User talk:Thelounge

Sanjaya Malakar FINALLY off American Idol
17-year-old Sanjaya Malakar, the contestant who has gotten the most attention for the WRONG reason, left American Idol Wednesday, April 18, 2007. Malakar, as some call him the "kid with the crazy hair styles", made teenage girls swoon and teenage boys laugh at him.

Welcome
, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these! Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews: There are always things to do on Wikinews: By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes ( &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; ), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!–Doldrums(talk) 13:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
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Idol article
First off, we really appreciate your contribution.

But sometimes users submit an article from somewhere else, not realizing that Wikinews cannot keep copy-and-paste versions of articles which are published elsewhere under a restrictive copyright. An article created in this way is a copyright violation, and Wikinews policy is to erase these even if they are excellent article ideas.

Another problem which sometimes comes up is press releases. Press releases are sometimes excellent sources, but they do not qualify as unbiased news articles so they can't be published as they are. Two key things to remember about press releases is that they're usually written to represent the viewpoint of an involved party (Thus likely running foul of our Neutral Point of View policy). And second, they are generally covered by copyright which can conflict with our open editing approach.

A better way to get an article on an exciting subject published here is to write an original article following the guidelines described in writing an article, or to write a brief explanation of the subject and include the url address of articles or websites to use as sources.

Thanks again!–Doldrums(talk) 13:54, 19 April 2007 (UTC)