On 8/26/07, Ed Brown <ed.brown(a)wikinewsie.org> wrote:
>
> notafishz raises the question of whether WikiMedia/Wikinews should "fork"
> into several different directions, or try to retain some central edit
> consistency and a focal point on the Main. I am totally against "forking"
> and splintering off. Focus under those circumstances would be lost, and with
> that, the impact that a central place for reporting accords.
>
> Accommodation of the special interests seems to me to best route, and by
> that I mean pages that are not NPOV. The good stuff makes Main Page. The
> other stuff hasn't found a place yet.... that's the challenge for Wikinews.
>
> Yes, we understand how participation improves an article. Lacking
> participation, we also understand how the lack of it does not diminish the
> news value of it. The trouble is how to deal with it in an inclusive manner.
It is interesting how my email has been interpreted. I never meant to
say or even hint at the fact that Wikinews should lose any kind of
focus, or any kind of principles (that of NPOV etc.). Never ever. I
meant to say that Wikinewsies may find out there in the wide wide
world people who are like minded and share the same kind of values,
and that those could make good people to partner with.
In the end, I must say that I am a bit disappointed at the reactions
about "finding" other people to partner with. Too many answers, to my
liking, were along the lines "but we are the only ones like that".
Well, guess what? I don't think so.
I am sure that there are journalists out there who would love to work
on a wiki. Or who wold love to be bound by a NPOV rile. Or even both.
They just never came across either of these tools/principles. A
reaching-out organisation would, in my opinion, be of greater benefit
than one that's navel gazing and working only towards its own good
(and I know, this is a bit caricatural, and not what has been
expressed by "everyone"). And for example, its goal could then be
"bring NPOV to the news!", which is far broader to start with than
"let's work on Wikinews". At least, I think.
In short, I was not trying to change Wikinews, but rather trying to
explore possibilities of it bringing its principles out in the world.
Delphine
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Hello,
I think it is important that Wikinewsies get accredidation if it can
help them. Whether that the job of WMF or a separate organisation, I am
not sure. I have not seen any formal NO from a lawyer or the board that
WMF cannot or should not do it. Was there any?
Christophe Henner a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> This is my opinion, I don't think it's a good idea. On a short term,
> it would be really usefull, but in fact on the long term I do believe
> it wouldn't be a so good idea. There would be confusion like "is
> wikinews a Wikinews Foundation project or a Wikimedia Foundation
> Project." Moreover, you're proposal looks like, to me, like a
> "Wikinews Chapter".
This is my main concern for the creation of a separate organisation.
> In France, but I think it should be the same in other countries, in
> order to have a press card, the main aim of the "Wikinews Foundation"
> you have to earn 50% in a journalism job. And earn it in France. So
> Wikinews Foundation won't help the french wikinewsie. For
> accreditation the French Chapter is helping at it, and actually we are
> not that bad in having them.
[cut]
Well accredidation from Wikinews cannot be "a professional journalist
accredidation" in France, but I think it still would be quit useful.
It would be a first step toward the recognition of citizen journalists,
as "real" journalists.
Actually this issue is important for every other citizen journalists
community / organisation. Even if there are different than Wikinews,
they share this same problem. Were there contacted? Indymedia? AgoraVox?
others?
Regards,
Yann
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Hello,
Yann Forget a écrit :
> Well accredidation from Wikinews cannot be "a professional journalist
> accredidation" in France, but I think it still would be quit useful.
> It would be a first step toward the recognition of citizen journalists,
> as "real" journalists.
>
> Actually this issue is important for every other citizen journalists
> community / organisation. Even if there are different than Wikinews,
> they share this same problem. Were there contacted? Indymedia? AgoraVox?
> others?
>
> Regards,
>
> Yann
To support the above:
http://cyber-journalistes.org/spip.php?article76 (in French)
Yann
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On Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:52:13 -0400, Jimmy Wales wrote: > Craig
Spurrier wrote: > > As long as WMF does not issue press passes
there is no way that the WMF > > could be considered the to be
the editor or the publisher due to the > > issuing of press
passes. As long as the WMF is not the editor or the > >
publisher, and are merely providing a place for others to post they
are > > for the most part legally protected from
responsibility for the content. > > Issuing press passes
could potentially change their status and a court > > could
rule they are responsible for the content. It is unlikely, but is
> > still a very serious risk. A separate organization
completely eliminates > > this risk for the foundation and
still allows us to have press passes. > > -Craig Spurrier
> > *This is slightly oversimplified, but I believe pretty much
accurate. > > Sounds like a good question for the lawyers.
What you say may have some > merit. It would be great if
we could get a lawyer to review this, if there is no legal reason why
the WMF could not issue press passes then there is no reason to form
a separate foundation. My statement about the potential legal
issues comes mostly from IRC, a skim of 47 USC § 230 and the
replies of Eloquence and Kat Walsh to the Q/A part of the last
election. I am not a lawyer so it is entirely possible that I have
misinterpreted the issue. The two quotes of relevance from the
election are: “The Wikimedia Foundation considers itself to
be a provider of an interactive computer service, rather than a
publisher. This is what provides us the liability protection of 47
USC § 230 ("Section 230"). Preserving this legal
status is not just something we consider important or useful. It may
be the single most important factor for the future survival of the
Wikimedia Foundation. At the same time, accreditation processes are
often designed to expect exactly the opposite: that the reporter
works for an organization or company that edits and approves the
content before it is published (which is the tipping point where
Section 230 no longer applies). This creates a tension.
“--Eloquence “There's a lot of
commitment and thorny questions involved in sending someone out into
an event bearing our name and saying "this person is accredited
by Wikimedia" and not simply by the project community, both in
terms of our reputation and in terms of whether this makes Wikimedia
responsible for what they write.” - Kat Walsh > On
the other hand, press passes issued by some completely separate
> organization sound fishy to me. If someone called the Wikimedia
> Foundation, we would have to tell them "Oh, yes, that is
our website. > Oh, no, actually we did not issue that press
pass. That's this other > organization that has nothing to
do with us, just a club of users on the > site." >
> Doesn't sound so impressive. A separate organization is
not ideal, but if the WMF can not do it we must come up with
something. Nearly all of the event organizers will never contact
anybody to verify to the credentials. Of the very few who will bother
only an infinitesimally small number will bother to lookup Wikinews
online, then find the about page, then go to the WMF site and then
call WMF. I would suggest calls to the WMF about our press cards be
referred to a Wikinews foundation or we come up with a better way to
phrase the response. For the most part though if they are calling the
WMF they are not going to let us in anyways after they find we are not
MSM. Most if they bother to verify it at all will use the phone
number on the press card, which will be a Wikinews foundation one.
Most times when we need to use our press card the most
checking they will do is request a letter from the press card issuer.
With a few exceptions like White House press conferences, we really do
not need to impress them much just look official (our press badges
look better and realer then many local traditional media already)
enough and have someone willing to back us up. -Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]
NEWBIE QUESTION: Sorry for coming into the discussion a bit late, but
I've been following this for the last couple of days and must have
missed and am still failing to understand the legalities/conflicts of
interest that would prevent WMF from being the issuer of press
passes. What's up with that? Why the need for a separate organization?
Chris
On Aug 22, 2007, at 10:29 AM, wikinews-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
wrote:
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:29:53 -0400
> From: Craig Spurrier <craig(a)craigweb.net>
> Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Proposal for the creation of a Wikinews
> foundation
> To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID: <46CC80A1.6000800(a)craigweb.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Wikinews Markie wrote:
>> the accreditation process atm is mostly for english speakers although
>> passes have been issued to others. the main reason its only eng atm
>> is because its the only process to have acheived approval from the
>> foundation.
> It was never actually approved by the foundation, nor can they ever
> safely approve it, hence the need for a separate organization.
> -Craig Spurrier
> [[n:Craig Spurrier]]
Hello,
I am proposing the creation of a separate organization that would allow
Wikinews to properly handle press accreditation. The Wikimedia
foundation has been unable to do this due to concerns over being seen as
the editor and the legal consequences that go with that. Proper press
accreditation is however very necessary for Wikinews.
A separate organization with a trademark license would be able to
properly handle press accreditation and have very minimal assets at
risk. This organization would not handle anything beyond accreditation
and tools to provide support for accreditation. I am in no way proposing
splitting Wikinews from the foundation or anything like that. We are
overall very happy with the foundation, but we have a need that the
foundation is unable to provide for.
The problem:
The English language Wikinews has an accreditation policy [1]. This
allows us to receive press credentials at events and also assists us in
getting recognition as media for interviews and the like. The press pass
usually allows free access to an event or, priority access to normally
off-limits areas.
At the present we have a rather awkward arrangement for accrediting
users. Users who have gone through our accreditation process are
considered community accredited. The lack of any sort of organization
behind creates a problem when the events require a letter from the
organization before issuing the press pass (the G8 being the most
recent), and we have been unable to get the board/foundation to do this
or officially approve the accreditation program. The problem with this
is in order to obtain press badges and other press benefits a user must
either confuse the person (risking the request being denied) with an
explanation of how they are not really representing Wikinews but rather
the Wikinews Community or they must mislead the person into thinking
they really do represent Wikinews.
There are several other resources the foundation has been unable to
provide that are very helpful to us such as official e-mail addresses.
Brian McNeil has the wikinewsie.org domain and has offered e-mail
addresses with it. The response rate with these addresses has greatly
increased. Once again there are legitimate concerns that prevent the
foundation from being able to do this, but a separate foundation would
be able to.
-Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]
1. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Accreditation_policy
Perhaps "Wikinews Community Union", or perhaps on a wider scale, we could have a "Wikimedia Volunteer Union". Both of these emphasize that the community is involved with the accredidation, while showing that there is a level of authority that oversees the accredidations, and can write letters (in a sense of authority) for the reporters if nessesary (like previously mentioned with Sean at G8).
Of course, we could always go with "Wikinewsie Editors' Service Association", which implies that we only help Wikinewsies, and that we don't really control the Wikinews domain (or have corporate authority over Wikinews). Plus we've already got the domain ;-)
--
Thunderhead
Christophe Henner wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is my opinion, I don't think it's a good idea. On a short term,
> it would be really usefull, but in fact on the long term I do believe
> it wouldn't be a so good idea. There would be confusion like "is
> wikinews a Wikinews Foundation project or a Wikimedia Foundation
> Project." Moreover, you're proposal looks like, to me, like a
> "Wikinews Chapter".
>
The proposal is essentially Wikinews Chapter, what we actually call it
is only a small concern assuming we get usage of the Wikinews trademark.
> In France, but I think it should be the same in other countries, in
> order to have a press card, the main aim of the "Wikinews Foundation"
> you have to earn 50% in a journalism job. And earn it in France. So
> Wikinews Foundation won't help the french wikinewsie. For
> accreditation the French Chapter is helping at it, and actually we are
> not that bad in having them.
>
This is mostly a European issue. In the US, Canada, New Zealand (and
most other countries) anyone who wants to can call themselves a
journalist and create a press card. The problem is in the absence of any
sort of government press cards most event organizers and government
officials (police mostly) base their decisions off of the presence of an
organization that issued the person with a presscard. One important step
of this process is that event organizers and government official will
contact or expect contact from the issuing organization who must be
willing to verifiy that the person is one of their own.
> So, what could handle your foundation a chapter couldn't? In my
> opinion, worldwide, really few, and perhaps even "less". Wikinews is,
> in fact, a really different project, but I don't think that's a reason
> to have a "Wikinews Foundation".
>
Most of the current accredited reporters are not currently covered by a
chapter. I would imagine this will always be the case. A Wikinews
foundation would however be able to act globally, since the vast
majority of our task would just be to confirm that user is with us.
> By the way, did you asked and discussed for a "user(a)wikinews.org"
> adress or other global @wikinews.org adresses recently?
>
It was discussed on our water cooler and an e-mail was sent to the
foundation(or so I am told) after Brion said that it technically was
doable. BrianMC would probably be the better person to answer this.
-Craig Spurrier
[[n:Craig Spurrier]]
Hi all,
I'd like to thank Erik Möller for once again bringing this problem under the attention.
Remember that this blog was originally set up by Nicolas Morreau (User:Zanimum) to bring Wikinews under the attention on http://en.planet.wikimedia.org . So it is very important that we mind our layout as our posts get aggregated there.
If you add an image by giving the original location of the full resolution image, it will display in its original size on planet wikimedia. There are two option to circumvene the problem:
1) you download the original image, resize it using an image editing software, and upload it (for example, to 300px large).
2) You can avoid having to use any software with the following trick: make the image display in the adjusted size in your sandbox, then right-click and download that image: you will notice that it will be saved as 300px-Original_filename.jpg .
Most importantly: how can we correct if someone uses the original size? Simple: almost anyone on the blog is an Admin there, so you can edit messages posted by others. You just erase the original image and replace it with the downsized one. Problem then is, the message is re-posted and ends up at the top of Planet Wikimedia again; so try to avoid editing old posts, because Planet Wikimedia readers will get tired of seeing the same Wikinews stories at the top of the page again and again.
If anyone notices problems with the blog, feel free to contact me via email: stevenfruitsmaak(a)wikipedia.be .
kind regards,
Steven F
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rachel Sterne <rachel(a)groundreport.com>
Date: 13-Aug-2007 22:56
Subject: [cc-community] Creative Commons citizen journalism
To: cc-community(a)lists.ibiblio.org
Hi,
Wanted to let everyone know that we just relaunched GroundReport, the
only citizen journalism platform that exclusively uses Creative Commons
licenses. You're invited to come rate content and submit your own news.
You can choose from a range of licenses based on your interests. We also
share our revenues with all contributors, based on traffic.
http://groundreport.com
Here's the kind of content we're interested in:
-- news articles
-- photography & images
-- video
-- audio
Plus we are officially launching our live citizen news channel,
GroundReport TV. If you want to be a citizen reporter or get involved,
please get in touch.
http://groundreport.tv
Thanks,
Rachel
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