Something that has often confused me is Wikipedia's 'In the news' section. More often than not, the stories are the exact same as Wikinews', and in my opinion the presence of this section on Wikipedia actually stops people visiting Wikinews, as they can get all their important news off Wikipedia. To me, it seems counterproductive that a news story (I know Wikipedia doesn't do news, but current events often is effectively a news story) has to effectively be written twice (once on Wikinews and once on Wikipedia, due to licensing issues) when both projects are hosted by the same people and share a common goal: to provide free content. Could the two somehow be linked closer than a mere hyperlink? Could Wikipedia grab Wikinews' feed for the 'In the news' section or could content be copied off Wikinews onto Wikipedia once the new licence has been implemented? Would Wikinews not really benefit if current events editors on Wikipedia moved over to it? I'm sure this has been discussed hundreds of times but I am curious what the past consensus has been.

The current events section on Wikipedia has been a feature of the front page almost from the beginning, long before Wikinews was a project. It is simply a partial record of the major stories of the day, not an independent report of the news. (This is not quite true as those Wikipedians who control the front page have some editorial influence on what is highlighted). It is rather mediocre and spotty in its coverage, including some very minor stories and missing some major stories. It definitely needs attention by people who are news oriented, although it could go in different potential directions. The stories included contribute to article development with active work often occurring on the subjects of the stories, thus it is part of the dynamics of how Wikipedia works. It would be a shame to disrupt that dynamic. Fred Bauder _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

I would agree were Wikinews a far, far more active project. In such circumstances Wikinews would do the news, and it would be filtered to a small section on the Wikipedia main page. Brian. -----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jason

Sent: 25 May 2009 20:01 To: Wikinews mailing list Cc: wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikipedia's 'In the news' I have my stance on Wikipedia and the news section. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. Not a news site. Whether or not it was around before Wikinews makes no difference. The mere fact that Wikipedia has a news section, makes it almost like Wikinews is to compete with them. There would be no real problem, other than those who would scream about it, to move the Wikipedia news to Wikinews. There would be nothing lost on Wikipedia, given the fact Wikinews and WP are run by the same foundation and are all sister projects. I hear the same argument of "Wikinews is not a reliable news site", but there is no logical reason for Wikipedia to have a news section. It just seems, in my opinion, that having it on Wikipedia, just takes one of the fundamental goals of WMF away: collaboration.

Wikinews Importer Bot has helped improve the amount of links incoming to Wikinews' Main Page and to individual Wikinews articles - Perhaps not directly from en.wikipedia's Main Page itself - but certainly from Portal pages, and pretty prominently at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Brian McNeil &lt;brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org&gt; wrote: -- Cirt Cirt.wik(a)gmail.com <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cirt> _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

Do we want the Wikipedia news people? They'd need to put in a lot more effort - at the moment they just make 2-3 sentences from an item that is being included in Wikipedia, and their work appears on the 8th most popular site on the Internet. Wikinews does okay having a link above the crease on WP's main page. Selling a link like that on the main page would probably be worth six figures, we're not capitalising on that. And we cannot order people from Wikipedia to work on Wikinews to do so. It is like the meta discussion on a global BLP, we don't want told what we can and can't write, let alone even risk it. WP people involved with their news section would not take kindly to being told to do a full report on Wikinews. Brian. -----Original Message----- From: wikinews-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Jason Safoutin Sent: 25 May 2009 21:53 To: Wikinews mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikipedia's 'In the news' That can already be done easily as it is now. Those who write the news on WP can write the news on WP. It should not be a matter of popularity, but a matter of getting out the most information, the easiest, quickest way possible, with as much *collaboration *as possible. As it is, with the contributions on WP for the news, we are not collaborating we are competing. It may or may not be an intentional competition but is its one. It seems the only time we get any contributors from WP is when they do something to piss everyone else off. When the incident is settled, they go back to writing news on WP...the same news that they were just writing on WN. So I am just lost as to what exactly the point of all this would be? Its like taking what WMF stands for and ignoring it because something may or may not be as popular as it was before.

All I am saying is Wikipedia is not a news site. And if we have to have a policy on why we are not Wikipedia, then they should have one on why they are not Wikinews. -- Jason Safoutin Wikinews accredited reporter and administrator jason.safoutin(a)wikinewsie.org

All I am saying is Wikipedia is not a news site. And if we have to have a policy on why we are not Wikipedia, then they should have one on why they are not Wikinews.

El 5/26/09 4:28 AM, Fred Bauder escribió: Wikinews does relatively little to really support firsthand reporting either. I'll admit I'm not a hardcore Wikinewsie, but what I've seen over the last years has generally been either: * Original interviews or * Re-reporting of news stories in other media Look at today's top stories: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Trial_against_Church_of_Scientology_begins_in_F… http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/North_Korea_conducts_test_of_nuclear_weapon http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Obama_nominates_Sonia_Sotomayor_to_U.S._Supreme… http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Cyclone_in_Bay_of_Bengal_kills_at_least_17 All four are just rehashes of information found at other news sites -- the sources are all media news outlets: CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, etc. There is an original reporting section: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:Original_reporting but the stories are relatively rare, and even many of those seem to be basically "a public event happened, here's a description" or "a press conference happened, here's some info". Wikinews lacks a local angle (there's no locality) or a unifying political angle (we're supposed to be neutral), either of which could make it much easier to organize original reporting. Compare with say Indynews, which has a strong political angle and has been much more active about providing infrastructure. Editorial quality sometimes suffers, but I at least feel like they've got a mission... -- brion _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

Actually, here is an example of an article I’d urge people to take an interest in and have a go at… http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Israel%27s_Knesset_considers_%27loyalty%27_law This popped up this morning on Wikinews and was genuinely news to me – none of the big international sources (apart from Al-J) had mentioned it. If you’re a Wikipedian who has never edited Wikinews… 1. Don’t use <ref> 2. Don’t copy from Wikipedia (the licenses are different) 3. Have a speed-read through [[n:Template:Howdy]] Brian McNeil -----Original Message----- *From:* wikinews-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikinews-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ilya Haykinson *Sent:* 27 May 2009 09:05 *To:* Wikinews mailing list *Cc:* wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org *Subject:* Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikipedia's 'In the news' Wikinews has evolved into an entity striving towards a few very different goals over the years: - be a repository for open-content articles about current events, written in a newsfeed style - serve as a collaborative site for emerging events of global importance - support original reporting efforts ("citizen journalism" by most people's definition) Sometimes, Wikinews really shines. For example, Wikinews has proven its ability to handle very tough situations (earthquakes, bombings, etc) while maintaining coherent articles and showing development over time. Some of the articles are truly great testaments to the benefit of a wiki system. We've also had a number of really, really wonderful local reporting -- on par with any regional newspaper. However, from the big-picture perspective, Wikinews cannot reach its goals very well. - The "open content" nature of our articles has gotten appreciated, but hasn't really caught on. Given that each article that just synthesizes existing news from other sources takes about 2 hours of work to develop, the time investment doesn't really pay off since very few other sites (and none of importance) pick up our news stories. The open CC-BY license is great, and definitely will be appreciated 50 years from now when everyone charges for their archives, but so far it's not a big draw for consumers of our content. Compare this with Wikipedia, where the openness of the content allowed it to be integrated into a lot of popular sites. - Globally-important emergencies thankfully do not happen very often, which unfortunately means that Wikinews rarely gets a chance to shine. There's definitely collaboration on other articles -- I think that I had a statistic from a few years ago that Wikinews articles receive 18 edits on average over their lifetime -- but these are not cases of mass collaboration but rather a small community enforcing certain standards of content and style. - Despite some great successes and truly wonderful reporting, we have not been able to move past the contributions of some very dedicated and capable individuals in creating a sustainable Original Reporting operation. The main problems here are the global scope of Wikinews, the lack of a sizable active user base, and the Wikimedia mandate. In more detail: * Global scope: Since Wikinews is global, we tend to have some very disjointed "teams" of contributors. There's a handful of active people from the UK, some from Australia, some from NZ, and a large number from cities in the US / Canada. At certain times there have been contributors from India and other English-speaking countries. However, in each case, the number of active Wikinewsies in a geographical area is counted on one hand. These people, more often than not, are interested in working on articles with a global scope rather than of local interest. Even if one contributor really excels and creates great Original Reporting, when they invariably burn out their city or country becomes no longer represented. At the global scope, however, there's rarely motivation or capacity for users to do truly great original reporting: the news and the newsmakers are too far away to be interviewed. * Lack of a sizable active user base: The site has settled into a predictable pattern, where less than a hundred active users tend to maintain most of the copywriting, editing, and janitorial duties. Readers, on the other hand, rarely get turned from casual-reader to active-contributor. While not unique to Wikinews, this problem for us turns into a shortage of workable news stories. A large number of casual-contributors would have allowed us to have a lot of short news stories: starting a story and getting it to the 90% mark is the bulk of the work, and tends to be done by the initial author in a lot of cases. The fewer people that are around to spend that one to two hours starting a story, the fewer actual stories we can publish. * Wikimedia mandate: the NPOV, notability, and newsfeed-style approaches limit Wikinews to a great degree. While these are the very things that I personally find so compelling about Wikinews, they undoubtely restrict our ability to operate to the detriment of the site's popularity and attractiveness. There's a great deal of people who start one-line stories dealing with some local event; usually it's written poorly and does not match our style, or is very opinionated, or is just plain untenable for a site with any sort of a global focus. By not having a policy infrastructure of effectively dealing with these short starts, we not only throw out some story ideas (that maybe aren't great) but we also scare away contributors who wrote these short starts (who maybe would have been happy enough to see their contributions published to stay and develop into better contributors). In all, I don't see how these trends will change unless we radically alter the Wikinews parameters of operation. My belief is that the only method that could yield long-term success would be to transition to having a "news" tab for Wikipedia articles -- and use some of the know-how in operating Wikinews as a method of developing policies on WP. This is clearly a big deal, and would effectively kill Wikinews -- however, I think that the current situation is not very sustainable. There are other options too -- over the years there've been discussions of spinning off Wikinews, or getting funded for some WN-specific software development, etc. If there are good ideas that were left in a dustbin before, maybe it's worth dusting them off now. -ilya haykinson On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Brion Vibber &lt;brion(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: El 5/26/09 4:28 AM, Fred Bauder escribió: Wikinews does relatively little to really support firsthand reporting either. I'll admit I'm not a hardcore Wikinewsie, but what I've seen over the last years has generally been either: * Original interviews or * Re-reporting of news stories in other media Look at today's top stories: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Trial_against_Church_of_Scientology_begins_in_F… http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/North_Korea_conducts_test_of_nuclear_weapon http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Obama_nominates_Sonia_Sotomayor_to_U.S._Supreme… http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Cyclone_in_Bay_of_Bengal_kills_at_least_17 All four are just rehashes of information found at other news sites -- the sources are all media news outlets: CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, etc. There is an original reporting section: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:Original_reporting but the stories are relatively rare, and even many of those seem to be basically "a public event happened, here's a description" or "a press conference happened, here's some info". Wikinews lacks a local angle (there's no locality) or a unifying political angle (we're supposed to be neutral), either of which could make it much easier to organize original reporting. Compare with say Indynews, which has a strong political angle and has been much more active about providing infrastructure. Editorial quality sometimes suffers, but I at least feel like they've got a mission... -- brion _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

El 5/28/09 7:33 AM, Terin Stock escribió: June 15, however Wikipedia and friends will be CC-BY-SA (share alike), so you still won't be able to copy from there to CC-BY Wikinews articles. (You should, however, be able to copy *from* Wikinews *to* Wikipedia in that circumstance.) IANAL etc. -- brion _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

2009/5/30 Jason Safoutin &lt;jason.safoutin(a)wikinewsie.org <mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org>> Why could we not copy from WP? SA is just the basic same as regular CC BY. If copying from WP will still not be allowed, then why did they go through the trouble to even change the license if its still not compatible with other projects? CC-BY is not the same as CC-BY-SA - we (Wikinews) must publish our content under CC-BY-SA if we wish to copy from WP. Regards, Paul Williams paul(a)skenmy.com <mailto:paul@skenmy.com> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

2009/5/30 Jason Safoutin &lt;jason.safoutin(a)wikinewsie.org <mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org>> Why could we not copy from WP? SA is just the basic same as regular CC BY. If copying from WP will still not be allowed, then why did they go through the trouble to even change the license if its still not compatible with other projects? CC-BY is not the same as CC-BY-SA - we (Wikinews) must publish our content under CC-BY-SA if we wish to copy from WP. Regards, Paul Williams paul(a)skenmy.com <mailto:paul@skenmy.com> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

The CC-BY-SA license was certainly available -- it's one of the core CC licenses, and has been since the start. The main reason Wikipedia had changes is, I believe, that the GFDL is simply a bad license for a wiki: the GFDL requires individual authors to be listed, and has other restrictions that make content reuse a bit cumbersome. Secondarily, there was the incompatibility with various other copyleft sources that are using the CC-BY-SA type licenses. Now, Wikinews is not using a copyleft license: CC-BY is _less_ restrictive than CC-BY-SA, and was chosen to be so on purpose. Our license allows much easier reuse of our content by commercial and non-commercial sources, with or without changes, as long as it's attributed back to us. The CC-BY-SA license, however, requires that if any changes are made in downstream reuse of content, the changed content is made available under a similar license. This, by definition, is more restrictive than just a plain attribution requirement. And this is the reason why Wikipedia content can't be copied to Wikinews: we are not able to offer the guarantee that downstream reuse of Wikinews content will follow CC-BY-SA. You can see the original discussion / voting at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License -ilya On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Brian McNeil &lt;brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org&gt;wrote;wrote: The CC-BY-SA license was certainly available -- it&#39;s one of the core CC= licenses, and has been since the start.<br><br>The main reason Wikipedia h= ad changes is, I believe, that the GFDL is simply a bad license for a wiki:= the GFDL requires individual authors to be listed, and has other restricti= ons that make content reuse a bit cumbersome. Secondarily, there was the in= compatibility with various other copyleft sources that are using the CC-BY-= SA type licenses.<br> <br>Now, Wikinews is not using a copyleft license: CC-BY is _less_ restrict= ive than CC-BY-SA, and was chosen to be so on purpose. Our license allows m= uch easier reuse of our content by commercial and non-commercial sources, w= ith or without changes, as long as it&#39;s attributed back to us. The CC-B= Y-SA license, however, requires that if any changes are made in downstream = reuse of content, the changed content is made available under a similar lic= ense. This, by definition, is more restrictive than just a plain attributio= n requirement. And this is the reason why Wikipedia content can&#39;t be co= pied to Wikinews: we are not able to offer the guarantee that downstream re= use of Wikinews content will follow CC-BY-SA.<br> <br>You can see the original discussion / voting at <a href=3D"http://meta.= wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki… s/License</a><br><br>-ilya<br><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote">On Sat, May 30= , 2009 at 8:35 AM, Brian McNeil <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:bri= an.mcneil@wikinewsie.org">brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org</a>&gt;</span> wrote:= <br> <blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, = 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Commons is the mo= st compelling project to be compatible with. If you<br> actually look into the details of CC-BY-SA it is the license Wikinews would= <br> probably have chosen were it available at the time. CC-BY-SA makes Wikipedi= a<br> content vastly more useful to a lot of places and clears up significant<br> potential fair use issues quoting content on non-CC-BY-SA sites.<br> <br> Remember, Wikipedia ended up GFDL as a historical accident. They&#39;ve wor= ked<br> from that - including strongarming &#39;The Bearded One&#39; - into writing= a<br> get-out-of-GFDL clause. CC-BY-SA is *currently* the best choice for the WMF= <br> mission. I don&#39;t think it was available when Wikinews went from PD to C= C-BY.<br> <font color=3D"#888888"><br> <br> Brian.<br> </font><div class=3D"im"><br> -----Original Message-----<br> From: <a href=3D"mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org">wikinews-l-= bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt; </div><div class=3D"im">[mailto:<a href=3D"mailto:wikinews-l-bounces@lists.= wikimedia.org&quot;&gt;wikinews-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org&lt;/a&gt;] On Behalf Of Jas= on Safoutin<br> Sent: 30 May 2009 16:26<br> To: Wikinews mailing list<br> Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikipedia&#39;s &#39;In the news&#39;<br> <br> </div><div><div></div><div class=3D"h5">Why though? Then what purpose does = it serve to have changed WP to<br> CC-BY-SA if it still prevents =A0copying from WP to WN or the likes? In<br> that sense, it really makes no logical sense. I thought the goal was to<br> make the WP license more compatible with other project licenses? If so<br> then changing it to CC-BY-SA isn&#39;t doing that at all (aside from common= s).<br> <br> --<br> Jason Safoutin<br> Wikinews accredited reporter and administrator<br> <a href=3D"mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org">jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.= org</a><br> <br> <br> <br> Paul Williams wrote:<br> &gt; 2009/5/30 Jason Safoutin &lt;<a href=3D"mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinews= ie.org&quot;&gt;jason.safoutin(a)wikinewsie.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt; &gt; &lt;mailto:<a href=3D"mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org">jason.safo= utin(a)wikinewsie.org&lt;/a&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&lt;br&gt; &gt;<br> &gt; =A0 =A0 Why could we not copy from WP? SA is just the basic same as re= gular CC<br> &gt; =A0 =A0 BY. If copying from WP will still not be allowed, then why did= they go<br> &gt; =A0 =A0 through the trouble to even change the license if its still no= t<br> &gt; =A0 =A0 compatible with other projects?<br> &gt;<br> &gt;<br> &gt; CC-BY is not the same as CC-BY-SA - we (Wikinews) must publish our<br> &gt; content under CC-BY-SA if we wish to copy from WP.<br> &gt;<br> &gt; Regards,<br> &gt;<br> &gt; Paul Williams<br> &gt; <a href=3D"mailto:paul@skenmy.com">paul@skenmy.com</a> &lt;mailto:<a h= ref=3D"mailto:paul@skenmy.com">paul@skenmy.com</a>&gt;<br> &gt;<br> &gt; ----------------------------------------------------------------------= --<br> &gt;<br> &gt; _______________________________________________<br> &gt; Wikinews-l mailing list<br> &gt; <a href=3D"mailto:Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org">Wikinews-l@lists.wik= imedia.org</a><br> &gt; <a href=3D"https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l" ta= rget=3D"_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/w… <br> &gt;<br> <br> <br> --<br> Jason Safoutin<br> Wikinews accredited reporter and administrator<br> <a href=3D"mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org">jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.= org</a><br> <br> <br> _______________________________________________<br> Wikinews-l mailing list<br> <a href=3D"mailto:Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org">Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedi= a.org</a><br> <a href=3D"https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l" target= =3D"_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l</a><br> <br> <br> _______________________________________________<br> Wikinews-l mailing list<br> <a href=3D"mailto:Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org">Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedi= a.org</a><br> <a href=3D"https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l" target= =3D"_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l</a><br> </div></div></blockquote></div><br> _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

For a full page, yes - just need a CC-BY-SA template to use. HOWEVER, that's not what we'd want the content for. Uses would be things like quoting a couple of paragraphs from a bio when doing the obit. Brian.