On 25 April 2017 at 22:59, Jimmy Wales <[email protected]> wrote: > > Today I announced a new initiative, outside of my Wikimedia activities, > to combat fake news. It is important to me that I share directly with > all of you information about this new initiative early on. > > The new project will use a wiki-style setup and experiment with > bringing together professional journalists and community contributors to > produce fact-checked, global news stories. At launch, we'll be using a > hacked version of wordpress and we'll be evaluating whether that's the > right tool moving forward. Wordpress has a lot to > commend it (free software, mature platform, used by lots of newsrooms, > active developer ecosystem) but also has some philosophy that's quite > "top down" in a way. > (Not many people would think in a wiki way when setting up a newsroom!) > > This new initiative, Wikitribune, will be a learning experience - my > vision is one that I've had a hard time explaining... except to > Wikimedians who tend to immediately > get it. > > While I am launching this project independent from Wikipedia and the > Wikimedia Foundation, it is my plan that this new project will work > alongside Wikimedia in the free knowledge movement. For example, I hope > that the numerous Wikinews/Wikinoticias/Wikinotizie/etc. communities can > collaborate with the Wikitribune community in way that allows both to > learn and benefit from each other. Additionally, Wikitribune will > utilize the same Creative Commons license (CC-BY) as other free content > projects in > the news space - so they can take the stories written by our > professional journalists and communities and make use of them. > > You can find out more information about Wikitribune at: > https://www.wikitribune.com > > Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer questions! (But I'm > quite swamped with everything at the moment so please forgive me if I > answer in bursts!) > > --Jimbo
Would anyone like to give an update, with some verifiable sources, on what has happened to Wikitribune? Perhaps it will remain at an indefinite "venture capital stage" with no launch date, or maybe there been a decision to pull the plug? I have been hunting around for publications since the announcement on this list, and believe there has been none apart from a poorly judged "taster" article, based on an interview with Richard Curtis, which appeared intended to promote a forthcoming charity event aimed at media luvvies. The "taster" had a poor reception for its bias and errors.[1][2][3] In the light of how huge "fake news" has become this year, it is surprising that the team of journalists employed by Wikitribune for over six months (fack check please?) have missed out on the opportunity to be seen influencing press coverage of say, Trump, Brexit, Facebook ads or even planet Niburi by providing their own fact checks. Links: 1. Taster article: https://medium.com/wikitribune/wikitribune-taster-1-the-great-and-the-good-meet-to-promote-un-global-goals-729a22401bd3 2. Times response to the taster: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jimmy-wales-wikitribune-s-weak-debut-rattles-backers-lily-cole-5zs3q37gs 3. Related announcement of launch edition, Aug 2017: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/wikitribune-announces-launch-editor-and-plans-to-publish-first-edition-this-year/s2/a708086/ Thanks, Fae -- [email protected] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
