I was recently indefinitely blocked in connection with the paid editing issue, without being a paid editor myself. Actually the paid users with whom I had a previous collaboration on voluntary subjects are even now free to edit. Worse, it is proposed the closure of the Wikipedia I put on track.
Here are the relevant links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_news http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#The_Vlax_Romani_Wikipedia_and_its_compromised_admin and in this article: http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2009/07/926495.shtml this is the part that concerns me: "However, we find even more tragicomic and worrisome a strange case that occured in the last few days. One of the "detectives" found<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Bad_news>that the Tayzen account from Elance included in its portfolio from October 2008 the work of Desiphral, a veteran user who contributed a great deal of voluntary work at English Wikipedia and also founded the Wikipedia in his native language. The proposed conclusion, namely that this user is engaged in paid editing, was accepted by most of the other users without any inquiries. Quickly, in the discussion place there appeared users seemingly having some previous grudges against Desiphral, using the opportunity to request his block. Additionally there appeared some at least dubious users requesting the closure of the Wikipedia founded by Desiphral (in the language of a certain minority of Indian origin widely discriminated). In a normal (or better said, a previous) communication process at Wikipedia, such conclusions would have been dismissed as a good joke, but it was not the case here. We took our liberty to check the edits of the incriminated user and we did not find anything to suggest paid editing. Needless to say that the accusers too did not present any actual evidences for their allegations. After a few days, when it appeared there Desiphral himself, it turned out that he had some years ago a collaboration on Wikipedia with people from the staff of Tayzen, but not in the field of paid editing (our investigation found out that the respective Elance account did not even exist at that time). Somehow unexpectedly (given the current atmosphere of fear and adulation at Wikipedia around the issue of paid editing), besides complaining about the attempt of public shaming, he started to point out the unprofessional manner of conducting the current purges. There followed some retorts, then... silence. When we contacted Desiphral to find out what exactly is going on there, we learned that his account was blocked, but the blocking notice was hidden somewhere in the talk page, not displayed on the user account, as it is the common practice at Wikipedia. The "death sentence" was done on the sly, after talking too much, somehow reminding of our attempt to talk openly there. We found the blocking reason really sarcastic, namely that "he indicated he permitted the use of his account for commercial purposes" (without showing where exactly was that indication, while we could not find anything of this kind in his replies). Even if it would have been true, this is not a punishable offense on Wikipedia... only you'll get intro trouble with those who do not like this. The accusers changed later the reason for blocking to "group account", because he permitted some years ago some people to learn how to edit, using his account. Obviously, a pretext, the same "first shoot, then ask" pattern, since the casual teaching of other people did not amount to what is understood at Wikipedia as a "group account", plus that the respective user was not active on Wikipedia for about a year and a half and at the time scale of Wikipedia such old issues are not considered when judging an user. The suppressed user also told us that he was not announced by e-mail about the public shaming (he was not active on Wikipedia for long time and for such cases this would be the standard procedure), thus preventing him to present his position. He was not announced also about the following requests of somebody to block<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Global#Global_lock_for_Desiphral>him in the Wikipedias in all languages and to close down<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#The_Vlax_Romani_Wikipedia_and_its_compromised_admin>the one he founded. The most ironic thing in all this affair is that those suspected editing on behalf of Tayzen are free to edit even at this moment (although they keep being hindered), while the one who was wrongly accused to associate with them was taken to the backyard and executed on the sly for sulking against the conduct of the purges. The language and the conduct of this episode suggests a combination of muting the dissent and a seizure of the opportunity by some people who have a problem with the respective user and/or with the Wikipedia he started." After this episode, I have a feeling I am in China when logged in to English Wikipedia. I don't know if other users are in my situation. I guess that my luck resides in this coverage, to make my case known to the "free world". I did not check thoroughly the other things highlighted in the article, however, the links provided look compelling. Desiphral _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
