User talk:Cmwhite/archive

Rwanda conference
Hello Clare,

the conference sounds very interesting, and original reporting from places like Rwanda is exactly what Wikinews needs in order to succeed. There are two ways I can see to make this work:


 * 1) Use the Submit a story interface. This way, all stories can be sorted out by Wikinews editors and put into the proper form before they hit the frontpage. We can try to educate your people about the policies and procedures of Wikinews. For this to work, it would make sense to know in advance that this is going to happen, then I can try to organize a group of volunteers on Wikinews to help.
 * 2) Have an on-location course on using Wikinews before asking people to write for it. Writing an article has most of the basic information, and Workspace has other helpful links. Essentially, I think without an introduction over a few hours, it will be difficult for your team to absorb the policies and procedures quickly enough to write reports.

If you want to choose the second option, I suggest familiarizing yourself with Wikinews to a degree that you feel comfortable writing stories for the site and putting them on the frontpage. If you run into any roadblocks in the process, feel free to leave me a message by going to User talk:Eloquence and clicking the "add comment" link. Using this knowledge, you could then educate your team before the conference on how to use Wikinews.

If you want to go the simple road, and leave the mentoring to the existing Wikinews community, again, please let me know ahead of time, and give me the exact dates when this is going to happen. A special section for this event is certainly doable; it will depend on the quality of the stories that come in, I think.--Eloquence 01:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Update: It looks as if the conference reporting is going to be less of a project, more something we will try and do during the conference. ClareWhite 16:41, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Clare: I think this proposal sounds like a great idea! Do the participants have internet access already? If so you could encourage them to start participating in Wikinews now, on any topic that interests them. There is no better way to learn than by doing, and the Wikinews community is very welcoming and helpful to newcomers. - Borofkin 08:16, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm developing a temporary Rwanda newshut here to help us newbies.ClareWhite 08:09, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stoke-on-Trent
Um, do you live in Stoke-on-Trent by any chance? - Borofkin 11:21, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Well guessed! Yes, do you? Am I supposed to post this reply on your page? ClareWhite 11:49, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Nope, I'm in Aus, but I have a friend who lives in Stoke, and I visited there a couple of times in 2003. Quite a nice place. Well, I mostly saw the pubs, but it seemed like a nice place. :-)
 * I'm not terribly sure where you are supposed to leave replies. If you leave them on my page I get a little message though, so I'm more likely to see it sooner. - Borofkin 12:10, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're kind - it's not a nice place :) Oh, maybe it's OK... ClareWhite 12:36, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Country of the Week
Yeah I'd love to see Rwanda as a country of the week. However I want to maintain a democratic voting system, so since i've given it one vote, it needs a second vote to promote it to the week of June 12; so please vote for it yourself. When you do so you can move it up above Belerus. Thanks for your interest in my ailing bid to counter regional bias! → CGorman (Talk)  21:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I want the country of the week to collide with your most suitable time, so since there is overwelling support for Rwanda, im going to give it a two week slot - now till the 19th. You submit stories as per usual, althought they should also be listed on Country of the Week to help keep records. To date, Country of the Week has produced 17 stories - check out the Rusults log. Im off to hunt on Google news for a good story. Slán (Irish for goodbye)! → CGorman (Talk)  20:48, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Genoicde
You know, genocide is a hard word to type. It's the c-d-e combination that does it, all typed with the left middle finger. I've missed the "d" about five times so far. - Borofkin
 * Oh, you'll get used to it..! Quite happy to correct your typos with all those stories on the front page! ClareWhite 08:26, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rwanda
The country of the week is advertised on the front page. Not sure how long it's been there, but it's quite visible at the top on the right.

I'm happy for you to email stuff to me and I can post it, although of course it is preferable that you or your group do the posting directly, as it introuduces sourcing issues, i.e. technically I would have to refer to your email as a source. In practise I would probably just post your material and note on the talk page that it was written by you.

You can email me here: d aZv i d. m aZc d o n a l d @Zunsw. edu. au Remove the spaces and the capital Z's to discover the email address. (I don't care about spam, I just like puzzles. :-)

- Borofkin 00:13, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * That's [mailto:davidmacdonald@unsw.edu.au davidmacdonald@unsw.edu.au]. I like solving puzzles :) NGerda 00:17, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, I got here too late! NGerda, I bet you're the sort of person who reads out the solutions to crosswords loudly on the train... ClareWhite 08:02, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In a similar spirit, I believe the UK is roughly the same timezone as Rwanda, so if you want any help on the wiki during the day, leave a note on my Talk page. Can't promise I'll pick it up straight away though, but it would most likely be within the hour. Dan100 (Talk) 08:39, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Stats
You'll be wanting to look at Awareness statistics. The RSS feed currently has 1,100 readers. Dan100 (Talk) 15:29, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks - that's the one! ClareWhite 15:35, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

archive
Hello, you created your archive in main article space, please move it to your user space, such as User:Cmwhite/archive or User_talk:Cmwhite/archive Thanks. BTW great work on the Rwanda project --Cspurrier 15:39, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * sorry, think that's changed now, thanks

Refugee crisis
Hi Clare! I've knocked out some stories on the developing refugee crisis in Burundi that you may want to have a quick look at. I'm not sure that many other people are reviewing the Rwandan articles.

I've used french keyboards before and they're terrible... keys all over the place!

Also note that my email address is david.macdonald@unsw.edu.au (note the period between the names) - Borofkin 07:38, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Speed
Things worked great this morning. I had your report published and on the main page within 5min of its submission. It was just lucky that I was here at the right time. Again thanks for all your effort. By the way I welcomed your IP address - I only realised after that it was you. → CGorman (Talk)  21:27, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Happy to help
Hi Clare,

Let me know if I can be of any assistance. I'm on a sporadic connection, but this is exactly the sort of thing that I think Wikinews should be doing. Pingswept 02:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Excellent Job!
I would really like to commend you for doing such an excellent job of being a first-hand journalist in Rwanda. I have been acting sort of as your "support group", and I try my very hardest to make sure your stories are developed, published, and seen by as many people as possible. Keep up the great work! NGerda 20:31, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Live report on Wikinews World Report
Hi Clare! We are starting up a 24-hour WikiNews Network that features live and pre-recorded content. To show the Wikinews community that a live Wikinews World Report program is both feasible and NPOV, I have decided to create a demo show to display to the community that this could be feasible and NPOV. To do this, we would need people from around the world to gives us live or prerecorded reports (preferably live), and be available to discuss events more in-depth (staying NPOV). I would greatly appreciate it if you would be willing to do a live report and interview live from Rwanda for us. If you have a microphone and a computer, you can use the free Skype software (available on any platform) to talk live to the show's host at the studio. If that is not feasible, then you can give us a phone number to contact you at and a time period (in UTC, Rwanda is UTC+2) you are available at that number. We will contact you ahead of time to make sure we can reach you, and then you will go live. If you have any questions, just drop a message by at my talk page, and keep up the great reporting! NGerda 08:47, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

Manslaughter
Hi Clare, which list are you talking about? :) Dan100 (Talk) 08:32, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh I see - the developing story DPL. I've rv'd it. Dan100 (Talk) 08:44, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I've put it back. But it's worth nothing that little stubs like that rarely get developed - it's pure laziness on the part of the creator. People don't take ideas and write them - why should they? Dan100 (Talk) 08:55, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Clare, are you on MSN messanger Y! chat or anything? I'd love to talk to in 'real-time' Dan100 (Talk) 09:16, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * If you are, just mail me your address :-) Dan100 (Talk) 09:16, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've replied on me Talk page Dan100 (Talk) 14:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You might want to use Reporter's tools if you don't already - makes doing sources and dates a bit easier! Dan100 (Talk) 15:24, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

PS I see you found the ITN story about the bulldozing in Zimbabwe. I saw the report on telly but couldn't find anything anywhere on the web about it at the time (last week I think), so couldn't write a story at the time. Great that you've found it since! Dan100 (Talk) 15:26, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Probably worth spinning out into a seperate article, in fact Dan100 (Talk) 15:27, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Clare, do you mind if I hold back until tomorrow with the story about the bulldozing? I'd rather spread the two stories over two days, rather than have them both at once. Is that OK? Dan100 (Talk) 16:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Clair, can you get in contact with me?
My name is Brian Boyko - I'd like to talk to you about this story for something we're doing over at happynews.com. Can you give me an email at brian@happynews.com, and hopefully, I'll be able to explain all about it.

-- Brian Boyko -- Happynews.com

[deleted comment: make anonymous swipes somewhere else than my page please]

New Requested articles section
Hope you enjoy! Be sure to bring up any changes you would like to see made here.

They'll have to be done manually. NGerda didn't bother using tildes, so as it was we couldn't tell when anything actually was 24 hours old, but hopefully people will. Dan100 (Talk) 09:51, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Child porn law
Yeah Clare, I was aware that my writing wasn't NPOV. I couldn't really find a positive side, except the only one that seemed to be out there: "it protects children". If you can find someone talking positive things about this law, then go ahead and add onto it. Messedrocker 14:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

DPL use
Claire, it's really as simple as using the and  or  in your article. Now you don't have to worry about a thing when it comes to adding or deleting the link to your story from Developing stories or Latest news. Enjoy the easier system! :) --NGerda June 28, 2005 16:07 (UTC)

NGerda beat me to it, but here's my reply before I got a conflict:

Can you get on MSN?

If not, and if you want to do a story upload, just go to Story upload, and list your article there. Just make sure that somewhere in the text of your article is either or  Dan100 (Talk) 28 June 2005 16:08 (UTC)


 * Dan, I don't get your Story upload system. Where do those show up?  See Template:Developing stories/Manual.  That shows up within Template:Developing stories/Temp automatically, thereby being the same system as before for users who want to use the old system.

Claire, also check out Wikinews IRC and for more info on article tags, see Article stage tags. Happy writing! -- NGerda June 28, 2005 16:21 (UTC)

Article tags
Sorry to confuse you Claire, I know I've been talking a lot of techno jargon lately. All you have to do is use the tags as you do now. No other system. Just continue on as you have. The thing you don't have to worry about now is adding and subtracting your articles from the Developing stories list or the Published stories list. That is all done automatically. Happy writing! NGerda June 29, 2005 20:51 (UTC)

Thanks. Ya, go ahead.
Go ahead and vote on/discuss the proposed workspace. DPL features that some users said they were waiting for have just been implemented, so there might be more support for it now. It's just been quiet because there haven't been new developments until the DPL feature enhancement, which i think happened just yesterday. Kevin Baastalk June 29, 2005 23:02 (UTC)

Great to see you!
It's great, as always, to see you here at Wikinews! I just changed the lead article to a story about a conviction in the Rwandan Genocide. Happy writing! NGerda July 1, 2005 09:24 (UTC)

"Tires" not a typo
"Tires" is the correct spelling of the word for stories that are likely to be phrased in American english, just as "Tyres" is for those phrased in British english. Neither words are typos, although they of course will appear to be to some. Linkspro 12:25 UTC, July 6, 2005

Explosions
hi Clare, I'm getting my info from Yahoo News, they seem to have the wires live (what Radio 5 is working from) Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 08:53 (UTC)
 * Can you get on live chat? Click the "Real-time chat" link above if you can Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 08:58 (UTC)

Do you have a camera? Camera phone? Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 09:00 (UTC)

go go mail me Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 09:06 (UTC)

Clare are you ok? I guess you're being evacuated Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 09:23 (UTC)

I'm staying in my office, right opposite Euston. We should be OK here though we seem to be surrounded by it. ClareWhite 7 July 2005 09:26 (UTC)
 * Can you have another shot at mailing me? Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 09:39 (UTC)

Thanks Clare. If you can't get through you can't get through, don't worry about it Dan100 (Talk) 7 July 2005 09:53 (UTC)

London Explosions Original Reporting
According to this difference page you added the tag to the London Explosion article. Would you mind documenting your original reporting at Coordinated_terrorist_attack_in_London/Notes? I know things are really hot right now but there are so many reasons to document this information as you recieve/use it.
 * Establishes Wikinews as a respectable source for original reporting (gains trust)
 * Allows others to see your personal contributions
 * Provides readers with a look at what Wikinews included that other news services didn't
 * Allows for rapid fact checking
 * etc.

Thanks a ton. -- RossKoepke 7 July 2005 23:41 (UTC)

Still there?
I'm still around. I've been on leave for the last week, and will probably be lurking this week. How are things with you? - Borofkin 03:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Breaking News events organization
Clare, check out the site news, it's the least I could do :). I'm already hard at work on making an easy-to-use Breaking News template and News Source watchlist.  Cheerio! -- NGerda 09:25, July 11, 2005 (UTC) Reply on Ngerda's page - actually Dan100 deserves the credit for getting this story together so fast. ClareWhite 09:36, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I replied on my talk page -> Dan100 (Talk) 12:20, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Just saw your "dan100 if your watching" message, I'll take a look when I get the chance Dan100 (Talk) 12:21, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Do- interesting stuff happening in Zimbabwe though much of it happened last week so haven't quite sussed out how to spin it into something current ClareWhite 12:30, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Work experience student
Clair, I've had a work experience student this week too, and made Wikinews part of his duties! An abuse of power indeed, but for the betterment of mankind. - Borofkin 02:08, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Still questions :)
Clare,

I'm trying to place in my mind which meetinghouse that is- I visited one while I was in London last year, but my knowledge of London is too weak to be sure which one. Just wondering- the Friends here always like hearing about activities across the pond. Lyellin 13:08, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Re: how long?
Hi, I noticed one of your edits and would like your advice. How long would you say a story should be before it's published? I published a couple today thinking that they were representative of that day and were unlikely to develop any more, but do you think they should stay in developing? Thanks :) ClareWhite 12:07, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * There is no good answer to this, stories can be moved as soon as they are ready . I like to let my stories wait about 24hrs before publishing. However if you think a story is done, you can publish it as soon as you create it. --Cspurrier 16:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Some stories need to be published quicker than 24 hours - take the London bombing story for example. So, yes, it's not a matter of time per se, but a matter of urgency and readiness. -- NGerda 16:03, July 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * I publish my stories straight away! I type them up in a text editor and then publish them straight away. Its not the way i'd advise newbies to do things, but i'd certainly recommend it to more established writers who feel confident in what they are doing. → CGorman (Talk) 18:20, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism
Hiya.

A comment regarding this morning event. Forgive me if I take a bit of a motherly tone here, but it is important :-) Of course, a sysop is needed to block a vandal and to delete crappy vandalised pages, but there are many other consequences of vandalism which may be cleaned by absolutely everyone. For example, if a page is damaged, such as the leading story template, anyone (even an ip) can go to a previous version and revert to save the last before vandalism version. This is important, because it saves at least the looks of the wiki, before an admin can come and clean up entirely the place. You, and just anyone, can do this.

Two other tips. I think you have a page somewhere where you can report vandalism. If so, use it to list the current ongoing vandalism, so that admins can react more quickly. A good idea is to mention (link) the name of the person or ip of the vandal, and even to add a direct link to his contribution. It makes it easier to react quickly. The same could be said for a mail sent to the list.

I now quit my motherly tone :-) and wish you good luck. I heard you did good job with the recent events, so long survive the wiki :-)

Anthere 18:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Clare, if you want adminship so you can block stuff like this yourself, just say and I'll nominate you. Sorry I wasn't around this morning. BTW I'll send you my main e-mail address which I check much more frequently - my yahoo one is only a secondary address. Dan100 (Talk) 21:54, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Did I ever...
...explain why I didn't run your info about the bus bomb straight away?

When you told me that all any source (I was watching TV, listening to the radio, and scouring the net all simultaneuosly) was saying was that there had been an explosion, and that the cause was possibly a power surge in control gear. The bus bomb confirmed what all of us must've been thinking - this was a terrorism attack. But at the moment you posted, you were the only source I had for that information, and it represented an escalation in the severity of the situation of an order of magnitude. My thinking at the exact second I read it was this - oh shit. I desperately wanted to believe it wasn't true.

After that, my thoughts returned to WN. If it's true, I reasoned, it's the scoop of the century. But if it's wrong, and we run it, it's the fuck-up of the century. So I sat on it until I had some other confirmation - it took about twenty minutes, I think, for the broadcast media to announce that a bus had been hit (the BBC had been mentioning very unspecific reports of a surface bomb - a litter bin bombing, in fact - for some minutes before that. So they actually got it wrong for a while).

Even if you'd explained to me how you'd heard about it - from other witnesses - I still wouldn't have run it. Remember the Canary Wharf shooting story from that day? We had people on here saying they'd "heard confirmation" from a "friend of a friend". As we all know, it was actually total rubbish. OK, obviously I know you much better, but you must understand my reasoning.

I hope you understand that. I didn't doubt you personally - I didn't want to believe you, but that's different, that was a hope this wasn't the start of the nightmare it turned out to be - but I *couldn't* post it on WN until I were sure. Dan100 (Talk) 22:12, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * BTW, you first told me of the bus bomb just nine minutes after it actually happened. I was probably the first person in the world outside central London to know about it. Scary. Dan100 (Talk) 22:15, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Time and tildes wait for no man...

 * Hi again. I really should set myself up with an account. At the moment though I'm pretty easily identifiable as the guy who always subs Burundi-related stuff! I've read some of what you've said about the potential for the likes of wiki to transform the way that news is done and I think I agree with you. I'm all for the "vision thing"! Great to hear that you're working with media students in Rwanda. I'd be interested to know more about it. I'm totally for anything that gives more of a voice to people in that part of the world. It's been fascinating watching Burundi's independent online media invent itself over literally just the past few years. If it wasn't for the net it would be nigh impossible to know what's really going on there. I will definitely keep subbing to wikinews whenever things come up. I work on the Agathon Rwasa campaign blog and you can always contact me/leave comments there.

Best regards,

Richard 80.43.49.57 14:59, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Quaker Portal
Clare, not a problem on the name ;). I'm an attender at Horsham meeting, north of Philadelphia. Intend on applying for membership next year, when I am at home stabily. I'd love to help out, if I can.... and perhaps get my father involved as well. Lyellin 17:50, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Getting my attention
I've finally figured out how people could get my attention in the event of vandalism etc if they wanted to - just click the Real-time chat link, join the room and type Dan100 - that'll make my computer bleep! You can then leave the room and I'll check recent changes.

Page move
Hi Davodd, can you explain the page move to 'EU judicial review'. it may be that it does indeed make it clearer but equally maybe the story as it has been written isn't clear. The review was brought in the light of the European Human Rights Law, but they have been incorporated into British law and the case was at the UK high court, indeed it will become an EU review if they do take it to the court at Strasbourg. I didn't want to change it before discussing it. Thanks ClareWhite 08:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It was to make it clear before people clicked on it, that is was a European story - not an Australian, Canadian or U.S. story. That's what I was trying to make clear since no other geographic clue was given in the headline. Sorry for any confusion. ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 08:18, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough! But EU is a political region, not a geographical one (Europe would be better) and it's a bit confusing in the light of the case itself so I might move it to UK if it's all the same to you. Cheers ClareWhite 08:47, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
 * No problem here. ;-) -- Davodd | Talk 09:12, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

About Wikinews neighborhoods...
I don't know if you saw, but I moved all of our location portals to the new Portal namespace, which was approved by the community... and then Dan100 decided he disagreed and reverted all of my page moves (over 100 of them). Well, when I was doing the makeover, I made a lot of headway in organization of local portal pages- see my local city's portal for a rough idea of what I mean (pay close attention to organization at the bottom of the page). Cheerio! -- NGerda 08:23, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
 * Ahem, I'm not even going to get into that one but I think the consensus was for portals, not necessarily the namespace bit i'm just sorry you're both having to put lots of work into the argument :) I will definitely take a look at your page, it would be good if you could take a look at the Quaker portal too and see what you think about the policy ideas? ClareWhite 08:46, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Oooh, very pretty Quaker portal! I like the cultural flavor it has, which is what I'd like to see all Wikinews portals eventually having.  I gotta go to sleep.  Gimme a holler if any more breaking news happens in London- heck, if I'm awake (I'll wake up at around 5 p.m. your time), I might be able to patch through a live report to WikiNews Network from Wikinews London corespondent Clare White!  ;)  See you later!  -- NGerda 08:58, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Community sites
Do you think it's worth me documenting how I made the Quaker site? Or do you think it's a bit of a dead end? Dan100 (Talk) 11:43, 29 July 2005 (UTC)


 * No, I think it's definitely well worth documenting. *perhaps* we could keep the main community aspects on the workspace and have the Portal as it has been outlined in the page. However, for a tiny portal like Quakers, or some of the smaller sub-regions it will have to develop in the sort of way that that page has as you're only ever going to get a small amount of stories, the whole topics/regions thing that works well on a big portal will fall totally flat in a small one. So I think the basic structure Portal, Discussion page (Portal's Watercooler) & Workspace (community collaboration) is probably the way to go. Do you think that works?
 * I'm off to York tomorrow to try and persuade lots of Quakers to wiki their Yearly Meeting (governance residential affair) so we'll see how it all works in practice! ClareWhite 11:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Future talk 2
Hello, I would like to invite you to attend our second future talk, it will be held on Monday, August 1 at 21:00 UTC. It will be held on the Wikinews IRC channel #wikinews For more information please see the page on meta The main topics will be audio Wikinews, WNN and portals/neighborhoods It would be great if you will be able to attend. --Cspurrier 15:42, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Clare for looking into my first news article. I will do what I can to work this article out nicely.

--Noisecontrol 10:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Burundi etc.
Hi there! Yes - it was me again. I set myself up with an ID in the end. Glad you liked the article, and many thanks for doing the Burundi portal; it definitely helps to have a focal point to draw these things together. Portals rock.

I've started to let my Burundian contacts know about Wikinews. As most of them are more comfortable in French it may take a while, but I'm hoping to get some input from them.

I'm hoping to have some "original reporting" for an article on August 13th, looking at commemorations around the 1st anniversary of Gatumba. I would expect to have some feedback from the UN and various Burundian rights groups by then. Depends of course on who replies to my emails and how much time I have, but it could be quite a good one! Rcameronw 09:27, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

--- Thanks for the complement --- Yes, I wished to hold off, but there were no responses in Wikinews, it was as if the world was asleep far too long. I think I can improve the intro a little now that you mention it. You are always welcome to pitch in and make edits. That's what this is all about anyway right?

--Noisecontrol 09:30, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

What sort of journalist are you?
When you hear the explosion that is almost certainly a bomb, do you:
 * (a) hare outside to the scene, camera phone aloft, speed-dialling the Wikinews hotline
 * (b) stay firmly planted at your desk, mobile phone texting loved ones, tuned into the radio and tapping on Wikinews.

You answered (a) - you are an Original Reporter. Hooray for you, you will go far, undoubtedly, and I'd be happy to help you in your quest.

You answered (b) - you are a production journalist, a sub-editing butterfly, possibly working for the religious or pacifist press. You produce magazines from safe places and, while you enjoy overseas adventures, you check the foreign office advice before making a booking. Not very brave, you nevertheless have high ambitions in Cyberspace, frequently fabricating schemes on a grand scale, for these pages require only your imagination as their source.

ClareWhite (female) answered (b) and all the above is true. She has written little of note on Wikinews so far, access being of the occasional (ahem) nature at work and the unreliable nature from a souped-up mobile phone on her long commute between London and Stoke-on-Trent in the United Kingdom. She has, however, made an active contribution to such recent events as Rwanda: country of the week, London: being bombed and other stories which have caught her eye.

ClareWhite tries to do good through tinkering, enjoys correcting typing mistakes and is fast becoming an evangelical member of the Wikinews Project, believing it to be The Future and already vastly superior to the bile inflicted on society every day by the commercial mainstream scumbag media, who have never offered her a job.

ClareWhite (almost her real name) has a tendency to write pretentiously in the third person, make sweeping generalisations and clutter up her userpage with unfinished analysis. If you have the patience for that sort of thing you may want to refer to her weblog, White Llama, which hasn't been updated recently because this site is more fun.

Voila violins Dan100 (Talk) 15:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

London Meetup
Heya,

We're organising another London meetup (yes, I know, it should be on meta), for Sunday the 11th of September; it will probably be fun, as ever, and involve a few drinks and a nice chat in a pub. One of the things we'll be discussing is the formation of Wikimedia UK, and as I saw you add yourself to the interested participants list, I thought I should invite you. Sorry for the short notice...

James F. (talk) 19:53, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Local news
Hi there! I see you've been writing lots of local news so I wanted to point you to the page I have been working on, Quakers which is similarly specialised. You might want to consider utilising some of the features and potentially keeping some of the stories on the local Brampton page rather than the main page. Otherwise I think you're going to be asked to make lots of effort explaining the international context of Dr Kuldip's bbq :) You'll see on the Quaker page that we have stories that are only on that page as well as some that have been 'promoted' to the international page if they are of sufficient interest. I'm keen to see lots of local community news pages being developed so happy to help if I can! ClareWhite 16:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
 * He is inviting everyone to the BBQ, so a reader might want to jet set from Taiwan to the event. ; ) Anyway, thanks for showing me the Quakers page, Clare. I'm think of working on a Portal:Brampton, Ontario for the content, as a redirect from category:Brampton, Ontario. On another note, I'm a volunteer writer for a new weekly local paper. I essentially write one version of the article for Wikinews, one for the paper. I was thinking of maybe streamlining things by actually seeing if they'll print the Wikinews articles, with the proper credits. Have you personally heard if this has been done before with Wikinews content? --  user:zanimum

New Main Page design proposal
I invite you and others to see Main Page Talk, where I have proposed a new Main Page for Wikinews. Best wishes, NGerda 16:17, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

Community Service
I guess I wouldn't have any problem with being a guinea pig&mdash;what did you have in mind? For school, I just need to show that I'm volunterring for a non-profit organization and have someone sign off that I volunteered a certain number of hours. Although when I start applying to colleges, they'd probably also be interested in seeing what skills I had learned from my experiences at Wikinews. So are you saying your project would basically help people put together the sort of information required on a job application? Theshibboleth 13:08, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Hang glider story
Is it okay if I remove the appeal, and re-add link to website?

Skills portfolio
I've had a look and I think it's a great idea. It could be used to provide the "accreditation" system some credibility! Dan100 (Talk) 16:09, September 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * PS I saw you voted on the license poll - did you take a look at the WNL 0.2 license? I think it's rather good :-) Dan100 (Talk) 16:14, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

great! yes, I agree, it should definitely be linked. and no, I will have a more careful look as I wasn't sure how formed the wnl licences were. er, they all look kinda similar to me -CW

are you there still?
hi sturat, if you're still online can you take a look at 'a truer nagin'. it's just been published and is too big for me to work on. I think it needs a little more time in development, to say the least :) ClareWhite (no tildes)


 * Ok, in about an hour I'll take a look, can you provide a link here please ? StuRat 16:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I looked at it, and it's unpublishable garbage, IMO. See my comments on it's talk page. StuRat 16:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


 * BTW, why don't you like to use tildes to make an active link and include a timestamp ? StuRat 16:56, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Category:Local only / Category:Local
Hi Clare!

I understand your reasoning for wishing to avoid cluttering the main page with articles written for the Quaker portal. However, you might want to consider a few other elements:


 * There should not be both a Local and a Local only category; they are redundant.
 * If the local category is blocked from developing on the main page, local articles will have an extremely limited pool of editors/contributors.
 * Wikinews does not allow websquatting - the creation of a de facto personal website.

The reason I removed the Local only from the Developing stories was due to a couple of local stories being written about specific neighborhoods in California. These articles should be in a local category, yet be visible on the main page.

Although I'm supportive of the Quakers portal, I would like to point out that articles listed there appear to be non-standard to the Styleguide, specifically by including a top menu which suggests the articles are not a part of the regular wikinews. Wikinews does not have a policy regarding projects, but on Wikipedia projects generally include a small template at the bottom of the article stating it is a part of a project and a single link to that project. I could easily see such a template, focusing on a single portal which includes the links to workspaces and other portal-specific pages, but I'm not so sure I would approve of the top menu. I'd be happy to work with you to create such a template.

- Amgine/talk 06:51, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Amgine, thanks for the offer. Your pages are not being found so hope you get this reply.

The Quakers page is in no way whatsoever supposed to be or appear to be a stand-alone/squatter site as far as I'm concerned, it is meant to be an integral part of Wikinews, with stories of international interest or particular quality being 'promoted'. However, in discussion on the project page there were opinion expressed that portals like that should have a certain freedom to police their own style and that community writing may not, by its nature, have as many sources as a rewrite story. This especially applies if a story is written about someone's own activities which probably wouldn't have anyone else written about them. In my opinion, and others seem to agree, these micro-local stories should be encouraged.

The main reasoning behind having a local only category is because of what you said, you might have a limited pool of contributors but you might also have a very enthusiastic band of writers at another time. This would have a distorting effect on the front page with hundreds of specialist stories suddenly appearing, say if a small group decided to have a Wikinews workshop day. I think this should be encouraged without irritating the 'main' community.

It looks a bit different from the 'bigger' portals mainly because the sectioning of them wouldn't work with such a tiny category, but if you want to have a crack at improving it, feel free. The only comparable portal is a locality based one (Brampton) and so that looks better with the standard formatting.

The portal was fairly clearly marked as a pilot project but I took that off because it seemed fairly well established and there hadn't been any objections to it. It is still marked as being connected to the local proposal but I can make that more prominent.

Category:local only, as far as I know, came first :) I think it's fairer to have that as a category that specifically takes it off the front page as a story is inherently local to whatever category it is in and therefore doesn't need that extra. It wouldn't bother me if it changed, but I would appreciate discussion of it mainly so that I can prepare the Quaker stories and publish them if necessary, at the moment they live in a SpecialPublish status which was done openly and didn't face any opposition at the time.

I'll copy this discussion to the Local project page where you can see more background. Probably makes sense for us to carry on there! ClareWhite 15:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)


 * That page and discussion are here ClareWhite 15:16, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The eyewitness account as source material...
I moved the recreation from the Portal namespace to User:Cmwhite/Disasters and accidents/Eyewitness accounts/Katrina aftermath Bradshaw and Slonsky, which is a very long name but puts it under your user pages so you can keep it as notes. The original article is still up for deletion on the Deletion requests page, and you might make the case for moving the article rather than deleting it? - Amgine/talk 06:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

i'm not planning to use it myself so not all that bothered. what's wrong with having it in the portal space? I thought a collection of eyewitness accounts to disasters could be pretty handy to writers, especially the first hand ones. or it is a style guide problem? -cw

Wikimedia UK meeting
Hi Clare, there will probably be a meeting for the purpose of discussing Wikimedia UK this Sunday, which you might like to attend. You could add your name there if so. Cormaggio 23:45, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK
You have expressed an interest in Wikimedia UK. Just to let you know I've posted a draft Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association of the proposed "Wikimedia UK" charitable company on Wikimedia UK/Memorandum of Association and Wikimedia UK/Articles of Association. It is proposed that these will receive initial approval by interested parties at a meeting on 27 November. I will put together a brief agenda for the more formal aspects of that meeting soon. Memo and Arts of Association are a company's constitution, and need to be agreed before the company is formed (though they can be changed at a later date). Please feel free to comment on the relevant talk pages (I'd rather the proposed drafts are left unedited so that it is easy to see what is going on) - particularly if there is something there that you would disagree with at the meeting, details of which can be found on the Wikimedia UK page on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Kind regards, jguk

"Heated"
It's still "heated", is it?!

Hope you are well. Dan100 (&#91;&#91;User talk:Dan100&#124;Talk)]] 17:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)