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Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Michael.C.Wright

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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.



Michael.C.Wright (talk · contribs – Edit rights)

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I am nominating myself for reviewer. En.WN became my 'home wiki' in March 2023 and I have 20 articles published[1], with more written but left to go stale in the review queue and ultimately deleted.

If reviewer permissions are granted, I will work as much as possible with other reviewers using {{pre-review}} for them to gauge my reviewing chops, so-to-speak. I will also be available via IRC for real-time coaching of reviews, if that is an option for the mentoring reviewer.

I proposed the current pre-review process in April[2], though I am not the first to propose such a scheme. Along with others, I helped develop the {{pre-review}} template and a proposed policy/guideline[3] with the goal of providing editors with a way to develop reviewer skills. Through the process of creating and testing the pre-review system, I have gained a deeper understanding of what it takes to review an article. This is not to imply that I have all the answers or that I won't make mistakes. The following pre-reviews are available as examples:[4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]

I use the following checklist when performing pre-reviews and will continue to use it with reviews: User:Michael.C.Wright/review-checklist.

I strongly believe that without additional reviewers, this project fails. If I am granted reviewer privileges, I will actively work to develop and mentor other editors to become reviewers and also work to improve the pre-review/review system to help prevent inactive periods in the future.

To be transparent, I am indefinitely blocked on Wikipedia.[11] Since the block, I've been active on other projects, especially this one, where my edit history reflects consistently constructive, and collaborative contributions.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and any feedback you may provide. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 15:19, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stats

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Questions and comments

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  • [12] The source articles differed in how they covered the knife and our article needed to somehow reflect that or avoid saying whether the victim had it in hand or not. In the end the author chose to remove our statement that she had the knife. That article went stale in the review queue.
  • [13] Our article misquoted a source. As part of my initial pass of copy-editing, I removed the misquote, which turned out to be the only fact pulled from another source, which I then recommended the author remove as an unused source (removing the source myself would disqualify me as an objective evaluator). The author was able to instead correct the quote and keep the source. The article was ultimately published.
  • [14] The author had written a series of articles covering the Israel-Palestine conflict and the last paragraph of each article was the same background information on the October 7 attack. There were statistics in the paragraph that were not supported in the sources. After a brief discussion, to include a reviewer, sources were added to support all statements of fact. That article went stale in the review queue. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 23:40, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you are referring to the five articles currently in the review queue, I have already pre-reviewed two.[15], [16]. Both articles I evaluated are original reporting from the same original author. You can see not only extensive notes for the author and reviewer, but also a lengthy conversation happening between the author, another editor, and myself. I followed my review-checklist and took into consideration the precedents I knew about or could find. I also took into consideration the amount of page-views this author's articles generate, which is our primary goal; to generate page-views. In a perfect world, I would like to hear from another reviewer regarding how they would handle the ultimate publish/not-publish decision on both of those, given that reviewers in the past have begun to voice concern over future publishing of similar articles from the same author. I don't see consensus that we shouldn't, but I see more than one opinion heading in that direction. If I were the last reviewer on the planet, I would split the difference; I would publish the article 'Ethnic features of the world people' and not the second and explain to the author that future articles about his own exhibitions will not be considered newsworthy but he is encouraged to continue to write about exhibitions expeditions when they happen. Hopefully that answered your question. If not, please clarify. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 01:27, 30 August 2024 (UTC); edited 15:25, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to add that I feel responsible to provide clear and detailed feedback in the pre-review so that the author has the best chance of understanding the rules and norms and can improve their work over time. I know first-hand how frustrating it can be to have an article fail publication with a vague explanation as to why. I have been accused of being too verbose, but I think the job of article evaluation justifies verbosity. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 01:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Michael.C.Wright I disagree that generating page-views is our primary goal. By that logic, if I write misinformation that is clickbait and will get a bunch of views, is that good for Wikinews? According to that it would seem so... Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 01:35, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was not suggesting we simply throw content out there. At the core, page-views is what we're all about. A robust peer-review system helps to ensure we don't publish misinformation. A peer-review system is meant to catch instances of accidental misinformation such as misquotes, typos in casualty counts, etc. I am in favor of retaining a level of peer-review while driving up page-views through quality articles, published in a timely manner, about topics that readers are interested in reading. If we don't have readers (measured by page-views) we don't have a project. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 13:32, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have responded to them all and I would say my over-arching theme of responses is; we need to focus on solving the inactive reviewer problem as our top priority. ツ I'm not saying that because I'm volunteering for reviewer. I've been saying it for some time and its why I've been working mostly on the {{pre-review}} project. Not publishing articles drives away authors and readers and without either of those, the project serves no purpose. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 13:26, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • [17] This is a good example. The confusion is not the fault of the author. The author is a long-time editor here and he produces original reporting of his own travels. His reporting on his exhibitions has long been published here by more than one reviewers and his articles are consistent in style and format. Therefore a precedent has been set. I have tried to convince the author that reporting on his own exhibitions is less noteworthy than reporting on his expeditions and reporting on his on exhibitions represents a conflict of interest. The author did add a clarifying statement to their user page to make clear he is both author and host. But he is adamant about reporting on his exhibitions and I don't blame or fault him. His work has long been published here. He is free to take my advice or leave it. I do look forward to a reviewer response to that review request. The resultant discussion, which has included other editors, needs to reach closure.
  • [18] The article went stale and I marked it as such. After it was later marked as abandoned, the original author started editing it again, but not with fresh sources. I left a comment in the talk page explaining our policy on freshness as well as how to cite sources. The author never responded, yet continued to edit the article, but not asking for a review. So I did nothing more until the article again met the abandoned criteria and I again marked it as abandoned. It remains abandoned and the author never responded to my comments. I don't know if the cause was confusion, language, or something else. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 00:02, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • [19] This is a third example, though I wouldn't classify it as 'confused' or 'too away,' but it's an example of a recommendation that was not implemented. That article focuses entirely on Russian losses as reported by the Ukrainian government. The only sources for the article are both Ukrainian government sites. I believe that does not satisfy the pillar of having two, mutually independent sources nor does it satisfy the pillar of neutrality.[20] I identified the problem and the author disagreed and has asked for others to find a source that supports the Russian side, but that would disqualify a reviewer as being too involved (reviewers can not add sources and remain objective). I would not publish that article without mutually independent source to verify the Ukrainian government numbers and without the Russian side being represented. If those sources aren't available to verify and/or repudiate, I don't see how the article in its current form can be published by us. It would amount to repeating propaganda. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 15:35, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is quite a convoluted problem that I won't be able to fully cover here. The strictness makes reviewing articles time-consuming. It also often makes the published content higher in quality after peer-review. The question is; are we short on active reviewers because the review process is too time-consuming, or do we simply need more active reviewers to do the work? I think that question is better answered by reviewers. I would be in favor of exploring what a 'less-strict' review process looks like but I can't tell you what part of the review process I think could be scrapped. I think part of the solution is to develop a pipeline, or path to reviewer that helps train people on our policies, guidelines, norms, precedents, etc. That is pre-review. I also think we need to document all of the institutional knowledge that sits in the heads of just a few, because that is also a hinderance to bringing in new reviewers. There should not be a small group of reviewers who have exclusive understanding of the rules to the project. It also shouldn't have to be dug up from a years-old discussion between editors who are no longer active in the project. It's a long (and incomplete) answer, but it's a complicated problem. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 00:22, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • What are your topics you would ideally specialize in, i.e. be happier if everyone wrote only about these topics and nothing else? (sorry, so many questions, I hope it is Ok.) Gryllida (talk) 20:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a lot I could say about the block, what lead up to it, what has transpired with the article since, etc. But this is not the appropriate place. My talk page at WP has a very lengthy history of the block and the events that transpired around it. The block summary was for edit warring. I have not edit warred here nor will I. My contributions here have been and will continue to be collaborative and constructive. If at some point someone feels otherwise, I am very open to hearing their constructive feedback and engaging with them honestly and civilly. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 01:03, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • We unfortunately have a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma...which comes first? Without having routine reviews, writers can't see what it takes to successfully publish an article. MDW made a good point in another discussion.[27] To get us over this hump of inactive reviewers, we need current reviewers to at least help train new reviewers. I was prepared to support the promotion of Asheiou[28] with the understanding that she could be mentored by a seasoned and active reviewer. At the time we had a couple, Heavy Water in particular, who I thought would do a great job of mentoring her (he is very thorough in reviewing and I hope he can mentor me if I become reviewer). I was withholding support for her promotion in hopes that she would work with some authors to get their articles published and demonstrate her abilities as an evaluator. She reviewed and published one article. She took a wikibreak shortly after her request for privileges failed—it was a bit of a bumpy ride of a request process. Privileges were given twice and taken away twice. We had an admin/reviewer who seemed to honestly want to do something radically different in fast-tracking reviewers and there seemed to be a few supporters of that notion, but not enough. So we went from having the possibility of another reviewer back to the status quo, which includes long periods without published content and lost (at least for now) a writer and potential reviewer.
To directly answer your question; I can't. The only path I see where I would nominate three individuals right now is if we retain the current, strict, peer-review process and have at least two active reviewers available and willing to mentor and supervise multiple new reviewers for a while. Without active reviewers, I think multiple new reviewers would cause problems with corrections and possibly even retractions. I don't think we can manage to both promote multiple reviewers and effectively re-design the review process simultaneously. Like I said, we don't even have the manpower to upgrade our copyright license, which doesn't require active reviewers, but an active admin at this point.
As part of my 'on-boarding' as reviewer, I propose to use {{pre-review}} to evaluate articles. If a reviewer agrees with my pre-review, I will then make it a formal review. If no reviewer has evaluated my pre-review before the article goes stale and I have recommended in pre-review the article is published, I will proceed to publish the article. That way we have the opportunity to check my work and if no one is available to do so, we can still get articles published. There has not been a case where I have recommended an article be published and a reviewer has disagreed with that assessment (though there have been cases of me recommending publish but the article went stale). Keep in mind pre-review has not been in use for long and there haven't been a lot of active reviewers to see my pre-reviews. There are still plenty available now to look back on and evaluate. One can go through all the pages that link to template:pre-review[29] and find my pre-reviews and evaluate them. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 14:34, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What if there we did "retain the current, strict, peer-review process and have at least two active reviewers available and willing to mentor and supervise multiple new reviewers for a while". Then who (if anyone) would you support being a reviewer? @Michael.C.Wright Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 15:24, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would recommend three people who have already shown an ability and willingness to help others improve articles.
For example, only one other person has really used pre-review; you (not to imply one must use pre-review for me to recognize they want to help others). You are clearly interested in helping to solve the problem of inactive reviewers. I think you could learn the ropes of reviewing. You are a prolific writer and your writing shows improvement. But you seem to think that you wouldn't get the backing to become a reviewer just yet.[30] What do you think is causing that and is it something you want to correct? Do you want to become a reviewer? Those are rhetorical questions in this case, but questions I would need the answers to in order to nominate you, for example. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 16:03, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Michael.C.Wright replied on your talk page Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 16:40, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know for one I've avoided using pre-review because I don't want to go back under the level of scrutiny I did at the start of the summer. It wasn't good for my mental health. I suppose I was a touch naïve in applying for reviewer but everything that happened really soured the role for me and I guess that's why I haven't done any pre-reviews. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 16:40, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think part of the reason, maybe even a large part of the reason your request failed came down to some politics around the notion of fast-tracking reviewers. I think we generally have one camp of reviewers/admin/OG editors who would like to see significant (radical?) change in the whole process and another that would like to maintain some semblance of the way things used to be or the way things are; slow, deliberative, intentional, thorough, etc. (I'm not saying one camp wants things fast-and-loose or that the other is power-hungry, orthodox practitioners.)
I think if you re-engage, even if only to continue writing articles, you would be a good candidate for a reviewer soon. And you don't need to use the {{pre-review}} template if you want to jump into someone else's article and help get it published. Just working with others in some way and tracking it so you can link to diffs as part of your re-request later will help.
As one of the few around here who has expressed a desire to become a reviewer and shown a knack for good writing, I'd hate for you to leave or disengage for too long! —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 17:41, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The resultant arguement was in no way your fault, @Asheiou. But I think that your reply to Q9, where you seem to basically say being a few days past the freshness window is okay. Now that's fine to have as opinion, but with there being no consensus for doing something like saying that that's what you plan to do is well...a bit worrying to me as well. 1 of the opposes is directly because of that response, and the other strongly hints that that's the reason. Keep in mind that I was a support voter, so I do still think you being a reviewer would be a net-benefit to the project. I don't think that @Michael.C.Wright saying "a large part of the reason your request failed came down to some politics" is true. Proposing a change and saying "I will do X with no approval" are different, very different. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 22:34, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was asked for my opinion, I gave my opinion. I had no plans to operate against consensus. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 22:46, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I phrased my response to the question correctly, because it was question 9 and I wasn't quite taking the time I needed to phrase myself correctly with the questions thrown at me, I didn't clarify correctly. I didn't have the energy, emotional or physical, to type out a spiel correcting myself afterwards, especially with all of the arguments that spawned. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 22:50, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hardly so (unless you mean on a reviewer req, of which there's only been one in that time period anyway, and, well, we all know how that went). You've got three, maybe four "WikiNews" users who have suffrage in a vote like this — and one reviewer. That's not a consensus for a reviewer request. Heavy Water (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Umm...reality check here...this is currently a 10-0 vote. And I personally count 7 users who I think are experienced enough here to have their vote counted...besides I think the voters below more or less represent most of the actual main contributors at this point...also we have granted the reviewer permission for much less consensus before. You're own reviewer request had "only" 2 reviewer supports (but 1 reviewer weak opposse) and as well much less users who I'd say "have suffrage" here. JJLiu112's had unquestionably less support than this as well, as did LivelyRatification's. And I'm not picking and choosing here, these are all of the new reviewers that have been successfully added in the past 7 years. @Heavy Water Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:04, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Heavy Water, do you have specific concerns or thoughts about the request? I welcome the opportunity to work through any with you and would also welcome your mentorship, should I be granted reviewer privileges. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 15:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Me Da Wikipedian, I'm a bit overwhelmed (both at Wikinews and elsewhere) this week, and haven't been involved in closing requests previously sufficiently often to recall the requirements. I'll check whether there is a minimum number of votes or days required and if criteria are met then I will close it; I'll aim to complete this within the next two days. Gryllida (talk) 10:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have posted a pre-review on the article.[31] I think it would be very good for en.WN to work with this author to get the article published as soon as possible and encourage him to continue to contribute. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 12:54, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question With reviewers being available (at least somewhat more compared with a few months ago), would you consider the pre-review system is still necessary or does it need to go away? --Gryllida (talk) 10:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The main purpose of Pre-review, in my opinion, is to be a pipeline for new reviewers; a way for non-reviewers to evaluate articles and consistently report their findings to authors and reviewers. The template {{pre-review}} is meant to consistently format the response so that it is readily understood by anyone who has seen it before. It's also meant to encourage those who do a pre-review to evaluate articles based on the WN:Pillars, which are parameters of the template {{pre-review}}. By giving each parameter a value, pre-reviewers are encouraged to evaluate the article against them.
    If reviewers find pre-review evaluations helpful to them in 1) identifying potential, new reviewers and 2) saving time reviewing articles, i.e., by correcting problems with style before the reviewer has to address them, then I think it is still useful.
    I will add that I am not married to the notion of Pre-review. If a better or otherwise different solution gains consensus as a viable solution to the problem of too few active reviewers, I will have no problem scrapping the template and proposed policy/guideline. But at the moment, we have only one other suggested attempt at solving the problem, and that's Darkfrog24's suggestion of altering the review process itself to make it quicker and easier to perform. That full discussion is here:
    Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#Proposed_alternative_to_pre-review_process —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 13:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Question There was a note that Wikinews could be merged with Wikipedia and a note that the Wikipedia already do a lot of news coverage and have advantage regarding page views. How would you find their news coverage is compared with Wikinews's? Would you like such a merge to occur in the future? Gryllida (talk) 23:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to a large number of established readers, Wikipedia has the advantage of established content to be used as background and general info, and a huge number of users/authors. In that regard, they can be very nimble in producing content quickly and that content can then be informally peer-reviewed quickly once published. Wikipedia also has a reputation for being too ideologically driven[32] as well as inaccurate.[33] Our peer-review system should be an advantage in producing quality content that is verifiable and neutral, but it is currently a hinderance to getting content merely published. This is not a new concern, but one expressed by many over multiple years. What's different now is the imminence of the Sibling Project Lifecycle. I don't know how we correct the problem without active reviewers and admins who want to correct the problem by either increasing the number of active reviewers or by changing the review system. I don't see the status quo as a viable pathway forward for the project. If we can't 'right the ship' so to speak, I see no advantage to consuming information from en.Wikinews over en.Wikipedia. We published only nine news articles in the month of August. Only eight were published in July. I don't understand how more reviewers and admin don't seem to see that as a problem worth fixing. I personally don't want to see en.WN merged with WP (and my request for reviewer privileges indicates my desire to help this project succeed). I also don't see our current trajectory as sustainable or viable and therefore a merge, in the absence of significant change here, may be best route in the context of the Sibling Project Lifecycle.[34] In that context, it can be easily argued that we 1. lack impact on other Wikimedia projects and broader Internet infrastructure, 2. have a severe lack of community activity and 3. have a strong external project to merge with. And if all three of those things are established, it can easily be said it is 4. not sustainable. That's 4 out of 6 conditions proposed to shutter a project. —Michael.C.Wright (Talk/Published) 15:06, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

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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.
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