Mailing List Archive

Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already, I feel
that we should be very conservative about
creating new versions. As Erik says, this is a board decision, and by
convention on such matters, I vote with Angela
and Anthere anyway if they disagree with me.

So, unless Angela and Anthere tell me to vote otherwise, I would vote to
not create Chinese Wikinews at this time, and
not until we have greater consensus in that community to do it.

--Jimbo



Erik Moeller wrote:

> There has now been a vote, organized by Formulax, among Chinese
> language Wikimedians on whether there should be a Chinese Wikinews.
>
> The results are at:
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E6%8A%95%E7%A5%A8/%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%B0%E9%97%BB
>
>
> In an amusing demonstration of the problems of voting, there were 13
> votes opposed to the project, 13 votes in support, and 1 vote with
> support only if compromises could be made about NPOV.
>
> There was a larger vote earlier on whether this should be up to the
> global community to decide, or to the Chinese community. That vote was
> inconclusive, too, with opinions evenly split (50% want it to be a
> global decision, 50% want it to be a local decision) and very strong
> expressions of emotions on both sides.
>
> We can continue voting until we get a nice result, but I think it
> would be best now for the board to make a decision about this.
>
> My recommendation is a compromise: the project should go ahead under
> somewhat more rigid conditions (at least 10 support votes with at
> least 6 of them from Wikimedia regulars PLUS the process at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_language_pre-launch ). We can deal
> with problems of censorship as they arise.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

Perhaps it's apparent to all parties, but could somone elaborate on
"Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already"?

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


On 4/14/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote:
> Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already, I feel
> that we should be very conservative about
> creating new versions. As Erik says, this is a board decision, and by
> convention on such matters, I vote with Angela
> and Anthere anyway if they disagree with me.
>
> So, unless Angela and Anthere tell me to vote otherwise, I would vote to
> not create Chinese Wikinews at this time, and
> not until we have greater consensus in that community to do it.
>
> --Jimbo
>
>
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> > There has now been a vote, organized by Formulax, among Chinese
> > language Wikimedians on whether there should be a Chinese Wikinews.
> >
> > The results are at:
> > http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E6%8A%95%E7%A5%A8/%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%B0%E9%97%BB
> >
> >
> > In an amusing demonstration of the problems of voting, there were 13
> > votes opposed to the project, 13 votes in support, and 1 vote with
> > support only if compromises could be made about NPOV.
> >
> > There was a larger vote earlier on whether this should be up to the
> > global community to decide, or to the Chinese community. That vote was
> > inconclusive, too, with opinions evenly split (50% want it to be a
> > global decision, 50% want it to be a local decision) and very strong
> > expressions of emotions on both sides.
> >
> > We can continue voting until we get a nice result, but I think it
> > would be best now for the board to make a decision about this.
> >
> > My recommendation is a compromise: the project should go ahead under
> > somewhat more rigid conditions (at least 10 support votes with at
> > least 6 of them from Wikimedia regulars PLUS the process at
> > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_language_pre-launch ). We can deal
> > with problems of censorship as they arise.
> >
> > Erik
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

There's no consensus within the board either. In a discussion last
month, Anthere said the Chinese community should decide, I said the
whole community should decide, Tim Shell said it should be started,
Jimbo said it shouldn't, and Michael Davis didn't respond to my email
about it.

Considering the complete split of opinions, both in the original vote,
the recent Chinese vote, and within the board, I think we need to
consider alternative options to the simple question of whether we
start it or not. One solution could be for Wikimedia to support the
project being hosted elsewhere without it being an official Wikimedia
project, if any of the supporters of the project wanted to find
alternative hosting for it. It wouldn't be able to use the Wikinews
trademarks, but would mean that those who want to work on it could do
so, and if there is ever a consensus for the project within Wikimedia,
we could move it back here then.

Angela

Hi,

Le Friday 15 April 2005 05:33, Andrew Lih a écrit :
> Perhaps it's apparent to all parties, but could somone elaborate on
> "Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already"?
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

I think that Jimbo refers to the French Wikinews which is still in beta with
no real participant. There is still no consensus on what to do with this
project within the French community. Some people proposed to close it untill
there is a wider consensus.

Regards,

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux

"Angela" <beesley@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8b722b80050414211939302ff4@mail.gmail.com...
[snip]
> One solution could be for Wikimedia to support the
> project being hosted elsewhere without it being an official Wikimedia
> project, if any of the supporters of the project wanted to find
> alternative hosting for it. It wouldn't be able to use the Wikinews
> trademarks, but would mean that those who want to work on it could do
> so, and if there is ever a consensus for the project within Wikimedia,
> we could move it back here then.

Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?
--
Phil

On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell@gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?

If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
blocking.

Angela.

On 4/15/05, Angela <beesley@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?
>
> If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
> lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
> welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
> language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
> blocking.

For what it's worth-- a recent Associated Press article
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7501488/) mentions that China seems to
filter on keyword and not domain, these days.

-ilya

They have many tools in their drawer, some are URL-based, some domain based.

URL-filtering is a "standing" filter on everything being passed
around, but they still do hone in on specific domains to filter as
well.

-Andrew

On 4/16/05, Ilya Haykinson <haykinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/15/05, Angela <beesley@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?
> >
> > If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
> > lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
> > welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
> > language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
> > blocking.
>
> For what it's worth-- a recent Associated Press article
> (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7501488/) mentions that China seems to
> filter on keyword and not domain, these days.
>
> -ilya
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

On 4/15/05, Angela <beesley@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/15/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Maybe it could be a new Wikicities entry?
>
> If the main objection to starting Chinese Wikinews is that it could
> lead to Wikipedia being blocked, then I'm not too sure it would be
> welcome at Wikicities either, since there are already four Chinese
> language wikis there which would be subjected to this risk of
> blocking.


That's gotta be the worst reason for not starting a project IMO

Yann Forget wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Le Friday 15 April 2005 05:33, Andrew Lih a écrit :
>
>>Perhaps it's apparent to all parties, but could somone elaborate on
>>"Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already"?
>>
>>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>
>
> I think that Jimbo refers to the French Wikinews which is still in beta with
> no real participant. There is still no consensus on what to do with this
> project within the French community. Some people proposed to close it untill
> there is a wider consensus.

Yes, this is what I had in mind. The French Wikinews was started
according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
ensure a proper launch with solid community support. When we were in
Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
hasn't been successful.

I don't support closing it; I don't support keeping it open. I just
think we should observe and learn from the process.

It's probably worth noting that a polarized community (as zh is) is of
course different from a community which simply doesn't have people
interested (fr, and I think some other existing wikinews). Zh might be
successful just because it is controversial.

There are many many factors to consider in making these decisions.

--Jimbo

Jimmy-

> Yes, this is what I had in mind. The French Wikinews was started
> according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> ensure a proper launch with solid community support. When we were in
> Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> hasn't been successful.

it is important to note that Wikinews is currently the *only* project
that follows a strict language creation policy. There are:
* 12 Wikinews editions
* 87 Wikiquote editions
* 121 Wikibooks editions
* 173 Wiktionary editions
* ~200 Wikipedia editions

Suffice it to say that a very large number of these Wikiquote,
Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikipedia editions are dead or, worse, spam
magnets. :-(

The elaborate processes for Wikinews as well as the nature of the
project have certainly put it in the spotlight of community attention.
But the situation with Wikinews is much better. Of all the editions,
only one (Bulgarian) is completely dead. It was launched according to
the old, minimal policy. If nothing happens within the next couple of
months, or if it starts attracting spam, I'd recommend locking it down.

The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
events" summary style right on the Main Page:

http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil

This is unfortunate, as it duplicates the page "Actualités" on the
French Wikipedia:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualit%C3%A9s

I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other
editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a
spam magnet, and there is a small community there.

The Swedish edition has seen no new stories since April 2, but was very
active until then; I have heard rumors that this is related to a
conflict on the Swedish Wikipedia.

All in all, I think we are doing quite well. Thanks to a volunteer from
the Romanian edition, Romihaitza, we now even have daily updates on the
number of new articles in each language per day:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Statistics

The new "Wikimedia regulars + start writing key pages on Meta" policy
for new languages seems to work, and I see no reason for any substantial
changes at the present time. Maybe the number of required regulars could
be increased slightly.

Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international
writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of
the different languages.

All best,

Erik

Hi,

Le Saturday 16 April 2005 21:19, Erik Moeller a écrit :
> Jimmy-
>
> > Yes, this is what I had in mind. The French Wikinews was started
> > according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> > ensure a proper launch with solid community support. When we were in
> > Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> > get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> > hasn't been successful.
>
> it is important to note that Wikinews is currently the *only* project
> that follows a strict language creation policy. There are:
> * 12 Wikinews editions
> * 87 Wikiquote editions
> * 121 Wikibooks editions
> * 173 Wiktionary editions
> * ~200 Wikipedia editions
>
> Suffice it to say that a very large number of these Wikiquote,
> Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikipedia editions are dead or, worse, spam
> magnets. :-(

I advocate blocking projects when there is no real activity until one or
several volunteer(s) come(s) It would prevent them being squatted by spammers
like the Slovak Wiktionary recently (21 articles).

This was already proposed some time ago and a page was made on Meta in order
to have a general overview of the situation. However AFAIK no action was
taken.

> The elaborate processes for Wikinews as well as the nature of the
> project have certainly put it in the spotlight of community attention.

I think such a process should be used for any new project now.

> But the situation with Wikinews is much better. Of all the editions,
> only one (Bulgarian) is completely dead. It was launched according to
> the old, minimal policy. If nothing happens within the next couple of
> months, or if it starts attracting spam, I'd recommend locking it down.
>
> The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
> updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
> writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
> events" summary style right on the Main Page:
>
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil
>
> This is unfortunate, as it duplicates the page "Actualités" on the
> French Wikipedia:
>
> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actualit%C3%A9s
>
> I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other
> editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a
> spam magnet, and there is a small community there.

I hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
the 100,000 articles.

> The Swedish edition has seen no new stories since April 2, but was very
> active until then; I have heard rumors that this is related to a
> conflict on the Swedish Wikipedia.
>
> All in all, I think we are doing quite well. Thanks to a volunteer from
> the Romanian edition, Romihaitza, we now even have daily updates on the
> number of new articles in each language per day:
>
> http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Statistics
>
> The new "Wikimedia regulars + start writing key pages on Meta" policy
> for new languages seems to work, and I see no reason for any substantial
> changes at the present time. Maybe the number of required regulars could
> be increased slightly.
>
> Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international
> writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of
> the different languages.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik

Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux

> > Yes, this is what I had in mind. The French Wikinews was started
> > according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> > ensure a proper launch with solid community support. When we were in
> > Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> > get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> > hasn't been successful.

Well..let us say that I have *tried* to translate a few policies, so
as to make it a bit more "regulated" and ensure that I could
delete/tag articles with some background for doing so. this said, it
is too much work for one person, and having no-one to discuss those
policies is not very motivating anyway. But thank you Jimbo for
mentionning it.

[snip]

> The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
> updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
> writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
> events" summary style right on the Main Page:
>
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Accueil

I believe when you write contributorS, you really mean contributor (as
in one contributor). i invite you to take a look at the recent changes
or Main Page history to see that there is mainly one person actually
working on this wiki, who, as Anthere pointed out earlier, is not
familiar with the projects and not exactly acquired to the cause of
"NOPOV". See his intervention on the Village pump to see his
standpoint about NPOV. This said, he is a good contributor in the
sense that although he may not agree with all our views, he has so far
kept his personal opinions away from the content as much as possible.

> I hope that over time, the French Wikinews will evolve like the other
> editions into a source of genuine stories. But, at least it is not a
> spam magnet, and there is a small community there.

Yes, small is the word. Apart from this one contibutor, Weather Bot,a
few IP edits, another contributor who is (as I am) only working on
the form and shape rather than the content, there is virtually no-one.
Again, this will prove my point:
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges. Let us face it,
with 35 articles and one contributor since the begining of the
project, and this although it has ben advertized on the Village pump,
put for a while on the Community Portal, and re-advertized not so long
ago by yourself on the French Bistro (which, i must say generated a
good 20 or 30 edits). and absolutely no reaction on your second
intervention (a must for a French Bistro i must say).
So I say it again, I strongly believe the French community is
definitely not *ready* to undertake the Wikinews project at this
stage. As long as it continues surviving as it does, with somone
copy/pasting current events on to the main page, I guess I don't have
an opinion about it. Close it, or don't. I might chage my mind with
time if the situation does not improve. Wikinews.fr is , in my very
humble opinion, a disgrace both to the Wikinews project as a whole and
Wikimedia. But then again, it is MY opinion.

[snip]

>
> Given the success of the English one, I hope to start an international
> writing contest soon, which will also help us to track the progress of
> the different languages.

I can only wish you good luck with it. And unlike Yann, I doubt that
the 100 000 articles on fr will bring more contributors, but on the
contrary I believe they will bring this dormant (not to say dead)
project into the spotlights and enhance its failure as such. Too bad.

Best,

Delphine
--
~notafish

On 4/16/05, Yann Forget <yann@forget-me.net> wrote:
> I advocate blocking projects when there is no real activity until one or
> several volunteer(s) come(s) It would prevent them being squatted by spammers
> like the Slovak Wiktionary recently (21 articles).
>
> This was already proposed some time ago and a page was made on Meta in order
> to have a general overview of the situation. However AFAIKno action was
> taken.

I created the Inactive wikis page
(<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inactive_wikis>) for this, but I'm
not sure now whether I agree with what I proposed there. It was never
clear whether one person requesting a wiki to be locked or unlocked
was enough, or whether there ought to be more of a procedure for this.
Very few wikis were ever locked as a result of this proposal, though I
don't know how much of this was related to the objections to the
procedure and how much was just due to a lack of motivation by the
stewards to lock these wikis.

Spam and vandalism at inactive wikis can be reported at
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vandalism_reports>.

Angela.

Yann Forget wrote:
> I hope that a new promotion campaign will attract new contributors for this
> project. This should be started soon as the French Wikipedia is approaching
> the 100,000 articles.

Since we're all discussing the problems of French wikinews, it is
worth pointing out that French Wikipedia is prospering. I don't like
for people to compete on article counts, because after all an article
count is a poor proxy for quality work in the final analysis. But, we
all do it anyway because it is fun. :-)

It seems likely that at recent rates of growth, French wikipedia will
surpass Japanese wikipedia in the next few months. According to (En)
Wikipedia, French has 128 million total speakers (first and second
language) while Japanese has 127 million total speakers. So we should
expect that most likely they will grow in parallel passing each other
several times in the coming years.

--Jimbo

I am undecided as well about closing or not closing fr. There is one
contributor to it. What worries me is that he is not a wikipedian, and
seems to have strange ideas about npov. I tried to discuss it a bit with
him... but basically, npov is not so much about "explanation", but
rather more about "habit and precedent". Most learn and understand it by
working with others. As he is alone.... I am dubious. But for now,
content seems fine. It is essentially working along the same line that
the french wikipedia current events.

So, the main drawback of its existence is for now a bad image propagated
to french journalists; But well....

Ant

Jimmy Wales a écrit:
> Yann Forget wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Le Friday 15 April 2005 05:33, Andrew Lih a écrit :
>>
>>> Perhaps it's apparent to all parties, but could somone elaborate on
>>> "Given the struggles that some Wikinews projects have had already"?
>>>
>>> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>>
>>
>>
>> I think that Jimbo refers to the French Wikinews which is still in
>> beta with no real participant. There is still no consensus on what to
>> do with this project within the French community. Some people proposed
>> to close it untill there is a wider consensus.
>
>
> Yes, this is what I had in mind. The French Wikinews was started
> according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
> ensure a proper launch with solid community support. When we were in
> Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
> get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
> hasn't been successful.
>
> I don't support closing it; I don't support keeping it open. I just
> think we should observe and learn from the process.
>
> It's probably worth noting that a polarized community (as zh is) is of
> course different from a community which simply doesn't have people
> interested (fr, and I think some other existing wikinews). Zh might be
> successful just because it is controversial.
>
> There are many many factors to consider in making these decisions.
>
> --Jimb
> o

Erik Moeller a écrit:
> Jimmy-
>
>> Yes, this is what I had in mind. The French Wikinews was started
>> according to existing policy, but clearly that policy is inadequate to
>> ensure a proper launch with solid community support. When we were in
>> Brussels a while back Delphine/notafish was making a valiant effort to
>> get it going/get it organized/make it work, but to my knowledge this
>> hasn't been successful.
>
>
> it is important to note that Wikinews is currently the *only* project
> that follows a strict language creation policy. There are:
> * 12 Wikinews editions
> * 87 Wikiquote editions
> * 121 Wikibooks editions
> * 173 Wiktionary editions
> * ~200 Wikipedia editions
>
> Suffice it to say that a very large number of these Wikiquote,
> Wikibooks, Wiktionary and Wikipedia editions are dead or, worse, spam
> magnets. :-(
>
> The elaborate processes for Wikinews as well as the nature of the
> project have certainly put it in the spotlight of community attention.
> But the situation with Wikinews is much better. Of all the editions,
> only one (Bulgarian) is completely dead. It was launched according to
> the old, minimal policy. If nothing happens within the next couple of
> months, or if it starts attracting spam, I'd recommend locking it down.
>
> The French Wikinews is now in a somewhat strange state; it is being
> updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be. Instead of
> writing full-length stories, contributors are writing in "Current
> events" summary style right on the Main Page:

(cut)

You are correct in everything you say here...

Just one point. I could not help think that the "it is being
> updated regularly, but not in the way Wikinews should be" is possibly
something to avoid saying.

I do not like how the french wikipedia is developing. However, I do not
think we should necessarily force it to develop in a certain way. And I
certainly do not think we should claim the current english way of doing
wikinews is "what it should be" while others are not doing the proper way.

Only point. I otherwise agree with you.

ant

Angela a écrit:
> There's no consensus within the board either. In a discussion last
> month, Anthere said the Chinese community should decide, I said the
> whole community should decide, Tim Shell said it should be started,
> Jimbo said it shouldn't, and Michael Davis didn't respond to my email
> about it.

I hope everyone appreciate that even among 5 people, we were not able to
have one common position ;-)

> Considering the complete split of opinions, both in the original vote,
> the recent Chinese vote, and within the board, I think we need to
> consider alternative options to the simple question of whether we
> start it or not. One solution could be for Wikimedia to support the
> project being hosted elsewhere without it being an official Wikimedia
> project, if any of the supporters of the project wanted to find
> alternative hosting for it. It wouldn't be able to use the Wikinews
> trademarks, but would mean that those who want to work on it could do
> so, and if there is ever a consensus for the project within Wikimedia,
> we could move it back here then.
>
> Angela

Hmmmm. Yeah. But I am not sure it would be credible.

Erik, folks,

I've taken some time this weekend to read over the ZH Wikinews vote
comments, and the concerns of the 13 opposed are quite interesting.

If you haven't been following it, the Chinese Internet is in a bad slump
right now. There are occasional reports of Internet crackdowns in China, but
the recent one should be a real concern. College campus Internet BBS systems
have had severe restrictions imposed, and some have closed down. One of the
best known Internet entrepreneurs had his personal site shut down by
government order because of content posted on April Fools day.

So many of the comments in the vote were in the spirit of, "It's not a good
time to do something that will most definitely get roped into this mess."
OTOH, some said this is exactly why it should be created, in that it will be
a canary in the coal mine, so to speak. Just thought you'd be interested in
the sentiment that they've expressed in the vote.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


On 4/14/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> There has now been a vote, organized by Formulax, among Chinese language
> Wikimedians on whether there should be a Chinese Wikinews.
>
> The results are at:
>
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E6%8A%95%E7%A5%A8/%E7%BB%B4%E5%9F%BA%E6%96%B0%E9%97%BB
>
> In an amusing demonstration of the problems of voting, there were 13
> votes opposed to the project, 13 votes in support, and 1 vote with
> support only if compromises could be made about NPOV.
>
> There was a larger vote earlier on whether this should be up to the
> global community to decide, or to the Chinese community. That vote was
> inconclusive, too, with opinions evenly split (50% want it to be a
> global decision, 50% want it to be a local decision) and very strong
> expressions of emotions on both sides.
>
> We can continue voting until we get a nice result, but I think it would
> be best now for the board to make a decision about this.
>
> My recommendation is a compromise: the project should go ahead under
> somewhat more rigid conditions (at least 10 support votes with at least
> 6 of them from Wikimedia regulars PLUS the process at
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_language_pre-launch ). We can deal
> with problems of censorship as they arise.
>
> Erik
> _______________________________________________
> Wikinews-l mailing list
> Wikinews-l@Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>

Andrew Lih wrote:

>If you haven't been following it, the Chinese Internet is in a bad slump
>right now. There are occasional reports of Internet crackdowns in China, but
>the recent one should be a real concern. College campus Internet BBS systems
>have had severe restrictions imposed, and some have closed down. One of the
>best known Internet entrepreneurs had his personal site shut down by
>government order because of content posted on April Fools day.
>
>So many of the comments in the vote were in the spirit of, "It's not a good
>time to do something that will most definitely get roped into this mess."
>OTOH, some said this is exactly why it should be created, in that it will be
>a canary in the coal mine, so to speak. Just thought you'd be interested in
>the sentiment that they've expressed in the vote.
>
The uses for a dead canary are very limited. Having the miners dress up
in yellow suits to do this job strikes me as a little suicidal.

Ec

Anthere:
> I am undecided as well about closing or not closing fr. There is one
> contributor to it. What worries me is that he is not a wikipedian, and
> seems to have strange ideas about npov. I tried to discuss it a bit with
> him... but basically, npov is not so much about "explanation", but
> rather more about "habit and precedent". Most learn and understand it by
> working with others. As he is alone.... I am dubious. But for now,
> content seems fine. It is essentially working along the same line that
> the french wikipedia current events.

As a brief update, real articles are now being written by a handful of
contributors:

http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Excuses_de_Koizumi_pour_le_pass%C3%A9_japonais
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Fin_de_gr%C3%A8ve_%C3%A0_Radio_France
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Allaoui%2C_premier_ministre_irakien%2C_survit_%C3%A0_une_cinqui%C3%A8me_tentative_d%27assassinat
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Le_pr%C3%A9sident_%C3%A9quatorien_Lucio_Gutti%C3%A9rrez_est_destitu%C3%A9_par_le_Congr%C3%A8s
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Formation_du_gouvernement_de_Najib_Mikati
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Crise_politique_en_Italie
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/La_Wikip%C3%A9dia_francophone_fait_sauter_les_compteurs
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Joseph_Ratzinger_%C3%A9lu_pape
http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/La_Cour_supr%C3%AAme_de_l%27Oregon_annule_3_000_mariages_homosexuels

I can't judge the quality of these, but they seem to follow the
stylistic conventions of the other editions. I'm happy to see that the
project is making progress.

All best,

Erik

I even wrote part of one of those. Sigh :-(

I was put under pressure by highly motivated Amgine :-)

ant

Erik Moeller a écrit:
> Anthere:
>
>> I am undecided as well about closing or not closing fr. There is one
>> contributor to it. What worries me is that he is not a wikipedian, and
>> seems to have strange ideas about npov. I tried to discuss it a bit
>> with him... but basically, npov is not so much about "explanation",
>> but rather more about "habit and precedent". Most learn and understand
>> it by working with others. As he is alone.... I am dubious. But for
>> now, content seems fine. It is essentially working along the same line
>> that the french wikipedia current events.
>
>
> As a brief update, real articles are now being written by a handful of
> contributors:
>
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Excuses_de_Koizumi_pour_le_pass%C3%A9_japonais
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Fin_de_gr%C3%A8ve_%C3%A0_Radio_France
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Allaoui%2C_premier_ministre_irakien%2C_survit_%C3%A0_une_cinqui%C3%A8me_tentative_d%27assassinat
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Le_pr%C3%A9sident_%C3%A9quatorien_Lucio_Gutti%C3%A9rrez_est_destitu%C3%A9_par_le_Congr%C3%A8s
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Formation_du_gouvernement_de_Najib_Mikati
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Crise_politique_en_Italie
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/La_Wikip%C3%A9dia_francophone_fait_sauter_les_compteurs
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/Joseph_Ratzinger_%C3%A9lu_pape
> http://fr.wikinews.org/wiki/La_Cour_supr%C3%AAme_de_l%27Oregon_annule_3_000_mariages_homosexuels
>
> I can't judge the quality of these, but they seem to follow the
> stylistic conventions of the other editions. I'm happy to see that the
> project is making progress.
>
> All best,
>
> Erik