Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions

This is an official policy on English Wikinews. It has wide acceptance and is considered a standard for all users to follow. Changes to this page must reflect consensus. If in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.


Please use this page to request the Flagged Revisions permission, putting new requests at the top. Requests will generally stay open for at least a week (unless fast-tracked), after which an administrator will read the comments made by other users and decide whether or not to add the flag.

Requests for reviewer edit

Note for this section, "{{Support}}" means "support the request", and "{{Oppose}}" means "oppose the request".

Asheiou (talk · contribsEdit rights) edit

It's clear to me that there are now a severe lack of reviewers who are able to contribute to this project. I know I'm relatively new to the community, but I really don't want to keep watching Wikinews die. If you grant me permission to be a reviewer, I will do all I can to ensure my reviews are thorough, fair, and to the same standard as the current review process. If you have any questions, please write them below with @Asheiou. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 10:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stats edit


Questions and comments edit

  •   Comment More than 7 days has passed since the opening of this request. I will report this to an active admin. MathXplore (talk) 05:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @MathXplore, I have already reported it to five other admins: 1 2 3 4 5. No individual person is of course obligated to help, but it seems like there is an admin inactivity problem on the English Wikinews. Is there another venue that we can escalate this to? --Habst (talk) 23:55, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @MathXplore, @Asheiou: What do you think about using meta:Steward requests/Permissions to request adminship for some experienced more active user (i.e. you or Asheiou or someone else)? I understand the page says it's only for wikis that don't have a local permissions procedure, but I wonder if one could explain that other admins are not available, a case could be made. --Habst (talk) 00:30, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A case may be made by explaining the admin status of our project. But first, we need local consensus for each request, and we must also contact our local admins before the stewards. In general, I do not recognize any version of Wikinews that opens RFA for those without previous successful article submissions. MathXplore (talk) 03:22, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    MathXplore is correct. Habst, frankly you're trying to direct a process which you clearly don't understand. This or any other request for permissions does not need to be and must not be rushed in circumvention of local procedures. Heavy Water (talk) 06:49, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Heavy Water, thank you, I agree with you and MathXplore right now. I don't think we are at a point where such a procedure would be necessary, and if we were to undergo it, we would have to post it somewhere and gain community consensus among the few non-administrators first.
    At what point would you consider such drastic actions necessary? I think the issue with WikiNews specifically is that WN:RECENT is important for the articles, so unlike e.g. Wikipedia, if admins and reviewers are inactive, it would result in a complete blocking of content. The last published article on the home page is from about two months ago, far beyond the ten days required for recency (I understand this requirement is for publishing and not being kept on the homepage, but ideally there would be enough articles every 10 days to rotate out those that would be stale from the front). --Habst (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Comment I share Habst's concern that the inactivity of all reviewers on Wikinews creates a bottleneck, hindering the platform's ability to deliver timely and relevant news. The absence of new content for over eight weeks contradicts the very essence of "news." Nevertheless, it's crucial to maintain the integrity of the review process to avoid compromising content quality for the sake of increased publication, which could harm our reputation as much as inactivity. Although Asheiou, recognized by Heavy Water as an Exceptional Newcomer[1] shows promise, hastily adding new reviewers without proper mentorship from seasoned reviewers could diminish review quality. Without experienced guidance from active reviewers, new reviewers will struggle to learn the process effectively, potentially impacting the credibility and quality of Wikinews content. Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 18:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The exceptional newcomer reward was given to me 9 months ago now, since then I have published a decent amount of articles with the project. It's not as if I've published 2 articles and then ran for permissions. I'll admit I definitely jumped the gun on my accreditation request but that's because of how important it is and how passionate I am about this project. I do really believe in the potential of Wikinews to be great. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:05, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Question @Asheiou, in your request you stated: "I will do all I can to ensure my reviews are thorough, fair, and to the same standard as the current review process." What is the current review process and how will you ensure it remains thorough and to the current standards? Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 18:21, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikinews reviews primarily serve to ensure neutrality, distance from source material, and verifiability. The current process involves checking each prospective article against the easy review criteria (as you can see in the Collaboration tab in any article). From my own article publishing as well as looking at other articles that have been published, I believe I've developed a good sense for the tone of Wikinews articles, and can accurately assess against the review criteria and provide adjustments and feedback when necessary. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Done. However i think wikinews should get rid of the review process in its current form. It basically killed all forward momentum of the project and i think was a terrible mistake in retrospect. Regardless it is up to the next generation to decide how they want to proceed. Bawolff 01:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bawolff: I have to object to this. Only one person had voted, and I think you will agree they are not experienced enough to meet the threshold to have a vote in this matter. Additionally, the request has only been open about two weeks; in recent times requests have typically run for months to gather a more complete consensus one way or the other. I ask that you consider reversing granting the privs. Thanks. Heavy Water (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The last article published here was from Jan 4. That is two months ago. A wiki where nobody edits defeats the point. I'll certainly revert if that is what community consensus is, but at this stage where the project is at death's door, I think we should give reviewer rights to any non-blocked user even remotely active. Quite frankly, if Wikinews wants to stay open as a project, it needs to start writing content ASAP. Bawolff 11:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As I said elsewhere, in relation this very request, "the burden of proof lies with supporters to demonstrate there is a consensus in favor". It would be frankly ridiculous to require me to demonstrate there's a consensus against violating the basic norm of procedure for reviewer requests that reviewer is granted by community support rather than unilateral action, nearly as old as the modern review system itself. Handing out reviewer to everyone would ultimately lead to the project's demise, but that's not relevant to either the out-of-process action here or this reviewer request (unless this action is itself part of such a scheme, which I really hope it isn't). Heavy Water (talk) 17:46, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree. Giving review status based on one vote is an extremely dangerous precedent to set. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 20:58, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not comfortable taking any reviewer action without sufficient community consensus. If the permission is to remain on my account, I'll still wait for more votes either way. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 21:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The lack of active reviewers and the need to revisit our review process merits a wider conversation. I believe there is consensus on that amongst currently-active Wikinewsians. Bawolff and Heavy Water, would it be more appropriate to start that conversation elsewhere and link to it from here? I think we have both an acute problem and a chronic problem to fix. Maybe we can find a compromise between your positions. Asheiou's input in that discussion would also be useful in this request for reviewer permissions. Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 15:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Votes edit

  •   Support: I am new to Wikinews but I agree there is a lack of reviewers problem. Of the current reviewers, it looks like there are only two with more than three edits this year. Since Wednesday I have been trying to line up a review for my first article for release February 17, but I'm not sure that it will be gotten to in time before it goes stale and gets deleted. I have great respect for the reviewers, but it is too big a burden to place on just two people. Thank you for volunteering your time. --Habst (talk) 15:24, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]




Removal of Reviewer status edit

Post requests here regarding any user who you consider has abused reviewer status. Provide a justification for the removal, preferably with examples of where the permission has been abused.

Note for this section, "{{Remove}}" means "support removal of permission", and "{{Oppose}}" means "oppose removal of permission".

Blood Red Sandman edit

After being de-sysopped, this person is still a reviewer. More than two years have passed, and he's been twice notified about his remaining tools and inactivity. However, not one review log has been made for two years, and I'm unsure how tracked his use of Easy Peer Review Tool has been. I doubt he has used the Tool, but I can stand corrected. Per WN:PEP, he shall no longer be a reviewer. --George Ho (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Stats edit


Questions and comments edit

  •   Comment: I moved this from being a subpage of RfP to being a subpage of FR/RfP and changed where it was transcluded accordingly. This one does trip people up a lot. I don't know what we're to do with the redirect, though. Heavy Water (talk) 20:47, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Votes edit

  •   Oppose: I agree it's highly unlikely they've used EzPR since. But as I stated at the request for TUFKAAP's desysopping: PeP is both something the community can choose to apply, with discretion and common sense, and a measure to prevent compromised admin accounts or admins unaware of now-significantly changed policy, not a punitive one for simple inactivity. It shouldn't be taken as "better revoke any permissions as soon as the letter of these requirements is met." (Well, compromised reviewer accounts are also something of concern but I've mainly heard Wikinewsies talk about compromised admin accounts when speaking of PeP's security dimension). I believe my comment is even more applicable here, as BRS was heavily active and at the cutting-edge of policy formulation years more recently and has, a few times, vanished off the face of the earth only to return and resume working productively. I didn't know this during the desysopping (which I didn't partake in as I was too inexperienced with Wikinews), but per this it seems they configured Special:EmailUser to send to their wikinewsie [dot] org email address (wikinewsie being defunct, of course), so they're not getting email notifications from talk page messages. Heavy Water (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]