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Wikipedians don't trust the interwiki community anymore?
I hope I found an appropriate page to discuss a growing issue I noticed quite a lot, especially in German Wikipedia. German Wikipedia acts as being totally isolated from the international community and other language versions of Wikipedia and assumes all except themselves are totally unreliable. Even the sources have to be from scholars born in their country, otherwise they cannot be trusted. This is knowledge nationalism! Which is insane because knowledge is universal.
Here is an example:
There was an attempt to create a similar article to en:gaza genocide in german wikipedia: de:Völkermord-Vorwürfe gegen Israel (Gazakrieg 2023–2024). It was just a word by word translation by user User:Babel fish.
And here is what happened: The article is nominated for deletion and almost all editors currently vote for deletion. The justification reads like this: the article uses mainly Anglo-American sources. They are not reliable and tendentious, if not antisemitic. The article will only be reliable, German wikipedians claim, if it is sourced on German scholars. Can you believe this?
There is no trust in the groundwork done by English Wikipedia, the hard work done by their English Wikipedia fellows is worth nothing to them.
Why can't wikipedians from different language version work together as one team, and appreciate each others hard work?
How can we foster knowledge exchange across borders and teach respect for knowledge written by scholars of a different country? Laitonix (talk) 20:51, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
- Individual Wikipedias are editorially independent. If the German Wikipedia wants not to trust certain sources, then it's their loss and there's nothing anyone outside the German Wikipedia can do about it. Meta only intervenes in exceptional circumstances which this isn't. * Pppery * it has begun 02:50, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
- I think in general, Wikimedia Foundation could try to foster the exchange between wikipedians e.g. with international meetups (and funding travel costs), try to build connections across language borders. At the moment, there are none. At least I can tell you this from German Wikipedia. They don't learn from each other. If Wikimedia Foundation with all its funding should have one job, then to unite different fragmented, local groups to leverage the combined "wisdom of the crowd".
- In this specific case, you could even raise the question at which point German Wikipedia becomes complicit in a genocide. Not by purpose but by ignorance of any other opinion from the outside world. German Wikipedia sees only one side. They try everything to make the Palestinian death toll appear less server, pretend anti-palestinianism does not exist and the Gaza genocide accusations are just disinformation and should have no place to even mention in Wikipedia. Instead, the Israelian war against the Palestinian people is presented as the only logical consequence and no further questions asked. In return, this sways public opinion in Germany to e.g. increase support for exporting more and more weapons to Israel. So yes, the German knowledge isolation can have drastic real life consequences! Laitonix (talk) 07:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
Outcome: The article has now indeed been deleted. German Wikipedia indeed ignored the international scientific debate about the gaza genocide and just followed the narrative of the Israelien goverment. That's the state of German Wikipedia in 2024: their biased opinion is worth more than scientific sources. Keep an eye on what's happening in German Wikipedia, and always remember: Germany was on the wrong side of the history two times, and there is little evidence that it will be on the right side of history this time: Again Germans are indirectly involved in a genocide. English Wikipedia already has a chapter about it: German complicity in the gaza genocide. It's time for the international community to protect the integrity of Wikipedia, especially in Germany. --Laitonix (talk) 23:12, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- As a german native speaker who checked the process I'd like to offer a second opinion: I also don't like how things are handled in wp:de from time to time, but there are some statements here, that I cannot leave without a comment. I directly refuse the comment: "That's the state of German Wikipedia in 2024: their biased opinion is worth more than scientific sources. Keep an eye on what's happening in German Wikipedia, and always remember: Germany was on the wrong side of the history two times, and there is little evidence that it will be on the right side of history this time"
- Regardless of the work that has been done (and ignored via a deletion): german wikipedia acknowledes the genocide-accusations, compare w:de:Krieg_in_Israel_und_Gaza_seit_2023#Vorwürfe_wegen_Kriegsverbrechen_und_Völkermord there is even a paragraph w:de:Krieg_in_Israel_und_Gaza_seit_2023#Klage_Nicaraguas_gegen_Deutschland, which acknowledges the accusations against germany. I would support single articles, but as far as I know the german wikipedia, this is not their way! There are voices that argued: "keep the article" with different reasons and also with acknowledgement for non-german sources. The Opinion "The article will only be reliable, German wikipedians claim, if it is sourced on German scholars" is to be considered wrong from my point of view, because it was clearly asked to "add german sources" (compare w:de:Spezial:Diff/247666285/247666290) before the initial posting here.
- And to provide the reasoning for the deletion in a translation: "There are undoubtedly accusations of genocide, and the topic is fundamentally relevant. However, the present attempt is more than inadequate. The overflowing article reproduces all possible quotes and thus compiles more of a list of accusations. The discourse on the topic is not presented, the responses to the accusations (and by that I do not mean counter-accusations in the sense of "but Hamas did it too") remain unmentioned. However, the neutral presentation is not to be found in the complete and uncommented repetition of all statements against Israel, but rather in the reproduction of the refutations and in the classification based on scientific analysis of the events. Restructuring the article accordingly is more complex than rewriting it properly. It is therefore deleted due to the clear violation of the principle of a neutral standpoint and blatant quality defects." (feel free to check the translation yourself: w:de:Spezial:Diff/247964888/247968857). Regards HirnSpuk (talk) 18:57, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
- They believed that US sources are by default tendentious. Here is the translation from the initial request: "The article also largely reflects a US-American (or English-language) background and does not include a single German-language source, so it must obviously be tendentious "
- They believe that everything from the outside world is tendentious. ...well, we have had such a mindset several decades ago. It's not good. It should not matter from which country a scientific paper comes from. By making the nationality of the scholars an issue, german wikipedia follows a dark route and violate NPOV very clearly.
- Sure, they asked to "add" german sources, not replace everything with only german scholars. That would be too obvious. Instead, their strategy is to add as many pro-Israelian german sources as possible such that the reader must get the impression that german scholars represent the majority opinion, and the international sources warning about an ongoing genocide are only a blasphemous minority. An article that does not follow this strategy and instead truly reports that the international scholars are actually the majority, must therefore be deleted as quickly as possible. That's what we saw. Laitonix (talk) 19:47, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
Announcing the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee
- Original message at wikimedia-l. You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki. Please help translate to your language
Hello all,
The scrutineers have finished reviewing the vote and the Elections Committee have certified the results for the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) special election.
I am pleased to announce the following individual as regional members of the U4C, who will fulfill a term until 15 June 2026:
- North America (USA and Canada)
- Ajraddatz
The following seats were not filled during this special election:
- Latin America and Caribbean
- Central and East Europe (CEE)
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- South Asia
- The four remaining Community-At-Large seats
Thank you again to everyone who participated in this process and much appreciation to the candidates for your leadership and dedication to the Wikimedia movement and community.
Over the next few weeks, the U4C will begin meeting and planning the 2024-25 year in supporting the implementation and review of the UCoC and Enforcement Guidelines. You can follow their work on Meta-Wiki.
On behalf of the U4C and the Elections Committee,
RamzyM (WMF) 14:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
Have your say: Vote for the 2024 Board of Trustees!
Hello all,
The voting period for the 2024 Board of Trustees election is now open. There are twelve (12) candidates running for four (4) seats on the Board.
Learn more about the candidates by reading their statements and their answers to community questions.
When you are ready, go to the SecurePoll voting page to vote. The vote is open from September 3rd at 00:00 UTC to September 17th at 23:59 UTC.
To check your voter eligibility, please visit the voter eligibility page.
Best regards,
The Elections Committee and Board Selection Working Group
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:13, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
U4C Announcement page
The U4C has begun its initial setup. As part of that we have created an announcements page, which interested editors may want to watchlist. We have also posted our first announcement - an invitation for feedback on a tool request. Sincerely, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:18, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Discussion about appropriateness of running a CentralNotice banner for Wiki Loves Onam
You are invited to join the discussion at CentralNotice/Request/Wiki Loves Onam 2024. Sdkb talk 18:59, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Probably a really stupid question, but:
What does "Throttle" mean in the context of abuse filters on Wikipedia? I can't find any info on it. 172.15.97.51 02:17, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
- Not a stupid question. For technical details, see mw:Manual:$wgRateLimits. An abuse filter can be set up to completely stop an edit, to place a limit on how quickly someone can do something (i.e. throttle an action, such as only allowing eight page moves a minute), allow an edit but leave its edit summary with some tag, etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:16, 25 September 2024 (UTC)
Commons is blocked in Yemen
commons.wikimedia.org domain was block in Yemen 3 weeks ago. I think this block related to nude and porno content in Commons. WMF must contact Yemen Telecom for reason of blocking and resolve it. 🇵🇸 حبيشانtalk 07:11, 26 September 2024 (UTC)