Wikinews was a free-content news wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation that gathered and reported news collaboratively through user-created content. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying, "On Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an encyclopedia article."

On June 28, 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation's Sister Projects Task Force submitted a proposal for closing Wikinews. In March 2026, the WMF announced that Wikinews would be closed and made read only on May 4 of that year.

History

thumb|The beta version logo, used until February 13, 2005

The first recorded proposal of a Wikimedia news site was a two-line anonymous post on January 5, 2003, on the Wikimedia community's Meta-Wiki. Daniel Alston, who edited Wikipedia as Fonzy, claimed to have been the one who posted it. The proposal was then further developed by German freelance journalist, software developer, and author Erik Möller.

The domain name wikinews.org was registered on April 2, 2004. In November 2004, a demonstration wiki was established to show how such a collaborative news site might work. On September 7, 2007, the English Wikinews published its 10,000th article.

Closure

On June 28, 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation's Sister Projects Task Force reviewed a proposal for closing Wikinews, followed by a three-month public consultation.

On March 30, 2026, it was announced by the WMF that Wikinews would be closed and made read-only on May 4 that year.

Interviews

right|thumb|Wikinews reporter [[David Shankbone with Israeli president Shimon Peres in 2007]]

Wikinews reporters have conducted interviews with several notable people, including an interview in December 2007 with Israeli President Shimon Peres by Wikinews reporter David Shankbone. Shankbone had been invited to conduct the interview by the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli foreign ministry.

Other notable interviews have included writers, actors, and politicians, such as Augusten Burroughs, several 2008 U.S. Republican Party presidential primaries candidates like Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter, writer Eric Bogosian, New Zealand politician Nick Smith, former New Zealand prime minister John Key, World Wide Web co-inventor Robert Cailliau, drag queen RuPaul, and former Wikimedia Foundation executive Sue Gardner.

List

, Wikinews content pages have been created in editions, all of which were made read-only on the week of May 4 of that year.

Notes

  • The "total pages" column refers to the number of pages in all namespaces, including both content pages and non-content pages (user pages, files, talk pages, "project" pages, categories, redirects, and templates).
  • "Users" refers to the number of user accounts, regardless of current activity – not the number of people or devices using (accessing) Wikinews.
  • "Active users" are registered users who have made at least one edit in the last thirty days.
  • "Files" is the number of locally uploaded files.
  • The statistics are derived from API:Siteinfo on MediaWiki and updated at Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab on Commons every six hours, and are displayed with via .

Edition details

:Notes cannot be added directly into table header - please see "Notes" section just above

Statistics totals

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right;"

|+ Selected totals of assets and involved people for all Wikinews editions

|-

! scope="col"| !! scope="col"| Content pages !! scope="col"| Total pages !! scope="col"| Edits !! scope="col"| Admins !! scope="col"| Users !! scope="col"| Active users !! scope="col"| Files <!-- !! scope="col"| Percentage -->

|-

! scope="row"| Total

| || || || || || ||

<!-- | % -->

|}

See also

  • WikiTribune
  • Wikitorial

References

  • Wikinews Statistics