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Wikipedia co-founder launches Wikitribune to fight fake news
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales hopes to tackle fake news with a journalism outfit of his own. Wikitribune will be free to access and use crowdfunding to hire experienced reporters. They'll work alongside volunteers who can sub-edit articles, fact-check stories and suggest new topics for the site to pursue. "This will be the first time that professional and citizen journalists will work side-by-side as equals writing stories as they happen, editing them as they develop, and at all times backed by a community checking and rechecking all of the facts," Wales said.
Edward Snowden helped embroider a Wikipedia page, for art
Magna Carta is regarded as one of the foundation documents of western democracy, and its 800th birthday is coming up next month. That's what prompted prize-winning artist Cornelia Parker to recruit some famous names, including Edward Snowden, to celebrate the creation of the document in a very unique way. Rather than re-create the original document, Parker decided to go off in a slightly different direction, by hand-stitching a version of the Wikipedia page on the topic. Sorry, what?
Hardest working man on the internet passes one million Wikipedia edits
Justin Knapp is probably the hardest working man on the internet after becoming the first person to pass the million-edit-mark on Wikipedia. Since 2005, he's made around 385 amendments per day, each one taking him around four minutes [Citation Needed]. Founder Jimmy Wales congratulated the 30-year-old on his personal feed and Mr. Knapp's been awarded the site's Special Barnstar medal and Golden Wiki award for his achievement. He took the news with a good dose of self-deprecating humor, saying that "being suddenly and involuntarily unemployed will do that to you." Hopefully there's a certificate wining its way in the post from the Guinness people.
Wikipedia celebrates 10th anniversary, co-founder Jimmy Wales opines on app stores
Did you know that Wikipedia is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week? It is, on January 15th! It's hard to believe that the 'edited by the everyman' encyclopedia has been around that long... or maybe we're just getting old. Either way, co-founder of the site (and man of many personal appeals) Jimmy Wales took the opportunity to answer some questions about the past, present and future of Wikipedia, and, when asked about the growing prevalence of mobile apps and app stores, well, Wales had plenty to say, including that models such as the iTunes app store can represent a dangerous "chokepoint" and that they could be "a threat to a diverse and open ecosystem." He also added that mobile devices are owned by people, and those people should control their own devices. We can see where Jimmy's coming from in some ways -- apps are a wholly new, untested way of ingesting content, but we have a hard time swallowing wholesale that the app store model could threaten internet freedom more than an issue such as net neutrality. But you know, if you ask us nicely, Jimmy, we might just take your word for it. Hit up the 'more coverage' link to check out a video of Jimmy Wales waxing philosophical about the birthday celebration.
