Wikinews:Australian discussion/archive3

Indymedia
I've noticed that there are a few Aussie contributors who also contribute to Indymedia - I'm interested to know what people think our relationship is with them? I've been cross-posting some Wikinews articles to Sydney Indymedia, and don't know of any problems.

I think the biggest way that Wikinews and Indymedia can work together is by sharing of pictures. Indymedia can already use any pictures from the Commons, but it is a little more difficult in the other direction, because most Indymedia sites seem to use a non-commercial license. Sydney Indymedia pages have this at the bottom: "All material is free for non-profit reuse unless otherwise noted by the author." I tried to work with them a few months back to change to something like a Creative Commons license, but it didn't seem go to anywhere.

We've got around it on a few occasions by having the individuals who took the photo's to relicense under something compatible with the Commons, but it would be nice to be able to just use pictures, rather than having to seek permission, which can be time consuming.

Does anyone have any suggestions for ways that we can work better with Indymedia? It seems that we both have the same or similar goals (independent-non-corporate/government/specialinterestgroup-controlled-news), so it would be good to be able to collaborate more closely. What does everyone think?

- Borofkin 23:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

IR laws passing lead up(or other title)
Referral articles for when enough stuff is built up to start the article:

Howards Poll slipping: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17336439%255E2702,00.html

Senate inquiry: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17338671%255E1702,00.html

Banarby: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17199854-2,00.html

Labor vows to 'bin' IR legislation: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1503005.htm

--Whywhywhy 12:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Melbourne Critical Mass 10th anniversary ride
Hello,I'm not real familiar with wikinews so I just thought I'd leave these tidbits with you in case anyone is interesting in writing on it. Today (Friday 25th) was the 10th anniversary of CM in Melbourne. They needed 770 for a new attendance record; I heard one guy shout that there were 1400 there. That figure wouldn't surprise me, it was huge. The Herald Scum was even forced to report that it was peaceful and popular. Two pictures of mine:
 * Image:Critical Mass Melbourne - Brunswick St.JPG
 * Image:Bikelift.jpg

--w:User:pfctdayelise 15:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Photo's this weekend
According to Moroney there are going to be 1,500 to 2,000 extra police on patrol this weekend, with roadblocks all over the place. It would be great if people could get some photo's - the only photo's we have are from last Sunday at Cronulla, and file photo's of beaches. Even some photo's of cops standing around at checkpoints would be brilliant. - Borofkin 06:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Australian Portal
The Australian Portal has been around for ages, but I don't think it's used much. The biggest problem with it was that the articles would display in semi-random order because of technical reasons. I've changed things so that "Latest news" is now grouped into days, the same as on the main page. There is also a lead article... feel free to change it if you want - we should keep it updated to the biggest story of the day.

We can set our own standards on the Aussie portal - for example, we could ditch the whole "develop" and "publish" stages if we wanted to, or we could create an "australia-publish" stage, that would cause the article to appear as published on the Australian Portal, but not on the Main Page. All articles are still in the main namespace, however, and still have to be NPOV.

The Aussie Portal is linked to from Australia, so the best way to advertise it outside of Wikinews would be to use the url http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Australia. Not very good, I know, but it's all we have at the moment.

Anyway, let me know what you think. - Borofkin 23:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I like it, it makes it much more easier to see Australian events than having to sift through everything else. I personally wish to focus my efforts on Australian news simply because it affects me and because there are plenty of contributors who are focusing on other countries. I aim to contribute an article a day (may or may not happen). As for not putting things on the main page, I am not sure about that at this stage - Cartman02au 00:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's the idea - to allow us to work on Australian articles without having to see stuff from all around the world. All articles currently appear on the main page, and it will probably stay that way until the main page starts to get overwhelmed. - Borofkin 01:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I like it but one suggestion. I recon with the major space under the "Australian articles in development" we could fit like a major australian issue or something that links 2 a wikipedia issue and related wikinews articles(cos their will probably be multiple articles) and has a blurb suming up the current situation.Example focus issues Racism, IR Legislation..... I like the idea of encouageing people to fully understand a situation. --Whywhywhy 15:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

O yer and i like your Australian publish idea. Brilliant--Whywhywhy 01:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep. They've used it on the Quakers portal, which unfortunately seems to be inactive these days. - Borofkin 01:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

can we create our own australian admin?--Whywhywhy 01:27, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No. Remember, we are still part of Wikinews, and all Wikinews policy still applies. - Borofkin 01:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Australian briefs
Okay, clearly we need to increase the number of articles we are writing. You may have noticed Business Briefs on the main page - I propose that we start writing briefs - articles of only one paragraph in length, with two sources. This has a couple of benefits: 1) Quick to write, 2) Increases the number of headlines that appear, which (hopefully) causes more people to come to the site. You should add the tag to the article, which encourages people to expand it, turning it into a regular article Remember that even though a brief will only be 3-4 sentences long, it still needs to be neutral. So, whaddayareckon? - Borofkin 00:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Great Work with the nu-look portal...
Been an interesting and exciting ride. Look forward to more wikinews reporting throughout 2006...--elliot_k 04:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Great work fellow Wikireporters
I have noticed the number and quality of articles over the past two days and wish to congratulate those of you who have contributed to the site. Great work - Cartman02au 07:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, well done to all - the quality and number of Australian articles is something of which to be proud. Things will probably drop off a little over the Christmas-New year break, but hopefully we'll be able to keep things going. - Borofkin 00:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

News.com.au linking to Wikipedia
I was just reading this article on news.com.au and noticed that at the very top there is a link to Wikipedia. I think it's great that the wikimedia foundation's projects are beginning to be accepted in the mainstream media - 202.173.128.90 00:03, 23 December 2005 (UTC) (Unsigned by cartman02au)
 * It's an interesting development. It gives the 'pedia (and by extension Wikinews) some much needed credibility. - Borofkin 00:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * It's great that another Wikimedia project is getting some attention, especially when they are trying to raise some money. I only wish they would have a fund drive mid year when I have money to splash around - Cartman02au 00:40, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * wow i never thought i would ever see that. Ill have 2 check up on it regularly to make sure nobody vandalizes it watched--Whywhywhy 03:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * whoa... somebody is noticing how to create relevant links! -Edbrown05 04:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok i just had a idea maybe when a news source links to a wikipedia the article is locked and a sister article is created for people to edit. Then after 5 days the articles are mereged again.(this would of course not apply to current event articles) thoughts?--Whywhywhy 04:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews and Google etc
Thats great to see them linking to WPedia. Next thing I'd love to see is Google/Yahoo News services bringing up Wikinews stuff... --elliot_k 05:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

In-depth coverage section on Australian portal
At the suggestion of Whywhywhy, I've created an "In-depth coverage" section on the Australian portal. You can edit what it says at this page. It links to a page which summaries the issue and provides links to all relavent Wikinews articles. It can probably stay there for a week or two, or until a better issue comes along - but crucially, if we are going to change the "in-depth coverage" section to a new issue, then a new summary page needs to be written. Everyone should feel free to edit any of these pages. - Borofkin 01:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

yep it kicks arse well done --Whywhywhy 03:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Using the portal
The Australian portal is just another page in the Wiki, except that it is in the "Portal" namespace rather than the main namespace, where articles live. It's very similar to the Wikinews main page - a page made of different sections drawn from templates. These are the templates used on the Aussie portal:


 * Template:Latest Australian news - the Latest Australian News section
 * Portal:Australia/Lead article - the first lead article (with picture and short summary)
 * Portal:Australia/Second lead - the second lead article (with picture and short summary)
 * Portal:Australia/in depth - the in depth section

Everyone is welcome to edit the portal page itself, or any of these templates. Keep it up to date! The other important thing to note is that the "Latest Australian News" section needs to have days added manually. When you first look at Wikinews in the morning, you should check to see if today's date appears. If it doesn't, click on "Add/remove days" at the bottom of that section, add today's date, and remove the one at the bottom.

Just like the wider Wiki, the Aussie portal will work best if people take ownership of it: treat it as though it is yours, and be bold in editing it! If people don't like you're changes, they'll change it back, or talk to you about it.

- Borofkin 01:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * i think active portals like ours at the moment should be featured on the front page. along with the portals that need help. what do you tink i might suggest it in the main page discussion--Whywhywhy 04:13, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Local Chapter
I have begun looking into the creation of an Australian Wikimedia Chapter. Basically, the chapter would be responsible for promotion of Wikimedia projects and free content in general. If you are interested check out Wikimedia Australia - Cartman02au 23:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC).

Australian Open (tennis)
How come this page doesn't have a "+" link to just add a section? :/

Anyway, the Aus Open is coming up and I'm going to go to some of it, yay. Of course I hope that I can take photos for pedias/commons/wikinews. But on their Ticket conditions of sale and entry they say:

''10. Images of the AO taken with a camera, mobile phone or other wireless device, cannot be used for any purpose other than for private and domestic purposes, that is you cannot sell, license, publish or otherwise commercially exploit photographs. [...] ''

11. Making or distribution of broadcasts, commentary, news reports or statistics by any means in any format or media [...] is forbidden.

That seems kinda ridiculous to me. Any thoughts? commons|w:User:pfctdayelise 00:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Due to the overwhelming silence, I won't upload my photos with any urgency, but they will eventually appear in commons:Category:2006 Australian Open. commons:User:pfctdayelise 15:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I know the Sydney Harbour foreshore also has some sort of similar copyright issue but the restriction is for commercial purposes. For events it makes a certain amount of sense and certainly would limit such photos being published here or even on commons or wikipedia I think.--AYArktos 22:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * On what legal basis can they restrict the use of photographs? I've often wondered how it is that photographers take photo's of celebrities naked in their own back yards, without permission, and publish them without any legal hassles, but some company can restrict us from taking photo's of their sporting event. - Borofkin 22:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I brought it up on commons and we tend to think there's no basis for it, and the worst they could do is revoke my ticket (bit hard after the fact), not have any status over the copyright of the images. So I'm willing to take that risk. :) commons:User:pfctdayelise 23:49, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The U.S. has similar restrictions with almost all sporting events. A way to bypass it is to take images before and after the event, of people or of just the arena.  There's not much you can do, even though I doubt they'll ever mind if you used some photos on our site.  --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 23:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)