[Foundation-l] Wikinews is giving out press credentials

Fri Nov 11 16:36:31 UTC 2005

--- Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/11/05, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> In short, you're saying that this (from meta):
> "This accreditation process is overseen by the Wikinews community,
> though the **Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation have
> overall responsibility for the system**. In order to use the term
> "Wikinews" (a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation) on **press
> badges**, approval of the process by the Board must be sought. This is
> done by submitting a summary of the Accreditation policy of the
> Wikinews edition seeking approval in English to the
> board at wikimedia.org address.
> 
> The criteria for accreditation will be documented on the relevant
> editions on Wikinews. **The Board may at any time revoke the
> accreditation of any Wikinews user, or even revoke approval of the
> project's accreditation process**."
> 
> ...does not make the Foundation liable (my **tagging**)?

That is a very good point. The policy needs to be rewritten to say that the
foundation is not accrediting the individuals, it is just giving those
individuals who have gone through a community-run and board-approved process
permission to use the Wikinews name and logo on press badges. To be even more
clear those badges should have a disclaimer on them saying that the foundation
is *not* vouching for that person's credentials and accepts no responsibility
for anything that person does. 

In fact, it may be safer (at least clearer) to drop all mention of
accreditation or credentials. Just use a different word for it like "community
approved Wikinews reporter" or something like that. 

-- mav 

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