On 8/26/07, Ed Brown ed.brown@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