User talk:Amgine/Archive1

Earliest messages
Thanks for the quick response to this issue. I fear that since so many revisions are affected, that the article still may have to go through the delete process. You may want to conisider re-starting your project at a new Wikinews namespace - perhaps something like "Special Report: 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami" to both clarify the intent of your article and to mitigate the anonymous c&p vandalism. - Davodd | Talk 21:54, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the IRC conversation on this and the quick resolution. Davodd | Talk 22:36, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi. I think that it's in the best interests of Wikinews to not include a date in the article title -&mdash; especially not one that looks like a large number. Given the fact that the software tracks dates, and that we can easily categorize articles into the appropriate date category, it would be much cleaner to have titles that simply state what the news is. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:55, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying. While you are right that "President addresses congress" might happen many times, that is actually a headline that we should never have &mdash; it does not tell anything new. In my opinion the headlines should always be unique because if they weren't, it wouldn't be news that we should be reporting. At times conflicts will happen, and it is at that time that we might want to either change the headline to be unique, or add a day, or year, or whatnot.
 * The problem with the YYMMDD format is that it is undecipherable to most people who see the number (which does show up in the headline), and it's not the current wikinews policy. While I personally don't think always putting dates in the titles is a good idea, if you believe that it is worth doing then you should probably try to build consensus via a posting on the water cooler or the style page, or by creating a poll. -- IlyaHaykinson 08:04, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * For the current revision of the content guidelines see Writing_an_article, as well as style guide and content guide. Those are of course not set in stone, but I think there is some amount of consensus on those at this point in time. I urge you to voice your opinion on the talk pages, and possibly get a poll going to decide this if you still disagree after reviewing those guidelines. -- IlyaHaykinson 11:20, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your wonderful templates
Thanks for helping in the process of creating Wikinews guidelines, how-tos and policies for editors and reporters. Looking at your template skills today, I was wondering if you'd be willing to create a variation with dummy text in it that we could use in one of the user guides. This could be particularly useful for people experimenting with Wikibureaus so they could use them as a starting point. The most recent experiments in the area are rather lacking -- despite the probable future need for localized bureaus. Examples: ( Indiana and Texas) -- Davodd | Talk 08:25, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working on it. I've browsed your sandbox and it looks very good even in initial stages. -- Davodd | Talk 11:43, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

copy-paste case
Hi. I owe many thanks to many things as we collaborated rather intensively, please so allow me not to start listing all those here ;-). I just noticed that you made a comment on Administrators regarding Davodd's self-nomination.

Personally I am not yet supporting him (simply waiting a little more to understand him better), but I thought perhaps your concern there was successfully addressed?

I also wanted to get your opinion, if there is any, on Deletion_requests. I am now thinking that perhaps people do not know about this much, but it is possible to delete specific revisions with Mediawiki 1.4. To do that, an admin will delete a whole page (all revisions) first and restore selected revisions. Tomos 08:00, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Your mailing list post
Regarding the main page, there is an effort to rework it going on now: Main_Page/Sandbox and I believe Main_Page/Sandbox2 and Main_Page/Sandbox3 as well, plus a wide version and something else.

Regarding the organization of the water cooler- I really don't think this is where we can help people keep organize, although I agree, a Policies and Guidelines page is a good idea (I actually think we have one somewhere, I'll try to see if I can't find it and link it more promentiatly). Otherwise, I tend to think of the water cooler as the place for people to ask questions- and not ness. somewhere to look things up. Lyellin 16:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Some replies- Firstly, the mailing list is there because some people communicate that way, and use it. I subscribe, but I wanted to provide some wikilinks to you, so I choose to reply here, instead of on the list. Personal preference, not some large scale policy, just what I felt like doing at the time.


 * I agree, the wikipedia page provides a specific purpose. But I question our need or want to become a clone of wikipedia in that regard. We really do not have that many things going on that we need 6 pages for the pump... we just don't have that much discussion yet. On the same token, if someone feels like doing all of that, I won't object- I just don't think it's needed as of you.


 * with regards to the FAQ, I agree, but since many things are still in decision making mode, and not set policy, some of that is premature- and we also have things like the Style guide that serve much of the same purpose, for wikinews specific issues. Those "most questions" you talk about- I believe they are answerable on the water cooler now. I don't see the issue.


 * On the issues of Policy. Please see polls, linked on the recent changes page. There we are discussing policy. There are other examples of this. Again, I agree, there is no central clearing house like a policy and guideline page, but I don't see the utter chaos that you seem to; I see a group making it's mark, just as slowly as any other wiki. We will not be up to WP speed and level of organization just out of the blue- it will take time, just like WP has. If you think we need more policies, or policies about policies, please post on those pages, or start your own, regarding what policies you think we need. Lyellin 20:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * You may also want to try Help:Contents, another page, and Welcome. Lyellin 20:30, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wanna help create the WN community page?
I've started creating a Wikinews commmunity page called The Newsroom and from your recent mail list post, I thought you would, 1. want to know what I'm doing... and 2. add links to some of the Water Cooler reorg pages you are making in one of the sections. Feel free to mess around in it or boldy edit to your heart's content. -- Davodd | Talk 06:28, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I just want to make sure I get the correct links to the right Water Cooler sections after you are done -- to be complimentary with each other. (and not have dead links) -- Davodd | Talk 07:31, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Water cooler sections
Thanks for pointing out your "sections" design. I like it.

I don't think anyone is so attached to the existing water cooler design that we need Yet Another Poll before your new design can be implemented.

If you want to migrate the existing water cooler page design to the new one you are proposing, I will move the subpages I just created into the appropriate section pages once the new page design is ready to use.

Thanks.

&mdash; DV 04:36, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * You know, I look at that "200,000 ROYALTY FREE IMAGES" box sitting on the shelf everytime I stop in Fry's and I always ask myself, "why would I ever need that?"


 * Unfortunately, Fry's closes in 10 minutes, so I won't be able to run out and buy it, return home, and triumphantly provide you with a water cooler icon. :)


 * But seriously, if you can't find anything on the Commons or on Google, and you're not artistically inclined enough to draw one yourself, please let me know and I will draw one in Illustrator and post it in the Commons.


 * &mdash; DV 04:56, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * You're hosting the image on your own site before you got permission to use it? If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. :)


 * While you can do what you want on your own site, you may come to regret having Wikinews using your bandwidth to serve that image.


 * If you really want to use that image as a long-term solution, you need to be specific with the owner to get a GFDL or PD license with no extra usage restrictions, so the image can be posted in Commons. Wikinews isn't like Wikipedia - it has stricter licensing that requires unmodified GFDL or PD-style licenses - no fair use or non-commercial licenses are allowed on Commons, because that repository is compatible with use by other sites which may use the images for commercial purposes under the GFDL license.


 * &mdash; DV 06:59, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * I should clarify that text on Wikinews appears to be in the public domain for now.


 * But Wikinews images aren't hosted on Wikinews - they're hosted on Commons, which has its own licensing. &mdash; DV 07:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Minor edits to Water cooler
As a heads up -- I did some minor edits to the watercooler - I changed your (subpages) to /subpages - this allows an automated wiki code to kick in-- inserting a BACK PAGE function to allow people to more easily return to the Water Cooler. Second, I categorized it. Comments are on the Talk page. -- Davodd | Talk 10:20, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Activating the "backpage" feature of wiki code is rather simple once you understand it's only a matter of choosing the correct name for the file - for example:
 * Mainpage/subpage will point back to Mainpage
 * whereas Mainpage subpage OR Mainpage (subpage) will NOT point back to Mainpage
 * Hope that helps. -- Davodd | Talk 18:01, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I understand the concept, now how do I use it? ? - Amgine 18:07, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I apologize for being unclear or if you felt insulted by my use of the word "understand" in the previous post. When you name a page with this format: Mainpage/subpage, Wiki automatically inserts the backpage function - no additional code is necessary. I just figured out this trick a couple of days ago, understanding the little features of wiki (which constantly change as new updates are released) - including the subpage naming structure, seems to be a continual process for all of us. :-) -- Davodd | Talk 22:31, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I use the MonoBook (default) skin. -- Davodd | Talk 22:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I only "moved" the Water cooler (policy) to Water cooler/policy - which automatically inserted " < Wikinews:Water cooler " directly under the main subpage name. The name of the article does it automatically. (It's all in that slash) -- Davodd | Talk 23:13, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * This feature is a relatively new addition in one of the more recent versions of Wiki software. For existing, long-lived pages like the Wikipedia Water Cooler, the pages haven't been converted to this system yet. But others in Wikipedia have. A further benefit to this is that in the instance of a random page (or Google-type search engine) redirect to a subpage, the user can be directed back to the parent article -- which may not be readily apparant if the subpage is stumbled upon. As for "wikinewsie" -- it was used on Wiki IRC chat a few times and I thought it was cute, although I prefer wikireporter, myself. -- Davodd | Talk 18:54, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IPs and Jimbo
Yeah, I'm aware of the Jimbo CNET Q&A -- and logged them in Making news. I knew the Q&A was coming out within the next few days (a friend of mine works at CNET as an editor) Hence my request last night for admins to clean up some of the speedy delete requests - to pick up some of our mess for when the guests "come a-callin." As for dynamic vs. static IP addresses, I understand I'm shooting in the dark. But following a similar wikipedia policy of welcoming all IPs with red talk pages, the hope is to either catch them as they continue to browse, or hope you got someone with a static IP. -- Davodd | Talk 19:22, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * To clarify .. it's an established practice at WP - not a "codified policy" - but in wiki generally accepted or established practies and policies are the same, really, since virtually no policy is ever set in stone. -- Davodd | Talk

Good Job in the Policy page
In case you didn't read my comments elswhere: I think you've done a great job on the WN policies page - very clear and easy to understand. I don't think we can stress enough that current "policies" are guidelines [not laws] and are constantly evolving. I linked it to the Category:Wikinews page last night. -- Davodd | Talk 19:58, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)