User:The bellman/Writing Contest

March

 * 21: Kofi Annan unveils UN reform plan
 * 22: EU looks set to continue arms embargo on China
 * 23: Chess legend avoids 10 year prison term
 * 24: Arab summit comes to an end
 * 25: UN Security Council approves peacekeepers for Sudan
 * 26: Protests continue at Baxter detention centre
 * 27: Chinese government to safeguard old Beijing
 * 28: First bird flu case in North Korea
 * 29: Australians more concerned by global warming than terrorism, says Lowy report
 * 30: New Zealand praised by NATO Secretary General
 * 31: Pressure building on Myanmar to decline ASEAN chair

April

 * 01: Bus drivers to strike in Auckland
 * 02: Australian Treasurer told to 'try harder on welfare'
 * 03: Names of Australians killed in helicopter crash released
 * 04: Desmond Tutu calls for election of African pope
 * 05: Arinze and Tettamanzi equal favorites as new Pope
 * 06:

Comments
First ill start by (hopefully) speaking for everyone on wikinews by thanking you both for your contributions to helping to build the world's greatest news service. It seems that DV's complaints against Dan100 are less about style less than substance; by this i mean that DV is complaining about the way that Dan100 goes about doing things rather than the things he does. Now the process of mediation requires compromise by both sides, and for compromise to work each party needs to understand the other's position, so ill try and help here; starting with DVs complaints


 * Misleading characterization of his edits
 * Removed one of Paulrevere2005's edits with the comment "rv vandalism".

I think that the mischaracterisation of his edit was a misunderstanding. From what i can see he believed (rightly or wrongly) that Pr's request for deleation was not releated to the article's content, but was part of a vendetta against him. Vandalism was perhaps the incorrect word to use, but not too far off (if we look at the edit as part of a vendetta - just to make it clear, it doesnt matter if it was or not, just that Dan thought it was). Deleating the comment however, seems against the spirit of the wiki, however i think Dan learnt from this, since (as far as i am aware) he hasn't deleated a comment by another user again. Dan, do you agree that other users comments should not be deleated? if so can we put this matter to rest?


 * Deleting rather than fixing
 * Deletion requests (http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews%3ADeletion_requests&diff=0&oldid=39854)
 * Frivolous deletion request for Time for North Americans to spring ahead one hour!
 * Frivolous deletion request for Flora springing into Spring in Mid-Atlantic coastal region, USA

From the comments left by Dan (sorry if im misrepresenting you anywhere - please correct me if i am) he considered these articles to be 'soft news', which they are. Dan didnt believe soft news was appropriate for wikinews. By the reaction on deleation requests, it seems most contributors believe soft news fits into our mission, however there were a couple of dissenters (other than dan). So this has set a precedent about community opinion. Dan are you willing to accept that community opinion is in favour of most weather releated articles? if so it would seem that listing similar articles in the future for deleation would not gain anything, so are you willing to only try to push for the removal of soft news from wikinews on talk pages, rather than listing them for deleation?


 * Deleted a map, calling it "crazy"

The adjective 'crazy' wasnt entirely misplaced, considering the size of the pic. Obviously the size of the pic was a mistake by the origanal editor. Now by removing the pic Dan improved the article, by adding it back in DV improved it even more. This is a nice display of the power of the wiki really. Dan did not add anything to the article - even though it would have been very easy indeed to have written thumb - but he did polish the article and make it better. Copyproofing is an important part of wikinews.


 * Lack of edit summaries
 * Deleted a byline with no edit summary, while not inserting the location somewhere else.
 * Insulting remark about Beijing

This has now been overtaken by policy. Bylines are no longer used.


 * Derides the work of others
 * Derides another contributor's article as a "joke"
 * Refuses to apologize

Firstly just an offtopic question to Dan - why are there inverted commas around Autumn? Now, if i understand this correctly, Dan said "This is getting beyond a joke" which, certainly where i come from (Australia, which tends to have similar coloquial english to certain british dialects), has a different meaning to actually calling something a joke. I would characterise it as a statement of exasperation at the second bit of soft news with in a few days. Dan, i dont think sees that he has done anything wrong, and so his reluctance to apoligise seems understandalbe. The question really is if Alan J Franklin feels he is owed an apology. I've asked him on his talk page. We'll see what happens.


 * Quick to judge
 * Asks that Amgine administrative privileges be revoked for a simple mistake.

Indeed, yet him and Amgine still seem to get on well. DV is not the first one to not that Dan is quick to judge. Would you agree with this crtisism dan?


 * Does not seek consensus for policy or guideline changes.

Personaly, im confused. Dan what say you to [User:Uncle G|Uncle G]]'s comments on the reporter tools talk page? We do have a policy of 'be bold' but we also have a policy that reverting is bad