Andrew
It seems to me that you're saying that, on the one hand, the policies that
make Wikipedia work well as an encyclopaedia (NOR, RS, V, NORUSH) are a
poor fit for a news-gathering operation and on the other hand, Wikipedia is
a success as a news-gathering operation. These seem inconsistent to me.
However, I conclude from what you're saying that the best way forward is to
fold the Wikinews operation into Wikipedia. Is that right?
JPS
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:27 PM Jennifer Pryor-Summers
<
jennifer.pryorsummers(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Wikinews may not be doing too well, but (English-language) Wikipedia
seems
to have taken up a news-gathering role not
entirely consistent with its
encyclopediac mission: perhaps that's the reason. Maybe the WMF should
sort out the demarcation issues.
Jennifer,
This has been a topic of discussion for more than a decade and the vast
majority of the community has converged on the conclusion that Wikinews
hasn't and won't ever work at any scale given its fundamental properties.
News is often described as "the best obtainable version of the truth given
the constraints of a deadline." News depends on memorializing direct
observation at a point in time. Therefore, the following policies that make
Wikipedia work are a bad fit for original, deadline reporting:
Wikipedia:NOR - no original research
Wikipedia:RS - requirement for reliable sources
Wikipedia:V - verifiability
Wikipedia:NORUSH - there is no deadline/eventualism
Most anyone who tries Wikinews first hand will experience this mismatch and
realize it is a poor fit.
However, rather than lament why Wikinews doesn't work, we should celebrate
the fact that we have found a better mode: entries that evolve minute to
minute (oftentimes second to second) to best reflect the world as we know
it. Embrace that new, live, constantly updated snapshot of reality – the
Wikipedia article.
If you want to see some of the earlier debates about the origins of
Wikinews, October 2004 is a good place to look:
[1]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/thread.html
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2004-October/061017.html
-Andrew
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