On Tue, 2010-01-26 at 14:08 +0000, Tristan Thomas wrote:
I agree that long stories are good, but also remember
that it's very
good if we can get lots of stories out so that when people come to
Wikinews, they see, "Oh yes, that story is covered here; it's not some
amateur, crappy, hit-and-miss news website".
On the other hand, we're no different if we don't have anything of our
own!
But hey, 30 articles in a day is pretty damn good. Anyone fancy some
sweepstakes for the final competition total?!
As expected, activity has tailed off today. And, regrettably, there's a
lot of sign-ups who've not put anything in yet.
My key objection to the bare-minimum articles is they will encourage
people to go elsewhere for details.
Next, I'd like to raise a few points I keep seeing when copyediting.
* Monday was yesterday - use the latter, not the former.
* At least 8 times out of 10 the word "that" can be omitted.
* Active voice invariably reads better.
* The narrative has to be coherent; yes, you may draw from what several
sources identify as different stories, but make it clear how it is all
interrelated.
* It is "BBC News Online"; look at the Wikipedia page this links to for
the justification for this pet hate of mine.
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>
Wikinewsie.org