[Wikinews-l] Rebooting the "Wikipedia invasion"

[Brian McNeil]

On Tue, 2009-12-01 at 09:28 -0500, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Brian,
> 
> Just let me know where I can help.  I understand that some in the 
> wikinews community were dismayed at something I said in an interview 
> recently about Wikinews having "struggled" for a long time - but I want 
> to emphasize that I didn't mean to disparage Wikinews... part of the 
> problem is that people go to Wikipedia to write things that they should 
> be doing at Wikinews... and one solution is to use the massive traffic 
> power of Wikipedia to drive traffic to Wikinews.
> 
> I'd also like to have a private discussion (i.e. not on a public list, 
> because because I wouldn't like to see random ideas I might throw out in 
> a brainstorming session reported on as "news" about Wikinews in other 
> press) with leaders (admins + active editors) of Wikinews about "the 
> future of Wikinews".

I'm sure we could arrange a private list, or schedule an ad-hoc IRC
chat. And, I do know that some within the MSM will take the worst
possible fragment out of any sentence that they can - it does not seem
unreasonable that they might gleefully do so to jab at a potential
competitor like Wikinews.

The below link is - to me - the best hope we have. It offers a "fresh
field" for contributors (re: the Ortega research and chicken-little
media reaction), it covers Mike Peel's musing about WMUK issuing a press
release mentioning Wikinews as "The paper that's not paper, and won't
vanish behind a paywall".

I deliberately copied you on this because of a few things Mike Halterman
said, I thought the below proposed changes on Wikipedia fitted best with
how he characterised your opinions on Wikinews and its promotion.

> Lots isn't up to me, but I'm eager to see Wikinews flourish, and would 
> love to throw around some ideas.

From the Wikinews perspective, we kept banging away at getting WP:ITN to
more prominently feature our project. That would be a good area to
revisit; I know some Wikinewsies would like this a full list of the
project's articles, but I appreciate it is on an encyclopedia and
playing a longer game of getting people to wrie articles on Wikinews.


> Brian McNeil wrote:
> > I've decided that now is a *very* appropriate time to, once again, try
> > and restart discussion on Wikipedia paying more than lipservice to
> > Wikinews as the appropriate venue for news coverage.
> > 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Brian_McNeil#.22Recent.22_templates
> > 
> > These appear to be most of the enWP templates which caution that a
> > section of the encyclopedia relates to *news*. You can see the additions
> > I've made to highlight Wikinews coverage where it exists, and if not,
> > urge people to contribute on Wikinews.
> > 
> > This went down quite badly last time. I'll bite my tongue and just
> > describe the reaction to such a link on Ted Kennedy's death as
> > "hostile". Realistically, this needs to come as a significant push from
> > someone like Jimmy.
> > 
> > Anyway, any thoughts on fine-tuning this? Please note, I've put tooltips
> > on all the given links. There are cases where a long Wikinews title
> > would mess the template on Wikipedia, so I hide the title in the
> > tooltip.





-- 
Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil
Content of this message in no way represents the opinions or official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or any of its projects.
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