[Foundation-l] On Wikinews

[emijrp]

I agree with this analysis.

2011/9/13 <me at marcusbuck.org>

> English Wikinews is in a market with many, many professional
> competitors. Competitors with a paid staff that steadily create
> reliable news output quick and in most cases _for free_. While good
> encyclopedias were still sold for thousands of dollars in 2001, news
> were already available for free back then. So there's no big advantage
> for the reader in using Wikinews instead of some other news resource.
>
> A further point is steadiness. A Wikipedia doesn't loose much value if
> you leave it unedited for some days because of contributor shortage.
> On Wikinews on the other hand most readers will leave forever if there
> are no current news since days. It's very hard to build a userbase if
> you cannot guarantee a continuous flow of new news.
>
> And it's hard to gain authors if you have no readers because the texts
> will only be of interest for a few days. If you write a news article
> and noone reads it you have wasted your time. On Wikipedia however, if
> you write an article you can rest assured that people will read your
> text. If not today then in a year.
>
> Other than a Wikipedia where even a single person can build an
> increasingly useful resource over time, Wikinews has a critical mass.
> If it doesn't reach the criticial mass of steady contributions, the
> project will never lift off.
>
>
> It's my opinion, that Wikimedia should try to support a Wikinews by
> paying a editor in chief and a core team of reporters to secure that
> the project always stays above the critical mass.
>
> Ideally that isn't done in the oversaturated market for English
> language news but in a language that doesn't have any native language
> news outlets. Pick the language with the biggest number of speakers (I
> guess that'll be in rural Africa or Asia) that has no own media and
> hire an editorial team. Send them out to make contacts into the
> diaspora of the language and into the countryside to find volunteer
> reporters and correspondents. Let them do a mix of world news and
> original local news reporting. Go into print. A few newspapers per
> village will probably suffice if you distribute it to the right places
> and propagate sharing.
>
> Provide free and open news to people who haven't had access to native
> content before.
>
> That of course means spending some money. Perhaps it won't work. But I
> think it is worth actually exploring it further and trying it out. At
> least that would be a form of Wikinews that could actually _make a
> difference_. The current model of "give them a wiki and don't do much
> else until six years later the project crumbles to dust" does not lead
> to anything making a difference.
>
> Marcus Buck
> User:Slomox
>
>
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