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Out of the projects reports and essays

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Wikinews state report

Article status : Editing - Proofreading - Translating - edit

by SonicR

English and German-language beta-versions of Wikinews started in December 2004. Now there are Wikinews versions in 14 languages. The last versions which have started were Serbian and Japanese. The three largest ones are English, German, and Polish. In August 2005, 1.000 users were registered on de.wikinews. After adjusting the article namespace, the German version draws near the milestone of 2.000 articles (1689 articles on August the 4th).

News sites and blogs reacted sceptically towards Wikinews right after its start (an example). One of their main arguments was that the Wiki-principle will not work on a news site. At an encyclopedia, such as Wikipedia, articles can be developed and improved without any pressure of time. This is unlike news sources, where an article has to be published close to the event the article is about. Furthermore, they noticed the lack of original reporting in Wikinews. Because Wikinews cites news agencies and articles from mainstream news sites like BBC News or CNN as sources, it could not (yet) be considered as an alternative news source.

However, de.wikinews has made a positive development. The number of new articles written per day has increased. According to Erik Zachte's statistics there were more articles written per day on de.wikinew than on en.wikinews for the first time in June 2005. Moreover, the quality of the articles is quite solid. Events which play a major role in the coverage of the mass media are covered by Wikinews, too. Besides, users have established coverage of events and topics which reflect their interest. Compared to most other news sources, users decide which events they cover, answering their personal interest and not the brief of an editorial staff. This could lead to an interesting and multifaceted range of topics as the community grows.

Events which received massive public interest and media coverage, such as December 2004 Earthquake in Southeast Asia and the London bombings, have especially shown that a wiki works well as a news site. Many users participated in the collaborative and fast process of writing and improving the article. Blogs and news sites have commended these articles because they were written from a neutral point of view, were matter of fact, and gave a good overview. An advantage of Wikinews is that it can be used as a free news archive. Since the first writing contest on the English version was a success, helping to increase the number of new articles per day, there will be an international writing contest soon.

To spread articles containing original reporting through different versions of Wikinews, WORTNET was created. The article OhmyNews citizen reporters meet in Seoul, Korea, about a citizen reporter meeting, in which Erik Möller participated for Wikinews, was translated into Dutch, German, French, and Spanish. Dresdener WOBA soll verkauft werden - Mieter verbittert is an example for original reporting content on de.wikinews.

Statistics and articles on Wikinews

Awareness statistics
Wikinews In the news
St.Galler Tagblatt: "Wikipedias Schwäche" - Critical article about Wikinews in German

Please see Wikinews newsletter for the original text in German. --SonicR 12:21, 4 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews finally decided of a licensing scheme !

Article status : Editing - Proofreading - Translating - edit

The Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License was the most supported license in the recent poll at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Licensure_Poll>.

Many of the options had very few voters. Of the options with more than 12 voters, the GFDL had only 21% support, and the Wikinews License 0.2 had 60% support (or 64% from Wikinewsies). Fewer people voted on the Wikinews License option than on the Creative Commons one, meaning 31 people in total supported CC-BY, compared to just 17 supporting WNL 2.0.

With over 87% support from Wikinewsies in the poll, and 82% support overall, CC-BY has now been agreed upon by the Wikimedia Foundation to be the new license for all existing and future versions of Wikinews. Any edits made previously remain public domain - it is only new edits that will need to be under this Creative Commons License.

The license can be read at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ (that page links to other language versions of the license, and the full legal code).

Brion has changed the site settings, so the meta data of the wikis should state they are now CC-BY. However, manually created pages such as http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Copyright will need to be updated. MediaWiki namespace pages may need changing if they had been edited previously. Pages that might need changing include: MediaWiki:Copyright, MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning, MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2, MediaWiki:Copyrightpage, Project:Copyrights.

Wikipedia increasingly used as book source

Article status : Editing - Proofreading - Translating - edit

Report by Nicholas "Zanimum" Moreau

There's more coming, don't worry.

As of September 13, 2005, Amazon.com has scanned 227 books either referencing or discussing Wikipedia. Not all of the books are necessarily non-fiction classics by any stretch of the imagination, but the statistic is still quite an impressive display of Wikimedia's popularity.

A great amount of topical books use Wikipedia as a source, from scientific matters like Tsunami: The Most Terrifying Disaster, to pop culture trends like Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code (presumably the first book sourcing Wikipedia to be reprinted).

Self-help gurus have helped themselves to our free content, including Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone (ISBN 0446577723).

Some authors have less of a hold on the English language than others. Marci Hamilton referred to the Simple English Wikipedia for information on terrorist, referenced in her book God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law. Simple English Wikipedia is meant solely for translators and those who do not know English well, such as EAL learners, children, and the mentally challenged.

Perhaps most interesting of all the books was Morgan Spurlock's May 2005 fast food exposé Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America. While he's accused of sensationalism is much of his work, Spurlock has instantly become one of the most profilic documentarians in the world. This is very much so true.

For the complete list of books, see Wikipedia as a book source.

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