Wikinews

Wikinews
The current Wikinews logo
Logo
Screenshot
Detail of the Wikinews multilingual portal main page
Screenshot of the home page
Website type
News wiki
Available in31 languages
List of languages
  • Albanian
  • Arabic
  • Bosnian
  • Catalan
  • Chinese
  • Czech
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Esperanto
  • Finnish
  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Gun
  • Hebrew
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Limburgish
  • Norwegian
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Shan
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Tamil
  • Ukrainian
HeadquartersMiami, Florida
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
CreatorWikimedia community
Websitewikinews.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users2,953,817
LaunchedNovember 8, 2004; 21 years ago (2004-11-08)
Current statusRead-only since May 4, 2026; 5 months ago (2026-05-04)
Content license
CC-BY 2.5

Wikinews is a discontinued 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

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, claims to have been the one who posted it. The proposal was then further developed by German freelance journalist, software developer, and author Erik Möller. Early opposition from long-time Wikipedia contributors, many of them pointing out the existence of Wikipedia's own news summary, gave way to detailed discussions and proposals about how it could be implemented as a new project of the Wikimedia Foundation.

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. A month later, in December 2004, the site was moved out of the "demo" stage and into the beta stage under public domain copyleft. A German language edition was launched at the same time. Soon, editions in Italian, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Norwegian, Chinese, Turkish, Korean, Hungarian, Greek, Esperanto, Czech, Albanian, and Tamil (in that chronological order) were set up.

In September 2005, the project moved to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. 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.

In an interview on the Fifth Court podcast, Jimmy Wales speculated that the main cause of Wikinews's lack of success was that the wiki community was unable to gain first-hand knowledge of events or communicate with relevant people. According to Wales, these factors limited the wiki's ability to report news independently.

Interviews

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, and others like British politician Tony Benn, 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

As of May 2026, Wikinews content pages have been created in 36 editions, all of which were made read-only on the week of May 4 of that year. The Wikinews sites had a total of 1,742,747 articles.

Notes

Edition details

Notes cannot be added directly into table header - please see "Notes" section just above
Details of Wikinews editions
LanguageLanguage (local)WikiContent pagesTotal pagesEditsAdminsUsersActive usersFiles
Russianрусскийru1,473,5001,986,51317,980,886164,0311151
Serbianсрпски / srpskisr53,13881,1873,180,17917,056140
Portugueseportuguêspt36,98978,262600,771130,8023462
Polishpolskipl24,39369,984413,876122,1341021,393
Frenchfrançaisfr24,20481,733915,303156,7231061
EnglishEnglishen22,237265,9065,027,36502,953,8171,2363,345
Chinese中文zh18,68647,849286,975138,754481
GermanDeutschde14,24062,504871,465136,0102265
Italianitalianoit12,70444,8421,008,388129,890163114
Spanishespañoles12,33150,794745,941148,408410
Czechčeštinacs9,26718,89488,73317,162281
DutchNederlandsnl4,87215,746169,289112,196100
Catalancatalàca4,80114,611179,048110,69270
Japanese日本語ja4,10436,536212,644129,866251
Arabicالعربيةar3,39258,926257,350122,381652
GreekΕλληνικάel3,08612,84566,49313,930100
Tamilதமிழ்ta3,05317,63660,76217,76750
LimburgishLimburgsli2,6304,16626,86711,05140
Swedishsvenskasv2,1698,64650,08217,26761
Ukrainianукраїнськаuk1,9867,57451,35817,362260
Persianفارسیfa1,62419,959260,15117,9173423
Romanianromânăro1,4807,60740,550112,71560
TurkishTürkçetr1,18410,690275,71315,8463710
EsperantoEsperantoeo1,16212,231177,61314,48790
Gungungbeguw1,0451,76320,6791567180
Korean한국어ko8274,12130,96815,45091
Albanianshqipsq7402,3529,25112,61530
Norwegian (Bokmål)norskno6244,10422,40514,19672
Shanတႆးshn5383,92813,5290472-11
Hungarianmagyarhu4945,22529,62711,478110
Finnishsuomifi4645,75559,64214,96581
Bosnianbosanskibs3654,99524,30313,09050
Hebrewעבריתhe2815,99351,27115,5495554
Bulgarianбългарскиbg994,04425,35112,97191
Thaiไทยth251,5604,42011,076100
Sindhiسنڌيsd132,0935,7341813-10

Statistics totals

Selected totals of assets and involved people for all Wikinews editions
Content pagesTotal pagesEditsAdminsUsersActive usersFiles
Total 1,742,7473,061,57433,244,982343,461,5061405,080

See also

References

  1. ↑ Siedlecki, Dariusz (September 20, 2005). "[Wikinews-l] The Wikinews Licensure Poll is closed". Wikinews-l (Mailing list). Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  2. ↑ Glasner, Joanna (November 29, 2004). "Wikipedia Creators Move Into News". Wired. Retrieved July 6, 2026.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. 1 2 3 Eloquence. "User:Eloquence/History - The history of Wikinews and my role in it". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  4. ↑ "Talk:Wikinews/Archive". Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on July 15, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  5. ↑ "User:Fonzy - Revision as of 08:16, August 1, 2003". Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. August 1, 2003. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Wikinews: Difference between revisions - Revision as of 18:39, November 9, 2005". Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. November 9, 2005. Archived from the original on September 15, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023. Yes, I did make that anonymous post, I am not glory seeking, just getting the facts straight. Wikews was a terrible name I admit :p
  7. 1 2 "Wikinews/Vote". Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  8. ↑ "wikinews.org whois lookup". who.is. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 "Data:Wikipedia statistics/meta.tab". Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on September 10, 2023. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  10. 1 2 "Wikinews switches to Creative Commons license". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. September 25, 2005. Archived from the original on May 12, 2013.
  11. ↑ "English Wikinews publishes 10000th article". Wikinews. Wikimedia Foundation. September 7, 2007. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  12. ↑ "Public consultation about Wikinews", Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, Wikimedia Foundation.
  13. ↑ "Wikinews, a sister project to Wikipedia, faces imminent closure amid low web traffic". TheDesk.net. July 11, 2025. Retrieved January 13, 2026.
  14. ↑ "Proposal for Closing Wikinews - Meta-Wiki". meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved April 3, 2026.
  15. ↑ "Board of Trustees Approves Closure of Wikinews". meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved March 30, 2026.
  16. ↑ Tottenham, Mark (July 1, 2026). "Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, on trust, AI and why the internet still needs rules". The Fifth Court (Podcast). No. 152. Event occurs at 39:03.
  17. 1 2 Jones, K.C. (January 14, 2008). "Wikinews Gets Big Interview: Israeli President Shimon Peres". Information Week. Archived from the original on October 22, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  18. ↑ Rose, Adam (January–February 2009). "The Wikinews Ace: Why Shimon Peres sat down with David Shankbone". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on May 9, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  19. ↑ Asper, Colleen (April 2008). "David Shankbone with Colleen Asper". The Brooklyn Rail. Archived from the original on April 23, 2008. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Wikinews interviews: Tony Benn on U.K. politics". Wikinews. August 12, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  21. ↑ "Eric Bogosian on writing and the creative urge". Wikinews. April 17, 2008. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  22. ↑ "Nick Smith responds to claims he is New Zealand's worst behaved politician". Wikinews. January 8, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  23. ↑ "Exclusive video interview with New Zealand Opposition leader, John Key". Wikinews. May 23, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  24. ↑ "Wikinews interviews World Wide Web co-inventor Robert Cailliau". Wikinews. August 16, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  25. ↑ "RuPaul speaks about society and the state of drag as performance art". Wikinews. October 6, 2007. Archived from the original on January 5, 2024. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  26. ↑ "Interview with Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation". Wikinews. October 24, 2007. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  27. ↑ "Data:Wikipedia statistics/data.tab – Wikimedia Commons". Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on March 30, 2023. Retrieved February 5, 2023.