Talk:Notre Dame in Paris catches fire

Review of revision 4475694 [Not ready]
Meanwhile… Wikipedia beat en.wikinews. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't greatly rely on en.wikinews, no many reasons to. --Ssr (talk) 19:35, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty new to WikiNews (second article, first one staled and was deleted) and started this article. This total lack of activity on such a major event does not really inspire further contributions from me. M!dgard (talk) 20:21, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Exacltly, and you are not the first one to encounter this. --Ssr (talk) 21:33, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikinews is for publishing accurate, neutral reports about current events. It has never been best for breaking reports about major events, but even so, "beating" Wikipedia is an irrelevant concept since the projects aren't in competition. I notice the article is currently still a bit underlength; and really is rather lacking in detail, and rather lede-heavy.  So I agree with its being currently tagged under development. --Pi zero (talk) 21:44, 15 April 2019 (UTC)


 * M!dgard and ssr, there is feedback provided by reviewer. It is not "total lack of activity".
 * Would you like to fix all of it, or would you like someone else to assist you? If you would like others to work together with you, then what parts of the review feedback do you take to yourself and what parts do you leave to others? Gryllida (talk) 23:28, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I have a record of contributions here. When someone wants to know my opinion, it is easy to examine my contributions to find out what I may like (we don't seem to hurry and the record is not very long). I may not be fully agree with the general conception of "beating", but if Wikinews cover topics slower than Wikipedia in the same way as Wikipedia covers (detailed NPOV based on RS), Wikinews make no sense for a reader, who just would go (and goes) to Wikipedia to read things there as they are used to. --Ssr (talk) 07:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The most obvious falsehood in that is the pretense that the projects cover things in the same way. Even without the attitudinal difference between sourcing here vs at Wikipedia, neutrality is a profoundly different proposition here and even that pales compared to the difference in the concept of vetting-before-publication.  --Pi zero (talk) 11:38, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the biggest difference is that we allow original research and Wikipedia doesn't. I don't read news on Wikipedia so I'm not sure what else they're doing differently. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:19, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Noting that OR here doesn't stand for original research, it stands for original reporting (yes, the projects don't even agree on what "OR" stands for; not to mention the whole tangle over the meanings of terms "analysis" versus "synthesis"); there's no metric for comparing whether the OR difference is larger or smaller than these various others. But this article doesn't contain OR. --Pi zero (talk) 12:40, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Noting that OR here doesn't stand for original research, it stands for original reporting (yes, the projects don't even agree on what "OR" stands for; not to mention the whole tangle over the meanings of terms "analysis" versus "synthesis"); there's no metric for comparing whether the OR difference is larger or smaller than these various others. But this article doesn't contain OR. --Pi zero (talk) 12:40, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Details and question

 * 1) past tense

The roof of in Paris is ( was ) on fire, and parts of it have already collapsed. Officials have cleared the area around the cathedral.

Paris mayor requests ( requested ) everyone to respect the security perimeters to allow the fire crew to do their job. President has cancelled an address he was to give at 20:00 CEST and instead plans ( planned ) to go to the scene.

The fire's cause is ( was ) not yet known. Renovation works were being carried out on the building.

The world-famous cathedral, built in the 13th century, is one of the most well-known monuments in France.


 * 2) add image




 * 3) gallery


 * 4) more details

The roof of in Paris was on fire. The spire and the roof, as well as the wooden frame, have collapsed. The two bell towers have been saved, officials said.

The fire started at about 19:00pm local time. Over 400 firefighters participated in extinguishing the blaze, and were still working as of midnight. Not only they extinguished the fire but they continued to cool the structure after the fire was gone to reduce the possibility of further damage. The firefighters were still working at midnight.

Officials have cleared the area around the cathedral. Paris mayor requested everyone to respect the security perimeters to allow the fire crew to do their job.

According to 9News, officials said water bombing aircraft was disallowed as it may have caused additional damage to the monument.

The fire's cause was not yet known. President has cancelled an address he was to give at 20:00 CEST and instead planned to go to the scene.

Renovation works were being carried out on the building before the fire began. The world-famous cathedral, built in the 13th century, is one of the most well-known monuments in France.



Remaining question:

When did they finish extinguishing the fire? At approximately midnight it was still ongoing. --Gryllida (talk) 23:48, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * other questions
 * who reported the fire
 * how did they extinguish it ( did they use helicopters for example ) Gryllida (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * how did they extinguish it ( did they use helicopters for example ) Gryllida (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

And did the firefighters surrender? AZOperator (talk) 00:43, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry someone had to say it. Best get it out early. AZOperator (talk) 00:48, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * OK AZOperator, I've added these changes and submitted for review. Gryllida (talk) 00:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Those pics are sweet.
 * 2) Regarding past tense... I respond without having read the sources: "Was on fire" is technically and factually correct but sounds hecka awkward.  I changed it to "caught fire." "Plans" in the present tense is recommended by the Wikinews style guide for describing future events, as here. "Planned" suggests that he no longer has these plans or canceled them.  "Requests" suggests that the request is ongoing, which given the context is correct but "requested" is not a dealbreaker because Mayor Hidalgo almost certainly made the ongoing request ("requested") at a discrete moment in time, so they both work.  However, "was not known" means "used to not be known but is known now." It's the only one of these that we absolutely should not use.
 * 3) I already made a bunch of gnome edits before seeing this thread here. I think we're good to go.  BravO is due to to Gryllida for taking initiative and doing all the heavy lifting. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Firefighters still working text removal
I concur that the text is important and should be stated ...but only once:


 * Over 400 firefighters participated in extinguishing the blaze and were still working as of midnight. Not only did they extinguish the fire but they continued to cool the structure after the fire was gone to reduce the possibility of further damage. The firefighters were still working as of midnight.

You see, there is a typo in this paragraph. The same information is given twice. I do not much care which one stays and which one goes, so long as only one remains. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)


 * There should be zero chance of a review not picking that up, of course. Which should not be in any way construed as discouragement from saying it; redundancy is good. --Pi zero (talk) 04:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks but that's not exactly the sequence of events here: 1) I removed the redundant text 2) then someone put it back saying that the text was important 3) then I started this thread to explain that I had not removed it because I considered it inappropriate but rather because it was a repeat. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:18, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No sequence implied. --Pi zero (talk) 12:41, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Okie-dokie. I just didn't want it to look like I was nagging anyone to fix a typo that I could easily jump in and remove myself.  Sounds like we're good on that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Review of revision 4475828 [Passed]
Thank you for the prompt review, Pi zero. I greatly appreciate it. --Gryllida (talk) 05:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I acknowledge Pi zero's issues surrounding the statement about the cause. This is exactly why "the cause is not known" is standard practice both on and off Wikinews.  Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not standard practice on Wikinews, because it is false. --Pi zero (talk) 12:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * It is common enough and we could quibble over whether it's standard here, but I must correct you: "the cause is not known" is not false, no more than "I could care less" is false just because it would make more sense to be "couldn't." Language and communication aren't math problems or a steel puzzles for robots. They're practical systems designed for and by the squishy, inefficient human brain.  We serve the reader best by writing English the way it really is.
 * You know, I went to a seminar a long time ago. There were nine speakers, three scientists, three visual artisans (like graphic designers) and three artists.  Only one of them was an idiot.  The premise of the seminar was "Over thousands of years, artists have, by trial and error, figured out how the human brain processes images.  Check all this out!" and then the scientists would show us paintings and drawings and sculptures and explain how the brain deals with them in ways that shouldn't make sense.  I could probably find some information about it.  I think it could provide some perspective. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:55, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * "The cause is not known", when written as an assertion of fact in a news article, is a false claim to know something that cannot be known both because we aren't psychic, and because we can only verify things about the past, never about the present, with a side order of omitting essential information by not specifying who. That's been explained to you several times, so you have no excuse not to understand it. --Pi zero (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2019 (UTC)