Wikinews talk:Briefs/March 17, 2012

This script is being prepared for a recording on Friday.Crtew (talk) 06:45, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Does anybody know how to pronounce the UK towns/cities? Crtew (talk) 06:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

How to handle this
We're running a bit of a three-legged race, I think; we really need to do some careful planning-ahead on how to make this work; it's something quite different from (to my knowledge) anything Wikinews has ever done, which is exciting(!) but presents significant logistical challenges. So it really isn't adequate to this task to create and submit something and then find out whether it's going to fit our infrastructure. I am myself only now really coming to grips with the nature of the logistical challenge. So I'll ramble on a bit here, trying to address a number of the facets of this multifaceted situation. Okay, some comments about this specific script, though these too can be generalized.
 * As I understand, this is a proposed script for audio news briefs spanning published articles over an entire week. An exciting idea, once we know how to make it work.  Note, however, that although I don't think we've ever done week-spanning briefs before, that isn't what makes it a radically new logistical challenge.
 * Here's the thing: The news briefs were a concept devised long, long before flaggedrevs (i.e., our enforced rigorous-review mechanism) &mdash; and crucially, afaics, they were never integrated into the review regime.  They appear to have remained an informal, purely in-house thing, unreviewed and therefore never pushed out to GNews and the like.  So what we're trying to do now is something altogether new.  Which is cool(!), but should also clarify why I'm talking about logistical challenge and planning ahead.
 * Although the briefs were not themselves reviewed, they appear to have been largely based on the text of published articles &mdash; either verbatim text of shorts, or shortened versions of full articles.
 * What appears to be called for in this, and presumably in other, for-publication audio (or even video) report situations &mdash;something we have essentially never done, that I know of&mdash; is a multi-stage review process, in which a script is submitted for certification by a reviewer, and once certified, is used to produce an audio/video report which undergoes a sanity check by a reviewer. The good news (no pun intended) is that both stages of this review are likely to be pretty darn easy, at least for the published-news-briefs concept. Why the first stage should be easy, I'll get to further below; the second stage should be easy because it's mostly-or-entirely just sanity-checking against the script to make sure nothing went really wrong during production.
 * We need to work out how best to work that two-stage thing. My guess is, the scripts will want some sort of staging-area outside mainspace.  The reason it wants to be outside mainspace is that if the review gadget is applied to a page in mainspace, with all five criteria passing, the reviewed page will be immediately pushed out to GNews etc., and we don't mean a script like this to be pushed out like that; we merely mean to clear it for progression to the production stage.
 * Another part of reckoning how it should work is designing the appropriate layout for the finished product. What springs to mind is something similar to what, e.g., NPR produces; headline and date at the top, followed centrally by the embedded audio/video, and then something clearly labeled "transcript" below that.
 * Stylistically, I believe, the sections of a briefs script should be headed with the linked titles of the published stories those sections read/summarize. Because those articles are already published, once linked they are available to us under our license, making review dead simple.  There's no call to list on the briefs script the sources from which our published articles were taken; and as for the previously published articles, come to think, it'd actually be copyvio to use material from our previously published articles without acknowledging it.
 * I haven't attempted to review the substance of the current script; the first step would be to track down which of our published articles each part is based on.

Having rambled on about generalities, I'll try to cobble together an actual review with specific recommendations on how to move forward on this specific undertaking (in the half hour or so left to me before lunch :-) --Pi zero (talk) 15:41, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder about calling them "the top stories". Is that true in some technical sense, or can we easily modulate it a bit (e.g. the classic weasel-wording "some of the top stories")?
 * Unfortunately, I suspect you'll find we're especially understaffed today, which is awkward. I may not have nearly as much time to consult on this matter as I'd like; there are, for example, two articles that have been lying around aging on the review queue while I've been indulging in this fascinating exploration of the issues raised by this script.  (Note, just in case, because tone sometimes doesn't come through in pure text: I'm not being at all sarcastic when I say "fascinating".)

Suggested approach
This is taking each published article, and summarising it. That should be reviewable relatively quickly as the "source" is our own article. Admittedly, there may well need to be some changes to more appropriate language for recording.

So, if someone plans to make this a regular item, then scripting from articles can be carried out through the week up to recording. Those can then be checked off, recorded, and the whole lot pieced together once the final script is okayed and recorded. --Brian McNeil / talk 15:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Mm. As I've remarked above (ramblingly) and below (a bit more neatly), the unresolved issues are logistics of this two-stage review thing, and appropriate page layout for a published article whose primary content is really audio (or even video).  --Pi zero (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Remarks per section
As I go through section by section, I've now found a couple of significant things that need doing. I'll list sections here as I finish processing them. --Pi zero (talk) 23:10, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Students wounded at King Khaled University protest in Saudi Arabia
 * An additional sentence is needed (I realize this costs, in seconds) about the anonymous student/parent complaints, to make this a balanced representation of our article.


 * Kenya government fires health worker strikers over failure to 'report back to work'
 * Okay.


 * Three UK towns to be made cities following nationwide competition
 * Okay.


 * Sandra Fluke insists she will not be silenced
 * The last sentence (starting "In the editorial...") frankly needs to be replaced. Afaics it isn't even supported by our article (one would have to go back to sources of our article), and certainly isn't representative of our article.  I'd suggest replacing with a sentence from the latter part of the third part of the article (accusation of attempt to change topic and to silence).


 * Rocky Anderson announces he will seek Americans Elect nomination
 * Okay.


 * Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton present 2012 International Women of Courage Awards
 * Okay.


 * Barcelona footballer Éric Abidal to undergo liver transplant
 * Okay.


 * 1960's Rockabilly music artist Terry Teen dies aged 70
 * Okay.


 * Encyclopaedia Britannica to stop publishing after 244 years
 * Okay.

That's all the sections, and I tweaked the section headings/layout a bit. If we do something like this regularly, Brianmc is quite right that it ought to be built up incrementally all week, to distribute the script-clearance burden (even though it's relatively light). --Pi zero (talk) 00:45, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

upload
Here is the file:

Pi, I think we messed up here because I penned in the above changes into my old script, and I just noticed that the previous version (article) had changes in the actual script + what is above. Which means the old copy was recorded with the changes above. Argh! Sorry. I can rerecord it tomorrow Crtew (talk) 03:55, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm taking another look at the script now; I observe you undid some of my changes, and I'll consider your (implicit) points. Any changes I make I'll remark on here.  Then I'll listen to the audio file.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:21, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, maybe I'll listen to and compare the audio file before/as I go. (I just got up, some of my neurons hadn't switched on yet. :-) --Pi zero (talk) 13:23, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The date had to change, of course.
 * Students wounded at King Khaled University protest in Saudi Arabia
 * I'm distinguishing between detail and accuracy. I've no problem with reducing detail for a brief &mdash; although I do note, full audio versions of our articles generally work well because the inverted pyramid style is compatible with this aspect of the audio medium.
 * The sentence on anonymity loses its impact if it's grouped with the lede, so I've shifted it to its place in-sequence in the article; this allows it to serve its function in the article, imho, despite the complete lack of detail on what the anonymous complaints were.
 * Three UK towns to be made cities following nationwide competition
 * (Another point I consider accuracy rather than detail.)
 * I struggled yet again, as I had the first time, with Perth. There is no group that I could see, but I'd seen the first time that one wants the name of the place well up toward the start of the sentence for audio delivery &mdash; and one absolutely must avoid the possessive "Perth's", which one wouldn't hesitate to use in text.  I hope to have found a better solution this time.
 * Sandra Fluke insists she will not be silenced
 * Just a couple of tweaks (one of them doesn't even affect the audio &mdash; it's a typo :-).
 * Rocky Anderson announces he will seek Americans Elect nomination
 * "US" would be important orientation for international audience regardless of state, but I daresay Utah also isn't one of the top three international-name-recognition US states :-). (Also, Americans Elect doesn't get a "the" in front.)
 * Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton present 2012 International Women of Courage Awards
 * Their identity is key perspective on the nature of the award, which is given by the US State Department (it's not some award given by an international organization). That's vital to the story, not just a matter of clarifying who they are (a point I failed to consciously recognize and articulate the first time around).
 * The extra stuff about Pavey isn't in our article (whether it's true isn't the point, though I also don't know that having not been the reviewer on our article).
 * Barcelona footballer Éric Abidal to undergo liver transplant
 * WN:SG
 * 1960's Rockabilly music artist Terry Teen dies aged 70
 * I recall a source specifically noting the truck did not strike the bicycle, so we mustn't' say it did. The novelty song is described somewhere as being reminiscent of rockabilly, so it apparently isn't actually rockabilly.  But it does seem important to mention rockabilly since we're not reading the headline on the audio.
 * The other two or so sections not mentioned above, I don't think I made any edits to at all.
 * Took longer than I'd hoped, probably because I was writing this detailed commentary. I consider all this extra effort as a speculative start-up cost :-).  --Pi zero (talk) 15:06, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Recording
Ok, I'll re-record this version. Crtew (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Finished = Crtew (talk) 21:55, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It sounds good. This medium makes it impossible to endlessly revise, at least while we're trying to get it out the door.


 * Now it's just a matter of laying out the article page. I imagine the audio file going on the left, just above the Transcript section.  I'm of two minds about whether the News briefs box is something that belongs on a published article &mdash; we don't do bylines, but this medium is a bit different...  --Pi zero (talk) 22:20, 17 March 2012 (UTC)