User talk:Brian McNeil

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About the Article"The Bitter Reality of BITS-Pilani,Dubai

Well about the article, i have cited the source article from Gulf News. Actually i want to change the Article's main heading to "The Insight story of BITS-Pilani,Dubai" can you suggest me how to change the story's name?

Herman Van Rompuy named as first permanent EU President (sic)

May I suggest that you add "accuracy" to your check-list? Ten seconds on Wikipedia would have told you that there is no such post as "EU President". (He is President of the European Council, essentially just a chairman).

Ban on YouTube spreads to Google services in Turkey

i tried to address the points you made. i hope you can re-review the article.

--Polysynaptic (talk) 22:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Need help

Hi, can you be more specific about the citation mistakes I've made in Facebook unblocked in Bangladesh? I'm still new here and my understanding of citation format is not enough. Thanks Kayau (talk · contribs) 08:21, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I've been rather curt; I do think other reviewers are failing if they do not first help improve your work.
Baised on the failed/withdrawn application for editor/reviewer status, I would look very carefully at changes made to articles you submit; both those during the review process, and afterwards by well-established contributors - particularly those who have managed substantivive Featured Articles. --Brian McNeil / talk 14:00, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing Wikinews post-apocalypse

Ever one to keep trying, I have spent a significant part of this evening in IRC pointing out why I see certain things being problems. And, how there is a specific need to fix numerous items to prevent future disasters – or vindictive witchhunts – such as that of the torch-and-pitchfork wielding mob a few steps behind me.

That, at its heart, does require an acceptance that there were serious failings on both sides; that many of the attempts by certain individuals to "fix" Wikinews' standing are fatally flawed. Such need put aside until such time as, collectively, existing processes that failed catastrophically have an established community-agreed reform framework.

Quite obviously, the most important of these is not AGF or some cipher for such; it is the actual accreditation process. Should there even be such a thing as temporary accreditation? If so, and this is where things really started to go wrong, it has to be quite clear how serious a responsibility the community is bestowing upon someone who has requested, and been granted, such.

With certainty about how I would feel in the circumstances, offering Matthew Edwards any sort of collective apology, or individual one from myself for what were terribly insensitive and cruel actions, is pointless right now. It would be thrown back in our faces. The best apology is to, rationally, reform the whole process to make sure there is no fast-track to Global Thermonuclear Wikiwar.

I have to point out at this stage in drafting my thoughts on the matter, that I, too, have a few demands of people. Other people have to take on serious and significant responsibilities for aspects of the project I have managed, and financed, single-handedly for years. I, repeatedly, took it upon myself to be George Bernard Shaw's "unreasonable man", and I do not think anyone can argue that this has not yielded results that were seriously needed.

Accreditation needs to be managed by several people. They must be regularly active; they must be prepared to divulge direct (hotline-style) personal contact information. At a minimum, I believe this should include full, real names - verifiable by having identified to the WMF; a direct in-case-of-emergency telephone number in addition to a direct (non-Wikinewsie) personal email address. I certainly do not believe such details need published on-wiki; that would be an invitation to every kook in wikiland. However, this is information that each and every accredited reporter should have access to.

On the flip-side, this means there should be an insistence that, in a case such as Matthew Edwards', the card-carrying reporter is prepared to eat whatever phone or 3G costs are needed to make sure a couple of this yet-to-be-established committee know what is going on. [Aside: Yes, we should cut people some slack if their one phone call is to a lawyer; but, said lawyer should be given specific instructions to make the contact on their behalf.]

Before anyone even suggests taking this to the WMF, let me tell you that would be a waste of time. Wikipedia is all of their world; as evidenced by repeat refusals to invest in protecting the Wikinews mark through challenging the owner of wikinews.com. I can further attest to such, having discussed with Sue Gardner and Jay Walsh in 2008 gifting the wikinewsie.org domain to the WMF. The result was some polite, interested, and pleasant-ish noises; followed by ultra-risk-averse discussion of the WMF's arms-length approach to editorial control, and maintaining a status similar to that of an ISP.

In general, it would seem logical to spread out Wikinewsie and accreditation responsibilities amongst Bureaucrats; but, I doubt all would agree to the above terms. Taking on such responsibilities would also have to include being prepared to stand in court and defend a source's right to anonymity – even to tolerate jail-time over such. I have carefully squirrelled away a healthy collection of contacts that could help with such perhaps-implausible situations, and am proud to say I am in a country where I could use the law to defend myself in those circumstances.

From that foundation, I believe that a rock-solid accreditation policy and process could be constructed. I am open to discussing this, but if I consider an alternative proposal a complete waste of time discussing I will simply remove it from this page. The clock is ticking on agreeing how these problems can be fixed. It is not intended as blackmail, but this must have some form of consensus from people who would make up such a board or committee before the opening days of next month.

If you do wish to constructively work on this, please form an orderly queue, and add a subsection for your remarks to keep this page manageable! --Brian McNeil / talk 01:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My proposal - Tris

Full proposal here - User:Tristan Thomas/accreditation. Cut down version below.

  • No temporary accreditation or better rules on access to it, more formal process, with formal identification to someone.
  • On being accredited, small fee paid for press pass and wikinewsie.org domain/email address
  • Method of verifying accreditation on pass through phone numbers.

Read my linked page above for full details-comments needed. Not so pleonastic hopefully!   Tris   10:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Tris, can you slash this down by about 75%?
  • Speak to Skenmy about cards; the required printer is, new, around $2,000. Otherwise the card costs will be much, much higher than you seem to realise (i.e. outsourcing production of cards with security/ID-checking features).
  • The website is also far more expensive than you realise; the private registration adds a whopping lump onto the per-annum cost.
  • In the main, you're on the right track, I think. But, please take this to your own page, or a subpage, at least for the time being. If everyone else posts such a lengthy brain-dump without ruthless copyedit, I will end up with a totally unmanageable talk page. [And, if you didn't notice, I'm trying to give Amgine an infarction by writing an article :-P] --Brian McNeil / talk 10:44, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to the cost, it would be through outsourcing. I was under the impression, through previous research that my estimate is not a massive underestimate, but will investigate further over the coming days to get a better quote.
I have no idea how much you're looking at for the private registration, but all I can say is that if you can get out of doing it with the company you're doing it with, I've done it for about 10 extra quid a year on a domain or two and so shouldn't be so bad.
I'll post a cut down version above! Good luck with the article writing!   Tris   10:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Gah, more pleonasm!) One other comment; I'm not totally opposed to temporary accreditation. I would say though; never with less than seven days notice, and an insistence that, within that period, local contributions for the community to assess. Banning it outright would've seen us lose the Israeli president interview. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Summary and followup

  1. Temporary accreditation is only for extremely exceptional circumstances. A period of at least x days notice (five?) must be given. In addition to community support, the person seeking the temporary accreditation must demonstrate knowledge of project policies, esp. the Style Guide.
  2. Conventional accreditation is valid for a period of 18 months (re-accrediting every 12 months is overkill, and contributor-time-expensive).
  3. Fully-accredited reporters will be issued with professional ID cards. These must match, in terms of name and other details, with government-issued ID.
  4. All accredited reporters must have identified to several Wikinewsies – The !Editors.
    Writing under a pseudonym on Wikinews is perfectly acceptable, but a picture and valid ID details must be provided for the creation of said card.
  5. The !Editors must provide direct, personal, contact information to all accredited reporters.
    This may be restricted by, for example, specifying timezone and acceptable contact hours.
  6. All "field journalism" should be alerted to The !Editors in advance.

The above is, essentially, a synthesis of Tris' suggestions and my own. I am in the process of having the private registration removed from the wikinewsie.org domain. All going well, I can then renew the domain. I believe the hosting and email services are already paid for out beyond that. No, it will never be going on Google. OTOH, it may move to Sweden at some point. ;-) Arr! --Brian McNeil / talk 16:57, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There needs to be an exception to point 6 that allows reporters who arrive at the scene of something unexpected to report e.g. a road accident. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 17:46, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Accreditation of Wikinews reporters will be valid for a two-year period " WN:AP --ShakataGaNai ^_^ 19:51, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WN:SG vs. releases

Re: Do press releases take precedence over the style-guide then? — μ 18:12, June 8 2010 (UTC)

Spelling revert as per WN:SG#Spelling

Just wanted to explain my revert of your edit on the AGI talk page... On WN we use the spelling of the subject region, or the first author's spelling if the subject region isn't definitive. Thanks for helping out on Wikinews! - Amgine | t 21:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

<giggle giggle>

Thank you

Thanks for the kind words, about 'Dewey Defeats Truman' incident in California State Senate election. Much appreciated, -- Cirt (talk) 05:02, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is sighted, yet has a {{review}} template on it. What should I do? — μ 09:48, June 10 2010 (UTC)

Here's what I saw: User:Matthiasb saw an error in the article, didn't understand what to do and, after leaving a note to that effect at the Assistance water cooler, depublished the article. I came along maybe an hour and a half later and saw what had happened, and started to undo it and fix the error, but got an edit conflict because Brian McNeil had fixed the error while I was being my usual slow self about it. I adjusted his fix somewhat, but failed to notice that Brian McNeil had evidently failed to notice the depublish. And then a couple of hours later Microchip08 came along and noticed the depublish, and seems to have understandably thought WTF?
Although there are clearly wall-to-wall "good intentions" here, the point we're struggling to articulate unmistakeably on WN:AGI is that we don't ever take good intentions (or writer's feelings) into account when we decide whether to sight an edit. How it is that User:Matthiasb, who clearly doesn't understand procedures at English Wikinews (and doesn't claim to), has reviewer privileges so that their depublish was autosighted? That shouldn't have happened, and this whole extended comedy sketch would have been a lot shorter if it hadn't. --Pi zero (talk) 13:33, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This would be why BloodRedSandman (talk · contribs) wants to do away with autosighting (See somewhere on the WC). Personally, there's some need to have a test for reviewers. I'm not sure on that, I'm thinking we can't make serious use of the quiz extension. But, that might be a good way to start working on this - 2-3 quizzes on the fundamentals of reviewing. I do find it amusing that a wiki could have to write CBT stuff before handing out privs. --Brian McNeil / talk 13:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]