User talk:Sam.gov

-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 17:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Synthesis technique
Hi. General principle: don't start with source passages and then modify them; that's asking for accusations of plagiary. In synthesis writing, you're looking to use information from the sources, but present it in an entirely original way. See WN:PILLARS. --Pi zero (talk) 20:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know. I will try to present it in an original form. Sam.gov (talk) 20:18, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The article is bullshit anyway. Flight recorders do not magically dematerialise upon battery expiration, making the notion they will not be found after this arbitrary time complete sensationalism based upon a false premise. See South African Airways Flight 295 (one recorder salvaged after 14mths), Air France Flight 447 (both recorders salvaged after ~3yrs), etc etc. The recorders become substantially harder to find after they cease transmitting and that is well worth trying to focus an article on, but the myth that they are somehow thereafter unrecoverable lacks any credibility. BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 20:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not trying to say that the recorders magically dematerialize; what I'm trying to say is that the can be harder to find if the beacon's battery dies. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I did put Air France Flight 447's example in the article to fix any misunderstanding and added more info. Sam.gov (talk) 20:39, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Chicago air traffic facility evacuated for basement fire
Published. Congrats! And thanks. :-) I completely get how the choice of image would happen, yet coming to the choice fresh, it just didn't come across right.  Review comments, .  --Pi zero (talk) 20:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Patient under evaluation with Ebola-like symptoms in Washington D.C.
Hi. This has been published. There were significant problems, which I had to address during review; I could have sent it back to you for revision, but the story would be likely to go stale pretty quickly, and I thought perhaps you could get more out of the experience by looking at what I changed and how, and reading my review comments. Review comments; . --Pi zero (talk) 15:38, 4 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi Pi zero, Thanks for the comments. Hopefully I didn't falsely alarm readers. when the sources said symptoms associated with the Ebola virus, I thought it was actually confirmed, which I later found out it was not. Thanks for the corrections. Sam.gov (talk) 00:33, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Safety improvements take place on Route 1 in College Park, Maryland
Hi. Encountered problems with this, related to sourcing and newsworthiness. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 18:34, 11 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comments. Sam.gov (talk) 13:42, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Broadcast reporting
We don't encourage it, but if you must use it, document it really extensively. If you heard something on the radio, say, when exactly did you hear it (you might even mention the circumstances under which you heard it), and how and in what form did you take notes? --Pi zero (talk) 16:07, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Pi zero Thanks for letting me know; I just now decided to change course and research an online source. But I figured it was part of original reporting if I'm not mistaking. Sam.gov (talk) 16:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Tools for writing
This thread might be of interest? --Pi zero (talk) 16:43, 8 November 2014 (UTC)


 * thanks, very useful. I'll look into this. Sam.gov (talk) 18:15, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Philae space probe lands on comet
Hi. Hit a snag on this: the sources are all from the same news agency (CNN); that's the "mutually independent" part of "two mutually independent, trust-worthy sources". --Pi zero (talk) 21:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Pi zero, thanks for letting me know. I changed the sources to reflect independent publishers among the sources.—Sam.gov (talk) 00:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Published. Some struggles along the way.  .  --Pi zero (talk) 16:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

FAA: NextGen Upgrade for Washington, D.C. metro area in place for holiday travel this week
I thought a lot about this, while I was checking the sources. I just wasn't comfortable with an article that, all but the two paragraphs at the very bottom, comes from a press release by the FAA. In this case the single-sourcing seems particularly of concern for neutrality (which I wondered about on the earlier NextGen article, you may recall). Anyway, review comments,. --Pi zero (talk) 00:05, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Pi zero, thanks for the comments. I added the two last paragraphs and the two other sources because it talks about how the weather could also affect air travel in that region while the metroplex is in place. I'll try to fix these issues by adding more sources that also talk about the NextGen system. —Sam.gov (talk) 05:41, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Published. Review comments.  --Pi zero (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. —Sam.gov (talk) 21:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
 * An interesting article, by-the-by. --Bddpaux (talk) 16:30, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. —Sam.gov (talk) 16:50, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

US Navy says naval laser in working order
It looks like we just missed this one. Alas. I did write some general remarks on the nature of the story, in my review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 13:19, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Researchers say light signal from space suggests merging black holes
Did get this published. I had difficulties along the way, which I've written up as best I could in my review comments. The two sources weren't as independent of each other as one would like, the paper itself wasn't linked from the article, and I particularly noted there were a bunch of passages too close to the sources. I recommend working on the distance-from-source.

Interesting topic.

I'd really have liked to hear more about why a sine-wave-like signal is an indication of a black hole merger. That would have made the article distinctly stronger. --Pi zero (talk) 20:29, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Scientists find ancient solar system in Milky Way galaxy
Published. Some bumps along the road, see review comments,. I changed the picture, even though your picture choice was a much nicer picture, because it seemed like these planets are small rocky and hot, so I didn't want to give the impression they'd have oceans. (Not sure if I should have changed the image, but that's what I was thinking.) --Pi zero (talk) 20:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks. anyway on the second thought, I would go with the new picture you provided because the planets are too close to their host star to sustain life. —Sam.gov (talk) 05:24, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Delta Air Lines jetliner skids off New York airport's runway
Published. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 19:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

FAA: Amazon gets experimental certificate
You got this submitted in good time; unfortunately, with the current glut on the review queue, it didn't get reviewed in time. :-(

I also made some other observations about the article in my review comments; I'd don't nearly a full review, despite the freshness problem, because it's such an interesting subject. A point I said little about in my review comments is that the non-government sources both mentioned Amazon wants to use drones in ways well beyond what the certificate allows on the face of it, and is doing more extensive experiences outside the US. --Pi zero (talk) 18:51, 23 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I did make some tweaks and fixed that last source to link to the correct § in the regulation. Hope this helps, even though the queue for review made this article stale. —Sam.gov (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Plane crash in Illinois kills seven
Published. :-) Review comments, .  --Pi zero (talk) 13:33, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. :-) —Sam.gov (talk) 01:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

podcast
The notification system gives you the diff of the particular edit that pinged you, but unless that's the most recent edit on the page you have to then study the page to understand what's happened since, and then edit the most recent version of the page. Some things about that system suggest to me it was designed by someone who didn't fully understand, or perhaps care about, the practical workings of discussion using wiki markup.

Anyway, that discussion has moved to the water cooler; I moved your comment there. --Pi zero (talk) 20:22, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * thanks for letting me know. I'll take a look at it there. —Sam.gov (talk) 20:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Boeing 737 jetliner crashes in Russia and Flydubai plane crash leaves 62 dead
Hi. It looks like another user also started an article on the same story, earlier today. I have no idea, of course, what problems that article may have (other than being maybe under-length); it hasn't been submitted for review. The writer submitted another article for review about three days ago, but it failed its first review because it prominently featured a couple of important quotes that weren't from the current event but rather from an event last month (oops), and the writer didn't attempt to revise and resubmit. Thought I'd point out the other article exists, though. --Pi zero (talk)
 * Thanks for pointing out the other one. I decided to abandon the under length article and leave it at that and start a new one because I accidently deleted the parameters that were automatically there in the earlier one I started. I'll see what I can do with this one. —Sam.gov (talk) 23:31, 19 March 2016 (UTC)