Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia NEWS

Here are some general guidelines that define the "Weblog Pattern":
 * Each entry should be a teaser, with a brief 2-5 line description of another page or announce
 * It must include a link to the other page, and a link to a discussion area for the page The page under discussion should be a recent addition, and should be something "significant" (around half a dozen paragraphs)
 * Keep the list trimmed to no more than 12 items, ordered from newest to oldest and dated.
 * It's okay to post about things you wrote, but mostly try to write about what others have done
 * Editorializing is allowed but not encouraged in the summaries.

I don't know how others feel about this. If it could be automated, that would be great, but of course that won't happen anytime soon. Otherwise, it will require willing participants to work. If it doesn't work, we should remove the link from the homepage. --LMS

I have a sort of not-yet-ready-to-scratch itch about the relationships among Wikipedia NEWS, Wikipedia Announcements, and New topics. Larry, any comments? --loh (2001-06-14)

What's the itch? :-) (Maybe you should add Recent Changes to your list...)

Bryce, this is looking good! --LMS

Yes, I like the style of NEWS and don't think that could be automated. Re itch: I just meant it was too vague, and probably not important enough, to express. Since you (LMS) had expressed some concern about whether NEWS would work, I was merely wondering if you had any comments on the success, or future, of the "new stuff" type pages in general. --loh (2001-06-15)

Well, I don't want to cast aspersions on what hasn't even been tried yet...not that I would ever do that. --LMS

For a long time I've thought about ways to automatically post news items for Wikipedia (see my many suggestions on New topics), but figuring out the best algorithm to do it was unclear, because honestly there's a lot of subjectivity in determining what's "worth" reading. I knew what I was wanting was something Slashdot-ish, and I'm pretty pleased with how this works. It's mostly just read a lot and cut and paste a little, and even though it's manual, it goes pretty quick. I'd like to hear if people find this useful. Or does it lag the Recent Changes too much? -- BryceHarrington

The page is looking good, but on one of the items you've given me credit where it's not due: I didn't add the list of Nobel Prize winners in physics; I merely moved it from NobelPrize/PhysicS, or something to that effect, to its present location. (I thought Nobel Prize in physics was much easier to link to). The original page was posted anonymously. --KQ

KQ: Okay, 'pologies there then. Feel free to jump in and correct facts whereever needed.

Larry: Glad to see you jumping! I'm woefully behind on updates today (check out www.osdlab.org on Monday to find out why). The Philosophy page looks _really_ good. I also noticed Mathematics has been nicely cleaned up. The Biology page is interesting too; I didn't know we could do tables here. :-)

Hey Bryce, glad to see you back. With the Slashdotting, we need your services more than ever here. I mean, jeez, I can't read all these articles. :-) --LMS

Thanks! :-) I was waiting to see if others would help post news items here, and am glad to see folks doing so. (I've also been busy building a new house, among other things.)

With all the new project members, it's *very* tough to keep up with all the new articles (which is a _good_ situation to be in); I would *really* appreciate if others could help by posting news items about new pages that are worth reading. - This page seems to have drifted into disuse -- should we try to revive it or maybe move it over to the meta? --maveric149


 * Revival would be nice. I spotted a page I'd worked on (Doctor Who)! Yay! We'd need to add years to the log dates. For that matter, the order is unclear: it goes Sept., Aug, July, July 4th, July 25th ... We'd need to decide on an order (newest at the top?) and make a note of that on the page. -- Tarquin 10:09 Jul 28, 2002 (PDT)