Wikinews:Water cooler/policy

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Policies and guidelines and the Style guide contain or link to most of the current en.Wikinews policies and guidelines, however policy is based on the accepted practices of the day on Wikinews, often these might not be written down. This section of the Water cooler focuses on discussions regarding policy issues.

You may wish to check the archives to see if a subject has been raised previously.

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Heave your say and comments

Recently, I've noticed that some published articles are missing the {{Have your say}} template, which I believe is optional. But, without this template, won't the corresponding "Comment:" namespace page be abandoned? Since the comment page is linked through this template, it might not be easily accessible otherwise. As far as I know, there aren't any specific guidelines about whether to use it or not, but I believe it has been a long-followed tradition. Wikinews:Article layout in a nutshell#What have you now got?. --Asked42 (talk) 17:06, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it is needed I think. Does this omission correlate with a particular reviewer? Could be bug on a particular browser or script setup. Gryllida (talk) 20:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s likely these articles weren’t created using one of the “Write an article” fields, which preload Template:New_page and include all required elements. You can see in some cases, the "Have your say" template is absent from the beginning, which doesn't happen if one uses one of the "Write an article" fields.

I’ve overlooked this myself in the past and added the template afterward, without considering the impact to the associated “Comments” page.

This touches a broader issue we’ll eventually need to address—how to phase out LiquidThreads once we have enough active users and consensus to do so. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 21:03, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I think there is a fundamental problem with Have Your Say/Comments. Because of the auto-generation, the red is always turned to blue. I think it would be better not to do this. Because most articles receive no comments, the blue link could indicate those few times when another person has spoken and therefore conversation is possible. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:12, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

1) The 'have your say' template is added when creating a new draft. This isn't added by the reviewer. If some articles are missing it, it's because they started with some other process than this.

2) Edits to the template are welcome. I would probably suggest 'Be the first to comment' as wording, rather than red links. Red links are pretty rare in Wikinews published stories.

Regards, -- Gryllida (talk) 09:55, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

If changing it is going to be a big deal no matter what... In most published news, are the comments only accessible by switching to a new page? Not always. If we want people to comment, we need to let them know there are other people there to talk to. Why not make comments visible on the same screen? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Reaffirming Core Policies: Verification, Copyright, and Neutrality Over Speed

I would like to raise serious concerns about the decision to publish the article titled "Competitive local elections held in England." In the initial review, later described by the reviewer as a "pass," the reviewer explicitly stated, "I haven't verified everything." Publishing unverified content is a direct violation of core Wikinews policy, as is knowingly allowing copyright violations. This article was published despite containing instances of unverified information, copyright violations, and non-neutral language. These actions undermine three of the project's core pillars: verification, neutrality, and copyright compliance.

I believe we need to re-prioritize adherence to these pillars over the speed of publication. With so few active reviewers, our capacity to quickly identify and correct mistakes is limited. That makes it all the more important that we focus on getting it right the first time.

Reviewers should also not be expected to fix everything alone. Authors also have a responsibility to rigorously check their work for neutrality, sourcing, and originality before submitting for review. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Reviewer) 18:16, 6 May 2025 (UTC)