On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 09:19:29 +0100, Anthere [email protected] wrote:

I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you take care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating that only en and de exist.

The new languages were added to that page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews&diff=93846&oldi...

I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french version.

They are listed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition/Archive#French

At least five people with a user page are required, and this was met for the new wikis that were set up.

This is in accordance with the (proposed) policy at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages and also with the original proposal at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Internationality

Angela.

Anthere wrote:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=P... Imho, not to be counted. Less than 50 edits overall in 6 months.

Has over 50 edits on en as well, but was not counted anyway since he had no user page linked to from meta.

Baf http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=B... Will probably not be a very strong participant here given the number of recent edits;

165 edits since the start of last month. Is this not enough? How many edits are people supposed to make before they are allowed to vote for a Wikinews?

Un illustre inconnu

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=U...

An editor as well, but hardly a participant really

171 edits since the start of last month but was not counted anyway since no user page linked to.

Manu

http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=M... No participation since october

That's because he's changed username: http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=E... 75 edits since the start of last month

Was not counted anyway.

DCLXVI http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=D... Less than 50 edits. Is bulgarian.

Has almost 1500 edits on bg.

159753 http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=1... 2 edits

Also has around 800 edits on en.

80.119.68.220 An ip vote.

Was not counted anyway.

There were also six people who voted in support of Wikinews on the French voting page but did not list themselves on the new page.

How many edits do users need to have? I'm very surprised you think that 160 edits in 2 months is not enough. What more do they need before a Wikinews can be created?

Elian wrote:

...

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Vote/Zh

Are you sure that this is a good idea? IMO it's questionable if a wiki should really be set up if a clear majority voted against the creation of wikinews, especially with the concerns raised there.

People were voting for the project as a whole then, not for individual language versions. Now Wikinews exists, views of whether a new language should be added may well change.

However, in the case of Chinese, the possibility of this leading to the Chinese Wikipedia being blocked again ought to be considered before this is created, despite it having 8 supporters (5 with a user page).

Angela.

Angela a écrit:

...

DCLXVI http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=D... Less than 50 edits. Is bulgarian.

Has almost 1500 edits on bg.

Interesting comment from DCLXVI on irc channel just 2 minutes ago

DCLXVI: :) AntGOne: as tu l intention de participer a wikinews ? DarkonekOQP: qui .? *** DarkonekOQP is now known as Darkoneko AntGOne: DCLXVI Darkoneko: ah AntGOne: vu que son vote a ete compte comme participant AntGOne: il va falloir qu il assume AntGOne: il assume fort :-) Darkoneko: ça se vois DCLXVI: AntGOne mon francais n'est pas assez bon pour contribuer :( ChtiTux is back (gone 00:39:11) *** hegesippe ([email protected]) joined #fr.wikipedia *** Guillaumito has signed off ("Leaving") *** soufron has signed off (Read error: 113 (No route to host)) AntGOne: pourquoi t es tu liste comme contributeur alors ? DCLXVI: parce que je vais faire des efforts por mettre des informations concernant Bulgarie :D DCLXVI: si c'est pas un probleme, bien sur

Erik Moeller a écrit:

Anthere schrieb:

...

I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you take care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating that only en and de exist.

No, it accurately lists all Wikinews sites. The section you cite only served as an example for the naming structure to be used, not as a complete list of Wikinews sites. That list is right at the beginning, at

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Wikinews_sites

I thank you and Angela for the edits made today, which clarifies this.

and I updated it after the creation of the wikis. There's obviously no point to maintaining two such lists on the same page.

...

I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french version.

Much of your discussion with Angela centers around what qualification is sufficient in order to be counted as a likely participant in the project. Now, a lot can be said about this subject, but please remember that we haven't had this discussion yet -- this is the first time these actual, formal criteria are being discussed. The only thing that is stated on the Wikinews page is

"Before a Wikinews language version is officially recognized as a Wikimedia project, and before the first sysop can be appointed, there must at least be 5 participants. "

The requirement stated on the proposed "Policy for New Languages" page is:

"There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki."

That page also states that there needs to be a "reporter", but this seems to be particularly controversial, so I have omitted it from the Wikinews requirements.

Now, should we go by a) or b)? If we go by a), then we should wait with "recognizing" the French, Swedish and Spanish editions as Wikinews projects until they have the required number of active participants. I'm happy to do that, though I am not quite sure what it means in practice. If we go by b), then, given that the formal requirements of a valid pledge have never been defined, it's a bit late to complain about the projects being approved now. You had plenty of time to state on the "Wikinews/Start a new edition" page or its discussion page if you thought that a certain amount of editing on the French Wikipedia was needed to make a valid pledge for a French Wikinews, for instance.

Personally, I think that we should assume good faith, make sure that the instructions on the page are clear, and count pledges from users who obviously exist. To simplify the counting process, I have only counted users with pages on Meta, but I am sure that there are some more real users who voted for the French Wikinews and who don't have a Meta user page. There are plenty of potential Wikinews contributors who have no interest in contributing to an encyclopedia, a quote collection or a dictionary. I think it would be unfair to discount their pledges.

Admittedly, I thought only regular editors pledge would count. Not pledges of editors who have hardly been participated at all, or pledges by editors who hardly speak the language. It does not matter if the editor has no meta page (though it really would help). We can make a precision about how 5 editors are "counted" on the talk page.

But, again, I am perfectly happy to withdraw official recognition from the newly created Wikinews editions until they have reached the required number of participants. If this is what you want, please outline the steps you deem necessary for such a withdrawal of recognition to take place.

We cant really withdraw what already exist. It really would not be kind to the few editors who started. I am happier with a project starting even with one person, but be considered beta until at least 5 editors and the major rules have been defined.

...

My personal opinion Erik. I did not approve wikinews because I felt it would be biaised and it would divide the community strength. Also, the majority of french editors did not support it.

True, but we all agreed that the Wikinews vote was for the project as a whole, not for individual languages. Also remember that many users from individual languages voted on the large English voting page, rather than the translated subpage.

True. Still, even in counting both pages, wikinews was rejected by the majority of french editors. This suggests that wikinews should have only been started with strong pledges.

Also, before being official, it would be nice that the main page report the real approved goal of the project. This is not the case on the french Wikipedia right now.

...

This is why some mandatory steps were added to try to limit the risk of us having a baised project. To ensure enough support would exist for each individual project.

No, this is not the history. These steps were actually defined before the vote even took place.

So... Euh... why are they no more valid now ?

...

In setting up a new wikinews without following these rules

I did follow the rules. You are now interpreting them to say I didn't, but the requirements you say exist (e.g. "> x edits on Wikipedia") were never written down or even discussed. I'm happy to discuss how to proceed further, and am willing to work with you and the rest of the Board in assuring that the creation of the new Wikinews editions will be smooth and will not disrupt existing projects. Please describe what you think should be done next.

The requirements of 5 editors existed. I did not even begin to imagine an editor with for example less 50 edits, all being categories addition would be considered in this case a pledged editor... This was my mistake.

My other mistake is to have imagined that a project would only been considered fully official, only after a little bit of setting up. If only putting the real goal on the main page. I obviously understand wrongly this was not a requirement.

I am glad a beta logo has now been put on the site. I will try to find time now so as to ensure the proper goal is defined in french, as well as basic rules set up.

For now, the rules are by default the same ones than on wikipedia, so I do not see the interest of both being separated. But I already see suggestions that current news be removed from fr.

Regards,

Erik

I thank you for answering me and acknowledging my concerns.

I think... it is particularly difficult for me to see that the french wikinews was created while the majority of french editors did not support it, even though most probably still think it is too early, even though the 5 editors requirement is not here. What I fear is in particular that wikinews will be known as early as next week by french journalists, who will discover a totally new and empty wiki. I do not think this will be good image. And given the number of editors willing to work on it, I know that contrarywise to then english or deutsch wikinews, it will grow slowly. I would not be so disappointed if say 25 people had expressed their desire to go for it, as I know we would soon see something.

The situation is quite different from other new projects which raise less interest amongst journalists, or for wikipedia when it started (since it raised no interest at all from french journalists).

So, I really think it is too early, and when I point out to this, I find it real tough to be answered that all my beliefs about the approval steps and the 5 editors requirement, are not correct. It makes me feel like I never tried to discuss this proposal and never understood it.

So, I get upset upon my comments not being acknowledged. Angela, allow me please to offer you my apologies for my rudeness on irc.

Daniel Mayer-

I have to agree with Anthere here. Since there is a lot of overlap between keeping the encyclopedia up to date and reporting on the news, there *must* be a critical mass of people working on that type of thing already on Wikipedia before it makes sense to have a separate news site.

I disagree. The work being done on Wikinews is, as I have already explained before and as is also described in the Wikinews FAQ, very different from the work done on Wikipedia: in-detail coverage of individual events rather than summary-style overviews of a series of events. To give you an example, one of the first French Wikinews articles is this one about polling stations in Paris for the current Iraqi elections:

http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/%C3%89lections_iraquiennes_en_territoires_%C3%A9...

It includes original research by respected Wikipedian "Submarine". Of this article, perhaps one photo would have been accepted into Wikipedia, but most of it would have been ruled out on the grounds of "no original research". It would also have been considered too detailed for a Wikipedia article about the Iraqi elections, given that such polling stations exist in many countries and there's no particular reason to focus on the ones in Paris, nor are small, individual observations of any relevance to an article which is meant to be read 5 years from now.

Now, how's the critical mass supposed to build for these types of contributions to go to Wikinews if they wouldn't be allowed on Wikipedia in the first place? The only way to build that critical mass is to have a wiki. "Participate in Wikipedia, so that you can participate in Wikinews when we have enough people to participate in Wikinews!" - It just doesn't work that way. The two projects are too different.

Because it is different, Wikinews attracts different contributors than Wikipedia. When RSS and category news display functionality are added (MediaZilla:1411 works towards that), this makes the operation of the site very similar to that of a blog, attracting bloggers who often have no idea how Wikipedia works. By instituting a vague "critical mass" requirement, we exclude those types of contributors who are not at all interested in working on Wikipedia, but who get excited about Wikinews. On February 5, we will have an IRC chat specifically to get bloggers involved. What am I supposed to tell them? "Oh well, we don't have a Wikinews in your language yet, try Wikipedia instead" - and have them give up in frustration, because Wikipedia works nothing like a news site, and all of their work is immediately deleted by busy WikiGnomes?

We're not in a position to tell people what they should and shouldn't be doing. We should give people the option to work on Wikinews if they want to. The only thing your proposed requirement would accomplish is pissing off volunteers who are ready to put time and energy into a worthwhile project. For these reasons and many more, I am strongly opposed to it. Wikinews editions should be started when people want to work on them, no sooner and no later.

Regards,

Erik

Daniel Mayer schrieb:

And that is a best case scenario. But one of the most cited reasons why *Wikipedia* is so great is the fact that it is kept up-to-date. The same type of person who is interested in current events is in the same pool of people who would likely contribute to Wikinews.

Nope. The work of writing a news story from scratch is very different from just summarizing what's going on. It is a very specific contributor profile which, as the history of the English Wikinews has shown, is hard to find among Wikipedians. You are just equating the groups because it suits your argument without any empirical evidence to back it up. Let's look at who actually edits the Current Events on en. This is a unique list of contributors from the second half of October 2004, before Wikinews was active:

Admbws Ahoerstemeier Alan Liefting Ambi Ancheta Wis Andrejj Anonymous Cow AntonioMartin Arwel Parry Avaragado Bob rulz Bogdangiusca Bontenbal CanisRufus Chrism ChrisO Ctrl build Danny Davidcannon David Gerard David Newton Dejitarob Dobrien Ed Cormany Ed Poor Eean Eewing Elf Enceladus Evercat Evil saltine Frazzydee Fred Bauder Gadfium Get-back-world-respect Golbez Grunt Harris7 Hooverbag Infrogmation Irishpunktom Irismeister JB82 JBradHicks Jewbacca Jiang Johnleemk Jongarrettuk Joseph Dwayne Jxg Kaihsu Ke4roh Korath Laguna72 Lance6Wins MacGyverMagic MarkPNeyer Mateo SA MathKnight Matt Crypto Mixcoatl Modemac Montrealais Mrwojo Nadavspi Nickshanks Nknight Peter L PFHLai Poccil Radagast Rdsmith4 Remember Richard Cane RickK Rje Rmhermen Saint-Paddy Sbwoodside Scooter Scott Sanchez Securiger Seth Ilys Simonides Solitude Spammer132 Spencer195 Sverdrup The Anome The King Of Gondor Tillwe TimothyPilgrim Tirin Toby Bartels VeryVerily Violetriga Wernher Whkoh Ydorb Youssefsan

This is a list of English Wikinews editors who have actually created articles, as far back as Special:Newpages allows:

Amgine Andrew pmk Arwel Parry BesigedB Borofkin Boud Cafzal Carlosar Dan100 Dcabrilo Dysprosia Gadfium Jiang King Ho Cheung Ronline Snooo Squeakfox Submarine The bellman VikOlliver VlSimpson

Now, even though we're searching in a very large set, of these people, only 3 have actually edited Current Events on the English Wikipedia:

Arwel Parry Gadfium Jiang

Of these three, only Jiang has made a substantial number of edits on Wikinews. and he still contributes to Current Events as well. Arwel made 11 edits on Wikinews, Gadfium made 9 edits. None of the really active Wikinewsies, to my knowledge, are involved in Current Events on WP.

Try writing a Wikinews article. Doing the research, collecting the references, writing a whole piece from scratch. This work is much more tedious than just providing a one paragraph summary with a source. It takes a different kind of person to do that. And the empirical data shows that.

You cited a Wikipedia regular as the author of this article. That's great but the time it took to write and research that single story could have been spent updating perhaps a half dozen existing Wikipedia articles.

Perhaps. People have a right to choose what they spend their time on. It's not up to you to decide that they shouldn't write news stories instead of updating Wikipedia articles. We don't have a hierarchy of projects. Wikinews has equal rights to Wikipedia.

And you are not in a position to go against the will of any wiki user community.

That is your opinion. In my opinion, it is the will of the Wikimedia community as a whole which counts. Wikimedia is a global project. It's not up to the French Wikimedia community to decide by majority that they don't want Wikinews, unless they have France-specific reasons for not wanting it. And I am supported in this both by policy and by statements of the Board to this effect, when I asked them this very question two months ago. Yes, I asked the Board whether we should treat the French Wikinews differently from the others because of the way the vote went, and the answer was no - I can document this with IRC chatlogs if necessary. This, by the way, is an interesting test case for language autonomy. And I firmly support the principle that Wikimedia-wide decisions can overrule local ones.

You have already managed to piss a great many people on the French Wikipedia off.

People who didn't like Wikinews won't like the French Wikinews edition or any other. That doesn't matter. The time for voting on Wikinews is over. The project is launched and it will be started in the editions where there is sufficient interest to do so. Now, the real problem, I think, was in setting up the Wikinews voting pages as subpages of the languages. That gave some people the impression that the vote count of the Wikinews/Vote/Fr page has relevance on its own. It doesn't. Global votes should be counted and aggregated as such in the future.

Regards,

Erik

--- Erik Moeller [email protected] wrote:

Nope. The work of writing a news story from scratch is very different from just summarizing what's going on. It is a very specific contributor profile which, as the history of the English Wikinews has shown, is hard to find among Wikipedians. You are just equating the groups because it suits your argument without any empirical evidence to back it up. Let's look at who actually edits the Current Events on en. This is a unique list of contributors from the second half of October 2004, before Wikinews was active:

You are comparing en.wikipedia users who edit the [[Current events]] page with people on en.wikinews. In spite of the fact that that was not my point (updating of the corresponding articles that are in the news, was) it is also about two English-language project versions. I already said, very specifically and a couple times, that Wikinews in English and German are fine due to the size of the respective language bases. The others I'm less sure about and would really like to know what those language communities think.

Perhaps. People have a right to choose what they spend their time on. It's not up to you to decide that they shouldn't write news stories instead of updating Wikipedia articles. We don't have a hierarchy of projects. Wikinews has equal rights to Wikipedia.

I never said it was. My point is that each language community needs to decide among themselves if they are ready to start a new Wikimedia project in their language. This is a bottom-up approach, instead of a top down one where a small group of people decide this for them (or worse, the majority of people who don't even speak their language force it on them).

That is your opinion. In my opinion, it is the will of the Wikimedia community as a whole which counts. Wikimedia is a global project. It's not up to the French Wikimedia community to decide by majority that they don't want Wikinews, unless they have France-specific reasons for not wanting it.

They cannot veto the Wikimedia project, but they should be able to prevent one from starting in their language if they don't feel they are ready yet. The issue is a bit moot now, since fr.wikinews exists and is not likely to be closed down. But in the future we need to be more sensitive to the views of different language communities. This whole ugliness has exposed a weakness in the current guidelines that needs to be fixed.

-- mav

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--- Erik Moeller [email protected] wrote:

Aside from what people's feelings are, it is important to collect empirical data. So far, your claim that Wikipedia will lose contributors to in-the-news articles because of Wikinews is unproven. It may in fact be the other way around, given that Wikinews prominently links to as much Wikipedia material as possible.

Again, those data were in a language that I already noted was fine for Wikinews. And English, being such an international language and spoken by so many people can not be a used in such a test. The English-speaking community of users working on Wikimedia projects is huge. So your results are not at all surprising.

But the arguments that have been brought up against the French Wikinews are just the same that have been brought up against Wikinews in general: It could harm our reputation, it could lead to legal problems, etc. Whether these arguments outweigh the benefits of the project has been addressed in a global vote.

Imposing the results of a global vote onto a language community which has a great deal of opposition to the vote result, is not something that makes for harmonious co-existence between languages. This is especially true when a large plurality of the global vote is from a single language community.

So global votes are great for deciding if the foundation wants to start a new project at all. But whether or not particular language communities are ready for that project should be up to them - not forced onto them.

What is a good solution to that problem? Perhaps, as soon as the required number of contributors is reached, there should be a vote on when the desired launch date is. "Never" would not be an option in that vote, but it could have a scope of, say, 4 weeks. This would also be a test of whether the people who pledged to participate are actually still around and interested, so the vote could have the same minimum number of participants.

'Never' is not a valid option. I can agree with that. But 'not in the immediate future' *would* have to be an option, IMO.

I am opposed to delaying the creation of Wikinews just because a Wikipedia in the language in question is still too small. That would create a hierarchy of projects. When there are participants, the project should be launched - but the timetable for the launch could be set by the community.

You are putting words into my mouth. I never said that Wikpedians in a certain language decide this, I said that the relevant language community decides it (well at least if I did say it, that was not what I meant :). *All* Wikimedia projects in a particular language have a stake in a new project in their language. Thus all Wikimedians who participate in those language project versions need to be heard.

-- mav

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Erik,

But to be clear, I don't think you technically did anything wrong. It was all a big misunderstanding that was based upon some fairly untested policies. What is important for us now, is to make sure we don't make the same mistakes in the future.

--- Erik Moeller [email protected] wrote:

That's not my point. My point is that you have not presented data in support of your hypothesis at all.

I supplied arguments. You did the same and also supplied data that only proved a point I had conceded at the very start of this whole thing. Thus the effect of your data on this argument is moot.

I do not see it as an imposition, but as the logical outcome of the global vote.

You are welcome to that view. Many other people in the language communities that are affected by this 'logical outcome' have views that are contradictory to yours. Their voices and opinion about what is logical are also important and should be considered. Not just brushed aside because the global majority has spoken.

Running a global organization like Wikimedia is always a balancing act between preserving a coherent identity and respecting local variations.

Thus my proposal to have Wikimedia-wide votes about the establishment of a project and if that passes (and gets board approval), then it would be up to individual language communities to figure out when it is a good time to start that project in their language.

This balances things very well. More importantly, it would have avoided the current ugliness.

-- mav

__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com

Much of your discussion with Angela centers around what qualification is sufficient in order to be counted as a likely participant in the project. Now, a lot can be said about this subject, but please remember that we haven't had this discussion yet -- this is the first time these actual, formal criteria are being discussed. The only thing that is stated on the Wikinews page is

"Before a Wikinews language version is officially recognized as a
Wikimedia project, and before the first sysop can be appointed,
there must at least be 5 participants. "

The requirement stated on the proposed "Policy for New Languages" page is:

"There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki."

That page also states that there needs to be a "reporter", but this seems to be particularly controversial, so I have omitted it from the Wikinews requirements.

The least you could have done, Erik, is go fish for those five "supporters" and ask them if they were ready to take care of the project and all it implies. The "supporters" for the French Wikinews voted more than two months ago... Wikinews fr could have waited another week, since it had already waited 2 months. You "could" also have put a note on the French Village pump, saying that according to the "policy", you were about to set up a French Wikinews, to raise awareness, give people time to get acquainted with the policies being developped on en and de, give the French association time to write a press release etc. I feel your decision is, yes, going "by the rules" but completely unilateral. Wikinews is your project, you want to push it, I understand this, but this is might harm it more than it might help it. Not very "wiki". My two cents.

Just to push my point, the announcement was made on the French Village pump about 24 hours ago, to this moment, there are 15 registered users on fr.wikinews, out of which 5 at least are non French speakers, 2 at least (I am counting Anthere and myself) are there only to see "how it goes", which leaves 8 people, out of which only two have substantially contributed. You may argue that I don't give it time, sure, but knowing the number of people who go through the French Village Pump, I would hardly call this a success. And to emphasize this "feeling" let me point here : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Le_Bistro#fr:wikinews so that you can see that the only substantial reactions to the announcement (apart from that of Greudin who is all for it - and that makes me happy, for he is indeed, a great contributor) and three have started a wild vote for the suppression of the project. Again, my two cents.

I personally feel you have just slapped the French wiki community in the face by imposing on us something that we are not sure we want "yet" and here I emphasize the "yet" as I am very aware that the project could and *would* work regardless of what my opinion about it is.

This said, Wikinews fr exists and there are no administrators (or none that I can see) who could prevent/fight vandalism if that comes to pass. What's the "policy" for this ? I'd like to know.

Regards,

Delphine

--- Erik Moeller [email protected] wrote:

Whether or not the majority of the people on Wikinews/Vote/Fr voted for or against the project is irrelevant. The project vote, as it was agreed by everyone involved, was an aggregated vote. The French Wikimedia community is part of the larger Wikimedia Foundation, which is an international organization. That organization has made the decision to launch the Wikinews project. It was only a matter of time until the French edition of that project was set up.

As has already been pointed out, Wikinews is a bit different than other projects we have created before. This is due to a significant amount of overlap between updating the encyclopedia and reporting on the news. Thus each language community should be able to decide if they have the critical mass of editors who do updates. If there are plenty already, then the few they lose to Wikinews will not adversely effect the encyclopedia in that language (and may in fact have a large net positive effect by making sure trivial current news does not choke encyclopedia articles).

Above all else, new projects should do no harm to existing ones. Whether or not this is now the case for any particular language community, is up to them.

Yes - I guess I am proposing an amendment to 'creating a new language version' policy. The overlap in Wikinews makes this necessary, IMO.

-- mav

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Anthere-

However, setting up a wikinews the way you did it, without prior warning

This is untrue. After the creation of nl.wikinews.org, I wrote:

"If everything is OK, and the board is happy with this language being set up, I will go ahead and create the other ones which have sufficient community support. "

There were no objections.

without taking into account the strong opposition which existed in the french community

You agreed to this approach. You are a member of the board of elected *global* representatives. I respect your unhappiness, but you have got yourself to blame as much as anyone else for this outcome. Please take some responsibility for your own actions. I am a powerless user. I could not have created fr.wikinews.org without the support of you and the rest of the board. You had the opportunity to raise objections, to define stricter criteria than the ones I used, to talk to me. You did not.

You write bitterly about "local community wish[es] crushed by globalization". Now, I know that you like to play the defender of the oppressed. But I've got news for you, Florence: By that nomenclature, you're one of the oppressors, part of the global elite that makes decisions for small communities. You have power, I do not. You can fool some people into thinking that you were "tricked" by the clever and manipulative Erik, but the reality is that I have got to thank you. You made fr.wikinews.org possible. Thanks a lot for that. I appreciate the support.

People are doing great things on them, but even after 2 years, these projects are still hardly resources. They will be great things later, but right now, they still host small communities.

That's fine with me. Someone has to lay the groundwork. It's OK for a project to start small and to grow later. Aside from that, I am still skeptical that Wiktionary is at all feasible with the current software, and think that Wikisource should be merged into the Wikimedia Commons to be successful.

I've said the same thing to Delphine: There's no point at all in being paranoid about bad publicity. Those who want to harm us will find reasons to do so. No amount of off-wiki preparation will prevent a slamming anti-Wikinews editorial. But to believe that any such editorial could do us any serious long-term harm is very naive and underestimates the intelligence and autonomy of our readers and editors.

Regards,

Erik

Elian -

I didn't see a reaction from the board to your announcement that nl.wikinews was set up. You seem to confuse not reacting with having no objections or "being happy".

I did speak to both Jimmy and Angela about it before I set it up, and they were OK with launching it. I could not reach Anthere, that's why I first only set up nl.wikinews.org to give her a chance to react. Technically, I did not need to speak to any of them, since the policy was already agreed upon.

How much this holds true for the majority of contributors in french wikipedia I don't know, but it's certainly a thing worth considering before rushing ahead.

The project is approved and ready to be launched in the languages where there is interest. Unless the French community has objections that are *specific* to their language, nation or culture, it is irrelevant whether some French Wikimedians like the project or not. Those who opposed Wikinews had their chance to vote. It's time to acknowledge that a strong majority of the Wikimedia community is supportive of Wikinews, and to treat it like all other Wikimedia projects. We have a French Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks and Wikisource, all of which were set up without any of the onerous requirements that are being debated here, or even the ones which I followed.

As for Chinese, there are objections which are specific to China. These should be resolved in one way or another before the project is definitely created.

Here it certainly makes sense to hold a separate vote among the community of chinese wikipedians if they want a wikinews or if they consider the risk of chinese wikipedia getting blocked due to this too high.

My opinion on the matter is that we should not bow to totalitarian regimes, and instead provide readers and editors with the tools to circumvent censorship. But I understand that this position is only mine and not necessarily that of the WMF. I therefore ask the Board to formulate or approve a policy here which I will then follow. That policy could mean a separate vote, a higher threshold of creation, or something else.

Regarding the rest of your argument, I will say two things:

1) As I said before, it doesn't matter whether Wikinews starts as a professional project or just as a small experimental wiki. A smaller wiki is less visible and less useful, hence less likely to attract negative attention. It can, however, grow into something useful over time. I find it crucial that people who have an interest in Wikinews have a wiki to work on, rather than being told that they have to build their community in meta-exile until it is large enough, which is simply not practical -- the community grows with the content. We should stop being paranoid about the quality of our projects a few days after they launch. They are wikis and should be treated as such.

2) Inactive wikis should be closed, as simple as that. If es.wikinews.org remains dormant, it will be shut down.

I also caution against any substantial alteration of the language policy for further Wikinews editions, as that would be unfair to the remaining languages, some of which are major.

As for the server log entry, yes, I forgot about that. This is now done.

Regards,

Erik

Erik Moeller a écrit:

My opinion on the matter is that we should not bow to totalitarian regimes, and instead provide readers and editors with the tools to circumvent censorship. But I understand that this position is only mine and not necessarily that of the WMF. I therefore ask the Board to formulate or approve a policy here which I will then follow. That policy could mean a separate vote, a higher threshold of creation, or something else.

Another very "wiki way" ... would be to wait that people really ask for the wikinews to be created. You know it is "really" when it begins to get noisy on mailing lists.

Regarding the rest of your argument, I will say two things:

1. As I said before, it doesn't matter whether Wikinews starts as a

professional project or just as a small experimental wiki. A smaller wiki is less visible and less useful, hence less likely to attract negative attention. It can, however, grow into something useful over time. I find it crucial that people who have an interest in Wikinews have a wiki to work on, rather than being told that they have to build their community in meta-exile until it is large enough, which is simply not practical -- the community grows with the content. We should stop being paranoid about the quality of our projects a few days after they launch. They are wikis and should be treated as such.

I think it does matter. When it was created, wikinews was not even labelled a starting wiki. And the media will soon have its attention on it.

2. Inactive wikis should be closed, as simple as that. If

es.wikinews.org remains dormant, it will be shut down.

Not really. There is always one or two editors. It is unnice to close it then.

I also caution against any substantial alteration of the language policy for further Wikinews editions, as that would be unfair to the remaining languages, some of which are major.

I caution against putting everyone in the same pot, regardless of local objections.

As for the server log entry, yes, I forgot about that. This is now done.

Regards,

Erik

Anthere-

You can't claim that there is no objection when people are not even aware of something going on. You can't pretend the foundation list is a channel of information read by anyone. Nowhere is written that this is mandatory.

The Foundation list is effectively our cross-project announcement list. I also posted to the international Wikinews mailing list. I'm sick of people complaining that this or that hasn't been announced in this or that place. In any case, as I have already said, I don't think it matters at all if some French editors feel Wikinews is a bad idea. They had their chance to vote. If there's anything *specific* to the French community about Wikinews, that would be interesting to know. So far I haven't heard it.

Given the opposition there was on the project, I think it would have been appreciated that you at least mention the creation over there.

As I responded to Yann, I announced it in the #fr.wikipedia IRC channel, and <phe> posted an announcement on the Pump after I did.

Powerless user ?

Yes. Any privileges I may have can be instantly revoked by the Board, of which you are a member. All my actions were taken in accordance with previous agreements with the Board and written procedures that have been sitting there for months.

When a criteria must mention that an editor must be able to edit a wiki for its vote to be valid, I think we are reaching a level of bureaucracy that goes too far.

Not at all. This is a substantial requirement for something like Wikinews, with lots of signatures to check for whether they have or have not edited in that language - and if they haven't, it still doesn't give you the secure knowledge that they can't. Instead of this rather complex procedure, I have used a simple one, namely, 5 users with user pages pledge to edit the project, and we assume good faith that their pledge is serious. That doesn't mean I oppose the requirement, but it makes the creation of new languages a substantially more time-consuming process than it is now.

You only made possible the existence of a local wiki with extremely little support and broken rules.

Stop accusing me of breaking rules. Which rule did I break? Put up or shut up.

Regards,

Erik

Ryo-

The point now is not anymore what to do with fr.wikinews, but whether we want to have 2+ clans at each other's throat, or try to make the best out of the situation.

I'm all for it. I have already agreed to Anthere's suggested policy change. As soon as she stops accusing me of breaking rules, I will stop responding in kind.

Regards,

Erik

Nicolas Weeger a écrit:

...

Stop accusing me of breaking rules. Which rule did I break? Put up or shut up.

Guys, gals, isn't it time to stop the escalation?

Well, I wrote broken rules, not breaking rules.

But I love you when you speak like this Ryo :-) (nota, en tout bien tout honneur bien sur).

Take some deep breaths, cool down, go do something else (walk? fix broken links on wikipedias? take a bath?).

Delete wikinews ? (just kidding)

Whatever happened with fr.wikinews happened. Now we can either have a nice split/fight about it, which'll make everyone unhappy, or take it easier, apologize when/if needed to the other, think about what happened so that it doesn't happen again.

I see no reason to apology even if I am terribly naive. I do expect this to happen again unfortunately.

The point now is not anymore what to do with fr.wikinews, but whether we want to have 2+ clans at each other's throat, or try to make the best out of the situation.

Nicolas "Ryo"

True. I know that it is no use expecting apologies from Erik. So best to move on.

Erik Moeller a écrit:

Anthere-

...

You can't claim that there is no objection when people are not even aware of something going on. You can't pretend the foundation list is a channel of information read by anyone. Nowhere is written that this is mandatory.

The Foundation list is effectively our cross-project announcement list.

Yes, but practically, that doesnot mean that people read it. It certainly took you time to set that wiki. It also take you time to set this blogging chat where you will present yourself as the foundator of wikinews; Was it so difficult to send a mail to the french mailing list or post on our main pump ? I am sure it would have been appreciated.

I also posted to the international Wikinews mailing list.

You might be surprised, but I do not think editors read a list for which they do not have a project. Telling the wikinews list is nice, but not informing french speaking people much. In short, not the right channel of communication.

I'm sick of

people complaining that this or that hasn't been announced in this or that place.

Yes ? Well, consider it an important information : if people complain about your bold actions regularly, there must be a reason.

In any case, as I have already said, I don't think it

matters at all if some French editors feel Wikinews is a bad idea. They had their chance to vote. If there's anything *specific* to the French community about Wikinews, that would be interesting to know. So far I haven't heard it.

Pardon me ?

Who is gonna edit the french wikinews ? You ?

If you consider that the french-speaking community has no authority to decide if and when a french speaking project should be set, could you explain me for which reason a german powerless editor not able to write in French could have more authority upon this decision ?

I (and others) noticed with interest your chat planned with bloggers. Obviously, it will be very beneficial for you to announce that the great successful wikinews is already set in 6 or 7 languages. This will be an important announcement for you. A sign of your success.

Has it occured to you that similarly the french speaking community would have possibly planned to set a press release for the day it is started ? Perhaps a special page for this ? A big meeting ? Whatever ?

No, you probably essentially thought you had to increase the number of wikinews language for the meetup, quickly checked which languages could meet the 5 editors requirement, set up the wiki, and casually mentionned on a couple of mailing lists and irc that it was done.

Sorry, but this is TOO easy.

I do not doubt you did it for good reasons and with good faith, and certainty to act in your right. However, I just question the opportunity of doing so, and the opportunity of doing so without asking us beforehand.

...

Given the opposition there was on the project, I think it would have been appreciated that you at least mention the creation over there.

As I responded to Yann, I announced it in the #fr.wikipedia IRC channel, and <phe> posted an announcement on the Pump after I did.

It was announced afterwards and took us by surprise.

Why did *you* decide to set it up ? Since when is ONE user doing things rather than letting communities decide at their rythme when things should happen ?

...

Powerless user ?

Yes. Any privileges I may have can be instantly revoked by the Board, of which you are a member. All my actions were taken in accordance with previous agreements with the Board and written procedures that have been sitting there for months.

Yes, the problem is that you are hiding behind rules. And neglecting just people are more important than rules.

You know what ?

Aurevilly said something one day. He said

Et l'harmonie dans tout ça ? y a un moment où ça me gonfle d'entendre parler de communauté libre et consensuelle pour écarter toute idée de règle. Alors qu'à la base une règle c'est fait pour l'harmonie, pas pour emmerder le monde ... w:fr:Utilisateur:Aurevilly.

Basically, it means "ultimately, a rule is here to allow harmony between people, not to create conflict".

...

When a criteria must mention that an editor must be able to edit a wiki for its vote to be valid, I think we are reaching a level of bureaucracy that goes too far.

Not at all. This is a substantial requirement for something like Wikinews, with lots of signatures to check for whether they have or have not edited in that language - and if they haven't, it still doesn't give you the secure knowledge that they can't. Instead of this rather complex procedure, I have used a simple one, namely, 5 users with user pages pledge to edit the project, and we assume good faith that their pledge is serious. That doesn't mean I oppose the requirement, but it makes the creation of new languages a substantially more time-consuming process than it is now.

There is no hurry. If that takes more time, then let us take the time to do it.

...

You only made possible the existence of a local wiki with extremely little support and broken rules.

Stop accusing me of breaking rules. Which rule did I break? Put up or shut up.

Regards,

Erik

Read better what I wrote. I spoke of "broken rules", not of "you breaking up" the rules.

This said, if you ask me, I think you are borderline of a sort of principle upon which Wikipedia relies. All Wikipedia is based on the fact the power comes from the people, not from one person. You may talk of all the rules you wish, when a group is submitted to the will of one person, there is a problem.

Erik Moeller a écrit:

...

Well, consider it an important information : if people complain about your bold actions regularly, there must be a reason.

Sure, but if Anthere complains about my bold actions regularly, that just means that everything is normal.

Regards,

Erik

Eh ! Possibly you are right here :-) Then, it would just mean we balance each other :-)

no ?

Ant

Erik Moeller wrote:.

..... Aside from that, I am still skeptical that Wiktionary is at all feasible with the current software ....

This is as they say in Holland "een schot voor open doel"; on opportunity to good to miss.

You may know that I am advocating the spend of money and energy to produce "the ultimate wiktionary" (see the article on Meta) in essence this is a relational database embedded in mediawiki that serves us with wiktionary content. One database to serve us all ....

At this moment we are starting to use some bots in earnest. One bot doing the interwiki.py (see the article on Meta) is running now for its fourth day on the en:wiktionary and reached the word "Effort". It is doing something that will be a funcionality of the proposed database. Another bot is running on scn:wiktionary adding a word a minute, it has something like 60.000 words and giving the ambitions of all wiktionaries it should run on all wiktionaries. When it was adding content into the "ultimate wiktionary" it would need to run only once. I have a file with 19.930 words that I can use to create articles for many wiktionaries. It is a multiple of articles that are needed to seed all the different wiktionaries and, it can be done but it just takes a LOONGGG time and it is not really good because as content is added, the work done by the interwiki.py should be done again as it may lead to different results.

Another big blob of content waiting to happen is the GEMET thesaurus (see article on Me*ta) and the European multilingual thesaurus on health promotion (see article on Meta). http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_multilingual_thesaurus_on_health_promotion*

So, Eric is right where he says that working on our current wiktionary using the current software is a debatable practice. It is as good as it gets though. Luckily we do have this idea of something better. This is what makes us go on, (this is the moment where you hear the song "somewhere over the rainbow" with conotations of a pot of gold).. :)

Thanks, GerardM

Delphine- "According to the proposed policy for wikis in new languages http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages, at least 5 people have to express an interest in a language edition in order for it to be created,"

[snip]

Regards,

Erik

I have answered to you in private on these matters. This leaves open my question about admins on wikinews. What are the *rules* ?

Thank you,

Delphine

Erik Moeller a écrit:

notafish schrieb:

...

I have answered to you in private on these matters. This leaves open my question about admins on wikinews. What are the *rules* ?

Fr.Wikinews.Org should create a Wikinews:Administrators nomination process. If a consensus can be found that a user should be an admin, a steward can make them one. Normally, stewards pick a trusted user to be a temporary bureaucrat, so that the wiki can create its own sysops.

No, this is not how things proceed, this is not the rules we set, and I recommand that we do not go along this way.

Normally, stewards do what the community wants them to do. Anyone willing to be a sysop should set up a voting page, and if there is no opposition, the guy can ask a steward to change his status.

It is not the steward business to decide who should be sysop. And the steward should normally ask that an admin page be set and that the guy put his name and wait a little while.

What often happen in case of new projects in a well represented language (for example fr.wikiquote.org) is that the person asking for a status will set the page, and ask the wikipedia editors (fr.wikipedia.org) to go and support him over there.

I think this is fine.

It also happens that the project started in a new one in this language (for example yy.wikipedia.org... ). In this case, no one can really vote. In this case, the community is so small (often less than 5...), that we make the guy sysop without any votes of course. This happens only on very very very very small wikis.

So.... Either the wikinews is viable, with a big community (supposingly at least 5), and that means at least 5 people are here to vote. Or the wikinews has less than 5 people available to vote, and in this case, according to policy, it should never has been opened.

In short, if a wikinews is NOT able to gather at least 5 people to vote on such an issue as an admin setting, then it should be plain closed.

That

temporary bureaucratship is reviewed when the wiki has a stable user base. For administrative needs that need to be completed ASAP, temporary sysops can also be made, again by bureaucrats or stewards who know and trust the user in question (e.g. Greudin).

Regards,

Erik

In case of recent wikinews being set up, if the editors base is not at least 5 involved editors, then the wikinews should be closed.

If you can not gather 5 names to vote on an easy point as admin election, then there is no chance that wiki can go through all its building process.

Yes, it was used for very small wikipedias or very small projects not expected to gather a big enough community soon.

Ant

Erik Moeller a écrit:

Anthere-

...

No, this is not how things proceed, this is not the rules we set, and I recommand that we do not go along this way.

Fine with me. What I know is that a temporary sysop/bureaucrat procedure was used in a number of cases.

Regards,

Erik