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In the media

Jailed Saudi blogger wins award; PR editing and Wiki-embarassment; Pakistan's third-richest person?

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By Gamaliel and Saqib

Wales accepts International Writer of Courage award on behalf of Saudi blogger

Earlier this year, Jimmy Wales was one of many people who called for the freeing of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi on an organized "Day of Action" protest.

On October 6, jailed Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi was awarded the 2015 PEN Pinter Prize's "International Writer of Courage" award. Jimmy Wales accepted the award on behalf of Badawi and his family. Wales is an honorary board member of the Raif Badawi Foundation, which was founded by Badawi's wife, Ensaf Haidar. Badawi has been imprisoned since his arrest in 2012. He was convicted of "violating Islamic values and propagating liberal thought" through his blog and sentenced to ten years in prison and a thousand lashes. Badawi has already received fifty lashes and may not survive the infliction of the remaining lashes, a sentence that has been described as "a slow death". Badawi's arrest and conviction have been the target of worldwide protest and condemnation. In his speech, Wales condemned the British government for not taking action:

Another man who has been the victim of government imprisonment is Syrian open-source software developer Bassel Khartabil. Both Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation recently expressed concern for Khartabil, a Wikipedia contributor who has been imprisoned since 2012. Khartabil's current whereabouts are unknown since he was removed from the Adra Prison on October 3. G

Pakistan's third-richest person?

On October 8, Pakistani sports-hero turned politician Imran Khan was slammed for quoting Wikipedia during a press conference in which he said that "As per Wikipedia Nawaz Sharif is ranked as third richest in Pakistan and yet doesn't list under top 10,000 tax payers in Pakistan".[1] People take to social media to criticise Imran Khan for citing information from Wikipedia, with many saying that Imran Khan needs to conduct actual research rather than relying on unreliable Wikipedia to get information. The statement even sparked a hashtag "#AsPerWikipedia" trend on Twitter where Pakistani Twitter users made fun of Khan for citing Wikipedia and exchanged a variety of tendentious remarks. One Twitterati @real_sumaira went as far tweeting that "#AsPerWikipedia General Raheel Sharif is on no 5 in the list of most powerful personalities of the world."

A day later, Khan again cited Wikipedia and reiterate the same statement during a political rally. The reaction to the Khan's statement was also seen on Pakistani TV talk shows where Khan was lambasted for using Wikipedia as his source of information. Many local news publications also published Khan's statement in news articles. A Pakistani news channel Dunya News even reported that "Imran Khan won't be quoting Wikipedia anytime soon" following the chaos that his statement has created.[2]

It should be noted that both the press conference and political rally were part of a by-election campaign in Lahore.

However, it is yet to be determined from which Wikipedia article Khan drew the claim that "Sharif is third richest person of Pakistan". Thoroughly scrutinising through Wikipedia pages, such a fact couldn't be found. In-fact Sharif's own English Wikipedia biography page states that the "Sharif family are the fourth wealthiest family in Pakistan", not that he himself is the third-wealthiest. S

In brief

The Belarusian Wikipedia manual
  • So you want a Wikipedia article: News.com.au talks with some "Wikipedia rejects" who failed to get Wikipedia articles on themselves via Articles for Creation. They warn that "Creating an entry on the online encyclopaedia could bring more embarrassment than kudos" (Oct. 6)
  • Wales on PR editing: Jimmy Wales told The Times that Wikipedia needed to boost the number of active editors in order to combat "public relations spin". Wales said it was "against all of our values" for the encyclopedia to "become a PR platform". The Times opined that "It would be fatal to the flawed but idealistic enterprise of Wikipedia if its content were left to those whose intellectual curiosity extends no further than their own reputations. The wisdom of crowds must not be supplanted by the dumbness of diminution." (Oct. 5)
  • Crowdfunding a Belarusan Wikipedia manual: Belarus Digest reports on a crowdfunding campaign to produce a guide to editing Wikipedia called Wіkі-manual. Manage knowledge! (Oct. 2)

G

  1. ^ "As per @Wikipedia Nawaz Sharif is ranked as 3rd richest in Pakistan & doesn't list under top 10,000 tax payers in Pakistan". Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  2. ^ "Banter reaches peak as #AsPerWikipedia trends on Twitter". Dunya News. Retrieved 9 October 2015.



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  • Re: Belarusian Wikipedia manual... worse than Wikipe-tan? Check. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • 4.3 million Belarusian rubles, the crowdfunded amount, is the equivalent of $250 U.S. (Current exchange rate: 17,175 to 1.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:09, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • And 86% funded already! But seriously, even though the amount is correct and with the up-to-date (official?) exchange rate, there is a question of whether anybody actually uses that exchange rate, e.g. an official rate might just be a number put down every day by the government for how much people can take out of the country, whereas folks who really want to take out money would likely use the Russian ruble/Belorussian ruble grey market, then convert the Russian rubles once they are abroad.
The question of taste on the cover illustration is likely very culturally-sensitive. My feeling is that, like readers of the New York Times fashion mag or riders of the London or Paris metros in the 1970s, this would be pretty tame stuff to most Belorussian readers.
Finally, we should wonder why the Belorussian organization is asking for less than $300 from crowdsourcing when they could likely get that with 2 e-mails to SF? My guess is that, like Russia, Belarus prohibits most funding by international organizations to domestic organizations. They are afraid that the CIA might gain leverage over the local Wikiorgs. Alexander Lukashenko is the last dictator in Europe, and we should all encourage our fellow Wikipedians in Belarus in their activities. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]


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