[Foundation-l] Ongoing FUD campaign against Wikipedia in Serbian

[James Alexander]

On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

Just to inform you that there is ongoing campaign against Wikipedia in
Serbian by an irrelevant LGBT organization called Gay and Lesbian Info
Center (GLIC) [1]. The organization has good political and media
connections, including B92.

Article about this organization [2] has been deleted [3] because
organization exists for one year and it didn't have any relevant
action, except meeting with the president of Serbia, Boris Tadic. This
was enough for them to use their political and media connections to
start FUD campaign against Wikipedia in Serbia. Thanks to those
connections, Wikimedia Serbia was not able to publish its own
response.

They presented this at the first moment under the title "Homophobia on
Serbian Wikipedia", but article name has been changed.

Unlike their claims, other, relevant LGBT organizations have articles
about them, like Queeria [4] is. We also have relatively good articles
about LGBT issues: Lesbian [5], Gay [6], Bisexuality [7], Transgenders
[8], Timeline of LGBT history [9]. We also have at least one important
members our community which are a part of LGBT population.

The point here is just to inform LGBT Wikimedians that everything is
fine with relation between Serbian Wikimedians and LGBT population.
The action which has been made by this irrelevant organization already
makes more damage to them than to us. So, we are fine with that, too
:)

[1] - http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society-article.php?yyyy=2010&mm=07&dd=04&nav_id=68230
[2] - for those with extra permissions:
http://sr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Геј_лезбејски_инфо_центар
[3] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0:%D0%A7%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8_%D0%B7%D0%B0_%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B0%D1%9A%D0%B5#.D0.93.D0.B5.D1.98_.D0.BB.D0.B5.D0.B7.D0.B1.D0.B5.D1.98.D1.81.D0.BA.D0.B8_.D0.B8.D0.BD.D1.84.D0.BE_.D1.86.D0.B5.D0.BD.D1.82.D0.B0.D1.80
[4] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queeria
[5] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%98%D0%BA%D0%B0
[6] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%B5%D1%98
[7] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82
[8] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82
[9] - http://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregled_LGBT_istorije



Apologies for the tl;dr qualities of the response but I was thinking
about it enough I decided to send it out :). When I saw your email a
couple days ago Milos I had 2 reactions:

1. A bit of annoyance and shrugging at seeing this because it seems to
be so common. As a gay man I feel like I am frequently annoyed at lbgt
(and other minority) groups both here at home and abroad who claim
homophobia or discrimination at the drop of a hat as a way to get
their way. On the other hand I have also on occasion caught myself
wondering if something is discrimination against me/others without any
real evidence to back it up (or even evidence the specifically
disclaims the idea).

2. The 2nd reaction happened soon after the first, and was much more
meaningful to me. Perhaps I'm just too much of an optimist but I
immediately thought "huh.. I haven't paid as much attention to the
Serbian projects as I should but this, and the billboard campaign and
the fact that the chapter is hiring a staff member all point to
something: They're making it".

The 2nd and 3rd points are a bit obvious (they have the
support/attention to be able to DO those things which is awesome). The
1st brings me to a short story time:
4-5 years ago during my first (or 2nd.. I can't remember) accounting
class my professor got to Intellectual Property
(patent/Copyright/trademark etc) which was a subject I have loved for
a long time. The issue of course was how you should account for the IP
property on the books. When you register a patent, or a trademark etc
the starting cost is minimal, a couple hundred or a couple thousand-
not much. That small amount to register opens up the account on the
books: but you add to it. Every time you have to defend that property,
suing someone who is infringing for example, you add the cost of the
defense to the book value of the IP and so that property literally has
its book value grow as you defend it.

The Accounting ideas behind this makes a lot of sense.  First off you
need to find a way to account for the cost somehow, and it isn't
really a sunk cost. Second it is probably the best way there actually
is to truly account for how valuable that hard to value piece of paper
(or electronic database entry) is. If no one is trying to copy what
you are doing, or skirt the rules (or for that matter just break them)
then you obviously aren't really THAT big, your product isn't valuable
enough that people care.

I think this carries on to WMF projects all the time. I have lost
track of the individuals or organizations that complain that the fact
that they are unable to get an article on enWiki is what MAKES them
not able to be notable because they see getting that article as so
important and anyone who deletes it/changes it is making a personal
attack on their business. I'm sure some of the other wikis have seen
the same thing, if your project is used widely enough the exposure of
having an article is seen as SO important that many consider it a
necessity (and perhaps a right).

It sounds odd to say that legal threats, court actions and press
campaigns PROVE that the projects or company are notable but in many
ways I think they do and the fact that this article is so important to
them shows that at the very least they think that the Serbian WP is
used widely enough that having an article is proof of their
importance. If it was't then not having an article wouldn't be a big
deal.

Congrats,

James Alexander
Jamesofur at gmail.com

-- 
James Alexander
james.alexander at rochester.edu
jamesofur at gmail.com