Definitely not an "on pass" notification. That would be annoying. For an
article and the person who added the review. I wouldn't bother notifying
IPs. If they're serious, they've already created an account.
> I'd say, not on a pass - unless it does more in-depth checking to see if a
> user has a smallish number of contributions.
>
> For a fail, do you notify the person who added the {{review}} template, or
> the person who initially created the article, or both when they're
> different? Do you notify IPs?
>
>
> Brian.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
wikinews-l-bounces@...
> [mailto:
wikinews-l-bounces@...] On Behalf Of bawolff
> Sent: 07 September 2009 15:36
> To: Wikinews mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikinews is too rigid? Introducing
> someflexibility?New contributors?
>
> Would it perhaps be helpful to make the peer review gadget spam the
> author of the article if the review of their article fails (or even a
> congratulations message if it passes)? Only problem is that it would
> probably annoy the regurals to get hundress of "congrats your article
> passed" messages.
>
> -bawolff
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 5:26 PM, Jon Davis<
wiki@...> wrote:
>> Something else to consider, maybe we should make some more user talk
>> page
>> templates that can be used to help people along (especially if we can
>> drop
>> them _before_ they goto our deletion warning messages, like
>> {{abandoned}}.
>> Example: "Hey, I see you've started a new article, remember to do these 3
>> very important things and put it into {{review}} when you're read" --
>> Basically any common problem we have, we should have a talk page template
>> for it and we should make sure EVERYONE uses them. If you want to mark
>> an
>> article as {{abandoned}}, inform the user. I've seen more than a few
> cases
>> where users have come back later and said "Hey, why did you mark this as
>> abandoned/deleted it. I was done". Let's be fair, our way of doing this
> is
>> unique to the ENTIRE WMF community. Additionally, I recently stole off
>> Commons "User Messages" Gadget (goto Preferences > Gadgets > UI
>> Gadgets --
>> to turn it on). Basically it adds a SHIT TON of options in your Toolbox
>> when on a Usertalk page. This makes it _ultra_ simple to leave talk page
>> messages (You don't even have to remember what exactly they say, there is
>> help text).
>>
>> I am also considering stealing off with their "Quick Delete" gadget which
>> would enable us to have 1 click to tag an article (for example) as
> abandoned
>> _AND_ notify to user. Might require some fine tuning by our local JS
>> masters, but it would be useful.
>>
>> As for {{copy edit}}. I'm not saying make it required, but it would be
> nice
>> as an option. I can review any article I want, because I've got editor,
> but
>> I can't copy edit for shit. There are other people who can copy edit
>> superbly, but don't have Editor yet. Make it easy for everyone to find
> each
>> other. I realize this was shot down when the system was being developed,
>> but it's been around for a while, would others find this helpful? Or am I
>> the only failure of a writer around here?
>>
>> -SGN/Jon
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 04:35, Brian McNeil <
brian.mcneil@...>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Okay, I won't dispute that the [[WN:SG]] is long, and something pretty
>>> difficult to sit down and go through. The old welcome template used to
>>> effectively tell all new contributors they had to read the entire set of
>>> policies, and that was why I introduced {{Howdy}} and the associated
> essay
>>> [[WN:ARTICLE]]. Despite this, and Tempodivalse's efforts as our local
>>> Wal-Mart greeter, virtually nobody seems to read it - dozens of stories
>>> appear with Camel Case titles, people bypass article creation forms and
>>> don't have date templates, and there are a lot of {{copyvio}}s put up.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That's a focus on our 'traditional' article, and it is what we ideally
>>> want a lot more of. Problem is, the reality of the world is that *most*
>>> people couldn't string something like that together if their life
> depended
>>> on it. Combine that with recent media trends to dumb-down and be highly
>>> partisan (eg Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" myth), and you have a
> situation
>>> where most people wouldn't know neutrality if it bit them in the ass,
>>> you
>>> end up with a widespread belief that news needs to be sensationalist
> before
>>> anyone will take an interest in it. Even some of Wikinews' most prolific
>>> contributors are influenced by this sensationalising.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> So, Jon's suggestion seems to be to diversify somewhat - and I think
>>> that's worth pursuing.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Photoessays?
>>>
>>> Yup, it'd be nice to see more photographic work featured on Wikinews,
>>> and
>>> ideally this would be accompanied with a short associated article that
> puts
>>> the photographs in context. It isn't happening, so how can we lower the
> bar
>>> and get more photoessays? I've no problem with trimming back the writing
>>> requirement to the equivalent of a single entry in our current 'shorts'
>>> style - as long as the event where the photos were taken is put in
> context,
>>> i.e. some attempt to cover the 5W & H.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The place to recruit people for this sort of work is Commons. The
>>> obvious
>>> pitch to them is getting their photographs showcased, and an article
>>> collecting them linked to from Google News. I'd be happy to take that up
> on
>>> Commons' equivalent of the Water Cooler and try and engage Commoners in
>>> working towards [[WN:PHOTOESSAY]] as an equivalent to [[WN:ARTICLE]].
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Perhaps for this type of article we need a slightly different {{peer
>>> review}} template?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Ultra-shorts
>>>
>>> So, we're talking a single paragraph to answer 5H&W, and some mechanism
> to
>>> present these on the main page outside the main Latest news section.
>>> Assuming we figure out how to do that we really have to consider that
> some
>>> of these will go on to become full articles. We don't want the
> ultra-short
>>> bit expanded dramatically, but a complete whole article. In any case,
>>> the
>>> current shorts is a nightmare when it comes time to review it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Local
>>>
>>> Really local news has been done in the past, just not very well. There
>>> is
>>> a category Local news, and it's trivial to exclude that from the main
> page.
>>> Verifiability is the biggest headache there.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> {{copyedit}}
>>>
>>> Nope. This was part of my initial proposal for an article flow, and was
>>> shot down. From experience of what has happened since FlaggedRevs was
>>> introduced I would say copyediting should be a part of the review
> process.
>>> Now that I've adopted the peer review gadget I frequently see myself
> using
>>> the comments parameter to tell people to look at the edits I made before
>>> reviewing and publishing. I think we really have to accept that
>>> reviewers
>>> are going to be required to do a lot of the copyediting.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Brian.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From:
wikinews-l-bounces@...
>>> [mailto:
wikinews-l-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Jon Davis
>>> Sent: 06 September 2009 07:27
>>> To: Wikinews mailing list;
scoop@...
>>> Subject: [Wikinews-l] Wikinews is too rigid? Introducing some
>>> flexibility?New contributors?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> All,
>>> I've been kicking around some thoughts for a while, and I felt it was
> time
>>> to share and see if I can get some feedback on and maybe some traction
> for
>>> change.
>>>
>>> == Long Version ==
>>> We all want new contributors, after all, there is like 20 of us that are
>>> really active at any given time. Hell, I could probably give the names
> of
>>> everyone that is reasonably active on Wikinews off the top of my head.
> We
>>> all know when someone goes missing, because something drops, either
> article
>>> output falls a few articles a day or audio wikinews ceases to exist all
>>> together, or the review queue backups. Wikinews biggest problem is burn
> out,
>>> we _all_ have to contribute a significant amount of time or the project
> dies
>>> (See also: Holidays).
>>>
>>> So how do we get new contributors?
>>>
>>> KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Our "defining guide" is [[WN:SG]]. Who
>>> here can honestly say they've read every single line? I'm sure a few
> can,
>>> but I know I haven't. It is 20 printed pages. The only "easier" guide
> on
>>> getting started that I know of is [[Wikinews:Writing an article]] and
> that
>>> is 6 pages, that is still too length in my book. We should have a goal
>>> that a new user (who understands Wiki-syntax) can come in, read the
> basics
>>> and get started writing in less than X time. What is X time? I'd say 15
>>> minutes, tops.
>>>
>>> Second part, user interest in the topic. I'm interested in many things,
>>> but I'm not that much of a news writer that I think I can scratch out 3
>>> decent paragraphs on it, which is our minimum. This leads to me to my
> next
>>> point...
>>>
>>> While I love what goes on with Wikinews, sometimes I get the feeling
>>> that
>>> we're too rigid. As mentioned previously our Style Guide is lengthy,
>>> and
>>> not only is it the guide - it is basically our rules for publishing.
> Part
>>> of that is that we must have 3 paragraphs. While I think that is great
>>> because it forces us to push up the quality of articles... but we set
>>> the
>>> bar very high for new contributors. You can come into Wikipedia and
> create
>>> a new article with one sentence and it might have a chance of staying
> around
>>> and becoming worth while. Wikinews, it won't, period. I think we might
>>> want consider alternatives to the "regular article" and what standards
>>> we
>>> should have for those. Hopefully these can lower the barrier to entry,
> and
>>> give us some flexibility into helping people get their stories published
>>> rather than the flat "too short, stale, delete it" mind set.
>>>
>>> For example: Shorts, local & photo journalism. All 3 of these types of
>>> news we accept in some form now, but maybe not as easily as should. For
>>> example shorts have to be combined into a days worth of shorts (with at
>>> least 2 or 3 stories). Local news is the same as any other news. Photo
>>> Journalism? Well I haven't seen too much of it, and that which I've
>>> personally submitted, I've had to beg and bribe (ok, mostly bribing) to
> get
>>> it published without 3 paragraphs of accompanying text.
>>>
>>> We could consider adding something like "Shorts: " to the beginning of a
>>> short story, and allowing it to go as a one paragraph story. We could
> even
>>> have a "Shorts" category that would exclude it from being published in
> the
>>> "Latest News" section on the Main Page we have now. Maybe it can have
> it's
>>> own little section on the front page. Local could follow the same
> theory,
>>> allow it to be shorter in order to entice users to come and write a
> little
>>> bit about their on goings of their home town. If they write something
>>> large/long/good enough we'll even remove the "hide from 'latest news'
> flag"
>>> (What ever that would be) and that would push it up out of the dark
> depths.
>>> That entices people to not only come and start (because it is easier to
>>> write one paragraph) but it also entices them to write more/better as
> they
>>> get more accustomed to our way of doing things because they want their
>>> article to get more promotion.
>>>
>>> Photo Journalism. Basically if the user is submitting a majority of
>>> pictures (say more than 5-6 pictures of an Event), the requirements for
>>> writing anything more than clear and concise caption should be tossed
>>> out
>>> the window. How many people go to events and take a bunch of pictures
> that
>>> could be turned into an interesting "Photo Essay" (or what ever you want
> to
>>> call it) that turn away from Wikinews because they don't want to write
>>> paragraphs and paragraphs? I know that I personally have opt'd to not
>>> "cover" something because I didn't think I could manage to write 3
>>> paragraphs on what ever it was. Hey, I'm a photog, not a writer. That
> even
>>> was on my Accreditation Request, it's not like it was a secret.
>>>
>>> Something that is underlying to all of this that I haven't mentioned
>>> previously: We need to make Wikinews _single writer friendly_ NOW. It
> has
>>> long since been established that unless something major is going on, you
> are
>>> probably going to be the only one writing an article. If we start to
> pull
>>> in people covering local events, this is going to be doubly so. So we
> need
>>> to do everything in our power to make the process friendly for one
>>> person
> to
>>> go through. I honestly don't have any suggestion on what that should
>>> be,
>>> other than to keep that in mind.
>>>
>>> Lastly, I'd like to propose the addition of one optional step to our
>>> publishing process. A {{Copy Edit}} or similarly named template that
>>> basically states "Hey, I've finished this article, but I'd appreciate it
> if
>>> someone would copy edit this article before placing it into review".
> Again,
>>> personal experience, I'm not a very good writer, I know my work needs to
> be
>>> copy edited. Why not make it easier for the copy editors out there to
> seek
>>> out what they should work on. I've got two people who I've managed to
> drag
>>> in on occasion to do copy editing because they are good at it. I've
>>> only
>>> done it for my work, or what I happen to see as being egregiously bad.
>>>
>>>
>>> == Short Version ==
>>> * Make short versions of our key "getting started" documents (WN:SG,
>>> Wikinews:Writing an article, etc)
>>> * Allow single story Shorts (Won't be published under "Latest News")
>>> * Allow short local news (Similar to Shorts)
>>> * Allow Photo Journalism stories w/o text (other than captions)
>>> * Make WN writing process "Single User" friendly
>>> * Add optional {{Copy Edit}} step to publishing process.
>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry all that this was so long, but I've been mulling over these issues
>>> for a while. I'm CC'ing scoop in hopes of getting more people to reply
> to
>>> this mail.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jon
>>> [[User:ShakataGaNai]]
>>>
http://snowulf.com/ - Blog
>>>
http://snowulf.imagekind.com/ - Pictures
>>> This has been a test of the emergency sig system.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikinews-l mailing list
>>>
Wikinews-l@...
>>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jon
>> [[User:ShakataGaNai]]
>>
http://snowulf.com/ - Blog
>>
http://snowulf.imagekind.com/ - Pictures
>> This has been a test of the emergency sig system.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikinews-l mailing list
>>
Wikinews-l@...
>>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l>>
>>
>
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