Why is it so difficult to locate developing policy on Wikinews? Should
there be a page, similar to Wikipedia, such as [[Wikinews:Policies and
guidelines]] which contains links to most of the current policy,
including the policy-making areas? The water cooler, as it is currently
laid out, is nearly useless for contributors not familiar with the
ongoing discussions (and patient enough to wade through the 85+ sections).
I have registered the IRC channel #enrc.wikinews, and am asking the
developers to put an RC bot in it similar to the one being used by
de.wikinews.org. This will allow people to use IRC to monitor the latest
changes on en.wikinews as they are committed.
Currently the main page is extremely long, and poorly maintained due to
its size. Breaking it up into several smaller templates (or templates of
templates), and maintaining only a very small footprint for sections,
seems to be the only way to lose the cobweb look. The developing stories
section... frankly I don't see articles there receiving much attention
with the current page traffic. Is this the best place/method to gain
participation? Should the main page get a make-over?
I'll stop here and see the response...
Amgine
Scríobh David Speakman:
> This group:
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Tsunami_Help
>
> Seems to be hijacking wikinews. I posted a concern in the watercooler on
> this topic. Also I have nominated a few of their non-English posts for
> deletion.
I've noticed this too, and posted in the water cooler. Basically, I feel
that their intentions are honourable, but Wikinews is not the place for such
things, unless of course they've gotten permission from higher-up. There
are also a few established Wikicontributors in there, like IlyaHaykinson - I
don't know if they've just jumped in because they feel it's a good idea, or
what.
Basically though, I agree, they're actions are "hijacking", and their
project would probably be better served elsewhere.
Regards,
- Craig
-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
and Culture.
Feel free to ignore this test.
But, if you insist on reading this far, I will apologize ahead of time
for not participating in IRC.
I'm one of those people who finds chat systems to be both frustrating
and intrusive. But, I respond to email in a timely fashion (usually).
--
David Speakman
http://www.DavidSpeakman.com <http://www.davidspeakman.com/>
501 Moorpark Way #83
Mountain View CA 94041
Phone: 408-382-1459
> Now that we're about to move demo.wikinews.org to en.wikinews.org, we have
> to think about a procedure for setting up other language domains.
I support moving the demo to a URL which makes it clear the project is
not temporary. However, it is also important to make clear to readers
that the project is in Beta to avoid responses to the site being
overly-critical in these early stages. This could be done via a
beta.wikinews.org URL, but this becomes more complicated once other
language domains are added, so perhaps a message in the site notice,
or on the logo, would be more appropriate.
> In the original proposal, I suggested that Wikinews can be set up in any
> accepted Wikimedia project language where there is at least one interested
> participant, and that 4 more regulars are required for the language to be
> recognized as "official", and for the firsts sysops to be created.
There is a proposed policy for new languages at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages
There may be reasons for Wikinews to follow a different procedure to
our other wikis though, since the process of creating a news site
really needs more users than an encyclopedia. The proposed language
policy currently states five users are needed. If this does not
change, then the same policy can be applied to Wikinews.
> If it is not, one possible alternative would be to immediately set up
> language domains for any language where there are more than 10 votes on
> the respective voting page on Meta, and more than 50% in favor.
I don't think the vote on whether to start the project is the same as
a vote to have a language sub-domain once the project has started, so
these votes should be discounted now. Any creation of a new language
Wikinews should follow whatever the procedure is going to be used
without reference to the previous vote.
> In any case, I would ask for the immediate authorization of
> de.wikinews.org...
I haven't read the German mailing list, but from IRC, I had the
impression that there were objections to this and that some wanted to
wait until there was evidence the English version was running well
before starting a German version. Could someone please confirm whether
this is the case or whether there is already enough support for a
German Wikinews?
> The content that is currently on the Demo wiki is in the public domain in
> order to facilitate the migration to any other license.
It would be best to keep the project as public domain for a couple of
weeks to allow users of the project to decide how they might want to
use text from Wikipedia in future, and whether Wikipedians feel they
want to be able to use text from Wikinews in Wikipedia articles. I
would prefer a vote not be held immediately, to give people time to
discuss which projects need to be compatible with each other, and how
external users are likely to want to use Wikinews.
Angela.
With Board approval, I have asked Tim Starling to move the project out of
the demo stage and to en.wikinews.org. As per the earlier suggestion, I've
added a big red "Beta" notice on the logo (make sure your cache is empty).
I've also revised the proposed review process. It is now clearly optional
and more like an accelerated Featured Article Candidate procedure.
More on
http://en.wikinews.org/
Regards,
Erik