Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-06-19/In the media
English WP editor glocked after BLP row on Italian 'pedia
Italian Wikipedia controversy leads to global lock of English Wikipedia contributor's account
Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano reports (Google Translation) on what it calls a "bizarre soap opera" surrounding the Italian Wikipedia biography of Alessandro Orsini (it). According to his university website, Orsini is an Associate Professor at LUISS University of Rome, where he teaches General Sociology and Sociology of Terrorism in the Department of Political Science, as well as a long-time (2011–2022) Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for International Studies. He has also written as a journalist for Il Messaggero and Il Fatto Quotidiano.
The dispute on the Italian Wikipedia was focused on whether his biography was unduly negative. It led to the global lock of User:Gitz6666, a user with around 7,500 edits and a clean block log on the English Wikipedia, though some prior blocks on Italian Wikipedia. Gitz6666 had recently been a party in the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland arbitration case; the case decision contained no findings of fact or remedies concerning them.
According to the Il Fatto Quotidiano article, Gitz6666 and another user, now also blocked, had been defending Orsini, arguing that the Italian Wikipedia biography had become an attack page. The press article agrees with their assessment, pointing out that the biography paints an unbalanced picture of the reception of Orsini's book Anatomy of the Red Brigades (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011). The Italian Wikipedia article, currently protected by an admin, acknowledges that the book won an award but then focuses exclusively on negative reviews, including one published on an ex-terrorist's personal blog, while positive reviews (e.g. [1][2][3][4]) or mixed reviews (e.g. [5][6]) in reliable sources are not represented. The Il Fatto Quotidiano article, written by Lorenzo Giarelli, ties the biography controversy to critical comments Orsini has made about NATO.
The global lock of Gitz6666's account was made by a steward, User:Sakretsu. The rationale given was "violation of the UCoC, threatening and intimidating behaviour". – AK
World Book Encyclopedia, 2023 edition
Like many of us, including Jimmy Wales, Benj Edwards grew up reading the World Book Encyclopedia. His article in Ars Technica, "I just bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing", explains that there is still a demand, in the thousands per year, for a print encyclopedia, mostly from schools and public libraries. He even gives a link to the World Book website, where you can buy your own copy for $1,199, and says that he can occasionally find a copy on Amazon for $799. Slightly older editions go for much less.
Advantages of owning your own print encyclopedia include
Every morning as I wait for the kids to get ready for school, I pull out a random volume and browse. I've refreshed my knowledge on many subjects and enjoy the deliberate stability of the information experience.
Disadvantages include explaining the purchase to your family, and the shark photo on the "spinescape". – S
Holocaust and Polish nationalism: Critic proposes history advisory board
In The Forward, Shira Klein (chair of the Department of History at Chapman University) accuses English Wikipedia of "repeatedly allow[ing] rogue editors to rewrite Holocaust history and make Jews out to be the bad guys", reiterating and expanding her criticism of the recent ArbCom decision in the "World War II and the history of Jews in Poland" case (see also last issue's "In the media"). The case had been prompted by an academic paper (Signpost review) where Klein and Jan Grabowski had identified "dozens of examples of Holocaust distortion which, taken together, advanced a Polish nationalist narrative, whitewashed the role of Polish society in the Holocaust and bolstered harmful stereotypes about Jews." Klein also gave a keynote speech about "Wikipedia's Distortion of Holocaust History" at the Wikihistories conference on June 9.
In her Forward article, Klein argues that "The problem is not the individual arbitrators, nor even ArbCom as a whole; the committee's mandate is to judge conduct, never content. This is a good policy. [...] But this leaves a gaping hole in Wikipedia's security apparatus. Its safeguards only protect us from fake information when enough editors reach a consensus that the information is indeed fake. When an area is dominated by a group of individuals pushing an erroneous point of view, then wrong information becomes the consensus."
Klein proposes that the Wikimedia Foundation (which "boasts an annual revenue of $155 million" and has previously intervened "to stem disinformation in Chinese Wikipedia, Saudi Wikipedia [sic] and Croatian Wikipedia, with excellent results"), "must harness subject-matter experts to assist volunteer editors":
In cases where Wikipedia's internal measures fail repeatedly, the foundation should commission scholars — mainstream scholars who are currently publishing in reputable peer-reviewed presses and work in universities unencumbered by state dictates [apparently a reference to the situation in Poland] — to weigh in. In the case of Wikipedia's coverage of Holocaust history, there is a need for an advisory board of established historians who would be available to advise editors on a source's reliability, or help administrators understand whether a source has been misrepresented. [...] This is no radical departure from Wikipedia's ethos of democratized knowledge that anyone can edit. This is an additional safeguard to ensure Wikipedia's existing content policies are actually upheld."
– H
Tenth Russian fine this year, Foundation sues again
Reuters reports (citing Interfax) that on June 6, a Russian court "fined the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, 3 million roubles ($36,854) for refusing to delete an article on Ukraine's Azov battalion." According to Interfax, "This is the tenth time Wikipedia has been penalized in 2023 for not removing prohibited information. The ten fines total 15.9 million rubles." (See previous "In the media" about one of these fines that was issued in February: "Russia fines Wikipedia for failing to toe the party line on the Ukraine War".) Separately, on May 29 Interfax also reported that the Foundation was filing lawsuits against the Prosecutor-General's office and Roskomnadzor, "asking the court to invalidate Roskomnadzor's notices about violations of procedures governing dissemination of information on Wikipedia, as well as the Russian Prosecutor General's Office's demands for measures to be taken to restrict user access to this information." In November last year, the Foundation already reported it had several cases "pending before the Russian Courts including an appeal against a verdict where the Foundation was fined a total of 5 million rubles (the equivalent of approximately USD $82,000) for refusing to remove information from several Russian Wikipedia articles." – H
In brief
- "Best ever" citation needed no longer needed: BoingBoing felt certain they had located the best ever use of "[citation needed]" on Wikipedia. It was in the I've got your nose article. However, as might be expected with an encyclopedia updatable in real time, a reliable source was soon found, meaning that the "[citation needed]" tag is no more.
Discuss this story
Italian Wikipedia controversy leads to global lock of English Wikipedia contributor's account
I've been digging into the Orsini/Gitz case since it was raised on a well-known criticism site. My feeling is that if something like this had happened on en.wiki, things would have been very different. It.wiki does not have an arbcom, does not have a method for someone to appeal against a block on their talk page, does not have WP:INVOLVED and has a culture where, it seems, ordinary editors are not allowed to comment on actions taken by admins.
The Orsini article was written by a group of editors, including admins, who did not like his politics. Nothing wrong with that. I don't like his politics. But what they did was create an attack article, as illustrated by Andreas above and by the article in Il Fatto Quotidiano. The involved admins then used their position to block other editors who tried to bring the article to a more NPOV position. Gitz was blocked by one admin for a week and then, with nothing happening in between, a second admin extended the block to indefinite. The first block looks dubious to me. The second ridiculous. It is this second block that seems to have been made by an admin with a conflict of interest as, according to the Il Fatto Quotidiano report, they work for an organisation which Orsini has frequently criticised.
I've more or less stopped editing here coming up to ten years ago, because I thought admins too easily got away with bullying editors who pointed out their mistakes. But it.wiki has that problem in spades. My instinct is that, if something like the Orsini case happened here, the mob with pitchforks and flaming torches would soon be gathered at WP:ANI before heading on to Arbcom.
Gitz has reassured me that they have not made the sort of threats that the Italian stewards claim. They merely emailed the blocking admin to ask them to undo their block in the light of their conflict of interest. Gitz said that they would then voluntarily withdraw from the project. Gitz says that they were approached to comment to Il Fatto Quotidiano but declined to speak to them. (Just to be clear the approach was by a third party who had decided to approach the paper, i.e. the source for the article, not by a journalist from the paper.) Gitz also says that the blocking admin had identified themselves on-wiki and that this information remained there until after the incident flared up and was only revdeled subsequently. Gitz says that they were not the person who spotted that someone with the same name as the admin worked for the organisation criticised by Orsini. Another party had emailed Gitz to point out that someone with this name worked there, and Gitz merely replied that the admin had edited an it.wiki article on that organisation. These COI edits have since been hidden too. So Gitz did not out the admin and raised legitimate issues by email.
We cannot change what happens on it.wiki. Different Wikimedia projects are independent. People banned by Arbcom or the community here have been able to operate as admins on other projects and have remained on the boards of local chapters. But what has happened in this case is that members of it.wiki have decided without good justification to globally block an editor in good standing here. So what are en.wiki people going to do to assert our right to choose who contributes here without interference from another project? --Dronkle (talk) 12:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There is a structural problem from a combination of:
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Danieleb2000 (talk) 07:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Danieleb2000 (talk) 15:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Danieleb2000 (talk) 15:11, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll leave a comment on this since I got pinged above. I haven't read itwiki discussion on the Orsini article yet. To be honest, I haven't even read the article itself. I'm pretty busy these days as you can tell from my scarce contributions. However, it's not clear to me where this so-called "massive COI-editing" is. The second admin that indefinitely blocked Gitz didn't edit the Orsini article, nor did they discuss it. According to Gitz, when this admin joined Wikipedia, they created an article without a proper COI declaration. But even if that was true, I wouldn't know what to do with this information so many years later. Has there been a massive COI-editing on itwiki that I'm not aware of? I hope not.
As for Gitz's block on itwiki, let me give you some background. Gitz was indefinitely blocked on itwiki for the first time in January 2022. When Gitz appealed the block, the community giving him a second chance. The abovementioned admin was in favour of it at first, but then they changed their mind because of the tone of Gitz's replies. Nevertheless, Gitz was allowed to resume editing after one year and the community decided that he was to be blocked indefinitely again upon the first violation of the unblock conditions. This is why I find the change of the duration of Gitz's last block from 1 week to indefinite coherent. And this is also why I'm absolutely certain that Gitz wasn't blocked "because he was defending Orsini". The supposed relevance of any organization involvement in Gitz's block is just ridicolous. Many admins warned Gitz. Ironically, before being blocked by Actormusicus, Gitz himself that he was losing his temper and that he was discussing hot topics in open violation of the community-imposed sanction.
A brief look at the situation around the Orsini article tells me that editing it was difficult due to external pressure and meatpuppeting already (it was protected on the wrong version). Now any edit is even impossible due to legal threats. This should not surprise neither T&S nor stewards as I informed them in advance that legal actions were on the way.
Back on the main topic, ie. Gitz's global lock, Jayen says the Universal Code of Conduct is meant to make editors feel safe, and I take that to the letter. If Gitz wants to publish all of his mails related to this case on that criticism site, that can only make things easier for me. My lock is not based on a convenient TL;DR. Let's start off with this: perhaps can Gitz explain how I knew that legal actions were on the way?--Sakretsu (talk) 21:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, T&S is being informed of what is supposed to be known, but let's stop a minute to think about the probability that out of 121 it.wiki administrators and 33 stewards all of them are part of the NATO plot against Gitz6666. Vituzzu (talk) 07:23, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Nothing can justify harassment, nothing. Talking in circle about the details of a BLP is just a distraction from this. Vituzzu (talk) 10:07, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- The fundamental purpose of Wikipedia is that it produces accurate and balanced articles. if it does not do this nothing else matters. So your focusing on behaviour alone is fundamentally wrong even if what Gitz did genuinely was harassment, and I remain unconvicned that it was. Dronkle (talk) 10:17, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- You claim to remain unconvinced because it's a quite hard to swallow pill.
- You have failed to notice that writing an attack piece IS harassment of the target. It's just because of your WIkipedian mindset, you regard harassment of an insider as far more important than that of an outsider. Dronkle (talk) 10:33, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Today I learned that negative reviews = attack piece = harassment (*). Today I learned.
- And this sort of comment is why it is harder to believe you than Gitz. Gitz posted enough information on a certain off-Wiki site where it was possible to evaluate some of his claims. It was possible to see the current state of the Orsini BLP and to verify that it was biased and gave undue weight to negative factors. It was possible to look at the Fatto piece and check it against the current and past states of the BLP. It is possible to read Andreas's piece above and check that the reviews he links are positive and neutral as he says. But you provide no means to check what you claim. Instead you minimise the twisting of the truth that went on in the BLP. In English and some other Common Law courts witnesses swear or affirm "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Gitz seems to be committed to that concept even to the extent that he gets blocked rather than give up. He fought to make the Orsini article tell the whole truth and he was prevented from doing so by a group of it.wiki admins. I have been given reason to believe that, Gitz, that Andreas and that the writer of the Fatto piece are committed to giving an accurate representation of what has been going on. So when the author of the Fatto piece says that they tried to contact the blocking admin and that he declined to reply, then I assume that they tried messaging him through Wikipedia, or the social media sites they refer to, or that they rang him at work. There is no reason to doubt them. But when you (and two of the other Italian admins here who have referred to the attack piece as the WRONG VERSION,) talk about it in such flippant way, I get the impression that you have little interest in "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". You then all go on about Gitz having done something really bad but you can't tell me or the other people here about it but I should trust you all, and I ask myself why should I since the truth means so little to you. Especially when whatever he has meant to have done is supposedly too secret for Gitz, let alone the people here, to be told what it is but all four Italian admins who have turned up here seem to know what it is and members of Arbcom are dropping hints about it and I don't know who else has been told (Want to know a secret?) about it but you can't state it plainly and you can't tell Gitz. Dronkle (talk) 05:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- One of the attitudes I genuinely find to rank top among distusting things is spitting absolute and complex truths without a bare knowledge of events and facts. Yeah the truth means so little to me, I just want to realized the NATO plot. And ofc, all but four, regardless if anything had been shared with 121 Italian admins, 33 stewards and T&S staff. Vituzzu (talk) 06:46, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm sorry but the above comment is pretty difficult to understand. If I understand you correctly you are just repeating your assertion about a "NATO plot". Up until now, you are the only person to have used these words, suggesting that you may be constructing a strawman? Chances are good that even a hypothetical NATO employee would not have been acting on behalf of their hypothetical employer, but rather as a loose cannon...
- You also keep mentioning 121 Italian admins. Did some or all of them sign off on your global lock of Gitz6666? If so, where can this document be consulted? Could you also link to a document showing the support of 33 stewards (or any stewards other than yourselves) and/or trust and safety? -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 07:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- My global lock? You're so careless about this case that you don't even know I didn't lock anybody.
- Please act professionally. You said . This means to me that it is not an abuse of language to include you in a collective "your glock". Your familiarity with the case and your adamant prose here suggest that you were involved in the decision... if that is incorrect I apologize. As for the strawman which you, and only you, seem to be advancing, here it is again: -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 08:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Apologies accepted. Vituzzu (talk) 09:39, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- So this thing which Gitz is supposed to have done, which you haven't set out clearly to him because it is so ultra-confidential and top secret and which you can't possibly state here, is so top secret and ultra-confidential that it has been shared with the best part of 200 people. I'm not talking about the evidence. I'm not demanding to see the emails. I am asking for a clear statment of the nature of this harassing thing that Gitz is supposed to have done. Dronkle (talk) 08:52, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- You should dedice, sharing information with entitled and NDA-bound persons is either good or bad? I've just replied to Gitz6666 through VRT, I refused to make this through private emails and I actually preferred to leave it to other people. The nature is "using knowledge of private information to condition other legitimate editors". I hope to have given you enough material to interleave with taunts about on a critics' forum. Vituzzu (talk) 09:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- "condizionare"... -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 10:14, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Sakretsu, that's a very weird answer coming from a steward in your situation. I hadn't pinged you above to take a "brief look at the situation around the Orsini article", or to speculate about other aspects of the issue that you are - by your own admission - not familiar with, or to defend past actions of other itwiki admins.
- Rather, the Signpost article's headline and main focus is about your own decision, as a steward entrusted by the global Wikimedia community with special powers that very few users have, to lock this account on all projects including English Wikipedia for an alleged UCoC violation. This is highly unusual (see below) and it's not unreasonable to inquire about a more specific rationale. You dismiss this with a sneering (after having found the time for lengthy musings about other topics) and immediately pivot to the rather disingenuous suggestion that the user whose rights to communicate on Wikimedia projects you had just removed yourself should provide details instead. - so in your assessment as a steward, these emails do not contain sensitive information?
- May I remind everyone of meta:Global locks, which says that:
(my bolding)Biographies can be fixed if necessary, crushing other people's lives can't. Vituzzu (talk) 10:24, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(*) which is bad, unless directed against Wikipedia editors. Vituzzu (talk) 10:42, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The only strawman here has been written by you, I may guess, in order to cover up your lack of arguments: I said that I constantly share every information I have with 121 admins, 33 stewards and T&S staff, would you like a formal proof that this is true? BTW feel free to misinterpret this with all the bad faith you can. Vituzzu (talk) 08:25, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like a discussion supporting actions taken on Italian Wikipedia. If it were that, we would not be having this exchange here. The global lock and the particulars related to it are the issue that brings it here. North8000 (talk) 11:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the subject of Alessandro Orsini
If there are substantial reliable reviews for two or more of his published books, then he would handily meet WP:NAUTHOR requirements. I think I'll start pulling together a draft at Draft:Alessandro Orsini (sociologist) tonight and, depending on how far I get, introduce it to mainspace. Both because if he's notable for his published works, then he's notable. And also because, if this issue on Italian Wikipedia is indeed about them not liking Orsini, then I'm quite happy to make an article on him here on the much wider read English Wikipedia positively showcasing his academic background, just to rub the It admins noses in it. I like to be petty like that. SilverserenC 23:42, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion should be happening at Meta. Can we please move it there? QuicoleJR (talk) 19:43, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On Gitz's unglock
Update: Gitz is no longer globally-locked meta:Special:Diff/25271948 meta:Special:CentralAuth/Gitz6666 but is still indeffed on ITWP, and Hypergio is no longer an admin, although the relevant log entry is hidden. (h/t well-known criticism site) Bovlb (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Danieleb2000 (talk) 22:10, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Starting from the time you were blocked for socking to push your bibliography, going on to the time you were blocked for the parent alienation syndrome POV-pushing, to now, you have your agenda and reality and other people can be either functional to this agenda or enemies. Your reply is a huge QED: you'll go on labeling anybody having a negative view of your behaviour as someone with a "COI", a malevolent dictator, crooked, someone who doesn't know even basic principles, or someone who haunts you. Such excuses can't, however, change reality: when you get a speeding fine it's quite hard that speed traps are plotting your downfall. Vituzzu (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't reply to this, unless you want to apologise, and leave me alone.Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC); edited 15:07, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]A Question for Italian Wikipedia Editors and Admins
I saw that more conversations were happening here, alongside Gitz being unblocked on Meta. So, I had a question for the Italian Wikipedia people who supported the block of Gitz and others and were okay with the way the Orsini article was. I've been reading around various discussions in places about what took place there and one thing stood out to me as emblematic of the problem with Italian Wikipedia and I wanted to see if it was true or not. Therefore, Friniate, Actormusicus, Vituzzu, Pequod76, Phyrexian, and Fresh Blood (I'm excluding Sakretsu because they said above that they weren't involved in the Orsini article at all) my question is thus: On the talk page for the Italian Wikipedia article on Orsini, was it indeed commonplace for admins to remove or collapse comments linking to positive reviews and coverage of Orsini in reliable sources? For example, the positive academic book reviews? SilverserenC 01:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Danieleb2000 (talk) 17:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Italian critics
Where are the positive academic reviews favoring the book expressed by Italian critics in Orsini voice on our wiki? I cannot find them. Do we have a bias maybe?--Julius.it (talk) 09:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniele Dear colleague, denying the undeniable reality of the sun doesn't change the state of affairs; it remains as it is. You only risk, despite yourself, becoming an unheard voice, deemed unproductive for effective collaborative endeavors, devoid of prejudice.
In your previous statement, you wrote that "to the best of my knowledge, no noteworthy academic reviews from any Italian scholars have been found." However, it is evident and verifiable by all, through reading the article, that there is at least a review by Guido Panvini, presented and accepted for online publication on the website of SISSCO (Italian Society for the Study of Contemporary History), whose authority I presumed you were familiar with. As discussed in the article's talk section, it is implausible that this book did not receive attention due to its subject matter. Given that the Red Brigades constitute a painful and controversial aspect of recent Italian historical memory, peculiar to this nation and not shared with others, it is paradoxical. Speculatively speaking, even if we were to discover that no one in Italy took the book seriously and, therefore, no one bothered to review or comment on it, the fact would be so exceptional that it would merit a mention in the article. This would serve to adequately and cautiously explain that the article is not afflicted by an Italophobic bias or, worse, ethnic discrimination in seeking and using sources to write and enrich our Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I seem to observe a strange reluctance to address this discriminatory issue that runs counter to the inclusivity required of us. The nationality matter if not inclusive.
Regarding the Acqui Award of History, there isn't much to say. According to Google, there are hundreds of Italian literary awards, so let's round down for simplicity and peace of mind and limit the analysis to the fact that there may be around a hundred relevant awards, with many others often having a regional character and serving as glossy tourist promotions. Apart from that, where would you position this prize in the ranking, from fifth place to one hundredth? And what is the reasoning of the evaluation jury behind awarding the prize to the book? Knowing this would certainly be important for the article and might help understand the discussion surrounding the book. Best regards.Julius.it (talk) 10:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Epilogue: 2024 steward confirmations
Holocaust and Polish nationalism: Critic proposes history advisory board
Well, the similar idea of advisory board was mentioned in the WMF Human Rights Impact Assessment (p.26) previously . I think the suggestion of inviting experts who only give 3rd opinion to editors is a good idea. Thanks. --SCP-2000 14:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]