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I think that it is a normal process. Articles from popular culture
(and similar hot topic fields) are well described and people who are
working on them are not able to add any new information.

English Wikipedia reached something which may be called "a popular
limit". It is the final destiny of all Wikimedian projects except
Commons and Wikinews.

The question is: What after that? But, it is not so hard to find an
answer: Working on quality, references, merging knowledge from one
language to another, adding relevant informations using bots etc.

The problem which may raise is lack of enough educated people for
doing more complex operations with the content. It may lead into
decline of the community and impossibility to deal with vandals.

So, I think that the next step of WM aims should be community
education. But, this is one of the open questions of our community.
And I still don't see any organized project toward this goal.

On 10/10/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> I sent my primary message to wikien-l but I think the issue is important
> enough to warrant general awareness from the Foundation.
>
> I have recently compiled a new statistical analysis of the English Wikipedia
> independent of the "official" stats that have been offline for the last
> year.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis
>
> The surprising conclusion is that the rate of article editting on the
> English Wikipedia has actually been declining during the last 6 months.
>
> -Robert Rohde
> aka Dragons_flight
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
decline, personally. The internet is not infinitely big. Having absorbed
traffic from all previous contenders, we are running up against an
insurmountable wall; namely, yahoo, google, microsoft, myspace and facebook.
Considering we generate a significant portion of traffic from search
engines, it seems unlikely that we will pass the top five or so for the
foreseeable future. That very traffic that we absorbed is no less than the
unwashed masses, not all of which are content to satisfy their information
need and move on. They feel the need to also take the "edit this page" offer
as advertised, 20% of the time leaving the encyclopedia dirtier than when
they found it. We can only hope that the thrill of being able to do that
wears off by the time the next generation comes through.

On 10/9/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I sent my primary message to wikien-l but I think the issue is important
> enough to warrant general awareness from the Foundation.
>
> I have recently compiled a new statistical analysis of the English
> Wikipedia
> independent of the "official" stats that have been offline for the last
> year.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis
>
> The surprising conclusion is that the rate of article editting on the
> English Wikipedia has actually been declining during the last 6 months.
>
> -Robert Rohde
> aka Dragons_flight
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> decline, personally.
[snip]

Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?

The headline should instead be "The rate of something is lower than
its all time peak!" or "First derivative of a non-exponential function
turns out to be flat!" ... :)

It's the truth that the character of EnWp's growth has changed in the
last year. I think Milos' comments up-thread were pretty intresting.
... but I think it's really misleading to look at these numbers and
say "decline".

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Greg,

We look at it differently. The total number of edits made to Wikipedia can
never decline, but the rate at which those edits are made can either
increase or decrease. I tend to think that it is that rate (rather than the
integral) that is the most interesting measure of activity within the
Wikipedia community.

Hmmmm, I just realized I dropped a word. The title of this thread was
supposed to be "the statistical decline of the english Wikipedia COMMUNITY",
as it is the descreasing activity of that community that I think is the
interesting observation.

-Robert

On 10/9/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> > Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> > decline, personally.
> [snip]
>
> Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
> somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?
>
> The headline should instead be "The rate of something is lower than
> its all time peak!" or "First derivative of a non-exponential function
> turns out to be flat!" ... :)
>
> It's the truth that the character of EnWp's growth has changed in the
> last year. I think Milos' comments up-thread were pretty intresting.
> ... but I think it's really misleading to look at these numbers and
> say "decline".
>
> _______________________________________________
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> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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On 10/9/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> Greg,
>
> We look at it differently. The total number of edits made to Wikipedia can
> never decline, but the rate at which those edits are made can either
> increase or decrease. I tend to think that it is that rate (rather than the
> integral) that is the most interesting measure of activity within the
> Wikipedia community.

Then you should have a look at the rate over just the last couple of
months: It's flat. The exponential growth stopped, and the rate
continued at a pretty level amount which turned out to be a little bit
below the peak.

Your graphs compress everything recent into 1/14th of the graph.

I think it's misleading to compare the size derivative graphs across
such a wide time scale.

We're not undergoing the same growth that we were during the
exponential time, but that isn't news, and it don't know how you could
objectively argue that itself is something to worry about: The
exponential growth had to stop at some point.

> Hmmmm, I just realized I dropped a word. The title of this thread was
> supposed to be "the statistical decline of the english Wikipedia COMMUNITY",
> as it is the descreasing activity of that community that I think is the
> interesting observation.

I'm not sure where you are coming up with the claim that the community
activity level is *decreasing*. Perhaps I'm not reading your graphs
right, can you please produce a version of them showing only the last
4, 5, or 6 months?

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>
> Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
> somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?
>

Not to be sarcastic or anything, but that "new speak" would be [[calculus]]
:)
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On 10/9/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> > Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> > decline, personally.
>
> Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
> somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?
>
When describing what has increased requires using the word "ever".

Home sales decline in November, or number of home sales ever made
increases at a lower rate in November?

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On 10/9/07, Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org> wrote:
> Home sales decline in November, or number of home sales ever made
> increases at a lower rate in November?

The claim was "actually been declining" which isn't supported by the
data. It's less than the peak, but you don't call home sales in
decline at all times that it is less than its all time peak.

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BTW, I see that German Wikipedia is close to the same limits, too. If
someone make some statistics of other projects (for example, for
projects with more then 1.000 users), I think that we would be able to
see the same tendencies. There are only a small number of Wikipedias
which are able to make further exponential growth in the sense of user
activities: Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Indonesian... "Popular limit" of
English Wikipedia is much higher then, for example, a "popular limit"
of Serbian Wikipedia.

On 10/10/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> > Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> > decline, personally.
> [snip]
>
> Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
> somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?
>
> The headline should instead be "The rate of something is lower than
> its all time peak!" or "First derivative of a non-exponential function
> turns out to be flat!" ... :)
>
> It's the truth that the character of EnWp's growth has changed in the
> last year. I think Milos' comments up-thread were pretty intresting.
> ... but I think it's really misleading to look at these numbers and
> say "decline".
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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I think there is a new field for greatly increased activity in
Wikipedia -- for the sort of content that is not popular culture or
routine geography. One of them is the expansion of editing into
material not covered by the internet--into the world before 1990. As a
librarian, I hope some will come from increased use and access to
libraries. More likely, it will come from Google Book Search, which
will permit even those limiting themselves to the internet to work
effectively with everything through about 1920.


On 10/9/07, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW, I see that German Wikipedia is close to the same limits, too. If
> someone make some statistics of other projects (for example, for
> projects with more then 1.000 users), I think that we would be able to
> see the same tendencies. There are only a small number of Wikipedias
> which are able to make further exponential growth in the sense of user
> activities: Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Indonesian... "Popular limit" of
> English Wikipedia is much higher then, for example, a "popular limit"
> of Serbian Wikipedia.
>
> On 10/10/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> > > Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> > > decline, personally.
> > [snip]
> >
> > Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
> > somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?
> >
> > The headline should instead be "The rate of something is lower than
> > its all time peak!" or "First derivative of a non-exponential function
> > turns out to be flat!" ... :)
> >
> > It's the truth that the character of EnWp's growth has changed in the
> > last year. I think Milos' comments up-thread were pretty intresting.
> > ... but I think it's really misleading to look at these numbers and
> > say "decline".
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.

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No, I think the exponential growth is based on the perception of
"completeness" by editors, the number of red links and whatnot. The
decline in growth is definitely not due to the fact that anyone who
ever would have wanted to edit, has, because that is simply not true.

Mark

On 09/10/2007, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW, I see that German Wikipedia is close to the same limits, too. If
> someone make some statistics of other projects (for example, for
> projects with more then 1.000 users), I think that we would be able to
> see the same tendencies. There are only a small number of Wikipedias
> which are able to make further exponential growth in the sense of user
> activities: Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Indonesian... "Popular limit" of
> English Wikipedia is much higher then, for example, a "popular limit"
> of Serbian Wikipedia.
>
> On 10/10/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
> > > Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> > > decline, personally.
> > [snip]
> >
> > Hey! In what kind of new-speak is a *daily* *increase* of 140,000
> > somethings or 2,000 somethings, or 7,000 something a *decline*?
> >
> > The headline should instead be "The rate of something is lower than
> > its all time peak!" or "First derivative of a non-exponential function
> > turns out to be flat!" ... :)
> >
> > It's the truth that the character of EnWp's growth has changed in the
> > last year. I think Milos' comments up-thread were pretty intresting.
> > ... but I think it's really misleading to look at these numbers and
> > say "decline".
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
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--
Refije dirije lanmè yo paske nou posede pwòp bato.

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On 10/9/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/9/07, Anthony <wikimail@inbox.org> wrote:
> > Home sales decline in November, or number of home sales ever made
> > increases at a lower rate in November?
>
> The claim was "actually been declining" which isn't supported by the
> data. It's less than the peak, but you don't call home sales in
> decline at all times that it is less than its all time peak.
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia_Article_Edits_Minus_Reverts.png

That looks like a decline to me. The peak was about 8 months ago and
every month since has been lower than the previous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikipedia_Article_Edits.png

That ones less clear, I guess. According to that maybe the number of
daily edits has leveled off after a recent decline. Then again, it
might have just been an anomaly in the June/July area where the
relatively big dropoff took place. I think time will tell on that
one.

Of course this all assumes these charts actually reflect correct data,
which I haven't really looked into at all. How were deleted articles
handled? How was the selection of the sample chosen? Isn't there a
sort of survivorship bias in that selection?

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On 10/10/07, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Actually, I think that Wikinews with 10% of Wikipedia contributors
> will become a huge nightmare. Of course, if we wouldn't be prepared
> for that.
>
> I may imagine large scale edit wars on Wikinews, large scale legal
> problems backed by a large scale of state authorities and
> multinational companies. Wikinews in the top ten websites would mean
> that a person who has access to Internet doesn't read/listen/watch any
> other media.



large scale edit wars?? i think you need to come and spend some time with
us. our latest 3rr block was for a dispute between two users and everyone
knows everyone in our small community so discussion avoids this.

From such position WM community will be able to have a significant
> influence in the populations where Internet is a dominant source of
> informations. This means that some facts presented on Wikinews may
> lead to the victory/defeat of some political option... Or to much
> higher/lower market share of some multinational company. And those
> fields are dangerous and may lead to:



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

1) closure of Wikinews (and other projects?) or
> 2) making of Wikinews (and other projects?) a battlefield of different
> *real* interest groups (implicitly or explicitly) or
> 3) "pacifying" community and driving it into the stagnation and decline or
> 4) Wikimedian community as dominant global political force.



one of our key values is the widely know NPOV. i cant see us becoming
politicians with this. also the "closure of the project", you mean
suppresion of free speech?? cant see this being likely.

If not 1, the most possible is merging of the rest three.
>
> I don't want to say what is the good option and what is not (maybe all
> of them are good, maybe all of them are bad). The only fact is that it
> will be a real nightmare if we wouldn't be prepared.



well if anyone wants to join us at wikinews then there welcome and we look
forward to our predicted growth.

markie
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I would be very much interested in these numbers for other wikipedias,
in particular the german one. Could somebody provide these?

A different thing here is that the number of admin edits per day has
decreased. I think that is an alarming sign for the english Wikipedia?

Bye,

Philipp

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This is not surprising, considering the increasing restrictions on new
article creation, the ossification of the adminship process, and the
aggressive influence of those who prefer deletion of stubs to creation and
those who prefer massive, multipage articles to multiple discrete entries.

On 10/9/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I sent my primary message to wikien-l but I think the issue is important
> enough to warrant general awareness from the Foundation.
>
> I have recently compiled a new statistical analysis of the English
> Wikipedia
> independent of the "official" stats that have been offline for the last
> year.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis
>
> The surprising conclusion is that the rate of article editting on the
> English Wikipedia has actually been declining during the last 6 months.
>
> -Robert Rohde
> aka Dragons_flight
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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> A different thing here is that the number of admin edits per day has
> decreased. I think that is an alarming sign for the english Wikipedia?

Yeah, I noticed that. I'm not sure what it means. Do we have a graph
of admin actions per admin per day for the same time period? Perhaps
admins are just spending more time mopping up and less time editing.

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Oh, come on! Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry on Agate type.

Oh wait, it used to, but it got deleted.

On 10/9/07, Brian <Brian.Mingus@colorado.edu> wrote:
>
> Those are great stats, thanks for your work! I'm not surprised to see a
> decline, personally. The internet is not infinitely big. Having absorbed
> traffic from all previous contenders, we are running up against an
> insurmountable wall; namely, yahoo, google, microsoft, myspace and
> facebook.
> Considering we generate a significant portion of traffic from search
> engines, it seems unlikely that we will pass the top five or so for the
> foreseeable future. That very traffic that we absorbed is no less than the
> unwashed masses, not all of which are content to satisfy their information
> need and move on. They feel the need to also take the "edit this page"
> offer
> as advertised, 20% of the time leaving the encyclopedia dirtier than when
> they found it. We can only hope that the thrill of being able to do that
> wears off by the time the next generation comes through.
>
> On 10/9/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I sent my primary message to wikien-l but I think the issue is important
> > enough to warrant general awareness from the Foundation.
> >
> > I have recently compiled a new statistical analysis of the English
> > Wikipedia
> > independent of the "official" stats that have been offline for the last
> > year.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis
> >
> > The surprising conclusion is that the rate of article editting on the
> > English Wikipedia has actually been declining during the last 6 months.
> >
> > -Robert Rohde
> > aka Dragons_flight
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
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The same was happened between November 2004 and January 2005. Does
anyone remember what was going on then? Only server limits or
something else?

On 10/10/07, The Cunctator <cunctator@gmail.com> wrote:
> This is not surprising, considering the increasing restrictions on new
> article creation, the ossification of the adminship process, and the
> aggressive influence of those who prefer deletion of stubs to creation and
> those who prefer massive, multipage articles to multiple discrete entries.
>
> On 10/9/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I sent my primary message to wikien-l but I think the issue is important
> > enough to warrant general awareness from the Foundation.
> >
> > I have recently compiled a new statistical analysis of the English
> > Wikipedia
> > independent of the "official" stats that have been offline for the last
> > year.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis
> >
> > The surprising conclusion is that the rate of article editting on the
> > English Wikipedia has actually been declining during the last 6 months.
> >
> > -Robert Rohde
> > aka Dragons_flight
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
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Or maybe they are spending more time editing policies ... Or perhaps
they learned to use preview more often... Or maybe they've taken to
editing templates, or doing normal edits via socks or....

It's usually a mistake to draw specific conclusions from general data.



On 10/10/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A different thing here is that the number of admin edits per day has
> > decreased. I think that is an alarming sign for the english Wikipedia?
>
> Yeah, I noticed that. I'm not sure what it means. Do we have a graph
> of admin actions per admin per day for the same time period? Perhaps
> admins are just spending more time mopping up and less time editing.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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On 10/10/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A different thing here is that the number of admin edits per day has
> > decreased. I think that is an alarming sign for the english Wikipedia?
>
> Yeah, I noticed that. I'm not sure what it means. Do we have a graph
> of admin actions per admin per day for the same time period? Perhaps
> admins are just spending more time mopping up and less time editing.
>
"Article deletions, blocks, protections and uploads have all decreased
in recent months."

What about edits to the meta namespace? Has drama increased or
decreased in the recent months? Anecdotally I'd guess increased, but
what do the numbers say?

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Robert Rohde wrote:
> I sent my primary message to wikien-l but I think the issue is important
> enough to warrant general awareness from the Foundation.
>
> I have recently compiled a new statistical analysis of the English Wikipedia
> independent of the "official" stats that have been offline for the last
> year.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dragons_flight/Log_analysis
>
> The surprising conclusion is that the rate of article editting on the
> English Wikipedia has actually been declining during the last 6 months.
>
> -Robert Rohde
> aka Dragons_flight
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Very interesting !!!

(can you do the same from the french speaking wikipedia ?)

Ant


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sending again as it didnt do right the first time, lets see if it works this
time

markie

On 10/10/07, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Actually, I think that Wikinews with 10% of Wikipedia contributors
> will become a huge nightmare. Of course, if we wouldn't be prepared
> for that.
>
> I may imagine large scale edit wars on Wikinews, large scale legal
> problems backed by a large scale of state authorities and
> multinational companies. Wikinews in the top ten websites would mean
> that a person who has access to Internet doesn't read/listen/watch any
> other media.


large scale edit wars?? i think you need to come and spend some time with
us. our latest 3rr block was for a dispute between two users and everyone
knows everyone in our small community so discussion avoids this.

From such position WM community will be able to have a significant
> influence in the populations where Internet is a dominant source of
> informations. This means that some facts presented on Wikinews may
> lead to the victory/defeat of some political option... Or to much
> higher/lower market share of some multinational company. And those
> fields are dangerous and may lead to:


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

1) closure of Wikinews (and other projects?) or
> 2) making of Wikinews (and other projects?) a battlefield of different
> *real* interest groups (implicitly or explicitly) or
> 3) "pacifying" community and driving it into the stagnation and decline or
>
> 4) Wikimedian community as dominant global political force.


one of our key values is the widely know NPOV. i cant see us becoming
politicians with this. also the "closure of the project", you mean
suppresion of free speech?? cant see this being likely.

If not 1, the most possible is merging of the rest three.
>
> I don't want to say what is the good option and what is not (maybe all
> of them are good, maybe all of them are bad). The only fact is that it
> will be a real nightmare if we wouldn't be prepared.


well if anyone wants to join us at wikinews then there welcome and we look
forward to our predicted growth.

markie
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Wikinews Markie wrote:
> On 10/10/07, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Actually, I think that Wikinews with 10% of Wikipedia contributors
>> will become a huge nightmare. Of course, if we wouldn't be prepared
>> for that.
>>
>> I may imagine large scale edit wars on Wikinews, large scale legal
>> problems backed by a large scale of state authorities and
>> multinational companies. Wikinews in the top ten websites would mean
>> that a person who has access to Internet doesn't read/listen/watch any
>> other media.
>
>large scale edit wars?? i think you need to come and spend some time with
>us. our latest 3rr block was for a dispute between two users and everyone
>knows everyone in our small community so discussion avoids this.

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.

>From such position WM community will be able to have a significant
>> influence in the populations where Internet is a dominant source of
>> informations. This means that some facts presented on Wikinews may
>> lead to the victory/defeat of some political option... Or to much
>> higher/lower market share of some multinational company. And those
>> fields are dangerous and may lead to:
>
>
>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.

>1) closure of Wikinews (and other projects?) or
>> 2) making of Wikinews (and other projects?) a battlefield of different
>> *real* interest groups (implicitly or explicitly) or
>> 3) "pacifying" community and driving it into the stagnation and decline
>or
>>
>> 4) Wikimedian community as dominant global political force.
>
>one of our key values is the widely know NPOV. i cant see us becoming
>politicians with this. also the "closure of the project", you mean
?suppresion of free speech?? cant see this being likely.
>
>>If not 1, the most possible is merging of the rest three.
>>
>> I don't want to say what is the good option and what is not (maybe all
>> of them are good, maybe all of them are bad). The only fact is that it
>> will be a real nightmare if we wouldn't be prepared.
>
>
>well if anyone wants to join us at wikinews then there welcome and we look
>forward to our predicted growth.

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.


Brian.


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On 10/10/2007, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil@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.

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