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Profile photo for Phil Gyford

I came across this article http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/why-wikipedia-beats-wikinews-as-a-collaborative-journalism-project/ which summarises the difficulties of Wikinews compared to Wikipedia. Mainly:

  • Wikipedia style is more formulaic and established than Wikinews.
  • Wikinews has a deadline. And if you need to update the story, you have to start a new article that must summarise everything so far (whereas, with Wikipedia, you can just update the original page).

It's hard to get people to collaborate to deadline, using a formula that isn't well established.

Profile photo for Amir E. Aharoni

In my opinion, no. I know that this answer will disappoint some of my Wikimedian friends, and they are welcome to refute my points.

Blogs provide a much better platform for independent news reporting and distillation.

Saying that blogs are by definition personal and opinionated, while Wikinews should be neutral doesn't help much: Writing a neutral piece about an event is essentially the same as writing a Wikipedia article.

In Wikipedia, notability plays a strong role, so one could argue that more events could be covered by Wikinews, but this means that it requires much more time than Wikipedia, i

In my opinion, no. I know that this answer will disappoint some of my Wikimedian friends, and they are welcome to refute my points.

Blogs provide a much better platform for independent news reporting and distillation.

Saying that blogs are by definition personal and opinionated, while Wikinews should be neutral doesn't help much: Writing a neutral piece about an event is essentially the same as writing a Wikipedia article.

In Wikipedia, notability plays a strong role, so one could argue that more events could be covered by Wikinews, but this means that it requires much more time than Wikipedia, if it's done as a concerted effort of one community. So in fact, it comes back to something more distributed: blogs.

Finally, the MediaWiki software is very far from being convenient for writing news stories. It was built for writing encyclopedia articles. (On a side note: By itself it's not that great for a dictionary either; Wiktionary is usable in large part thanks to the many added gadgets, and these only work well in the English Wiktionary. I hope that some day Wiktionary will rely more on Wikidata, which is massively modified MediaWiki, but this will be a long process.)

There are people who care about Wikinews, so I guess that the project shouldn't be just shut down, but it should be spun off Wikimedia. It's not really Wikimedia's job to do that. (By "Wikimedia" here I mean the Wikimedia community more than the Wikimedia Foundation; for the Foundation it's just a matter of maintaining the servers.)

Don't borrow from the bank if you own your home, do this instead (it's genius).
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Assistant

Wikinews, a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, often struggles with underuse for several reasons:

  1. Competition with Established News Outlets: Wikinews faces stiff competition from established news organizations that have greater resources, professional journalists, and wider audience reach. Many users prefer to rely on trusted brands for news rather than a collaborative platform.
  2. Lack of Awareness: Many people may not be aware of Wikinews as an alternative news source. Unlike Wikipedia, which has gained significant recognition, Wikinews has not achieved the same level of visibility.
  3. Quality and Reliability Concerns: While Wikinews has guidelines for reliable sourcing and fact-checking, the open-edit nature of the platform can lead to concerns about the quality and accuracy of the news articles. Users may be hesitant to trust content that is not produced by professional journalists.
  4. Limited Coverage and Updates: The volume of news coverage on Wikinews can be inconsistent, with some topics well-covered and others neglected. This can lead to users finding it less comprehensive compared to mainstream news sites.
  5. User Engagement: Wikinews relies on volunteer contributors, and the fluctuating levels of engagement can affect the quantity and timeliness of news articles. When fewer contributors are active, fewer articles are published.
  6. User Interface and Experience: The interface of Wikinews may not be as user-friendly or visually appealing as that of mainstream news websites, which could deter some users from engaging with the content.
  7. Niche Focus: Wikinews often covers stories that may not be of interest to a broad audience, focusing on specific events or topics that might not capture widespread attention.

Overall, while Wikinews has the potential to offer valuable news coverage, it faces challenges that limit its visibility and usage compared to traditional news sources.

Profile photo for Andreas Kolbe

I don't think Wikinews can or should challenge the BBC or New York Times. For a start, Wikinews articles are generally based on articles produced by traditional media organisations like the BBC and New York Times: Wikinews does very little original reporting.

It should be obvious that if you want to do original reporting, you actually have to leave your room and go to where the story is. And by that time, you have the same expenses that the BBC or NYT have in sending a reporter out to a location, or for an interview. Volunteers cannot do that, unless they are all millionaires who do not have t

I don't think Wikinews can or should challenge the BBC or New York Times. For a start, Wikinews articles are generally based on articles produced by traditional media organisations like the BBC and New York Times: Wikinews does very little original reporting.

It should be obvious that if you want to do original reporting, you actually have to leave your room and go to where the story is. And by that time, you have the same expenses that the BBC or NYT have in sending a reporter out to a location, or for an interview. Volunteers cannot do that, unless they are all millionaires who do not have to work for a living, and have nothing better to do.

There is a very real sense in which news coverage of current events in Wikipedia (I say Wikipedia advisedly, because Wikinews never became big enough) cannibalises the media organisations that go through the expense to report a story professionally, to the level that Wikipedia demands for a "reliable source". By aggregating such "reliable sources" into a Wikipedia article, Wikipedia effectively reduces the number of readers for the news organisations that went through the expense to create good-enough sources for Wikipedians to write an article with, and in doing so reduces news organisations' income. Many newspapers are finding it difficult to adapt their business model to the new conditions that the Internet has created, and some are struggling financially.

New and alternative news outlets are always a good thing. But to do good work, they too will have to be managed professionally, and cover the expenses without which good original news coverage is not possible. Efforts like Wikinews which are largely driven by part-time, stay-at-home volunteers who piggy-back on professionals' work are no substitute.

Profile photo for Frank Hartzell

Two problems with this:

  1. Money
  2. Users/readers #2 Readers. There are many fine journalists in the world, less than before. We could train more. There are many great young people. But they have learned that readers/viewers/clickers reward ONLY partisan news not fact based news. People NEED News, which is NEW!!. But they WANT only what they already know and what they want to hear. #1 Money- Research costs money. It is not rewarded by greater readership. Its the same as TV shows, only worse. Fake reality shows (which are pretty much all scripted) are cheap to make as opposed to scripted, acted shows.

Two problems with this:

  1. Money
  2. Users/readers #2 Readers. There are many fine journalists in the world, less than before. We could train more. There are many great young people. But they have learned that readers/viewers/clickers reward ONLY partisan news not fact based news. People NEED News, which is NEW!!. But they WANT only what they already know and what they want to hear. #1 Money- Research costs money. It is not rewarded by greater readership. Its the same as TV shows, only worse. Fake reality shows (which are pretty much all scripted) are cheap to make as opposed to scripted, acted shows. They are sloppy, silly and unprofessional. Same is true with blogged news of today. People just pull it out of their backside. Its opinion, not NEWS. But the one who markets it best wins, regardless of quality. Wikipedia works because it is more history than NEWS, its something we already know. Most of the items on Wikipedia are loaded with inaccuracies. But it does get better and better because highly motivated people tend to improve it. People whose life’s passion or experience is Kosovo, Kant or King Kong movies will weigh in and improve the entry for those things. With news, it’s a different set of skills that is needed. So Wikipedia is a good idea and the format could contribute to better journalism, since I doubt it can get any worse. But NOTHING will happen unless readers can be educated as to what real journalism is. That won't happen with 30 million watching utterly worthless Fox, nor with the other cable “news”

Where do I start?

I’m a huge financial nerd, and have spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to people about their money habits.

Here are the biggest mistakes people are making and how to fix them:

Not having a separate high interest savings account

Having a separate account allows you to see the results of all your hard work and keep your money separate so you're less tempted to spend it.

Plus with rates above 5.00%, the interest you can earn compared to most banks really adds up.

Here is a list of the top savings accounts available today. Deposit $5 before moving on because this is one of th

Where do I start?

I’m a huge financial nerd, and have spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to people about their money habits.

Here are the biggest mistakes people are making and how to fix them:

Not having a separate high interest savings account

Having a separate account allows you to see the results of all your hard work and keep your money separate so you're less tempted to spend it.

Plus with rates above 5.00%, the interest you can earn compared to most banks really adds up.

Here is a list of the top savings accounts available today. Deposit $5 before moving on because this is one of the biggest mistakes and easiest ones to fix.

Overpaying on car insurance

You’ve heard it a million times before, but the average American family still overspends by $417/year on car insurance.

If you’ve been with the same insurer for years, chances are you are one of them.

Pull up Coverage.com, a free site that will compare prices for you, answer the questions on the page, and it will show you how much you could be saving.

That’s it. You’ll likely be saving a bunch of money. Here’s a link to give it a try.

Consistently being in debt

If you’ve got $10K+ in debt (credit cards…medical bills…anything really) you could use a debt relief program and potentially reduce by over 20%.

Here’s how to see if you qualify:

Head over to this Debt Relief comparison website here, then simply answer the questions to see if you qualify.

It’s as simple as that. You’ll likely end up paying less than you owed before and you could be debt free in as little as 2 years.

Missing out on free money to invest

It’s no secret that millionaires love investing, but for the rest of us, it can seem out of reach.

Times have changed. There are a number of investing platforms that will give you a bonus to open an account and get started. All you have to do is open the account and invest at least $25, and you could get up to $1000 in bonus.

Pretty sweet deal right? Here is a link to some of the best options.

Having bad credit

A low credit score can come back to bite you in so many ways in the future.

From that next rental application to getting approved for any type of loan or credit card, if you have a bad history with credit, the good news is you can fix it.

Head over to BankRate.com and answer a few questions to see if you qualify. It only takes a few minutes and could save you from a major upset down the line.

How to get started

Hope this helps! Here are the links to get started:

Have a separate savings account
Stop overpaying for car insurance
Finally get out of debt
Start investing with a free bonus
Fix your credit

Profile photo for Marcel Geenen

Yes, this is possible and exists. There is however no reason to believe that it will be more accurate then Wikipedia.
If there is one thoing that wikipedias has shown the world, then it is that most information given in encyclopedias is in fact incorrect. To beleive that the information in other sources is more correct then the information in Wikipedia is at best dilusional.
The people writing in Wikipedia are mostly experts. Furthermore, these experts are being corrected by other experts if they are wrong. The latter step would not happen in an encyclopedia with articles written by single pe

Yes, this is possible and exists. There is however no reason to believe that it will be more accurate then Wikipedia.
If there is one thoing that wikipedias has shown the world, then it is that most information given in encyclopedias is in fact incorrect. To beleive that the information in other sources is more correct then the information in Wikipedia is at best dilusional.
The people writing in Wikipedia are mostly experts. Furthermore, these experts are being corrected by other experts if they are wrong. The latter step would not happen in an encyclopedia with articles written by single people or a single team,since in those situations existing misconceptions tend to persist.
When multiple people write an article independent from eachother, then they do not suffer from continuing group misconceptions. This does not mean that misconceptions do not persist, because if the majority of people believes an incorrect thing, it would probably remain wrong, it just means that ideas will be challenged and the chance of correction of misconceptions are higher in wikipedia

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Anonymous

By all accounts, Wikia has been successful. It is the 59th largest site (at least according to Quantcast) and still appears to be growing at a decent clip.

Even so, I agree with the premise of this question, namely that the site has not fulfilled the promise of its larger sister project Wikipedia. Here's a couple of thoughts as to why:

First, Wikia reached top-100 status, not through innovation but through a mass roll-up of independent wikis. Many of the popular Wikia sub-domains (http://www.quantcast.com/wikia.com#subdomain) first started out as independent projects, including Wookipedia, Un

By all accounts, Wikia has been successful. It is the 59th largest site (at least according to Quantcast) and still appears to be growing at a decent clip.

Even so, I agree with the premise of this question, namely that the site has not fulfilled the promise of its larger sister project Wikipedia. Here's a couple of thoughts as to why:

First, Wikia reached top-100 status, not through innovation but through a mass roll-up of independent wikis. Many of the popular Wikia sub-domains (http://www.quantcast.com/wikia.com#subdomain) first started out as independent projects, including Wookipedia, Unencyclopedia, Lostpedia, and Lyricwiki.

Wikia, as an organization, has not needed to develop a new swath of technology to attract more eyeballs. It could rely on the proven and somewhat familiar Mediawiki, as its backbone, and acquire sites when traffic began to flatten out.

Because of this, Wikia has generally lacked a strong organizational desire to push collaborative publishing forward with any vigor. For example, Wikia literally spent years developing a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor to lower-the-bar for people to edit wiki-text and create more content. Click on any "edit" button on Wikia page and you will find the results. It's far from impressive and is arguably worse than the simplified editing controls designed by Wikipedia's usability initiative (http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Acai_Designs).

Second, wiki communities have only found widespread adoption in gaming communities and niche entertainment topics. A quick perusal of the top Wikia subdomains (again, http://www.quantcast.com/wikia.com#subdomain) shows a heavy slant towards gaming topics. With few exceptions, the other sites catalog popular entertainment topics -- Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel Comics, Lost. Wikia has not been able to make a huge dent in any other general topics, like health, fitness, medicine, gadgets, or sports.

The ultimate question for Wikia is whether it can figure out the magic formula for widespread appeal outside of gaming and other media topics. To date, it hasn't figured out this problem either from a community building or technology perspective.

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Profile photo for Amir E. Aharoni

Wikipedia works because it's timeless, at least in principle. By "timeless" I mean that it describes things and facts:

  • Gold is a chemical element
  • Mendeleev was a Russian scientist
  • June Fourth Incident were student-led popular demonstrations in Beijing in 1989

That's pretty much it: it exists, or existed; it happened; it's a fact. It's not expected to change any time soon. There are documents that describe it, which were written by other people, and Wikipedia is just a summary of the available documents.

Also, there are no judgments or opinions or different interpretations here. If there are opinio

Wikipedia works because it's timeless, at least in principle. By "timeless" I mean that it describes things and facts:

  • Gold is a chemical element
  • Mendeleev was a Russian scientist
  • June Fourth Incident were student-led popular demonstrations in Beijing in 1989

That's pretty much it: it exists, or existed; it happened; it's a fact. It's not expected to change any time soon. There are documents that describe it, which were written by other people, and Wikipedia is just a summary of the available documents.

Also, there are no judgments or opinions or different interpretations here. If there are opinions, then the existence of opinions is the documented fact, and there's no judgment about the event.

Let me reiterate it: By definition, It's not Wikipedia's work to create these documents - the primary and the secondary sources that describe things and events. Wikipedia's work is to summarize them and make them accessible.

News are very different. Making news is about the creation of the primary and the secondary sources. The primary sources are the stories of the participants and the eyewitnesses. The secondary sources are stories by reporters and commentators.

To make these you need infrastructure that Wikipedia doesn't have, and, by definition, doesn't need. You need reporters and photographers who can travel to places to see what happened and to take interviews. Wikipedia happens to have volunteer photographers, but for the stories and the research it relies on others.

You need editors and fact-checkers. The fact-checking in Wikipedia is tertiary: It doesn't really check the facts, it only checks that facts were checked by someone trusted... like an editor of a respectable newspaper or an academic reviewer.

And, news are also dependent on time. Especially today, when news are updated every minute, rather than every day as it was thirty years ago. Yesterday's news are interesting to historians, and not to most people.

So that's how Wikinews and similar projects are fundamentally different from Wikipedia. It's quite possible to write an immense amount of information that would be useful to billions of people just by summarizing and translating already available reliable sources in Wikipedia. The most significant that is needed for it is time; the summarizing work can be done from a home by researching online or from a library, when online sources aren't available. Creating reliable sources is a whole different issue, which requires a lot more resources and a completely different approach.

Profile photo for Amir E. Aharoni

WikiWikiWeb didn't try to be an all-encompassing encyclopedia. It just tried to be a website about a group of computer programming methodologies called "Design patterns".

Wikipedia used similar wiki technology, but its intention was much wider from the start: to build an encyclopedia about all topics, not just a narrow engineering topic.

So, even though the idea behind WikiWikiWeb was certainly an inspiration for the beginning of Wikipedia, their purposes were different, their success cannot be measured in the same way, and comparing them just by their size is not relevant.

Profile photo for Ethan Anderson

1. Overpaying on Auto Insurance

Believe it or not, the average American family still overspends by $461/year¹ on car insurance.

Sometimes it’s even worse: I switched carriers last year and saved literally $1,300/year.

Here’s how to quickly see how much you’re being overcharged (takes maybe a couple of minutes):

  • Pull up Coverage.com – it’s a free site that will compare offers for you
  • Answer the questions on the page
  • It’ll spit out a bunch of insurance offers for you.

That’s literally it. You’ll likely save yourself a bunch of money.

2. Overlook how much you can save when shopping online

Many people over

1. Overpaying on Auto Insurance

Believe it or not, the average American family still overspends by $461/year¹ on car insurance.

Sometimes it’s even worse: I switched carriers last year and saved literally $1,300/year.

Here’s how to quickly see how much you’re being overcharged (takes maybe a couple of minutes):

  • Pull up Coverage.com – it’s a free site that will compare offers for you
  • Answer the questions on the page
  • It’ll spit out a bunch of insurance offers for you.

That’s literally it. You’ll likely save yourself a bunch of money.

2. Overlook how much you can save when shopping online

Many people overpay when shopping online simply because price-checking across sites is time-consuming. Here is a free browser extension that can help you save money by automatically finding the better deals.

  • Auto-apply coupon codes – This friendly browser add-on instantly applies any available valid coupon codes at checkout, helping you find better discounts without searching for codes.
  • Compare prices across stores – If a better deal is found, it alerts you before you spend more than necessary.

Capital One Shopping users saved over $800 million in the past year, check out here if you are interested.

Disclosure: Capital One Shopping compensates us when you get the browser extension through our links.

3. Not Investing in Real Estate (Starting at Just $20)

Real estate has long been a favorite investment of the wealthy, but owning property has often felt out of reach for many—until now.

With platforms like Ark7, you can start investing in rental properties with as little as $20 per share.

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Now, you can build your own real estate portfolio without needing a fortune. Ready to get started? Explore Ark7’s properties today.

4. Wasting Time on Unproductive Habits

As a rule of thumb, I’d ignore most sites that claim to pay for surveys, but a few legitimate ones actually offer decent payouts.

I usually use Survey Junkie. You basically just get paid to give your opinions on different products/services, etc. Perfect for multitasking while watching TV!

  • Earn $100+ monthly – Complete just three surveys a day to reach $100 per month, or four or more to boost your earnings to $130.
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  • Join 20M+ Members – Be part of a thriving community of over 20 million people earning extra cash through surveys.

With over $1.6 million paid out monthly, Survey Junkie lets you turn spare time into extra cash. Sign up today and start earning from your opinions!

5. Paying off credit card debt on your own

If you have over $10,000 in credit cards - a debt relief program could help you lower your total debt by an average of 23%.

  • Lower your total debt – National Debt Relief works with creditors to negotiate and settle your debt for less than you owe.
  • One affordable monthly payment – Instead of managing multiple bills, consolidate your payments into one simple, structured plan.
  • No upfront fees – You only pay once your debt is successfully reduced and settled, ensuring a risk-free way to tackle financial burdens.

Simple as that. You’ll likely end up paying less than you owed and could be debt free in 12-24 months. Here’s a link to National Debt Relief.

6. Overspending on Mortgages

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  • Compare Competitive Rates – Access top mortgage offers from trusted lenders.
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7. Ignoring Home Equity

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8. Missing Out on Smart Investing

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Profile photo for Todd Rush Chambers

This is a great question, and Jimmy Wales briefly touched upon it today on Reddit: IamA Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia and as of this week I am the founder of WikiTribune AMA! • r/IAmA

Q: “Wikinews has been there for a while, and for years it has never taken off. Now: why do you need to do this outside of Wikimedia foundation, could it not be done through Wikinews?”

A: “One of the greatest strengths of the Wikimedia world is a very thoughtful deliberative decision making process around major changes of any kind. It means that when change happens, it is almost always for the better. One of the greate

This is a great question, and Jimmy Wales briefly touched upon it today on Reddit: IamA Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia and as of this week I am the founder of WikiTribune AMA! • r/IAmA

Q: “Wikinews has been there for a while, and for years it has never taken off. Now: why do you need to do this outside of Wikimedia foundation, could it not be done through Wikinews?”

A: “One of the greatest strengths of the Wikimedia world is a very thoughtful deliberative decision making process around major changes of any kind. It means that when change happens, it is almost always for the better. One of the greatest weaknesses of the Wikimedia world is a very slow deliberative decision making process around major changes of any kind. It means that changes happens very very slowly. The main reason I am launching WikiTribune completely independently of Wikimedia is that I think that in order to succeed I'll have to tap very strongly into one of the oldest values that led to success before: "Be bold". Or as Facebook's mantra of "move fast and break things" puts it.”

Profile photo for Robert Theobald

It is a paraphrase, so pushes the Theology and Christology of the Translators. Their idea of what the Writer was trying to get over to his readers if often way off, and they change the meaning of Scripture in many places. IMO.

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Wiki is the opposite of slick and magical. It is a website that is the simplest thing that works. It relies on people to make it be the best it can be. It is organic and as simple or complex as you want it to be. I think that wiki is good for anyone who wants to build ideas together on the interwebs.

For example, could Wikipedia have been built from a mailing list? no. how about from a forum? nope. The culture and technology of wiki is suited for building together.

Profile photo for Harri K. Hiltunen

Wiki = Many people working on one representation:

...nowadays usually through the internet in an editor running in a web browser.

Good for projects too big for one person to do well and/or quickly.
Good for any mutable data.

-> My answer to How do you survive long term isolation, while designing a new math language (hobbyist); while working alone?

Wiki = Many people working on one representation:

...nowadays usually through the internet in an editor running in a web browser.

Good for projects too big for one person to do well and/or quickly.
Good for any mutable data.

-> My answer to How do you survive long term isolation, while designing a new math language (hobbyist); while working alone?

Profile photo for Emily Bowman

This is what you end up with when you limit yourself to vetted experts:

They’re basically wastelands of content, where articles are written once and hung out to dry from then on. It turns out that articles written by many people are much better than articles written by a single expert; if nothing else, the back-and-forth sharpens the prose and arguments, and regular people decide to become experts in order to contribute. Compare any article on either site to the current Wikipedia; I don’t think a single one would hol

This is what you end up with when you limit yourself to vetted experts:

They’re basically wastelands of content, where articles are written once and hung out to dry from then on. It turns out that articles written by many people are much better than articles written by a single expert; if nothing else, the back-and-forth sharpens the prose and arguments, and regular people decide to become experts in order to contribute. Compare any article on either site to the current Wikipedia; I don’t think a single one would hold up.

Wikipedia has found that balancing researchers and subject experts with lay enthusiasts and interested editors leads to vastly better articles, because there are a lot more interested lay people than there are published scientists. In fact, many published scientists prefer incremental editing, because they’re accustomed to peer interaction and prose editing, and because they don’t pretend to have all answers.

Profile photo for Andres Cruz y Corro

I’ll try a short answer, instead of an anonymous author’s Copy+pasting of an entire article.

Wikinews is meant to provide a place where people report on news themselves, in a manner similar to how Wikipedia provides a place where people share knowledge. Its contributors are unpaid volunteers with varying levels of journalism skills and accepts original reports under its official policy. Wikinews is one of several projects led by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia’s Current Events is a place where Wikipedians share headlines already reported to other news outlets and present them with links to r

I’ll try a short answer, instead of an anonymous author’s Copy+pasting of an entire article.

Wikinews is meant to provide a place where people report on news themselves, in a manner similar to how Wikipedia provides a place where people share knowledge. Its contributors are unpaid volunteers with varying levels of journalism skills and accepts original reports under its official policy. Wikinews is one of several projects led by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikipedia’s Current Events is a place where Wikipedians share headlines already reported to other news outlets and present them with links to relevant Wikipedia articles. This portal is not a place to report on events, only to share those headlines and to guide the reader to relevant encyclopedic articles. Its contributors are also unpaid volunteers who may or may not have any experience at all in journalism. Wikipedia is also a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikitribune is not even out yet, so there are many things we don’t know as of today. What we do know is that it will have a paid staff of professional journalists who will conduct original reporting and researching and will be somehow backed up/co-edited by other community members. Several details are fuzzy and many specifics are still in the air. Wikitribune is not a project of and it’s not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, even though it’s co-founded by one of Wikipedia’s founders.

Profile photo for Daniel Kinzler

The awesome Andrew Lih sais it all in this interview: Andrew Lih on Wikinews:

Andrew Lih talks about the difference between Wikipedia and Wikinews when it comes to covering breaking news.

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Profile photo for Jared Zimmerman

Like all other Wikimedia content projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikidata, etc) people from all over the world contribute content, usually in their native language, for the most part they are not translating content from language to language (although this is one way to contribute) also the projects don't use any machine translations (although we're experimenting with augmented machine translation as a starting point for new content in some areas)

So, the reason the content is different is because it is written by a diverse group of people, this is the same from Wikinews to Wikipedia. You can

Like all other Wikimedia content projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikidata, etc) people from all over the world contribute content, usually in their native language, for the most part they are not translating content from language to language (although this is one way to contribute) also the projects don't use any machine translations (although we're experimenting with augmented machine translation as a starting point for new content in some areas)

So, the reason the content is different is because it is written by a diverse group of people, this is the same from Wikinews to Wikipedia. You can see the article on Paris from English Wikipedia — Paris and French Wikipedia — Paris are considerably different for the same reason.

Profile photo for Amir E. Aharoni

The Wikimedia blog is pretty good for news that happened recently. There is also Planet Wikimedia (add your blog here), aggregation of different personal and organizational blogs about the topic.

But if you want to learn from the inside about tendencies and about things that are going to happen, the best way to learn is to follow the mailing lists. The traffic is high and the jargon is pretty intimidating at first, but if you are really interested, you'll find yourself there.

See the list of mailing lists for full information. The most relevant are:

  • Wikimedia-l
  • Wikitech-l
  • Wikitech-ambassadors
  • Wikim

The Wikimedia blog is pretty good for news that happened recently. There is also Planet Wikimedia (add your blog here), aggregation of different personal and organizational blogs about the topic.

But if you want to learn from the inside about tendencies and about things that are going to happen, the best way to learn is to follow the mailing lists. The traffic is high and the jargon is pretty intimidating at first, but if you are really interested, you'll find yourself there.

See the list of mailing lists for full information. The most relevant are:

  • Wikimedia-l
  • Wikitech-l
  • Wikitech-ambassadors
  • WikimediaAnnounce-l

See the description and the archives of each to get an impression of what they are about.

Profile photo for Brandon Sheline

My all-time favorite website on the Internet is Khan Academy. Ive been a member for over a year, long enough to see the web design changes and development that has occurred.

Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and r

My all-time favorite website on the Internet is Khan Academy. Ive been a member for over a year, long enough to see the web design changes and development that has occurred.

Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

When I started visiting the site, there were (only) 1,700 videos. Now, Khan Academy boasts almost an impressive 3,400 videos encompassing nearly any subject of study from computer programming, mathematics, sciences, art, history, and so on.

I know maybe one other person that frequents this website, and I don't think that it's enough.

"Cus knowledge is power!"

Profile photo for Mark Hetherington

Wikinews is an attempt to do a news site in a wiki format. In my opinion, it's not all that great (the wiki model isn't truly suited for developing news stories) but not having a news site of some sort would be a waste for Wikimedia.* On the plus side, Wikinews is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, which means its future isn't really in question, just its mediocrity.

(*There's an interesting perspective that Wikipedia is itself a sort of news site, given its rapid encyclopedic coverage of emerging events, but that's another discussion entirely.)

Infobitt … well, I don't know much about Info

Wikinews is an attempt to do a news site in a wiki format. In my opinion, it's not all that great (the wiki model isn't truly suited for developing news stories) but not having a news site of some sort would be a waste for Wikimedia.* On the plus side, Wikinews is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, which means its future isn't really in question, just its mediocrity.

(*There's an interesting perspective that Wikipedia is itself a sort of news site, given its rapid encyclopedic coverage of emerging events, but that's another discussion entirely.)

Infobitt … well, I don't know much about Infobitt, except that it seeks to do something about aggregating, organizing, etc. the news, it was started by Larry Sanger (Wikipedia co-founder), and its future is rather questionable at this point in time.

TL;DR: Existence may be the greatest difference between the two, sometime in the future.

Profile photo for Ivor Davis

Another half question:

Do you want to write about someone who is listed on Wikipedia?

Do you want to be listed on Wikipedia?

Do you want to work for Wikipedia?

Take another shot at your question and try to be more precise.

Profile photo for Sean Michael Stimac

They explain why in the third paragraph on this page, the current wikileaks site:
http://www.wikileaks.ch/cablegate.html

There is so much information that covers so many topics in so many areas that they are staggering the release of the data so that it can be properly combed over and reported on.

Profile photo for Harry Kiesel

I was not aware of WikiTribune so I looked at their home page. It advertises itself as "Evidence-based journalism" and touts the notion that this site will only publish "facts". I assume that the developers of this site are confident that their posting is worth money and will always be of rock-solid factual accuracy. It would appear that being able to view this site will cost money in the form of a subscription and that is the reason the information will not be shared with these other sites.

On the surface this sounds very good but there is a significant problem of the same nature as we see in

I was not aware of WikiTribune so I looked at their home page. It advertises itself as "Evidence-based journalism" and touts the notion that this site will only publish "facts". I assume that the developers of this site are confident that their posting is worth money and will always be of rock-solid factual accuracy. It would appear that being able to view this site will cost money in the form of a subscription and that is the reason the information will not be shared with these other sites.

On the surface this sounds very good but there is a significant problem of the same nature as we see in "evidence-based medicine": the "evidence" is reviewed by "experts" and it is the "experts'" views that are published and touted as being "the facts". In the medical literature one can have two papers side-by-side, both claiming to be evidence based but yet with contradictory conclusions. It is also a known fact that "evidence-based medical facts" can change from true to false in a very short period of time with the implication that (even if one assumes these evidence-based facts as determined by the "experts" as the best available) basing medical decisions on these (what I call) "factoids" may not be the best way to proceed if the "factoid" conflicts with clinical experience. To make my point, any site that claims to have a focus on "truth" needs to be viewed with a very healthy dose of skepticism (and this includes the medical scene). While it is OK to view such (presumably carefully researched) postings as of interest, always keep in mind that the views expressed are those of a person considering themselves as “experts” and their postings will reflect all the weaknesses of human nature (including at times, as is the case in medical literature, monetary rewards for publishing “well-directed” information).

Profile photo for Quora User

The primary features of a wiki are collaboration and easy inter-linking, so anything that benefits from being edited by multiple people in parallel that is larger than one page (otherwise you could just use something like Google Docs).

Profile photo for Jim Henderson

Everybody reads Wikipedia to find out about something that the TV news just now told them, or Facebook or Quora or whatever.

Nobody reads Wikinews except its editors.

Profile photo for Jim McCarthy

…because it’s catholic, and weren’t they the ones who burned the Bible and killed anyone they knew who owned one throughout the Dark Ages and beyond??

Profile photo for Sidney Mozer

Because it’s a very poor translation of the Bible. And it’s drawing are really bad art. And there are many better Versions easily available. I used to own one, and frankly never found it worth my time.

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