Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Asheiou

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Asheiou (talk · contribs – Edit rights)

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)

• Done! We have ourselves a new Reviewer. Maybe some congratulations/encouragement is in order?!!--Bddpaux (talk) 17:35, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Now I have to do some proper archiving. I really need to learn the correct chops on that process.--Bddpaux (talk) 01:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

How do you see a consensus? I see three supporters who I think you'll agree are obviously too inexperienced to have suffrage, one who you might consider experienced who opposed, yourself, and now my oppose. Heavy Water (talk) 05:54, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

As a support voter, I have to oppose this. Heavy Water is correct, at this point there is no longer a consensus. In addition, I specifically excluded you from admins to ping for closure given that you are a support voter. This is the second admin who doesn't seem to understand that there isn't a consensus yet. @Bddpaux Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 00:39, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with the comments, I disagree that I'm in the group of "too inexperienced to have suffrage" - I've been around for a while even on this wiki. It's more of the community not caring that made me go silent for the past couple of years or so. Leaderboard (talk) 16:22, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Until people here can work out what exactly is the plan of action, I'm not comfortable doing anything. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 13:46, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Which might, arguably be the worst course of action. You showing your chops as a good Reviewer is most warranted at this juncture. Yes, I pushed the button a hair earlier than what might've been most prudent. As you are seeing, there is no shortage of chirping, quacking and barking around this place (which applies at nearly every wiki on this planet). But you NOT reviewing is the last thing that needs to happen. Someone acting in a prudent manner, in an effort to address to constipation that has developed here is completely what Wikinews needs.--Bddpaux (talk) 15:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

@Bddpaux: - please dont refer to opposing opinions as "chirping, quacking and barking". You're not helping things by using such phrases. Look at my suggestion below as a possible way of getting things moving. [₂₄Cr][talk] 15:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Stats

• Links for Asheiou: Asheiou (talk · contribs · deleted · count · logs · block log · review log · lu)

Questions and comments

• 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)

  @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)

  @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)

  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)

  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)

  @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)

• 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)

  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)

  Um...I think awards like that are just supposed to be informal encouragement of a promising person; certainly that's all I meant it to be. Other than that, I think Michael is spot-on, and I know because that inexperienced new reviewer was me about a year ago. I had about six months' experience before becoming a reviewer and once I did I made a lot of serious mistakes out of ignorance. Heavy Water (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

• 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)

  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)

  And style and newsworthiness are equally important, of course. I assume you've read the basic content-related documentation: WN:Pillars, WN:ARCHIVE, WN:Reviewing articles, WN:CG, WN:Newsworthiness, WN:SG, WN:Copyright, WN:CS, and WN:Neutrality. (WN:Neutrality is "only an essay", but that doesn't mean at documentation-light en.wn what it means at en.wp — it accurately captures what en.wn neutrality is, while WN:NPOV, a policy, promotes vague and outdated notions about "balance".) Have you seen WN:Tips on reviewing articles? It offers a lot of practical advice for reviewers from the late master of it, and a pre-publishing checklist that I use every time and that's been vastly helpful to me. Heavy Water (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

• 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)

@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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

I fail to see a chronic problem that might necessitate revisiting the review process. But I agree this isn't the venue for discussing that, and that Asheiou's input would be useful. Heavy Water (talk) 02:54, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• Question: @Asheiou: Sorry for the delay. Cromium has used a set of questions for aspiring reviewers (there's one for aspiring admins, too), slightly modified each time, as I've done here.

• What style of inline references are acceptable for an en.wn article?

• There is an article for review, written in Hindi (this, specifically, happens from time to time) with excellent Hindi sources. How would you review it and why?

• A new user writes an article about the 2020 US presidential election and tags it for review. How would you review it and why?

• An article you are reviewing uses a quotation of three sentences spoken by a famous politician, but the sentences don't appear in the sources in the en.wn article. You know of a different source that quotes those exact three sentences. How would you add this as a source?

• You've successfully reviewed an article. A week later, someone points out a problem with it. What do you do about it?

• There is an article on the review queue about an alleged recent war crime committed by Russian forces on territory Ukraine has since retaken from them (this is just a fictional example). It is very well written, with a detailed chronological examination of the alleged crime and its aftermath, correct style, no copyright problems, and definite newsworthiness. It cites articles from the Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald, and quotes senior US intelligence officials, the White House, and No. 10. What issues might you raise about this article?

• You have reviewed an article and found it did not meet en.wn standards. The user who wrote it leaves an angry message on your talk page alleging a poor review on your part. How would you respond to them, particularly with reference to how the problems can be fixed? (For your reference, I think most of these, particularly the ones I've got, accuse the reviewer of not caring or even not wanting the article to be published.)

• And two questions of my own:

• What would your procedure be for detecting copyright violations, both blatant copy-and-pastes and subtle similarities? And when is a phrase identical to a source phrase too long to be acceptable?

• You're reviewing an article and have just about run up against the end of the freshness window. En.wn hasn't published an article in a couple weeks, the review queue is empty (at least, of articles that you figure have a good chance of passing review), and there's no one else around to write or review. You haven't reviewed the last, say, two-sentence-long paragraph yet. Is it alright, in light of these circumstances, to publish the article first, and then review the paragraph immediately after, submitting any substantive edits — as defined by WN:ARCHIVE, so dealing directly with the choice of image, or the text of the body or the headline, in a more major way than correcting typos and links and maybe some grammatical errors — for review as needed? Heavy Water (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

  • In general, we don't use inline sourcing in Wikinews. The only time you would do anything like an inline source is attributing a quote in the article's text itself. Eg. In an interview with ITV, John Doe said "this is an example quote".
  • I would ask if the writer could translate their work into English. If the article were written in one of Wikinews' other languages I would redirect the writer to submit the article for publishing over on that language, but unfortunately Hindi isn't one of the languages we currently offer on the Wikinews project, despite a 15-year-running Request for new languages on Meta. If the writer doesn't speak English and/or can't translate it, the article can't be published, unfortunately, and I'd have to communicate that with them.
  • Unfortunately, an article for 2020 is now far-stale and I would review it as not ready and communicate our policy on freshness.
  • Because of WN:ARCHIVE, substantial edits to an article can't be made after 24 hours. I would listen to the problem pointed out and ensure that I keep it in mind in future reviews, as well as thank the person who pointed it out.
  • From what you've described, the article sounds ready to publish. I'd be wary about the fact that it's an allegation, as we don't cover media speculation, but considering the quotes from governments, it can be covered as "UK, U.S. allege [specifics]".
  • I can understand the feeling of rejection that someone might feel when one "rejects" their work. I'd respond civilly and constructively, explaining steps the author could take to bring their work up to a publishable standard. I'd explain my thought process and how I came to the decision to not publish.
  • As a first check, I'd use Earwig's Copyvio Detector as is standard for Wikipedia's good article procedure. I'd also be sure to fully read both articles to look for plagiarism, including more subtle things like "the cat sat on the mat" -> "the cat laid down on the carpet". Identical segments should generally be entirely avoided wherever possible (excluding quotes, of course).
  • With the current state of Wikinews, a few days past a freshness window we invented should hardly be our primary concern. I would find time to sit down and review the article in full before publishing it, because there's no guarantee that I would be able to finish a review post-publish pre-24 hour window. Our ultimate goal should be to turn out high quality articles. Timeliness, while important, is not currently something we can achieve reliably, and we shouldn't be turning people away because we missed the window by a couple of days.

  These are my answers based on my own opinion as well as reading existing Wikinews guidelines. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:21, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

• Your example is correct, but your general description is a bit off. We attribute exclusive quotes like that one, but also other exclusive information (including when we were the ones who obtained it). And, importantly, one of the most-used techniques for resolving doubts about the accuracy of information (for example, because sources are contradicting each other) is attribution.
• On the 2020 election question, I think the question was meant to get the reviewer candidate to outline when an article about the election would and wouldn't be stale (in the latter case, the focal event might have been a Wikinews investigation finding evidence that a candidate's campaign engaged in illegal activities), and how they would review it if it wasn't, so that's what I intended it for. I guess I could've made that clearer by saying the hypothetical article could be fresh.
• Your statement about the archive policy is accurate, but similarly, the point of that question was to get the candidate to go into detail about what could be fixed at that point and what couldn't, and what the procedure would be for fixing it, as well as the procedure if it couldn't be fixed.
• You're on the right track re the alleged Russian war crime story. But, while en.wn neutrality isn't "balance", it isn't entirely neutral, (particularly if all of those quoted authorities are basically in agreement the event happened) to not mention Russia's response, or lack thereof as of whenever, and that also omits crucial information. Also, do you notice any problems with the choice of sources?
• Identical phrases are also allowed if they're titles (like Secretary-General) or shorter than three/four words (a reviewer has sometimes compromised their independence from authorship so much with bigger stuff they can't afford to address those).
• The last answer really, really worries me. Yes, the deadline for freshness (which is part of high quality) is something we invented, and amended, but it's something we, the community, invented, and an individual reviewer doesn't have the right to disregard it. A popular saying on en.wn, from the late Brian McNeil, is, "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news" — and we have to draw the line somewhere. As for finishing the review post-publish, the bigger reason you shouldn't do that is simply that all content has to undergo a review before publication. You'll notice the one exception to WN:IAR is the review system. If we can't achieve timely publication of something, we don't publish it; that's not turning the reporter away, since we should in the process encourage them to stick around. Heavy Water (talk) 05:07, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• It's been 3 months and there seems to be a consensus here. Pinging our at least a handful of edits active admins (minus Bddpaux) @Cromium, Tyrol5: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Me Da Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 00:40, 30 May 2024

• This request seems to have become a little chaotic. As it has been open for several weeks and the Reviewer permission has been allocated (rightly or wrongly, I am loathe to revoke it immediately), I am going to suggest that we could treat this as a probationary Reviewer. User:Asheiou would be allowed to review three articles. As long as the reviews are sound, the Reviewer status woukd become permanent. As a previously uninvolved admin, I will check each of the three reviews and then confirm User:Asheiou as a permanent Reviewer or revoke it if necessary. Please confirm if you agree, @Asheiou:? Please can @Heavy Water, George Ho: confirm if you agree or disagree to this suggestion? [₂₄Cr][talk] 15:25, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I think this should be an all-or-nothing part, as the concept of "temporary reviewer" is undefined on this wiki. Leaderboard (talk) 16:21, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Nice suggestion, but I'll reject it. Sorry. George Ho (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd be willing to give it a try, if the rest of the community would be behind it. I sincerely do not feel comfortable acting without consensus, and if there's not a consensus to support my reviewer status, I do not want to act against the community-at-large, even if I may disagree with some opinions shared.

-

I do not enjoy being the subject of argument and controversy. If the community settles on a consensus, I'll act accordingly. Until then, I will wait. I'm not touching anything until there is a definite acknowledgement of a consensus. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 16:50, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Votes

• 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)
• Support: I am also pretty new, but this is insane. There is no purpose in a newspaper that publishes an average of 1 article per 2 weeks, shuts down if 1 user goes inactive, and nearly 50% is contributed by 2 users. There is no reason that a lot of good articles need to be going stale like they are now. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 18:55, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

  @Me Da Wikipedian, you make a good point. BigKrow (talk) 19:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

  Another thing that it does is make it less of a wiki. It's hard to have neutral point of view, and not be influenced by the opinions of writers, enough on something like enwiki where there are tons of active users. It's a whole bigger thing when most reviews are by one person, and most articles are written by another. No offense to any of our major contributors, but we need to make it so that the wiki can function without you (you specifically, obviously we need some major contributors). Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 19:20, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

  Your statistics are skewed by your newness here. Consensus is not how neutrality, or anything else an article needs to achieve, is achieved on en.wn. You're right that en.wp struggles to do so, and that, in light of the short lifespan of a news story, is one reason en.wn doesn't do that. The reviewer and the reporter are forced to collaborate, and the reviewer has to have the final say. Also, you linked to a Wikipedia documentation page (a sure way to get Wikinewsies to reach for their pitchforks), which further makes my point. "we need to make it" — As in, make it more like Wikipedia? Heavy Water (talk) 06:55, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose – I appreciate the nominated person's willingness to help out or altruism, but I'm unconvinced that this person is able to competently manage the project or do tasks. I'm not saying experience is required, but I have reservations about giving this person tools, especially to publish news articles without sufficient quality check. --George Ho (talk) 03:47, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support as the answers look OK. Leaderboard (talk) 10:07, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support They handled the (tedious, exhausting) list of questions quite well! I think with some mentoring, this could go well.--Bddpaux (talk) 17:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: Unfortunately, I don't think the candidate is ready at this time. The answer to Q9 — and, more broadly, the attitude to reviewing that answer shows — is not okay for a reviewer. This reminds me of Acagastya's comment when opposing Darkfrog24's reviewer request in 2017, something like that "crossing swords with the project mission" was a factor and wasn't okay for a reviewer; that metaphor may be kind of extreme for this case, but it's along the lines of what I mean. I'd suggest, should this request be voted down, the candidate try helping newbies and educating them on what they need to do to make their articles passable. Heavy Water (talk) 05:07, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

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• Closed as unsuccessful. [₂₄Cr][talk] 16:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.