Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-05-16/In the media

French Wikipedia grapples with names and pronouns for transgender people
Magazine Friction published an open letter from French LGBTQIA+ Wikipedia editors, reacting to and protesting the outcome of a heated community survey on the French Wikipedia on whether to include the pre-transition names of transgender people (deadnames) in articles, in what circumstances, and where.

In 2022, an essay was written on the French Wikipedia recommending style conventions for transgender identity; nonetheless, edit wars continued over the precise details, culminating in the poll. For people who had met notability criteria prior to transitioning, the results of that poll were narrowly in favor of including pre-transition names in the lead, and a larger majority agreed they should be mentioned in the body. The discussion was covered, while it was ongoing, in Numerama and France Inter and later by Le Monde.

During the discussion there were charges of canvassing. Sinkra, the president of Les sans pagEs (the French equivalent of Women in Red) was given a three-day block for canvassing/meatpuppetry after she posted a notification to a public Mastodon instance asking people to participate. Other editors, who shared the post to ask for specific votes, were more heavily sanctioned. The poll, in its section on canvassing, argued that the notifications swayed the results for amounts ranging 1% to 6% for the different questions. Several comments referenced le wokisme.

The authors of the open letter argued that within the discussion, they were subject to unfair accusations of bias due to their identities. They stated they regretted the results of the poll, as well as another poll from four years ago, which had closed with consensus against the use of the French gender-neutral pronoun iel. They applauded the work being done to improve articles relating to transgender topics, while stating too many editors had left due to the editing environment. Previously, in October 2022 Le Nouvel Obs published an open letter from LGBT public figures denouncing the French Wikipedia for misgendering them, deadnaming them, maintaining pre-transition photos, and attacks on editors who denounced such practices.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees gave comments in their March 2024 public conversation, in response to claims that the French Wikipedia had become "actively hostile and in need of office actions", saying that the Board would have the Trust and Safety department analyze the situation and that it "will commit to supporting T&S findings and any related actionable steps".

Similar discussions have been occurring on the English Wikipedia, with the recent discussions and policy/guideline development around topics like MOS:DEADNAME and MOS:GENDERID (as well as a thematically related essay, No queerphobes, which was in the last couple weeks written, moved to No queerphobia, nominated for deletion, closed as keep, then brought to deletion review but speedily withdrawn). In March, a Request for Comment on the names of deceased trans people, having sought to expand MOS:DEADNAME, was found no consensus (with the closer saying "Our existing policies and guidelines, including WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:BDP continue to determine the standard for inclusion of material in articles").

– BR, YFNS, J


 * Footnotes

Russian government cracks down on VPNs, we wonder which wiki will wilt?
In the last issue of The Signpost, we reported the political censorship occurring on the Russian Wikipedia's new fork, Ruviki, as first revealed by Novaya Gazeta. In the meantime, the Streisand effect has kicked in as national and international outlets, including 404 Media (who cited our story), PC Gamer, Agi (in Italian) and Sveriges Television (SVT) (in Swedish) all noticed the fork rewriting Russian reality.

SVT also remarked on a worrying sign for the real Russian Wikipedia. On March 1 Roskomnadzor, the censorship agency of the Russian government, announced that they will enforce an order designed to ban all forms of advertising and promotion of circumvention tools such as VPN services. Anton Gorelkin, the deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies, and Communications, stated on Telegram that there were allegedly "legal grounds for blocking Wikipedia", since the site hosts an article about VPNs, while adding that legislators would have to "make sure this doesn't cause significant inconvenience for users". As reported by SVT, in April Gorelkin reiterated his hostility towards Wikipedia, stating that "it [was] clear that Wikipedia has become an instrument in the ongoing information war to delete pro-Russian opinions", and that Russian authorities needed to create sources "where citizens can obtain objective and non-propagandist information".

Although the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, Maksut Shadayev, recently excluded the option to block Wikipedia as a whole, at least for now, it's clear that the already turbulent relationship between the platform and the national government is hitting a new low. If we consider that WMF chapter Wikimedia RU was forced to close in December, and that the fork full of censored material is currently on the rise, it's safe to say that the cloud looming over the real Russian Wikipedia is ominous.

Nevertheless, the Russian government cannot force the real Russian Wikipedia to close, since the site's servers are located outside of Russia, as are many of the editors who contribute to it every day. Editors located inside Russia might be forced to stop editing, but those located in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics (e.g. the Baltic republics, Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan) are outside Russia's direct control. What's more, other Russian-speaking editors live in Israel, former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America and Australia. Closing off VPNs to Russian residents will only mean that they will have no influence on the real Russian Wikipedia's content. On the other hand, Ruviki doesn't have enough of its own editors to keep up with 1.9 million articles, so its articles on the Russian invasion of Ukraine will likely be originally written by Ukrainians, and then heavily censored by bots, removing any sense of reality from the article in the process. And if the real Russian Wikipedia is forced to close, where will Ruviki copy its articles from to begin with?

– S and O

In brief

 * We're now on a (Unicode) mission: On 28 March, the Wikimedia Foundation officially became an associate member of the Unicode Consortium, thus solidifying the already existing ties between the two organizations (for example, through the CLDR project). In virtue of this announcement, the WMF joins a list that already includes the likes of Oracle, SAS and UC Berkeley Linguistics, among others.
 * Chris comes alive: Also in March, the WMF's Director of Machine Learning, Chris Albon, sat down with Italian portal StartupItalia for a brief interview (in Italian), where he broke down topics such as last year's most popular Wikipedia articles and, even more notably, the Foundation's approach to AI technology. More specifically, Albon talked about tools such as ContentTranslation, as well as the recently tested ChatGPT plugin; he also stated that while AI "represents a huge opportunity to help expand the work of volunteers on Wikipedia and [the other] Wikimedia projects", such technologies "work better as a support and boost to human-made work".
 * Channeling rage for good: In April, The Georgetown Voice reported that the University's Massive Data Institute, along with 10 other affiliated groups, hosted an edit-a-thon centered around National Women's History Month, which aimed to help close the gender gap between men and women bios on Wikipedia. The event, where Wikimedia DC Institutional Partnerships Manager Ariel Cetrone served as a trainer for students in attendance, reportedly proved successful, with participants adding roughly 3,200 words to the site, and 25 people signing up as Wikipedia editors.


 * Sister Act... to make more Sisters Act: Society of the Sacred Heart Associate and author Carole Sargent recently wrote a "Wikipedia-style" article for the Global Sisters Report, reflecting on the reasons why she has embarked on a personal mission to create and improve articles about notable Catholic sisters on a platform "where everyone might find them", as part of the Women in Red and Women in Religion WikiProjects. Sargent, who is known by the username Fortunaa on Wikipedia, has published 43 original articles to date, around half of which are bios of Catholic sisters, including a good article on Regina Purtell. In her GSR article, Sargent also made "a call to action for any sister, or [friend] of sisters" who would like to help add information about key members of their congregation to the encyclopedia.
 * $925,000 mansion for sale complete with own Wiki article: The Des Moines Register reports that a 1931 4-bedroom, 4-bath mansion comes complete with its own sunroom, a "great room" with a great beamed ceiling, a kitchen/dining room to die for (check out the photos), multiple murals, a backyard Venus sculpture, a National Register of Historic Places plaque and the headlined feature, its own article in Wikipedia.


 * Wait, we never endorsed drug dealing in here!: Upon announcing a successful joint operation with the National Police and other international corps, the Spanish Tax Agency said 31 people were arrested due to their involvement in a cocaine trafficking network; the mastermind of the criminal organization, known for conducting various drug trafficking operations online, was confusingly nicknamed "Wikipedia Narco", which sparked a humorous comment from Wikipedia Weekly user Torsten Kleinz.
 * Trade fair share: From 9 to 13 May, a delegation of Wikimedia Italy took part in the International Book Fair in Turin for the first time in their history, as guests of the Italian Libraries Association's panel. As reported by online portal TorinOggi, the Wikimedia staff and volunteers hosted a Wikisource marathon centered around the volumes that survived the Nazi book burnings in 1933, while also raising awareness about the association's educational projects available for libraries, archives, museums and schools.

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