BE the Media... Announcing "WikiNews"!

[scottxyz]

http://demo.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page

This is a new website, where the users themselves contribute the news stories.

We've been saying for a while now "BE the Media". I think it's starting to happen!

Currently, Wikinews is the top-mentioned website on www.blogdex.net - so the news about Wikinews is already getting around!

[bluestateguy]

1. What if it's taken over by Freepers?

This would give them their venue to "report all the GOOD NEWS from Iraq that is being ignored by the liberal media".

I can just see the wikinews headlines from them now:

Three new kindergartens open for business in Baghdad.

Electrical Power restored in Baghdad for an additional two hours.

Fox News poll: Alawi approval rating soars in Iraq.

Iraq war casualties pale in comparison to Vietnam

[Winamericaback]

2. Well

I noticed sometime last year that Democrats control the internet. So all we have to do is go there and contribute and I'm sure the Freepers and neocons will run away, they always do when confronted with the truth.

[scottxyz]

3. Can't happen

A wiki can be improved by ANYONE who logs into it. Yes this sounds like an invitation for vandalism - but because of the large number of people participating in a wiki, and because a historical record of all edits is kept, in practice it has been found that vandalism doesn't gain much traction on a wiki.

And like the new www.daoureport.com - it would probably be a GOOD thing to have one place where people can go and see BOTH sides of the issues. Biased posts tend to self-destruct when they are viewed in the larger context of unbiased posts.

[scottxyz]

4. replies to common objections re Wikis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections

Trolls and flamers

{Objection:}
"Wikipedia is going to end up like Usenet — just a bunch of flame wars."

{Reply:}
This is a bit more of a problem, but it is dealt with fairly handily by the social mores of Wikipedia, aka Wikiquette. Arguments on article pages get moved either to a corresponding talk page (e.g. talk:theory of relativity) or to a new article page which presents the arguments within a neutral context (e.g., operating system advocacy).

The argument on the talk pages tends to be centered on how to improve the article, rather than on the merits of various competing views. We have an informal but widely-respected policy against using talk pages for partisan wrangling that has nothing to do with improving articles.

Usenet lacks at least two features that are absolutely essential to Wikipedia's success: (1) on Usenet, you can't edit other people's work, while we can here on Wikipedia, thereby encouraging creative and collegial collaboration; or more strongly, on Wikipedia, there's no such thing as "other people's work", because there's no ownership of information; (2) Unlike Wikipedia, Usenet does not have the possibility of enforcing community-agreed standards. Moreover, Usenet is a debate forum. Wikipedia is, very self-consciously, an encyclopedia project! This provides at least some agreement on What Wikipedia is not.

The Wiki way is to focus on agreement, not disagreement as weblog or mailing list or Usenet often do. It is fair to say that there is room for almost anyone to work on Wikipedia, without necessarily encountering those who have a truly incompatible view.

At any given time, there are probably a few trolls and flamers trying to stir up trouble on Wikipedia. But while these folks can make a lot of noise, the great majority of work on Wikipedia continues without paying much attention to them.

[GregD]

5. speaking of Be The Media

http://www.bethemedia.org