Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/archives/2010/July

"Older News"
Dear Wikinews, I would like to read news articles from one month ago. How can I do that? Thanks, Reader


 * The easiest way is to search our site for the news you want. We have a search box on every page, or you can use the Special:Search page.  Does that meet your needs? --InfantGorilla (talk) 14:04, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Archives is also a good starting place to browse a full list of all articles published. C628 (talk) 15:11, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Third opinion on paraphrasing requested
I would like to request an opinion from an uninvolved user on this disagreement: --InfantGorilla (talk) 10:51, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Talk:Bronislaw Komorowski wins Polish presidency in run-off

The death of Autosight
Now that Autosight has been laid to rest for all but bots, we need to do two things: Update the policy pages and alert everyone with reviewer rights (including admins).

The alerting would consist of a boilerplate and a bot to spam it onto every reviewer's talkpage. Any volunteers? My bot-fu is nonexistant. As for internal pages: What's the damage? What's the list of pages that need updated? Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * My bot is good spamming (lolz). --Diego Grez return fire 17:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Xcellant! I'll maybe work on the template tonight, though it can't be completed until we've changed the pages. Would you stick in a new task request at the bot page please? Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:13, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay. --Diego Grez return fire 17:15, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * /me votes against spamming people's talk page. If it really matters that much, put it in mediawiki:Sitenotice and template:wn news. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not keen on that. If a reviewer comes back after a month or two of inactivity, they won't see it. I view this as critical for reviewers to be aware of; it greatly changes the nature of the priv. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 20:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't even think about it. -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 22:06, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a site notice is fine. Griffinofwales (talk) 22:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Noticed -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 22:29, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

- Side note, we now have a new auto-sight related gadget in special:preferences. Also, the lack of autosight kind of screws with rollback. If an article is sighted, vandalized, then rollbacked to the sighted version, the rollback edit is not auto-sighted. Which is kind of a problem (probably a bug). Bawolff ☺☻ 22:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Hooza! Bawolff FTW! -- Shakata Ga Nai ^_^ 22:29, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Bawolff. A checkbox was/is part of the initial proposal anywayz. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:34, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, 13751 - I wonder if we should re-open that. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not checked bugzilla, but, yes.
 * If an editor rolls back to a sighted version, then the new version should be sighted.
 * If an editor edits an earlier, sighted, revision making no changes, that new version should be sighted.
 * Make sense? --Brian McNeil / talk 01:08, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with that, yeah. Tempodivalse [talk]  02:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * On the checkbox note, I filed 24085, as really that should be done by default, and not in javascript. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I've updated two pages, and determined a third doesn't need anything done. Is that all? Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Aaron has implemented a fix, per Bawolff's bugzilla submission. Just a matter of it, eventually, being rolled out to us. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:06, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

WN:NOT
Since Amgine has taken it upon himself to make life as difficult as possible see we do things properly, here's a quick vote: Let's add Wikinews is not Wikipedia,or any other WMF project you care to mention to WN:NOT. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:40, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Or any wiki you care to mention? — μ 17:41, July 10 2010 (UTC)
 * any other wiki. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Reworded: Wikinews is not Wikipedia or any other project; it is a unique and distinct project with its own policies and processes. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:47, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * &lt;likes&gt; -  Amgine | t 17:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ya Benny the mascot (talk) 17:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Tempodivalse [talk]  17:56, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Just do it! -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 18:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Logo NIKE.svg — μ 18:10, July 10 2010 (UTC)
 * You are evil, and should be banned like asbestos. -  Amgine | t 20:51, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Me too (without the sloganeering.) --InfantGorilla (talk) 19:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good! Diego Grez return fire 19:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds alright to me. Tyrol5 (talk) 20:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Right to reply?
Please see Talk:ARM: 2010 worst year for Afghanistan since US invasion ( A similar opinion was later expressed at Comments:ARM: 2010 worst year for Afghanistan since US invasion.) --InfantGorilla (talk) 12:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Policy on self references
What's our policy on someone writing an article and mentioning their own name in the article. As in "Wikinews reporter Diego Grez reported the aftershock was clearly felt in Pichilemu." I'm not sure that I see a problem with it, but I wanted to check to see if we had a policy covering this already that I wasn't familiar with. Gopher65talk 01:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Original reporting in the form of an interview routinely mentions the name of the interviewer, so I don't see a problem with it either. --Pi zero (talk) 01:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Policy on user/template space?
Do we have any explicit policies on the use of pages in user or template space &mdash; and if not, do we have unwritten policies about them?

(And, on a somewhat related note, what would be the preferred way to handle [ this] (which Nascar1996 pointed out)?) --Pi zero (talk) 04:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Unwritten policy of if you do stupid things in either of those namespaces we're going to delete them, otherwise not really. Generally users in good standing can use user space for whatever they want as long as they are not overly spamming something. With that said Wikinews is not a free web host/soapbox/etc and if the user is not positively contributing, we're much more strict. As for template, the template should generally be usable on multiple pages. templates for user-space (esp. userboxes) is a bit more controversial, but generally allowed if its reasonable that multiple people will use them. As for your link, that should be deleted. Its acceptable for the user to note on their user page that they work at blah, but only if its a user in good standing. If a user's only contributation is to spam something on their user page, then it should be deleted. Bawolff ☺☻ 07:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Archiving policy is stupid
Either an article is able to be edited, or it is archived. This policy currently states an article should not be archived until 7 days (or 10 days), but it should not be edited after 24 hours. Either the article should be archived effectively immediately (with copy edits, etc., optionally available via admin), or it should be editable until 7 days. -  Amgine | t 02:41, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I should mention I have challenged this policy on its talk page, as well. -  Amgine | t 02:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * From what I understand, the policy does not blanket-prohibit edits after 24 hours, but limits them to minor things such as grammar, formatting, or punctuation (in other words: no additions or changes to the context). I think the idea is to allow non-admins to fix typos and the like while the article is still reasonably "fresh" and high-trafficked, and only lock it up once it's become old news and nobody's going to look at it anymore. I know a lot of newbies aren't aware of all this and it does cause some confusion, but I'm not sure an immediate full-protect after 24 hours is the way to go - and allowing any edits, including content ones, for the full week, is certainly not something I'd support. Tempodivalse [talk]  04:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But then, you were the one who changed the policy (without any community input I can find) from 36 hours to 24 hours. -  Amgine | t 04:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As I recall, that edit was to fix the contradictions about duration (36 vs. 48 hours) and to reflect current practice. There was a water cooler thread on the issue: Water cooler/policy/archives/2010/March. Tempodivalse [talk]  04:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link. It's still anti-wiki, imo, to prevent editing to an article which is not archived. Either archive it, or leave it to be edited. -  Amgine | t 04:39, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Historical reasoning on this - Archive backlogs, if you recall. I'd like to look that over and propose competent revisions before it gets diddled with too much. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 13:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * &lt;grumble&gt; And I still think archiving can easily be automated; you just need to be willing to allow a bot to have admin status (and be operated by an admin.) The bot could quite easily be set up to examine when articles should be archived and do so - and in the process add it to a category allowing easy admin review of archived articles to check for late vandalism/additions. This would reduce the workload on admins, especially the boring repetitive stuff no one with half a brain really likes to do. -  Amgine | t 15:48, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * We do have an archive bot, sort of ... it's called Tempodivalse. Smile.png Seriously though, I wouldn't be opposed to someone (read: bawolff) creating a script to make archiving possible with one or two clicks instead of the repetitive, dull process it is now. I'm not totally comfortable with a bot doing it unmonitored, as it won't detect obvious things like bad formatting.
 * To reply to your other comment, WN:ARCHIVE in itself is rather contrary to the spirit of wikis, I don't see how the additional pre-archive restrictions are much worse. The obvious alternatives are: 1), full-prot after 24 hrs, which is arguably even more "anti-wiki" and has the added disadvantage of fewer people being able to make legitimate, minor corrections, and 2) allow any changes for the full seven days, which is even worse because it's against the spirit of news. Honestly, I don't see a big problem with the status quo. Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  17:45, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The archiving policy is not stupid, it is pragmatic. There are many contributors should hang their heads in shame at their command of the English language. Both authors and reviewers. Were competent reviews being carried out a bot could archive. That, of course, flies out the window when people are gullible enough to painstakingly fix the grammar of a pisspoor copyvio/paraphrase, then publish such. Which, as smarter readers will guess, is one of the points I'm looking to reach, and respond to, on this page. Copyright violations, or too-close a paraphrase must be blanked and rewritten on a sub page. It is a school of hard knocks, but vital to project integrity. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 18:32, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Delete a published article?
I think it has come time to document our policy for deletion of published articles.

In the meantime, Bronislaw Komorowski wins Polish presidency in run-off was published before it was deleted (as a PROD) under suspicion of copyright infringement. Do you think it requires a retraction notice, or should remain a red link?

--InfantGorilla (talk) 15:45, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose we should issue a retraction notice, just to inform readers who stumble across the article via Google News and other means. Benny the mascot (talk) 15:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But in the first place, should we even be deleting published articles through PROD or SD? I thought current practice was to have them go through DR. Benny the mascot (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a longstanding consensus that published articles should never be deleted. However, obviously we cannot keep copyright violations. Saki's interview has shown that in extraordinary circumstances it is appropriate to delete articles on ethical grounds. Therefore, I propose the following additions to policy:


 * Factually inaccurate articles that have been published should have Correction added to them.


 * Articles that have been published may be deleted and replaced with a retraction notice upon ethical grounds. Consensus to do so must be obtained at WN:DR.


 * Published articles that are copyright violations may be deleted via WN:PROD. They should be replaced with a notice explaining the deletion.

Does that suit everyone? Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 16:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Let's make the policy simpler: "Articles that have been published and subsequently deleted should be replaced with a notice explaining the deletion." This one-sentence policy covers all of the different reasons for and methods of deletion. A policy for "factually inaccurate" articles is unneeded at the moment. Benny the mascot (talk) 17:12, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Benny's suggestion seems to explain BRS' last two points more concisely (since PROD, DR, etc, is already standard practise and policy). I'd suggest leaving BRS' first point and making Benny's alternative the second point. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  17:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "A policy for "factually inaccurate" articles is unneeded at the moment." I'm going to have to challenge you to back that up. I can think of three major cases where this happened - two of them could have been avoided had we ever actually written the policy down. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I oppose Tempo's suggestion that we accept my exact wording for any of that. These are the points it must contain, not necessarily the manner in which they shall be presented. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't necessarily mean we should use your suggestion word for word, just that overall I think it could be less detailed. Just for the record, I don't agree with Benny's comment about factual accuracy since we've had several screw-ups proving that to the contrary. How about this alternative:
 * -Factually inaccurate articles that have been published should have Correction added to them. Articles that have been published but subsequently deleted, through WN:DR or WN:PROD, should be recreated with a notice stating the reason for deletion.
 * Is this a reasonable alternative? <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  17:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I can that.  Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:36, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Me too. Diego Grez return fire 19:06, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Factually inaccurate articles are dealt with on a case-by-case basis with community consensus. Why should we write a new policy that tells the community to do what it already does in practice? It's a form of instruction creep, I think. Benny the mascot (talk) 17:46, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "Why should we write a new policy that tells the community to do what it already does in practice?" --> "I can think of three major cases where this happened - two of them could have been avoided had we ever actually written the policy down." Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This discussion might benefit from specificity, unpleasant though it is to dredge up cases of this kind. (I'm thinking that how we word policy on this needs to be clearly informed by an understanding of what we want it to accomplish.)
 * BRS, what were the other two cases you had in mind? --Pi zero (talk) 19:03, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The three I can think of: Ukranian manufacturer preparing to sell Adolf Hitler dolls was dealt with without fuss, and set the standard. Had we made it policy then and there, the massive fuss regarding Passengers on Air France Flight 447 sent text messages to family members before plane disappeared could have been avoided. Please see Talk:Passengers on Air France Flight 447 sent text messages to family members before plane disappeared and Deletion requests/Archives/2009/Q2 to determin just how much time was wasted sorting that one out. At that point there was firm consensus established. Chronologically, the issue was again raised briefly at Talk:Wikinews investigates: Advertisements disguised as news articles trick unknowing users out of money, credit card information, though I had forgotten that one. The last one is the one that led to aa recent request to de-reviewer somebody at WN:FRRFP and led to several hours of confusion after an article was de-published. I think all these cases demonstrate a need to make this clear in policy. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 19:29, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile, we could probably do with documenting how: does it need protection (yes), sighting, Category:No publish,  an archive tag, and/or Category:Archived? --InfantGorilla (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I (perhaps only partly tongue-in-cheek) suggest we beat some sense into people who are stupid enough not to do a competent review. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That should go without saying, as long as we bear in mind real world laws on corporal punishment. However, to mitigate this particular case, I should point out that, at Wikinews and elsewhere in the world, people are woefully unaware of the implications of a close paraphrase.  I suggest that we would be better to educate firmly but civilly. (Ducks) --InfantGorilla (talk) 20:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

In addition to explaining how &mdash;details as in InfantGorilla's post above&mdash; I think we need to be clear that in cases that do not involve deletion, consensus is needed in order to add a correction tag. Otherwise anyone who disagrees with an article is going to be tagging it and claiming they were just following policy. --Pi zero (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I didn't consider that, but it's a good point. So would something along the lines of this work:
 * "Published articles deemed factually inaccurate by the community should have Correction added to them. Articles that have been published but subsequently deleted, through WN:DR or WN:PROD, should be recreated with a notice stating the reason for deletion." ?
 * Open to thoughts. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  14:15, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Bump; I'm requesting further input into what appears to be a stalled discussion. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's not stalled. I thought we already reached consensus! Feel free to update the relevant policy pages (WN:ARCHIVE?) if you'd like. Benny the mascot (talk) 18:07, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought the actual wording still needs to be upon, since there was a bit of confusion on that. If there aren't any objections to my latest suggestion above, I'll implement it in a few days. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Policy change wording
Tempodivalse's proposed insertion to the policy:
 * "Published articles deemed factually inaccurate by the community should have Correction added to them. Articles that have been published but subsequently deleted, through WN:DR or WN:PROD, should be recreated with a notice stating the reason for deletion."

I would prefer if the second sentence prescribed use of a specific template notice, perhaps entitled "Deleted", so...
 * Articles that have been published but subsequently deleted, through WN:DR or WN:PROD, should be recreated with Reason for article deletion.

- <span style="font: italic 10pt/12pt cursive;"> Amgine | t 15:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Section break YEG2762F
Someone restore what's been lost here; those page length warnings are going to come more of an issue. Why? I'm editing from a cellphone, and the above section exceeded the browser/editor textbox limit.

On which point, Tempo stop editing the whole damn page. I still haven't found your comment I want to respond to, and that section likely wrecks cell editing too. Think, people on-the-scene pay per kilobyte to report. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 18:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't understand - I saw a large block of text had been deleted without explanation and I undid it. Must have edited the whole page by mistake. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:21, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Right. So, you didn't know that to undo what I'd done, after another person had edited the page, required editing the whole page? May I suggest attempting some editing from a mobile device, while using the secure login? You did the exact same thing, again, when I was trying to painstakingly fill in a comment on your talk page after the above, thus prompting my outburst for which The Wub has cautioned/threatened me. I, again, have an awful lot to do today. Try thinking about how we're going to have people doing on-the-scene stuff; being "helpful" may royally screw some people in such circumstances. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:26, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The Time Has Come
Wikinews Needs A Legislature and A Hierarchy! A defined and publically availible one that is not dominated through day-to-day power struggles, intimidation and brown nosing.

The community is small, but it's big enough to no longer dance to the beat of the same drum. Call me silly and radical but I look at wikinews and I see faceless, voiceless puppeteers pulling strings of disorganisation.

Please seriously consider this - for I only want whats best for Wikinews.

BKCW8''' talk  11:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

p.s Shotgun Governor-General!
 * No, it doesn't. Thank you, come again. --<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif"> Sken   my talk 11:59, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * What. A. Lot. Of. Bollocks. Grow up kid, and learn that a wiki is generally a meritocracy. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 13:17, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * He has a point, though. Wikinews is very disorganized and can't get its job done efficiently. Actual leadership might come later, when we have so many contributors that we have to divide ourselves into teams (aka WikiBureaus) and appoint certain people to lead those teams. Benny the mascot (talk) 14:12, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but no, he doesn't have a point. He's proposing (whether he realizes it or not) that we shouldn't have a wiki, and justifying the idea by attributing problems to wikis that are more applicable to what he's proposing.  The value of wikis for WMF projects is that they are resistant to manipulation by centralized power structures, and Wikinews exists because that's notably applicable to providing a neutral free press.  Note that there is a high degree of gullibility in the proposal.  Centralized power structures guide people to imagine that all organizational advantages flow from centralized power structures &mdash; by taking credit for what goes right, attributing what goes wrong to individual people, and claiming to be the cure for the problems that the centralized power structure creates.  There is (believe it or not) usually no malice in the propagation of these misapprehensions; they're just symbiotic with belief in centralized power structures.  --Pi zero (talk) 15:33, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Brilliant. Thank you very much; beautifully said. - <span style="font: italic 10pt/12pt cursive;"> Amgine | t 15:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * &lt;insert&gt; Thank you Pi zero. Perhaps a few of the following respondents (which I've cheekily replied to before) would care to look at meritocracy; then they might see the irony in the below comment from ShakataGaNai. If people want to elect a committee to employ their friends, to examine what people want, then do something else, they should not be here. Stop shouting "something must be done!" The end result, inevitably, is "This is something, let's do it!" Regardless of whether it is a dumb idea or not. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * We can be a bit disorganised at times, but I think the suggested alternatives are worse. Having formal power structures like that, with individual people (not community consensus) telling others what they can or cannot do, is entirely contrary to the spirit of Wiki - which is that we can all help out in our own way and not be considered "below" or inferior to others - and having people with titles like "Chancellor", "Governor-General" or whatever doesn't help that. Our "wiki-politics" and processes are inherently different from those in real life and I don't the two can be compared. Introducing lots of bureaucratic "legislature" and rules is, IMHO, actually one of the biggest failings of a lot of RL governments, not something we need to copy. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:01, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That doesn't change the fact that we already have an informal leadership, however. There are some contributors who we tend to respect more than others, and those contributors as a result have more influence within the community. Benny the mascot (talk) 18:06, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe in some sense, yes, but that's the point: it's informal. Sure, some people will inevitably end up being a bit more influential, but we're not explicitly saying or encouraging that "you're not President or on the Wikinews Parliament, so you're a second-class editor and we can tell you what to do". Introducing some sort of legislature like what is being suggested is just more instruction creep - and extra bureaucracy drawing the focus away from what should be our primary goal, writing news - that we don't need. <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:28, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

King Shaka the nth

 * I think this is a fantastic idea. I'll be happy to take up the title of Benevolent Dictator of Wikinews and take care of all your leadership needs.  Fear not, the list of people going up against the wall, after I'm in charge, will be short.  After that, I'll claim we have a democratic leadership by instituting bi-yearly elections, but I'll have the ballot box stuffed by socks and anyone who votes against me will also go up against the wall.  Please, relax and enjoy yourselves - you no longer need to worry about making any decisions.  -- Shakata Ga Nai  ^_^ 18:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I for one welcome ShakataGaNai as our new overlord (ha! no walls for me to worry about!) Shoone (talk) 18:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Um ... :b <font face="Georgia">Tempodivalse <font face="Georgia">[talk]  18:28, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Simply stated, we don't need more bureaucracy. — Mike moral  ♪♫  18:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * All hail King Shaka! ( Me asks for a minor post, somewhere warm, in the Ministry of Propaganda .) --Brian McNeil / talk 07:54, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Infrastructure of peer review
We want this project to keep growing, but I think the existing system for peer review of articles will not scale up well, and is already past its optimal range and is faltering. That faltering is causing incidents that themselves cause disputes within the community, and it's only going to get worse. We need to figure out how the system should evolve.

The trouble seems to me to be that the existing system puts too much on the shoulders of a single reviewer. A wiki is usually resistant to mistakes by a single contributor, and that's somewhat true here too except for the one case of the reviewer who makes the decision to publish the article. Even reviewers who edit the article after publication have a safety net now, thanks to BRS for no more automatic review. But the one person who publishes has the most to worry about and no safety net.

Here's a rough outline of one conceivable way to rearrange things:
 * The five criteria on the peer review template are handled separately, and
 * for each of the five,
 * one reviewer not involved with the article reviews that criterion initially, much as now (other than separability from other criteria), and once it passes a first review,
 * some number of additional uninvolved reviewers check the work. I imagine we'd want the number to be one for now.

Publication would occur when every criterion has passed a first review and the requisite number of checks.

The checks not only improve the odds of catching major problems before publication, but they also provide feedback for reviewer self-improvement, and statistics helpful to de-reviewer deliberations. Statistics on who checks whose work could help to detect and break up closed cliques of mutually supporting reviewers (inadvertent or otherwise).

It might, or might not, make sense to have a separate elite class of reviewers authorized to do the checks; I can see advantages on both sides.

Separating the criteria so they can be reviewed separately helps to reduce the size of the burden being placed on an individual reviewer (though, yes, it would increase the total burden distributed across all reviewers involved), thereby perhaps mitigating the obvious concern of increased review times from the additional stage of review. It also encourages reviewers to take each individual criterion more seriously. Separating the criteria has been suggested more than once before as a way of reducing review times, and rejected; IIRC there were concerns about the logistics, and the efficiency of time spent. --Pi zero (talk) 23:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... it's certainly an interesting idea in theory. Separating review criteria is something I thought briefly about before and soon dismissed as too inefficient, but you've pointed out some advantages that I didn't even consider. Do you have any links to where this was discussed previously? the wub "?!"  23:59, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, I knew once before it was me that brought it up, and I've found that. It's well down in this thread; it's my third comment in the thread, searchable by keyword "brainstorming".  I see direct, devastating negative responses from Rockerball and Tempo, and a sort of indirect negative from Bawolff.  (No wonder I didn't mention it again for four months. :-)


 * Now, I think I remember knowing at that time, and looking up, where someone else had suggested it previously... --Pi zero (talk) 00:39, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * As things stand, there's nothing stopping you saying "Yep, NPOV, not checked X, style fine, ....". I've already mentioned in relation to the archiving policy revising some of the processes workflow. It is easy to fail an article on one, glaring, point. Could we, somehow, change to saying "just this one issue needs addressed?"
 * My own approach is to try and c/e a submission to make sense, and be put in context, for myself. Then I check against sources. --Brian McNeil / talk 00:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think this is a great idea in theory. I have only one concern, but that is, unfortunately, a very big one. Try finding one reviewer, never mind five to review a criterion before the news is so old as to be hardly worth publishing. It's more a problem with the project as a whole than this proposed system, but I feel it's the biggest thing preventing Wikinews from getting the recognition it deserves. <font color="Teal" face="Tahoma">HJ Mitchell &#124; <font color="Navy" face= "Times New Roman">Penny for your thoughts?   01:00, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * One reviewer could review several or all criteria, if they so chose; my thought was to give them the option of doing a subset of the five.


 * Actually, separability of the criteria (which is sort of the less frightening half of my original proposal, but that's okay, it's what we're discussing) &mdash; separability of criteria is a potential cure for the problem of not enough reviewers. There are some unknown number of reviewers out there who rarely do peer review because it's such a massive job, but who might be more often willing to undertake the smaller task of checking a subset of the criteria.  If those people spend peer-review time inefficiently, it's pure profit for the peer-review system, because the alternative would be that they didn't spend the time on peer-review at all.  There would have to be enough such people to make it a significant effect; and the system would have to operate very smoothly, to minimize the burden on low-impact peer-reviewers.


 * Here's an awkward point; at first I thought this was a fatal flaw. When reviewing any one criterion, one is likely to make edits to the article; and those edits could invalidate a previous review of other criteria.  Therefore, it seems one would have to certify that one's further edits have not invalidated any previously reviewed criteria.  --Pi zero (talk) 03:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why I was indirectly negative last time :P, but just wanted to say I think its a good idea. Wikis are not good with single points of failure. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:49, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The conversation may be a bit off kilter because it's been mostly talking about the first of the two halves of my current suggestion. The first half was what I suggested before, and it fell very flat.  The whole single-point-of-failure angle, and the second half of my suggestion, are new as far as I know.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

In the past, I've heavily c/e'd stuff from non-native speakers, then kicked it back to them to confirm it matches reality on primary points. I think, to address part of what you're producing, some thought has to go into the order in which review items are carried out. My internal thinking in such situations is to try and avoid referring to the sources, c/e hard, ask the author's opinion if I've made it misrepresentative, then I am - hopefully - still independent to fact-check and complete the review process. Of course, that just highlights how hard a task it is. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:16, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

current arbcom motion
ArbCom is currently considering a motion, but since it's going to be replaced by a new committee tomorrow, what should we do about the motion? WN:ACE10 says: "If the incumbent Arbitration Committee is conducting business on July 31, then it will continue to serve as arbitrators until such business is concluded. The new Arbitration Committee will consider requests that are filed on or after August 1." That election rule obviously is not going to work out too well in this case, since Brian McNeil and Tempo are no longer on the committee, and BRS is on vacation. That leaves us with Cirt and Cspurrier as the only active ArbCom members considering the motion, and even Cspurrier hasn't been active that much. So...what should we do? Benny the mascot (talk) 16:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I think this one is pretty easy: Elections rules (created by the committee) cannot actually govern the ArbCom or the community in general. ArbCom can just ignore the rule. Normally an arbitration committee or court requires refiling any motions when the committee or court changes, but they're rather busier than en.WN ArbCom. I certainly don't think the previous ArbCom would have either standing or interest in continuing work on the motion, but just let it go for now, and see how things develop after the election is finalized. - <span style="font: italic 10pt/12pt cursive;"> Amgine | t 16:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * ArbCom motions are a matter for the ArbCom, not the election officials. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:44, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * - It is quite a simple matter. The ArbCom active members that were active at the time the case was filed should determine the outcome. -- Cirt (talk) 23:01, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom motion
Note: Out of 5 active arbitrators, 4 rejected a full case, and supported voting on a motion. One abstained. Proposed: The Arbitration Committee recognizes the outcome of consensus after a deletion discussion (July 2010), where the community determined to delete the page Userbox Policy. The community may propose, discuss, and adopt a new Userbox Policy if members wish this. However, there is no need to modify the existing prior case from 2006, Requests for arbitration/Brian New Zealand vs. Amgine. The determination at Requests_for_arbitration/Brian_New_Zealand_vs._Amgine deferred development of policy to the community, and with the community it still remains. The ArbCom notes that it is still the final decision-maker, but reminds that strong community consensus may be presented as evidence to encourage overruling an unpopular decision.
 * Requests for arbitration/Benny the mascot vs. Arbitration Committee
 * Motion

3 voted in support, 1 opposed, 1 recused/abstain due to conflict-of-interest. -- Cirt (talk) 14:49, 31 July 2010 (UTC)