My plan for the big push - Wikinews-l

28 Oct 2007

Dear all,

I've had this idea that I would like to share. Do you know how people can say that
Wikipedia is a very popular site because every time they look something up on Google, they
see the Wikipedia article among the first links provided? I think that is one of the best
proofs of Wikipedia's success, and so I also think we should urgently make it one of
our priorities to get Wikinews' stories onto Google News.

Some of them actually get on there already, thanks to 1) other news sites reusing our
content and 2) Wikinews Reports, our blog which Jason Safoutin (User:DragonFire1024) got
onto Google News. Getting our content stories on popular sites has been tried before, but
some attempts failed because the stories needed to get copied manually, which can be time
consuming. That when Craig Spurrier (User:Cspurrier) set up this great script at
http://thenewswiki.com/, a url he happened to own (apparently that hasn't been updated
recently). Another recent improvement has been the site http://www.wikinewsie.org set up
by Brian McNeil (User:brianmc).

So you see, we've ended up with 3 different external sites which were set up for 3
different reasons. My idea is to merge these 3 together, as I think this would get all of
our news stories on Google News. I think the best way to do it is to set up Craig's
script on wikinewsie.org, and move the blog over there too. That way wikinewsie.org would
provide not only email addresses for reporters, but also a blog similar to what we have
now, and it would get all our stories on Google News.

So, what do we need to get on Google News? I'll tell you:
- Reliable information without vandalism. They don't want stuff anyone can edit.
However, we can have an approved-versions format, like the German Wikipedia has. This
would involve trusted users who could approve of story updates.
- The outward appearance of a typical newspaper setup. We need some evidence of a
community behind the stories.
- original reporting. Google News is a news aggregator itself, so it won't list other
aggregators.
- Articles in a format google news can aggregate.

Google News refused to list http://thenewswiki.com/ because 1) the site didn't show
evidence of a community of journalists and editors, and 2) was in fact an aggregator of
stories from Wikinews. We can change that by merging all 3 sites together. That way, we
can have a review process for Wikinews articles to ensure quality content, on a site with
a community behind it, and in a format that Google can handle. If we want to do this, we
need original reporting on wikinewsie.org . This can be achieved if all OR is originally
published on that site, and then gets copied onto Wikinews.

I've been told that wikinewsie.org is still being set up, that we shouldn't do
this because we wouldn't want to risk what we have now, ... but I think we should,
because things would be less scattered, all goals would still be achieved and it would get
all of our stories on Google News.

Sorry that this turned out to become such a lengthy post, let me know what you think of my
idea! I'll quickly summarise:

1. I think getting all of Wikinews' stories on Google News is a top priority
2. I think we can achieve this goal by merging our Wikinews Reports blog and
TheNewsWiki.com into our current reporter site wikinewsie.org.

cheers, User:Stevenfruitsmaak
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