Wikinews talk:Writing contest 2010

Compete, have fun, but just keep writing!

Some comments

This looks to be quite exciting, actually, if we can get a few dozen newbies to sign up. I think the current rules are pretty good. I'd still suggest that we use 1000, and not 700, bytes for every two extra points - it would be much more easy to calculate with round numbers. One question: will we determine article size by the size of the entire page, or just by the length of actual prose (excluding source formatting, images, templates, etc)? Tempodivalse [talk] 15:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

• If we're attracting a lot of newbies you can expect to see that proposed 1,000 go down to ~800 after a hard copyedit. Bawolff has already said it will be trivial to have a few small pieces of Javascript do the counting, so numerically challenged reviewers/judges will not be overly taxed. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

  OK, that sounds good. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

---

What else is needed on this? I strongly suspect we could have disputes over the OR stuff - for example, someone putting in one sentence of OR in a long article. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

We could set a minimum for how much info is needed to qualify as OR - how about at least 2-3 medium-sized paragraphs (or a set number of bytes) obtained first-hand? Just throwing ideas out there ... feel free to disagree or come up with other suggestions.

Another question is about judges: should we have them, in case there's a dispute? If so, how many, and how would we select them? Would they have to recuse themselves from participating in the competition? Tempodivalse [talk] 18:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'm happy to take myself out the competition. I would like (as you probably see) to have a post-closing "FAC round" and invite appropriate outsiders to take part in discussion and voting on any FACs. That's something I'd like to see closed off in 2 weeks tops. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

• The only other major thing we need to determine is what prizes to give out, and to whom (e.g. to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place contestants). I suppose everyone receiving prizes would have to have to identify, to make sure nobody was socking? Also, I think that in addition to the prizes, it would be nice to give out some on-wiki barnstars too. Maybe I'll look into designing some. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

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Defining an "experienced" Wikinewsie: how about those with editor permissions at the start of the competition (hopefully newcomers will join the ranks) being defined as "experienced"? --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Also, if someone receives Editor status during the competition, we could ask them not to review articles created by other "newbie" contestants, to avoid any possible conflict-of-interest. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Reviewers are requested to review competition articles as a priority after breaking review articles. Would this be done with a {{competition review}} template or by a comment on the collaboration page? --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

A comment on the collaboration page would probably not be as well noticed. I think that something like {{tl|competition review} would work well. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:55, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Logo

I've uploaded a first-draft logo - which may be problematic; Wikinews logo + LGPL licensed image. Oh, to see it, do a hard refresh on the project page - I've substituted it for the default logo on the competition page. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

A nice touch, i like it. But could we possibly change the picture of the red pen to make it more clear what it is? I stared at it for an entire minute before I realised that it was a pen, I initially thought it was some sort of catsup bottle. :-p Tempodivalse [talk] 15:57, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• MMmmmmmm! Ketchup! I'm still a little too fuzzy-headed to hack logos at the moment. Have a go with GiMP, pretty easy to use. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Start

I see we've a few signups already :-D So, I've put in the dates. End January - enough times for school/college to be back after the new year and settled. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"Experience" handicap

Here's my thinking... We do need to "hobble" people that have learned the ropes and might have an inside track on getting stuff reviewed (confession: I rely on some contributors not doing a copyvio and just fact-check). I propose that for the rules there is a 15% point handicap for experienced contributors.

Now, do we just run that from start, or do we start applying it to newbies after the first X articles, or drop it 3-4 weeks into the competition. The issue - as I see it - is wanting to be able to virtually automate the pointscoring; you can try to argue with a computer program, but it's pointless if the feedback address is pointed at /dev/null. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

A 15% handicap sounds reasonable. I think that it should be applied to experienced contributors only (to keep things simple), and should be completely dropped after 3-4 weeks, because the newbies would by that time be able to write almost as proficiently as the regulars. Tempodivalse [talk] 19:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• Yup, pretty much what I'm thinking.

So, in programming terms, any article submitted for review after 23:59 on February 14, 2009 is no longer handicapped. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Points for new photos

How about allocating 1 point for each new photo uploaded to Commons to illustrate an article, or will that be too difficult to calculate? --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 10:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I agree there should be something for getting news-related pictures. What I am concerned with is that you could have to take some out of an overloaded article for visual reasons and have a dispute about points. Also, a photoessay could then be worth dozens of points; interesting if someone, say, attends a sporting event. How's this idea:

• An additional 1 point may be available for each photograph or other media you upload to Wikimedia Commons under the same user account, and subsequently use in a Wikinews article. This does not apply to photoessays!

Also, need some tweaks in the pointscoring for those then. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Essential reading

The "balance" of the contest page is overly rules-ey. Any suggestions on merging sections to reduce the TOC, and expanding/breaking the reading into subsections? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, for one, the handicap section could probably be merged with the point scoring section since it's part of the same thing. Otherwise i don't see how can we can reduce the TOC much more. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Templates and categories

Do we need/want custom templates (say, with a WC2010 suffix) for this?

I'm pretty sure we need a hidden category of Category:Writing contest 2010.

What's other people's thoughts on this? Do we need go as far as users having entrant categories to DPL their stories onto a userspace page? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

The category idea sounds good to me. As the contest is in a few days, it would be good to thrash out the technical aspects now, rather than later, in order to mark them as part of the competition from the start. --Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 06:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Article minimums question

The rules for the "base" article count are say: "5 points provided minimum of 2,000 characters at submission for {{review}} and still above 1,800 characters after any required copyedit.". What if an article has less than 1800 bytes? Does it also get five points? That's not completely clear in the rules. Perhaps it should instead say "5 points provided for the base article, up to 2,000 characters at submission for {{review}} and still above 1,800 characters after any required copyedit."? Tempodivalse [talk] 14:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• I was working on the principle that less than 2KB is not enough, I'll admit I've done a few articles of that length too. I'm open to lowering these amounts a little, but if you're looking at under 1KB I don't think you should be allowed to enter it. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

  Could we perhaps lower the limits to something like 1500 characters (with 1300+ after copyedit)? We have quite many articles that have less than than 2kb. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to note, I've made some changes to the minimum article size. Is 1.5 kB reasonable enough? Tempodivalse [talk] 19:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit conflict]Note, after removing formatting characters, article size is quite a bit less than you'd expect. For example, Guinean junta head in 'stable' condition after shooting, soldiers searching for gunman is 1556 characters. Tens of thousands protest in London before Copenhagen climate change summit 1405 characters. Both of them i think would be acceptable articles. (for comparision, really long articles are still quite long when the formatting is removed. Creator of website satirizing Glenn Beck on winning domain name case is 29,464 characters long). Bawolff ☺☻ 19:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Bawolff. How about we create a proviso something like: "Articles smaller than 1400 characters will receive 3 points apiece?" Because sometimes it's not possible to expand an article even to 1.5kB, due to lack of info from sources, etc.

Other comparisions, 676,000 Canadian census forms unfilled countrywide which is what i would consider pretty much the minimun one should be able to submit and still get points is 981 characters (1486 before removing formatting). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider that worth enough to qualify for points in the competition; even if meeting publish guidelines. The last paragraph is just a single sentence. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should try to find some minimal article, to draw the line for where points are given, and use the character count on that article as the official minimun (or a rounded version of it), instead of just picking an arbitrary number. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:52, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the census is (as I think) too short, and the climate deal protests seems reasonable at ~1400, what about a 1200 character limit and only 1 point for anything below it; if there are several of these put in during a day they can be merged to a brief. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Brian's last comment sounds like a good idea, i agree. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Project page logo

Was there a poll taken on the logo? Not too aesthetically pleasing. Blurpeace (talk) 00:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Nope, no poll taken, it was the work of one contributor. I agree it doesn't look all that great - but I think this is intended as just a temporary fix until we can come up with something a little nicer. Tempodivalse [talk]

Nope, please feel free to make an alternative. I couldn't find another pen image on Commons that was easily usable. After Tempo's earlier remarks I have wanted to take the standard (per this page) logo, overlay "Writing contest 2010" in cursive, and then a pen as if just finished writing it. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried, but i'm not sure if mine is much better. Feel free to revert it/come up with something better if you don't like. (p.s. commons:Category:Writing icons was helpful). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I like Bawolff's alternative, it's clearer that the writing is being done with a pen and not a catsup bottle. :-p The only problem is that the text is small and can't be read easily against the logo background. Would it be possible to bold it/make it bigger? Tempodivalse [talk] 02:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I have only one crappy cursive font on my computer. Brianmc just made another one. Still a bit hard to read though. Bawolff ☺☻ 03:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Should be a lot less of a problem once I've had another hack at it. More GiMP experience is good, right? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 03:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

---

V2, saved with the gamma this time.

Seems the biggest problem is that when you export to PNG you need to save the gamma. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 04:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Brian's last upload looks to be the best so far, imo. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Publicising this better

Anyone got any ideas for what's the best way to advertise/publicise this contest on other WMF wikis? I've linked to the contest from the watchlist notices and sitenotice, but to get new contributors to joing we'll need to get the word out elsewhere. Perhaps we should approach the folks at the Wikipedia Signpost to post a "blurb" about this? Open to thoughts. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should make an advertising banner similar to the ones the WikiProjects are using. Benny the mascot (talk) 22:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

See w:Template:Wikipedia ads and w:User:Miranda/96:FEW#How_do_you_make_those_ads.3F at Wikipedia. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If someone knows how to use Craigslist, I suppose we could advertise there too. Benny the mascot (talk) 00:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose I can make an advertisement in the general Los Angeles area (which, by the way is huge...) Add as many of your major cities based on you location. See this for a list of Craigslist areas. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... Which category? Volunteers anyone? --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:53, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• activities
• artists
• childcare
• general
• groups
• pets
• events
• lost+found
• musicians
• local news
• politics
• rideshare
• volunteers
• classes

Meh..."activities" should work. Is it possible to write a global ad rather than a local one? Benny the mascot (talk) 01:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, unless someone wants to contact Craigslist. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 01:46, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Posted. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 02:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

You need to provide a link to the project page here on Wikinews. Benny the mascot (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

<-- Shoot, I forgot <> made html tags. It's in the page source anyway. I'll fix it. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 02:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Done --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 02:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"Please register an account if you do not already have one and sign up here." You need to change the word "here". Anyway, I'll see if I can get some ads posted on my city's forums. Benny the mascot (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Done --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 02:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• Another idea: we could advertise the contest at Wikinews' social networking accounts, such as Twitter, Identica, and facebook. Seems as though quite a few people are following/watching them, perhaps we could net a few extra participants that way? Tempodivalse [talk] 02:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Benny the mascot (talk) 02:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Mmmm --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 02:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

How many people follow the wikinews feed? Can we get Wikipedia people to put up similar ads as well? Benny the mascot (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• (Edit conflict) And how about some nice flyers? PDFs are uploadable here right? --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 02:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said above, we could try Wikipedia's advertising banners. Also, I don't think paper flyers will get us many contributors. Benny the mascot (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• Don't bug Craigslist too much! We're hoping they might sponsor some prizes!

Oh, and for those not on wikinews-l, the competition will get a mention or six in WikiVoices Issue #51 which will be myself, DenDodge, Jimmy Wales (first he's ever done what used to be Not the Wikipedia Weekly), Mike Peel (WMUK), and a few otherers. Recording date is December 23, title: Wikinews on the night before the night before Christmas. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 03:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

This goes against pretty much every one of our policies, but... couldn't we write an article on Wikinews due to hold article writing competition? As long as we're careful... Dendodge _T\^C 09:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• Not in main namespace. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

That's probably not a good idea if held in main namespace, it would go against quite a few of our policies, like newsworthiness, NPOV, COI, etc. Tempodivalse [talk] 14:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I was joking. I just felt useless that I didn't have any serious suggestions to make. Dendodge _T\^C 16:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Also I've added the competition banner to the anonnotice too (not just sitenotice), that might get attract some more attention too (and is probably better than an article). We've still got a long way to go if we're to reach our goal of 50 participants... Tempodivalse [talk] 14:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

meta:Goings-on, Wikizine, w:WP:SIGNPOST, meta:Global notifications. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost notified Benny the mascot (talk) 02:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Signpost hasn't done anything yet. :( Benny the mascot (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• I sure hope the WikiVoices session today helped raise some more interest in this contest. If we keep up at this rate, we're probably not going to have much more than 25 contributors participating max, a far cry from Brian's estimate of 50+ contestants. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:35, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Edit request

{{Editprotected}} Under the Essential reading section, it reads "please check terms of entry on tickets allow photography". This doesn't quite make sense grammatically. Please change it to "please check terms of entry on tickets to see whether photography is allowed" so that it is more clear. Thanks. 99.135.14.185 (talk) 04:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• Done and thanks for that suggestion. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:12, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Age limit for prizes

I'm sad to see minors excluded from the prizes but I can see the point. They need parental permission and we simply can't confirm they have it. That said, the line about the age limit still has ambiguity: "The competition is an individual effort, and where prizes may be awarded you must be 18 (or age of majority in area of residence - that is old enough to go to jail or vote)." It doesn't take into account countries where people can land in jail before they can vote or where voting doesn't even occur. Please improve on the definition. - 131.211.211.171 (talk) 12:02, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• I asked the Foundation counsel to suggest something; nothing back yet. I don't want to exclude minors, I just want to know they've okayed it with their parents. To be honest? That's as much for a case of, Little Johnny (or Jayne) wins a nice prize and gets a grilling from said parents as to where they got it. Also, if someone wants to sponsor the competition with a prize and use a winner's name then the competitor needs to be of an age to legally enter into such. Again, don't want to exclude younger entrants (we have had pre-16 contributors here before, we're happy to even give them credentials for original reporting), please suggest some other way to put it. I'd love to make that less hostile but clear there's a need for them to get permission. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:46, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• As an under-18 user, I really have no problem with not getting any prizes (unless it's something really good, in which case I'll get my mum to give permission somehow; how is something we need to work out). I don't think the bit in brackets is needed, to be honest - a link to w:Age of majority would work, and probably be more useful due to its handy list. Dendodge _T\^C 09:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'm assuming we have to identify to someone to receive prizes? But to whom? And would it be kept private? I'm not very comfortable revealing my personal info to anyone over the internet. Tempodivalse [talk] 15:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• I believe I can sort out that getting arranged with Cary or Skenmy. Cary is the WMF Volunteer Coordinator, Skenmy is Wikimedia UK shadow. Anyone who's got checkuser locally would do too; these people are - in effect - sworn to follow the WMF privacy policy. This is one of the reasons I'm being a bit discouraging to under-eighteens; they need to understand that the identifying information would need shared with the prizegivers if they win. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

More publicity

Does anyone have connections with the Signpost? My request for an article on this contest got lost in their suggestions page. Benny the mascot (talk) 01:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually it seems like someone did respond, but that was a while ago. Looks like they forgot. Maybe you could try to get the editors' attention by approaching some them their talk pages with your request? I don't know what else to to at this point. And yeah, we really need more publicity for this thing. I was hoping the Dec. 23 wikivoices session would get us extra entries, but it was a complete bust, the much-expected jimbo never even appeared. Tempodivalse [talk] 02:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I mentioned in this discussion that college and local news agencies might be eager to contribute some articles here. Can we at least try emailing some colleges? Benny the mascot (talk) 02:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• Jimbo was present in WikiVoices; he didn't stay the full time and I don't know what progress has been made on the recording. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 02:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No, I meant Jimbo wasn't present on Wikinews. You'd promised me he'd write us an article here. I thought that was too good to be true :-b Tempodivalse [talk] 17:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello, i annonce this contest on next issue of the french wikimag :) mik@ni 12:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Videos

For the purpose of this competition, would videos count towards the photo count? I ask because I am currently planning some articles with videos in them --RockerballAustralia (talk) 10:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Signpost

The Wikipedia Signpost finally mentioned the contest. See this. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Great! Maybe this will attract some more participants. Tempodivalse [talk] 00:39, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I sure hope this does. A few Wikipedians will probably be attracted to Wikinews. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and the switch from Wikipedia to Wikinews isn't that huge. Benny the mascot (talk) 01:22, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

<-- Mentioned again. See this. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 23:32, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Good! Tempodivalse [talk]

That was me :) Benny the mascot (talk) 00:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 05:18, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Prize

Think I may have a month free on Lovefilm to give away, someone poke me if I've forgotten.    Tris   11:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Newsletter?

Will there be some contest newsletter, like the WikiCup does? --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 00:35, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• I didn't know about the WikiCup newsletter but I really need to get something thrown together to remind everyone that's signed up. I think there will be a need to set up hidden categories for each entrant to track what they've put in and keep points up to date.

Alas, there's only so many hours in the day, and many other things need attention. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, EdawrdsBot reminded all the WikiCup participants a few days prior. Maybe a bot is needed? WP:AWB would work just fine. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 01:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• We've also got WN:AWB. But, I've migrated to Ubuntu. Last time I booted into Windows and tried to use it, it blew up on me. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 01:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure this bot could do so ;). --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 01:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• In between other things I created {{WWC2010 Entrant}}. This requires a category for each user (like Category:Brian McNeil (WWC2010)). From that it has DPLs to list a competitor's latest articles, those not yet published, and a form to start an article automatically including the user category for the competition. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• I will take on responsibility of doing a newsletter. Weekly?    Tris   18:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, a weekly newsletter. I'm setting up templates & things for the "infrastructure". See the latest - {{WWC2010 Category header}}.

What should happen here is, for a user Example, they get a copy of {{WWC2010 Entrant}} on their talk page; Category:Example (WWC2010) is created for them and {{WWC2010 Category header}} is placed on the category page. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

My bot awaits approval so it can setup the categories and deliver newsletters when needed. It's a hidden cat, so it needs magic words, right? --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 23:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• I see Tristan has made some effort at creating a newsletter: User:Tristan Thomas/WWC2010/Newsletter/0. I like it, although i think the black background is a bit garish, perhaps we could change it to a softer tone? Thoughts? Tempodivalse [talk] 12:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

←Categories setup. I will do user talks a little before midnight UTC. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 18:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• I've slightly "de-gothed" Tris' sample newsletter. One very important thing I'd do with that it make 90% of it a template so there isn't a bucketload of markup in the diff when a competitor gets a new newsletter. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• Ha ha, thanks for the de-gothing Brian! If it's substed in, does it still give the wiki-markup? I'll keep fiddling with it, with a plan to do the first at the end of this week.    Tris   19:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

raw list

Here's a raw list of all entrants. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Only 31 ... kinda disappointing, considering we were aiming for fifty. But, it should get us a good amount of articles. Thanks for the great work Brian. Tempodivalse [talk] 18:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps people on that list should get email reminders. Lots of people signed up quite a while ago and may have forgotten when this was set to start. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Particularly for the inactive people and perhaps a @wikinewie address for the reminders. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 21:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• At the risk of a charge of Grand Spamming, I'll get that in the morning. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Prizes

I think we need a few more prizes; has anyone talked to NewsTrust again?    Tris   08:55, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• The most on-offer from NewsTrust will be mugs - they're a small non-profit startup. And, I have to say, I've not seen a lot of stuff on Wikinews since I talked to them that would get good reviews - they really look for in-depth. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• I meant have we confirmed the mugs, because at last look, they weren't. Any ideas of other prizes people could contribute?    Tris   10:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• The most I can offer is on-wiki barnstars: Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/Barnstars. Tempodivalse [talk] 12:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
• Based on heavyweight articles I've seen recently on Wikinews, I've only submitted a half-dozen to NewsTrust, I've not reviewed very many there – and I doubt anyone else has (what Wikinewsies signed up?) On that basis I'm not to happy to be really pushy with NewsTrust. What I'd really, really wanted someone to stump up as prizes for, say, the top three finalists was full-blown access to w:LexisNexis. I don't mean what some academics get, the full-on megacorp subscription. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I signed up to NewsTrust (and won an award there for "Most thorough reviewer"), but I haven't visited for a while. I keep meaning to go back and review some more stuff there, but I never get round to it.

LexisNexis sounds like a good idea—it would come in pretty useful for writing legal articles, but it is a bit esoteric if you're not a legal professional. Dendodge _T\^C 19:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• LexisNexis also has huge archives of news articles. For the legal side? You'd be surprised what you can get and how generally-understandable much of it is. I got some fun stuff on the QuakeAid one digging into the scammers' backgrounds. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 01:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• Half the time I'm on Wikinews there's a legal pro in the room, so I'd find it very useful. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

VOA news

Does significantly changed (only using the article for a basis and of course using other sources) and added to VOA news count as an article for points? --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 01:06, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• If I spot usage I'd normally consider copyvio if from another news service, I'll call you on that. I'd rather see VoA avoided altogether for this. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 01:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Standings

One thing not properly planned here was where we're going to put the standings. I've decided to add them here: Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/Standings. Not sure what's the best way to police it? Have judges add points as articles are published, or let the contributors do it themselves? Tempodivalse [talk] 03:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Quick question

How should we count the number of characters in an article for point scoring? Just the size of the prose, or everything, including the wikimarkup? I'm of the opinion we should do the latter, but this is something we didn't consider beforehand and probably should be discussed now. Tempodivalse [talk] 13:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Token review point

We have had a considerable backlog of articles for review recently. Perhaps instating a token one-point, or half point, incentive for each review to encourage users to review articles? Users without the editor bit should be encouraged to apply for it when sufficient understanding is demonstrated. Regards, — μ 14:36, Monday February 1 2010 (UTC)

The reputation of the project depends on the quality of our reviews. Do we really want to encourage reviewers to rush? --Pi zero (talk) 23:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

No, but we want reviews to take place within half a day of it being tagged. What I'm proposing is to encourage reviewers to actually review, as supposed to letting someone else do it. — μ 23:22, Monday February 1 2010 (UTC)

Articles not getting reviewed promptly isn't a new problem. There was an incident this past year where someone had their editor bit revoked because they published their own article when they lost patience waiting for it to be reviewed. The problem should tend to self-correct. I'm dubious that the "token review point" would have the positive effect you're hoping for, while I'm particularly worried about the psychological message it might be sending to recently promoted editors. --Pi zero (talk) 01:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Reviewing is a chore; mainly because it can be quicker to piece together an article than take it apart and validate it. This has always been why I'm unhappy seeing stuff move from {{review}} to {{publish}} with no apparent copyedit work. I share Pi zero's concerns that turning out reviewed articles is not something to be "incentivised". It just a different "mop and bucket" where, you'll only get thanks from the author, and risk criticism from everyone else if you mess up.

While the review template and gadget have been updated to allow to fail on one or two points without digging into all the details of the rest, perhaps more people moving to {{cleanup}} instead with clear, actionable required changes would be a better solution. I made some use of this in the first day of the competition to push articles back for improvement. I would prefer that over a reward for a review that might not be to an adequate quality standard. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 04:36, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Add "See also" section

{{editprotected}}

Please can you add this section at the bottom of the page:

== See also ==

• Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/entrants
• Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/Standings
• Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/Standings/log
• Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/Barnstars

--Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 11:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Done — Gopher65_talk 00:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Addition to "See also" section

{{editprotected}} Could you please add this to the "See also" section:

• Wikinews:Writing contest 2010/Standings/archives

Please add it immediately above the link to the barnstars. Thanks, --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 16:30, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Done --Thunderhead 22:14, 5 April 2010 (UTC)