Wikinewsie (was Around enWikinews - September '09)

[Brian McNeil-2]

I want to see the blog resurrected on Wikinewsie - and perhaps others
added there too. You can pretty much forget us getting a WMF-provided
blog of any particular sort until we prove such will clearly fit the
remit laid out to justify 501(c) status.

The Editors' Blog did not do too well for a variety of reasons. The
scope was intended to be on the details of the news reporting process,
yes with posts being single author and having a clear byline there is
nothing wrong with opinion that would not meet NPOV. There is a problem
with ranting anger that isn't cogently justified.

A more technical blog, or one with a focus on recent meta-news might
work. There certainly isn't much chance of us being able to make
submissions to the official WMF tech blog. In this case, WordPress is
more appropriate than wiki technology because there is little
collaboration on the published item, and a need for a widely-known
simple comment system.

I set up Wikinewsie.org because, despite asking again and again, nobody
would agree to give us @wikinews.org or even @en.wikinews.org email
addresses. The rest is just because it'd be stupid not to have a web
page matching the domain in the email addresses.

At Wikimania in Alexandria, there were nods of agreement from Sue, Jay,
and Michael when I said I would like the WMF to take over the domain and
provide the hosting. Since then nothing, but it is clear from current
discussions that Wikinews is not a remotely important project when
prioritising the issues the WMF has to deal with. There is an open
invitation for stuff on the strategy wiki, and I would quite like to put
that up there. However, we have to be able to say what the one-off and
continuing costs are.

Realistically, we have to get the Wikinewsie site to a state where we
could hand it over without requiring substantial up-front costs, or high
ongoing ones. Those costs will fall on the WMF techies. We need to use
open source applications that are believed to have been well tested, if
not actually had their code audited. Where there is custom code, it
should be as short as possible and simple enough to allow a speedy
review or audit.

So, the current real pain in the ass with Wikinewsie is maintaining the
list of accredited users. It looks like the closed wiki on there with
the Public: namespace is the best option for that. Then the number of
people who can maintain the data is much bigger, and the task is less
technical.

If we change the wiki to the Vector skin and tweak it to look
WMF-related, but noticeably enough different, that would be ideal. Then
you need a Wordpress theme that matches this. What other glue do we need
to hold the whole thing together? What open source tools would we
replace Godaddy's email and calendar tools with? A last point is, can we
integrate Wordpress, wiki, email, and calendar login a-la SUL? Can we do
so with fine-grained enough control to give accredited reporters and
admins access to the wiki, but not those who are only admins email? Do
we have some sort of Wikinewsie super-bureaucrats who can say, yes,
Bawolff gets permissions to go almost anywhere and change technical
details, or kick off bug-fix updates. But not post to blog X because he
isn't accredited.

Then, is there any specific feature we need from these tools that they
don't provide? Can we persuade someone to develop that? I can see a
calendar for working on news reporting being very useful if anyone can
propose an upcoming event be added, those proposals being vetted, then
appearing on a public calendar. That could be far more useful than the
current on-wiki mechanism to propose a story.

Are there enough people interested in seeing this happen to work on it
on-wiki and do some of the technical work? If so, I'll create a page,
lay out what I think we should have, and invite others to do the same
and comment on my ideas.


Brian.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Around enWikinews - September '09
> From: Tristan Thomas <tris@...>
> Date: Sat, October 03, 2009 11:22 am
> To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l@...>
>
>
> This is a good idea, but I was thinking it would be much better if we could
> have a blog that all accredited users could post to.  I know we used to have
> one that I saw linked from Wikinewsie, but it would be much better if it was
> on Wikinews itself, similar to the Wikimedia and WIkimedia UK one.  This
> could incorporate technical, visual or news updates from anyone who wanted
> to do one.
> Thoughts?
>
> 2009/10/3 <brian.mcneil@...>
>
> > In IRC, shen Shaka mentioned doing a newsletter type update I thought it
> > would be a good idea to incorporate this into {{Howdy}} - give it an
> > extra tab for "News" and embed another page or template with stuff like
> > the below bulleted list.
> >
> > Adding the extra tab is not a problem, but {{Howdy}} is already
> > displaying badly in Firefox on Ubuntu. When I looked at it to see about
> > adding an extra tab it is displayed such that the tabs along the top are
> > wider than the box containing the currently displayed message. I can't
> > see an obvious way within the {{Howdy}} template to, say, increase the
> > template width to 90% of page width.
> >
> >
> > Brian.
> >
> > > -------- Original Message --------
> > > Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Around enWikinews - September '09
> > > From: bawolff <bawolff+wn@... <bawolff%2Bwn@...>>
> > > Date: Fri, October 02, 2009 11:26 pm
> > > To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l@...>
> > >
> > >
> > > In the interest of fairness, only one of thoose gadgets are mine. The
> > > other one is the original version stolen from the french wikinewsies.
> > > Cheers.
> > > --
> > > - Brian
> > > Caution: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85
> > > million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Jon Davis <wiki@...> wrote:
> > > > I've been told at one point in time, we had a regularly scheduled
> > newsletter
> > > > of the important goings on at Wikinews.  I can't find it in the list
> > > > archives, but no matter.  I figured it was about time to
> > start/resurrect
> > > > it.  After all, we do important things around here and if you aren't on
> > the
> > > > Wiki 24/7, you might miss something.  So here are the important
> > highlights
> > > > from last month:
> > > >
> > > > September 12th we had a banner day with 20 published articles in one
> > day.
> > > > [[Category:September 12, 2009]] - http://enwn.net/A029
> > > > The RSS feed has been truncated to a more reasonable number -
> > > > http://feeds.feedburner.com/WikinewsLatestNews
> > > > We started a page to help Wikipedians better integrated with Wikinews -
> > > > [[Wikinews:For Wikipedians]] - http://enwn.net/197b
> > > > [[Wikinews:Make Lead]] has been integrated into Easy Peer Review by
> > Bawolff
> > > > - http://enwn.net/b05f
> > > > Bawolff also gave us not one but two different gadgets that integrate
> > to
> > > > Wiktionary [[WN:WiktLookup]] - http://enwn.net/F52b
> > > > As of September 16th, we're not being carried on Google News, due to a
> > > > change in MediaWiki.  Bug #20818 - http://enwn.net/246c
> > > > Some article statistics were made [[User:ShakataGaNai/Statistics
> > Project]] -
> > > > http://enwn.net/5967
> > > > The [[Main Page]] is getting an overhaul, with the new design to show
> > up in
> > > > the next 24-48 hours - http://enwn.net/h
> > > > Policy proposed & passed to "Expire" Accredited Reports after 2 years.
> > -
> > > > http://enwn.net/6972
> > > > All the Water Coolers are now being archived (by month) automatically.
> > > > New Administrators: 1, New Editors: 5
> > > >
> > > > Something important get forgotten? Want to help participate in next
> > months
> > > > newsletter?  Stop by and leave a note on the respective months entry:
> > > > [[User:ShakataGaNai/Around_enWikinews]] - http://enwn.net/D132
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Jon
> > > > [[User:ShakataGaNai]]
> > > > http://snowulf.com/ - Blog
> > > > http://snowulf.imagekind.com/ - Pictures
> > > > This has been a test of the emergency sig system.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Wikinews-l mailing list
> > > > Wikinews-l@...
> > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikinews-l mailing list
> > > Wikinews-l@...
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikinews-l mailing list
> > Wikinews-l@...
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
> ><hr>_______________________________________________
> Wikinews-l mailing list
> Wikinews-l@...
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

_______________________________________________
Wikinews-l mailing list
Wikinews-l@...
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l

[bawolff]

If we wanted to do one login for everything, LDAP seems to be the way
to go ( http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:LDAP_Authentication )
its also supported by wordpress. There seems to be a number of open
source webmail clients, for example http://www.squirrelmail.org (which
looks like it supports LDAP as well.) We could perhaps just give
people pop3 and/or IMAP access to email. Most people have email
clients, or use a webmail like gmail which allows them to fetch from
other email accounts. I'm not sure what we actually use the calander
for, and it doesn't seem like there is that many open source web
calanders. There are a couple open source "groupware" (whatever that
means) things, i'm not sure if thats what we need. There's also a
calander plugin for wordpress
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/larsens-calender/ - i don't know
if thats what we want either. Maybe something like
http://www.ultraapps.com/app_overview.php?app_id=19 however the
webpage for that doesn't really make it clear how mature the software
is. Note: I have no experiance with any of these. This is just what
google tells me.


-bawolff



On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 9:46 AM,  <brian.mcneil@...> wrote:

> I want to see the blog resurrected on Wikinewsie - and perhaps others
> added there too. You can pretty much forget us getting a WMF-provided
> blog of any particular sort until we prove such will clearly fit the
> remit laid out to justify 501(c) status.
>
> The Editors' Blog did not do too well for a variety of reasons. The
> scope was intended to be on the details of the news reporting process,
> yes with posts being single author and having a clear byline there is
> nothing wrong with opinion that would not meet NPOV. There is a problem
> with ranting anger that isn't cogently justified.
>
> A more technical blog, or one with a focus on recent meta-news might
> work. There certainly isn't much chance of us being able to make
> submissions to the official WMF tech blog. In this case, WordPress is
> more appropriate than wiki technology because there is little
> collaboration on the published item, and a need for a widely-known
> simple comment system.
>
> I set up Wikinewsie.org because, despite asking again and again, nobody
> would agree to give us @wikinews.org or even @en.wikinews.org email
> addresses. The rest is just because it'd be stupid not to have a web
> page matching the domain in the email addresses.
>
> At Wikimania in Alexandria, there were nods of agreement from Sue, Jay,
> and Michael when I said I would like the WMF to take over the domain and
> provide the hosting. Since then nothing, but it is clear from current
> discussions that Wikinews is not a remotely important project when
> prioritising the issues the WMF has to deal with. There is an open
> invitation for stuff on the strategy wiki, and I would quite like to put
> that up there. However, we have to be able to say what the one-off and
> continuing costs are.
>
> Realistically, we have to get the Wikinewsie site to a state where we
> could hand it over without requiring substantial up-front costs, or high
> ongoing ones. Those costs will fall on the WMF techies. We need to use
> open source applications that are believed to have been well tested, if
> not actually had their code audited. Where there is custom code, it
> should be as short as possible and simple enough to allow a speedy
> review or audit.
>
> So, the current real pain in the ass with Wikinewsie is maintaining the
> list of accredited users. It looks like the closed wiki on there with
> the Public: namespace is the best option for that. Then the number of
> people who can maintain the data is much bigger, and the task is less
> technical.
>
> If we change the wiki to the Vector skin and tweak it to look
> WMF-related, but noticeably enough different, that would be ideal. Then
> you need a Wordpress theme that matches this. What other glue do we need
> to hold the whole thing together? What open source tools would we
> replace Godaddy's email and calendar tools with? A last point is, can we
> integrate Wordpress, wiki, email, and calendar login a-la SUL? Can we do
> so with fine-grained enough control to give accredited reporters and
> admins access to the wiki, but not those who are only admins email? Do
> we have some sort of Wikinewsie super-bureaucrats who can say, yes,
> Bawolff gets permissions to go almost anywhere and change technical
> details, or kick off bug-fix updates. But not post to blog X because he
> isn't accredited.
>
> Then, is there any specific feature we need from these tools that they
> don't provide? Can we persuade someone to develop that? I can see a
> calendar for working on news reporting being very useful if anyone can
> propose an upcoming event be added, those proposals being vetted, then
> appearing on a public calendar. That could be far more useful than the
> current on-wiki mechanism to propose a story.
>
> Are there enough people interested in seeing this happen to work on it
> on-wiki and do some of the technical work? If so, I'll create a page,
> lay out what I think we should have, and invite others to do the same
> and comment on my ideas.
>
>
> Brian.
>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Around enWikinews - September '09
>> From: Tristan Thomas <tris@...>
>> Date: Sat, October 03, 2009 11:22 am
>> To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l@...>
>>
>>
>> This is a good idea, but I was thinking it would be much better if we could
>> have a blog that all accredited users could post to.  I know we used to have
>> one that I saw linked from Wikinewsie, but it would be much better if it was
>> on Wikinews itself, similar to the Wikimedia and WIkimedia UK one.  This
>> could incorporate technical, visual or news updates from anyone who wanted
>> to do one.
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> 2009/10/3 <brian.mcneil@...>
>>
>> > In IRC, shen Shaka mentioned doing a newsletter type update I thought it
>> > would be a good idea to incorporate this into {{Howdy}} - give it an
>> > extra tab for "News" and embed another page or template with stuff like
>> > the below bulleted list.
>> >
>> > Adding the extra tab is not a problem, but {{Howdy}} is already
>> > displaying badly in Firefox on Ubuntu. When I looked at it to see about
>> > adding an extra tab it is displayed such that the tabs along the top are
>> > wider than the box containing the currently displayed message. I can't
>> > see an obvious way within the {{Howdy}} template to, say, increase the
>> > template width to 90% of page width.
>> >
>> >
>> > Brian.
>> >
>> > > -------- Original Message --------
>> > > Subject: Re: [Wikinews-l] Around enWikinews - September '09
>> > > From: bawolff <bawolff+wn@... <bawolff%2Bwn@...>>
>> > > Date: Fri, October 02, 2009 11:26 pm
>> > > To: Wikinews mailing list <wikinews-l@...>
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > In the interest of fairness, only one of thoose gadgets are mine. The
>> > > other one is the original version stolen from the french wikinewsies.
>> > > Cheers.
>> > > --
>> > > - Brian
>> > > Caution: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85
>> > > million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Jon Davis <wiki@...> wrote:
>> > > > I've been told at one point in time, we had a regularly scheduled
>> > newsletter
>> > > > of the important goings on at Wikinews.  I can't find it in the list
>> > > > archives, but no matter.  I figured it was about time to
>> > start/resurrect
>> > > > it.  After all, we do important things around here and if you aren't on
>> > the
>> > > > Wiki 24/7, you might miss something.  So here are the important
>> > highlights
>> > > > from last month:
>> > > >
>> > > > September 12th we had a banner day with 20 published articles in one
>> > day.
>> > > > [[Category:September 12, 2009]] - http://enwn.net/A029
>> > > > The RSS feed has been truncated to a more reasonable number -
>> > > > http://feeds.feedburner.com/WikinewsLatestNews
>> > > > We started a page to help Wikipedians better integrated with Wikinews -
>> > > > [[Wikinews:For Wikipedians]] - http://enwn.net/197b
>> > > > [[Wikinews:Make Lead]] has been integrated into Easy Peer Review by
>> > Bawolff
>> > > > - http://enwn.net/b05f
>> > > > Bawolff also gave us not one but two different gadgets that integrate
>> > to
>> > > > Wiktionary [[WN:WiktLookup]] - http://enwn.net/F52b
>> > > > As of September 16th, we're not being carried on Google News, due to a
>> > > > change in MediaWiki.  Bug #20818 - http://enwn.net/246c
>> > > > Some article statistics were made [[User:ShakataGaNai/Statistics
>> > Project]] -
>> > > > http://enwn.net/5967
>> > > > The [[Main Page]] is getting an overhaul, with the new design to show
>> > up in
>> > > > the next 24-48 hours - http://enwn.net/h
>> > > > Policy proposed & passed to "Expire" Accredited Reports after 2 years.
>> > -
>> > > > http://enwn.net/6972
>> > > > All the Water Coolers are now being archived (by month) automatically.
>> > > > New Administrators: 1, New Editors: 5
>> > > >
>> > > > Something important get forgotten? Want to help participate in next
>> > months
>> > > > newsletter?  Stop by and leave a note on the respective months entry:
>> > > > [[User:ShakataGaNai/Around_enWikinews]] - http://enwn.net/D132
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > --
>> > > > Jon
>> > > > [[User:ShakataGaNai]]
>> > > > http://snowulf.com/ - Blog
>> > > > http://snowulf.imagekind.com/ - Pictures
>> > > > This has been a test of the emergency sig system.
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > _______________________________________________
>> > > > Wikinews-l mailing list
>> > > > Wikinews-l@...
>> > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > Wikinews-l mailing list
>> > > Wikinews-l@...
>> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Wikinews-l mailing list
>> > Wikinews-l@...
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>> ><hr>_______________________________________________
>> Wikinews-l mailing list
>> Wikinews-l@...
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikinews-l mailing list
> Wikinews-l@...
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
>

_______________________________________________
Wikinews-l mailing list
Wikinews-l@...
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l