Mailing List Archive

No, please keep it to the procedure we agreed upon just a couple of days
ago.

When I suggested that we added this requirement of "activity", there
were two reasons

* activity shows interest, so avoid missed launches such as the french
wikinews one

* past activity of at least 2 editors on a wikipedia (for example)
indicates that at least 2 editors are aware of our basic principles and
in particular NPOV requirement.

Again, the is a security measure. If 5 people, not even one oldby on one
of our project, decide to launch a wikinews with no experience at all,
there is rather high risk that some of our principles are not respected;
and since it is not in a language we necessarily manage, it might go on
for a long time.

You mentionned yourself that wikinews was a tricky project, with rather
serious liability issues. I agree with this. And this is just as much a
reason to avoid launching by people who just happened to visit a couple
of days sooner and found the concept great. We need at least 2
experienced people.

Anthere




Erik Moeller a écrit:
> As per the procedure on
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition
>
> I'd like to launch three new editions later today or tomorrow:
> Portuguese, Polish, and Romanian. For Portuguese, I count Carlosar as a
> valid vote, because he has made 3000+ edits on the English Wikinews, and
> he is a native speaker.
>
> For future editions, I'd also like to suggest changing the language
> procedure in the following way:
>
> The "activity on existing Wikimedia projects" requirement can be
> dropped if a few support pages (FAQ, Mission Statement, etc.) are
> created on Meta for the project to be launched. These can be
> translations or original creations.
>
> Such an effort indicates a genuine interest in working on a Wikinews
> edition in a language. It also reduces the dependency of new projects on
> existing ones -- we already know that many key people working on
> Wikinews have not done substantial work on Wikipedia or other Wikimedia
> projects. There would still be a requirement of at least 5 signatures,
> so it's not just one person playing an overarching role.
>
> If this works out, perhaps we can substitute one procedure for another;
> I prefer the translation procedure, because it also makes sure that
> certain pages are in place before the wiki is set up (a problem on some
> new editions which were essentially blank for several days).
>
> I'd like to credit the Memory Alpha wiki for this procedure, which has
> successfully used it for setting up new languages.
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

Anthere-

>
> * activity shows interest, so avoid missed launches such as the french
> wikinews one

Actually, it doesn't. French Wikinews would have passed the edit count
requirements (haven't checked user duration); as you yourself said,
Greudin is a very active user on fr.wikipedia and has pledged support
for the French Wikinews, yet he has only made a handful of edits there.

Translating/creating policies seems to be a much better test of actual
interest in doing work. Once you do that, that shows a commitment to the
project.

>
> * past activity of at least 2 editors on a wikipedia (for example)
> indicates that at least 2 editors are aware of our basic principles
> and in particular NPOV requirement.

What better test could there be for people understanding a policy like
NPOV than requiring them to translate it?

> Again, the is a security measure. If 5 people, not even one oldby on
> one of our project, decide to launch a wikinews with no experience at
> all, there is rather high risk that some of our principles are not
> respected;

I don't see it that way. Just because someone has been on Wikipedia for
months doesn't mean that they respect policies at all. Quantity is not
quality, and measuring quality is almost impossible while keeping the
process scalable and fair. One could even argue that malicious trolls or
otherwise harmful users who know how to manipulate policies in their
interest are more likely to come from our existing user base. In fact,
Wikinews will especially attract people who are fed up with Wikipedia
and want to work on another wiki.

> and since it is not in a language we necessarily manage, it might go
> on for a long time.

This is more likely if key policies like NPOV are *not* translated. If
we can agree on which parts of our policies are not negotiable, we can
make sure that they are in place. One of these policies can even include
instructions on what to do if your wiki doesn't follow the Wikimedia
spirit (contact stewards etc.).

Future projects don't necessarily match our current userbase. To tie the
process for creating new language editions directly to that userbase
seems needlessly restrictive. Building a small community on Meta and
writing key pages before launching the project is also simply good
planning -- exactly the kind of thing that could have helped to prevent
the current fr.wikinews.org situation, much more so than algorithmic
requirements whose actual predictive value is very low, as that
experience has shown.

Regards,

Erik

> For future editions, I'd also like to suggest changing the language
> procedure in the following way:
>
> The "activity on existing Wikimedia projects" requirement can be
> dropped if a few support pages (FAQ, Mission Statement, etc.) are
> created on Meta for the project to be launched. These can be
> translations or original creations.

As Ant, i support the activity requirement. The reason is that it's
better imo to "know" people, how they behave for instance, who intend to
launch a wikinews. If you let a total "stranger" start a new language
edition, you open doors to many abuses - translating NPOV rules & such
is NOT synonym with agreeing to them. And how can you check the
translation is correct unless you speak the language? :)

> Regards,
>
> Erik

Nicolas

<snipped some parts>
> And let's not forget about
> http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?AssumeGoodFaith - the very idea of a
> wiki is to be open and welcoming to newcomers, rather than requiring
> people to be members of an existing "clique". If the risk of malicious

I'm not saying to be closed to newcomers, quite the opposite.
But i'm saying to not let newcomers start new projects like that -
slightly different :)

> Regards,
>
> Erik

Regards too
(my english isn't as good as to let me use other polite words, sorry :p)

Nicolas

Nicolas Weeger-

> And how can you check the
> translation is correct unless you speak the language? :)

How do I know the "regular" is not actually a troll without speaking the
language? How do I know that the only reason he wants to start a
Wikinews isn't that he hates Wikipedia after having spent several months
there? How do I know his intentions are good? You could require one of
the people to be a sysop, but that seems like an onerous requirement. An
algorithmic contribution check is *not* a quality check.

Let's be realistic here. What kind of person would intentionally
manipulate policies and get away with it under the auspices of other
users: a random person who's never been involved in our projects, or
someone who is intimately familiar with them? Furthermore, remember that
there would still be a requirement of *multiple users* participating.
How likely is it that a malicious person would get away with
deliberately falsely translating something like NPOV when working with 4
others?

And let's not forget about
http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?AssumeGoodFaith - the very idea of a
wiki is to be open and welcoming to newcomers, rather than requiring
people to be members of an existing "clique". If the risk of malicious
people ruining the project was so big, then Wikipedia itself could never
have been started. Yes, Wikinews is different -- but a Wikinews edition
which is likely to attract attention from the outside is also likely to
attract attention from the inside, allowing us to deal with malicious
users. Yes, Wikinews is different -- and that's why we should be
welcoming to *people* who are different and not yet part of our community.

Regards,

Erik

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:34:18 +0100, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller@gmx.de> wrote:
> Translating/creating policies seems to be a much better test of actual
> interest in doing work. Once you do that, that shows a commitment to the
> project.

Agreed. A project need to have some principal policies at its start -
or would be better:
after seeing the current situation of Japanese Wiktionary, I strongly
recommend everyone
to expect creating a new project.

Without principal policy some prudent editors hesitate to submit
articles. Vandals don't
care such things ... and specially continuous labor by active sysops
sometimes a disastrous situation could arise - like Ja wiktionary.

Though I can't summarize the whole history of Ja wiktionary since its
creating, one major reason of its administrative weakness is its fail
to establish ground principals in its early days in my opinion: an
active user insisted to licence articles not under GFDL but other
conditions. I don't remember the details, but it was enough to
hesitate contributors to submit if I recall correctly,. I admit it was
a very extreme case, but I convince if we can provide a newly created
project with basic policies, even if they are rough and need
improvement, it is much better than lack of them.

> Future projects don't necessarily match our current userbase. To tie the
> process for creating new language editions directly to that userbase
> seems needlessly restrictive. Building a small community on Meta and
> writing key pages before launching the project is also simply good
> planning

Preparing somewhere, on meta or existing Wikinews (at subpages of user page)
seems good to me. If preferable, Wikinews proposed can have platform
to prepare and
draft their policies on meta (like TR). It would make them to give a
look on other projects' policy and give a good occasion to consider
their own in comparison with others: a diversity of projects give us a
good chance to elaborate our policies. For suspicion a project would
be created by newbies or trolls who understand not our policy, such
platform on meta could give the transparency of their policy to
interesting observers.

--
Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com

> > Translating/creating policies seems to be a much better test of actual
> > interest in doing work. Once you do that, that shows a commitment to the
> > project.

I am kind of torn between several things here.
I do agree with Erik, new people coming to a new project can be pretty
good, it gives different insight, and wikinews is definitely not like
wikipedia. Also I agree that some people, not active on Wikipédia,
might be interested in Wikinews and strengthen the community. I also
agree that translating the project rules or creating original ones is
very important (I have started translating policies in fr, and it is
quite a challenge).
I also agree with Anthere though, a basic knowledge of how "life on a
wiki" works is important, very important. We need people who are
likely to become admins very quickly, if only to change system
messages...
And Ryo makes a good point, what if the policies drawn on meta are
just rubbish and we can't check because we don't speak the language?

To me the existing policy addresses only one of the issues, 3 users
that know the wikimedia projects. I would actually *add* Erik's
proposal to the launching of a new Wikinews, for I believe people on
the fr wikinews have been quickly overcome by the enormous task of
putting together policies. Basically, the French Wikinews was started
with people who had a rough idea of what it is all about, but don't
have the first clue of how to address it. Asking people to actually
look at the other wikinews and try to understand the project is a very
good way to measure interest.

Of course, if one of the interested users has been participating in
any other language wikinews, (s)he should count for both requirements
(see Carlosar for exemple)

So I would say 5 signatures, among which 2 people knowing how to work
a wikimedia project, 2 people willing to work in advance in setting up
rules. Those can be the same of course. This said, I think for the
launching of the wikinews for which people have already signed up, I
would not change the rules.

My two cents (of a euro).

Delphine