[Foundation-l] Re: Swedish, Spanish, French Wikinews set up

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> I disagree. The work being done on Wikinews is, as I have already 
> explained before and as is also described in the Wikinews FAQ, very 
> different from the work done on Wikipedia: in-detail coverage of 
> individual events rather than summary-style overviews of a series of 
> events. To give you an example, one of the first French Wikinews 
> articles is this one about polling stations in Paris for the current 
> Iraqi elections:
 
And that is a best case scenario. But one of the most cited reasons why
*Wikipedia* is so great is the fact that it is kept up-to-date. The same type
of person who is interested in current events is in the same pool of people who
would likely contribute to Wikinews. These are news junkies. If *any*
particular Wikipedia doesn't have enough contributors in this area, then
drawing upon that limited pool is going to do some harm. 

You cited a Wikipedia regular as the author of this article. That's great but
the time it took to write and research that single story could have been spent
updating perhaps a half dozen existing Wikipedia articles. In this particular
case I think those edits will very likely be accomplished by other people
rather quickly. But if a great many news junkies are drawn away from the
encyclopedia, then this is going to have a negative effect on keeping the
encyclopedia up to date. I'm certain that this is not an issue for English and
German but beyond that I'm not so sure. 

> Because it is different, Wikinews attracts different contributors than 
> Wikipedia. 

Your one example was of a Wikipedian creating a Wikinews story. 

> We're not in a position to tell people what they should and shouldn't be 
> doing. We should give people the option to work on Wikinews if they want 
> to. 

And you are not in a position to go against the will of any wiki user
community. 

> The only thing your proposed requirement would accomplish is pissing 
> off volunteers who are ready to put time and energy into a worthwhile 
> project. 

You have already managed to piss a great many people on the French Wikipedia
off. They *do* most certainly have a say - as do all language communities -
whether or not they are ready for another project. It is up to them, NOT YOU. 

-- mav

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