Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
Hello Jimmy,
Thank you for your mail to this list; I saw the announcement earlier this day and read the Wikitribune.com website, watched the video, and also read a newspaper article. Honestly, I am still not quite sure whether I understood fully what Wikitribune is supposed to be. :-)
- What is the exact purpose of the site? To produce something, or to judge something? What is the product? Wikitribune pages with a specific kind of information or knowledge? A label to be put on news sites? - "Anyone can flag or fix an article and submit it for review." - Who is going to start a segment or item on the Wikitribune site? Are people allowed to create several items about the same issue? - How to resolve conflicts or differences in opinion? Will there be a statute or rule codex people can stick to? Will there be specific people in authority about a segment or the whole site? Will people vote? - "Supporting Wikitribune means ensuring that that [sic!] journalists only write articles based on facts that they can verify" - how will Wikitribune ensure that, force journalists to do that? Will Wikitribune provide a kind of certificate for news sites?
Kind regards, Ziko
2017-04-25 23:59 GMT+02:00 Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
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On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
I was one of the Wikipedians at the hackathon days for this, a few weeks ago. (And now it's gone live and I can speak of it in good conscience!)
The obvious comparison is Wikinews. Now, Wikinews contributors are determined that WikiNews is a good project that deserves to live, and they also resent Wikipedia for doing news more effectively as a sideline than they do as their main thing and the WMF is unfair and so forth. But from the outside view, it's important to note that approximately nobody cares about Wikinews and it's a failure in impact. Or: if WikiTribune turns out to have the content, participation and readership of Wikinews, it will have failed.
The question is why Wikinews didn't take off. There's a sort of myth that it's too process-heavy - but the rough WikiTribune rules on the day (which may or may not be the ones they go live with) were *pretty much the Wikinews process*. (I looked them up on the day.) So that isn't the missing magic ingredient.
I suspect one big problem is that journalism anyone's interested in reading involves gathering dubious information and assessing how true it is likely to be. It's pretty much a process of turning bad sources into good ones. Actual reporting tends to work like "I talked to these three separate sources, none of whose names I can print, but I'll tell you my editor." "Yep, looks likely enough to run." Bam, scoop. It's hard to do that in a fully transparent manner (put up the recordings, etc) without outing your sources. I spoke to one journalist on the day and they concurred.
And that's before you get into there being no such thing as neutral news, just news that pretends to be. It's not clear that NPOV is even a good idea - selection of stories to cover is a huge bias.
There's also the danger of the other failure mode of citizen journalism. The example I brought up on the day was BeforeItsNews.com - I won't spoil it for you, go there and see what sort of stories it covers and what sort of advertising it runs. It turns out you need sane editorial control at some level.
It's possible the missing magical ingredient that will let it take off will be paid professional journalists - that this will produce a news site that's exciting enough, and not just "me too" stories everyone is already running, to get subscribers. But again, it'll need some way for them to say "This is the story, I'm not revealing my sources, but me and x editor concur it's a news story we'd stand by running."
WordPress is probably the least-worst option for a CMS. MediaWiki is a horrible CMS for anything that isn't a reference work. You can do almost anything with WordPress if you throw enough money at extension development. (Which may or may not be a good idea.)
Anyway, I'll be watching closely and probably diving in at least slightly.
- d.
I have a question: the news about pending Chinese "supply-side structural reforms" is almost all about matching supply to demand; for example see http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-01/22/c_136004899.htm
But if you look at pp. 42 and 63 here, you see the proposaled legislative reforms are actually about replacing a progressive income tax with a flat VAT: http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/newsrelease/201612/P020161207645765233498.pdf
Does the Wikitribune model have a way to make sure that the truth is being told? How would it work in this particular instance?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 6:56 AM David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
I was one of the Wikipedians at the hackathon days for this, a few weeks ago. (And now it's gone live and I can speak of it in good conscience!)
The obvious comparison is Wikinews. Now, Wikinews contributors are determined that WikiNews is a good project that deserves to live, and they also resent Wikipedia for doing news more effectively as a sideline than they do as their main thing and the WMF is unfair and so forth. But from the outside view, it's important to note that approximately nobody cares about Wikinews and it's a failure in impact. Or: if WikiTribune turns out to have the content, participation and readership of Wikinews, it will have failed.
The question is why Wikinews didn't take off. There's a sort of myth that it's too process-heavy - but the rough WikiTribune rules on the day (which may or may not be the ones they go live with) were *pretty much the Wikinews process*. (I looked them up on the day.) So that isn't the missing magic ingredient.
I suspect one big problem is that journalism anyone's interested in reading involves gathering dubious information and assessing how true it is likely to be. It's pretty much a process of turning bad sources into good ones. Actual reporting tends to work like "I talked to these three separate sources, none of whose names I can print, but I'll tell you my editor." "Yep, looks likely enough to run." Bam, scoop. It's hard to do that in a fully transparent manner (put up the recordings, etc) without outing your sources. I spoke to one journalist on the day and they concurred.
And that's before you get into there being no such thing as neutral news, just news that pretends to be. It's not clear that NPOV is even a good idea - selection of stories to cover is a huge bias.
There's also the danger of the other failure mode of citizen journalism. The example I brought up on the day was BeforeItsNews.com
- I won't spoil it for you, go there and see what sort of stories it
covers and what sort of advertising it runs. It turns out you need sane editorial control at some level.
It's possible the missing magical ingredient that will let it take off will be paid professional journalists - that this will produce a news site that's exciting enough, and not just "me too" stories everyone is already running, to get subscribers. But again, it'll need some way for them to say "This is the story, I'm not revealing my sources, but me and x editor concur it's a news story we'd stand by running."
WordPress is probably the least-worst option for a CMS. MediaWiki is a horrible CMS for anything that isn't a reference work. You can do almost anything with WordPress if you throw enough money at extension development. (Which may or may not be a good idea.)
Anyway, I'll be watching closely and probably diving in at least slightly.
- d.
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Hi Jimmy,
Along with the public announcement to the press about Wikitribune, was the story that you had immediately resigned from The Guardian's board because the new company "will compete for staff, stories and donations".[1] Will you be resigning from the WMF board of trustees because the Wikitribune commercial venture is a conflict of loyalties?
This seems like an issue that the revitalized Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee should make an independent statement about, considering the unique nature of your permanent unelected seat as a WMF trustee?[2]
For the record, it is worth noting that in February 2016,[3] your conflict of loyalties between being the successful owner of the Wikia commercial venture, and holding a permanent seat on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation was raised as a discussion topic on this list. Wikia has never been publicly declared by the WMF board as a possible conflict of interest, despite a history of staff migrating directly from WMF to Wikia, and the obvious reputational benefits to Wikia from having their owner sitting on the WMF board. In fact apart from denying the possibility that this was an issue with your statement "I have always declared, formally and in writing, my role at Wikia. I have additionally worked to make sure that all board members know about it, and I have on multiple occasions recused myself from votes where there could be a perceived or actual conflict of interest", you refused properly to engage further with discussing this potential conflict of loyalties in 2016, nor did you supply any evidence of a formal declaration apart from your email, nor has it ever been declared in the public minutes of WMF board meetings as an interest if you have recused from votes or strategic discussion at your meetings as a trustee; though SJ confirmed that he thought you had declared this as an interest in past board meetings, presumably this was mistakenly and unfortunately left out of the minutes each time it happened.
Thanks, Fae
Links: 1. "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales exits Guardian board over conflict of interest with Wikitribune news site" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/25/wikipedia-co-founder-jimmy-wa... 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Governance_Commit... 3. "Jimmy Wales' potential conflict of loyalties for Wikia Inc. versus WMF" https://lists.gt.net/wiki/foundation/685587
On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
Fae.
On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 11:19 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
because the new company "will compete for staff, stories and donations".[1] Will you be resigning from the WMF board of trustees
I hope not. I hardly see a conflict of loyalties; to the extent there is an overlap of focus, the output of WikiTribune will be available to both WN and WP, the only current sister projects covering news.
considering the unique nature of your permanent unelected seat
Not permanent, only exempt from term limits. It requires regular appointment, else sits empty.
In fact apart from denying the possibility that this was an issue with your
statement "<snip explicit, comprehensive statement of COI and recusal>",
you refused properly to engage further...
Someone refusing to engage further in being badgered? Never. :-)
I'm not sure what you're missing here. Ties to Wikia carry COI; this has come up in public discussions about the Board since the very first slate of Trustees & is not in question. There's a formal annual COI process for Trustees, which mandates declaring potential conflicts, and recusing as appropriate from related decisions. Those declarations haven't been made public for anyone (Allowing me to keep the extent of my investment in Newpedia private.) In Jimbo's case, conflicts are pretty well hashed out in public as well.
SJ
P.S. Nice launch and a most elegant design, Wikitribunnies!
On the subject of Jimbo being exempt from term limits, my belief is that Jimbo's seat should become a standard community-chosen seat, and no one should be exempt from term limits. I am particularly mindful of the governance problems that have happened while Jimbo has been on the WMF Board, and WMF's refusal to have an external inquiry into those problems by a third party who would make a public report. I am also mindful of WMF's clashes with the community (such as SuperProtect) that have happened while Jimbo has been on the WMF Board. Given the totality of the circumstances, I believe that Jimbo's seat should become a standard community-chosen seat so that the community has a chance to express its level of confidence in whether Jimbo should remain on the WMF Board.
Pine
On 4/25/2017 10:30 PM, Pine W wrote:
On the subject of Jimbo being exempt from term limits, my belief is that Jimbo's seat should become a standard community-chosen seat, and no one should be exempt from term limits. I am particularly mindful of the governance problems that have happened while Jimbo has been on the WMF Board, and WMF's refusal to have an external inquiry into those problems by a third party who would make a public report. I am also mindful of WMF's clashes with the community (such as SuperProtect) that have happened while Jimbo has been on the WMF Board. Given the totality of the circumstances, I believe that Jimbo's seat should become a standard community-chosen seat so that the community has a chance to express its level of confidence in whether Jimbo should remain on the WMF Board.
People are certainly entitled to form their own opinions about Jimmy's ongoing role, including how or whether it should be continued. But simply alluding to issues that have happened while he has been on the Board of Trustees says very little. Jimmy has been on the Board from the beginning, so of course everything that has happened, good and bad, happened while he was on the Board. Unless there's something about his personal conduct or how he has used his position that uniquely contributes to particular problems, this sounds more like advocating change for the sake of change, not an actual solution to anything.
--Michael Snow
Jimmy
I support this suggestion. The Wikitribune trademark is assigned to Jimmy Group Ltd, a company in which all the shares are owned by you – it is a conventional commercial operation of which you are the owner. Its activities directly overlap with one of the Foundations projects, Wikinews, and with the news-gathering aspects of Wikipedia, which have been the subject of much WMF publicity in recent months. Consequently, it is in direct competition with the Foundation for donor money and volunteer time. It is simply untenable for you to be a trustee of the Foundation while you are the owner and director of a competing commercial operation.
"Rogol"
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 4:19 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
Along with the public announcement to the press about Wikitribune, was the story that you had immediately resigned from The Guardian's board because the new company "will compete for staff, stories and donations".[1] Will you be resigning from the WMF board of trustees because the Wikitribune commercial venture is a conflict of loyalties?
This seems like an issue that the revitalized Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee should make an independent statement about, considering the unique nature of your permanent unelected seat as a WMF trustee?[2]
For the record, it is worth noting that in February 2016,[3] your conflict of loyalties between being the successful owner of the Wikia commercial venture, and holding a permanent seat on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation was raised as a discussion topic on this list. Wikia has never been publicly declared by the WMF board as a possible conflict of interest, despite a history of staff migrating directly from WMF to Wikia, and the obvious reputational benefits to Wikia from having their owner sitting on the WMF board. In fact apart from denying the possibility that this was an issue with your statement "I have always declared, formally and in writing, my role at Wikia. I have additionally worked to make sure that all board members know about it, and I have on multiple occasions recused myself from votes where there could be a perceived or actual conflict of interest", you refused properly to engage further with discussing this potential conflict of loyalties in 2016, nor did you supply any evidence of a formal declaration apart from your email, nor has it ever been declared in the public minutes of WMF board meetings as an interest if you have recused from votes or strategic discussion at your meetings as a trustee; though SJ confirmed that he thought you had declared this as an interest in past board meetings, presumably this was mistakenly and unfortunately left out of the minutes each time it happened.
Thanks, Fae
Links:
- "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales exits Guardian board over
conflict of interest with Wikitribune news site" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/25/wikipedia- co-founder-jimmy-wales-exits-guardian-board-conflict/ 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_ Board_Governance_Committee 3. "Jimmy Wales' potential conflict of loyalties for Wikia Inc. versus WMF" https://lists.gt.net/wiki/foundation/685587
On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
-- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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 Jimmy,
The articles I've read on the new venture have been like appetizers, providing just enough information to generate a new list of questions. :-) So, in no particular order, here are some things that came to mind:
Will the focus be investigative journalism, or "deep dives" in the manner of newsdeeply.com, or breaking news, or something else?
AIUI, fact-checking will be done by community volunteers in the collaborative manner of Wikipedia; will they flag information that they consider to be problematic, annotate draft news articles with comments and questions, revise drafts themselves,...?
The website shows an initial goal of ten journalists to be hired; does this include copy editors as well? And more generally, how will copy editing be handled?
With what frequency do you envision news to be published, e.g. a weekly magazine, a daily feed of several short pieces and one feature article, ...?
Who will have access to journalists' notes and other raw materials? How will sources be protected while permitting maximum participation of community volunteers in the vetting/fact-checking process? Will there be provision for leakers, i.e. some sort of SecureDrop thing? If so, how will that be handled?
Will guides be produced around vetting of information, like e.g. the guide at verificationhandbook.com? More generally, how will community members learn vetting and verification skills for journalism?
How will good-faith disputes around fact-checking be resolved and by whom? How will trolls be handled?
Will Wikitribune journalists collaborate with other groups doing like-minded work, for example bellingcat.com?
I gather that there are developers working on this project too, at least on wordpress hacking; are they also part of the crowdfunding? More generally, is budget/staffing information available or will it be soon?
What roles will the four named advisors play in this project, with their specific skillsets?
In an ever shrinking paid market for journalism, where funding is harder and harder to come by and many publications have closed their doors or turned digital-only, what are your thoughts about competing in that market, both as a job provider and potentially taking subscribers from other media?
Please feel free to ramble on at length about these topics as much as you like; I'm interested in the broader picture and not just the specific details :-)
Thanks a lot!
Ariel
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:59 AM, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
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
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/thread.htm...
There are several threads worth revisiting: I was looking for an old-but-great Andrew Lih's post about Wikinews², and I re-discovered that a project had forkedfrom Wikinews in 2011³: it was called the http://theopenglobe.org, and (spoiler) it's now dead.
Generally speaking, I think that Jimmy experimenting with another project speaks volume: and I do think it's a good idea.
Simply put, we have a lot of zombie projects, and we¹ never had the will to do the tough decision of killing them... *or* really investing in them. At the moment, the actual policy with sister projects (all of them, minus Wikidata), is "don't ask don't tell".
The communities do what they can, and what they cannot do they don't. There is no non-volunteer development, and even no knowledge about sister projects, both within the WMF and the rest of the movement. Wikipedians rarely go in sister projects.
I really hope this Strategy process will be seen by the larger community as the right chance to discuss all this. A lot of strategy statements go into the direction "collect/provide all written and oral knowledge ever produced", which is more or less our vision, and this is why we thought to create non-encyclopedic projects in the first place (a image archive; a library; a dictionary; a quote compendium; etc.).
It's probably time that we have this conversation.
Aubrey (your friendly occasional Nemo) Wikisource Community User Group
http://theopenglobe.org ¹ meaning, *we* that live on these mailing lists ² this: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068381.htm... ³ https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/068290.htm...
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:39 AM, Ariel Glenn WMF ariel@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
The articles I've read on the new venture have been like appetizers, providing just enough information to generate a new list of questions. :-) So, in no particular order, here are some things that came to mind:
Will the focus be investigative journalism, or "deep dives" in the manner of newsdeeply.com, or breaking news, or something else?
AIUI, fact-checking will be done by community volunteers in the collaborative manner of Wikipedia; will they flag information that they consider to be problematic, annotate draft news articles with comments and questions, revise drafts themselves,...?
The website shows an initial goal of ten journalists to be hired; does this include copy editors as well? And more generally, how will copy editing be handled?
With what frequency do you envision news to be published, e.g. a weekly magazine, a daily feed of several short pieces and one feature article, ...?
Who will have access to journalists' notes and other raw materials? How will sources be protected while permitting maximum participation of community volunteers in the vetting/fact-checking process? Will there be provision for leakers, i.e. some sort of SecureDrop thing? If so, how will that be handled?
Will guides be produced around vetting of information, like e.g. the guide at verificationhandbook.com? More generally, how will community members learn vetting and verification skills for journalism?
How will good-faith disputes around fact-checking be resolved and by whom? How will trolls be handled?
Will Wikitribune journalists collaborate with other groups doing like-minded work, for example bellingcat.com?
I gather that there are developers working on this project too, at least on wordpress hacking; are they also part of the crowdfunding? More generally, is budget/staffing information available or will it be soon?
What roles will the four named advisors play in this project, with their specific skillsets?
In an ever shrinking paid market for journalism, where funding is harder and harder to come by and many publications have closed their doors or turned digital-only, what are your thoughts about competing in that market, both as a job provider and potentially taking subscribers from other media?
Please feel free to ramble on at length about these topics as much as you like; I'm interested in the broader picture and not just the specific details :-)
Thanks a lot!
Ariel
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:59 AM, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
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On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/thread.htm...
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
Re: metrics and numbers, monthly pageviews are visibile on stats.wikimedia¹, but it would be much easier to have a dedicated section on siteviews².
Of course, pageviews are one of the many metrics to take into consideration while evaluation a project, but of course it's important.
Aubrey
¹ https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm ² https://tools.wmflabs.org/siteviews/?platform=all-access&source=pageview...
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:15 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-
September/thread.html
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
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
So we are talking about dead/small projects now? I work on many of them and I think that what WMF is mainly rationalization. It's not about just turning them off but merging, interacting or rebranding many times. IMHO. The problem are both the few user active on them which are proud and they want to loose their "little space" and the snob attitude of users on big wikipedias. Such a pity, there is plenty of room for improvement once you go beyond the simplest black/white scenario. I guess people just need time to think of the platform as an ecosystem, where really few things needs to be removed, whilst it does require flexibility to integrate and rethink them. I hope new generation of users will help us in going that directions. i am still wondering why we don't have a unified cross-language platform for some of them yet. I don't care if in 2003 or 2004 someone was unable to understand English... we had commons, wikidata, SUL... seriously talk to newbies and get over it. I am not citing any platform specifically here, just to avoid long mails defending the status quo. Let's leave colonel Kurtz in the jungle, he will get tired one day. But about wikinews for example, I make interviews on itwikinews. Not recently, but I have a long list of option when i have more time. I link them to the articles, they looks fine as an integration. Also they are a wonderful way to establish different connections. So sad noone uses it, because they could. The news part has low activity, but for example it still attracts new young users. One of the most motivated young WMI members comes from the "poor" itwikinews. He's very young yet he organized an event, specifically in an area where wiki.activities were missing since a decade. Without the freedom of wikinews, he would have needed much time to get the same level of confidence. I don't think that itwikipedia users understand these aspects, do they? So can you find me a replacement for that? And please notice, i am not defending my little garden here, I just work there sometimes and I see things that are useful to preserve. Can you do it somehow, while closing it? That's what I need to know.
Il Mercoledì 26 Aprile 2017 12:16, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com ha scritto:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/thread.htm...
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
_______________________________________________ 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
Here is a high level Wikistats page on how our projects fared in terms of active wikis. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ProjectTrendsActiveWikis.html
Erik Zachte
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Alessandro Marchetti Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 13:01 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!
So we are talking about dead/small projects now? I work on many of them and I think that what WMF is mainly rationalization. It's not about just turning them off but merging, interacting or rebranding many times. IMHO. The problem are both the few user active on them which are proud and they want to loose their "little space" and the snob attitude of users on big wikipedias. Such a pity, there is plenty of room for improvement once you go beyond the simplest black/white scenario. I guess people just need time to think of the platform as an ecosystem, where really few things needs to be removed, whilst it does require flexibility to integrate and rethink them. I hope new generation of users will help us in going that directions. i am still wondering why we don't have a unified cross-language platform for some of them yet. I don't care if in 2003 or 2004 someone was unable to understand English... we had commons, wikidata, SUL... seriously talk to newbies and get over it. I am not citing any platform specifically here, just to avoid long mails defending the status quo. Let's leave colonel Kurtz in the jungle, he will get tired one day. But about wikinews for example, I make interviews on itwikinews. Not recently, but I have a long list of option when i have more time. I link them to the articles, they looks fine as an integration. Also they are a wonderful way to establish different connections. So sad noone uses it, because they could. The news part has low activity, but for example it still attracts new young users. One of the most motivated young WMI members comes from the "poor" itwikinews. He's very young yet he organized an event, specifically in an area where wiki.activities were missing since a decade. Without the freedom of wikinews, he would have needed much time to get the same level of confidence. I don't think that itwikipedia users understand these aspects, do they? So can you find me a replacement for that? And please notice, i am not defending my little garden here, I just work there sometimes and I see things that are useful to preserve. Can you do it somehow, while closing it? That's what I need to know.
Il Mercoledì 26 Aprile 2017 12:16, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com ha scritto:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/thre ad.html
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
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Interesting, thanks Erik. I like those views!
The jump in Wikivoyage activity in 2013 is telling: public attention to projects has a tremendous difference in their ability to attract and keep dedicated long-term contributors.
That's one of the only times we've had a set of big public news items and discussions about a sister project, in a decade. [It would be nice to see similar charts for commons/wikidata/wikispecies; those generally had less dramatic / more niche public attention, and mainly around their founding.]
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:01 AM, Erik Zachte ezachte@wikimedia.org wrote:
Here is a high level Wikistats page on how our projects fared in terms of active wikis. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ProjectTrendsActiveWikis.html
Erik Zachte
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Alessandro Marchetti Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 13:01 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!
So we are talking about dead/small projects now? I work on many of them and I think that what WMF is mainly rationalization. It's not about just turning them off but merging, interacting or rebranding many times. IMHO. The problem are both the few user active on them which are proud and they want to loose their "little space" and the snob attitude of users on big wikipedias. Such a pity, there is plenty of room for improvement once you go beyond the simplest black/white scenario. I guess people just need time to think of the platform as an ecosystem, where really few things needs to be removed, whilst it does require flexibility to integrate and rethink them. I hope new generation of users will help us in going that directions. i am still wondering why we don't have a unified cross-language platform for some of them yet. I don't care if in 2003 or 2004 someone was unable to understand English... we had commons, wikidata, SUL... seriously talk to newbies and get over it. I am not citing any platform specifically here, just to avoid long mails defending the status quo. Let's leave colonel Kurtz in the jungle, he will get tired one day. But about wikinews for example, I make interviews on itwikinews. Not recently, but I have a long list of option when i have more time. I link them to the articles, they looks fine as an integration. Also they are a wonderful way to establish different connections. So sad noone uses it, because they could. The news part has low activity, but for example it still attracts new young users. One of the most motivated young WMI members comes from the "poor" itwikinews. He's very young yet he organized an event, specifically in an area where wiki.activities were missing since a decade. Without the freedom of wikinews, he would have needed much time to get the same level of confidence. I don't think that itwikipedia users understand these aspects, do they? So can you find me a replacement for that? And please notice, i am not defending my little garden here, I just work there sometimes and I see things that are useful to preserve. Can you do it somehow, while closing it? That's what I need to know.
Il Mercoledì 26 Aprile 2017 12:16, David Gerard <dgerard@gmail.com>ha scritto:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/thre ad.html
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
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For those who don't know, the jump in active wikis in Wikivoyage is when we forked and adopted the Wikitravel project. Edits before 2013 were not done under our umbrella.
@SJ, there is no trend chart for 'active wikis' in 'Other projects', as those are not a homogeneous group.
But for wiki specific trends in that group see https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikispecial/EN/ReportCardTopWikis.htm
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Samuel Klein Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 17:55 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!
Interesting, thanks Erik. I like those views!
The jump in Wikivoyage activity in 2013 is telling: public attention to projects has a tremendous difference in their ability to attract and keep dedicated long-term contributors.
That's one of the only times we've had a set of big public news items and discussions about a sister project, in a decade. [It would be nice to see similar charts for commons/wikidata/wikispecies; those generally had less dramatic / more niche public attention, and mainly around their founding.]
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:01 AM, Erik Zachte ezachte@wikimedia.org wrote:
Here is a high level Wikistats page on how our projects fared in terms of active wikis. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ProjectTrendsActiveWikis.html
Erik Zachte
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Alessandro Marchetti Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 13:01 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!
So we are talking about dead/small projects now? I work on many of them and I think that what WMF is mainly rationalization. It's not about just turning them off but merging, interacting or rebranding many times. IMHO. The problem are both the few user active on them which are proud and they want to loose their "little space" and the snob attitude of users on big wikipedias. Such a pity, there is plenty of room for improvement once you go beyond the simplest black/white scenario. I guess people just need time to think of the platform as an ecosystem, where really few things needs to be removed, whilst it does require flexibility to integrate and rethink them. I hope new generation of users will help us in going that directions. i am still wondering why we don't have a unified cross-language platform for some of them yet. I don't care if in 2003 or 2004 someone was unable to understand English... we had commons, wikidata, SUL... seriously talk to newbies and get over it. I am not citing any platform specifically here, just to avoid long mails defending the status quo. Let's leave colonel Kurtz in the jungle, he will get tired one day. But about wikinews for example, I make interviews on itwikinews. Not recently, but I have a long list of option when i have more time. I link them to the articles, they looks fine as an integration. Also they are a wonderful way to establish different connections. So sad noone uses it, because they could. The news part has low activity, but for example it still attracts new young users. One of the most motivated young WMI members comes from the "poor" itwikinews. He's very young yet he organized an event, specifically in an area where wiki.activities were missing since a decade. Without the freedom of wikinews, he would have needed much time to get the same level of confidence. I don't think that itwikipedia users understand these aspects, do they? So can you find me a replacement for that? And please notice, i am not defending my little garden here, I just work there sometimes and I see things that are useful to preserve. Can you do it somehow, while closing it? That's what I need to know.
Il Mercoledì 26 Aprile 2017 12:16, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com ha scritto:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/th re ad.html
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik i/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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For Wikivoyage in 2012, there were two factors which contributed to the increase of editing activity:
1) Greater visibility as a WMF project;
2) Moving to a new platform without advertisements (I for one joined it at the very first day it moved for exactly this reason).
However, concerning the readership, the English Wikivoyage still suffers because seacrh engines think it is a clone of Wikitravel and do not show it. Nobody knows what to do with that. Other language editions have less of this problem.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 6:25 PM, Erik Zachte ezachte@wikimedia.org wrote:
For those who don't know, the jump in active wikis in Wikivoyage is when we forked and adopted the Wikitravel project. Edits before 2013 were not done under our umbrella.
@SJ, there is no trend chart for 'active wikis' in 'Other projects', as those are not a homogeneous group.
But for wiki specific trends in that group see https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikispecial/EN/ReportCardTopWikis.htm
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Samuel Klein Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 17:55 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!
Interesting, thanks Erik. I like those views!
The jump in Wikivoyage activity in 2013 is telling: public attention to projects has a tremendous difference in their ability to attract and keep dedicated long-term contributors.
That's one of the only times we've had a set of big public news items and discussions about a sister project, in a decade. [It would be nice to see similar charts for commons/wikidata/wikispecies; those generally had less dramatic / more niche public attention, and mainly around their founding.]
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:01 AM, Erik Zachte ezachte@wikimedia.org wrote:
Here is a high level Wikistats page on how our projects fared in terms of active wikis. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ProjectTrendsActiveWikis.html
Erik Zachte
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Alessandro Marchetti Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 13:01 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikitribune!
So we are talking about dead/small projects now? I work on many of them and I think that what WMF is mainly rationalization. It's not about just turning them off but merging, interacting or rebranding many
times. IMHO.
The problem are both the few user active on them which are proud and they want to loose their "little space" and the snob attitude of users on big wikipedias. Such a pity, there is plenty of room for improvement once you go beyond the simplest black/white scenario. I guess people just need time to think of the platform as an ecosystem, where really few things needs to be removed, whilst it does require flexibility to integrate and rethink them. I hope new generation of
users will help us in going that directions.
i am still wondering why we don't have a unified cross-language platform for some of them yet. I don't care if in 2003 or 2004 someone was unable to understand English... we had commons, wikidata, SUL... seriously talk to newbies and get over it. I am not citing any platform specifically here, just to avoid long mails defending the status quo. Let's leave colonel Kurtz in the jungle, he will get tired
one day.
But about wikinews for example, I make interviews on itwikinews. Not recently, but I have a long list of option when i have more time. I link them to the articles, they looks fine as an integration. Also they are a wonderful way to establish different connections. So sad noone uses it, because they could. The news part has low activity, but for example it still attracts new young users. One of the most motivated young WMI members comes from the "poor" itwikinews. He's very young yet he organized an event, specifically in an area where wiki.activities were missing since a decade. Without the freedom of wikinews, he would have needed much time to get the same level of confidence. I don't think that itwikipedia users understand these aspects, do they? So can you find me a replacement for that? And please notice, i am not defending my little garden here, I just work there sometimes and I see things that are useful to preserve. Can you do
it somehow, while closing it? That's what I need to know.
Il Mercoledì 26 Aprile 2017 12:16, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com ha scritto:
On 26 April 2017 at 09:23, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com
wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-September/th re ad.html
Everyone interested in Wikified news should read the Wikinews threads in that page.
That's where the complaint that Wikinews is process-heavy comes from. But it really isn't process-heavy at all, if you look at the actual process. The blocker appears to have been insufficient or careless reviewers. (Japan getting a new Prime Minister apparently not being relevant to Wikinews because the sources weren't in English.)
You'll also see numbers as to why it looks like a dead project from any reasonable outside perspective.
- d.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik i/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 <(617)%20529-4266> _______________________________________________ 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
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Thanks for the reminder about that message, I had actually forgotten about it. -Andrew
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 4:23 AM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Last time I remember we had a discussion¹ was September 2011 (!): https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011- September/thread.html
There are several threads worth revisiting: I was looking for an old-but-great Andrew Lih's post about Wikinews², and I re-discovered that a project had forkedfrom Wikinews in 2011³: it was called the http://theopenglobe.org, and (spoiler) it's now dead.
Generally speaking, I think that Jimmy experimenting with another project speaks volume: and I do think it's a good idea.
Simply put, we have a lot of zombie projects, and we¹ never had the will to do the tough decision of killing them... *or* really investing in them. At the moment, the actual policy with sister projects (all of them, minus Wikidata), is "don't ask don't tell".
The communities do what they can, and what they cannot do they don't. There is no non-volunteer development, and even no knowledge about sister projects, both within the WMF and the rest of the movement. Wikipedians rarely go in sister projects.
I really hope this Strategy process will be seen by the larger community as the right chance to discuss all this. A lot of strategy statements go into the direction "collect/provide all written and oral knowledge ever produced", which is more or less our vision, and this is why we thought to create non-encyclopedic projects in the first place (a image archive; a library; a dictionary; a quote compendium; etc.).
It's probably time that we have this conversation.
Aubrey (your friendly occasional Nemo) Wikisource Community User Group
http://theopenglobe.org ¹ meaning, *we* that live on these mailing lists ² this: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011- September/068381.html ³ https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011- September/068290.html
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:39 AM, Ariel Glenn WMF ariel@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
The articles I've read on the new venture have been like appetizers, providing just enough information to generate a new list of questions.
:-)
So, in no particular order, here are some things that came to mind:
Will the focus be investigative journalism, or "deep dives" in the manner of newsdeeply.com, or breaking news, or something else?
AIUI, fact-checking will be done by community volunteers in the collaborative manner of Wikipedia; will they flag information that they consider to be problematic, annotate draft news articles with comments
and
questions, revise drafts themselves,...?
The website shows an initial goal of ten journalists to be hired; does
this
include copy editors as well? And more generally, how will copy editing
be
handled?
With what frequency do you envision news to be published, e.g. a weekly magazine, a daily feed of several short pieces and one feature article, ...?
Who will have access to journalists' notes and other raw materials? How will sources be protected while permitting maximum participation of community volunteers in the vetting/fact-checking process? Will there be provision for leakers, i.e. some sort of SecureDrop thing? If so, how
will
that be handled?
Will guides be produced around vetting of information, like e.g. the
guide
at verificationhandbook.com? More generally, how will community members learn vetting and verification skills for journalism?
How will good-faith disputes around fact-checking be resolved and by
whom?
How will trolls be handled?
Will Wikitribune journalists collaborate with other groups doing like-minded work, for example bellingcat.com?
I gather that there are developers working on this project too, at least
on
wordpress hacking; are they also part of the crowdfunding? More
generally,
is budget/staffing information available or will it be soon?
What roles will the four named advisors play in this project, with their specific skillsets?
In an ever shrinking paid market for journalism, where funding is harder and harder to come by and many publications have closed their doors or turned digital-only, what are your thoughts about competing in that
market,
both as a job provider and potentially taking subscribers from other
media?
Please feel free to ramble on at length about these topics as much as you like; I'm interested in the broader picture and not just the specific details :-)
Thanks a lot!
Ariel
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 12:59 AM, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors
to
produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities
can
collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
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To the initial thread:
Jimbo, Thanks for sharing this, and good luck with the project. Do you see WikiTribune collaborating with De Correspondent and other reader-collaborative news efforts? How are you thinking about the topic selection, and work in various languages? Are you focusing more on investigating the unknown, or clarifying messy current events where 'reliable sources' are dominated by rumor and propaganda?
SJ
On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 5:59 PM, Jimmy Wales jimmywales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite "top down" in a way. (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!)
This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to Wikimedians who tend to immediately get it.
While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content projects in the news space - so they can take the stories written by our professional journalists and communities and make use of them.
You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: https://www.wikitribune.com
Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I answer in bursts!)
--Jimbo
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On 04/25/2017 05:59 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
First I should say (putting aside the name, marketing, and potential COI issues for a moment):
I welcome more independent journalism and fact-checking. In a world of media consolidation (that means the same people controlling more and more of the media), more voices is a good thing.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories.
This (and particularly the name "Wikitribune") is one of my main concerns.
What defines a wiki is that you edit from the browser, and edits go live immediately. (There are limited exceptions like FlaggedRevisions, but a site with 100% FlaggedRevisions is not a wiki, especially if approvals are not by the community).
The BBC says, "However, while anybody can make changes to a page, they will only go live if a staff member or trusted community volunteer approves them."
If this is correct, it is not a wiki, and "wiki-style" is very debatable.
Calling something a wiki when it is not will lead to major brand confusion with Wikipedia, particularly given your involvement.
Please clarify the model of the site, so we can assess this further.
Matt Flaschen
(Speaking only for myself in personal capacity.)
Hoi, Please remember what Wiki stands for; it is "quick". It is not Wikipedia. It would be problematic when Wikitribune was called "WikipediaTribune". Thanks, GerardM
On 28 April 2017 at 07:32, Matthew Flaschen matthew.flaschen@gatech.edu wrote:
On 04/25/2017 05:59 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with all of you information about this new initiative early on.
First I should say (putting aside the name, marketing, and potential COI issues for a moment):
I welcome more independent journalism and fact-checking. In a world of media consolidation (that means the same people controlling more and more of the media), more voices is a good thing.
The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with
bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to produce fact-checked, global news stories.
This (and particularly the name "Wikitribune") is one of my main concerns.
What defines a wiki is that you edit from the browser, and edits go live immediately. (There are limited exceptions like FlaggedRevisions, but a site with 100% FlaggedRevisions is not a wiki, especially if approvals are not by the community).
The BBC says, "However, while anybody can make changes to a page, they will only go live if a staff member or trusted community volunteer approves them."
If this is correct, it is not a wiki, and "wiki-style" is very debatable.
Calling something a wiki when it is not will lead to major brand confusion with Wikipedia, particularly given your involvement.
Please clarify the model of the site, so we can assess this further.
Matt Flaschen
(Speaking only for myself in personal capacity.)
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Jimmy-
I think it's a great initiative! First, kudos for using the CC-BY license. I have reviewed a large number of nonprofit journalism outlets over the last few months [1], and this decision alone would set the project apart from even the public interest media sphere. There are only a few nonprofit news/journalism projects using a free or semi-free license, e.g.:
- Common Dreams (lefty/progressive site) uses CC-BY-SA - Mosaic (science publication) uses CC-BY - The Conversation (sort of a nonprofit/academic Vox.com) uses CC-BY-ND - ProPublica uses CC-BY-NC-ND - Aeon (science/philosophy) uses CC-BY-ND for some content
But for the most part, even nonprofit publications tend to use conventional copyright, making it difficult for Wikimedia and other free culture projects to collaborate with them (and of course the more restrictive CC licenses above are not Wikimedia-compatible either).
I hope the license will apply to photographs/videos as well as text, since a lot of media files will be of immediate value to the free culture world.
Second, kudos for not paywalling the content. A lot of people seem to re-discover the idea of paywalls in 100 different forms and sell it as innovative. Again, it prevents collaboration with other communities.
There's no mention in the FAQ as to whether WikiTribune will be nonprofit or not, or whether that's even on the table. I am guessing the answer is no, but it would be good to clarify that. Similarly, it would be good to make any commitment to the development/use of open source software beyond WordPress explicit.
Good luck raising the $/supporter goal and hopefully launching the site, will definitely be keeping an eye on it. :)
Warmly, Erik
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