[Foundation-l] Re: Formal request: Wikinews project

[Andrew Lih]

Erik, I'm intrigued by the idea, of course, as it's my area of study.
However, with the Wikinews project having to source original content,
identify individuals, institute a reputation system and the establish
a workflow, I questioin how apt the title "wiki" is to this project.
It has more similarity to [[OhMyNews]], [[Indymedia]] and other
citizen reporter efforts. The project should at least have a rundown
of these other citizen reporter projects and rundown their
experiences.

This endeavour, while sharing Wikimedia's goals of openness, inclusion
and free content is the most ambitious project yet, because it becomes
primary source journalism. And with this, comes the baggage of having
to deal with libel and slander in ways Wikipedia does not, because WP
is one level of indirection away from accountable sources. Legal
counsel for any primary source reporting would be a necessity.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


On 11 Oct 2004 19:51:00 +0200, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Anthere-
> > Requirement on real names are naturally bugging me.
> 
> With your objections to any such rule in mind, I have tried to make this
> an option, rather than a requirement. There's a flip side to this and this
> is that without such an option, Wikinews will actually become *more*
> restrictive on what types of stories it allows.
> 
> I call it the Abu Ghraib test.
> 
> Let's say that our policy is that "any reported information can be allowed
> in an article as long as there is consensus among editors to include it."
> If we had a story like the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal before anyone
> else, and some reporter tried to include it under this rule -- all backed
> up both by good sources and by his credibility -- I am quite certain that
> some people would try to block it through endless discussions from ever
> being reported.
> 
> In many cases, where we would have some anonymous whistleblower (a person
> telling secrets about a company, government etc.) willing to give us
> information, I am also quite certain that under such a policy, this
> information would be unlikely to be accepted on grounds of verifiability.
> Again, it is quite likely - as unfortunate as this is - that people from
> the opposite political point of view would try to block information that
> does not suit them.
> 
> Therefore, my proposal suggests that we DO allow this type of consensus-
> based reporting from anonymous or unaccredited sources (called "witness
> reports" in the proposal), but IN ADDITION TO IT, we also allow Wikinews
> reporters to use their reputation as currency for publishing original
> reports, and to act as relays for people who want to stay anonymous.
> 
> So there is no requirement for real names, but the additional credibility
> offered by verified or verifiable identities guarantees that we can pick
> up stories that we would otherwise probably ignore.
> 
> I hope that the proposal is clear enough on the point that original
> reporting by non-accredited persons is allowed as long as there is
> consensus to include their stories.
> 
> I would like to emphasize that Wikipedia allows no original reporting
> whatsoever. Wikinews is therefore *much* more inclusive than Wikipedia,
> not less.
> 
> > The notion that all wikinews reporters will be necessarily sysops, and
> > all sysops necessarily wikinews reporter is problematic as well.
> 
> I agree. However, initially, the functionality of "publishing" an article
> will be linked to the tools that we currently have, such as page
> protection. The potential for abuse of this privilege, and the associated
> consequences, are larger than in Wikipedia: Imagine a Wikinews article
> about a massacre in Israel being published without proper review and then
> being distributed in other media. Such news articles can lead to fatal
> consequences.
> 
> Therefore, I believe that initially, we need to limit the circle of sysops
> who can publish stories to those we can identify and hold accountable. In
> order to make the process more wiki-like, I am working on a workflow
> system called "Wikiflow" that ensures an article can only flow from one
> state (unpublished) to the other (published) if there is consensus, if a
> certain amount of time has passed, and if it has come to the attention of
> certain people who should see it (reviewers).
> 
> This Wikiflow system can also be the basis of peer review on Wikipedia, it
> can replace the current sysop-centric VfD process, and so forth. So take
> this early version of Wikinews like you take something like VfD: It kind
> of works, but it's not open enough in the long term.
> 
> > Respective editorials ? You mean editorials can have a view point ? In
> > short, Wikinews will be a big change, since we will not any more have to
> > respect NPOV rule. But replace it with a collection of viewpoint. If one
> > view point comittee is missing, then the viewpoint is missing ?
> 
> This was just an experimental aspect of the proposal: to, in addition to
> news articles, have a daily editorial (commentary) about current events
> written by different "factions". This was *never* supposed to apply to
> regular news articles. While I still think it is a good idea to explore
> this, given that this part of the proposal is the most controversial, I
> have taken it out. We can still think about this in the Wikinews community
> once it exists.
> 
> > Last, I am not sure that all languages have really heard of this
> > project. So, I wish we advertise it a little bit more.
> 
> What do you suggest?
> 
> > I have not exactly forgotten yet the huge thread in september, saying
> > "the board has overstepped authority and blablabla" while we were only
> > acting in good faith. With such a reaction, any step from me for
> > agreeing for a new project will be *very* careful :-)
> 
> I understand. Of course I would like to start working on this project and
> publicize its existence as soon as possible. So I would appreciate some
> more concrete suggestions on how to move it from the proposal and
> discussion phase into the implementation phase. Waiting another month now
> when I actually have time to do some real work on this project would be
> painful.
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Erik
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-- 
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com