[Foundation-l] The Statistical Decline of the English Wikipedia

Wed Oct 10 20:28:34 UTC 2007

On 10/10/2007, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:

> Wikinews is different, it is much more fast-paced than Wikipedia. This may
> not suit a lot of contributors and whittle down those who do join us to the
> dedicated. Unfortunately, if Wikinews gains influence it may be the POV
> warriors who join us and try and influence our content.

Thankfully all the other wikis have en:wp to observe for and hopefully
avoid major systematic problems caused by mainstream popularity ...

> >so how is this different from what the BBC or CNN  etc reports?

> It is no different. If we have the influence it will encourage people who
> want to shape that to become involved. However, highly opinionated editors
> don't work well on Wikinews. As long as there are a core of editors
> enforcing NPOV Wikinews will work.

The Wikinews articles I find most interesting are the interviews,
which are POV, but presenting the subject's POV.

> Wikinews *should* become a place for more Wikimedians to settle down. As a
> site dedicated to current affairs there is always the opportunity to create
> a new article. Some may find that we're a little rushed in some issues, but
> there is always a buzz about the place. What I want to see is the Wikipedia
> folks who do the "In the news" section starting to cover their stories in
> more depth on Wikinews and linking to Wikinews from Wikipedia. The ideal is
> that the news is covered on Wikinews and used as a source for Wikipedia
> articles. This is how I hope to see the relationship between the two
> projects develop.

Yes, it should. I remember how contentious [[Current events]] on en:wp
was in 2004. I'm surprised people aren't making sure the headlines of
the day aren't at least recorded for posterity.

- d.