Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is not thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should the WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into trying to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the Wikimedia Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that? For me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer things but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them down, on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages to solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it might take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead project. I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things... yes, I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan
Dan
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia seems to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:38 AM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is not thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into trying to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the Wikimedia Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that? For me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer things but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages to solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it might take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead project. I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things... yes, I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Why is it not consistent? If the event is encyclopedic, it can (and should) be treated by Wikipedia, same way as any other subject. I confess I've never understood the mantra of "Wikipedia is not a source of news", when it may be, indeed, and with great advantage, as it provides *context*, a timeline, a sum/resume of the published news, hopefully the state of the art of them - something you very seldom have in regular news sources (and our context is WAY better than theirs, as we can use the whole encyclopedia, while when they link to context at all, they tend to be limited to their own newspieces on that specific subject).
Best, Paulo
Jennifer Pryor-Summers jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com escreveu no dia terça, 16/04/2019 à(s) 19:27:
Dan
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia seems to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:38 AM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
The WMF should not sort out any demarcation issues. In fact, it should not sort out anything at all in the Movement. The WMF is administered by the Movement, and it's main purpose and mission is to serve it, not do dictate anything there. That is a boundary that should never be crossed.
Best Paulo
Jennifer Pryor-Summers jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com escreveu no dia terça, 16/04/2019 à(s) 19:27:
Dan
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia seems to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:38 AM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Yeah, Right. P
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Paulo Santos Perneta Sent: 16 April 2019 20:38 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
The WMF should not sort out any demarcation issues. In fact, it should not sort out anything at all in the Movement. The WMF is administered by the Movement, and it's main purpose and mission is to serve it, not do dictate anything there. That is a boundary that should never be crossed.
Best Paulo
Jennifer Pryor-Summers jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com escreveu no dia terça, 16/04/2019 à(s) 19:27:
Dan
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia seems to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:38 AM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia seems to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth given the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that make Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch and realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should celebrate the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute to minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we know it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality – the Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies that make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia is a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me. However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is to fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth given the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that make Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch and realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should celebrate the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute to minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we know it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality – the Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html [2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image and internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding issue ;) * On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about topical subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the major language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken) * On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers. They all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to date of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did exactly what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps in this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies that make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia is a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me. However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is to fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute to minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we know it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality – the Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image and internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding issue ;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the major language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers. They all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to date of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did exactly what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps in this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me. However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a message we want to broadcast? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image and internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding issue ;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the major language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers. They all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to date of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did exactly what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps in this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me. However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask myself whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day against the will of the community, just because we are not successful competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:32 PM Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a message we want to broadcast? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
and
internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding
issue
;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
major
language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers. They all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
date
of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
exactly
what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps in this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529
4266
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I see no reason to shut down projects, nor to tell participants to stop collaborating on X in the spirit of a Wiki.
I see a great reason not to limit conversation about what a project around X *could be* to the current state of a project that has that domain name. There is plenty of energy around using wikis for news, or wikis for courses, which is absolutely not captured by any of our current Projects or projects.
We need * Flexible ways to modify, fork, and experiment with names and projects * Flexible ways to redirect, merge, and split projects and namespaces (as half-successfully attempted with the incubator) without losing history or editability
SJ
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 10:41 AM Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask myself whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day against the will of the community, just because we are not successful competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 4:32 PM Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a message we want to broadcast? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It
did
not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
and
internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding
issue
;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
major
language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in
the
world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.
They
all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
date
of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic
discussion
about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
exactly
what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was
startling
and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are
impossible
to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to
engage
with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back:
ways
for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps
in
this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality
–
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529
4266
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On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:24 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
I see no reason to shut down projects, nor to tell participants to stop collaborating on X in the spirit of a Wiki.
Unfortunately, in theory, projects in zombie mode should not pose a problem on their own.
In practice, they do affect our guidance to users in other projects and often results in poor, contradictory or confusing advice. At least in English Wikipedia, Wikinews keeps being referred to as a legitimate place to steer people, either out of aspirational hope or ignorance of just how dormant Wikinews is. Just peruse the Wikinews Recent Changes log, and on most any given day you're hard pressed to find any meaningful edits. The bulk of the changes are automated talk page additions, spam blocking, or maintenance edits.
On the English WP:NOT page, we are serving users poorly by promoting the fantasy that it is a legit companion to Wikipedia when we know it is not the case.
In the spirit of comity, we tend not to detail the hard truths about the deficiency of projects. (Actually we don't really have good ways to put anything in review or probationary status.) Instead, when well-meaning editors try the softer approach of removing over-enthusiastic endorsement of failed projects in policy pages, we see the edit warring below.
Should we be OK with directing people in good faith to Wikinews in its known failure state?
-Andrew
---
Over the years, it has been revert city regarding conflicting advice on Wikinews in en:WP:NOTNEWS:
Wikinews is not a place to steer people: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&a...
Yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&a...
No it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&a...
Yes, it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&a...
No it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&a...
Yes it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&a...
And so on.
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask myself whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where we have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day against the will of the community, just because we are not successful competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for example.
I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
Dan
Shutting down Wikinews is not the only strategic option. Wikinews is now hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. In the future it could be hosted by another organization. For example Wikia. Or maybe the current users start a Wikinews Association or Foundation and will start self hosting. Someone from the Wikimedia Foundation should weigh in with a marginal cost estimate of hosting Wikinews. It probably might be not much more than the cost of the domain registration. For the Wikimedia Foundation the financial cost saving would be not more than those domain registration fees. Currently there is no case the existence of Wikinews hurts the reputation of Wikimedia or Wikipedia in my opinion.
Regards,
Ad Huikeshoven
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:17 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask myself whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where
we
have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day against the will of the community, just because we are not successful competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for
example.
I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
My understanding is that this is exactly what we are discussing now. In the scenario proposed by Asaf there is a vote (RfC) in which keep votes of the Wikinews community would go against delete votes by Wikimedia users not interested in keeping Wikinews.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:17 PM Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:41, Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, I am not a fan of Wikinews and I do not particularly see the project as in any way successful. However, if the project is shut down against the will of the community (I now mean the Wikinews community, or perhaps even specifically the English Wikinews community), I will ask myself whether Wikivoyage (I am active in the Russian Wikivoyage, where
we
have a couple of dozen active users) could also be shut down one day against the will of the community, just because we are not successful competing with the brands like Lonely Planet, DK, or Michelin, for
example.
I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Dan
I've not seen any proposals involving shutting down projects without
community involvement, so hopefully you shouldn't need to worry about this.
The problem with failing projects like Wikinews and Wikiversity is that there is not a critical mass in their community. I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no community, but for all practical purposes that might as well be true. In such cases there isn't a realistic prospect of community involvement and the WMF needs to decide how to manage that situation on on of their projects. A small investment to set up a user group to own the new project under a new brand, move the content off the WMF servers, removing the Wikim/pedia branding on the way, and maybe pay a few years hosting charges as a sign of goodwill seems the right way to go.
JPS
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:31, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
For some value of "lost" - it's likely, in this case, that all the content would be preserved, either by making the wiki read-only, or perhaps migrating articles to, say, Wikisource.
Sure, things like some portal pages, templates and categories might be discarded, but that can happen to the work of any of us, on any project, anyway.
We have a related, but different, issue at Wikispecies .Technically at least, that project is now (or could soon be, with a few tweaks) wholly redundant to Wikidata, and could be populated using Listeria-like scripts or templates, from what is held in Wikidata.
The Wikispecies community vehemently resist this, and respond with suggestions that data in Wikispecies (held in a variety of templates, as well as much unstructured prose) should be what is edited, and should be used in a reverse of the above process to somehow magically populate Wikidata.
So we continue to maintain versions of the same data on two (or more: Wikipedias and Commons also do their own things with biological taxonomy) vastly different projects, diluting the impact of all of our volunteer-hours. Anyone who commissioned a system like this in a professional capacity would be sacked for incompetence.
The difference here being that it is not a professional system. If you mess with the crowd the crowd does not generally go where you prefer it to, it goes home. Other potential contributors see what has been done, and decide not to waste their efforts where outsiders can throw their work away. (outsiders meaning people not from the project that is being closed). Preserving as read only in another place is far more acceptable and indicates respect for one's efforts, even when times have changed. Internal deletion, change and general editing is a completely different issue. It is a given when you start. It is implied by CC-by-sa licence. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andy Mabbett Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 6:50 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:31, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
For some value of "lost" - it's likely, in this case, that all the content would be preserved, either by making the wiki read-only, or perhaps migrating articles to, say, Wikisource.
Sure, things like some portal pages, templates and categories might be discarded, but that can happen to the work of any of us, on any project, anyway.
We have a related, but different, issue at Wikispecies .Technically at least, that project is now (or could soon be, with a few tweaks) wholly redundant to Wikidata, and could be populated using Listeria-like scripts or templates, from what is held in Wikidata.
The Wikispecies community vehemently resist this, and respond with suggestions that data in Wikispecies (held in a variety of templates, as well as much unstructured prose) should be what is edited, and should be used in a reverse of the above process to somehow magically populate Wikidata.
So we continue to maintain versions of the same data on two (or more: Wikipedias and Commons also do their own things with biological taxonomy) vastly different projects, diluting the impact of all of our volunteer-hours. Anyone who commissioned a system like this in a professional capacity would be sacked for incompetence.
Wait, wait. The risk to shut down to get enough consensus to shut down a project with an active community which is not systematically violating any fundamental principle is zero.
Vito
Il giorno gio 18 apr 2019 alle ore 10:45 Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> ha scritto:
The difference here being that it is not a professional system. If you mess with the crowd the crowd does not generally go where you prefer it to, it goes home. Other potential contributors see what has been done, and decide not to waste their efforts where outsiders can throw their work away. (outsiders meaning people not from the project that is being closed). Preserving as read only in another place is far more acceptable and indicates respect for one's efforts, even when times have changed. Internal deletion, change and general editing is a completely different issue. It is a given when you start. It is implied by CC-by-sa licence. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andy Mabbett Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 6:50 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
On Wed, 17 Apr 2019 at 15:31, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all
volunteers
that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day.
For some value of "lost" - it's likely, in this case, that all the content would be preserved, either by making the wiki read-only, or perhaps migrating articles to, say, Wikisource.
Sure, things like some portal pages, templates and categories might be discarded, but that can happen to the work of any of us, on any project, anyway.
We have a related, but different, issue at Wikispecies .Technically at least, that project is now (or could soon be, with a few tweaks) wholly redundant to Wikidata, and could be populated using Listeria-like scripts or templates, from what is held in Wikidata.
The Wikispecies community vehemently resist this, and respond with suggestions that data in Wikispecies (held in a variety of templates, as well as much unstructured prose) should be what is edited, and should be used in a reverse of the above process to somehow magically populate Wikidata.
So we continue to maintain versions of the same data on two (or more: Wikipedias and Commons also do their own things with biological taxonomy) vastly different projects, diluting the impact of all of our volunteer-hours. Anyone who commissioned a system like this in a professional capacity would be sacked for incompetence.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Peter
Putting your brand on a project that is visibly failing also sends out a message, to the world at large. Is that a message you want to broadcast?
JPS
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 3:32 PM Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a message we want to broadcast? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
and
internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding
issue
;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
major
language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers. They all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
date
of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
exactly
what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps in this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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4266
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Our brand is already on it in these cases, and yes it would be sending a message - "We want you to risk your time and effort on our projects but we may later decide to discard everything you worked for" Cheers, P
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Pryor-Summers Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 8:19 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Peter
Putting your brand on a project that is visibly failing also sends out a message, to the world at large. Is that a message you want to broadcast?
JPS
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 3:32 PM Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a message we want to broadcast? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It did not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
and
internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding
issue
;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
major
language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in the world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers. They all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
date
of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic discussion about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
exactly
what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was startling and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are impossible to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to engage with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back: ways for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps in this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529
4266
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Peter
Our brand is already on it in these cases, and yes it would be sending a
message - "We want you to risk your time and effort on our projects but we may later decide to discard everything you worked for"
I don;t think "discard" is right. The message would be "... but if it doesn't work out then we won't continue to waste your time and effort and our donations indefinitely". That's realistic.
JPS
Hoi, "your time and effort" is for those other people to waste. It is for them to decide what value they derive from spending it in this way. "our donations", donations is what donors offer. Once they have donated, it becomes the money of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is not our donations, it is not even our money.
Then consider the cost, to the Wikimedia Foundation. It is largely the cost of serving the content, the management of the servers. In the big picture it is not much, it is also very much a question on the inclusivity of the Wikimedia Foundation that enables the continued existence of these projects. With a Wikipedia community as a movement we will be excluding others as we expel volunteers who are considered redundant because they do not fit our image. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 at 18:20, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter
Our brand is already on it in these cases, and yes it would be sending a
message - "We want you to risk your time and effort on our projects but
we
may later decide to discard everything you worked for"
I don;t think "discard" is right. The message would be "... but if it doesn't work out then we won't continue to waste your time and effort and our donations indefinitely". That's realistic.
JPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Gerard,
Not everything works out -- that's the way of the world. Your argument would imply that no project that had ever attracted anyone's time and effort could ever be discontinued. That is unsustainable. The WMF has limited resources and quite properly has to decide on priorities for allocating its resources. It also has to consider the non-monetary cost -- for example, damage to the reputation of the Foundation, of the movement it leads, and the other projects it owns -- of continuing to support a project that is clearly a failure.
JPS.
On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 7:18 AM Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, "your time and effort" is for those other people to waste. It is for them to decide what value they derive from spending it in this way. "our donations", donations is what donors offer. Once they have donated, it becomes the money of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is not our donations, it is not even our money.
Then consider the cost, to the Wikimedia Foundation. It is largely the cost of serving the content, the management of the servers. In the big picture it is not much, it is also very much a question on the inclusivity of the Wikimedia Foundation that enables the continued existence of these projects. With a Wikipedia community as a movement we will be excluding others as we expel volunteers who are considered redundant because they do not fit our image. Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, 18 Apr 2019 at 18:20, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter
Our brand is already on it in these cases, and yes it would be sending a
message - "We want you to risk your time and effort on our projects but
we
may later decide to discard everything you worked for"
I don;t think "discard" is right. The message would be "... but if it doesn't work out then we won't continue to waste your time and effort and our donations indefinitely". That's realistic.
JPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Perception is in the eye of the beholder, Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Pryor-Summers Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2019 6:20 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Peter
Our brand is already on it in these cases, and yes it would be sending a
message - "We want you to risk your time and effort on our projects but we may later decide to discard everything you worked for"
I don;t think "discard" is right. The message would be "... but if it doesn't work out then we won't continue to waste your time and effort and our donations indefinitely". That's realistic.
JPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Sad memories of Orkut, Panoramio, and all the unvaluable repositories of online knowledge that have been completely destroyed in the recent past, because they were doomed as uncompetitive by big corporations as Google. I seriously hope we don't go that way. 😟
Paulo
Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net escreveu no dia quinta, 18/04/2019 à(s) 09:34:
Our brand is already on it in these cases, and yes it would be sending a message - "We want you to risk your time and effort on our projects but we may later decide to discard everything you worked for" Cheers, P
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Pryor-Summers Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 8:19 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Peter
Putting your brand on a project that is visibly failing also sends out a message, to the world at large. Is that a message you want to broadcast?
JPS
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 3:32 PM Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
Abandoning a project and shutting it down sends a message to all volunteers that their work could be similarly abandoned and lost one day. Is that a message we want to broadcast? Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 17 April 2019 00:46 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Hello, Some years ago, some volunteers have proposed a new Wikimedia wiki. It
did
not turn out as expected. That‘s okay, the movement should try out thing from time to time. But this wiki should not be seen as an eternal obligation to be kept. Kind regards Ziko
Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com schrieb am Di. 16. Apr. 2019 um 23:56:
Jennifer -- as you say, there is a contradiction here in the self-image
and
internal narrative of the projects and movement. A classic branding
issue
;)
- On the one hand, we lack clear, consistent language to talk about
topical
subprojects (what do you call 'the Current Events specialists on the
major
language Wikpiedias'? some obvious names have already been taken)
- On the other, for the few Names that we assign to Projects, we
overspecify what they mean ('Wikinews is original news reporting or synthesis, done on a wikinews.org site').
We propagate this confusion of identity to those outside the projects trying to understand them; which in turn leads to misunderstanding in
the
world at large, and fewer potential collaborators joining the projects: I was recently at a gathering of international fact-checkers.
They
all prized Wikipedia as a model for what rapid collective editing can accomplish; assumed wikinews and wikitribune were the best efforts to
date
of applying that to current events; and began an enthusiastic
discussion
about how to do it better. When I pointed out that Wikipedias did
exactly
what they were discussing, for the most popular news, this was
startling
and satisfying to them. However as there is no central cafe or village pump for current events editors, and what portals do exist are
impossible
to find for all but the most persistent, it is not obvious how to
engage
with them...
This is a challenge of naming + identity that really holds us back:
ways
for people to form groups, projects, message streams; and channel, advertise, amplify, polish them; use them for flash projects and coalescence, for awareness and thanks. We have tried many small steps
in
this direction but have never made groups or hashtags work as simple, functional tools of alignment.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward
is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality
–
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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4266
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On Fri, 19 Apr 2019 at 16:48, Paulo Santos Perneta paulosperneta@gmail.com wrote:
Sad memories of Orkut, Panoramio, and all the unvaluable repositories of online knowledge that have been completely destroyed in the recent past, because they were doomed as uncompetitive by big corporations as Google. I seriously hope we don't go that way.
I can think of at least two precedents that show that we are better than that: the Kilingon Wikipedia and the 9/11 memorial wiki.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies that make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia is a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than primary source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1] https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is to fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with its encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute to minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we know it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality – the Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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(posting in my volunteer capacity)
Echoing Andrew's, SJ's, and Ziko's comments, I will add that perhaps all it would take is some collective energy to endorse these long-standing observations, and signal to WMF that we no longer have to pretend Wikinews is a worthwhile model (as SJ, Paulo, and Andrew spell out, *to the extent* we can do news (which is far from 100%, being mostly news-synthesis and contextualizing), we do a far better job through and in Wikipedia). I think no action has been taken because it is neither an urgent problem, nor an important one to most contributors, so if WMF were to "sunset" Wikinews, it would upset the few die-hard Wikinewsies[1], and please almost no-one.
If a significant number of people were to see the *opportunity cost* we pay due to this confusion and branding issue (ably described by SJ in his anecdote about the fact-checker event), and express their concern (e.g. via an RFC), perhaps there would be found more appetite to provide the formal nod to shutter (not delete) Wikinews, and avoid misleading new volunteers and outsiders into believing Wikinews can work.
I have tried to contribute toward this goal with a session at the Wikimedia Conference 2013 (in Milan)[2] focused on *the cost* of keeping up the appearance of Wikinews (and Wikiversity, and Wikipedias in languages with ~2000 speakers) as worthwhile endeavors. While there were some who agreed, I mostly managed to upset some people, and there was no appetite at WMF (at the time) to take up that cause.
So we are probably doomed to have these conversations periodically (indeed, that itself is one of the costs I listed), until such time as some critical mass is reached and enough people want to be rid of this historical baggage. I would like to see us do so, but as a staff member, I think it is not for me to start an RFC.
A.
[1] Some years ago a Wikinewsie user group was created. It failed to sustain enough interest to meet the single user group duty of submitting an annual activity report, and exist beyond its inaugural year. [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2013/Documentation/Day_... seems to be the best (though not very good) documentation of that session. Oh wait, there's also this, uh, Prezi: https://prezi.com/gg3wadct9fec/wikinews-wikiversity-rapa-nui-and-other-lost-...
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 2:04 AM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than primary source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1] https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1] https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always done very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional, use for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a fine addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think that given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than primary source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1] https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1] https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always done very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional, use for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a fine addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think that given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than primary source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1] https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and fact check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success stories, but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many roles for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always done very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional, use for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a fine addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think that given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality
–
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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(Hit send too early). To my mind the larger problem is that the content becomes static over time, Rather than growing and evolving as it does with many of our more successful Projects.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:25 AM Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me wrote:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and fact check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success stories, but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many roles for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always
done
very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional,
use
for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a
fine
addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think
that
given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent
to me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
with
its
> encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
> sort out the demarcation issues. >
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and
the vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of
reality –
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins
of
Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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?subject=unsubscribe>
-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
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-- Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me
Hello Philippe,
Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do) collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast". Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access to the world that has to be described.
That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we don't need (another) website offering this.
Another example for content unsuitable for wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to far here.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and fact check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success stories, but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many roles for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always done very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional, use for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a fine addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think that given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
with
its
> encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
> sort out the demarcation issues. >
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality
–
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Ziko,
you could then argue that Commons is also not a collaborative project - only one person takes a picture (determines the story, the position, light etc), and others can at best perform some editing or add/remove categories.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Philippe,
Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do) collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast". Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access to the world that has to be described.
That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we don't need (another) website offering this.
Another example for content unsuitable for wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to far here.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and fact check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success
stories,
but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many
roles
for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always
done
very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite
functional, use
for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a
fine
addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think
that
given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to
fill
that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it
isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem
inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public.
Wikipedia
editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih <andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < > jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
> seems > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely
consistent
with
its
> > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the
WMF
should
> > sort out the demarcation issues. > > > > Jennifer, > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and
the
vast
> majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
> hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
> > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
> observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following
policies
that
make > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting: > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources > Wikipedia:V - verifiability > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and > realize it is a poor fit. > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we
should
celebrate > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
> minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world
as
we
know
> it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of
reality
–
the
> Wikipedia article. > > If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the
origins of
> Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: > [1] >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
> [2] >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
> > -Andrew > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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Yaroslav
I think you have identified an important point -- I hestitate to call it a problem -- about Commons. We are dependent on the authority of the uploader of an image, say, to say what it is an image of. If they say it is a certain locality, or object, we have to take their word for it (or not, of course). That doesn't fit too well with the requirement on other projects for citation of reliable independent sources.
Jennifer
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:34 AM Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Ziko,
you could then argue that Commons is also not a collaborative project - only one person takes a picture (determines the story, the position, light etc), and others can at best perform some editing or add/remove categories.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Philippe,
Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do) collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast". Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access to the world that has to be described.
That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we don't need (another) website offering this.
Another example for content unsuitable for wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to far here.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and
fact
check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success
stories,
but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many
roles
for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has
always
done
very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite
functional, use
for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be
a
fine
addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to
think
that
given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to
fill
that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it
isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
> Andrew > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
policies
that > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V,
NORUSH)
are a
> poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is > a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem
inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather
than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies
primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as
a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public.
Wikipedia
editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih <
andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < > > jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
> > seems > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely
consistent
with
its > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe
the
WMF
should > > > sort out the demarcation issues. > > > > > > > Jennifer, > > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade
and
the
vast
> > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion
that
Wikinews
> > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties. > > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of
the
truth
> given > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
> > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following
policies
that
> make > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline
reporting:
> > > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism > > > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience
this
mismatch
> and > > realize it is a poor fit. > > > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we
should
> celebrate > > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that
evolve
minute
to > > minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the
world
as
we
know > > it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of
reality
–
the > > Wikipedia article. > > > > If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the
origins of
> > Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: > > [1] > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
> > [2] > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
> > > > -Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
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> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
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That is an excellent point, Jennifer! This problem makes collaboration on Commons even more difficult or unlikely. The photographer sometimes has an unique access to the part of the world he described with a picture. Often on Commons we simply ask the photographer: 'where did you take the picture', or 'what is the context' etc., because we cannot see that from the picture itself or we cannot look it up by ourselves. I think with wiki journalism it is quite similar. Kind regards Ziko
Am Sa., 27. Apr. 2019 um 13:15 Uhr schrieb Jennifer Pryor-Summers jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com:
Yaroslav
I think you have identified an important point -- I hestitate to call it a problem -- about Commons. We are dependent on the authority of the uploader of an image, say, to say what it is an image of. If they say it is a certain locality, or object, we have to take their word for it (or not, of course). That doesn't fit too well with the requirement on other projects for citation of reliable independent sources.
Jennifer
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:34 AM Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Ziko,
you could then argue that Commons is also not a collaborative project - only one person takes a picture (determines the story, the position, light etc), and others can at best perform some editing or add/remove categories.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Philippe,
Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do) collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast". Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access to the world that has to be described.
That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we don't need (another) website offering this.
Another example for content unsuitable for wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to far here.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and
fact
check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success
stories,
but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many
roles
for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has
always
done
very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite
functional, use
for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be
a
fine
addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to
think
that
given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to
fill
that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it
isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < > jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Andrew > > > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
policies
> that > > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V,
NORUSH)
are a
> > poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
> is > > a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem
inconsistent to
me.
> > > As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather
than
primary
> source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies
primarily.
> > I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
> notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as
a
direct
> news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no. > > [1] >
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> > > > However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
> to > > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right? > > > Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public.
Wikipedia
> editors are already doing a stellar job. > > Andrew > > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih <
andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < > > > jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
> > > seems > > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely
consistent
with
> its > > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe
the
WMF
> should > > > > sort out the demarcation issues. > > > > > > > > > > Jennifer, > > > > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade
and
the
vast
> > > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion
that
Wikinews
> > > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental > properties. > > > > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of
the
truth
> > given > > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
> > > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following
policies
that
> > make > > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline
reporting:
> > > > > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research > > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources > > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability > > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism > > > > > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience
this
mismatch
> > and > > > realize it is a poor fit. > > > > > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we
should
> > celebrate > > > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that
evolve
minute
> to > > > minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the
world
as
we
> know > > > it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of
reality
–
> the > > > Wikipedia article. > > > > > > If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the
origins of
> > > Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: > > > [1] > > > > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
> > > [2] > > > > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
> > > > > > -Andrew > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > -- > -Andrew Lih > Author of The Wikipedia Revolution > US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) > Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) > Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM > Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American > University, Columbia University, USC > --- > Email: andrew@andrewlih.com > WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado > PROJECT: Wikipedia Space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
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> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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It would be nice if more Commons images HAD proper location and context info. As it is experts are often needed to identify meaningful content and categories. Those tasks are not the equivalent of minor copyediting, not that proofreading is a minor matter.
IOW, Commons *needs* more collaborative effort.
Hoi, Now that the Wikidatafication of Commons allows for "depicts", there is plenty to do. It will make it easier to find what is on Commons, it will hugely increase the relevance of Commons beyond the Wikimedia Foundation and within, it allows people to find illustrations in their own language
On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 at 15:09, Dennis During dcduring@gmail.com wrote:
It would be nice if more Commons images HAD proper location and context info. As it is experts are often needed to identify meaningful content and categories. Those tasks are not the equivalent of minor copyediting, not that proofreading is a minor matter.
IOW, Commons *needs* more collaborative effort. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
There are many subjects of images that can be objectively assessed, so this comparison is not very accurate. In many cases the metadata provides verifiable information too. Cheers, P
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Pryor-Summers Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2019 1:15 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Supporting Wikinews [was: Reviewing our brand system for our 2030 goals]
Yaroslav
I think you have identified an important point -- I hestitate to call it a problem -- about Commons. We are dependent on the authority of the uploader of an image, say, to say what it is an image of. If they say it is a certain locality, or object, we have to take their word for it (or not, of course). That doesn't fit too well with the requirement on other projects for citation of reliable independent sources.
Jennifer
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:34 AM Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Ziko,
you could then argue that Commons is also not a collaborative project - only one person takes a picture (determines the story, the position, light etc), and others can at best perform some editing or add/remove categories.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Philippe,
Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do) collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast". Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access to the world that has to be described.
That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we don't need (another) website offering this.
Another example for content unsuitable for wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to far here.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and
fact
check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success
stories,
but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many
roles
for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has
always
done
very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite
functional, use
for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be
a
fine
addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to
think
that
given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to
fill
that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it
isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
> Andrew > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
policies
that > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V,
NORUSH)
are a
> poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is > a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem
inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather
than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies
primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as
a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public.
Wikipedia
editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih <
andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < > > jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
> > seems > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely
consistent
with
its > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe
the
WMF
should > > > sort out the demarcation issues. > > > > > > > Jennifer, > > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade
and
the
vast
> > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion
that
Wikinews
> > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties. > > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of
the
truth
> given > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
> > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following
policies
that
> make > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline
reporting:
> > > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism > > > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience
this
mismatch
> and > > realize it is a poor fit. > > > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we
should
> celebrate > > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that
evolve
minute
to > > minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the
world
as
we
know > > it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of
reality
–
the > > Wikipedia article. > > > > If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the
origins of
> > Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: > > [1] > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
> > [2] > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
> > > > -Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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-- Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Yes indeed, Wikimedia Commons sees not much of collaboration in that sense. The collaboration on Commons is of an insular kind: people don't (much) edit other people's work, but they together contribute to the whole wiki. Different is collaboration where several people edit the same content and have sometimes to discuss about choices. But on Commons, there is no need for that. It does not have a macrostructure in which every item (hypertext node, article) has to be unique. In Commons, if you see a picture of the Notre Dame cathedral and you don't like it, you simply upload your own. Different to Wikipedia: if you see the article "Elephant", and you don't like it, you cannot simply create a new one.
The problem is that we use the word "collaboration" often without distinction for several kinds of collaboration. Kind regards Ziko
Am Sa., 27. Apr. 2019 um 12:34 Uhr schrieb Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com:
Hi Ziko,
you could then argue that Commons is also not a collaborative project - only one person takes a picture (determines the story, the position, light etc), and others can at best perform some editing or add/remove categories.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:29 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello Philippe,
Thank you for your points to which I generally can agree. Because this is an important matter to my, allow me to explain what I exactly mean.
Of course, there are several tasks or layers where people can (and do) collaborate when working on journalistic content. But there is an aspect where the collaboration cannot be a collaboration of equals (which is necessary for the definition of what a wiki is).
Imagine that reporter-editor P. has witnessed a speech of the mayor and reports about it, calling it e.g. "enthusiast". Stay-at-home-editor Z. reads this report and changes the word to "euphoric". P. then protests and changes it back, claiming that he has been there and knows better. So P. and Z. didn't have the same access to the world that has to be described.
That would be different in the case that P. and Z. only work on material such as press releases and content from news agencies. I believe that Andrew meant this kind of work when he wrote that we don't need (another) website offering this.
Another example for content unsuitable for wiki-collaboration-among-equals is an autobiography. An autobiography by definition is a personal account of what someone has experienced in her life. No other person has the same world access. Other people in a wiki can check the text for inconsistencies, orthography, structure etc. (Great.) But the person of the autobiography has always a veto right - otherwise, it wouldn't be an autobiography.
An interesting question is whether fiction is suitable for collaboration (and what kind of collaboration), but that would go to far here.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 18:26 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
Respectfully Disagree. They can formulate questions, coordinate and fact check answers... and that’s off the top of my head.
That said I think wikinews is fundamentally not one is our success
stories,
but I don’t agree with what my friend Ziko said there. There are many
roles
for community there.
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:15 AM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always
done
very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite
functional, use
for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a
fine
addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think
that
given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to
fill
that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it
isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
> Andrew > > It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the
policies
that > make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
> poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is > a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem
inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews
with
notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
> However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to > fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public.
Wikipedia
editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
> On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih <andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
> > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < > > jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
> > seems > > > to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely
consistent
with
its > > > encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the
WMF
should > > > sort out the demarcation issues. > > > > > > > Jennifer, > > > > This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and
the
vast
> > majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
> > hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties. > > > > News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
> given > > the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
> > observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following
policies
that
> make > > Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting: > > > > Wikipedia:NOR - no original research > > Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources > > Wikipedia:V - verifiability > > Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism > > > > Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
> and > > realize it is a poor fit. > > > > However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we
should
> celebrate > > the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to > > minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world
as
we
know > > it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of
reality
–
the > > Wikipedia article. > > > > If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the
origins of
> > Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: > > [1] > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
> > [2] > > >
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
> > > > -Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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-- Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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What are the examples of successful citizen news websites?
What could we learn from them?
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 5:15 PM Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
One of the central problems of Wikinews is that the content is not suitable for collaboration.
Content suitable for collaboration is related to a reality to which the collaborators equally have access. Think if an encyclopedia based on scholarly literature that (potentially) everybody can find in a library.
When a journalist has spoken to her 'sources' (relevant people), she is the one who had a special access to theses sources. The editors in the wiki did not have this access. They can correct typos but do little more.
Kind regards Ziko
Am Fr., 26. Apr. 2019 um 00:43 Uhr schrieb Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me:
The very smart Mr. Lih sayeth:
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a direct news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
Me too. In fact, I think this is something that Wikinews has always done very well. It also strikes me as an excellent, and quite functional, use for a Wiki. A wikivoices or wiki-interviews type project would be a fine addition to the ecosystem, imho. And it is very reasonable to think that given its success in this area, Wikinews could very easily pivot to fill that spot.
But a news competitor to traditional news outlets? Nope, that it isn't.
Philippe
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:05 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:23 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies
that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH)
are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand,
Wikipedia
is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to
me.
As Wikimedians we are secondary source news summarizers rather than
primary
source news gatherers. That’s where the difference lies primarily.
I have been a fan of the times Wikinews did original interviews with notable folks [1] so this is perhaps a sustainable niche. But as a
direct
news wire competitor to AP, Reuters or AFP, no.
[1]
https://en.m.wikinews.org/wiki/Shimon_Peres_discusses_the_future_of_Israel
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way
forward is
to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
Fold Wikinews altogether so it doesn’t confuse the public. Wikipedia editors are already doing a stellar job.
Andrew
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language)
Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not entirely consistent
with
its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF
should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the
vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that
Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental
properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the
truth
given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing
direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies
that
make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources Wikipedia:V - verifiability Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this
mismatch
and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should
celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve
minute
to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as
we
know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality
–
the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look: [1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
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-- -Andrew Lih Author of The Wikipedia Revolution US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016) Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015) Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American University, Columbia University, USC
Email: andrew@andrewlih.com WEB: https://muckrack.com/fuzheado PROJECT: Wikipedia Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:32 AM Joseph Seddon josephseddon@gmail.com wrote:
What are the examples of successful citizen news websites?
What could we learn from them?
My sense is that the most successful ventures that could be described at least partially in those terms fall into the following categories:
- blogging/analysis - advocacy - translation - newsroom/citizen collaborations
I would mention especially:
- Global Voices ( https://globalvoices.org ) which has done fantastic work sharing stories from around the world that are under-represented in commercial media. It includes volunteer blog posts and translations, and has been around since 2004.
- OpenDemocracy ( https://www.opendemocracy.net/ ) which publishes many volunteer-contributed stories, typically from a social justice / human rights perspective. It has been around since 2001.
- ProPublica's "Get Involved" page ( https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/ ) which routinely engages the public in the newsroom's investigations.
I think translation is one area where Wikimedia could play a more active role, with the right partners, especially considering how much WMF has already invested in open source translation tooling.
Perhaps there are ways for grantmaking to play a larger role, too, when it comes to supporting current events coverage in Wikipedia and beyond. I've always loved the grants to volunteers to support photo equipment, accreditation, etc. Might there be ways to expand such programs to support travel & equipment costs for individual photo and video-journalists towards the creation of CC-BY-SA content?
Regarding Wikinews, I have no hope that it will magically succeed one day, but one observation: When poking at contributor statistics, I found it interesting that the global contributor numbers, meager as they are, are almost entirely sustained by Russian Wikinews, which does appear to have a continuous day-to-day publishing record for some time now. It would be interesting to know more about what's motivating those contributors. For non-Russian speakers, see here for the feed of 2019 stories, which is pretty impressive by Wikinews standards:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=w.wiki%2F3Q7
Perhaps Russian contributors to this list can share some perspective on what's been happening on the project and whether it's viewed positively or not within the Russian Wikimedia community.
Warmly, Erik
I feel I can give a relatively neutral comment on the part quoted below. Disclosure: I am a citizen of Russia, residing within the country & speaking Russian, but mainly contributing to Tatar Wikipedia, member of WMRU & WUG TAT.
Global Russian-speaking Wikimedia community has mixed feelings about Russian Wikinews, but we generally seem to appreciate its publications.
1) If I remember correctly, Russian Wikipedia community does not consider Russian Wikinews as a reliable source (unlike AP, Reuters or Washington Post, etc.)
2) Wikimedia Community Languages of Russia is quite appreciative of the Russian Wikinews, as they host Russian Multilingual Wikinews (8 more languages, including Bashkir, Erzya, Lezgin, Sakha, Tatar, etc. - where community is not yet active enough to sustain on-going publishing of new materials to come out of the incubator)
3) Russian Wikinews publishes articles from various categories, including * aggregation of information from various free license sources * original reporting by Wkimedian-correspondents throughout Russia * Wikimedia projects related reporting (we sometimes translate these into English @ CEE or Education Outreach Newsletter under Russia reports)
4) No countries, topics or viewpoints are a no-go in Russian Wikinews, so personally it seems a good balanced mix (unlike many reliable outlets that emphasize specific aspects): * Armenia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Russia, Ukraine, U.S., Venezuela, etc., * Business, Govt, NGO initiatives, etc. * Public life, Science, Technology, etc.
5) Editor-in-chief of Russian Wikinews is an ex-member of Wikimedia Russia, no other regular contributors are or used to be members.
6) Wikimedia Russia currently has limited membership for a number of reasons: * WMRU is a purely volunteer organization. * Legally we need to have regular in-person meetings that require a quorum (so greater share of members must show up for the decision to be valid). * Annual membership fee is set @ USD 1.5 per month. * But we started to broadcast our meetings live (sometimes in recording), which was positively perceived by both Russian Wikipedia & Russian Wikinews communities.
regards, farhad
-- Farhad Fatkullin - Фархад Фаткуллин http://sikzn.ru/%C2%A0%D0%A2%D0%B5%D0%BB.+79274158066%C2%A0/ skype:frhdkazan / Wikipedia:frhdkazan / Wikidata:Q34036417
28.04.2019, 03:37, "Erik Moeller" eloquence@gmail.com:
On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:32 AM Joseph Seddon josephseddon@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding Wikinews, I have no hope that it will magically succeed one day, but one observation: When poking at contributor statistics, I found it interesting that the global contributor numbers, meager as they are, are almost entirely sustained by Russian Wikinews, which does appear to have a continuous day-to-day publishing record for some time now. It would be interesting to know more about what's motivating those contributors. For non-Russian speakers, see here for the feed of 2019 stories, which is pretty impressive by Wikinews standards:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=w.wiki%2F3Q7
Perhaps Russian contributors to this list can share some perspective on what's been happening on the project and whether it's viewed positively or not within the Russian Wikimedia community.
Warmly, Erik
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On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 5:54 AM Фархад Фаткуллин / Farhad Fatkullin frhd@yandex.com wrote:
I feel I can give a relatively neutral comment on the part quoted below.
Dear Farhad,
Thanks so much for sharing your observations re: https://ru.wikinews.org/ . I'm glad to hear that the project is publishing on a diverse range of topics, and that it includes original reporting. It's also really good to learn that it's a place where smaller language can publish stories before they're formally approved.
What really sets Russian Wikinews apart from the other Wikinews language editions is that it's consistently been publishing stories pretty much every day for quite some time now. I'd still love to know if there's anything in particular that has made this possible, but perhaps it's just "the right people at the right time", as is often the case with smaller online communities. I very much hope that the project will be able to keep it up.
In contrast, compare, for example, the month of April in the English Wikinews edition:
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:2019/April
Warmly,
Erik
În mar., 16 apr. 2019 la 12:38, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com a scris:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is not thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should the WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into trying to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the Wikimedia Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that? For me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
I personally believe the law of the hammer [1] had a very significant contribution to the launch of Wikinews (as well as Wikiversity, Wikispecies and Wiktionary): "we have a wiki, what else can we use it for?" Stated differently ("we have a mission and an idea aligned with that mission, what kind of wiki would we need for that?") the outcome might have been radically different. Some projects might have never happened, others might have been years ago where they are now and again others might have happened later (e.g. a wiki does not seem a great fit for University courses, but Wikiversity might have happened anyway as part of the OpenAccess movement. Or not).
It's a bit late to change history, but it's not too late to admit some of the projects are a failure in the current form and start again - or just drop them. As somebody else in the conversion put it "we must have ways to try and fail fast".
Strainu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer things but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them down, on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages to solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it might take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead project. I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things... yes, I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Strainu,
Simply leaving the world of news to others is not really an option for the Foundation. Recall that its vision is that
By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.
It can't achieve that by abandoning news.
JPS
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 6:29 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
În mar., 16 apr. 2019 la 12:38, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com a scris:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work out, and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it just isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think that.
I personally believe the law of the hammer [1] had a very significant contribution to the launch of Wikinews (as well as Wikiversity, Wikispecies and Wiktionary): "we have a wiki, what else can we use it for?" Stated differently ("we have a mission and an idea aligned with that mission, what kind of wiki would we need for that?") the outcome might have been radically different. Some projects might have never happened, others might have been years ago where they are now and again others might have happened later (e.g. a wiki does not seem a great fit for University courses, but Wikiversity might have happened anyway as part of the OpenAccess movement. Or not).
It's a bit late to change history, but it's not too late to admit some of the projects are a failure in the current form and start again - or just drop them. As somebody else in the conversion put it "we must have ways to try and fail fast".
Strainu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the big Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this rebranding effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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But it won’t be. Wikipedia does a fine job of documenting a great deal of news: in an encyclopedic fashion.
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:48 AM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Strainu,
Simply leaving the world of news to others is not really an option for the Foundation. Recall that its vision is that
By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.
It can't achieve that by abandoning news.
JPS
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 6:29 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
În mar., 16 apr. 2019 la 12:38, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com
a
scris:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or
should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work
out,
and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it
just
isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think
that.
I personally believe the law of the hammer [1] had a very significant contribution to the launch of Wikinews (as well as Wikiversity, Wikispecies and Wiktionary): "we have a wiki, what else can we use it for?" Stated differently ("we have a mission and an idea aligned with that mission, what kind of wiki would we need for that?") the outcome might have been radically different. Some projects might have never happened, others might have been years ago where they are now and again others might have happened later (e.g. a wiki does not seem a great fit for University courses, but Wikiversity might have happened anyway as part of the OpenAccess movement. Or not).
It's a bit late to change history, but it's not too late to admit some of the projects are a failure in the current form and start again - or just drop them. As somebody else in the conversion put it "we must have ways to try and fail fast".
Strainu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the
big
Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this
rebranding
effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some
pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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I seem to recall seeing a thread on this list every few years about how to revive Wikinews and make it do something useful and interesting.
In practice, it had a burst of enthusiasm for about six months after it started and then went pretty much dormant, and has been there ever since.
- d.
On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 at 23:17, Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me wrote:
But it won’t be. Wikipedia does a fine job of documenting a great deal of news: in an encyclopedic fashion.
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 11:48 AM Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Strainu,
Simply leaving the world of news to others is not really an option for the Foundation. Recall that its vision is that
By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.
It can't achieve that by abandoning news.
JPS
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 6:29 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
În mar., 16 apr. 2019 la 12:38, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com
a
scris:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or
should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work
out,
and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it
just
isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think
that.
I personally believe the law of the hammer [1] had a very significant contribution to the launch of Wikinews (as well as Wikiversity, Wikispecies and Wiktionary): "we have a wiki, what else can we use it for?" Stated differently ("we have a mission and an idea aligned with that mission, what kind of wiki would we need for that?") the outcome might have been radically different. Some projects might have never happened, others might have been years ago where they are now and again others might have happened later (e.g. a wiki does not seem a great fit for University courses, but Wikiversity might have happened anyway as part of the OpenAccess movement. Or not).
It's a bit late to change history, but it's not too late to admit some of the projects are a failure in the current form and start again - or just drop them. As somebody else in the conversion put it "we must have ways to try and fail fast".
Strainu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the
big
Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this
rebranding
effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some
pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
Dan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Pe sâmbătă, 27 aprilie 2019, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> a scris:
Strainu,
Simply leaving the world of news to others is not really an option for the Foundation.
The foundation doesn't really have a say in this. They might push really hard for a wiki, but if the community isn't there, it's money thrown away. They might just as well employ a bunch of journalists to write articles, it won't make it a successful project.
Recall that its vision is that
By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the
ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.
That is the strategic direction of the movement. I see no promise there, explicit or implicit, that a news wiki should or will exist. It just says it should be easy for people to join our current projects, whatever they are.
The WMF mission is even narrower: to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop *educational content* under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it *effectively and globally* (my emphasis). It is highly debatebable if news beyond what Wikipedia covers are educational. The mission also suggests that we should pick our battles in order to be effective (don't forget that the discussion so far has been mostly about the English wikinews, the status of other language versions is even worse)
It can't achieve that by abandoning news.
News and wikinews are 2 different things. Wikinews is just a tool. If another tool works better, why not use that instead?
Strainu
JPS
On Sat, Apr 27, 2019 at 6:29 PM Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
În mar., 16 apr. 2019 la 12:38, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com
a
scris:
Splitting off the Wikinews discussion from the branding discussion...
On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 07:52, Jennifer Pryor-Summers < jennifer.pryorsummers@gmail.com> wrote:
Compared to Wikitribune it is! But more importantly, if Wikinews is
not
thriving, then why not? Does it lack resources? What could or
should
the
WMF do to revive it?
In my opinion, nothing. Wikinews was a nice idea, but it didn't work
out,
and I don't think the Wikimedia Foundation investing resources into
trying
to bring it back to life is really worth it. In fact, I think the
Wikimedia
Foundation isn't the right group to try to breathe new life into the project anyway—we, as a volunteer community, could invest our time in bringing new content into it. That doesn't happen though. Why is that?
For
me, I'm voting with my actions rather than my words—it's because it
just
isn't important enough compared to other things. It's okay to think
that.
I personally believe the law of the hammer [1] had a very significant contribution to the launch of Wikinews (as well as Wikiversity, Wikispecies and Wiktionary): "we have a wiki, what else can we use it for?" Stated differently ("we have a mission and an idea aligned with that mission, what kind of wiki would we need for that?") the outcome might have been radically different. Some projects might have never happened, others might have been years ago where they are now and again others might have happened later (e.g. a wiki does not seem a great fit for University courses, but Wikiversity might have happened anyway as part of the OpenAccess movement. Or not).
It's a bit late to change history, but it's not too late to admit some of the projects are a failure in the current form and start again - or just drop them. As somebody else in the conversion put it "we must have ways to try and fail fast".
Strainu
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
Also, I'd prefer to see the Wikimedia Foundation trying to do fewer
things
but do them better rather than taking more on; I think the annual plan reflects that it is trying to do so.
Perhaps some of the money spent on rebranding would be better spent on the projects that are not doing so well as the
big
Wikipedias -- or perhaps the WMF should cut its losses and close them
down,
on the principle of reinforcing success instead.
I suspect that significantly less money is being spent on this
rebranding
effort than people might think. A short engagement with an external consultant, and some staff time to think about it and publish some
pages
to
solicit comment, is a relatively small investment compared to what it
might
take to bootstrap improvements to breathe life into a mostly dead
project.
I don't think it's really helpful to guess about the cost of things...
yes,
I broke my own rule right at the start of this paragraph. ;-)
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On Apr 27, 2019, at 4:44 PM, Strainu strainu10@gmail.com wrote:
They might just as well employ a bunch of journalists to write articles, it won't make it a successful project.
That certainly wouldn't be the worst use of funds...
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