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

[Erik Moeller]

Elian -

> I didn't see a reaction from the board to your announcement that 
> nl.wikinews was set up. You seem to confuse not reacting with having 
> no objections or "being happy".

I did speak to both Jimmy and Angela about it before I set it up, and 
they were OK with launching it. I could not reach Anthere, that's why I 
first only set up nl.wikinews.org to give her a chance to react. 
Technically, I did not need to speak to any of them, since the policy 
was already agreed upon.

> How much this holds true for the majority of contributors in french 
> wikipedia I don't know, but it's certainly a thing worth considering 
> before rushing ahead.

The project is approved and ready to be launched in the languages where 
there is interest. Unless the French community has objections that are 
*specific* to their language, nation or culture, it is irrelevant 
whether some French Wikimedians like the project or not. Those who 
opposed Wikinews had their chance to vote. It's time to acknowledge that 
a strong majority of the Wikimedia community is supportive of Wikinews, 
and to treat it like all other Wikimedia projects. We have a French 
Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks and Wikisource, all of which were set 
up without any of the onerous requirements that are being debated here, 
or even the ones which I followed.

As for Chinese, there are objections which are specific to China. These 
should be resolved in one way or another before the project is 
definitely created.

> Here it certainly makes sense to hold a separate vote among the 
> community of chinese wikipedians if they want a wikinews or if they 
> consider the risk of chinese wikipedia getting blocked due to this too 
> high.

My opinion on the matter is that we should not bow to totalitarian 
regimes, and instead provide readers and editors with the tools to 
circumvent censorship. But I understand that this position is only mine 
and not necessarily that of the WMF. I therefore ask the Board to 
formulate or approve a policy here which I will then follow. That policy 
could mean a separate vote, a higher threshold of creation, or something 
else.

Regarding the rest of your argument, I will say two things:

1) As I said before, it doesn't matter whether Wikinews starts as a 
professional project or just as a small experimental wiki. A smaller 
wiki is less visible and less useful, hence less likely to attract 
negative attention. It can, however, grow into something useful over 
time. I find it crucial that people who have an interest in Wikinews 
have a wiki to work on, rather than being told that they have to build 
their community in meta-exile until it is large enough, which is simply 
not practical -- the community grows with the content. We should stop 
being paranoid about the quality of our projects a few days after they 
launch. They are wikis and should be treated as such.

2) Inactive wikis should be closed, as simple as that. If 
es.wikinews.org remains dormant, it will be shut down.

I also caution against any substantial alteration of the language policy 
for further Wikinews editions, as that would be unfair to the remaining 
languages, some of which are major.

As for the server log entry, yes, I forgot about that. This is now done.

Regards,

Erik