Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2017/May

Could Wikipedia's loss be WikiNews' gain?
My cards on the table first: a) I know nothing of WikiNews' policies or processes; b) I hate seeing good editing work thrown away when it doesn't meet some exacting policy; c) I have no idea if what I'm about to suggest has been said a thousand times before; d) I've no idea how best to push what I'm about to propose, so I'll just leave it here for others to mull over and to take forward, assuming it has legs. ..

Yesterday on Wikipedia there was an article created for a world-wide breaking news-worthy story about a terrorist incident-cum-fatal car crash in NY's Times Square which was quickly slapped with a Request for Deletion template. As the story unfolds, its becoming clearer in this discussion that it is going to be deleted on Wikipedia's policy of WP:NOTNEWS. Although my own contribution to the discussion was initially for a weak keep, I can see this story just isn't going to cut it on Wikipedia's mainspace, and I'm soon going to change my vote. So, once again, well-written but inappropriate stuff will get cleared away from Wikipedia, and everyone can go home happy.

. . . except that I popped over to WikiNews to see how you folks covered the story. It didn't exist. What began as a worldwide story of a terrorist incident appeared to have attracted no activity on this Wiki at all, which I found surprising. And as far as I'm aware, no template exists on Wikipedia that an editor can add to a newly created 'NOTNEWS' article in order to suggest that its contents would merit removal and transfer to WikiNews, or even simply to automatically draw it to the attention of WikiNews editors. And there seems to be no way for a closing Wikipedia administrator - or WikiNews editor - to decide to make that transfer across here for retention and further editing, if appropriate.

But should there such a template or such a process? Would it help if content and article history could be deleted and copied over to WikiNews mainspace or draftspace? It seems to me that it would - though you folks will know best. I wouldn't know how to propose this within Wikipedia without someone immediately citing a dozen policy reasons why it's a stupid idea. But it seems like a potentially good one to me. Any thoughts on whether this could, or should, be taken forward in some way? Nick Moyes (talk) 21:16, 19 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Material cannot be transferred from Wikipedia to Wikinews, because to do so would violate the copyright of Wikipedia; the licenses are incompatible. That said, production is more challenging on Wikinews, and there's a whole pile of considerations behind that.  You might find page For Wikipedians of interest.  --Pi zero (talk) 21:41, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's a terrible shame. I really appreciate the speedy reply. Thank you. Sounds like a few licencing folk from both projects could do with meeting up and having their corporate heads bashed together then. (Shrugs shoulders and walks away, never to return) Nick Moyes (talk) 21:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The differences between the projects are deeper than that; trying to adapt Wikipedian material for news use would likely be less efficient than starting from scratch. --Pi zero (talk) 22:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, and thanks again for taking the trouble to explain. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:15, 19 May 2017 (UTC)