Proposal:Reporter Reimbursement Program

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  1. Achieve continued growth in readership
  2. Focus on quality content
  3. Increase Participation
  4. Stabilize and improve the infrastructure
  5. Encourage Innovation



Summary

Wikinews is dedicated to reporting the news, in order to do that some money is required. When creating a article we can only work with a small amount of sources that have limited knowledge or might not be clear enough so we are left with small articles that no one reads. This leaves Wikinews with limited resources to report with. If wikinews were to receive funding for travel then we would be able to create better articles that will be more wildly viewed.


Proposal

1) Funding for travel - Traveling is a necessity to report the news. Basically whenever there is a breaking story and we do not have a Wiki contributor available in the area money shall be allocated to the user. Before the contributor leaves he or she will post a request (On a RSS equipped page), which then will be reviewed by a WMF employee. After the user returns from the trip the user will post an article (with a pre-set character length which will be high) and with photographs and it is published then the user will submit a receipt for all the items subject to reimbursement. Reimbursable items include transportation, and moderately priced hotels/motels. All personal spending, i.e. food, will not be reimbursable. The WMF employee will then determine what is reimbursable and will send the money to the contributor(preferably by paypal)

2) Accreditation badges - See Proposal:Wikinews Accredited Reporter Identity Cards this will be key if we want to implement the 1st request

Motivation

Most of the articles on Wikinews are just publishing facts that have already been published hours before. If we were able to go into the field and report news then we would be one step ahead of the competition and people would think more of Wikinews as a reliable source.


Key Questions

Q:Will this have any value to any other Wikimedia projects?

A:Yes, many times breaking news on Wikinews goes on to become a article on Wikipedia they can use the photos and information the reporter collects in the article.

Q: From whom would the funds used in this program originate?

A: I would assume that the WMF would just allocate some money for us from donations.

Potential Costs

I would estimate the cost around 10,000 USD a year.



Community Discussion

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