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4 months ago
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(Stock image)The parent organization of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has proposed closing down a sister project called Wikinews, according to a proposal reviewed by The Desk.
Low readership and even lower interest among volunteer editors were cited among the reasons for closing down the online news publication. Much like its sister project Wikipedia, Wikinews allows anyone to create and edit articles that are specifically designed to resemble news stories. The platform launched in 2004 and counts 550 active editors and more than 1.7 million articles.
Despite this, the majority of online traffic to Wikinews articles comes from search engine bots and crawlers, not human beings, the Wikimedia Foundation said in its proposal. While Wikinews is available in nearly three dozen languages, three projects — Wikinews English, Wikinews Russian and Wikinews Mandarin — account for the majority of human-related traffic, the organization affirmed.
Traffic to Wikinews is low, with just two projects logging more than 5,000 page views on a daily basis. By comparison, Wikipedia is one of the most-trafficked websites on the planet, and its articles have recently been used by artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s AI summaries and search engine knowledge boxes.
Wikinews has never achieved the same status as Wikipedia, one of the most-trafficked websites on the planet. Wikipedia’s articles are well-researched and well-utilized: In recent years, Wikipedia articles have been used by artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s AI summaries and search engine knowledge boxes.
Only two Wikinews projects generate more than 5,000 page views per day — a miniscule amount compared to the billions of page views that Wikipedia’s articles receive. Articles on Wikinews often don’t reflect the news of the day, and it is “difficult to claim that it is disseminating educational content and, even more so, that it is doing so effectively and globally,” the Wikimedia Foundation said.
The lack of well-rounded, well-sourced articles on Wikinews means its content is not widely utilized by editors of Wikipedia or other Wikimedia Foundation projects like Wikisource or Wikitionary.
“Furthermore, if Google were to be taken as representative of the search ecosystem, it is unlikely that many news seekers would find their way to Wikinews, even where coverage exists,” the Wikimedia Foundation said.
One reason why Google may be unwilling to link to Wikinews articles is because Wikipedia editors generally create pages on the biggest top stories of the day, particularly when certain matters have historical or future implications. For instance, an incident involving a man who lit himself on fire outside the criminal trial of then-former President Donald Trump last year was covered by Wikinews and Wikipedia the same day it occurred — but the Wikinews article had just five contributors and has been marked for deletion, while the Wikipedia article has 70 contributors and no reference to Wikinews at all.
“A challenging situation arises when there are a very small number of dedicated users but who don’t attract or retain new users over time, and are unable to manage the content that’s been generated,” the proposal for closure says. “This makes the project a place where new, enthusiastic users might go, but then are met with silence and lack of activity. When this happens, we waste the opportunity to acquire a great contributor.”
Wikimedia Foundation said the lost opportunities are “difficult to measure, but it’s possible to make an educated guess about what is happening based on observing activity, whether there are groups of people really engaging, and whether there is a steady stream of new users, even if the absolute numbers don’t increase over time.”
A review of Wikinews by the Sister Projects Task Force, a group affiliated with Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Directors, ultimately proposed closing the site for good. If approved, the plan would call for Wikinews to be permanently locked, though existing pages will remain on the website for some time.
The proposal opens the door for someone to step in and spin off, or “fork,” Wikinews into a separate project hosted somewhere other than the Wikimedia Foundation in the near future.
