[WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model

[David Goodman]

If you are actually doing this, I shall have to check your
contributions and revert every such removal. They are not convenience
links, as they are when there is a print version only. They are
perfectly good links, and meet policy--almost always, except in the
case of really esoteric sources, there are hundreds if not  thousands
of Wikipedians who can check any one of them.

We are talking about references, not external links.--removing
external links in such circumstances in another matter entirely, and
it is necessary to do that.
There does not have to be a free alternative to references, or we will
let commercial interests destroy the encyclopedia.


David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 7:44 PM, <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:
> As far as when to remove citations to subscription web-sites and when
> to leave them intact as convenience links, I use the following rule:
>
> Part A or 1) *If* the article lives exclusively online, then it gets
> removed. We should not be requiring or pandering for, commercial
> activity, we as verifiers should have a choice in the matter.  There
> must always be a "free" alternative of some sort.
>
> Part Deux) *If* there is a hard-copy version of the article, and your
> citation to the online version is verbose enough that a normally
> intelligent person could locate the item in a library, then it can stay.
>
> Part Final Bit) *If* your citation to the online article, is so limited
> in content that no one could find the article except by following your
> link.. then it gets removed.
>
> I am vicious and exacting I know.  We should be setting the bar for
> others to follow, not being lazy in citation practice.
>
> Will Johnson
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bod Notbod <bodnotbod at gmail.com>
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Fri, Aug 7, 2009 4:33 pm
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 11:20 PM, FT2<ft2.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The purposes of citations divide roughly into two overlapping needs -
> 1/ for
>> people who do edit to verify stated content facts, 2/ for readers to
> find
>> further information and (sometimes) to check content.
>
> Nicely done, sir.
>
> Yes, as someone who patrols Recent Changes using Huggle [[WP:HUGGLE]]
> I come across "referenced" edits that turn out, when you click the
> attached link, not to tally with the statement at all. For example, a
> recent one I saw I knew looked funny from the outset in that the
> statement was quite specific but the citation was to the too general
> sounding www.f1.com (the front page of the Grand Prix website). I
> searched to see if I could drill down and confirm and replace the
> citation but failed.
>
> I will be in a world of frustration and hurt if I am confronted with
> "please subscribe for $5 to access this article". I wouldn't *remove*
> the citation because, as a previous poster indicated, my failure to
> access is not cause to disregard "good faith".
>
>> Accordingly if news did become pay-only WMF may obtain some kind of
>> subscription to major sources, accessible to a wide but well defined
> subset
>> of editors (users with > 500 edits? users agreed by a community
> process to
>> be suitable?).
>
> That's an interesting idea. Could work. I have a feeling they might
> ask us to sacrifice Wikinews and stop covering current events as their
> price, though. I would if I were them. Wikinews is not only direct
> competition but it does (and don't hate me for this) leech off all
> their sources. I see no good reason why they should support their
> potential competition, no matter how tiddly Wikinews is in terms of
> online news. Wikinews might have to be the sacrificial goat. We may
> have to say goodbye to great articles like Hurricane Katrina and say
> that we'll create articles that refer to things 12 months gone.
>
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