hi, I am forwarding this mail to the foundation, because I think it is an important one.
--- David Speakman david@speakman.com wrote:
Hello.
I tend to categorize things so I'll do it here too. I see three main points of concern:
- Wikinews as a Wikimedia Foundation project.
- Wikinews as a wiki.
- Wikinews is a new form of journalism.
==As a wikimedia Foundation project== It needs to be clarified in every Wikinews project that as a Wikimedia Foundation project, each wikinews must adhere to the minimum standard adopted by the foundation. It also must be stressed that these standards are open to interpretation in many areas, but may not be overruled or ignored by an individual project. Some Wikimedia Foundation principles are mandates that are not debatable. These include:
- All content on the name namespace of a project
must strive for an unbiased NPOV. 2. The creation of all content is to be collaborative in nature. 3. Use of and access to the content is to be as unrestricted as possible.
It is clear to me that "editorials" are a clear violation of Foundation mandates since they are clearly biased in nature. I also have doubts that any opinion-type of writing can truly be collaborative.
Right, I totally agree with you.
We had an irc discussion today and some said it was mostly problematic as the community is small. They claim it would not be such a problem with a big community. I do not agree with this opinion. An editorial is by definition pov. Big community will not change this fact.
Another argument was that we could balance by providing many editorials, with several orientation. Again, I do not agree. NPOV is not about listing major opinions, but also about representativity of all opinions.
Finally, it was suggested that we could possibly write in describing editorials made by other people (important journalists for example). But I think the main interest of a wikinewsie writing an editorial is not about reporting another person personal opinion... but about reporting *his*, so I doubt that would make it.
==As a wiki== Wikis content is open for modification. An editorial on a wiki needs to be open for editing by anyone. This means that a person with an opposing POV should have as much access to the editorial as the original writer(s). ON a wiki, an editorial - unless protected - will most likely devolve into an edit war.
It also runs the risk of having that project, all wikinews project, or even the foundation taint as a biased organization where a given topic is concerned. On a legal level, I have concerns about liability issues for the foundation in regard to views expressed in the editorials.
Correct
==As a new form of journalism== It seems that among the Wikinews projects there is a common identity crisis when it comes to what is and what is not allowed in regard to content. The issue comes in 2 flavors: newspapers and blogs.
===Newspapers=== I believe this stems from the fact that wikis are mostly text based. When it comes to text-based news, lowest common denominator that most people have deep familiarity with are newspapers. Many folk assume a newspaper-oriented outlook when developing an idea for where a wikinews project is going. This is strengthened by the fact that wikinews is internet based and currently most Internet-based news is controlled by media and news sources originally developed for newsprint. But, there are inherent flaws in this viewpoint since the business model and "raison d'etra" for a newspaper differs from that of a Wikimedia Foundation project. And the limitations of a newsprint mentality when applied to the Internet is astounding when one considers the complexity and opportunity of collaborative journalism, which may be thwarted.
In wikinews project policy votes and community discussion, you will often see something like, "We should do it because [all/most/some/many] newspapers do it." Aside from not being a cogent argument on its face, a newspaper is more than just a news source. It contains other content which is not translatable to wiki or foundation goals. Some newspaper staples such as classified ads, horoscopes, editorials, advice columns, product reviews, games (crossword, trivia quizzes) are fun parts of a newspaper's business model - but are not news per se. And they really do not fit in the NPOV or collaborative fold.
You have it right ! Maybe there are new other types of content which could be added in wikinews ?
===Blogs=== Some tend to confuse collaborative journalism with the other new form of Internet journalism. As someone who has been involved in wikinews for quite some time, the difference between a blog and wikinews is obvious. In fact they are almost diametrically opposite. A blog revels in its biased POV and the fact that it is the work of a single person (or small group of people acting as one mind). It is clear that blog-type content really has no place in a wikinews project under current wikimedia foundation principles.
Totally agree with you.
Thankfully, for those who do wish to write blog-type opinion columns, there are many free Internet alternatives to wikinews.
==Conclusion== Since editorials on a wikinews project declare a specific point of view on an issue in controversy, they are incompatible with Wikimedia Foundation goals.
Dan seems to imply german wikinews adopted editorials, but Elian said they seem to have stopped. I would be interested in knowing current situation :-)
In addition, they may open the foundation to legal and/or image related problems since the foundation is ultimately responsible for defending all content on each of the Wikimedia projects.
Furthermore, individual project participants may not overrule or ignore basic Wikimedia Foundation minimum standards for content. This means the basic principles of Wikimedia may not be put up to a popular vote on any of the individual projects, it must be a Foundation decision for both stability/uniformity among projects and legal reasons.
One of the major issue here is simply that many wikinewsies have never been wikipedians before, so are not familiar with certain mandatory rules... not with general habits build over experience and consensus over the past 4 years. Reinventing the wheel :-)
-- David Speakman http://www.DavidSpeakman.com 501 Moorpark Way #83 Mountain View CA 94041 Phone: 408-382-1459
Thanks for your answer
anthere
-----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of Anthere
Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2005 4:15 AM To: Foundation-l@wikimedia.org Cc: wikinews-l@wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikinews-l] Editorials
Hi all,
Recently, I have decided that it was time I adopt
a
new project. A small one :-)
So, I started participating to wikinews in french.
It is quite a challenge I must say, because there
are
a handful of very nice participants... but most of them are not participants to wikipedia, so quite newbies on some issues. On the other hand, plenty
of
motivation and ideas which is good :-)
Still, today, I have something disturbing me a
little
bit. A new main page was set up this morning;
Looking
at it, I realised the html was probably not
standard
(some wrong columns size or locations) and saw
that
some areas were just empty (for example, it did
not
mention other projects or other languages).
So it appeared to me to be a working stage, and it
did
not seem a good idea to make changes live; So I reverted the page to yesterday version and moved
the
new version to a temp page : http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Discuter:Accueil/temp
I then was told this version had been approved and
the
vote ended yesterday. So, it should be the main
page
in any cases.
Then, to list the problems of the html, I looked
more
precisely at it. And I discovered 3 new sections.
One is the "Analysis section". There is one
example of
it, the link being a user sub page. So, first, it means it is very likely a non editable page (since
it
is a user sub page). Second, there is a mention
below,
stating "the section can be ambiguous in terms of NPOV, as it is only partially submitted to it"
Two other sections are "Editorial" and "carte
blanche"
(I am not sure I really see the difference). These sections are empty for now, and a note indicates "These two sections do not respect NPOV and have
not
been adopted by the community".
I then commented in saying that these sections
should
probably not be here in any cases, since NOT
adopted
by the community. I was answered they actually
were
adopted, so the little text should be modified,
but
they should be on the main page.
I looked for a discussion, and found this
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews%3ASalle_caf%C3%A9#PDV_.21.21
So, to me, a site with
- articles submitted to NPOV,
- personal analyses only partially submitted to
NPOV
and not editable, and 3) editorials not submitted to NPVO has a name, Indymedia. Not wikinews :-)
And I do not agree. I think all wikimedia projects should adhere to NPOV. Strictly. As much as we
can.
But I then thought I had no idea what other
wikinews
have been doing on this issue and that possibly
some
of them have adopted editorials (which will quite naturally report a pov). Is this the case ? If so, how did you organise yourself to explain readers the difference between the neutral parts
of
the site and the non neutral parts ? And do you try to maintain an overall neutrality within editorials ? Or do you limit the topics concerned by editorials
?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
anthere
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Anthere wrote:
==As a wiki== Wikis content is open for modification. An editorial on a wiki needs to be open for editing by anyone. This means that a person with an opposing POV should have as much access to the editorial as the original writer(s). ON a wiki, an editorial - unless protected - will most likely devolve into an edit war.
It also runs the risk of having that project, all wikinews project, or even the foundation taint as a biased organization where a given topic is concerned. On a legal level, I have concerns about liability issues for the foundation in regard to views expressed in the editorials.
Correct
It seems to me that a wiki is a terrible place for editorials, as all the points listed above (and on the parent post that went into more detail) MediaWiki software is simply the wrong tool for the job. If I were to finance and set up an editorial website, I would rather use something like slashcode (the underlying software for Slashdot.org) where the user is clearly identified and the opinion nature of the content is very clear.
IMHO it would be a facinating website to take content from Wikinews, run each story as "submissions" in slashcode, and add editorials to that article that don't have a NPOV statement. I've learned quite a bit from similar websites, even with obvious biases involved in the community. There is also a huge diversity of opinion, and in general I havn't been squelched when I've been very pointed on my political opinions. At least this way you know exactly who is posting the opinion even before you get into the content.
Now if the Wikimedia Foundation should be involved in such an enterprise is yet another matter. The bandwidth issues wouldn't be that huge to start out with, but it would require a developer that is willing to maintain a totally different software tool than MediaWiki, with inherant problems of trying to decide who gets to maintain editorial control over the content (i.e. become admins). And it does violate the general NPOV issue that has been discussed as a general guideline.
In short, I would suggest the foundation stay away from such a project.
Anthere-
Dan seems to imply german wikinews adopted editorials, but Elian said they seem to have stopped. I would be interested in knowing current situation :-)
I see no evidence that they have stopped. However, it's important to distinguish between "commentary" or "op-eds" and "editorials". See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op-Ed
The German Wikinews published exactly one "editorial", signed by several members of the site when it started: http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Editorial
This was basically an open letter asking people to give the project time to grow and develop, in light of the media hype surrounding its launch. Perfectly fine, in my opinion.
Then there's the so-called "Kommentare", which would be "Op-Ed" or "Commentary" in English: http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Hilfe:Kommentar
These always have to be attached to a news report: You can't write an Op-Ed on anything. The last Op-Ed was published on July 19 http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Kommentar:_Zickzack-Kurs_in_deutscher_Raumfahrtp...
You can see a list of all of them here: http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Spezial:Allpages/Kommentar
The experiment is currently being discussed at http://de.wikinews.org/wiki/Hilfe_Diskussion:Kommentar
I've proposed an NPOV alternative to op-eds a while ago: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews%3ADebates
Best,
Erik
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