Wikinews-l October 2006

wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org

17 participants
10 discussions

Knight foundation & Wikimédia board
by divol 01 Nov '06

01 Nov '06

Hi, This something that could interest the whole Wikinews community, and could help us if we collaborate as one. the thread is here : http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/ Wikinews:Water_cooler/miscellaneous#Money a copy/paste follow : > Money > > The Knight Foundation plans to give a total of $5 million for > projects that show how online news can tranform community life. > 23:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC) > > * I found a fundraising suggestions section of the Metawiki. > Might be a good idea for someone to go there and suggest it. -- > Apartmento2 02:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC) > > I've consequently posted it: $5 million from Knight > Foundation.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 12:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC) > > Be bold and do it - create a Knight foundation proposal and go > for it. Just don't involve anyone outside the wikinews community. > Meta and the WMF in general are not going to help you anywhere. Let > no one stop you from submitting a proposal yourself. Dedalus 19:57, > 26 October 2006 (UTC) > i suggest this information to be posted on the Wikinews-I > mailing list. An international collaboration could be a plus,no??? > Jacques Divol 20:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC) > i don't know but i think we must also contact Wikimedia board > should be mandatory before applying more than meta in fact ??? > no ??? Jacques Divol 20:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC) do we need Board Autorization to register wikinews here http:// www2.knightfdn.org/newschallenge/home.html#home ? is the Board could help Wikinews in this case ? jacques divol

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Israel issue, we need a solution fast
by bawolff 23 Oct '06

23 Oct '06

This entire thing (for thoose who don't know what i'm talking about, see (en)WC and http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Category_talk:Israel , basicly PVJ wants to put a line on cat Israel saying that some countries don't recognize its exsitance) has gone on far to long. First of all the dispute itself is going in circles, and I don't like arguments that arn't getting anywhere, but secondly Its starting to attract attention at wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Israel&direction=prev&oldid=… and I'm worried we may have a giant flamefest + a mob from wikipedia on our hands. I don't know how to get a solution all parties agree on, but we need something quite quickly imo. Bawolff

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Re: [Wikinews-l] Supplementary Wikinews
by Nicholas Moreau 23 Oct '06

23 Oct '06

I don't know. What prevents people from purposely foreshadowing? Like, I was looking at a millennium terror alert article in Time, and Bin Laden was only one of eight people to be afraid of. A "Supplementary" Wikinews could put much greater evidence on him, giving bias to the then distant future of 2001. Or if I were to report on the release of the Massey Commission ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massey_Commission ), what's to stop me from focusing the serious and still relevant report up for laughs, by highlighting the newspaper industry's fear of facsimile machines cutting into their profits? This was not the highlight of the report, yet to a modern nerd, it very well might be. Nick "The vigorous brief of the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association was devoted entirely to a discussion of the consequences to the present newspaper business if the new device of facsimile broadcasting should become, as seems possible, an effective and popular rival to newspapers as we know them. We can claim only an imperfect knowledge of this new medium of communication. In brief, as we understand it, this process can deliver directly into the home a printed newspaper as readily and by essentially the same means as radio and television are now received. No printing machinery or delivery services are needed, and any radio station could go into the newspaper business for a small fraction of the investment required to establish a normal newspaper. The Canadian Daily Newspapers Association states that this development will attract newcomers to the newspaper field, and that the facsimile reader will be able in his home to dial any one of several newspapers just as now he tunes his receiving set to radio programmes." http://www.collectionscanada.ca/massey/h5-412-e.html

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Supplementary Wikinews
by James Hare 21 Oct '06

21 Oct '06

Greetings to the mailing list! A short while back, I thought that since Wikinews only goes back to November 2004, that is far from the kind of comprehensive current events archive we want to be. Compare less than two years of archive to the New York Times's history of hundreds of years. While in a hundred years Wikinews will look far more comprehensive, NYT will look even -more- comprehensive. In addition, I have access to databases containing news articles from the New York Times, as well as other newspapers. I could use this to fill in the gap -- create articles on events from before November 2004, as well as during 2004 and 2005 when our coverage has been a bit spotty. Any of these articles would go through a different process: while they would be part of date categories, they would use {{supp develop}} in lieu of {{develop}} and {{supp publish}} in lieu of {{publish}} (both tag the articles as part of "Supplementary Wikinews" and put them into the No Publish and Supplementary Wikinews categories). After the article is finished and tagged with {{supp publish}}, it would spend a short amount of time to be looked over by others, then protected as part of the archive. I understand that the idea of Wikinews is that news stories are written based on knowledge at the time, so that future generations can see what we know and what we think. That's why I would aim to limit myself to using verbatim scans/copies of newspapers I have access to -- I highly doubt those get modified. I also understand that the databases may carry only American newspapers -- unless someone knows where I may find foreign newspapers, there's nothing I can do about it. Any thoughts?

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Scheduled attendance for Wikinews or Commons
by bawolff 21 Oct '06

21 Oct '06

Do to some recent confusion about overlaps of attendance of events (at wikinews), theres now a new page for coordinating event attendance, and I thought it probably should be announced on the mailing list: Summary from the page: Anyone planning to schedule attendance at an event, as a representative of Wikinews or Wikimedia Commons, should announce their plans as soon as possible on [[meta:Scheduled attendance for Wikinews or Commons]] , in order to not cause unnecessary overlap. Formally arranged coverage is best registered here. This is not necessary if you're attending informally, such as a tourist attraction, a protest, etc. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler#Page_for_coordination http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_attendance_for_Wikinews_or_Commons -bawolff

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Wikinews language coordinator needed
by Erik Moeller 17 Oct '06

17 Oct '06

Hi, I'd like to delegate the task of coordinating Wikinews language editions. The task consists of the following: 1) Keep an eye on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition for language editions which have at least 5 supporters. 2) When that threshold is reached, contact the supporters and ask them to prepare the necessary translations / page creations at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_language_pre-launch 3) Keep an eye on that page as well for editions which are ready to go. 4) When an edition is ready to go, file a site request at http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/ For bonus points: A new language edition initially needs to have uploads enabled until it uploads its own logo, then uploads need to be disabled until a fair use policy is established that clarifies under which circumstances users are allowed to upload files. Wikinews editions also need to be licensed under CC-BY, not GFDL. Beyond acting on your own, you would also be the first point of contact for all questions about the process. I'd be happy to go through it with you once more via Skype or phone. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please contact me privately at erik AT wikimedia DOT org, and I will try to pick the person a) most qualified and b) most likely to do the work. ;-) -- Peace & Love, Erik Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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Closing inactive Wikinewses
by Erik Moeller 17 Oct '06

17 Oct '06

I suggest the following policy: When a Wikinews edition has seen no new stories for 8 weeks, the wiki is locked and a site notice is added: "This Wikinews edition is currently inactive. If you are interested in working on it, please indicate so on [[m:Wikinews/Reactivate an edition]]." (In the correct language, of course.) Instead of just 5 votes, you would need 10 Wikimedians to sign the reactivation pledge. Inactive editions could also be removed from the interlanguage link list on the Main Pages, but that would be optional if it's too much maintenance. There are currently a few Wikinewses that meet this criterion. In general our setup policy tends to at least determine whether there's a general interest but that doesn't ensure that people keep posting. Without such a policy, I think we are just turning these sites into magnets for vandalism and spam, as well as making Wikinews look unprofessional (a news site with news that are a year old isn't much of one). An open recognition that an edition is dead seems preferable to me. Wikinews is of course very special in this regard because it doesn't really matter that much if a Wikipedia edition is dead for a couple of months, but for Wikinews, it is a very obvious sign that the critical mass is not there. Does this policy proposal sound reasonable? -- Peace & Love, Erik Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.

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Re: [Wikinews-l] My apologies
by brian＠dahmer.vistech.net 12 Oct '06

12 Oct '06

For those confused by my prior mail, I received an email from the brother of the Secretary killed in India who found our coverage. Did anyone else get a mail from the guy? Brian.

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My apologies
by brian＠dahmer.vistech.net 12 Oct '06

12 Oct '06

My apologies if I have in any way offended you Mr Dessoy, that was not my intent. Nor was I in any way morbidly interested in the recent death of your sister. The story was submitted to wikinews by another contributor, and my interest in the age of your sister was due to the various sources used having conflicting information. I stress, it was the accuracy of the report I was interested in. My condolences to you for your loss, and I hope you can accept my apology for any inadvertently caused upset. Brian McNeil.

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Re: [Wikinews-l] Semantic MediaWiki and Wikinews
by brian＠dahmer.vistech.net 09 Oct '06

09 Oct '06

From: SMTP%"wikinews-l(a)Wikimedia.org" "Wikinews mailing list" 28-SEP-2006 19:23:21.23 Subj: [Wikinews-l] Semantic MediaWiki and Wikinews From: "Erik Moeller" <erik(a)Wikimedia.org> >a while ago I asked the folks from the Semantic MediaWiki project to >look into how they feel the SMW extension could be put to use on >Wikinews. This could be part of a larger strategy to examine whether >SMW could/should be deployed within the Wikimedia project family. >Please see: > >http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Wikinews > >for their report. If you are unfamiliar with Semantic MediaWiki, please see > >http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki This does look interesting, but I have one question. Assuming we take an existing Infobox such as the Today's news one could this combined with various other parts of Wikicode allow a default Infobox that the user could customise? I'm thinking, along the lines of if the user has a page User:{{USERNAME}}/TodayPrefs then its content is displayed in the infobox otherwise a default is presented. Actually, there's a whole slew of questions that could be asked about how this can be used so I'd say it should be nominated to be installed on en.wikinews and we see what can be done with it. Brian.

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Wikinews-l October 2006