[Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> But you could also say "encyclopedias are written by organizations -
> not by just some people on the Internet (which is all any Wikimedia
> project is by itself). Using that term - in the real world where it
> has a specific meaning - to describe that process is very misleading."

Comparing the way the content is created with the use of marks outside of the
community are very different things. 
 
> I trust the content of Wikipedia because I trust the community behind
> it. I don't expect the Board to have approved the people editing it,
> or to have approved the content itself, and yet I'm still happy for it
> to be called an "encyclopedia", even though that term has meaning in
> the "real world" which implies a traditional process of peer review
> and publishing that Wikipedia doesn't have. I don't see the difference
> between this and Wikinews. 

Again – you are comparing development of content with the use of marks. That is
an invalid comparison. 

> "Press credentials" have no more or less
> meaning than "encyclopedia". 

Saying what we have created an encyclopedia is *very* different than saying
that you have Wikinews credentials in order to gain access to events you’d
otherwise not be able to. 

> If we're challenging the "traditional"
> model of an encyclopedia by letting a community write it, why would we
> not do exactly the same for press credentials? 

It would be nice if you read my proposal before attacking it. :) All I want is
for the current accreditation system to get the official blessing of the
foundation and for some (mostly theoretical) safeguards to be put in place.
This would allow those people who get accredited to use the Wikinews name and
logo on press badges. The community would decide who get accredited and
reaccredited in every case and would decide in almost every case who gets their
credentials revoked. The foundation would only get involved in really bad cases
that require immediate action. 

This new type of user status is VERY different than anything the community has
created before because the whole point of the status is to gain some type of
authority in the outside world. It is therefore imperative for the foundation
to create reasonable safeguards to project its good name and the name of its
projects. 

> Challenge this model of
> a higher authority and let the people involved work out who can be
> trusted. It's the only scalable approach, and the only one that will
> work across all 15 language editions.

Why are you mentioning that? That is a strawman due to the fact that I strongly
support the scalable approach. 

-- mav



	
		
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