[Wikimedia-l] Re: ZH > HR Wikipedia (WAS: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动)

2021-09-17 Thread Andreas Kolbe
Željko,

Thanks for your observations.

How do you feel things are developing in the Croatian Wikipedia now? What
has (or hasn't) happened since the report was published?

Best,
Andreas

On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 11:26 AM Željko Blaće  wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 6:16 PM Maggie Dennis 
> wrote:
>
>> Community “capture” is a real and present threat. For years, the movement
>> has been widely aware of challenges in the Croatian Wikipedia, with
>> documentation going back nearly a decade. The Foundation recently set up a
>> disinformation team, which is still finding its footing and assessing the
>> problem, but which began by contracting an external researcher to review
>> that project and the challenges and help us understand potential causes and
>> solutions for such situations.[4]
>>
>
> Dear Maggie - thank you for writing this, but I fear it can be wrongly
> interpreted *(already did to a few people who got in touch) as it was
> worded in a non/explicit way. I would like to point that:
>
> #1 both WMF and Wikimedians were aware of issues with HR Wikipedia and
> nothing has been done for a decade, aside from handful last year to remove
> 4 of right-wing admins*(Wiktionary and Wikisource, are still with rightwing
> admin control)...
> WMF actions are sadly post-festum and with a very limited scope.
>
> #2 HR was not abducted by some well organized and resourced entity, but by
> handful of extreme rightwingers (one unmerried couple + their closest
> neo-nazi friend and 3 submissive mediocrats...including 40+ proven but
> likely 60+ sock puppets) with silent and passive conservative 'center'
> majority of woters.
>
> #3 an external researcher contractor was not really reviewing the full
> project, but mainly content *(very little on social dynamics and
> capacities) and in doing so failed to understand the challenges of
> under-resourced and asocial 'community'... This is why solutions suggested
> in findings included impossible language and project merges, rather than
> anything that would enable self-governance, expansion of the pool of
> contributors and sustainable and ambitious work *(like in Serbia for
> example).
>
> Hope with these distinctions it is more obvious the difference between the
> two and if /how/when/where the learning is applicable or not...
>
> Thank you for your professional work.
>
> Best Z. Blace
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Wikimedia Taiwan’s statement on the office actions of the Wikimedia Foundation on Chinese Wikipedia

2021-09-17 Thread ktsquare
Is anyone allowed to reply to this communication? Or this is just a thread
of the statement?


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On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 4:19 AM  wrote:

> On behalf of Wikimedia Taiwan, we would like to say that this is long
> overdue. For more than half a decade, good faith volunteers from Hong Kong,
> the Chinese mainland, and Taiwan have raised concerns about dangerous
> members of that organization, including in the Signpost(1) (repeatedly(2)).
> It is not the kind of threat that communities or even larger ones, like our
> wiki, can deal with entirely on their own. We have been having very
> exhausting years.
>
> Now there is some hope. But we have a lot of work ahead of us as a
> volunteer community, and we call upon the Foundation to meet its commitment
> of support as we do. We need to rebuild an inclusive wiki that welcomes
> everyone from all places who wants to contribute to Chinese language
> Wikipedia in good faith. Many people have felt very unsafe for years, so
> restoring a shared sense of comfort will likely take a long time. Doing
> this work is very important to get back to focusing on knowledge and
> Wikipedia’s five pillars that should unite our community.
>
> Yuan Chang,  Chairman of Wikimedia Taiwan
>
> (1)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-10-31/In_focus
> (2)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-07-25/Special_report
>
> 中文版本:
> 在此僅代表台灣維基媒體協會聲明,這個行動是遲來的努力。多年來,香港、中國大陸和台灣的用戶一再呼籲對該組織中的危險成員與行為的關切,包括但不僅止於之前於Signpost報導(1)
> (另一則報導(2))中所提及。這不是社群,或甚至整個中文維基,可以自行處理的威脅。這些年我們心力交瘁。
>
> 現在的處置,讓我們覺得終於有了一些希望。但作為志願者組織,我們仍有很多工作要做,並希望基金會能大力支持。我們需要重建一個具有包容性的維基百科,歡迎來自所有地區,願意真誠貢獻中文知識的參與者。這幾年來,許多參與者感到不安,要恢復原本平和的氛圍,需要相當長時間的努力。這個工作非常重要,有助於我們把心力集中在知識,以及團結我們社群的維基百科的五大支柱上。
>
> 台灣維基媒體協會理事長  張遠
>
> (1)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-10-31/In_focus
> (2)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-07-25/Special_report
>
> Original Link of the statement:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Taiwan/Declaration/Wikimedia_Taiwan%E2%80%99s_statement_on_the_actions_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_on_Chinese_Wikipedia
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[Wikimedia-l] Re: Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动

2021-09-17 Thread ktsquare
If anyone wants some feedback regarding the beginning of zh.wikipedia, I
can try to help.




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On Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 3:04 PM William Chan  wrote:

> Update to this:
>
> I can't confirm if [3] can be observed or confirmed due to the time
> between incident and current time, but other factual statements can be
> backed.
>
> On Tue, 14 Sep 2021 at 18:06, William Chan  wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> 1. I must say that, for those who were desysopped, there are very clear
>> evidence and feelings from Hong Kong editors that the elections that
>> empowered them to the positions they got came from rigged elections with
>> canvassing being observed but never dealt due to acts to deal with them
>> being claimed as outright hostility against the users in China.
>> 2. I wrote the August 2019 piece. I'm not banned, I'm 1233. [1]
>> 3. There were accounts which those admin accounts being shared upon
>> non-admins (I don't think, imo, even account sharing between admins is
>> right at all)
>> 4. The Chinese community is in standstill after 2019.
>> 5. It seems to be a preliminary conclusion of events that lead to all
>> zhwp Checkusers deprived of such checkuser right.
>> 6. I really hope for a global discussion, but a November 2017 discussion
>> (initiated my me) led to nothing, then I think there's an ongoing RFC that
>> didn't get much attention too.
>> 7. I am quite confident that SWAN will discuss this issue and a larger
>> open office hour is coming.
>> 8. IMO, Techyan and Walter Grassroot deserved this.
>> 9. Even outright fascism propaganda can't be dealt with internally till
>> WMF g-lock [2]
>> 10. Yes, if you get into a deeper dive on editors, you will find large,
>> half-page political announcements are on userpages.
>> 11. The worst part of those discussions are within QQ, off wiki plots
>> against the safety of active, dissident (in terms of Communist party
>> leadership) editors.
>> 12. They did all the hostility since 2015 [3]
>>
>> Regards,
>> William Chan
>>
>> [1]:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-08-30/Community_view
>> [2]:
>> https://zh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:%E5%B0%A4%E9%87%8C%E7%9A%841994&oldid=67304211
>> [3]:https://twitter.com/Philip_Tzou/status/1437543054043275265
>>
>> On Tue, 14 Sept 2021 at 17:43, Yair Rand  wrote:
>>
>>> (For those trying to play catch-up on the Wikipedia-in-China issue, I
>>> recommend diving into some old Signpost archives: [1] ("The BBC looks at
>>> Chinese government editing"), [2] ("Interview: Carl Miller on Wikipedia
>>> Wars"), [3] ("Community View: Observations from the mainland"), [4]
>>> ("Special report: Hardball in Hong Kong"), and maybe [5] ("Chinese man
>>> detained and penalized for reading Wikipedia") and [6] ("China and the
>>> Chinese Wikipedia"). Note that the author of the community view piece and
>>> the subject of the special report, User:Techyan and User:Walter_Grassroot
>>> respectively, are both among those banned in this action. I have not found
>>> sources covering the more recent events relating to the canvassing policy.)
>>>
>>> I'm having a difficult time understanding the notice, particularly which
>>> parts are relating to the NDA change and which are relating to the more
>>> recent actions. If I am understanding correctly, the NDA change:
>>> * was prompted by credible threats against contributors,
>>> * involved risks pertaining to private data being taken by hostile
>>> entities,
>>> * could not be communicated in advance even to stewards without creating
>>> serious risks.
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, regarding the bans and desysoppings:
>>> * The message vaguely implies, but does not state, that "credible
>>> threats to [Chinese users'] safety" were relevant to this decision.
>>> * A second justification is similarly implied: That the actions were
>>> necessary to avoid community capture/infiltration on zhwiki, presumably by
>>> the government of the PRC. Particularly highlighted issues of relevance to
>>> this are canvassing and fraud, presumably for community manipulation.
>>> * Some relevant information on this cannot be revealed publicly ("limits
>>> to what we can reveal").
>>>
>>> Maggie has stated on-wiki that those desysopped will be permitted to run
>>> for adminship again [7], while the WMF will "monitor the integrity of
>>> elections for those seeking sysop rights again (after this action) until we
>>> are able to help the local community adopt a more secure system." I am
>>> fairly confident that, if the desysoppings were necessary to avoid actual
>>> harm (that is, if there was a threat to safety from those users holding
>>> advanced rights), the WMF would not allow the restoring of those