User talk:Sim(ã)o(n)

-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 17:06, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Pakistani Taliban attack high school
Hi. Some difficulties raised. Review comments. --Pi zero (talk) 02:45, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Several points I'd like to raise on this, given it'd probably need a complete rewrite in a news style.
 * Firstly, I note you're also updating the Wikipedia article on this; Wikipedia content cannot be imported to Wikinews, but the reverse is permissible under the licensing terms. I've not spotted anything that may fall foul of such, just a precautionary note.
 * I've put an initial set of categories on the article; Wikinews categorises quite differently so we can make effective use of the Dynamic Page List extension.
 * I've rewritten the lede on the article (opening paragraph). The objective with that is to answer as-many of the 5W+H as is reasonably-possible within three, or no more than four short, sentences.
 * w is one of our 'magic' templates. If we've nothing local, it falls back to taking people over to Wikipedia. Wise not to overload when using it.
 * Sources: There are a hell of a lot there! Are they all absolutely necessary? The BBC's "dumbed-down" slideshow looks largely-useless.
 * Sources: Fixed dates on all to match the style guide.
 * Sources: This is the one I was most-unhappy about, you'd a source which was from the 17th listed as being the 16th.
 * Not your fault, BBC merrily date-bumped their article rather than write a new one. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:14, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I intend to try and make further improvements, although those are likely to disqualify me from reviewing the article. You initially labelled it as breaking, although the article said the attack was over. At that point a news article on the attack wouldn't be 'breaking', such would only be the case when it was taking place; you'd probably need to find a reviewer in IRC to work with &mdash; if trying to get an article put up in that-short a timeframe. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * As you'll see, I've moved the focus (disqualified as a reviewer now). If you're looking through the diffs, you'll see HTML comments - they can help reviewers a great-deal. Particularly disappointed with the BBC, having found a second source article they'd rolled over onto the 17th. They used to write fresh reports, even if they lifted and scrubbed-up paragraphs out of the prior day's reports. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:56, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I have now glanced at your edits. Thank you. As you may have noticed, I am an unexperienced editor at Wikinews. This is really the first set of contributions that I have made here. As such, I suppose you should expect something was coming out wrong from this.
 * You said I labelled it incorrectly as "breaking news". Well, at the time I began to write it, one could still consider it breaking news. I was accompanying the live broadcast on Euronews (one of my two favourite news channels, together with BBC). Then I thought about checking out Wikinews, to see what they had to say. I found nothing. At all. Nothing on the main page (though it was an issue that would take the first page of nearly all online news websites). I made a quick search and found nothing. Then, you know, with all those pleas around Wikinews asking us to contribute, I thought: "Hey, maybe I can write this article!". I had no idea of all the procedures I'd have to go through, including the thing about "requesting reviewing", or whatever. I didn't care much about style, lack of content, etc., since I would expect the article would immediately go live and other editors could contribute as well. This seems not to have been the case. Please note equally that, when I initially wrote the article, I utilised the Present Perfect, so as to give the idea that the event was still unfolding (which kind of was) and it was really breaking news.
 * After all this confusion, I still don't understand what the correct procedure is, after all. I don't understand why you changed the focus of the article, and I don't understand why this subject isn't covered on the main page, given its importance in other news agencies at the moment, and instead only a few articles about things I had never heard about, and seem quite irrelevant, given the importance given on other websites. I do not comprehend Wikinews's (by the way, is the possessive of Wikinews Wikinews' or Wikinews's?) organisational system (nor do I really intend to), but, whatever it is, it seems too confusing and rather faulty, especially given the fact that "true" pieces of news aren't being properly covered, and that it is too confusing for an "outsider" to contribute.
 * All in all, after all this, I don't think I'm interested in contributing for Wikinews again. I prefer Wikipedia and the Wiktionary (in fact, I haven't checked the Wiktionary in a while... I should probably go there soon...). Please do whatever you want with what I've done. Sorry if I have somehow led to your being disqualified as a reviewer. It was not my intention. Thank you for your explanations! Happy editing! Sim(ã)o(n) (talk) 18:38, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * tl;dr, we value brevity on talk discussions.


 * It isn't on the main page because it needs to pass review. It needed the focus changed, because the old piece was old news. The current news is the condemnation, three days mourning. I've completed the initial few paragraphs on the report, but need to cook myself something to eat. You're welcome to try and work from the comments I've left embedded. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * In thinking about Wikinews, don't try to imagine us as one-stop-shopping for news. In a bygone age, the residents of a neighborhood might be divided up according to which newspaper (singular) they got all their news from; but we now live in the age of the news aggregator.  As a citizen journalism project, we don't necessarily cover the "biggest" stories, in the sense of the stories mostly widely covered by the mainstream media; our strengths are largely elsewhere.  Amongst other things, we can help get the word out about things that readers haven't heard enough about &mdash; we're an excellent vehicle for covering stories under-reported by the mainstream (English-language) media &mdash; and we can bring to the table a high standard of neutrality.  Yes, we can and sometimes do cover "big" stories, but the more heavily covered the story, the more difficult it can be to do this well, not least because the high level of mainstream attention is apt to make such stories loose freshness more quickly.  (Which said, we may be able to contribute significantly to the conversation on some "big" stories because certain aspects may be under-reported, or because despite a large volume of coverage, neutrality may be in short supply.)


 * Btw, we use the term "breaking" with a specific technical meaning: we allow updates to a story (up to a point, where a new article would be needed) within the first 24 hours after publication, and "breaking" is a warning to readers that such updates are particularly likely &mdash; such as, say, a disaster where the death toll may rise during the 24 hours after publication.  --Pi zero (talk) 19:45, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, in that case, I guess I probably had a misconception about Wikinews. OK, whatever! You do whatever you want. I'll probably swing by occasionally and do something in case I want it. Having no more to say, I hereby finish my comments, until something new arises. Happy editing! Sim(ã)o(n) (talk) 21:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC)