[Wikimedia-l] Attention needed for Croatian Wikipedia issue

[Anders Wennersten]

It has been very sad learning of the problem you have had and to follow 
the discussion you have had on meta.

I think, though, that you in this extremely tough situation has handled 
it very competently and in the tradition of the wikimedia culture.

As I understand it, you have now also identified the root of the problem 
and started a good process to tackle it, where you have full support 
from your community

I would recommend you  to not stop at his stage, for any reason, but to 
get to the result that seem the best (to block some admins)

If you find some extraordinary procedural problem in the process, do not 
forget ''Ignore all rules".  Why not identify the admin with most 
credibility from all and get him/her to block the admins, and afterward 
go through the voting?

Anders


Dalibor Bosits skrev 2013-10-28 18:38:
> Dear fellow Wikipedia and Wikimedia contributors and users,
>
> The issue at hand that has forced me to compose this address are the
> pressing circumstances surrounding the Croatian language branch of
> Wikipedia, which has become notoriously well known in the broader Wikipedia
> community in recent months.
>
> For some years now, a part of the administrators at Croatian language
> Wikipedia have been operating as a cabal of sorts; the exact number of
> members, the shape of this community and the extent of their doings
> difficult to discern. For the last couple of months on Wikipedia there has
> been an on-going prolonged dispute underway about abuse of administrator
> privileges and breach of Wikipedia rules.
> Three days ago, on 26 October 2013 and as a result of this dispute, one of
> the contributors (Frano Milić[1]), who can safely be figured among those
> who had avoided previous conflicts, called for a desysopping vote for the
> three admins that seem to be have been the most involved with the current
> issues regarding the project.
>
> [2] Immediately after this, SpeedyGonsales, one of the admins whose
> privileges were about to be put to vote and who had already been reported
> for promotion of fascism, breach of rules and abuse of administrative
> tools, now being in a conflict of interests, brought to a halt the voting
> process on his own initiative on the pretext of "lack of evidence" [3].
> After the part of the admins who were not members of the cabal expressed
> their support for the mechanics allowing the community to express their
> opinions in a process of vote, a revert war broke out on the vote page and
> sitenotice.
>
> [4] SpeedyGonsales, the administrator whose work was under scrutiny and
> privileges put to the vote, now with other admins who we believe are
> members of the cabal, initiated the process of "admin poll request" (a
> process somewhat unique to Croatian Wikipedia, which is aimed at gathering
> opinions and decisions of the college of admins). It was an attempt to use
> orchestrated voting to silence those admins who supported the continuation
> of the desysopping vote. The presumed purpose was to attempt to win enough
> votes to either block those opposing him or desysop them in order to
> disable the continuation of the desysopping vote against him and the two of
> his colleagues.
> The overall sentiment of the community was evidently strongly inclined to
> vote which became clear when the voting recommenced as soon as the lock on
> the vote page had been lifted. However, under the current circumstances the
> process has been severely disturbed and it is not certain that the wish of
> the community would be respected.
>
> For the picture to be complete, one piece of information is crucial. The
> administrators who have expressed their resistance against the spirit of
> the cabal and the dictatorship are under a lot of pressure as they are
> harassed by e-mails and texting. The messages vary in content but as a
> general rule they contain little niceties.
>
> If the issue we are dealing with is not resolved very soon, if not
> immediately, a large number of contributors will simply leave the project.
> As we are all aware, the admins are hobbyists and not activists and their
> capacity for conflict and unpleasantries are limited. They are unable to
> resolve the problems without your assistance.
>
> And the problems they face have been in the making for many years, but it
> has taken a while for the community to unite and gather strength to deal
> with these issues. Now we are witnessing an almost unique situation on
> Wikipedia - that the community has made a decision and gained the required
> strength to get rid of all internal cabals. Stopping the process now would
> spell a disaster for the entire project - it would send a message of
> encouragement to anyone willing to usurp sysop privileges in the future.
> Additionally, the admins who have expressed dissent over the accumulated
> problems at Croatian Wikipedia have managed to accurately pinpoint the
> administrators responsible for the ridiculously low quality of certain
> articles, and the public and the media have recognized the overall
> soundness of the Wiki project and that the work lacking in quality is to be
> attributed to the minority of administrators-usurpers. However, we fear
> that the positive momentum might be lost now, if the process is stopped,
> and the critical public and media eye might see the current situation as
> reflective of the entire Wiki project’s quality.
>
> Please, lend aid any way you can
>
> Dalibor Bosits
>
> [1] https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posebno:Doprinosi/Frano_Mili%C4%87
> [2]
> https://hr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedija:Administratori/Prijedlozi_za_ukidanje_ovlasti/SpeedyGonsales,_Kubura_i_Zeljko&oldid=4190612
> [3]
> https://hr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedija:Administratori/Prijedlozi_za_ukidanje_ovlasti/SpeedyGonsales,_Kubura_i_Zeljko&oldid=4190722(SpeedyGonsales
> has initiated full protection of the page, trying to stop
> the voting)
> [4]
> https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedija:Zahtjev_za_mi%C5%A1ljenje_administratora
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