Requests for comment/metawiki community's double standard in regard to AZwiki

The following request for comments is closed. No consensus for anything proposed by the creator. --MF-W 22:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


To begin with, I shall state I am expecting admins to close&dismiss this page of mine (or maybe as far as blocking me) as well (as they have done in the past, blocking my RFC page about Turkish Wikipedia ON THE DAY WIKIPEDIA WAS UNBLOCKED IN TURKEY or another admin harassing my userpage for putting information about myself on my userpage). But I am fed up with this double standards. Here is the case:

There was a RFC page about AZwiki, here is the link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_comment/Do_something_about_azwiki&oldid=19445023


Some verdicts were given there and they seem to be executed, they are the double standards:

  • An admin from AZwiki (@Cekli829:) was de-moted as a result of the RFC, for blocking a user from AZwiki. Seems fair? but

A metawiki and wikicommons admin @Billinghurst: disagrees with that, here for example he states the following: "Turkish Wikipedia is a self-managing community. Stewards have no authority to intervene, it is not their role. Your only means for resolution is with that community.". Here is the permanent link of the citation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Billinghurst&diff=prev&oldid=18188719 . So, it seems when it comes Turkish Wikipedia's admin they become "self-managing community" but then, Azerbaijanis are not self-managing community?


Hilariously, none of the two seemed to oppose the idea of META intervening on the AZwiki but when it comes to Turkish Wikipedia both of them similarly state "Meta is not appeal court."

UPDATE/VERY IMPORTANT: AZwiki members similarly requested a factually wrong map of Azerbaijan be removed from Armenian Wikipedia, they started an RFC about it but guess what followed? Meta did not even bother checking the related map or page. Now, the double standard of metawiki is not even disputable.


So, what is the point here? Meta either should intervene on all cases or should not intervene at all. Doing it when it comes to AZwiki and dismissing all other cases is, with the best-faith assumption, a double-standards. The block @Cekli829: executed was inspected and investigated by the community, then why not other blocks are not inspected here? Either others also should be inspected or Cekli829 should not have been inspected at all, let alone de-moting him and stripping him off of his admin status.


Proponents of this double-standard may attempt to defend (assuming they will care and the page will not be dismissed and closed immediately) their case by saying "but they were denying the Armenian genocide". Wikipedia does not have any rule like "No Wiki can deny Armenian genocide." Moreover, they were quoting&citing what academic and official sources in Azerbaijani language was saying, they were not inventing anything. --Ruhubelent (talk) 13:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GREAT! AZwiki is now resisting this double-standard based political dictation of metawiki edit

As of now, the political dictation metawiki has imposed on AZwiki through that RFC is reverted: https://az.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Qondarma_Erm%C9%99ni_soyq%C4%B1r%C4%B1m%C4%B1&oldid=5181083

They have reverted the name of the page in accordance with their academic sources rather than political views of MetaWiki RFC participants.

The next thing that should be done is to resist against the coup against Cekli829: an admin is elected by the local community and the local community is independant and the Meta is not an appeal court as stated by the two admins. Let us hope AZwiki will further resist against this doubla standards. --Ruhubelent (talk) 10:43, 15 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss edit

Beware, siding on the wrong side of the community may result in you getting blocked, your userpage being protected etc etc. User discretion is advised. If you do not want to jeopardise getting blocked for no reason, do not join this discussion. I already am blocked, that is why I risked it. Kind regards, --Ruhubelent (talk) 13:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I dispute that this is in anyways an accurate representation of the circumstances. As this is your fourth RFC at metawiki, and the only block, a partial block, that you was on a single page for a period of time, indicates to me that you are not blocked for any conversation. Once you start that sort of beat-up, then I will dispute the fact, then move away from the discussion. At this point of time you are not blocked, and the logs will demonstrate that you have never been blocked at metawiki for expressing your opinion. Yes, your userpage is protected, the problematic statements on that global user page removed, and the story for that is found at your user talk page, and in the archives of Meta:RfH.  — billinghurst sDrewth 22:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Re-read carefully, I have never asserted "I have been blocked at metawiki", let alone "for expressing an opinion." What I have said is "may result in getting blocked." As history shows, as our userpages maybe occupied due to putting information about ourselves, we may well get blocked for expressing an opinion, too. After all, my userpage is occupied for putting an information about why I was blocked. --Ruhubelent (talk) 15:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
by the way, Billinghurst, I am very glad that you have joined here. If you were honest in your "talk to the community, stewards can not intervene, they are independant" statement, you should have opposed the entire RFC about AZwiki. It is still not late, an admin was de-moted due to a block he executed on the "independant community." Do it, man! --Ruhubelent (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand and misrepresent metawiki's role. Beyond that I have no particular interest in yet another of your RFCs, and there is no requirement for any person to participate in any discussion. For you to propose that as a criticise of any single person for not participating in a specific RFC is simply a ridiculous argument.  — billinghurst sDrewth 23:57, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand and misrepresent the RFC. No one is criticised for not participating, the double standard is elaborated and the RFC is about that double standards. Not about someone's participation or lack of participation. --Ruhubelent (talk) 09:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Frivolous. No double standard. Meta can intervene in rare cases, where clear evidence is presented for systemic admin abuse or other systemic functional collapse. Clear evidence was presented that AzWiki was well outside the minimum standards of an acceptably self-managing community. I have no idea what your complaint about TrWiki is, but at this time I have no reason to believe TrWiki is pervasively disfunctional. The only way Meta will get involved is if you present a pile of diffs showing clear and gross abuse by a significant proportion of TrWiki admins, such that the local community was unable to even attempt to fix it locally.
    By the way, how many admins does TrWiki have? The more admins they have, the more evidence would be required to demonstrate a pervasive community breakdown. Alsee (talk) 17:22, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can I comment here Alsee. Metawiki is multitude of communities as a coordinating wiki, its role is significantly different than the single function wikis, eg. an encyclopaedia in a language. The coordination takes many avenues.

A global RFC at metawiki by members of all communities—it is not metawiki community RFC, it is not a case of meta intervening. This is the place for those crosswiki conversations and implementations that allow for the global introduction of rules and processes that can apply to all wiki. Examples of things that are outputs are the introduction of stewards, global abusefilter, and AAR. RFCs are one avenue.

In an answer to your question ...

  • azWP: a = 16; ia = 6; b = 3; c = 0; o = 0
  • trWP: a = 25; ia = 5; b = 6; c = 3; o = 3
Whereas the local metawiki community itself is more concerned with the orderly implementation of the local functions that have been assigned to the community, and that is the day-to-day functioning of the wiki and its community to edit, and to mange the functions controlled here.  — billinghurst sDrewth 02:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing frivolous there, there is no global arbitration committe as meta itself says, and as other two admins state: Meta is not an appeal court, the communities are self-managing and if an admin blocks then that is up to the community. Meta does not intervene there.
It is not something I deduced or made-up. it is something the two meta admins state.
+ clearly, one would assume on wikipedia meta-commumity does not dictate how to name pages but after seeing AZwiki being forced to re-name an article in accordance with the wishes of meta-community, one can no longer think so... --Ruhubelent (talk) 18:47, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, the two desysops on azwiki were emergency desysops due to wheel warring, and stewards declined to do any actions on azwiki as a result of the RFC. Stewards can emergency desysop for wheel warring on any wiki, even English Wikipedia. But desysopping for other reasons, very rarely. --Rschen7754 04:06, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rschen7754, Cekli829 was not desysoped due to wheel warring, he was not even complained about it. Full stop. A steward DID do an action there. A steward changed a page title there. Here is the link of the section of the talk page of the related article, written by the steward himself/herself: https://az.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=M%C3%BCzakir%C9%99:Erm%C9%99ni_soyq%C4%B1r%C4%B1m%C4%B1&oldid=5326864#Page_name Full stop. --Ruhubelent (talk) 15:09, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is the crucial quote:

"Turkish Wikipedia is a self-managing community. Stewards have no authority to intervene, it is not their role. Your only means for resolution is with that community."

Let me translate it:

"The Turkish Wikipedia admins may do as they please, unless they get tangled up in an irrelevant technicality such as wheel warring. You have no recourse."

Please do not interpret this as a stab against the Turkish Wikipedia, or a particular steward, or stewards in general. It's not anyone's fault, that's simply how things work.

Discussing here whether someone got blocked for their opinion or not is beside the point. The real point is this: if a participant in this discussion actually went on to criticize a local admin and indeed got blocked by him, with the block log reading "I'm blocking you because you criticized me in the Meta-Wiki RfC", nothing would happen - the above quote still applies. What is the purpose of this discussion then, and what sort of message is being sent to the editors?

It's high time to discuss how to improve the process. I'd say merely improving it won't be sufficient - a reform is needed. GregorB (talk) 10:00, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Great question, you mean "nothing would happen even if a local admin blocked someone for criticising him". I could have agreed with that like the two admins of metawiki, the problem occurs here: something happened when it came to AZwiki. An admin was sanctioned for something he did locally, AZwiki was DICTATED to re-name a certian page. It is a political step, meta just dicated a political decision. That are the double standards. As "nothing would happen", nothing had to happen to that AZwiki admin as well but something rather than nothing happened --Ruhubelent (talk) 09:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Azerbaijani Wikipedia is still being dictated by meta admins on how to name pages edit

@WikiBayer:, a meta admin who, seemingly, does not even speak Azerbaijani and thus not able to clarify what the sources say, is changing page names on AZ.wiki: https://az.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Erm%C9%99ni_soyq%C4%B1r%C4%B1m%C4%B1&oldid=5223680 --Ruhubelent (talk) 07:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Turkmen:, bu sayfaya bakınız. "Meta yerel vikilerin iç işlerine karışamaz" diye meta adminlerin kendi ifadeleri mevcut. Metanın AZ.wiki'ye uyguladığı politik diktalara itibar etmeyin onlara karşı durunuz. Wikipedia bir dildeki akademik kaynaklar ne diyorsa ona göre şekillenmelidir, METAdaki adminlerin politik görüşlerine göre değil. Bu diktaya boyun eğmek yerine gelin siz de burada sesinizi çıkartın --Ruhubelent (talk) 07:53, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Verman1:, gelin sözünü ettiğim sayfa bu. Tüm AZ.wiki adminleri gelsin bu diktaya bu çifte standarta bu ikiyüzlülüğe karşı dursunlar. Meta adminlar kendisi diyecek "meta içişlere karışamaz" ama AZ.wiki'ye gelince AZ akademik kaynaklar ne dediğini yok sayarak size politik diktada bulunarak kendi politik görüşlerini AZ.wiki'ye kabul ettirecekler, yok öyle yağma. Karşı duralım bu çifte standarta bu ikiyüzlülüğe. Tüm adminleri toplayın lütfen, hepimiz tek tek ilgili meta adminlerini burada Ping'leyerek açıklama talep edelim --Ruhubelent (talk) 07:57, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhubelent Reversing vandalism is the main task of Global Rollbacker. Spreading false information violates the terms of use, even if they are based on incorrect sources. Meta is project-wide and meta/the global community is also about compliance with the usage regulations in other projects.--𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 👤💬 08:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dictating your (or other admins') political views is not a 'reversing vandalism`. Nor is the opposite of your political views is a false information. Wikipedia pages are to be named in compliance with academic sources in the language of the relevant WIki, not to be named in compliance with political dictations of meta admins. --Ruhubelent (talk) 09:35, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What is the determination of "false information"? UN hasn't recognized the Armenian Genocide, so the organization is also working on the basis of "false information"? Pushing the POV agenda violates the terms of use Wikibayer. --Verman1 (talk) 08:27, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Verman1, it would be irrelevant even if the UNO recognised it as AZ wiki is to represent what the academic sources in Azerbaijani langauge say, not what UNO says. --Ruhubelent (talk) 12:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Comment = edit

I just saw @Ruhubelent: not part of the AZ Wiki community.
Thank you for taking a stand against outside interference. :-) You get involved and have no experience in crosswiki work and no contributions to the AZ wiki.-- 𝐖𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐁𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 👤💬 09:39, 14 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevant. You [arguably] do not even understand Azerbaijani. double-standard of yours (meta community) is still there even if I was completely rookie. --Ruhubelent (talk) 09:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By the way WikiBayer, I have initiated the process of reverting your (meta's) dictation. Soon, the page title you have dictated will be reverted as it violates the rules of AZwiki (: AZwiki will no longer obey your dictations, your double-standards your ... --Ruhubelent (talk) 10:02, 14 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]