If Commons can have its image propagate to other wikis, could we have a similar wiki solely for Foundation images (project logo uploads and the like) that would not be acceptable to Commons?
I don't know the details of how Commons image-sharing works, but if this is possible, just make it a closed project (similar to the foundation wiki itself) since uploads will be limited to "official" images.
Comments?
Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers and share what you know at http://ca.answers.yahoo.com
In case anyone over here is interested...
____________________
Mitch D. (Greeves on all English Wikimedia projects)
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimediameta-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediameta-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
Thunderhead
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:48 AM
To: Meta Wikimedia affairs
Subject: Re: [Wikimediameta-l] LSS
But it's the Meta community that creates the LSS, so I thought trying to
gather the community on the Meta community on this list would be the
best thing to do. My mistake, i'm new to mailing lists :-)
--
Thunderhead
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Thunderheadhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
---- Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Joshua Brady (Somitho on wiki, Soms on IRC) was working on this last I
> checked. I think this is something more suitable for Foundation-l, it
> concerns the mailing list content itself, not meta. :-)
>
> On 8/22/07, Thunderhead <wm-thunderhead(a)charter.net> wrote:
> >
> > Greeves and I are attempting to restart the List Summary Service on a
> > monthly basis for Foundation-l. Is anyone interested in helping us out,
or
> > helping with the other mailing lists?
> >
> > --
> > Thunderhead
> > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thunderhead
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimediameta-l mailing list
> > Wikimediameta-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediameta-l
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Casey Brown
> Cbrown1023
>
> ---
> Note: This e-mail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails
sent
> to
> this address will probably get lost.
_______________________________________________
Wikimediameta-l mailing list
Wikimediameta-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediameta-l
Hello,
I am proposing the creation of a separate organization that would allow
Wikinews to properly handle press accreditation. The Wikimedia
foundation has been unable to do this due to concerns over being seen as
the editor and the legal consequences that go with that. Proper press
accreditation is however very necessary for Wikinews.
A separate organization with a trademark license would be able to
properly handle press accreditation and have very minimal assets at
risk. This organization would not handle anything beyond accreditation
and tools to provide support for accreditation. I am in no way proposing
splitting Wikinews from the foundation or anything like that. We are
overall very happy with the foundation, but we have a need that the
foundation is unable to provide for.
The problem:
The English language Wikinews has an accreditation policy [1]. This
allows us to receive press credentials at events and also assists us in
getting recognition as media for interviews and the like. The press pass
usually allows free access to an event or, priority access to normally
off-limits areas.
At the present we have a rather awkward arrangement for accrediting
users. Users who have gone through our accreditation process are
considered community accredited. The lack of any sort of organization
behind creates a problem when the events require a letter from the
organization before issuing the press pass (the G8 being the most
recent), and we have been unable to get the board/foundation to do this
or officially approve the accreditation program. The problem with this
is in order to obtain press badges and other press benefits a user must
either confuse the person (risking the request being denied) with an
explanation of how they are not really representing Wikinews but rather
the Wikinews Community or they must mislead the person into thinking
they really do represent Wikinews.
There are several other resources the foundation has been unable to
provide that are very helpful to us such as official e-mail addresses.
Brian McNeil has the wikinewsie.org domain and has offered e-mail
addresses with it. The response rate with these addresses has greatly
increased. Once again there are legitimate concerns that prevent the
foundation from being able to do this, but a separate foundation would
be able to.
-Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]
1. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Accreditation_policy
Hello,
2 days ago, everything was ok, but from then yesterday or the day before yesterday, I started not being able to see the following websites :
www.wiktionary.orghttp://wikimediafoundation.org/www.wikipedia.orghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/
(Note : But www.wikimedia.fr/ is accessible)
Note : The access was just fine from both 2 chinse internet providers in Guangzhou, China, and all the sudden, I couldn't access them on both at home and at work.
- Could you please confirm that it is not the websites that are down ?
- Is this due to a move of host IP to a IP range restricted by chinese internet providers ?
- Or is this due to a new dark age for wikipedia in China ? For the last 3 or 4 months, Chinese pages were restricted but not the other langueges pages....
Sincerely,
(Tired of this stupid government who blocks just everything without reason, and they won't even bother to write "sorry, this website is against the law, we restricted access" they just let you believe the page doesnt exists.)
And my software to get through the Internet Great Wall is not working for now.... :-((
V.
Florence Devouard wrote:
> Let me thank you for the words of appreciation of the Foundation :-)
>
>
>
> I fully understand your need of an organization to help "make contacts",
> maybe because I saw several french wikipedians negociate pretty well to
> get press access to political meetings during our elections in France.
> It was done through the french chapter, and I am pretty sure it largely
> helped them to refer to the association and to be able to show a nice
> business card referring to the association, with an appropriate email
> address.
>
Being able to officially use the logo on business cards and being able
to claim some level of officialness would greatly help us. The
@wikinewsie.org e-mail address has already greatly improved responses.
Even silly things like wearing a Wikinews polo shirt have improved
response. These are all however effective solely because they convey a
false sense of officialness, except in the places lucky enough to have
chapters where even then they must make a very clear separation between
the press activities and the association.
> Regarding your suggestion, I tend to share the same level of thinking
> than Schiste. Wondering how it would work on an international scale.
> Wondering how chapters could help here. Wondering who would govern that
> Foundation. How would needs of non english wikinews be taken into
> account. Etc...
There is no reason why this foundation could not support non-english
Wikinews.
We actually already have several people with accreditation from
non-english Wikinews editions. This puts the English language Wikinews
in an awkward spot of denying many request for credentials because the
people are to represent the English language Wikinews. At the moment if
you do not speak and write English you can not get accreditation. This
is a problem a foundation could resolve. There is no reason this
foundation like the Wikimedia could not be multilingual.
Governance of a foundation would probably be in the style of an elected
board elected either from/by the members of the Wikinews communities or
by the community selected accredited reporters. For practical reasons it
would probably be set up as a South Carolina based nonprofit(though if
we can get someone else to establish it in a better location all the
better :) ). South Carolina has a low fee for nonprofits, the legal
benefits of being in the United States and is very convenient for me
being where I currently live :) . The foundation location is only of
concern for setup and basic legal requirements. All of the day to day
actions of this foundation would be handled online or for stuff like
verifying accreditation via mail and phone.
-Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]
Forwarded from Wikinews-l
Can we all agree on one list for this? Preferably Wikinews-l?
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian McNeil [mailto:brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org]
Sent: 23 August 2007 00:44
To: 'Wikinews mailing list'
Subject: RE: [Wikinews-l] [Foundation-l] Proposal for the creation of a
Wikinews foundation
I would like to point out that in the UK the situation is not one where the
NUJ is stigmatised for the word "union". Within the UK if you wish to
operate as an independent journalist submitting freelance work membership is
effectively a requirement. It is your "press pass".
That is the basis upon which I have based the introduction of the word
union, as well as the fact that I believe the organisation is more important
in representing its members' interests. Credential verification becomes
"yes, so-and-so is a member in good standing", and it means more than
they've just paid their dues.
Whilst disputing the name may well be counting angels on a pinhead, we do
need to look at who we will be associated with. WMF is a given, but should
we be linking up with the IFJ? Should - as an example - UK members look for
dual membership with the NUJ? Will other press groups even take us
seriously?
Brian.
-----Original Message-----
From: wikinews-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Craig Spurrier
Sent: 23 August 2007 00:05
To: Wikinews mailing list
Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] [Foundation-l] Proposal for the creation of a
Wikinews foundation
Calling it a union have a few problems. A union (at least in US usage)
refers to a collection of employees who unite for collective bargaining
and to provide its members with benefits such as unemployment
insurance. The other problem with this is that it is not really what we
are trying to accomplish. We need something that provide us with an
organization who users can claim membership with, who will confirm the
claim as well as provide support services for the users. Unions are
also for the most part thought of poorly in the US.
-Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]
Thunderhead wrote:
> Perhaps "Wikinews Community Union", or perhaps on a wider scale, we could
have a "Wikimedia Volunteer Union". Both of these emphasize that the
community is involved with the accredidation, while showing that there is a
level of authority that oversees the accredidations, and can write letters
(in a sense of authority) for the reporters if nessesary (like previously
mentioned with Sean at G8).
>
> Of course, we could always go with "Wikinewsie Editors' Service
Association", which implies that we only help Wikinewsies, and that we don't
really control the Wikinews domain (or have corporate authority over
Wikinews). Plus we've already got the domain ;-)
>
> --
> Thunderhead
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikinews-l mailing list
> Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>
_______________________________________________
Wikinews-l mailing list
Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
Okay, you've been living under a rock if you haven't heard of the
WikiScanner that combines a decent IPtoLocation and Whois database with a
list of all the "anonymous" edits to Wikipedia. Wired were first off the
blocks with their story on Diebold whitewashing, and lots of others followed
picking up on diverse groups like the CIA and the Vatican editing Wikipedia.
Wikinews has been playing with the tool too, our interest was "what have the
*media* been manipulating?" - And the first question we shot at the guy,
Virgil, who set up the scanner was, "Can you include other Wikis?" With what
we've found here:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/FOX_News_fares_poorly_in_investigation_of_media_
edits_to_Wikipedia we'd like to know if WikiSource or Wikinews have been
"whitewashed".
The talk page of the above article has a section for questions for when we
interview Virgil, we want to cover the aftermath of his little toy getting
slashdotted and abused by every popular website on the net, as well as
quietly get other wikis integrated and start looking at where else there is
manipulation.
Comments/feedback? Are we unduly crucifying Fox? :-)
Brian.
On 8/22/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Is the wiki aspect a significant part of Wikinews? I would not have
> thought so. There are many tools you could use to collaboratively
> write news.
The wiki nature of Wikinews is core to its advantage for two reasons:
first, it allows for a lot of collaboration -- on average every
article is edited 18 times. Second, it allows for communally-authored
articles instead of individually-attributed ones. To my knowledge we
are one of the only citizen journalism / community news organizations
that allow this degree of collaboration and do not have by-lines on
articles.
> Is the "citizen journalism" part an important part? -there are many
> colleagues there.
Citizen journalism and original content have been important parts for
our mission within the Wikimedia family. As the only project on which
original research is explicitly allowed and encouraged, Wikinews
provides a way for Wikimedians to contribute content they cannot
otherwise post anywhere on Wikipedia or other projects.
We have not, however, been able to establish a serious presence in any
community with our citizen journalism efforts. The vast majority of
our articles are synthetic in nature as opposed to original, and even
a good deal of original content is "I was watching Event X on TV,
here's a summary".
Citizen journalism works best when it is tied to locales: cities,
neighborhoods, etc. It's what keeps it relevant. We have not
succeeded at setting up a good structure to make this happen, even if
we've had some success at more disparate bits and pieces of the puzzle
with some truly outstanding articles.
> Is the free/libre part an important part? IIRC this was a strong
> argument when Wikinews began, that many people offer limited
> free/gratis news, but no one free/libre news.
The open-content nature of Wikinews is the second most unique aspect
of our project (the first is being a wiki and having no by-lines). I
would say that the benefit comes in two parts:
a) For synthetic content (i.e. retelling of news from other news
sources) we are the only serious newswire-style project that licenses
its news content under an Attribution-only license. Other projects
are either not newswire-style and instead publish editorials, or allow
a lot of their content to be cc-by-nc or cc-by-nd licensed. An
argument that Erik Moeller has made frequently in the past is that
just the notion of having an archive of news that is completely open
will be valuable to those seeking to look back at a point in time and
not have to rely on paid, closed newspaper archives. While we have
seen some republishing of our stories in the past due to our
permissive license, but by and large the online community has not
appreciated the wealth of historical articles. I believe that this
day will come.
b) For original reporting the open nature of the license is valuable
as it allows for a quicker spread of exclusively-obtaining content.
Again, this has not been as widely appreciated as I would wish, but
the value seems more clear since we're talking about content that is
just not available anywhere else.
> Is the 'neutral' part an important part? I would guess so.
The desire to maintain NPOV separates us from long-established efforts
like Indymedia. It is both a blessing and a curse: there are a lot of
individuals who love to write from a strong point of view, and already
do so on other community news sites -- we are unable to satisfy these
kinds of users and end up rejecting their work thus limiting our
growth. On the other hand, we are nearly unique in being able to
provide a single high-quality news feed from a unified editorial voice
(i.e. news-feed compatible content rather than blog-style editorial
content).
-ilya haykinson
Craig Spurrier wrote:
>The proposal is essentially Wikinews Chapter, what we actually call it
>is only a small concern assuming we get usage of the Wikinews trademark.
Wikinews Reporters' Association?
Wikinews Reporters' Union? (preferred choice as per UK's NUJ).
>> In France, but I think it should be the same in other countries, in
>> order to have a press card, the main aim of the "Wikinews Foundation"
>> you have to earn 50% in a journalism job. And earn it in France. So
>> Wikinews Foundation won't help the french wikinewsie. For
>> accreditation the French Chapter is helping at it, and actually we are
>> not that bad in having them.
>>
>This is mostly a European issue. In the US, Canada, New Zealand (and
>most other countries) anyone who wants to can call themselves a
>journalist and create a press card. The problem is in the absence of any
>sort of government press cards most event organizers and government
>officials (police mostly) base their decisions off of the presence of an
>organization that issued the person with a presscard. One important step
>of this process is that event organizers and government official will
>contact or expect contact from the issuing organization who must be
>willing to verifiy that the person is one of their own.
The issue in a lot of the mainland Europe countries is that to be officially
recognised as the press you have to derive the majority of your income from
journalistic pursuits. Then, for example, here in Belgium you get a blue
press plaque for your car and official recognition from the ministry of the
interior. Just like my neighbour who works for De Staandard.
>Most of the current accredited reporters are not currently covered by a
>chapter. I would imagine this will always be the case. A Wikinews
>foundation would however be able to act globally, since the vast
>majority of our task would just be to confirm that user is with us.
No Belgian chapter that I'm aware of, and there are two accredited reporters
in the country. Michael has done some great Original Reporting too, and
needed the press pass we currently issue to avoid being beaten and arrested
by the police when covering a story.
>> By the way, did you asked and discussed for a "user(a)wikinews.org"
>> adress or other global @wikinews.org adresses recently?
>It was discussed on our water cooler and an e-mail was sent to the
>foundation(or so I am told) after Brion said that it technically was
>doable. BrianMC would probably be the better person to answer this.
Several of us approached people in one of the IRC channels (during an noline
meeting) and inquired about the issue. As Craig says, we were told it was
technically possible - but again there were the editorial liability issues
that could be implied with the act of issuing email addresses.
As a consequence, I went ahead and bought the domain
http://www.wikinewsie.org and set up email accounts for all active
accredited reporters. I would be quite happy to hand that over to a Wikinews
Chapter, whatever it is called.
Per my name suggestions above, and from writing this before catching up on
foundation-l, I'd say we don't just want to look at the possibility of a
non-profit. I am aware there is some stigma attached to the word "union" in
some circles, particularly in the U.S., but how does such an organisation
differ from a non-profit? My thoughts are that a union is more meant to
represent its members - and that is what we want.
Brian McNeil
[[Wikinews:User:Brianmc]]
>Oh lets see... How about the little detail that without confirming
>evidence there is no reason to believe that an edit made from a Fox IP
>was an action endorsed by Fox?
>With the widespread existence of things like open wireless access
>points we can't even be sure if any particular edit was made by
>someone employed by For or even using a Fox owned computer.
>Yet the Wikinews article seems to happily go on and describe every
>action coming from a company IP was an action of that company.
>"the BBC had edited", "FOX News, and its parent company, News
>Corporation had a history of unproductive edits" "FOX also edited"
>"the CIA had been editing" "FOX's edits" "AP had made a few edits"
>So would you also say that countless other Wiki(p|m)edians are
>editing
>on behalf of their employers every time they edit from home and forget
>to log out of their VPN? When they edit during a coffee break?
>Is the only thing protecting me of an accusation of "Greg's employer
>defends Fox in Wikipedia Whitewashing scandal" the fact that Gmail
>doesn't send IP addresses?
>It's sad to see us peddling the same sort of irresponsible journalism
>that we've seen from the commercial market on this matter. At least in
>their cases we can give them a pass due to a lack of understanding of
>the technology.
>Whats your excuse?
My excuse...Do you know how IP address work? ONLY individuals employed by FOX News Channel, or News Corp have access to those IP addresses. ONLY employees are the ones who can log onto the internet with those IPs.
Its simple. FOX News employees made the edits, as the tool says, under FOX News IP addresses, only able tp be used by employees. I or you or anyone else is not able to log onto the internet and use their IP ranges. That is impossible. This is not whitewashing. We did more than FOX. We did the AP, Reuters, MSNBC, CNN, and BBC. and all of those agencies, with the exception of FOX News were realitively clean in terms of edits.
You see, before slam Wikinews and whitewash us, maybe you need to use the WikiScanner tool and understand how it works and also understand how IPs work as well.
Jason Safoutin, Wikinews writer, administrator.
---------------------------------
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