Wikinews:Water cooler/miscellaneous/archives/2010/January

Boundary Sentinel
I notified Boundary Sentinel about how to reuse a Wikinews article used at this link. The Web site's owner replied and she will have it fixed. Just letting you all know. -- The New  Mikemoral  ♪♫ 21:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I couldn't access the link you gave, is it a log-in-to-view site? Tempodivalse [talk]  21:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think they took it down temporarily. I'm not sure though, -- The New  Mikemoral  ♪♫ 21:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:Image issues backlog
There are a lot of backlogged "fair use violation" images in the category Image issues, most of them are not in violation of the Fair Use Policy, and others need to be speedy deleted. Cocoaguy talkcontribs‽ 04:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I know. It needs someone who is prepared to do the work; rationales where appropriate and nominate the rest for deletion so others have an opportunity to draft a FUR. It would not be a pleasant job; Wikinews has had bad experiences with overzealous commons and enwp admins in the past trying to delete without understanding the cultural differences. It is a job that needs done by someone who cares about what's right for this project. But, when you care about that, looking at the here-and-now takes precedence. --Brian McNeil / talk 04:23, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That, and most of them should be deleted according to policy, but I certainly don't want to be the one to delete them. (image issues tend to spiral into scary flame wars) Bawolff ☺☻ 04:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Joournalist copying our articles
Just so you know, Joournalist has been copying our articles without proper attribution. Is there anything WMF can do about it?Benny the mascot (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Hm, that doesn't look too good. I think the first thing we should do is send them a polite email informing them the proper way to attribute our work. If that doesn't work or they ignore us, then we could take it up with the WMF. Tempodivalse [talk]  02:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, their re-encoding our beautiful png's into ugly jpeg's with crappy alpha. The horrors. On a serious note, wmf does not own the copyright to wikinews (you own the copyright to wikinews, or at least the parts you edit.) Generally the first step in such a case is, as tempo said, send a nice email (there's a template email somewhere) politely asking they give proper attributation. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

For future reference, the articles in question are: Do all affected Wikinewsies have to email Joournalist? I'm concerned about my privacy, and I want to avoid emailing people I don't have to email. Benny the mascot (talk) 03:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Students raise record amounts of money during Christmas fundraiser at Benet Academy, Illinois
 * Yegor Gaidar, Russian economist and politician, dies at 53
 * Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" makes maiden flight
 * Alleged tax-haven scheme linked to Canada's largest brokerage firm
 * Chinese, Turkmen, Kazakh, Uzbek presidents unveil gas pipeline
 * Dubai receives bailout from Abu Dhabi
 * Government of Canada okays WIND Mobile launch, overturning CRTC decision
 * New York City Mass Transit facing service cuts
 * Obama delays arrival to Copenhagen summit by one week
 * US unemployment rate down to ten percent
 * No, that's probably not necessary, I think one email should do the trick - all that's needed is a reminder that we need to be attributed. Also, I've taken a look at their "Regional directory", and it appears that they've been copying more articles than just the ones Benny mentions above. Tempodivalse [talk]  03:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow...I didn't even look at the Regional directory! If you take a look at this article, you see the Wikipedia logo and the text of the "archived" template. :( Benny the mascot (talk) 03:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * lol. Well anyways, we can use a standard letter based on the wikipedia standard letter:

Dear :

I have noticed that you are making use of English Wikinews articles as part of your website, . One example is , which is a direct copy of the Wikinews article , which is located at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/. Wikinews encourages the redistribution of its content. However, it is necessary to comply with the terms of our primary license, the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License (CC-BY). Failure to do so is a copyright violation. The text of the CC-BY can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/. That is the relevant legally binding document. However, It is very easy to comply with the license. All you have to do is add a credit line at the end of each page that is based on a Wikinews page. For example, add the following to the footer of such pages: "This article is based upon the article  by Wikinews. It is copyright and used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license ."

Thank you for your cooperation.

 (Preferably the specific article used as an example is one written by the sender of the letter. make sure the specific example is not a VoA article, etc). I could send it if you want, but the letter is much better if it comes from someone who wrote the article that is used as an example in the letter. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * P.s. They have an online contact form we could use, but might be better to send to the admin contact for the domain ( mailto:info@maxipoint.info ). Bawolff ☺☻ 05:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that appears to be their domain registers email. which is weird. Probably best to use the form http://www.joournalist.com/contact.php or try the generic webmaster@joournalist.com and then try the one in the whois database if that doesn't work. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The copyvios are still up there after several days. Has anyone sent an email yet? This needs to be resolved. Tempodivalse [talk]  18:08, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * And after two weeks, still no attribution. Someone please send an email. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  16:53, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I filled out their contact form politely requesting they follow the terms laid out on WN:COPY. Slightly concerned I didn't get an acknowledgement despite filling in an email address. There's a need to give them until mid-next week to comply with this (you can't expect action over a weekend). If they don't comply, well, major contributors to anything they've copied are the only people who can act against them, or appoint an agent to do so. If it comes to that we'd need to collect a full list of all articles they've copied, confirm with several of those article's major contributors they're happy to raise a stink, and we see what Creative Commons has to say about helping. They might find it amusing if we delegated the right to issue a DMCA takedown on this to them. --Brian McNeil / talk 18:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Picture of the year '09?
Just a note, if we're going to hold another Picture of the Year, it's probably about time to start setting it up now that we're into the new year. Cheers, <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  03:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I don't want to see this die. Trouble is, News in Pictures died halfway through. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah. We might have some trouble coming up with enough interesting images this time around. (What are we going to do next year, since it seems as though NIP will not be back?) <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  01:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Crime and law
On the crime and law infobox, the image used kinda seems to be a USA skewed POV, File:US Army CID agents at crime scene.jpg. Not only that, the image only implies crime and kinda disregards law. Maybe we should use an image like File:Scale of justice 2.svg or something. Cocoaguytalkcontribs‽ 20:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Good choice. I'm just gonna go right ahead and do it. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 20:50, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow that was fast, thanks Cocoaguytalkcontribs‽ 20:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks good, thanks, better than the other image. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  20:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree with change. :) Cirt (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:Rape
I am concerned about how we're going to deal with this category. Currently, it includes the controversial view of the US judiciary that sex with the underage is rape. That can get you in serious trouble. If you were in the UK and somebody was convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old girl with no suggestion of force, then if you published that he was a rapist you would deserve the delightful letter from Carter-Ruck.

I propose that the category not be used for such cases. It is, effectively, a PoV to call it such, one that many teens (and others) find offensive.

The following articles right now are questionable:


 * Court rejects Polanski bid to have child sex charges dismissed <--- although he was charged with 'proper' rape but never convicted
 * Nebraska teacher sentenced to 6 years for sex with student
 * Nine who admitted raping 10-year-old released by Australian judge
 * Two Michigan children, aged 9 and 11, charged with sex crimes
 * US Army sergeant sentenced for sodomy of a minor and child porn

Then we move on to another issue. Is forced anal sex rape? Can you rape a man? In some jurisdictions that is sexual assault, or the special crime of sodomy, rather than rape. Do we limit the category from containing those as well? Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * How about we rename it "Sex crimes"? Generic and fairly freakin obvious. -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 22:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I like. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Would category:Sexual crimes be better from a grammatical point of view? (I don't know. my grammar is horrible). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Nah, the suggestion is fine - as it is called w:Category:Sex crimes at en.wikipedia. Cirt (talk) 07:14, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Category:Sex crimes -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 07:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Letterhead/Email Stationary Proposal
In the godaddy email service that hosts the wikinewsie email addresses, you are able to customise the letterhead as well as other graphical elements of your email by uploading images into its interface. So I threw together a couple of rough letterheads, one Wikinews UK one for myself and other UK wikinewsies

And then another minus the UK for all wikinewsies

Of course versions for other localities can easily be created, this was just a rough version for me and a test for anybody else who wants to use it. I don't know if WN have a paper letterhead template? I just designed this for email, but I suppose it could be used for either. Also, the tagline "Global Audience. Local Reporters" (stolen from http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Wikinews_ads) could be changed to anything, there are a few other good ones on that page. Anyway, changes aside what do people think? (Sorry if it's uploaded under the wrong license, see the image description for my logic). --JulesMattsson (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That looks good. I like the tagline as well. It is one that would be vary appropriate for most of the sort of thing we do with OR. --Cspurrier (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Any image that's a derivative of a WMF-registered mark has to be assigned to the WMF, so the image should go on Commons. I got permission to use derivatives of the Wikinews logo on Wikinewsie.org, so I think we can 'stretch' that to an email letterhead. Personally, I sent plain-text PGP-signed emails - there's a much better chance of getting through ultra-suspicious spam filters, and nobody can forge an email claiming to be from me. I only use the webmail interface to train its spam filters and check what it files as bulk every now and then. For anyone else who doesn't use the webmail creating an email template will vary per email client. Can you send me a sample using the template? I'm curious to pick apart the HTML email and see if its done properly - so that it gets through mail clients that block auto-loading from a website. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:20, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know what you mean, many prefer plain text, and for good reasons. This is just something a bit shiny for anyone who wants it. The way it's done on the webmail is a bit clunky; it attaches the image as a jpeg to the message, i don't know if it supports embedding from external hosts. I've sent you a test Brian. As for the licencing, would you please be able to reupload it under the appropriate arrangement? Thanks --JulesMattsson (talk) 18:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Page Hits
With the wubbot starting up so we get most popular again, I was wondering what our stats our. So, does anyone know/can tell me where to find our average page view per day and also where I can find how many total hits a specific article has ever had? Thanks! <i style="position:absolute;z-index:-1;bottom:0;width:2.8em;height:8px;background:#eee;"> </i> Tris   18:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Bulk statistics (aka the non-pretty but useful if you want to do statistical analysis) is available http://dammit.lt/wikistats/ (aka http://dammit.lt/wikistats/projectcounts-20100113-180000 lists number of hits for each project on jan 13 2010 over the hour of 18:00 UTC. Specifically the part relevent to wikinews:

en.n - 7751 86100185 7751*24 = 186 024 hits per day (roughly. its a lot quieter at night, so this is optimistic. also a potentially large portion are generated by non-real people. take it with salt).

Over the longer term: http://stats.grok.se/en.n/201001/Main%20Page (Ignore the word wikipedia. the stats are for wikinews. Something is weird though arround the 8th). Bawolff ☺☻ 18:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC) Bawolff ☺☻ 18:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Aha, I didn't realise stats.grok.se did Wikinews, that's useful, thanks Bawolff! <i style="position:absolute;z-index:-1;bottom:0;width:2.8em;height:8px;background:#eee;"> </i>  Tris   09:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * yep they do. However their interface doesn't show it. You have to type in the url by hand, with en.n in it. Also be careful of the search box at the bottom. It will go back to the wikipedia page hits. Bawolff ☺☻

Category:Bureau of Labor Statistics
Someone has requested a hell of a lot of articles be added to this category.

What should the criteria for inclusion be? Articles about the bureau? Or every single mention of them as an official source of Govt. stats? --Brian McNeil / talk 11:20, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Articles about the bureau would make more sense, imo. Just because they're mentioned as a source for statistics probably isn't enough to be categorised as such. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I could go either way, but as they are the major source of economic statistics for the U.S. I think that the category is a useful way to aggregate stories. Evrik (talk) 20:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh balls, I only found this after doing most of the editprotected requests! Anyways, as should be obvious from my actions, I agree with adding the category broadly where BLS is used as a source. It brings together a lot of related stories and extra categories aren't generally harmful, but can be useful to readers. The articles should remain in higher-level categories such as Economy and business also. the wub "?!"  10:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Avaition infobox icon
On the Template:Aviation the image used is alittle restrictive, maybe we should use a more stylized logo, ex. File:AVIA BUTTON big.png, File:Aiga departingflights.gif or File:Aiga departingflights inv.gif. Cocoaguytalkcontribs‽ 20:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Personally I prefer an actual photo to a stylised graphic but there's nothing stopping you doing . Well, not, I think, since I fixed the template to actually implement the parameter it claimed to support. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Like Brian, i think an actual pic is better - plus the A380 is suitable because it's so famous - but i suppose we could replace it with something more topic-neutral, File:AVIA BUTTON big.png seems good. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  01:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I actually think we could get away with changing the image from time to time; I'd like to play around with variations being fed into it, and that new parameter means we don't have to edit the template. Perhaps if we msut chage from this we can have a photograph and be generic; how about a clearly recognisable closeup fo some bit or other from an aircraft, such as this full-frontal jet engine? Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a hacking idea.... Pick up to five 'classic'/'iconic' aviation images and I'll make the default a random selection from one whenever someone looks at an article containing the template. With that overrideable by the optional parameter. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That sounds fun. <i style="position:absolute;z-index:-1;bottom:0;width:2.8em;height:8px;background:#eee;"> </i>  Tris   19:39, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

<br clear="both" \>--Brian McNeil / talk 19:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I was very close to picking something with lots of pretty coloured smoke from Commons:Category:Aerobatics or one of its subcats. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

A few from me. <Gallery> File:C17 DF-SD-06-03299.jpg|A few from Tris as possibles. Am I allowed more than one?! File:Zepper-BK 117-C2-(EC145)-SchweizerischeRettungsflugwacht.jpg|My second File:011218-N-9769P-047 F-A-18 With Weapons Ready for Mission.jpg|My third File:Koromiko New Zealand.jpg|My last; a non military one!]] </Gallery> <i style="position:absolute;z-index:-1;bottom:0;width:2.8em;height:8px;background:#eee;"> </i> Tris   18:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the old airplane myself, it's humourous. Evrik (talk) 20:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Changes at wikinewsie
I'm trying to tidy Wikinewsie.org a little bit at a time. For the moment, can I ask all accredited reporters to fill in a section on the wiki? I've dropped the painful-to-maintain list from the site front page. Yes, I know several things such as the blog are on outdated versions; the online updater breaks so I've got backups of the databases and will do a reinstall/rebuild at some point. --Brian McNeil / talk 22:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)