User talk:ThinkSMG

Your articles
I've tagged the two articles you created, The investment promotion challenge for the Eastern Cape and New tourism horizons for the Eastern Cape lure investors. I don't think they're appropriate for Wikinews, since to me they read more like press releases from an organization than news. Also, more importantly, they have have no sources. One of the core policies here is that everything must be sourced, to prevent the publishing of false or inappropriate content. For more information, you might want to have a look at these links: Content guide, Writing an article and Style guide. Please contact me at my talk page if you have any further questions. Thanks, C628 (talk) 15:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Black agriculturalists needed, too, for the same reasons as above. C628 (talk) 15:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Matatiele farming community to celebrate successful first harvest
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. If you are part of the story that the article is about, you may also wish to consider requesting an interview rather than writing the article yourself.

Thanks again! Bawolff ☺☻ 18:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)