[Foundation-l] [Wikinews-l] Proposal for the creation of aWikinews foundation

[Terin Stock]

As much as I would love to be an employee of Google, I'm also going to 
disagree with the spin-off of Wikinews from the rest of the Wikimedia 
Foundation. I don't think Wikinews would be able to survive without 
Wikimedia, I don't even think we could be fostered under Google and 
still be any better (we'll probably be worse) than what we are today.

That said, I guess we're back on the track toward making a separate 
organization.

Florence Devouard wrote:
> Craig Spurrier wrote:
>   
>> The last we heard about it Jimbo was going to ask Mike to look at it. If 
>> Mike says the WMF can do it, Jimbo says we could "fundraise on wikinews 
>> itself to get the money for the Foundation to hire a "Wikinews community 
>> liason"" (a job I would be very much interested in :) ). If the WMF can 
>> not do it then we need a separate org. Wikinews needs proper press 
>> accreditation. One recentish example of this need is we had a reporter 
>> covering a protest whose WN press badge saved him from getting arrested 
>> and worse. The fact that it worked may very well due to the fact that 
>> the police were rushed and had no idea what Wikipedia is. If they had 
>> taken the time to really read the card and saw the big disclaimer that 
>> says the person is not really affiliated with anything or if they knew 
>> about Wikipedia only from one of the anti-Wikipedia articles, there is 
>> no telling what could have happened, we could have had our first 
>> reporter in jail.
>>
>> Until we hear back from Mike, there is nothing we can really do, but the 
>> need is still very much present.
>>
>> At the present there is fairly mixed support from the Wikimedia 
>> community, but very strong support from the Wikinews community.
>>
>> -Craig Spurrier
>> [[n:Craig Spurrier]]
>>     
>
>
> Mike gave us a feedback, which basically contains what is below
>
> "
> I think that if Wikinews (or some renamed entity) wanted to
> embark on the project of setting up, say, an open-source version of
> Associated Press or Reuters, the best course of action would be to to
> spin it off, and out of the Foundation entirely.  (I'd suggest some
> rebranding as well to avoid confusion, but that's not a high priority.)
>
> Administering press accreditation and acquiring it and keeping track
> of what different national governments required strikes me as a huge
> project.  I don't think we have the manpower for it.  But because
> Wikinews is already "going its own way" in a lot of respects (there's
> already lots of duplication of function between Wikipedia current
> event coverage and Wikinews press coverage), the logical thing it
> seems to me is to spin Wikinews off.  Give it the associated
> trademarks as a sign of good will.  Donate server space even
> (although I'd prefer someone like Wikia or Google to do that.)
>
> There are search engines that are notably deficient when it comes to
> generating original content.  Google and Yahoo! come to mind.  What
> it would take to make this work is someone with the vision of
> building a Wikinews-type project and seeking funding or other
> financial support from a company like Google that already has a hole
> in its product lineup.
>
> I actually think it would be a sign of health of WMF if it showed a
> willingness to launch an independent child project into the world.
>
>
> --Mike
> "
>
> Then he also added
>
> "In nations that focus on accreditation, there's typically a class of
> journalists or a journalistic organization that officially takes
> responsibility for content.  In the U.S., any journalist or
> organization (e.g., the New York Times) that takes responsibility for
> content *expressly exempts itself* from the Sec. 230 safe harbor that
> protects Wikipedia and most other WMF projects from liability (for,
> e.g., defamation).
>
> So, in that sense, there's legal-liability divergence from other WMF
> projects, at least potentially."
>
>
> Which kinda answer the issue of legal risk. Would there be a legal risk 
> if WMF was handling accredition ? Yup.
>
> The three main solutions left are consequently
> 1) full spin off
> 2) a separate organization, part of a more global network. And with 
> shared values with WMF
> 3) working with chapters
>
> I am not sure chapters are to be considered good solutions really due to 
> all the comments previously made (partial coverage in particular), 
> though I believe they are part of the story.
>
> As for the full spin-off being the best solution, I do not share Mike's 
> opinion on this, nor does Erik. Other board members did not give a feedback.
>
>
> I hope that help :-)
>
> Anthere
>
>
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>   

-- 
#Terin Stock
אֻדָח