Wikinews WikiParty! [No! This does not mean I wear my kilt Cary.]
This will be the first time ever that Jimmy Wales has done WikiVoices (previously: Not the Wikipedia Weekly), *and* it's on Wikinews.
George Watson (Dendodge) has said he should be able to do this too. Just in case not, I'd welcome a standby or two; you *need* Skype, and a headset or other good microphone. Considering French Wikinews is working towards getting listed in GNews, it would be really nice to have someone from there in - even if not for the full session. That's in addition to Dendodge. One of Wikinews' strengths is the international nature; moving to two of the top Western languages being in GNews is good news.
An as-yet unconfirmed attendee is Rory Cellan-Jones, one of the semi-geeky, and semi-independent, journalists that works with/for the BBC. So, yes, I have high hopes of this getting Wikinews some publicity.
Set diverse alarms for making sure you're in IRC, tracking recent changes, and anything else like that during the recording and few hours after. I'll try and get Durova to give fair warning of the actual Skypecast going up on Wikipedia - there will likely be another spike then.
Regrettably, ShakataGaNai will have to earn his 1% when this is happening; I considered a Prozac prescription. But, he'd just smile more while blowing people off the Internet for trolling and POV-pushing.
And if you do have Skype, there will be a text chat session too, everyone writing on Wikinews who can be involved in that, should.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Jimmy Wales To: Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org Date: Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:34:25 -0800
On my calendar!
Brian McNeil wrote:
On Sun, 2009-12-06 at 17:32 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
What exact date/time?
Brian McNeil wrote:
I've put up a date/time marked as provisional...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikivoices#Episode_51
Kinda had to do this when I've perhaps landed Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC as a participant.
Time (provisional): Wednesday December 23, 2009 (1200 PST 2000 UTC)
That's 3pm in Florida - I think.
Hey! I get my 1% off the top no matter what, that was part of the cabal deal when I got 'crat'd.
That being said, I've not been paying attention, but I presume we're expecting a (hopefully) decently fair usage jump for this? A few thoughts:
* Tempo will need to work overtime as greeting bot. Unless someone of importance can harass the devs. We've got a bug filled requesting Extension:NewUserMessage ( https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20508 ), but it has been languishing for 3 months now. * We really should be extra nice. This means no banning w/o warning (Yes, I'm talking to myself too) * Most importantly: If anyone rejects a review (or speedy kicks back something in {{review}}) for the next few days after, seek out the article writer and alert them on their talk page that it was done so. Not everyone pays attention to the articles they wrote. * Make sure to include information sources when dealing with people who don't get our "system". That starts with the obvious, like [[WN:SG]] ( http://enwn.net/9Adc5 ) and [[Wikinews:Writing an article]] ( http://enwn.net/78B55 ) but also includes pages like [[Wikinews:For Wikipedians]] ( http://enwn.net/197b ). * We really should set a site notice to dedicate a page (or at least a topic on The Cooler), providing an advance warning for everything. There are a few slackers out there who we haven't whipped into shape and got them signed up for Wikinews-l yet.
-Jon
On Mon, 2009-12-07 at 12:57 -0800, Jon Davis wrote:
Hey! I get my 1% off the top no matter what, that was part of the cabal deal when I got 'crat'd.
One percent of nothing... is still nothing. :-P
That being said, I've not been paying attention, but I presume we're expecting a (hopefully) decently fair usage jump for this? A few thoughts:
- We really should set a site notice to dedicate a page (or at least a
topic on The Cooler), providing an advance warning for everything. There are a few slackers out there who we haven't whipped into shape and got them signed up for Wikinews-l yet.
Yes.
There will also be a need for a decent post-mortem. I think on enWN everyone with Editor/Admin should review the full Skypecast. It will shed light on areas where it is difficult for people to quickly get involved. I know the Newsroom could do with more makeover (I put in a header; quick, dirty, but need to push an "urgency"); and, at least one of the other links from the main page's masthead is dull-as-ditchwater offputting - coma-inducing material.
The writing contest is already showing a nice number of signups, and I do intend to mention it. I really, really hope by time of recording there's some firm prize commitments to spice it up a bit. For that, I would really like to see frWN in GNews, and the competition. THEN I can ask Josh at GNews if they're interested, bilingual entrants can get a few extra points for doing in both languages, and - hopefully - google translate could get feedback on improving their translation engine.
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