[Commons-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Photographer IDs

[David Gerard]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>
Date: 28 Mar 2008 16:23
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Photographer IDs
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>


Only the English Wikinews has an accreditation process.

 The policy is here,
 http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Accreditation_policy

 Requests for accreditation go here, http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/WN:AR

 There are also a few other pages which those link to. The Wikinews phone
 hotline is one of the methods that can be used to verify credentials.

 We have one contributor who takes people's personal details and makes up
 laminated press passes that get posted out; in the past, this got a reporter
 preferential access to NHL (hockey) matches and a seat in the press box.
 What seems to have made the biggest difference though was the purchase of
 the wikinewsie.org domain and use of that for email addresses. This was
 something I took upon myself to do and it seemed to have an impact in
 landing my interview with Tony Benn and David Shankbone getting his Israel
 junket and interview with Shimon Peres. It certainly looks a damn sight more
 professional to have firstname.lastname at wikinewsie.org instead of some
 hotmail or gmail address.

 From a personal perspective, I'd love to see Commons institute something
 similar and have accredited photographers. An alternative to having two
 separate processes might be to move the Wikinews accreditation process over
 to meta and work from there across multiple projects. We've had a number of
 people from non-English Wikinews projects apply for accreditation with mixed
 results. However, that being said it might be best if Commons hammered out
 their own rules to start with - particularly requirements that those
 applying had good equipment and demonstrated a dedication to the project and
 a good eye for photography. From a Wikinews perspective it would be
 fantastic were there a pool of Commons photographers who could be contacted
 to attend events with an accredited reporter and cover said event.

 If you've any further questions on WN accreditation, feel free to ask on or
 off-list. There are problems in the majority of countries that work under
 the Napoleonic code and official, government sanctioned credentials are
 unavailable unless you make the majority of your income from your
 journalistic pursuits. However in a recent case in Belgium brought against
 an Indymedia reporter the judge threw it out and specified that the case
 should treat the person in question as a journalist and go before a
 different court and apply a different law. This is great news for all
 citizen journalists in the country as the law in question has not been
 applied - successfully or otherwise - for many years.


 Brian McNeil

-----Original Message-----
 From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
 [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of David Gerard
 Sent: 28 March 2008 15:41
 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
 Cc: Wikimedia Commons Discussion List
 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Photographer IDs

 On 28/03/2008, Adam Brookes <adambro at aebrookes.co.uk> wrote:

 > I very much doubt that the Foundation would be happy with having the WMF
 >  logo used in any way which may suggest that Commons photographers are in
 >  anyway represent the Foundation. The Foundation have been cautious about
 the
 >  Wikinews accreditation process for this very same reason. They want to
 >  minimise the risk of exposing the WMF to legal repercussions.


 Yeah. The problem is not making up a badge, it's all the legal issues
 and project politics surrounding "accreditation".

 Is there a nice page somewhere summarising how Wikinews editions deal
 with accrediting reporters, which might serve as a comparison?


 - d.


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