I am posting this to foundation-l and wikitech-l, because there is both a technical and a policy aspect here.
A small but growing group of Wikinews contributors is actively making audio recordings of Wikinews stories. This effort is coordinated here:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews
The files are uploaded to the Commons in Ogg Vorbis format. Now, two members of this group have started to also produce a streamed version of this, which is broadcast at specific times -- effectively Internet radio. This could grow into a real independent wikiradio project which perhaps could encompass more than just news. The usefulness of realtime broadcasting for news should be obvious.
The current Wikinews page is at:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:WikiNews_Network
Now, here is our dilemma:
Streaming audio in realtime requires special software. WNN currently uses ShoutCast, which is not free/open source software. It is also not hosted on Wikimedia's servers, but on the server of one of our contributors. (We have the same issue with the print edition, but I'll try to resolve this separately.)
Do we want to run this on our own servers? If so, there is a free software implementation called Icecast. Would it be possible to securely set up an Icecast server for this purpose on our hardware?
If we don't want to run it on our servers, should we allow it to be called "Wikinews Network", or should it use a different name?
Should we set any specific limits for the project's scope beyond NPOV, or should we let it experiment freely with the format for the time being? (There was some talk about ads on the program, but I made it clear that this was absolutely impossible.) As for NPOV, a wiki-radio project might want to broadcast news *about* the wiki community; do these have to strictly adhere to NPOV (the German Wikipedia:Kurier, for example, does not)?
Best,
Erik
On 13/06/05, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
A small but growing group of Wikinews contributors is actively making audio recordings of Wikinews stories. This effort is coordinated here:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews [...] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:WikiNews_Network
The Wikinews Network looks like a great idea. I'm pleased to see people are working on moving the projects beyond a simple text-based approach.
If we don't want to run it on our servers, should we allow it to be called "Wikinews Network", or should it use a different name?
It would probably depend on why we didn't want to run it on our servers. It could be an official Wikimedia project without being on our own servers.
Should we set any specific limits for the project's scope beyond NPOV, or should we let it experiment freely with the format for the time being? (There was some talk about ads on the program, but I made it clear that this was absolutely impossible.)
Perhaps a trial period will highlight whether or not any limits do need to be set. I'm not convinced NPOV and no-ads are going to be policies that need to be adhered to for this. Aiming for a balance in POV overall rather than in specific items might be better, though this should be experimented with before any decisions are made. Content off the main websites has been published with ads before (at least one of the WikiReaders http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiReader for example), so even that is something which should be open to discussion rather than immediately dismissed, particularly if it isn't going to be hosted on our own servers.
Angela.
About a technical detail. Have you considered [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting%7Cpodcasting%5D? There are several radio style programs that are broadcasted with this method, and the only thing we need is to keep an rss file updated. No additional kinds od services in order to launch the radio service. Ascánder
On 6/13/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/06/05, Erik Moeller erik_moeller@gmx.de wrote:
A small but growing group of Wikinews contributors is actively making audio recordings of Wikinews stories. This effort is coordinated here:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Audio_Wikinews [...] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:WikiNews_Network
The Wikinews Network looks like a great idea. I'm pleased to see people are working on moving the projects beyond a simple text-based approach.
If we don't want to run it on our servers, should we allow it to be called "Wikinews Network", or should it use a different name?
It would probably depend on why we didn't want to run it on our servers. It could be an official Wikimedia project without being on our own servers.
Should we set any specific limits for the project's scope beyond NPOV, or should we let it experiment freely with the format for the time being? (There was some talk about ads on the program, but I made it clear that this was absolutely impossible.)
Perhaps a trial period will highlight whether or not any limits do need to be set. I'm not convinced NPOV and no-ads are going to be policies that need to be adhered to for this. Aiming for a balance in POV overall rather than in specific items might be better, though this should be experimented with before any decisions are made. Content off the main websites has been published with ads before (at least one of the WikiReaders http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiReader for example), so even that is something which should be open to discussion rather than immediately dismissed, particularly if it isn't going to be hosted on our own servers.
Angela. _______________________________________________ Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
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