Wikinews Project Launched

Eloquence writes "The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia and other wiki-based projects, has just launched the English and German editions of Wikinews, a free news-source created collaboratively by volunteers around the planet. See my article Wikinews and the Growing Wikimedia Empire for more on this and other recent developments in the Wikimedia world."

Comments

This whole things seems kinda weird..

[Demogoblin]

compared to when you take a look at this interesting take on the future of news and media delivery:

http://www.letitblog.com/epic/

Re:Good luck

[Raul654]

Speaking as a long time Wikipedia admin - Wikipedia occasionally has articles on current events. They typically degrade into cross-fire like back-and-forth debates in article form. These phenomenon doesn't really make me hopeful for the chances of Wiki-news.

still no atributions

[lawpoop]

C'mon folks. With wikipedia, it's at least tolerable. However, part of modern journalism is the credibility of the reporter. I just checked out several articles, and they appear to either be written by no one or God itself.

I can understand that there's not much need to recognize authorship in something like a science textbook, but for a news site, it is essential.

What I think wikinews needs, and indeed all wikis, is authorship so we can see who said what. If we implement something with PGP signatures, people can build reputations over time, and newcomers can filter out information from authors with no rep.

Imagine freelance journalists posting credible, signed reports to wikimedia outlets from warzones, political protests, etc. No editors, no goverment censors. It would be great!