[Wikinews-l] Proposal for the creation of a Wikinews foundation

[Florence Devouard]

Craig Spurrier wrote:
> Hello,
> I am proposing the creation of a separate organization that would allow 
> Wikinews to properly handle press accreditation. The Wikimedia 
> foundation has been unable to do this due to concerns over being seen as 
> the editor and the legal consequences that go with that. Proper press 
> accreditation is however very necessary for Wikinews.
> 
> A separate organization with a trademark license would be able to 
> properly handle press accreditation and have very minimal assets at 
> risk. This organization would not handle anything beyond accreditation 
> and tools to provide support for accreditation. I am in no way proposing 
> splitting Wikinews from the foundation or anything like that. We are 
> overall very happy with the foundation, but we have a need that the 
> foundation is unable to provide for.
> 
> The problem:
> The English language Wikinews has an accreditation policy [1]. This 
> allows us to receive press credentials at events and also assists us in 
> getting recognition as media for interviews and the like. The press pass 
> usually allows free access to an event or, priority access to normally 
> off-limits areas.
> 
> At the present we have a rather awkward arrangement for accrediting 
> users. Users who have gone through our accreditation process are 
> considered community accredited. The lack of any sort of organization 
> behind creates a problem when the events require a letter from the 
> organization before issuing the press pass (the G8 being the most 
> recent), and we have been unable to get the board/foundation to do this 
> or officially approve the accreditation program. The problem with this 
> is in order to obtain press badges and other press benefits a user must 
> either confuse the person (risking the request being denied) with an 
> explanation of how they are not really representing Wikinews but rather 
> the Wikinews Community or they must mislead the person into thinking 
> they really do represent Wikinews.
> 
> There are several other resources the foundation has been unable to 
> provide that are very helpful to us such as official e-mail addresses. 
> Brian McNeil has the wikinewsie.org domain and has offered e-mail 
> addresses with it. The response rate with these addresses has greatly 
> increased. Once again there are legitimate concerns that prevent the 
> foundation from being able to do this, but a separate foundation would 
> be able to.
> 
> -Craig Spurrier
> [[n:Craig Spurrier]]
> 
> 1. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Accreditation_policy


Let me thank you for the words of appreciation of the Foundation :-)



I fully understand your need of an organization to help "make contacts", 
maybe because I saw several french wikipedians negociate pretty well to 
get press access to political meetings during our elections in France. 
It was done through the french chapter, and I am pretty sure it largely 
helped them to refer to the association and to be able to show a nice 
business card referring to the association, with an appropriate email 
address.

Regarding your suggestion, I tend to share the same level of thinking 
than Schiste. Wondering how it would work on an international scale. 
Wondering how chapters could help here. Wondering who would govern that 
Foundation. How would needs of non english wikinews be taken into 
account. Etc...

I wait for more feedback to make a more formed opinion.

Ant