Wikinews:Water cooler/technical

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Refresh

Archive

---

Contents 1 FlaggedRevs 1.1 Comments 1.2 Votes 1.2.1 So now that we have it ... 1.2.2 Pages that need to get made with explanations 1.2.3 User groups 1.2.4 Getting "Editor" 1.2.5 Proposal for policy on assigning permissions 1.2.6 2 Admin Proposal 1.3 Reviving the discussion on Editor/Reviewer 2 move search box up 3 FlaggedRevs reader feedback module 4 infobox 5 How to get 2 categories to output in the same DPL? 6 Flagged revisions bug? 7 Showing number of articles needing review in recent changes 8 Disabling wgFlaggedRevsAutoReviewNew 9 Audio template messing up page formats 10 Looking for help - new Audio Wiki template? 11 Changing Sitenotices? 12 Bug 15669 13 More Google news requirements 13.1 Latest from Josh @ Google... 14 Wikinews:Story preparation Exclusion for Robots.txt 15 Hotline still listed on print edition 16 Would sighted revisions be useful on recentchanges 17 Reverting edits marks article as newest? 18 Addressing error 19 Wikinews on mobile phones 20 Identify "hanging" comment pages 21 Bot approval for inital sighting of authoritative pages

[edit] FlaggedRevs

This is mega-important. If you don't have a bugzilla account, then create one and vote. If you do have a bugzilla account, then why haven't you voted already? In either case, please note your support below for a sighted+quality implementation of FlaggedRevs. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

For those who know nothing about FlaggedRevs, or the proposed configuration, here are some details. It is important that people learn something about this and are qualified to give informed input.

1. 1. The default configuration is "sighted", this means someone has looked at the version in question and said it is OK. There are a variety of configurations to manage someone being permitted to do this task, it can be something you're automatically allowed to do after your account is a certain age and has a certain number of edits; it can also be a specific privilege that people are granted.
   2. The somewhat confusing documentation can be found here.
   3. The proposed implementation on the above-linked to bugzilla entry is sighted+quality. The "quality" level would, to my way of thinking, never be granted by just having an account for a certain length of time. An article would then also have to be quality before appearing on the front page. Portals and the like, eg Portal:Science and technology could set less stringent standards and use sighted revisions.

The bug has only six votes, get your asses in gear! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

[edit] Votes

• vehemently support This is the road to Google News. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support. Per Brianmc (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support. --Skenmy ^talk 15:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support although there might be some pain involved until we have a larger contributor base, this is the only way to provide reliable news for our readers. I know that Google New is popular, but let's not forget about other major aggregators such as Yahoo! News. --SVTCobra 15:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support Agree with Brian (I've voted on the bug additionally). Majorly ^talk 15:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support, if there's one project that can benefit from this, it's Wikinews. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support per brianmc DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Aaand a vote too late! We have FlaggedRevs! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

And how can I review articles on FlaggedRevs?Anonymous101^talk 18:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the bottom of any article. Majorly ^talk 21:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] So now that we have it ...

We now have new user groups Wikinews:Editor and Wikinews:Reviewer. How are we populating these groups? --SVTCobra 18:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

see http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

yo could read : "Bureaucrat accounts, by default, can promote users to Reviewer/Editor status or remove it. Sysop accounts can do the same with Editor status." Jacques Divol (talk) 19:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

For the moment we work with Editor status and people start to get a clue about what FlaggedRevs does and means. CalendarBot needs updated, there's over 10k old articles need flagged, all the country pages. Thank you for volunteering to sort all this. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

ok, thanks Jacques Divol (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Question is there going to be a official system for giving wikinewsies reviewing/editor status or will it be based upon crat/admin discretion? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

And follow up what about redirects, will they be "reviewed" or is there some sort of system for them? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pages that need to get made with explanations

• Wikinews:Editor
• Wikinews:Reviewer
• Help:Article validation
• Wikinews:Flagged revisions

Cirt (talk) 20:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, are we going to promote on discretion, or have a similar page to Wikipedia's rollback request page? I'm not entirely sure which would be better, but some sort of rule is needed I think. Majorly ^talk 21:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about Wikinews:Reviewer, but IMO the Wikinews:Editor-class should be no big deal and given out to established users on discretion, and used primarily as related to vandalism/spam. Cirt (talk) 01:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User groups

Seriously, how are we deciding who is a Wikinews:Editor and who is a Wikinews:Reviewer? I realize that we are in the "feeling out" stages of FlaggedRevisons, but the current list of Reviewers seems to be rather arbitrary and includes users who are not yet sysops (see: group=reviewer). And who or what is Voice of All (talk · contribs)? I am not asking who has the power to promote (which was answered above) but rather how these decisions are made and by what authority. --SVTCobra 01:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Voice of All created the extension... Majorly ^talk 01:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

All sysops have the ability to promote users to Wikinews:Editor. So far, it appears that the Wikinews:Reviewer-class promotions were all made by Brianmc (talk · contribs) (save that of Brian). I agree that it appears odd to have some users promoted to this class, especially those that are not sysops and have not gone through any sort of community input on this project. Cirt (talk) 01:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Another point to consider is how we are going to use validated/validate on the project itself, before really getting into who becomes Wikinews:Reviewers. Cirt (talk) 01:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Getting "Editor"

There has been a bit of chatter about how people should be assigned the "Editor" bit. Since there hasn't been any real discussion (that I've found) I'll put out my suggestion (oh, and if this is the wrong location, sorry.): Very simply, I think the system should be modeled after Commons Flick Reviewers. I believe that any registered user should be able to request "Editor" in a community vote format. The number of votes doesn't matter, simply consensus. Minimum account age and edit count isn't necessary either, just enough contribs to demonstrate they are here to help the project. The time for vote should be fairly short, just long enough for others to see it and cast their comment (5 days, maybe).

The goal is to get people using the "Editor" powers that WANT to. The point of the software is to prevent vandalism, so we can't give it everyone. At the same time, it would be silly to make the requirements as high as AR or Admin. If the user abuses their ability, then you penalize them (revoke the bit, etc). 95% of the people that go through Flickr Review on Commons pass. The ones that don't are because the community knows they are trouble, or they haven't demonstrated themselves to be useful. I believe that is exactly what is being looked for here. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 02:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

As Majorly (talk · contribs) pointed out above, another option is to model it after w:Wikipedia:Requests for permissions, and just give Editor status out on discretion of an admin. It can be removed just as easily if it is abused. Cirt (talk) 02:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• Comment This all sounds good, but should the user who created an article be allowed to edit at will? For updates and the like. PS: I wouldn't mind being an editor. —Calebrw (talk) 02:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

So a very unofficial basis is what majorly suggested am I right. Sounds pretty okay. The Mind's Eye (talk) 03:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

@Caleb - I think you have the wrong kind of "Editor". This is for the Flagged Revisions permission. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 03:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

@The Mind's Eye. Majorly did suggest a very informal system. My suggestion is one step above what he suggested.. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 03:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe a incorporation of both some how. Like maybe a thing where wikinewsies either can be promoted to editor by a admin, or if a admin doesn't promote them on there own they could have something similar to Commons thing that was mentioned. The Mind's Eye (talk) 03:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Cirt (talk) 03:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

From the look of it, "Editor" is a bit like "Autoconfirmed Premium", so I agree that the requirements shouldn't be discouragingly more than those for autoconfirmed. A system like Wikipedia's RfP should be fine - if you meet some basic standard and there's no significant opposition, you get the bit; if there is some opposition, then you need to get some consensus. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 05:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I think something like en.wps request for rollack would be better. Admins can approve users who they tink can be trusted. Anonymous101^talk 06:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah en.wp Rollback. That was a master f**kup when it was released. I realized they changed the system later, but every time someone mentions that, I think back to the fighting, the page blanking.... the rollback cat. But basically, yea. It is something akin to Autoconfirmed premium, at least I think so. Personally I prefer something slightly more structured than "Just let the admins give it away" (Which, to be fair, is how I have permission already). IMHO it is too easy for a bad apple user to befriend and admin and then get on the "inside" (extra permissions and what not) when a simple community survey would have turned up what a terrible idea this was. That being said, WN might be too small still for that to be a real problem. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 06:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, if there is a problem, any admin c an jsut remove the editor rights. Anonymous101^talk 06:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for policy on assigning permissions

Here's what I'd propose for the reviewer and editor rights. For editor I recommend that any user who's been autoconfirmed who requests it should add their name to a request page. If some time passes (say, 3 days), and nobody challenges the request, the rights may be granted by any admin. If there are some challenges, then it is up to the admin to either grant the right anyways (and leave and explanation for the reason), or deny the rights. If rights are denied, the user may ask for a vote; in that case, an admin-like vote takes place for some time (7 days? 14 days?) and the result is our usual consensus-based approach. Any editor is subject to recall, and only violations of editorial rights are cause for the right's removal given consensus. I recommend that the editor right be granted initially to all admins. For the reviewer role, I recommend that users self-nominate, and a 7-day admin-like approval period be instituted. Only users who've been around for, say, 1 month or more can be reviewers. All reviewers are subject to recall, and only violation of review rights are cause for the right's removal given consensus. Both rights are granted in perpetuity, and not subject to removal for inactivity etc. Loss of admin/other status should not have any effect on editor/review status. I can codify this on an actual policy proposal page if there's some agreement with the above. -- IlyaHaykinson (talk) 07:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with this. At the moment getting the Editor bit should be trivial, but people need more experience of how this extension changes the wiki. I've updated all the day pages through to the end of the month to ensure that only sighted articles will show up. This is a first step. We now have a mechanism that means some idiot can't come along, post their press release (or Pelican Shit) and slap a {{publish}} tag on it. Well, they can, but no anon will see it, and it won't show on the front page.

In the past couple of days I've seen one or two things that mildly concern me that this will sometimes be abused by people who lack patience. Changing ready to review is a small step in the right direction, but I've seen people tag stuff as review, then - a couple of hours later - just publish themselves because nobody had reviewed the article; that's not acceptable.

Erik has provided me with a name and an email address for someone at Google, so... Under no circumstances should anyone try to submit us to Google news!. Let's work on getting to grips with this and how it is going to work, then I will try some quiet diplomacy (I can do that as well as rabid flamethrower-wielding Scotsman :-P). Discussion with Google may require we do some fine-tuning on how the FlaggedRevs system is used, but we need to get to some point where we can say, "We've upped our standards, up yours!". A parallel suggestion from Jay Walsh is that we also look at Yahoo! I'm going to be busy with non-Wikinews stuff for most of today, can someone look into that and add a new subsection to this discussion on the topic? Again, don't submit the site to their review process, for it and Google we need a checklist of their listing criteria and solid arguments detailing how we meet these. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:39, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with the process suggested/laid out above by IlyaHaykinson (talk · contribs). Let's set up a request page for it somewhere - I would have already but not sure what to name it. - Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions or something like that maybe? Cirt (talk) 12:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yet it happened again, with OR that consists of "I watched TV" no less. --SVTCobra 13:18, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Changed to {{review}} and warning placed on article talk.

Unless the user is flagged as an editor they would not be able to get this up on the front page. If they're an admin they could make themselves an editor, and - harsh though it may sound - I believe abuse of editor privileges should be grounds for desysopping. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all of this. On the editor abuse, we should set up a policy on what is and is not considered abuse. I know most experienced Wikinewsies know, but it would also put at ease the newbies and anon's who know we have this new system, but may not or lack trust of the process. I do agree that it should constitute de-admin, but I also think it should go through the revocation process like anyone else woould. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a general sort of question, what exactly are the reviewers going to be doing? I mean i think there is a general consensus that editors just make sure articles aren't spam or vandalism, but what really is the reviewers jobs. The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Summary: Fill in {{peer review}} and make sure subsequent changes by non editor-status people do not break compliance with the template (eg, updating a death toll but not providing a source for the new figure). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

<unindent>I have a response from Josh at Google News, question:

...

One thing that I'm not totally clear on with the Flagged Revisions feature is whether these take place before or after the article is posted. Will the non-logged in user, e.g., the Googlebot and any users sent to articles we find, only see articles that have gone through this review process before posting?

...

I have given an answer that you can find others if you go looking and added the NOINDEX magic word to the newsroom, we may need further cleanup to make casually stumbling over unreviewed articles more difficult. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2 Admin Proposal

I'm not sure what your opinions on this will be, but here goes. Let's create a request page like Cirt said, but instead of needing a bunch of community consensus, all that is needed is 2 admins approval. That way we at least partially eliminate the whole scratch my back scenario by having to seperate people approving the editor status. Another alternative is to simply use admin discretion but with 2 admins approval as well. The Mind's Eye (talk) 17:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds a bit too gracious. Like accreditation, I don't think editor should be handed out on a silver platter. People need to be trusted users/contributers. If we were to just start handing out editor status to almost anyone who wants it, then that will not get us anywhere in terms of Google News etc. The biggest and main reason we are not grabbed by them and others is because our process(es) are too open, and not, for lack of better terms, professional enough. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

So your saying for google news to potentially awknowledge us we need a more set system for giving editor status? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That and not everyone on WN can be an editor or reviewer. We need to be very very thankful we have gotten this system and not try to take advantage of it by making everyone an editor. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 20:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But if we have a system like the one suggested above won't the typical backscratching thing happen? The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:21, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews:Editor status, IMO, should really be no big deal and only used to combat spam/vandalism/blatantly obvious COI, etc. As such, I think it should be given out liberally - and taken away just as quickly in cases of abuse. It is the Wikinews:Reviewer status and Article validation process and marking articles as validate which will hopefully eventually control what articles appear on the Main Page. Cirt (talk) 20:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The point of editor, is not to have dozens and dozens. That is one reason why we cannot get in Google News. not everyone on CNN and etc are editors, so we shouldn't see how big of a list we can make. We need to make an effort. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 20:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

But see DragonFire all editors really seem to be doing is saying this article is not spam/coi/vandalism. The Mind's Eye (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that is the point of Wikinews:Editor. IMO what DragonFire1024 (talk · contribs) refers to as "the point of editor" should really be the point of Wikinews:Reviewer. Cirt (talk) 21:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. The Mind's Eye (talk) 22:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

You know in actuality reviewer may have been better name for what we call editors, and editor may have been better named reviewer. The Mind's Eye (talk) 22:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, but oh well. Cirt (talk) 22:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The point is that in the traditional sense of the word, all contributors to Wikinews are editors. Anyone can edit someone else's article and fix it (or vandalise it). I believe the difference between an editor and reviewer on WN is going to be minimal - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 09:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> My vision is for a system where editor status is given fairly freely. After all, at the moment sysop is given without seriously onerous requirements, there are options to auto-grant editor status based on age of account and number of contributions without blocks. At this time I certainly would not advocate changing the FlaggedRevs setup to work this way, we're still working out what it all means, who needs it, and how it is going to make our output higher quality and more trustworthy.

Right now, reviewer status is not really in use. Ultimately, I want to see it being the people with this priv bit deciding what is good enough for the main page. However, as this is going to be a small subset of users it needs to be something where other people can give input and aid reviewers in their decision making. This was very much where I was going with the proposal for {{factcheck}} and {{copyedit}}, perhaps we need templates for talk pages where someone can explicitly state that these tasks have been carried out. For stuff written off the wire and from secondary sources this is going to be fairly straightforward, but for Original Reporting I have a gut feeling that we're all going to need to pull our socks up and provide more detailed notes.

One thing that needs killed off is the idea that this control and consideration is hurting Wikinews. I look at how some people have reacted on-wiki, and in IRC, and I see bitching about "I can't get my article up!" Yes, our output will fall while this is implemented and we learn to live with it; when I first got involved with the project, a day with five articles was a good day. There certainly is a chicken-and-egg scenario associated with this; we need it to be listed in Google news, and we need listed in Google news to get the number of contributors that can make it work. I've even seen people demand FlaggedRevs be removed and we go back to what I will call "the bad old days", this will not move the project forward, this will not increase our credibility, this will not encourage people to contribute, and getting a poorly documented piece of OR on the front page is not a project goal; this last point is - yes - people being possessive over their contributions, right now we're in a situation where people need to look beyond the horizon and their own work; right now we need to be concerning ourselves with where Wikinews will be in 5-10 years. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree almost 100% with you Brianmc, but my opinion on what "Reviewers" should do is slightly different. First of all, going back to "editors", I think that very simply all they are doing is saying this article is not spam/vandalism/coi/etc. That "Editor" status can be given out on admin discretion. The only real "rule" I feel should apply is that it shouldn't be given out just because a friend of yours comes over from Wikipedia. The people who receive it should have at least shown a commitment to edit and particapte in Wikinews. Now on to "Reviewers." My "dream" so to speak would to have Reviewers be the people saying this article is ready to publish. They are the final copyeditors, factcheckers, etc., before they decide it gets published. I certainly think there should be some community consensus system for Reviewers, so that people in general agree this person it trustworth enough to be one. Finally, as to the Template main page system, I think that anyone once a article has been published should be able to put it up there. I believe the reviewers are the ones who will help us get up on Google News.The Mind's Eye (talk) 15:25, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both of ya. The short version is that almost anyone can have "editor" and if they abuse it, beat them with a wikitrout and move on. "Reviewer" should be incorporated into the current review proccess. Instead of any old person reviewing and {{publish}}ing, only certain people can properly review and mark the version as "Quality". Once that is properly introduced, we can change the front page to only list "Quality" reviews articles. The proccess for getting "Reviewer" should be more stringent, like AR. If people can demonstrate that they understand how to check sources, check the facts, do grammer/spelling checks and all those other fun things (oh and wont abuse the system) then, great, have "Reviewer". Obviously there isn't a _huge_ community, but there will need to be a decent amount of people with "Reviewer" if the main page moves to list quality versions only. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 19:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a question: is there a list of pages that need to be "sighted" or whatever it is called? Like on the Newsroom page? Cause if there isn't one, we need one. Otherwise an obscure article could end up falling down the Recent Changes list and get lost in the hustle, especially when we get more users. Gopher65_talk 14:41, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I proposed last night having perhaps a "bot" do it. But yes there is a page, Special:Unreviewedpages. Be warned it is massive. The Mind's Eye (talk) 14:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reviving the discussion on Editor/Reviewer

I would like to see where people stand on this now. There have been a number of failures with the current setup at just editor level, and I simply do not think Wikinews is ready to move on to having reviewers.

First off, I am of the firm belief that editor should not be given as freely as it has in some cases. There needs to be a clear indication that someone is going to follow process, not sight articles without {{peer review}}, and only sight changes they have checked. If this can be adhered to, and there is more of a willingness to remove the privilege where this is not the case, then I think we can live with editor until we have a larger contributor base.

Secondly, software developments aimed at having our articles listed in news aggregators are assuming only editor is required. This means that the first application of sighting must be far more than the casual 'vandalism/POV/COI' check some above propose. Yes, once an article has passed {{peer review}}, that will be the main use.

Lastly, reviewer is - in my opinion - out the window for the time being. We'd have what? 20 people with that status, and the front page would only show what they approve? Where's the point having editor then? Perhaps when we have instead of 20-30 regular contributors some 100+ we can revisit this, but in the meantime I am strongly opposed to trying to implement reviewer. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:05, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Makes sense. Hopefully with all these changes going on lately we might get those new contributors we are discussing. :P - Cirt (talk) 09:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

We're picking up commentators, which I think is a good thing. This seems to have sprung out of the new HYS templates and a few of these people are obviously regularly checking the site. Someone beat me to setting up {{hello-comment}}, we perhaps need an anon version as well. What seems great is that there is minimal trolling/vandalism (and what trolling there is is well done and generally appropriately provocative). What I would point out is we still really need the "Wikinews for Dummies" page that tells someone how to start a basic story; there is a buzz from getting something on the front page and if we can capture one in twenty or so of these commentators we'll build the contributor base faster than people get bored and leave. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:28, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we should perhaps be a bit more selective in granting Wikinews:Editor status, but I don't really see a problem there. However, Wikinews:Reviewer seems to be much more contentious. First, there doesn't seem to be an urgent need for this user class. Second, the list of such users (see list of reviewers) seems to have been rapidly and arbitrarily assembled. I suggest we depopulate this list immediately to include only Wikinews bureaucrats/stewards, until we figure out how we will use this class. Cheers, --SVTCobra 00:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I think part of the problem (probably a large part) was that the rules were changed in mid-stream. So people were being given editor status, told "sight anything that's not vandalism", and then they find out two weeks later that the rules were changed so that only reviewed articles should be sighted. I suspect that this particular problem will quickly go away as word of the requirements for sighting ripples out through the grapevine. It's easy for those of us who sit in IRC all day to keep up with the latest changes, but not everyone does that. I think much of this is just a result of the poor inter-community communication. Gopher65_talk 00:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with SVTCobra (talk · contribs) that the Wikinews:Reviewer class should be depopulated to Bureaucrats/Stewards, until such time that we can determine consensus about what to do with it. Cirt (talk) 02:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Brian makes a compelling argument. I agree with him, all points expressed so far, and also support the depopulation of Wikinews:Reviewer. Editor should be given to trusted users, much like a level below Administrator. Writer -> Editor -> Administrator. --Skenmy ^talk 20:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] move search box up

I was thinking, the search box is pretty far down the page (between regions and toolbox). I think perhaps it would look better between navigation and wikinews box, or between wikinews and regions. Its position can be modified using mediawiki:sidebar. thoughts? Bawolff ☺☻ 16:08, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I personally never use the search box, but I understand what you're saying here. It would be better higher up. Majorly ^talk 08:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe between Wikinews and Regions would be good. Cirt (talk) 08:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Done Bawolff ☺☻ 04:39, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I regularly use the search box. It can be particularly useful just to go there and type 'Template:whatever', or 'Special:checkuser' and get to the page you want. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:14, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FlaggedRevs reader feedback module

The FlaggedRevs extension has a module for reader feedback, which was rolled out with the latest FlaggedRevs upgrade on Wikinews. You'll see it as a user who is not logged in on the bottom of all article pages. I'm not sure there has been any discussion on the Wikinews community about this feature. The idea is to collect reader opinions over time, and to plot them on a graph which can be accessed through a "rating" tab.

The feature is still in active development, and there'll be a public testing period on Wikimedia Labs. But, since it's already enabled here -- do you want to continue using it for the time being, or would you prefer it to be turned off until it's been fully tested and discussed? A quick straw poll would help me to let our developers know what to do. Thanks, --Eloquence (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

• Well, I am pretty sure we would want to keep FlaggedRevs. I am not sure if you are talking about turning off the feedback feature separately, but in my opinion I don't see a reason to do so. I would love to know how to view any such feedback as soon as it is available. Cheers, --SVTCobra 23:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
• Agree w/ SVTCobra (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 20:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
• Feedback! As Number Five says... "need more input!" so keep it. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Enabled again. Voice of All (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] infobox

I've changed the infobox template to deal with a problem with it conflicting with the sighted box (made it clear right). I don't think this will cause any problems, but if it does please find me and yell at me. If it were to cause a problem, it would most likely cause one in a page using either very weird layout tricks, or the if the box is on the left side of the page. Thanks. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:48, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to get 2 categories to output in the same DPL?

Wikinews:Wikinews Importer Bot/Latin America

Categories that I want to be included all together in this DPL (as in "OR" any one of them, not exclusive):

Central America, South America, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic

Any help? Cirt (talk) 05:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Not possible with the version of DPL we use. (It is possible with DPL2, among other cool features such as automated DPL leads, but alas, that isn't likely to get installed anytime soon). However depending on how wikinews importer bot works, the following workaround might work:

<!--First DPL-->
<DynamicPageList>
category=Central America
notcategory=Mexico
notcategory=rest of latin america
...
</dynamicPageList>
<DynamicPageList>
category=mexico
notcategory=...rest of latin america
</DynamicPageList>
<!-- and so on-->

The bot may interpret the group of DPLs as a single one if theres nothing between them (no garuntees though). The main problem with this approach is the article dates might be slightly out of order. A better solution would be to revise the category system to have category:Latin America (but thats lots of work, but could be automated). A really cool solution would be to somehow convince the devs to install DPL2 (but AFAIK there is some problem with the 2 version of the extention that makes it unsuitable. don't quote me on that). Hope that helps. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The 2 sets of DPLs could contain duplicate articles at times. I think perhaps the best solution would be to create Category:Latin America and get a bot to add all articles in categories Central America, South America, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic to that new main category. Know anyone with a bot that does that kind of thing? Cirt (talk) 07:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Well if you put the other categories in a notcategory clause it wouldn't, but it is still far from ideal. As for bots, I assume there is probably some prebuilt pywikipedia bot that could handle such a task (one would assume this isn't the first time such an issue came up). Maybe just try asking bot operators at random? Bawolff ☺☻ 07:07, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay I will try asking around. Cirt (talk) 07:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> The categorisation is a job to do with AWB. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flagged revisions bug?

Is it just me or did "This revision sighted by USERNAME" disappear from the page history? —Calebrw (talk) 01:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe auto sighting got turned off. Weird. —Calebrw (talk) 17:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Showing number of articles needing review in recent changes

I think it would be useful to have the number of articles needing reviews in recent changes. I think it's possible since we can just use the number from category:Review. It would also be nifty, if a message shows up when there is a backlog of articles needing reviews. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 02:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Where should we put it? Right now I just look at the news room, like most would, I suspect - good to see an "overall" vision of what is going on. I don't think we have that much trouble with backup, at least not yet. The highest I've seen in the last few weeks is 6, and that was about 18 hours ago (I'm sorry for sleeping, I promise I wont do it again).

Some users never look at the newsroom - I'm rarely there, and for me the hub of operations is RC. Don't worry about sleeping, nobody can make you do any work at all here, but please sign your comments as I haven't a clue who I'm talking to. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 06:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with BRS here, RC is first stop to see what's going on. That would have to change if we get a significant increase in contributions but it works for the moment. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize we had Template:Votings which we can add the review section. All we need to add is {{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}} along with some text and we would be all set to go. I did a test and it works great. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 04:35, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea if it can work. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:04, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I added it to Template:Votings and it seems to be working on recent changes. It might end up being better on the above bar with number of pages, users, and admins, but let's see what people think. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 22:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

For those interested in getting spammed about reviews, there is also auto notifications on #wikinews-en, and articles needing reviews can be listed at top of each page through a js gadget (see the gadget tab of special:Preferences.) We could also use {{#ifexpr:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}<7|'''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}''' {{PLURAL:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}|page|pages}} needing review|'''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Review}}''' pages needing review (<span style="color:red; background-color:black; text-decoration:blink; font-weight:bold">BACKLOG!</span>)}} Bawolff ☺☻ 06:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disabling wgFlaggedRevsAutoReviewNew

Just so everyone knows - we need to disable wgFlaggedRevsAutoReviewNew. Translation: We need auto "sighting" turned off on article creation. This is because google news is spidering things in development - that it shouldn't, because they are sighted. This really won't have any major effect on anyone, just remember to sight articles when they are published (And not before). (Note: This was discussed and agreed upon over IRC - just making a note so it is more "officall". bug is already filed to get the change). --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 21:28, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we just move forward with the next stage, Wikinews:Reviewer, to begin marking things ready for the Main Page as validated (validate) ? Cirt (talk) 21:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I say that we try adding magic word __NOINDEX__ to the {{develop}} and {{review}} templates (and to the dispute templates). Google at least claims to follow this robots exclusion standard on their blog. Cheers, --SVTCobra 21:50, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea, I've added __NOINDEX__ to {{develop}}, {{review}} , {{cleanup}}, {{tasks}}, and {{prepared}}. Cirt (talk) 22:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm all for adding reviewers, so on and so forth. In the mean time, this flag has been set already. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 00:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think NOINDEX is being transcluded in the templates, as evidenced by this and the current state of this article. Cary Bass (talk) 02:07, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Or it could be the fact that the article was created without a template, and was therefore immediately spidered. I've sighted the article so if Google looks it over again, it will see NOINDEX on it. I hope that works. Cary Bass (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Audio template messing up page formats

The template {{Audio}} really messes up the look of pages, creating giant chasms of whitespace on the pages (example1, example2, among numerous others). Can someone fix it so that it can be easily put on the top righthand side of pages, where it will not only be easier for users to see, but it will stop screwing up the page formatting? I tried, but I'm useless, so I failed:(. Gopher65_talk 03:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

For now I just moved the templates to the top of the page, which kinda helps, I guess. A new (smaller) template would be nice though. Gopher65_talk 03:55, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably bad to move it to the top of the page, but if you move it to the Sources subsection that is usually the best place for it. Cirt (talk) 05:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for help - new Audio Wiki template?

I'm still very green here, so forgive me if I seem too forward (I probably am) and don't know what I'm doing (because I don't!). I've become involved in the Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews project over the last few weeks. Currently the common accepted practice of including audio transcripts in the articles is to use a template that aligns it to the right of the page, and apply it near the bottom of the article, around the sources/references area.

Some discussion started up recently about ways to make the audio more prominent but not intrusive in the articles. As it is now, while the audio is included, it is basically stuffed at the very end, and the thought is that not many people are going to listen to the article after they've already read it. If you compare this to other news/media sites such as CNN, VOA, etc. you notice that if they have audio or video available for an article, they will link to it at the very top and give a very clear visual indicator as to what else is available. Doing the same on Wikinews, in my opinion, would help the Audio Wikinews project.

After playing around with a few things, I think I found a satisfactory solution. A display/close box on the left side of the page, underneath the date, proceeding the lead line of the article. It allows the reader to decide if they want to continue to read the article or listen to the audio instead, and is a simple but noticeable visual cue. The feedback I've gotten from others has been unanimous, they like it.

I'm at the point where I think it would be good to implement this. On the example page I'm using a complete hack-up of the current audio template and the collapsible Dynamic Navigation template boxes that you see on the bottom of MainPage. I don't think this is very suitable at all, as you can see by looking at the code. I would like to make this into a nice, simple template similar to the current one, where you just insert the name of the audio file and the date. I don't know anything about templates, code or anything else. Would somebody care to help me with that? -- Kamnet (talk) 15:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Audio box created. Code {{Audio box|filename=insert file name without image|date=insert date}}

Example:

Anonymous101^talk 16:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

That works for a short term hack-around, except that the box still defaults to being open. Ideally what I would like to see is some sort of combination between Template:Audio and Template:Dynamic_navigation_noncentered, with the title itself replacing the up/down arrow for the display/hidden link. Kamnet (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done some additional playing with the code, for now I re-included the hack which forces the box to be closed. I think this will work for now, any objections? Kamnet (talk) 19:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's great idea and looks really good. My only thing is I think it looks a bit odd on the left. I think it should be placed on the right side on the same line as the date since normally that is just whitespace anyways. Otherwise, great job on this. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 21:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright, after much pulling of hair and looking stuff up, I figured out how to fix that non-collapse thing. It's actually really easy. For now I've switched the template from {{Dynamic navigation noncentered}} to {{Dynamic navigation}} (which has issues, so we need to switch back to the noncentered one. I just did this cause I could edit the latter, but not the former.) We just need to mod the {{Dynamic navigation noncentered}} file so that this line:

<div class="NavContent" style="clear:both;text-align:left;">

So that it reads:

<div class="NavContent" style="clear:both;text-align:left;{{#if:{{{STATE|hide}}}|display:none;| }}">

And then add a line in the explanation that says: "STATE = Use "hide" to set the box as initially collapsed, else leave blank". After that, using the "State=hide" bit in the audio box template (which I put there now) should make it automatically hide the audiobox when it is used. Leaving it blank will cause it to revert to the site's standard.Gopher65_talk 06:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly changed, but now the formatting is pushing the lead line of the text down an extra line, it looks funky. I've switched the template to float to the right instead, as PatrickFlaherty suggested, it looks a little better. Also noticed that if you click on the +/- link, it doesn't always work.

If we move it to the right side, should we revert to making it 200px wide to match any infoboxes there? Kamnet (talk) 14:43, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Kamnet, you could try moving it to the centre to see how it looks (dunno if that would look good though). As for the +/- thing, I don't think wikinews supports the "collapse on creation" function (wikipedia does, in its Common.JS file, but we have a different version). So what I did was a CSS hack to force that particular element (the content part of the dynamic nav bar) not to display. But it is still open, it just isn't displaying. So when you click the "-" sign it closes the non-displaying box, then when you click the + sign it reopens it. This is just temporary until someone figures out a real way to do it. They use this hack on certain parts of wikipedia, so I thought I'd try it here too. EDIT: Another thing you can do to display the left template correctly is to put it on the same line as the date, and then delete the extra space between the date and paragraph. Also, I saw the problem with formatting yesterday before I started fiddling around, so I don't think its anything I did. I'm not sure what's causing it though. Gopher65_talk 16:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

After much discussion on IRC and thanks to the help of User:skenmy, User:Gopher65, and User:Amgine, the template is complete. I've updated Wikinews:Audio with the code and instructions to use going forward. Any questions, feel free to ask me << Kamnet (talk) 21:56, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, and completely unsurprisingly, IE6 doesn't display the template correctly - it takes up the entire width of the article area, pushing other elements like photos and infoboxes off screen. While this will soon not be a problem for me (work is upgrading to IE7 over the next couple of weeks), given that IE6 apparently still holds 25% of market share of all browsers it would be nice if someone knew enough js/css hacks to fix it. You can see what it looks like at Image:Audio template problem ie6.PNG. Funnily enough, the Main Page seems to finally be displaying nicely in IE6, so thanks to whoever sorted that one out.

I did a quick check of {{audio box}} and {{audio box 2}}, and saw nothing that to my knowledge would upset internet explorer in that manner. Do other Dynamic navigation templates take up the whole page? I'll check in more detail some other day when i have access to internet explorer to see if i can find anything (assuming no one beats me to it). As a side note, are you sure you want Ext=Once in the dynamic nav template options? Bawolff ☺☻ 02:21, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly, but I do know that the Main Page displays differently in IE6 and Firefox - specifically, where Firefox shows the leads as Lead 1 on the left and 2-4 on the right, IE6 shows 1 on the left, 2 & 3 on the right, and 4 underneath them. I class this as "bloody stupid" on IE's behalf. Chris Mann (Say hi!|Stalk me!) 05:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually that should varry with resolution. If firefox/MSIE/etc determines there is insufficent room to put fourth lead on right, it should put it underneath. (how this actually works in practise may be a different story). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Changing Sitenotices?

Hello english wikinewsians!

I'm from the german Wikinews and I have a little question for you: We want to know: How did you guys realize the changing Sitenotices here on en:wikinews? I and we are really interested in this, but we cannot see the source of MediaWiki:Sitenotice due to missing permission. Could you please tell us? :-) Hopefully, --Der Hausgeist (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, you'd have to ask a developer. There is no actual source code in there - the page is blank and we just add the message if we want one. Unless someone else on here knows something about the way Mediawiki software works? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:58, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's the code for Mediawiki:Anonnotice which changes

{{#switch:{{#expr:{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} mod 8}} |0=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |1=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |2=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |3=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |4=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |5=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |6=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |7=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> |8=<center>[[Wikinews:Wikinews needs you!|Wikinews needs you!]]</center> |9=<center> Discover how to [[Wikinews:writing an article|write an article]] for Wikinews!</center> }}

Anonymous101^talk 17:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I didn't knew that there is an Anonymoussitenotice. And your answers were really fast, thank you! :-)--HouseGhost^Discussion 17:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that using the Anonymoussitenotice over-rides the universal site notice managed by the WMF for anonymous users. - Amgine | ^t 15:57, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Except during fundraisers. ;-) --Brian McNeil / ^talk 06:08, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bug 15669

Vote on this bug, which would allow us to use a <nodraft> tag to hide templates from the stable version of an article making it a lot easier for readers to ... read. Thunderhead 05:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More Google news requirements

Okay, I figured out a partial way of working this. Dates used in the URLs as part of the article title will cause Google news to pick up the article. Doing this by itself will create an article with the date listed in the title. Redirecting a date page (as in 2008-09-23:_Republican_Congressman_Ron_Paul_endorses_Constitution_Party_nominee_Chuck_Baldwin_for_President_of_the_United_States) to the regular article title will have the required effect of having a date in the URL and the regular title show up in Google news, but the DPL listings will have to change for articles that aren't included in the lead. This requires a creative solution :) Cary Bass (talk) 02:33, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this straight:

• say we have a real article: foo buys bar
• Google news wants 2008-09-23: foo buys bar
• We have redirect: 2008-09-23: foo buys bar → foo buys bar
• We want Main page DPL's to link to 2008-09-23: foo buys bar

Thats actually not very hard. Redirects can have categories. Each redirect has cat category:Dummy cat for google news and the apropriate Date category. (category:September 22, 2008). Use the following DPL

<DynamicPageList>
category={{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}
category=Dummy Cat for Google news
redirects=only
<DynamicPageList>

Issues:

• DPls will now display some date: article are we ok with that? (We could use js to remove it. Some other language (pl?) already uses js to mix around DPL dates)
• Date categories will now have double entries. (We could make another hidden date category, seperate from the normal one_
• This is a lot of extranous work just to publish an article. At the very least we need a bot or this is unworkable (although we could possibly have a js script that activates when reviewer hits the sighted button). Really this should all be handled magically on the server side somehow, without us requiring messing arround with dpl hacks.

Bawolff ☺☻ 05:02, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Can DPL list subpage names without path? For instance 2008-09-23/Dog saves tree from falling would satisfy the conditions while listing just the end page name. Cary Bass (talk) 17:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I have been trying this...with a : and a /...see my contributions...and really I don't know what I am doing wrong as nothing I am doing is appearing in Google News. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I managed to get it to work. The Redirect needs to be made with a / instead of a :. I don't know why, but that seems to work. Also from what I have been playing around with, it only works for the leads atm and articles originally with a date in them such as shorts and the WWE stuff. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:28, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well I always did it with a : and they seemed to work. Maybe we could get DPL patched to link to one location (With date) but display the proper title? Then it would just be a matter of making sure the redirect pages were created. Simple bot could do this? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 06:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Whatever the end-changes are - someone needs to write out very clear instructions as to what we should then be doing, whether it is creating redirects for all articles, just for ones that appear in main page templates, whatever - because this can be quite confusing. Cirt (talk) 07:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

<unindent> I am seeing none of these articles in Google News. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Click advanced news search. In the box that says search this source, type wikinews. Then click sort by date with duplicates included, then anything with Wikinews comes up. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 10:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe this plan puts much too much work on part of the user. For this to work, it should be done automatically via server, or this must be done via bot or js. there is no way everyone is going to remember all this. Bawolff ☺☻ 13:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, second what Bawolff (talk · contribs) said. Cirt (talk) 13:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Bot or js are kludges, this should be a MediaWiki solution. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree 100%. However since none of us who are discussing this are developers, or likely to implement this in mediawiki, perhaps we should try to bring some of the devs. who knows perhaps there is some really simple solution. (like making http://en.wikinews.org/articles/__date__/article_name redirect magically to http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/article_name ). user:Bawolff (logged out as fx just crashed)

This is a change in mainline code. Realistically, I don't think this can be fixed without a mainline change. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Bawolff, as I understand the google requirements they need *each article* to have a unique number. So having 2 articles on the same day with 20080918 wouldn't work. Gopher65_talk 20:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I was discussing this with ShakataGaNai on irc. any way, This could probably work with urls in the format of http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/CanadaVOTES:_Libertarian_Kevin_Stricker_running_in_Saskatoon%E2%80%94Rosetown%E2%80%94Biggar?curid=113852 DPL's can (as of 7 days ago) output urls almost in this format, but they do it through /w/index.php?... (http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=CanadaVOTES:_Libertarian_Kevin_Stricker_running_in_Saskatoon%E2%80%94Rosetown%E2%80%94Biggar&curid=113852 ). Which is unfortunately blocked to google via robots.txt . If DPL could be modified to ourput the other form of the url, this would all work. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla:15739. Bawolff ☺☻ 02:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I was tinkering about this evening and tried testing 2 area's of concern:

1. Bawolff was concerned that Google news might not accept a number in a query string. I think it will be OK just because so many people use CGI for their article name in the first place. Anyways. I tried to test that... except I forgot about rel="nofollow". So thats a bust.
2. I put up 2008-09-26: Controversial Florida attorney Jack Thompson disbarred to test the : versus / debate. I think most every agree's that :'s look nicer - but did it work? The answer is Yes, it works. Google news picks it up. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 04:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

::What makes you think news.google.com is picking that put ShakataGaNai? I looked here [1] and nothing shows up for that article. I also have a "wikinews" custom section of my google news and it doesn't show up there either. So.... I'm pretty sure that isn't being picked up, and neither are most of those other numbered ones. Gopher65_talk 16:09, 27 September 2008 (UTC) ok, never mind. Asked in IRC and you have to do an advanced search and search for the source. Gopher65_talk 16:15, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Latest from Josh @ Google...

...

Hi Brian We took a look at this and went through various different options. Given the challenges you have with adding the 3-digit rule, sounds like the best way to go is to submit only the flagged revisions, i.e., the articles we'd accept, via a news sitemap. That would allow us to ignore the 3-digit requirement. There's more info on news sitemaps here: http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/topic.py?topic=11666 Once that's up and running, we should be fine to include you in Google News.

...

--Brian McNeil / ^talk 07:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I saw that before, and that is great and all. But... how to get generate said page and get it onto the WMF servers? And update it ... 10 times a day? --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 07:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

A new output format for DPL? That's probably the most trivial solution. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Who owns the GWT account for Wikinews? --Skenmy ^talk 09:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

GWT? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Google Webmaster Tools --Skenmy ^talk 20:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Note: There is now a patch that has dpls outputting with a ?curid=unique_number (bugzilla:15739) as /wiki/foo?curid=_number_ . As far as a sitemap, if google is not too picky on mime types, we could have a bot updated page served with &action=raw. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

As an interested reader, I've noticed some URLs with the full date and even one with Article 542, but it's so far haphazard. I look forward to when source:wikinews on google news shows all the latest stories. It would be great if it could index all past stories as well, once they're flagged as sighted. TransUtopian (talk) 17:04, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

@ Bawolff: I don't think once the new DPL patch hits the SVN, we'll even need to worry about a sitemap :) We'll have all the current, published articles on the main page with the nice unique ID format attached. Cary Bass (talk) 21:54, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Where is the new patch? Do we need to do anything to the main page DPLs? Will the bot that creates these pages need updated? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

See bugzilla:15739. Bot will have to be modified to add showcurid=true to dpls. (although bots could technically be replaced with template magic due to changes in mediawiki templates since the current system was made. not sure if thats a good idea or not [don't fix it if it ain't broke. would break the indiv summary pages]). The patch seems to have been commited some time ago, but we do not seem to be using that version of mediawiki. Bawolff ☺