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/

Wikinews launched...

[GillBates0]

more at 11.

Re:Wikinews launched...

[guet]

As for your moanings about Fox News, NBC, CBS, and ABC all lean left

Actually a news source can attempt to allow different opinions framed in a non-confrontational way, not in opposition but by choosing a measured position on each topic, and occassionally allowing quotes from one side or the other to show how they diverge. Le monde and BBC news do this well for example. Far better than any newspaper or news channel in the UK or the USA that I've seen.

This doesn't mean 'Fair and Balanced' à la Fox which leads the viewer to think that both views (however extreme) chosen by the programme to frame the issue may have merit. To put ideas in a gladatorial fight to the death like that doesn't help understanding, it just encourages the viewer to pick a side (ie : I'm from the left. I'm from the right). Jon Stewart's interevention on that 'Crossfire' program in the US recently was interesting in that regard.

It's an old fashioned idea, but people and the media should STOP thinking in terms of left and right, and attempt to evaluate ideas for social security or whatever else on the basis of merit, not on the basis of whether it's advanced by 'the most liberal senator... blah blah' or 'that crazy Bush'. That might require more thought than most are willing to devote to their politics though. Most of the myths in politics about the other side are downright wrong - eg Democrats in the US 'Tax and Spend' and Republicans are fiscally responsible, Privitisation is always bad (from the UK) etc etc.

PS
As I'm sure you're aware, what you call 'left' in the USA is generally what the rest of the world would call center. The way you talk about 'leftist leanings' makes it sound like the word communism in the 50s.

Wired Article

[KamuZ]

I submitted this story like 5 days ago but it was rejected, nothing personal, yeah right. Anyway, there's a Wired article talking about this with the creators, here's the link:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65819,00. html?tw=wn_story_top5

Good luck

[Mark of THE CITY]

Good luck, Wiki-folk. As long as it doesn't degenerate into a high-noise free-for-all, like, uh, Usenet or /. :)

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.

The problems with Wikinews

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that news gets old fast and is delivered fast. If someone edits an article on a popular sites, say CNN and people see on the front page 'Terrorists Bomb L.A., alot of people are going to get frightened and panic before it noticed and removed. Let's hope it doesn't come that far.

No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

The project just looks like Google News rehashed by unaccountable writers whose identity is unknown.

Sounds like a perfect forum for people to push their news thru their own agendas and slants.

Bias?

[halter-da-man]

I have read numorous reports about the credibility (or lack thereof) and about the bias of some of Wikipedia's articles. If Wikipedia launches a news service, I think there is an even greater opportunity for individuals to interject their personal opinions into things that many people believe as the truth. If anyone can submit a news story, there will be many biased or one sided stories. Wikipedia tries to avoid this in its main encyclopedia by hoping that other users will correct any biases in the articles. With news however, it is often not enough time to go through and check each fact. I don't think that Wiki can rely on user editing to insure "fair and balanced" stories.

I love the peer-reviewed content, but...

[falloutboy]

Will this incite editing wars on controversial topics? The open nature of wikipedia is great because historical events have already been scrutinized and understood. Distance lends perspective. Current events are much more subject to an author's personal bias, and the individuals most motivated to put their opinion out there often have the most radical viewpoint.

doomed to failure

[RLiegh]

considering that wikipedia's content is distorted to hell and back by varying trolling factions; I think that reading tea leaves might prove to be a more reliable news source than what's being proposed.

in the US

[Trepidity]

You do realize that from within the United States you may load such websites as news.bbc.co.uk, don't you? I think Wikinews will be interesting, but it's hardly the first online source of non-US 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!

News written by random people?

[brokencomputer]

And how do I know if its true? This wiki fad might be useful for things like software manuals(We use them at Gentoo to let the end user help take a lot of the weight off our (the developers') shoulders, and it works quite well. Its easy to weed out the errors[of which there usually are] before we encorporate them into the actual gentoo docs), but using a wiki for news really strikes me as odd. I really have trouble trusting sites like wikipedia for things such as history, even if their technology articles seem to be a little less inaccurate.