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In the media

A Russian alternative Wikipedia; Who's your grandfather?; ArtAndFeminism

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By Gamaliel

In Russia, Wikipedia edits you

Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library

Numerous media outlets are reporting on a November 14 statement on the website of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library announcing the formation of a Russian "alternative" to Wikipedia, a "regional electronic encyclopedia" dedicated to "Russian regions and the life of the country".


Western media outlets including Newsweek and the Washington Post have noted that this comes following efforts by the government of Vladimir Putin, who called the internet a "CIA project" earlier this year, to control online activities under the banner of "online sovereignty". The government gained the ability to block websites without a court order and immediately blocked the pages of several government opponents. Bloggers were required to register with the government. Russia has launched its own search engine, Sputnik, and even its own alternative internet called Cheburashka. It has also tried to have its say on Wikipedia, with numerous encyclopedia edits on topics like the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and Russia's conflict with the Ukraine traced to computers belonging to Russian government entities (See previous Signpost coverage). One person compiled a list of nearly 7000 such edits to the Russian Wikipedia.

"What Wikipedia Taught Me About My Grandfather"

Frederic M. Richards

The Atlantic features a story by particle physicist and science communicator Ben Lillie called "What Wikipedia Taught Me About My Grandfather" (November 18). Lillie's grandfather was Frederic M. Richards (1925–2009), Sterling Professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. Though a physicist himself, Lillie discovered that he had not known the extent of Richards' work and the importance of it to the field of biophysics. Lillie wrote that he had always scoffed at Richards' disappointment at not being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, thinking it "an example of how absurd academics' expectations of themselves are", but learned that scientists thought that he could have shared the 1972 Prize with Christian Anfinsen.

Lillie talked with User:Dcrjsr, who brought the article from little more than a paragraph up to Good Article status. Dcrjsr is Jane S. Richardson, Professor of biochemistry at Duke University, former president of the Biophysical Society and a driving force behind WikiProject Biophysics. Richards' article is the only biography of the six articles at GA status within the scope of WikiProject Biophysics. When deciding which biophysics articles to improve, Richardson and her husband, Duke Professor of biochemistry David C. Richardson, told Lillie “There were three people who had really influenced us very strongly. The other two had pretty decent Wikipedia pages, and Fred’s just seemed terrible.”

Lillie wrote "A sense I’ve had my whole life of who my grandfather is can be transformed by the addition of a single fact from a stranger writing on the Internet."

ArtAndFeminism organizers included on "Global Thinkers" list

Dorothy Howard (left) at the February 2014 ArtAndFeminism New York City Edit-a-thon at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center

Foreign Policy included Siân Evans (User:Siankevans), Jacqueline Mabey (User:Failedprojects), Michael Mandiberg (User:Theredproject), Richard Knipel (User:Pharos), Dorothy Howard (User:OR drohowa), and Laurel Ptak on its list of "The Leading Global Thinkers of 2014". The list includes 100 "remarkable individuals who smashed the world as we know it" and "showed that a better future demands tearing down foundations and building something entirely new."

The magazine honored the six for their work towards "correcting the Wikipedia gender gap", noting that "as of 2013, only 13 percent of Wikipedia's contributors were female." The group organized the February ArtAndFeminism campaign, which featured thirty one Edit-a-thons in six countries on three continents. About six hundred participants created over a hundred articles and edited over 90 more on articles "related to art, feminism, gender studies, and LGBTQ issues". Another campaign is planned for March 2015.

Creator of Wikipedia sex illustrations is an "anonymous legend"

Seedfeeder's kiss-off

Gawker profiled User:Seedfeeder, the celebrated and notorious creator of numerous illustrations for Wikipedia articles for sex acts, calling him an "anonymous legend" and "Wikipedia's Greatest Sex Illustrator" (November 12). Gawker also featured a not safe for work gallery of "The Best of Seedfeeder", taken from the 46 of his sexual images in the Wikimedia Commons category Sex drawings by User:Seedfeeder. These images illustrate 36 Wikipedia articles, including pegging, gokkun, deep throating, frot, and tribadism.

Gawker calls Seedfeeder's work "unmistakable" and "striking": vector graphics, empty backgrounds, and a flat and almost clinical style that Seedfeeder said was inspired by "the simple illustrations in airline safety pamphlets". His work was popular with Wikipedia editors from his first upload in July 2008, with editors almost immediately inundating him with requests for images of specific sex acts for articles. He also gained him praise and attention off of Wikipedia, with his work being featured and discussed in B3ta, Cracked, Przegląd, and on Reddit. His work also has plenty of detractors, who have criticized him for what they perceive to be the reinforcement of racial stereotypes and depiction of non-consensual acts, criticism that has prompted alterations to or replacements of the images.

Seedfeeder's identity is unknown, and nothing is known about him outside of what information he's offered on Wikipedia, where he has identified himself as a heterosexual male and a mechanical engineer. After complaining about "the prejudices and concerns of the small-minded" for years, Seedfeeder left Wikipedia in June 2012. His final upload was an image of an Asian woman blowing a kiss he titled Wiki-so-long.png.

In brief

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A Russian Conservapedia. Really wish I could read Russian. That's going to be a goldmine of government propaganda lulz. Resolute 21:39, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Resolute: No. It would be a lot worse than that. Imagine if Wikipedia would have been founded in 1930's, what would it be look like?--Mishae (talk) 22:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as Russian version of Wikipedia goes: Gogol once said; "There is only two things that describe Russia: The roads, and the fools who build them". Whether I translated the quote accurately or not is debatable but the meaning when it comes to Wikipedia is this: Russian Wikipedia was always on the bottom when it comes to accurate information. For example, there was many articles that were deleted simply because the admin thought it was not politically correct. I saw once there a great article on a WWII pilot named Baranova, a recipient of Hero of the Soviet Union (I remembered only last name and the epoch in which she served). That article was deled a week after I saw it. Amazingly, despite an award, she wasn't deemed notable to the Russians just because probably she is Russian. Odd thing here, is that Russian biographies focused more on Jews and people who have Jewish roots or on government officials (foreign and local) that have ties with Russia. Ofcourse some folks here will taunt me for anti-Semitism or Russophobia, but the fact is, if the subject is notable why was it deleted? Besides Russian Wikipedia only by 2013 overran Japanese one. They stayed behind it for 6 years. Another odd thing about Russian Wikipedia: When it comes to articles about Vladimir Putin for example, the criticism section there was removed.--Mishae (talk) 22:12, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Russian studies is fascinating. LonelyLaura (talk) 11:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@LonelyLaura: What so fascinating about the whole thing? By isolating themselves they shoot themselves in the foot. Its miserably sad nation that will go in time just like Nazi Germany did back in 1940s. Yes, I am Russian myself but I speak on the contrary of wise folks not the government which tries to drag every thing there to hell. It surprising that Russian Wikipedia was no different from Conservapedia. Funny thing is is that in Russian word "Conserva" means "canned food".
When I used to be a part of Russian Wikipedia I was surprised at how instead of fixing a POV statement or adding more sources to make a subject notable, the whole article will be deleted. What's even more shocking is that the articles that they keep either remain unsourced or use primary sources as refs. So, long story short, if someone here is sorry that Russian Wikipedia wont exist anymore, don't. They never wanted to create a "neutral history of Russia", they always wanted to appease the government and Vladimir Zhirinovsky by allowing articles mostly on Jews and Russian politicians and on foreign politicians or performers that had ties to Russia. Like from what they told me over there that the only growing project there is is WikiProject Film.
Either way, if the nation want to go Cheburashka way let them be. In Russia, when someone goes crazy, we say "cheburakhnulsya", so, if that's their way of freedom let them have it. I personally wouldn't miss moronic admins in Russian Wikipedia. User Psychiatrick will agree with me on that.
Russians have already created such projects as Lurkmore after kicking out some homosexuals from the Russian Wikipedia as well as Tradition a site of Russian Nationalism which the Russian Wikipedians deleted for some reason.--Mishae (talk) 19:32, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Mishae, Would you care to give us any statistics for the extraordinary assertion in your first sentence about the coverage of individuals in ruWP. (not the part about high coverage of government officials with ties to Russia--it would be quite odd if there were not some such emphasis.) Then, would you care to specify what you think the correct proportion of Jews should be? DGG ( talk ) 01:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@DGG: Yes, please. Should I provide the key figures? I can name a couple but I can be at risk to be blocked there for spreading truth. One thing is for certain, the Russians have not updated their rule book since 2004. In fact as of September 8, 2010 someone have put a template on Harassment rule there saying that its no longer a rule or if correctly translated this draft of this rule or guideline was rejected by the Wikipedia community. Only by February 8, 2013 did admin Wulfson realized a mistake and re established the rule by saying in edit summary that he was annoyed by the discussion of the rule. Tell me, isn't that what Wikipedia is about? Is that in order to reach a specific consensus we need to discuss it first, not throwing a rule book and say I am just sick and tired of the discussion. Mean time, you can imagine what Russian Wikipedia looked like for the past 3 years. People harassed each other, and admins and users with honors had a full blown right to even personal attack a newbie which is in turn is identical to Dedovshchina. Like, Russian Wikipedia works like an army: They can do what ever, and you can't even make a peep, and if you do, you will be warned the first time and even you will get in a conflict with a different user for a different reason you will get blocked. Typically, in English Wikipedia you get up to three warnings before the initial block, not there.:( That's the main reasons why so many Russian users switch to English Wikipedia, because in Russian the toughest wins, and if you nerves are not strong to deal with everyone who will insult you, have a god day. Either you accept it or live it.:( I can tell you of another user who is luckily left the project after serving, and yes, harassing every newbie for 5 years! His name was Horim. Because of him one of my co worker who worked in Russian Wikipedia have left within a year. :(--Mishae (talk) 17:06, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another great example of Russian Wikipedia article will be an article on Brad Pitt. Look closely, the article doesn't have BBC, CNN, or even Russian sources like Lenta or Gazeta.ru. So what does it have? It have a source to GQ magazine, 2 sources to Lady.ru, a Russian women magazine and a whole bunch of MTV, Golden Globe, and Oscar awards links. So, what's your opinion here?--Mishae (talk) 17:17, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As far as articles on Jews go, I will show you an example on Shlomo Mintz. In English version as you can see, we can use sites such as Sion Festival and the like. In Russian one, most sites on Jewish musicians for example use only The Big Jewish Encyclopedia and various external links such as AllMusic. While I don't mind single reffed articles, I do however get surprised how many articles on mostly Jews in Russian Wikipedia are unreffed and yet they keep them (probably for propaganda purposes) I will; show you some examples: [1] and [2]. Now, I understand that when Russian Wikipedia first started there was no time to check for which articles are sourced and which aren't. But today is 2014 (within a month 2015 will start), and they still keep unreferenced articles??? Or here is another example Pinchas Zukerman, a notable fiddler who have many entries in Wikipedia with sources, yet its completely unsourced in Russian. (comment by User:Mishae)

(I did not read the above comments, which I feel is necessary given the politics.) Excellent. As the major editor of judiciary of Russia: can't wait to merge it into Wikipedia. The Russian Wikipedia articles on their own government really are very good--almost as good as the English language editions, but still better than their European Union counterparts. But I did learn that at least in Russia you can get a trial by your peers--a United States constitutional right--while in the EU, that is still a fairy tail, like kings and princes. Int21h (talk) 06:39, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, what does your comment have to do with the above statement?--Mishae (talk) 17:06, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with the above, that's one of the reasons I left Russian WP, although my primary language is Russian. Aside from other things, the Russian Wiki became a haven of heavily charged articles, like Campaign on granting Nizami the status of the national poet of Azerbaijan and Falsification of history in Azerbaijan, which partially spred into English WP. Brandmeistertalk 19:33, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Mishae, just a follow up on the musicians. Most WPs give less detailed sourcing than the enWP--the deWP article on him is almost totally unsourced; the de, fr, and nl articles on Zuckerman also have the sketchiest possible sourcing. The other two people you link to are probably notable, especially Hauser, one of the original members of the Budapest Quartet. So I am a little puzzled by what is meant by "kept for propaganda purposes". Any further remark of mine on this matter is superfluous after what you have already said. (As for the general management of the ruWP, I'm not sufficiently aware to comment) DGG ( talk ) 20:56, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Some of them are not in English WP because probably they are notable only to the Hebrew language Wikipedia. Like I can be wrong, but then there should be a reason why they are only in Hebrew and Russian. I personally didn't find a single source for say Yariv Ezrahi, who is popular in Israel but have 4 refs on the Hebrew one and 0 on the Russian. Which probably mean that either majority of Russians don't know Hebrew (which they do, actually) because some Russian Jews speak Russian, English, and Hebrew. In fact, some people even have double citizenship such as Vladimir Shainsky. Or, they assume that the Israeli refs doesn't support notability. Yet, for some reason those articles were kept while articles on certain films and WWII heroes were deleted. For example, here is an article which is about to be deleted: [3]. Its about a Russian politician. Since when did a politician was not notable???--Mishae (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the proportion of Jews go, they are fine. In English and other sections of Wikipedia their proportion is not more and not less, because English Wikipedia doesn't have favorability for a specific article. Perhaps, it have something to do with English language being spoken by all nations of the world as either native or second language.
As far as article on Jews "being used as propaganda" its not a simple explanation. I used to watch a WWII documentary some months ago about how Germans used to build schools and hospitals for the Jews right before they were bombarded by the Russians. That was in late 1944. The footage was authentic, which miraculously survived. Lest we know what happened after it... Same thing goes on the Russian Wikipedia, they selectively write articles on Jews to show support to the "Jewish cause", and while I don't have anything against it, denouncing your own culture by deleting articles on Russian film, and other Russian culture specific material is in no way acceptable. So, simply stated the Germans used this footage as propaganda during the war, so does the Russian WP with their Jewish article love. Russia is more then just sports, music, and politics. It is also famous for its scientific achievents even in modern day. If you understood my reasoning, you can stop here. If not, you are welcome to read 3rd and 4th paragraph of my examples.--Mishae (talk) 07:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I once asked a steward there on the basis of why the Russian Wikipedia have so many articles related to Jews. His answer was shocking: "Why is English Wikipedia have many articles on Russians?" Really? They seriously don't know the Russian population of USA? When I became a full user of English Wikipedia I was relieved to find out that here, every thing is in balance. I don't see a mass amount of articles on one race but zero on the rest. True, some nations have much smaller background such as Iran and Thailand will mostly have articles on their politicians, but that's understandable. They are smaller, not many people can translate articles from those languages, not to mention political stagnation that is rampant in those countries (as we can see by many Burmese, Thai, and many other Asian countries protests). But Russia, Russian culture is as vast as English, French, German, Spanish... Their population is of half of USA, which means they have as many notable individuals. They just don't want this project. Again, I have nothing against Jewish history in Russian Wikipedia but because it is Russian shouldn't there be more articles on Russian culture?:( Like, I bet that German Wikipedia have more articles on the German culture, French have more on French and Spanish have more on Spain and Latin America. Sure, they all have certain percentage of others but we need to look on majority of articles and what topic being covered more.
As a side note, Ukrainian Wikipedia despite their hostility toward articles on Jews, unlike the Russians have many articles on wildlife. Russian Wikipedia when I told them that I write articles on insects here, they asked me: "Do you have something that we can use?" I gave them a few example via Skype, they said that they don't except sub stubs. Well then, if you don't like stubs then don't write articles, period. Every article starts out as a stub and ends up to be at least a Start.--Mishae (talk) 06:48, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Умом Россию не понять, Аршином общим не измерить: У ней особенная стать —В Россию можно только верить.--Catlemur (talk) 21:44, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Translating for the fellow English speakers: You can not understand Russia with your mind, and can not measure it with yardstick: She has become a special one-In Russia you can only have faith.--Mishae (talk) 00:03, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]


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