[Wikinews-l] Rebooting the "Wikipedia invasion

[Michael Peel]

On 1 Dec 2009, at 15:18, Brian McNeil wrote:

> There are a few special pieces of Javascript active on enWN which  
> try to
> detect incoming Wikipedians and caution them about editing on  
> Wikinews,
> i.e. articles are a "snapshot", not to be encyclopedic, &c.
>
> IIRC the flow is as such:
>
> 1. User reads Wikipedia article, sees link to Wikinews article
> 2. User clicks link, reads Wikinews article
> 3. User selects to edit Wikinews article, a custom WP-specific edit
>    intro is displayed.
>
> Any intermediate steps between 2 and 3 will see the "Referrer:"  
> lost and
> the custom edit intro not displayed.
>
> Oh, and as some will recall, {{Howdy} }[1] has a "quick guide" for
> Wikipedians; I'd really love Jimmy and Mike Peel's input on this.
>
> [1] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Template:Howdy

Is it a reasonable assumption to assume that all newly created  
accounts and anonymous editors will be familiar with Wikipedia but  
not Wikinews? If so, could something like that "Used to contributing  
to Wikipedia? See here." link on the howdy template be displayed  
automatically on the edit intro? Possibly with a "hide" button for  
those that don't want to see it. Javascript tracking shouldn't be  
necessary...

BTW, some of the landing pages could really do with a rewrite. e.g.
"We put our pants on one leg at a time, just like you, but our jeans  
are cut faster and have some specializations that you might not know  
about."
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:For_Wikipedians
I think that manages to be sexist and language-ist (colloquialism)  
simultaneously, aside from being more broadly insulting... ;-)

Mike