[Wikinews-l] Newstrust.net

[Fabrice Florin]

Hi guys,

I have added our web engineer Subbu Sastry to this thread, as he would know whether or not it's feasible for us to give you this data.

We don't yet have a full API, though our widgets function a bit like an API. 

One new widget we have been considering is a rating widget which a third-party could put on their site, to show the NT story rating for a particular story on that site. It might also be possible to show the source rating we have for that source, if known. We hadn't planned on doing this right away, but it's in the queue of things we would consider doing, if requested by one of our partners.

Your request seems a bit different, if I understand it correctly: you would want to display the ratings for sources cited by your articles, is that right? if that's the case, it may be sufficient for us to get just the URL. We would then look up that URL in our DB, and if we have it on file, that would allow us to provide the story rating and number of reviews. We may also be able to provide the source rating and number of reviews for the source associated with that story at the same time. Lastly, it may be possible to provide the source rating and reviews for the source typically associated with that domain name, though this is a risky proposition, because often a story featured on a site is not really from that site. So it would be best to ask for source ratings by specifying a source name, but you would need to request the exact name we use for that source, which could be prone to human error.

In any case, we should probably prioritize the tasks you are considering, so we know which is most important to you from an editorial standpoint.

Is it more important for you to have your own articles display a story rating? or to give a rating to the third-party articles cited as sources for your own articles?

If it's the latter, how often would you need this information to be updated? If it's an old story, its story rating is unlikely to change much after a month or two after its release, so maybe you could settle for a one-time rating -- the source rating is more likely to change over time, but not by much. So maybe a once-a-month or less frequent update might be fine. 

Either way, we would need to figure out how important all this is to you, and if we can squeeze in some simple technology that addresses most of your needs. 

But this is a good conversation to have, and we appreciate your thinking about these creative uses of NewsTrust for your site.

Thanks again,


Fabrice


On Dec 12, 2009, at 6:02 PM, bawolff wrote:

> Yes, it can detect the categories (or at least be made to do so. JS
> looks at categories on article, maps them to category scheme for news
> trust, and dynamically modifies url of button). I'll try to add that
> some point in the near future.
> 
> Ideally if we did use the toolserver as an intermediary, it'd cache
> responses, so not to overload newstrust (and script on wikinews end
> would fail gracefully if toolserver has downtime).
> --
> - Bawolff
> Caution: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85
> million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Brian McNeil
> <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2009-12-12 at 18:27 -0700, bawolff wrote:
>>> Note, I'm 99% sure that pulling the rating data off NewsTrust using
>>> clientside js would be in violation of the wmf privacy policy (99% as
>>> i have not actually read the privacy policy...). It also represents
>>> somewhat of a security risk (the usual method of doing such things is
>>> to execute foreign javascript that inserts rating data and/or puts
>>> data in a global variable. which is generally something we try to
>>> avoid, as executing arbitrary code on the client that is not under our
>>> direct control = bad thing in my mind). With that being said, that
>>> would probably be ok as a gadget, but not ok as enabled for everyone.
>>> 
>>> However, if we were to do this, i think a better approach would be to
>>> get someone with a toolserver account to create a tool that acts as
>>> intermediatery. That way, only the toolserver is in the position to
>>> potentially collect user data.
>>> 
>>> It'd go like this: Client loads page, page asks toolserver what rating
>>> of source is, toolserver asks newstrust (possibly caching results).
>>> 
>>> I assume that'd take care of privacy issues
>> 
>> I do worry how much work that would impose on NewsTrust. There would
>> need to be some sort of API on their end to serve requests up with
>> needed data.
>> 
>> It would also make having a "mission critical" Toolserver box essential.
>> I know how flaky the toolserve has historically been. We can't rely on
>> what's there for stuff appearing in published main namespace content.
>> 
>> In any case, we'd need to be sending the following information to
>> NewsTrust from the Toolserver:
>> 
>> article URL
>> source name
>> if an initial request, or periodic polling
>> 
>> It'd need to return
>> 
>> any rating they have for the article
>> an indicator there rating is for the article
>> the number of reviews for the article
>> any rating they have for the source
>> the number of reviews for the source
>> 
>> If a periodic polling, NewsTrust could return some sort of "no change"
>> indicator.
>> 
>> This would be flexible enough that Wikinews could collect the
>> information on our own articles and stay within the privacy policy and
>> the WMF techies paranoia about cross-site scripting attacks.
>> 
>> For us using the NewsTrust review widget in the {{social bookmarks}}
>> template Bawolff, is there any way we can pick out best-guess categories
>> when someone submits a story? As I said, the "basic" submission from
>> where we've got the code fails until you complete those details.
>> 
>> --
>> Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>|http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
>> Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official position
>> of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
>>