I hereby formally request the creation of Wikinews, in all major Wikimedia languages, under the domain
wikinews.org
which I have registered and pointed to Wikimedia's nameservers.
The current Wikinews proposal ist at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews
According to that proposal, we can immediately start working on Wikinews as soon as the site is set up. Some software changes will be useful in the long term, but are not immediately needed.
The details of the proposed policies can be worked out on the live site as they currently are on the Wikimedia Commons. The question right now is if there is a rough consensus to start a Wikimedia project whose goal is * to provide summaries of external news sources * to do original, neutral reporting around the world.
If there are no serious objections, I'd like to start ASAP.
I believe this project has the potential to be as relevant as Wikipedia, if not more so. I'd love it if we could prove to the world that, using wiki principles, we can create a neutral, reliable news source for everyone.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
The details of the proposed policies can be worked out on the live site as they currently are on the Wikimedia Commons. The question right now is if there is a rough consensus to start a Wikimedia project whose goal is
- to provide summaries of external news sources
- to do original, neutral reporting around the world.
If there are no serious objections, I'd like to start ASAP.
I believe this project has the potential to be as relevant as Wikipedia, if not more so. I'd love it if we could prove to the world that, using wiki principles, we can create a neutral, reliable news source for everyone.
Given that on en: at least, Current Events is fairly mediocre in quality, is there a need for an entirely separate site? Why not work to make [[en:Current Events]] a truly good summary of current news, and once that happens, expand to original reporting?
-Mark
On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:45:46 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Given that on en: at least, Current Events is fairly mediocre in quality, is there a need for an entirely separate site? Why not work to make [[en:Current Events]] a truly good summary of current news, and once that happens, expand to original reporting?
Current Events is getting an awful lot of hits for something supposedly "mediocre". After Hurricane Ivan and the Main Page, it was the most visited page last month. [[Current events]] is also the most edited page on the English Wikipedia. Of the 20 most edited pages across all Wikimedia projects, the current events page, and its equivalent in other languages, shows up four times. This demonstrates a huge interest in not only reading the page, but also in collaborating in its creation. I believe this level of interest demonstrates that Wikinews will be a success.
Wikipedia does not allow original research, and it will never be the ideal venue for in-depth news reporting. A news report simply is not the same as an encyclopedia article. It does, of course, feed into Wikipedia though, and having a free, neutral, news resource will be of great value to Wikipedia's topical articles, and to the current events pages.
I strongly support the creation of this project.
Angela.
Angela wrote:
On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:45:46 -0400, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Given that on en: at least, Current Events is fairly mediocre in quality, is there a need for an entirely separate site? Why not work to make [[en:Current Events]] a truly good summary of current news, and once that happens, expand to original reporting?
Current Events is getting an awful lot of hits for something supposedly "mediocre". After Hurricane Ivan and the Main Page, it was the most visited page last month. [[Current events]] is also the most edited page on the English Wikipedia. Of the 20 most edited pages across all Wikimedia projects, the current events page, and its equivalent in other languages, shows up four times. This demonstrates a huge interest in not only reading the page, but also in collaborating in its creation. I believe this level of interest demonstrates that Wikinews will be a success.
"Mediocre" wasn't a judgment on its popularity, but on its quality. If you look at it, news coverage is spotty at best. The big stories are covered, which I'd imagine contributes to the popularity (as 95% of people are looking for the top 3% of stories). But its breadth is not very good at all, and that could certainly be much expanded without a separate site. It's also not very much edited, really. The stat that it's one of the 20 most edited pages is simply because it's a long on-going catalog of current events. But each day's current events are edited by a small handful of people, and they generally cover only what that handful of people happen to think is important. There's certainly not a group of even 20 people editing the page on a daily basis.
-Mark
Is it proposed that Wikinews would allow original reporting? If so, how would we deal with libel risks?
Fred
From: Angela beesley@gmail.com Reply-To: Angela beesley@gmail.com, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 07:29:01 +0100 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Formal request: Wikinews project
Wikipedia does not allow original research, and it will never be the ideal venue for in-depth news reporting. A news report simply is not the same as an encyclopedia article. It does, of course, feed into Wikipedia though, and having a free, neutral, news resource will be of great value to Wikipedia's topical articles, and to the current events pages.
I strongly support the creation of this project.
Angela.
Fred-
Is it proposed that Wikinews would allow original reporting? If so, how would we deal with libel risks?
See the proposal. All articles have to pass through a review stage before they are formally published. Factual statements are attributed to external sources or to named Wikinews reporters. Hence, the situation with regard to libel is the same as for any news publication: We do our best to make sure to prevent it, and we protect our reporters from legal harrassment if they have exercised due diligence.
Regards,
Erik
You guys are going so far. wikipedia is not designed for anything. It is for encyclopedia. We should focus on what we should do and not to be distracted. There are many things to do to improve wikipedia, don't waste our limited resources to do something meaningless. I can only expect troubles if we set up a news site.
On 10 Oct 2004 17:22:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Fred-
Is it proposed that Wikinews would allow original reporting? If so, how would we deal with libel risks?
See the proposal. All articles have to pass through a review stage before they are formally published. Factual statements are attributed to external sources or to named Wikinews reporters. Hence, the situation with regard to libel is the same as for any news publication: We do our best to make sure to prevent it, and we protect our reporters from legal harrassment if they have exercised due diligence.
Regards,
Erik
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
There were many examples that some projects/or even companies lost control and finally died because some leaders were too confident after seeing some little success. I am really worrying about there may be such leaders in wikipedia.
Even Bill Gates says it is only 18 months for MS to go bankrupt at anytime. And I don't think wikipedia is doing better than MS. We should see more problems in wikipedia rather than getting happy and expand it without boundary by previous success.
Focus, please. For wikipedia's sake. In chinese saying, Faithful words offend the ears, good medicine tastes bitter. Please forgive me if I offend you.
On Sun, 10 Oct 2004 15:08:04 -0500, Kiss All kissall@gmail.com wrote:
You guys are going so far. wikipedia is not designed for anything. It is for encyclopedia. We should focus on what we should do and not to be distracted. There are many things to do to improve wikipedia, don't waste our limited resources to do something meaningless. I can only expect troubles if we set up a news site.
On 10 Oct 2004 17:22:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Fred-
Is it proposed that Wikinews would allow original reporting? If so, how would we deal with libel risks?
See the proposal. All articles have to pass through a review stage before they are formally published. Factual statements are attributed to external sources or to named Wikinews reporters. Hence, the situation with regard to libel is the same as for any news publication: We do our best to make sure to prevent it, and we protect our reporters from legal harrassment if they have exercised due diligence.
Regards,
Erik
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- Be good....
Delirium-
Given that on en: at least, Current Events is fairly mediocre in quality, is there a need for an entirely separate site? Why not work to make [[en:Current Events]] a truly good summary of current news, and once that happens, expand to original reporting?
The purpose of [[current events]] is to collect one paragraph summaries and aggregate them in unsorted, unreadable bullet point lists. The purpose of Wikinews is to publish in-depth reports about current issues including original reporting, which will be frozen and archived after a certain amount of time. As the proposal describes, [[current events]] may be able to eventually transclude summaries from Wikinews. But the two are very different in focus and always will be.
Wikinews will already be useful even with spotty participation. For example, even if only Linux fans participate in writing Wikinews articles initially, we can still create the best Linux news source on the web using wiki collaboration. However, I believe that Wikinews will soon acquire editors and reporters from all relevant fields, although our coverage of events outside Internet-connected countries will always be mixed (as is that of the mainstream media).
After we've created a nice Main Page and some basic policies, I'd like to write a press release specifically about the launch of Wikinews.
Regards,
Erik
I am embarassed by the rules proposed on meta.
I do not really support them as being okay in the spirit of Wikimedia as I perceived it.
And even if I agree that we could give a start to this project, and hack the rules later on, I also know that there will be rather few people involved at first, so that it is likely that the rules drafted here become the rules on the project anyway.
Requirement on real names are naturally bugging me. I understand that it might be a requirement for outsiders, however, I think Wikipedia has reached the success with thriving on openness, not requesting real identities.
If the requirement of real names for trust comes from outside, one name to certify the article will be enough, and no one needs to see the back kitchen. But if only real names must be displayed to prove the article may be trusted, I wonder how credit will be given to those who really wrote the article without giving their real name. Will Wikinews be under GFDL ?
If the requirement of real name for trust comes from inside, I think it is a blow in the face of what Wikipedia currently is
------
The process of accredition will therefore be similar to the process of applying for adminship on many Wikipedias, and it will in fact be directly tied to it: all sysops are Wikinews reporters and vice versa.
The notion that all wikinews reporters will be necessarily sysops, and all sysops necessarily wikinews reporter is problematic as well. Because in effect, some one trusted by the community, but not willing to give his real name, will not be able to fully participate as he could in every day management. In a press group, I doubt very much management is put in the hand of all reporters.
Traditional media offer their audience editorials on current issues. Wikinews could offer editorials written from all points of view and retain its neutrality. In order to do this, there would have to be a period where the different groups can form and start working on their respective editorials.
Respective editorials ? You mean editorials can have a view point ? In short, Wikinews will be a big change, since we will not any more have to respect NPOV rule. But replace it with a collection of viewpoint. If one view point comittee is missing, then the viewpoint is missing ?
After a time limit has been reached, the editorials would then be copyedited one last time and published. In order to deal with trolls from the other side, a group could use standardized mechanisms of exclusion.
Trolls from the other side ? You mean when you belong to one editorial group and consider the other editorial group from another point of view ?
I may not well understand here. On one topic, will we have ONE article or several articles ?
Perhaps, what I fear the most, is that it will divide our forces. Hence resulting in a rather short reporter team. I am trying to figure out such a system for french language (the 4th largest group) and I fail to envision more than say 3 people interested. Hopefully some will be ready to contribute with real names.
How do we handle neutrality of edition and choice of editorial within a group of 3 ? I several times battled to avoid having banner on the main page, such as "vote for Kerry" or "support Indymedia" (okay, just pushing a bit here, but hardly) and I believe reason won mostly thanks to the number of people following NPOV principle. In truth, with only 3 accredited reporters, I do not think it will be so successful. NPOV comes from multiple influences. The requirements suggested for being an accredited reporter worry me that it will backfire.
Last, I am not sure that all languages have really heard of this project. So, I wish we advertise it a little bit more.
I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying "the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)
So... I would like to hear more about what people think, and how they feel like toward the licence (could you give more precision), the real name issue, the NPOV divided over several editorials and the accreditation system as proposed.
Anthere
Erik Moeller a écrit:
I hereby formally request the creation of Wikinews, in all major Wikimedia languages, under the domain
wikinews.orgwhich I have registered and pointed to Wikimedia's nameservers.
The current Wikinews proposal ist at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews
According to that proposal, we can immediately start working on Wikinews as soon as the site is set up. Some software changes will be useful in the long term, but are not immediately needed.
The details of the proposed policies can be worked out on the live site as they currently are on the Wikimedia Commons. The question right now is if there is a rough consensus to start a Wikimedia project whose goal is
- to provide summaries of external news sources
- to do original, neutral reporting around the world.
If there are no serious objections, I'd like to start ASAP.
I believe this project has the potential to be as relevant as Wikipedia, if not more so. I'd love it if we could prove to the world that, using wiki principles, we can create a neutral, reliable news source for everyone.
Regards,
Erik
Anthere-
Requirement on real names are naturally bugging me.
With your objections to any such rule in mind, I have tried to make this an option, rather than a requirement. There's a flip side to this and this is that without such an option, Wikinews will actually become *more* restrictive on what types of stories it allows.
I call it the Abu Ghraib test.
Let's say that our policy is that "any reported information can be allowed in an article as long as there is consensus among editors to include it." If we had a story like the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal before anyone else, and some reporter tried to include it under this rule -- all backed up both by good sources and by his credibility -- I am quite certain that some people would try to block it through endless discussions from ever being reported.
In many cases, where we would have some anonymous whistleblower (a person telling secrets about a company, government etc.) willing to give us information, I am also quite certain that under such a policy, this information would be unlikely to be accepted on grounds of verifiability. Again, it is quite likely - as unfortunate as this is - that people from the opposite political point of view would try to block information that does not suit them.
Therefore, my proposal suggests that we DO allow this type of consensus- based reporting from anonymous or unaccredited sources (called "witness reports" in the proposal), but IN ADDITION TO IT, we also allow Wikinews reporters to use their reputation as currency for publishing original reports, and to act as relays for people who want to stay anonymous.
So there is no requirement for real names, but the additional credibility offered by verified or verifiable identities guarantees that we can pick up stories that we would otherwise probably ignore.
I hope that the proposal is clear enough on the point that original reporting by non-accredited persons is allowed as long as there is consensus to include their stories.
I would like to emphasize that Wikipedia allows no original reporting whatsoever. Wikinews is therefore *much* more inclusive than Wikipedia, not less.
The notion that all wikinews reporters will be necessarily sysops, and all sysops necessarily wikinews reporter is problematic as well.
I agree. However, initially, the functionality of "publishing" an article will be linked to the tools that we currently have, such as page protection. The potential for abuse of this privilege, and the associated consequences, are larger than in Wikipedia: Imagine a Wikinews article about a massacre in Israel being published without proper review and then being distributed in other media. Such news articles can lead to fatal consequences.
Therefore, I believe that initially, we need to limit the circle of sysops who can publish stories to those we can identify and hold accountable. In order to make the process more wiki-like, I am working on a workflow system called "Wikiflow" that ensures an article can only flow from one state (unpublished) to the other (published) if there is consensus, if a certain amount of time has passed, and if it has come to the attention of certain people who should see it (reviewers).
This Wikiflow system can also be the basis of peer review on Wikipedia, it can replace the current sysop-centric VfD process, and so forth. So take this early version of Wikinews like you take something like VfD: It kind of works, but it's not open enough in the long term.
Respective editorials ? You mean editorials can have a view point ? In short, Wikinews will be a big change, since we will not any more have to respect NPOV rule. But replace it with a collection of viewpoint. If one view point comittee is missing, then the viewpoint is missing ?
This was just an experimental aspect of the proposal: to, in addition to news articles, have a daily editorial (commentary) about current events written by different "factions". This was *never* supposed to apply to regular news articles. While I still think it is a good idea to explore this, given that this part of the proposal is the most controversial, I have taken it out. We can still think about this in the Wikinews community once it exists.
Last, I am not sure that all languages have really heard of this project. So, I wish we advertise it a little bit more.
What do you suggest?
I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying "the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)
I understand. Of course I would like to start working on this project and publicize its existence as soon as possible. So I would appreciate some more concrete suggestions on how to move it from the proposal and discussion phase into the implementation phase. Waiting another month now when I actually have time to do some real work on this project would be painful.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
Therefore, my proposal suggests that we DO allow this type of consensus- based reporting from anonymous or unaccredited sources (called "witness reports" in the proposal), but IN ADDITION TO IT, we also allow Wikinews reporters to use their reputation as currency for publishing original reports, and to act as relays for people who want to stay anonymous.
I certainly hope it can be done in a reasonable way, but I'm wondering if there's been any thought as to how to differentiate this from Indymedia? From what I can tell, Indymedia does use bylined reporters for many of its articles, but they still end up generally being, well, not very neutral. Hopefully Wikinews would end up rather more credible than Indymedia, but how to ensure that? I could definitely see a potential for highly biased stories---probably not outright fabricated ones, but certainly ones with the facts selectively reported and a large dose of opinion thrown in. I envision there would be some hardcore reporter types working on the project---people who have no vested interest in what they're reporting on, but just want information out. But somehow it seems like it'll naturally attract more of the other sort of people---activists who are reporting with a particular agenda in mind. That tends to lead to the facts being arranged to fit the pre-held agenda, rather than the other way around...
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
I certainly hope it can be done in a reasonable way, but I'm wondering if there's been any thought as to how to differentiate this from Indymedia? From what I can tell, Indymedia does use bylined reporters for many of its articles, but they still end up generally being, well, not very neutral. Hopefully Wikinews would end up rather more credible than Indymedia, but how to ensure that?
I think these are reasonable questions, and I also think that there are reasonable answers to them.
The core answer is: wiki. By removing an ethos of "individual ownership" over particular articles, and replacing it with an ethos of "consensus", the sharpest edges of bias get worn down very quickly.
But somehow it seems like it'll naturally attract more of the other sort of people---activists who are reporting with a particular agenda in mind. That tends to lead to the facts being arranged to fit the pre-held agenda, rather than the other way around...
This is entirely possible, but of course, the same can be said of wikipedia, and it is in fact a problem for us (though not terribly much so, most of the time). We have cases where activists camp out on articles and make it quite difficult for alternative perspectives to balance the presentation -- but even so, we still manage to be better in these cases than virtually all other sources.
We live in an era when citizens have to decide which part of the media is more dishonest: organizations like Fox News, which have dropped all pretense of neutrality, or organizations like the New York Times or CBS News, which have dropped the neutrality but kept the pretense.
It would be hard to be much worse than what routinely passes for journalism these days. And I think if we try, we can be a lot better.
--Jimbo
Erik, I'm intrigued by the idea, of course, as it's my area of study. However, with the Wikinews project having to source original content, identify individuals, institute a reputation system and the establish a workflow, I questioin how apt the title "wiki" is to this project. It has more similarity to [[OhMyNews]], [[Indymedia]] and other citizen reporter efforts. The project should at least have a rundown of these other citizen reporter projects and rundown their experiences.
This endeavour, while sharing Wikimedia's goals of openness, inclusion and free content is the most ambitious project yet, because it becomes primary source journalism. And with this, comes the baggage of having to deal with libel and slander in ways Wikipedia does not, because WP is one level of indirection away from accountable sources. Legal counsel for any primary source reporting would be a necessity.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On 11 Oct 2004 19:51:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Anthere-
Requirement on real names are naturally bugging me.
With your objections to any such rule in mind, I have tried to make this an option, rather than a requirement. There's a flip side to this and this is that without such an option, Wikinews will actually become *more* restrictive on what types of stories it allows.
I call it the Abu Ghraib test.
Let's say that our policy is that "any reported information can be allowed in an article as long as there is consensus among editors to include it." If we had a story like the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal before anyone else, and some reporter tried to include it under this rule -- all backed up both by good sources and by his credibility -- I am quite certain that some people would try to block it through endless discussions from ever being reported.
In many cases, where we would have some anonymous whistleblower (a person telling secrets about a company, government etc.) willing to give us information, I am also quite certain that under such a policy, this information would be unlikely to be accepted on grounds of verifiability. Again, it is quite likely - as unfortunate as this is - that people from the opposite political point of view would try to block information that does not suit them.
Therefore, my proposal suggests that we DO allow this type of consensus- based reporting from anonymous or unaccredited sources (called "witness reports" in the proposal), but IN ADDITION TO IT, we also allow Wikinews reporters to use their reputation as currency for publishing original reports, and to act as relays for people who want to stay anonymous.
So there is no requirement for real names, but the additional credibility offered by verified or verifiable identities guarantees that we can pick up stories that we would otherwise probably ignore.
I hope that the proposal is clear enough on the point that original reporting by non-accredited persons is allowed as long as there is consensus to include their stories.
I would like to emphasize that Wikipedia allows no original reporting whatsoever. Wikinews is therefore *much* more inclusive than Wikipedia, not less.
The notion that all wikinews reporters will be necessarily sysops, and all sysops necessarily wikinews reporter is problematic as well.
I agree. However, initially, the functionality of "publishing" an article will be linked to the tools that we currently have, such as page protection. The potential for abuse of this privilege, and the associated consequences, are larger than in Wikipedia: Imagine a Wikinews article about a massacre in Israel being published without proper review and then being distributed in other media. Such news articles can lead to fatal consequences.
Therefore, I believe that initially, we need to limit the circle of sysops who can publish stories to those we can identify and hold accountable. In order to make the process more wiki-like, I am working on a workflow system called "Wikiflow" that ensures an article can only flow from one state (unpublished) to the other (published) if there is consensus, if a certain amount of time has passed, and if it has come to the attention of certain people who should see it (reviewers).
This Wikiflow system can also be the basis of peer review on Wikipedia, it can replace the current sysop-centric VfD process, and so forth. So take this early version of Wikinews like you take something like VfD: It kind of works, but it's not open enough in the long term.
Respective editorials ? You mean editorials can have a view point ? In short, Wikinews will be a big change, since we will not any more have to respect NPOV rule. But replace it with a collection of viewpoint. If one view point comittee is missing, then the viewpoint is missing ?
This was just an experimental aspect of the proposal: to, in addition to news articles, have a daily editorial (commentary) about current events written by different "factions". This was *never* supposed to apply to regular news articles. While I still think it is a good idea to explore this, given that this part of the proposal is the most controversial, I have taken it out. We can still think about this in the Wikinews community once it exists.
Last, I am not sure that all languages have really heard of this project. So, I wish we advertise it a little bit more.
What do you suggest?
I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying "the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)
I understand. Of course I would like to start working on this project and publicize its existence as soon as possible. So I would appreciate some more concrete suggestions on how to move it from the proposal and discussion phase into the implementation phase. Waiting another month now when I actually have time to do some real work on this project would be painful.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Yeh, you folks are just not listening. You need to check into what even a simple nuisance action against you would cost. God forbid, what the consequences would be if there was a substantial award against you.
At a bare minimum, in order that all the work we have done doesn't end up in the ownership of a plaintiff, the Wikinews project needs to be a separate corporation.
We are not a little hole in the corner outfit no one heard of anymore. We are getting up there with the New York Times and CBS News who budget millons for legal defense. Where is that kind of money going to come from?
Fred
From: Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com Reply-To: Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:23:44 +0800 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project
This endeavour, while sharing Wikimedia's goals of openness, inclusion and free content is the most ambitious project yet, because it becomes primary source journalism. And with this, comes the baggage of having to deal with libel and slander in ways Wikipedia does not, because WP is one level of indirection away from accountable sources. Legal counsel for any primary source reporting would be a necessity.
Strong-worded, but I have to say that I gotta agree. Fred's literally right on the money. There's a lot on things that I found totally un-wikipedian about Erik's proposal, and many others have already pointed those things out, so I don't need to <AOL> them. (Suffice to say that I strongly oppose it in its present form.) Considering the below legal issue however is a sine qua non: Don't heed Fred's warning and your proposal has the potential to--excuse my language--royally shaft the entire Wikimedia Foundation and ALL its projects.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
On 12 Oct 2004, at 04:34, Fred Bauder wrote:
Yeh, you folks are just not listening. You need to check into what even a simple nuisance action against you would cost. God forbid, what the consequences would be if there was a substantial award against you.
At a bare minimum, in order that all the work we have done doesn't end up in the ownership of a plaintiff, the Wikinews project needs to be a separate corporation.
We are not a little hole in the corner outfit no one heard of anymore. We are getting up there with the New York Times and CBS News who budget millons for legal defense. Where is that kind of money going to come from?
Fred
From: Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com Reply-To: Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:23:44 +0800 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project
This endeavour, while sharing Wikimedia's goals of openness, inclusion and free content is the most ambitious project yet, because it becomes primary source journalism. And with this, comes the baggage of having to deal with libel and slander in ways Wikipedia does not, because WP is one level of indirection away from accountable sources. Legal counsel for any primary source reporting would be a necessity.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Jens-
There's a lot on things that I found totally un-wikipedian about Erik's proposal, and many others have already pointed those things out, so I don't need to <AOL> them.
"Many others"? Such as? I responded to the one criticism that has been made by Anthere. Unless you elaborate on your objections, I have to consider them non-actionable.
Regards,
Erik
On 12 Oct 2004, at 14:46, Erik Moeller wrote:
Jens-
There's a lot on things that I found totally un-wikipedian about Erik's proposal, and many others have already pointed those things out, so I don't need to <AOL> them.
"Many others"? Such as?
Mark/Delirium Fred KissAll Anthere Andrew Lih
I responded to the one criticism that has been made by Anthere.
The first sentence in Anthere's first related email pretty much sums up my sentiment on this proposal.
Unless you elaborate on your objections, I have to consider them non-actionable.
Regards,
Erik
And unless you cut your haughty tone you can expect more sharp replies such as this one.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
s/you can expect more sharp replies such as this one/I shall respond to you no further/
On 12 Oct 2004, at 16:01, Jens Ropers wrote:
On 12 Oct 2004, at 14:46, Erik Moeller wrote:
Jens-
There's a lot on things that I found totally un-wikipedian about Erik's proposal, and many others have already pointed those things out, so I don't need to <AOL> them.
"Many others"? Such as?
Mark/Delirium Fred KissAll Anthere Andrew Lih
I responded to the one criticism that has been made by Anthere.
The first sentence in Anthere's first related email pretty much sums up my sentiment on this proposal.
Unless you elaborate on your objections, I have to consider them non-actionable.
Regards,
Erik
And unless you cut your haughty tone you can expect more sharp replies such as this one.
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
Jens-
There's a lot on things that I found totally un-wikipedian about Erik's proposal,
"Many others"? Such as?
Mark/Delirium Fred KissAll Anthere Andrew Lih
I doubt all of these people agree with characterizing the proposal as "un- Wikipedian" (whatever that means, it's a rather silly phrase since Wikinews is obviously not meant to be a Wikipedia clone). But I'm willing to listen to any arguments, should you actually manage to produce some.
Regards,
Erik
Fred-
Yeh, you folks are just not listening. You need to check into what even a simple nuisance action against you would cost. God forbid, what the consequences would be if there was a substantial award against you.
The Wikimedia Foundation is not some fragile baby that cannot handle the real world. If that was so, we should not operate Wikipedia itself, because it faces many of the very same risks. Occasional legal harassment is something we will have to deal with one way or another and hardly a good excuse not to start a potentially world changing project. In fact, it is the very protection of the Wikimedia Foundation and the international respect that it can command (and which can be turned into donations) which makes a project like Wikinews feasible.
Just take the example of Indymedia's confiscated equipment. One reason that they weren't able to get much support (not that they tried) is that people tend to perceive Indymedia as a fanatic propaganda outfit. Wikinews, on the other hand, will be seen as a community effort with the goal to neutrally report on events. If we need to defend against any kind of harassment, the entire net media and well-funded organizations like the EFF will be behind us.
In the event of an author abusing their privileges and reporting incorrectly, we will do what any magazine or newspaper will do: We will apologize, post a correction, and make sure this person won't report for us again. Anything beyond that has to be decided on a case by case basis.
At a bare minimum, in order that all the work we have done doesn't end up in the ownership of a plaintiff
Pure FUD. The ownership of the content is with its authors, not with the Wikimedia Foundation.
Regards,
Erik
Anyone with a damages decree is going to levy on the servers and the domain names.
Fred
From: erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Date: 12 Oct 2004 14:40:00 +0200 To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project
Pure FUD. The ownership of the content is with its authors, not with the Wikimedia Foundation.
There is truth in both of your comments, but it's not quite so simple. This is why I think counsel is vital, so the legal footing can be shored up.
Stratton Oakmont vs. Prodigy (1995) established that on a bulletin board system, editorial control equals editorial responsibility. The Telecom Act of 1996 effectively reversed it through legislation, as did Zeran vs. AOL (1996) where the US Court of Appeals reinforced that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case. A good primer on this all can be found at: http://www.ssbb.com/standard.html
Wikimedia can reasonbly argue that it is simply a hive, and the individual users are the ones creating and editing content, then it would be off the hook. A nice consequence of being hosted in the United States. This would seem consistent with Erik's argument. Regardless, though, Fred is also right, in that we would have to have a significant legal representation on retainer even to rebuff the first charge by plaintiffs and to tell them to go after the individual writer/reporter. How is that for a NPOV answer? :)
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:14:09 -0600, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
Anyone with a damages decree is going to levy on the servers and the domain names.
Fred
From: erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
Pure FUD. The ownership of the content is with its authors, not with the Wikimedia Foundation.
This sounds like a good reason to keep the hardware dispersed in several countries, and to make sure that there is never too much money in the bank.
Ec
Fred Bauder wrote:
Anyone with a damages decree is going to levy on the servers and the domain names.
Fred
From: erik_moeller@gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Reply-To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@wikimedia.org Date: 12 Oct 2004 14:40:00 +0200 To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project
Pure FUD. The ownership of the content is with its authors, not with the Wikimedia Foundation.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew-
Erik, I'm intrigued by the idea, of course, as it's my area of study. However, with the Wikinews project having to source original content, identify individuals, institute a reputation system and the establish a workflow, I questioin how apt the title "wiki" is to this project.
The Wikipedia project has to do the same things: * identify individuals - that's what we do when we figure out sources for factual claims in an article * institute a reputation system - [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] * establish workflow - [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates]], [[Wikipedia:Peer review]], [[m:Article validation]]
Just because we try to improve upon the tools which we use to do our jobs we're not suddenly becoming "less of a wiki". Wiki is a philosophy of ease of use and openness, and that philosophy is maintained to the maximum extent allowable for a project that specializes in news reporting, hence the name Wikinews is entirely appropriate.
It has more similarity to [[OhMyNews]], [[Indymedia]] and other citizen reporter efforts.
I don't know OhMyNews, but Indymedia is largely non-collaborative. Individual reporters write individual stories. They don't use a wiki model of open editing.
Regards,
Erik
On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 02:44:00PM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
Andrew-
It has more similarity to [[OhMyNews]], [[Indymedia]] and other citizen reporter efforts.
I don't know OhMyNews, but Indymedia is largely non-collaborative. Individual reporters write individual stories. They don't use a wiki model of open editing.
Indymedia (at least the German one) has the problem of a strong POV, I'm sure that WikiNews would never get into such trouble as Indymedia has right now.
What changes will be necessary in MediaWiki for running news with it? We'd need some kind of channels (like categories but with preview/summary).
ciao, tom
Thomas-
What changes will be necessary in MediaWiki for running news with it? We'd need some kind of channels (like categories but with preview/summary).
My current mid term approach is to add a syntax for showing the last n newly created articles in a category by date, so that category tagging becomes equivalent to publishing. This has some problems in cases where an article is updated, or the creation date is not the date you want to use. My long term approach is to use [[m:Wikiflow]] to set a publication date property (possibly a Wikidata structural element of the news article namespace) once an article has passed through the workflow process, and to use that for sorting.
Regards,
Erik
On 12 Oct 2004 14:44:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Andrew-
Erik, I'm intrigued by the idea, of course, as it's my area of study. However, with the Wikinews project having to source original content, identify individuals, institute a reputation system and the establish a workflow, I questioin how apt the title "wiki" is to this project.
The Wikipedia project has to do the same things:
- identify individuals - that's what we do when we figure out sources for
factual claims in an article
- institute a reputation system - [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]]
RfA isn't quite a reputation system like Slashdot karma or eBay's ratings. Adminship is a one-time bar to pass, usually for life, and there are is no metric to capture the highs and lows of a contributor's performance.
- establish workflow - [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates]],
[[Wikipedia:Peer review]], [[m:Article validation]]
But these are completely optional, and not required at all for article writing. I'd wager that more than 3/4 of Wikipedians never use any of these pages.
It has more similarity to [[OhMyNews]], [[Indymedia]] and other citizen reporter efforts.
I don't know OhMyNews, but Indymedia is largely non-collaborative. Individual reporters write individual stories. They don't use a wiki model of open editing.
I thought Wikinews was largely aimed at one reporter, one story model. Perhaps this needs clarification.
There is a notable difference between Wikipedia and Wikinews -- the matter of deadlines and edition time. Wikipedia's content is continually morphing. But for news to be news, it must be frozen at one point in time, and that puts Wikinews within a different dynamic. Perhaps the only thing comparable now in Wikipedia is VfD, where folks rush to improve an article before its day of reckoning.
Wikipedia is secondary-source journalism, so it is typically one step removed from direct lawsuits because plaintiffs will go after primary sources, and Wikipedians are quite good to remove unattributed information on controversial topics. That's where "no original research" helps Wikipedia stay out of lots of trouble.
Wikinews will be venturing into original, primary-source journalism, which means the contributors themselves or Wikimedia are on the hook. Therefore, it must be ready to face the standard dilemmas with journalistic content: - Publishing of state secrets or classified information - Contempt of court, in relation to United States law - Libel, slander, defamation - Obscene or objectionable content - Providing legal, medical or financial advice - Sourcing, three-source rule, multiple independent confirmations - Being "played" by a source
I've studied some of these issues before, but IANAL. Wikimedia should get the appropriate legal counsel for this, given cases such as Gutnick vs. Dow Jones in Australia: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,56793,00.html
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Andrew-
RfA isn't quite a reputation system like Slashdot karma or eBay's ratings. Adminship is a one-time bar to pass, usually for life, and there are is no metric to capture the highs and lows of a contributor's performance.
This is the case for Wikinews as well - see the proposal.
- establish workflow - [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates]],
[[Wikipedia:Peer review]], [[m:Article validation]]
But these are completely optional, and not required at all for article writing.
That's true, but as you yourself state:
There is a notable difference between Wikipedia and Wikinews -- the matter of deadlines and edition time. Wikipedia's content is continually morphing. But for news to be news, it must be frozen at one point in time, and that puts Wikinews within a different dynamic.
Also, it is very likely that we will have a stable (or milestone) edition of Wikipedia, which would make the two processes very similar.
I don't buy your sharp distinction between Wikipedia and Wikinews. First of all, because Wikipedia content doesn't undergo a publishing phase, any article at any given time can contain all of the things you mention. I've had to remove claims about some guy being a child pornographer or a pedophile out of Wikipedia articles which had been there for months and successfully re-inserted by anonymous users. If the guy had been hostile to Wikipedia, he could certainly have made a case that we haven't done our job of policing the content on our site. All of Fred Bauder's nightmare scenarios are equally applicable in this context.
Even when an article has actually undergone community review, many of the risks remain. That's why we have disclaimers like "Wikipedia does not provide legal advice", and why we have endless discussions about obscenity and pornography.
What it boils down to is this: The Wikinews community has to make damn sure that their reports are backed up by hard evidence. The fact checking process has to be solid. However, keep in mind that a site like Slashdot, with millions of visitors per month, has managed to operate for more than 7 years without any serious threats to its existence, even though they have virtually no fact-checking in place besides the readers, even though they regularly challenge the law by doing things like linking to copy prevention circumvention-devices, and even though they do publish original reports on a regular basis, much of them hearsay ("I just did this check on Microsoft's DRM, and .."), in a field where money is very, very dominant and lawyers are always waiting to be unleashed.
My proposal is much more conservative than Slashdot's model, with a solid fact-checking and review process in place before anything is officially published. You can't have it both ways, BTW -- making it more open for including original reports makes it more vulnerable to legal threats. You are in effect arguing for an even more conservative approach, but even the current one is being attacked by some as too "un-wiki-like". I am trying to find a reasonable middle ground here.
Wikinews initially will be fairly low-profile and hence at low risk of being targeted legally. As the project grows, I am sure we will find people who can assist us in the legal review of the articles we publish - as we have found such people for Wikipedia. But you will never be able to eliminate all risks - not within Wikipedia, not within Wikinews.
The time is now to start this project, to bring the people together and to formulate the rules of publishing. As a journalist, I am well aware of the risks. We will tread carefully and gain more confidence as we grow. Such is the way of the wiki. Fear is not an option.
Regards,
Erik
I'm heartened to hear the "grow it" strategy. Perhaps I was alarmed because the initial document on meta was quite ambitious. The Slashdot comparison is intriguing, but I tend to think of their community as a fleet of pundit robots from [[MST3K]], rather than a solid reporting crew. :)
Perhaps the biggest question is that blogging and Wikipedia editing is largely done "in your pajamas" sitting at home. Just what level of original reporting can we expect to see with Wikinews? Will there be much pounding the pavement and getting street interviews? Photography? Phoners? Now that [[Podcasting]] is gaining momentum, the prospects of radio and TV dispatches is exciting as well. In some countries, getting access to news events requires official accreditation, so will this be an obstacle?
Also, a good starting point for recruitment would be to contact the folks listed at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_Corps
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On 12 Oct 2004 17:05:00 +0200, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
Andrew-
RfA isn't quite a reputation system like Slashdot karma or eBay's ratings. Adminship is a one-time bar to pass, usually for life, and there are is no metric to capture the highs and lows of a contributor's performance.
This is the case for Wikinews as well - see the proposal.
- establish workflow - [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates]],
[[Wikipedia:Peer review]], [[m:Article validation]]
But these are completely optional, and not required at all for article writing.
That's true, but as you yourself state:
There is a notable difference between Wikipedia and Wikinews -- the matter of deadlines and edition time. Wikipedia's content is continually morphing. But for news to be news, it must be frozen at one point in time, and that puts Wikinews within a different dynamic.
Also, it is very likely that we will have a stable (or milestone) edition of Wikipedia, which would make the two processes very similar.
I don't buy your sharp distinction between Wikipedia and Wikinews. First of all, because Wikipedia content doesn't undergo a publishing phase, any article at any given time can contain all of the things you mention. I've had to remove claims about some guy being a child pornographer or a pedophile out of Wikipedia articles which had been there for months and successfully re-inserted by anonymous users. If the guy had been hostile to Wikipedia, he could certainly have made a case that we haven't done our job of policing the content on our site. All of Fred Bauder's nightmare scenarios are equally applicable in this context.
Even when an article has actually undergone community review, many of the risks remain. That's why we have disclaimers like "Wikipedia does not provide legal advice", and why we have endless discussions about obscenity and pornography.
What it boils down to is this: The Wikinews community has to make damn sure that their reports are backed up by hard evidence. The fact checking process has to be solid. However, keep in mind that a site like Slashdot, with millions of visitors per month, has managed to operate for more than 7 years without any serious threats to its existence, even though they have virtually no fact-checking in place besides the readers, even though they regularly challenge the law by doing things like linking to copy prevention circumvention-devices, and even though they do publish original reports on a regular basis, much of them hearsay ("I just did this check on Microsoft's DRM, and .."), in a field where money is very, very dominant and lawyers are always waiting to be unleashed.
My proposal is much more conservative than Slashdot's model, with a solid fact-checking and review process in place before anything is officially published. You can't have it both ways, BTW -- making it more open for including original reports makes it more vulnerable to legal threats. You are in effect arguing for an even more conservative approach, but even the current one is being attacked by some as too "un-wiki-like". I am trying to find a reasonable middle ground here.
Wikinews initially will be fairly low-profile and hence at low risk of being targeted legally. As the project grows, I am sure we will find people who can assist us in the legal review of the articles we publish - as we have found such people for Wikipedia. But you will never be able to eliminate all risks - not within Wikipedia, not within Wikinews.
The time is now to start this project, to bring the people together and to formulate the rules of publishing. As a journalist, I am well aware of the risks. We will tread carefully and gain more confidence as we grow. Such is the way of the wiki. Fear is not an option.
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew-
I'm heartened to hear the "grow it" strategy. Perhaps I was alarmed because the initial document on meta was quite ambitious. The Slashdot comparison is intriguing, but I tend to think of their community as a fleet of pundit robots from [[MST3K]], rather than a solid reporting crew. :)
Their unprofessionality is exactly the point. If they can pull this off without any quality standards whatsoever, then surely we, with good checks and balances in place, can do so as well.
Perhaps the biggest question is that blogging and Wikipedia editing is largely done "in your pajamas" sitting at home. Just what level of original reporting can we expect to see with Wikinews? Will there be much pounding the pavement and getting street interviews? Photography?
One of my key arguments for Wikinews is that it can be immediately useful, even without any original reporting - just by being a good summary of the news on a wide variety of subjects. Even if we start out by say, having primarily Linux-related news, we can still be a wiki-based competition to something like Slashdot or Linuxjournal. And as we get more volunteers, we can expand our focus.
As for the "pyjama problem", we already have a huge number of Wikimedians going out and taking photos of people, places and things. The Wikimedia Commons is growing up to be a nice repository of stock photography, getting more than 1000 uploads in its first month. I'm sure there will be volunteers for news reporting "on the spot" in cases of major events. Maybe we can provide easy interfaces for PDAs and smartphones.
Accredition is part of the reason that the Wikinews proposal distinguishes between witnesses and accredited reporters. I want to build Wikinews into a medium that has credibility, so that our volunteers can get access to press conferences and events just as regular reporters would.
Also, a good starting point for recruitment would be to contact the folks listed at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_Corps
Thanks. I think if we start by announcing this project internally - on the village pumps, the [[current events]] pages, and so on - we will get a reasonably large "seed" of editors. Once we have the basic policies and site structure hammered out, we can move on to getting a press release out into the blogosphere, which should attract the kind of people who are disillusioned with Indymedia or who never agreed with their ideology in the first place. I believe this is a huge open opportunity waiting for us to be seized before someone else does.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
One of my key arguments for Wikinews is that it can be immediately useful, even without any original reporting - just by being a good summary of the news on a wide variety of subjects. Even if we start out by say, having primarily Linux-related news, we can still be a wiki-based competition to something like Slashdot or Linuxjournal. And as we get more volunteers, we can expand our focus.
(Preface: This isn't either a criticism or a proposal, just a comment.)
One thing we already do somewhat is provide fairly good summaries of news-type events in Wikipedia proper. For example, [[Hurricane Ivan]] was being updated minute-by-minute with information as it became available. It'd be nice if we make sure that this still keeps happening---that is, that anything "encyclopedic" from Wikinews gets folded back into Wikipedia, preferably in real time so our Wikipedia articles on newsworthy subjects stay up-to-the-minute. I'm not sure how to best do that, but some sort of linking between a news event and corresponding Wikipedia article(s) to make sure people keep them in mind would be nice.
(Actually I think it might complement it nicely as long as we make sure that happens, because people have a tendency to put in news-type stuff that doesn't really belong into Wikipedia articles now and then, so some linking in the other direction might be nice too.)
(So you can count me as withdrawing my initial objections, at least to the extent of being willing to see how it works out.)
-Mark
(PS - Aren't parentheses wonderful?)
Delirium-
One thing we already do somewhat is provide fairly good summaries of news-type events in Wikipedia proper. For example, [[Hurricane Ivan]] was being updated minute-by-minute with information as it became available. It'd be nice if we make sure that this still keeps happening---that is, that anything "encyclopedic" from Wikinews gets folded back into Wikipedia, preferably in real time so our Wikipedia articles on newsworthy subjects stay up-to-the-minute.
Yes, that will certainly happen, thanks to the FDL. However, in general, Wikinews articles will be much more detailed than what is appropriate for an encyclopedia article, and they will contain things like predictions and speculations by experts. In the hurricane example, we would write not just a brief timeline as in Wikipedia, but a detailed article about - what the forecast of the hurricane path and strength for the next day is - according to different experts - what preparations are being made by the local authorities (evacuations etc.) - what the situation is like for the people living in the storm area (live wikireport)
Where Wikipedia would just summarize something like http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2004/dis/al092004.discus.067.shtml? in one sentence, Wikinews might well reproduce (public domain?) the whole thing in order to give people as much useful "live" information as possible.
So the two projects are very different, and in many cases, I think the work of summarizing the Wikinews article will not be much different from the work of summarizing other sources on news.google.com.
In the long term, I would like to be able to label a certain portion of the article as a summary, either by saying "the first paragraph is always the summary", or by using something like <label name="summary">, and then being able to do
{{Wikinews:Hurricane Ivan weakening (Sep 22 2004)#summary}}
i.e. to use cross-project transclusion to load this text into Wikipedia. Then the entire [[current events]] page on Wikipedia could be generated from Wikinews summaries.
(PS - Aren't parentheses wonderful?)
(They have their uses..
Regards, Erik)
Andrew Lih a écrit:
I'm heartened to hear the "grow it" strategy. Perhaps I was alarmed because the initial document on meta was quite ambitious. The Slashdot comparison is intriguing, but I tend to think of their community as a fleet of pundit robots from [[MST3K]], rather than a solid reporting crew. :)
Perhaps the biggest question is that blogging and Wikipedia editing is largely done "in your pajamas" sitting at home. Just what level of original reporting can we expect to see with Wikinews? Will there be much pounding the pavement and getting street interviews? Photography? Phoners? Now that [[Podcasting]] is gaining momentum, the prospects of radio and TV dispatches is exciting as well. In some countries, getting access to news events requires official accreditation, so will this be an obstacle?
Also, a good starting point for recruitment would be to contact the folks listed at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_Corps
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
Oh incidently...
Last week, I took two pictures of the french prime minister, which you will be able to find here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffarin
I already put them on en as well. I hope other pedias will use them.
Hmmm... I was grabbed twice by guards while doing this...
Today, when I got to my work place, my collegues joked me, as several of them had seen me on TV... Apparently, I was *such a bug* while trying to take pictures... that there was more of me during the TV spot than the minister himself. I am a bit embarassed... jeeee.
Anthere wrote:
Oh incidently...
Last week, I took two pictures of the french prime minister, which you will be able to find here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffarin
I already put them on en as well. I hope other pedias will use them.
Hmmm... I was grabbed twice by guards while doing this...
Today, when I got to my work place, my collegues joked me, as several of them had seen me on TV... Apparently, I was *such a bug* while trying to take pictures... that there was more of me during the TV spot than the minister himself. I am a bit embarassed... jeeee.
I thought that pictures that took that much to get made deserved to be put in the highlight, so I made it today's "Picture of the Day" on WikiCommons.
Andre Engels
Andre Engels a écrit:
Anthere wrote:
Oh incidently...
Last week, I took two pictures of the french prime minister, which you will be able to find here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raffarin
I already put them on en as well. I hope other pedias will use them.
Hmmm... I was grabbed twice by guards while doing this...
Today, when I got to my work place, my collegues joked me, as several of them had seen me on TV... Apparently, I was *such a bug* while trying to take pictures... that there was more of me during the TV spot than the minister himself. I am a bit embarassed... jeeee.
I thought that pictures that took that much to get made deserved to be put in the highlight, so I made it today's "Picture of the Day" on WikiCommons.
Andre Engels
Neat :-) Thanks
An opportunity to go visit wikicommons :-)
Anthere wrote:
Today, when I got to my work place, my collegues joked me, as several of them had seen me on TV... Apparently, I was *such a bug* while trying to take pictures... that there was more of me during the TV spot than the minister himself. I am a bit embarassed... jeeee.
Anthere is a WikiHero. No one can ever question this. :-)
--Jimbo
Erik Moeller a écrit:
Anthere-
Requirement on real names are naturally bugging me.
With your objections to any such rule in mind, I have tried to make this an option, rather than a requirement. There's a flip side to this and this is that without such an option, Wikinews will actually become *more* restrictive on what types of stories it allows.
I call it the Abu Ghraib test.
Let's say that our policy is that "any reported information can be allowed in an article as long as there is consensus among editors to include it." If we had a story like the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal before anyone else, and some reporter tried to include it under this rule -- all backed up both by good sources and by his credibility -- I am quite certain that some people would try to block it through endless discussions from ever being reported.
In many cases, where we would have some anonymous whistleblower (a person telling secrets about a company, government etc.) willing to give us information, I am also quite certain that under such a policy, this information would be unlikely to be accepted on grounds of verifiability. Again, it is quite likely - as unfortunate as this is - that people from the opposite political point of view would try to block information that does not suit them.
Therefore, my proposal suggests that we DO allow this type of consensus- based reporting from anonymous or unaccredited sources (called "witness reports" in the proposal), but IN ADDITION TO IT, we also allow Wikinews reporters to use their reputation as currency for publishing original reports, and to act as relays for people who want to stay anonymous.
So there is no requirement for real names, but the additional credibility offered by verified or verifiable identities guarantees that we can pick up stories that we would otherwise probably ignore.
I hope that the proposal is clear enough on the point that original reporting by non-accredited persons is allowed as long as there is consensus to include their stories.
I would like to emphasize that Wikipedia allows no original reporting whatsoever. Wikinews is therefore *much* more inclusive than Wikipedia, not less.
The notion that all wikinews reporters will be necessarily sysops, and all sysops necessarily wikinews reporter is problematic as well.
I agree. However, initially, the functionality of "publishing" an article will be linked to the tools that we currently have, such as page protection. The potential for abuse of this privilege, and the associated consequences, are larger than in Wikipedia: Imagine a Wikinews article about a massacre in Israel being published without proper review and then being distributed in other media. Such news articles can lead to fatal consequences.
Therefore, I believe that initially, we need to limit the circle of sysops who can publish stories to those we can identify and hold accountable. In order to make the process more wiki-like, I am working on a workflow system called "Wikiflow" that ensures an article can only flow from one state (unpublished) to the other (published) if there is consensus, if a certain amount of time has passed, and if it has come to the attention of certain people who should see it (reviewers).
This Wikiflow system can also be the basis of peer review on Wikipedia, it can replace the current sysop-centric VfD process, and so forth. So take this early version of Wikinews like you take something like VfD: It kind of works, but it's not open enough in the long term.
Respective editorials ? You mean editorials can have a view point ? In short, Wikinews will be a big change, since we will not any more have to respect NPOV rule. But replace it with a collection of viewpoint. If one view point comittee is missing, then the viewpoint is missing ?
This was just an experimental aspect of the proposal: to, in addition to news articles, have a daily editorial (commentary) about current events written by different "factions". This was *never* supposed to apply to regular news articles. While I still think it is a good idea to explore this, given that this part of the proposal is the most controversial, I have taken it out. We can still think about this in the Wikinews community once it exists.
Last, I am not sure that all languages have really heard of this project. So, I wish we advertise it a little bit more.
What do you suggest?
I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying "the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)
I understand. Of course I would like to start working on this project and publicize its existence as soon as possible. So I would appreciate some more concrete suggestions on how to move it from the proposal and discussion phase into the implementation phase. Waiting another month now when I actually have time to do some real work on this project would be painful.
Regards,
Erik
What do you suggest?
I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying "the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)
I understand. Of course I would like to start working on this project and publicize its existence as soon as possible. So I would appreciate some more concrete suggestions on how to move it from the proposal and discussion phase into the implementation phase. Waiting another month now when I actually have time to do some real work on this project would be painful.
Regards,
Erik
Erik, I did not have time to comment on your answers for which I thank you. I also thank you for this evening clarification. So, I'll provide a feedback rather tomorrow.
Erik and I discussed all this, and a proposal is to have a solid and clear presentation in english, then to have it translated and promoted. A poll will follow to clarify opinion of contributors toward that new project.
Meanwhile, I hope we can all go on discussing this. I find in particular Fuz comments very interesting. ant
Anthere-
Erik and I discussed all this, and a proposal is to have a solid and clear presentation in english, then to have it translated and promoted. A poll will follow to clarify opinion of contributors toward that new project.
Here's my suggestion:
1) We cut down the Wikinews proposal to five minimal requirements:
a) that we launch Wikinews in all languages where there are people interested in working on it; b) that the project goal is to report news in a wide range of subject areas from a neutral point of view; c) that it will include original reporting on these subjects; d) that articles will undergo at least three stages: development - publication - archiving; e) that, in recognition of the increased responsibility and legal liability that comes with original reporting, each Wikinews project will try to develop checks and balances to assure that articles are fair and accurate at the time of publication.
The specific implementation(s) and possible further requirements will be worked out through the usual wiki process on the project website once it is operational.
2) [[m:Wikinews]] will elaborate on these requirements.
3) [[m:Wikinews/Vote]] will list them in short form as above, and ask users to vote on them (Yes/No).
4) [[m:Wikinews/Implementation proposals]] will be an open space for exploring possible policies and software changes to satisfy requirements b)-e) (this will include much of what is currently at [[m:Wikinews]]). The purpose of this page is to make sure that we have some ideas to build upon if/when we actually launch the project.
After these pages are finished, we will then invite translators to translate at least [[m:Wikinews]] and [[m:Wikinews/Vote]]. There will be a period of 7 days for translations.
After the period for translations is over, there will be a period of 21 days for voting. The vote will be widely publicized.
If, within the first 7 days of voting, there is a 90% level of agreement or higher, the project can launch immediately. Seeing as this procedure may well become the standard for future Wikimedia project proposals, I find it important to minimize bureaucratic overhead for proposals which have an exceptionally high level of agreement, even if that may not be the case for Wikinews.
Is this agreeable?
Regards,
Eirk
Hi,
Le Wednesday 13 October 2004 06:13, Erik Moeller a écrit :
Anthere-
Erik and I discussed all this, and a proposal is to have a solid and clear presentation in english, then to have it translated and promoted. A poll will follow to clarify opinion of contributors toward that new project.
Here's my suggestion:
We cut down the Wikinews proposal to five minimal requirements:
a) that we launch Wikinews in all languages where there are people interested in working on it;
How do you think different languages will be organized ? With different domains like Wikipedia or all languages within one domain like Wikisource now ? In the later case, the multilingual interface should be available before the start of the project, IMO.
b) that the project goal is to report news in a wide range of subject areas from a neutral point of view; c) that it will include original reporting on these subjects; d) that articles will undergo at least three stages: development - publication - archiving; e) that, in recognition of the increased responsibility and legal liability that comes with original reporting, each Wikinews project will try to develop checks and balances to assure that articles are fair and accurate at the time of publication.
The specific implementation(s) and possible further requirements will be worked out through the usual wiki process on the project website once it is operational.
[[m:Wikinews]] will elaborate on these requirements.
[[m:Wikinews/Vote]] will list them in short form as above, and ask
users to vote on them (Yes/No).
- [[m:Wikinews/Implementation proposals]] will be an open space for
exploring possible policies and software changes to satisfy requirements b)-e) (this will include much of what is currently at [[m:Wikinews]]). The purpose of this page is to make sure that we have some ideas to build upon if/when we actually launch the project.
After these pages are finished, we will then invite translators to translate at least [[m:Wikinews]] and [[m:Wikinews/Vote]]. There will be a period of 7 days for translations.
I can help translation into French if needed.
After the period for translations is over, there will be a period of 21 days for voting. The vote will be widely publicized.
If, within the first 7 days of voting, there is a 90% level of agreement or higher, the project can launch immediately. Seeing as this procedure may well become the standard for future Wikimedia project proposals, I find it important to minimize bureaucratic overhead for proposals which have an exceptionally high level of agreement, even if that may not be the case for Wikinews.
Is this agreeable?
Regards,
Erik
Yann
Erik Moeller wrote:
If, within the first 7 days of voting, there is a 90% level of agreement or higher, the project can launch immediately. Seeing as this procedure may well become the standard for future Wikimedia project proposals, I find it important to minimize bureaucratic overhead for proposals which have an exceptionally high level of agreement, even if that may not be the case for Wikinews.
Is this agreeable?
I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but since I'm trying to catch up today and might not get to thre rest until later this weekend, I didn't want to hold anything up by not letting people know how enthusiastic I am about this whole concept.
I especially strongly support Erik's proposal for a voting period and so on, because we really must avoid the fiasco that happened after the approval of wikispecies.
--Jimbo
I can definitely give you at least 10+ people for Anglo-Saxon Wikinews.
James
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Erik Moeller Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 6:13 AM To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project
Anthere-
Erik and I discussed all this, and a proposal is to have a solid and clear presentation in english, then to have it translated and promoted. A poll will follow to clarify opinion of contributors toward that new project.
Here's my suggestion:
1) We cut down the Wikinews proposal to five minimal requirements:
a) that we launch Wikinews in all languages where there are people interested in working on it; b) that the project goal is to report news in a wide range of subject areas from a neutral point of view; c) that it will include original reporting on these subjects; d) that articles will undergo at least three stages: development - publication - archiving; e) that, in recognition of the increased responsibility and legal liability that comes with original reporting, each Wikinews project will try to develop checks and balances to assure that articles are fair and accurate at the time of publication.
The specific implementation(s) and possible further requirements will be worked out through the usual wiki process on the project website once it is operational.
2) [[m:Wikinews]] will elaborate on these requirements.
3) [[m:Wikinews/Vote]] will list them in short form as above, and ask users to vote on them (Yes/No).
4) [[m:Wikinews/Implementation proposals]] will be an open space for exploring possible policies and software changes to satisfy requirements b)-e) (this will include much of what is currently at [[m:Wikinews]]). The purpose of this page is to make sure that we have some ideas to build upon if/when we actually launch the project.
After these pages are finished, we will then invite translators to translate at least [[m:Wikinews]] and [[m:Wikinews/Vote]]. There will be a period of 7 days for translations.
After the period for translations is over, there will be a period of 21 days for voting. The vote will be widely publicized.
If, within the first 7 days of voting, there is a 90% level of agreement or higher, the project can launch immediately. Seeing as this procedure may well become the standard for future Wikimedia project proposals, I find it important to minimize bureaucratic overhead for proposals which have an exceptionally high level of agreement, even if that may not be the case for Wikinews.
Is this agreeable?
Regards,
Eirk _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org