When is the CC license switch supposed to take effect? #Terin
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 7:54 AM, Brian McNeil <[email protected]>wrote: > Actually, here is an example of an article I’d urge people to take an > interest in and have a go at… > > > > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Israel%27s_Knesset_considers_%27loyalty%27_law > > > > This popped up this morning on Wikinews and was genuinely news to me – none > of the big international sources (apart from Al-J) had mentioned it. > > > > If you’re a Wikipedian who has never edited Wikinews… > > 1. Don’t use <ref> > 2. Don’t copy from Wikipedia (the licenses are different) > 3. Have a speed-read through [[n:Template:Howdy]] > > > > > > Brian McNeil > > > > -----Original Message----- > *From:* [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Ilya Haykinson > *Sent:* 27 May 2009 09:05 > *To:* Wikinews mailing list > *Cc:* [email protected] > *Subject:* Re: [Wikinews-l] Wikipedia's 'In the news' > > > > Wikinews has evolved into an entity striving towards a few very different > goals over the years: > > - be a repository for open-content articles about current events, written > in a newsfeed style > - serve as a collaborative site for emerging events of global importance > - support original reporting efforts ("citizen journalism" by most > people's definition) > > Sometimes, Wikinews really shines. For example, Wikinews has proven its > ability to handle very tough situations (earthquakes, bombings, etc) while > maintaining coherent articles and showing development over time. Some of the > articles are truly great testaments to the benefit of a wiki system. We've > also had a number of really, really wonderful local reporting -- on par with > any regional newspaper. > > However, from the big-picture perspective, Wikinews cannot reach its goals > very well. > > - The "open content" nature of our articles has gotten appreciated, but > hasn't really caught on. Given that each article that just synthesizes > existing news from other sources takes about 2 hours of work to develop, the > time investment doesn't really pay off since very few other sites (and none > of importance) pick up our news stories. The open CC-BY license is great, > and definitely will be appreciated 50 years from now when everyone charges > for their archives, but so far it's not a big draw for consumers of our > content. Compare this with Wikipedia, where the openness of the content > allowed it to be integrated into a lot of popular sites. > > - Globally-important emergencies thankfully do not happen very often, > which unfortunately means that Wikinews rarely gets a chance to shine. > There's definitely collaboration on other articles -- I think that I had a > statistic from a few years ago that Wikinews articles receive 18 edits on > average over their lifetime -- but these are not cases of mass collaboration > but rather a small community enforcing certain standards of content and > style. > > - Despite some great successes and truly wonderful reporting, we have not > been able to move past the contributions of some very dedicated and capable > individuals in creating a sustainable Original Reporting operation. The main > problems here are the global scope of Wikinews, the lack of a sizable active > user base, and the Wikimedia mandate. In more detail: > > * Global scope: Since Wikinews is global, we tend to have some very > disjointed "teams" of contributors. There's a handful of active people from > the UK, some from Australia, some from NZ, and a large number from cities in > the US / Canada. At certain times there have been contributors from India > and other English-speaking countries. However, in each case, the number of > active Wikinewsies in a geographical area is counted on one hand. These > people, more often than not, are interested in working on articles with a > global scope rather than of local interest. Even if one contributor really > excels and creates great Original Reporting, when they invariably burn out > their city or country becomes no longer represented. At the global scope, > however, there's rarely motivation or capacity for users to do truly great > original reporting: the news and the newsmakers are too far away to be > interviewed. > > * Lack of a sizable active user base: The site has settled into a > predictable pattern, where less than a hundred active users tend to maintain > most of the copywriting, editing, and janitorial duties. Readers, on the > other hand, rarely get turned from casual-reader to active-contributor. > While not unique to Wikinews, this problem for us turns into a shortage of > workable news stories. A large number of casual-contributors would have > allowed us to have a lot of short news stories: starting a story and getting > it to the 90% mark is the bulk of the work, and tends to be done by the > initial author in a lot of cases. The fewer people that are around to spend > that one to two hours starting a story, the fewer actual stories we can > publish. > > * Wikimedia mandate: the NPOV, notability, and newsfeed-style approaches > limit Wikinews to a great degree. While these are the very things that I > personally find so compelling about Wikinews, they undoubtely restrict our > ability to operate to the detriment of the site's popularity and > attractiveness. There's a great deal of people who start one-line stories > dealing with some local event; usually it's written poorly and does not > match our style, or is very opinionated, or is just plain untenable for a > site with any sort of a global focus. By not having a policy infrastructure > of effectively dealing with these short starts, we not only throw out some > story ideas (that maybe aren't great) but we also scare away contributors > who wrote these short starts (who maybe would have been happy enough to see > their contributions published to stay and develop into better contributors). > > In all, I don't see how these trends will change unless we radically alter > the Wikinews parameters of operation. My belief is that the only method that > could yield long-term success would be to transition to having a "news" tab > for Wikipedia articles -- and use some of the know-how in operating Wikinews > as a method of developing policies on WP. This is clearly a big deal, and > would effectively kill Wikinews -- however, I think that the current > situation is not very sustainable. > > There are other options too -- over the years there've been discussions of > spinning off Wikinews, or getting funded for some WN-specific software > development, etc. If there are good ideas that were left in a dustbin > before, maybe it's worth dusting them off now. > > -ilya haykinson > > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Brion Vibber <[email protected]> wrote: > > El 5/26/09 4:28 AM, Fred Bauder escribió: > > > Wikipedia needs to do what is good for Wikipedia, and some news coverage > > is good for Wikipedia. Detailed original reporting is outside Wikipedia's > > mission, as is a sophisticated presentation of the significance of news. > > As things happen, information about them is added to the corpus of human > > knowledge and thus added to Wikipedia. > > Wikinews does relatively little to really support firsthand reporting > either. I'll admit I'm not a hardcore Wikinewsie, but what I've seen > over the last years has generally been either: > > * Original interviews > or > * Re-reporting of news stories in other media > > Look at today's top stories: > > > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Trial_against_Church_of_Scientology_begins_in_France > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/North_Korea_conducts_test_of_nuclear_weapon > > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Obama_nominates_Sonia_Sotomayor_to_U.S._Supreme_Court > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Cyclone_in_Bay_of_Bengal_kills_at_least_17 > > All four are just rehashes of information found at other news sites -- > the sources are all media news outlets: CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, etc. > > There is an original reporting section: > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:Original_reporting > > but the stories are relatively rare, and even many of those seem to be > basically "a public event happened, here's a description" or "a press > conference happened, here's some info". > > > Wikinews lacks a local angle (there's no locality) or a unifying > political angle (we're supposed to be neutral), either of which could > make it much easier to organize original reporting. Compare with say > Indynews, which has a strong political angle and has been much more > active about providing infrastructure. Editorial quality sometimes > suffers, but I at least feel like they've got a mission... > > -- brion > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikinews-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikinews-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l > >
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