Wikinews
| Wikinews | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| URL | http://www.wikinews.org/ |
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | News wiki |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | multilingual |
| Owner | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Created by | Wikimedia Community |
Wikinews is a free-content news source wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying "on Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an encyclopedia article."[1] The neutral point of view policy implemented in Wikinews distinguishes it from other citizen journalism efforts such as Indymedia and OhmyNews.[2]
History
In January 2003, a two-line proposal under the title Wikews was created on the Wikipedia community's Metawiki via an anonymous post by Daniel Alston. He was not involved in the development of the project, and the proposal was redeveloped by Erik Möller. The proposal suggested the creation of a sister project covering "news on a wide variety of subjects, unbiased and in detail."[3]. Early opposition from long-time Wikipedia contributors, many of them pointing out the existence of Wikipedia's own news summaries, gave way to detailed discussions and proposals about how it could be implemented as a new project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
In November 2004, a demonstration wiki was established to show how such a collaborative news site might work. In December 2004, the site was moved out of the "demo" stage and into the beta stage. A German language edition was launched at the same time. Soon editions in Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Ukrainian, Italian, Serbian, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Norwegian, and Chinese (in that chronological order) were set up.
On March 13, 2005, the English edition of Wikinews reached 1,000 news articles.
In September 2005, the project moved to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.[4]
On April 29, 2006, the English edition of Wikinews reached 5,000 news articles.
On September 5, 2007, the English edition of Wikinews reached 10,000 news articles.
Additional projects
While Wikinews focuses primarily on text articles, members are expanding the philosophy into other media. These projects include Audio Wikinews, which delivers Ogg Vorbis audio files, Wikinews Video 2.0 (test phase) and Wikinews Print edition, which is a daily edition intended to be printed.
Criticism
Like Wikipedia, (see Criticism of Wikipedia), Wikinews is also criticized for its perceived inability to be neutral or include only verified and true information. Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica criticized the credibility of the project [1]:
| “ | Above all, the central question about the Wikinews effort is its credibility. "Making a newspaper is hard...Someone who wants to do it but doesn't really know how hasn't solved the problem by gathering a lot of other people who don't know, either. | ” |
McHenry was skeptical about Wikinews' ability to provide a neutral point of view and its claim to be evenhanded. "The naivete is stunning," he said.
In a 2007 interview Sue Gardner, a special advisor to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation and former head of CBC.ca, dismissed McHenry's comment, stating "Journalism is not a profession ... at its heart, it's just a craft. And that means that it can be practiced by anyone who is sensible and intelligent and thoughtful and curious ... I go back to the morning of Virginia Tech - the morning I decided I wanted to work here [WMF]. The conversation on the talk page that day was extremely thoughtful. I remember thinking to myself that if my own newsroom had been having a conversation that intelligent (I was offsite that day) I would have been delighted. So yes, IMO you absolutely have proved Robert McHenry wrong. And you will continue to."
References
- ^ Joanna Glasner. "Wikipedia Creators Move Into News", WIRED, 29 November 2004. Retrieved on 2007-04-21.
- ^ Aaron Weiss. "The Unassociated Press", The New York Times, 10 February 2005. Retrieved on 2007-04-21.
- ^ Wikimedia Foundation Meta-Wiki: Wikinews talk page archive
- ^ Wikinews switches to Creative Commons license
External links
- Wikinews: Multilingual Portal
- Wired News: Wikipedia Creators Move Into News
- Wikinews RSS Feed
- Wikinews Original Reporting RSS Feed
| Projects of the Wikimedia Foundation |
|---|
| Wikibooks (Wikijunior) · Wikimedia Commons · Wikinews · Wikipedia · Wikiquote · Wikisource · Wikispecies · Wikiversity · Wiktionary |
| History of Wikipedia | |
|---|---|
| Main articles | Bomis · Nupedia · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Foundation · Wikimania · MediaWiki |
| People | Jimmy Wales · Larry Sanger · Tim Shell · Florence Devouard · Angela Beesley |
| Events and individuals | Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China · Congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia · Essjay controversy · Henryk Batuta hoax · Seigenthaler controversy · WikiScanner |
| Related projects and forks | Citizendium · Conservapedia · Enciclopedia Libre · Interpedia · Uncyclopedia · Wikibooks · Wikimedia Commons · Wiktionary · Wikiquote · Wikinews · WikiZnanie · Wikinfo · Wikitruth · Wikiweise · Wikia · WikiWikiWeb |
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