Discussion on task force mandate

One of the differences for me between Wikipedia and Wikinews is the way we present information, both timewise and in terms of audience.

Wikipedia is the "sum of all knowledge", that is, an aggregation of information as it is built up over time. It will by necessity include historical information, and in order to be relevant, be up to date. Wikinews, on the other hand, gives a snapshot in time, hopefully as close to real time as possible.

If one takes the example of the newly elected President of the European Union, then Wikipedia will contain all of the background information of what the role represents, who currently holds the position, and in the future, will include past presidents and the current president. Wikipedia is there to give the full background, for those with time to read the subject thoroughly. There is, however, no need for information about who was "the front runner for the position" at a given point in time.

Wikinews should fufill this role with an article about the selection. Given that the average news reader does not want to digest X pages of background information, but needs short, pertinent, consise information that is relevant at that moment in time, the Wikinews article(s) should be about the event (the selection).

What we should look at is the way to optimise editors' efforts between the two media. We need to avoid duplication of effort. An example is linking back from the Wikinews article (current practice) to the Wikipedia article for background information, with similarly, the Wikipedia article linking to the latest news on Wikinews.

This is true with regards to other sister projects—if one takes the example of Wiktionary there is no need to define the word neither in Wikipedia nor Wikinews, but intelligent use of technology will take the reader who is so inclined as to learn more to the appropriate venue.

AlexandrDmitri22:22, 21 November 2009

Great ideas! I would encourage everyone reading this discussion to make other specific suggestions about how to avoid duplication of effort and optimise editors' efforts who want to contribute to both Wikinews and Wikipedia. 71.211.240.226 19:01, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

71.211.240.22619:01, 23 November 2009

Whoops, thought I was logged in - that was me asking for more ideas. Valerie Stone Drvestone 19:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Drvestone19:04, 23 November 2009
 

Perhaps some time would be saved if it were possible to include some background material from pedia without actually having to re-type or copy+paste it into news. You're all familiar how templates work? Well, for example if you would be able to bring in the introduction from pedia article in the same way to news article, it could save some time.

Example new wikinews article

  • Template "{{w:en:XX/Intro}}" would display the first few lines of the wikipedia article about XX (no need to copy/paste or write again) in the wikinews article
  • Template "{{w:en:Miles Davis/Infobox}}" would display the infobox from the wikipedia article, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Davis (wouldn't that box with Miles' picture be great in wikinews article?)
Ras08:37, 29 November 2009
 

Just noting that the current licencing would need to be changed. As it stands, per Wikipedia:Wikinews "Moving pages to Wikinews is not possible, for legal reasons. Copying material to Wikinews would relicense it under the CC-BY license, which is incompatible with CC-By-SA and GFDL. However Wikinews articles can be moved to Wikipedia."

AlexandrDmitri23:36, 11 December 2009