Wikinews:Glossary

This is a list of phrases and abbreviations commonly used on Wikinews. Still incomplete &mdash; please contribute!

accredited reporter

 * n. a user permitted to represent oneself as a freelance reporter for Wikinews.

admin

 * abbrev. Shortened form of administrator.

administrator

 * n. A user with extra responsibilities to protect and delete pages, edit interface messages, and block users from editing, amongst others.

AGF

 * abbrev. An abbreviation for 'assume good faith', a policy on many Wikimedia projects, but that has no bearing on Wikinews.

anonymous user

 * n. A user who is not logged in, generally identifiable by their IP address.

article

 * n. A wiki page in the main namespace written about a news event.

AWB

 * abbrev. Shorthand for 'AutoWikiBrowser', a semi-automated editing program.

ban

 * n. A more-or-less permanent revocation of the right to edit, cf. block.

bot

 * n. A user that has its edits, by default, hidden from Recent Changes, especially an automated user. The bot right is given by bureaucrats.

block

 * 1) n. A technical temporary revocation of the right to edit.
 * 2) v. To temporarily revoke a technical editing right from a user. Distinct from a ban.

bureaucrat

 * n. A user with special powers to flag users as sysops and bots.

chapter

 * n. A local country-specific version of the Foundation.

CheckUser

 * n. An identified user with the ability to view IP addresses of other non-anonymous users.

checkuser

 * v. To view the IP address of a non-anonymous user.

correct

 * v. (Wikinews) To retrospectively add a correction notice to an article, to highlight a mistake made during the publication process.

'crat

 * abbrev. Shortened form of bureaucrat. Often spelt without the preceding apostrophe.

de-admin

 * v. Less common synonym of desysop.

delete

 * v. To make a page or revision hidden to all but administrators.

desysop

 * v. To revoke or rescind the elevated rights of an administrators.

Easy Peer Review

 * n. A tool used to automate the publication process on English Wikinews.

editor

 * 1) n. (obs. chiefly Wikinews) A reviewer.
 * 2) n. Someone who edits a page.

EzPR

 * abbrev. Shorthand for Easy Peer Review.

Foundation

 * n. Shorthand for the Wikimedia Foundation.

gadget

 * n. A snippet of JavaScript and/or CSS, defined by project administrators, that can be toggled on and off in one's preferences.

hide

 * v. To selectively delete a revision from a page history by an administrator or oversighter.

identify

 * v. To disclose one's real name and date of birth to the Foundation. A pre-requisite of gaining access to non-public data.

lede

 * n. The first paragraph of an article.

Manual of Style

 * n. Alternative phrase describing the style guide.

MediaWiki

 * tm. The wiki software upon which Wikimedia sites run. Always written in CamelCase.

MediaWiki installation

 * n. An installation of MediaWiki on a site.

NPOV

 * abbrev. Shorthand for Neutral Point of View, a central tenet of most Wikimedia projects.

Office

 * n. Colloquialism for the Wikimedia Foundation, especially its legal department.

oversight

 * 1) v. To permanently erase an edit from the edit history, only accessible via direct database access by a developer.
 * 2) n. The technical right to perform oversight, given to an oversighter.

oversighter

 * n. A user able to oversight an edit. A user must be identified to the Foundation to become an oversighter.

POV

 * abbrev.An abbreviation of 'point of view'.

POVior

 * 1) n. A portmanteau of POV + warrior; a user who, generally aggressively, presents xyr point of view to the exclusion of others; cf. NPOV
 * 2) v. To push a specific point of view, especially to consciously violate the neutral point of view in articles.

queue

 * n. Shorthand for the review queue.

review

 * v. To check an article prior to publication, by an independent third party. Generally involves fact-checking and style formatting.

reviewer

 * (Wikinews) n. A user with the ability to sight pages prior to publication.

review queue

 * (Wikinews) n. The list of articles currently requiring review before publication.

salt

 * v. To protect a title from being created.

shortcut

 * n. A metaspace redirect that forms a quick way of reaching a certain page, ex. WN:WC.

steward

 * n. A user who has complete access to the wiki interface on all Wikimedia wikis, including access to change all user-rights of users.

style guide

 * n. A list of standards an article must follow before it can be published.

sysop

 * cont. The technical name for an administrator, derived from the phrase 'system operator'.

template

 * n. A standardised boilerplate for formatting or text which may be included in multiple wiki pages.

transclude

 * v. Automated including of the contents of one wiki page into another via the MediaWiki software. Templates are transcluded.

transclusion

 * n. A specific instance of transcluding.

user

 * n. Someone who uses Wikinews, but commonly more specifically a person who edits, especially one who has logged in.

vandal

 * n. Someone who vandalises.

vandalism

 * n. A bad-faith edit.

wiki

 * n. A freely-editable website.

Wikimedia Foundation

 * tm. The charity that runs websites such as Wikipedia, Wikinews and MediaWiki. Never 'WikiMedia'.

WMF

 * abbrev. Shorthand for the Wikimedia Foundation.

xe

 * pron. A gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun.

xyr

 * possess. A gender-neutral way of saying 'his/her'.