User talk:Pi zero/Archive 4

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 It is for historical reference only.

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Fellowship programme

Have you contemplated the https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships programme?

I know I couldn't throw together a credible proposal in a couple of weeks, but I think there's a real need to investigate documentation and/or toolsets that would work better for newbies - and that falls under their "recruitment/retention" remit.

Working with non-Wikimedians to establish how best to lessen discouragement or the learning curve does seem to fit in their criteria; but, as I say, I've no idea how I'd put that all in a proposal (plus, I'm far from flavour of the month ). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews trophy

I, William S. Saturn, hereby award Pi zero the Wikinews Trophy for his tireless efforts in thoroughly reviewing and copy editing articles, and maintaining journalistic integrity at Wikinews.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Gosh. Thankyou. --Pi zero (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Re:New York firebomb suspect arraigned/archiving

Thanks for reviewing the article and for fixing up all my mistakes. And thanks for pointing out my errors in archiving. I kinda took a long, unannounced, WikiBreak, so I guess I'm a bit rusty. Aye, back when I left, I remember there were about 5-15 articles poppin' out per day. Time to kick it into high gear... Cheers! Cocoaguy^talk_contribs‽ 05:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sensesfail123

Provisional and probational unblocked, suspected sock of Kitties due to confirmed technical data. Check your email. -- Cirt (talk) 16:08, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for all your help and also giving me pointers along the way about the process here at Wikinews! Much appreciated, Crtew (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Francisco Leandro/vector.css

Please delete my user page. It is no longer necessary. Thanks. Francisco (talk) 10:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Done --Pi zero (talk) 12:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The Joe Kennedy Story

Dear Pi Zero, this is what II was trying to do last night but it is way beyond my capabilities: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/8/fourth-generation-kennedy-considers-a-house-run/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS This is pretty much the tact I wanted to take but am too inexperienced. How do I just suggest a needed news coverage or topic if I am not yet studied enough to do it? And, I see by the comments here at your page you were helping a lot of people at an intense level of training and service yesterday. I also read some of your political coverage, or your personally created articles I think. Pretty good. I was impressed. Thanks for contributing your time to our betterment. SpaceRocker (talk) 11:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC) SpaceRocker BTW I just read the Trophy tag line. Congrats. Seems like I am not the first to say 'thanks'!

There is a page on-site for requesting stories; however, as our currently-active writer base is not large, you're better off writing articles yourself. You might find these pages useful: WN:Article layout in a nutshell, WN:Writing an article, WN:Style guide. --Pi zero (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Pi Zero. I am not qualified for this kind of writing but I do have some creative writing experience. I am pouring through the style manuals and can do it I think. What I wrote was a poor Wikishort based on what I have learned so far. With enough time I can probably write an article that will pass muster. Wish me luck! If he declares his candidacy too soon, I won't have a chance - GRIN. Thanks again and best wishes! SpaceRocker (talk) 18:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC) "Rock on!"

Good luck. :-)  --Pi zero (talk)

Story in preparation

Should I have used a different tag when starting the article about National Human Trafficking Awareness Day? Crtew (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem; commented on article talk. --Pi zero (talk) 16:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Concerning my article about "bedrock" lawsuit

Any suggestions and or idea's will and would be greatly appreciated. Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zeddicus Zorander 88 (talk • contribs) 17:22, 12 January 2012‎

Re:Oops

Sorry, my bad... Thanks for fixing it Cocoaguy^talk_contribs‽

RE: Punjab blast ; Phobos-Grunt

I wrote the Phobos-Grunt article too quickly (in half an hour) in a hurry to shut down. I couldn't copy-edit the article well, so sorry for your painstaking efforts to distant the article from its sources. Frankly, English is not my strong-point and that's precisely why I have failed WN:FRRFP twice. Hope to improve gradually as I write more on wikinews :) Srinivas 08:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA blackout article edit

I noticed you deleted the text about Craigslist SOPA protest that I added to the SOPA blackout article http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikipedia,_Reddit_in_%27blackout%27_against_SOPA,_PROTECT_IP_laws

I wasn't sure what your reasoning was? Seemed to be relevant to the list of other sites such as Google that were mentioned in the prior sentence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michael614 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 18 January 2012‎

At first, I treated both pending edits as a unit and rejected both at once, before realizing yours really should have been treated separately (regardless of whether rejected, it ought to have had a separate edit summary). I then went back and did a more thorough review of your edit, but found (not at all to my surprise, given its nature) that it wasn't supported by the sources.

Also keep in mind, at this point, that we aren't allowed to add sources dated after the date of publication of the article (the article was published yesterday, about half an hour before midnight UTC); and that in any case, no substantive changes are allowed more than 24 hours after publication.

Fwiw, imho the article doesn't suffer without it. --Pi zero (talk) 22:45, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I didn't know the time based editing rules - is there a link to editing guidelines on the site? - I looked but did not see one. Michael614 (talk) 00:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a page Wikinews:For Wikipedians that might be of help. One might also start with the style guide and work one's way outward from there. --Pi zero (talk) 01:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: 6.1 magnitude earthquake strikes southern New Zealand

Thank you for informing sir. BTW, I like your edit summaries a lot. They help me in understanding how to write better and also explain why you have done the edit. Meanwhile, what about the article Gujarat high court refutes Modi's objection to Lokyukta's appointment? It's been in "for review" since yesterday. Seems like nobody interested :) Srinivas 13:54, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you like my summaries; thanks. :-)  It's a technique I started using whilst this past semester's journalism students were coming through.

When the queue starts to build up, I do as much reviewing as I have time and concentration for, which is typically about two full reviews per day but sometimes more (and sometimes less). When I have to choose what to review, knowing what I don't choose may die from neglect (an unpleasant choice all around), I tend to work from the young end of the review queue — both because young articles are more likely to have time to fix problems that have to go back to the author, and because if we're only going to get to publish some of the submissions, we'd like to publish fresher ones.

Right now, I have to go to bed (it's well into the middle of the night, here). We'll see what review situation I wake up to in the morning. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 07:08, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Oops!!

On the drought story you passed just a while ago......the last line should read, "in UNUSUAL locales." .......my error.......can you fix it? Thanks!! 66.76.66.130 (talk) 18:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC) ....um, that was me.Bddpaux (talk) 18:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I honestly read it as "unusual" when I reviewed it. I fixed it, and sighted the fix — either it is a typo, which can be self-sighted, or your request can be counted as submitting an edit (by proxy) so I'm only reviewing it. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

India and China to develop friendly relations

Hello! Just about the article "India and China to develop friendly relations" archived on 25 January 2012. First of all , that's a great article!!! Just about last sentence "The boundary talks were to be held in November, but was postponed over Chinese disapproval of India allowing the Dalai Lama into a Buddhist meet in New Delhi." What about ".., but were postponed.." instead of "..,but was postponed", as "boundary talks" ,plural,is the subject? Thanks a lot in advance! 2.192.230.201 (talk) 06:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Grammar fixes like this are allowed under the archive policy. Done Thanks, and glad you liked the article. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 13:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Occupy group ends Monsanto protest on Maui

I've responded to your review on the talk page. You've questioned the newsworthiness and verifiability, however, your review demonstrates your misreading of the news article. To summarize, the event did not take place "one day ago", it took place 13 hours ago. And while it is true that the the last source was three days old The last source is two days old, not three, and the last protest only just ended. Your attempt to dismiss the newsworthiness outright by puffing up the age of the sources is hereby noted. Also, your claim that the sources "cannot possibly verify the news event" doesn't make any sense. Every word is verified by the sources. Further, your commentary about the nature of the group is completely wrong, as this is not a minor protest by a group unrelated to the Occupy movement, but one of a series of important and newsworthy protests against Monsanto in the news since last week when a shareholder rebelled against the company and protests erupted at their headquarters in Missouri and at their research station in Maui within hours of each other, both of which were covered by the major media in their respective states. And, I have no idea what kind of "POV intent" could be behind giving a public street address of one of the leading biotech companies in the world, an address that specifies the exact location of the protest. I would love to hear your explanation for that one as I cannot possibly figure it out. Viriditas (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I left you a short polite note on your talk page, directing you to the appropriate collaboration page. Where I had provided polite feedback on an article that needed some improvements. You could have responded by attempting to improve the article, which might or might not have ultimately produced a publishable article but might, either way, have been valuable experience toward avoiding similar difficulties with subsequent submissions. You chose instead to respond with apparent belligerence and paranoia, and declared intent to not make any attempt to fix the article. Mainspace is not comments space; if you have no interest in contributing to the project, kindly do not disrupt it. --Pi zero (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Another highly disingenuous reply. As I have repeatedly pointed out to you, you have made and continue to make a number of misleading statements about this news story which you have refused to correct. For instance, you made a number of nebulous, subjective claims disputing its newsworthiness and verifiability. When I disputed the veracity of your claims, and pointed out that they were wrong, you refused to correct them. There is nothing to "fix", and you know that. You designed your review to block publication, not to "help" me with anything. Viriditas (talk) 23:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I've allowed you to rant on my talk page, and to lodge here your accusation of ignoring project standards. Now that you've done so I consider this "discussion" here closed. --Pi zero (talk) 01:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: WNIQ, WNIR

Sorry for the late response. Well, I felt that the 19px images were too tall for the line-height of the text, so I reduced that size to 14px, the same value we set in eswikinews for the same templates. —Fitoschido ^[shout_track] @ 30 January, 2012; 18:42

I see. Thanks. For me, they stand out (which doesn't seem a bad thing, imho), but are not so large as to cause uneven spacing of lines. That could be a peculiarity of the configuration of my display, of course. At opportunity I'll see how they look on a different machine's display. --Pi zero (talk) 19:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

RE: Edits to published articles

Thanks for the reminder - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 01:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The list

I'm not listed at Wikinews:Credential verification......do I list myself or does an Admin have to do it?Bddpaux (talk) 18:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I've never been involved in that side of things. The page is fully protected though. Er, perhaps inquire of Brian McNeil? --Pi zero (talk) 19:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll contact him...thanks.Bddpaux (talk) 22:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Synthetic Marijuana article

.........you know, this brings up a thing that has been pinging around in my brain for awhile. ....again, per my usual I may be over-complicating things. But, I've often struggled with how to put together an article when you have lots of tiny news events occuring over a two-month period re: a big thing [like, say, synthetic marijuana]. But see, even that doesn't really cover it right........the developingstory angle, because some issues sort of bubble up over a long period, which isn't exactly the same as a developing story.....it's more like a developing issue....know what I mean? A declining economy is different from the gradual collapse of a single big bank over a 30 day period. Bddpaux (talk) 22:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggest two approaches to this question.

• Look for inspiration on the question amongst our featured articles. Keep in mind changing site standards if going back more than two and a fraction years, although standards for FAs won't have changed as much as for run-of-the-mill articles.
• Take the question to the water cooler. It's a good question, and deserves feedback from multiple highly experienced authors.

--Pi zero (talk) 23:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

re:Unarmed man killed by narcotics officer in The Bronx

Hi. I see what your saying, the sources don't explicitly say the issues you brought up. But if you see my response at the articles talk page, you can see where my thoughts came from. Cocoaguy^talk_contribs‽ 03:23, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Please reconsider

Please reconsider your review decision at Santorum neologism still prevalent after nine years. This is extremely current, topical, and newsworthy. Other mainstream press continue to report on it, examples:

• The Canadian Press. "Anti-gay remarks haunt Rick Santorum online" — CTV Television Network, January 15, 2012
• Lee-Anne Goodman. "Nine-year legacy of Santorum's anti-gay remarks a 'frothy' online gross-out" — Winnipeg Free Press, January 14, 2012
• Edward Schumacher-Matos. "Rick Santorum's Google problem becomes the story" — KPLU, January 10, 2012
• Laura Sydell. "How Rick Santorum's 'Google Problem' Has Endured" — National Public Radio, January 6, 2012

I've put a great deal of effort into this article, research, compiling the information and presenting it in an easily acceptable manner.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would please reconsider.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 19:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Prevalent in the news under multiple different searches: [1], [2], [3]. -- Cirt (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've moved some of the more recent and newsworthy bits higher up in the article diff, diff. Please look it over and see if it changes the stylistic presentation of the article from your perspective to a point that you could change your outlook on the review? -- Cirt (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm taking a deep look now. Just to be clear — to say the review gave me "no joy" would be an appalling understatement; more like abject misery, tbh. It was immediately obvious you'd put a lot of work into the thing, and it appears to be very well done of what it is. (/me goes to take that deep look.) --Pi zero (talk) 19:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I really appreciate your kind comments about the work I put into this article. It means a lot to me. :) -- Cirt (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The subject continues to have a current newsworthy impact on ongoing events, please see:

• Jack Cashill. "Dems Mobilize in Missouri for Santorum" — American Thinker, February 4, 2012

Perhaps I should incorporate that source into the article? -- Cirt (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Trying to think straight on this.

What we want is to have something that comes across to the reader as a current news event. Neither "everyone in the maintream media is talking about it" nor "it's been going on for nine years" works for that. However, new evidence it's prominent in voters' minds could work, if it's multi-sourced. I need to reexamine the article and its listed sources with that in mind... --Pi zero (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The article already demonstrates new evidence it's prominent in voters' minds. Are you going to reexamine the article and its listed sources with that in mind, now, to see if you can reevaluate your position, or is there something else that I could help you with? -- Cirt (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I mean to write up further remarks for the article talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 20:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, sounds good. :) I'm perfectly willing to incorporate some of the above listed sources, if that helps you to see the issue is ongoing and prominent in voters' minds? -- Cirt (talk) 20:28, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Pi zero, thank you very much for your helpful input on the article's talk page. Please see Talk:Santorum_neologism_gains_prominence_during_US_election_cycle#Thoughts_on_newsworthiness. Hopefully this is satisfactory? -- Cirt (talk) 22:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've done a lot more to directly incorporate your valuable input, and listed the article for {{review}}. Can you please take another look? Thank you so much for your help, I really believe you've helped to make the article much better. -- Cirt (talk) 22:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've just been called to supper. :-)  I look forward to reviewing it. --Pi zero (talk) 22:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright, enjoy! And thanks very much! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much

Thank you, for all of your help with Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle. -- Cirt (talk) 01:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm afraid I didn't quite have the nerve to make it Lead 1 (I'd have shifted On the campaign trail down to Lead 3); but it was a near thing. --Pi zero (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Heh, no worries, -- Cirt (talk) 01:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you seeing this in Google News? I don't think it's showing up there, any ideas? -- Cirt (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the GNews feed is working very spottily. Searching GNews for "Wikinews" produces a list that looks very sparse; there are scattered things from the past month or so, but not much. The top match isn't even on our site (though the Raleigh Telegram does seem to have attempted in good faith to credit us, despite being capitalization-challenged — [4]). --Pi zero (talk) 03:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Any ideas on how to fix that? -- Cirt (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Never been involved in that end of things. Our articles do go up on our Facebook wall reliably — since these days we have to do that by hand, so there's no automatic feed to not work right. --Pi zero (talk) 03:46, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay I'll ask around ... :) -- Cirt (talk) 03:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible Elfstedentocht marathon

Thanks Pi for your editing on the "Europe cold ..." article. The most current news, and on the bright side, is that a rare marathon called Elfstedentocht could take place if the entire 125 miles of water canal passages freeze enough. Wikimedia Commons has some fantastic historic footage and photos of previous races. Wikpedia has an excellent article with the years of the races. Although the last was in 1997, the race is rare enough to attract enthusiasm. But Elfstedentocht could be good tie in to the sister projects and we could have video posted to a story! Just a thought, do any of the foreign-language Wikinews projects collaborate with one another? Maybe I should ask Brian, too.

File:De 10e Elfstedentocht.ogv

Thanks again for all your hard work, Crtew (talk) 16:50, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Link description

Regarding diff, no worries, I'm happy to defer to your judgment on the link description. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 19:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply re Review

Have you seen that so far I've only performed minor copyediting? I thought you would actually find that helpful! ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 16:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It's fine, and I do appreciate. Just making sure you were aware; we have had occasional messy incidents with someone submitting a review while another was reviewing. --Pi zero (talk) 16:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Was never my intention. Wouldn't want to step on your toes. I trust your judgment. Just doing minor copyediting. Hope that's helpful! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Lots of stuff added to article later after publish

[5] = this is really not best practice, to add all this stuff that late post publish. Should really wait for another subsequent article page. As you were the reviewer, I'm bringing it to your attention, and I'll defer to your wise judgment how best to give the advice to the user(s) that added it. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Me, wise?? Well, I did something, anyway. --Pi zero (talk) 23:31, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much! I agree with your decision, -- Cirt (talk) 23:37, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course, we complicated matters by having 3 contributors writing at different times. Thank you both, Crtew (talk) 00:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I read your note on the talk page. The next time, we'll try to better coordinate when to press review with multiple writers working on briefs or on which day (UTC) to publish content. It's good to be aware of these issues as they crop up. It required an extra step in planning that we didn't take into account. Thanks again, Crtew (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply re IP

That's w:User:Dantherocker1. That's what he does. See also [6]. Waste of time. And that's his goal. -- Cirt (talk) 09:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Please see my heads up at ArbCom talk page

Please see Wikinews_talk:Arbitration_Committee#FYI:_Heads_up_regarding_Viriditas. Just wanted to keep you in the loop, -- Cirt (talk) 19:33, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Nice job on sisterlinks template !

Great idea with that template, {{Sisters}}, it's extremely useful and valuable! -- Cirt (talk) 23:43, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The culture of the review tag

Hi Pi, I have a question. Once the originating author has placed the review tag on a piece, what would be the proper way for another author to signal that the article could be improved and most likely would be rejected by an editor. I tinkered with the Bahraini article on and off today. It seemed to me on the face that it just wasn't ready but could become stale by the time it was fixed with a go over by the editor and a further rewrite and review. So I did my best to fix the problems and pointed to some questions I had on the collaboration page. I'm not sure how this issue was dealt with in the past since I'm a newbie here, but I felt uncomfortable with the review tag up but also with taking it down. I just left it. In Wikipedia, you're allowed to put up a banner if you're working on an article for a day. Can you do that here? I haven't seen anyone do that yet with the exception of editors. Thanks for your help, Crtew (talk) 23:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say pulling to improve is different from pulling as a non-reviewer's not-ready review. We had a non-reviewer a year or more ago who was trying to help out by pulling articles as stale — only that's not as simple a call as they thought, and I had to have an awkward conversation with them about leaving the staleness call to reviewers.

There's a template {{editing}} that may be useful under some circumstances; I found it, remembering there was something of the sort, by reading through the list at Category:Article templates.

The general principle for such situations seems to me to be don't unless you know know that you know enough to not be making a mistake. Which applies to reviewers as well as non-reviewers; I reviewed only synthesis for a very long time (could it have been a couple of years?), because I didn't feel I'd yet enough grasp of the principles of OR review. --Pi zero (talk) 01:26, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

All good to know. Thanks again, Crtew (talk) 01:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle

• Santorum neologism gains prominence during US election cycle

Care to archive this one? I've got another one just about ready ... ;) -- Cirt (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

2nd article note

Regarding the 2nd article, I put a minor note on the talk page. Thanks so much for doing the review, most appreciated! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 01:41, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Feel up to a recheck, I'd hope it's ready for pass this time? I went through point by point as I agreed with all of your input and made changes to address all of your helpful feedback. Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 03:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for moving the external link out of article text, sorry about that. Think it's passable now? :) -- Cirt (talk) 04:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Just noting I have no objections to your removal of those external links. And also, great decision on retaining the Wiktionary link as the main one, it's really a great community over there!  ;) -- Cirt (talk) 04:35, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Bahrain

I think I covered the concerns that you and Brian had. I listed what I did in collaboration. Crtew (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Afraid I can't do another review tonight.

Though likely what was needed here, in the long run, removing non-English sources is kind of the opposite of what we want: rather than belatedly removing them, we want authors to know beforehand how to submit with them in a form that will support successful review. (Granted, helping people to know what to do the first time is a dream we've had for years.) We'd want clearly written-out straightforward guidelines for that sort of submission. --Pi zero (talk) 05:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I understand time, space and manpower limitations. No problem. I took a special interest in this case because the orginating author had helped me and one of my students out on the other Wiki. The strength of his original piece was based on the fact that the author knows Arabic and has insider knowledge about the situation, sources, and context, and I agree that taking that info out actually weakened the article (although by that time the OR info had become stale). His knowledge could be a considerable asset to Wikinews and citizen journalism in certain circumstances. The challenge you pose for the first time poster is worthy project that would help many out. Thanks, Crtew (talk) 16:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Accreditation Request

I don't understand what I did wrong in my accreditation request. I'm following the instructions. I go to a page where I enter my name and click on the button to the right. This takes me to a page which has the form where I enter the requested information. The instructions talk about clicking on the 'Submit' button, but I don't see such a button, so I assume it means the 'Save' button. But apparently I'm doing something wrong. What am I not understanding? Dwight Burdette (talk) 14:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Um. Clearly something wasn't as clear as it ought to have been, though I'm not entirely certain at what stage things went awry. The intent of the instructions at WN:Accreditation requests, as I understand them, is that the dialog box provides a prefix of the page name, to which you append your name, then you click the button and there'll be further instructions on what to do next. --Pi zero (talk) 14:46, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Indian Hieroglyphs

This is a new topic. This was a news item about a e-bookreview on a new topic. Not a wikipedia entry. Please reconsider and post the wikinews. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 117.193.166.18 (talk • contribs) 04:40, 22 February 2012

For what we do publish here, see {{Howdy}}.

Technically, my reason for speedy-deletion that last time around was wrong, because it's not encyclopedic; my mistake. It is, however, not even content at Wikinews but just a link to an external site, and we speedy-delete linkspam.

Also note that, if it were a book review located on Wikinews (so, not linkspam), it still wouldn't be publishable because we don't publish editorial content (see {{notnews}}, WN:NOT). --Pi zero (talk) 05:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

This is NOT linkspam. This is about a topic which should be a news item. That, Indian hieroglyphs comparable to Egyptian hieroglyphs have been identified and published in a comprehensive volume. The information will be of interest to wikinews readers. Please restore the deleted post. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 117.193.166.18 (talk • contribs) 05:28, 22 February 2012‎

To understand what Wikinews is, and what it isn't, look at the pages I have recommended to you, above. We do not publish links to material hosted elsewhere. We also do not publish single-source articles, and we do not publish articles below a minimum of three medium-sized paragraphs, beginning with a lede answering as many as reasonably possible of the basic questions about a news event, with the article proceeding in inverted pyramid style.

When creating a new article, use one of the article creation forms scattered about the site, such as the one near the top of WN:Newsroom. These forms provide you will the basic skeleton for creating a properly formatted article. --Pi zero (talk) 05:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Pi Zero, if you agree to restore the topic the three paragraphs required can be added. Pleased reconsider and restore the article and confirm.

Here are the paragraphs for your consideration.

A news event related to Indian civilization studies has been announced by a book review. ebook review: Indian Hieroglyphs

Indian hieroglyphs have been identified in the context of the bronze age and the rebus readings are comparable to the rebus method employed for Egyptian hieroglyphs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndusValleySeals.JPG Indian hieroglyphs typical of the 3rd millennium BCE: Elephant:ibh rebus:ib 'iron'; koD 'one-horned heifer' rebus: koD 'smithy';sathiya 'svastika glyph' rebus: satiya,jasta 'zinc'; adar 'zebu' rebus: aduru 'unsmelted metal or ore'; pattar 'trough' rebus: 'smiths' guild'; kaND karNaka 'rim of jar' rebus: kaND karNaka 'furnace account scribe' etc.

As presented,

• the first sentence/paragraph is pretty much spurious, it's the second sentence/paragraph that seems to be attempting the function of a lede (identifying focal event by succinctly answering as many as reasonably possible of the 5W&H about it).
• it's single source.
• the third paragraph isn't prose comprehensible to a general audience.
• the whole (once the spurious material at the front is cut) is well below minimum length.
• no external links in the text of a Wikinews article.

--Pi zero (talk) 06:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, yes, and it's not immediately obvious to me that this is a news event — something that's happened within the past day or two. --Pi zero (talk) 06:32, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Pi zero, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your candor, professionalism, and the polite tenor of your comments at Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals#Proposal_for_WikiLove_deployment_at_Wikinews. Though I may disagree with your opinion, I respect your right to state it. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 07:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

;) --Pi zero (talk) 08:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

On the campaign trail, February 2012

Thanks for the review. I know there was a lot of sources to go through so I appreciate the time you took on it.--William S. Saturn (talk) 18:40, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

And thank you. The sourcing notes on the talk page were a big help. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 20:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Tornadoes

Pi zero, The number of deaths increased since the story was written, now at 39. I put a note on the collaboration page. Crtew (talk) 17:04, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Inter-ethnic incidents continue in Macedonia

WTH?? Bddpaux (talk) 04:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

You know what??

I'm trying to work on Shorts for Friday the 9th..............and I can't find anything (published) that actually happened on Friday?! I thought the TT bit really only warranted a blurb in Shorts. ....suggestion? ......guidance? Bddpaux (talk) 04:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

It's my understanding that a shorts article is dated to publication, not to when the events took place (which is subject merely to the usual rules of freshness). --Pi zero (talk) 11:45, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Sandra Fluke insists she will not be silenced

• Sandra Fluke insists she will not be silenced

Hi there! Whilst trying to recover from a bit of a cold today, I've put a bit of effort into creating this new article. :) It's a big 'ole {{original reporting}} piece. I've taken your prior helpful advice and suggestions into account, and put all the most recent newsy stuff at the top, and the background chronology later on. Care to review? Thanks for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 01:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll do my best to respond to all of your points from your review. I don't really think we needed to bring in 2 other editors to this. I very much hope that all of my work on this article will turn out not to be for naught today. :( -- Cirt (talk) 04:57, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I've done my utmost to respond point-by-point to the issues you raised on the talk page. Please see Talk:Sandra_Fluke_insists_she_will_not_be_silenced#Response_to_review_by_Pi_zero and Talk:Sandra_Fluke_insists_she_will_not_be_silenced#Examples_of_similar_news_articles_from_other_secondary_sources. I hope this response is satisfactory to you. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 05:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Redlink in related news

• 1960's Rockabilly music artist Terry Teen dies aged 70

There's a redlink in Related news sect on this article, any idea why? -- Cirt (talk) 06:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

There are some users very exercised over the usage "1960's" (which, I checked, is less common but not actually wrong); one of them removed apostrophes in the article, including in the Related news wikilink, and another of them who has the reviewer bit sighted it. I've fixed it, for now. --Pi zero (talk) 13:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Might be a good idea to leave a friendly note for the folks that did that, explaining that they made a redlink in a currently displayed article? -- Cirt (talk) 14:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd left a note on the reviewer's user talk, and xe reponded here, two sections below ("RE: Oops"). --Pi zero (talk) 22:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah okay, thanks for the update! :) -- Cirt (talk) 22:59, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

"He". :) Foxj (talk) 04:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Apologies

Pi zero,

I'm sorry if it seems like I am stepping on toes here. I didn't intend any harm. I did propose that a template was deleted but it hasn't been yet. I also indicated that there there two issues. The template was one. A style discusion was the other. It's true that style was part of the template discussion. My proposal was based on a summary of my discussion. I thought you knew I was going in that direction as I said so several times. Sorry, Crtew (talk) 15:39, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

One thing we're all very clear on, nobody involved in this means any harm. Although we don't assume that about somebody we don't know, we know you. So, rest assured on that point. :-)

There weren't two things being discussed there, because the deletion nom wasn't really being discussed. It seems a familiar pattern to make a deletion nom as a vehicle for a wider discussion; there are, I believe, various particulars of policies and guidelines that trace back to WN:DR rather than anywhere on the water cooler. The discussion was about the usage (which, I'll take the opportunity to emphasize, is a not a matter of style, it's a matter of neutrality (and, far more minorly, accuracy)).

I did know you intended this, we all knew, and I repeatedly explained to you that we were already having the discussion you wanted to have (along with the other things we were telling you that also weren't getting through). I sometimes don't get through to people because I'm being too soft-spoken and polite (I recall Brianmc once remarking to a difficult contributor something along the lines of 'you're a hair's breadth from provoking Saint Pi Of Zero to enumerate all your behavioral flaws'); so lately, in response to your failure to grok the messages we've been sending you, I've been making incremental increases to the bluntness of my comments. Here's an actual (if approximate) remark I made in an off-wiki conversation recently — I do hope the humor in it comes through: '...we don't want to damage Crtew, he's quite valuable to the project, but it seems we need to hit him on the head with a slightly larger hammer.'

I see this whole thing as a slow and difficult process of waking you up to the cultural imperialism inherent in using "America" to mean "US". Not, you understand (I hope), intent of cultural imperialism; that's not inherent, and is beside the point. This is about effect. --Pi zero (talk) 16:39, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

RE: Oops

Dammit. I'm on a roll with this project, huh? :( Foxj (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Heh. These things happen. An expert (said someone, really should look it up on Wikiquotes) is someone who has made every possible mistake in a narrow field. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 16:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Review request for "Russian scholars call on Medvedev and Putin to defend Bhagavad Gita" — Wikinews, March 16, 2012

Pi Zero, since you're already familiar with the topic, would you mind giving the new article an editorial glance? Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 21:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I've got it mind for after the item I'm vetting now. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

All right. Thank you. Cinosaur (talk) 00:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. Regarding your concerns with the sole source for the main news, there're plenty of Russian sources out there, but only one in English, AFAIK. Will the Russian sources do? Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 03:31, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I think they're acceptable in this case, to corroborate a single English source, per WP:CITE. Cinosaur (talk) 03:38, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Done Added an alternative source in Russian. Here's its English translation by google. Cinosaur (talk) 03:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember the policy page specifically mentions use of a non-English source for corroboration. So, should be fine.

I hope I last long enough to do a second review for you, before I fall apart for the night. I might not, having been up very late last night working on Wikinews... but, I hope. --Pi zero (talk) 04:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Pi Zero, please don't overexert yourself. It can wait till tomorrow. We need you alive and well. Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 06:05, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Appreciated. But, I did finish it. --Pi zero (talk) 07:15, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Much appreciated too. Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 09:19, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

One for the ear

The audio file was posted on the collaboration page, but as I mentioned there and on my talk, I didn't see the last changes that were made to the script on the the changes made on the collaboration page. That's my fault. Take a listen, and let's see what you think. It should be the ear that determines whether you like this or not! 04:27, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Email

You've got mail. -- Cirt (talk) 07:08, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Template:Audio_wikinews_brief

Pi, What do you think about this change in the template? Crtew (talk) 00:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks neat. Should it float right (as it does), float left, not float, have an option for this (and if so, what should be the default)? --Pi zero (talk) 01:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm new at templating, and so I'm not really sure how to make it go to the right. I think it would look better with a photo of some sort in the template. Crtew (talk) 04:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Critique

I was wondering if, sometime in the near future, you could share with me some general critique(s) of how you see my writing/contributing here evolving. Franky, I want to continously become a better reporter/writer. Furthermore, I have this idea that, as I progress, my articles should require less-and-less work from a reviewer before publishing. Can you give me a few pointers? Something tangible that I can really focus on in my next 4-6 submissions? ....and thanks in advance!! I may ask others to weigh in also. Bddpaux (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll try to put together some time to look over your past work and see what comes to mind.

Multiple perspectives would surely be a good thing, yes. --Pi zero (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.....who could ask for anything more? Bddpaux (talk) 21:18, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Minor problem with interview

Minor problem. :( I had four people tell me the guys I interviewed to make a better story made up four minor details: They are not required to coach a team, and the dog's name is actually Gus. Adam is actually engaged. Nick is actually dating a girl on the ACT side. This is actually in my notes for the game I went to tonight. Erk and massive :( . Not sure how to resolve this problem. :( ( --LauraHale (talk) 09:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Substantive changes to an article can be submitted for review —by simply editing the article— for the first 24 hours after publication; they don't show up until and unless sighted by a reviewer, who may therefore either accept, accept with revisions, or reject the submission. This calls for independent review since it is publication of the change, so we don't self-sight substantive post-publish changes (only obvious typos, and similarly non-substantive stuff). Under the circumstances, I suppose I could make changes myself, noting in the edit summary that it was by request of the author, and sight the changes on the grounds the request didn't come from me; I'll take a look in a few moments and see just what would be entailed. (Removal of information is surely less problematic than addition.) --Pi zero (talk) 13:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The coaching and dating information has been removed from the interview article (and I didn't need to self-sight). --Pi zero (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Responded to review

• Savage on Santorum on Savage

Thanks so much for your helpful suggestions! :) I've done my best to address your recommendations, perhaps you can revisit? I think the article's much better after I've implemented some of your thoughtful pointers. Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 17:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the re-check! :) -- Cirt (talk) 02:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews Shorts: March 21, 2012

Inpayne seems to have deleted KMCrane's work. When I edited her work this morning, I thought she had misdated it. It seems like Inpayne did at the very beginning of his work. Crtew (talk) 19:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I left a note at Inpayne's talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI

Heads up: Comments:Federal lawsuit against super PACs and their donors. Dunno why he's commenting there and not the article's talk page or his user talk page. Shrug. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 07:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Mining bilionare admits 'interference ' in Queensland election campaign

Could you look through this for me? It's newsworthy but I'm having trouble putting daylight between me and the party at the mo --RockerballAustralia c 09:50, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Map Action

Pi, I contacted Map Action in the UK for permission to upload a map that is far better than any derivative and they gave me the thumbs up in an email. The organization is a charitable organization but it's different from IRIN and I'm seeing on the upload fair use media page how I should tag it. Here's the image: http://www.mapaction.org/deployments/mapdetail/2608.html. Can I upload this? Crtew (talk) 23:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Ideally, we'd get specific permission to use it under a (named) free licence. Then we could just stick it on Commons. ;) With permission, though, given that (I assume) they know we're using it for a news report it would be fair to tag {{Publicity}}. [PiZ caught me online and asked me to help out on this, hope you don't mind.] Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:44, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Crtew (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

References

Do you know of an article that I can use as an exemplar for references to non-news sources? It's rarely done. Crtew (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

William Saturn's articles not uncommonly have stuff that doesn't fit the news-article model. Readily to hand (somewhat different examples in each):

• On the campaign trail, February 2012#Sources
• On the campaign trail, December 2011#Sources

--Pi zero (talk) 21:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

It looks like under the style guide, you would want them separate. If you look at the Rand article in development, is that alright? I think it's similar to the Fluke article in using primary sources, especially the congressional hearings. Do you agree? Crtew (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

The above examples do not use books and articles? I was able to access an embargoed copy of Pediatrics as a journalist.Crtew (talk) 22:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't use a References section.

• Put anything publicly available on-line in Sources.
• Treat anything else as OR. Such as embargoed material. Handling embargoed material is, of course, one of the functions for which wikinewsie.org was set up.

(I'm off to town meeting.) --Pi zero (talk) 22:27, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Easy one

• Sandra Fluke, Chelsea Clinton and Christine Quinn on women in politics

Care to review this one? I kept it short and sweet, with two sources. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 18:51, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Short n sweet

• Sandra Fluke named candidate for Time's 100 most influential people

This one's short n' sweet, and the info from the sources is pretty simple. Shouldn't be too hard. Care to give it a review? :) -- Cirt (talk) 17:00, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I created a new infobox template for use on this article and hopefully many others, {{Infobox Women}} — it's really true that there's a lack of focus on women's issues on all the various Wikimedia projects, unfortunately. :( Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 17:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind, Done by Blood Red Sandman (talk · contribs). :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Source similarity and foreign sources

I'm hoping to do a piece on this. The only other easily-findable English source was this. Although independent and with some other info, it is nonetheless hugely reliant upon the AFP-derived report. Is it distant enough to count as two mutually independent trustworthy sources? If not, would it be appropriate to add a foreign-lang source without drawing info from it per se, to satisfy the two-sources requirement? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:24, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Help with category

• Category:Sandra Fluke

Is there a way to have the main link for the description link to the Wikisource author page and not Wikipedia? The Wikipedia link is to a non-existent page. Now it's a redirect, but to a page with virtually zero biographical info about the person. Can you help with this? -- Cirt (talk) 22:58, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll give it some thought and design a tweak for the template. Later this evening, after I recover a bit from my marathon review. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 23:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay sounds great, thanks! -- Cirt (talk) 23:15, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

On the right side box, it's still got a link to Wikipedia (the silly redirect). Can that link be removed? -- Cirt (talk) 01:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I thought about that. The template could be rigged for it (though it would be a bit more complicated), and perhaps eventually we'll have occasion for it — but at least in this case, I think perhaps we shouldn't. One sister project shouldn't pass judgement on the merits of another sister's choices (you'll recall when a bunch of Wikipedians were playing holier-than-thou with the first of our recent neologism articles), and Wikipedia decided to make w:Sandra Fluke a redirect to the other article. --Pi zero (talk) 02:11, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Right, but the redirected article target provides zero biographical info on the individual person. Perhaps we can change the order of the display of the sisterlinks, and have that least useful one be at the bottom? -- Cirt (talk) 02:18, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I thought about that, too. The reason I didn't is practical rather than principled: I didn't think of a clean way to generalize the template to do that. --Pi zero (talk) 02:40, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Heh, well, interesting that we thought of the same thing. If you have any other ideas on how to address this, please let me know? :) -- Cirt (talk) 02:44, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, something does occur to me. It might not work out, but, let's see where it leads. Just about from the start, the ordering of sister links in the template bothered me, a little. It could be construed as judgmental about the merits of the various sisters (which is why we're now tempted to rearrange the ordering based on judgement about the merits of the specific pages). So, what if we choose a different and completely non-judgmental order. For example, alphabetical order by the part of the sister name that comes after the wiki- (or wik-) prefix. For the ones currently supported, that'd be

Wikibooks Commons Wikipedia Wikiquote Wikisource Wiktionary Wikiversity

Not sure I like that order, perhaps because alphabetical order is overused. --Pi zero (talk) 03:34, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I like the order, because it's alphabetical and therefore non-judgmental. Great idea! -- Cirt (talk) 04:37, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. And we'll see how it wears. --Pi zero (talk) 05:25, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks!!! :) -- Cirt (talk) 05:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Very technical, revision-related question

Hi,

I am currently working on my bachelor thesis in computer science (the topic is "Extraction and representation of knowledge from Wikinews"). In order to give everything the needed scientific approach, I need to retrieve some statistics regarding the amount of revisions made during a defined time period a) in total and b) in mainspace. Unfortunately, the time period in question (February 2010–September 2011) is not directly accessible via either the "Recent changes" page or use of the API. So... do you know, by chance, any tools or pages which could be used to collect the information? Or, alternatively, what could be a good estimation for the percentage of mainspace edits? Sorry to bother you with that kind of question, but I thought that asking an administrator might yield the best chances of getting an answer for the problem... :-) Cheers, Soccer-holic (talk) 21:05, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind me jumping in on PiZ's behalf :). I do know the WMF makes database dumps available of the projects which contain the info you need, but I'm not sure how easy it is to get it out. I assume a script will be required; Bawolff (talk · contribs) may be the person to ask about that. Good luck! It sure sounds like a great idea you've got. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 21:15, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for advice

Pi zero, regarding an article you reviewed, Wikinews interviews New York bar owner on Santorum cocktail, a user over at Wikimedia Commons is trying to get almost all the images used in that article deleted, commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Santorum cocktails.

(The images are all confirmed as free-use licensed per OTRS, and as they're used on a sister project, fit Commons inclusion criteria as in-scope per COMMONS:COM:SCOPE)

Do you think it'd be appropriate to link that deletion discussion from the Water Cooler here on Wikinews, as it's basically an attempt to disrupt a reviewed, published, and archived article here at our project?

Thanks for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 04:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes I do think it would be appropriate.

This is an area of wikilawyering I've never gotten into. There are those who know it well and have suggested we should always upload our images locally, because (if I got this right) although doing so is not compliant with Commons policy, Commons often deletes images on Commons in contempt of Commons policy, so if they don't respect their own policy, why should we. --Pi zero (talk) 11:05, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for the feedback, much appreciated! -- Cirt (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Advice

Is there anything I can do to get Brazzaville reviewed? I added the most recent information. The government has one number and the relief agency has a different number for the dead. The government also said how much of the munitions had already been cleared. This time I emphasized my interview with Kalu, who is an expert source on Africa. Crtew (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The WHO has just announced 10 cases of confirmed cholera. This is all new info. The timing of this, almost one month into the operation, is a marker moment. Any advice is appreciated. Crtew (talk) 21:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about the Gems. I'm was just collecting a few "golden moments" from Wikinews and thought I had created a userspace page (arghh)! Crtew (talk) 05:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Np. I've accidentally created stuff in mainspace, a time or two. :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 05:48, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Help in Hebrew WIKINEWS

How can I change the main page? (There is an error in Syria)

I do not know English dictionary I'm using Google

--ציון הלוי (talk) 13:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Something new for the News Briefs

Pi, I am trying to contact William so that he could sum up the political article in two or three sentences and I would play the audio from that inside the brief. I have part of an interview from Dr. Kalu that I would like to splice at the end of the show to promote the Brazzaville article. He talks about Western news coverage of Africa. Can we try this? Crtew (talk) 14:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Que, Saturday, April 7, 2012

Pi, As far as the review que, I've been working in front of you to take care of some of the little things, before you would get there in order to make the process easier for you and so you could focus on the larger issues. For sure, I didn't hit everything. Thanks Pi, Crtew (talk) 17:23, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Think of me as your prep cook! Hahaha, Crtew (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! :-)  --Pi zero (talk) 17:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Pump leak and fire shuts down nuclear reactor in France

Hello! I wanted to ask you something about sources. I used some information from Wikipedia, not direct quotes of course, but some of the background information used to explain INES and give some background about the number of reactors in France and their types. Do I need to list each of the pages drawn from in the sources as well? I went back through my sources and tried to confirm each other detail of the incident was reported in one of them. Thanks for your help, I think after this I'm going to spend a fair amount of time reading older articles to soak in an implicit understanding of the style used. MyNameWasTaken (talk) 19:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia can't be used as a source, so no, it doesn't get listed. There are two classes of that sort of information: info that qualifies as 'obvious', and info that doesn't.

• Obviousness has a high bar. "Paris is in France" is obvious, "the pope is Catholic" is obvious (well, it is if it's that pope). If there's doubt, treat it as non-obvious.
• Stuff that isn't obvious should be sourced. Often, if you read it on Wikipedia, the wp article cites an on-line source that's trust-worthy for use here too (we don't use only "news" sources; trust-worthy is what we care about). If it's not obvious and the wp article says it without providing an on-line source, that calls its veracity into question and you should find a source.

If it won't discourage you (by setting an impossible standard for a new contributor to live up to), you might be interested in WN:FA. --Pi zero (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Gotcha. I found one new source to cover all the background info (but now I need to go update WP pages too, sigh). I'll check over the rest of the article again before re-submitting for review. Thanks for your patience and help!MyNameWasTaken (talk) 19:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews Shorts & News briefs

Pi,

First, it's great to see you back! We missed you and are still thinking about you.

I was just going to change the order of the stories in Wikinews shorts and saw you working on the editing. I prefer Yemen, Iran, the two US stories and then finish with the penguins.

Last, I think I'm going to have to record the News briefs tomorrow morning. We have a number of recent stories that I think are important to put in the show. The problem is with N. Korea. We had some great follow up on the N. Korea incident with 2 writers producing 3 stories, but we didn't get the last one where the rocket blew up. So putting that in the shorts is problematic because it's already outdated. Can I add a soundbite and refreshen it and then an overview of the story? Here's the soundbite:

http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/19978.html

Crtew (talk) 19:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not altogether back. I've managed a few light reviews of BRS articles, which are generally very well written and use only a very few sources (hence "light" reviews), partly to keep my mind occupied to relieve myself from dwelling on other things. I tried my hand at the Shorts, but honestly I'm realizing it's much more than I can handle; I've been looking at the currently-first item, and trying to figure out what to do so the effort I have put in wouldn't be lost.

Go ahead and edit the Shorts; if there's an edit conflict, we'll deal with it. (Note on that last article I reviewed, I didn't slap {{under review}} on it until quite late exactly because I was very unsure I could complete it.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:09, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and rearranged the shorts and like the new order better. Thanks for the suggestion, Crtew. @Pi zero: I've tried to keep it relatively simple with two paragraphs and two sources per story (not necessarily corresponding to each other) for precisely this reason, but please do let me know if there're any significant issues. This is the first time I've tried my hand at putting together some shorts, thinking it'd be a bit less time-consuming than writing a full article. But, lo and behold, it took a while longer. An interesting twist from the normal writing routine, though. Tyrol5 (talk) 20:30, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It is interesting, isn't it? Working with the Shorts medium is kind of eye-opening, imho, about some aspects of Wikinews operation. From a reviewer's perspective, I concluded after doing several of them, Shorts don't work overly well as Wikinews is now set up, because a collection of them creates a rather large lump-sum review task that isn't very rewarding for the reviewer since it is by nature shallow coverage of all the stories included. (Shorts articles don't get to be leads, for example.) --Pi zero (talk) 21:05, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It's perfectly reasonable that you don't expect to be able to finish reviewing that one. As an aside, I can't seem to find the time to do any reviewing at all over here (can't remember the last time I did, to be honest), let alone the occasional shorts. It does satisfy a craving to write something diverse, rather than covering a single story somewhat in-depth, though (I'd imagine shorts are significantly more rewarding for the writer than the reviewer, being that I've never reviewed one). But, I digress; I've just fixed the Secret Service short and it should be alright now. Thanks for taking a look. Tyrol5 (talk) 21:21, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

• A few comments on the above. First, I'm flattered. Second, and more important: Sometimes, when it comes to recording the briefs, we really want to update a story from a few days back. Obviously, we should base as much as possible on what was published but it isn't always possible. I propose adding a section at the bottom marked "supplementary sources" for just this purpose. Avoid using it at all where possible, of course, but it sorts out the transparency. Since so little stuff would come from them, maybe a requirement that exactly what info is used from new sources be noted on the talk page? As for the shorts, I reviewed them. :) Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 11:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

ProPublica cite

Pi, If you look at the list of "Stand Your Own Ground" variations in other states at the end of the article, the article doesn't include Florida. There are 24 states there and if you add Florida, then it's 25. The presentation was poor. The laws go by different names, and they have some notable differences. Hope this clarifies the confusion.Crtew (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

• The foremost place to explain this is the talk page of the article; that's the place for public, permanently recorded discussion of such things.
• I also did a double-take on "the other 27 states".

--Pi zero (talk) 21:55, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Video: China, UN rebukes North Korea for rocket launch

Pi,

Do you have any suggestions about the video? I have made some comments on the Talk page of improvements that should be made. I would have gone ahead and done them but I'm struggling with the currency/immediacy for this format given the current workflow process. I did the video before I heard about the speech in North Korea and before China released a sterner statement today. It's dated now, which is one reason I didn't emphasize the timing in the lead. Video releases in broadcast are expected to be immediate. I can update it, if its of interest.

Take care, Crtew (talk) 16:10, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm probably not the person to ask about re the legal or technical aspects of the video. Is it under a creative commons license? I'm not even clear on that point: the UN conditions of use sounded on the restrictive side, but my understanding is shaky.

I'd be more interested in the wording of the narration. We don't exactly have a current workflow for things like this; we're breaking new ground with each step. I've been meaning to set up a "script review" mechanism, parallel to the usual review mechanism, to allow the script for a brief or similar non-text presentation to be submitted for screening by a reviewer without risk of accidentally publishing it. Of course, it's anybody's guess whether I would have gotten to that yet by now even without the curve ball life has recently thrown me.

Script review for the narration of a video like this would seem to be a slightly different variation on the theme, as it's part of a mixed-media presentation. Still images are different; one simply says 'yes' or 'no' to their inclusion, and the caption is (I'd say) not subject to as stringent control under the archive policy as the text of the article because it's only fractionally, less than entirely, part of the article per se. But a peripheral video file with some scriptable content seems closer to being full-fledged article content than would be the caption of a still image — and furthermore, in contrast to the briefs, that script is not itself presented in the article. Interesting. It certainly serves as a useful demonstration of some of the range of flexibility we'd like out of a script-review mechanism. --Pi zero (talk) 16:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I like this medium (video/internet) because you can keep the quotes longer. In TV, soundbites are almost always shorter than 10 seconds. Doubling that or more is like going back to the 1960s news era, yet refreshing!

We shouldn't have any problems with the UN release as it was intended for journalists to use for news. The restrictions had to do with archival and rights to redistribution.Crtew (talk) 18:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Military and Secret service agents under investigation for scandal in Cartagena, Columbia

Am I going in the right direction with the new lead and headlineKeneeMichelle22 (talk) 18:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

The new headline was better than its predecessor, and I see Crtew has made further improvements. The lede is better than it was, as it gets straight to the heart of the event.

Some suggestions.

• You really want to find the most recent developments, and include them. As Crtew has observed.
• The current lede sentence has two different subordinate clauses starting with the word "after". That's awkward; things should be expressed more smoothly.
• The page at WN:basic questions can be used as a check list for what should be included in the lede.

--Pi zero (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

TSTC-Marshall article

.....should be ready now, methinks. Bddpaux (talk) 01:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Women's rights article

• Sandra Fluke receives Stand Up for Choice Award

New article I've created, uses the new Women's rights infobox, helps provide more coverage on this important topic (involving women) that can always use additional reporting. :) Care to review? -- Cirt (talk) 14:54, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably can't; 'fraid my concentration is shot atm. --Pi zero (talk) 19:43, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah okay, well, doesn't have to be right at the moment, feel free to come back later if you can. No worries, either way. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Shhhhhhh

You've been awfully quiet lately.....do I understand that you've had a personal tragedy of-late? Bddpaux (talk) 13:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

My father died on April 11, the impact of which was heavy at the time and has grown heavier. For the past two days I've been even quieter, because I've got what appears to be flu and is in any case quite debilitating (today, looking at the screen feels like someone's driving a dagger through my eye). The illness is coming just as I should be a major part of finalizing plans for my father's memorial service this coming Sunday. --Pi zero (talk) 20:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

My sincerest condolences. I understand the has grown heavier part, as I lost both of my parents during my 20's.....I'm with you there. ...and the flu bit is just one of life's little gifts tossed in, huh? :} Hang in there......we're managing and will continue to do so.....do what you can as you can. Bddpaux (talk) 21:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Trial by fire

A point well made -- and one well taken.........honestly, I might've fallen prey to the "keys to the candy store"-schtick there for just a wee time.........nonetheless, I have not readied loads of stuff lately. I know for a fact (and said so) that I crossed the line a bit on the KONY 2012 article.....that's a once per-decade thing......I felt it was a criticial topic worthy of coverage here....and voiced my reservations quite loudly. Being very honest, I'd love to see some nit-picky notes pertaining to things I've missed in passing articles....or even things I should've caught when I not-readied some. I think in general, I'm going to drop down a few gears.....I need it....and I think it's best for now. Bddpaux (talk) 13:56, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I noticed you'd not-ready'd a bunch of stuff, and cheered for you. :-)

Another thing I've learned about reviewing is that reviewers make mistakes. A reviewer who doesn't accumulate regrets while racking up reviews, isn't being self-critical enough. (My first regret as a reviewer is from the first review I ever did; figures.)

And having recommended that you not overdo it, I'm amused to observe that I immediately overdid it a bit myself, trying to take on a major review (that I care a lot about, of course) before I'm ready while still recovering from my illness. --Pi zero (talk) 14:21, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

On the campaign trail, April 2012

Thank you for the review. I just read on your talk page about what happened so let me offer my condolences. I know how it feels and that it eventually gets better.--William S. Saturn (talk) 17:27, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Honestly.........

no offense taken. I was really on the line on that one, anyway. I was tired, and thought, "Aw, heck.....it's a good topic.....we'll throw 'em a bone." Reviewing, I'm seeing really does make one a better writer! -Bddpaux (talk) 03:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

:-)  --Pi zero (talk) 03:44, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Sukhoi

Your review at Talk:Russian_passenger_jet_crashes_on_Indonesian_demonstration_flight suggests an interesting problem. If online sources are revised, can they really be treated as trustworthy? There ought to be a method of archiving them, such as w:wikiwix or w:webcitation.LeadSongDog (talk) 15:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

How trust-worthy they are is judged by the reviewer during review. And the reviewer also testifies that at the time of review, a rigorous source-check determined that all article content was verified from the listed sources. This is a basic difference between Wikipedia and Wikinews. Anything you read in Wikipedia is untrustworthy regardless of what sources are listed, because it might not correspond to the sources —the reader ultimately has to go to the sources to verify anything, with the article being a sort of tentative index to the sources— and if a source ceases to be available that necessitates eventually either finding a new source or removing the information; but a published Wikinews article has a meaningful degree of trust associated with it in itself, and if a source ceases to be available (which most of them do eventually) the Wikinews article still has its share of trust. --Pi zero (talk) 18:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Ryan Dunn (Jackass) article

Just messing around, I stumbled onto the article about Ryan Dunn's death.....and saw that the photo had been zapped.............I found this one over at Commons-------------

(Image missing from Commons: image; log)

Would you mind dropping it in, as I can't as I don't have the bit needed to do that for archived articles. Thanks!! -Bddpaux (talk) 16:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Pictures on news articles aren't interchangeable. We don't put a different picture on an article; that'd be changing the record. --Pi zero (talk) 17:28, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

You remind me, though, we hatched a plan to set up a placeholder template, to display something neater than a redlink when an image is missing from an old article. --Pi zero (talk) 20:35, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Shelling

An IED is typically activated by some type of charge, but it's not delivered from a mortar shell. That would make the headline of the story UN convoy targeted, shelled in Syrian province of Idlib as well as the body incorrect. Crtew (talk) 22:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It's published and I know it's rare afterward, but a more accurate headline might be "UN convoy targeted in Syrian province of Idlib".Crtew (talk) 22:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Suggest you submit your proposed edit to the article, and propose a rename on the talk page. Not submitting an edit for review is only holding up fixing the problem. --Pi zero (talk) 22:38, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

seriously, thank you for taking the time to do the review. I understand the issues with what we did and time zones and being bombarded with local media vs. Not and other offline issues that make things painful. I also realize I was headed towards testy and so I really appreciate you helping knowing I was headed there worse. Thanks again. --LauraHale (talk) 01:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate you've also got offline pressures on you.

Thanks, and you're welcome. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 01:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again for showing up at our irc workshop and helping with this article! :). --LauraHale (talk) 00:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Scott Reardon

Hi. I feel like this is possibly getting a bit dated as it is from Friday and now is Sunday... but we have enough to do an interview style article about Scott Reardon. If the other one passes though, I worry it would be three articles about similar topics and not sure how that would be. We did interview him and I think there are interesting bits, but I like to ask questions about shoe buying, leg stealing, etc. --LauraHale (talk) 19:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review

Thanks for the review and I'm glad you picked up on that "born" issue. I don't know what I was thinking there.--William S. Saturn (talk) 02:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting interview. Interesting interviewee (not afraid of vocabulary, that one). --Pi zero (talk) 05:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review

It was actually my first contribution to Wikinews, I will work on it and make it a better article that attains the threshold to be on Wikinews. ^stephenWanjau _{Talk to Me. Email Me.} 04:28, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! :D

Lots and lots of love. :D --LauraHale (talk) 06:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

thank you for the review - Hodgetts makes it a Tassie trio for London 2012 Paralympic Games

Hi Pi zero, thanks very much for taking the time to review my first article and for your comments - very much appreciated. It is a bit of a steep learning curve and a different style of writing to what I do in my day job! The article is not fresh any more and there is unlikely to be any new information - will this automatically be removed? I've tried to take all the comments onboard and am working on a new article - http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Australian_Paralympic_cycling_team_officially_revealed_for_London_2012. Thanks again. Melissa Carlton (talk) 07:43, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

A not-ready article, left alone, gets tagged as abandoned after four (or more) days, and two (or more) days after that it is speedy-deleted. --Pi zero (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

We can shift it into your userspace for eternity if you want to keep it, though. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• I already did so. ;) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:25, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Done Deal, done before

Haven't we had this **it posted before? And, basicially, speedied it as stupidity? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Turned these up in the deletion log.

• Special:Undelete/Done Deal Enterprises
• Special:Undelete/Done Deal Enterprises claims Young Money stole Bedrock

--Pi zero (talk) 14:03, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• Then, I think we simply speedy it as crusading repeat posting. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:10, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for the review of Australian Football League's Richmond Tigers beat GWS Giants by 12 points‎. I realize it was pretty short. :) Much appreciated. :) --LauraHale (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

LEGO book

Man, I did a pathetic job on NOT wikifying that article, didn't I? Brain cramp!! Bddpaux (talk) 23:13, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

If you are reviewing my articles, I'll try to be on IRC around 6:00AEST to 7:00AEST tomorrow. The sources in the one article were added to show: The media was interested in the politics, not the gymnasts. --LauraHale (talk) 12:38, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Onion the dog

I am very confused. The Wikipedia article “Onion the dog” which was retitled “Onion (dog)” was deleted after Afd on the basis of it being “one event” and in violation of “WP:NOTNEWS” which is equivalent to “WP:NOTNEWSPAPER.” This despite the notability of the article being well-established and NEITHER of those issues having been addressed during the Afd debate!! So, I consulted with an administrator who said it belongs instead in Wikinews. So I copied the article and put it on Wikinews. You now have deleted it stating “wikinews” is not “wikipedia.” That seems to me to imply it should be an article in Wikipedia. So now in the true spirit of Kafka, we are not one, but should be the other, but we are not the other. So can you make a suggestion? Thank you. MadZarkoff (talk) 15:59, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

That was not a news article, that was an encyclopedia article. Your Wikipedian friend is quite wrong in three regards; one, transwiki is only possible from WP onto WN if you wrote the text yourself, as Wikipedia uses a more restrictive licence than we do; two, news reports are written very differently from encyclopedia articles and so a Wikipedia-style article is of little-to-no use to us, as it would require a complete rewrite; and three, news reports have to be news; we cannot accept articles about things that happened months ago (see {{Stale}} and WN:Newsworthiness).

If you do wish to contribute to Wikinews, the welcome template is packed with useful links to get you started. Do take a look at the style guide and some recent articles to get a feel for the style, remember that Wikinews has a learning curve which is steep (which sadly translates as people often losing early articles) but quite short, and take a look at the overview for those used to Wikipedia. Good luck! Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:09, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Please review

If you may... Raja Pervaiz Ashraf appointed as new Prime Minister of Pakistan. 123.211.6.203 (talk) 14:10, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

The focal event of the story is from too long ago, now. Articles can sometimes be freshened by refocusing on a new, recent event, using the previously developed material as background further down in the inverted pyramid, but without something extreme like that, unfortunately, that one is past. --Pi zero (talk) 14:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

It is not that old. The event in question happened less than a week ago and is still widely being reported in the press... 123.211.6.203 (talk) 14:43, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

WN:fresh. --Pi zero (talk) 15:17, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay, try now. Raja Pervaiz Ashraf faces new challenges in first week of premiership. Mar4d (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

commons:Category:National_Gallery_of_Scotland,_July_2012_Giovanni_Battista_Lusieri_exhibition

• I've no idea how to approach doing an article on this. Any suggestions? (And, yes, I know some of the photos are blurred - low light, no flash). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:45, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Notice of appreciation

${\color {Blue}{\mathfrak {Wikinews}}}:{\color {Sepia}The\;Free\;News\;Source}$

Notice of Appreciation

To Pi zero, for his tireless copyediting and reviewing of articles. You're perhaps the best reviewer we've got and, by some measures, one of the only perpetually active ones. Keep up the great work--it's very much appreciated. Tyrol5 (talk) 19:45, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Just noticed you published the Supreme Court article. Thanks for your review. I thought it'd be appropriate to present this notice of appreciation to you, since you're certainly our most active reviewer. Indeed, you've reviewed most (if not all) of my recent articles. I'd do more reviewing, but I spend most of my free time over at WP and really only write anything over here when I have an empty bloc of time and a story that catches my eye. At any rate, your work's appreciated; thank you and keep it up. Tyrol5 (talk) 19:45, 28 June 2012 (UTC)