[Foundation-l] [Wikinews-l] The systematic and codified bias against non-Western articles on Wikinews

[Thomas Morton]

>
> Wikipedia *still* does not enforce their "not a news site" policy, and
> it is an utter waste of time bringing such up; numerous selfish
> Wikipedians reject efforts to direct news-writing efforts to Wikinews. I
> neither know, nor care, if this is because they're incapable of writing
> to the high quality standards Wikinews sets; or, because they prefer
> their egos being stroked by Wikipedia's high page-hit counts on articles
> where they wrote a dozen or less words.
>

That's a rather negative view; I've been evangelising the idea of pushing
newsy/breaking content to WikiNews for some time - and encouraging people
contributing to high profile current events to consider WikiNews as a
more appropriately outlet. Wikipedia doesn't do current events very well -
our editorial process is unsuited to it, and we end up with problems
of recent-ism and undue weight (which take lengthy times to fix).

I've long suggested a moratorium on recording current events - and instead
leaving that job to our WikiNews colleagues...

HOWEVER

WikiNews is not simple to "get into". That is a major problem. Even as an
experienced Wiki user who used to contribute to WN (some time ago) it was
hard to figure out the process of getting a piece of news from new page to
published. Most of the other people I push your way are similarly
discouraged.

So whilst I can only comment broadly on the internal editorial process, and
could well be wrong; I can comment on how approachable WN is as a project...
it's not awful, for sure, but it doesn't make it as easy as possible to
write an article. (FWIW just about every foundation project suffers the same
issue to some degree or another)

Several times I've cut unduely lengthy recent-event reportage from a WP
article and considered dropping by WN to set it up in a more appropriate
venue. But the time commitment to do so is discouraging.

So perhaps this is something to consider working on.


> Trying to roll Wikinews back into Wikipedia would be a disaster. There
> are, as said, too many people who've been sitting, patiently, sharpening
> knives in preparation to kill "the red-headed stepchild of the WMF".
> And, Wikipedia could never ever handle original reporting.
>

Agreed - this is not a good idea or step. WP is unsuited to news.

Why does everything have to be a "fight", we're all far too defensive of our
pet projects and initiatives; every time a piece of criticism comes up it is
blasted without much consideration... not good.

Tom