User:EdSaperia/media

I think you'll struggle to find anyone who really thinks Wikipedia's main page is good, as it currently stands. Yet it receives around 500m hits a month, making it one of the most viewed media portals in the world - what a waste! I'm working on a proposal for an alternative, which focuses much more on Wikipedia's articles on current events - most people don't realise that Wikipedia can be a truly excellent source of current event insight.

I'm currently investigating the process around WP:ITN, and it seems quite haphazard, with not very many contributors. I'm thinking about how we could instead make it more algorithmically driven, using open data from wikipedia and wikidata to select stories that should feature there.

Main page as it stands

• Current main page breakdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:HJ_Mitchell/Main_Page#TFA

Examples of Wikipedia articles on current events

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ferguson_unrest
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Napa_earthquake
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_virus_outbreak
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Attenborough
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2014_celebrity_photo_leaks
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Upcoming_Scottish_Independence_Referendum
• http://hblog.org/2014/08/11/wikipedia-and-breaking-news-the-promise-of-a-global-media-platform-and-the-threat-of-the-filter-bubble/#more-1054

Attitudes towards Wikipedia as a news source

• http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/08/09/more-british-people-trust-wikipedia-trust-news/
• http://www.pensivepuffin.com/dwmcphd/syllabi/insc547_wi13/papers/wikipedia/lam-decisionmakingRfA-GROUP10.pdf
• https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/bbc-news-stop-this-media-blackout-of-the-green-party

Other algorithmic news projects

• http://www.meetup.com/HacksHackersLondon/
• http://buildthenews.wordpress.com/what-is-build-the-news/

Redesign

Past Main Page Redesign Attempts

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:2013_main_page_redesign_proposal

Visual inspiration

• http://globalvoices.org/
• http://www.reddit.com/
• http://circanews.com/

Experiments/Research

• http://wikipedia-irc.herokuapp.com/
• https://twitter.com/WikiLiveMon
• https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GzGO7u-RFQKtHH2AGHTZ0BAu7nC-LGUHLl1p8-nzQ3Q/edit#slide=id.i0
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ranking_functions

News Diffs

• MJ's Death: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Jackson&diff=298642898&oldid=298641708
• Flight 370: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370&oldid=598625742&diff=prev

Academics that work on recognising news

• http://media.leeds.ac.uk/pg/taught-ma-programmes/ma-political-communication/
• http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/modules/module/COM8177/
• http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-political-communications/

People I've discussed this with

• User:Lydia_Pintscher_(WMDE)
• User:Ocaasi
• User:TheHelpfulOne
• User:Sj
• Bill Thompson
• Jan-Bart De Vreede
• Katherine Bavage
• Denny Vrandečić

People I need to discuss this with

• Martin Poulter
• Richard Hodkinson