Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2011/September

Team Workspaces on Wikinews

Does Wikinews provide functionality for teams of content producers, such as a video production team, to collaborate on projects? I.e. we would like to know how teams can use Wikimedia services like Wikinews to communicate and organize documents and production assets. This would keep the production crews and multimedia artifacts close to the Wikimedia community. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Brylie (talk • contribs)

What sort of functionality are you talking about? Essentially, what you see is what you get; Wikinews has no video editing facilities, it is just a basic content management system. Nor have we the sort of compute-power required for such work. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Planning and communication would be helpful. Can we use namespaces, or something to that effect, to compile resources, links, etc.? Online video editing was beyond the scope of my initial query but I think that video is a good form of journalism that is not out of the context of Wikinews. I am just trying to get examples that would encourage news teams to use Wikimedia/Wikinews in their production workflow. I do not necessarily want to itemize shortcomings or limitations of MediaWiki software and/or the Wikimedia Foundation's server infrastructure. I am hoping for generative and constructive feedback. :)--Brylie (talk) 19:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

What news teams? The purpose of Wikinews, and the various namespaces on the project, are for the running of the project and working towards publication of content on Wikinews. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Any group of people who wish to collaborate to publish content on Wikinews, or other similarly licensed news service(s). All I am seeking is to figure out a way to encourage journalists, and students, to use Wikinews throughout the production cycle of any news or documentary project. Specifically, we are organizing a course on Peer to Peer University called Bearing Witness and I am hoping that we peer learners can lean on Wikinews a little bit to plan and create collaborative content. --Brylie (talk) 00:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Your terminology was what threw me; very little of the work carried out on Wikinews merits terms like "production cycle" – that implies the news being reported is manufactured, not reactive reporting.

Any group could, reasonably, create their own area within the Wikinews: namespace, or use the prepared stories area. But, what unsettles somewhat is the title "Bearing Witness"; Wikinews content should strive to adhere to a Neutral Point of View, should not be blog-esque, and ideally be of a standard that a mainstream publication would carry.

Right now, the University of Wollongong are running a second course where contributing here is required for credit in degree work. Actually putting together some lecture notes/handouts that other institutions could use will follow on from this. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Category renaming

This is regarding the Category:North-West Frontier Province and Category:Northern Areas. I would like these categories to be renamed to Category:Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Category:Gilgit-Baltistan as the names of these territories were changed. You can verify this on Wikipedia too here and here. These categories were created before the name changes took place and hence have remained the same ever since. Rana (talk) 04:10, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

What exactly is OTRS?

I'm a little embarassed to ask......it has something to do with original reporting or interviews or something....but I'm not sure. Bddpaux (talk) 17:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS is a system whereby emails are fed in, and trusted volunteers respond. Only these volunteers have access, and it is mainly aimed at communicating with non-members. It's not actually used by Wikinews for OR etc; we have a similar system where email evidence of OR can be sent to scoop (AT) wikinewsie (dot) org. This then forwards copies to each accredited reporter, who all have their own wikinewsie.org email accounts. I would not be opposed to long-term storage of OR material within the OTRS system, though (every OTRS entry is permanently retained, whereas scoop just forwards emails to multiple recipients). Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:44, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Why does this website exist?

I see above that there was some sort of flood of articles a week ago, but there were SIX articles sitting in the review queue when I submitted my write-up four days ago. For FOUR DAYS my article went unreviewed, and now people are threatening to can it, not for any issues with the article itself, but because it is "too old". Shii (talk) 02:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Would it be possible to replace the "Wikinews needs you!" message on the front page with a warning like, "Please do not submit articles at this time, they will most likely not be published"? Shii (talk) 02:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Listen to me, brutha: I'm with you.....OK? Hang in there! It's a good project! It's not perfect but it's a good thing. I know reviewing is kinda slow.....it always has been....OK? You wrote a good article.......just reach out, grab something current to plug in there and loop some of the four-day-old material into the newer article, OK? It's citizen journalism.....it isn't perfect and none of these reviewers are on salary, allright? Hang in there.....the learning curve is tough.....you wrote an article on a news-worthy event.....the "time gods" just weren't on your side this time, OK? Come back.....take a deep breath.....and try again.Bddpaux (talk) 02:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I DID reporting, the article was ready for publication, and now it will not be published, not because of anything I did wrong, but because the reviewers sat on their asses for four days. Shii (talk) 04:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Tell you what. You pay for my tuition in the Japanese language, and when I get the qualification I'll review your next article with Japanese sources. See the problem? Nobody touched the story because nobody could. Verification is impossible. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 18:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

You never heard about Google Translate? Using that for verify contents should not pose any problem. --Matthiasb (talk) 17:20, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Automated translation technology is nowhere near the level of quality and reliability that would be required. Indeed, good automated translation has been just a few years away since the 1960s (or was it the 1950s). --Pi zero (talk) 17:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Questions for interview with Kate Bracks

Hello Wikinewsies! I've managed to set up an interview with, that's right, MasterChef Australia, Season 3 winner, Kate Bracks. But, I will need the help of you guys regarding what questions do I ask her...I would be much obliged if you helped me out. Thank you. Regards, Avenue X at Cicero (talk) 13:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Please suggest questions below:

Custom formatting of Main page links?

What CSS can I add to my user vector.css to make the lead article links on the home page blue? -- Jeandré, 2011-09-23t13:17z

I haven't tested it, but #l_title a { color: #FFFFFF !important; } should do it. DENDODGE George Watson 19:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

That would make them white... (also not tested) try #l_title a { color: blue !important; } perhaps. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Damn it, I knew I'd done something wrong! Grah! DENDODGE George Watson 21:12, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I haven't tested it too, but #l_title a { color: #0000FF !important; } should [leaning towards will] do it. Avenue X at Cicero (talk) 06:31, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant. I was concentrating so much on making sure I had the right CSS classes that I forgot to check the colour code :p DENDODGE George Watson 15:32, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The lead links are still black even after Shift reloading the pages. I'm using Ubuntu 11.04, Firefox 6.0.2, Preferences, Content, Colours..., and "Allow pages to choose their own colours, instead of my selection above" is selected. -- Jeandré, 2011-09-26t14:45z

Putting it in my common.css also doesn't fix it. Special:Preferences, Appearance, Link underlining: "Always" is also ignored by the lead links, tho other links are affected. -- Jeandré, 2011-09-26t15:25z

Call for reviewers

Hi everybody,

I'd like to ask you guys to have a look at my fresh article "Europe captures Solheim Cup after an epic battle". Thank you in advance, Wmigda (talk) 19:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)