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

list of wikinewsies by edits
I've always liked lists of users by edits because they show the hard work put in by users to projects. Getting a list is very simple, but I need consensus first (for the bot flag). Thoughts? Griffinofwales (talk) 02:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think so. I have the source code, I could run it daily :D --Diego Grez return fire 02:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I already know a bot (and op) that can do it, and it doesn't have an op that's blocked on a wiki. Griffinofwales (talk) 02:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha-ha-ha. You're so funny. --Diego Grez return fire 02:53, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If it can be implemented easily, I say go for it. Tempodivalse [talk]  03:24, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * So if you know that bot op that is not blocked on a wiki, bring the bot here. I want to see if it works. --Diego Grez return fire 03:59, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I wonder if I'm still in the top ten... Bawolff ☺☻ 09:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am! /me happy, we all have a little editcountist. I have no problem with a bot (no strong feelings though) Here is the current list for those interested.


 * 1) AdambroBot (bot-weather) with 48080  edits starting on
 * 2) Brian McNeil  with 35234  edits starting on the sands of time
 * 3) Wikinews Welcome (bot) with 31600  edits starting on
 * 4) DragonFire1024  with 31274 edits starting on
 * 5) Tempodivalse   with 26842  edits starting on
 * 6) SVTCobra     with 23816  edits starting on
 * 7) BOT-Superzerocool (bot-interwiki) with 22163  edits starting on
 * 8) Bawolff   with 19738  edits starting on the sands of time
 * 9) MelancholieBot  (bot-old stats bot) with 16671  edits starting on
 * 10) Doldrums    with 15208 edits starting on the sands of time
 * 11) CalendarBot   (bot-interwiki+date cats)   with 14449  edits starting on
 * 12) Cirt     with 12890  edits starting on
 * 13) Amgine      with 12878  edits starting on the sands of time
 * 14) ZacharyBot  (bot-interwiki/double redir)   with 12463  edits starting on
 * 15) Anonymous101  with 11821  edits starting on
 * 16) FellowWikiNews  with 11101 edits starting on
 * 17) Dan100    with 9697  edits starting on the sands of time
 * 18) Edbrown05     with 9680  edits starting on the sands of time
 * 19) Cspurrier    with 9597  edits starting on the sands of time
 * 20) Brian   with 9252  edits starting on the sands of time

The funny thing is that half of these people are long retired. Also note anyone without a start date joined before user creation dates were recorded (sometime in late 2005 i think). Bawolff ☺☻ 09:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The list is updated every week and it shows users who have been inactive by shading out their names. How many users should the list have? and do you want two lists (one with bots included and one with bots exempted)? There is a white list if you don't want to be on the list (your name is replaced by Placeholder), which I can link to. Griffinofwales (talk) 13:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well of the first 20 (with bots), only 3-6 are active non-bot users (depending on definition of active). so we might want a long list. I'm not sure. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:43, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Mm. I'd like to have at least one list without bots, since they are kinda clogging up the list. Tempodivalse [talk]  13:58, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha! Ha! I win, .... again. :D DragonFire1024 previously overtook me for a while, but these youngsters have no stamina. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:11, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm amazed that you have more than welcome bot. Its catching up fast, but it welcomes so many people in a day. Bawolff ☺☻ 15:16, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Back to original question. I propose 2 lists, top 30 on each list. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Could someone at least agree or disagree with this proposal or come up with a new one? It has been over 2 weeks. Griffinofwales (talk) 14:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Most interesting stuff. Sounds like a good idea. :P -- Cirt (talk) 18:51, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I like this, I'd recommend just doing a list without bots and making it a top 20. For bots, that can be a less-visible page as their actions are not that significant on the whole. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 07:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

discussion bump
I'd like to bump a stalled discussion located here. I'd like to propose an amendment to the proposal. All users that have not edited in a year will have their rights removed automatically without discussion. Of course, its controversial, so if the WN community wishes for me to nominate 10 admins for inactivity de-sysopping, I can do that also. Griffinofwales (talk) 03:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC) Those might be worthwhile additions to this sort of idea. -- Cirt (talk) 03:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) No contributions, edits, activity, logs, of any kind whatsoever for over a year.
 * 2) The user in question has been notified both via emailthisuser function and by a post to the user's talk page, and there was no response after waiting one week.
 * I would still have to oppose any inactivity policy, I just find it unnecessary. So what that we have a few admins that aren't editing actively anymore; they're not harming anything at the very least (I don't really buy into the security argument, because any admin account can be hacked at, regardless of whether it's an active or inactive one). IMHO it just makes it sound as if we're punishing people for not writing more. Tempodivalse [talk]  12:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
 * To reply to Cirt, I agree with the first one, but if they're not paying attention to Wikinews, is there a point in contacting them? Griffinofwales (talk) 00:58, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It's just a courtesy notice, really. I don't think it would be fair to take away their bits without giving them a chance to comment/defend themselves. Tempodivalse [talk]  13:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I fully support an inactivity procedure. We've people with priv bits who have not seen any of the peer review stuff; they could come back and royally fuck things up. --Brian McNeil / talk 05:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That seems more like a function of old admins having the Reviewer bit, not as much +sysop. Perhaps we should just put all those admins up for a de-reviewer request instead? I wouldn't be as opposed to that. Tempodivalse [talk]  13:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * BUMP I think there has been quite enough time on this. I move that any admins who've not edited main namespace in the last six months be de-sysopped. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 07:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Six months seems too short. I disagree with the idea of inactivity desysoping in general, but if we have to have it, I'd prefer a longer time span, like a year. I've seen admins that have come back from about a six-month hiatus for the occasional article or review. Tempodivalse [talk]  13:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Interview with Umberto Eco - just translated to en
it:Intervista a Umberto Eco/Traduzione. This is interwiev from March, but with Eco :) Great work of users from it Wikinews. Przykuta (talk) 12:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you!
 * Quick question. At Wikimedia Italy it says: "All the interviews are released under Creative Commons License 2.5 - Attribution - Share Alike."  This is the Wikipedia license that is not accepted for news here, as our CC-BY license makes it easier for news outlets to re-use the text.   Has the interview been dual-licensed?  Can we use it?  --InfantGorilla (talk) 13:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is (obviously?) dual licensed since WMI can't change the licenses of a WMF project. I've updated that page, anyway, thank you. --Nemo bis (talk) 06:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * For clarification. The WP license does not allow importation from there to here. The reverse is, however, possible. Wikinews material can be imported by Wikipedia. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 07:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

timestamped articles
Would it be a good idea to timestamp our articles, so that the readers would know when exactly an article was published? The timestamp would come after the date of publication. Benny the mascot (talk) 20:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What would be the usecase for this? Bawolff ☺☻ 20:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not exactly sure what "usecase" means, but this was just an idea that came into my head recently. I really haven't thought it through, but I suppose a timestamp would be helpful in giving readers an idea of how current our articles are, especially in the case of breaking news. Does that answer your question? Benny the mascot (talk) 20:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * All I meant was what would be the benefit of doing that, who would use it, etc. Personally I think the current date is sufficient, but I don't have strong opinions. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:45, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I do rather like the idea of a time stamp - for those of us who like to know when our news was most recently updated. Unfortunately, I think the best choice for *that* is the revision time stamp; not sure if that's available as a magicword. However, usecase? That'd be categoryadd to published. -  Amgine | t 15:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That does appear in the footer already. You can use but the output is not very friendly, I'm not sure how to fix that. The bigger problem with using revision timestamps is they give no indication whether the last change was a factual update. Or was it just a spelling fix or vandalism reversion? In fact archiving will make it useless too, as all articles are edited then to add the archive template. the wub  "?!"  16:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think revisiontimestamp is an appropriate timestamp - it changes with each revision, although I suppose we could use it as a last updated date (I assumed we wanted a published timestamp, but last update timestamp could be good, although we also have last mod date at bottom of page). You can make it prettier with something like - . For the publish timestamp - you can access the exact date (to the second) that publish was added to an article using the api. If we really wanted to, we could add a more complete time to date if we wanted to. The technical aspects are probably fairly easy. The harder question is what do we want to display to the user. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:34, 19 July 2010 (UTC)


 * All good, valid points above. A timestamp is 'inconvenient' to maintain in an informative manner, would need to be a manual process. I'm happy to live with publication date - which EzPeerReview updates to a UTC-appropriate value.
 * I do want time to go thru the review gadget with Bawolff & Shaka at some point. With The Other Place introducing Flagged Revs, really going to need to rewrite a review module in PHP. Basically, I know the usability team and others working on MediaWiki can be persuaded to listen to us if we frame things correctly and put forward plausible enWP use cases. If we have some rough code to partially sort our review reqs, specify some customisable hooks for a MediaWiki enhancement that allow them to queue up an article for its turn on the front page, or do all our geog/topic portals, they'll debug the niggles we currently have with klunky Javascript. Still have a few usability contacts from us adopting Vector first. :-) Just wish Brion was still in charge, not had a beer with the new CTO yet; she may prefer a glass of wine. -- Brian McNeil (alt. account) /alt-talk &bull; main talk 17:58, 19 July 2010 (UTC)