Wikinews:Water cooler/technical/Archive/12

New statistics bot

I made the new version of the statistics bot. You may take a look at its work at, for example meta:User:Millbot-Stats. So, there are a couple of questions in relation to this bot: --millosh (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

1. It generates almost the same statistics as contemporary statistics are (Template:Statistics). However, the new name will be Template:Wikinews statistics (as it will at all English language projects). Is it ok? --millosh (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
2. You may choose to get only statistics for Wikinews or, if you want, I may include statistics for all other projects. --millosh (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
3. I need removing a bot flag from User:Millbot (which would stay as a general purpose testing bot, which would make a couple of edits per month, year...) and giving bot flag to User:Millbot-Stats instead of the first one. --millosh (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

We should probably turn template:Statistics into a redirect then. This sounds fine to me. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Prepared: namespace

As some may recall, there was an issue with David Shankbone's interview with Shimon Peres. Not with the article, but with searching for it on Wikinews. One of the top results returned was Peres' prepared obituary and this upset the Israelis a little bit.

On bugzilla I proposed that the search engine exclude results that matched robots.txt entries, this has been declined (WONTFIX). The suggested alternative is a new namespace for stories on events that have not happened or prepared obituaries. Anything in the new namespace would be excluded from search results unless explicitly requested. Before we can get the developers to implement this for us we need to show there is community support for the proposal. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Is the name "Prepared:" the most fitting? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I can't see a problem searching for Shimon Peres here on Wikinews although if I search on Google for "Shimon Peres wikinews", the prepared article is the second entry. Could Brian confirm that this issue refers to a problem here? To deal with the Google problem all we need is for the devs to add "Disallow: /wiki/Wikinews:Story preparation/" to robots.txt as they've done previously in response to a request. I don't think another namespace is necessary nor will deal with this issue unless it is added to robots.txt so I don't see the benefit. Our search already defaults to not including pages in the "Wikinews" namespace. There seems to be only one thing which needs to be done and that is to change robots.txt as mentioned unless I'm misunderstanding this issue. Adambro (talk)

Prepared stories are named Story preparation/title, this is in the main namespace. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Not as a general rule they aren't, see here, there are a few examples but most are here. Suggest moving those few examples out of the main namespace, deleting the redirects and requesting "Disallow: /wiki/Wikinews:Story preparation/" be added to robots.txt as above. Adambro (talk) 14:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, all those pages in the format Story preparation/title are redirects, some to now published stories, some to prepared stories in the Wikinews:Story preparation/title format. I'd suggest that all these redirects are now deleted as they don't seem to serve any useful purpose. Adambro (talk) 15:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The setup of a new namespace is relatively trivial for the developers. This solution to the problem keeps the length of article names managed, plus leaving the Wikinews: namespace free for more management and meta issues. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:02, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I am disappointed that Adambro has chosen to taken a stance that this is a solution in search of a problem. It is not, and has some side benefits. For example, the MediaWiki search will allow for searches exclusively within the namespace, so if John Major gets hit by a bus you can very quickly find if there is an obituary prepared and needing moved to Main: namespace for updating. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

  You interpretation of my position is completely incorrect I'm afraid. Rather than me thinking that "this is a solution in search of a problem", I am thinking that if we are trying to solve this issue here than we should make sure that what we do does in fact do so whilst minimising disruption. Your latter point is more reasonable but this is possible in the current configuration within the Wikinews namespace. Below you say that "/wiki/Prepared:*" could be added to robots.txt which is true but this syntax isn't part of the standard and as such will only be supported by some search engines meaning that the original problem which you base this proposal on is only really going to be solved depending on which search engine you use. By simply adding "Disallow: /wiki/Wikinews:Story preparation/" and maintaining prepared articles in the current format this would be solved for all search engines.

  To create a new namespace will create unnecessary work from having to move all the current prepared articles into the new namespace and make solving the original problem harder not easier. If, regardless of the problem on which you based this proposal you feel another namespace is appropriate then you should have made this clear but I fail to see any real great benefit from another namespace. Adambro (talk) 13:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Votes to support/oppose new namespace

• Support As proposer. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary and ineffective at resolving this issue per my comments above in anticipation of clarification from Brian following which I may reconsider my position. Adambro (talk) 14:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support provided that the namespace get added to this. Thunderhead 16:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

  I don't believe it is technically possible to add a namespace to robots.txt, only subpages which means maintaining the current naming format and adding that to robots.txt is the only real solution to this problem as far as I am aware. Adambro (talk) 16:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

  Wrong. "/wiki/Prepared:*" can be added to robots.txt. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

  I understand that this syntax isn't supported by all search engines therefore if we were to create a new namespace and then move all articles into it we'd end up in a position where we'd only partly deal with the issue on which this proposal is based. Leaving articles where they are and simply getting the devs to add "Disallow: /wiki/Wikinews:Story preparation/" to robots.txt would solve this entirely as per my comments above. Adambro (talk) 13:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support assuming this actually fixes the problem, I agree it isn't otherwise vital but I think it's a better organisation of it than we are currently using. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

  As I've said, unless I'm mistaken moving prepared articles into a new namespace will make it not technically possible to solve this issue because it wouldn't be possible to add this to robots.txt. I'd therefore ask that until anyone can suggest I'm incorrect that no further votes are made. This seems to be a perfect example of how we should avoid going straight to voting on everything, a period of discussion first would allow any issues to be discussed and hopefully resolved before we get to the point of voting in order to demonstrate to the devs that there is community consensus for a requested change. Adambro (talk) 16:55, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support presuming there are no technical issues . Anonymous101 (talk) 10:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support this is a good idea. --Skenmy^(t•c•w) 11:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I have to agree with Adambro, this is a solution that is looking for a problem. The current system can be excluded from robots.txt. In fact, I just took a look at our robots.txt. Here is the portion relevent to wikinews:

...
# en.wikinews:
# https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5340
Disallow: /wiki/Portal:Prepared_stories/
Disallow: /wiki/Portal%3APrepared_stories/
#
# it.wikinews, http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9138
Disallow: /wiki/Wikinotizie:Richieste_di_cancellazione
Disallow: /wiki/Wikinotizie:Sospette_violazioni_di_copyright
Disallow: /wiki/Categoria:Da_cancellare_subito
Disallow: /wiki/Categoria:Da_cancellare_subito_per_violazione_integrale_copyright
Disallow: /wiki/Wikinotizie:Storie_in_preparazione
...

Now this appears to suggest that the problem is solved for both us (assuming we merge together Portal:Prepared stories and wikinews:Story preparation) and the italian wn already. With that being said I might support this if it was a name space just because a prepared namespace would be good in itself, but it should be proposed like that (this is why meatball:voting is evil).Bawolff ☺☻ 21:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose in favour of adding Wikinews:Story preparation/ to robots.txt. No need for a new namespace. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 03:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose No I don't think a new namespace is necessary. We can stick with putting the story preparation page and subpages into robots.txt. Majorly ^talk 15:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

RSS/Atom news channel for Wikinews

Hi everybody! I recently developed a MediaWiki extension, that allows to export news in RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 format in easy manner. The extension is called "News Channel" and is now available at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:News_Channel. Basically, when user or aggregation program requests a feed, the extension gets specified number of latest articles from some specified category (e.g. Category:Published), exports it to RSS/Atom feed format and sends to user. Articles's title will be the headline and article's text will be the description of news item. Feed is automatically linked from every page of the wiki, like recent changes feed is linked. First I developed it for my own site, but I thought it could be useful for other projects, especially for Wikinews. It's now also possible to combine and exclude categories for export. What do you think? Iaroslav Vassiliev aka CodeMonk (talk) 22:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

/me wants. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:02, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support seems useful. I suggest that a bugzilla request is filed in a week if there are no objections. Anonymous101 (talk) 15:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

/me coughs its been over a week + [1]. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

See bugzilla:14805 Anonymous101 (talk) 14:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The extension has some options. See mw:Extension:News Channel for full description. Heres what I think an appropriate suggestion for options would be. Thoughts?

var $channelTitle = 'Latest Wikinews Headlines';
var $channelDescription = 'Wikinews, the free news site you can write';
var $channelSiteLink = 'http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/';
var $channelLanguage = 'en';
var $channelCopyright = 'Copyright © Wikinews contributors. Released under the creative commons attribution 2.5 license. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ for more information';
var $channelLogoImage = 'http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Wikinews-logo.png/88px-Wikinews-logo.png'; //not sure if thats right size. its pretty close though (88x46)
var $channelUpdateInterval = '30'; //thats something tech people would know better then me. Current is 180, but i'm not sure if in same units as this
var $channelNewsItems = '15';
var $channelEditorName = 'Wikinews';
var $channelEditorAddress = 'wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org'; //is it a good idea to put the mailing list address on here
var $channelWebMasterName = 'Wikinews';
var $channelWebMasterAddress = 'wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org';
var $newsWikiCategory = 'Published';
var $newsWikiArticlePrefix = ;
var $convertWikiMarkup = true;
var $authorizedEditors = array(); // everyone

Bawolff ☺☻ 16:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Per some discussion on the mailing list, I believe this extension has been enhanced to allow selection of multiple categories, and the exclusion of others - effectively an RSS DPL. However, while at Wikimania I discussed this with Craig, and having looked over the code he has concern it may not be up to the standards Brion Vibber will insist on for running on WMF servers. He has said he may be able to improve this, but there is an additional aspect - which is the integration with FlaggedRevs. Both DPL and RSS extensions must not list any unflagged article, and where the latest version is not flagged, then the last flagged version must be listed. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews wap (mobile phone) portal

A while back (its in the wc and main page talk archives) it was proposed we should get a mobile phone version of wikinews (similar to http://en.wap.wikipedia.org ). So i filed a a bug. Brion responded saying we'd need some type of custom front page for it. Wikipedia uses a search box, which would not really be that useful to us, and DPL's templates, and categories don't work, so that limits most of what we normally do. The most obvious solution imho would be to use WikinewsImporter bot to create a local version of w:Portal:Current events/5/Wikinews. thoughts on this? Bawolff ☺☻ 09:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've created a bot request. Wikinews:Bots#Wikinews_Importer_bot. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe we need to be far more ambitious about a mobile portal. First off, I briefly spoke with Kul at Wikimania and he commented that a number of cellular companies have expressed interest in Wikinews - to the extent that they might invest some money in making our content available to their subscribers. However, I don't think that goes far enough. People should be able to contribute from their mobile phone. Phones with cameras are commonplace nowadays, people on the scene could upload photos, or submit them via MMS. Obviously local Wikinewsies might have to then deal with transferring the image to Commons, but that is a normal thing to deal with anyway.

The ability to submit an on the scene report from your mobile phone should be a great boost to getting expanded local news coverage. Yes, a primary goal of a WAP/Mobile portal is to make the content available to a wider audience, but to allow contributions from a wider pool of people is also something to aim for. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed enhancement to the DPL extension

As part of Wikinews' push to get listed in Google's news aggregator, the project has a general consensus that the FlaggedRevs extension should be implemented. However, other extensions in use in the site are not aware of FlaggedRevs and need updated to work with it. Key among these is the DPL (Dynamic Page Lists) extension which should have an option to only return articles which have been flagged, and only the latest flagged revision.

It is proposed that a bugzilla request for this be submitted. To give additional weight to such a request the support of the community for this proposal is requested.

Comments/Questions

I caught Brion in IRC today, he has asked one of the developers to look at this and assess what is required (with the obvious qualifier - if the code isn't too scary). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:46, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Votes

• Support as nom. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support if the developers can do this it can only be a good thing. --SVTCobra 19:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support of course ;) Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support obviously, this would make FlaggedRevs so much more useful. Adambro (talk) 19:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support FlaggedRevs would be almost useless without this. Anonymous101 (talk) 19:54, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support Majorly (talk) 19:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support Cirt (talk) 20:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support Seems to be the obvious step forward. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 00:55, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Submitted to bugzilla

I have submitted this to bugzilla. Please go and vote for this bug and add comments if you think I've missed out anything on it. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

This is in place. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

new ticker

I created a new ticker system, as there have been some complaints the older one is too slow. I have now enabled it in the site wide js (I have tested in opera, firefox 2.0.0.2, and IE7, IE6. if it causes anything to blow up, revert my last edit to mediawiki:common.js). You can view the demo at user:Bawolff/sandbox/ticker. There are a couple differences (and some new features)

• New ticker can be configured on wiki (Any editor can create a customized ticker. There will be a template forth-comming with syntax ~ {{ticker|Africa}} to make a per subject ticker very easy. at the moment look at syntax on user:Bawolff/sandbox/ticker)
  • Can also have a ticker of flagged discussions, a slideshow of featured pictures, and several other possibilities.
• Will pause tickers if browser loses focus (needs more testing on MSIE)
• If an older web browser (or lynx), that does not support css, then the ticker will degrade to displaying the list of items. (if no js, but css, hides everything like before)
• Three choices in transitions
• less resource intensive than old ticker

Downside:

• To make work there has to be an element with enableTickers as an id. This is required as its slow to look at every element for a class (esp. on long pages), and the id can't be on every ticker, as you cannot have two elements with same id (well it works fine, its in violation of w3c standards)
• MSIE mostly works, fade transitin degrades gracefully, there is problem with pausing when window is in background, so i'm disabling that for that browser for the moment.

All comments appreciated (look at demo), and assuming nobody objects, I'd like to fully move to the new system sometime in near future. Thanks. Bawolff ☺☻ 11:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I clicked on the demo link but just see a text page. I am using IE7, but perhaps it is something in my user settings. Cheers, --SVTCobra 02:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm unless your disabling javascript, your user settings is probably not the problem. you may just have to do a hard refresh (ctrl+F5 on IE, sometimes have to manually delete temporary internet files). It worked on IE7 last night. I hope it still does :). Bawolff ☺☻ 02:59, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

This looks awesome. I definitely think that templates would help with its operation, but I really like the implementation. -- IlyaHaykinson (talk) 08:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I replaced the {{ticker}} template. If something stops working, revert my changes to the template. The template should become more complete (more paramaters) sometime soon.

I only see the ticker in the newsroom (probably due to my own setup), however, I did notice that it is displaying non-published stories. Does it display different things in different places or are non-published stories unintentionally included? Cheers, --SVTCobra 01:42, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Normally it displays published articles. The old ticker in the newsroom displayed unpublished stories (specificillay it used Wikinews:Newsroom/Tickersource hardcoded from the js, the new ticker has the DPL specified directly in the template, but i copied the original set up). All other tickers ( special:whatlinkshere/template:ticker) should display published articles, except for portal:football which was also customized in the old set up.(user:bawolff) 216.36.174.213 03:39, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Next question, should things like Portal:Economy and business display a ticker for all published articles (like old behavoir) or should it only display stories related to the portal. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

__NOINDEX__ magic word

There is a new magic word, __NOINDEX__ (bugzilla:8068). This allows us to control search engine indexing (for robots that support meta tag robot exclusion standards, which is all of them AFAIK). basically add __NOINDEX__ to a page not in main namespace, and google will not index it. (but they will look through it (follow) for links to pages that they will index). I have added it to Wikinews:Story preparation, Portal:Prepared stories, WN:OBIT, and {{prepare}}. Based on looking at page source it seems to work,so this could solve our problem with google indexing obits. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:27, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

• It didn't seem to have removed my Wikimedia wiki usernames from Google results. Thanks, AP aka --82.42.237.84 09:52, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Google takes a while to reindex, and its not going to really remove every instance of username (at most your user page only, your username is everywhere). Bawolff ☺☻ 11:16, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Should __NOINDEX__ be added to the {{develop}} template and any other article templates that are used for articles that are not in a publishable condition? I constantly see our developing stories in Google searches when I am checking for copyvios. Cheers, --SVTCobra 22:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think that would be a very good idea. Cirt (talk) 22:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK it does not work for main namespace. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

According to this Google Blog entry they do respect tags. But if they deliberately circumvent mainspace articles, as you suggest, I guess it could be moot. --SVTCobra 01:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

"Latest News RSS" Display Wrong Date in "Feed Headlines"

Hi, recently I've added the Latest News RSS found on the Main Page in IE7 such that I can read the current news headlines on the Windows Vista Gadget "Feed Headlines". The dates of the news are fine in IE7, but all become "Sat Dec 30 00:00:00" in the Vista Gadget. Can anybody help me to show the date correctly? --Quest for Truth (talk) 04:00, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

hmm there appears to be no date on the rss feed items. there is also a couple other things odd (links to http://none , I'm sure that is not compliant with rss standard). My vote is to kill the feedburner feed and move to Cspurrier's system (than its toolserver as oposed to third party. Unless of course we get the extention, but that will take years...). Bawolff ☺☻ 03:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Robot to categorize the ARCTIC?

Hellow there. There is a lot of news on the happenings in the Arctic, which will continue until around 2013. There are new wikiprojects and portals on Wikipedia in this regard. There is not an Arctic category here nor Arctic portal. It seems like DPL only works on article in categories, and arctic articles are not categorized the same way, and when they are they have a lot of countries' categories but nothing bringing attention to the fact that it is an article regarding the arctic. Is there a robot which can find the word arctic in the article itself like a search engine, and add the category arctic, so a portal can be created on wikinews to keep all arctic happenings together? Kind Regards [[User:SriMesh|SriMesh]] | [[User talk:SriMesh|<small>talk</small>]] (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with that. It would be by hand not by robot though, as search engines give lots of false positives. You should probably have a definition of aartic to. 142.165.131.79 17:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing Commons images

I note from monitoring Wikinews:CommonsTicker that it appears we have a problem with images being used in articles here that are then subsequently updated in such a way which is undesirable for our purposes. For most images used in articles on Wikinews the image that appears should be the same one that was originally used on the article.

However, in some instances images are replaced. In most instances these changes are negligible and have little impact on our articles but I've noticed a few storm track images being replaced which is most definitely not what we want. See Image:2008 06L 5-day track.gif for example, this is continuously updated as new tracks are published by NOAA. When an image of a storm track is included in a Wikinews article then we obviously want this track to reflect what is being discussed in the article whereas on most other projects uploading under a single name means the various articles can be quickly updated to reflect the latest information.

Now it is important to recognise that Commons, whilst being a brilliant resource, has to be able to cope with the differing requirements of each project. We've got a real need to keep image versions stable once they are used in an article and so we need to figure out we can work with Commons to deal with this. I think we simply need to be able to link to a version of an image rather than just the current version. Adambro (talk) 11:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that just talking with commons, making both images File:Date of image-stable and File:That keeps getting updated would probably happen much sooner than any technical changes to link to specific versions, as technical changes take a very long time in general. (and there are sometimes when we want to have images update as well). 207.47.163.15 16:00, 22 August 2008 (UTC) (user:bawolff)

FlaggedRevs

This is mega-important. If you don't have a bugzilla account, then create one and vote. If you do have a bugzilla account, then why haven't you voted already? In either case, please note your support below for a sighted+quality implementation of FlaggedRevs. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

For those who know nothing about FlaggedRevs, or the proposed configuration, here are some details. It is important that people learn something about this and are qualified to give informed input.

1. 1. The default configuration is "sighted", this means someone has looked at the version in question and said it is OK. There are a variety of configurations to manage someone being permitted to do this task, it can be something you're automatically allowed to do after your account is a certain age and has a certain number of edits; it can also be a specific privilege that people are granted.
   2. The somewhat confusing documentation can be found here.
   3. The proposed implementation on the above-linked to bugzilla entry is sighted+quality. The "quality" level would, to my way of thinking, never be granted by just having an account for a certain length of time. An article would then also have to be quality before appearing on the front page. Portals and the like, eg Portal:Science and technology could set less stringent standards and use sighted revisions.

The bug has only six votes, get your asses in gear! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Votes

• vehemently support This is the road to Google News. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Per Brianmc (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support. --Skenmy ^talk 15:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support although there might be some pain involved until we have a larger contributor base, this is the only way to provide reliable news for our readers. I know that Google New is popular, but let's not forget about other major aggregators such as Yahoo! News. --SVTCobra 15:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support Agree with Brian (I've voted on the bug additionally). Majorly ^talk 15:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support, if there's one project that can benefit from this, it's Wikinews. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support per brianmc DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Aaand a vote too late! We have FlaggedRevs! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

And how can I review articles on FlaggedRevs?Anonymous101^talk 18:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the bottom of any article. Majorly ^talk 21:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

So now that we have it ...

We now have new user groups Wikinews:Editor and Wikinews:Reviewer. How are we populating these groups? --SVTCobra 18:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

yo could read : "Bureaucrat accounts, by default, can promote users to Reviewer/Editor status or remove it. Sysop accounts can do the same with Editor status." Jacques Divol (talk) 19:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

For the moment we work with Editor status and people start to get a clue about what FlaggedRevs does and means. CalendarBot needs updated, there's over 10k old articles need flagged, all the country pages. Thank you for volunteering to sort all this. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

ok, thanks Jacques Divol (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Question is there going to be a official system for giving wikinewsies reviewing/editor status or will it be based upon crat/admin discretion? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

And follow up what about redirects, will they be "reviewed" or is there some sort of system for them? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Pages that need to get made with explanations

• Wikinews:Editor
• Wikinews:Reviewer
• Help:Article validation
• Wikinews:Flagged revisions

Cirt (talk) 20:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, are we going to promote on discretion, or have a similar page to Wikipedia's rollback request page? I'm not entirely sure which would be better, but some sort of rule is needed I think. Majorly ^talk 21:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about Wikinews:Reviewer, but IMO the Wikinews:Editor-class should be no big deal and given out to established users on discretion, and used primarily as related to vandalism/spam. Cirt (talk) 01:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

User groups

Seriously, how are we deciding who is a Wikinews:Editor and who is a Wikinews:Reviewer? I realize that we are in the "feeling out" stages of FlaggedRevisons, but the current list of Reviewers seems to be rather arbitrary and includes users who are not yet sysops (see: group=reviewer). And who or what is Voice of All (talk · contribs)? I am not asking who has the power to promote (which was answered above) but rather how these decisions are made and by what authority. --SVTCobra 01:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Voice of All created the extension... Majorly ^talk 01:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

All sysops have the ability to promote users to Wikinews:Editor. So far, it appears that the Wikinews:Reviewer-class promotions were all made by Brianmc (talk · contribs) (save that of Brian). I agree that it appears odd to have some users promoted to this class, especially those that are not sysops and have not gone through any sort of community input on this project. Cirt (talk) 01:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Another point to consider is how we are going to use validated/validate on the project itself, before really getting into who becomes Wikinews:Reviewers. Cirt (talk) 01:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Getting "Editor"

There has been a bit of chatter about how people should be assigned the "Editor" bit. Since there hasn't been any real discussion (that I've found) I'll put out my suggestion (oh, and if this is the wrong location, sorry.): Very simply, I think the system should be modeled after Commons Flick Reviewers. I believe that any registered user should be able to request "Editor" in a community vote format. The number of votes doesn't matter, simply consensus. Minimum account age and edit count isn't necessary either, just enough contribs to demonstrate they are here to help the project. The time for vote should be fairly short, just long enough for others to see it and cast their comment (5 days, maybe).

The goal is to get people using the "Editor" powers that WANT to. The point of the software is to prevent vandalism, so we can't give it everyone. At the same time, it would be silly to make the requirements as high as AR or Admin. If the user abuses their ability, then you penalize them (revoke the bit, etc). 95% of the people that go through Flickr Review on Commons pass. The ones that don't are because the community knows they are trouble, or they haven't demonstrated themselves to be useful. I believe that is exactly what is being looked for here. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 02:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

As Majorly (talk · contribs) pointed out above, another option is to model it after w:Wikipedia:Requests for permissions, and just give Editor status out on discretion of an admin. It can be removed just as easily if it is abused. Cirt (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment This all sounds good, but should the user who created an article be allowed to edit at will? For updates and the like. PS: I wouldn't mind being an editor. —Calebrw (talk) 02:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

So a very unofficial basis is what majorly suggested am I right. Sounds pretty okay. The Mind's Eye (talk) 03:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

@Caleb - I think you have the wrong kind of "Editor". This is for the Flagged Revisions permission. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 03:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

@The Mind's Eye. Majorly did suggest a very informal system. My suggestion is one step above what he suggested.. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 03:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a incorporation of both some how. Like maybe a thing where wikinewsies either can be promoted to editor by a admin, or if a admin doesn't promote them on there own they could have something similar to Commons thing that was mentioned. The Mind's Eye (talk) 03:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Cirt (talk) 03:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

From the look of it, "Editor" is a bit like "Autoconfirmed Premium", so I agree that the requirements shouldn't be discouragingly more than those for autoconfirmed. A system like Wikipedia's RfP should be fine - if you meet some basic standard and there's no significant opposition, you get the bit; if there is some opposition, then you need to get some consensus. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 05:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think something like en.wps request for rollack would be better. Admins can approve users who they tink can be trusted. Anonymous101^talk 06:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah en.wp Rollback. That was a master f**kup when it was released. I realized they changed the system later, but every time someone mentions that, I think back to the fighting, the page blanking.... the rollback cat. But basically, yea. It is something akin to Autoconfirmed premium, at least I think so. Personally I prefer something slightly more structured than "Just let the admins give it away" (Which, to be fair, is how I have permission already). IMHO it is too easy for a bad apple user to befriend and admin and then get on the "inside" (extra permissions and what not) when a simple community survey would have turned up what a terrible idea this was. That being said, WN might be too small still for that to be a real problem. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 06:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, if there is a problem, any admin c an jsut remove the editor rights. Anonymous101^talk 06:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for policy on assigning permissions

Here's what I'd propose for the reviewer and editor rights. For editor I recommend that any user who's been autoconfirmed who requests it should add their name to a request page. If some time passes (say, 3 days), and nobody challenges the request, the rights may be granted by any admin. If there are some challenges, then it is up to the admin to either grant the right anyways (and leave and explanation for the reason), or deny the rights. If rights are denied, the user may ask for a vote; in that case, an admin-like vote takes place for some time (7 days? 14 days?) and the result is our usual consensus-based approach. Any editor is subject to recall, and only violations of editorial rights are cause for the right's removal given consensus. I recommend that the editor right be granted initially to all admins. For the reviewer role, I recommend that users self-nominate, and a 7-day admin-like approval period be instituted. Only users who've been around for, say, 1 month or more can be reviewers. All reviewers are subject to recall, and only violation of review rights are cause for the right's removal given consensus. Both rights are granted in perpetuity, and not subject to removal for inactivity etc. Loss of admin/other status should not have any effect on editor/review status. I can codify this on an actual policy proposal page if there's some agreement with the above. -- IlyaHaykinson (talk) 07:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with this. At the moment getting the Editor bit should be trivial, but people need more experience of how this extension changes the wiki. I've updated all the day pages through to the end of the month to ensure that only sighted articles will show up. This is a first step. We now have a mechanism that means some idiot can't come along, post their press release (or Pelican Shit) and slap a {{publish}} tag on it. Well, they can, but no anon will see it, and it won't show on the front page.

In the past couple of days I've seen one or two things that mildly concern me that this will sometimes be abused by people who lack patience. Changing ready to review is a small step in the right direction, but I've seen people tag stuff as review, then - a couple of hours later - just publish themselves because nobody had reviewed the article; that's not acceptable.

Erik has provided me with a name and an email address for someone at Google, so... Under no circumstances should anyone try to submit us to Google news!. Let's work on getting to grips with this and how it is going to work, then I will try some quiet diplomacy (I can do that as well as rabid flamethrower-wielding Scotsman :-P). Discussion with Google may require we do some fine-tuning on how the FlaggedRevs system is used, but we need to get to some point where we can say, "We've upped our standards, up yours!". A parallel suggestion from Jay Walsh is that we also look at Yahoo! I'm going to be busy with non-Wikinews stuff for most of today, can someone look into that and add a new subsection to this discussion on the topic? Again, don't submit the site to their review process, for it and Google we need a checklist of their listing criteria and solid arguments detailing how we meet these. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the process suggested/laid out above by IlyaHaykinson (talk · contribs). Let's set up a request page for it somewhere - I would have already but not sure what to name it. - Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions or something like that maybe? Cirt (talk) 12:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yet it happened again, with OR that consists of "I watched TV" no less. --SVTCobra 13:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Changed to {{review}} and warning placed on article talk.

Unless the user is flagged as an editor they would not be able to get this up on the front page. If they're an admin they could make themselves an editor, and - harsh though it may sound - I believe abuse of editor privileges should be grounds for desysopping. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all of this. On the editor abuse, we should set up a policy on what is and is not considered abuse. I know most experienced Wikinewsies know, but it would also put at ease the newbies and anon's who know we have this new system, but may not or lack trust of the process. I do agree that it should constitute de-admin, but I also think it should go through the revocation process like anyone else woould. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a general sort of question, what exactly are the reviewers going to be doing? I mean i think there is a general consensus that editors just make sure articles aren't spam or vandalism, but what really is the reviewers jobs. The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Summary: Fill in {{peer review}} and make sure subsequent changes by non editor-status people do not break compliance with the template (eg, updating a death toll but not providing a source for the new figure). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

<unindent>I have a response from Josh at Google News, question:

One thing that I'm not totally clear on with the Flagged Revisions feature is whether these take place before or after the article is posted. Will the non-logged in user, e.g., the Googlebot and any users sent to articles we find, only see articles that have gone through this review process before posting?

I have given an answer that you can find others if you go looking and added the NOINDEX magic word to the newsroom, we may need further cleanup to make casually stumbling over unreviewed articles more difficult. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

2 Admin Proposal

I'm not sure what your opinions on this will be, but here goes. Let's create a request page like Cirt said, but instead of needing a bunch of community consensus, all that is needed is 2 admins approval. That way we at least partially eliminate the whole scratch my back scenario by having to seperate people approving the editor status. Another alternative is to simply use admin discretion but with 2 admins approval as well. The Mind's Eye (talk) 17:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds a bit too gracious. Like accreditation, I don't think editor should be handed out on a silver platter. People need to be trusted users/contributers. If we were to just start handing out editor status to almost anyone who wants it, then that will not get us anywhere in terms of Google News etc. The biggest and main reason we are not grabbed by them and others is because our process(es) are too open, and not, for lack of better terms, professional enough. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

So your saying for google news to potentially awknowledge us we need a more set system for giving editor status? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That and not everyone on WN can be an editor or reviewer. We need to be very very thankful we have gotten this system and not try to take advantage of it by making everyone an editor. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 20:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But if we have a system like the one suggested above won't the typical backscratching thing happen? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews:Editor status, IMO, should really be no big deal and only used to combat spam/vandalism/blatantly obvious COI, etc. As such, I think it should be given out liberally - and taken away just as quickly in cases of abuse. It is the Wikinews:Reviewer status and Article validation process and marking articles as validate which will hopefully eventually control what articles appear on the Main Page. Cirt (talk) 20:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The point of editor, is not to have dozens and dozens. That is one reason why we cannot get in Google News. not everyone on CNN and etc are editors, so we shouldn't see how big of a list we can make. We need to make an effort. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 20:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But see DragonFire all editors really seem to be doing is saying this article is not spam/coi/vandalism. The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that is the point of Wikinews:Editor. IMO what DragonFire1024 (talk · contribs) refers to as "the point of editor" should really be the point of Wikinews:Reviewer. Cirt (talk) 21:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. The Mind's Eye (talk) 22:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

You know in actuality reviewer may have been better name for what we call editors, and editor may have been better named reviewer. The Mind's Eye (talk) 22:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, but oh well. Cirt (talk) 22:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The point is that in the traditional sense of the word, all contributors to Wikinews are editors. Anyone can edit someone else's article and fix it (or vandalise it). I believe the difference between an editor and reviewer on WN is going to be minimal - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 09:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> My vision is for a system where editor status is given fairly freely. After all, at the moment sysop is given without seriously onerous requirements, there are options to auto-grant editor status based on age of account and number of contributions without blocks. At this time I certainly would not advocate changing the FlaggedRevs setup to work this way, we're still working out what it all means, who needs it, and how it is going to make our output higher quality and more trustworthy.

Right now, reviewer status is not really in use. Ultimately, I want to see it being the people with this priv bit deciding what is good enough for the main page. However, as this is going to be a small subset of users it needs to be something where other people can give input and aid reviewers in their decision making. This was very much where I was going with the proposal for {{factcheck}} and {{copyedit}}, perhaps we need templates for talk pages where someone can explicitly state that these tasks have been carried out. For stuff written off the wire and from secondary sources this is going to be fairly straightforward, but for Original Reporting I have a gut feeling that we're all going to need to pull our socks up and provide more detailed notes.

One thing that needs killed off is the idea that this control and consideration is hurting Wikinews. I look at how some people have reacted on-wiki, and in IRC, and I see bitching about "I can't get my article up!" Yes, our output will fall while this is implemented and we learn to live with it; when I first got involved with the project, a day with five articles was a good day. There certainly is a chicken-and-egg scenario associated with this; we need it to be listed in Google news, and we need listed in Google news to get the number of contributors that can make it work. I've even seen people demand FlaggedRevs be removed and we go back to what I will call "the bad old days", this will not move the project forward, this will not increase our credibility, this will not encourage people to contribute, and getting a poorly documented piece of OR on the front page is not a project goal; this last point is - yes - people being possessive over their contributions, right now we're in a situation where people need to look beyond the horizon and their own work; right now we need to be concerning ourselves with where Wikinews will be in 5-10 years. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree almost 100% with you Brianmc, but my opinion on what "Reviewers" should do is slightly different. First of all, going back to "editors", I think that very simply all they are doing is saying this article is not spam/vandalism/coi/etc. That "Editor" status can be given out on admin discretion. The only real "rule" I feel should apply is that it shouldn't be given out just because a friend of yours comes over from Wikipedia. The people who receive it should have at least shown a commitment to edit and particapte in Wikinews. Now on to "Reviewers." My "dream" so to speak would to have Reviewers be the people saying this article is ready to publish. They are the final copyeditors, factcheckers, etc., before they decide it gets published. I certainly think there should be some community consensus system for Reviewers, so that people in general agree this person it trustworth enough to be one. Finally, as to the Template main page system, I think that anyone once a article has been published should be able to put it up there. I believe the reviewers are the ones who will help us get up on Google News.The Mind's Eye (talk) 15:25, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both of ya. The short version is that almost anyone can have "editor" and if they abuse it, beat them with a wikitrout and move on. "Reviewer" should be incorporated into the current review proccess. Instead of any old person reviewing and {{publish}}ing, only certain people can properly review and mark the version as "Quality". Once that is properly introduced, we can change the front page to only list "Quality" reviews articles. The proccess for getting "Reviewer" should be more stringent, like AR. If people can demonstrate that they understand how to check sources, check the facts, do grammer/spelling checks and all those other fun things (oh and wont abuse the system) then, great, have "Reviewer". Obviously there isn't a _huge_ community, but there will need to be a decent amount of people with "Reviewer" if the main page moves to list quality versions only. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 19:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a question: is there a list of pages that need to be "sighted" or whatever it is called? Like on the Newsroom page? Cause if there isn't one, we need one. Otherwise an obscure article could end up falling down the Recent Changes list and get lost in the hustle, especially when we get more users. Gopher65_talk 14:41, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I proposed last night having perhaps a "bot" do it. But yes there is a page, Special:Unreviewedpages. Be warned it is massive. The Mind's Eye (talk) 14:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Reviving the discussion on Editor/Reviewer

I would like to see where people stand on this now. There have been a number of failures with the current setup at just editor level, and I simply do not think Wikinews is ready to move on to having reviewers.

First off, I am of the firm belief that editor should not be given as freely as it has in some cases. There needs to be a clear indication that someone is going to follow process, not sight articles without {{peer review}}, and only sight changes they have checked. If this can be adhered to, and there is more of a willingness to remove the privilege where this is not the case, then I think we can live with editor until we have a larger contributor base.

Secondly, software developments aimed at having our articles listed in news aggregators are assuming only editor is required. This means that the first application of sighting must be far more than the casual 'vandalism/POV/COI' check some above propose. Yes, once an article has passed {{peer review}}, that will be the main use.

Lastly, reviewer is - in my opinion - out the window for the time being. We'd have what? 20 people with that status, and the front page would only show what they approve? Where's the point having editor then? Perhaps when we have instead of 20-30 regular contributors some 100+ we can revisit this, but in the meantime I am strongly opposed to trying to implement reviewer. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Hopefully with all these changes going on lately we might get those new contributors we are discussing. :P - Cirt (talk) 09:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

We're picking up commentators, which I think is a good thing. This seems to have sprung out of the new HYS templates and a few of these people are obviously regularly checking the site. Someone beat me to setting up {{hello-comment}}, we perhaps need an anon version as well. What seems great is that there is minimal trolling/vandalism (and what trolling there is is well done and generally appropriately provocative). What I would point out is we still really need the "Wikinews for Dummies" page that tells someone how to start a basic story; there is a buzz from getting something on the front page and if we can capture one in twenty or so of these commentators we'll build the contributor base faster than people get bored and leave. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we should perhaps be a bit more selective in granting Wikinews:Editor status, but I don't really see a problem there. However, Wikinews:Reviewer seems to be much more contentious. First, there doesn't seem to be an urgent need for this user class. Second, the list of such users (see list of reviewers) seems to have been rapidly and arbitrarily assembled. I suggest we depopulate this list immediately to include only Wikinews bureaucrats/stewards, until we figure out how we will use this class. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I think part of the problem (probably a large part) was that the rules were changed in mid-stream. So people were being given editor status, told "sight anything that's not vandalism", and then they find out two weeks later that the rules were changed so that only reviewed articles should be sighted. I suspect that this particular problem will quickly go away as word of the requirements for sighting ripples out through the grapevine. It's easy for those of us who sit in IRC all day to keep up with the latest changes, but not everyone does that. I think much of this is just a result of the poor inter-community communication. Gopher65_talk 00:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with SVTCobra (talk · contribs) that the Wikinews:Reviewer class should be depopulated to Bureaucrats/Stewards, until such time that we can determine consensus about what to do with it. Cirt (talk) 02:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Brian makes a compelling argument. I agree with him, all points expressed so far, and also support the depopulation of Wikinews:Reviewer. Editor should be given to trusted users, much like a level below Administrator. Writer -> Editor -> Administrator. --Skenmy ^talk 20:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

move search box up

I was thinking, the search box is pretty far down the page (between regions and toolbox). I think perhaps it would look better between navigation and wikinews box, or between wikinews and regions. Its position can be modified using mediawiki:sidebar. thoughts? Bawolff ☺☻ 16:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I personally never use the search box, but I understand what you're saying here. It would be better higher up. Majorly ^talk 08:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe between Wikinews and Regions would be good. Cirt (talk) 08:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Bawolff ☺☻ 04:39, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I regularly use the search box. It can be particularly useful just to go there and type 'Template:whatever', or 'Special:checkuser' and get to the page you want. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

FlaggedRevs reader feedback module

The FlaggedRevs extension has a module for reader feedback, which was rolled out with the latest FlaggedRevs upgrade on Wikinews. You'll see it as a user who is not logged in on the bottom of all article pages. I'm not sure there has been any discussion on the Wikinews community about this feature. The idea is to collect reader opinions over time, and to plot them on a graph which can be accessed through a "rating" tab.

The feature is still in active development, and there'll be a public testing period on Wikimedia Labs. But, since it's already enabled here -- do you want to continue using it for the time being, or would you prefer it to be turned off until it's been fully tested and discussed? A quick straw poll would help me to let our developers know what to do. Thanks, --Eloquence (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• Well, I am pretty sure we would want to keep FlaggedRevs. I am not sure if you are talking about turning off the feedback feature separately, but in my opinion I don't see a reason to do so. I would love to know how to view any such feedback as soon as it is available. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
• Agree w/ SVTCobra (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 20:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
• Feedback! As Number Five says... "need more input!" so keep it. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Enabled again. Voice of All (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

infobox

I've changed the infobox template to deal with a problem with it conflicting with the sighted box (made it clear right). I don't think this will cause any problems, but if it does please find me and yell at me. If it were to cause a problem, it would most likely cause one in a page using either very weird layout tricks, or the if the box is on the left side of the page. Thanks. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

How to get 2 categories to output in the same DPL?

Wikinews:Wikinews Importer Bot/Latin America

Categories that I want to be included all together in this DPL (as in "OR" any one of them, not exclusive):

Central America, South America, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic

Any help? Cirt (talk) 05:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Not possible with the version of DPL we use. (It is possible with DPL2, among other cool features such as automated DPL leads, but alas, that isn't likely to get installed anytime soon). However depending on how wikinews importer bot works, the following workaround might work:

<!--First DPL-->
<DynamicPageList>
category=Central America
notcategory=Mexico
notcategory=rest of latin america
...
</dynamicPageList>
<DynamicPageList>
category=mexico
notcategory=...rest of latin america
</DynamicPageList>
<!-- and so on-->

The bot may interpret the group of DPLs as a single one if theres nothing between them (no garuntees though). The main problem with this approach is the article dates might be slightly out of order. A better solution would be to revise the category system to have category:Latin America (but thats lots of work, but could be automated). A really cool solution would be to somehow convince the devs to install DPL2 (but AFAIK there is some problem with the 2 version of the extention that makes it unsuitable. don't quote me on that). Hope that helps. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The 2 sets of DPLs could contain duplicate articles at times. I think perhaps the best solution would be to create Category:Latin America and get a bot to add all articles in categories Central America, South America, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic to that new main category. Know anyone with a bot that does that kind of thing? Cirt (talk) 07:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Well if you put the other categories in a notcategory clause it wouldn't, but it is still far from ideal. As for bots, I assume there is probably some prebuilt pywikipedia bot that could handle such a task (one would assume this isn't the first time such an issue came up). Maybe just try asking bot operators at random? Bawolff ☺☻ 07:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay I will try asking around. Cirt (talk) 07:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> The categorisation is a job to do with AWB. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Flagged revisions bug?

Is it just me or did "This revision sighted by USERNAME" disappear from the page history? —Calebrw (talk) 01:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe auto sighting got turned off. Weird. —Calebrw (talk) 17:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Showing number of articles needing review in recent changes

I think it would be useful to have the number of articles needing reviews in recent changes. I think it's possible since we can just use the number from category:Review. It would also be nifty, if a message shows up when there is a backlog of articles needing reviews. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 02:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Where should we put it? Right now I just look at the news room, like most would, I suspect - good to see an "overall" vision of what is going on. I don't think we have that much trouble with backup, at least not yet. The highest I've seen in the last few weeks is 6, and that was about 18 hours ago (I'm sorry for sleeping, I promise I wont do it again).

Some users never look at the newsroom - I'm rarely there, and for me the hub of operations is RC. Don't worry about sleeping, nobody can make you do any work at all here, but please sign your comments as I haven't a clue who I'm talking to. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 06:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with BRS here, RC is first stop to see what's going on. That would have to change if we get a significant increase in contributions but it works for the moment. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize we had Template:Votings which we can add the review section. All we need to add is {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}} along with some text and we would be all set to go. I did a test and it works great. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 04:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea if it can work. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:04, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I added it to Template:Votings and it seems to be working on recent changes. It might end up being better on the above bar with number of pages, users, and admins, but let's see what people think. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 22:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

For those interested in getting spammed about reviews, there is also auto notifications on #wikinews-en, and articles needing reviews can be listed at top of each page through a js gadget (see the gadget tab of special:Preferences.) We could also use {{#ifexpr:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}<7|'''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}''' {{PLURAL:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}|page|pages}} needing review|'''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}''' pages needing review (<span style="color:red; background-color:black; text-decoration:blink; font-weight:bold">BACKLOG!</span>)}} Bawolff ☺☻ 06:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Disabling wgFlaggedRevsAutoReviewNew

Just so everyone knows - we need to disable wgFlaggedRevsAutoReviewNew. Translation: We need auto "sighting" turned off on article creation. This is because google news is spidering things in development - that it shouldn't, because they are sighted. This really won't have any major effect on anyone, just remember to sight articles when they are published (And not before). (Note: This was discussed and agreed upon over IRC - just making a note so it is more "officall". bug is already filed to get the change). --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we just move forward with the next stage, Wikinews:Reviewer, to begin marking things ready for the Main Page as validated (validate) ? Cirt (talk) 21:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I say that we try adding magic word __NOINDEX__ to the {{develop}} and {{review}} templates (and to the dispute templates). Google at least claims to follow this robots exclusion standard on their blog. Cheers, --SVTCobra 21:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea, I've added __NOINDEX__ to {{develop}}, {{review}} , {{cleanup}}, {{tasks}}, and {{prepared}}. Cirt (talk) 22:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm all for adding reviewers, so on and so forth. In the mean time, this flag has been set already. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 00:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think NOINDEX is being transcluded in the templates, as evidenced by this and the current state of this article. Cary Bass (talk) 02:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Or it could be the fact that the article was created without a template, and was therefore immediately spidered. I've sighted the article so if Google looks it over again, it will see NOINDEX on it. I hope that works. Cary Bass (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK noindex does not work in the main namespace. I added noindex to the appropriate prepared articles stuff a while back, and at the time i added it, it did work. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Audio template messing up page formats

The template {{Audio}} really messes up the look of pages, creating giant chasms of whitespace on the pages (example1, example2, among numerous others). Can someone fix it so that it can be easily put on the top righthand side of pages, where it will not only be easier for users to see, but it will stop screwing up the page formatting? I tried, but I'm useless, so I failed:(. Gopher65_talk 03:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

For now I just moved the templates to the top of the page, which kinda helps, I guess. A new (smaller) template would be nice though. Gopher65_talk 03:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably bad to move it to the top of the page, but if you move it to the Sources subsection that is usually the best place for it. Cirt (talk) 05:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking for help - new Audio Wiki template?

I'm still very green here, so forgive me if I seem too forward (I probably am) and don't know what I'm doing (because I don't!). I've become involved in the Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews project over the last few weeks. Currently the common accepted practice of including audio transcripts in the articles is to use a template that aligns it to the right of the page, and apply it near the bottom of the article, around the sources/references area.

Some discussion started up recently about ways to make the audio more prominent but not intrusive in the articles. As it is now, while the audio is included, it is basically stuffed at the very end, and the thought is that not many people are going to listen to the article after they've already read it. If you compare this to other news/media sites such as CNN, VOA, etc. you notice that if they have audio or video available for an article, they will link to it at the very top and give a very clear visual indicator as to what else is available. Doing the same on Wikinews, in my opinion, would help the Audio Wikinews project.

After playing around with a few things, I think I found a satisfactory solution. A display/close box on the left side of the page, underneath the date, proceeding the lead line of the article. It allows the reader to decide if they want to continue to read the article or listen to the audio instead, and is a simple but noticeable visual cue. The feedback I've gotten from others has been unanimous, they like it.

I'm at the point where I think it would be good to implement this. On the example page I'm using a complete hack-up of the current audio template and the collapsible Dynamic Navigation template boxes that you see on the bottom of MainPage. I don't think this is very suitable at all, as you can see by looking at the code. I would like to make this into a nice, simple template similar to the current one, where you just insert the name of the audio file and the date. I don't know anything about templates, code or anything else. Would somebody care to help me with that? -- Kamnet (talk) 15:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Audio box created. Code {{Audio box|filename=insert file name without image|date=insert date}}

Example:

Anonymous101^talk 16:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

That works for a short term hack-around, except that the box still defaults to being open. Ideally what I would like to see is some sort of combination between Template:Audio and Template:Dynamic_navigation_noncentered, with the title itself replacing the up/down arrow for the display/hidden link. Kamnet (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done some additional playing with the code, for now I re-included the hack which forces the box to be closed. I think this will work for now, any objections? Kamnet (talk) 19:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's great idea and looks really good. My only thing is I think it looks a bit odd on the left. I think it should be placed on the right side on the same line as the date since normally that is just whitespace anyways. Otherwise, great job on this. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 21:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright, after much pulling of hair and looking stuff up, I figured out how to fix that non-collapse thing. It's actually really easy. For now I've switched the template from {{Dynamic navigation noncentered}} to {{Dynamic navigation}} (which has issues, so we need to switch back to the noncentered one. I just did this cause I could edit the latter, but not the former.) We just need to mod the {{Dynamic navigation noncentered}} file so that this line:

<div class="NavContent" style="clear:both;text-align:left;">

So that it reads:

<div class="NavContent" style="clear:both;text-align:left;{{#if:{{{STATE|hide}}}|display:none;| }}">

And then add a line in the explanation that says: "STATE = Use "hide" to set the box as initially collapsed, else leave blank". After that, using the "State=hide" bit in the audio box template (which I put there now) should make it automatically hide the audiobox when it is used. Leaving it blank will cause it to revert to the site's standard.Gopher65_talk 06:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly changed, but now the formatting is pushing the lead line of the text down an extra line, it looks funky. I've switched the template to float to the right instead, as PatrickFlaherty suggested, it looks a little better. Also noticed that if you click on the +/- link, it doesn't always work.

If we move it to the right side, should we revert to making it 200px wide to match any infoboxes there? Kamnet (talk) 14:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Kamnet, you could try moving it to the centre to see how it looks (dunno if that would look good though). As for the +/- thing, I don't think wikinews supports the "collapse on creation" function (wikipedia does, in its Common.JS file, but we have a different version). So what I did was a CSS hack to force that particular element (the content part of the dynamic nav bar) not to display. But it is still open, it just isn't displaying. So when you click the "-" sign it closes the non-displaying box, then when you click the + sign it reopens it. This is just temporary until someone figures out a real way to do it. They use this hack on certain parts of wikipedia, so I thought I'd try it here too. EDIT: Another thing you can do to display the left template correctly is to put it on the same line as the date, and then delete the extra space between the date and paragraph. Also, I saw the problem with formatting yesterday before I started fiddling around, so I don't think its anything I did. I'm not sure what's causing it though. Gopher65_talk 16:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

After much discussion on IRC and thanks to the help of User:skenmy, User:Gopher65, and User:Amgine, the template is complete. I've updated Wikinews:Audio with the code and instructions to use going forward. Any questions, feel free to ask me << Kamnet (talk) 21:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, and completely unsurprisingly, IE6 doesn't display the template correctly - it takes up the entire width of the article area, pushing other elements like photos and infoboxes off screen. While this will soon not be a problem for me (work is upgrading to IE7 over the next couple of weeks), given that IE6 apparently still holds 25% of market share of all browsers it would be nice if someone knew enough js/css hacks to fix it. You can see what it looks like at Image:Audio template problem ie6.PNG. Funnily enough, the Main Page seems to finally be displaying nicely in IE6, so thanks to whoever sorted that one out.

I did a quick check of {{audio box}} and {{audio box 2}}, and saw nothing that to my knowledge would upset internet explorer in that manner. Do other Dynamic navigation templates take up the whole page? I'll check in more detail some other day when i have access to internet explorer to see if i can find anything (assuming no one beats me to it). As a side note, are you sure you want Ext=Once in the dynamic nav template options? Bawolff ☺☻ 02:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly, but I do know that the Main Page displays differently in IE6 and Firefox - specifically, where Firefox shows the leads as Lead 1 on the left and 2-4 on the right, IE6 shows 1 on the left, 2 & 3 on the right, and 4 underneath them. I class this as "bloody stupid" on IE's behalf. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 05:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually that should varry with resolution. If firefox/MSIE/etc determines there is insufficent room to put fourth lead on right, it should put it underneath. (how this actually works in practise may be a different story). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Changing Sitenotices?

Hello english wikinewsians!

I'm from the german Wikinews and I have a little question for you: We want to know: How did you guys realize the changing Sitenotices here on en:wikinews? I and we are really interested in this, but we cannot see the source of MediaWiki:Sitenotice due to missing permission. Could you please tell us? :-) Hopefully, --Der Hausgeist (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you'd have to ask a developer. There is no actual source code in there - the page is blank and we just add the message if we want one. Unless someone else on here knows something about the way Mediawiki software works? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's the code for Mediawiki:Anonnotice which changes

{{#switch:{{#expr:{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} mod 8}} |0=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |1=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |2=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |3=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |4=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |5=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |6=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |7=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |8=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |9=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> }}

Anonymous101^talk 17:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I didn't knew that there is an Anonymoussitenotice. And your answers were really fast, thank you! :-)--HouseGhost^Discussion 17:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that using the Anonymoussitenotice over-rides the universal site notice managed by the WMF for anonymous users. - Amgine | ^t 15:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Except during fundraisers. ;-) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 06:08, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Bug 15669

Vote on this bug, which would allow us to use a <nodraft> tag to hide templates from the stable version of an article making it a lot easier for readers to ... read. Thunderhead 05:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

More Google news requirements

Okay, I figured out a partial way of working this. Dates used in the URLs as part of the article title will cause Google news to pick up the article. Doing this by itself will create an article with the date listed in the title. Redirecting a date page (as in 2008-09-23:_Republican_Congressman_Ron_Paul_endorses_Constitution_Party_nominee_Chuck_Baldwin_for_President_of_the_United_States) to the regular article title will have the required effect of having a date in the URL and the regular title show up in Google news, but the DPL listings will have to change for articles that aren't included in the lead. This requires a creative solution :) Cary Bass (talk) 02:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this straight:

• say we have a real article: foo buys bar
• Google news wants 2008-09-23: foo buys bar
• We have redirect: 2008-09-23: foo buys bar → foo buys bar
• We want Main page DPL's to link to 2008-09-23: foo buys bar

Thats actually not very hard. Redirects can have categories. Each redirect has cat category:Dummy cat for google news and the apropriate Date category. (category:September 22, 2008). Use the following DPL

<DynamicPageList>
category={{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}
category=Dummy Cat for Google news
redirects=only
<DynamicPageList>

Issues:

• DPls will now display some date: article are we ok with that? (We could use js to remove it. Some other language (pl?) already uses js to mix around DPL dates)
• Date categories will now have double entries. (We could make another hidden date category, seperate from the normal one_
• This is a lot of extranous work just to publish an article. At the very least we need a bot or this is unworkable (although we could possibly have a js script that activates when reviewer hits the sighted button). Really this should all be handled magically on the server side somehow, without us requiring messing arround with dpl hacks.

Bawolff ☺☻ 05:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Can DPL list subpage names without path? For instance 2008-09-23/Dog saves tree from falling would satisfy the conditions while listing just the end page name. Cary Bass (talk) 17:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have been trying this...with a : and a /...see my contributions...and really I don't know what I am doing wrong as nothing I am doing is appearing in Google News. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I managed to get it to work. The Redirect needs to be made with a / instead of a :. I don't know why, but that seems to work. Also from what I have been playing around with, it only works for the leads atm and articles originally with a date in them such as shorts and the WWE stuff. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:28, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well I always did it with a : and they seemed to work. Maybe we could get DPL patched to link to one location (With date) but display the proper title? Then it would just be a matter of making sure the redirect pages were created. Simple bot could do this? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 06:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the end-changes are - someone needs to write out very clear instructions as to what we should then be doing, whether it is creating redirects for all articles, just for ones that appear in main page templates, whatever - because this can be quite confusing. Cirt (talk) 07:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> I am seeing none of these articles in Google News. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Click advanced news search. In the box that says search this source, type wikinews. Then click sort by date with duplicates included, then anything with Wikinews comes up. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 10:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe this plan puts much too much work on part of the user. For this to work, it should be done automatically via server, or this must be done via bot or js. there is no way everyone is going to remember all this. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, second what Bawolff (talk · contribs) said. Cirt (talk) 13:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot or js are kludges, this should be a MediaWiki solution. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree 100%. However since none of us who are discussing this are developers, or likely to implement this in mediawiki, perhaps we should try to bring some of the devs. who knows perhaps there is some really simple solution. (like making http://en.wikinews.org/articles/__date__/article_name redirect magically to http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/article_name ). user:Bawolff (logged out as fx just crashed)

This is a change in mainline code. Realistically, I don't think this can be fixed without a mainline change. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Bawolff, as I understand the google requirements they need *each article* to have a unique number. So having 2 articles on the same day with 20080918 wouldn't work. Gopher65_talk 20:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I was discussing this with ShakataGaNai on irc. any way, This could probably work with urls in the format of http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/CanadaVOTES:_Libertarian_Kevin_Stricker_running_in_Saskatoon%E2%80%94Rosetown%E2%80%94Biggar?curid=113852 DPL's can (as of 7 days ago) output urls almost in this format, but they do it through /w/index.php?... (http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=CanadaVOTES:_Libertarian_Kevin_Stricker_running_in_Saskatoon%E2%80%94Rosetown%E2%80%94Biggar&curid=113852 ). Which is unfortunately blocked to google via robots.txt . If DPL could be modified to ourput the other form of the url, this would all work. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:15739. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I was tinkering about this evening and tried testing 2 area's of concern:

1. Bawolff was concerned that Google news might not accept a number in a query string. I think it will be OK just because so many people use CGI for their article name in the first place. Anyways. I tried to test that... except I forgot about rel="nofollow". So thats a bust.
2. I put up 2008-09-26: Controversial Florida attorney Jack Thompson disbarred to test the : versus / debate. I think most every agree's that :'s look nicer - but did it work? The answer is Yes, it works. Google news picks it up. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 04:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

::What makes you think news.google.com is picking that put ShakataGaNai? I looked here [2] and nothing shows up for that article. I also have a "wikinews" custom section of my google news and it doesn't show up there either. So.... I'm pretty sure that isn't being picked up, and neither are most of those other numbered ones. Gopher65_talk 16:09, 27 September 2008 (UTC) ok, never mind. Asked in IRC and you have to do an advanced search and search for the source. Gopher65_talk 16:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Latest from Josh @ Google...

Hi Brian We took a look at this and went through various different options. Given the challenges you have with adding the 3-digit rule, sounds like the best way to go is to submit only the flagged revisions, i.e., the articles we'd accept, via a news sitemap. That would allow us to ignore the 3-digit requirement. There's more info on news sitemaps here: http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/topic.py?topic=11666 Once that's up and running, we should be fine to include you in Google News.

--Brian McNeil / ^talk 07:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw that before, and that is great and all. But... how to get generate said page and get it onto the WMF servers? And update it ... 10 times a day? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

A new output format for DPL? That's probably the most trivial solution. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Who owns the GWT account for Wikinews? --Skenmy ^talk 09:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

GWT? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Google Webmaster Tools --Skenmy ^talk 20:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Note: There is now a patch that has dpls outputting with a ?curid=unique_number (bugzilla:15739) as /wiki/foo?curid=_number_ . As far as a sitemap, if google is not too picky on mime types, we could have a bot updated page served with &action=raw. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

As an interested reader, I've noticed some URLs with the full date and even one with Article 542, but it's so far haphazard. I look forward to when source:wikinews on google news shows all the latest stories. It would be great if it could index all past stories as well, once they're flagged as sighted. TransUtopian (talk) 17:04, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

@ Bawolff: I don't think once the new DPL patch hits the SVN, we'll even need to worry about a sitemap :) We'll have all the current, published articles on the main page with the nice unique ID format attached. Cary Bass (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Where is the new patch? Do we need to do anything to the main page DPLs? Will the bot that creates these pages need updated? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

See bugzilla:15739. Bot will have to be modified to add showcurid=true to dpls. (although bots could technically be replaced with template magic due to changes in mediawiki templates since the current system was made. not sure if thats a good idea or not [don't fix it if it ain't broke. would break the indiv summary pages]). The patch seems to have been commited some time ago, but we do not seem to be using that version of mediawiki. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:35, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I am getting confused, but I am pretty sure renaming with numbers and then renaming back, doesn't work. Also, as I write this, a Google News search yields very little. However, the troubling part is that one of the few 'hits' is the unpublished Wikinews Shorts: October 24, 2008. Curious and troubling, cheers --SVTCobra 03:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

It sort of worked, look at where the links are to in the google news page. (Google needs a url with a number in it, but it shows users the normal title w/o the number. hence renaming stuff with a number will work, or having the number directly in title such as the brief worked). In any case, DPL has been updated, so we no longer need to do anything, this should all be automatic (Yay! devs). Bawolff ☺☻ 05:17, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

One of the key things here is are there any requirements to update the calendar bot to change the main page DPLs? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:06, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews:Story preparation Exclusion for Robots.txt

I noticed that the old Portal:Prepared stories was added as an exclusion to the Robots.txt file, but not the new Wikinews:Story preparation. So I filled bugzilla:15738. Just as an FYI. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 02:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know all that much about Bugzilla, should that have the shell keyword? Bawolff ☺☻ 22:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think everything we (the users) put in gets a shell keyword... Cary Bass (talk) 22:49, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I just happened to stumble upon bugzilla:15601 via the signpost, does that mean we can do this ourselves? Bawolff ☺☻ 02:38, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, just try adding:

Disallow: /wiki/Wikinews:Story_preparation/
Disallow: /wiki/Wikinews%3AStory_preparation/

to MediaWiki:Robots.txt. "shell" means "access to the Wikimedia servers" (*nix shell terminal), not just to MediaWiki SVN. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 04:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been bold and added both. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 23:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

That might not be such a good idea. I believe the MediaWiki:Robots.txt totally supercedes the hardcoded one and you have to fill in *everything*. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be the case. Thankfully. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 23:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

From what i've read, that seems to recently have been changed to current behavior. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Question: should we change this to allow the archive.org spider? I personally have no problem with archive.org seeing our prepared stories (they have no search, they just mirror), and could potentially be interesting later in wn history. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Hotline still listed on print edition

Wikinews:Hotline indicates that the hotline is discontinued, but I downloaded the 26 Sep 2008 print edition (which is pretty cool) and 3 hotlines are listed under About Wikinews on the last page. (The UK/Europe one isn't mentioned at Wikinews:Hotline so I don't know if that's still active.) TransUtopian (talk) 09:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this, but AFAIK, the uk/Europe one was discontinued quite a while ago, and the entire system altogether has been disbanded quite recently. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:07, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I will remove it from future editions. --Cspurrier (talk) 02:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Cspurrier. Sorry for not mentioning it on your talk page. In hindsight that would've been better. TransUtopian (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Would sighted revisions be useful on recentchanges

I notice they're listed in each article's history but not in RC. I was just wondering if it would be useful to note there which changes have been sighted, and if so, if it can be done? TransUtopian (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Editors can see unsighted revisions as they have a red "!" in front of them. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Reverting edits marks article as newest?

I noticed this morning that Red Blood Sandman reverted an edit on this article from July 6, 2008. The article now shows up as the newest article on the sports portal. This needs fixed. kamnet (talk) 21:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC) (oops, forgot to sign)

Its because the vandal removed the categories and {{Publish}}, and when Blood Red Salmon reverted, this re-added the category. Most portals are ordered by the date the category (specifically category:Publish if DPL formated as it should be) was added. I do not really see how this could be fixed. The only workaround is to separate the articles out by date individually like the main page (which now can be done through templates as opposed to bots, and could possibly be done with no headers so it appears as one list.), but it isn't really that good idea for anything but busy portals imho. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Addressing error

On this page I have noticed that when you click the Opinions tab, the page contains only the first revision, and then if I click the Comments button, which should link to the exact same page, it shows everything like it should. This happened both here at my house using FF3 AND at school using IE7. When I go there from the article page, the second colon in the address is in hex (?) format, displaying &3A , rather than a colon. After clicking the Comments link on that same page, the colon becomes a colon as it should, and the current revision shows --66.67.187.203 19:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

<looking now> but if the url contains hex escapes, it should be % not &. Its not really needed to escape the colon unless its in the host part. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:59, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Just tried. Only reproducible as an anon user. Asking arround. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:09, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I asked on #wikimedia-tech. Sparkla determined that the two pages indeed had different ages (327 vs 84943) which (I think) means its a caching issue on wikimedia's end (but thats just my assumption, which could be wrong). Bawolff ☺☻ 03:51, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it happened again here, with the apostrophes --199.190.223.172 13:27, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews on mobile phones

Already mentioned once, but thanks to the Sevenval AG now there is a *current* mobile phone version of Wikinews [online, live content]: http://en.wikinews.7val.com/ --Melancholie (talk) 17:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Cool, however all it provides is a search box, as it doesn't support DPLs as far as i could tell, so I don't know if it is all that useful to viewers, but still cool. As a side note, we could also have a http://en.wap.wikipedia.org style one (with listing of recent published articles instead of search box) if we want it, just need a bot approved. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:05, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

my mistake, it does support nice pretty article lists. I'm all for linking to this from somewhere, as long as we link to http://en.wikinews.7val.com/wiki/template:Latest_news as opposed to the main start point. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

or as Anonymous101 just pointed out and then deleted for some reason - http://en.wikinews.7val.com/wiki/Main_Page?fit=article is where we'd really want to link. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I deleted it? I accidently posted the comment twice so I meant to remove one copy but I removed both. Stupid me. Anonymous101^talk 19:26, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems http://en.wikinews.7val.com/wiki/Main_Page?fit=article is not current any longer. Do you know why it shows news from November 14? http://en.wikinews.7val.com/wiki/template:Latest_news looks current. --InfantGorilla (talk) 11:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. And today it is showing news from Jan 4th. Weird. Maybe that fit=article thingie is always a week or 2 behind. Still, that latest_news link works just fine. Is this linked to from anywhere yet? Gopher65_talk 14:00, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Still has January 4, and it was hard to find the articles. Would it be possible to have it automatically remove the "[edit lead]" part of the templates? Would it be possible to get rid of some of the irrelevant stuff from the bottom of the page? But I definitely like the idea, and the execution in general is nice. -- Zanimum (talk) 17:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Identify "hanging" comment pages

Does anyone know of a way to list all pages in the Comment: namespace that don't have an associated article? I have a sneaking suspicion that there are one or two of these lurking around, whether because an article was deleted but the comment page not checked, or redirects from page moves, or something else. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 01:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

hmm. i know a way... but its not an easy or efficient way (JS goes through special:allpages for comments, and then checks each one). Perhaps someone who understands the mediawiki db schema (and SQL) better than i do could ask at tswiki:Query service. Although i'm not sure how much it matters if there are hanging comment pages. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Bot approval for inital sighting of authoritative pages

I am User:Melancholie, bureaucrat and sighter on the Alemannic Wikipedia, SysOp and sighter on the German Wiktionary and operator of MelancholieBot for example. I want to apply for the "editor" right (= sighter) also on this wiki:

The reason for this request is that I do have a bot script available that can help you with the initial sighting process ("FlaggedRevs") for foolproof pages! Why? Not-yet-flagged pages will appear with a red exclamation mark, even if a sighter edited it. A sighter will have to sight it afterwards, even if the page has only been edited by absolutely trustworthy users in past! That's much much unneeded work!

My script will minimize and fasten up your extra work on this by sighting (flagging, marking) the latest revision of all reliable and clean pages (templates, images, articles; redirects) automatically, based on a user whitelist!

1. Step #1:
   • Currently, only all SysOps of your wiki are on this list.
   • If you could confirm that your flagged bots did and still are working well (in respect of hidden spam/vandalism) I will add them too, what would be very important for the efficiency within the article namespace!
2. Step #2:
   • Furthermore, please confirm that the content contributions of your sighters have been - respectivaly are (the latest revision gets flagged only) - free of spam and vandalism. With adding also all sighters to the whitelist, you could have the biggest benefit in respect of unnecessary work you will not have to do manually on your own!
   • Are there any reliable users, that are not yet allowed to sight?

You will be able to have an eye on that process all the time at Special:Log/review, by the way! But first I have to have the right to flag (sight) on this wiki.^{(having that already here ;-)} --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 05:16, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way: If you should have any general problems (layout etc.) with the FlaggedRevs extension, please let me know. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 06:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy with the way things are. Stuff should not be sighted until reviewed. Regardless of who edits it. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, good :-) Does that also apply to the image and template namespace? --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 22:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Article view counts on articles

Is it possible to put the ratings of articles, from popular articles template, onto individual articles? Probably a developer thing, but is it even possible? DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:48, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Umm, I'd say yes, but its not the cleanest thing to do. I could see couple ways to do it:

• Have stats bot add a template with current number of hits to every article - {{hits|<number of current hits>}} (but hard to maintain forr every article, so probably not a good approach)
• Using almost abusive amounts of template magic, we could make a humongous template which would be basically a templatized up version of domas's big stats list (filtered for results pertinent to wikinews), that will change what is displayed based on the value of {{PAGENAME}}
  • So basically if we created the template as {{magic stat list}} you add {{magic stat list}} to article foo, it says foo has however many hits it has, but if you added it to a page say bar, it will say the apropriate amount for page bar.
  • Downside - be a bloody huge template (Is there limits on #if:'s? could be allivated by only doing pages with over 20 hits or something)
• We can somehow magically get some webservice somewhere that feeds us the current number of hits for a page and use ajax magic (probably not going to happen)
• As a weaker approach, we could link from toolbar something like stats for this page (this is really the only really easy thing to do)

There's also the question of how we should count hits. Do we just do over the last hour - over the last day, over the lifetime of the article, etc. It is possible, but kind of messy given how are statistics system currently works. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:03, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say over the last hour or the last day, and over the lifetime of the article. GeorgeII (talk) 17:16, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't think we need all of those. I think a lifetime count is most feasible and probably the easiest. I think the question should be is will the view counts be counted every time someone visits the page, or just log one visit per IP/user? DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:03, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

In regards to the template, I do notice that the WN:XX shortcuts (that appear i think in the upper right corners of shorcutted pages) are small. Maybe we can use something like that and place it at the bottom of articles, to the right of {{hys}}?. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like it would be intruding on article space with limited usefulness and possibly another template one has to remember to include when creating an article. I wouldn't want to see this move forward without consensus. --SVTCobra 23:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the consensus, but in all reality, it cannot be any worse than the fundraiser banner. It can be made to be auto-included just like the dates and etc already are. Plus I don't think we need to make a template if it can be added to the article namespace itself. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 23:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Fundraiser banner

Ok. I am really sick of the fundraising banner. Its big, ugly and annoying AND it will no longer collapse. How much longer do we have to deal with this nonsense? DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 13:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Psst. Add this to your monobook.css file (e.g. User:DragonFire1024/monobook.css):

#siteNotice {display: none;}

Yours, Cirt (talk) 16:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

There's also a gadget in Special:Preferences Anonymous101^talk 16:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to block out the site notice altogether. If I do then someone will have tot ell me how to put it back later :-P DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah okay. Cirt (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

If you do:

#centralNotice {display: none;}

It will kill only the fundraiser, and not the normal sitenotice. (Also it should still be collapsible, it just resets after a while). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

SineBot

Why isn't it operating? It has no edits since Dec-12. contribs here. Is it broken?  ♪TempoDiValse♪  15:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes it is broken. I don't know why. w:User_talk:Slakr maintains it, we should probably ask him. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

p.s. On related note: Uncle G's bot is also broken (It used to clean out the sandbox). Bawolff ☺☻ 17:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot operator contacted, waiting for response.  ♪TempoDiValse♪  18:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I sent w:User_talk:Slakr a reminder that our SineBot clone is still dead. --SVTCobra 18:19, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

SineBot seems to have started operations again on February 7. --SVTCobra 14:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

SineBot (talk · contribs) seems to have gone dead again on April 1. --SVTCobra 23:09, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The IWF blacklist

We had our little bit of drama over the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) filtering Wikipedia, and, to be honest, I pretty much expected someone to leak the full censorship list to Wikileaks. That has not happened, but I don't want to give up.

As I understand it, the IWF filtering technique works by having fake/poisoned DNS entries which redirect to a proxy server that carries out more precise URL filtering. As a first step I would like to get some help from someone technically minded to work out the list of filtered domains. This means cobbling together something that effectively looks up the address of every existing domain and determines if it is filtered. This would need run by users in the UK who use ISPs known to implement the IWF blacklist.

My initial thoughts on how I'd approach this is to do a lookup with the ISP's DNS server, then a second lookup with http://www.opendns.org. This approach may unearth other filtering as all we need is a list where the two lookups don't match.

Getting this done would not give us the list of blocked URLS, just the sites that pass through the filter. Even that would be a coup for Wikinews. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

no, it doesn't usually work by DNS. most ISPs are implementing it by injecting a fake route for the IP address in question that forwards it to a proxy server. you can sometimes detect this by looking at a traceroute. (i don't use an IWF-using ISP anymore, so i can't show an example). Kate (talk)

bug:16865

I don't really know, but bug:16865 sounds somewhat like something that might interfere with google news index of us. (Although at the moment everything seems fine). Would someone who knows more about how google news is indexing us be able to figure out if it would affect anything, and file appropriate bug reports if it does? Bawolff ☺☻ 12:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this affects us, and if it does it is in a way we want. If you look at the URLs served up on the front page the full article name is included as well as the id bit. Starting from the main page, GoogleBot will spider all the pages we want it to. If this bug - or the associated fix - impacts how things are happening it will mean GoogleBot is told not to index any deeper. Where this might be to our advantage is if an infobox is used which has a DPL not set up to only show published and sighted articles. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Problem with recent changes

Is anyone having problems with recent changes showing changes from random dates in the past few minutes? When I refresh the page, I get current changes but then my next refresh will show changes from a few days ago or even weeks ago. It doesn't seem to be a browser or computer issues since I'm getting the same problem on multiple browsers and computers. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 16:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

RC works fine for me. -- ♪TempoDiValse♪  16:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Use of global site notice for steward election notice

Anyone else thing the use of the global site notice to advertise the steward election is innapropriate. I understand using global site notice for the fundraiser, but steward elections are more appropriately advertised through the mailing lists and a notice on template:wn news. Or if we did include it in the sitenotice it should be normal sized (or even small) sized text. Really I think it should be up to the community to decide how to advertise the election. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Article on related Iceland articles but not portal

I was going to add the related articles Template:Iceland to First openly gay prime minister to be appointed in Iceland but then realized that would create a lot of whitespace, so looked at the Iceland portal link instead. I'm confused why "27 January 2009: Iceland's coalition government falls in economic crisis" is showing up on the related articles template but not the portal. Also, why does the gay PM appointment not appear on either? GeorgeII (talk) 07:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The lists are cached (old versions are saved so to make the website faster). It takes a little time for the automated lists to update. To force an update of the list, append ?action=purge to the page (for example http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Iceland?action=purge will make sure all the lists are up to date). Bawolff ☺☻ 08:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually it's http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:Iceland?action=purge because Iceland's a redirect, but I got the hang of it now. Thank you! GeorgeII (talk) 15:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to incorporate a refresh link into the portal. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually the refresh link is in {{Region header}} already. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I need ideas ...

Hi, I'm doing the interwiki on all wikinews' editions, but here the interwikies are obsolete. The bot is trying update but there are blocked articles (editable only by sysop). Anyone have some idea to resolve this problem?. Superzerocool (talk) 14:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC) (sorry for my poor english :()

As a temporary measure you could list them on WN:ALERT (although if there is a lot of them, that really won't work). In the long term, assuming your bot has been approved and generally not misbehaving (which i think it is), you could get permission to edit archived pages. Start a thread on WN:RFP (under the request for adminship section) for admin rights for your bot (or edit protected pages rights, with AFAIK is possible to give out without giving out all admin rights if we ask devs to enable it, but don't quote me on that). Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 16:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

mmm... WN:RFP?. A bot can be a sysop here?. in es.wn and pt.wn my bot have sysop rights, but in here somebody told me "the bot doesn't have a sysop flag or the community doesn't approval this idea". WN:ALERT doesn't the answer, becuase there are almost 200 articles to change. But thanks for your answer :). Superzerocool (talk) 17:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Considering how slow we've been to actually archive most stuff, how do we end up with broken interwiki links? Are other languages changing titles weeks after publication? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

In some editions, the title changes two or three times. But mainly, the bot will update all interwikies from all wikinews. My bot have Global bot flag in Meta, and this is a key edition of wikinews, because have many news. Superzerocool (talk) 19:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, there are several SysOp bots (or at least 2 i think). if you want yours to be one of them, please start an admin request on WN:RFP. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Un-sighting edits

Any way to do it? I occasionally see an article that has not been published, but already has separate stable and draft pages (usually due to somebody accidentally hitting the "sight" button). This could cause some difficulty for non-editors trying to edit the article. Thanks. ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 21:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Slash error

When I tried to view the comments page of this article, I got a 404: Not Found. The error was caused by the hex code used for the slash, %2F, as after replacing it with a regular slash the link worked. The error also only occurred with the Opinions tab on top, the direct link on the page does not have a problem. --Gimmethegepgun (talk) 22:09, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Church of Scientology blames Pearl Harbor, 9/11 on psychiatry#Comments page missing mentions there's a bug filed on it at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9204 --GeorgeII (talk) 23:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Done fixed on our end. (/'s still don't work in page title if escaped into a non uricomponeant seperator, but we just no longer use /'s, so its a non-issue). do hard refresh to see it work. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Two typos in Gadget tab

The Gadget tab mentions the WikEd editor and has a link to WYSIWG (What You See Is What Get?) I presume this should be WYSIWYG. However, according to wikEd help#WYSIWYG, WikEd is more or less a WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean) editor, thus a link to that may be even better. Also, it is not called WikiEd, but WikEd (link is correct, but word itself is not) Van der Hoorn (talk) 18:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Done - Is the new message ok? (If not, bug me or another admin to change MediaWiki:Gadget-WikiEd to something more appropriate). Bawolff ☺☻ 05:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Current message seems OK. Van der Hoorn (talk) 12:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Sort by date in Categories

It seems like it would be more appropriate on Wikinews for the articles under a category to be sorted by date in descending order, if that's possible. Just a thought. --Struthious Bandersnatch (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Its been thought of several times, but unfortunatly does not seem to be very high on the priority list for the devs. One of the requests is listed here. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

HotCat not working

I cannot get HotCat to work. I can enter the name of the category, but pressing the "OK" button does nothing. Is this just me, or does everybody have this problem? ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 04:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Was working find for me just a few minutes ago. Maybe the category was already there? If an infobox is added, it sometimes automatically adds the category the box is affiliated with, without the category actually being present when clicking edit page. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I tried adding a few categories to the sandbox, HotCat seems to work now. Thanks. ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 04:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

If it happens again, see if you have any javascript errors. (in firefox tools->error console). That'd help in telling whats wrong. (hopefully though it just won't happen again). Bawolff ☺☻ 04:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Category RSS

Hey everyone. Perhaps you may have noticed that for the past few months (which seems like forever) the Category RSS I host on the toolserver has been stuck in the past. Well, now that the database are back up and replicating again, it's now up to date!

Also, the URL to the toolserver has been updated, so you can now access the RSS via the URL http://toolserver.org/~zach/cgi-bin/rss.cgi (and to use a different category, add ?cat=foo to the end, for example http://toolserver.org/~zach/cgi-bin/rss.cgi?cat=Sports for articles in Category:Sports)

So, Enjoy! (→Zachary) 15:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh goody. The toolserver rss feeds also power the review pages notifications in irc, and are <link>'ed from all categories. Isn't that the url its always been at though? Bawolff ☺☻ 00:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Category statistics

A while back, DF asked me to gather some basic statistics on how many OR articles we had in each year. Anywas, doing that made me realize that such stats are actually kind of interesting. To make a long story short, I made a tool that allows you to easily calculate how many articles were added to a category in a specific range of time. Not really all that useful of a tool beyond very specific applications, but hopefully it's fun. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 11:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Latest news

This seems to have been redesigned lately - and is not working properly. Text appears and disappears as if by magic. Parts of drop-down menus overlay text. It is a mess. 82.18.22.160 17:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Are you using Internet Explorer? We've had complaints form IE users that the scroll bar on latest news is buggy and the menus overlap. Firefox and most other web browsers display this page fine. More discussion and information can be found at Talk:Main Page#Overlap. ♪Tempo di Valse ♪ 17:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Special:WantedPages

Is there a possibility to get Special:WantedPages updated? Just once is fine for now, I think. Thanks, Van der Hoorn (talk) 13:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Thats not within our (local wikinews folks) control. Try talking to the devs (in either #wikimedia-tech or #mediawiki - i get confused which is which). Bawolff ☺☻ 00:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

{{#formatdate:...

There is a new parser function - #formatdate. it formats the date based on user prefs. {{#formatdate:April 1, 2008|mdy}} Will give you:

April 1, 2008

which should give: April 1, 2008 if you don't have date preferences set, otherwise it will give you whatever you set your prefs to. This might be useful in the {{date}} template, so users could set how they see the date. (I remember a while back there was a group of people who really did not like having the month come before the day). The downside is, we wouldn't be able to having the day of the week added. (personally i like having the day of the week) In any case, thought i'd mention it. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Playing subtitles in Ogg-embedded media player

Hello. For translation purpose, can the media player play a .txt subtitles' file ? Please answer there, in English or French : http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Discussion:Entrevue_de_Wikinews_anglophone_avec_Noam_Chomsky Al Maghi (talk) 17:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikinews:Water_cooler/proposals/archives/2010/August. JackPotte (talk) 13:04, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixing redirects

Whenever you rename a page, you end up getting prompted to check for redirects to redirects and can list a page for them. What would be *really* useful on this page of redirects is a link next to each that allows you to directly edit the double redirect page; preferably doing so in a new tab or window.

Is this something we can do, or something that should be requested as a MediaWiki change? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this, but i was under the impression that mediawiki automatically fixes double redirects by itself now. (so we don't need to) (as for the original question, without mediawiki support - it would be rather difficult). Bawolff ☺☻ 04:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

[3] Bawolff ☺☻ 07:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I've seen it do that at one point, but doesn't seem to do so anymore. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 07:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking closer - i think you're right. bugzilla:15622 (yay for willy on wheels, killing the redirect fixer :( . As to your original question - it might be possible to add the list client side with the api, but its probably something better done on the mediawiki side. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:15, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

On second look - this doesn't look like it would be that difficult to do, still something that should be done on the mediawiki, but nonetheless definitly doable on our side. (Query appears to be [4] will look at it further another day.) Bawolff ☺☻ 07:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay Bawolff, you seem to know this one - do you want to submit the request to Bugzilla? I suspect this should then be raised here and on the WP Admin Noticeboard to get people to vote for the bug. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:48, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] - bugzilla:18468 - however in my experience, the voting system doesn't seem to affect what the devs do all that much. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

If it is relatively technically easy, and makes sense to the devs, it gets done - but the process is not instant. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 21:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

In the mean time, I did this in javascript (which actually was much easier than i originally thought). Well it still probably whould be done serverside, the js works for the time being until that happens (downside is that js only works with one level of double redirect, triple redirects will confuse it). Bawolff ☺☻ 23:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The {{Howdy}} template

Okay, I just had reason to slap {{Howdy}} on someone's user page - and as people have probably noticed, I don't subst it. I think this is the best thing to do as you have a short enough diff from the talk page change warning that you still see the template; the full wikicode is ... ugh!

Anyway, this is tabbed and in the front tab it says "...look into the key policies for the project and other discussions ..."

Is there any way to make the two italicised parts of the above look like hyperlinks (coloured/underlined) and cause the other tabs in the welcome message to be brought to the top? I'm looking at this from a usability perspective, so an alternative might be a link at the bottom of the box that has "Next >" and takes you to the next tab in the message. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Would require special case javascript, but otherwise do-able Bawolff ☺☻ 05:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Make it so! But obviously in some way this 'feature' could be used elsewhere. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 07:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, for the moment we have two special case links (hard coded in js) that can be created with spans with specific ids (do a hard refresh of {{Howdy}} to see). Its a bit more complicated to make it so we can arbitrary link between the tabs (but if it would prove a benificial thing to have, its certainly possible to do, just not worth the effort unless there is a need for it). Tested on MSIE 7, and firefox 3. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Looks good, and should be a help encouraging people to read the other stuff. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)