Talk:Closing projects policy/Archives/2013

Proposed change: When inactivity is a reason to close.

I propose we change, or, rather, clarify "Inactivity in itself no valid reason". This part of the policy is repeatedly used to shut down discussions of the controversial Wikinews projects; however, for a news site, a failure to keep up to date is a sign the project has failed in its core mission.

Wikinews is a bit of an odd beast: From what I've seen on en-wiki, older content is locked against all future editing, and the creation of new content is only permitted when said content refers to recent events or coverage. I believe this is standard.

Further, Wikinews depends on articles being approved, so, with insufficient activity, it becomes impossible to create new content.

As such, I think that this rule should be changed to allow discussion in cases where the project would be considered non-useful to its core mission if it doesn't update. An encyclopedia can still be read, a collection of source texts still has value, but a news site is no longer a source of news if it's inactive, or even mostly inactive.

However, some caveats:

• I think that it should be possible for the site to be maintained in situ as an archive, simply changing the main page to note the site's inactive status.
• The site should only be closed if community consensus states it should be. This proposed change is solely meant to prevent the closure of discussions regardless of community consensus on the issue.
• The proposed closing should make a case for how the site is harming Wikimedia projects by remaining open. Generally speaking one should show leaving the site open would actively harm the reputation of Wikimedia projects.

Adam Cuerden (talk) 05:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Since the core mission of Wikinews has nothing to do with regurgitating all the biggest stories of the day, there seems little point in dwelling on other points here that similarly lack correlation with reality. However, in saying that I'm treating the suggestion as if it were intended to be based on facts, which is probably not a safe supposition given its similarity to the flight of fancy that appeared in Signpost. --Pi zero (talk) 12:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikinews has a different goal than Wikipedia. Wikipedia projects have the benefit of an extended period of time to write articles. Wikinews projects do not. Adam needs to put down the stick, and realize the WMF is never going to close Wikinews no matter how much he misrepresents the project. Wikinews projects can become "live" any time a contributor decides to submit and publish a story. Notability and newsworthiness are different concepts. Wikinews projects work best, and indeed can and do outperform their Wikipedia counterparts, when original reporting is done. Regurgitating the news is far from what Wikinews should ideally be doing, and as projects mature, more and more of this original reporting is done and it gains more importance.
Also, given Adam and the Signpost's factually inaccurate understanding of the project, which at this point is appearing to be deliberate, we really should not be looking to them for leadership until they can fix that. When Adam, tony1 and The Ed17 comes to the Wikinews and contribute a story, then they would have more room to be treated seriously. Until then, they and the wider Wikimedia community should acknowledge the continual assault on Wikinews runs counter to goals stated in the WMF's strategic plan of increasing participation and working on contributor retention. They are poisoning the well, and taking away human resources from trying to actually deal with and address problems inside the community, and instead have to deal with the repeated attempts (that are doomed to fail) to close the project. This is incredibly damaging for morale of contributors. Perhaps, Adam (who the Signpost failed to acknowledge approached the Signpost first, and that local contributors were given 2 days to write a piece) and the Signpost can do some research on the effect of their negative coverage and contributor participation. They can hook up with Program Evaluation and Design to assess the effectiveness of their programming activities (composed of trying to shut down a sister project). --LauraHale (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Those are not arguments against the change in policy, those are arguments for why the suggested change would not apply to English Wikinews.

However, I am glad that you say when I "come[] to the Wikinews and contribute a story, then [I] would have more room to be treated seriously". Start. treating me seriously. You may also feel free to begin treating The ed17 seriously. And may feel free to actually bother to spend five seconds checking next time before throwing around false claims Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:42, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no credibility in a pretense that proposing a change to policy specifically aimed at making it easier to close Wikinews projects, against which you've been pursuing a personal vendetta, is not intended as an attack on Wikinews. Other parts of your remark are more ambiguous in the nature of their intellectual dishonesty (at least, they're more ambiguous if taken without the context of your other actions). I's theoretically possible, for instance, you failed to read our comments carefully, and thus were unaware we had pointed out your proposed change in policy is without merit; but that does suggest a sad dearth of interest on your part in facts. Citing very old articles as evidence of understanding of the current project could, theoretically, be either deliberate misrepresentation or simple inattention. Ignoring the cogent point that you're acting directly against the interests of the wikimedian community is understandable political strategy; your only viable option is to try to distract from it. But claiming your "policy change" is anything other than an attack on Wikinews is absurd. --Pi zero (talk) 18:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I would like to support Pi zero here. He is asking us to ignore all of Adam's previous actions, including at least two failed attempts to close Wikinews projects, Adam's non-neutral, poorly researched, uninformed (either by deliberate intent to deceive or because of competency problems) piece for the Signpost that came about as a result of Adam approaching the Signpost, and comes right on the heels of Adam's failed attempt to get Wikinews templates deleted from English Wikipedia. As Adam is not familiar with (through design or incompetency) English Wikinews guidelines, we do not assume that he is acting in good faith despite all evidence that he is acting to the contrary. Adam's proposal should be properly contextualized against Adam's history. Adam's continued haranguing on this issue should also be properly understood against Wikimedia Foundation priorities. Adam is asking that Adam's personal dislike of a project he has repeatedly failed to close or damage be given more weight than the Foundation goals. Adam is repeatedly explicitly asking the Foundation to prevent the free sharing of information, to retard content production, and to pro-actively take an approach that would damage participation. If Adam has evidence that suggests that closing Wikinews would result in greater participation across WMF projects, would increase the sharing of information, and would result in greater content production while increasing the diversity of all groups, Adam should work towards presenting this material. Program Evaluation and Design could probably assist Adam in determining the core metrics he should look at to support his hypothesis. Until then, Adam should put down the stick, read local policies, understand their cultures and become a contributor. (Because for all the damage that Adam would like to imply the existinence of less inactive projects leads for for the WMF, the opposite is probably more true. There is a severe problem in the news with fewer and fewer newspapers and news sites. There are fewer news organizations that rely on fact based reporting. There are fewer news organizations that are not beholden to corporate interests. Wikinews, when at its best, does original reporting that can prevent some of his hemoraging. Adam's goal, when taken to its logical conclusion of killing off a contributor base and retarding the creation of content, is basically to kill the free press. This position, that the WMF would seek to kill the press, is more problematic and damaging than a project being less active than it would be in an ideal world.) --LauraHale (talk) 08:03, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

This only makes sense. Take, for example, Sindhi Wikinews. This Wikinews was closed as per this discussion before the current policy. The wiki did have some content, but all of it was from 2006. It was clear that this Wikinews wouldn't be of use to anyone even when this was discussed in 2010. By the current policy, this wiki would have been kept open, even though it just creates additional burden on global sysops by requiring them to keep it spam-free. No one will ever read a news site which stopped in 2006. -- Liliana • 19:55, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Three thoughts occur to me.

• Are you supposing that "read a news site" means "turn to that site as one's sole (or even primary) source of news"? Just wondering, because it seemed like you might be supposing that, and it's not a correct model of how a site such as a Wikinews works (as well as not being a good model of how anyone should consume news).
• You're speculating on what would have happened over a seven-year period in an alternative history. One should be wary of broad spectulative claims of that sort.
• There's no evidence here of anything about a Wikinews that would be any different from any other project. The policy distinction proposed is manifestly meant to apply specifically to Wikinews, based on a false premise about what the "core mission" of Wikinews is; it's an obvious attempt to open up a loop-hole so that Wikinewses will then be forever having to defend themselves from assault on illegitimate criteria that other sisters don't have to contend with. Don't be lulled into thinking this is an even-handed proposal.

--Pi zero (talk) 21:0, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course Wikinews will never become one's sole source of news (we aren't going to get local coverage of over a million different regions in the world). But its mission is to be read regularly, and with Wikinewses such as my example where the last reports were from 2006, who will ever do this? Such Wikinewses failed their mission and should rightfully be closed. No other WMF project is so much dependent on regular activity like Wikinews. Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks (to a certain extent), Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikivoyage (I don't know enough about Wikiversity to judge that project), all of these can grow over time and are useful even with slow growth. Wikinews isn't; if news are one year old, no one will go there and read or even contribute to the stories. -- Liliana • 08:11, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

A Wikinews is not failing its 'core mission' just because it isn't producing new content like clockwork. That's not it's core mission. It would certainly be desirable if a Wikinews were producing content like clockwork —well, duh— but the core function of a Wikinews is to be available for use — the only way to truly fail that mission is to have somebody close it (in which case it wasn't contributors, or even non-contributors, that caused it to fail — it was caused to fail by those who closed it). One could reasonably argue that it's especially important to keep a Wikinews open because, when a Wikinews is wanted, it's wanted immediately, that being the nature of news. If you've got some news you want to publish, you can't go through a long drawn-out process of getting the project re-opened and then publish the news you'd wanted to, since by that time it'll be stale. (Incidentally, moving a Wikinews back and forth between incubator and separate-project status makes it harder to develop and maintain a following since it's then a moving target — and yes, of the millions of page-views English Wikinews gets per month (granted, English Wikinews is a big Wikinews project, in this sense; I'm just using it to illustrate the principle), a lot of that is visitors to our archives. We have perennial favorites that are years old.)

I'm not, at this time, arguing that Wikinewses should be kept open even more aggressively than other wikimedia projects — I'm just saying that that would have more basis in 'core mission' than the reverse. Changing the policy to invoke 'core mission' would simply invite attacks on small projects (Wikinews or otherwise) based on false assertions about projects' core mission just when such projects are least able to defend themselves against the fallacy (regardless of whether the fallacy is through error or otherwise). --Pi zero (talk) 11:31, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

What *is* Wikinews' core mission? Certainly not providing old news from 2006 no one is interested in anymore. Who cares if there was a traffic accident in a side street in 2005? Who cares if politicians discussed about the economy in 2005? Nobody does! Of course, on an active project like English Wikinews, people are bound to read the old articles as well, if only by inter-linking and usage of Special:Randompage. But nobody goes specifically to a Wikinews to look for old stories.
And nobody says you cannot publish news on Incubator. Incubator is a Wiki like any other, and a Wikinews project in incubation can be edited like it were a separate wiki. It is very much possible to publish news in Incubator as well, and there's no need to wait for the Language commitee to wake up from their eternal hibernation. Of course, we would not want a "bouncing" between Incubator and a separate wiki; so if a wiki was previously proposed using our new language policy and approved, I would be more hesistant on voting in support of closure. For old wikis which were just bulk created with no obvious need, however, it's easier to decide that the project has no merit. -- Liliana • 09:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

(You're starting to sound a bit trollish. You need to watch that.)

If you think news archives aren't enormously valuable, think again. That's history (in fact, since we've imposed our modern review regime, it's reliable history, which Wikipedia is not and, by its own cheerful admission, cannot be). English Wikinews fully protects its archives because we don't believe in revisionist history. Note that many of the events we chronicle, even through synthesis (as opposed to original reporting), can no longer be accessed in the archives of sources we used at the time, because those sources have moved their old articles behind paywalls. Obviously they think somebody cares — in fact, they think somebody cares enough to pay good money for access to the information that we make permanently available free of charge. Afaics, the rest of what you're saying has already been addressed before you said it, by various of my earlier remarks (for example, I could have sworn I mentioned before that we have some popular articles that are years old). --Pi zero (talk) 17:52, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• "News archives are of no use". That's your argument?

That is utter nonsense, which I would not expect a single Wikimedian to throw about. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

• I would think that Adam's claim of valid experience to critique Wikinews — and attempt to manipulate policy, to contain weaselly-worded language, allowing this jihad against the project to continue — should lose all creditbility when you check, and discover his total of main namespace edits is thirty-five over a period approaching five years; similarly, The ed17 has a count of twenty-six over almost as-long a period. That is not to say those edits are without value; although, it would appear everyone else's edits on the project are worthless from Adam's point of view.

Your proposal has no merit whatsoever, Adam. There's no point in discussing this, or even in assuming the proposal was brought with one iota of good faith. You actively sought to have your "op-ed" published; you clearly stated your bias, which calls into question the integrity of The Signpost, and your motives in expressing a desire to meddle with this particular policy — which just happens to be a roadblock to getting your own way and having the project shut. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 00:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

"Meta" Wikis

To the Language Committee,

This page seems to speak about policy and procedure for closing all Wikimedia Foundation wikis broadly; however, there do crop up certain problematic wikis (here called "Meta"-wikis, or wikis about Wikimedia) from time to time which require closure, but do not have a language component and thus do not fall under the purview of the Language Committee. The most recent examples were 10wiki and StrategyWiki. Would there be an expansion to the procedures for and organizations overseeing the closure of these projects? And perhaps a link to related documentation on this page? TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 11:58, 11 December 2013 (UTC)