26 October 2004

Wikinews

Holy crap! Wikimedia is planning on starting a news site. I've gushed before about Wikipedia--it's my primary source of external reference for this site--so I'm very curious about this project. Honestly, my first response was more tentative (why move from knowledge to current events?), but I'm beginning to think it might be a perfect fit. Who better to vet news stories than the people who have access to accurate data that is globally authored and edited? They understand this concept along with its subtle concerns:

Our fourth requirement for Wikinews is therefore that there must be processes in place to ensure that original reports are accurate and legal in the country of publication (and possibly the country of the primary readership, but this is left for individual Wikinews communities to decide in agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation). We cannot rely on the wiki process to improve articles after they are published, because, unlike an encyclopedia article, a news article has a limited lifetime: it receives very high exposure for a very brief period of time. Articles must be accurate and legal at the time of publication.

Their proposal is worth reading. It should be a facinating experiment.

[ via Boing Boing -> Wikinews ]

[ posted by sstrader on 26 October 2004 at 3:16:58 PM in Culture & Society ]