Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2012/August

Either it is or it isn't!

This isn't the first time this has happened to me.........I'm annoyed right now. Have you guys seen the thing, where, you're working on an article and you paste a source's link into the article page......(e.g."Authorities fight wildfires ablaze across the state")........then, while you're working on the article, they CHANGE THEIR ARTICLE!!!!?????? You click on the link and suddenly, that article has a new title and a new time(5-10 hours later)???!! It just seems odd to manage a site that way! Is it that weird, that I think the 1st article would have it's little place in the annals of the Chicago Tribune's servers for many moons to come, and then there'd be a brand new URL for the second article? I totally respect breaking stories and the fact that things happen fast, but an article is an article is an article!! Isn't it suppose to be that way??!! I don't own the Chicago Tribune, but it just seems weird. There has to be a way that I can "freeze" a URL in perpetuity.....can't I? --Bddpaux (talk) 23:56, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a well-known common problem for us. We provide the complete history of our article, so if it's changed, you can go back and find the old version [and why it was changed]; and we don't usually remove material after publication (unless it's actually wrong and we catch it within the first 24 hours), we just add. Other news providers have this obnoxious habit of completely replacing an article with a different article that leaves out a bunch of stuff that was there before, presumably because they've got this "paper" mentality that you only have so many square inches of space for the article, so when you add something you have to remove something else.

There is, in fact, at least one service on the web that can be used to preserve a snapshot of the state of a page at a particular moment in time — but, on consideration, I believe we should not use it. When we were first made aware of it, we all thought it sounded like a great idea, exactly because we've had a belly-full, over the years, of our sources changing their articles between our article writing and article review (even when the two are only about half an hour apart!). I first began to suspect we should take a much more skeptical look at the idea when the person who'd advocated it turned out to be one of the nastiest, most repulsive anti-news vandal/trolls we've had, the now-community-banned Viriditas. The trouble with freezing the state of a source is, it makes you oblivious to updates and even corrections. A published Wikinews article tries to be a snapshot of a news story as it appeared at the time of publication, to which our first approximation is how it looked at the time of writing; if there's a difference between those two, we don't want to insulate ourselves from the difference. We don't want to insulate ourselves from updates or corrections.

So on the face of it, I'm opposed to introducing such a device into the Wikinews workflow. I suspect our best bet is to simply keep muddling through. --Pi zero (talk) 01:44, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

It is something that could always be mentioned on the article talk page in the journalist notes section. Provide link to old version and new version. --LauraHale (talk) 02:02, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Here's one for entertainment

I thought I'd share this one with the community for the sake of a chuckle and just general food-for-thought: I've noted of-late that I'm becoming aware of the process by which I start an article in my head, long before I've even sat down at the keyboard. That process can be kinda funny to talk about.....because sometimes, it moves very slowly, and sometimes in happens within 15 minutes! My recent mosquito article started very mildly as I'd glimpsed a headline in the (print) Dallas Morning News that said something-something about "City of Dallas calls for aerial spraying for mosquitoes"......in that very instant, I thought: I'd bet, statewide, there's plenty of fodder there for a good Wikinews article. So, moments later, I'm quite literally driving down the road (along Texas Highway 31, traveling toward Corsicana, Texas (US)), and I remember this cool, shady little picnic area I stop at sometimes to do paperwork, stretch my legs etc. I think, maybe I'll stop in there and see if I can get a quick some guy on the street interview....it's not very big, but I bet someone will be there. So, I do just that, and notice there's a cop car there and the cop is talking to a guy in a pickup truck.

Well, I pull in and stop, and pretend to look through my real-job paperwork, thinking about approaching the cop, cause now I'm thinking, "Heck, a cop would make a great interview!" Little did I know it'd even get better! So, I put on my Press badge (photo of that coming soon!) and approach the cop (with Malakoff, Texas P.D.)- -as I do so, I glimpse the side of the pickup truck and it has a Department of Public Utilities emblem on the side, so now I'm thinking, Jackpot! The cop is friendly, and I'm lobbing him some nice little questions, and then he pops out with, Well, y'know, I'm actually the Director of water, sewer and parks for the city of Malakoff. I'm just a reserve officer for the P.D. Holy cow! C'mon, I mean, how lucky can a guy get?! Now, we're not talking about stumbling onto Joe Biden fixing a flat tire or anything, but think about: I'm wanting to talk about mosquito spraying and I literally stumble into the guy who's in charge of it for the town I happen to be driving through 20 minutes after the very idea for the article strikes me?!!! That's what you call a good day! --Bddpaux (talk) 02:15, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Recruiting!

Y'know, I know I often throw random ideas out, but I've REALLY been mulling this one over for a while now. We need to have recruiting drive! Generally, people writing and reviewing seems to be quite low right now. What ever you opinion(s) might be about the other place, they do some good recruiting. Yes, I know we have a pretty steep learning curve here, but if I can do it, anyone can!! Thoughts?? --Bddpaux (talk) 16:21, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• Let's start by culling out people who've rights/privileges utterly unused in the last 12 months - 18 if we want to be generous.

Assuming my expenses are sorted and paid this week, I'm running a Wikinews workshop in London next weekend (if not, it's virtual). You have to bear in mind that until we get numbers over a certain threshold, we can't have a mass-influx of new contributors. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:01, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I gotcha. --Bddpaux (talk) 20:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• Things do seem rather slow; I'd simply assumed it was always this way (being very new to this wiki myself). --Mozillaman (talk) 20:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The fork (see above) did not help. We've been a good-deal busier in the past, and would like to build up over time. The number of inactive admins should give a clue as to past activity levels. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 07:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

A firmer suggestion at the current events portal at wikipedia that breaking news better belongs here than wikipedia might help, it would also help direct editors here if there was a link to the form from the current events template. Its beyond my own abilities to code, but I was also thinking along the lines of a bot aided form to hold an editors hands through article creation, so e.g. for the first box there would be somewhere to put write a title, a second box for the first paragraph, a third box for the second paragraph, and a fourth for the third paagraph. Collapsiable help boxes would explain what was needed in a title, what is expected in a second paragraph, etc. Only when there is content in one box, would the next box load up. These content boxes would be followed by boxes into which raw URLs could be entered. The last box would be one into which tags with regards the article could be entered. A bot would then format the content into an article, change the raw URLs into an acceptable source format and trawl through the tags to look for suitable categories and info boxes.--KTo288 (talk) 19:21, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

A kick-ass interactive article wizard has been at the top of my list of things to bring about for quite a while now; I've worked out pretty closely just what sort of general software tool is needed to enable such things, and am studying javascript (because I'm quite convinced the only way en.wn will ever get the software it needs, realistically, is if we write it ourselves).

I, for one, want to let the en.wp community ignore us as it likes; its disregard is far more benevolent than any actual attention it might plausibly direct toward us. --Pi zero (talk) 19:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

• Ah, KTo288, ... You'd probably be appalled at how much effort it took to even get Wikipedia to link to Wikinews from their main page "In The News" template. I've puzzled over why they keep on violating their own "anti-recentism" policy, and conclude it has less to do with our review standards and whatnot; it has more to do with writing on a top-five website (i.e. it's vanity). Seems awfully shortsighted, because here you 'almost' have full ownership of an article in-terms of it going into the archives as-you-wrote-it. In stark contrast, your contributions to Wikipedia might-well be chopped back to a handful of words a year down the line. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

WN fork open globe is no more...

wikinews fork THE OPEN GLOBE which was created last year is seems offline or defunct now... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 175.110.195.144 (talk • contribs) 09:53, 14 August 2012‎

Dead as a doornail, so we hear. What gives Wikinews its value is rigorous review (also its basic difference from OG), which makes Wikinews not a blog; we're drowning in information, but how to wed it with journalistic values like trustworthiness and neutrality is a core challenge of journalism in the modern age. It's a common fundamental error among AGFists that they tend to think of rigorous review as an obstacle rather than a crucial asset. --Pi zero (talk) 13:59, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Anyone know the reason why the site went offline?--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• According to IRC scuttlebutt, the hosting dude deleted it in a petulant frenzy. Maybe Tempo just pissed him off too. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Some sort of inter-personal conflict seems to be the main element. The site was put up for sale by the (host?) but they held on to it in the end. Also, contributions fell off. Anyone I've spoken to connected to the fork is unanimous in their opinion that OG is gone. As Brian says, I've heard tell a rogue hostman fried the data. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

• From my irratic checks of their RC, there seemed to be a great deal of enthusuasm over setting up the site. It ended up with a great look to it — imagine turning Wikinews into a glossy. However, once it'd been up and running a while the level of contributions, as BRS says, "fell off" a cliff.

Their review process was simply a rubber-stamp, and they widened the "newsworthy" window greatly, but neither of those kept the site alive enough to make it worthwhile worrying over shenanigans with the hosting company. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

now hope all wikinewsie users who migrated to og will come back to wn . —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 175.110.195.144 (talk • contribs) 13:12, 19 August 2012‎

This is... nuanced. It has to be an individual decision. Historically, there was a deep ideological rift between two factions of the Wikinews community. We always spend most of our time-and-effort in actual news production, with little energy left over for infrastructure — and with the community divided like that, a big chunk of our small margin of infrastructure energy was spent coping with the rift. More than once the community nearly tore itself apart, and with the fork it finally did tear itself apart, in surely the best way it could have done: a remarkably amicable separation, with each faction having the opportunity to pursue its path substantially unmolested by the other. Although I never agreed with the faction that went to the fork, I was glad for them to have the opportunity to pursue their path, just as I was glad (despite our resulting deep labor shortage) that we were able to focus more sharply on ours. For someone who migrated to the fork, it should now be clearer than before what ideology they would be embracing should they chose to return. It isn't a decision to rush into; working through deep ideological issues needs to be done thoroughly. --Pi zero (talk) 14:32, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

• Signpost this week issue wrote about Open Globe went offline [1]. Saqib

A rather fanciful version of the failure. Tempo has always (within my experience) had a talent for making misconceptions about news production sound seductively plausible, and Signpost generally seems eager to publish Tempo's version of things as if it were fact (since Signpost doesn't have Wikinews's NPOV policy). --Pi zero (talk) 15:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• I somewhat chuckled at reading that 'excuse'. Of the "nine" contributors they attracted, I'd estimate around half had an interest in content creation. The rest got to play at setting up a wiki from scratch.

They rejected several options that might have kept them afloat content-wise. First, our review process was considered too rigorous, thus our content must've been more thoroughly checked. Second, one of the points where Tempo and I vehemently disagreed was the neutrality of VoA's stuff which, being PD, they could've pulled in.

A combination of the two would've given them the appearance of more content production than enWN, which might've bumped reader numbers to a level where their fundraiser brought in the returns their host obviously expected before, allegedly, trying to flog off the domain.

I honestly can't see why they needed to go looking for Techessentials as a host. Considerably less than $100 a year would've covered their costs - and I don't know many teenagers who could not afford that out their pocket-money.

Incidentally, when's the signpost going to ask the opinion of the Wikinewsies that didn't fork off? Fork mentioned (breaking-news style), Tempo interviewed, and a eulogy for the fork's demise—bit of a love-in with a bunch of defectors. They 'snipe' at tech support for smaller projects, then confer the same snub on us themselves.

Now, have you any constructive input Saqib? - after trying to tempt Tempodivalse with offers of financial backing, before coming over here to see if you can spark up old feuds? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

i must agree with you why tempo choose to host with techessentials. they tech essentials are their-self offline now probably because their hosting is expired and they could not able to clear their dues..

Note, OpenGlobe was effectively dead several weeks before techessentials shut it down, and Tempo had an "I quit" message on his userpage before everything closed (AFAIK, I wasn't following them too closely). In my opinion, the most interesting thing to come out of OpenGlobe was their skin (which is open source btw). IMO I thought it was one of the nicer skinning jobs that people have done for MediaWiki. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:06, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Yep, I'd agree there, it was a nice skin. Don't know how it'd stand up to usability testing for the visually-impaired, though. More than a few times I've wondered why we don't make Wikinews more visually different from Wikipedia. Disqus also looked a million times better than LQT does. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

if so, then why don't you guys get that skin. might be tempo still have files of that skin..

• Go away, Saqib. We've neither the time for the usability testing, nor any time whatsoever for you. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:19, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

• lol Diego Grez (talk) 21:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)