User talk:CGorman/April 2005

Morning
hard vacuum ==

sux. The Apr1 article does too. The Schiavo article? single source, possible prank? etc. But I just had my boat hauled out of the water so I can't deal with any of this... (and I'm not on my machine) - Amgine 19:06, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey, the Schiavo article was not a prank! I'd never do such distasteful thing. I simply felt that it was an interesting and relevant story that deserved to be told. PS Sorry CGorman for hijacking your talk page! Dan100 (Talk) 23:20, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Also, the voting in Zimbabwe is completed... we should probably not leave that in template:Second lead. - Amgine 19:08, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * And, in case I haven't mentioned it recently... THANK YOU! you've been doing great work, and I at least appreciate it. (even if I'm not particularly sunny today). - Amgine 19:10, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pope = great idea, CGorman! will look at your article when I have a chance... - Amgine 22:40, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re: Pope dies story
I had a similar one, but I hadn't put it up yet...I wasn't sure if it was cool to actually save the file before the fact and just not link to it from anywhere but my page. I decided to make a sandbox like you did: teeks99Sandbox, check it out.

Wikinews Wikistats
Just a quick note that Erik Zachte's Wikistats are now available for 6 Wikinews editions (dated March 9, 2005). Perhaps you find some useful information in there, and could add links to the relevant pages.--Eloquence 10:15, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your user page
I shamelessly stole the format of your user page for the first couple of sections of my user page.

I appreciate that you chose to share a little bit about what motivated you to start contributing to Wikinews, your plans for the site, and most importantly, your personal opinions and biases. I don't run across that kind of honesty very often on the net. In a world filled with hidden political agendas, your user page is a breath of fresh air.

Thanks for helping to build a community. Thank you for leading by example.

Regards,

&mdash; DV 22:45, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Padding around the third lead
I noticed that you removed the padding values from the third lead article. Do you think it looks better without it?

I added the extra space back in once before, because it's distracting to the eye for the text to sit flush against the edge of the shaded background.

I don't want to change the formatting back a second time if you really think the leads look better flush against the edge, so please let me know if that was intentional or not.

Either way, I'm hoping the second and third leads can use consistent padding. &mdash; DV 12:51, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Trophy


Although I kinda regard the whole sub-pages/index thing as being a bit broken, I can't let your sterling work in holding them together go unnoticed. But you might want to have a look at the work Amgine has been doing on the back-end of South America. I've just been having a quick go with it and it seems to be working quite well! Dan100 (Talk) 22:42, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

chuckling
It really made my day... because I almost did it too, the first time I saw it edit. As for South America... I started it, but didn't finish. Should get back to it, but I'm distracted at least until Saturday. - Amgine 20:27, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I was going to do the trophy too... you're doing fabulous stuff here!


 * Script: Fabulous! That was great fun! Let's do this... I think twice a year though; maybe on Summer and Winter Solstice? We need to come up with a great award title though... I think we should open the script up for additions, say June 1, and then we all work on it together, and officially publish it (with, of course, sub-articles about the awards ceremony) on the Solstice. - Amgine 21:02, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Secrecy: I could see it done secretly, or very openly so everyone can have a hand in it. It would not be good to do it on another project's space, however. Maybe on Meta, or either Ilya or my public wiki installations would be fine I'm sure. I guess if I had to state a preference, I'd lean slightly toward public, with the "surprise" being the various articles people add to it (for example, my exclusive after-awards interview with [award-winner] about [something provocative], or the bi-annual worst-dressed-for-the-awards article.) - Amgine 21:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DPL on the Region pages
I put in on Africa and Asia I think (I just copied and pasted the code from South America, then quickly went through it changing the category names appropriately). I didn't put it in on Europe and Oceania as I believe there's other editors keeping them updated manually at the moment and didn't want to tread on their toes. (I didn't get as far as checking North America but I bet it's the same story.) DPL is great for pages that aren't getting much love right now. Dan100 (Talk) 20:41, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * OK I went through the rest and now the only pages which don't use DPLs is Oceania and Europe. I'll leave it up to you with what to do about Europe, but we should probably ask the people looking after Oceania what to do before making any changes. It seems to be Borofikin (sp?) and an IP who've recently worked on it. Dan100 (Talk) 21:08, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I've templated and DPL'ed most of the Topic pages now too. They all have consistent look and feel and auto-update (providing this right cats are put on stories). The only ones I didn't do are Obituraries (seems to be best maintained by hand, which is being done), Wackynes (seems to be looked after) and Economy and business, which is mainly looked after by you. Same deal as with Europe - if you want, we can install DPLs on it too. Dan100 (Talk) 12:02, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!
I will grab that code that DV is using...PS...is it possible someone was playing with the Hello template and changed it to repeatedly call me to my talk page? I have no new messages there, but I am being told I do continually. Thank you for taking a look at this minor glitch, CGorman... --HiFlyer 20:59, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please reconsider your decision
Hi CGorman,

I noticed you removed the Las Vegas police raid story from the Second Lead article template with a comment that "DV's getting carried away".

Over a thousand news outlets covered this story today, and it is one of the top stories on CNN.com (one of the top 100 largest sites on the net) as I write this (it's in the top "More Stories" section of their site).

Increasing Wikinews' traffic isn't our only goal, but I think it was a mistake to quickly remove the story from the Second Lead. It would have brought us a lot of traffic today.

The story was covered by the international press today (as far away as India), and the story is a well-researched, well-written piece with over half a dozen supporting sources that presents a comprehensive overview of today's developments in the case.

To explain my motivation, I'm trying to get away from writing quick, three graf news summaries and focusing on writing one in-depth piece every day, so I was surprised that you wrote off this story so easily.

It's no big deal, I won't restore the story if you feel strongly about not featuring the story, but this is hardly a local story. I believed the story met the recommended criteria for Second Lead as suggested in the template comments, or I wouldn't have posted it.

Regards,

&mdash; DV 02:41, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your consideration. It's no big deal. Yesterday's story is kind of old so it's not worth featuring it again.


 * There are new developments in the story that I am researching for today. Associated Press researchers found court records showing that Anna Ayala has a history of filing lawsuits against other businesses, including one against a car dealership and another one against a popular chain of chicken restaurants, so this story definitely has legs (please excuse the bad pun). &mdash; DV 19:08, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DPL for Romania
The DPL feature is great, especially when it automatically adds new articles to categories within country pages! It's good to see Wikinews adding more and more features that distinguish it from Wikipedia and therefore make its interface more in context with a news site. By the way, it's great to see Ryanair being the featured article on Wikipedia today! Cheers, Ronline 12:18, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) (PS: Do you like the new style sheet? I think it's a tad too white - at first I thought my browser had a problem because it didn't load the book background!)

Well, I just checked Economy and business and saw that it's implemented there as well! Love to see the Romanian articles about Economy and business appearing in latest news. This is great stuff :)

Banning anon
Anon has already been banned for 6 days for multiple page vandalism. - Amgine 20:33, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, Eloquence banned the anon... I can't do so as I've given up my adminship temporarily (I have a vacation coming up, and won't be around to help out, so it isn't fair to have the adminship and not be active.) - Amgine 20:43, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Greetings
Hi CGorman, thanks for your message :). -- Mathias 20:09, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Romania and the EU
Thanks! I hope EU accession will indeed benefit Romania as much as possible. Already, the country has changed significantly... there are new buildings coming up all over the place, new technologies, new investments, etc. The difference between Romania and the other countries in Southeastern Europe is also becoming greater... only being an EU candidate country already helps a lot in terms of getting an edge for investment and development. Most of all, I'm glad that you want to visit Romania. Have you been to other places in Central and Eastern Europe? There are indeed many great, and diverse, places to see. By the way, I'm going to visit the UK in about a month, I'll probably come into Ireland for a while as well. I'd especially like to visit the ghaeltacht areas. Cheers, Ronline 11:16, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sebino
Thank you ! Sebino 12:18, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

pl
They worked very hard... and today they are working on some infrastructure stuff. Personally, I was amazed. - Amgine 20:42, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Realtime chat is fixed. Try again. - Amgine 21:04, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Irish and the gaeltachts
I've indeed noticed while I was in Dublin a few years ago the Irish reaction to the gaeltachts, which wasn't all that great. I've talked to several Irish people about the Irish language and did receive several mixed opinions. It's interesting what you said about people disliking the Irish language subject in school. It reminds me of the experience I had in Finland, where everyone must learn Swedish as a compulsory language, being an official language of Finland. The dislike for the language is very widespread and very strong in some parts. But the Irish situation is different... I mean, most people in Ireland have Irish background, hence Irish is their language! It's strange that they dislike learning it, and would prefer to speak English instead, considering the historical background of England's involvement in Ireland. Actually, I've always wanted to ask you - when I was in Dublin, I always heard English around me, but everyone seemed to interlace Irish words into the language. Do most people in Ireland speak Irish fluently, since they learn in for 13 years at school? And in the Gaeltacht, do people speak good English?

It's great that Romanian EU membership made it as headline news on RTÉ, and even better to see that Ireland is such a good member state of the EU. The EU is treated very importantly there, just how it's treated in Romania. Over here, the EU is in the news everyday, for a significant amount of time. With Ireland, in no other country in the EU-15 have I seen so much talk of the EU and in general so much enthusiasm towards European integration. In countries like Sweden and Finland, no-one cares about the EU, and if anything, they're constantly criticising it. It's also interesting to see that public opinion about the EU in some of the new member states, like Estonia and Czechia, is also taking a downturn recently, which is really bad thing to see! Ronline 01:49, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Could you change a MediaWiki namespace thing for me?
Twice now I've heard is suggested that we should append the current From Wikinews, the free news source (BETA) text with that you can write!, once in the mailing list archive and once again on IRC from someone who was looking at Wikinews for the first time. I have to say I think it's a great idea. Could you make the change so it reads "From Wikinews, the free news source (BETA) that you can write!"? Dan100 (Talk) 22:59, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * The item which needs to be modified is MediaWiki:Tagline, which is not editable by other than admin... I was wrong. - Amgine 23:11, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Lol, I just spent ten minutes looking for that page - CGorman should be able to edit it, he's got admin status Dan100 (Talk) 23:20, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I edited the page. It's not possible to have wiki or HTML markup in the tagline, thus I put the "that you can write!" in as just text. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:11, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * :( oh well, thanks for trying. Could we perhaps replace Random page (which is of minimal use in my opinion) in the left-hand menu with, say, 'Write a story'? I know we have the Workspace link but if you don't know what the Workspace is, that's not of much use Dan100 (Talk) 07:30, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Or just change the text of the Article workspace link to something more descriptive like 'Write/edit stories' Dan100 (Talk) 07:32, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * If you do fancy having a go at changing that, the page is MediaWiki:Portal Dan100 (Talk) 20:34, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * That might be a bit drastic... i don't like being bold with such significant things, i'll wait till someone else weights in on this. → CGorman (Talk)  20:36, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Catagories
That list should be added to the WN:SG in some manner. -- Davodd | Talk 04:49, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Coverage map
Thanks for the map! It's great to see Romania featuring there so strongly, with Ireland and the UK. It is perhaps more disappointing to see that Romania is an island of green in a sea of red and orange! I will try to write today articles about some neighbouring countries, especially Hungary and Latvia, which are beautiful places but have no articles about them.

As to the Irish issues, I understand that Ireland is not of particular use economically - you're right in saying that what gave Ireland a competitive advantage in the Celtic Tiger era is its English-language skills (something, which today is giving countries like Romania an advantage over say, Russia, which doesn't have people with as good English skills). If they know Irish though, they can still know English! I think that having the language as a compulsory subject is important for the Irish culture to be maintained... the same goes for Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. More important than all is probably the need to make the learning more efficient, because if they learn it in high school even at standard level, they should still be able to speak it later on, at least conversationally. I learnt German when I was in high school and while I wouldn't say I speak it fluently, I'm still able to speak it quite well conversationally. But teaching a language based only on a textbook reminds me of learning Latin! Dialogue, listening comprehension, reading out loud, all of these are really important. I do concede though that it's really hard to learn Irish for an English speaker. Even the phrasebooks are impossible to understand, though in my opinion the language is great to listen to. When I was in Ireland, I loved listening to TG4, though I didn't understand a word!

I have heard about the crackdown in the Gaeltacht - they apparently want to make all public signs in Irish only, I think. It's good that they speak English though... it should be easy for me to get around :) Concerning immigrants into Ireland, there weren't as many as I would have thought there to be... especially in comparison to the UK! I hear, though, that more and more people are coming every year, especially from the new member states. It's interesting to see that there's many people from the Baltic states... the Baltic states are in many ways similar to Ireland's economic experience through the 1990s... they're going through that now, experiencing their own "Baltic Tiger" era. I actually spent last summer on the Baltic coast, in Estonia, and it was really really great! So that's about it... back to some article writing ;) Ronline 09:26, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * in absolute terms Ireland had an amount equal to 1/3 of the number of immigrants into the UK last year from Eastern Europe - despite our population being just 1/15 of the UK's. That indicates a far higher rate of immigration per capita in Ireland. - yes, I suppose that's true due to all of Europe's attention being on Ireland - it was especially a big thing for you to host the EU presidency right when the accession countries were joining. But, anyway, I still noticed far more immigrants per capita in the UK (well, London, so it's probably not true in the other parts) that in Dublin. This will probably change in the next ten or even five years.


 * You seem to be very very well traveled - and I must mention, your English is brilliant! - Thanks! I work as an interpreter here in Romania, so I have learnt English quite extensively. I also went on exchange to London during university and keep in touch with English literature, etc. I also do a bit of graphic design, advertising and art, so English helps with that too. Concerning travel, I travelled a lot right after university - spent a year in Europe, that's went I went to Ireland for the first time, I also went nearly everywhere else in Europe as well :) I love travelling, so I'm still doing it now! I actually worked in Estonia for a few months and made of lots of friends there so that's why I keep on going there so often. That place is really addictive... I came by ferry from Helsinki and the first one or two hours you're there, you really hate it, but then it all just turns around and you never want to leave! For summer the Baltic coast is great because you can have as much fun as in Ibiza but without as many crowds... and much cheaper too! I really loved it there. This summer I'm going down to Varna on the Bulgarian coast... as close as it is to Romania, I've never been there before. I also go travelling to look into European languages, so that's why the gaeltacht should be a great place for me, as are the Baltic states with their unique languages. Ronline 06:14, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to User:Pella Kenshett
(Block log); 08:06. . Eloquence (Talk | block) (blocked "User:Pella Kenshett" with an expiry time of infinite: severe vandalism) Oh well, at least we are welcoming to all ppl, even if they are the scum of the earth. ~The bellman | Smile 11:44, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh well, far better to be trigger happy and welcome everyone including vandals, than to not welcome newbies. :) ~The bellman | Smile  12:04, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re: "welcome"
Hi. I haven't yet created an account on Wikinews, since I've no intention to contribute much here (bit of an ostrich really, head in the sand most of the time), and I pointed to my user page over on Wikipedia. The IP is a proxy at my ISP, and I have tagged that page as such. Thanks for the warm word of welcome, though. I appreciate the effort that some users put into making sure new people get a good impression, and are helped through their first steps. Chris 22:29, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re: welcome, too
Hello! I was very surprised to see a new post on my talk page only because I just searched for an image on the german wikipedia that would fit into a news article about the new memorial in Berlin and put it in. No great effort, just 2 clicks and trying to help. I have to associat myself with my previous speaker: I won't be that active here in the english wikinews, though it is my Start page but I do make myself to much stress with other forums which I also like very much, so I don't have too much time for nice projects as wikipedia or wikinews, but I hope I can here and there help a bit if i can!

Greets, Nasenatmer 21:43, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Pope story
Thanks for the pre-write on Story preparation; very useful today! We beat both BBC and Reuters to the story today Dan100 (Talk) 16:32, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ecuador story
I spent consederable time on thisEcuador story. I believe the originating contributor is reliable. You will note interest in this in the discussion page and attempted vandalism probably by contributor when the story didn't get instantly moved along. Can you visit this to see if dispute tag can be removed... -Edbrown05 20:54, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your timely assist! Yup, the FT headline is the flatest thing I read for awhile!! Leaving now, so glad you got to that story quickly. -Edbrown05 21:30, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

COTW
G'day,

COTW looks awesome with the map. Really shows which part of the world is forgotten about by most ppl.

~The bellman | Smile 06:06, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adminship
Vandalism is indeed growing to be a big problem and it is more persuasive than any other vandalism I have found. On ro.wiki, we've never actually had vandalism on the main templates that show on the main page - mainly we experience people creating new pages with swear words and all that, but most of all it's problems with NPOV... their actually more of a pain to deal with than vandalism. I've actually been through two weeks of having to talk through lengthy discussions with people about POV in two important articles. So, anyway, I've applied for adminship, it's true that I'm generally alone when I contribute, and vandalism solving should be a top priority if we're to become a reputable news source. Cheers, Ronline 08:21, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Simeon's changes
As you have probably noticed, Simeon is intent on competely re-writing almost all the Wikinews namespace articles. I object to this on a number of fronts: there's no consensus for such changes, the pages have existed as they were for a long time which I believe is a sign the community accepts them as they are; the existing pages have all been carefully written and constructed by several editors to be the best they can be; and Simeon's changes are to make them grossly longer and harder to read. And I must be honest - a couple of the pages were written by me. I obviously don't mind people altering them, but I do object to them being destroyed. Dan100 (Talk) 08:26, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Winding down the Wikinews writing contest
Hello CG,

I'd like to ask you to comment before Monday on Wikinews talk:Writing contest. Thanks!--Eloquence 02:40, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the medal
Thanks for the Wikinews Medal of Persistance and also for your vote towards my adminship!! Ronline 10:03, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Till the end of April

 * Greetings CGorman, from sunny Houston, home of the Lap-Dance Law! Pingswept and Simeon have both agreed to split the prizes. How 'bout they split 1/2 and I take the other half!
 * But really, there are three winners here and I am honored to be among them. If someone can do the math and divvy it all up (I will yield my share of G-mail invites since I have amassed a few of them already on my own) then I think we should continue thru the end of the month, one article a day as we have been doing. If one of us bows out before then, so be it. If we all survive, we split. --HiFlyer 15:23, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pingswept's offer

 * I accept Pingswept's division of goodies, and would write one a day through the end of the month. Competition has been fun, but it's time to congratulate each other for a good job and wind down, IMO. --HiFlyer 14:27, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
You handle things well,imo. Paulrevere2005 20:53, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * I have to! I really would like wikinews to succeed and don't want anyone to hold grudges - we are a team, not rivals, enemies or whatever, we must work together to achieve our goals (I know it sounds sappy!) I beleive strongly in stopping disputes before they get out of control. I genuinely look forward to working with you in the future. → CGorman (Talk)  20:56, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks
A very belated thanks for your welcome message (I don't come here often.) You might want to use "subst" for your welcomes instead of just a transclusion though. That way the recipient isn't as likely to notice that it's a generic message. Isomorphic 03:44, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

couple of quick queries
the pope article has been taken down with a "not news" flag which says it would be up for deletion but i can't find it in the deletion group. Also, yesterday I wanted to reinsert background info into the abdullah/bush meeting story. amgine kept taking it out (twice) saying that 3 editors had removed it (consensus)..my question..Dan100,DV, and me wanted it in,so why would the other 3 be the "consensus" ..What makes a consensus??? Paulrevere2005 11:06, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)