Talk:Lauren Nelson crowned Miss Oklahoma

Reference to location
To open an article with a location, it is implying that the reporter was at the cited location when the report was written. This goes back to phoning in a story (or earlier) and the copy being typed as you talk. In most cases it is inappropriate for Wikinews, but I stand to be corrected on that. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You might be right. I've had the hardest time finding that type of info on here :(  And #wikinews is too dead to get responses to noob questions like that heh.  If that's the case, I wish Dateline would actually say that though.  I'll go ahead and throw my noob question in #wikinews anyhow. Ashlux 19:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You are right. I went ahead and added a note to the top of dateline to hopefully help those of us that missed it the first time in the style guide :-) Ashlux 19:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

There is contention about Brian McNeil's suggestion. While it can indicate the location where the story was filed, "in journalism, the location in the dateline may either refer to the location of where the article was filed or where the event happened even if the writer was not physically present." The style guide implies that Wikinews uses dateline exclusively for the former and was edited to state such when I expressed issue with the trend of reverting its use for the latter. I think this restriction does disservice to writers who wish to indicate the location of the story events within the first few words of a story. Karen 20:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, my simple suggestion is to use your own judgement. In this story, the reader is immediately aware of the event's location because of the headline. In some stories, the headline (or even the opening sentence) may not convey it. I suggest using dateline (as real journalists do) for those instances, or cleverly re-writing the headline or opening sentence to immediately indicate the story's location. I'll review all your dateline-to-date revisions to see if any make better sense to use dateline instead of date. Karen 20:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I found only one revision where use of date instead of dateline removed useful information from the story and I rolled-back the edit. Generally the dateline template isn't useful in all situations, but there are times when I'd suggest using it against the implied restrictions stated in the style guide. Karen 20:58, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Some of us are sleeping on #wikinews-en (when we're not at BBQs). I'm used to the daeline template being reserved for original reporting from the scene.  When I see it elsewhere it is frequently reporting from the nearest major city on events in the surrounding countryside. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks again Karen =) I'll keep that in mind when I add other things involving Oklahoma that I get from Google Alerts (this is very nice service since I don't receive a local newspaper or watch the local news). Ashlux 22:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned this on the water cooler months ago - why have a dateline template to mean what the original reporting template means? I feel that sometimes there's a place for the dateline tag when it's not original reporting. I believe this because of the Wikinews style guide entry that states the dateline is placed for either reason - story filed or event takes place. It's a useful device that I'd hate to see only relegated only to the story filing location. At very worst, the Wikinews style guide needs rewriten, because the Wikipedia entry on dateline fails to mention the dateline's dual use. When the dateline isn't from the event location, but from the story's filing point, that it's lead me to believe the event took place where the story was filed, which isn't always true. (An example is when a bank robbery occurred a few thousand feet from Disney World, a few miles from Buena Vista, but the dateline indicated that the event took place in Kissimmee. The story did not define the location at all.) This is a topic that needs consensus Karen 23:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I was kind of thinking the same thing with the location it's filed at. I'm going to take a wild stab this talk page isn't the place for such a debate lol.  I'm not particularly convinced how I had been using it was bad/wrong - even if the location is obvious from the article. It is kind of nice to have one location to glance at for that information. Hmm.. where's the place to get concensus on this? =) Ashlux 23:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Some people'd say the Water Cooler, but I bring my own beverage and rarely visit it. Since it's a style issue mentioned in the style guide, maybe the style guide's talk page? Of course, few people read there. The discussion could be anywhere, just flag that page for community attention and/or mention it on well read non-story pages that seem to apply. Water cooler and Style guide talk come to mind, as well as this page.
 * Where I work (which is at a news outlet), Datelines are used to indicate where a story is, that way readers from the area might be drawn to it. In the past they may have been used for that, but I think the inherent change in the nature of news sources and the time people spend reading the news justifies a change to indicating the location of a news event.