[Wikinews-l] Wikinewsie

Sun Oct 4 13:25:21 UTC 2009

Those points make sense-however the only issue with having multiple
blogs is they look unused and dormant If there are too many.

On Sunday, October 4, 2009,  <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
> #blog on front page
>
> I know who past accredited reporters were, and who some of those who
> still are, are.
>
> Sooner or later someone will "rant" in an inappropriate and extremely
> poorly thought out way. Sure, it is themselves they're opening up to
> comments that rip their arguments apart for being poorly thought out and
> not based in reality. But it will reflect poorly on us all, and look
> highly unprofessional. That's why I would rather have more than one
> blog, define a clear scope for any blogs we do have, not have them
> in-your-face up-front, and if anyone does feel the need to "rant" they
> do it on their own personal blog.
>
> #list of accredited users on wikinewsie
>
> The email domain is @http://wikinewsie.org. If you contact someone, and they
> decide to see who/what a "Wikinewsie" is, they'll look at that domain's
> website. If they're redirected to en.wn, they could attach all the
> "unreliable", "anyone can change it", &c connotations from seeing a
> wiki. Presenting the data (list of reporters & bios) in such a way that
> it looks 'cast-in-stone', and unalterable is more credible.
>
> I am also on ComCom, and have access to the OTRS queue for press queries
> sent to the WMF. You do tend to carry out these sort of checks, you do
> want to "know thine enemy" before responding. Just like when someone
> emails from a gmail address, and says they're from the NYT, you make an
> effort to verify this is true. This can even be emailing back and asking
> for contact from a @nyt address.
>
> #google for email
>
> I'm doing my best to keep my email out of the UK government's
> super-database. I have zero assurances or trust Google won't give up
> that information if told "He's a UK peon, we say you're one of his ISPs,
> give all the data". If you think it won't happen, look at how they
> cooperate with China. At least USians have the current attempt to get
> telcos bitchslapped for warantless wiretapping, not so for many others.
>
> I have used gmail accounts as a convenient and semi-anonymous free email
> address. If I ever intend to say something I would prefer difficult to
> pin on me, I always retrieve and send email with POP/SMTP *through Tor*.
> Let's see a show of hands as to how many people on this list, accredited
> or not, could actually do that.
>
> I am disinclined to use Google for wikinewsie stuff on that basis,
> they're not really the techie "do-no-evil" company anymore, they're an
> advertising and marketing company. They will always collect data to make
> saleable statistics - I prefer to "poison the well" and skew the
> statistics over helpfully providing such data.
>
> As Jon says, we've had this Google Apps argument before. I've 20 years
> experience in IT with a big chunk of that in cellular telecoms, I used
> to get my hands on 1/4" mag tapes with a full month's call details for
> all a service provider's subscribers; who called, for how long, which
> tower(s) handled the call, all the numbers dialled that didn't answer.
> There has never been any thought that this data belongs to the
> subscriber. That attitude has never changed, just a variety of
> concessions to stop customers running away screaming, or compliance with
> whatever government legislation is enacted to give the appearance of
> privacy.
>
> So I'm fairly sure my position is well-informed. Google will quickly and
> quietly fold in the face of concerns from a sovereign government. We're
> trying to be journalists, using Google is like Bob Woodward faxing all
> his reporter's notes to a document storage company that would hand them
> over the second Tricky Dicky asked.
>
>
> Brian.
>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikinewsie
>> From: Tristan Thomas <tris at waterhay.co.uk>
>> Date: Sun, October 04, 2009 9:22 am
>> To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>>
>>
>> I like Jon's proposal.  I want to keep list of accredited users on Wikinews
>> as there's no reason it needs to be anywhere else.  We can start having
>> quick biogs of reporters on there if that's what people want.  Agree with
>> Gmail-Godaddy is forwarded to it anyway for me, so not too bothered.  TBH I
>> can't see it is worth it to get SUL-it's only a few things & you can have
>> the same details.
>> Thoughts on Jon's idea?
>>
>> 2009/10/4 Jon Davis <wiki at konsoletek.com>
>>
>> > I was thinkin about this problem and here's what I came up with.
>> >
>> > - Make Wikinewsie.org (main page), the blog.
>> > - Allow trusted users to have an account on the blog to basically post what
>> > they want.  We always tell people "We don't do editorials, thats what blogs
>> > are for", well there you go.  We can have our Offsite, non-official blog,
>> > where we can be POV.  Well at least some people can do that stuff.  Some
>> > people like me can stick to posting technical news.
>> > - Stick to maintaining the accredited user list on en.Wikinews
>> > - GoDaddy email/Calendar get replaced by Gmail Apps for your Domain.  I
>> > know their free version supports up to 25 users, we can probably email them
>> > and get more because we're kinda sorta non-profit.
>> > - Keep the Wikinewsie wiki an embargoed wiki, we don't need a public
>> > namespace on that.
>> > - The answer to the "SUL-like" question is LDAP.  I know you can easily tie
>> > Mediawiki to LDAP and from my quick google'ing, wordpress too.  That being
>> > said, is it worth it? I dunno.  Then you have to maintain the LDAP service
>> > too, and that doesn't even mention the mail issue (you'd have to have your
>> > own app for that, no hosted deal).  Oh, and I forgot the issue of
>> > permissions.
>> >
>> > I'd be willing to volunteer for some the technical stuff, after all servers
>> > are kinda my thing.
>> >
>> > -SGN
>> >
>> > On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 05:46, <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I want to see the blog resurrected on Wikinewsie - and perhaps others
>> >> added there too. You can pretty much forget us getting a WMF-provided
>> >> blog of any particular sort until we prove such will clearly fit the
>> >> remit laid out to justify 501(c) status.
>> >>
>> >> The Editors' Blog did not do too well for a variety of reasons. The
>> >> scope was intended to be on the details of the news reporting process,
>> >> yes with posts being single author and having a clear byline there is
>> >> nothing wrong with opinion that would not meet NPOV. There is a problem
>> >> with ranting anger that isn't cogently justified.
>> >>
>> >> A more technical blog, or one with a focus on recent meta-news might
>> >> work. There certainly isn't much chance of us being able to make
>> >> submissions to the official WMF tech blog. In this case, WordPress is
>> >> more appropriate than wiki technology because there is little
>> >> collaboration on the published item, and a need for a widely-known
>> >> simple comment system.
>> >>
>> >> I set up Wikinewsie.org because, despite asking again and again, nobody
>> >> would agree to give us @http://wikinews.org or even @http://en.wikinews.org email
>> >> addresses. The rest is just because it'd be stupid not to have a web
>> >> page matching the domain in the email addresses.
>> >>
>> >> At Wikimania in Alexandria, there were nods of agreement from Sue, Jay,
>> >> and Michael when I said I would like the WMF to take over the domain and
>> >> provide the hosting. Since then nothing, but it is clear from current
>> >> discussions that Wikinews is not a remotely important project when
>> >> prioritising the issues the WMF has to deal with. There is an open
>> >> invitation fo> >> bawolff%2Bwn at gmail.com <bawolff%252Bwn at gmail.com>>>
>> >> > > > Date: Fri, October 02, 2009 11:26 pm
>> >> > > > To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > > In the interest of fairness, only one of thoose gadgets are mine.
>> >> The
>> >> > > > other one is the original version stolen from the french
>> >> wikinewsies.
>> >> > > > Cheers.
>> >> > > > --
>> >> > > > - Brian
>> >> > > > Caution: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of
>> >> 85
>> >> > > > million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > > On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Jon Davis <wiki at konsoletek.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > > > > I've been told at one point in time, we had a regularly scheduled
>> >> > > newsletter
>> >> > > > > of the important goings on at Wikinews.  I can't find it in the
>> >> list
>> >> > > > > archives, but no matter.  I figured it was about time to
>> >> > > start/resurrect
>> >> > > > > it.  After all, we do important things around here and if you
>> >> aren't on
>> >> > > the
>> >> > > > > Wiki 24/7, you might miss something.  So here are the important
>> >> > > highlights
>> >> > > > > from last month:
>> >> > > > >
>> >> > > > > September 12th we had a banner day with 20 published articles in
>> >> one
>> >> > > day.
>> >> > > > > [[Category:September 12, 2009]] - http://enwn.net/A029
>> >> > > > > The RSS feed has been truncated to a more reasonable number -
>> >> > > > > http://feeds.feedburner.com/WikinewsLatestNews
>> >> > > > > We started a page to help Wikipedians better integrated with
>> >> Wikinews -
>> >> > > > > [[Wikinews:For Wikipedians]] - http://enwn.net/197b
>> >> > > > > [[Wikinews:Make Lead]] has been integrated into Easy Peer Review
>> >> by
>> >> > > Bawolff
>> >> > > > > - http://enwn.net/b05f
>> >> > > > > Bawolff also gave us not one but two different gadgets that
>> >> integrate
>> >> > > to
>> >> > > > > Wiktionary [[WN:WiktLookup]] - http://enwn.net/F52b
>> >> > > > > As of September 16th, we're not being carried on Google News, due
>> >> to a
>> >> > > > > change in MediaWiki.  Bug #20818 - http://enwn.net/246c
>> >> > > > > Some article statistics were made [[User:ShakataGaNai/Statistics
>> >> > > Project]] -
>> >> > > > > http://enwn.net/5967
>> >> > > > > The [[Main Page]] is getting an overhaul, with the new design to
>> >> show
>> >> > > up in
>> >> > > > > the next 24-48 hours - http://enwn.net/h
>> >> > > > > Policy proposed & passed to "Expire" Accredited Reports after 2
>> >> years.
>> >> > > -
>> >> > > > > http://enwn.net/6972
>> >> > > > > All the Water Coolers are now being archived (by month)
>> >> automatically.
>> >> > > > > New Administrators: 1, New Editors: 5
>> >> >