[Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

Tue Nov 8 15:42:43 UTC 2005

Again, in almost all cases, the community
> should be the foundation¹s agent in deaccreditation and reaccreditation. But
> community processes are slow and in really bad cases the foundation should be
> able to quickly remove credentials of offending users or even suspend the
> whole
> process if it ever gets out of hand.

If you didn't have any system, then anybody would be able to claim they were
writing for Wikinews, as in fact they can anyway. Reporters need to phone
organisations up and point to a page which confirms that they are indeed
trusted by the community as reporters and not complete unknowns. For a lot
of events they will get a separate press badge and for places like Britain
they would be well advised to have an union/nationally approved press badge
as well as soon as their work reached any level of professionalism, so the
badge with the Wikinews logo really isn't that significant.

I've seen no evidence that the system could get out of hand, indeed it is
very conservatively used and applicants are quite rigorously grilled. If
someone did start to offend, the same page could be used to make it clear
that their activities did not meet with the approval of the community/board.

Freelance reporters have to say they are working for different organisations
all the time and it is mainly done on trust. If Wikinews is to get anywhere
as a news organisation it needs to be able to have this sort of system and I
think it's been very well organised so far. Nobody would imagine that a
freelance journalist spoke for CNN's board, so they won't think that a
Wikinews reporter is somehow representing the whole Wikimedia board.

I think you're worrying overly.

Clare (User:Cmwhite)