Wikinews:Water cooler/assistance

I was just patrolling and came across Talk:Thai police to wear 'Hello Kitty' armbands as punishment and noticed the comment about the IHT website moving articles to NYTimes.com. This is going to cause problems with dead links, etc. Do we go through and fix the links up (the article I found on the NYTimes site has a different date to the one referenced in the article [1]) or do we leave as is? - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 09:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• There has never before been any policy to try and keep source links from going stale because, well, that is an impossible task. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• This is why it's difficult. Technically, the article was written based on the IHT link, but now that has moved do we change it or leave it? - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 10:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• What Brian is saying is that we leave it because it would be nearly impossible to stop links from going dead.    Tris   10:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• If you honestly believe we can periodically check every link on every article ever written and then go in hunt of replacement links then go ahead and try it. Don't expect the tiniest bit of help, though. I think I once did a similar request that looked one-of, but I'd have turned a group of them away. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't believe it is possible but in this case we know where the articles have been moved to. In any case I raised the issue here as it was raised elsewhere - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 08:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bleh, Cool uri's don't change!. (note we have a list of links for iht at [2]. but it'd be a lot of work to change them, and probably not worth it (although in the past we did change all the whitehouse links)). People who want to see the article should use archive.org. Bawolff ☺☻ 12:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree. Changing one may seem harmless, but then if someone semiautomatically churns out 500+ editprotected requests you're on your own. Maybe we could modify {{source}} to link to a new [[WN:DEADLINK}] explainin why we don't change them and how you can track it down? This would be very short so as not to put people off trying. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 12:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it is more than likely not worth the effort and it more than likely sets a precedent to keep links up to date, something which we can't possibly do - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 07:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's moot now, because they've all been transferred over to nytimes.com, with the iht.com links still working. --Patrick M (TUFKAAP) (talk) 03:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As those who're on scoop or follow the wikinews-l mailing list will know, I've submitted a set of questions for Drew Harris, head of Project INDECT's ethics board. I've uploaded the following images to accompany the article when it's finally published.

1. File:Inside-gatso.jpg
2. File:Gatso-data-collection.jpg
3. File:Gatso-image-capture.jpg
4. File:Image-data-processing.jpg
5. File:Polish-police-CCTV-via-computer.jpg

Comments? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 04:25, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm about to write a sports article, and I came across this statistic: (10-3, 3-0). I know that the first pair refers to the record (10 wins, 3 losses), but what does the second pair refer to? source Benny the mascot (talk) 16:30, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In a sports report, the format (x-y, a-b) generally notates overall record and conference record, where x is the number of overall wins, y is the number of overall losses, a is the number of in-conferences wins and b is the number of in-conference losses. I believe this format is generally used in the United States more than any other place. Hope this helps. Calebrw (talk) 06:45, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I actually managed to figure it out already (see here), but even then I could write the article only after deciphering the very technical jargon sports reporters seem to like using. Benny the mascot (talk) 11:06, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When did this become operational? Who is operating this?    Tris   09:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Nobody is operating it. This is a MediaWiki extension we voted to have enabled. Register an account? You're immediately given a {{Howdy}}. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, must have missed the vote! Very useful, about time to. Cheers.    Tris   11:34, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's great news. We've been waiting for this for months, glad the devs finally got around to it. Only problem is, now i'm out of one of my main sources for edit count boost calories. :-b Tempodivalse [talk] 13:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What's the extension's name? --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 14:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For those in the UK and this probably specifically applies to Brian, I have got an email interview with somebody from PRS. Have you got any questions you think would be interesting to be answered/you would like answered?    Tris   11:57, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's a disambig page you've linked to there, you know. --Pi zero (talk) 13:12, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]