[Foundation-l] On Wikinews

[Ray Saintonge]

On 09/14/11 11:10 AM, Sarah wrote:
>
> There are current affairs issues that would continue to be of
> interest. I've always felt this was an area Wikipedia and Wikinews
> should pursue: video interviews by Wikipedians of interesting people.
> Not necessarily celebrities or news types -- interviews with ordinary
> people, oral histories of certain communities, people who've had odd
> experiences, etc.
>
> It has been discussed a few times, and I know David Shankbone did some
> good ones, but for some reason it has been limited. Adding some
> original videos to our articles (adding them to Wikipedia articles,
> supplied by Wikinews) would be very attractive to readers, I think.
>

This is an interesting point.  In some ways Wikipedia has so fetishised 
reliability that there isn't much room for oral histories and memoirs.  
We can contact and communicate with each other by electronic means far 
more efficiently than ever.  The victim has been that long informative 
letters and diaries have become a thing of the past.  When that happens 
who becomes custodian of those memories? When we begin to rely entirely 
on published sources we become so much more dependent on some kind of 
official record. When we reject the memories of those who were there as 
insufficiently substantiated where do those memories go? The old foot 
soldier who attended the big battle was never much about book learnin'. 
The experience may have been too painful to remember and talk about 
before, and finally in his 90s after much prompting from his 
great-grandson he gives his only narrative, which his grandson duly 
records on inferior equipment. I'm sure we should be able to find a 
better response than, "Sorry, this is not a reliable source."

The narrative may be flawed and biased.  Similar narratives by others 
who were there may be flawed and biased too, but each in its own way.  
There are no news reporters there when the men of a community decide to 
get together to build a playground or other needed community facility. 
Is their experience so unreliable? How do we describe the episteme of 
today's world without falling into gnosis?

Ray