Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible. I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation, you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict. If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the long run. Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical problem.
In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war necessarily and upsetting people.
Anthere Wikimedia Foundation
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Anthere wrote:
Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
Hi.
I just had a phone call with the German Embassy in Turkey. They said that "Turktelecom" (sp?), the main carrier in Turkey (they seem to run almost the whole backbone) had huge problems the last days. The embassy was affected as well.
Under these circumstances, I strongly advise to rule out any possibility that this is just a technical issue.
I was told that things are getting normal theses days, to I wouldn't be surprised to see that all the pages are now accessible again.
Mathias
Hello Mathias
Apparently it wasn't a problem for all of Turkey, but just some scattered reports at netcafes, and a while ago, so possibly before Turktelcom's technical difficulties.
Mark
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 11:12:56 +0100, Mathias Schindler neubau@presroi.de wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
Hi.
I just had a phone call with the German Embassy in Turkey. They said that "Turktelecom" (sp?), the main carrier in Turkey (they seem to run almost the whole backbone) had huge problems the last days. The embassy was affected as well.
Under these circumstances, I strongly advise to rule out any possibility that this is just a technical issue.
I was told that things are getting normal theses days, to I wouldn't be surprised to see that all the pages are now accessible again.
Mathias
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the government.
Because it isn't the government but rather individual businesses, this can be dealt with a little bit less cautiously perhaps because their power is much less, although cordial relations should of course be maintained.
My recommendation is to write a formal letter (in Turkish) to the netcafes where it has been reported and ask them if they have blocked the Kurdish Wikipedia, and if so to please unblock it as it is not harmful and in fact would be beneficial to their business.
HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
The AI involvement I recommended was not related to Wikipedia or any sort of basic censorship, which is in my opinion a restriction on freedom of information but not a violation of basic human rights.
Instead, it was related to this arrest of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP, which is a severe violation of basic human rights.
For Turkey to take such an action right now, when the eye of the world is on them to improve human rights (for EU membership), the imprisonment of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP is certainly something that warrants attention.
However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even if some editors are involved.
Mark
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:21:58 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible. I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation, you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict. If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the long run. Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical problem.
In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war necessarily and upsetting people.
Anthere Wikimedia Foundation
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Mark Williamson wrote:
HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
Last time I heard it, he didn't just edited with the kurdish dmoz but rather he edited the PKK-directory in dmoz.
I don't support legal action against link list editors but I don't find it so much surprising that a country isn't so relaxed with a local group that has not the best attitude towards the state. I wonder if a bask editor in spain who maintains an ETA link list will be threated nicely.
I can't find the URL right now, so please threat this email as hearsay regarding the dmoz case.
Mathias
Apparently, there were a couple of separate issues.
The first: Turktelkom tried to censor Top/World/Kurdish - see http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=3341 (from a Kurdish POV)
The second: H. Ertas, an ethnic Turk, editor of the Turkish-language category Top/World/Türkçe/Toplum/Sorunlar/Terörizm/Terör_Örgütleri/PKK_-_KADEK who subsequently became interested in Kurdish affairs and did his own research on the subject, was arrested and sentenced to 10 months in Turkish prison and a small fine simply for editing the category - see http://kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5840 (from a Kurdish POV)
Mark
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:45:49 +0100, Mathias Schindler neubau@presroi.de wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
Last time I heard it, he didn't just edited with the kurdish dmoz but rather he edited the PKK-directory in dmoz.
I don't support legal action against link list editors but I don't find it so much surprising that a country isn't so relaxed with a local group that has not the best attitude towards the state. I wonder if a bask editor in spain who maintains an ETA link list will be threated nicely.
I can't find the URL right now, so please threat this email as hearsay regarding the dmoz case.
Mathias
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the government.
Do you have facts to assert this ? I did not see anything else than hearsay.
Because it isn't the government but rather individual businesses, this can be dealt with a little bit less cautiously perhaps because their power is much less, although cordial relations should of course be maintained.
My recommendation is to write a formal letter (in Turkish) to the netcafes where it has been reported and ask them if they have blocked the Kurdish Wikipedia, and if so to please unblock it as it is not harmful and in fact would be beneficial to their business.
HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
The AI involvement I recommended was not related to Wikipedia or any sort of basic censorship, which is in my opinion a restriction on freedom of information but not a violation of basic human rights.
Instead, it was related to this arrest of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP, which is a severe violation of basic human rights.
For Turkey to take such an action right now, when the eye of the world is on them to improve human rights (for EU membership), the imprisonment of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP is certainly something that warrants attention.
However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even if some editors are involved.
Mark
Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not exactly what I would call independant.
Give it time.
Anthere
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:21:58 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible. I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation, you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict. If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the long run. Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical problem.
In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war necessarily and upsetting people.
Anthere Wikimedia Foundation
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Hi there,
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the government.
Do you have facts to assert this ? I did not see anything else than hearsay.
I am astonished how imprecise people are with facts here. After all, we are all working in an encylopedia, aren't we? Let me explain some things.
1. The aim of my posting was to contact a developer to make sure whether there IS or IS NOT a fall in the access rate from Turkey to the Kurdish Wikipedia. I did not call anyone for action and did not propose any campaings, although of cours I am also thinking about possible measures once we get the facts straight.
2. I have the statement of a contributer who says he can use wikipedia from the university, but that a lot of Kurdish websites are blocked in internet cafes in his town, including the wikipedia. He thinks that sites are blocked just on a basis of language (containing Kurdish words), not necessarily intentionally against Wikipedia. I have no further information about the mechanism used.
3. In his words, this kind of censorship is "common" in internet cafes in Turkey. Most contributers to ku: who write from Turkey (not so many, anyway) do not write from internet cafes.
4. concerning the dmoz case: the slashdot news was badly translated and full of mistakes. The guy did NOT edit the Kurdish, but the Turkish DMOZ, in the category: society / ethnical groups / kurds. In that group there is no group concerning the PKK, all entries he edited were about Kurdish culture. And, yes, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
Best wishes, Erdal
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the government.
Do you have facts to assert this ? I did not see anything else than hearsay.
We have the statement of a ku.wikipedia contributor who confirms he can access ku.wikipedia from his university, but not from a particular netcafe. Also, such actions to censor minority language websites are common in Turkish netcafes.
Because it isn't the government but rather individual businesses, this can be dealt with a little bit less cautiously perhaps because their power is much less, although cordial relations should of course be maintained.
My recommendation is to write a formal letter (in Turkish) to the netcafes where it has been reported and ask them if they have blocked the Kurdish Wikipedia, and if so to please unblock it as it is not harmful and in fact would be beneficial to their business.
HOWEVER, and that is a big "however", editing ku.wikipedia while in Turkey is still a possible risk: recently, a man was sent to prison just for editing the Kurdish DMOZ (Open Directory Project).
The AI involvement I recommended was not related to Wikipedia or any sort of basic censorship, which is in my opinion a restriction on freedom of information but not a violation of basic human rights.
Instead, it was related to this arrest of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP, which is a severe violation of basic human rights.
For Turkey to take such an action right now, when the eye of the world is on them to improve human rights (for EU membership), the imprisonment of a man for editing the Kurdish ODP is certainly something that warrants attention.
However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even if some editors are involved.
Mark
Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not exactly what I would call independant.
Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a category on terrorist groups) on DMOZ, there is some sort of requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson (Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant to the letter itself.
Give it time.
Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it time, you will get out of prison eventually"?
Mark
Anthere
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 01:21:58 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi Erdal,
Before anything, I would like to recommand you to very very well check your facts. But I see that you are trying to do this. Have some feedback from all turkish editors. Ask some friends in Turkye to check as well. Perhaps Erik Zachte could help you on checking statistics ? Or another developer might ? (Hashar, can you help on this ?)
The second point is that I would recommand low profile *as much as* possible. I think making major reports to inform anyone on the planet that Turkish government is doing censorship or that there are multiple individual moves in that direction is a *very bad* idea. Same for starting an email campaign and call for help from Amnesty International. Please, do not do this. Avoid threatening the government as well, as you are NOT sure it is the government who might be responsible of it (you are not even sure there is censorship, doubly less for knowing who is the instigator).
Generally, we are not here to say what is good and what is not good, or how authorities should manage their countries. We try to demonstrate that freedom of information is better in the long run, but we are not an advocacy group supporting human rights.
If you "attack" the government, and it is responsible of the current situation, you do not let room for it to politely claim it was all a mistake, apology and restore full access. You do not let room to keep face, you contribute to escalating a conflict. If you "attack" the government and it is not responsible of the current situation, you will upset it toward us, and this will not have good consequences in the long run. Whatever the government, we do not want to be expressely seen as an advocacy group saying what they do is bad, we should rather stay low profile, and remind that we have a strong neutrality policy and are not taking sides.
If you really feel you have to make it known what is going on, I think you should advertise it just as you would in a wikipedia article. Just report facts (decrease of access as shown in recent statistics; report from xxx wikipedians that they cant access the site anymore. Cite your sources if you can (people is tough, but stats do not fear anything). Stick to facts, and do not draw any public conclusion. Do not make a long rant on how horrendous it is that censorship exist, that human rights are not respected. Just let the reader make its own opinion on why access is impaired and where it could come from. You might indeed mention in the article that it might be a temporary technical problem.
In short, let a back door so that the situation can resolve without getting in a war necessarily and upsetting people.
Anthere Wikimedia Foundation
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the government.
Do you have facts to assert this ? I did not see anything else than hearsay.
We have the statement of a ku.wikipedia contributor who confirms he can access ku.wikipedia from his university, but not from a particular netcafe.
Right.... Well, this is a fact (though no name is provided).
Now, this is also a collection of hasty generalization
Do not claim something is true when you do not cite evidence Do not claim something is true over just one sample person experience Do not draw conclusion of censorship when information is missing to draw such a conclusion.
Also, such actions to censor minority language websites are
common in Turkish netcafes.
Do not generalized without citing facts. Do not make appeal to pity by using the word minority out of context.
However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even if some editors are involved.
Mark
Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not exactly what I would call independant.
Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a category on terrorist groups) on DMOZ, there is some sort of requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson (Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant to the letter itself.
Do not change topics. We are talking of Wikipedia access only, not of the DMOZ issue.
If you want to be an activist out of Wikipedia, please be so, but do not try to involve us in your advocacy.
Give it time.
Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it time, you will get out of prison eventually"?
And above all, avoid sneaky personal attacks.
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Hello Anthere,
It has already been resolved that most likely censorship of the Kurdish Wikipedia has been by individual netcafes, and not by the government.
Do you have facts to assert this ? I did not see anything else than hearsay.
We have the statement of a ku.wikipedia contributor who confirms he can access ku.wikipedia from his university, but not from a particular netcafe.
Right.... Well, this is a fact (though no name is provided).
Now, this is also a collection of hasty generalization
Right...
Do not claim something is true when you do not cite evidence Do not claim something is true over just one sample person experience Do not draw conclusion of censorship when information is missing to draw such a conclusion.
Quote: "Adding new languages is certainly a strain on developers. It certainly will be that this project will grow slowly (it would be wiser perhaps to work mostly on wiktionary rather than wikipedia to start with), but I do not think we should on purpose limit the existence of small projects on the motive there will be few editors to work on." (Anthere)
You claim something is true (strain on developers) without citing evidence, you claim it is true from your own experience presumably, and you claim it as a fact when in fact the next message was a message from TimStarling contradicting what you said: "It's not that much of a strain. I actually added this to the language list as soon as I saw the post, thinking that since it has an ISO 639-2 code, it would be uncontroversial."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Also, such actions to censor minority language websites are
common in Turkish netcafes.
Do not generalized without citing facts. Do not make appeal to pity by using the word minority out of context.
I think the passage I quoted above is a generalisation without a citation of fact on your part.
Apparently, you need to look at the Ethnologue because Kurdish, Ladino, and all other non-Turkish languages of Turkey are minority languages - that is, they are spoken by less than 50% of the population. I fail to see how this is out of context, as it is an undeniable fact that, in the present boundaries of the nation of "Turkey", the majority language is Turkish, and thus all other languages are "minority languages" within the boundaries of that state.
However I think I should make it very clear that I think any such involvement should be independent of Wikipedia or ODP officially, even if some editors are involved.
Mark
Independant ? Hmmmm, somehow, I think that any letter send with as a signature the name of an editor and the link to his user page, is not exactly what I would call independant.
Right, so if I sent a letter to the government of Turkey requesting the release of H. Ertas, who was jailed just for editing a Turkish-language Kurdish culture category (not as I said earlier a category on terrorist groups) on DMOZ, there is some sort of requirement that, as a Wikipedian, I sign it "Mark Williamson (Wikipedia user Node_ue)"? There is life outside of Wikipedia, and there is activism independent of Wikipedia. I do not sign letters with my username and the fact that I am a Wikipedian unless it's relevant to the letter itself.
Do not change topics. We are talking of Wikipedia access only, not of the DMOZ issue.
Perhaps you did not read the letter which started this thread, written by Erdal Ronahi, in which he mentions the DMOZ issue? This is a mailinglist, and I will change topics whenever I want, regardless of what you say.
If you want to be an activist out of Wikipedia, please be so, but do not try to involve us in your advocacy.
When did I try to involve "you" in "my advocacy"? I never said "Antheres of the world, I call upon you to support me in my advocacy!".
Give it time.
Is this what you tell H. Ertas, who is going to spend the next ten months in prison just for editing a culture category on DMOZ? "Give it time, you will get out of prison eventually"?
And above all, avoid sneaky personal attacks.
You said "give it time" in direct response to what I said. If you propose to give it time, this means to me the same as if you said "Give it time, you will get out of prison eventually" to Mr H Ertas. That is not a sneaky personal attack.
And I have this to say as well: above all, avoid assuming a hostile tone in messages unless you feel you will later be able to explain your tone, especially when the previous message is not hostile in tone.
Mark
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