[Wikimedia-l] Coronavirus outbreak impacts Chinese Wikimedia communities

[《求闻》编译组／Qiuwen WMCug]

BEIJING, Feb. 29 (Qiuwen) - The coronavirus outbreak originated from China's 
Wuhan in Hubei province only two months ago had already claimed thousands of 
lives with more infected, but none of them are Wikimedians - as far as we know.

As of February 28th, Qiuwen can independently confirm that all active 
Wikimedians living in the Greater China are not infected by the virus, 
including three of them who live in outbreak's epicenter Wuhan, and dozens more 
who live in other parts of the Hubei province as well as other heavily-infected 
cities in China. However, many of them were put under citywide lockdowns, and 
just like other local residents, are not allowed to move freely. Meanwhile, one 
editor in Hong Kong was put under a compulsory quarantine by local health 
authorities due to close contact with a confirmed patient. The editor was 
forbidden to go outside their home for a 14-day quarantine period. Detailed 
information of those editors themselves will not be disclosed for privacy 
reasons.

Several meetups and edit-a-thons in China were either canceled or postponed due 
to the outbreak. Since many Wikipedia enthusiasts in China are college 
students, meetups are generally scheduled to cope with the beginnings and 
endings of academic semesters. However, those meetups were postponed as the 
2020 spring semester, which typically begins from late February to early March, 
was delayed by education authorities. Organizers reported canceling a meetup 
scheduled to be held in late January in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, 
while several others, including those in Beijing and Shenzhen targeting college 
students, were postponed until most schools reopen. 

Another contributing factor to the suspension of these meetups is governments 
have been discouraging people from traveling back from their hometowns to big 
metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai after the Chinese Lunar New Year 
holiday, which means attendee turnouts for meetups held in these cities may be 
lower than usual.

The community in Hong Kong seemed to have suspended their meetup for the 
outbreak as well. The Hong Kong community has had four meetups per year in the 
past two years, with the most recent one held in November 2019. However, the 
next meetup, which supposes to be held in late February according to their 
routine, was never announced by the community leaders in the first place.

Communities in Taiwan was not significantly affected by the outbreak, as the 
island does not have as many reported cases comparing to the mainland and Hong 
Kong. Nevertheless, the organizer for a Wikimedia photowalk did make a post on 
Facebook, saying a mandatory body temperature check will be implemented before 
the activity rolls out.

The coronavirus outbreak has been ameliorating in China during the past few 
days, with new confirmed cases dropped dramatically, especially outside the 
epicenter Hubei province. Local Wikimedians in Beijing are currently planning 
to have their meetups rescheduled for the next public holiday, which is the 
Tomb-Sweeping Day holiday in early April. But the exact planning is still yet 
to be decided.

The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland canceled physical meetings 
of the Wikimedia Summit on Friday, which planned to take place in Berlin from 
April 3rd to 5th. The scholarship application for Wikimania this August in 
Bangkok, Thailand, remains open, and there are no signs indicating the bigger 
Wikimedians' gathering will be canceled so far.


This piece of news was gathered by Qiuwen, a news service operated by the 
Wikimedians of Mainland China user group 
. We would like 
to help deliver news from communities among Greater China to the wider world.

See our on-wiki page here , and Telegram 
channel here .

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[Wikimedia-l] Authorities in Myanmar blocks all languages of Wikipedia, says internet freedom watchdog = Qiuwen

[《求闻》编译组／Qiuwen WMCug]

BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Qiuwen) - NetBlocks, the internet freedom advocacy group, 
says Wikipedia was blocked in Myanmar by the authorities. 

NetBlocks confirms "all language editions of Wikipedia" were down in Myanmar 
starting Thursday morning local time. In a tweet [1], Netblocks said, this is 
"part of a widening post-coup internet censorship regime imposed by the 
military junta." 

Netblocks provided additional information in a picture attached to the tweet, 
suggests that they have tested the connectivity of Wikipedia in English and 
French, Wikidata, and wikimedia.org, with none of them accessible. This may 
intimate that it is highly that the Burmese authorities not only blocked "all 
language editions of Wikipedia," but all Wikimedia projects, as a whole. The 
picture also suggests that Wikipedia remains inaccessible across four different 
internet service providers in Myanmar.

It is likely that the Burmese authorities are blocking Wikimedia projects 
using the same tactic seen in China and some other countries, which is by 
blocking the main IP address Wikipedia and its sister projects uses. All 
Wikimedia projects share the same IP address, which makes it an easy target by 
censors to implement a block.

Qiuwen noticed that starting from February 19th, there was a noticeable 
increase of edits made from IP addresses that were likely to be used for VPNs 
on Burmese Wikipedia, signaling locals may have to use VPNs to get onto 
Wikipedia already. On Friday evening local time, an administrator posted a 
message on the Village Pump of Burmese Wikipedia, explaining the use of "IP 
block exemption," a special MediaWiki flag, similar to rollback and patrol, 
allowing users with the flag to edit from VPNs. A similar banner was also set 
up, visible on every page of Burmese Wikipedia. The "IP block exemption" flag 
is widely issued to users of Chinese Wikipedia, and previously, users of 
Turkish Wikipedia, who needed VPNs to access. 

Internet blackouts are increasingly common in Myanmar and across the world. 
The military shut down the internet before they attempted the coup on February 
\1st, and the military authority has blocked or temporarily blocked Facebook 
and other social media platforms starting February 3rd. Usages of VPNs 
reportedly skyrocketed for locals eager to access blocked websites. NetBlocks 
says the authorities have been implementing an "internet curfew," as the 
internet shut down during the nights. 

This also means Myanmar has joined an increasingly bigger club of countries 
that had blocked Wikipedia. Its recent members include Iran, which blocked 
Wikipedia for around 24 hours in March 2020, and Venezuela in January 2019. 
In countries such as Iran, Internet blackouts also interfered with the 
Wikimedia movement, such as Iran's week-long blackout in November 2019 had 
delayed the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon. China, the "permanent member" 
of the club, blocked Wikipedia since 2015. It is not clear whether or not the 
block on Wikimedia projects will be lifted in the future, similar to what the 
Iranian and Turkish authorities had done.

The Wikimedia Foundation has yet to comment on the block. Myanmar Wikimedia 
Community User Group, the Wikimedia user group representing Myanmar, has also 
yet to comment. Their Facebook page was last updated on January 16th, two 
weeks before the military coup.


Qiuwen is a news service operated by the Wikimedians of Mainland China user 
group[2]. 
Follow us for the latest Wikimedia news in greater China.
CC BY-SA 4.0

Follow us on Telegram: https://t.me/Qiuwen

[1]: https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1362814793502097409
[2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Mainland_China
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