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In the media

What should Wikipedia do? Publish Russian propaganda? Be less woke? Cover the Holocaust in Poland differently?

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By Adam Cuerden

Russia fines Wikipedia for failing to toe the party line on the Ukraine War

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The Wikimedia Foundation has been fined in Russia

As reported by Ars Technica, Yahoo News, Reuters and no doubt many other places, Russia has once again fined Wikipedia for not following the Kremlin's official narrative on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the third fine so levied since the invasion began last year. The 2 million ruble fine (about $27,000 USD) is for failure to comply with takedown requests. The other fines, for 5 million and 2 million rubles, were for failing to delete Russian-language articles on the topics Russian Invasions of Ukraine (2022), Battle for Kyiv, War Crimes during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Shelling of Hospital in Mariupol, Bombing of the Mariupol Theater, Massacre in Bucha, Non-violent resistance of Ukraine's civilian population in the course of Russia's invasion, and Evaluations of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Wikimedia Foundation has promised to not give in to Russia's pressure, though it's not clear from any of the articles whether they're going to pay up.

In brief

  • Jimmy Wales interview: The Telegraph has an interview with Jimmy Wales in which he rather stupidly says: "So, you know, I'm not particularly woke. I'm quite sleepy." Given woke is a reference to being alert to discrimination and prejudice, why is he so eager to say that he (and Wikipedia as a whole) aren't woke? This Signpost contributor would like us to be aware of bias, discrimination, and prejudice.
  • Sue Gardner among critics of proposed media law in Canada: As reported by NiemanLab, a bill that would force search engines and other such media companies linking to news to pay the creators of that news in Canada is opposed by Sue Gardner and others. Modelled after an Australian bill, it frankly seems to neglect the point of search engines.
  • Does Wikipedia distort the role of Poland in the Holocaust?: In response to the accusations and rebuttals we covered last issue and the ArbCom case sprung up in response, we have coverage from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, republished in The Times of Israel, and Der Spiegel and Berliner Zeitung also get in on it. For more on the Grabowski/Klein essay that sparked this story, see Recent research in this issue of The Signpost.
  • Glasgow looks back on Wikipedia's one millionth article: GlasgowLive looks back on Jordanhill railway station, Wikipedia's one millionth article.
  • Another paid editing service: The Magazine Plus reports on yet another clandestine service offering a "valuable asset" – "to establish [weasels individuals] as thought leaders, experts, or influencers" who have for some inexplicable reason been overlooked by the encyclopedia up till now.
  • Annie Rauwerda continues to be awesome; newspapers agree: Annie Rauwerda, of Depths of Wikipedia fame, and also winner of 2022's "Media Contributor of the Year" at the last Wikimania, is covered in the Nashville Scene article "Depths of Wikipedia’s Annie Rauwerda Is Obsessed With Accessible Information".
  • Apparently we suck: An article by "a senior Brexiteer who has seen Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and others at close quarters" in conservative UK magazine The Critic brings up potentially-interesting-if-true claims about an editor sockpuppetting (provable) in a supposed attempt to hide controversial aspects of a UK academic (not-so-provable), then goes on to attack us all as a bunch of lefties working against every conservative politician ever. BLP issues (the portrayal of the academic is pretty much a smear campaign) prevent us saying much more.
  • Slow progress: The Evening Standard reports that women "now" (they're actually citing a 2021 report) make up 15% of Wikipedia editors, up from 13% over a decade ago. The Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines, whose adoption the Board is about to consider, also get a mention in the piece.
  • DuckDuckGo, OpenAI and Anthropic to launch Wikipedia-based AI tool: "DuckAssist" will "pull from Wikipedia (as well as Encyclopedia Britannica in some instances) to provide a natural language response to your questions", reports Engadget.
  • Anonymous: Taiwan News reports that as part of its latest hack involving a Chinese weather balloon, Anonymous has taken Wikipedia to task for "allegedly underrepresenting women in its articles, having a 'spending cancer,' engaging in deletionism, and committing POV skewing. It also accused Wikipedia of failing to adequately support two Wikipedia Arabic editors, Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani, who have been imprisoned by the Saudi government for 'swaying public opinion' and 'violating public morals'." A similar Anonymous hack in October last year was reportedly carried out in response to a "Chinese information operation" targeting Wikipedia content.



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  • In a more serious frame of mind, I'm concerned that this article should either be listed or an op-ed, or written differently in the future. It's designed to be a factual summary of our appearances in the media, but the contributor includes aspects like in which he rather stupidly says, This Signpost contributor would like us to be aware of bias, discrimination, and prejudice., it frankly seems to neglect the point of search engines. Whether or not the contributor is correct, it's the addition of clearcut opinion within a factual article. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:02, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. The article has been written in a very flippant manner. Ciridae (talk) 13:28, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will say the comment in particular was probably not JW's smartest remark, but the choice of wording could be improved. I might have called it "questionable" or "tone-deaf", but to each their own. ASUKITE 15:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I intended to say the same thing; calling it "stupid" is clear editorializing. I might certainly agree that it's not the brightest thing to say, but well, I know I'm editorializing. In a non-editorial fact piece, probably more appropriate to call it, for example, "controversial". Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not the normal writer of this, and found a list of links just before scheduled publication. I do, however, think that that's one of the stupidest things I've seen Jimbo say. It's clear pandering on his part to the kind of low-grade racism/sexism/etc. we don't want to pander to. It's entirely possible to give too much credence and respect to things that are well outside of reasonable discourse, especially when he's speaking for Wikipedia as a whole. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 19:36, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A play on words, how does it work... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:20, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the author may have been blind to how some people perceive the term "woke". It is not universally seen as being merely about awareness of prejudice. It is seen by many millions as an extreme stance that brooks no argument and implicitly claims that everybody who disagrees with any element of the woke stance is "not awake". The tone of the comment made about Jimmy in the Signpost matched that perception, stating that if you disagree with being woke, you are by definition stupid.
In the last decade, the term has become divisive, even if it didn't start that way. If you read past the lead section, the en:Woke page goes into how "woke" is now used as an insult among non-woke people, akin to "politically correct", and how in numerous countries, wokeness is seen as an extreme and inappropriate American export. I think Wikipedia should seek to not alienate big factions of society by writing as if Jimmy stating that he is not woke was a problem or was stupid. It wasn't. I think Adam's statement in his talk comment that non-wokeness is "well outside of reasonable discourse" or is "pandering to low-grade racism/sexism" is a woke PoV, not a neutral PoV, and is inappropriate for Wikipedia. It's possible and common to oppose wokeness and yet not be sexist, racist, nor stupid. Gnuish (talk) 23:35, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's weird that you opted to introduce title case to the article titles you linked, despite that not being in compliance with the manual of style.~TPW 14:52, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should there really be a brief about that Canada bill? The only real relation it has to Wikipedia is that Sue Gardner criticized it (didn't she leave the WMF almost ten years ago?). MaterialWorks (talk) 21:01, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Not the only relation. Seems to neglect the point of search engines. Yeah, what is the point of search engines? Back in the day I used to use four of them in the hope that one would find what I was looking for. Then they succumbed to the temptation to highlight stuff that people had paid to put first rather than what was relevant. Increasing, I just used Google because it was the only one giving me real results. But Google has decayed over time, especially recently. We get fewer results to the page, and more sponsored content which is given priority over the actual results. It tries to be helpful, so you get different results depending on where it thinks you are. It is still better than searching for a Wikipedia page through Wikipedia, but it is increasingly trying to keep people on its own page instead of going off to other web sites. This is true of Wikipedia, where it generates from Wikidata, but also news sites. Google should pay for its use of news content generated by others. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:52, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Gardner's article can be found here]. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:00, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Hawkeye7: Should it? I imagine making Google pay for news usage would create a snowball effect, where everyone under the sun tries to get paid for being indexed. Or the opposite, this goes nowhere and Google keeps on trying to keep users on their site, which is what every modern website tries to do nowadays. There is also the problem of where the money would go to. It most likely wouldn't go to the creator of said article, but to the parent company, who may choose to simply keep it for themselves. Another problem: what about every other search engine? Should they also be forced to pay news companies? This all seems very poorly thought out. MaterialWorks ping me! 00:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It was thoroughly thought through. You are quite right about its impacts, but the issues you raise (and those Sue raised) were foreseen. The big problem was getting it implemented without the United States seeing what we were doing as "socialism" and imposing trade sanctions. While what Sue has suggested would indeed be much better, we just couldn't get that past the Americans. (It is unusual to see Canada copying a law off us; more often it is the other way around.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:24, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I look forward to seeing "Anonymous" come down here and do the thankless work expanding Wikipedia's coverage of women one article at a time. (They're absolutely right about Khalid and al-Sofiani though.) Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Magazine Plus reports", only if you call a page a "report" despite its byline marking it as advertising, and it citing a press release website as its author. Cabayi (talk) 09:32, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]


  • In the media: In brief: Apparently we suck:

A scurrilous article[1] by an anonymous writer in The Critic (modern magazine) was linked in The Signpost of 9 March 2023[2]. Among general abuse of Wikipedia and its editors, the writer referred to sockpuppetry in the BLP of UK Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal. This is my assessment of the matter following the slight involvement that I had in the issue earlier.

When, in April 2021, the now proven sockpuppet User:PostcolonialLitNerd, who was continually adding praise to the BLP of UK Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal and deleting criticism of her, was asked by an editor if they had a relationship with Gopal that they should disclose, the answer by User:PostcolonialLitNerd was an unambiguous No. I accepted this assurance of course. However in early 2022, through the dark arts of the checkuser team, it was discovered that PostcolonialLitNerd had been engaging in industrial-scale sock puppetting and fibbing. PostcolonialLitNerd and their other (there seem to be at least 5) socks were then banned indefinitely. However, I am convinced that there is no evidence that Gopal herself was complicit in any of the socking that favored her BLP. She would have known that if she had been involved, and it was disclosed, the consequences would be catastrophic: her public reputation would be trashed and her activities as an activist and influencer crippled. A revelation of dishonesty might lead to charges of academic misconduct that could affect her employment. It is possible that the socking was carried out by one of Gopal’s opponents in an attempt to harm her reputation by making people think she did it herself. I expect that Gopal will use her Twitter channel, which she contributes to frequently, to confirm that she had no knowledge of the socking. If she chooses not to do that, then the presumption of innocence applies. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:07, 13 March 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Funny thing, the last time the Critic wrote about WP [3], the authors used pseudonyms too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:07, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Xxanthippe: Thanks for the summary of the facts. For obvious reasons if you've seen the article, I didn't want to go too far into BLP territory with Gopal, since the article's first section is pretty much just hyperbolic (and arguably racist - they seem most offended about her criticising colonialism and such) attacks on her. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 20:07, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]


  • My intention here is not to defend Jimbo, but I hope he answered that way because he's tired of people being asked if they're woke (in the buzzword sense of the word) or not, in the same way I don't like it when people ask me what Hogwarts house I am. However, Jimbo swings more towards libertarianism, and could easily be co-opted by the right like how they did with Larry -Gouleg🛋️ harass/hound (she/her) 16:07, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fines

Are the Russian fines paid, and if so, by whom? HandsomeFella (talk) 18:51, 14 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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