37, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I don't think we should be less formal for such things; what makes the best ones work is delivering the news with a straight face (as it were).

The problem with Wackynews appears to me to be twofold:

• The name is kind of flippant, which feels kind of unprofessional and clashes with somber subject matter.
• The inclusion criteria for the category are rather subjective, despite some where it's clear.

• "Airborne sedan smashes into dental office in Santa Ana, California, US" — Wikinews, January 16, 2018
• "40 alleged drunken Santas accused of running amok" — Wikinews, December 19, 2005

(I didn't mean to imply some ringing endorsement by sighting, btw; I just didn't have a strong enough opinion to be worth opposing the edit.) --Pi zero (talk) 00:57, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Well, unique or not 'Storm 51' is a joke and I'd feel like an idiot reporting on it with a 100% straight face. I guess, I could try and stay funny. But if you think I we need to report it as real, I am out.

And, geez, you misinterpreted the 'ghost hunt' comment. All I said was "we agree" a death is not "wacky". Did you think I was trying to 'trick' you?

--SVTCobra 01:30, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Huh?

I thought I captured the problem with Wackynews pretty well. It's not, I don't think, necessarily about things that are funny, but things that are bizarre or absurd (as the category specifies). Which is subjective. I've got someone here (physically) who just told me the airborn-sedan article obviously doesn't belong in Wackynews. From what you say, the word "wacky" —which also doesn't mean the same thing to everyone— is part of the problem. Not that I have any idea what else we could call the thing. --Pi zero (talk) 01:39, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: It's also possible we don't mean the same thing by "less formal"; so I have no clue whether I'd have any problem with what you have in mind for the Storm 51 thing. Maybe there's no difficulty. --Pi zero (talk) 01:45, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Thankful

Thank you for your input in my article https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Drinking_Water_Seller_as_a_Candidate_for_Mayor_of_South_Tangerang

I will improve my writing so that it becomes better, I beg for your help, this is my first article ini Wikinews. Kind regards. Gilang Syawal Ajiputra (talk) 06:13, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Reminder: Community Insights Survey

Share your experience in this survey

Hi Pi zero/Archive 17,

A couple of weeks ago, we invited you to take the Community Insights Survey. It is the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual survey of our global communities. We want to learn how well we support your work on wiki. We are 10% towards our goal for participation. If you have not already taken the survey, you can help us reach our goal! Your voice matters to us.

Please take 15 to 25 minutes to give your feedback through this survey. It is available in various languages.

This survey is hosted by a third-party and governed by this privacy statement (in English).

Find more information about this project. Email us if you have any questions, or if you don't want to receive future messages about taking this survey.

Sincerely,

RMaung (WMF) 19:13, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@RMaung (WMF): As I remarked last time (but I didn't ping you because I didn't expect to get a second notice), I expect such a survey to be misinterpreted and I won't participate in it. --Pi zero (talk) 21:28, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@RMaung (WMF): Are you attempting to track negative feedback about the survey? --Pi zero (talk) 13:01, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@Pi zero: Thank you for letting me know! I'll make sure you don't receive further reminders about the survey. We are always open to feedback about the survey, positive or negative. We are hoping to improve the survey each year. --RMaung (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Re talk page

Thanks for extending the talk page protection. You are probably seeing similar crap around the place from this LTA. Do note that at enWS we have started deleting the edits as that is the diffs and the like are this person's means for spreading and weaponising their message. We have a rudimentary filter in place with a short term block that has some effectiveness that I am willing to share via email if that is of interest. Ping me if there is interest. — billinghurst sDrewth 07:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

POLICY_ON_ENGLISH_TO_BE_TEST_OF_SCHOOLS_IN_THAILAND

https://en.m.wikinews.org/w/index.php?preload=Template%3ANew_page&editintro=Template%3ANew_article_intro&title=POLICY_ON_ENGLISH_TO_BE_TEST_OF_SCHOOLS_IN_THAILAND

I thought Wikinews is to upload the new of the day .Could you please advise me which wiki is to keep the recorded?2405:9800:BC11:BD0D:DDA7:8F2A:C48:CA52 (talk) 14:12, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

We do report news here. However, we cannot violate copyright to do so. We therefore choose two or more mutually independent sources for an article, and we draw facts from them but express those facts in an entirely different way so that we aren't violating their copyright (nor plagiarizing). You can read a compact overview of what we do at Wikinews:Pillars of writing. There's also an excellent tutorial on how to write a first article here at Wikinews:Writing an article. --Pi zero (talk) 14:24, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks you 2405:9800:BC11:BD0D:E83A:CD55:61FE:71C4 (talk) 15:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

End of the streak

Well, with three attempted reviews, you certainly gave the ole college try at keeping our September streak alive. We have a couple of days with more than one article published, so we may be able to say we had at least thirty articles published in thirty days. We just need one more to 'go out the door' by the 30th. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:55, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Yup. --Pi zero (talk) 00:05, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Going stale

Do you think you could take a look at U.S. House issues subpoena to secretary of state as special envoy to Ukraine resigns? Its going to go stale soon. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 23:18, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: I don't think I can do another review tonight, which may be you're asking: that article is in more imminent danger than the other one on the queue, even though they're both for Friday events, because the impeachment soap-opera is apt to acquire new developments at any moment once we're past the weekend. I'm aware of this, and sympathize. I'm just not sure what I can do about it; try my best, I suppose. --Pi zero (talk) 23:47, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Do you think I would be successful if I applied to be a reviewed in the near term? I know that reviewers are stretched thin, and would like to be able to help. --DannyS712 (talk) 23:49, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: I've been giving thought to your progress on the project. It's clear that in the lower-level mechanics you're in pretty good shape (and continue to pick stuff up; it's amazing how much there is to pick up). Those are things you can practice both on articles you write and on articles by others that you help to copyedit. The deeper things that one gets into in review are harder to say. I seem to recall some feedback (maybe from SVTCobra?) on one of your articles recently suggested there had been a problem with subjective statements, which is not a good sign; since reporter and reviewer are pursuing the same set of goals (it can't function well as an adversarial process), the ability to write articles that consistently breeze through the review process is something one would want in a candidate for reviewer.

Have you seen Wikinews:Tips on reviewing articles? I created it, some time back, because I felt we didn't have any specific guidance for reviewers about how to review; at that time there were quite a few active reviewers, of which I was fairly junior, and I asked at the water cooler how they went about it. Getting some really interesting and varied answers, I eventually assembled the Tips page, which has continued to develop, slowly, over the years since. I still don't feel we have a smooth procedure in place for training up potential reviewers, excepting the principle that, as I suggested above, a candidate for reviewer should be able to reliably write articles that have no serious problems. It can work, and has worked pretty well over the years; I'd just like to have, well, more to help things along.

With all that in mind (including the Tips page), I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on your progress: what areas do you think you need to work on, to prepare for the reviewer bit? --Pi zero (talk) 00:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Looking over my last few articles, the issues I see are: tense of writing, headlines, and sources. Eg for Talk:Hurricane Humberto strengthens to Category 3 while approaching Bermuda, I first submitted it with only 2 sources - enough to cover the content, but with only 1 source for each part of the content. I think I'm getting the hang of this though; I asked so that I could get an external view, since its harder to judge oneself. --DannyS712 (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: It looks to me as if the Pelosi article is likely the one I'm remembering. The review comment says simply "Be careful about what sources say they have heard and what they are reporting. It ain't the same thing." That's an important distinction, and concerning; but I also see other similarly-themed edit descriptions on edits during review. We shouldn't be reporting rumor, and we generally don't report the opinions of another news org (just as we wouldn't report our own), and these distinctions are important. --Pi zero (talk) 00:57, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Word choices

Hello, Pi zero. You are a self-proclaimed logophile and always choose your words carefully, however, I would like to request you revisit your use of "troll" and "trolling". To wikt:troll (verb definition #8) is "to post inflammatory material ... for personal entertainment". Per w:internet troll, it is often viewed as a pejorative and people take personal offense to the term. While it is a subjective term, it is usually associated with behavior far more sinister than advocating for non-starter policies ad nauseum. Things like posting hoaxes and advocating things which one does not actually believe, just to get a rise out of other people, come to mind. To call someone a troll is to call them insincere, disingenuous or a liar. Beating a dead horse may be annoying and, at some point, becomes disruptive; but is not trolling in common parlance. I feel as if you do not quite realize how much of an insult the word is, hence the strong reactions. On Wikimedia projects it is probably a pejorative more than anywhere else on the Internet. Elsewhere, there can be a humorous element to trolling, such as the Boaty McBoatface incident or a "Haha! Gotcha! I trolled you so hard!" moment at the end. That doesn't exist on Wikis. To be branded on-Wiki as a troll, in public as it all is, by an authority figure such as a sysop/bureaucrat can haunt people for years. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:03, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: I'll keep your comments in mind. Note the wikt-verb-8 definition doesn't stop at "personal entertainment"; and the en.wp definition leaves even more leeway for additional motivations. It's not a cheerful word, but it's not limited to the sort of person discussed in the 2014 Slate article ([1]). I'm still hoping to not have to go back and slog through either of those cases (De Wikishim's big sprawling one or Darkfrog24's much more focused one). --Pi zero (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Pi. But I don't think "gratuitous disruption" fits either and the psychology discussed in the Slate article is right out, as you seem to agree. On Wiki projects, trolls are people who get insta-banned. Other users may have no interest in furthering the project (on Wikipedia they have w:WP:NOTHERE for a description) and while you may be able to find a few commonalities as you move progressively down the list there, I don't think it is fair to say that either of the users you mentioned is 'not here' to report news. Believe me, I am immune to any claim, 'it was just this one edit-war and then I was perma-banned'. Also, I am doing the slogging, hoping you won't find reason to do the same. BTW, that's how I found those two disassociated talk pages which I deleted today, and yes, I read them first. Cheers, --SVTCobra 01:32, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Given the choice between en.wikt and en.wp, in this case I'd prefer en.wp's definition (first paragraph of their intro, as it reads atm): "[...] whether for the troll's amusement or a specific gain." Much more flexible. --Pi zero (talk)

Since when do logophiles prefer ambiguous terms? --SVTCobra 02:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@SVTCobra: Not ambiguity. Generality, in this respect. --Pi zero (talk) 02:32, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

POLICY ON ENGLISH TO BE TEST OF SCHOOLS IN THAILAND

Please give me more time and help me to keep it .2405:9800:BC11:BD0D:49FD:BFEF:616A:504A (talk) 09:00, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Princess Beatrice of York is engaged to italian count

Hi! My sincere apologies, but English is not my mother tongue and I have a little difficulty understanding what you meant. Can you explain again more simply, please? Minerva97 (talk) 15:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Minerva97: I'll try to explain.

• Each article on this project has to be reviewed by an authorized reviewer, independent of the writing of the article (in other words, the reviewer cannot be a coauthor), before it can be published. A full review is quite a large effort, and our reviewers are volunteers too, so it often takes a day or more after an article is submitted before it is reviewed. It can take longer, for various reasons, such as because there happen to be a whole bunch of articles submitted at the same time, or simply because no reviewer was able to do much review at that time. Of course, whether it will pass review, and thus be published, is another question.
• Each article is centrally about a particular news event, called the focus, or, the focal event. In the case of your article, the focal event is the announcement of engagement.
• One of the requirements for publication — one of the review criteria — is that the article must be fresh at the time of publication. Freshness is about how recently the focal event of the article happened. If the focal event happened on the same day as publication, or the day before publication, that's usually okay. If it happened two or three days ago, it may be okay, although sometimes a reviewer will decide that somewhere in the two-to-three-day range the article just doesn't fell fresh anymore. However, for an ordinary article such as this one, we don't publish more than three calendar days after the focal event. In this case, the focal event took place on September 26 (a Thursday), so we wouldn't publish any later than September 29 (a Sunday). Once the date turned to September 30 (as reckoned on en.wn, which keeps universal time), that focal event would be considered "stale" (that is, no longer fresh).

We have a page that provides an overview of how all this works, which I recommend: Wikinews:Pillars of writing. --Pi zero (talk) 16:05, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Pi zero: I think now I got it. Just two more questions,

• How do I propose the article for review before it is published?
• Do I have to "propose the creation" of an article and wait for the creation to be approved?

Minerva97 (talk) 16:53, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

@Minerva97:

• Anyone can create an article. We recommend using one of our article creation forms, such as the one at WN:WRITE.
• If you create an article using an article creation form, there should be a {{develop}} tag at the top, which looks like this:

This article is being developed. You can contribute or discuss its development. If it is ready to be checked, you can action=do&label=submit it for review&verb:button-local-field-verb&form:button-local-field-form&subject:button-local-field-subject&‍cols=&rows=&editxcols=&rows=&Template:Assistant:Submit/formxTemplate:Assistant:Submit/formcols=&rows=&User talk:Pi zero/Archive 17xUser talk:Pi zero/Archive 17Submit for review. This is not a way to ask others to expand or finish the article! You should review discussion about this article, and verify original reporting notes are adequate. Click to add OR notes.

This article is being developed. You can contribute or discuss its development. If it is ready to be checked, you can action=do&label=submit it for review&verb:button-local-field-verb&form:button-local-field-form&subject:button-local-field-subject&‍cols=&rows=&editxcols=&rows=&Template:Assistant:Submit/formxTemplate:Assistant:Submit/formcols=&rows=&User talk:Pi zero/Archive 17xUser talk:Pi zero/Archive 17Submit for review. This is not a way to ask others to expand or finish the article! You should review discussion about this article, and verify original reporting notes are adequate. Click to add OR notes.

You should be able to submit the article for review by clicking the "submit" button on that tag on the article. (The button should refuse to work if you click it on this page, for example, because the button should recognize this is a user talk page, not an article.)

--Pi zero (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

doing any better?

I contributed to a new article. Hope im making progress. Baozon90 (talk) 13:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Baozon90: I think you are, yes. Thanks. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 13:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Thursday limitation

I expect to undergo a medical procedure on Thursday October 17 at about 1600 UTC, involving anesthetic after which I'm not supposed to make any critical decisions for the next twelve hours. I've seen the effects of these sorts of drugs; when they say no critical decisions, they mean it. So, I'm basically out of action for the latter half of Thursday. --Pi zero (talk) 00:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Pi zero: Hope it goes well! Seemplez (talk) 13:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Source edit requests

Hi. First, thanks for everything that you do around here. After you finished the last review, I noticed that Category:Review is now empty. Do you think that you have time to take a look at my edit requests for {{Source}}?

• Template talk:Source#Edit request - cleanup is a simple optimization of parser functions by eliminating a double if
• Template talk:Source#Edit request - pub target allows for citations' publisher field to not always link to the enwikinews or enwiki page; some publishers don't have pages. It also adds a tracking category, so that the publishers can be checked later to see if the link can be restored

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 02:12, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Ran late tonight; turning in now. Thanks for reminding me, though. Had taken a preliminary look at those as they were first proposed; they looked good; figured to look more closely later. Will try to get to them. --Pi zero (talk) 02:48, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Syria story.

I hope it doesnt become stale. Baozon90 (talk) 01:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

@Baozon90: I too am concerned. But, I did my best for it; I wrote review comments describing, in as much detail as I could, the difficulties I could see that need to be overcome. The definition of a specific focal event seemed to me to be key. --Pi zero (talk) 01:52, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Bangalore ComicCon

It seems to be too late, the date is approaching and it has been almost three weeks they haven't responded to email. I would call them today. Else I don't know what to do.
•–• 03:15, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

hogan story

not enough info for a whole story so briefs? Baozon90 (talk) 16:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

i wrote all of that for nothing

what gives? --PickledMoss89 (talk) 22:46, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

@PickledMoss89: I've made the revisions visible again (because, yeah, there's a concern but it's also got a good deal of new text in it). I'm working on writing review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 22:55, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Not able

to contribute much here anymore. but i requested a article. Baozon90 (talk) 19:00, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Pubtarget switch in source templates

Hello, with the recent changes in source templates, the pubtarget=no expression, which I have used in Hungarian state-owned enterprise acquires Hirtenberger Defence Group to suppress links to non-existent Wikipedia articles, doesn't seem to work. Is that intentional? - Xbspiro (talk) 17:05, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Xbspiro: Well, truthfully, yes it is intentional. For most of the past fifteen years we've had the template set up so there's no way to avoid having a link to somewhere, and just recently when we deployed that feature for leaving a publisher unlinked, I was uncomfortable that we were perhaps overlooking some merits of the way things had been done. So I backed off from it. However, when you specify pubtarget=no it does flag out the page, in a couple of ways; and if we decide to do something different with those cases, it'll be straightforward and won't affect pages that don't specify pubtarget=no. --Pi zero (talk) 17:27, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

hi!

x2 as pi! Tauzero1 (talk) 00:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

US Navy Secretary Richard Spencer fired

Hi. Can you please let another reviewer take a look at US Navy Secretary Richard Spencer fired? I don't intend to work on it more in response to the feedback you've given, but would like a third perspective. Maybe I'm wrong. But, the thing about "In terms of how to respond to a not-ready review (a topic I hope someday to write an especially lucid essay about, though it's extremely tricky to write about): it's not okay, in ordinary circumstances, to respond to a not-ready review with "I don't agree with that review so I'm going to refuse to accept it and instead resubmit the article without change." That's not compatible with the review process." - I would suggest that, as a corollary, "In terms of how to respond to an article's author's response to a not-ready review: it's not okay, in ordinary circumstances, to respond to an explanation with "I don't agree with that explanation so I'm going to refuse to accept it and instead re-decline the article with no change." - You spent almost an hour and a half with the page marked as "under review", only to turn back with no change whatsoever. I had hoped that, if you weren't going to accept it, you would at least let another reviewer provide a neutral perspective. If I don't hear back in the next hour or so, I'll submit it for review again - hopefully another reviewer can take a look. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 03:49, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Yes, it did take me about an hour and a half to write the review comment for the fourth review. Pretty similar to how long it took me to write the comment for the first review. The review comment for the second review took about an hour to write.

No, that is not a corollary. The situation isn't at all symmetric in that respect. When an article is resubmitted without change, as you did, it's actually quite common to simply revert the resubmission, with a warning that resubmitting without addressing review concerns is considered a form of project disruption; which I did not do, choosing instead to put additional effort into trying to help you learn your way around the particular area(s) of Wikinews principles we'd gotten into. --Pi zero (talk) 04:27, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Umm... what principle is that exactly? I haven't learned anything from this - just gotten frustrated. --DannyS712 (talk) 04:29, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I primarily characterized it, in the first review, as a matter of neutrality, though I also noted parenthetically that these various principles tend to be entangled beneath the surface. (I often have trouble, for essentially this same reason, deciding which of the five review criteria to check for a particular problem.)

This is an instance where omission of information is apt to distort the impression the reader takes from the article. News neutrality is vastly more tolerant of omissions than encyclopedic neutrality, but it is possible for omissions to become a problem when the reader isn't aware of of something that greatly changes the character of the story. This is discussed somewhat at Wikinews:Neutrality#Unbiased coverage, especially the subsection on synthesis articles. --Pi zero (talk) 04:58, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Is any of this discussed in any official policy / guideline, rather than just essays you've written? --DannyS712 (talk) 05:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm just the vehicle through which a lot of this stuff gets written down. Small news orgs are routinely underdocumented, as they're generally shorthanded and too busy doing things to write meta-texts about how they do them. I don't write personal opinion in community essays; but as I've made a point of making myself an expert on all aspects of Wikinews review, I'm often the one who ends up writing them down (which we do aspire to). Don't get wound up with which documents say "community essay" and which say "guideline" (or even "policy"). We do aspire to write this stuff down; but between hammering out the details and figuring out how to express them, it can take a very long time. Wikipedia is bureaucracy-heavy with documents about how to do things; on Wikinews, review comments are a major vehicle by which the living tradition passed down. --Pi zero (talk) 13:59, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

I had a concussion recently and I guess its still affecting me. I'll try to fix the story. Sorry, --DannyS712 (talk) 08:46, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Re concussion: Sorry to hear. To my understanding, there's only to take it easy, give it plenty of time, and get well. Best wishes, for my part. --Pi zero (talk) 19:31, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: One lesson I hope to take away from all this is that when one puts an article {{under review}} with an expectation it likely won't pass, one ought to write into the edit summary some warning of that possibility. --Pi zero (talk) 21:22, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Contributing?

I really dont have time to create full articles, so shorts might be a option? what is your take on this? Thank you. Or possibly requesting but i dont think you want me going towards that option. Baozon90 (talk) 19:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Copy and paste a news article from a source could that work then put into my own words as best i can? Baozon90 (talk) 20:11, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Baozon90: We particularly recommend not copying-and-then-modifying. We can't host copy-and-paste from sources, even if you're going to write something differently phrased later.

Shorts haven't worked as a concept, in modern times. --Pi zero (talk) 20:32, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

My RfP

Hey @Pi zero:

Could you check out my request for Reviewer at FRRfP?

Thanks in advance,

Seemplez 10:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Seemplez: I did notice it. I'll try to take a closer look later today (knock wood). --Pi zero (talk) 13:38, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks mate! Seemplez 14:28, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Pi zero: Any update, because it will be two weeks since my request on Wednesday. I didn't say last Wednesday because it was Christmas Seemplez 19:45, 28 December 2019 (UTC)