Wikinews/IRC meeting Oct 27
On October 27, 20:00 UTC, a meeting was held on #wikinews (irc.freenode.net) to discuss the future of the Wikinews project. This is a full transcript of the meeting. This logfile has been slightly edited to protect the privacy of the individuals involved in the discussion.
Oct 27 22:05:52 <Xirzon> anyone non-idle?
Oct 27 22:06:02 * Hemanshu raises hand
Oct 27 22:06:06 <Angela> maybe :)
Oct 27 22:06:23 --- Xirzon has changed the topic to: Proposal: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews | Vote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote | OPEN Q&A / DISCUSSION SESSION | This channel is logged
Oct 27 22:06:34 <Hemanshu> ah
Oct 27 22:06:55 <jwales> I just got off the phone with a reporter, so maybe I'm non idle for a few minutes anyway. :-)
Oct 27 22:07:50 <Xirzon> cool. well, if there are any questions regarding Wikinews, feel free to ask
Oct 27 22:08:00 <Xirzon> otherwise, I'll outline my plan for the next few weeks
Oct 27 22:08:26 <Xirzon> The vote seems to be going reasonably well, with the exception of the Chinese and the French language versions.
Oct 27 22:09:04 <Xirzon> In light of this fact I would not oppose delaying the creation of the French and Chinese Wikinews until a majority of those language participants supports it.
Oct 27 22:09:59 <Xirzon> The Chinese in particular are worried about censorship, which is understandable.
Oct 27 22:10:02 <Hemanshu> is the vote about whether or not Wikinews should be created or whether or not Wikinews should be created in your language?
Oct 27 22:10:15 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: The vote is about whether or not Wikinews should be created.
Oct 27 22:10:28 <Hemanshu> right
Oct 27 22:10:37 --> trigger (~trigger) has joined #wikinews
Oct 27 22:10:37 <Hemanshu> so do the language tallies mean much?
Oct 27 22:10:45 <Xirzon> Well, as a compromise, we could say
Oct 27 22:11:01 <Xirzon> If a language has failed to reach the required majority (with a minimum number of participants)
Oct 27 22:11:27 <Xirzon> Then Wikinews for that language will be delayed until a majority OR a fixed number of people supports it
Oct 27 22:11:56 <Xirzon> In the next few days, I would like to set up temp.wikinews.org.
Oct 27 22:12:01 <Hemanshu> it's not very logical
Oct 27 22:12:15 <Xirzon> This can be done on my servers, or it can be done on the Wikimedia servers if the board agrees
Oct 27 22:12:23 <Hemanshu> test.wikinews.org maybe
Oct 27 22:12:34 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: I agree it is not logical.
Oct 27 22:12:56 <Xirzon> So I will not pursue this myself
Oct 27 22:13:16 <Xirzon> but it can be offered as a compromise if there is a major outrage
Oct 27 22:13:35 <Xirzon> I, myself, definitely want Wikinews to be created in all languages.
Oct 27 22:14:02 <Xirzon> I do not buy into the censorship argument
Oct 27 22:14:17 <Xirzon> If the censorship is so restrictive as to censor NPOV news, then it is also too restrictive for an NPOV encyclopedia
Oct 27 22:14:47 <Xirzon> The purpose of test.wikinews.org is to showcase how the website will operate in practice
Oct 27 22:14:50 <Hemanshu> I think the Chinese government is particularly keen on censoring news
Oct 27 22:15:06 <Hemanshu> which is not very logical :)
Oct 27 22:15:08 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: Yes, but Wikipedia has a Current events section, and articles on current topics
Oct 27 22:15:21 <Hemanshu> Xirzon: shh ;)
Oct 27 22:15:26 <Xirzon> Hehe.
Oct 27 22:15:52 <Xirzon> On test.wikinews.org I would like to develop a possible layout for the Main Page
Oct 27 22:15:54 <jwales> Xirzon: I support calling it 'demo.wikinews.org' for the demo site, and putting it on the foundation servers.
Oct 27 22:16:07 <Angela> Xirzon: I agree with what Jimbo just said
Oct 27 22:16:12 <Xirzon> jwales: Have you spoken to Anthere?
Oct 27 22:16:30 <jwales> Haven't seen her yet, no.
Oct 27 22:16:33 <Xirzon> I would also like to develop example stories for all stages of article development
Oct 27 22:16:48 <Hemanshu> Xirzon: you might want to read this http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/09/china-google-news-and-source-inclusion.html if you haven't already
Oct 27 22:16:51 <Xirzon> --- [Anthere] idle 00:00:45, signon: Wed Oct 27 22:01:30
Oct 27 22:16:51 <Xirzon> --- [Anthere] End of WHOIS list.
Oct 27 22:16:56 <jwales> I just wanted to raise the notion of calling it 'demo' rather than 'test' or 'temp' that's all. :-)
Oct 27 22:17:00 <Xirzon> go see her ;)
Oct 27 22:17:14 <jwales> Oh, I didn't see that she's online.
Oct 27 22:17:27 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: thanks
Oct 27 22:18:05 <Xirzon> So we will have stories for the different stages: 1) a story in development, 2) one in review, 3) a published one, 4) an archived one
Oct 27 22:18:21 <Xirzon> There will also be a "quick guide to writing stories"
Oct 27 22:18:28 <Xirzon> and a basic category layout
Oct 27 22:19:10 <Xirzon> it will be operational to a limited extent
Oct 27 22:19:19 <Hemanshu> what about the fact that there may be different versions of the same story?
Oct 27 22:19:23 <Xirzon> there will be a big DEMO notice prominently visible
Oct 27 22:19:25 <Xirzon> on each page
Oct 27 22:19:50 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: This will be handled in the same manner as duplicate articles on Wikipedia
Oct 27 22:20:06 <Xirzon> Generally, however, I believe it will occur less frequently
Oct 27 22:20:07 <Hemanshu> no no
Oct 27 22:20:17 <Xirzon> ?
Oct 27 22:20:17 <Hemanshu> what about when we want different versions of same story
Oct 27 22:20:21 <Angela> different POVs
Oct 27 22:20:28 <Xirzon> Could you give me a specific example?
Oct 27 22:20:37 <Xirzon> Generally, we would want to deal with different POVs in the normal NPOV fashion.
Oct 27 22:20:49 <Hemanshu> Xirzon: some part of a story may be ready for publishing while another is being reviewed
Oct 27 22:21:01 <Xirzon> "According to source XY, the minister was arrested on arrival at the airport. The government denied this claim."
Oct 27 22:21:28 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: Generally, we will want to avoid "bits and pieces" stories if possible
Oct 27 22:21:31 <Hemanshu> s/another/another part
Oct 27 22:21:35 <Xirzon> However there will be a "news in brief" section
Oct 27 22:21:45 <Xirzon> For stories which never go beyond "stub" status
Oct 27 22:22:02 <Xirzon> But we will try to make articles reasonably comprehensive
Oct 27 22:22:11 <Hemanshu> so if new information comes which should be added to a story that is in the publishing stage...?
Oct 27 22:22:22 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: That's an interesting case
Oct 27 22:22:36 <Xirzon> If the story is already published, or shortly before publishing
Oct 27 22:22:49 <Xirzon> What we may want to do is post a brief UPDATE at the bottom
Oct 27 22:22:59 <Xirzon> The way CNN and other news sites sometimes do it
Oct 27 22:23:13 <Xirzon> However, UPDATEs will have to filter through the same review process as full stories
Oct 27 22:23:14 <Hemanshu> being a wiki, we should be best able to deal with changes :)
Oct 27 22:23:24 <Hemanshu> ok...
Oct 27 22:23:25 <Xirzon> Otherwise there would be a loophole for non-reviewed information to be published.
Oct 27 22:23:39 <Xirzon> I would like to avoid too much time pressure for Wikinews stories.
Oct 27 22:23:52 <Xirzon> In general we should take a "when it's done" approach, I think
Oct 27 22:24:16 <Xirzon> But of course in the case of a major event there will also be a lot of pressure to get it on the frontpage
Oct 27 22:24:28 <Hemanshu> whilst calling it "news" anyhow ;)
Oct 27 22:24:53 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: well, I think we will only be marginally slower than traditional outlets
Oct 27 22:25:07 <Xirzon> e.g. the German "Tagesschau" (daily news on public TV)
Oct 27 22:25:17 <Xirzon> is always broadcast at 20:00, and hence the stories are already a few hours hold
Oct 27 22:25:21 <Xirzon> s/hold/old/
Oct 27 22:25:24 <Xirzon> but it's still news
Oct 27 22:25:36 <Hemanshu> so when the update is approved, it would be merged with the original...
Oct 27 22:25:46 <Xirzon> In retrospect I am quite happy that Wikinews will be launched after the US election, even though it would have been an interesting test case
Oct 27 22:26:01 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: merging only happens pre-publication
Oct 27 22:26:15 <Xirzon> actually, that's not necessarily true
Oct 27 22:26:36 <Xirzon> What I want is that an updated, published story always reflects the fact that it has been updated, and in what way
Oct 27 22:26:56 <Xirzon> this can be done in different ways, obviously
Oct 27 22:27:10 <Xirzon> In retrospect I am quite happy that Wikinews will be launched after the US election
Oct 27 22:27:31 <Xirzon> Though it would have been an interesting test case particularly for the update issue
Oct 27 22:27:44 * Hemanshu experiences deja vu
Oct 27 22:27:45 <Hemanshu> :)
Oct 27 22:27:55 <Xirzon> oh, I already typed that :)
Oct 27 22:27:59 <Xirzon> it was still in my buffer
Oct 27 22:28:02 <Xirzon> In retrospect I am quite happy that ..
Oct 27 22:28:04 <Xirzon> sorry ;)
Oct 27 22:28:08 <Hemanshu> lol
Oct 27 22:28:35 <Xirzon> there could of course be a repeat of what happened in florida 2000
Oct 27 22:28:42 * Xirzon checks twice to make sure he didn't type that already
Oct 27 22:29:01 <Xirzon> in that case we would have lots of material to chew on
Oct 27 22:29:26 <Hemanshu> yeah, life is so devoid of news without an election in USA :)
Oct 27 22:29:41 <Xirzon> heh, I think we won't run out of issues to worry about quickly
Oct 27 22:29:49 <Xirzon> OK
Oct 27 22:29:56 <Xirzon> so that's my plan for demo.wikinews.org
Oct 27 22:30:08 <Xirzon> Any disagreements about the plan so far?
Oct 27 22:30:25 <Angela> not from me
Oct 27 22:30:45 <jwales> sounds fine to me - I'm not sure about *all* the details of things that you said.
Oct 27 22:30:50 <jwales> But, more than enough.
Oct 27 22:30:50 <Hemanshu> I'd rather see an actual wiki
Oct 27 22:30:56 <Xirzon> now, demo.wikinews.org will be only in English
Oct 27 22:31:16 <Xirzon> the reason for that is that I want demo.wikinews.org to become en.wikinews.org if the project is approved
Oct 27 22:32:01 <Xirzon> now, some people have suggested holding off on original reporting for a while until the summary stuff works well
Oct 27 22:32:14 <merriam> when do you propose to start the demo?
Oct 27 22:32:17 <Xirzon> I don't agree with that, but there will be no original reporting until full policies for that are in place
Oct 27 22:32:31 <Xirzon> and approved either by consensus or a large majority
Oct 27 22:32:50 <Xirzon> merriam: the demo should start as soon as possible, i.e. within the next few days
Oct 27 22:33:03 <merriam> so during the election
Oct 27 22:33:06 <Xirzon> yes
Oct 27 22:33:18 --> elian (~elian@elian.wikipedia) has joined #wikinews
Oct 27 22:33:32 <Xirzon> one of the reasons for the demo is to convince skeptics
Oct 27 22:33:52 <Xirzon> so that they can see how easy it will be to write stories, for example
Oct 27 22:33:59 <merriam> on your servers?
Oct 27 22:34:12 <Xirzon> merriam: as I said, if the board approves it, it will be run on the Wikimedia servers
Oct 27 22:34:29 <Xirzon> otherwise on my own
Oct 27 22:34:35 <Hemanshu> if we have test.wikipedia.org, demo.wikinews.org shouldn't be a problem ;)
Oct 27 22:34:54 <Hemanshu> strange Hemanshu logic :)
Oct 27 22:34:55 <Xirzon> so, that's the plan for the demo site
Oct 27 22:35:04 <Hemanshu> k
Oct 27 22:35:05 <Xirzon> the site will officially launch sometime between Nov 12 and 15
Oct 27 22:35:20 <merriam> i think of board approval as something that tends to take a long time
Oct 27 22:35:26 <Xirzon> again, if the site is not approved by Wikimedia, I will run it myself
Oct 27 22:35:33 <Hemanshu> could China block Wikipedia because of Wikinews?
Oct 27 22:35:41 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: yes
Oct 27 22:36:02 <Xirzon> Wikinews and Wikipedia will be highly interlinked
Oct 27 22:36:13 <Xirzon> it would take a complete retard to not see the relationship
Oct 27 22:36:21 <Xirzon> then again, that might be the kind of force we're dealing with here
Oct 27 22:36:40 <Xirzon> but as I said
Oct 27 22:36:47 <Xirzon> if they censor wikipedia because of wikinews
Oct 27 22:36:56 <Xirzon> then they will only allow a highly castrated version of wikipedia in the first place
Oct 27 22:37:12 <Xirzon> neither of which is acceptable by the standards of the Wikimedia Foundation
Oct 27 22:37:17 <Xirzon> i.e., NPOV is not negotiable
Oct 27 22:37:36 <Hemanshu> will the Chinese Wikipedia community have an adverse reaction to launch of Wikinews?
Oct 27 22:37:59 <Xirzon> possibly, yes
Oct 27 22:38:30 <Xirzon> many Chinese Wikipedians work on articles where they never would get in conflict with the authorities
Oct 27 22:38:35 <Xirzon> i.e. completely non-political material
Oct 27 22:38:48 <Xirzon> and of course they are frustrated if their whole work becomes inaccessible because of something political
Oct 27 22:38:58 <Xirzon> this can be a Wikipedia article, or Wikinews
Oct 27 22:39:16 <Xirzon> Politics are highly visible on both Wikipedia *and* Wikinews, though
Oct 27 22:39:37 <Hemanshu> Chinese government has blocked Wikipedia before but not Wiktionary right? :)
Oct 27 22:39:41 <Xirzon> I seem to remember that one of the reasons for the last Wikipedia censoring (is it still active?) was a Chinese bulletin board incident
Oct 27 22:40:07 <Xirzon> Where Wikipedia had an NPOV article in spite of an order to the press not to report it
Oct 27 22:40:18 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: I believe so.
Oct 27 22:40:21 <jwales> I'm sorry but I must go do some business work for wikipedia now.
Oct 27 22:40:24 <jwales> I'll be back in 30 minutes.
Oct 27 22:40:28 <-- jwales (~jwales@Jimbo-Wales.wikipedia) has left #wikinews ("Leaving")
Oct 27 22:40:29 <Xirzon> OK, jim
Oct 27 22:40:55 --- Notify: jwales is offline (kornbluth.freenode.net).
Oct 27 22:41:02 <Xirzon> At the time of the launch there will be pages where interested participants can register, on meta, for their languages
Oct 27 22:41:12 <Hemanshu> just wondering if they think like... "et's block all sites related to wikinews":)
Oct 27 22:41:24 <Xirzon> alternatively ..
Oct 27 22:41:25 <Hemanshu> let's
Oct 27 22:41:42 <Xirzon> Angela: wasn't there a system where you could install a wiki in your language with one click? something tim created?
Oct 27 22:42:06 <Xirzon> maybe I dreamt that
Oct 27 22:42:20 <Xirzon> without that, we need some way to register whether someone is interested in a language version
Oct 27 22:42:41 <Xirzon> Given the large interest we can launch the major language versions immediately
Oct 27 22:43:01 <Hemanshu> maybe unlaunched wikinews could redirect to corresponding wikipedia Current events page :)
Oct 27 22:43:26 <Xirzon> that's not such a bad idea, actually
Oct 27 22:43:52 <Xirzon> the demo.wikinews.org policies will be tentative, as the name implies
Oct 27 22:44:09 <Xirzon> post-launch the project should become less erik-centric :)
Oct 27 22:44:26 <Hemanshu> but ideally we want information about starting a language Wikinews at the page where it is redirected to
Oct 27 22:44:56 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: no, we won't redirect to current events, but there will be a link to it on xx.wikinews.org
Oct 27 22:44:57 <Hemanshu> so maybe there would be an intermediate page which would either link to or have a frame containing current events
Oct 27 22:45:15 --> merriam_ (~chatzilla) has joined #wikinews
Oct 27 22:45:17 <Hemanshu> ok
Oct 27 22:45:43 <Xirzon> so, what I'm not quite clear about
Oct 27 22:45:52 <Xirzon> is to what extent we should limit the usage of the demo.wikinews.org site
Oct 27 22:46:05 <Xirzon> should we allow people to start writing stories, or would that be problematic because of the ongoing vote?
Oct 27 22:46:15 <Angela> Xirzon: there's a create wiki that should work for any language in the language list
Oct 27 22:46:28 <Angela> create wiki script I mean
Oct 27 22:46:33 <Xirzon> Angela: ah, so I didn't dream it
Oct 27 22:46:48 <Xirzon> that would have been scary
Oct 27 22:46:53 <Hemanshu> :)
Oct 27 22:46:57 <Xirzon> dreaming of wiki is one thing, dreaming of cool wiki features another ..
Oct 27 22:47:03 <Angela> see http://got.wikibooks.org/ for example
Oct 27 22:47:24 <Xirzon> cool, that's exactly what we need
Oct 27 22:47:28 <Angela> and don't click it unless you are prepared to write a Wikibook in Gothic :)
Oct 27 22:47:32 <Hemanshu> I daydream of cool wiki features and how wikis will solve all the world's problems :)
Oct 27 22:47:50 <Xirzon> so, any comments re: my question?
Oct 27 22:48:17 <Hemanshu> maybe limit to logged-in users?
Oct 27 22:48:20 <Hemanshu> :|
Oct 27 22:48:28 <Xirzon> hmm, I'd rather not
Oct 27 22:48:53 <Angela> I think not start writing them yet. It's meant to be just a demo
Oct 27 22:49:00 <-- merriam has quit (Remote closed the connection)
Oct 27 22:49:02 <Xirzon> we could have a maximum number of stories, and after that the publication system will be closed and we will just point people to the archived discussions
Oct 27 22:49:05 <Hemanshu> so what exactly would it contain then?
Oct 27 22:49:20 <Xirzon> let's say, we aim for publishing 10 complete stories
Oct 27 22:49:25 <Hemanshu> that's a good idea
Oct 27 22:49:36 <Hemanshu> we could limit the number of stories
Oct 27 22:49:47 --> merriam (~merriam) has joined #wikinews
Oct 27 22:49:48 <Xirzon> OK, so a story limit is what we will pursue for now
Oct 27 22:50:12 <Xirzon> just as a reminder, a Wikinews language project will need 5 registered participants for it to be considered an official Wikimedia project
Oct 27 22:50:15 <Angela> If you let people start editing, it's not really any different to actually launching the site
Oct 27 22:50:24 <Xirzon> and to get any sysops
Oct 27 22:50:32 <Angela> If it's a demo, it shouldn't be editable
Oct 27 22:50:48 <Xirzon> Angela: well, I do want people to try out the different processes
Oct 27 22:51:04 <Xirzon> there's no point in me creating fake discussions etc.
Oct 27 22:51:20 <Xirzon> also that would again make it "Erik's site"
Oct 27 22:51:27 <Hemanshu> so we can't work like Google which still calls Google News Google news beta? :)
Oct 27 22:51:34 <Hemanshu> pretend it's not the same ;)
Oct 27 22:51:48 <Hemanshu> Angela: demo of what?
Oct 27 22:51:52 <Hemanshu> then
Oct 27 22:51:54 <Angela> demo of wikinews
Oct 27 22:51:57 <Hemanshu> lol
Oct 27 22:52:01 <Hemanshu> right
Oct 27 22:52:05 <Xirzon> Angela: what about the story limit?
Oct 27 22:52:18 <Angela> maybe. If it's very low
Oct 27 22:52:50 <Xirzon> we'll call it a story sandbox for now
Oct 27 22:52:52 <Hemanshu> like 5?
Oct 27 22:53:02 <Xirzon> and limit it to 5 new stories besides the 4 original demo ones
Oct 27 22:53:17 <Hemanshu> 4 original demo ones?
Oct 27 22:53:20 <Hemanshu> written by Xirzon?
Oct 27 22:53:22 <Xirzon> for the 4 stages
Oct 27 22:53:30 <Xirzon> stubbed by me
Oct 27 22:53:36 <Hemanshu> ah
Oct 27 22:53:38 <Xirzon> the pub story, writen by me
Oct 27 22:54:09 <Xirzon> maybe I'll start working on it on a local wiki
Oct 27 22:54:18 <Xirzon> so we can immediately take it live once the demo is running
Oct 27 22:54:55 <Hemanshu> Wikinews:Research stories before you write them : Try to read all the hundreds of news sources to get a complete picture and eliminate POV of some sites
Oct 27 22:54:55 <Xirzon> if the board doesn't approve of an editable site I will probably run it myself, there's not much point in a non-editable one IMHO
Oct 27 22:55:21 <Hemanshu> yeah, the name being wikinews
Oct 27 22:55:40 <Hemanshu> we could as well call it ournews read by you
Oct 27 22:57:40 --- Notify: jwales is online (kornbluth.freenode.net).
Oct 27 22:57:47 <Angela> an editable site is more than just a demo.
Oct 27 22:58:07 <Xirzon> well, it won't be a wikimedia demo then - just erik's private campaign tool
Oct 27 22:58:19 <Hemanshu> what exactly will be demonstrated if it's not editable?
Oct 27 22:58:36 <Hemanshu> wikis are editable
Oct 27 22:58:38 <Hemanshu> duh
Oct 27 22:59:19 <Xirzon> so, I originally wanted to run the demo myself, but jwales asked me to make it a wikimedia site
Oct 27 23:00:53 <Xirzon> so, that's my plan for the demo and the immediate post-launch period. after that, I'm just a regular wikinewsian
Oct 27 23:01:14 --> Romeo762 (~Nick) has joined #wikinews
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Oct 27 23:01:44 <Angela> wikinewsian sounds too much like wikinuisance
Oct 27 23:01:53 <merriam> there are more options than just "editable" and "not editable". article pages might be locked all or most of the time, but there would be other pages...
Oct 27 23:01:53 <Xirzon> wikinewser?
Oct 27 23:01:57 <Hemanshu> lol
Oct 27 23:02:08 <Angela> wikireporter
Oct 27 23:02:27 <Hemanshu> merriam: not very wiki
Oct 27 23:02:48 <Xirzon> if there are any questions / arguments about wikinews in general, shoot
Oct 27 23:03:22 <Angela> what about non-notable news?
Oct 27 23:03:40 <Hemanshu> Vfd?
Oct 27 23:03:41 <Xirzon> the notability criterion will have to be hashed out by the community
Oct 27 23:03:46 <Xirzon> Wikinews:What Wikinews is not etc.
Oct 27 23:03:57 <Xirzon> personally I want the scope to be as large as possible
Oct 27 23:04:08 * Angela imagines people pasting in their school newsletters
Oct 27 23:04:20 <Hemanshu> personally I want everyone to be a Wikipedian :)
Oct 27 23:04:41 <merriam> wikipedian or wikihack?
Oct 27 23:04:55 <Hemanshu> err
Oct 27 23:04:59 <Hemanshu> what's a wikihack?
Oct 27 23:05:10 --- Notify: jwales is offline (kornbluth.freenode.net).
Oct 27 23:05:12 <Xirzon> I will push for verifiability as the main criterion
Oct 27 23:05:14 <merriam> just another version of "wikinewsian"
Oct 27 23:05:22 <Hemanshu> ah
Oct 27 23:05:32 <Xirzon> but I do want local events to be covered
Oct 27 23:05:59 <Hemanshu> Wikipedia is my primary project
Oct 27 23:06:04 <Xirzon> that's one of the things many people wanted Wikinews to be
Oct 27 23:06:28 <Xirzon> i.e. a place to report events that the big media don't cover because they're too small
Oct 27 23:06:41 <Xirzon> in my vision, accreditation prevents the worst excesses here
Oct 27 23:07:03 <Xirzon> a school newsletter would not be considered a reliable source
Oct 27 23:07:21 <Xirzon> and a witness report from a school would only find consensus if it's a significant event
Oct 27 23:08:18 <Hemanshu> we could ask the question if every such event were covered, how many events would be covered :)
Oct 27 23:08:59 <Xirzon> many
Oct 27 23:09:09 <Xirzon> oh, you mean as a general test
Oct 27 23:09:12 <Hemanshu> yes
Oct 27 23:09:25 <Xirzon> well
Oct 27 23:09:40 <Xirzon> I personally do't mind a wiki-reporter writing about the local police charity ball or whatever
Oct 27 23:09:55 <Hemanshu> like if we have an encyclopedia article about every person that ever lived on Earth, we would need billions of articles....
Oct 27 23:10:17 <Xirzon> just as long as there's some threshold of credibility before you can start doing this kind of stuff
Oct 27 23:10:44 <Xirzon> we really have visibility as a tool here
Oct 27 23:10:46 <Xirzon> disk space is cheap
Oct 27 23:10:59 <Xirzon> people can have their own local wikinews views
Oct 27 23:11:15 <Xirzon> just to get the local stuff that's not anywhere near Main Page
Oct 27 23:11:35 <Xirzon> however, the question is whether the review system will scale for this
Oct 27 23:11:52 <Hemanshu> ofcourse not
Oct 27 23:12:04 <Xirzon> we may want to have a minimum number of reviewers for every article
Oct 27 23:12:08 <Hemanshu> until we have a 100 million Wikinewsians
Oct 27 23:12:32 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: not necessarily - reviewing an article about some local event would primarily consist of checking its plausibility etc.
Oct 27 23:12:46 <Hemanshu> aha
Oct 27 23:12:46 <Xirzon> as long as the person is an accredited wiki reporter and hasn't violated the trust placed in them
Oct 27 23:13:18 <Xirzon> but, if we have a minimum reviewer threshold
Oct 27 23:13:30 <Xirzon> and we organize the review listings by notability
Oct 27 23:13:37 <Xirzon> then this might help to focus our energies
Oct 27 23:13:40 --- Notify: jwales is online (kornbluth.freenode.net).
Oct 27 23:13:52 --> jwales (~jwales@Jimbo-Wales.wikipedia) has joined #wikinews
Oct 27 23:13:56 <Xirzon> i.e. a story about a non-notable subject might never pass the review threshold
Oct 27 23:14:03 <Xirzon> hence no harm done
Oct 27 23:14:27 <Hemanshu> we could even have a send in your news article by email and read 10,000 emails every day
Oct 27 23:14:30 <merriam> i'm interested in getting away from npov. what about reviews? book reviews, for example
Oct 27 23:14:33 <Xirzon> now, I'm still not decided on whether I want a Workspace: namespace or not
Oct 27 23:14:44 <Xirzon> merriam: I am interested in that also, but it's an uphill battle
Oct 27 23:15:09 <Hemanshu> we could allow multiple reviews
Oct 27 23:15:11 <Xirzon> generally the only way I can see it working is if you have balancing views
Oct 27 23:15:12 <Xirzon> right
Oct 27 23:15:30 <Xirzon> in the original wikinews proposal there was the idea of having editorials written from different POVs that "cancel each other out"
Oct 27 23:16:00 <Xirzon> I took this out because it was too controversial .. anything within wikinews to do that would have to a) meet community approval, b) meet board approval
Oct 27 23:16:04 <jwales> Those are difficult matters. USA Today does the "cancel each other out" thing, it's pretty terrible usually.
Oct 27 23:16:37 <jwales> But I think that movie reviews and editorials are very important and valuable in general.
Oct 27 23:16:46 <jwales> It's just a hard thing for us to bring our unique methods to.
Oct 27 23:16:50 <Xirzon> I think the concept of a wiki-editorial is interesting
Oct 27 23:16:52 <merriam> yes. i think npov in news is a fiction
Oct 27 23:16:57 <Xirzon> trying to perfect a particular POV
Oct 27 23:17:13 <Xirzon> but - it opens up the possibility of saboteurs
Oct 27 23:17:20 <Xirzon> who try to make the other side look lame by inserting stupidity
Oct 27 23:17:28 <jwales> I don't think npov in news is a fiction.
Oct 27 23:17:29 <Hemanshu> perhaps people would be able to submit reviews and then the actual Wikinews review would be an attempted NPOV merging of the reviews
Oct 27 23:17:49 <Xirzon> and there's the problem of splits within a faction, etc.
Oct 27 23:17:57 <Xirzon> so it's a thorny issue which I think is best avoided at first
Oct 27 23:18:05 <Hemanshu> the actual review could be protected
Oct 27 23:18:13 <jwales> In terms of movie reviews, an NPOV article could be written _about the reviews_ of famous critics for example. A summmary.
Oct 27 23:18:16 <Xirzon> Hemanshu: that could work
Oct 27 23:18:38 <Xirzon> we could solicit reviews on notable works until we have enough different POVs
Oct 27 23:18:47 <jwales> Xirzon are you logging all of this?
Oct 27 23:18:50 <Xirzon> yes
Oct 27 23:19:05 <Xirzon> if you want me not to post a particular part, shout
Oct 27 23:19:08 <jwales> I ask because I'm really tired and I want to read over the discussion tomorrow, can you send it to me later on?
Oct 27 23:19:30 <Xirzon> jwales: of course
Oct 27 23:19:46 <jwales> thanks...
...
Oct 27 23:23:32 <Xirzon_> I got cut off
Oct 27 23:23:42 <Xirzon_> <jwales> I ask because I'm really tired and I want to read over the discussion tomorrow, can you send it to me later on?
Oct 27 23:23:42 <Xirzon_> <Xirzon> jwales: of course
Oct 27 23:23:44 <Xirzon_> anything past that?
Oct 27 23:23:46 <Hemanshu> welcome back
Oct 27 23:24:12 <Hemanshu> <jwales> thanks...
Oct 27 23:24:12 <Xirzon_> Hemanshu: could you paste my last words?
Oct 27 23:24:12 <Hemanshu> * Parts: jwales (~jwales@Jimbo-Wales.wikipedia) ("Leaving")
Oct 27 23:24:12 <Hemanshu> <Hemanshu> again not wikiwiki but close
Oct 27 23:24:12 <Hemanshu> <Hemanshu> we could have endless polls about including some parts of some people's reviews or excluding them. that would be fun ;)
Oct 27 23:25:21 <merriam> another thing i assume you'll be getting away from is egolessness
Oct 27 23:25:40 <Xirzon_> merriam: what do you mean?
Oct 27 23:26:26 <merriam> good wikipedia articles -- and wiki pages in general -- are supposed to be egoless, right?
Oct 27 23:26:35 <Xirzon_> merriam: true
Oct 27 23:26:44 <Hemanshu> Xirzon: I think he/she refers to the fact that the only way one can know who wrote a Wikipedia article is by looking at the history which is a separate document
Oct 27 23:26:49 <-- Xirzon has quit (Nick collision from services.)
Oct 27 23:26:52 --- You are now known as Xirzon
Oct 27 23:26:58 <merriam> i don't expect things like reporting and reviews to be like that
Oct 27 23:27:03 <Hemanshu> there is no I in Wikipedia :)
Oct 27 23:27:16 <Xirzon> merriam: reviews are not part of wikinews for now
Oct 27 23:27:22 <Hemanshu> I can't even find out all the articles only I have edited
Oct 27 23:27:23 <Hemanshu> :)
Oct 27 23:27:27 <merriam> still, reporting...
Oct 27 23:27:28 <Xirzon> so this is "possible","future" stuff
Oct 27 23:27:33 <Hemanshu> and put my name on them...
Oct 27 23:27:34 <Xirzon> reports will be attributed to the reporter
Oct 27 23:27:45 <Xirzon> at least that's how I see it
Oct 27 23:27:50 <merriam> and analysis
Oct 27 23:27:56 <Xirzon> analysis will be limited
Oct 27 23:28:02 <Xirzon> we will point to wikipedia for background info
Oct 27 23:28:30 --> Duelist (skquinn) has joined #wikinews
Oct 27 23:28:37 <Xirzon> analysis will mostly consist of summarizing the available facts
Oct 27 23:28:46 <Duelist> Hey folks... is the discussion still going? I just now found out about it
Oct 27 23:28:49 <Hemanshu> Category:News only 1 person is interested in editing
Oct 27 23:28:50 <Hemanshu> ;)
Oct 27 23:29:09 <Xirzon> Duelist: we're close to being finished
Oct 27 23:29:17 <Xirzon> but if you have any questions,comments,arguments, shoot
Oct 27 23:29:21 <Hemanshu> good night Xirzon
Oct 27 23:29:26 <Hemanshu> good night everyone
Oct 27 23:29:31 <Xirzon> cu Hemanshu, nice talking to you
Oct 27 23:29:36 <Hemanshu> good luck Wikinews
Oct 27 23:29:40 <Duelist> I like the idea in general
Oct 27 23:29:42 <Xirzon> thanks
Oct 27 23:29:42 <Hemanshu> same here
Oct 27 23:29:50 <Xirzon> Duelist: what parts don't you like?
Oct 27 23:30:05 --- Hemanshu is now known as H_asleep
Oct 27 23:30:54 <Duelist> The proposed policy on POV stuff kind of makes me wonder... personally I don't have a problem with editorials as long as they are labeled as such
Oct 27 23:31:04 <Xirzon> we've just discussed this
Oct 27 23:31:08 <Duelist> Ah
Oct 27 23:31:17 <Duelist> I must have come in right after it
Oct 27 23:31:22 <Xirzon> this is actually neither part of the wikinews proposal nor the thinktank
Oct 27 23:31:26 <merriam> we could discuss it some more :)
Oct 27 23:31:38 <Xirzon> so there is no "proposed policy" as such
Oct 27 23:31:40 <Duelist> Will the logs of the discussion be posted for review?
Oct 27 23:32:30 <Xirzon> A summary will definitely be posted
Oct 27 23:32:47 <Xirzon> anyway, my opinion in a nutshell
Oct 27 23:33:02 <Xirzon> editorials, reviews etc. are interesting and important, but we don't want to end up being a propaganda organ
Oct 27 23:33:30 <Duelist> I can agree with that
Oct 27 23:33:31 <Xirzon> so this is a very thorny issue that needs to be discussed in detail before we go any further, and it may need board approval if it goes beyond what NPOV currently allows
Oct 27 23:33:48 <Duelist> What is published *as news* should be NPOV
Oct 27 23:33:51 <Xirzon> yse
Oct 27 23:33:52 <Xirzon> yes
Oct 27 23:33:58 <Duelist> Anything that's obviously not NPOV, should be clearly labeled
Oct 27 23:34:08 <Xirzon> well, labeling is a minimum
Oct 27 23:34:27 <Duelist> Perhaps even put into a new namespace
Oct 27 23:34:33 <Xirzon> another option is soliciting opposing opinions, for a limited time or until the entire spectrum has been sampled
Oct 27 23:34:36 <Xirzon> emphasis on sampled
Oct 27 23:35:46 <Xirzon> anyway, unless there are any further comments, questions, arguments that need discussion, I'll close the session in 10 minutes
Oct 27 23:48:56 <Xirzon> OK, session closed.. I'll be around for a while with brief interruptions