Welcome

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Shyam, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these!

Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews:

There are always things to do on Wikinews:

By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes (~~~~), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!

I hope you can add some content to the India WikiBureau, and help get a team going there! Srinivasasha 15:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

First off, we really appreciate your contribution.

But sometimes users submit an article from somewhere else, not realizing that Wikinews cannot keep copy-n-paste versions of articles which are published under a restrictive copyright. A copy and paste like that is a copyright violation, and Wikinews policy is to erase those even if they are excellent article ideas.

Another problem which sometimes comes up is press releases. Press releases are sometimes excellent sources, but they do not qualify as unbiased news articles so they can't be published as they are. Two key things to remember about press releases is that they're usually written to represent the viewpoint of an involved party (Thus likely running foul of our Neutral Point of View policy). And second, they are generally covered by copyright which can conflict with our open editing approach.

A better way to get an article on an exciting subject published here is to write an original article following the guidelines described in writing an article, or to write a brief explanation of the subject and include the url address of articles or websites to use as sources.

Thanks again! --Deprifry|+T+ 20:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

No problem. Just drop me a line if you need help. --Deprifry|+T+ 09:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Government of India page

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while redirects are cheap, this page doesn't appear to be all that useful to me (it was once deleted for the same reason, if i remember). the chances of someone turning up on wikinews and searching for "Government of India" (pretty much the only reason i can think of, for the page to be created) seems pretty remote, especially given that regional and topical portals are present and prominently placed in the main page. perhaps u can explain why you think creating this page is a good idea. Doldrums 17:38, 20 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

hi Shyam, if u think the page is needed, i 've no problems with it. it might be useful, though, to leave a note on the page's talk explaining its purpose so that others know what's going on. cheers, Doldrums 14:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)Reply
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reg. Mukherjee sends message to neighbouring countries for "tension-free" border, note that slightly rewriting and reordering paragraphs in a copyrighted work is not an acceptable way to write for wikinews, such articles remain copyright infringements. please gather infromation from multiple sources and rewrite them in your own words, ensuring that ur coverage of the event does not closely emulate that of any of other copyrighted news report.

please be careful about this. publishing copyright infringements on Wikinews is a big no-no.  — Doldrums(talk) 08:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

note that u can't have a copyright infringement in your user space either. please rewrite this article if u want if around anywhere on wikinews. i suggest u a retain a copy of this article on ur computer for use while rewriting it. i'll be blanking this article or deleting it as a copyright violation soon.  — Doldrums(talk) 09:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
where does DD say that it is releasing this article into the public domain?  — Doldrums(talk) 09:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
first, this is a PTI report being republishing by DD and PTI reports are copyrighted. secondly, i doubt that the RTI act has released all DD work into the public domain. pls source this, the WP link to RTI act u provided has no mention of this supposed largesse.  — Doldrums(talk) 09:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
the slides u point to does not make any reference to licensing of DD's work that i could find. also, much of the article as written now, is copied from a PTI report published on the Hindu, both of which clear copyright notices on their websites.  — Doldrums(talk) 09:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

The article u posted to wikinews is almost identical to the Hindu article, which attributes the report to PTI, and the PTI report can be seen here. both of them have copyright notices. end of story. if u believe that both copied the work from DD and DD releases its work into the public domain, then u'll have to show a similar license notice on DD, which says DD reports are released into the public domain. i see no such notice on the DD News website.  — Doldrums(talk) 10:01, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sorry if I'm butting in here, but I belive a request has to be made to the Public Information Officer before any government information can be accessed under the RTI Act. Even otherwise, the Act mentions that information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information. So in this case, since we are a "rival" agency to DoorDarshan, we probably can't use their material without compromising their interests, especially since we do not have the permission of a "competent authority"-i.e whichever official is in charge of DD. I look forward to working with you on Portal:India, feel free to drop me a line if necessary. PVJ(Talk)(Articles I have written)   05:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Main Digest

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The "Main Digest" section is present on other WikiBureaux too, but none of those that I checked seemed to have expanded it. I assume that it is meant to be a collection of stories, but that is already available at Portal:India. We could probably ask Doldrums, since he is more familiar with these aspects of Wikinews. Thanks for asking DD for permission, it's likely that they'll oblige since we are a non-profit organisation anyway. In the meantime CNN-IBN's online site should be useful as a source. PVJ(Talk)(Articles I have written)   11:46, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Digests are compilations of news reports for a week/month...etc (depending on how few or how many articles on a topic are usually published). Weekly digests would be great for readers who find Wikinews coverage too sketchy to use as default, but wld like to drop in once a week and see what we're upto, but monthly coverage wld be easier to maintain.
with the current implementation of WN:DPL, digests are going to be pretty hard to maintain, i think (the main digests use a bot (Craigsbot) to do some messy stuff).  — Doldrums(talk) 04:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
the dpl's have to be written in the form
<dpl> category=September 1, 2006 </dpl>
<dpl> category=September 2, 2006 </dpl>
"
"
<dpl> category=September 30, 2006 </dpl>
for each month - not impossible, but not "elegant" either.
articles are not protected for atleast 10 days after publication, and remain protected from then on.  — Doldrums(talk) 08:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
the section for listing problems with archived articles is Wikinews:Admin action alerts#Edits to protected pages, which is what is linked to, in Template:Archived.  — Doldrums(talk) 15:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
fixed[1]. thanks for spotting this and bringing it to our attention.  — Doldrums(talk) 15:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Re: My points in the contest

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Hello there! Unfortunately, since three of the articles you wrote were before the contest, they do not qualify for points. Additionally, since the image of the Bombay stock exchange existed on Commons for over a year, you cannot really be credited for taking the picture. In any case, in the future, just mark your log over at User:Messedrocker/Contest#Shyam. —this is messedrocker (talk) 11:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Bombay Sensex article

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there are many sentences in the article which are copied verbatim from several sources, not just the E-times. i've listed some of the others on the article's talk page. copying phrases, sentences and paragraphs from other copyrighted sources is a big problem, as has been pointed out a couple of times above. always write the article on ur own, using information from other sources, but not the organisation of the info and the manner of expression used in the sources.

tagging as copyvio is even less done after discussion with the original author than other tags (adding tags themselves is a way to initiate discussion, note!). once an article is suspected of or identified as a copyvio, it must be tagged and deleted quickly, or, i understand, there will be legal problems in store for wikinews. and that's what i've done.

finally, the article really needs to be written afresh, as most of it uses sentences from other sources, which is unacceptable. u can also get a couple of others' opinion on this, if u like.  — Doldrums(talk) 20:26, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

trader's strike article

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thanks for fixing the attribution thing so promptly. there's another question waiting on the article's talk page, though.  — Doldrums(talk) 10:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sources

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When coming across an article with no sources, use {{sources}} instead of clean-up, also that article could have been tagged with the {{minimal}} tag. Keep up the good work! Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 04:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

My RfA

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  Shyam, Thank you for participating in and supporting my recent RfA, which passed with a final tally of 6/2/2. This is a great achievement for me - and I cannot express what it means to me to become an administrator. If you need a helping hand with anything, don't hesitate to contact me! --Skenmy(tcwi) 16:21, 4 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Category:2007

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Have you seen this? Date stuff is mainly kept in the Wikinews namespace for what you're looking at. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

accreditation template

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is meant to be used only by users who've gone through the accreditation process. please do not use it on ur user page until u gain accreditation.  — Doldrums(talk) 19:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

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hi, note that the style guide says to list sources and related news articles in reverse chronological order.  — Doldrums(talk) 10:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

deletion request for history

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I've removed your request: I think the reverting was sufficient, no deletion was needed I think.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

I don't see why that is necessary...--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure either but I think reverting is enough... otherwise any page that gets slandered needs deleting, it would set a bad precedent I guess.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Delhi sealing article

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the article Sealing in New Delhi put off until Monday reads "The opposition parties opposed the HC notice". can u please point out the source for this statement. i couldn't find it in the five sources and the reference numbered 5, but didn't find it.  — Doldrums(talk) 20:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

i don't see anything in the source u pointed to, to support the statement that the opposition BJP opposed/did not agree with the HC notice. The article titled " MCD passes resolutions for deferring demolitions" in the Tribune deals with the BJP's opposition to a resolution passed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, not with opposition to a high court notice.  — Doldrums(talk) 21:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

i don't see how the sentence

Amid noisy scenes by the Opposition BJP, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi today passed resolutions in its General House urging Delhi Government and the Centre to approach Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court for postponement of demolition action and sealing of commercial units in residential areas till submission of the report of the Tejender Khanna Committee set up to look into various issues pertaining to unauthorised constructions.

Tribune

means "The opposition parties was not agreed with the HC notice".

if this statement can't be sourced, then put a note on the talk page about this and i'll post a correction to the article. — Doldrums(talk) 21:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

any progress on this yet? articles which report incorrect or unsourced information need to fixed. and fixed as soon as possible.  — Doldrums(talk) 15:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
the BJP does not oppose the Master Plan 2021. the source u added does not bear out that statement. please word statements carefully and ensure that they are borne out by the sources. if articles are published for many days and need a correction, then they are corrected using the correction template, not by modifying the published article itself. if u can't find a source that supports the initial statement, that the Opposition opposes the court directive, find a source which clearly points out the opposition's view of the HC notice and post it on the article talk page. i'll place the correction notice accordingly.  — Doldrums(talk) 16:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
have issued a correction. check if it's ok.  — Doldrums(talk) 19:21, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
it's sourced from the Tribune article (ref #5) already listed in the article.  — Doldrums(talk) 19:27, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
the date refers to the date of passing of the resolution.  — Doldrums(talk) 19:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

edits to image pages

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thanks for pointing that out, my mistake.  — Doldrums(talk) 11:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Adminship thanks

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Hi there! I'd like to thank you for your support to become an admin, it's greatly appreciated! -- Zanimum 14:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

China and Pakistan deal news item

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Hi, I saw that you removed the open image and put a copyrighted pic instead. Please see http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Talk:Pakistan_and_China_sign_free-trade_deal -thanks Towsonu2003 23:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Great rewrite! Thanks for repairing the unavoidable damage I caused. --InfantGorilla 15:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Award

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  Exceptional Newcomer Award
I, PVJ59, hereby award Shyam the Exceptional Newcomer Award for his contributions made to Wikinews in an early stage and for his work on Portal:India
Zeest(Talk)(Newpages)   04:14, 29 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

speedy of photo's from rally

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Well I still havn't confirmed that the photo's aare okay, the ToS says nothing against it that I can see. {q|Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Picasa Web Albums. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Picasa Web Albums and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate.}} Bawolff 08:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

commons-l

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It seems that someone is spaming that list with your name attached to it ( http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2006-December/001072.html ). Thought you might want to know. Bawolff 22:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas! Wishing you all the best for the forthcoming year. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Cricket...

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Any chance you could do more sports journalism for Wikinews?

Or maybe even recored some of the more stable stories for AudioWikinews and WikiCast?

ShakespeareFan00 15:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Amazing

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Hey buddy, I've been reading your articles on cricket lately, and I just wanted to say your doing a wonderful job. I haven't the foggiest clue how cricket works (ignorant Canadian), but i still think your doing wonderful. I hope you consider helping out with the sports page.—Dark Squall 16:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Editor status

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You have been put forward to have Editor status removed for self-publication of an article with no original reporting notes and no independent peer review, a breach of the policy. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Per your request, I have removed Editor status from you. I hope you can learn policy as it now stands and hopefuly even regain the tool in the future. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 12:32, 16 August 2009 (UTC)Reply
No problem, thanks. Shyam (T/C)