[Foundation-l] Re: Swedish, Spanish, French Wikinews set up

Sat Jan 29 12:52:25 UTC 2005

Anthere schrieb:

> I would appreciate greatly that when you create a new wikinews, you 
> take care of updating the wikinews page, which is currently stating 
> that only en and de exist.

No, it accurately lists all Wikinews sites. The section you cite only 
served as an example for the naming structure to be used, not as a 
complete list of Wikinews sites. That list is right at the beginning, at

    http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews#Wikinews_sites

and I updated it after the creation of the wikis. There's obviously no 
point to maintaining two such lists on the same page.

> I do not see where these steps are respected here. In particular, I do 
> not see the names of the five regular editors supporting the french 
> version.

Much of your discussion with Angela centers around what qualification is 
sufficient in order to be counted as a likely participant in the 
project. Now, a lot can be said about this subject, but please remember 
that we haven't had this discussion yet -- this is the first time these 
actual, formal criteria are being discussed. The only thing that is 
stated on the Wikinews page is

    "Before a Wikinews language version is officially recognized as a
    Wikimedia project, and before the first sysop can be appointed,
    there must at least be 5 participants. "

The requirement stated on the proposed "Policy for New Languages" page is:

    "There needs to be at least 5 users pledged to start up the wiki."

That page also states that there needs to be a "reporter", but this 
seems to be particularly controversial, so I have omitted it from the 
Wikinews requirements.

Now, should we go by a) or b)? If we go by a), then we should wait with 
"recognizing" the French, Swedish and Spanish editions as Wikinews 
projects until they have the required number of active participants. I'm 
happy to do that, though I am not quite sure what it means in practice. 
If we go by b), then, given that the formal requirements of a valid 
pledge have never been defined, it's a bit late to complain about the 
projects being approved now. You had plenty of time to state on the 
"Wikinews/Start a new edition" page or its discussion page if you 
thought that a certain amount of editing on the French Wikipedia was 
needed to make a valid pledge for a French Wikinews, for instance.

Personally, I think that we should assume good faith, make sure that the 
instructions on the page are clear, and count pledges from users who 
obviously exist. To simplify the counting process, I have only counted 
users with pages on Meta, but I am sure that there are some more real 
users who voted for the French Wikinews and who don't have a Meta user 
page. There are plenty of potential Wikinews contributors who have no 
interest in contributing to an encyclopedia, a quote collection or a 
dictionary. I think it would be unfair to discount their pledges.

But, again, I am perfectly happy to withdraw official recognition from 
the newly created Wikinews editions until they have reached the required 
number of participants. If this is what you want, please outline the 
steps you deem necessary for such a withdrawal of recognition to take place.

> My personal opinion Erik. I did not approve wikinews because I felt it 
> would be biaised and it would divide the community strength. Also, the 
> majority of french editors did not support it.

True, but we all agreed that the Wikinews vote was for the project as a 
whole, not for individual languages. Also remember that many users from 
individual languages voted on the large English voting page, rather than 
the translated subpage.

> This is why some mandatory steps were added to try to limit the risk 
> of us having a baised project. To ensure enough support would exist 
> for each individual project.

No, this is not the history. These steps were actually defined before 
the vote even took place.

> In setting up a new wikinews without following these rules

I did follow the rules. You are now interpreting them to say I didn't, 
but the requirements you say exist (e.g. "> x edits on Wikipedia") were 
never written down or even discussed. I'm happy to discuss how to 
proceed further, and am willing to work with you and the rest of the 
Board in assuring that the creation of the new Wikinews editions will be 
smooth and will not disrupt existing projects. Please describe what you 
think should be done next.

Regards,

Erik