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

Oct 27 23:01:14 <-- Romeo762 (~Nick) has left #wikinews

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