On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Wikinewsie: Anonymous101 < wikinewsie.anonymous101(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: The problem is that often we can be under an embargo or "media blackout" until a certain date - especially with sensitive stories. This seriously hampers our ability to develop these stories on-wiki with as much collaboration as possible. ~ Paul W

An embargo is actually simply a way for an organization with something newsworthy to ensure that multiple news organizations are able to cover the news. There are a lot of news publications now, and lots of places that have something newsworthy. It's not possible for everyone to organize press conferences where all the reporters show up at once and write down the story as they hear it. So, instead, the embargo is just a practical method to allow a slightly slower release of news, without too much unfairness to different press organizations. For example, a company may be about to release a new product. They want to contact about 30 news organizations to let them know about the product, show the product to them, etc. So the company rep gets on a plane, and flies to meet the different journalists over a course of a week or two. They show them the product, talk about it, etc, under the condition that the journalist doesn't publish anything until a certain date -- the same date as everybody else. The journalist is free to not follow the embargo. Indeed, sometimes the news is so important that the journalist decides to break the embargo. However, remember -- they only got to learn the news early because the company shared it with them. If they didn't agree to the embargo in the first place, they would have found out about the product _after_ everyone else who was under the embargo already published their articles. Indeed, if a journalist breaks embargo, they sometimes get "blacklisted" by the company whose product it was -- next time, they won't be on the list of journalists the company talks to beforehand. Sometimes this is worth the risk for the journalist, but for most routine situations it's really not. The embargo system isn't perfect. In the case of political events of high importance, embargo is simply unfair: a press conference makes more sense, so everybody learns about it at once. However, in the normal course of events, it solves the problem of having to inform many journalists at once, and letting them have a day or more to do their research and get their balanced articles going, without the fear that they'll be scooped by someone else. -ilya On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 9:02 AM, divol &lt;jacques.divol(a)laposte.net&gt; wrote:

Sure embargo's can be useful, but I think creating a private wiki will result in many problems including: 1. A two tier system where some editors can access the private wiki 2. No transparency If you have to agree not to publish a quote, leave the space blank and create the article in Wikinews:Story Preparation. That way Wikinews will have the transparency that Wikimedia was founded on "All the legal freedom to modify or distribute educational content is useless if users cannot get access to it." And people cannot access it if it is in this private wiki. Thanks, Anon101 On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Sue Gardner &lt;sgardner(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:

I want someone to steal our reports (as long as they give Wikinews credit), that is how we promote Wikinews. And do you really think Fox News have people monitoring RC? If you have to stop people reading your article before its published, prepare on a word processor. the WMF shouldn't support restrictions like this. In addition, if we had this wiki, I don; thtink stories like http://www.neoseeker.com/news/8044-wikimedia-foundation-board-censoring-wik… be revealed. On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 9:37 PM, Jason Safoutin < jason.safoutin(a)wikinewsie.org&gt; wrote: --

How about the following: 1. We create an en-embargo.wikinews.org or something similar 2. The wiki is only accessible by users with WMF accounts In an environment where every reader is also potentially a writer and is also potentially an editor, we can easily say that someone who explicitly requested access to the embargo wiki (i.e. logged in) will be able to participate in editing the story. This accomplishes the following goals: - Removes the editing process from the main wiki before the embargo lifts, ensuring that there aren't casual readers observing the article being created - Allows access to anyone who expresses an interest in it, and has bothered creating an account on WMF (i.e. has decided to be pseudonymous at the very least). Obviously, this is not a true embargo where the news organization knows exactly who has access to the info, but it's closer than not having any process. Alternative proposals: 1. Allow access to accredited journalists only 2. Allow access to accredited journalists, and all admins 3. Allow access to people who apply and justify need for access (i.e. separate process to apply, much like accreditation) 4. Allow access to people who verify their real names and agree to a certain set of rules (i.e. a very strict accreditation-like process) I would still prefer giving access to all, but certainly we can explore these other options as well. Thoughts? -ilya On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:52 PM, Jason Safoutin &lt;jason.safoutin(a)wikinewsie.org&gt; wrote:

Le 20 mai 08 à 01:54, Phoenix Rose a écrit : No, the law about vote in France is for EVERYONE, even journalists. Why the journalists, politics know the results before other citizens ? Because they are journalists (politics) ? Why not me, or every one else ? there's a bias i do not like. not very democratic (sorry, it's a bit politic, but not intended to flame this group) jacques

Paul, To get as much collaboration as possible we edit on wiki (real wiki not private wiki). Thats what Wikinews:Story Preparation is for. If it is so important that we don;t make this info available (which I doubt) than we might have t wrk of wiki, but as that has happened no times (to my knowledge). I don't think we should ignore the values of the WMF to do so. Thanks, Anon101 (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Anonymous101) --