[WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model

[Bod Notbod]

This is still up in the air but it has been mentioned on UK television
news in various contexts recently: because the business model of free
online newspapers funded by advertising doesn't seem to be brining in
the bucks, there is much discussion in the media as to whether online
newspapers will start charging their customers.

It's just this second struck me that this could have dire consequences
for Wikipedia. Presumably we have millions of citations that point to
online newspaper content. If they decide to put their archives behind
a pay wall, what's going to happen to those citations? Are we going to
say that we accept that people will have to pay if they now wish to
verify a statement? Or are we going to have to a) laboriously
re-reference everything and b) lose a great deal of content that we've
been unable to find alternative citations for?

Arguably I'm jumping the gun here. But it may be worth discussing in
advance as I reckon this issue isn't going to go away.

Does anyone think I should post this to the 'Foundation' mailing list too?