Flagged Revisions on Wikinews means possible Google News icebreaker

Published by Jason Safoutin on August 6, 2008 in interesting and must read. 2 Comments

This week, Flagged Revisions was installed onto Wikinews. What this means, is that a select group of chosen “editors” can flag the revisions or changes of an article, which meet the publishing criteria of Wikinews. It also means that a formal editorial process has begun to take shape on Wikinews, for the first time since 2005.

Since Wikinews debuted in late 2004, we have made several attempts to include our site in the collective of Google News. Their main reason for excluding us in their News collective, was due to the lack of an editorial process, and that our way of writing articles was considered “too open” to include us. Since only select contributers have the ‘editor’ status, this enables those individuals to formally check over an article for typos, copy editing, and etc. Once those changes have been made to the article, that revision can be flagged as “stable”, meaning it has gone through a formal editorial process at that point.

With Flagged Revisions, that is likely to change, or at least it will up our chances of being included in the biggest news search engine on the internet. This is something I have been looking forward to for a long time. Now that it is here, I believe it will usher in a new and brighter era for Wikinews.

Why won’t thee talk to me?

Published by Brian McNeil on June 24, 2008 in Crime and law, Culture and entertainment, Economy and business, interesting and must read. 0 Comments

I just published Associated Press goes after bloggers for copyright violation. The process of creating this was most frustrating, and I almost think it is, “a day late and a dollar short”.

Quick synopsis is that AP issued seven DMCA takedown notices against the Drudge blog, The Drudge Retort. Some apparently none-too-pleasant emails were exchanged with AP’s lawyers too.

I don’t want to see Wikinews always play the little guy’s side and be just like the blogs, I want to give the right to reply, and to get both sides of the story. If you look on the article’s talk page you will see this. I tried to contact AP, Reuters, and the BBC. Nada. I even went as far as phoning AP and got bounced around until I was “persuaded” to leave a voicemail. I can say that at least the EFF got back to me, but ye-gods! they were slow off the mark.

Godness…..WiMAX Taipei Expo & COMPUTEX 2008

Published by Rico C. Shen on May 27, 2008 in Science and technology, interesting, internal and useful. 0 Comments

Before the main topic, please read three key schedules that I just received from TCA and TAITRA:

I believe that everyone knows the COMPUTEX week is the next week (June 2 to June 7), but may not know theirs importances. This year, after the TAITRA expanded the exhibition into TWTC Nangang, and the WiMAX Expo will be held at Taipei Show Hall 2, the COMPUTEX and WiMAX Expo will chain each other for vast ICT products and industries.

TAITRA wanted to challenge the World’s No.1 by holding 2008 COMPUTEX, but still, it’s difficult due to lack of exhibition spaces even though the TWTC Nangang was launched after the Opening of 2008 Taipei Cycle. Although the COMPUTEX will be the biggest one since 1982, but there will be a unlimited road and future for TAITRA because the growth of ICT industry world-wide including Taiwan, I think.

………………

Just forgot one thing, I would like to see three different awards (Taiwan Excellence, Best Choice, Design and Innovation) because those threes has a critical target: To promote the best into the global ICT industry! Hope the COMPUTEX can get smooth in my COMPUTEX trip.

What the schedule by CTRRA?! And also, request for questions…..

Published by Rico C. Shen on May 9, 2008 in Sports and important. 2 Comments

(Chinese Version can be read via this link)

Since I got a mail about the race schedule on June to December 2008 from Chinese Taipei Road Running Association, I got some questions troubled for my news wire….

Will the Nike Taiwan hold the road running race again?
Why is the “Taipei 101 Run Up” held earlier than I think?
Will several International races in Taiwan be held properly?

Q1 & Q3 might be easy to understand because our mayor Lung-pin Hau encouraged several sports activities held in Taipei City for a long time. But the Q2, “Taipei 101 Run Up”, is hardly to understand why the organizer advance the race day from bottom-half to the last of top-half year………

As of the current schedule by CTRRA, its current form is……

June 15 - 2008 The 4th Taipei 101 Run Up
- (Past three years’ holding date: 10/22 in 2006, 11/25 in 2005 & 2007)
ING Taipei Marathon series race:
- September 13 - Eastern Taiwan Warm-up (@ Meilun Stadium of Hualien)
- September 21 - Southern Taiwan Warm-up (@ Kaohsiung Arts Museum)
- September 28 - Central Taiwan Warm-up (@ Taichung Metropolitan Park)
- Kids’ Warm-up - Unconfirmed, but held in Taipei City.
- December 21 - Main Race (@ Taipei City Hall Plaza)
October 12 - Taipei Samsung Running Festival
November 1 - Taroko International Marathon (I’m confirmed that I won’t be there… ^^)

Explain first for Q2, “Taipei 101 Run Up”, an annual skyscraper running up race since 2005 by Taipei 101, was often held in the bottom of the year before 2007. Because of a confused question for this race, I called their PR earlier to confirm this information, as of their explanation, they not only told me differences between skyscraper run-up and several marathon races, but also want to examine CTRRA’s “ChampionChip“, mostly used at international marathon races in Taiwan since 2005 ING Taipei Marathon.

Besides of those answers, I sincerely requested our editors (including unaccredited editors) can give some questions for me about the “Taipei 101 Run Up” before 23:00 May 14, 2008 UTC because their pre-race press conference will be held on 05:30 May 15, 2008 UTC (in Taipei Time: 13:30 May 15, 2008). You can reply here or leave a message via my user talk page. Don’t be afraid, just to ask what you want to know!

Kindly Regards.

Find more at….

I will find an opportunity to translate the introduction from Chinese Wikipedia into English.

Computex 2008, are you READY?

Published by Rico C. Shen on May 6, 2008 in Science and technology and internal. 2 Comments

Computex, the 2nd-largest annual IT show in the world, held by TCA and TAITRA, might be the biggest see 2008 as the biggest since its first holding in 1982. Every buyer and foreign press want to see its significant growth after extended to Nangang Exhibition Hall, but….. think senior users of Wikinews, are you ready for this?

I wrote this earlier (maybe later) than I think, but since last Tuesday, I participated two press conferences (Microsoft Taiwan and Industrial Technology Research Institute) in person and ready for news coverage about my events, some senior administrators pointed out a DAMN SERIOUS and LONG-TERM issue about my articles, that is, “English is not my native language.”

After this, I found my articles slowly abandoned as unimportant articles than what I thought. And after I saw other news sites published coverages on 2008 Computex Press Conference sooner and earlier, I still think, “If it’s in the show hours, I would be criticized about efficiency as an Internet news organization!” That’s too DAMN for me!

Though Brian notified me about a newly-proposed project - “To-Do List“, but earlier, I said: “Do Earlier Before I Decided To Leave.” Why? Because recently, I didn’t see any efficiencies on my articles even though I participated in several press conferences in my city - Taipei City.

Every buyer, press, IPO, company wants to see its growth, they are ready for this show! But if anyone looked it down as “nothing special”, and no one pay more attentions on my articles, and still, just think as “unimportant”, should I abandon the news wire of Computex and quit this community forever? I’m the only in the Wikinews to communicate with executives from TAITRA and TCA, if I quit, what the results will be? Hope every editor can think carefully, oh, by the way, anyone interested in a 2-year celebration of Google Taiwan? Because they just announced their new office and a key project - “‘Cloud Computing‘ between Academical Units”.

I’m ready, every buyer, company, IPO, and media also, Are You?

Just Find more……

Burnt clams?

Published by Patrick Mannion on April 23, 2008 in Culture and entertainment, interesting, internal and must read. 0 Comments

Have we really gone overboard?

As much as I enjoy the all the new readers that our Scientology articles bring in, are we overdoing it?

We’ve had two articles go up for deletion requests, one of which was very heated and reached the front page of digg even and was eventually saved depsite being called a personal vandetta.

The other one, which is being discussed right now is considered to be a boring, pro-Scientology book donation, something other than Anon vs Scientology, “Intertubes” vs Scientology, Xenu, Suppressive persons, censorship, lawsuits Mudkips, Longcats, huge X Boxes and all the other goody goods, that come along with Scientology stories.

So question is to you readers, are we overcooking the clams?

Should we focus on something on else?

Crappy world economy? Zimbabwe? The polygamist sect/cult in Texas? Presidential election? Global warming? More interviews?

Tell us.

P.S.: In before Anoymous swamps the comments calling me cancer that’s killing Wikinews, a “noob” and the likes.

What is “Original Reporting”?

Published by Brian McNeil on April 19, 2008 in interesting and internal. 0 Comments

There is a discussion on Wikinews’ Water Cooler about what actually constitutes Original Reporting (OR in Wikinews parlance). There are the “well, duh!” obvious varieties such as being on the scene or conducting a face to face interview, other cases like a phone call or online chat, and finally the ones that seem to be considered not appropriate to be labelled as OR; these are watching television or reading a press release.

The argument for watching television is an interesting one, and would depend - in many cases - on what you were watching. Live parliamentary or Senate debate? Well, I would have to say this makes a lot of sense as being OR; there is next to no filtering between you and the event. Watching a press conference is less clear-cut; you are deprived of the opportunity to put your own questions. Then there is live coverage of an event. A producer or director is calling the shots, so in some respects the event is filtered through their eyes.

This leaves press releases, and they can be quite problematic. Any organisation issuing a press release is doing their level best to present themselves in a positive light. So far, the consensus is against reading PR documents as being Original Reporting. They can, however, be a basis to start an OR article if you are prepared to seek out further comment from the issuer or other interested parties.

The Original Reporting category contains over 1,000 articles and the percentage of new Wikinews coverage that falls into this category is significantly increased from a few years ago. There are specific sections on the front page for OR and interviews and, as something you will not find elsewhere on the Internet, this should make people keep coming back to Wikinews.