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The Wikinewsie Group Newsletter

Sharing news about the group's activities
and things taking place on local Wikinews projects.

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The Wikinewsie Group News
Edition 4, October 1, 2013
Aff-Comm
  • The Bylaws review by aff-comm started in early September.[1][2]
Wikimedia Foundation
Research
  • Wikinews original reporting value as a measure of news events was published. This is the first in a series of research pieces looking at the cost of original reporting done by Wikinews journalists.
  • The second piece of research about Wikinews reporting was published, Itemizing the cost of Wikinews reporting. It was not published on the research namespace on meta because it has little application for chapters and thematic organizations as a whole, except possibly in trying to determine how to evaluate budgets submitted by Wikinews reporters for the purposes of grant making.
Education
  • On English Wikinews, supporters of The Wikinewsie Group requested the installation of the Education Program extension. This will facilitate having university courses participate on the project and make it easier for TWG to work with other groups like the Wiki Education Foundation.[4][5] The extension was installed and as an example and way to engage new contributors,a course for new reporters was created. Feedback on the course or anyone interested in running a high school or university course on Wikinews is encouraged to get in touch with The Wikinewsie Group.
Original reporting
  • Media accreditation has been attained for the 2014 Winter Paralympics. Planning is underway to insure the success of the original reporting event[6] and build on the success of the 2012 Summer Paralympics.[7] Success at the 2014 Winter Paralympics will go a long way towards helping The Wikinewsie Group secure accreditation for the 2016 Summer Olympics. If any individuals, chapters or thematic organizations are interested in assisting us with this and integrating it into existing outreach efforts to people with disabilities, please get in touch Laura Hale.
Outreach
  • A discussion took place on IRC about how Wikinews's definitions of journalism are very much tied into the workflow for Wikinews. [8] Thus, for many Wikinewsies, it is difficult to discuss the concept of what journalism is in a project context without it being seen as a fundamental discussion on project workflow. When people come in from the outside and offer advice, they are often seen as fundamentally criticizing the project's workflow without having any conceptualization they are doing that while fundamentally acting in good faith. In working with outsiders who are offering assistance, there needs to be a better method of articulating that the two, definition or journalism and Wikinews workflow, are one and the same. This could theoretically assist in less hostility, and enabling greater shared understanding that will allow participants to talk with each other instead of past each other.
  • Wikimetrics may be useful for assisting people in measuring education program impact, GLAM related programming and other outreach endeavors. For projects with flagged revisions or where articles are deleted/userified if they do not get published, the only really useable current available metric is pages created. Any analysis using this tool should wait until all content has been delete/userified because of too many false positives that suggest content was published when it was not. Additional information can be found at Programs:Resources.
  • Several language Wikinews projects which tweet out links other than to their news archives have started tagging their articles with the local language word for Wikinews. This makes it easier to find their reporting content, and for others to retweet their content. The Wikinewsie Group Twitter account made this request to better promote the work being done by local projects.


Technical
  • Wikinewsie.org e-mail is being cleaned up. All e-mail boxes which are 100% full have been deleted. Users who have set their accounts to forward to "untrustworthy" sites have been cautioned against doing so or those rules have been modified and reset with random values by the server administrator for them. People are reminded they should not be forwarding their e-mails to Google or Yahoo accounts. A strong possibility exists that this implementation may have been overly zealous so if a user is experiencing difficulties, please get in touch.[9]
  • Three potential technical projects for Wikinews were listed on the possible projects for mentorship programs on Mediawiki. They include a request for a mobile reporting tool, a mobile Wikinews application, and a machine assisted translation tool. [10]
  • Server upgrades and fixes continue for the Wikinewsie server. Details available here.
  • The wmtran tool has a new interface translation, to German, thanks to Huon.
For reporters
  • Reporters are encouraged to get an orcid, which can be displayed on their userpage. (Example) This could be useful in improving chances of getting grants, getting recognition for your reporting and promoting your work.
  • The Wikinewsie Group is looking for New York City based Wikimedia contributors who would be interested in getting published on Wikinews with the goal of getting media accreditation to the United Nations.[11] Please get in touch with Laura Hale or pi zero if you would like more information.


Original report

All original reporting done across Wikinews between September 1 and October 1, 2013. If this list is incomplete, please report that to Gryllida. Thank you to all Wikinews reporters and translators who have done original reporting. Please continue your good work.

Ukrainian
See also: Авторський репортаж. The wiki uses nothing for the publish process.
Spanish
See also: Wikinoticias:Reportajes originales sin notas, Artículos publicados. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Russian
See also: Оригинальные репортажи, Опубликовано. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
French
See also: Reportage original, Article publié. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Serbian
See also: Изворни извештај, Објављено. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Chinese
See also: 原创报导, 已发布. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
Polish
See also: Materiały autorskie. The wiki uses a category for the publish process.
English
See also: Original reporting, Published. The wiki uses flagged revisions for the publish process.