User talk:Kungfukev

-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 14:15, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi
I saw your article. First articles on Wikinews are generally difficult, as there's a bunch of basics one has to get a handle on, all at once, before one can reach the threshold of passing review to publication. The saving grace of our admittedly steep initial learning curve is that's fairly short, and once past it things can get a lot easier (though hopefully we never stop learning). --Pi zero (talk) 14:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Btw, the article in question is an interesting case for news neutrality. It's entirely possible for users with a wide range of political views to write neutral Wikinews articles, once they've got the hang of Wikinews writing, with its fact-based approach to neutrality.  In this case, one would start with a crisp focal event; the current article doesn't do well on defining a specific focus.  I'm not actually sure whether there is a good focal event at the bottom of this particular one, because the story seems to be about propaganda being asserted by one political faction and objected to by another, which isn't really about something happening, just being talked about.  That makes it hard to pin down something solid enough to build a neutral article on.  Supposing one could find something, though, one would then select a set of core sources about the focal event, and write up citations of them; that's crucial, and the source citations make it possible to see explicitly what one has.  One wants to deliberately choose sources with a range of points of view, in order to provide you, as the Wikinews reporter, with perspective on how the story is presented from different perspectives.  In choosing different perspectives, good things can come from pushing outside your comfort zone.  Keep in mind that most sources have their own strengths and weaknesses, which can get very complex and require careful thought and good judgement to sort through; different sources may have more or less politics in their perspective, which may manifest in very different ways.  Spelling out the source citations can be quite helpful, when writing an article, in clarifying what one has:  for example, one of the relatively recent sources for the article atm is a Washington Post article called "Tucker Carlson easily snookers Trump on South Africa", which ought to raise alarm bells in terms of the current content of the article.  Keep in mind that, as a neutral news source, our task at Wikinews is to present readers with objective facts that empower them to make their own informed judgements, without making judgements for them or trying to herd them in a certain direction.  The very fact that the Washington Post article is clearly expressing a perspective that there's no hint of in our draft suggests that our draft is failing to provide the reader with some significant information.  For a given story one chooses sources with various perspectives, studies them all carefully, and works out from an understanding of the Big Picture what information to present. --Pi zero (talk) 22:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I just read this now. 4 years. Amazing that the problem wikinews wanted to solve are as much as a problem as ever. I'm not a regular wiki guy (obvs) and every time I've got a bee in my bonnet it's generally just trivially dismissed, making wiki a hostile place for the casual contributor-I think this is a loss for the potential of what wiki could have been. All this to say, your thoughtful comments and guidance are rare and appreciated-the world needs more of this (and I daresay people with your approach to life). I hope you get messages of appreciation often. If not, I'm sure it doesn't go unnoticed nonetheless. Good job. Kungfukev (talk) 19:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi. I am sure Pi zero would have appreciated your kind words. He was a very special person and it saddens me to report to you, he is no longer with us. -- SVTCobra 19:52, 4 October 2022 (UTC)