Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-09-26/Op-Ed

Discuss this story

There is no "mainland China". Using that as a part of your group's name is inherently political and pretty explanatory toward your group's purpose. There is the country of China and there is the country of Taiwan. They are two separate countries. Silver seren^C 23:32, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't Hong Kong and Macau typically not considered as being part of Mainland China, despite being recognized as a part of the PRC? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 00:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

^ I really don't think the OP was trying to be political. --Firestar464 (talk) 01:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to the WMC group in general, not OP. And the group existed back before Hong Kong was a part of China. But I guess Macau applies. Do we have a lot of Wikipedians from Macau where you'd have to differentiate Chinese Wikipedians from it? Silver seren^C 01:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand: the return of Hong Kong to China predates the founding of Wikipedia. Are you referring to some other event? isaacl (talk) 01:51, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, when the government of Taiwan give up the Chinese elements in the constitution and his title of "Republic of China", at that time, it should really reconsider the political entity relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. --Cwek (talk)

I think that some members of WMC really contribute to the Wiki movement. Some editors can indeed write good entries involving local content, but there seems to be radical nationalism and coterieism that plague WMC. I think this may lead to some innocent scapegoats. --Cwek (talk) 01:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to see the Signpost give a forum for the WMC users; that said, this read just like half of the outraged blocked users I've ever seen. "The WMF gave no reason why I was de-sysoped! [... a couple paragraphs later ...] I was de-sysoped for canvassing, but that's just because they didn't like the winner of the vote! [... and later still ...] The WMF didn't actually know or care about anything going on, but some tattletales complained and they broke the sacred status quo for them!"

I don't know much about or have personal experience with this issue, but I feel like I've heard this song many, many times before in different contexts... --Pres N 02:00, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article disgusts me - WMC members don't seem to spend a minute to reflect themselves, but outright recycle their old talking points and try to paint themselves as the only legitimate mainland Chinese wikipedian group, gaslight other wikipedians. Let me be CRYSTAL clear to my fellow wikipedians: They're not. In zhwp, wikipedians across mainland China, HK/MO, and TW despise them. WMF has also made this clear, it's not about political views, but their actions fundamentally trying to undercut the foundation of wikipedia.

I've witnessed WMC members brutally bomb other hardworking wikipedians' RfA, even they're apolitical, just because they're not one of WMC. They said one third hardworking sysop are from WMC, that's because they active caused it.
Everyone can see CheckUser info anonymously leaked on VP, how are other wikipedians suppose to feel safe about that?
They lambast WMF for not giving zhwp community fund, wait, didn't WMC spend a big amount of their time to smear another Chinese user group, WUGC and its members for misusing funds, to the degree they left zhwp?
"No wikipedians have been arrest China" but didn't you guys try to submit HK wikipedians to HK police under HK NSL? Everyone in WMC's filthy QQ group knew if they're fake - Stop gaslighting other wikipedians.
In addition, didn't WMC try to incite Chinese ultra-nationalism https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/57-ZszlOY-T3BM8meSd5Tw web outlets to doxx other zhwp sysop, paint them as "pro Taiwan independence" and "pro Tibet independence", even when they reiterate they're just for NPOV, including China's view?

But more than anything, I'm deeply disappointed in Signpost allowing such a biased Op-ed to be posted. Yes, I'm posting this using a puppet, in fear of being subjected to similar doxxing and smearing, but Signpost is not a talk page, unless you're whistleblowing something, an Op-ed shouldn't be anonymous.

And WMC is not a representative of mainland Chinese wikipedians, not in the past, not now, and won't be in the future. At the end of day, they should face the music. Fremoy (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just some quick facts.

A zh-wiki administrator (bureaucrat) was banned from leaving the Chinese border, likely due to participation in international or inter-regional Wikipedian activities.
A Chinese netizen got administrative punishments from public security officers. [for vising Wikipedia – A.]
As the previous comment from Fremoy mentioned, some of the leading members in WMC threatened to report ("jvbao") Hong Kong Wikipedians to the national security forces.
WMC has always claiming to be representatives of mainland Chinese Wikipedians (even in their statement after the WMF movement), while many mainlanders prefer not to participate.
Most WMC members disclosing their political standings are pro-CCP, and most of those who disclose their support for CCP are radical supporters.
The title of their statement is Throw away illusions and prepare to fight, which coincides with Mao Zedong's essay attacking intellectuals escaping to Taiwan in 1949. The second-to-last paragraph of the statement containing the aggressive sentence "fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again...until [we get the] victory", which also coincides with a sentence repeated in Mao's essay.

--Yangwenbo99 (talk) 03:03, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To add to many mainlanders prefer not to participate -- the initial target of questionable actions by WMC's members (no, WMC wasn't formed yet) was not non-mainlanders, but other mainlanders who disagreed with their Shanghainese faction, mainly the WUGC members. See zh:User:PhiLiP/WMCTimeline and Boxun report, both in Chinese but likely okay through machine translation.

Still, I should note that the op does not report any WMC affiliation and that the desysop decision appears pretty blanket-ish – appearantly anyone with an irregular positive RfA vote is affected. I believe that the OP can re-apply and likely regain sysop after the pause on RfA is lifted. –Artoria 2e5 🌉 03:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Heck, I would say that if I was someone that was accidentally caught up in this, I would still be glad for it happening as a whole due to it getting rid of the known bad elements from the community. A price worth paying and all that. Silver seren^C 03:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have too much familiarity with zh.wiki, but the unadulterated POV nonsense needed taming and the threatened tattle-tailing to Big Brother for having opinions ought to get one exiled from the planet. Good riddance if WMF threw out the users who were posing a threat to the liberty and safety of other users. -Indy beetle (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Normally, requesting IPBE permission is because they come from Mainland China and need to use VPN/proxy to edit. Per user right log and user creation log, before office action happened (i.e. 3 months before), there were more than 10 sysops granted IPBE, included about 3-4 desysoped sysops. After office action happened, there have been sysops still handled IPBE requests and granted IPBE. Moveover, AFAIK before office action, the processing speed was very slow since few sysops handled IPBE requests. So IMO office action may cause slow process speed of IPBE request, however, that will not cause "hurts the mainland users" and OP 's opinion seems exaggerate the impact. Thank you. --SCP-2000 15:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the concerns about a lack of financial support for wikipedians in China from WMF isn’t that sort of support highly illegal under most circumstances? Foreign NGOs generally can’t do that in China. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like about some innocent people who is mis-desysoped by WMF at first, but when I look again the first statement from "Mainlander Group" about WMF Office action(in English and in Chinese). It turned out to be the rephrasing of this statement(starting from "I was shocked on 13 September..." to the end) and it convinces me that at least desysoping the author(giving that he/she did not lying) by WMF is rightful. --Cmsth11126a02 (talk) 15:25, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Infiltration"

I think it was a mistake on the part of the WMF to speak of "infiltration". "Infiltration" makes it sound political, as though any mainland Chinese editor/admin is, by definition, an "infiltrator" rather than a volunteer, i.e. someone whose very presence is undesirable just because of their nationality. It's easy to see and portray that attitude as prejudiced.

It would be better for the WMF to stick to purely behavioural points (threats of outing etc.), just as is done on-wiki – comment on the edits, not the editor. That would keep the conversation from going off-track.

Lastly, I appreciate being able to read the viewpoint expressed in this op-ed in the Signpost. --Andreas JN 466 20:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have misunderstood the term. Infiltration here mean getting into the Wikimedia system in order to gather personal information of editors. For example, in a semi-hypothetical case, organizing editathons in the name of a user group and require all participants to show their personally identifiable document, thus collecting real life identity of participating Wikipedian and connect them with their online accounts, in a country where people have been charged for visiting Wikipedia. Doing anything like this using their position would obviously threaten the personal safety of involved editors, especially those other editors in Mainland China. If there are anyone committing acts like this, and are organizing such event specifically for such outcome, then it can be said they infiltrated the system to obtain such personal information of participating editors.C933103 (talk) 00:30, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Especially if, hypothetically, the same infiltration happened in a security state where every private organization was monitored, and the Internet activity the org is designed to encourage was illegal yet, somehow, the members say they have avoided the ire of the same state. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:34, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @C933103:Your semi-hypothetical case is indeed what had happened to Chinese editors. Won’t say too much about so but they always have a reason, as with Cwek.—1233 ( T / C） 19:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Regarding the requirement of registering personal information for WMC offline activities, I really feel that I am not comfortable with it, because this is not necessary for offline activities in long long age, and at the same time, I do like to maintain a proper sense of anonymity. However, considering that the predecessor of WMC involved disputes caused by an offline activity of the Shanghai group at that time, perhaps they did not want to attract troublesome people with political motives to participate in offline activities. --Cwek (talk) 01:17, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- You can say it, but I'd say it isn't clever to do so. All the hypothetical actions you've described can be described without using the word "infiltration" (as you've just proved). It adds nothing of value, because it's the other actions you've described, in themselves, that are the problem. Read some of the state media responses to this event to see how they've seized on the word, and you might see what I mean. Andreas JN 466 01:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - The actions I have described are "infiltration" in nature. They cannot describe the situation using words like what I have written, because they cannot reveal the nature and extent of the event involved nor could they reveal evidents they have gathered, due to possibility of putting people at risk if they do so. C933103 (talk) 00:12, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - I agree with the idea of finding another word, but as I have nothing useful to add (such as, say, proposing such a word!) I am going to write this a low-level comment. WMF has tried to clarify that the "infiltration" can be totally unintentional in the OA statement, but that's not what most people -- including news media -- reads from that. What brings to mind for them instead is commie spys doing spywork and well, McCarthyism if they are on the side of the WMC folks. --Artoria 2e5 🌉 03:05, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]