Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2012/July

Media Categories
I would like to ask whether it would be feasible to create and use category terms for Wikinews stories that employ "video", "photography" (more like the Photo Essays), "audio," or "graphics" to tell the story. I know there are Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons categories for audio right now to capture content or article type, like the "News briefs" or "Spoken word", but I'm bringing up something different. The audio in the Zimmerman story is used as an element to tell the story and so is the infographic. And I'm specifically asking about Wikinews categories for type of content other than text. Photography seems like a special case next to text because almost every story carries a graphic of some sort, if by default from Wikimedia Commons. I'm thinking of photographs that are used as more than the default as a means to communicate the content. Would this be feasible?Crtew (talk) 20:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops forgot maps!Crtew (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Would media categories be of value? Trying to search for this right now is like searching for a needle in a haystack. I think it would be of value for the Wikinewsies here who want to see what Wikinews is producing or notice trends as reporting here changes over time. It may be useful to capture categories like this in terms of policy and as models for editors to sort through issues. As a reader, I would like to find stories sometimes with video to see for myself. Other sites, like MSNBC or CNN etc, put their video stories in a section so that it is easy to find. Do you agree or disaree that this would be useful? Please share: Crtew (talk) 20:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I see nothing wring with having Category:Video content and Category:Audio content, but would prefer them 'hidden' categories as they're not extremely relevant to readers just now. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:46, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm weighing in on this extremely late, but I adamantly support Curt's idea! I have a hard time expressing what it is I'm trying to say on this matter, but I think the formatting, or means or pathways we follow around here regarding news delivery has gotten too formulaic and predictable. Four paragraphs, 2 photos, and sources.......snooze. I will say that regarding the Pride Parade in London.....that was a cool article (layout-wise).....photo essays are cool.....we need more variety like that. News is important here as are facts, but delivering content in a factory-esque way will be our ultimate demise. Bddpaux (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I had entirely forgotten this thread (it should have been archived long since, shouldn't it?), but earlier today created Category:Photo essays for an entirely different purpose (namely, to automate the list at WN:Writing a Photo essay, which I've had in mind to do for months). I had trouble deciding which articles to include, and still am not sure whether I chose correctly (if an article has plenty of text to qualify as an ordinary article, and also has a gallery of a dozen pictures at the end, should it be in the category or not?).  I also didn't hide the category; there were, in the end, 19 articles in it.  --Pi zero (talk) 19:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's an interesting question; when does an article become a photoessay? This has over 40 pictures, but most-definitely is not a photoessay.
 * As to Bddpaux's remarks; well, yes. Being overly formulaic probably isn't a particularly good idea. But, you have to learn the formula inside-out before you can deviate significantly, and successfully, from it. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Cease using the abuse filter
Vandalism levels are fairly low on Wikinews, and quite contained; everything public-fronted is protected far better by FlaggedRevs. The abuse filter, AFAICS, just causes problems and few solutions. It's also an overly technical tool compared to simply handling things through FlaggedRevs, which is a much simpler piece of kit to work with. Let's just turn it off. Blood Red Sandman (Talk)   (Contribs) 11:51, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll have to think about this. Starting with a survey of just what the filters are currently set up for, and what they can be set up for.  Flaggedrevs doesn't cover all namespaces, and even in spaces it does cover there are esoteric situations where it isn't applicable.  --Pi zero (talk) 12:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd have to say this is a bad idea, unfortunately, it's just there's filters set up for specific chronic vandals that'd be tough to deal with without them. -- Cirt (talk) 16:58, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Why would it be tough? Exactly what can they touch that is public-facing? Mainspace, anything linked from mainspace, and all templates are sightable. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 20:10, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't the abuse filters log 'hits'? And, what some irksome vandals hit that's "sort-of" public facing can be obscene/otherwise unacceptable usernames. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:20, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Based on a quick runthrough of some of Wikipedia's logs, I'd say the filters are doing a pretty good job over there w:Special:AbuseLog. Over here they aren't used as much, but they still seem to be doing a bit to keep down the vandalism Special:AbuseLog. Of the random sample I took out of the Wikinews logs, I didn't even see a false positive (though I'm sure there are some). &mdash; Gopher65talk 21:59, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

An odd little........
....idea hit me a moment ago. I not ready'd an article (about a pretty intriguing subject) mainly because all sources listed were either Spanish (which I couldn't entirely handle) or Polish (which I don't speak). If a Polish-speaking reporter here became accredited (having published several excellent articles in English), why couldn't we accept his/her submissions with Polish (etc. etc. ?) sources if he says in notes: "I read thus and such article, and it said this-this-and-that."?? I've often wondered myself, "I'm accredited here. Every single newspaper article(believe it or not) isn't available on the interwebs; what if I read something in a newspaper, can't me saying,"I read it in such-and-so newspaper." count as valid OR? We allow that kind of stuff on radio/tv reports. --Bddpaux (talk) 16:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe we've had occasions in the past where the reporter provided translations on the talk page for relevant passages in the non-English sources listed in the article. Not OR, but assistance to the reviewer.  And yes, the reporter in question is accredited.  --Pi zero (talk) 16:22, 29 July 2012 (UTC)