NB! This email is CC'd to several people who have requested parts of
Flagged Revisions be enabled on various Wikinews language versions. I
would urge these recipients to subscribe to wikinews-l.
I would like to see so as many language versions of Wikinews as possible
listed in Google News. Erik Moeller, WMF Deputy CEO, graciously put me
in touch with someone who helped make it happen for English Wikinews, as
far as I can tell it should be possible for
English
French
Hungarian
Polish
Portuguese
Spanish
There are processes that need to be visible to Google and assure them of
certain editorial controls, and at the moment there are some technical
kludges required to meet other requirements laid out by Google.
For technical issues, some work is being done on a new MediaWiki
extension:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20818
Hopefully Amgine will have another patch on offer soon, but I encourage
all Wikinewsies to vote for this bug.
For non-English Wikinews editions, I'm happy to try and help get
appropriate pages interlinked and presented to Google as proof of
editorial control. Bawolff can also help with some of the technical
measures and helper tools.
Ideally, given the six languages above, Google News could list us in a
special way where a story is covered in several languages.
I would also like to see the upcoming Writing contest
( http://enwn.net/WC2010 ) expanded to languages that can get a Google
News listing before the start date. This might encourage Google to
sponsor a prize or two in light of having to implement measures to limit
public access to certain newspaper websites.
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>|http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official position
of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
* Problems replying? Forward bounces to brianmc(a)skynet.be to raise with Godaddy Hosting.
There's a new question of the week at Strategy wiki - http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Question_of_the_week
This week's question is:
The Wall Street Journal published an article last week detailing the
research of Felipe Ortega, indicating that the number of editors has
declined in recent years. Representatives from the Wikimedia
Foundation, meanwhile, noted that a different methodology indicates
that the number of active editors has in fact stabilized in the same
time period--as opposed to having declined.
Regardless of the methodological differences, there appears to be a
consensus that the Wikipedia community is becoming less friendly,
particularly for new users. A few relevant data points:
Ed Chi's research (at the Palo Alto Research Center) indicates that
new editors see 25% of their edits reverted
Comments left on the blog for the WSJ article indicate that a number
of editors have left because of unfriendly treatment from other
editors (e.g., edits reverted without explanations of why), and
comments on this Wiki have echoed this impression
Proposals on this Wiki have indicated that a good reward system for
contributions does not exist
Given all of the above, how could the community better reward
contributions and nurture new editors? How can the Wikimedia projects
become a friendlier and more welcoming place to share knowledge?
We'd love to have your input on the talk page of that question!
Philippe
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
I've decided that now is a *very* appropriate time to, once again, try
and restart discussion on Wikipedia paying more than lipservice to
Wikinews as the appropriate venue for news coverage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Brian_McNeil#.22Recent.22_templates
These appear to be most of the enWP templates which caution that a
section of the encyclopedia relates to *news*. You can see the additions
I've made to highlight Wikinews coverage where it exists, and if not,
urge people to contribute on Wikinews.
This went down quite badly last time. I'll bite my tongue and just
describe the reaction to such a link on Ted Kennedy's death as
"hostile". Realistically, this needs to come as a significant push from
someone like Jimmy.
Anyway, any thoughts on fine-tuning this? Please note, I've put tooltips
on all the given links. There are cases where a long Wikinews title
would mess the template on Wikipedia, so I hide the title in the
tooltip.
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
This from Mike Peel (email address removed) of WMUK.
> I've just posted a few sentences on your talk page; I think that this
> is a great idea, and was actually something I was thinking about
> proposing last night. It's a really suitable place for such a link,
> and I really can't see any downside to doing this...
>
> Has it been discussed before, and if so, where?
>
> The barriers that seem to lie between the different Wikimedia
> projects really need to be broken down. We're all trying to do the
> same thing (spread knowledge freely), just in different ways; we
> shouldn't be standing in each other's way whilst doing so...
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
Mike can probably comment on the UK's media cover of newspaper websites
vanishing behind paywalls. I think my good friend "Dirty Digger" Rupert
Murdoch has an awful lot to do with this.
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
On Tue, 2009-12-01 at 09:28 -0500, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brian,
>
> Just let me know where I can help. I understand that some in the
> wikinews community were dismayed at something I said in an interview
> recently about Wikinews having "struggled" for a long time - but I want
> to emphasize that I didn't mean to disparage Wikinews... part of the
> problem is that people go to Wikipedia to write things that they should
> be doing at Wikinews... and one solution is to use the massive traffic
> power of Wikipedia to drive traffic to Wikinews.
>
> I'd also like to have a private discussion (i.e. not on a public list,
> because because I wouldn't like to see random ideas I might throw out in
> a brainstorming session reported on as "news" about Wikinews in other
> press) with leaders (admins + active editors) of Wikinews about "the
> future of Wikinews".
I'm sure we could arrange a private list, or schedule an ad-hoc IRC
chat. And, I do know that some within the MSM will take the worst
possible fragment out of any sentence that they can - it does not seem
unreasonable that they might gleefully do so to jab at a potential
competitor like Wikinews.
The below link is - to me - the best hope we have. It offers a "fresh
field" for contributors (re: the Ortega research and chicken-little
media reaction), it covers Mike Peel's musing about WMUK issuing a press
release mentioning Wikinews as "The paper that's not paper, and won't
vanish behind a paywall".
I deliberately copied you on this because of a few things Mike Halterman
said, I thought the below proposed changes on Wikipedia fitted best with
how he characterised your opinions on Wikinews and its promotion.
> Lots isn't up to me, but I'm eager to see Wikinews flourish, and would
> love to throw around some ideas.
From the Wikinews perspective, we kept banging away at getting WP:ITN to
more prominently feature our project. That would be a good area to
revisit; I know some Wikinewsies would like this a full list of the
project's articles, but I appreciate it is on an encyclopedia and
playing a longer game of getting people to wrie articles on Wikinews.
> Brian McNeil wrote:
> > I've decided that now is a *very* appropriate time to, once again, try
> > and restart discussion on Wikipedia paying more than lipservice to
> > Wikinews as the appropriate venue for news coverage.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Brian_McNeil#.22Recent.22_templates
> >
> > These appear to be most of the enWP templates which caution that a
> > section of the encyclopedia relates to *news*. You can see the additions
> > I've made to highlight Wikinews coverage where it exists, and if not,
> > urge people to contribute on Wikinews.
> >
> > This went down quite badly last time. I'll bite my tongue and just
> > describe the reaction to such a link on Ted Kennedy's death as
> > "hostile". Realistically, this needs to come as a significant push from
> > someone like Jimmy.
> >
> > Anyway, any thoughts on fine-tuning this? Please note, I've put tooltips
> > on all the given links. There are cases where a long Wikinews title
> > would mess the template on Wikipedia, so I hide the title in the
> > tooltip.
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 16:31 +0000, Michael Peel wrote:
> Does someone want to start drafting a press release that can be sent
> out, then?
[CC'd wikinews-l, people there please see WMUK mailing list for prior
discussion - papers behind paywalls is the topic with Mr Murdoch one of
those most desperate to do this.]
Uhm.... Points I'd cover/emphasise.
* Slight element of conflict Wikipedia/Wikinews where people seek to do
extensive WP coverage of recent events (turning recently-deceased's
BIO into hagiography).
* [[WN:NPOV]] still applies.
* Require credible sources, or well-documented Original Research.
* WN a project in the shadow of WP for the time being.
* Opportunity for aspiring journos to learn wiki tech.
* Operates as a "wannabe" wire service and has unashamedly copied from
BBC News website (eg {{haveyoursay}}).
If a release does go out, I promise to take the "be nice" pills for a
couple of extra weeks. ;-)
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
Reminder:
Our next strategy project office hours will be: '''20:00-21:00 UTC,
Tuesday 1 December'''.
Local timezones can be checked at [http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=12&day=1&year=2009&h…
].
You can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and
filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You
may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine.
Another option is http://chat.wikizine.org.
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Reminder: Strategic Planning office hours will happen at:
04:00-05:00 UTC, Wednesday 25 November.
That is:
Tuesday, 8-9 pm PDT
Wednesday, 11pm - 12am EDT
We'll meet in the channel #wikimedia-strategy on IRC. More details
are available at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Office_Hours
You can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net/ and
filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You
may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine.
Another option is http://chat.wikizine.org.
Join us!
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategic Planning
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Nasibu,
I was curt and rather blunt; however, there are a very large number of
websites that will freely carry a press release or other promotional
article you wish to distribute. That is not Wikinews.
I placed a welcoming template on your user talk page very shortly after
you signed up for an account. Please read this. In particular, the
following two links:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/WN:ARTICLEhttp://en.wikinews.org/wiki/WN:NPOV
As you have done your best to confirm you are the copyright holder on
what you would have liked published, one of the other Wikinews regular
contributors has reviewed it. It has failed this review; again, I refer
you to the above two links.
As a last point which particularly annoys me; the website is Wikinews,
the "n" in the middle is not capitalised.
Please continue any discussion of this issue on the wiki.
On Tue, 2009-11-24 at 00:36 +0100, Nasibu Mwanukuzi wrote:
> Dear Brian McNeil,
>
> I submitted an article today “Ras Nas release a new music and poetry
> CD - Double Focus” at WikiNews but to my dismay, the story was removed
> with a claim that I have infringed copyright laws. What I do not
> understand is, I am the owner of Kongoi Productions (where the story
> originated) and thus I do not need to ask for any permission to reuse
> the story. In addition, I am also the artist of whose work is being
> referred! I really do not see how I could infringe copyright laws
> here.
>
> I hope this mail will help settle the matter and that the article in
> question gets reprinted for the good of both parties concerned.
>
> Obs! I have also tried to use the talk page though I am not sure
> whether I have done it right. I have also sent this mail to the
> moderator using my Kongoi Production's admin e-mail.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Nasibu Mwanukuzi aka Ras Nas
>
> CEO
>
> Kongoi Productions
> E-mail: admin(a)kongoi.com
> www.kongoi.com
>
> +47 41 62 89 37
>
>
--
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.