Talk:Alexandra Elbakyan

Images
Some related discussion is at Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:44, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Silly statement

 * "The New York Times has compared her to Edward Snowden for leaking information and because she avoids American law by residing in Russia."

I can see comparing Elbakyan to a whistleblower. You could even say she and Snowden both leak information. Whether she resides in Russia seems to be unknown, though, and I find the "avoid American law by residing in Russia" especially egregious. In Snowden's case, you have an actual American who fled the country to "avoid law", whereas Elbakyan has never been an American citizen. She lived in Russia before Sci-Hub was even an idea, so it's not unreasonable to think she might be there even without "American law" looming. And again, she might not actually even be there.

For now, I hesitate to remove this sourced statement (and its source) from such an undeveloped article, but it's something I may address in the future if no one else does. --BDD (talk) 21:31, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with this statement, all information in the page points towards her residing in Kazakhstan, which is not a part of Russia.--NZVortex (talk) 14:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)


 * This has now been fixed in the article, see the lead section.--FeralOink (talk) 08:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

The nature of her work
There is next to nothing in this piece as to the nature of what she has done - pirating and making otherwise costly academic journal articles freely available on the net for researchers, students, the public - which makes her notable for inclusion in Wiki. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/meet-the-woman-who-put-50-million-stolen-articles-online-so-you-can-read-them-for-free-a6964176.html Irish Melkite (talk) 15:29, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I added an internet pirate definition to the lede, referenced to this article.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:48, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

The word 'pirate' is a derogatory term coined by the copyright lobby to deter infringement. While 'pirate' as a title is celebrated in the free culture and copy left circles, it definitely has a negative connotation to the general public. This directly violates Wikipedia's guidelines on biographies w.r.t. neutral portrayal of personalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Opening_paragraph The article you have referenced is a robinhood romanticisation of her work which also mentions that she is not hiding from responsibility but from unfair trial. She is a hacktivist, 'pirate in hiding' should be removed. demonshreder (talk) Sat Oct 27 18:06:54 2018 UTC
 * We document what RS say, including derogatory terms. I have enclosed it in quote marks and noted that she is "described as", IOW Wikipedia is not saying she is. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 18:38, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand Wikipedia's stance but "Internet pirate in hiding" doesn't do justice to her work. It would rather be replaced by The Verge's title - "Science's Pirate Queen" (https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16985666/alexandra-elbakyan-sci-hub-open-access-science-papers-lawsuit).Demonshreder (talk) 07:35, 1 November 2018 (UTC)


 * After reading this discussion, I made some changes. I kept the Verge article in the body, removed the 'pirate in hiding' phrase and then moved the associated (and definitely romanticised!) reference from The Independent to the "Further Reading" section toward the end. See what you think, if that is okay.--FeralOink (talk) 08:58, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

About Wikipedia in her blog
This is the link. Ishiai (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've added a few works which according to Google Scholar are cited in the academic literature. Nemo 15:19, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Project S
Isn't it time to do an article on Project S??? Or maybe I missed it... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.178.216 (talk) 08:02, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

External links: Add new page?
Recently she's added a link advertising her skills on every SciHub-opened paper. I cannot share it because Wikipedia blocks it, but if you use SciHub (as I'm sure you must if you edit here), you'll find it.

Do we include this? It includes a biography and a list of her works. It might be useful. puggo (talk) 19:46, 25 May 2020 (UTC)


 * An out-of-date link has been added to the page, but it can't be updated because that link now matches the spam filter. See Spam_blacklist. I don't know why Wikipedia would have it blocked but apparently this can be disputed. Prehistoricmanthe2nd (talk) 02:01, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * A court order prohibits anybody with knowledge of the order from facilitating access to Sci-Hub as long as the site keeps violating American Chemical Society copyrights. There have been past incidents where links have been banned to prevent similar IP violations.  Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:32, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Luckily I'm not subject to jurisdiction of US courts. What link shall I add? — kashmīrī  TALK  20:56, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Kashmir, even if you are not subject to the jurisdiction of US courts, English Wikipedia might be. Well, I think it is. Um, I don't know. Instead of Wikilawyering, which I am NOT qualified to do, I would suggest either 1) not adding the link; or 2) noting what Prehistoricmanthe2nd said, that the link is on Meta's global spam blacklist and disputing it if you feel inclined to do so. I am kind of curious if the out-of-date link can be updated to a current link that is not on the spam blacklist. I will dig around a bit to see. I doubt I'll be successful though.--FeralOink (talk) 06:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I was unsuccessful, however, I did update her BLP here.--FeralOink (talk) 09:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)