Mike,
On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 1:42 PM Mike Godwin <[email protected]> wrote: > While it is generally true that what happens in Croatian Wikipedia > normally affects the whole world instantaneously (constrained only by the > speed of light!), this may have been one of the rare instances in which > Croatian Wikipedia problems didn't ignite a universal outcry in all places, > everywhere, about disinformation. > Well, I wouldn't expect it to make the evening news in Korea, Madagascar or Argentina, but in my view it should at least have sounded a few alarm bells in WMF offices, given that these distortions were published under their brand name. If you don't agree ... and you obviously don't ... then I'm not sure any further discussion is going to be of help here. But unless I am totally misreading you, your attitude sounds a lot like "Why should anyone care (or have cared) about Croatian and all these other languages spoken in some countries at the other end of the world?" If that does reflect your sentiment, then your mindset seems very much out of tune with WMF thought today. > The costs of doing this now will hardly have been prohibitive. >> Commissioning a report like this would have been well within the WMF's >> means in 2013 as well. (The WMF reported a budget surplus of $13 million in >> 2013.) So I stand by my assertion: the WMF could have done then what it has >> done now, but lacked the will, or courage. >> > > And when you were working for the Wikimedia Foundation those years, or > serving on the WMF board, how did your own exercise of moral courage > persuade people to adopt your point of view? I'm certain, given your > convictions, that you didn't just stand idly by on the sidelines, hurling > the occasional moral critique on mailing lists! > I am not sure you are actually interested in an answer here, but what I did do, for what it's worth, was to make sure that the WP Signpost and WP Kurier covered the story when it first broke, mention it repeatedly over the years in my writing on WO and in the Signpost, as well as in correspondence with journalists and academics, and submit the aforementioned idea to the WMF – to have experts review human rights topics' coverage in Wikipedia language versions that may be subject to undue political influence, and publicly report the results. I think that's about all you could have reasonably expected me to have done here. Now you say, further, On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 4:24 PM Mike Godwin <[email protected]> wrote: > In general, the preference for moral condemnation in second-guessing WMF's > decisions is directly proportional to the distance of the morally righteous > critic from actual hands-on policymaking or decisionmaking by WMF board and > staff. This is just something I've observed over time. But with Andreas I > inferred from the depth of his knowledge of the Croatia "fake news" problem > (before it was called "fake news") that he must have been deeply involved > in WMF's decisionmaking to be so authoritatively judgmental about it. > The fact of the matter is that for about a decade, one of Wikipedia's top-50 language versions promoted extremist content, with the WMF's full knowledge. That is Not A Good Thing, whether you work for the WMF or not, and you have given no discernible reason why what was done this year could not have been done years ago, when the WMF was first made aware of the situation. But you know what? Let's just agree to be glad that something was finally done, let's hope the Croatian Wikipedia manages to recover, and let's hope that similar problems in other WMF projects are successfully surfaced and addressed as well. In the meantime, I salute all volunteers, journalists and academics who research and draw attention to these problems, and everyone at the WMF who takes them seriously. Andreas On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 1:42 PM Mike Godwin <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 8:22 AM Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Mike, >> >> The corruption of the Croatian Wikipedia began in 2009 and became front >> page news in Croatia in September 2013. The term "fake news" hadn't been >> invented yet, but the Croatian Education Minister issued a public warning >> to the country's youth in 2013 that they should avoid the Croatian >> Wikipedia, as much of its content was "not only misleading but also clearly >> falsified". >> >> So I can't agree that this "was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as less of >> a problem" at the time. It's hard to imagine how it could have been more >> prominent. >> > > Your initial paragraph contradicts your conclusion. ("The term 'fake news' > hadn't been invented yet....") While it is generally true that what happens > in Croatian Wikipedia normally affects the whole world instantaneously > (constrained only by the speed of light!), this may have been one of the > rare instances in which Croatian Wikipedia problems didn't ignite a > universal outcry in all places, everywhere, about disinformation. > > >> So it was all the more welcome that the WMF finally did something this >> year and commissioned an expert to write a report, after a decade of >> complaints from media and the volunteer community. >> > > I love your interpolation of the word "finally" -- never let an > opportunity for moral criticism go unexploited! > > >> The costs of doing this now will hardly have been prohibitive. >> Commissioning a report like this would have been well within the WMF's >> means in 2013 as well. (The WMF reported a budget surplus of $13 million in >> 2013.) So I stand by my assertion: the WMF could have done then what it has >> done now, but lacked the will, or courage. >> > > And when you were working for the Wikimedia Foundation those years, or > serving on the WMF board, how did your own exercise of moral courage > persuade people to adopt your point of view? I'm certain, given your > convictions, that you didn't just stand idly by on the sidelines, hurling > the occasional moral critique on mailing lists! > > > Mike > > >
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