Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/archives/2020/June

Prepared stories

Is there any policy or guideline regarding preparing stories in user space? Multiple users have been moving my drafts from user space to the project namespace with no policy-based explanation, and I'd like to clarify what the uninvolved community thinks --DannyS712 (talk) 22:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who is only moderately familiar with the policies, moving something from your userspace into another namespace seems wildly rude and not-constructive. I don't even know why someone would do that. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

That description of the situation is inaccurate and incomplete. There were policy-based explanations, which DannyS712 sought to wikilawyer. A significant number of the moves were reversions after DannyS712 moved pages from our story-prep area to their userspace. All this is in the context of protracted efforts to undermine our review process by redefining unsuccessful articles as "prepared" for some unspecified future event to avoid the normal abandonment-and-removal cycle. --Pi zero (talk) 04:11, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

This wiki only hosts editable articles that are current. This is not a written policy, but a common practice. When they are in the main namespace, they are easier to work on by multiple contributors to speed up their publication. I'm sorry that you weren't impressed by this approach when you saw it.

I'm seeing more than one case this year of someone asking questions about written policy, paying more attention to paperwork than to people or news, and not looking for ways to reach agreement after a disagreement has occurred. I wish to emphasize that the tolerance to this is reducing dramatically.

Activities that aid in news writing and save the time of moderating conversations and page administration, in favour of reducing it and increasing time allocated to review and copy-editing, will be preferred. This is important and urgent shift of focus that I personally encourage all contributors, readers, and any human beings to make. Without such a shift, we might have issues with lack of free news in the future.

Regards, Gryllida (talk) 06:31, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

My response (and CC @Koavf:) As pizero mentioned above -- this is not the accurate description of what has happened. A Wikinews prepared story should be either in the main space, or in Wikinews space. I understand why users create things in userspace: those are the things one does not want others to touch or change. A Wikinews article on the other hand is a collaborative work, as mentioned in WN:What Wikinews is. If you write an article, you write it for it to be published -- which requires others to edit it as well. It is a collaborative project, not a one-man show. Moving things from Wikinews prepared story space to your userspace makes it harder for others to find. It is inaccessible and discourages others from collaboration. That is not what we want. A sensible logical exception comes to mind -- an original report/interview that you are drafting, and working on, continuously. It is possible others may see it and change things which are not in accordance with original research they don't have access to. And that was not the case. If you want to write synthesis; keep it in the mainspace/Wikinews prepared space; or keep it on your computer.
•–• 09:48, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

@Acagastya: Thanks for clarifying. As you point out, there are some perfectly valid stories that are totally appropriate for userspace. I don't know if the ones in question were but I'm disheartened to see how caustic the tone is from the more seasoned editors. Now that I understand more about what happened, it at least makes sense but I'm not convinced this was the best course of action and I am definitely convinced that the messaging on this page comes across as hostile to a user who is not necessarily very experienced here but whom I have seen make many helpful contributions across WMF projects. A little more kindness and good faith would go a long way. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:55, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

While kindness helps, DannyS712 was previously informed about this, in a much better tone. And they ignored everything that was said and did it again anyway.
•–• 19:31, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom elections

I propose the same dates, rules, procedures as in 2019. (See WN:Water cooler/policy/archives/2019/July#ArbCom elections, Wikinews:Arbitration Committee/2019 election.)

The community must agree on all election procedures by July 1, and election committee members by July 10.

The deadline for nominations is 2000 UTC July 17.

Voting will take place from 2000 UTC July 18 to 2000 UTC July 30. Questions and comments may be made during that time period.

Since the incumbent members' seats expire on August 3, the election committee will declare the winners on about July 31, and the new term begins after declaration. Should any case be before the ArbCom at election time, the current committee continues to sit after turnover on cases that started under the current committee. Any new case after turnover is for the new committee.

As has worked well for some years now, I strongly recommend the committee not create a page for "questions for all candidates"; questions for each candidate should be located under that candidate. This is the way things have been done in all but two previous elections; once there was no place for questions at all (the undesirability of this is obvious, I hope), and once, we had a page for questions for all candidates, and it turned into a political circus and an ordeal for the nominees (en.wn ArbCom is a judicial body, so should be scrupulously apolitical). I'm not the only one who experienced the circus years ago and came away from it with a powerful conviction it should not be allowed to happen again.

We need at least two people for the election committee. Volunteers? --Pi zero (talk) 16:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Just like last year, I'd like to volunteer for ArbCom EleCom. And, I agree on the procedure.
•–• 18:09, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, am I allowed to ask trustworthy Wikimedians if they would like to volunteer for EleCom?
•–• 11:02, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree to the procedure. --RockerballAustralia contribs 23:14, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

• Procedure all seems unobjectionable to me. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 23:34, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

We now have two people on the election committee. --Pi zero (talk) 14:37, 4 July 2020 (UTC)