I've set up a poll at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/China
to help decide whether we need a formal vote among the Chinese users or
all users before launching the Chinese Wikinews edition (because of the
risk of censorship). Please vote.
Regards,
Erik
The Bulgarian edition of Wikinews is now set up at:
http://bg.wikinews.org/
An announcement has been posted on the Bulgarian Wikipedia Village Pump,
as well as on the user talk pages of all interested users (all users who
signed up had user pages on bg:, and several had far more than 200 edits).
I'd like to ask the Board to discuss in the meeting tomorrow what steps
are required to decide whether the Chinese Wikinews should be launched.
Regards,
Erik
I have modified the rules at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition
New: At least 3 signing users have to be Wikimedia regulars (>200 edits
+ 3 months participation in a project) in the language they vote on.
Now formally written down: After creation, a message will be sent to
wikinews-l, foundation-l and the Wikipedia Village Pump in that language.
If these rules are acceptable, they should be merged into the policy for
new languages. I also think the requirement of a "reporter" should be
taken out, it seems somewhat over the top.
On a different note, I am happy with the progress of the new editions.
Swedish, Spanish and Dutch now have very professional looking homepages
and a regular output of stories. Translation from one Wikinews edition
into another seems to be more common than direct translation of
Wikipedia articles.
Regards,
Erik
For those who haven't noticed, the final runoff vote on the logo is now
open:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_logo_contest_voting/Runoff
Sysops, please put an announcement to that effect on
[[MediaWiki:Sitenotice]] in the Wikinews edition in your language.
On another note, if you haven't noticed, www.wikinews.org points to a
multilingual portal. Once we have the logo issue sorted out, I'd like to
start a contest on the design of that portal page. I'd also like us to
work on a variation of the Monobook look specifically for Wikinews - the
book background image in particular simply doesn't fit the project very
well.
If you want to work on the portal, the two components are:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikinews.org_portalhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikinews.org_template (this can
contain arbitrary HTML and is therefore protected)
All best,
Erik
The "Wikinews and Blogs" chat was a big success with plenty of varied
participants from the blog and wiki worlds. Lots of interesting ideas
were exchanged, including Wikinews support for blogging tools, licensing
issues, RSS, and a potential shared space for citizen journalists from
different projects. If you missed it, you can read the log of the
discussion here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_Chat/2005/02/05/log
Background info:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews_Chat
I'm looking forward to more open chat events like this one. Thanks to
everyone who made it possible.
Regards,
Erik