This mailing list is usually positive, but we need to talk about
something rotten. I was linked to this Meta RfC by my Russian colleague:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Administrator_abuse_on…
The author and commentators, with notable evidence, allege that admins
and editors on Croatian Wikipedia are biased in favour of far-right
denialist talking points, especially in regards to World War II, and use
their rights to continue this type of deal. From my further readings,
the problems in Croatian Wikipedia exist for a long time with the same
participating actors. This RfC exists for 2 years already without any
signs of notice from the WMF or Meta stewards, all while nothing is
changing and the local press is continuing to report about this (maybe
authors should get American coverage to get any support, though). What
exactly is the course of action on this and what has already been done
in regards to this by Meta stewards or WMF?
Editors have tried to sound their alarms via different means:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?oldid=857974834#2013_controversy_about_right-wing…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_231#On_the_stat…
Support of extremist viewpoints should be the most pressing issue for
Wikimedians, as we must recognise that our articles have consequences,
and unabashed defence of Nazis in Wikipedia in one of the official
languages of the EU is a big deal. I personally had to organise with
others before to remove genuine jihadist view points from being reported
as facts in one of Wikipedias (successfully), in the last year I also
had to report to one steward that admin in one Wikipedia was deleting
all (seemingly not bad) content in regards to LGBT without any
explanation (unsuccessfully).
Every time significant institutional bias towards non-neutral and
harmful view points goes unnoticed, we poison our readers, especially
students, and discourage other people from constructive contribution in
our projects. Perhaps, on the larger point, it is good to talk about
some kind of committee akin to CoCC that would safely enforce the
founding principles of our projects, if these issues go unnoticed so much.
I hope that something will be done with this eventually.
Oleg