Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2012/March

Any suggestions or ideas would be very welcomed and appreciated

I'm working on my first article and all the pages I've tried to create have been deleted for reasons that can't be given. If anyone can please help me write this article so that it won't be deleted or questionable I'd be ever so grateful. I'm more than willing to share writing credit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zeddicus Zorander 88 (talk • contribs) 17:31, January 12, 2012 UTC

• I suggest reading some of the project policies. One of your submissions was "Lets Play"; we do the best we can to be professional in our newswriting. The other failed review for editorialising. That breaches our WN:NPOV policy. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 06:58, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Any suggestions or ideas would be very welcomed and appreciated 2

I'm working on my first article any help with it would welcome and you can have credit on it if you help need help with some of adding the it to catorgy sports and to linking mvp to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Valuable_Player here is the link to the story http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Peyton_manning_released_form_colts

• A number of pointers have been given to this user. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 14:47, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

mw:Summer of Code 2012

I've added an item to the GSoC page over on the mediawiki wiki; the hope is to get some development more-clearly targetted at Wikinews' workflow.

Most of what I've put up is documenting our rather "Heath Robinson" set of tools for reviewing and publication, which can be found as sub-pages of my page over there.

I would welcome any, and all, feedback regarding this on the relevant talk pages. I have just pointed one of the MW developers at it for feedback too, and I did find that SemanticWiki (a MediaWiki branch) has a great deal of the stuff we could probably do with in extensions. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'm confused........

I grabbed a photo from the Dallas Morning News site which I intend to use via Fair Use..........but Commons doesn't allow people to upload Fair Use images......so where the heck do I put the image? It's on my hard drive.........but, who cares? Bddpaux (talk) 21:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

We can't fair-use images from competing news organizations; that's a provision in WN:Fair use. Of course, if they're released under a compatible license (<cough>Al Jazeera</cough>), then we can use them but then it's not fair use. --Pi zero (talk) 22:02, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Synthesis article

Where is the page where I can choose to write a synthesis article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jdbethel (talk • contribs) 03:20, 23 March 2012

Here are some places that come to mind.

• There are instructions on the {{Howdy}} template, with a tab on the template with a form.
• There's a page WN:Writing an article.
• There's an under-construction "article wizard", at WN:Article wizard.

--Pi zero (talk) 04:06, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's cover Wikimania 2012

This is a call out for anybody at Wikinews who is going to attend Wikimania 2012 (July 12–14). I'm thinking we could put together a team if several of us can be in either New York for the pre-conference "Wikimania Takes Manhattan" or in Washington, D.C. for the main conference. If we can organize in advance, we could do some nice coverage and I bet the larger Wikipedia audience from around the world would be interested. Let's see if we can not only improve upon past coverage, which is available at Portal:Wikimania, but really add some value with the Wikinews medium. Who wants to join me? Crtew (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Sign on below and tell us for which event:

• Crtew (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC) , I'll be at the main conference in D.C. for all three days
• SarahStierch; women's participation, I'll also hopefully be in New York for Wiki Takes New York and I'll be attending AdaCamp during the hackathon days.

Comments

I would strongly recommend contacting the organisers about this now. You do want to try and get their help. Previous Wikimania conferences have been recorded/streamed, you'd want access to that. And, were you planning any video reportage from Wikimania, you'll need to see about getting a bit of dedicated bandwidth. To my knowledge, there has never been a Wikimania with enough web access to sate all those web-hungry Wikimedians. (in Alexandria the WiFi ran out of IP leases).

I'd add more, but am very time-limited at the moment. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:06, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Crtew (talk) 14:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC) Thanks for the heads up Brian! I'll contact the organizers. I'm also going to set up a project page for this one event. If anybody else has any other suggestions, let's put them here -- even if you're not volunteering. The more heads, the better! Thanks again, Crtew (talk) 14:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

A while ago, we tried an experiment that did not go well, in which an article was created to track an event in real time as it unfolded (I think it was that royal wedding in the UK), with someone to incrementally add stuff and an independent reviewer on hand to rapidly review and publish the incremental additions. As I say, it didn't come out well; there was a lot of ill will within the community of the time about it. However, perhaps it's worth considering whether we could devise a different model that would allow us to have a published article that would include live feeds?? --Pi zero (talk) 14:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

• It was a disaster, and caused a lot of ill-will, due to a fawning respect for the monarchy that was utterly at-odds with NPoV. None of the people who could review it had the stomach to make the ruthless edits required.

I'll name no names, but Wikinews would not be the appropriate platform for a "celebration" with one of the Dimblebys presenting it; the Royal Wedding shtick was an attempt to do that in a print form. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

WaWaWe draft article--removed or missing

A draft article about establishing a weekly Wikinews beat on Water and Waste issues was submitted for review two days ago. It is not listed under any of the categories where we expected to find it. Was it removed, not received, or is it now in process behind a non-public firewall? Or other possible fates unknown. Thanks for any feedback. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wawiz001 (talk • contribs)

• It was deleted. The given reason was "Obvious Hoax", it equally well could have been deleted as a test page, notnews, or patent nonsense.

I've no idea what you (who assumes the royal "we") are hoping to do, but the main namespace isn't a good place to try things out — especially not when you submit a single line "comment" for a formal peer review. Wikinews is not a blog, and what you appear to want to do is, 'write a blog'. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. We did not submit a single line comment but a three or four paragraph description of a staff discussion about how to best fit a water and waste news beat to the aims and policies of either WikiNews or WikiPedia. It was not clear to us if either forum is willing to host such a beat. We proposed a news aggregator model, an investigative journalism model and a news feature model profiling industry and government personnel as regular items. Another section of our staff thinks we should simply add water and waste factual information to all place names listed in Wikipedia without attempting to highlight topicality and current events.

A newsbeat is not a web log, nor is it our intention to do blogging. From the rude and unhelpful tone you assume, we have concluded that this forum is not open to all, as you claim, but an exclusive club that is unwilling to try out the idea of establishing a line of trusted stringers focusing on water and waste news items. Nor are you willing to give useful advice to newcomers with a print background on how to obtain community feedback on the idea of focused newsbeats. Nor have you shown the level of professional courtesy that we expect among collegial workers in other fields of intellectual endevour. We are sufficiently answered. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.109.162.183 (talk • contribs) 06:41, 26 March 2012‎

It is not open to Borat hoaxes, which is what I'm informed you are. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oh, lawl! That makes the pompous indignation all-the-moreentertaining. Got a link to their glorious display of idiocy? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Can I steal your brains?

Hello editors, I would like to start a weekly Serer related news, particularly Serer religious news but have no idea where to begin. I'm familiar with Wikipedia and Commons but totally new to Wikinews. Are these type of articles accepted here or are they destined to the rubbish bin? Please advice. Thanks. Tamsier (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an editor here, but what is the news in Senegal right now? Maybe that question is the way you can get started here! I'm writing a story right now about the relief efforts for the ammo depot explosion in the Republic of Congo. I'd love to hear what your news is! The thing about Wikinews is, like Wikipedia, you have to write in a neutral way -- NPOV. So if you can write from both sides, you have a story to tell and you're willing to write it in a news style, then Wikinews can be a great match!!! You got me really curious about Senegal right now. Crtew (talk) 04:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much Crtew. The Senegal Wikinews portal looks dry to me. It looks like it has not been touched for ages by the experienced editors. I don't know why they stopped. The Gambia is slightly newer, but it has gone dry as well and its mainly politics. Its a shame that editors stopped. EDIT: Senegalese news is politically dominated as well [1]. I hate politics. Lol. I like to write about human beings and religion. What you are writing about sounds interesting. I would love to check it out. Thanks.Tamsier (talk) 01:06, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Tamsier, Thank you for writing back about your interests! If I could right now (not enough time), I would write about the Madagascar floods. They have had two huge storms this year. I can't believe nobody has touched that. It's wide open for you to take. I could help out here and there if you want to start.Crtew (talk) 01:29, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Brazzaville's layout

I added one too many graphics to the Brazzaville article and now the formatting is messed up. Does anybody have any tips on layout? Crtew (talk) 00:10, 28 March 2012 (UTC) After toying with it in various combinations and by elimination, you have to stagger the images L-R-L-R-L-R to places the images on both sides. Not very intuitive, but it works ... Crtew (talk) 02:26, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

• Packing in a lot of images to an article can be tricky. In addition to staggering images Left/Right, there are some templates for 'slideshow' use of multiple images (see my National Museum reopening article for usage). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:57, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Badge?

Accredited reporters......has anyone had their badge laminated to wear while doing interviews? I'd love to see a scan/photo of one. I want to get my done at Kinko's or someplace like that. I KNOW FOR A FACT that there was a discussion about that here recently but I can't find it anywhere. Bddpaux (talk) 18:02, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

• The discusson was about getting professonal ID cards. Regrettably, that fell through. Wikimedia Australia were prepared to provide some cash, and it looked like Wikimedia UK might handle the accounts and ordering of cards. However, there are issues elated to Data Protection, plus the fact that Wikinews is global meaning this should be handled at the top level (i.e. we approve someone being credentialled, and the WMF provides a card). But, I have my doubts that will ever come to pass. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:15, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

OK....I understand......I suppose I could just have my Wikinewsie "card" here turned into a badge and/or business cards, if I so wished? Bddpaux (talk) 01:03, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

If my laptop hadn't died, I'd happily tweak the card design with your details, but that's going to have to wait. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:50, 31 March 2012 (UTC)