Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Archive/15

Poll: Use of words "terrorist","terrorists" and " terrorism"

This has been relocated to Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/terrorist. —this is messedrocker (talk) 01:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee and systemic bias.

This has been relocated to Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/ArbCom and systemic bias. —this is messedrocker (talk) 01:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Californian photographers who'd like to go to the Oscars?

Are you interested in red carpet photography, or reporting on the Academy Awards? I'm trying to get one reporter for Wikinews, and one photographer for Wikimedia Commons/Wikinews/Wikipedia into the whole red carpet/backstage stuff. Press credentials for the Oscars are being released now, so we need to act fast.

I'm looking for someone that is clearly reliable, if not skilled with the camera. Being an entertainment buff with a good memory for famous faces is a big plus (so you don't miss stars, and shoot photos of random people), and living in or around California, particularly in or around Los Angeles are also big pluses. The photographer is my main concern, the reporter is less critical

Post your reply info and a sample <gallery> of four photos, at least one has to be of a human, and at least one has to have been taken in natural light, and at least one photo has to have been taken in artificial light. Submit your interest or questions to .

This message is being cross-posted to Commons, Wikinews, Wikipedia. -- Zanimum 20:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I forwarded this to the mailing lists, as I think you might get better response if they're included. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I just got Bawolff's forward as I get the Wikinews mailing list in batch mode; thus I hope it's not too late. Anyway, I have a friend who I think would be perfect as the photographer and I wouldn't mind accompanying him as the reporter. Hopefully he will be contacting you shortly. Thanks. Jleybov 17:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Israeli recognition POV

This has been relocated to Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/Israel Recognition POV. —this is messedrocker (talk) 01:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The Importance of Editorial Pieces in a Democratic Society

I feel that Wikinews is severely lacking in editorial pieces.

Editorial pieces stimulate a discussion of the reported stories, an opinionated and thoughtful populace, as well as a healthy democracy and a greater number of informed, thinking and enlighted individuals. Irrelevant of what statement or beliefs editorial pieces take, it's important for a society of people, like ourselves in the wikimedia foundation, to discuss important topics in an open-forum.

Maybe reply-based editorial? Where users can individually reply to editorial pieces or critique them. Does anybody know who George Orwell was? Not only was he a great author who wrote W:Nineteen Eighty-Four and W:Animal Farm as his most famous critiques of National Socialism, Totalitarianism and W:Marxist-Leninism. To maintain a healthy democracy, we need more people like George Orwell, who stimulate the mind and move people to take stances on things, or at least think about the literature that they are reading with CRITICAL READING AND SKILLS instead of using lunatic news psuedynyms like "How can things stay the same in a post-9/11 society?" -- I have a spoiler for you : It's always going to be Past or post Spetember 11th 2001, because, as stunning as surprising as it seems -- we can't turn back time. Unless of course, christ was born 7 years later than what he had thought, then would be Sept 21st, 2000 right now. But that is highly unlikely, of course.

So, in my opinion, we can't just re-arrange the constitution and the our rights because a certain date has past that has struck fear and convulsion in the hearts of many, that would imply a fascist takeover. see Reichstag Fire Decree then Patriot Act as well as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.. because right now, we're acting in convulsive and angry fear against Jews, er.. wait Arabs, that's it. And we've suspended W:Habeas Corpus as well as restricting communications amongst the people thanks to the work of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goring, amd the Nazi Party..... err...

...wait, rather, George Walker Bush, Arlen Spectre, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and the strange new version of Replubican Party aligning themselves with the views of the W:Power Hungry and the Greedy, combined with the passive Democrats allow for a dangerous combination of corruption, evil and wide-scale trust in the government that has been largely unseen before.

I know, it seems ironic to use editorial to argue for editorial pieces, but editorial is important to a democrat society. If we can't discuss the issues with supported and rational facts, what can we do?

Not much, as far as I understand, except watch the Television (Also commonly reffered to as the Crazy Cathode Ray, the MTV Mechanism, the Telescreen or the official property of the Ministry of Truth). Start thinking, and start talking. I'm not telling the people here at Wikinews to think a certain way or believe a certain fact, I'm just promoting the idea of a free forum of discussion OF THE ISSUES AT HAND, something no Wikimedia project has yet managed and remains incredibly important to every democratic society, something that I believe Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation to be. If we want to remain a democratic society, we need editorial.

~Thank you. --

--Mofomojo 22:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts -- and words. It is important to remember that our parent project, Wikipedia, expresses plainly that it is not a democracy. Wikinews is not a democracy. Wikinews is not a discussion forum, soapbox, or chatroom. There are many, many places you can discuss current events or post your own editorials. The purpose and mission of Wikinews is to present NPOV news items as free from bias as we can make them. Editorials and discussion about current events will very quickly polarize the project. I vigorously oppose editorials, discussions, or forums in the article or article talk namespaces. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 22:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, if Wikipedia is not a democracy, why does it vote on it's leaders and representatives? And why do we vote so much here on the discussion forums? Why not vote to allow editorial?--Mofomojo 00:26, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Wait, let me reel back the tape for a second here, I don't want people to vote about this, I want to know what peoples' thoughts on Editorial are. Like, the interpretation, given the facts, of what is going on in the world. This is what I mean. Like, for example, if Bush says that the Green Party is a terrorist group, and that he constantly trying to subvert terrorist groups, we need to connect these two points of information together and form new ideas and speculation. Not just polarization, just the connecting the facts and informaiton together to form new ideas. This way, everybody brings a piece of information along with a drawn picture of he or she percieves given the information to the table. This is what I refer to by editorial. I do not mean the mindless rhetoric of "YES/NO" "DEMOCRAT/REPUBLICAN" polarisation scheme. I refer to the drawing together of various pieces of information, as I did above, to form a new idea. This type of analytical skill to draw together facts, and when combined, create a certain outcome. Not opinions, but perceptions that people hold given the facts and how they draw them together. This type of inferrence is neccesary, I feel.--Mofomojo 00:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

• It's simple. You can't have an NPOV editorial. There is no place for your personal opinion in the main namespace. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a thought about editorials

We always chat about this issue & always conclude that editorials are not workable. Editorials are just too diffrent from this project's mission. Plus the internet is ful of editorials & sites for editorials But I'll make one suggestion to people who wish to write editorials:

If you want to write a serious editorial, you ought to write it in a subpage of your user page, but include a header inviting people to clean it up, or contribute. Also mention what editorial sites you'd like submit to.

Kuro5hin.org is a perfect place for many political editorials. And the editing help of other wikinewsies may be just what you need to get your article over Kuro5hin's rather serious grammer, spelling, etc. restrictions.

So write it here but send it someplace else. Just a thought. Nyarlathotep 08:59, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you Nyarlathotep.

It is difficult for a wikinewsire to fully understand wikinews way of life and it's basic dogmatic roots.

It took time, and we all made errors one time or another.

"New" contributor might understand Wikinews as a unique place of neutralnews in the world, ever (we try very hard to be neutral and we know our cultural limits). It's a chance. Why would we try to mimic regular newspaper as we know their own limits (politicaly, economicaly oriented always) ?

You can watch reality using many kind of spectacles, it doesnt change the reality just the way you see it.

Wikinews (and all wiki i think) want to catch just this unique reality.

a consensus reality, okay, but ... not too bad to try,no ?

sorry i am off topic here (blush)

Jacques Divol 12:01, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I personally would support the idea of editorials, since it shows what the people are thinking, but the thing is, considering the people who are browsing Wikinews, it's not very likely that we'd be able to attract a very diverse group of editorial writers. —this is messedrocker (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• You have editorial and op-ed. To actually have these things you need to have an editorial policy that holds some form of POV. The thing is, most people who want to do editorials only want to do editorials whereas you should establish some credibility before doing so. If (taking a cue from the above discussion) PJV59 and DragonFire1024 decided to editorialise on the uproar caused by the Pope's comments I'd seriously look for a way that we can link into that. The editorial pieces would have to stay in User space, but a project page could be done and linked to from somewhere on the main page. I also suspect a lot of page protection would be involved. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I think editorials are a good idea, as long as they are written in a mature (non-Coulter/bin Laden-ish) way. They would help users express their POVs to others so that people from different backgrounds are aware of what the "other side" thinks. PVJ^(Talk)_{(Articles I have written)} 12:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• PVJ, taking into account what other people have said on editorials and the Category:Israel issue, could I ask you to write an op-ed piece on the issue in your Userspace? Does Israel really exist? Not everyone thinks so would be a suggested working title, you'd likely open with the viewpoints that Doldrums, myself, and Ilya have expressed on the matter followed by justifying the position you attribute to the countries which refuse to recognise the state. Partly this is to forward the idea that our contributors could have opinions which they express in their user space, partly to redirect what is becoming conflict on talk pages into an effort to build a case for the POV representation you seek. I label this op-ed as most contributors seemed opposed to your qualifiers on Category:Israel, it also puts a higher standard on your justification for opposing the "editorial" position of the publication. --!!!!

Mississauga, Ontario and Chavez

• re : Interview with Olive Rose Steele, City Council candidate for Ward 6 in Mississauga, Canada
• re : Venezuelan President Chavez continues attacks on U.S. President Bush during address to UN

Mississauga is a city with a population of 700,000. I don't know what Ward 6 is, but i guess it's a district of about 100,000 people or less. I don't read a thing about the Chavez-affair. Is relevance a keyword here? NPOV? Aleichem 03:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Venezuelan President Chavez continues attacks on U.S. President Bush during address to UN a need very good editor.Jacques Divol 09:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews is created by volunteers. Volunteers can choose what to report on, based on their own interests. Clearly, no one is interested in writing in Chavez. -- Zanimum 18:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, Wikinews strongly supports local reporting. Until then, we wish to encourage local reporters with a venue where their articles may be viewed on the main page etc :-) FellowWikiNews (W) 20:39, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

redirect from news namespace to portal namespace ?

More people are linking page from main namesspace to portal namespace, it's strange for me. i am putting a delete flag each time i met one.

• Am I wrong ?
• is there a consensus about this usage? myself, i feel it more a kind of pollution .

Jacques Divol 13:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

the names of countries and top-level regions are linked their respective portals, eg France. This makes possible easy wikilinking, eg. [[France]], for such terms in articles. Kerala is a state in India. whether the same kind of cross-namespace linking should be done for smaller regions, i don't really know, but i have no particular problem with it. Doldrums 13:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• We'd never have an article titled Thailand so it is acceptable to have this page in the main namespace as a redirect to the Portal. I think we now have portals for all listed countries and just some territories that we've no news on that don't have a portal.

What's an interesting question that arises from this is, should we use [[w:Thailand|Thailand]] or just [[Thailand]]? If so, are there any minimum standards the portal should meet? (Eg, link to Wikipedia, short intro based on the Wikipedia article, map/flag). The alternative is that Thailand, and other countries, are changed from redirects to Portals to the equivalent of the BBC's country profiles. If we were to do that we'd need to adopt countries and keep the profiles up to date. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

style guide actually says to

Make links for regions and countries to the Wikinews region or country, not to the Wikipedia articles for same. Wikinews readers' primary interest is in further news, and should be directed to other news articles rather than non-news technical information unless it is particularly relevant to the news story. In situations where the Wikipedia information is necessary for clarity, try to link to both Wikipedia and the Wikinews pages.

– Style guide

some we ( certainly I ) haven't been doing consistently. Doldrums 15:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

ok, thanks for the anwser, even if a strange way to cut links with wikipédia. Jacques Divol 18:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't so much cut links with Wikipedia as put them one step removed. User clicks on a link internal to Wikinews and gets additional news on the country. One of the first links they should get is to the Wikipedia article. The extra click isn't much of an inconvenience, and it gives us another opportunity to ask the reader to contribute. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Accredited photographer status?

Would we be able to create an accredited photographer status, and grant it to contributors of Wikinews or Wikicommons permanently, and also grant it temporarily to others? Any of the people I'm considering for the aforementioned "Californian photographers who'd like to go to the Oscars?" so far are out of Wikimedia entirely, and I'm sure that anyone else who eventually nominates themselves might only be on Wikipedia normally. With an event like the Oscars, we need to accredit them, if we hope to get in. -- Zanimum 17:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Should I interpret no response as a "Yes, we agree entirely and wholeheartedly?" -- Zanimum 19:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure (why not, photos are nice). Has this come up before? I remember something like this being discussed before. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Great. Should there be the same nomination process for AccPhoto as AccReporters have, or does anyone mind if we have a system where someone could go through either nominations, or get an AccReporter's endorsement and be instantly acclaimed for the temporary title. -- Zanimum 14:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Temporary status should be given only with care. Even if the status is only temporary it can still be badly abused making Wikinews look bad. Some sort of expedited method (48hrs of voting?) to obtain temporary status should be available only to trusted members of one of the Wikimedia projects.--Cspurrier 21:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Would an AccPhotographer need a prior history of good pictures, such as contributing images to Commons, especially own work? I believe so, an incompetent AccPhoto may equally damage WikiNews by showing incompetence in real events. I agree that we need Accredited photographers, but maybe we could collaborate with Commons for this? There's a lot more potential their I think. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 12:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

License compatibility

If I am to understand this properly, the license under which Wikinews has been released (Creative Commons) is not compatible with the GFDL that Wikipedia uses, thus content between the two cannot be shared and only quoted under fair use restrictions. Am I right so far? My question is, why was this decision made, to release under Wikinews under a completely different license? Is there any explanation of why this is so anywhere here, and is there any specific advantage of Creative Commons over the GFDL, and if so, why not simply release other Wikimedia projects under Creative Commons if it is indeed superior? Thank you, JohnFarber 16:11, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

With a little Google-fu, you turn up this...

• "Wikinews switches to Creative Commons license" — Wikinews, September 25, 2006

--Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

See also meta:Wikinews/License. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:49, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

IRC meeting about Israeli recognition POV

Since having a big live IRC conference about the latest hot button issue will accomplish a lot more than a giant water cooler post, I am holding a publically logged meeting on #wikinews-meeting on Freenode on Monday, October 2 at 1500 UTC (that's 11 AM EDT). Be sure to attend! —this is messedrocker (talk) 20:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

And unfortunately, the meeting didn't happen. No notes to report. —this is messedrocker (talk) 20:20, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Amgine's use of this wiki

The community needs to address the issues below independently of whether our admins do or not;

This is a very serious matter which may require Stewards' attention. Amgine abused admin authority by permanently deleting the historical record of edits on his talk page, which as he often said is the property of the project and not his own property. He also abused admin authority by flagrantly using this wiki to recruit for and advertise his for-profit Journowiki site which he has now,finally revealed as having nothing at all to do with journalism but rather the selling of real estate and travel packages. Amgine did not request delisting when he removed his name from the admin list so I have put his name back on the list...it is shocking that other admins who likely noticed this most recent "out of process" mis-treatment of this wiki "Stewards are the only users who can remove administrator privileges" seem to have done nothing at all about these developments. I am quite concerned about;

• A; Amgine has been steadily increasing his influence at Meta. As we can see from his misrepresentations (imo) about Journowiki his motives and intentions for any wiki/Meta involvement might need to be put under some scrutiny by the Stewards.
• B; His talk page edits must be returned immediately as this is a project with a mandated historical record. Neutralizer 10:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
• C; Cspurrier,Chiacomo for sure and I believe MessedRocker and Brian NewZealand were also listed as members of Journowiki.org in the past and the community needs to be assured that they are not duplicating Amgine's use of Wikinews for Journowiki purposes. Neutralizer 10:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Users have the right to delete their user space if they're disappearing, like Amgine is. It's very, very common practice across Wikimedia. Also, you're seeing that page because his domain name expired and now the domain name "journowiki.org" is being replaced with domain parking until Amgine can pay them. —this is messedrocker (talk) 10:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Amgine left Wikinews, and he requested the removal of his admin privileges. As such, it would be incorrect to feature him on the list. But you have a point about history of being contacted, so I restored his talk page history and replaced it with a notice. —this is messedrocker (talk) 10:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's important to note that Neut. caused the saving of Amgine's talk page history. It seems that the antaganists here have more regard for the foundation stones of the project than the administrators. 70.48.207.62 17:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

New Zealand

Why is there new zealand news every single day, a country of little over 4 million people, on the whole english wikinews site...such as Clint Brown, TV3 presenter, gives "unsatisfactory" letter of apology, I mean who even cares in new zealand about this crap. Stop wasting time and putting it on here, there must be more important news in the world each day then some lame ass sports tv presenter who got smashed in the face because he can't handle his alcs.

Wikinews has a fairly dedicated group of contributors from New Zealand. It would be nice if there were more countries as well represented. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Amgine's deadmin

Apparently amgine was deadmined by Angela. Should we not have a policy whereby the whole community is advised when these things happen so we could ALL have the chance to say goodbye or thanks for service and not just be wondering what happened to a long standing and well known personality here? 70.50.76.118 01:08, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

no He is his own person, he can witdraw from wikinews without asking permission. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

You miss the point I think. The point is not whether he can quit, the point is the larger community's right to know he quit and under what conditions did he quit; i.e. was he forced out as MrMiscellaneous was? And also, what is the deal with the Journowiki group that his wikinews signature linked to and that Chiacomo,MessedRocker,MrM and CSpurrier are members of? Are you saying that the web page is now fradulently representing that Journowiki is a travel package reseller? 64.229.28.161 12:25, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose if he had wanted goodbye or thank-you messages he would have announced his parting openly. As it stands, it appears he wished to simply leave which he -- and everyone has the right to do on a wiki. He was not forced out or asked to leave by anyone or any body with the authority to require and enforce his departure. He also has, as do you, the RightToFork -- which he exercised in creating journowiki. It either did not succeed or he didn't wish to continue with that project. As such, the domain was allowed to expire and now points to basically a "redirect" page. It appears that, after it expired, he (or someone) paid the fee to re-register the name and hasn't repointed the DNS servers anywhere. Let's assume good faith, move on with our lives, stop beating this poor dead horse, and let Amgine leave quietly if that is his wish. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 04:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Please talk fact; Amgine DID announce his parting openly only another admin removed his announcement within 2 seconds. Lightman 13:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

It was actually 2 minutes, the time stamps are in the form hours:minutes --Cspurrier 13:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Why would there be the pretence that Amgine did not announce his parting openly? And why would you and Chiacomo allow Messedrocker to remove that announcement in 2 minutes? Lightman 13:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Steward Angela Beesley confirms Amgine deadmined

Angela has now confirmed that Amgine has left various wikis but she gave no reason other than; "he said he was leaving the project and requested de-adminship on various wikis". It's unfortunate that our own Bureaucrats here at Wikinews chose to not share this information with the whole community back on September 22 when it all happened. Shame. 64.229.28.161 12:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

See [1]. FellowWikiNews (W) 19:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

See [2]; another admin removed it in about 2 seconds. 70.50.76.125 21:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, MessedRocker reverted it. That was Amgine's last edit. See [3]. FellowWikiNews (W) 22:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why I'm even replying to this -- this entire conversations has become absurd. The Anon's message on Angela's page is inflammatory and constitutes a personal attack with no basis in fact, but, Amgine's gone so I won't beat the war-drums on meta. Bureaucrats were not notified that Amgine had requested that his admin bit be removed. He did not request deadminship locally, but rather globally. I was notified, personally (not by Amgine), that he had left the project and then noticed he had been de-admin'd. There are many many reasons Stewards might deadmin someone. A personal request to the permissions cue is not unusual. It is not necessary nor should it be to request deadminship on the wiki for oneself. I commend you for beating this dead horse into a bloody pile of hide and bone. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 04:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Your comments are bizarre. You've mentioned often your "friendship" with Amgine and now claim he did not even tell you he was leaving. You are also listed as a participant in Journowiki yet claim to know nothing about it. You claim Amgine did not announce his departure openly when clearly he did and the crux of the issue is, after being informed of the removal of his admin authority, why did you and our other Bureaucrats not share that important event with the community at large?This whole thing stinks of cover-up. Lightman 13:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This is stupid. No attempt was made to cover it up, because a) everythings loged in a bunch of places, B) There is no point to covering it up. What did you want us to do? Write a big notice on the water cooler - Amgine left. People come and go every now and then. We don't tell the world. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, Meta has a page on users that left, but I do agree with Bawolff. Wikians come and go. We do miss Anigme, but we don't proclame it to the world. By the way, What does this have to do with Wikinews Policy???Thunderhead(talk) 22:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we also have pages like that, but no one uses them wikinews:Departure lounge and Wikinews:Stop Loss. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

skill testing question to create an account is un-wiki

I know most of us can add and subtract but should that be a requirement for account creation? "As a protection against automated spam, you'll need to type in the words that appear in this image to register an account: (What is this?)

39 + 9 = "

Actually, it is quite contrary to our promise that "anyone" can contribute as there are limitations on anons. Abba 11:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

We already do that. I think. FellowWikiNews (W) 03:23, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes we do. Abba was acknowledging the mathematics were implemented, and stating his/her discontempt. -- Zanimum 17:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

So, if someone can't spell would they be allowed to create an account? I guess not. Actually, they don't do the same thing on Wikipedia. FellowWikiNews (W) 19:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

So if someone can't copy text down one line they can't get an account. I personnally would rather have the CAPTCHA then millions of spam bots. how about you? (only issue - blind people) Bawolff ☺☻ 22:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I suppose CAPTCHA would be a good idea. Wikia uses it as default on thier site. CAPTCHA also has an audio option, Bawolff. Thunderhead(talk) 22:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no audio option avalible currently - see secial:Captcha. However if someone had that problem, we could create an account for them and hand it over to them, where they change there problem. I've just updated some of the messages to say that. (Before it just said contact admin, now it says contact admin through irc. see RC (put namespace to mediawiki). Bawolff ☺☻ 23:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. On my old Wikia they used to have it. Go figure. Anyway, I've said this about 1,000 times on WP and WN, "Gotta love Wikimedia"!Thunderhead(talk) 01:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

We could proabblly ask the developers about it, see why (I remember that being enabled on wika/wikicities too ). Maybe its for preformance reasons or something along thoose lines. who knows. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, Pedia is alot bigger than a Wikia, so it might be because of bandwidth protection. Think, every external link, they'd have to have an audio file. Or something along those lines. Thunderhead(talk) 03:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, maybe, but only a small portoin would actually download the thing. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

How about a field sobriety test every time you try to submit an edit? Type the alphabet backwards, move your mouse in a straight line, click on a moving ball... TRWBW 22:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

From Wikitech-l:

Quote

---

brion: The image-based 'captcha' on some sites has been temporarily replaced

with a text-based one until the proper captcha is updated to search its files in

a more efficient way

--Cspurrier 01:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

What is the point of a text-based CAPTCHA? I think the sobriety test is a good idea though... (I'm not even sure if serious with that statement) Bawolff ☺☻ 04:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm serious. If nothing else it would save me from having to wake up and wonder what I did to wikinews the night before. ;) TRWBW 09:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Ethics of interviews

Hi all. I've been interviewing Brampton/Mississauga council candidates over the last little bit, and for the most part, the answers are quite interesting and occasionally well-put. Other than Navdeep Gill, whose interview was spotless, all of them have required slight tweaks here and there. But my most recent interview, of Dalbir S. Kathuria, is incoherent in various spot, contains run-on sentences, and it's just not professional looking.

Should the answers be rewritten in parts, without damaging the actual text, or should they be left intact? -- Zanimum 15:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

hmmm...tough one. i don't think that written replies (including e-mail) should be rewritten or modified, interviewees have the opportunity of coming across as professionally as they wish and are able to. if we have to publish a text with dozen's of '[sic]'s in it, so be it. however, i don't know how news organisations typically deal with this and would like to know, before "casting a vote" on this.  —Doldrums (talk) 16:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything unethical with publishing it as is, and I've seen plenty of mangled interviews and speeches on t.v., so I don't think mainstream news has a problem with it either. I do have a problem with correcting it, even correcting the spelling or punctuation. I'd vote for either publishing it verbatim or giving the candidate a second chance to correct it themselves. TRWBW 23:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, I don't know if they know proper English grammar. Plus, I first sent out emails to most candidates a month ago, it's not like they were rushed. I have been always telling the public, to varying degrees, "go to talk to read the interview raw". -- Zanimum 14:20, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

The best way to handle interviews is not to post the interview verbatim, but rather, to write a story around the answers. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 23:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, however ultimately I am hoping (in the month remaining before election day) that I get interviews from all 96 Brampton candidates, and around that from Mississauga as well. -- Zanimum 14:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[4]

This document on WN is catagorized as Proposed Policy and Official Policy. Which one do we keep? Thunderhead(talk) 01:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Official policies, we actually have them now!!! back in my day, we had no official policies, and we had to edit uphill, both ways user:Bawolff 06:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Poll : A call to adopt iso 3166 country names as wikinews policy

Introduction

For some times, there's a big dispute over Israel as country name. My concern is to stop for the fun of friendship because this dispute could one day arise for all country (even France : Britany, Corsica ...)

Proposition

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) offers a list of country name. I propose a vote in order to use this international norm and its future version for wikinews in order to fix to the end of times this problem.

• It's the kind of list used by postoffices worldwide, I do not know more neutral than a postman (okay, i also read Terry Pratchet book ) - my fun.
• The list is here : http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html

Warning

This is vote, not a place to argue.

Feel free to fix my ugly english.

I do not flush water cooler archives, this policy has may be already refused.

• Poll author : Jacques Divol 17:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Vote here

• Oppose It is extremely POV to have a vote of this nature. It is NOT within our power to determine what is and is not a country. I think that a policy or even a rule such as this demeans the project and insults it beyond belief. Jason Safoutin 19:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

i think you do not know ISO organization, i do not want to insult anyone but stop this silly war about Israel as there's a easy solution if we follow a wolrdwide accepted list of country Jacques Divol 20:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

A world wide list of what ISO thinks...not what others thinks. to follow only their list or a sort of list in itself is POV and one sided. I did not start this so called war. Im trying to finish it by letting EVERYONE know that this is a Wiki of EVERYONE from EVERYWHERE like it or not. If users cannot accept that...then there is the door. Jason Safoutin 20:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

i agree whith you, we need common sense on the mater and i lack this quality it's seem. but we need a resolution before the situation worst. My idea was a bit to frenchy, ... ? Jacques Divol 20:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure...But we do need a solution...of something.

Jason Safoutin 20:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Jason, ISO is not neutral. Please check the Wikipedia article for more details regarding its selective voting procedure and the arbitrary nature of its decisions. PVJ^(Talk)_{(Articles I have written)} 06:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been trying to avoid this argument, as I thought It would just degrade into a flamefest, but as you said, its gone on too long. Heres what I think:

1. Decide what we have regional categories for
   1. Contienets (Africa, North America, etc - things like the middle east would also be included here)
   2. States, or state-like entitys (countries, like Canada, USA, and the heart of this argument: potentially Isreal)
   3. Secondary political divisions, Towns etc (Category:Quebec, Category:Montreal, Quebec)
2. Define these types of regional categories, especially The state and state like entity
   1. Then apply these definitions to the category. Make them first then see if Isreal/whatever fits them

To me a state or state like entity is an entity like Canada. It meets the following critaria

1. It is being administored by itself, and its there currently
2. It has been there for some time (some time is fuzzy, but over 6 months is what I'm thinking)
3. It is going to continue to be there for the forseeable future. (Its not going to go away tommorow. It might go away/be invaded next month, but its status of being there is still going to be the same as it was yesterday.

This way we take the opinions out of the mix. It doesn't matter foo and bar don't think it should exsist, or has a right to exsist, but baz thinks that it should be twice the sie it is, the fact of the matter is that it is there (or isn't there). Now I wait for everyone to point out my all my logical flaws. user:Bawolff 22:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Some examples:

• Taiwan - PRC says its part of them. However it is there and the people who administor it say they're RoC. Its been like that for a while, The PRC may change that at one point, But its not going to happen overnight. Therefor they are a country. (Note this is drawn on a vauge recollection of what the wikipedia article said that i read a while back. My facts may be wrong). user:Bawolff 22:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose The Wikipedia article about the ISO has raised certain concerns about the neutrality of the ISO's voting procedure (not all nations are allowed to vote) and the arbitrary nature of the ISO's decisions themselves. Neutrality is the most important edge Wikinews has over other sources, and we cannot afford to compromise on it. I would urge voters to read the Wikipedia article about the ISO carefully before we reach any hasty conclusions. PVJ^(Talk)_{(Articles I have written)} 03:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering, what do you think of my big long rant? Bawolff ☺☻ 03:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with most of it. However I stand by my earlier statement that if a party/state expresses a view that a particular state/region/area/organisation does not exist, that POV must be represented alongside the POV that the said entity exists. We must also only rely on statements made by the concerned parties, instead of making our own inferences based on what the involved parties stated/didn't state. Otherwise we could have a [[Category:Possibly non-existent entities]]. PVJ^(Talk)_{(Articles I have written)} 06:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

PS- Bawolff could you please have a look at Category Talk:Israel, I have provided relevant quotes by Hezbollah and the Khartoum Resolution but some users question the meaning of those quotes. Doldrums also seems to be edit-warring the category page even though he had earlier agreed to a certain version of it. It would be very helpful if we had a level-headed party there to moderate things and help us reach an agreeable solution.

I don't see how we could possibly include everyones point of view, due to physical contraints. If some random user came onto wikinews and Demanded that we put a disclaimer on portal:australia because they didn't think it exsited, we wouldn't listen to them. So now we have to figure out how important an entity has to be before we listen to them, which definitly isn't neutral. Thats why I think just facts is better. You can't argue that a place, which the people who administor it call Isreal, exsists. You can argue To or for weather or not it should exsists or not, but you can't dispute the fact that theres a place that is called Isreal by the group who administors it. User:bawolff 01:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Support Being an ISO country should *usually* exempt nations from arguments about their status, *unless* such status is the subject of the article. However, not being ISO should *not* necessarily mean that wikinews treats you any diffrently form ISO countries, especially in titles. Not being ISO just opens the floor for debat.

IMHO, the single most importnat point is that "exiled governments" are always labeled as such, even if still recognized by whomever. The old adage that "possession is 9/10 of the law" is about national laws. And its a gross underestimate for even the most civilized international law. Nyarlathotep 11:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Support ISO does a decent job of it. Using the ISO name does not preclude adding, where appropriate, POV's that question whether a country is legitimate or misnamed. TRWBW 13:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Locking leading article so quick?

I am new so maybe I am wrong but I changed title of the [5]lead article to show it is US officials who make the claim. When I tried to edit the actual front page lead title it says the lead position is "locked"[6] is already archived after just 1 day. I am sure there must be a good reason? Blueline 12:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Lead article is semi-protected against vandalism since it is highly visible, similar to WP articles featured on the main page. i'll fix the redirect.  — Doldrums(talk) 12:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

i recently publisshed an article which i though conveyed the issue of neutrality ,with points from several sides of the spectrum. Yet my article is list as not being neutral .How is this decided? nad how can i modify it if so.

attribution text

i understand the CCA license we release articles under allows us to determine the text of the attribution. i suggest we mandate the use of our tagline

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

as the attribution text, in order to let ppl who come across our articles elsewhere know about they too can contribute to wikinews. the "you can write" to can be wikilinked to, say, Wikinews:Introduction, which'll serve the additional purpose of highlighting it,  — Doldrums(talk) 09:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me :) BTW, you can find the tagline at MediaWiki:Tagline. —FellowWikiNews (W) 21:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

People categories

Category:People is woefully underpopulated. I came here today looking for articles about George W. Bush and found that I have to slog through search results instead of checking a category listing. And, of course, having seen something in need of improving I can't begin to improve it because almost all articles are protected, so normal users can't add category tags to them. This is one reason I hardly ever edit Wikinews; normal users can't help in such simple ways. Anyway, someone needs to flesh out the People category so readers can browse by name as well as region, topic, etc. - dcljr 21:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, BTW, the reason I'm posting this in /policy is, I'd like to request we make it policy to categorize articles under names, at least for well-known public figures. - dcljr 21:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea, of making a category for EVERYTHING, however some people don't (Last time I checked. opinion may have changed). I would be willing to categorize a lot of articles into people categories, if there is concensuss. User:bawolff 22:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok with me.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:54, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

i like the creation of categories for notable people.  — Doldrums(talk) 09:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• I have raised an "adopt a people" alert on WN:ALERT, you can now look through George W. Bush, and Doldrums is working on his sidekick, Tony. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The artical on the book: Speak violates the neutrality act

The main character engages in sexual intercourse twice in the book. At the begining she is drunk and unable to express her displeasure of the idea of having sex. She is angry and it apears like rape, but she asks herself in the book "Was it rape?", she has doubts herself; so this is not an unbiased article.

Filehawk

Please clarify Wikinews' policy on publishing business related articles? I posted an informative article on a new useful software and I received a note from Skenmy telling me that it was going to be deleted. I do not understand why it would be deleted when dozens of product related articles are posted all of the time on Wikinews, for e.g. an article on FireFoxs' new upgrade was posted on Nov 6th and is basically a list of new features http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/New_version_of_Firefox_browser_released.

My article informs computer users of solutions and alternatives to their document management needs. It's not a publicity nor does it read like one either. Please advise me what needs to be changed in order for it to be published?

Thank you, FileHawk http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/FileHawk:_Dives_Into_Your_Document_Management

Well, I don't know how the article reads, but the title in itself reads like an advertisment. Also that you identify yourself as FileHawk, doesn't make it look very good as far as your neutrality. I'll read the article and get back to you in a couple minutes. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

OK:

1. Well it looks very similiar to the press release: http://www.filehawk.com/en_news.htm , Press releases are definitly biased documents, and are also protected by copyrights (ussually), so even if it was ok, we'd have to delete it because its infringing on others copyright
2. The last line is very advertisment like - All you'd ussually need for info on how to get it, is a link to their site - thats it.
3. Its not a very well-known product, so it becomes more suspicious.
4. lots of unqualified adjectives (advanced, makes sense to you, etc) - how is it advanced, advanced compared to what, how do you know it makes sense to me...
5. stuff like: FileHawk was designed for all computer users from the home user to the professional or organization. Four versions of FileHawk are available to accommodate their customers' different needs. - all computer users is very broad and I can name way more then 4 types, does it even work with non-windows computers? Its all just to happy, glowing.

However don't get discouraged. perhaps reviewing WN:NPOV will be better at explaining what I mean.Bawolff ☺☻ 00:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

identity of child victim

see Talk:11 year old girl abducted, raped and sold in Afghanistan#victim's identity and photograph.  — Doldrums(talk) 12:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Post-publication policies?

Re: Paedophilia claims made against "living god", I can understand the removal of categories etc in post-publication but why was the source reference to Kuwait Times removed? Also, if the source is from a Middle-Eastern newspaper then shouldn't it make the story applicable for the Middle-East portal? Which policy forbids the editing of stories pre-publication? In all honesty I am a relatively new editor but such a policy doesn't make sense to me especially since news issues are often ongoing and new developments occur all the time. IronFist 01:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews is not a work in progress. categories/grammer are allowed to be added, but content shouldn't be touched much more then a day after publish or anytime after publish depending on circumstances. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

So is it OK to go ahead and restore the link to Kuwait Times and enable a category for Middle East because of it? IronFist 04:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Category Yes. You can add an apropriate category to any article at any time (Well after a couple months, you have to be an admin, but thats besides the point). The link depends. If its non-content proabally yes. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I don't understand. Could you please take a look at the story and clarify the situation if it's not too much trouble? The issue is whether to restore the link to Kuwait Times and the 'Middle East' category placement, which was removed on the grounds of editing an article a day after publication. In all honesty it's probably too late to effect these changes but I would like to go ahead if you or any other admin approves. Since you are an admin, perhaps you may like to effect the changes under discussion? :) - IronFist 00:30, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Simple Wikinews?

[7]

Should Wikinews follow the traditions of Wikipedia and Wikiquote and establish a "Simple English" Wikinews? I would not be able to propose it, as I do not want to be the "go-to-guy" for the project. If anyone else agrees that a Simple Wikinews is a good idea, please post here. Thunderhead(talk)^{(Check out my RFA test}) 05:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Noooo.Sorry, but, to be blunt, i think simple projects are stupid If I had my way w:Simple: wouldn't exsist (That inccludes simple wikitionary/quote/whatever and the spanish simple stuff). Simple wikinews has been previously voted on, and that vote failed. You could restart the vote if you want to though. see meta:Wikinews/Start a new edition (Goto the bottom by klingon and Open english to see what happened last time). Bawolff ☺☻ 07:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know if it had been proposed before. Well, I suppose that maybe simple for 'Pedia would work, but not News. Thunderhead(talk)^{(Check out my RFA test}) 16:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I think simple for Pedia is a disgrace, it means that we fail to explain it in simple English... so a warning to everyone, try to keep it as simple as possible (but not simpler).--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 02:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

The goal of Simple English Wikipedia is to provide as a base for translation into other languages. However, in the case of an encyclopedia, they have all eternity to get work done. We only have a three-day window or so. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 02:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Thunderhead(talk)^{(Check out my RFA test}) 03:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

"base for translation into other languages", seriously ? Jacques Divol 09:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

As French, and no so fluent i'ld like in english, Wikinews is already very readable for foreign people. Much more than regular newspaper. May be one thing : as a mater of fact foreigners don't know very well neologisms, or street english, slang... wikinesiers should avoid the use of not internationaly known words without link to wiktionnary. but simple english ?, no.Jacques Divol 09:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Headline Copyright?

How much of a headline is copyright, thinking about my first article I am finding it hard to make up an orignal headline. Is it OK to use headlines from one article or to mix and match from multiple articles? I imagine the second one would be okay but not the first is this the case?--Mcgrath50 21:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

My advice would be to find at least 2 (preferably 3 or 4) sources on the same story, read them all, then come up with an independent headline. Never duplicate a source headline, partly for copyright, and partly because we must have unique headlines and other sources don't take this issue into consideration. Another source might use the headline "Man bites dog", but we'd need to have "Mentally ill Kensington man bites own dog" to ensure we're not going to dupe the title in the future. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Its best to come up with something totally original. If you mix and match a little, thats okay, but try to avoid mixing & matching, is what I always thought. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Is rewriting an article a violation of copyright or plagiarism?

I'll preface this by saying that I certainly do not want to start a firestorm here. What I'm about to ask is an honest question and its quite possible that its been debated here before (indeed, I would be rather surprised if it hasn't). If so, please just cite the discussion and I'll go read it myself!  :-)

A respected friend of mine who is a part-time newsie with both online and print work in local & state newspapers as well as national magazines (so I feel he knows something about the business) just asked me why what we were doing here on Wikinews was not plagiarism and/or a copyright violation. Now, I felt on firm ground with respect to the plagiarism issues. What we do is not plagiarism because we cite everything. In fact, I've not cited things this much since I was in grad school!

The copyright or illegality issue was something I was on less firm ground on. While it makes perfect sense to me that it is against copyright to lift several dozen words of an article and plop it down in one of ours, where is the line when it comes to rewriting an article or series of articles which is exactly what we're doing?

Specific to this is the following Associated Press notice: "Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed." This notice, of course, is all over sites like CNN. I went to the BBC and didn't find anything there. Going further with regard to the AP notice I found, "Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use." I found very similar language for Reuters. Is it the fact that Wikinews is non-commercial that is saving us? And if not, how are we getting around the "rewriting" restriction?

I have to believe this has been hashed out before, but I wasn't able to find an answer that satisfied by by reading our fair use, copyright, or citations pages. -Richard 'Doc' Kinne 03:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

as u said, we don't plagiarize since we don't claim reporting sourced from other sources as our own original reporting, we attribute it to the sources.

as for copyright infringement, i am no lawyer, but yes, i do think it wld be a copyvio if we took an AP report and rewrote it, even if we attribute it. the way we get around this problem is to use multiple sources (the dreaded Template:Single source). our article must be different in content and presentation from each of the source article to ensure that ours is not a rewrite of any of them. the facts mentioned in all sources can be regarded as "common knowledge" and can be reported by us. using multiple sources also allows us to ensure that we use only a small portion of the content exclusive to each report, which we shld attribute properly in text, (i.e "Speaking to the Associated Press, Goofy said that he never went to Mickey's house that day"). this helps advance our fair use claim. when we compile common and exclusive information from multiple sources, we put together a novel piece of work, which is not simply a rehash of another report, again advances fair use/valid derivative work. we shld also ensure that the expression of the information and the organisation of our article do not closely follow that of any of the sources we use. our words must be written by our contributors.

note that while Wikinews operates as a non-commercial site, we release our work under CC, which does allow use by commercial entities. also, unlike say Wikipedia, we and (whoever republishes our work) are direct competitors to other news sources, so we shld take copyvio very seriously as these play a role in determining whether infringement occurred or not.

 — Doldrums(talk) 06:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Doldrums, thanks. You largely were confirming what I thought in terms of the use of multiple sources, right up to the right of publishing. My friend, who has been president of the Board of Directors of a local radio station that is an AP subscriber, said that AP subscribers subscribe to a news service not only to take its news verbatim, but to rewrite it as they need to. You said that a rewrite, or more properly perhaps, creating a new work from several sources, protects us from a copyvio with regard to rewriting any one source or article. This allows us to create a "fair use/valid derivative work.

Researching "derivative work" came up with the following troublesome phrase from the US Copyright Office. "Who May Prepare a Derivative Work? Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work." (source: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html#derivative/). This confused me, as this seemed to say that we needed AP/Reuters/whoever's permission to do what we're doing. The Copyright Office's examples of derivative works added to this confusion. I don't think the writer of a bio needs the permission of person to write the bio. If they use letters, etc. beyond fair use then they need permission for those letters, yes. On the other hand a play based on a motion picture is a derivative work and if I create a play based on Star Wars George is gonna come down on me.  :-)

On the other hand, my research did find a specific mention of news reporting with regard to fair use (source: Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107)

Again, guys, I can't believe this hasn't been hashed out before. I certainly was able to find specific guidelines with regard to fair use of photos, but as you can see, dealing with fair use of sources has proven a bit more elusive.

Again, I'm not being critical of what we're doing. I think my behavior here over the last week has proven that I'm on our team. I just want to be able to solidly defend what we're doing. -Richard 'Doc' Kinne 14:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

hmmm, scratch my use of the word "derivative work" above, i shld be more careful in using legal mumbo-jumbo i don't fully understand. the rest of that sentence still stands, i think it is permissible to use the information contained in a number of other sources, without copying the expression, words and organisation of the original sources, organise that information into a useful piece of work and publish it.  — Doldrums(talk) 15:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think that makes me feel solid. You can copyright expression, but not data or information. Thus writing a new, differently phrased article citing information from more than one source constitutes an original work under copyright law. That makes sense.

I think we need to state this somewhere. The "fair use" page is probably not the place, but perhaps in a "how to write articles" page. If I have distilled you've said correctly, and the rest of the community is in consensus, this needs to be more easily found, I think, than I found it. :-) -Richard 'Doc' Kinne 15:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikinews:Writing an article (sort of) does.  — Doldrums(talk) 16:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Protection policy

I've noticed that Wikinews:Protection policy doesn't have any information on semi-protection, and was wondering whether this is because it is on a separate page of it is has just been forgotten about. J Di 15:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

my guess is, forgotten. as u can tell by edit histories, policies are not much maintained and are ripe for a makeover.  — Doldrums(talk) 15:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, well hopefully the edit I've just made to the protection policy page is a good one; if not, I don't mind it being reverted, but I'd like to know why. J Di 16:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Deleting articles

Sorry, I'm rather new here and I haven't posted many news on this public domain. However, I have seen a few moments ago, that my very first article on wikinews has somehow disappeared and all I could find there was this: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/International_Watch_Company_supports_the_Argentinean_humanitarian_organization It could have been deleted by an administrator of the site though I can't figure out a possible reason for deletion of my article. Maybe anyone has already had something similar or this is a rather often vents here on wikinews? The funny thing is that I was checking on my news a few days ago (probably last week) and it was stil there. My Google Toolbar shows that it has been crawled on Dec, 3rd. So at least 9 days ago it was still there. And another thing is that there is no 'History' tag anymore. I guess if it were a vandalism act I would be able to see it. Andrew Watcher 12:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

If an article were deleted, then indeed, there is no history tag (unless you're an admin, in which cased it's "undelete x revisions"). It was deleted as copyright infringement. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 12:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

well, actually it wasn't a copyright infringement... I mean I didn't copy it from any of the cited sources... and after all, I guess there should have been some warning or something else. So if I don't check on my news everyday, it might get deleted after three weeks... maybe there is another of of informing people that their news is on the 'hallows'? If there was something wrong with my news, okay, it just might have happened, but what happens with people, who don't limit themselves to a certain topic range? (I'm limited mostly to watches, jewelry and the like) I think some people post several news per week, or even per day... or they just don't care about their news? Andrew Watcher 13:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

How much OR is OR

in the OR article New Zealand local loop unbundled, BrianNZ suggested that we shld not be using other news reports as sources, since our report is tagged as Original Reporting. While i agree that writing articles solely from primary sources wld be great and we shld try to do it, in practice, it is difficult to do, since finding primary sources for all the information/views needed to make the article "complete" may be difficult or impossible in some cases. and so, the resulting articles will tend to have holes in them that can easily be filled using other news reports as sources, and this is what i wld suggest we do. many OR reports tend to be written from a single press release - not something we wld want to be doing.

i think Brian's concern is that using other news sources and then tagging it as OR amounts to plagiarism, i wld disagree, in that i think the current wording of the OR tag ("article features first hand journalism") does not claim every word in the article is original. if the wording appears ambiguous, i wld suggest we change it to ("article includes...") to fix this. — Doldrums(talk) 06:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes that was my main concern, that tagging OR when you are using third person news sources is misleading, and IMO article features first hand journalism" sounds as this article is the cream of the crop of wikinews articles and is featuring (solely) first hand journalism. I would almost wonder if there should be another tag, one for when only first person news (ie Press Releases) or when a mixture of both is used. ideas? Brian | (Talk) | ^{New Zealand Portal} 11:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally I'm not in favor of putting the OR tag on an article, for example, that you have written from watching a TV report or hearing it on the radio. I think OR should be things like Buffalo, New York snow storm closes schools, leaves nearly 400,000 without power, which really involved being part of what was happening, or going to a press conference etc. Anything else (such as Male models win The Amazing Race) should not qualify in my opinion.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

(so much for catchy section headers), the issue is, if OR articles are required to not use other news sources at all, it risks making them incomplete or npov (as, i think, the NZ article mentioned above is). so qn is, shld OR articles be permitted to use news reports as sources, how? and how much? — Doldrums(talk) 16:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

They should be able to use news reports but not too much just for background information if not possible from the press release, or whatever. And I support the idea of having another tag for articles that are used when press releases were used. --Nzgabriel | Talk 23:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

Might be instruction creep, but I suggest we turn Wikinews:Dispute resolution into an official policy.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Btw I've put {{policy}} and {{guideline}} templates on our official policies, hopefully I've made no mistakes, if so please correct me.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:31, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Usage of Cc-by-nd

This template is used here for photojournalism. However, -nd works are not free (even if they are easier to reuse as images than GFDL-licensed works). This template was created back in February and was objected to quite strongly by Eloquence then, who quoted mailing list posts related to this, but it survived through general apathy. (Relevant discussion is at Wikinews talk:Image use policy and Template talk:Cc-by-nd-2.5). This template is used for ~120 images, all of which would be more useful, for other language WN articles for example, under a cc-by-sa license on Commons. I think the template {{Cc-by-nd-2.5}} should be deprecated to prevent further non-free uploads under it (removing it from MediaWiki:Licenses) and the uploaders of works uploaded under this license should be contacted to try and get them to freely relicense the work. I don't think the template itself should be deleted just yet, but I think it should be removed eventually; along with works that the uploaders refuse to freely license.--Nilfanion 16:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)