[Foundation-l] Closing inactive Wikinewses

[Ilya Haykinson]

I would place a much shorter window on the inactivity threshold --
perhaps 1 month.

I second the suggestion for the higher reactivation requirement, as
well -- it encourages the redevelopment of a community. One must
notice though that the reactivating users may not at all be related to
the originating users, and yet they would have this higher burden of
rounding up members.  I would suggest that in response we should be
quicker at unlocking the wiki once the votes are in.

-ilya haykinson

On 10/16/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I suggest the following policy:
>
> When a Wikinews edition has seen no new stories for 8 weeks, the wiki
> is locked and a site notice is added: "This Wikinews edition is
> currently inactive. If you are interested in working on it, please
> indicate so on [[m:Wikinews/Reactivate an edition]]." (In the correct
> language, of course.) Instead of just 5 votes, you would need 10
> Wikimedians to sign the reactivation pledge.
>
> Inactive editions could also be removed from the interlanguage link
> list on the Main Pages, but that would be optional if it's too much
> maintenance.
>
> There are currently a few Wikinewses that meet this criterion. In
> general our setup policy tends to at least determine whether there's a
> general interest but that doesn't ensure that people keep posting.
>
> Without such a policy, I think we are just turning these sites into
> magnets for vandalism and spam, as well as making Wikinews look
> unprofessional (a news site with news that are a year old isn't much
> of one). An open recognition that an edition is dead seems preferable
> to me.
>
> Wikinews is of course very special in this regard because it doesn't
> really matter that much if a Wikipedia edition is dead for a couple of
> months, but for Wikinews, it is a very obvious sign that the critical
> mass is not there.
>
> Does this policy proposal sound reasonable?
>
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
>
> DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions expressed
> in this message are solely my own and do not represent an official
> position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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