On 6/17/06, Keith Old <keithold(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Folks,
The New York Times has an article on Wikipedia called "
Growing Wikipedia Revises Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy
This is remarkably poor journalism. It shows that the media are
clutching at straws to write about us. I hope the recently created
Communications Committee is building personal connections to some of
the journalists involved, and will occasionally feed them interesting
"exclusive" stories in addition to regular press releases. We can't
prevent the press from screwing up, but perhaps at least we can give
them a better idea about things which are actually happening, e.g:
- ongoing reorganization of Wikimedia, heated debates about the
non-profit's future
- 1,000 featured articles, ongoing experiments towards Wikipedia 0.5/1.0
- Wikimedia Commons becoming a gigantic archive of functional free
content (643,000 files, ~250 GB)
etc.
Erik
What is embarassing even more is that these stories spread all over the
world. Journalists call locals (such as me) to say
"did you read the last NYT article ? Can you tell me more about the last
decisions ?"
Me : "there are no new decisions"
Journalist : "but it is written on the NYT !"
Me : "so what ?"
Journalist : "Ah...well... still, it is no more open to everyone - I
would like to explain french readers that new articles can not be
created by anonymous any more"
Me : "well, I recommand you do not, because on the french speaking
wikipedia, anonymous can still create articles"
Journalist : "but Jimmy Wales said that..."
Me : "Okay. But things are not so simple. Maybe I could explain to you
how decision making is done in the different language versions and maybe
introduce you to our governance system. This is a fascinating topic you
know ?"
Which reminds me... did we get press coverage for the hiring of the CEO ?
Aside from Wikipedia being open or not being open to editing, I think
hiring a CEO should be food for thought and speculation from at least
some of the magazines. Did any magazine questionned whether it would
change the governance of the organisation ? Did anyone wonder if it
would somehow impact the international dimension (such as would it
impact latin america or india engagement ? would it impact china block
?). Could it change our relationship with service providers or potential
partners ? Did someone wonder if that would change something in terms of
staff ? What would be the related main benefits and threats ?
No ?