search
web directory
news
travel
maps
forums
free voip
chat irc
games
video
live tv
add site

Wikinews:Water cooler

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Welcome to the water cooler, a place to discuss the technical issues, policies, and operations of Wikinews. This is divided into five sections; please use the table below to find the most appropriate section to post in, or just use the miscellaneous section. The water cooler is not the place to make lasting comments, as discussions are removed regularly to make room for new ones. Please sign and date your post .

Click here to purge your browser's cache

Other discussions elsewhere

You are also invited to be involved in the following flagged conversations happening elsewhere on the Wiki. Add {{flag}} to a page to have it listed here.

Talk:One week before German federal election, the race is wide-open again
Wikinews talk:Category Portals
Talk:Main Page
Talk:Palestine

To discuss existing and proposed policies

To discuss technical issues

To discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related

To post requests for assistance not covered by Wikinews help or the Archives desk

Contents

• 1 Other discussions elsewhere
• 2 Policy
  • 2.1 Wikinews Project Licensure Poll is open!
  • 2.2 New linking policy
  • 2.3 Image copyright question
• 3 Technical
  • 3.1 My Contributions
  • 3.2 Double redirects
  • 3.3 New Article Inputbox
  • 3.4 Rename bug
• 4 Proposals
• 5 Assistance
  • 5.1 Article preparation in advance
  • 5.2 Iowa State Legislature testing
• 6 Miscellany
  • 6.1 Opportunity for some original reporting - United States
  • 6.2 Just noticed we're being mirrored
  • 6.3 I tried to call on IRC but no response...
  • 6.4 Eyewitness reports
  • 6.5 Server speed

//

Policy

Refresh

Policies and guidelines and the Style guide contain or link to most of the current en.Wikinews policies and guidelines, however most policy is suggested, and based on the accepted practices of the day on Wikinews, often these might not yet be written down. This section of the Water cooler focuses on discussions regarding policy issues.

You may wish to check the archives to see if a subject has been raised previously.

Wikinews Project Licensure Poll is open!

The oft-delayed Wikinews licensure poll is now open for voting. The poll is to get an idea of what type of licensure the Wikinews communities and the wider Wikimedia communities would like to have for Wikinews. The licens question is not about Wikinews itself, but rather what license content reusers will be required to abide by.

There are many options, including several dual-licenses, and you may vote for all the options you think are desirable. Please try to keep comments on the talk page, to avoid the already-very-long page becoming even more difficult to navigate.

Please participate! - Amgine/^talk 22:30, 6 September 2005

New linking policy

With the recent events in articles, many users have been linking to copyrighted material, for which we don't have any permission to be linking to . I think, as a news organization, we shouldn't be linking to items such as this - for a number of reasons.

A) We do not have permission from the copyright owners. As shown in the Sharman Networks letter to Google, under the DMCA even links are prohibited to copyrighted material without permission to be exhibited.
B) We cannot rely on most of the sources. Inappropriate content can easily be switched after a period of hours or days from a server not in our control .
C) Linking to can be interpereted as an endorsement of quality from our site. Without a disclaimer, one could stumble upon a link that highly breaks our policies, and some can interperet that as a reflection of our policies.

--Mrmiscellanious 21:21, 8 September 2005

Interesting thought, MrM... How do our links to source material fit into this proposed policy? We're certainly linking to copyrighted material almost every time... I suppose each of those links might qualify as fair use? --Chiacomo 23:07, 8 September 2005

Yes, those would be fine - I'm more specific about pirated video and audio files, from copyrighted broadcasts, that have been making it into the articles. Linking to an article used as a source is fully in compliance with this proposal . In short, it would get rid of any lawsuits that are possible from the copyright holders . In addition, it also would get rid of any persons wishing to link from their personal servers to do bad later on , or also those hotlinking to videos hosted by others. --Mrmiscellanious 00:21, 9 September 2005

Image copyright question

Apologies for the stupid question. The local Indymedia site says of images and text on their site, "All material is free for non-profit reuse unless otherwise noted by the author." So this means we can't use their images, right? - Borofkin 08:11, 12 September 2005

We cannot, as we are acting under the public domain status - which allows everyone, including commerical uses, to exhibit our work. --Mrmiscellanious 10:47, 12 September 2005

Technical

See also the archives.

My Contributions

How do I assign a story I posted without being logged in to my post. So I can track it in my contributions. Crickett 18:55, 1 September 2005

If you go and make a minor change to the story, this time logged in, then it should be listed under your contributions. If the article is "perfect", you can add an extra blank line, save it, then take the blank line back out. This would be enough to have it listed as one of your contributions. The alternative is just to add it to your watchlist and look for it there. StuRat 16:16, 9 September 2005

Double redirects

Please could someone who knows, step up and document how to fix double redirects. I gather that it is a problem as I have just got a stern message after changing a headline, but it's not clear what I need to do. A link to this needed instruction along with the "Read This!" message would help a lot.

"You can lead a Norse to water, but you can't make him sink"

--Crockett 23:05, 3 September 2005

all links and make sure they point directly to the current name, not a previous name. A cut-and-paste is the best way to do this. If someone will tell me how to the "Read This!" message, I would be glad to add that info there.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink,

you can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think."

StuRat 16:23, 9 September 2005

New Article Inputbox

I'm fiddling with Australia, trying to make it such that people can work on local articles and never have to see the rest of the world . I've added the New Article inputbox, and it works perfectly. I'd like it to create articles that already have Category:Australia added to them. I see that I can do this by creating another template such as Template:New page Australia, however then the date won't be automagically updated by Uncle G's 'bot. What is the best way to approach this? Is it easy for Mr G to update a second template every day , or should there be changes to the inputbox code? - Borofkin 00:09, 7 September 2005

You can use the function preload in the line to include a template . About the date or you have it managed by Uncle G's bot also in your template, or you just use the variable like <code>{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} </code> AnyFile 20:00, 9 September 2005

Rename bug

If you look on the history for the article News Corp acquires IGN for US$650 million, you will see this :

15:16, 9 September 2005 StuRat m

However, the actual rename was:

15:16, 9 September 2005 StuRat m

The "$6" was apparently dropped in both the "from" and "to" names. The same error showed up in the "rename results panel". This appears to just be an error in reporting the results of the rename, it looks like the actual rename worked correctly. Is "$6" being interpretted as a special character, perhaps the English pound symbol or something like that ? Any suggestions on how to fix this ?

StuRat 16:12, 9 September 2005

That looks suspiciously like a MediaWiki bug. You should report it to Bugzilla. —Brent Dax 04:00, 10 September 2005

You may not use the currency sign in an article title. There are also other restricted characters. See Help:Page name. This is not a bug, but a security issue. - Amgine/^talk 04:36, 10 September 2005

Thanks. I should point out that while not allowing the symbol may not be a bug, the way in which it is handled is a bug. That is, the user should be notified and the character stripped out, instead of no notification and the character left in the title, but stripped out, along with the following character, of the rename confirmation panel and the history. StuRat 12:36, 10 September 2005

Proposals

See also the archives.

Assistance

See also the archives.

Article preparation in advance

I'm in the middle of trying to prepare for a story that is likly to happen at the end of the month, and I would like some assitance in trying to obtain some media for the story when it happens.

The story I'm working on is SpaceX launches Falcon I rocket, which if everything works out will be a very intersting story, and if it doesn't happen it will likely generate some interesting headlines as well, or worse yet if the rocket fails on the launch pad. Regardless, it will be a news story, and rarely do we get to cover something like this in advance besides election coverage.

What I'm needing assistance on is trying to obtain permission for media from the SpaceX company. As I don't currently have "credentials" from Wikinews, I don't feel completely free to suggest that I represent Wikinews to obtain media permission for images from the company.

They have a media relations officer with contact information on the following page: http://www.spacex.com/gallery.php

The name of the Marketing Manager is Dianne Molina, and her e-mail address is: mailto:dianne at spacex dot com .

The above web page also has some of the media files that we can use, presumably with permission of the company if we simply ask for it. I also don't want to duplicate efforts of any other ors here, and if permission is granted to use the media I want to see that fact recorded somewhere within Wikinews. Any assistance on this issue would be appreciated. --Robert Horning 02:02, 11 September 2005

I have some suggestions:

Go ahead and tell them you are a reporter from "WikiNews, an online news organization". You can provide info on number of registered users, and call them "subscribers" . You can also say "I've been a reporter for WikiNews since ". You don't have to tell them you are a volunteer or that we all are, unles they ask. If they want someone to vouch for you, I, and probably many others, will do so. If they want some other form of proof we will deal with that when it comes up, just tell them "I'll have to get back with you on that", for the time being. The worst they can do is refuse, and then you're no worse off than now.

I would keep the article in your own namespace for now, so nobody else starts modifying it, etc.

I suggest you write two stories, the first on the planned event, and the second on the actual event .

There really isn't a way we can tell everybody else they aren't allowed to write on that topic. I would say the best way to do that is to beat them to the punch. If your articles are ready to go, you can publish them before others start on their version. And even if others do beat you, if you have better reporting and pics, then your story may "supercede" theirs.

StuRat 02:26, 11 September 2005

I'm not really interested in who gets cr for the story, but I see what you are getting at in terms of user space. If I feel inspired, I may move it. As for now, this is something that I'm simply announcing to the Wikinews community in general as a future story to look into, with some background material to use to help develop the story when the time comes. I'm more interested in beating CNN to the punch with Wikinews than to beat a particular or to the punch :)

BTW, I did find permissions of sorts that have been used with some of these images. See commons:Image talk:SpaceX falcon Washington DC.jpg for some details about permission obtained. I'm going to see if I can get some permission perhaps for some more images other than these. Like I said, I need to coordinate this effort as well, but it is cool that some permission has already been granted . --Robert Horning 04:05, 11 September 2005

Iowa State Legislature testing

The Iowa State Legislatures site is blocking people via password prompts. I'm trying to find out why, since a sampling of friends indicates no rhyme or reason.

To test:

Go here: http://www.legis.state.ia.us/ and or http://www.legis.state.ia.us/Constitution.html
Note whether or not the page loads or you get a password prompt
Get your IP address a browser+version, and post it here

Thanx . 69.142.2.68 22:40, 11 September 2005

Miscellany

See also the archives.

Opportunity for some original reporting - United States

If anyone happens to be in the United States, there is an opportunity for some original reporting. Please see Talk:Rescuers Frustrated in LA. - Borofkin 05:12, 2 September 2005

Just noticed we're being mirrored

Just noticed we're being mirrored: http://code0range.net/aggregator/categories/3 and http://code0range.net/aggregator/ . They screw up wiki formating, but they do give us cr. It looks like they also mirror recent changes diffs.Bawolff 18:21, 5 September 2005

I tried to call on IRC but no response...

Hello,how can I tell the Wikinewsies about breaking news?I clicked on the contact's username and typed,but no reply came.Tdxiang 07:40, 6 September 2005

Why not start an article yourself on the main page ? Others will likely finish it, if you provide enough info to go on. StuRat 11:39, 9 September 2005

Eyewitness reports

What should we do with eyewitness reports posted anonymously, such as A first person account of what happened in New Orleans? We are going to see more and more of these as our profile increases. Should they be encouraged to turn their eyewitness report into an article, or should they be directed to an Eyewitness Report page, where their reports can then be used as source material for articles? - Borofkin 04:09, 7 September 2005

I would support policy that lead to such reports becoming source material for articles rather than posting such accounts as articles themselves. Of course, if the eyewitness account can be ed to a story form, then publish away. --Chiacomo 04:30, 7 September 2005

Note that I didn't say they should be posted as articles, I said "encouraged to turn their eyewitness report into an article". The question here is: what is the difference between a Wikinewsie doing original reporting, and an eyewitness who posts a report directly to the site? It's a fine line. An eyewitness who comes here with a story could tommorrow be a Wiki-convert. - Borofkin 04:37, 7 September 2005

Indeed -- we could, of course, treat eyewitness accounts like interviews, and, as you suggested, include the content in articles. --Chiacomo 04:42, 7 September 2005

I suppose that's what I'm thinking. I think its appropriate to include submitted eyewitness reports in articles, as long as they are clearly identified as such. Consider Louisiana officials accused of blocking rescue volunteers, where an anonymous eyewitness report was submitted, second-hand, by a named person. Now there is no doubt that the information is unreliable, this is true of all eyewitness reports, anonymous or not. I think it is still article-worthy, as long as the source of the information is clearly identified. - Borofkin 05:45, 7 September 2005

We definitely should use these sort of articles as source material, with the old line, so-and-so told Wikinews. My suggestions is a template that could be added to the header of these stories, encouraging people to use it as a source for other stories, for example that particular one will be a valuable contribution to other stories. The source could then be copied to Portal namespace for the correct category and that could be the source link... i'll go and demonstrate... ClareWhite 09:02, 7 September 2005

OK, I added an Eyewitness template to that story but decided not to move it out of the main namespace yet as that would take it out of developing stories where people are most likely to see it. The template makes it clear that it is a personal account and that it won't be published as a story and encourages other ors to use it and the author to add their personal details and answer questions if required.

It would be bad for people to use the source as the only source for a story, but where it adds to potentially many stories it will make a very useful additional source. I think it also fulfils Borofkin's aim of encouraging people to come to Wikinews rather than simply sticking on an unfriendly tag. As the workspaces/bureaus develop in portals, I think these sort of accounts will be a very useful source of material for collaborative writers. They so need to be viewed as potentially unreliable, but I think we need ways of soliciting the views of ordinary citizens and this is a good one. Thoughts? ClareWhite 09:42, 7 September 2005

I absolutely agree with you, ClareWhite. Eyewitness accounts tend to be highly biased. This makes them a good source for an article, so long as they are balanced with "the other side of the story". However, making an article with just a single eyewitness account should be discouraged. StuRat 11:54, 7 September 2005

My inclination was to publish this particular story as is, because it is true citizen reporting. I don't see anything highly biased in the report. However, the fact that it is posted anonymously is very troublesome. I especially found intersting in this report the info. on the budget cut for levees and police stuff. -68.232.153.54 15:59, 7 September 2005 siggy -Edbrown05 03:23, 8 September 2005

I like the idea of tagging it as an eyewitness report and moving it out of the main namespace. I'm not sure that the Portal namespace is the right place, though. Has the debate over this namespace reached a conclusion? We should certainly be encouraging people to add contact information to their eyewitness reports. - Borofkin 00:41, 8 September 2005

I remember well the debate here about a proposal to include orial articles. In the end, I believe that I am correct by saying the proposal died because the orial content of the article would be made by a sole contributor , but that one-person writing approach is not the wiki way. Here we face a similar dilemma, an eyewitness report is a sole person contribution.

Currently, the most similar thing in existence here now to a one-person writing approach is {{Original reporting}}, but that is only appropriate for a trusted community contributor who can post a report with no confirming sources .

When I first confronted the article being discussed here, my reaction was to put on the {{Original reporting}} tag and publish it. I do not think anyone has any serious objections to the content of this particular story, and I see the disclaimer NGerda added in a template. Part of my reasoning for the {{Original reporting}} tag is because there is no other satisfactory method for giving this story the attention that I feel it warrants. Yes, I am aware it lacks some polish, but I do feel it is unreasonable to expect a motivated contributor who is not a journalist to write content that lives up to the standard Wikinews seems to be striving for.

If there is a way around this conundrum, it sure was not found in the previous orial debate. Our or base's best judgement may be the best answer, along with combining the best of all wording found on the {{Eyewitness}} and {{orial}} and {{Original reporting}} templates into one, tag the story, and go from there. -Edbrown05 03:23, 8 September 2005

The Portal namespace didn't reach a proper conclusion no, but the proposal is sort of rolling on and some people have started using it. In this particular case, I would be against putting the Original Reporting tag on the story because, although it sounds very plausible, unless we had many more key details we just can't rely on it. That's why I would much rather see the bulk of it used as background and views from 'an evacuee from New Orleans' rather than being a published story in its own right. We could be on a slippery slope if we get madder 'eyewitness' reports that feel they can publish in that form. But yes, combining with other tags and case-by-case judgments is definitely the best way to go ClareWhite 08:42, 9 September 2005

Server speed

What's up with the slow server response time? It's been a real dog now for days. -Edbrown05 16:08, 12 September 2005

Yeah but it is a Wikimedia-wide problem. I just hope the new Yahoo servers that were promised go online soon. --Deprifry 16:49, September 12, 2005

Top | Arts | Business | Computers | Games | Health | Kids | News | Recreation | Reference | Regional | Science | Shopping | Society | Sports | World | Languages | News | Blogs

BA.net Brujula.Net © 2008 advertising

english español italiano germany japan france more bookmark