[Foundation-l] The Statistical Decline of the English Wikipedia

[Brian McNeil]

Wikinews Markie wrote:
> On 10/10/07, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Actually, I think that Wikinews with 10% of Wikipedia contributors
>> will become a huge nightmare. Of course, if we wouldn't be prepared
>> for that.
>>
>> I may imagine large scale edit wars on Wikinews, large scale legal
>> problems backed by a large scale of state authorities and
>> multinational companies. Wikinews in the top ten websites would mean
>> that a person who has access to Internet doesn't read/listen/watch any
>> other media.
>
>large scale edit wars?? i think you need to come and spend some time with
>us.  our latest 3rr block was for a dispute between two users and everyone
>knows everyone in our small community so discussion avoids this.

Wikinews is different, it is much more fast-paced than Wikipedia. This may
not suit a lot of contributors and whittle down those who do join us to the
dedicated. Unfortunately, if Wikinews gains influence it may be the POV
warriors who join us and try and influence our content.

>From such position WM community will be able to have a significant
>> influence in the populations where Internet is a dominant source of
>> informations. This means that some facts presented on Wikinews may
>> lead to the victory/defeat of some political option... Or to much
>> higher/lower market share of some multinational company. And those
>> fields are dangerous and may lead to:
>
>
>so how is this different from what the BBC or CNN  etc reports?

It is no different. If we have the influence it will encourage people who
want to shape that to become involved. However, highly opinionated editors
don't work well on Wikinews. As long as there are a core of editors
enforcing NPOV Wikinews will work.

>1) closure of Wikinews (and other projects?) or
>> 2) making of Wikinews (and other projects?) a battlefield of different
>> *real* interest groups (implicitly or explicitly) or
>> 3) "pacifying" community and driving it into the stagnation and decline
>or
>>
>> 4) Wikimedian community as dominant global political force.
>
>one of our key values is the widely know NPOV.  i cant see us becoming
>politicians with this.  also the "closure of the project", you mean
?suppresion of free speech?? cant see this being likely.
>
>>If not 1, the most possible is merging of the rest three.
>>
>> I don't want to say what is the good option and what is not (maybe all
>> of them are good, maybe all of them are bad). The only fact is that it
>> will be a real nightmare if we wouldn't be prepared.
>
>
>well if anyone wants to join us at wikinews then there welcome and we look
>forward to our predicted growth.

Wikinews *should* become a place for more Wikimedians to settle down. As a
site dedicated to current affairs there is always the opportunity to create
a new article. Some may find that we're a little rushed in some issues, but
there is always a buzz about the place. What I want to see is the Wikipedia
folks who do the "In the news" section starting to cover their stories in
more depth on Wikinews and linking to Wikinews from Wikipedia. The ideal is
that the news is covered on Wikinews and used as a source for Wikipedia
articles. This is how I hope to see the relationship between the two
projects develop.


Brian.