[WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model

[David Goodman]

The below  was a reply to

"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."

from will johnson

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



On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 9:38 PM, David Goodman<dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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