Wikizine/feedback

.org An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community

This is the place for feedback, comments, suggestions, and news tips for Wikizine.

WikiHealth? What's your opinion?

WikiHealth will provide:

• An overview of symptoms with related health problems (graphical where possible)
• An overview of health problems and related treatments to (a) inform patients and (b) to let patients remind medics. Hence, medics are human beings also and thus can forget essential treatments

WikiHealth will be written in plain english without any medical terminology.

Check the demo here.

Post your comments here.

--Tbressers 20:03, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Become more regular!

Hey, I love Wikizine but I'd like it to become a more regular publication, hopefully weekly. Thanks, WikizineLuver23 21:26, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your note! We're currently in the process of restarting Wikizine and will hopefully get weekly issues again soon. Your help is always appreciated, either by leaving tips here or helping us write Wikizine (feel free to join the editors mailing list). Cbrown1023 talk 21:26, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Board members

I heard two new board members were selected by the chapters, finally, see foundation-l for details. kibble ^bark! 21:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

In Wikizine 106 --Walter 19:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Add nav and other templates

A {{wikiheader|106}} would be handy - automatically linking forward and back, for those of us who prefer to read things on meta (and have a one-click way to comment on them :). -- sj | help translate |+ 00:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

If you'd like to do these things and think it would be very helpful, then sure. Cbrown1023 talk 20:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Note: I nearly closed down wikizine. I try to get wikizine going again by stepping back. Basically that means that I will allow nearly everything if that can keep wikizine going. But also that I leave it to others to take the lead. --Walter 20:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The pages here is where wikizine was started and where used to make wikizine. To make wikizine, nothing else. It moved out to a private wiki. Came back to here. Moved out again. And is now again back.

Many old construction pages are still here, see [1]

The pages here are not created for reading on-wiki, but for making a text that is intended to be send out by email.

If you wish to change these pages, put in navigation templates or so, regarding me feel free to do so.

Only do not change for now, until is otherwise decided by who will become the core editor, the current edition in construction until it is closed and send out. --Walter 20:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Adding backissues back into meta

I'd like to see the archive of wikizine's on meta, for lots of reasons -- primarily the benefit of a canonical wiki-url to find a zine you mean to reference, just from seeing an email or hardcopy. Pluswhich the wiki is a reliable long-term archive of information, which gets copied by everyone who stores a dump of meta, more than the mailman directories on a server. -- sj | help translate |+ 00:40, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

If you'd like to do these things and think it would be very helpful, then sure. Cbrown1023 talk 20:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikizine can be found in several mailing lists archives, including gmane.org and nabble.com It will not get lost easy. But if you wish to copy the editions made on the private wiki to meta sure, it will be safer here that is true. I send you an email with login information. --Walter 20:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixing the name of wiki pages

The date and language are both confusing the wiki titles for these pages. Edition 106 should be something like Wikizine/106/LL (where LL is the language code for a specific language version). <goes off to find the latest Meta style policy here>. Looking at the popular modern options, I'd go for having LL as the last part of the title. That allows starting with a non-language-specific page and then branching out into single-language translations. -- sj | help translate |+ 00:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind changing this, but I'd like to see what Walter thinks as well. Cbrown1023 talk 20:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I can not say I understand why to change that. I am very concervative in this regard. I like the symplicty of just writting [[/some title]] that gives a subpage with an automatic conection to the mother-page. But like I say, I step back, do what you wish --Walter 21:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this simplicity. If you look at the revision I made with links to potential back-issue subpages, Wikizine would have links to /1, /2, etc. These pages could link to many language editions if they wanted. They would all be automatically linked back to the mother page. My issue is with combining the language code (currently always EN) with the year and the number. -- sj | help translate |+

Talk:Wikizine and Talk:Walter :)

Has the topic of licensing come up again recently? I'd like to see wikizine available under a totally unencumbered license - PD or CC-zero. -- sj | help translate |+ 08:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't really mind either way – CC-BY-SA+GFDL or PD. Cbrown1023 talk 20:13, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Recently that license of Wikizine was expanded from GNU/FDl only to GNU/FDL + Creative Commons Attribution 2.5. This by request for use of Wikizine on Wikinews. This is already very free. Only Attribution is needed. Why not even that?

Even so, by making wikizine on Meta, that has a GNU/FDL license, Wikzine is by default under at least GNU/FDL. And because of that can then not be released under PD. --Walter 21:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Sj, it can't be under PD/CC-zero because of contributors from the continental jurisdictions. CC-BY is compatible with all free licenses (except PD and CC-zero, of course) and it is the minimum common license for all Wikimedia projects. Because of that, I think that it is good enough. At least until some of Wikimedia projects become PD or CC-zero. --Millosh 13:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, as Wikizine is not a massively collaborative edition, CC-BY is a very reasonable option. Mentioning 1-5 names is not a big deal. Also, Wikizine may say that proper attribution (for CC-BY license) may be just linking to the original article at Wikizine site. --Millosh 13:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews may introduce social bookmarking links

Wikinews is currently discussing the introduction of links to add articles to social bookmarking sites such as Facebook and Delicious. The discussion can be found here. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 06:39, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I had a note about this, but hadn't included it yet. Added, thanks for the feedback! :-) Cbrown1023 talk 22:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The {{social bookmarks}} template is now live on the English Wikinews. It should - depending on updates - be visible on every single published article. It is incorporated into the {{publish}} template to achieve this.

Other Wikinews editions wishing to copy this promotional tool should note it makes use of Javascript. Appropriate details to incorporate into a wiki are provided as template documentation. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing discussion of new global Biographies of living people policy

Discussion continues regarding a new global policy for biographies of living people at Meta-Wiki! --MZMcBride 00:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Added. Cbrown1023 talk 02:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for continuing with the Wikizine again.

I used to be a frequent editor but am currently on a longer wikibreak and have no way of following what's happening on wikipedia or wikimedia at all. That's why I appreciate simple summaries about what's happening, important policy changes etc.

I'm sure that the subscriber numbers will increase if you only get the zine out regularly. Regards, Fred. 08:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments like this help a lot :) -- sj | help translate |+

New name is translatewiki.net

Just for the future, we are no longer using the old name betawiki, but instead translatewiki.net consistent with the domain name. – Nikerabbit 16:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've just still heard it casually referred to as "Betawiki". :-) It always seemed more fun to say than "translatewiki.net"! However, we'll make sure to use the new name only, thanks for reading! Cbrown1023 talk 05:02, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah it is pity that the new name is not as catchy, but it was confusing. – Nikerabbit 11:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews ArbCom

Please report

Blood Red Sandman, Brian, Brian McNeil, Cirt, Cspurrier, and Tempodivalse were elected to be Arbitrators on English Wikinews until July 31, 2010.

wikinews:Wikinews:Arbitration Committee/2009 elections Computerjoe 23:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Included Cbrown1023 talk 04:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

English Wiktionary voting to limit eligibility to vote

How do you gather news? What is newsworthy?

How about this?

[2]

Wrong name in #117

http://en.wikizine.org/2009/09/year-2009-week-36-number-117.html , heading "Community -> Translatewiki.net update" contains a typo. "Nico" is wrong. It's either "Nike" (wiki user name), "Nikerabbit" (MediaWiki committer name), or "Niklas Laxström". Please correct. Thanks. Siebrand 07:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews - The Wiktionary lookup gadget

A new gadget is being developed on English Wikinews and, slowly, being spread to other wikis.

• Visit http://en.wikinews.org
• Make sure you are logged in
• Go to Preferences->Gadgets
• Enable the Wiktionary Hover gadget

This is still in development, and the documentation linked-to from your Gadget preferences may not be up to date...

However, at time of writing it works as follows:

• Double-click a word to highlight it and activate the gadget
• The gadget looks up the word on Wiktionary and pops up the definition
• Clicking outside the definition tooltip will cause it to disappear

What should also happen, but is not well-tested, is that the gadget looks up the wiktionary definition for the language of the wiki you are reading, but what it returns is the definition in your user-preferences language. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:06, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• This should also be working (if not enabled for all) on fr.wikinews. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews - battle of the languages, and the bots

As reported in a previous Wikizine, Serbian Wikinews (srwn) overtook English as the Wikinews with the most articles. This was as a result of considerable work by user Millosh; negotiating with Serbian-language news publishers, and developing software agents (bots) to import their news and format it appropriately.

English Wikinews (enwn) is investigating use of the developed bots to import news from compatibly licensed English sources. However, prior experience on English Wikinews with Public Domain news sources, and potential inherent bias of such sources, is causing concern.

The two sources known to be available to enwn are VOA and SETimes. Both are - effectively - fully funded by the United States Government. [Does the word 'propoganda' spring to mind here?]

enwn is attempting to counter this by importing these articles into the development category. From there, they will not be published until a second source has been added, and incorporated into the article (a requirement of the project's peer-review process). That second source - and any additional ones selected and used - should counter the POV bias of the imported source. [Think 'take the Aljazeera story on the same item']. You can help with this in writing a succinct analysis of the POV of sources of imported news, and measures to actively reach a NPOV article from a POV one. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

English Wikinews - New Main Page

English Wikinews has implemented a new main page design.

• Drawback, you may need to do a hard refresh to see it in all its glory, alas the CSS for the site/page can be cached and an update must be forced.

  Note the "Copy us" and "Social networking" links in the page banner. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:24, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Anno Domini

I noticed that the title of the last wikizine contained "Anno Domini MMX". I think this must be changed back to the previous format namely "Year: 2010". Not all readers are christian, and some take offence when told who the lord is. Odedee 12:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)