Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/Archive/12

29 May

[[Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/2006/05|archived]]

Accredited Reporter Template

What do people think of this...

Accredited reporter Reporter: Brian McNeil (Brianmc) Location: Belgium, Europe Email: Email via Wikinews | brian@openvms-rocks.com Tel/Voicemail: not available Other contact methods: Skype: brian_mcneil (please message first that it relates to Wikinews)

Disclaimer: Accredited Wikinews reporters do not represent the Wikimedia Foundation; they are trusted contributors whom the Wikinews community has certified for the purposes of gathering information related to Wikinews articles.

--Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I made it so text wraps, I hope thats okay. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have made this Template:Accredited reporter --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:30, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Regional portal template

I created template for easy creating new regional portals for European countries. Just open Portal:Zyz for edit, type {{subst:Regional portal}} and voila! You got full-featured regional portal, you just have to remove red link by submitting blank page ( ) as major event.

You can see how it works looking at Portal:Finland. --Derbeth 17:03, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Thats kind of already been done -- template:geo-portal. But yours is a bit more specific. Thanks for the template. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Instead of having a blank major events wouldn't it be better to not have a major event at all, like Switzerland? Bawolff ☺☻ 00:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you create portals for subnational entities with this template as well? --Fasten 12:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Not from the sounds of it. use {{subst:geo-portal|place}} (if its in asia its ok) Bawolff ☺☻ 03:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Link to Aussie Portal from Main page

The Australian portal has been actively maintained for over a month now. We've managed to produce at least one article a day (with a few exceptions), and keep the lead stores updated. I think it would be worthwhile to have a link to the portal from the main page. At the moment there is a link to Oceania, an Orwellian entity of ambiguous definition and geopolitical significance. Would anyone object to adding a link to Portal:Australia from Template:FrontPageSectionMenu? - Borofkin 01:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds ok to me--Cspurrier 15:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be on the main page talk? Football also wants a link Bawolff ☺☻ 17:28, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind I misread your question. I don't think anyone would object to australia being on the menu. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

IMHO it wouldn't be a bad idea if the local news were found by clicking a link on the main page, and those news would not be among the major news. I mean, yes, local news are important to the people who live in the country and should be present in Wikinews, but I really don't think someone outside Australia (don't take this personally, this is just an example) cares about Australian children having an iodine defficiency or something. Similarly an aussie might not care about the an EU vote on new sugar production limits, but these news are important to Europeans, and should be found in the Europe section. I just mean that it would be nice if stories, that clearly are of interest only to a specific group of users, would only be found on the portal/category pages (like in all major news sites; BBC News doesn't show a debate about the condition of Aberdeen's small streets, but it'll be found on a subpage.--HJV 17:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Need more admins / Quick Deletion / User Speedy Deletion

Problem : We are getting tons of short, massively tagged, and immediately abandonded articles.

Idea one : In any given situation, there is some chance that any given admin sees one of these articles as being a speedy deletion cadidate. More such article might be speedily deleted if we had more admins as (a) higher chance someone sees it as fitting the criteria and (b) admins would be less fearful of speedy deletes if their were more admins to fix any mistakes.

Idea two : Quick Deletion would be exactly like speedy deletion, except you also post a note that you deleted it on WN:DR, and you'd undelete it if anyone asks. Admins could still only quick delete according to the speedy deletion guidlines, but they could safely interpret those guidlines more broadly. Such a note on WN:DR usually means "I think speedy probably applied, but I'm not sure, and I'm happy to undelete if anyone wants it."

Idea three : Users may #redirect any article they feel qualifies for speedy deletion to WN:USD (Wikinews:User Speedy Deletion), which says the article has been speedily deleted by a non-admin, and explains how to view the history and/or revert the deletion. Such articles will eventually be deleted as part of a redirect clean up. Admins will revert any such USD upon request on WN:DR, WN:ALERT, etc.

No policy perposals here per se, as you can try them now. But do people have thoughts/opinions? Nyarlathotep 16:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem at the moment is only one or two users who go for the {{Extreme templating}} approach to article production. Yes, it leaves a mess to be tidied up, but I think the solution is {{minimal}} which states it'll be deleted if not developed. At the same time as applying that most of the other tags should be removed. There's got to be some cleanup of these anyway, but some of them may end up developed into articles if, for example, we get a cute bit of Wackynews that catches the eye of someone who contributes in a more conventional manner. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Whats wrong with {{delete}}? article will totally disapear from almost all DPLS and an admin will get to deleting it? Bawolff ☺☻ 00:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think Brian would like to give it a chance to develop further. IMHO, we should eventually redesign the main page to more accurately represent the status of articles. But my specific views here are maybe excessive & require modifing the DynamicPageList extension for automated briefs agregation. Nyarlathotep 18:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)