Anthere:

For the first point Erik, it seems some people are not happy with the way decision making happens on wikinews.

I think that there are many different problems that have happened in recent days:

1) There has been a very big fight about the use of the DynamicPageList extension to automate story display. I was not involved in that. Those who opposed it felt that the other side eventually pushed their solution through without discussing it.

2) Davodd has some concerns that we're not accepting enough local stories. I'm not quite sure where that comes from, but we're discussing it.

3) There's the inputbox extension. It is meant to address one problem with the list of "developing stories" (those which have {{Develop}}). When the new automatically generated list of developing stories was added, it was not easy anymore to create an article simply be editing a page and by linking to it. For some time, we had two lists of "developing stories", which was a bit silly. Ilya Haykinson suggested that in the context of Wikinews,

Edit template => Add link => Follow link => Save page

is not really a particularly good way to create new pages. The main rationale for this process in the wiki world -- where you want to have high interlinking between pages -- is weaker for Wikinews, where categories serve the same purpose.

I liked this suggestion a lot, so I implemented it, and while I was at it, I thought it might be a good idea to also offer the option (!) of preloading text into the inputbox, as Wikinews uses a few templates which a newcomer will not be aware of. Previously, we used a page called "Submit a story" to accept submissions from newcomers unaware of the syntax. This was very unwiki-like, as it suggested a distinction between submitters and editors. The new system allows us to put every user on the same level as the existing community of editors. We can also provide custom help when creating a new page.

I put the inputbox on the Main Page to demonstrate it. Nobody reverted the suggestion, and everyone who commented said they liked it, and that it would make editing a lot easier. That is, for the first hour or so. Then Amgine started criticizing it a lot, and finally, Pechorin also had some reservations (specifically, he didn't want it on the Main Page).

I said that I would like to have a discussion about what content, if any, should be preloaded. Amgine then started accusing me of "unilateral changes", abusing "my position", left the project, and a couple days later, has started this "Open Wikinews" proposition.

Amgine is the only one who is personalizing this dispute against me, while others have more general problems with Wikinews, as the discussion shows. This is not the first conflict between me and Amgine, and I have frequently been under the impression that anything I do will drive him ballistic, because he sees my edits as being "more important" than others (due to my founding role in the project). It should also be noted that Amgine has threatened to fork the project before, when he didn't get the technical changes he wanted implemented. I have always made it absolutely clear that my edits should be treated like any other, and that I hold no special role in the project.

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).

This is an untrue generalization; the only editor who is, in fact, referring specifically to my actions is Amgine.

How do you suggest to improve this in the future ?

I want to have a constructive dialogue with the other members of the Wikinews community about the best way to operate the site.

First, the box does not start empty, it is already prefilled with a whole bunch of preformatted content.

That content can be edited, or blanked, at http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Template:New_page which is actively being done.

If the editor wants the story to be visible to the reader, he must replace the development tag by a publish tag

Thanks to a recent change by Ilya to DPL, we will hopefully soon be able to make the {{Develop}} tag unnecessary, as we can make a list of all stories that are *not published* instead (we will first have to move all non-articles out of the main namespace, and tag all previous articles as published, though).

• a more "similar" appearance to all articles

Actually, we've always enforced the look & feel rather rigidly, similar to the Wikipedia Manual of Style.

• a strong reminder to the editor that he should list his sources

I'm not too happy with this part, as it might discourage original reporting. It's also very heavy syntax.

• if you are a new editor, chances is you will be very

perplex in front of all this complex synthax.

It's a matter of balance. Some prefilling is helpful and gives the new editor a rough idea of how things work, too much is going to be harmful instruction creep. We're actively discussing the best balance on http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Template_talk:New_page with me being a lead advocate for keeping things simple.

but when wikinews grows, it might be that the system does not scale so well and that articles are not quickly published.

That's a problem I'd like to have ;-). But I think we'll find new solutions if that does indeed happen, such as date-tagging developing stories and prioritizing those which haven't been dealt with for a long time.

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.

As noted, the {{Develop}} tag will likely be deprecated soon.

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.

Less complex than the previous system, where you had to carefully edit multiple templates to get your story from development to publication. I would say that the new system is easier for people with no wiki experience, and a little unusual for people with wiki experience.

• it is simple synthax
• create an article, edit, save and this is it !

Yep. That's how it works now ;-)

I think these two issues should be community enforced and taught by model (looking at what already exist).

I don't think an extreme position is helpful here, as I said, I think the trick is to find the right balance.

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 ?

Wikinews is not Wikipedia. Stories are published in multiple categories and automatically displayed there using the DynamicPageList extension. This is necessary - a manually maintained frontpage is not scalable. Even Amgine's proposed frontpage makes extensive use of the DPL, as you can see here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Open_English/Main_Page He was one of the initial proponents of DPL, and contributed code to it. So while there have been disagreements about exactly how much automation we need, everyone seems to agree that we need *some* level of it.

But, DPL depends on stories being properly tagged by category. This is accomplished with the {{date}} tag and the {{develop}}/{{publish}} tags. These add the correct categories, which DPL then uses to fetch the latest stories from those categories. As noted above, {{develop}} will likely be deprecated soon, making it necessary to only remember {{date}} and {{publish}} to post a story.

Wikipedia has no such dependencies. I follow a link and I start writing. If my article is not perfect, that's fine, because it's still linked from the right places. People can see it. People will eventually fix it for me. In general, there's less things to know, and less things that can go wrong.

Now, don't get me wrong. This complexity is *undesirable*. Instead of templates, we will eventually want shiny buttons and comboboxes; intuitive and obvious user interfaces. This is a matter of further software changes. We're trying to achieve the best results with the technology we have today.

With that technology, it makes sense to guide ordinary users through the process of publishing a story. First empirical data indicates that this works. We no longer have to resort to the crutch that was Wikinews:Submit a story, and instead can give ordinary users the tools they need to publish stories.

We will continually work to make Wikinews easier to use. Eventually, wiki technology will incorporate more and more elements of blog technology. As we guide users, we must take care to avoid instruction creep. I want to engage in productive discussions with those who are afraid of instruction creep, and improve the site to avoid it.

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 ;-)

I'm very much in favor of that, actually, and asking other people as well. But, in terms of our usability goals, I'm quite aware that we are not there yet. But the recent changes are an improvement, and should help to make the site easier to user for newcomers than it was before.

Best,

Erik

On 7/6/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

Two comments. The first is about the recent crisis on wikinews. The second is a comment about the new features.

I agree with what Erik and Dan have already written on this.

When worrying about new features not being discussed, you might want to look at the number of new features in MediaWiki 1.5. Those were generally not discussed, but people welcome them as *optional* improvements to their wikis. There is nothing in the new "create an article" box that forces any user to use it. You can still go to http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=My_new_article&action=edit and write on a blank page, but for newcomers who want to do things properly, having the option to use http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=Template%3ANew_page&title=My+new+article instead is likely to be very helpful.

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 ?

Why doesn't Wikipedia use it? Perhaps because the feature has only just been introduced and no one knows about it, not necessarily because it's a bad idea. And, I have proposed it be used for leaving test messages on user talk pages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#User_talk_inputbox). http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&preload=Template%3ATest&editintro=Template%3ATest+intro&create=Create+article&title=User_talk%3ATestingggg gives you helpful links to other templates, and lets you edit the {{test}} message, whereas previously you had to use {{subst:test}}, save the page, then edit it, or copy and paste the template from somewhere else, or use the default message which doesn't apply to every user in the same way.

Not all projects have the same need for the level of standardisation that Wikinews has, but for those that do, this seems an invaluable option. Nothing about this feature prevents anyone creating articles in the traditional way.

Angela.