Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance/archives/2015/February


Would you please tell me where to suggest topics? (Scientology)

I am too chronically ill to do much over here, when I already can't predict which en.WP edits that I start will be the ones I have to abandon. (If curious, see User:Geekdiva at en.WP for info on my limitations.)

But when working on the External links section of Scientology controversies, I saw that the Template:Wikinewshas/Scientology only had articles from 2012 and prior.

Google News shows there have been stories on Scientology since 2012. So:

  1. I'd like to know if there is a Wikinews page where people can suggest news items that they themselves cannot work on, even if just for future reference.
  2. Since I can't know if I'll make it back here, if someone else wants to suggest Scientology as a topic that might have current newsworthy merit, please feel free to do so.

Thanks for all your hard work over here and sorry I couldn't figure this out on my own, though I did look. --Geekdiva (talk) 22:06, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Geekdiva.
We've gradually learned here, over the years, that news articles are usually written by one person (though there have been rare exceptions). Requesting that someone else write an article doesn't usually work for us either, we've found, probably because when someone decides they're wiling to donate the volunteer effort to write an article, they mostly want to write on a topic of their choosing rather than something someone else has chosen. There are, after all, already two people involved in making any Wikinews article happen: a writer, and an independent reviewer.
Cirt has written in the past on Scientology.
I'm not sure, from your user pages, whether your current limitations apply equally to reading, or more to editing. Also, some people find Wikinews writing difficult to get the hang of while some people just take to it naturally and find it quite easy. So I can't really judge whether you may be able, with a bit of study, to write shortish synthesis articles. If you're interested in learning more about it, I'd suggest starting with WN:PILLARS, then branching out to other pages like WN:SG and perhaps WN:WRITE. --Pi zero (talk) 15:55, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • and by-the-by, my mother struggled nearly her whole adult life with Rheumatoid arthritis and I'm a social worker, so I'm no stranger to human struggles. I've had periods (mostly related to work/family stuff) where I've had to drift into/drift out of things around here....that's just life!! Hang in there!! --Bddpaux (talk) 20:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]