Template talk:Sortedstories

What the community think abuot having an archives section with wikipedia articles from events 10,20, 100, 1000 years ago? That jsut got put in, would be interested to hear discussions. Lyellin 03:59, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Saying Wikinews in it is somewhat misleading as all links were to encylopedic articles on Wikipedia and we will never cover the fall of the Berlin Wall or such, so I don't see the purpose here. If this is to be an archive of our content, then we should wait for achived content. 119 04:04, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Brettz9's added categories
These are some good possibilities, but I think we should talk about them before adding them willy nilly.

+	 Local +	 	+	 Feel-good +	 	+	 Oddities +	 	+	 Tabloid +	 	+	 In-depth features +	 	+	 Alternative categorizations

- Amgine 04:28, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Fair enough...My apologies for jumping in with them...Although I hope to see all of them (Tabloid only for the sake of shuffling off stupid stories to their own section for those who are engrossed by them), I particularly feel there should be the ability to have experimental alternative categorizations. Oh, I might add "Religion" as a category.

Could we also have links on the main page leading to the subsections below? (And a Main Page Temp or the like to allow for experimentation?) Brettz9 04:35, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No apology needed. Just that the main page attracts a lot of attention, especially from wikignomes like me!

I like the idea of sub-sections, and experimental categorizations. Can you explain those a bit more, convince me of the soundness?


 * For links to subsections, my intention was to be able to click to go immediately down to, for example, the Sortedstories section of the main page. Right now, the page is very long, and if that is usually what I will be interested in, it takes a while to get there. (Sorry I should have added this to the main page talk instead).


 * For experimental categorizations, I think it is just nice to allow these to be added (Wikipedia has such a section too); I don't have any particular kind in mind at the moment besides the ones I just added. These alternative ones could also be comfortably proposed without needing then to be immediately well fleshed out.


 * But to give some more examples, one could do "news about women or from a woman's perspective" (e.g., women rebuilding after a war), etc., "news about children", (actually these could be under a section of being sorted by "protagonist type" or something like that. (NGO news, government news, etc. (as opposed to topical news like "politics")

Religion is likely to create controversary, natch. I support it, but I support peace more. - Amgine 04:41, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry, by the way, I didn't mean religion needed to be an alternative categorization, just another category.


 * But as far as controversy, since we're dealing more with facts here than beliefs (Wikipedia can describe beliefs), I don't think it will be quite as much of a challenge, unless people are going around claiming this or that miracle happened (though perhaps they could say that such-and-such people claimed to have seen such-and-such) (though I for one would hope it doesn't get really into focusing on these kinds of things, but anyways). There could also be an interfaith subsection (e.g., religious collaboration going on at whatever level, etc.--this could overlap with the proposed Feel-good section as the latter would not need to be limited to personal stories as the commercial news usually does it). Although some ignorant people make it into a contentious issue, religion has done a lot in history to actually unify people, and I would be hopeful that people of different Faiths (or no faith) could, while adhering to NPOV, highlight the charity work, the ethical training, etc. which such groups are working on, as this can often be eclipsed by the so-called religious people meddling in politics. Of course, there would be some conflicts and scandals that would be relevant to cover, but if we're going to allow news on one of the taboos (politics), why not the other? :)  Public television in the U.S. for example has managed to have a news program which highlight current developments in different Faiths without getting real controversial.


 * Oh yet another thought...How about a section for press releases? Does any service do this already--automatically post different organizations' press releases? Brettz9 05:14, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wow, great comprehensive response!

Let me address your first point: the main page is long, difficult to use, would be nice to have a menu-type list of links at the top -

We're aware of the problem, which has several facets. One of the ways we're addressing this is designing new layouts and templates. Here's a group of candidates which I'm aware of, but there may be more. Check Talk: Main Page for discussion on some of the issues:
 * Main Page/Sandbox
 * Main Page/Sandbox1
 * Main Page/Sandbox2
 * Main Page/Sandbox3
 * Main Page/Sandbox4

Experimental categorizations -

Sounds to me like these are aggregation categories, rather than actually topical or regional categories. Sort of like two newspaper cities; both draw their international news from the same wire services, and cover the same stories, but generally choose articles with different slants.

It should be quite easy to build a project-type page which would highlight a specific viewpoint/interest, such as your example of a feminist world-view. I would worry about a "religion" aggregation, since wiki experiences suggest the various factions would try to dominate with one or another viewpoint.


 * Isn't there the same concern about partisan politics (or feminist for that matter)? I would think, again, with the news, having items like "Dalai Lama visits...", "The Pope speaks out on..." are potentially important topics to many people, religious or not. It's nothing that any newspaper with a "Religion" section has to deal with (which is quite a few, from what I've seen). I did not mean that there would be any "slant" or special viewpoint except if you mean by this that certain stories might be of interest to a particular audience. But this proposed "protagonist" section (which is just one alternative categorization) need not necessarily be from the point of the view of the protagonist (though it could be too), but _covering_ the protagonist, in which case it would be a kind of topical categorization--but one which you are not likely to find so easily in a traditional categorization. For example, under what academic discipline would you find children or women, of racial/ethnic groups, of NGO's, etc.?  Possibly under "Sociology", but I think these would be too important (and broad) of categorizations to be embedded within this field that people might not think of.

However, you might be interested in the development of bureaus on Wikinews. These are regional focus groups, who are working on news in/from their areas. Similarly, topics such as the ones you mention would be just as valid, focusing on producing articles in a given subject matter. I would personally rather that certain types of bureaus do not form, such as religious bureaus, since they seem innately biased and therefore would not reflect well on Wikinews as a project, but I don't see anything wrong with them logically.


 * Thanks for the scoop on the bureaus. Well, I think there is going to be some unavoidable bias on any topic, but hopefully the collaborative environment can ensure good NPOV whatever it may be, particularly for religion whose goal is ostensibly, as with science for material and intellectual topics, Truth. I mean there is certainly a bias from agnostic/atheistic secular materialists as well, including efforts to squelch religion as even a topic in many public forums. I would hope that "neutrality" would not preclude wiki sites from constraining information about religion to marginal areas like overcommercialized holidays (or only about conflict for those who masquerade with a "religion") as it certainly has been in commercial broadcasting. Besides, what good are we doing in informing people if we don't report on the beliefs informing many people's actions?

As for Press Releases, yes there are groups which aggregate them. Check out the Reference desk; I think they have a list of them. - Amgine 06:43, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks... Brettz9 04:27, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * So, by the lack of other objections, are people amenable to the topics I originally posted being added back?