User:Simeon.A.Scott/Wikinews:Introduction to Wikinews

Welcome to Wikinews, the free news source written by you! Everything you read here is written by volunteers just like yourself. As well as starting your own articles, you can edit any page you see &mdash; expand, fix spelling mistakes, correct facts, make policy suggestions, talk to other Wikinews contributors ... !

What else is special about Wikinews?
First and foremost, because anyone can contribute, and because the articles are written collaboratively for a global audience, they approach a neutral point of view.

Wikinews, like its big sister Wikipedia, is run and funded by volunteers donating their time and money, and has no advertising. Decisions are made collectively, and we like to negotiate. Discussion is encouraged, and there are plenty of people to learn from.

Everything that's done on the wiki can be undone, so it's very friendly to new users. The interface is designed to be easy to use, and easy to learn.

And our policy is to omit opinion and commentary in our articles &mdash; if you want to tell the world what you think, try blogging.

Where do I start?
Some essentials are needed by anyone who would like to work on articles. For one thing, you will need to know how to edit a page. This should be enough to be able to fix typos.

Secondly, if you want to do more than rearrange existing content, you need to write content that is suitable for Wikinews.

Articles that are published appear on the Main Page. You could start off by reading some of those, you may find errors that need fixing, and get an idea of what others are writing here.

Articles that people think need work appear at Workspace. This is also where new articles start.

Communicating with other Wikinews users
A number of facilities exist in order to communicate your intentions, suggestions and questions, with other Wikinews users.


 * the 'Talk' page of each page here at wikinews - click on the 'Discussion' link at the top of any article to go to its associated Talk page. By editing the Talk page, you can leave comments for other readers. Each user who has edited Wikinews before also has a Talk page for their username, where you can leave comments for that user.


 * Article flags which invite people to work on certain aspects of an article, or inform them about the state of the article, including a number of common problems which arise.


 * The Water cooler is the place to discuss general Wikinews issues.


 * Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel #wikinews and #wikinews-en on irc://irc.freenode.net . You will not even need an irc client, if you use the web interface provided.

Guide to creating a new article
Not sure how to create a new article?

Like to know the whole process? Or just interested in improving your work?

If you would like to know all of the possible steps in creating a new article, from beginning to end, see Writing an article.

Still confused?
If you're lost, try Contents.

Not quite sure if this Wikinews is for you? Or if you are doing the right thing?

See Mission statement, What Wikinews is and What Wikinews is not.