[Foundation-l] the features...

Wed Jul 6 09:48:16 UTC 2005

Being one of the most prolific writers on Wikinews
(ninety-five stories), and arguably the most
experienced editor (on the project since January), I'd
like to take a few moments to respond to Anthere. 

--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Two comments. 
> The first is about the recent crisis on wikinews.
> The second is a comment about the new features.
>   
> 
> For the first point Erik, it seems some people are
> not happy with the way decision making happens on
> wikinews.
> 
> It seems that this time, the trigger of the conflict
> is the way a new feature was put into use,
> even though there was no clear agreement whithin the
> community to use it. I'd say, it is fair to complain
> about 
> software changes, when software changes are not
> agreed upon. 

Actually, the changes have been broadly welcomed. The
changes *were* discussed and only one user objected -
he is now on a crusade to start his own fork of the
project on Wikimedia servers, even going as far as
'launching' his own personal site on Meta.

>It is good that you propose now a
> discussion over
> whether this new feature should be used or not, but
> the discussion should occur *before* the feature is
> used, or
> even better *before* the feature is developped.
>

Actually, it was discussed.

> I suppose you will answer that it was discussed, it
> was agreed, that it is the best solution so should
> be used...
> this may be. But you can not at the same time claim
> this... and ignore the fact regular editors are so
> mad that it 
> appears to them their *only* options are to suggest
> another wikinews (fork) or obey you (not so
> benevolent dictatorship).

Let's be clear here - it is *one* editor who is
throwing his toys out of his pram. Everyone else is
happily writing new stories with the new system on
Wikinews.

Only one person was trying to be a dictator here - and
it wasn't Erik.

> 
> How do you suggest to improve this in the future ?
> 

<snipping NGerda stuff - that's a different e-mail>

> As a simple participant, I would like to comment on
> the new feature which I think is called "inputbox
> extension" (or is it "DynamicPageList extension" ?).

They're two different things, but a contributor
doesn't need to know nor worry about that, no more
than how any other part of MediaWiki, MySQL, Memcache
etc works.

> 
> Anyway, if any of you goes to wikinews and intends
> to start a new page, here is what he will get :
>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Writing_an_article.
>  
> I invite you to enter the name of a new article and
> to edit it.
>  
> When you will get the edit box, you will notice two
> things :
>  
> First, the box does not start empty, it is already
> prefilled with a whole bunch of preformatted
> content. It indicates where to put the article. It
> has a table with pre-filled fields for citation of
> sources. It has a bunch of categories into place.
> And it has the "development" tag by default. If the
> editor wants the story to be visible to the reader,
> he must replace the development tag by a publish tag
> (this is quite clearly explained on top of the edit
> window).

You can see this "whole bunch" here:
http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=Template%3ANew_page&editintro=Template%3ANew_article_intro&title=hello&create=Create+article

Wikinews is not Wikipedia. It is different. That is
not, inherently, bad. It is inevitable that its
software will evolve beyond Wikipedia's - MediaWiki
was written for an encyclopaedia, now extensions have
been written to allow it to run a news site. It's
natural evolution.

Certain things work, and certain things *have* to be
done for a story to be listed. This was the same
before the changes as it was afterwards.

These changes have made the site *much* easier to use.

And I must say this - *I* created the original system.
*I* wrote "Writing an article" as it was before this.
Yet I can also recognize that my system, although it
was the best that was possible at the time, is greatly
inferior to the changes Ilya and Erik have coded and
installed.

> On the positive side, I feel that the benefits of
> this are
> * a more "similar" appearance to all articles
> * a strong reminder to the editor that he should
> list his sources
> * a system allowing to "publish" the article quite
> freely, without relying on an editorial team.
>  
> The drawbacks of this is
> * if you are a new editor, chances is you will be
> very perplex in front of all this complex synthax.
> * if you are a new editor, chances is you will not
> understand for a while the publish tag system, so
> your story will not be visible
>  

As someone who has written a myriad stories and held
the hand of many a newbie, I assure you, in the
strongest possible terms, that the positives of these
changes out-weigh any drawbacks.

And let me stress this again: stories have *always*
needed to be listed in certain places (eg the Main
Page upon publishing). They've *always* needed to be
dated and to have a sources section with a specific
template in it. This has been decided through months
of community debate and consensus forming. There is no
argument here.

*Nothing* that Erik and Ilya have changed over the
weekend have altered it. All they have done is made
this process easier - *much* easier.

Further, all instructions explain, very clearly, the
{{develop}} and {{publish}} system.

> As long as wikinews is small, there can be hope some
> oldbie will see and check the article and push it
> published... but when wikinews grows, it might be
> that the system does not scale so well and that
> articles are not quickly published. Still, we can
> hope some editors frequently check the list of
> articles with a "development" tag, so I am not sure
> it is really a problem.

Actually, this system scales *far* better. Before, to
publish a story an editor had to:

1. Edit the Developing stories template
2. Copy and cut the story from it
3. Save the template
4. Navigate to the appropiate day page (trickier than
it sounds)
5. Edit the appropiate day page
6. Add the story
7. Save that page.

Now all that's needed it to:
1. Edit the story
2. Change {{develop}} to {{publish}}
3. Save the story.

And yes, us editors do check Developing stories, work
on each other's articles, publish them when ready etc.

>
> The main problem I saw with this is not the
> publication system, but only the fact it will appear
> awfully complex to a new editor. The basic of wiki
> is 
> * it is simple synthax
> * create an article, edit, save and this is it !

Except that, as I've pointed out, that was never the
case, and never can be for a news site. An
encyclopaedia, yes, but not an news site. 

>  
> A more similar appareance and a reminder to cite
> sources is good, but I do not think the benefit
> balance the drawbacks of loss of easiness to edit.
> I think these two issues should be community
> enforced and taught by model (looking at what
> already exist).
>  

As I've said, the decision to use the Source template
has been made by the community. It was actually
reviewed in the last few days - and it was decided,
overwhelmingly, to retain it.

You're welcome, Anthere, to come and join the debate,
of course.

> Last, I have been wondering how much difference
> there was with wikipedia. Indeed the publication
> system might be necessary, as the goal is to get on
> the main page and to get it *quickly*. So, the
> current semi-automatic tagging solution might not be
> bad
>  
> However, Wikipedia just as well might propose
> pre-filled articles, with pre-formatted titles,
> subtitles, see alsos, external links, categories and
> international links. And IT DOES NOT. Why is it felt
> necessary on wikinews when it is not felt necessary
> on other projects ?

See above, this is not Wikipeida.

>  
>  
> I have been caressing the idea of writing to Ward
> Cunningham and ask him to create a wikinews
> article... and tell us about his experience
> afterwards ;-)

Go for it! I have no idea who he is, but we have
dozens of editors on Wikinews who will tell you what a
positive experience contributing is.

Yours,

Dan100

PS if anyone has any further questions or comments,
don't hesitate to direct them to me! I'm happy to
explain anything.

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