Wikinews talk:Submit a story

Please avoid instruction creep on this page
It is essential that the instructions on this page remain as simple as possible. Links to complex outside policy pages should be avoided in the main instructions. Instruction creep, the well-intentioned addition of more and more guidelines and restrictions, would defeat the purpose. The page is intended for people who want to get their feet wet. It's OK if they violate some policies and style guidelines. We're here to welcome them into the fold, and point them to the right places, once they have familiarized themselves with the interface.

I therefore suggest as a rule that the header of the page should be at most 1000 characters long. It is currently at 1144, so I encourage you to help abridging it.--Eloquence 21:47, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I believe checking the content guide should be the first step in the process as many users are coming to this page then writing material totally unsuitable for Wikinews, which wastes their time and ours. A sentence later on the page isn't as prominent as is less likely to be read. Dan100 (Talk) 01:36, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I feel I should add that as one of the few editors tending this page I speak from some experience - this step is needed. Further, don't under-estimate the potential negative effects of not having this step, eg a user writing an story not worthy of use, seeing it's not used, and then being disaffected with the project. If he'd known from the outset what is likely to be published, he would've been more likely to have had a more satisfactory experience. Dan100 (Talk) 01:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * The kind of people who would use this page aren't likely to follow any further links, I'm afraid, especially if they lead to long explanations. What we want to say could perhaps be summarized in one sentence on this page instead.--Eloquence 01:54, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm just not sure it's possible to put it all into one sentence. Dan100 (Talk) 02:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * In that case, I suggest editing the instructions based on your experiences with the page. For example, now we got some commentary, it makes sense to point out that commentary is not allowed. If we can keep the whole thing shorter than 1000 chars, that would be fantastic.--Eloquence 02:22, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that a user of this page probably wouldn't wade through a policy page first; I was suffering from wishful thinking. I'll try and write a sentence, or maybe just move yours up a bit. Dan100 (Talk) 11:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Thats a lot better... all we need now is for someone to actually submit a story! Nice work dan. CGorman 15:22, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ushering contributors to other pages defeats the point
Wikinews is complex. Wikinews isn't as fun as it should be for someone who has never used a wiki. Unlike Wikipedia, it's not enough to just follow an existing red link somewhere to create a story, because there aren't many of these. You have to figure out how the development and publication cycle works. In the long term, I hope we can simplify things substantially. Absent such changes, the purpose of Submit a story is to encourage new contributors to get their feet wet and, hopefully, get their story posted.

I realize that maintaining this page is work. But it also reduces work in other ways, in that problematic stories are centralized on one page, and newcomers who are genuinely interested in writing stories can be relatively easily welcomed and tutored on the process.

If we put a big green box on this page, as Davodd suggested, that directs contributors to the complex instructions, we might as well do away with it completely. But I'd rather keep it in use at it is for a while. If you (the reader of this comment) get annoyed maintaining it, then just let other people do it, and don't worry if stories linger here a bit -- well-written ones usually get promoted fairly quickly as it is.--Eloquence 22:47, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * While I do agree with most of your points, letting a story linger, unposted, defeats the purpose of this page and is contrary to the definition of newsworthiness of news. I removed the green box - but previously reverted the anon edit since it also affected other portions of the article i.e. removing wikimarkup. -- Davodd | Talk 22:56, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * The types of stories that linger are often the ones which shouldn't be posted anyway. Of course we should strive to be fast at moving good ones out of the queue, and I'll spend some more time on it from now.--Eloquence 01:18, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Me too. :-) -- Davodd | Talk 02:05, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)