Requests for comment/Hostage situation in Russian Wikipedia

The following request for comments is closed. Closed as inactive, no activity in 11 months.


A hostage situation in Russian Wikipedia edit

This is an appeal for help from one of the users of Russian Wikipedia. If this page is not the right place for it, feel free to move it to the proper location within meta.wikimedia.org.

A politically and legally hazardous situation has formed in Russian Wikipedia. The means of resolving it within Russian Wikipedia have been exhausted.

After a several-months long conflict, the Arbitration Commitee, made a very strange and unprecedented decision.

In clause 2.3 they declared that they had "established" that a (randomly selected) group of users of Russian Wikipedia, including me (Пернатый Змей), are administrators of an opposition non-WikiMedia website.

Only some of the defendants did acknowledge themselves as such. I, in particular, did not. Therefore, Wikipedia users' privacy was invaded. I am afraid, further invasions were secretly made, when they tried to investigate the case.

Commenting whether or not a Wikipedia user administers other web resources (trying to prove that he does not, or saying that he does) would heavily compromise his privacy. The state of human rights in Russia being as it is, Wikipedia users' privacy is crucial.

Furthermore (clause 3.6), the alleged admins of that site were charged with the task of purging it of alleged attack pages against Wikipedia users under pain of permanently blocking their Wikipedia accounts.

Clause 3.7 allows any admin to block anyone who he thinks is a participant (not necessarily admin) of the accused resource.

It was not demonstrated that the people allegedly offended had tried to contact the administration of that website. The attack pages were never specified. Any admin of Russian Wikipedia is empowered to determine whether a certain existing or future page of a third-party resource is offensive.

Effectively, the governing body of Russian Wikipedia (the Arbitration Commitee and administrators) has attempted to censor a non-WikiMedia resource, taking users of Russian Wikipedia as hostages.

The Arbitration Commitee of Russian Wikipedia seems unable to understand how grave the political and legal consequences of its decision are, or, more probably, has lost the freedom of action.

It is therefore in the best interests of WikiMedia Foundation as a whole to investigate the whole situation, forming an independent opinion of it at first-hand, and to offer Russian Wikipedia proper assistance and direction, which would help it to avoid collapse. I repeat, it is crucial, that the investigation will be taken at first hand and will not rely on the reports by people involved in Russian Wikipedia, as their view is likely to be biased. That is why I have given only a minimum of information, wishing not to influence WikiMedia's decision.

F. Serpent 07:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(moved here from WM:RFH)

Comments edit

This F. Serpent is a radical Russian nationalist and also homosexualist. Don't trust him. MountainBlueAllah 00:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Allow the meta community to investigate this matter as necessary; you seem to have formed an opinion based on your interactions within the ru wikipedia. ----Anonymous DissidentTalk 03:57, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: MountainBlueAllah has been banned infinitely in Russian Wikipedia because of mass sockpuppetry and many NPA violations. — Kalan ? 16:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]