Welcome to Wikinews

A nice cup of coffee for you while you get started

Getting started as a contributor
How to write an article
  1. Pick something current?
  2. Use two independent sources?
  3. Read your sources before writing the story in your own words?. Do choose a unique title? before you start.
  4. Follow Wikinews' structure? for articles, answering as many of who what when where why and how? as you can; summarised in a short, two- or three-sentence opening paragraph. Once complete, your article must be three or more paragraphs.
  5. If you need help, you can add {{helpme}} to your talkpage, along with a question, or alternatively, just ask?

  • Use this tab to enter your title and get a basic article template.
    [RECOMMENDED. Starts your article through the semi-automated {{develop}}—>{{review}}—>{{publish}} collaboration process.]

 Welcome! Thank you for joining Wikinews; we'd love for you to stick around and get more involved. To help you get started we have an essay that will guide you through the process of writing your first full article. There are many other things you can do on the project, but its lifeblood is new, current, stories written neutrally.
As you get more involved, you will need to look into key project policies and other discussions you can participate in; so, keep this message on this page and refer to the other links in it when you want to learn more, or have any problems.

Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia's puzzle-globe logo, © Wikimedia Foundation
  Used to contributing to Wikipedia? See here.
All Wikimedia projects have rules. Here are ours.

Listed here are the official policies of the project, you may be referred to some of them if your early attempts at writing articles don't follow them. Don't let this discourage you, we all had to start somewhere.

The rules and guides laid out here are intended to keep content to high standards and meet certain rules the Wikimedia Foundation applies to all projects. It may seem like a lot to read, but you do not have to go through it all in one sitting, or know them all before you can start contributing.

Remember, you should enjoy contributing to the project. If you're really stuck come chat with the regulars. There's usually someone in chat who will be happy to help, but they may not respond instantly.

The core policies
Places to go, people to meet

Wiki projects work because a sense of community forms around the project. Although writing news is far more individualistic than contributing to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, people often need minor help with things like spelling and copyediting. If a story isn't too old you might be able to expand it, or if it is disputed you may be able to find some more sources and rescue it before it is listed for deletion.

There are always discussions going on about how the site could be improved, and your input is of value. Check the links here to see where you can give input to the running of the Wikinews project.

Find help and get involved
Write your first article for Wikinews!

Use the following box to help you create your first article. Simply type in a title to your story and press "Create page". Then start typing text to your story into the new box that will come up. When you're done, press "save page". That's all there is to it!



It is recommended you read the article guide before starting. Also make sure to check the list of recently created articles to see if your story hasn't already been reported upon.


-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 15:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello!!

edit

...and welcome to English Wikinews! --Bddpaux (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Your Taiwan article.......

edit

I only marked it as abandoned, because the event itself is so stale now......HOWEVER: it seems to me that it could readily be freshened up quite easily. Just my two cents.--Bddpaux (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Please try to NOT read these words as being more harsh than they are intended. Instead of correcting the fact that I put the Aband. tag on YOUR article, and WHEN I put that tag on your article AND when it is/isn't appropriate to put said tag on an article (yes, 4 days is standard, BUT I noted why I was doing so above on your user page)......maybe you could focus on FRESHENING UP the article and putting some English sources on it. Your correction/comment is a perfect example of how people here FOR MANY YEARS bog down in the letter of the law, and deviate away from just getting and reporting good news. To save you the mental annoyance, I am well aware of processes/policies here. I hope you do well here as a reporter.--Bddpaux (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! Setting a democratic precedent (talk) 18:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
Hello. Please don’t be disheartened but I think you should stop working on this article. In it’s current state, it will not be published. We have all had difficulties with our first articles but it is simply a matter of understanding our WN:Policies and guidelines. I was going to delete it last night but I became busy with something else. Since you added something today, I thought it might help to point out some problems:
* The story is no longer fresh and does not qualify as news anymore. The latest source is from 22 January. Our policy is that stories must have been reported no more than three days ago. So this story stopped being news from 26 January onwards.
* Articles should try to follow the 5Ws and H i.e. Who, What, When, Where, Why and How questions. In this case the article, despite the headline, has not answered the Who question properly - who is the director in question? The earliest source names the director as Zhuang Fengjia. Nowhere in the article is his name mentioned. When did he resign? Was it immediately or in the days after the finance committee suspended discussions?
* Although the latest changes show what KMT and DPP are, there is some confusion about PBS. This might be a question of translation. As far as I can see, there is no media organisation in Taiwan with this name. The director, who resigned, is from Chinese Television System, which is part of Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS). Another part of TBS is the Public Television Service. In future, please try to be clear about which person or body you are talking about.
* In the third paragraph, there is a quote from Fai Hong-Tai but he did not say this in English. The grammar is what might be expected from a literal translation, but it does not make complete sense because while reading it, I had to rearrange the words in my kind. Readers shouldn’t have to try to decipher the correct grammar.
* Finally, you’ve added 16 non-English sources but just one English source. This makes it very difficult for anyone to review the article because they would need to see a translated version of every source if they are not conversant in Chinese. As a guide to make it easier in future, please try to provide at least two English sources and no more than two non-English sources.
* Also, until the end of April 2022, we are allowing articles to be as short as one paragraph of 100 words. Fir your next article, can I suggest writing a shorter article?
I hope this makes sense. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask any of us on our talk pages or at the community board. [24Cr][talk] 12:26, 5 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sandbox

edit

Not a requirement....just thought you might want to set up a 'Sandbox' to store various ideas/templates etc. etc. in. Just a suggestion!--Bddpaux (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Are you still here?

edit

Just making certain you haven't run away...our processes here can be a bit strange, but we don't like to see newbies vanish! Please submit another article.--Bddpaux (talk) 18:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)Reply