[Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked

[Sage Ross]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2011 at 5:02 AM, Tom Morris <tom at tommorris.org> wrote:

> I'm not sure this analysis is correct. A lot of people now don't get news by
> going directly to the site but on social media platforms like Twitter and
> Facebook. Of course, for that to work, we need to publish stories quickly.
>
> When stories hit those sites, they have the potential to start rolling very
> quickly as people retweet them.

I don't see that as much of a way forward for Wikinews, without a
niche that will really draw people. What makes @en_wikinews worth
following as a news source, as opposed to the many other feeds that do
similar things? To be an attractive Twitter / Facebook general news
source, the feed would need to publish at a much higher volume than it
does, with more consistency in terms of what should be pushed out and
what shouldn't.

> For instance, last night when the Troy Davis execution was going on, the
> @en_wikinews feed had damn near live updates from the televised stream from
> Democracy Now and other sources. I had a wiki story written up specifically
> to try and get it published at the time of execution. It's now still
> languishing in the review pile.

As a volunteer project, I think Wikinews has an inherent tension
between being timely and having a solid review process. Volunteers
work at their own pace. Professionals have both writers and editors
working on deadline, and are always going to be able to be more
immediate.  Live updates and even a quick publication of a full
write-up of a big news story that everyone is reading and writing and
talking about already... I don't see that as an area where a wiki
journalism project has a lot of value to add to the news ecosystem.

> Another thing Wikinews could be doing better is original, data-based
> journalism.

Definitely. This is an area that plays to the strengths of our
community: the sources are online and deep, and under-utilized by
traditional media, and there's a lot of potential for collaboration on
sifting through data in teams looking for interesting nuggets.

I don't think there's much potential for reaching critical mass with
Wikinews except through original reporting on areas that provide
common ground to a large set of Wikimedians -- both in terms of
interest, and in terms of access to sources.

-Sage