ByWillAtkinson.com

I had an interesting question/answer e-mail exchange with Chiacomo, a Wikinews administrator.

Excerpts:

Will:
Thanks for the comment. I checked out the updated Wikinews and have a question. Why is the story “Bikers begin descent on South Carolina resort for rallies” linked under three sections? This leaves only four unique stories.

Chiacomo:
It appears under three section on http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Portal:South_Carolina because of the categories used in the story. You’ll notice the categories “Culture and entertainment”, “Economy and business”, and “Crime and law” at the bottom of the above story. A special MediaWiki software extension called Dynamic Page Lists (DPL) allows MediaWiki projects to create lists of stories/articles based on the categories used.

Will:
Perhaps you might also shed light on these questions.

1) Does Wikinews expect average citizens to report on seemingly mundane events (city hall, school board meetings, etc.) and take the adequate amount of time needed to report a story without plagiarizing the AP?

Chiacomo:
Yes! Our hope is that some day you can come to Wikinews for local news about your city or town — filed as original reporting. You’ll see some “local news” already. I recently filed a report on a contentious city board meeting in my small town of 2,500. Others have covered fires and robberies — and included pictures and other media in these reports. BUT, Wikinews reporters have also attended major conferences and meetings including WTO functions and conferences in Africa and South America; some were issued press credentials by the sponsoring organizations/governments, others simply reported what they could from where they were.

Our strength, I think, is our ability to synthesize information and provide background. Another strength, of course, is our desire to provide Neutral Point-of-View (NPOV) news. This sometimes is a hindrance, too, as Wikinewsies are often are very emotional about certain stories.

Will:
2) Does Wikinews want to cover everything a newspaper does?

Chiacomo:
Yes, I suppose we do. We will never offer editorial content or movie reviews as these are not NPOV, but, we do hope to cover all the major news stories that main-stream-media covers.

Will:
3) How can readers trust a story if it’s continually being updated and changed? How can writers reference a story if the text is amorphous?

Chiacomo:
Articles are (supposed to be) archived after two weeks — this is another goal of Wikinews — to create a free archive of news stories. Additionally, writers can reference a certain revision of an article by using the “Permanent Link” available on every story (on the bottom left). All stories should provide the sources and references used to write the story — original reporting will include notes on the article’s “Discussion” or “talk” page. These notes are similar to
main-stream-media reporter’s notes.

Will:
Thanks. I think Wikinews is an interesting project and wish you the best of luck.

Will Atkinson
ByWillAtkinson.com