This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it could be of general interest here.
Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia, supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.
Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.
The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years totally disconnected from the community anyway.
I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.
Best Yaroslav
[1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/ [2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%...
Sorry, Yaroslav, but while I mostly agree with facts you’ve presented here, I don’t think that your words are «non personal» since you’ve had long-term personal conflict with Vladimir Medeyko and few other members of Wikimedia RU. Your view on their activity can be your view, but saying that their «main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries» publicly with no real backup of your words can be considered as slander.
This situation is, of course, terrible, because while Vladimir literally ruined Wikimedia RU with his actions (he was the only person who’ve made financial reports and he was making it awfully bad that lead to many consequences such as refusal of most sponsors to continue the cooperation) and was always busy for personal contacts for weeks, he was not working on WM RU problems, but was making his own project while few other WM RU members was literally digging through a big pile of problems in the organisation. Month ago I’ve had a long talk on this with Stas Kozlovsky (who, AFAIK took the president’s place now) and have seen much of success in overcoming most of concerns. I hope that under new leadership chapter will resume it’s productive work despite the fact that it is one leg in the foreign agents list.
Пятница, 26 мая 2023, 0:13 +06:00 от Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com: This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it could be of general interest here. Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia, supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia. Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter. The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years totally disconnected from the community anyway. I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment. Best Yaroslav [1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/ [2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
-- С уважением, Николай.
I think Yaroslav was reasonably open about his conflict with Vladimir Medeyko. I can appreciate that. Thanks also for the update with links, I really appreciate it because it's hard to follow these stories/events if you don't speak the language and don't even know where to start.
Kolya, thanks for the clarifications (I don't think they are contradictory with Yaroslav's account on the recent events? But correct me if I missed something), and I hope you'll keep filling in blanks if any appear.
What is not immediately clear to me: what is the status of the domain names and the trademarks in Russia? If I do a lookup for wikipedia.ru it does not seem to give a whole lot of information.
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 11:38 AM Коля Красный via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Sorry, Yaroslav, but while I mostly agree with facts you’ve presented here, I don’t think that your words are «non personal» since you’ve had long-term personal conflict with Vladimir Medeyko and few other members of Wikimedia RU. Your view on their activity can be your view, but saying that their «main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries» publicly with no real backup of your words can be considered as slander.
This situation is, of course, terrible, because while Vladimir literally ruined Wikimedia RU with his actions (he was the only person who’ve made financial reports and he was making it awfully bad that lead to many consequences such as refusal of most sponsors to continue the cooperation) and was always busy for personal contacts for weeks, he was not working on WM RU problems, but was making his own project while few other WM RU members was literally digging through a big pile of problems in the organisation. Month ago I’ve had a long talk on this with Stas Kozlovsky (who, AFAIK took the president’s place now) and have seen much of success in overcoming most of concerns. I hope that under new leadership chapter will resume it’s productive work despite the fact that it is one leg in the foreign agents list.
Пятница, 26 мая 2023, 0:13 +06:00 от Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com:
This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it could be of general interest here.
Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia, supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.
Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.
The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years totally disconnected from the community anyway.
I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.
Best Yaroslav
[1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/ [2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%...
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Hello Yaroslav,
Let me get this straight: there's no links between the Russian Wikipedia community and the chapter, but you left the Community because of your conflict with the Director of the chapter?
I disagree that the chapter is useless. Yes, it was always used by Medeyko for personal gains, but the current director, Stas Kozlovsky did a lot of advocacy for free knowledge in the Russian Parliament, Duma. I believe it's one of the main reasons why Wikipedia is not blocked in Russia yet.
He also promoted Wikipedia among universities students.
The chapter supports communities of the "small languages" projects, organises conferences (disclosure: I was a keynote speaker on the last annual conference), etc
I think that only people who actually live in Russia can estimate the chapter impact, and we should not forget the usual tension between the online and offline parts of the Movement. I'm an online person, so it took me a while to get what useful things offline people are doing instead of writing articles.
Kind regards,
Victoria, Russian Wikipedia editor since 2006
On Fri, May 26, 2023, 02:02 effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
I think Yaroslav was reasonably open about his conflict with Vladimir Medeyko. I can appreciate that. Thanks also for the update with links, I really appreciate it because it's hard to follow these stories/events if you don't speak the language and don't even know where to start.
Kolya, thanks for the clarifications (I don't think they are contradictory with Yaroslav's account on the recent events? But correct me if I missed something), and I hope you'll keep filling in blanks if any appear.
What is not immediately clear to me: what is the status of the domain names and the trademarks in Russia? If I do a lookup for wikipedia.ru it does not seem to give a whole lot of information.
Best, Lodewijk
On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 11:38 AM Коля Красный via Wikimedia-l < wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Sorry, Yaroslav, but while I mostly agree with facts you’ve presented here, I don’t think that your words are «non personal» since you’ve had long-term personal conflict with Vladimir Medeyko and few other members of Wikimedia RU. Your view on their activity can be your view, but saying that their «main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries» publicly with no real backup of your words can be considered as slander.
This situation is, of course, terrible, because while Vladimir literally ruined Wikimedia RU with his actions (he was the only person who’ve made financial reports and he was making it awfully bad that lead to many consequences such as refusal of most sponsors to continue the cooperation) and was always busy for personal contacts for weeks, he was not working on WM RU problems, but was making his own project while few other WM RU members was literally digging through a big pile of problems in the organisation. Month ago I’ve had a long talk on this with Stas Kozlovsky (who, AFAIK took the president’s place now) and have seen much of success in overcoming most of concerns. I hope that under new leadership chapter will resume it’s productive work despite the fact that it is one leg in the foreign agents list.
Пятница, 26 мая 2023, 0:13 +06:00 от Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com:
This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it could be of general interest here.
Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia, supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.
Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.
The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years totally disconnected from the community anyway.
I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.
Best Yaroslav
[1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/ [2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%...
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I know Medeyko as he started long time ago and may be it was also in the Affcom if I remember well. That time it was strange to consider how a person that basically was not able to communicate in English (or in other language than Russian) was part of a committee.
What is strange is the time taken by the chapter to react to this situation.
I strongly agree that the problem of governance in chapters and user groups is quite serious.
Sometimes the capacity of reaction to situations of bad governance is on the shoulders of the same chapter.
The disconnection from the community stresses more that because the chapter misses one important stakeholder that in some cases can unblock the situation of renovation.
This resume is quite shocking honestly and also the naivity of Medeyko to fork a collaborative project without a community.
Good luck
On Thu, 25 May 2023, 20:13 Yaroslav Blanter, ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
This story made some headlines in Russian-language media, and I guess it could be of general interest here.
Vladimir Medeyko, who has been the president of Wikimedia.ru, the Russian chapter of WMF, since its foundation in the 2000s, announced yesterday that he is starting a Russian Wikipedia fork [1]. The media on the payroll of the Russian government, which for a long time were saying that Wikipedia is an anti-government and anti-Russian project and must be blocked in Russia, supported the initiative, commenting that this is exactly the start of a pro-government encyclopedia which would replace the Russian Wikipedia.
Wikimedia.ru, whose main (or even exclusive) activity was to raise money to pay salaries to the functionaries including Mr. Medeyko was suddenly pissed off and held a meeting yesterday. Before the meeting, Mr. Medeyko said he does not see a problem with his actions, however, being in danger of getting expelled from the chapter he resigned and quit the chapter.
The Russian Wikipedia community, which knew that Mr. Medeyko supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and which was critical against his activity on advocacy for his paid editor friends, was pissed off as well.[2] He first responded that he has taken the only correct decision, and everybody else eventually would understand why the decision was correct. However, later he resigned his admin flag, was blocked indef, and now has an arbitration case pending against him. The discussions are ongoing whether having a chapter in Russia at all is now beneficial, however, the chapter was for many years totally disconnected from the community anyway.
I could add my personal perspective, since on- and off-wiki activity of Mr. Medeyko was one of the reasons why I stopped editing the Russian Wikipedia in 2011, after having served two terms as an arbitrator, and never came back, but I do not think this is important at the moment.
Best Yaroslav
[1] https://habr.com/ru/companies/ruwiki/articles/737260/ [2] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%...
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