Requests for comment/Government propaganda on the Azerbaijani Wikipedia

The following request for comments is closed. The proposer of this RFC does not meet the criteria for opening an RFC. If necessary, an eligible user can open a new one. --MF-W 16:43, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello alltogether. I noticed something during the review of other-language Wikipedias and was surprised that the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't have noticed it yet. I know that the English Wikipedia, for example, has lower quality requirements than the German one. The Eastern-European Wikipedia administrators are often even openly nationalist minded, the Arabic-speaking, Persian and Turkish Wikipedias give larger importance to religion. However, it becomes particularly questionable if the encyclopedia is misused as a platform for historical revisionism and open war-propaganda during the en:2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. I know that the Armenian wikiedia also has some bias, but obviously, it is not that extreme as the Azerbaijani one. The Armenian wikipedia is small (and the country is far less-populated and much poorer that Azerbaijan). I suppose that Azerbaijani Wikipedia community is less active comparing, e.g., to English and Russian Wikipedias, and, due to its size, their admins stand with the Azerbaijani government which denies and fails to recognize Armenian Genocide. I would be grateful if an administrator with knowledge of Turkish or Azerbaijani would control it. As far as I know, content-wise Meta does not intervene in local projects, i.e. it's up to the community of a certain language to decide. Am I wrong?

For instance, in the Azerbaijani-speaking Wikipedia the Armenian genocide is called "Armenian genocide lie" (not even the Turkish Wikipedia is calling it a lie as a page name), and the Armenian minority in Turkey instead is accused of a "genocide to the Turks" which is not only an absurd fact-twisting but also a mockery of the victims. However, categorisations such as "Armenian hypocrisy/lies" and the article "Armenian Terrorism" knock the bottom out of the barrel and cross the border to racism. Recently, an admin has moved all articles related to the Khojaly massacre to "Genocide in Khodzhali" and blocked the page for editing. Generally, every massacre of Azerbaijanis is called genocide, what ridicules scientific standards about genocides.
A historical example for the systematic Pan-Turkism and Turko-Fascism in Azerbaizani Wikipedias: There was a political Azerbaijani state-based propaganda campaign which wanted to Turkicize and Azerificate non-Turkic and non-Azeri prominent historical figures, such as Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi and another Persian legendary figure and warior Babak Khoramdin. The propaganda campaigen somehow was extended to Azerbaijani wikipedias, possibly by Azerbaijani sate-related adminstrators. It is a following of the same political propaganda act as in Campaign on granting Nizami the status of the national poet of Azerbaijan. This not just about Azerification of non-Azeri figures even they Azerificated or Turkicized some non-Turkic ancient ethnicities or cultural issues such as Medes (Median people) and Parthians which are Indo-Iranian people and non-Turkic. This is an exact forgery of history, state propaganda, and racism. Hereby, I want a deep investigation and dismissal of all admins who are involved and supportive of these inappropriate actions.

I would like to tell these strange and openly racist distortions of facts to Wikimedia. I already mentioned it in the German Wikipedia but didn't get an answer. This case is serious. It is open racism and a harsh contradiction against the principles and basics of Wikipedia.--Elbeniyeh (talk) 12:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not an admin but I agree with you. Also, there was huge edit wars going on, on all the Armenian/Azaraie/ Nagorno Karabakh War pages. Expertwikiguy (talk) 03:11, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

This is a mix of the issues we have seen on the Croatian Wikipedia and the Kazakh Wikipedia. The Kazakh Wikipedia is virtually state-controlled, and the Croatian Wikipedia was, up until recently, controlled by a small group of far-right nationalist admins. The azwiki community is likely going to resist, and outside intervention could result in huge blown-up discussions as we have seen with the hrwiki discussions. Voltairacus (talk) 21:02, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've asked for closure of this RFC because the initiator is not eligible at <250 edits. But such a RFC also would need to address what has changed since Requests for comment/Do something about azwiki. --Rs chen 7754 21:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So let’s ping Mardetanha. By the way, this RFC should not be closed since it deals about a real issue. I could endorse it if you discredit its author. --Pols12 (talk) 02:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much to comment as I don't find this RFC in a Good Faith but I myself have protected the page Erməni soyqırımı and since then it has not been moved or changed. is everything perfect on Azwiki? no, I don't see any good solution from outside. sadly I Can't invest more time on these issues especially during the pandemic and my busy life Mardetanha ^talk 06:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]