Wikinews:Dispute resolution/Jade Knight

Jade Knight
(I can see no protocol for listing things here, so I'm winging it.)

I am concerned that there may be a tendency for some users at Wikinews to put down the contributions of others or a degree of unwillingness to engage in discussion: In particular, users voting for deletion here did not engage in discussion, and the page was deleted before a single person voting for the deletion responded to my concerns about the nature of the nomination. I had raised several suggestions for improving the article at the article's talk page, which were likewise mostly ignored. I put several hours worth of work trying to improve the article, and took care to try to address all concerns posted in the first two reviews (which I specifically requested to improve the article, and neither of which listed anything suggesting that the entire topic should be abandoned). The entire time, I have acted in good faith, but I have come to feel that my contributions are unwelcome here, and that Wikinews users believe in deletion, and not in discussion. Perhaps I should just continue to contribute to Wikipedia and Wikiversity, and leave Wikinews to others? Jade Knight (talk) 08:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I realize that this is an old topic, and that you might not still be around, but I wanted to respond anyway. I seem to remember voting for deletion on that article. The reason why it had to be deleted was because it was no longer news. This is Wikinews and news has to be new. It can't be weeks or months old. This is simply an unfortunate fact of the news cycle. After something ceases to be news, it becomes historical content and should be added to Wikipedia instead of here. So it's not that we didn't understand your concerns, or the work that you'd put in, it's just that there was no way to save the article due to Wikinews' policies. I myself have had several hours of work get deleted due to this policy on several occasions, so I know how you feel.


 * One last thing: I want you to know that this case (and others like us) have led us to create a new welcome template that does a better job of listing these rules upfront, so that prospective editors like yourself won't write doomed articles. I (and, I'm sure, everyone else here), certainly understand the tendency to feel unappreciated when something that you worked hard on disappears, and we want to avoid that whenever possible. Gopher65talk 01:22, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for this specific incident, as I didn't see the DR in question. But as a general trend, I'm concerned theres an increase in assuming people have read all the help pages. If someone doesn't understand why something is going to be deleted, or proposes ways to improve an article, on a dr, it should be politely explained to them why it is a good or bad idea. I've especially noticed a resurgence lately (although admittedly i do it to), of tag-and-dashing. People tagging an article with some flag, and then running away. Or even worse new users who create articles put it for review, the review fails. Well there is a note on the talk page of the article about what happened, the new user probably is unaware of the talk page, and only sees his article now has a develop template on it. (I think we should switch to tasks for a failed review btw). Often they don't even have a welcome note on their talk page. So all they see is please develop this article, with no indication of what went wrong. Anyways, The point of this mini-rant, is that we should not make assumptions that people know what we're doing, as they usually don't. Cheers. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * First-off the original WN:DR can be seen here. But Bawolff makes some excellent points, though I think they are better shared at the Water cooler. But this phenomenon is not new, I went through what felt like hell to get my early articles published, and that was before sighted revisions. --SVTCobra 02:11, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I've been so busy that I've hardly been anywhere on Wikimedia lately; I only just now noticed your comment. I don't have much time to argue now, but I feel like I should say that it seems like part of the problem is that those who are pointing out problems with articles here (this case included) seem to delay the publishing of articles they happen to dislike until they are no longer news.  It hardly seems reasonable to say "this can't be published because it doesn't satisfy this and this criteria", and then, after (through several days' work) it's made to satisfy those criteria, say "this can't be published because it's too old".  To be honest, the environment here seems pretty durn acerbic.  Wikipedia's world's friendlier, and that's saying something!  Jade Knight (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikinews is not Wikipedia. And there is not time in a news cycle to mollycoddle people. I don't even really see why this is listed here, Jade Knight versus the Wikinews community? That's tilting at windmills. Lots and lots of articles get deleted, and probably every regular contributor has lost some. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:02, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * On another note. I just read the DR. I find it rather disturbing that people make comments such as ExTerMiNATE! This has no redeeming features. and Super Remove Wipe it from the face of the Earth. I would not be encouraged to continue to contribute if someone said similar things about something I wrote. We should always be mindful of people's intentions (AGF and all). Even if the article was inappropriate for wikinews (which after reading it, perhaps it was), the authors intention was to help. We should be mindful of that. Well constructive criticism is always useful, saying "Wipe from the face of the earth" doesn't help anyone, and only serves to make people feel unappreciated and defensive. Honestly, most poop vandalism is usually treated with more respect. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)