Jimbo, Instead of "beta" -- which I find very techie and unclear to people without knowledge of Greek letters -- can we call it a "Project in Development" or a "Project in Testing"? -ilya

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales Actually, this could be enough, if the site would launch as a beta. In my opinion, a beta version of Wikinews doesn't need so much Wikip(m)edians - just look at pl.Wikinews. We're slowing down, but we had the most number of people who wanted to work on this project (from the three Wikinews sites launched lately). This could be due to number of reasons, but anyway - if we want to have Wikinews in a beta stage, 2-3 people is enough. If we want to start with a full-fledged news service, we need way more people - 10 may be enough. As for the local poll, it wouldn't be good, in my opinion. Many people would want this project to be made, but only a few of them would contribute. -- Darek [Datrio] Siedlecki

Jimmy- 2-3 people? There was a global vote from October 22 to November 12 in which people from most, if not all, major languages participated. That sample size is much, much larger than any individual language community poll. There was a demo site. The project has been approved by the Board of Trustees. 10 language editions have been launched. To have future editions meet another test, namely a local community poll, seems like an unfair increase of the burden of proof for those language communities. I have always said that, if there are reasons specific to a language community why the project shouldn't be launched, then these reasons should be carefully addressed. This is what I tried to do with the Wikinews China poll. But I really don't see why we need to question again and again and again whether Wikinews should exist at all, and I fear that if we do, the decisions that will result will be wildly different and dependent on factors which we cannot influence (e.g., one local community leader being a very strong opponent of Wikinews could have a lot of influence on that community). If Wikinews is a bad idea which drains resources, then all resources should be drained equally; if it is a good idea which leads to innovation and progress, then all sites should innovate and progress at the same pace. Otherwise we risk losing a coherent Wikimedia identity, and just because some French or Russian or Indonesian people don't like the Wikinews idea, their local Wikimedia set of projects will develop differently from all others. But if we require these polls, then we should make absolutely sure that we avoid a situation where one new language has 49% local approval, and doesn't get launched for another year, while another one has 51% and does get launched, in spite of both languages having people willing to work on Wikinews. So these local community polls could be kept open indefinitely, and once a certain threshold is crossed (which could be higher than 50%) and the conditions are met, there's no way back and the project is launched. A poll will NOT help at all, in my opinion, to predict the activity on a local edition of Wikinews. You could have 100 people willing to work on a local Wikinews edition, but 60% of the language community opposing it, or you could have everyone supporting it, but nobody willing to work on it. You underestimate the value of open content archives. A big problem with news publication today is that virtually all news site archives are locked down after a certain period of time. AP etc. seem to be quite keen on making sure that no permanent copies of their content are made available for free over a longer period of time. If our hypothetical volunteer has written 100 articles, and then quit, those articles *will* have lasting value to anyone doing research on the events they describe, over the coming decades. Simply put, that content will not be there if we choose to make the burden of proof too high before allowing the person to write these articles. I would find that regrettable. Define "falter". I have suggested before that we should simply have a frontpage notice if a Wikinews falls into a temporary period of inactivity. To me, the real risk is not that the site is inactive for a while, but that it is inactive permanently, while attracting spam and requiring maintenance. So we need to distinguish between the two. Furthermore, there's no need to be *too* afraid of a project faltering if we have clear procedures, i.e. to make a wiki temporarily read-only and require certain conditions to be met before it is made active again. What is the risk of that? I understand the urge to become more professional, but we should also not forget that wikis rely on wild experimentation in open spaces. And since then, two articles for March have been written. I have no idea whether they are any good, but the point is, we should allow projects time to exist in a slightly embarrassing state -- this is OK as long as we make it clear to the visitor that the site is still beta. OK, I will try to come up with some criteria for the Beta / Non-Beta transition. Peace, Erik