Wikinews talk:Paralympic Games

Misc Comments

 * Eh, what the heck? I'll help a little bit!! Bddpaux (talk) 03:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * :D Very much appreciated. :D --LauraHale (talk) 06:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Dropbox
Not enormously happy to see a non-free tool in use. Let me have a look-see if there is any way to put dropbox onto wikinewsie.org. I've a slight suspicion that might end up having to go on dalek.wikinewsie.org (long story, and yes, it involves a box from the BBC) if I get time to complete its setup. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Just commented on that. My major issue is mobile uploading.  I have about three mobile applications I want to use and none that I know integrate into dropbox.  Hence drop box.  Unless I can do it on my phone, then Wikinewsie.org isn't going to work. : / --LauraHale (talk) 08:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you have, or is there, an appropriate WebDav client for your mobile? List of a few here. I can set up far, far more free space using WebDav on wikinewsie.org than DropBox will give any of us. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The applications I've used don't have WebDav integrated in and if I need the extra space for Dropbox, I'll pay for it for a month just to get things from one place to another during this period. I'm kind of at this point where we'll be bringing two to three phones and two laptops and installing multiple things is just making me a bit nutty.  I don't mind things being moved from one place to another if some one wants to manually move them over to make it easier for others and as a longer term storage solution once the Games are over.--LauraHale (talk) 10:03, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Why dropbox?
I understand that Wikinewsie is supposed to be helpful for just such reporting. It just won't be as feasible to do this with Wikinewsie unless we have an application ready for mobile uploading of sound files, pdf files, video, etc. Most of the mobile applications that can be used for this OR can easily be uploaded and shared using dropbox. Hence, its usage and importance in establishing who wants to be involved early on. By having it done earlier and announced earlier, then we can give more people access. I also don't want to bombard people with e-mails to scoop. --LauraHale (talk) 08:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm looking into that right now. Will email you a user/password for a test WebDav area shortly. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:45, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It needs to be some seamless solution that I can integrate with my iPhone and Hawkeye7's iPhone. I get the ideal solution would be to use something like this, and it would be great to have a Wikinews mobile application for Original Reporting... but at the moment, I'm having comfort issues about this.  (I've been trying to chase up polo shirts from WMF people.  They are all MIA because of Wikimania.)  And yeah.  I'm just having moment of discomfort switching technologies for myself and another reporter away from something I am confident will work. --LauraHale (talk) 10:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, okay, I'm looking at how Dropbox can be installed on wikinewsie.org. It's a F-ugly hack, though. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * thanks for trying that. :) It is just much easier from my perspective on the on the ground perspective. It opens up the number of applications I can use too if I need them.  I really want to make this work. :) --LauraHale (talk) 10:42, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd not hold a lot of hope out for me getting it installed on the shared hosting. Ideally the install of dropbox is a command-line option for a machine running web services (and I don't have that on the wikinewsie.org host).

However, if I get dalek.wikinewsie.org up 'n' running in time I can offer you some fancier tools too - like auto-converting video format into OGV. Yes, I mean you shove a file onto the server through dropbox, and once the server has all of it, it starts turning it into a same-size OGV, and a thumbnail-sized OGV. What you have to remember is that using dropbox will double the time for the conversion to start; this is because it's file->dropbox->server, all before the conversion kicks off. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:13, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

WebDav
WebDAV is supposedly supported on most operating systems. Windows 7, of course, is being an uncooperative stubborn mule. I can readily browse a WebDAV share in a browser, but in other ways not-so useful.

But, on the Linux box next to me, ... I've got ~/wikinewsie.org as directory on the wikinewsie.org server. Hell of a lot less hassle than the hoops you're made to jump through to get Dropbox installed.

iPhone/iPad have free apps, and it does the self-same as Dropbox whilst sticking to IETF standards.

As I say, I'm likely going to need a workaround to get Dropbox content onto wikinewsie.org. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * This is what I need to hack my way through. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Worst-case hack to make a dropbox public folder appear as part of the wikinewsie.org domain structure (folder/subdomain can also have a basic access password). --Brian McNeil / talk 11:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Btw, trust me, as someone who's been there - WEBDAV IS A ROYAL PAIN. Especially on windows (It works, sometimes, you have to use weird commands at run to make it work). ftp is much easier all around and does mostly the same thing. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:11, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Auto-include on wikinewsie.org
Okay, wikinewsie.org is sharing/using the Dropbox folder. I've figured out that one of the problems is I ended up downloading the version for 3.x kernels, whereas the server is back on 2.6. When I get that resolved, it'll probably be a good deal more reliable.

In any case, the server currently lacks ffmpeg or avconv which would be used to convert content before adding it in to JWS. So, for now, I'm going to work on the upload to wiki side of things.

I strongly recommend, if you can, recording audio in OGG. As it stands, the quality is far, far, better than MP3; better than MP3 at a 10-20% higher bitrate. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Athlete profiles
I'm not entirely clear what sort of form these will take. Are we talking 'multi-interview' work pulled into a piece? Any sort of idea on how to outline these? --Brian McNeil / talk 08:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Think of a traditional news story meets Wikipedia? I think like this, this, this.  They aren't that date specific and provide colourful views on who the competitors are.  They aren't interviews per say.  I saw one today that I wish I could find again that looked like pretty much a complete repeat of the Australian Paralympic Committee website with a few quotes from the athlete. --LauraHale (talk) 09:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * One way or another, Wikinews articles must be date-specific.
 * The one way is how a synthesis article does it, by describing a specific, relevant, fresh event-or-phenomenon.
 * The another way is how an exclusive interview does it, by &mdash;up to a point, depending on time-dependent relevance&mdash; creating its own specific-relevant-and-fresh event simply by being published. This is why time is not altogether immaterial to publishing an exclusive interview:  the act of publication is specific and carries its own timeframe for freshness if relevance is there, but the relevance decreases with time since the interview took place.
 * Much OR is somewhere between these two extremes, of course. But as content gets more non-date-specific, the need for a publication-as-event boost rises steeply.  --Pi zero (talk) 12:48, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That is pretty much why athlete profiles are not necessarily high on my list of things to do unless it can be made date specific. This information would have to be wrapped around an interview, instead of basically regurgitating the APC website or the ABC's website to write about an athlete unless there is time specific OR to back it up. --LauraHale (talk) 21:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

London workshop
My flights should be confirmed tomorrow or Friday. I'm almost certainly arriving on 24 August early in the morning. If we want to try for something on the 25th or 26th, that would be good. I'd love to have a workshop for Wikinews. It doesn't need to be OR focused but can cover the basics of writing. It would also be a nice way to recruit local editors to help with assisting with Paralympic coverage. --LauraHale (talk) 11:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Audio reports
With Bidgee's audio/interview having been criticised in a less-than-constructive manner. And, the fact that it's almost a new form of news reporting for us, I've thrown together an example of what I think an audio report could look like.
 * You can see that here.


 * The aims are:
 * Minimal text required to support publication
 * 'Selling' the audio enough to encourage people to listen to it
 * Keeping the workload on the reporter (who has already captured the audio) down, and not requiring a full transcription.

Someone can probably turn this into a relatively-easily used template. --Brian McNeil / talk 11:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC)