WikiFur talk:WikiFur News

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Furry fandom is real news. It may not be the most important news, but it is of interest to us. There is little real reporting going on - lots of LiveJournal communities, but no good place for well-researched, unbiased, and timely news and information on the whole fandom. I think we should try to fill that gap, both online and offline.

I have arranged for News: and News talk: to be created to hold news stories separately from the main namespace. All articles under this namespace will be considered licensed under CC-BY-2.5 as well as the GFDL. WikiFur News will have a separate main page but the most recent article will probably be featured on WikiFur Furry Central. News articles will, of course, link to appropriate WikiFur articles for more information. WikiFur's own news is likely to be separated from general furry news, in part because it has tended to be more "letter from the editor" than "disconnected commentary."

This will probably be a lot of work for those who choose to participate. I hope it will also be a lot of fun. We'll see! --GreenReaper(talk) 00:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

What a fascinating idea. I'm trying to think how this could be applied:
  • From-the-scene reports from conventions as they occur
  • Ursa Major Awards (sort of covered by the above, since that's where they're announced)
  • Major media appearances by the furry fandom (c.f. CSI, ER, Rush Limbaugh, et al.)
Am I on the right track here? What other possibilities did you have in mind?----DuncanDaHusky(talk) 00:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, yes, and yes. New websites springing up. Old websites running into trouble Yerf's troubles, for example). The release of a new furry RPG. Widespread attacks on (or support for) furries in Second Life. It's reporting, not just news - all the things you might expect to hear as "news" on Flayrah, but written in more depth and from a neutral point of view, and without the people asking for donations all the time (unless, of course, they're really notable ;-).
To take an example: we probably don't want to be republishing convention newsletters, but we do want to use them as one of our sources for an article about the upcoming convention, along with people's LiveJournal posts about how they're excited about going, quotes from the organizers, and mention of previous conventions. The recent issues with Anthrocon's site would be an example of "general news" that would be included in such an article. Interviews are also something we might want to get into - to find out more about some of the more notable people in the fandom - but I think that might have to wait until we have some "regular" stories under our belt. --GreenReaper(talk) 00:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

What would really make this great would be an RSS feed. I don't know how possible that is on a hosted site (e.g. what extensions Wikia has installed or if they let you install your own), and even with extensions I think MediaWiki's syndication support is pretty weak, but it would be nice to have even a basic feed for all new articles like WikiNews has.--Sagemane 04:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing. Would you prefer RSS or Atom? :-) --GreenReaper(talk) 04:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Nifty! I never noticed the namespace filter on newpages. Is there any way to make it a discoverable feed on News:Front_Page so that more people notice this feature?--Sagemane 04:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Sure is. --GreenReaper(talk) 05:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been the editor and lead writer of the In-Fur-Nation furry newsletter for about 15 years now. Could you use some assistance with this endevour? ^^ -- Rod O'Riley (rodso64)

Most certainly! Feel free to be bold, jump in and start adding and editing news articles. :-)
Our objective is something fairly similar to Wikinews, but specifically on topics related directly to the furry fandom. The sort of coverage that you might expect to see from a network like the BBC, if it was all about furries. That doesn't mean we won't cover "small" stories, of course - but not personal drama, unless it has significant implications for others. It's basically an extension of WikiFur but written in news style for specific current events. There is a focus on third-party analysis rather than first-party announcements. You can probably get a better idea from our archived news stories. --GreenReaper(talk) 08:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)