Erik Moeller wrote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there. greetings, elian

I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you take care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating that only en and de exist. Second, when the project was approved by the board, I think we agreed on a couple of mandatory requests, in particular to insure that the wikinews would not be managed by 2 editors with a particular bias. I did not check for all the wikis you created, I only check for the language I know. I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french version. I have no memory of much discussion about that on the french pump either. A couple of guys mentionned it would be nice, but that is all. My personal opinion Erik. I did not approve wikinews because I felt it would be biaised and it would divide the community strength. Also, the majority of french editors did not support it. This is why some mandatory steps were added to try to limit the risk of us having a baised project. To ensure enough support would exist for each individual project. In setting up a new wikinews without following these rules we commonly aggreed with, you are making a joke of the whole agreement. I gave my agreement for wikinews because there was such an agreement between us. I stand up by these requirements of 5 editors interested and involved. So, I think that in 1 or 2 weeks from now, I will look at these newly created wikiprojects, and if the requirement of creation is not respected (ie, at least 5 real editors working on it), I will either block the new project or ask that a big stamp mentions proeminently that the project in-work is not related to wikinews as well as have another logo set on it. Anthere Elisabeth Bauer a écrit:

Angela a écrit: IN http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews this page it is written The internationality of the Wikimedia Foundation is one of our biggest strengths, and the Wikinews projects is building on this strength right from the start. Our first requirement is that Wikinews will be set up like Wikipedia, with a language domain for every Wikinews project: * [de.wikinews.org] * [en.wikinews.org] * fr.wikinews.org (not yet set up) Nod * pascalv 15:52, 4 Dec 2004 (West Australia Time) http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… Imho, not to be counted. Less than 50 edits overall in 6 months. * Baf 09:17, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC) http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… Will probably not be a very strong participant here given the number of recent edits; * Un illustre inconnu 10:48, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC) http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… An editor as well, but hardly a participant really * Greudin 17:52, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC), Greudin Real participant * --Manu 20:18, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC), emmanuel legrand http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… No participation since october * w:fr:Utilisateur:Franfois http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… Real participant, but with less than 50 contributions in 6 months * Vdt No participant at that name * DCLXVI 08:19, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC) http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… Less than 50 edits. Is bulgarian. * 159753, 1551, le 27 janvier 2005 (TU) http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=… 2 edits * --80.119.68.220 09:45, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC) An ip vote. Which is precisely outdated. Which is why I mentionned it. IN short, in the list of people supporting the wikinews and willing to contribute seriously, there is ONE name, Greudin Greudin is a very good guy, but alone I doubt he will do it all. Sorry, this is *not* what I call sufficient support.

Angela a écrit: And about 25 edits in the past 30 days, basically all of them being adding categories. Fair enough. Should be counted Then he can certainly participate to the bulgarian wikinews. Then he can certainly participate to the english wikinews. True, but a supporter does not mean the person will participate. Just as someone can participate now and be not listed on supporters of course When the editor has 160 in 2 months, but only about a dozen in the past month, I basically consider that he will not contribute. When the editor has 800 edits in another language, it is not exactly an argument to me to show he will participate in french. You have the option to list yourself on this page, and you have thousands of edits on dozen of wikis, so according to what your opinion is of whose vote should be counted, this would count as a "approval" amongst the 5 people. The truth is that even if we count your vote, I am ready to eat my socks if you become a participant adding content and setting up policies on the french wikinews Angela. So, the minimum for an editor vote to be acceptable would be that this editor speaks french and participate in decent amount to any french speaking project. No ? The question is Do we want a wikinews to be created in one particular language, because 1 editor from bg, one editor from en, one editor from fr, and a couple of minor editors makes it a round 5. Or do we want to build a real project, with real content, with true quality, reliability and fairness to be set ? The wikinews is not as the other wikimedia projects. It is under public scrutiny. For all interviews I gave since december, the question of a french wikinews is raised. Journalists are terribly curious of this, and nearly each of them put a very critical look on the english version. I do not want to have to answer to any of these journalists, "yes, we have a wikinews in french, yes, I agree, it is currently crap but please consider it as a great reflect of what we can do as a community". This is the first point. If editors want to start a wikinews, good, but at least, as long as it is basically a bunch of isolated pages with no rules, the minimum we can do is to indicate it is not a real ressource, but an experiment. This in particular important as wikinews was not supported by french community overall, and has only a couple of interested editors listed. As is, it will damage our public image, and on top of damaging it, the decision of setting it up has been made by involving non french editors with no clear support from the local community. To me, this is a clear example of pushing too hard. We did not want it generally. We are not ready for it. But as long as Eric wants it, you want it and a bunch of hardly participating editors want it, then we should have it. My apologies here Angela, but I just cannot feel happy about this. I do not believe this was a fair decision. You knew there was no clear support. You knew it would be controversial. There are some moves which are just a little bit too bold. Given the situation, it would have been nice to talk to french editors before hand. The second point : This example is for me a clear example where it is no use expecting that agreements are kept and respected fairly. Obviously, there will be some editors to participate. Obviously it will not be locked. But now that the rule of 5 editors has not been respected, we could possibly have the rule of mentionning the site is only a demo respected. If nothing of the initial agreement is respected, then it is really of no importance to discuss things. Let us just vote without discussion and trying to find some consensus on things, and just say "the majority rules". This will set a more clear direction for all our new projects at least. Just as the rule of the minimum 5 could change Just as the rule the board should approve the new site for it not to be marked demo could change. Just as we just do not need to discuss things. we can decide things and change rules after the decision is taken. Sorry, but here, I think I have been cheated all along. There is no such thing as community build project if a couple of people can change rules when they feel like it.

Anthere schrieb: No, it accurately lists all Wikinews sites. The section you cite only served as an example for the naming structure to be used, not as a complete list of Wikinews sites. That list is right at the beginning, at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Wikinews_sites and I updated it after the creation of the wikis. There's obviously no point to maintaining two such lists on the same page. Much of your discussion with Angela centers around what qualification is sufficient in order to be counted as a likely participant in the project. Now, a lot can be said about this subject, but please remember that we haven't had this discussion yet -- this is the first time these actual, formal criteria are being discussed. The only thing that is stated on the Wikinews page is "Before a Wikinews language version is officially recognized as a Wikimedia project, and before the first sysop can be appointed, there must at least be 5 participants. " The requirement stated on the proposed "Policy for New Languages" page is: "There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki." That page also states that there needs to be a "reporter", but this seems to be particularly controversial, so I have omitted it from the Wikinews requirements. Now, should we go by a) or b)? If we go by a), then we should wait with "recognizing" the French, Swedish and Spanish editions as Wikinews projects until they have the required number of active participants. I'm happy to do that, though I am not quite sure what it means in practice. If we go by b), then, given that the formal requirements of a valid pledge have never been defined, it's a bit late to complain about the projects being approved now. You had plenty of time to state on the "Wikinews/Start a new edition" page or its discussion page if you thought that a certain amount of editing on the French Wikipedia was needed to make a valid pledge for a French Wikinews, for instance. Personally, I think that we should assume good faith, make sure that the instructions on the page are clear, and count pledges from users who obviously exist. To simplify the counting process, I have only counted users with pages on Meta, but I am sure that there are some more real users who voted for the French Wikinews and who don't have a Meta user page. There are plenty of potential Wikinews contributors who have no interest in contributing to an encyclopedia, a quote collection or a dictionary. I think it would be unfair to discount their pledges. But, again, I am perfectly happy to withdraw official recognition from the newly created Wikinews editions until they have reached the required number of participants. If this is what you want, please outline the steps you deem necessary for such a withdrawal of recognition to take place. True, but we all agreed that the Wikinews vote was for the project as a whole, not for individual languages. Also remember that many users from individual languages voted on the large English voting page, rather than the translated subpage. No, this is not the history. These steps were actually defined before the vote even took place. I did follow the rules. You are now interpreting them to say I didn't, but the requirements you say exist (e.g. "> x edits on Wikipedia") were never written down or even discussed. I'm happy to discuss how to proceed further, and am willing to work with you and the rest of the Board in assuring that the creation of the new Wikinews editions will be smooth and will not disrupt existing projects. Please describe what you think should be done next. Regards, Erik

The least you could have done, Erik, is go fish for those five "supporters" and ask them if they were ready to take care of the project and all it implies. The "supporters" for the French Wikinews voted more than two months ago... Wikinews fr could have waited another week, since it had already waited 2 months. You "could" also have put a note on the French Village pump, saying that according to the "policy", you were about to set up a French Wikinews, to raise awareness, give people time to get acquainted with the policies being developped on en and de, give the French association time to write a press release etc. I feel your decision is, yes, going "by the rules" but completely unilateral. Wikinews is your project, you want to push it, I understand this, but this is might harm it more than it might help it. Not very "wiki". My two cents. Just to push my point, the announcement was made on the French Village pump about 24 hours ago, to this moment, there are 15 registered users on fr.wikinews, out of which 5 at least are non French speakers, 2 at least (I am counting Anthere and myself) are there only to see "how it goes", which leaves 8 people, out of which only two have substantially contributed. You may argue that I don't give it time, sure, but knowing the number of people who go through the French Village Pump, I would hardly call this a success. And to emphasize this "feeling" let me point here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro#fr:wikinews so that you can see that the only substantial reactions to the announcement (apart from that of Greudin who is all for it - and that makes me happy, for he is indeed, a great contributor) and three have started a wild vote for the suppression of the project. Again, my two cents. I personally feel you have just slapped the French wiki community in the face by imposing on us something that we are not sure we want "yet" and here I emphasize the "yet" as I am very aware that the project could and *would* work regardless of what my opinion about it is. This said, Wikinews fr exists and there are no administrators (or none that I can see) who could prevent/fight vandalism if that comes to pass. What's the "policy" for this ? I'd like to know. Regards, Delphine

--- Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote: I have to agree with Anthere here. Since there is a lot of overlap between keeping the encyclopedia up to date and reporting on the news, there *must* be a critical mass of people working on that type of thing already on Wikipedia before it makes sense to have a separate news site. So while Wikinews may very well coexist just fine in German and English while not really harming updates to those corresponding encyclopedias, I'm not at all convinced that this would work for language communities that have significantly fewer editors. Thus the opinion of *those* language communities is paramount and *must* be respected. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page � Try My Yahoo! http://my.yahoo.com

Erik Moeller a écrit: About 3 years ago, I ranted a lot about the right of minorities to say their opinion and have it respected and taken into account. We are a diverse project, and we should preserve this diversity by being respectful of local habits. Taking decision by majority vote, and imposing local communities the wish of the global community is acceptable only when it does harm the project not to all walk in the same direction with the same pace. For example, changing the order of the wikipedia menu is harmful because all items being at the same place help people unfamiliar with a language to navigate in each and another local place. However, setting up a wikinews the way you did it, without prior warning, without taking into account the strong opposition which existed in the french community when the global decision was taken, without taking into account our community is still small in comparison with the english and german ones, and might be harmed by this new dispersion of vital forces, is not correct. You may answer notafish with giving her the "big rules", "big policies", "big guidelines" and other "big things" which were voted on. This does not hide the fact wikinews is not welcome among us. Just as wikiquotes, it will be a project in survival. I will not either mention how many french people work on wikisource or wikispecies. Wiktionary and wikibooks are below 50 edits per day as well. People are doing great things on them, but even after 2 years, these projects are still hardly resources. They will be great things later, but right now, they still host small communities. One of the very poor aspects of globalization is forcing communities in a direction they are not ready to assume. It is forcing communities to assume a standard of life which they can not handle. It is pushing them to grow to fast, to run after more modern and developped ones. Do not take it wrong Erik. But in my perspective, setting up a french wikinews right now seems to me to have one main benefit : the one of showing wikinews is developing and growing and is successful in its concept. Except that this will be a screen of smoke. And it will damage the image of the french speaking project. A project governed by rules and policies before being governed by what people wish is not what I wish for us. We agreed on a new project, but only languages supporting a project should have the choice to start one and only when they feel ready to do so. For those opposing, a minimum of understanding and acknowlegment would be nice. There is a huge difference between starting a new language wikipedia and a new language wikinews. Wikipedia goals and general policies are already defined. Setting up a 5 people interested rule is fine. For wikinews, nothing is set. In my perspective, it is a huge disappointment. Huge because what wins here is not what a community really wishes, it is a set of rules, policies and such, drafted by a couple of people. It is not consensus, it is the rule of the strongest. And local community wish crushed by globalization.

notafish schrieb: Fr.Wikinews.Org should create a Wikinews:Administrators nomination process. If a consensus can be found that a user should be an admin, a steward can make them one. Normally, stewards pick a trusted user to be a temporary bureaucrat, so that the wiki can create its own sysops. That temporary bureaucratship is reviewed when the wiki has a stable user base. For administrative needs that need to be completed ASAP, temporary sysops can also be made, again by bureaucrats or stewards who know and trust the user in question (e.g. Greudin). Regards, Erik

Daniel Mayer- I disagree. The work being done on Wikinews is, as I have already explained before and as is also described in the Wikinews FAQ, very different from the work done on Wikipedia: in-detail coverage of individual events rather than summary-style overviews of a series of events. To give you an example, one of the first French Wikinews articles is this one about polling stations in Paris for the current Iraqi elections: http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/%C3%89lections_iraquiennes_en_territoires_%C3%A… It includes original research by respected Wikipedian "Submarine". Of this article, perhaps one photo would have been accepted into Wikipedia, but most of it would have been ruled out on the grounds of "no original research". It would also have been considered too detailed for a Wikipedia article about the Iraqi elections, given that such polling stations exist in many countries and there's no particular reason to focus on the ones in Paris, nor are small, individual observations of any relevance to an article which is meant to be read 5 years from now. Now, how's the critical mass supposed to build for these types of contributions to go to Wikinews if they wouldn't be allowed on Wikipedia in the first place? The only way to build that critical mass is to have a wiki. "Participate in Wikipedia, so that you can participate in Wikinews when we have enough people to participate in Wikinews!" - It just doesn't work that way. The two projects are too different. Because it is different, Wikinews attracts different contributors than Wikipedia. When RSS and category news display functionality are added (MediaZilla:1411 works towards that), this makes the operation of the site very similar to that of a blog, attracting bloggers who often have no idea how Wikipedia works. By instituting a vague "critical mass" requirement, we exclude those types of contributors who are not at all interested in working on Wikipedia, but who get excited about Wikinews. On February 5, we will have an IRC chat specifically to get bloggers involved. What am I supposed to tell them? "Oh well, we don't have a Wikinews in your language yet, try Wikipedia instead" - and have them give up in frustration, because Wikipedia works nothing like a news site, and all of their work is immediately deleted by busy WikiGnomes? We're not in a position to tell people what they should and shouldn't be doing. We should give people the option to work on Wikinews if they want to. The only thing your proposed requirement would accomplish is pissing off volunteers who are ready to put time and energy into a worthwhile project. For these reasons and many more, I am strongly opposed to it. Wikinews editions should be started when people want to work on them, no sooner and no later. Regards, Erik

Erik Moeller wrote: I didn't see a reaction from the board to your announcement that nl.wikinews was set up. You seem to confuse not reacting with having no objections or "being happy". The other thing: I don't have the impression that Anthere is speaking here from her board position, but - as notafish - as a member of the french community which seems to be not happy about the newly created wikinews. How much this holds true for the majority of contributors in french wikipedia I don't know, but it's certainly a thing worth considering before rushing ahead. Anyway, french is created now so it makes no sense to complain about but let's not commit the same mistake again for the chinese wikinews. Here it certainly makes sense to hold a separate vote among the community of chinese wikipedians if they want a wikinews or if they consider the risk of chinese wikipedia getting blocked due to this too high. The rules for new language editions were created with wikipedia in mind which means: starting a project in a language which isn't represented yet in a wikimedia project. However, the situation for wikinews is different: we have already wikipedia communities in most languages, with contributors who may or may not be willing to join a second project. As maverick proposed, we should reconsider these rules for new projects like wikinews. From my experience as admin on the german wikinews you'll need a small crew of experienced people who teach newbies about basic rules. I don't want to know how many copyright violations I deleted in the first days of german wikinews, apart from dealing with vandalism and POV contributions. The enthusiastic newbies who joined in the first days were pretty helpless against this and had to struggle enough to learn writing news. Additionally, wikinews editions could also do very well with professional journalists accompanying the project, writing tutorials and helping people through the first steps. My proposal for setting up new language editions of a project would be: people who want to work on a new language edition should gather on meta-wiki and elect two known people as admins. Further, we should try to figure out if there is real interest or if people just signed the "I want a xx wikinews" and then never show up. This could be done by inviting people to a preparation meeting on the IRC channel, where they also could get to know each other. Just compare the spanish and the dutch wikinews: At the moment I'm writing this mail, the spanish wikinews has seen exactly seven edits (three by a dutch user) while the dutch has already a nice main page and several news. If this continues, spanish wikinews will be just another wiki which has to be regularly controlled by external people for spam and vandalism. greetings, elian PS: In the time between, please document your actions on http://wp.wikidev.net/Server_admin_log and make the developers happy by following their conventions.

Erik Moeller a écrit: No, this is not how things proceed, this is not the rules we set, and I recommand that we do not go along this way. Normally, stewards do what the community wants them to do. Anyone willing to be a sysop should set up a voting page, and if there is no opposition, the guy can ask a steward to change his status. It is not the steward business to decide who should be sysop. And the steward should normally ask that an admin page be set and that the guy put his name and wait a little while. What often happen in case of new projects in a well represented language (for example fr.wikiquote.org) is that the person asking for a status will set the page, and ask the wikipedia editors (fr.wikipedia.org) to go and support him over there. I think this is fine. It also happens that the project started in a new one in this language (for example yy.wikipedia.org... ). In this case, no one can really vote. In this case, the community is so small (often less than 5...), that we make the guy sysop without any votes of course. This happens only on very very very very small wikis. So.... Either the wikinews is viable, with a big community (supposingly at least 5), and that means at least 5 people are here to vote. Or the wikinews has less than 5 people available to vote, and in this case, according to policy, it should never has been opened. In short, if a wikinews is NOT able to gather at least 5 people to vote on such an issue as an admin setting, then it should be plain closed. That In case of recent wikinews being set up, if the editors base is not at least 5 involved editors, then the wikinews should be closed. If you can not gather 5 names to vote on an easy point as admin election, then there is no chance that wiki can go through all its building process.

Erik Moeller a écrit: I can be reached any time by email. I check it dozens of time per day, even during work hours. My mail adress is anthere(a)wikimedia.org. I am also often on irc, though admitedly not at the same hours you are, since I am at work during the day. I also check my user pages on meta, fr and en everyday. I had no reason to comment on nl creation. Dutch editors supported greatly the wikinews. Obviously, there was already a high enough number of editors to take care of it nicely. When I was in Rotterdam, I talked with Puck on this matter, and he made important comments about it I think. I know there are several seriously involved people working on it. So, there is no comparison. My issue with fr is not a global one, and Elian is correct in saying this is not a board issue I am trying to raise here. The global community supported the project, the board approved the project, so this is just enough. The board is not concerned any more now. I talk just as an editor. An editor who just know that there was no global support in the french speaking community (so, it would probably have deserved talking to the community first) and who know the 5 editors requirements is counting editors who are not french speaking, or not very active or just not active anymore (so, I question the validity of this requirement and question the ability of wikinews to function and build a nice community on these basis). and the day of its creation, it was not even labelled as a beta site. I know some people are working on it, but it is different from new language wikipedias. All the rules are still to set up. It will take time to do so. I think we should favor a down top approach. Which means people (enough people) should be asking for a wiki. Not the top down approach where one person decide which languages are ready to start. I remember frequent calls on the mailing list, for the setting up of french wiktionary for example. You could hear the people asking for it. Asking and asking and asking again. You then know editors badly want it. Here, I heard nothing at all. Anthere

Hi, Le Saturday 29 January 2005 05:34, Erik Moeller a écrit : I was surprised that the French Wikinews was created even without a mention on the French mailing list (wikifr-l) and fr.wikipedia Pump ("Bistro"). I am interested by the idea of Wikinews, but I won't have time to participate in the near future. I think that the requirement of 5 editors who pledge to *participate* in Wikinews is quite good before launching a project. It doesn't seem this was met for the French Wikinews now. Regards, Yann -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux

Anthere- Fine with me. What I know is that a temporary sysop/bureaucrat procedure was used in a number of cases. Regards, Erik

Guys, gals, isn't it time to stop the escalation? Take some deep breaths, cool down, go do something else (walk? fix broken links on wikipedias? take a bath?). Whatever happened with fr.wikinews happened. Now we can either have a nice split/fight about it, which'll make everyone unhappy, or take it easier, apologize when/if needed to the other, think about what happened so that it doesn't happen again. The point now is not anymore what to do with fr.wikinews, but whether we want to have 2+ clans at each other's throat, or try to make the best out of the situation. Nicolas "Ryo"

Ryo- I'm all for it. I have already agreed to Anthere's suggested policy change. As soon as she stops accusing me of breaking rules, I will stop responding in kind. Regards, Erik

Erik Moeller a écrit: Yes, but practically, that doesnot mean that people read it. It certainly took you time to set that wiki. It also take you time to set this blogging chat where you will present yourself as the foundator of wikinews; Was it so difficult to send a mail to the french mailing list or post on our main pump ? I am sure it would have been appreciated. You might be surprised, but I do not think editors read a list for which they do not have a project. Telling the wikinews list is nice, but not informing french speaking people much. In short, not the right channel of communication. I'm sick of Yes ? Well, consider it an important information : if people complain about your bold actions regularly, there must be a reason. In any case, as I have already said, I don't think it Pardon me ? Who is gonna edit the french wikinews ? You ? If you consider that the french-speaking community has no authority to decide if and when a french speaking project should be set, could you explain me for which reason a german powerless editor not able to write in French could have more authority upon this decision ? I (and others) noticed with interest your chat planned with bloggers. Obviously, it will be very beneficial for you to announce that the great successful wikinews is already set in 6 or 7 languages. This will be an important announcement for you. A sign of your success. Has it occured to you that similarly the french speaking community would have possibly planned to set a press release for the day it is started ? Perhaps a special page for this ? A big meeting ? Whatever ? No, you probably essentially thought you had to increase the number of wikinews language for the meetup, quickly checked which languages could meet the 5 editors requirement, set up the wiki, and casually mentionned on a couple of mailing lists and irc that it was done. Sorry, but this is TOO easy. I do not doubt you did it for good reasons and with good faith, and certainty to act in your right. However, I just question the opportunity of doing so, and the opportunity of doing so without asking us beforehand. It was announced afterwards and took us by surprise. Why did *you* decide to set it up ? Since when is ONE user doing things rather than letting communities decide at their rythme when things should happen ? Yes, the problem is that you are hiding behind rules. And neglecting just people are more important than rules. You know what ? Aurevilly said something one day. He said Et l'harmonie dans tout ça ? y a un moment où ça me gonfle d'entendre parler de communauté libre et consensuelle pour écarter toute idée de règle. Alors qu'à la base une règle c'est fait pour l'harmonie, pas pour emmerder le monde ... w:fr:Utilisateur:Aurevilly. Basically, it means "ultimately, a rule is here to allow harmony between people, not to create conflict". There is no hurry. If that takes more time, then let us take the time to do it. Read better what I wrote. I spoke of "broken rules", not of "you breaking up" the rules. This said, if you ask me, I think you are borderline of a sort of principle upon which Wikipedia relies. All Wikipedia is based on the fact the power comes from the people, not from one person. You may talk of all the rules you wish, when a group is submitted to the will of one person, there is a problem.

Erik Moeller a écrit: I never wrote that. As soon as you stop behaving like you are the leader of wikinews, and stop writing about my naivety, we can think of being polite with each other again. But generally, I guess it is not gonna happen. I like you as a human being because you can be very pleasant and friendly and funny, which I appreciate. You are also a very bright person, so it benefits us all. But I unfortunately do not always like what you do with Wikipedia. I have other things to do anyway.

Erik Moeller a écrit: Eh ! Possibly you are right here :-) Then, it would just mean we balance each other :-) no ? Ant

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote: She is by far not the only one complaining. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

Daniel Mayer schrieb: Nope. The work of writing a news story from scratch is very different from just summarizing what's going on. It is a very specific contributor profile which, as the history of the English Wikinews has shown, is hard to find among Wikipedians. You are just equating the groups because it suits your argument without any empirical evidence to back it up. Let's look at who actually edits the Current Events on en. This is a unique list of contributors from the second half of October 2004, before Wikinews was active: Admbws Ahoerstemeier Alan Liefting Ambi Ancheta Wis Andrejj Anonymous Cow AntonioMartin Arwel Parry Avaragado Bob rulz Bogdangiusca Bontenbal CanisRufus Chrism ChrisO Ctrl build Danny Davidcannon David Gerard David Newton Dejitarob Dobrien Ed Cormany Ed Poor Eean Eewing Elf Enceladus Evercat Evil saltine Frazzydee Fred Bauder Gadfium Get-back-world-respect Golbez Grunt Harris7 Hooverbag Infrogmation Irishpunktom Irismeister JB82 JBradHicks Jewbacca Jiang Johnleemk Jongarrettuk Joseph Dwayne Jxg Kaihsu Ke4roh Korath Laguna72 Lance6Wins MacGyverMagic MarkPNeyer Mateo SA MathKnight Matt Crypto Mixcoatl Modemac Montrealais Mrwojo Nadavspi Nickshanks Nknight Peter L PFHLai Poccil Radagast Rdsmith4 Remember Richard Cane RickK Rje Rmhermen Saint-Paddy Sbwoodside Scooter Scott Sanchez Securiger Seth Ilys Simonides Solitude Spammer132 Spencer195 Sverdrup The Anome The King Of Gondor Tillwe TimothyPilgrim Tirin Toby Bartels VeryVerily Violetriga Wernher Whkoh Ydorb Youssefsan This is a list of English Wikinews editors who have actually created articles, as far back as Special:Newpages allows: Amgine Andrew pmk Arwel Parry BesigedB Borofkin Boud Cafzal Carlosar Dan100 Dcabrilo Dysprosia Gadfium Jiang King Ho Cheung Ronline Snooo Squeakfox Submarine The bellman VikOlliver VlSimpson Now, even though we're searching in a very large set, of these people, only 3 have actually edited Current Events on the English Wikipedia: Arwel Parry Gadfium Jiang Of these three, only Jiang has made a substantial number of edits on Wikinews. and he still contributes to Current Events as well. Arwel made 11 edits on Wikinews, Gadfium made 9 edits. None of the really active Wikinewsies, to my knowledge, are involved in Current Events on WP. Try writing a Wikinews article. Doing the research, collecting the references, writing a whole piece from scratch. This work is much more tedious than just providing a one paragraph summary with a source. It takes a different kind of person to do that. And the empirical data shows that. Perhaps. People have a right to choose what they spend their time on. It's not up to you to decide that they shouldn't write news stories instead of updating Wikipedia articles. We don't have a hierarchy of projects. Wikinews has equal rights to Wikipedia. That is your opinion. In my opinion, it is the will of the Wikimedia community as a whole which counts. Wikimedia is a global project. It's not up to the French Wikimedia community to decide by majority that they don't want Wikinews, unless they have France-specific reasons for not wanting it. And I am supported in this both by policy and by statements of the Board to this effect, when I asked them this very question two months ago. Yes, I asked the Board whether we should treat the French Wikinews differently from the others because of the way the vote went, and the answer was no - I can document this with IRC chatlogs if necessary. This, by the way, is an interesting test case for language autonomy. And I firmly support the principle that Wikimedia-wide decisions can overrule local ones. People who didn't like Wikinews won't like the French Wikinews edition or any other. That doesn't matter. The time for voting on Wikinews is over. The project is launched and it will be started in the editions where there is sufficient interest to do so. Now, the real problem, I think, was in setting up the Wikinews voting pages as subpages of the languages. That gave some people the impression that the vote count of the Wikinews/Vote/Fr page has relevance on its own. It doesn't. Global votes should be counted and aggregated as such in the future. Regards, Erik

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller(a)gmx.de> wrote: You are comparing en.wikipedia users who edit the [[Current events]] page with people on en.wikinews. In spite of the fact that that was not my point (updating of the corresponding articles that are in the news, was) it is also about two English-language project versions. I already said, very specifically and a couple times, that Wikinews in English and German are fine due to the size of the respective language bases. The others I'm less sure about and would really like to know what those language communities think. I never said it was. My point is that each language community needs to decide among themselves if they are ready to start a new Wikimedia project in their language. This is a bottom-up approach, instead of a top down one where a small group of people decide this for them (or worse, the majority of people who don't even speak their language force it on them). They cannot veto the Wikimedia project, but they should be able to prevent one from starting in their language if they don't feel they are ready yet. The issue is a bit moot now, since fr.wikinews exists and is not likely to be closed down. But in the future we need to be more sensitive to the views of different language communities. This whole ugliness has exposed a weakness in the current guidelines that needs to be fixed. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com

Daniel Mayer schrieb: Aside from what people's feelings are, it is important to collect empirical data. So far, your claim that Wikipedia will lose contributors to in-the-news articles because of Wikinews is unproven. It may in fact be the other way around, given that Wikinews prominently links to as much Wikipedia material as possible. That's a different subject deserving of its own thread. I feel that whether or not a language community should have the right to decline a project should depend in large part on what its reasons are to do so. I am perfectly willing to say that the Chinese community should be allowed to make that decision, since they will have to pay the consequences if Wikipedia will be blocked because of Wikinews. But the arguments that have been brought up against the French Wikinews are just the same that have been brought up against Wikinews in general: It could harm our reputation, it could lead to legal problems, etc. Whether these arguments outweigh the benefits of the project has been addressed in a global vote. So I don't see a reason why the French community should be able to deny people the right to work on a French edition of Wikinews. Now, your argument is about "readiness". This is an interesting point, and the question of readiness should perhaps be handled in a different manner from the question of whether the project should be launched at all. When I launched the French Wikinews, I did not talk to the community beforehand and give them time to prepare for the launch. This may have ruffled a few feathers, and made it look like a decision that came from outside, rather than a genuine choice of the French Wikinews participants. What is a good solution to that problem? Perhaps, as soon as the required number of contributors is reached, there should be a vote on when the desired launch date is. "Never" would not be an option in that vote, but it could have a scope of, say, 4 weeks. This would also be a test of whether the people who pledged to participate are actually still around and interested, so the vote could have the same minimum number of participants. I am opposed to delaying the creation of Wikinews just because a Wikipedia in the language in question is still too small. That would create a hierarchy of projects. When there are participants, the project should be launched - but the timetable for the launch could be set by the community. Regards, Erik

Daniel - That's not my point. My point is that you have not presented data in support of your hypothesis at all. I do not see it as an imposition, but as the logical outcome of the global vote. Running a global organization like Wikimedia is always a balancing act between preserving a coherent identity and respecting local variations. My proposal takes into account local variations, such as the China situation. In these cases, a local vote is justifiable. If, however, we run it for every language community, this will just lead to largely divergent identities forming over the long term, in part simply due to statistical fluctuations or temporary shifts in opinion. Wikimedia will no longer be recognizable as one, the risk of forks will increase, and the pace of innovation will become ever more heterogenous. The disharmony right now is the result of miscommunications and a somewhat surprising launch. That's why I conclude from this experience that the timetable should be up to the interested participants to decide -- not to people who have no interest in the project at all, because it would then effectively become another vote *on the project*, which I am opposed to. "Not in the immediate future" makes little sense if you're asking people who have pledged to participate in the project when they want to do it. Regards, Erik